Hansard — Monday, April 14, 2008 p.m.

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Introductions by Members		11283

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		11283
	Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 26)
	Hon. G. Abbott
	British Columbia Rail Corridor Safety Act, 2008 (Bill M202)
	C. Wyse

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		11284
	National Victims of Crime Awareness Week
	C. James
	50th anniversary of Taylor
	B. Lekstrom
	Bicycle design company on Quadra Island
	C. Trevena
	Discover Fishing B.C. campaign
	B. Bennett
	Riverside Funeral Home
	G. Gentner
	Coquitlam College and Pacific Vocational College
	H. Bloy

Oral Questions		11286
	Handling of domestic violence cases in justice system
	C. James
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Deaths of children in Merritt
	H. Lali
	Hon. J. van Dongen
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Victim services
	N. Simons
	Hon. J. van Dongen
	Handling of domestic violence cases in justice system
	M. Farnworth
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Government response to tree farm licence land removals
	J. Horgan
	Hon. I. Chong
	B. Simpson
	Hon. M. de Jong
	Post-secondary education funding
	R. Fleming
	Hon. M. Coell

Tabling Documents		11291
	Fort St. John Hospital and residential care facility, major capital project plan
	WorkSafe B.C., annual report, 2007
	WorkSafe B.C., service plan, 2008-2010

Second Reading of Bills		11291
	Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act (Bill 18) (continued)
	On the amendment (continued)
	G. Gentner
	C. Wyse
	C. Puchmayr
	D. Thorne
	C. Trevena
	S. Fraser
	H. Bains
	L. Krog
	A. Dix

Speaker's Statement		11319
	Rules for public bills in the hands of private members

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		11319
	Estimates: Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance (continued)
	Hon. C. Richmond
	J. Brar
	B. Simpson
	N. Simons
	J. Kwan
	Estimates: Ministry of Transportation (continued)
	G. Coons
	Hon. K. Falcon
	G. Gentner

Hon. G. Abbott: It is my pleasure today to introduce in the gallery Judy Darcy, who is the secretary–business manager of the Hospital Employees Union. She's in the gallery along with about 12 other leaders in the Hospital Employees Union. They're joining us today for the introduction of legislation in just a few moments, which will finish the outstanding work to allow us to move forward in a more cooperative relationship, building upon the landmark 2006 labour agreements and subsequent agreements reached earlier this year.

I'd like to take this moment to recognize Judy, the Hospital Employees Union and indeed other union organizations — notably the B.C. Government Employees Union, B.C. Nurses Union, Health Sciences Association — who came together with government representatives earlier this year to resolve outstanding issues arising from last year's Supreme Court decision.

I'd like the House to please join us in welcoming Judy and all of the guests from the HEU.

C. Puchmayr: I'd like to make the introduction, as well, to all the health care workers that are here. It's certainly a great day for democracy in Canada — that they're going to see the outcome of the Supreme Court rulings. So we're all very pleased that they're here to join us today on this momentous occasion.

Also, I have another introduction I'd like to make. With us today is Ed Hill, former RCMP commander — officer. He's also the founder of Pulling Together, which is the first nations journey. I think he's here to see the Attorney General. Please make Ed Hill welcome for all the work he's done for Pulling Together and the first nations reconciliation.

S. Fraser: It gives me great pleasure to introduce Carol and Graham Bunch, visiting from just north of Qualicum Beach — friends and constituents. They're also here to see a piece of history — the court decision–forced amendments to Bill 29 about justice.

Hon. W. Oppal: We have in the Legislature today two law students from Peking University in China. They were the winners of a debate that took place, which was sponsored by the University of Victoria law school and by the Canadian embassy in Peking. The final debate involved students from six of the top law faculties in China. Xinye Li and Sha Luo were the top students, and they were the winners of the debate across China.

The two visiting students are the best debaters, and they won a month-long scholarship — visitorship — at the University of Victoria law school. I'd like the House to make them welcome.

C. Wyse: It is indeed my pleasure today to introduce to the House two individuals who are here to meet with various government representatives: Dr. Bruce Archibald from Simon Fraser University, who is recognized worldwide as an expert on geological formation found here in British Columbia in my riding, as well as Mike Kennedy, who lives in the area and represents citizens who believe that this particular site should be preserved. I would ask the House to make both these gentlemen welcome.

R. Chouhan: I would like to introduce and welcome my friends and my family members from the Hospital Employees Union, for whom I worked for 18 years. They are our leaders and are members of the Hospital Employees Union. We also worked through the agony of Bill 29 together. Hopefully, we will correct part of that mistake today.

N. Simons: I'd like to welcome Keith Thirkell, a councillor with the district of Sechelt, to the House to enjoy question period today. He enjoyed some of the debates this morning. Will the House please make him welcome.

Hon. G. Abbott presented a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008.

Hon. G. Abbott: I move that Bill 26, Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008, be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. G. Abbott: I am pleased today to present Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008. British Columbians feel strongly about the value of transparency in our public health system. They made that point very clearly in the Conversation on Health, and earlier this session we introduced amendments to include this value within the Medicare Protection Act. Today we're taking action on that principle.

As members know, when the previous NDP government passed the Medicare Protection Act, section 49 greatly restricted the ability of the Medical Services Commission and the minister from discussing complaints and investigations by the commission under the act. Today we're making amendments to section 49 which improve transparency by giving the Medical Services Commission and the minister greater author-

ity to disclose information about complaints and investigations, while still protecting privacy.

This legislation will also amend sections of the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act and the Health Sector Partnerships Agreement Act to ensure consistency with the Supreme Court of Canada's 2007 ruling, all within the context of the negotiated resolution reached with the affected unions earlier this year.

Bill 26 also makes changes in a third area. Last fall our government made the decision to eliminate the 68,000 ambulance bills per year charged to MSP premium assistance clients. Amendments to the Emergency and Health Services Act will support last fall's initiative by streamlining the process and will eliminate the need for MSP premium assistance clients to apply for remittance of their ambulance fees.

I move that Bill 26 be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 26, Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008, 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. Wyse presented a bill intituled British Columbia Rail Corridor Safety Act, 2008.

C. Wyse: I move introduction of the British Columbia Rail Corridor Safety Act, 2008, for first reading.

C. Wyse: It gives me great pleasure today to be introducing a piece of legislation that protects the safety and economic security of livestock owners in British Columbia whose grazing lands run adjacent to publicly owned rail corridors by placing several obligations on any railway operating on those corridors.

First, a railway must ensure there is adequate fencing that will prevent livestock from entering rail corridors. Second, a railway has to construct adequate farm crossings for farm purposes. Third, a railway must contact landowners when their livestock has been hit by a train. Finally, the bill also mandates that rail operators manage the spread of invasive plants.

This bill re-establishes the practices of B.C. Rail before it was sold by the government to CN Rail.

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

Bill M202, British Columbia Rail Corridor Safety Act, 2008, 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 week, April 13 to 19, is National Victims of Crime Awareness Week. Here in British Columbia the issue has been underscored by the tragedy in Merritt. I know that all of us are thinking of the innocent children murdered and how the mother, the family and the community are struggling to cope with this loss.

This year's theme for the National Victims of Crime Awareness Week is "Finding the way together." We all have to work together to expose gaps in the justice system where people fall through the cracks. Once we find those gaps, we need to fix them, to try and prevent crime in the first place and help those who become victims.

Crime doesn't just impact victims. It affects their families and entire communities. Across the province there are many agencies working to help those people in communities that are touched by crime.

Here on the Island, Greater Victoria Police Victim Services is holding a candlelight vigil on April 17 to honour those impacted by crime and violence. The ceremony will also mark the 25th anniversary of the Greater Victoria Police Victim Services.

This organization provides support to victims of crime, including referrals, assistance through the court process and help with victim impact statements. It's an integrated police victim services agency that works in partnership with seven police agencies and serves 13 municipalities. Run by a volunteer board of directors made up of representatives from the agencies and civilians, this hard-working organization should be applauded for their efforts to help victims of crime.

As it's National Victims of Crime Awareness Week, I hope everyone in this House takes time to learn what they can do to help similar organizations in their communities.

B. Lekstrom: It's my pleasure today to rise in this House to speak about an anniversary of the village or district of Taylor, which will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this year in 2008 along with our great province celebrating its 150th anniversary.

We're very proud of what Taylor means not just to the Peace district but to the entire province. It was incorporated in 1958 and was named after a gentleman named Herbie Taylor. Herbie was a fur trader for the Hudson's Bay Company who located into the great area of Taylor in 1911.

Taylor is pretty unique. It is a community that in 1957 saw the development of the first natural gas processing plant in British Columbia by Westcoast Energy. That was the McMahon plant, and it still operates today and is a very large contributor to the economic well-being of the northeast and of British Columbia.

As well, I want to congratulate the mayor of Taylor, His Worship Mayor Fred Jarvis, who has served as the

mayor of that community for the past 22 years. He served as a councillor — or alderman in those days — for eight years previous, so he has served better than half of the life of the incorporated district of Taylor on that council and has contributed an amazing amount to its well-being.

Taylor is a community that is well served. It has an ice arena, a swimming pool and a curling club. It has a golf course. It has all of this not because of the council, but because of the people that call Taylor home. It's my pleasure again, in closing, to ask all of you to join me in wishing happy birthday to the district of Taylor today.

C. Trevena: I'd like to tell the House about a bicycle called Baba Ganoush. It's bright and shiny purple. It's a street bike, and it's won many accolades for a Quadra Island bicycle-maker.

It's no ordinary bike. It looks a bit like a bike from the late 19th century. It's got a leather saddle, leather toe straps, wooden handle grips and wooden rims but with contemporary flashes. It was built by hand, taking six weeks of daily work to make. The frame alone has more than 250 separate pieces.

Baba Ganoush, a delight to the eye, won three prestigious awards at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland, Oregon — the President Walker's Choice, People's Choice and Best in Show. It was sold for $12,000 to seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.

Baba Ganoush is one of 60 to 70 bikes that Sam Whittingham crafts each year. Each bike is different. Each is made to order, and each is thought through piece by piece. Sam — who can claim the title as fastest man on earth for his cycling speed, going faster under his own power without the aid of gravity, wind or drafting than anyone in history — has had a love affair with bikes for years — racing, touring, recumbent and track.

After working for some time as a set designer, he turned his love of bikes into a thriving business, Naked Bicycles and Design, which he runs with his wife Andrea Blaseckie from their Quadra Island home. The pair are still reeling from the accolades they received at the show. So far it's not turned into a rush of new business, but as Andrea says, people don't decide to have a custom-made bike as a spur-of-the-moment decision. Most of their bikes cost between $3,000 and $6,000, and from conception to delivery, there's a personal touch.

They encourage their customers to come to Quadra to test their bikes because despite running an increasingly well-known business, Sam and Andrea like to make sure that they, too, still get out on their bikes.

B. Bennett: The Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. was created by government a while ago, and they've been coming up with some great ideas ever since. One of their exciting new initiatives, near and dear to my heart and just launched, is the Discover Fishing B.C. campaign. British Columbia boasts some of the finest fresh and saltwater fishing opportunities in the world, including the greatest diversity of angling opportunities available in any single jurisdiction in North America. Where else could an angler fish for sturgeon in the morning, fly-fish a gorgeous river for trout in the afternoon and troll for salmon in the evening while watching a sunset on Howe Sound?

The Discover Fishing B.C. campaign will remind people of the great opportunities in their own back yards and encourage them to get out on the water this spring and summer. The campaign, which is led by the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. and a coalition of other groups — including the Ministry of Environment; Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts; Tourism B.C.; the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund; the Sport Fishing Institute and the B.C. Fishing Resorts and Outfitters Association — will feature print and radio advertising, promotional contests and a new website designed to encourage occasional and lapsed anglers to get back into fishing.

While rural people are more plugged into fishing opportunities, many British Columbians in the Lower Mainland and the southern Vancouver Island area seem unaware of the fishing opportunities that exist in their own back yards. There are a half-dozen well-stocked lakes within ten minutes of this building that offer easy and inexpensive trout fishing for young novice anglers, and there are at least a dozen similar lakes in the Lower Mainland where individuals or families can escape for a day of excellent fishing without ever leaving the city.

Let's face it. We all want our kids to get out of the house and spend time in the outdoors. What better way to spend time together as a family than at your local fishing hole. So congratulations to the coalition for their bold new campaign, and to British Columbians: get out there and rediscover fishing in B.C. this year. Remember, a bad day spent fishing is better than a good day at work.

G. Gentner: Amrik Nijjar helped build the largest multi-denominational funeral home in British Columbia. Located along the Fraser River, Riverside Funeral Home offers funeral services for Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and people of all religious stripes.

Over ten years ago a little house was bought in Tilbury Industrial Park. No one then thought it possible that funerals and industry could coexist, but Mr. Nijjar had a vision. The high-ceilinged structure, the size of a hockey arena, is designed to accommodate religions which lay adherents to rest in ceremonies that draw hundreds of people and require the cremation of the deceased to be witnessed by mourners.

Traditionally in B.C., crematoriums are near cemeteries, and most zoning bylaws do not allow for the

mix of a funeral parlour and crematorium in one location. But Riverside offers mourners a cremation hall right on site.

Mr. Nijjar convinced governments that a funeral home was a place of worship and not a business. But how far does one dare the profit motive behind the dealings of death? People should be paid for their services, yes. However, to create it into a franchise-like business venture is a western inclination.

In our society we live in denial of death. We live in guilt, and therefore we negotiate the final tributes of another's death at a time when we are most vulnerable. We make up for our loss with a push for the best coffin, casket, tomb or costly urn, the limo, flowers, obit editing, catering and even video productions for the service. It is then, while sitting there — your head full of remorse, thinking of what gilded package to choose from — that the seller closes the deal. Can we escape the profit-making of one's own death? Many see it as an opportunity that perhaps even Riverside Funeral Home cannot escape as well.

Last month Amrik Nijjar humbly retired from Riverside, but he gives us more than just a funeral home — celebrating life without pretence.

H. Bloy: Last Friday the Minister of Advanced Education and I went on a tour. No, we didn't go to Stanley Park or Burnaby Village Museum. We toured two colleges in my riding of Burquitlam, Pacific Vocational College and Coquitlam College.

Pacific Vocational College is a piping trades training college which was started in 1991 by Robert Bradbury. In a few short years the college had become known as the leader in training for employers and apprentices providing excellent training grounds for future tradespeople. The programs are tailor-made for the apprentice tradeperson. Pacific Vocational has developed its own curriculum and course material. The visit with the minister allowed a dialogue of discussion for expanding training opportunities.

The students and teachers that I've talked to at Pacific Vocational College enjoy the atmosphere of learning at their own pace. Students are able to complete an eight-week course in five or six weeks. The benefit is that the apprentice is back to work sooner to keep the British Columbian construction industry moving ahead.

Our second visit of the day was to Coquitlam College, which is celebrating over 27 years in operation. Coquitlam College is known throughout Canada as a college that has helped thousands of foreign students study in Canada and go on to other universities to further their education. Coquitlam College is only one of two colleges in British Columbia allowed to teach the university transfer program.

I have attended the graduation ceremonies at the college and am amazed at the number of students that have graduated with full scholarships from Simon Fraser University and other institutes in B.C. I am proud that they are part of the Tri-Cities area, yet serve all of British Columbia and beyond.

The minister and I had a productive meeting with the directors and staff of Coquitlam College, including their president, Tom Tait. They offer a mix of programs, including ESL.

C. James: For many, the tragic murders in Merritt are raising serious questions, just as the Oak Bay murders did seven months ago. In that case, Peter Lee killed his entire family before killing himself. There are many questions about how the justice system may have failed that family.

Today we see widespread confusion over how the justice system dealt with Allan Dwayne Schoenborn, the suspect in the Merritt murders. The provincial chief judge was out in the media saying one thing; police were saying another. There are many questions about what the authorities knew and what the justice system did or didn't know.

My question is to the Attorney General. Given these two shocking crimes, will he commit to a broad review of the justice system and how it deals with domestic violence cases?

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, all of us have been touched by the horrible tragedies that have taken place in Merritt. I have heard the statements of the chief judge. I recognize that there are some conflicting views as to what took place. I recognize that the police have said certain things with respect to the release of the person who is now said to be the suspect.

I think what we have to do in the circumstances is await the results of the inquest. In the event that there is an apprehension of a suspect and in the event that there are charges laid, we'd have to await the outcome of the trial. In the meantime, I think we have to give support to the victims — the mother and the whole of the community — for this horrible tragedy that has taken place.

C. James: I know that every member of this House is providing what support they can to the family, to the mother, to the community, but part of giving that support is also making sure that answers are forthcoming and that British Columbians actually learn what has happened and get answers to the questions and the concerns that are being raised right now. They're legitimate questions, and that will also help us to learn from this tragedy.

There's been significant confusion, as the Attorney General says, about what the RCMP knew, about what information the justice of the peace had or didn't have,

and about why the decision to let the suspect go was done over the phone. That confusion is enough of a concern and similar enough to the tragedy in Oak Bay that there should be a broader review than simply the coroner's inquest.

Again, my question to the Attorney General is: will he commit to a broader review, a public review, so that the public can ensure they get answers to all of the unanswered questions right now?

Hon. W. Oppal: I share the Leader of the Opposition's concerns. I recognize that at the end of the day, we need some answers. But I think that at this stage, given the various steps that are being taken and will be taken, it might be premature to hold an inquiry or to commission an inquiry.

I can tell you that we are very much concerned, and we are very much touched by what has taken place. If an inquiry is the route to go in the future in order to make the system work better, we'll do that. But I think it might be premature at this stage to commission an inquiry.

C. James: The questions that the public are asking are larger than simply this tragedy in Merritt. They're questions about the justice system. They're questions about how the justice system deals with people who are victims of domestic violence.

Just last week we saw the women's West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund call for significant changes to the criminal justice and family law systems to better protect women and children in British Columbia. So while I appreciate the response that I had from the Attorney General, these are in fact bigger issues than simply the case in Merritt.

I would like a commitment from the Attorney General today to actually make sure that we look at these issues. I would ask the Attorney General whether he'll commit today to the creation of an all-party committee that would review the justice system and look at the issues facing women in particular and domestic violence and victim services across our province.

Hon. W. Oppal: I appreciate the concern again of the Leader of the Opposition. These are issues that we're continually working with and wrestling with. The issue of spousal violence, for instance — I have been saying for a large number of years that this is a cancer that has afflicted many, many generations. Unfortunately, we as a society have not been able to adequately and fairly address the issue of spousal violence.

There have been a number of forums held, particularly in the South Asian community, where spousal violence is said to affect a disproportionate number of people. We want to learn from those forums as to what we should do next.

I can tell the House that one of the positive aspects that has come out of these meetings and the interaction of victims and members of the community is that more and more women, more and more victims, are speaking out about these issues. I think that's a first step to take — to speak out about these issues.

H. Lali: I want to thank members on both sides of the House for the tremendous outpouring of support that has been given over this tragedy in Merritt. The Solicitor General and I went to Merritt last Thursday, and we saw the community of Merritt grieving. The grief is real.

We also saw the community asking tough questions. The questions are also real. They're concerned that the system failed them and also failed the innocent children who were murdered a week or ten days ago.

One of the key questions my constituents have asked me to raise today is the length of time it took to get the information about the suspect out to the community. Is the Solicitor General able to provide some information to my community as to why such a long delay took place in alerting the public about Allan Schoenborn?

Hon. J. van Dongen: I want to again express my deepest sympathies to the family and the community in Merritt. I appreciated the opportunity to visit in the community with the MLA for Yale-Lillooet. It was an opportunity to share in the grief of the community and listen to their concerns and comments.

Certainly I cannot comment on the specifics of the RCMP's handling of the investigation. They are concentrating on two things. They are concentrating on keeping the community safe, and they are concentrating on ensuring that we continue the priority of finding the person who perpetrated these horrible crimes.

I think there are processes in place. The chief coroner of British Columbia certainly recognizes the seriousness of this situation and has announced a full inquest. That is a fact-based process to determine what actually did happen. It will look at the range of issues in terms of the situation. There are other processes in place to examine the conduct of the RCMP, and we await the results of those processes.

H. Lali: There are also many unanswered questions about the effectiveness of the telephone justice of the peace hearing, and these telephone hearings started after the courthouse in Merritt was closed in 2002. In the Schoenborn case, on the Thursday evening before the fateful Sunday, the telephone JP system failed. There was no eyeball-to-eyeball contact between the suspect and the justice of the peace. The JP was not able to see the body language or the demeanour of the suspect before he made the decision to release him.

Again, my constituents have asked me to raise the following question to the Attorney General. Will

the Attorney General take a serious and long look at the telephone hearings of the justice of the peace and the centralized justice of the peace process to make sure that this kind of tragedy never happens again?

Hon. W. Oppal: I thank the member for the question. I can say that the reason for the…. Tele-bail — bail either by video conferencing or by audio conferencing — is a program that the government has introduced in order to expedite bail hearings so that those persons who are arrested by the police after hours, when courts are closed, will have access to justice. The system itself is a good one in that it provides access to a judicial officer for someone who has been arrested.

The issue as to whether or not the tele-bail system in this case resulted in any adverse consequences or played a role in the tragedy is something that we'll have to wait for the process to take its place to determine and confirm.

N. Simons: You know, I think that at a certain point, it's important that we all reflect on the relationship between the policy of government and programs that are delivered in our communities. I believe that as a legacy for victims of crime, we mustn't lose time in that process.

We know that in 2002 a number of cuts were made to social programs. My question is specifically to the Attorney General. Would he support a comprehensive review of the programs that were cut and the impact that those programs being cut has on families and on communities and on victims of crime in this province?

Hon. J. van Dongen: I want to assure the member that in the process of reviewing victim services programs, a lot of collaboration has taken place with community agencies, with the police-based programs. In fact, the government has put additional dollars, 17 million additional dollars, into victim services programs.

On Saturday, for example, the Attorney General and myself announced an additional $1½ million going into domestic victim services. This will help to assist a number of front-line community organizations to do prevention work and provide assistance to victims in domestic situations.

Yes, there was an announcement of $500,000 for three years, which will go to agencies in the Lower Mainland. That's recognized and appreciated.

I believe that what I'm asking for — and what I believe most British Columbians would like to see — is a larger review of the impact of service cuts in 2002. Crown victim services was eliminated in its entirety. That was a program where specialized victim assistance workers would advise Crown prosecutors on issues such as release of people who have been charged with domestic violence.

So my question is again to the Attorney General. Does he not see this as an appropriate moment to engage in a broad, wide-ranging review of the criminal justice system in terms of the cuts that have been implemented in this province since 2002 and the impact of those cuts on British Columbians?

Hon. J. van Dongen: I want to acknowledge to the member that the victim services programs were restructured in 2002. But there were a number of other changes made, including a number of new programs. A 24-hour crisis line was launched to improve service, and there were integration projects, such as a pilot project in Port Coquitlam where a victim service worker has an office right in the courthouse. So while there were changes made, there was also a very thoughtful study done of how to ensure that all of the victim services program needs were met.

M. Farnworth: The terrible tragedies in Merritt and Oak Bay have raised serious questions in the public about the issue of tele-bail — how it's done, how it works or does not work. The tragedies in Oak Bay and Merritt have raised serious questions around the justice system and how it deals with issues of domestic violence. A coroner's inquest will deal with the cause of death but not with what happened afterwards.

Given the public's concern around these issues — given the fact that we want to ensure that when a decision is made, we not only have all of the information available, but we have the best system available to make a decision — that the Attorney General recognize that now is the time to do a broad public review that deals with the issues of domestic violence and issues such as tele-bail….

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, the tele-bail system was brought in after complete consultation with the judges, and the judges are in the best position to decide how fair hearings are conducted. In other words, is the judicial officer who hears a bail hearing handicapped by virtue of the fact that the person appearing during the hearing is not appearing in person but is appearing by way of video conferencing?

In fact, much of the system is now operating on video conferencing because it is more efficient, and there is no evidence that it detracts from any of the principles of natural justice. All of that has been fairly canvassed with the lawyers, the prosecutors and the judges. We haven't had any adverse comments or criticisms regarding the tele-bail system.

M. Farnworth: Well, with regards to that last comment, I would suggest that the Attorney General talk to

The Attorney General may think that it's working fine, that judges think it's working fine, but two terrible tragedies in the last seven months have raised some very serious and legitimate questions that need to be addressed. There's a very real argument to question about making a decision on the basis of a phone call, particularly when it deals with issues around domestic violence.

So again to the Attorney General. Don't listen to just the judges and the lawyers, but listen to the public, and recognize that there is an opportunity to ensure that we have the best system possible and that we can find ways to improve it. Will he commit to a broad public review of how the justice system deals with issues of domestic violence and, in particular, the issues around tele-bail?

Hon. W. Oppal: We're always prepared to look at ways in which we can improve the system. We're always prepared to look at ways we can improve justice being dispensed to members of the public. But you know, the tele-bail system has been with us since 2001, and the fact that some people are making adverse comments regarding the tele-bail system at this stage does not necessarily mean that the system itself is flawed. It may well be that it needs to be improved.

If it needs to be improved, we will move in that specific direction. But to suggest that because some people in the community have suggested it is not working is something that we'll have to consider at the end of the day. We'll have to determine whether or not the system ought to be changed, whether or not the system can be improved by dispensing with it.

I agree with you that we don't simply listen to judges. But the judges are in the best position to determine whether or not a fair hearing can be conducted, and that's the reason I alluded to the fact that it was done with the full concurrence of all of those people in the criminal justice system.

J. Horgan: I'd like to change directions, if I may. Fifteen months ago the Minister of Forests — without consultations with first nations in my community, without consultation with the capital regional district and certainly without consultation with the people in the communities of Shirley, Otter Point and Jordan River — removed vast tracts of private lands from previously public-private tree farm licences. Last week we raised this issue again with the Minister of Forests, and in his insensitive way, he said that we were riding an old horse.

I know that the Minister of Community Services has, after a two-month delay, signed off on a bylaw for the capital regional district. I'm wondering if she could stand in her place today and explain to my constituents why she sat silent at the cabinet table when this decision was being made, why she sat silent while the turmoil raged in my community over how we were going to manage a regional growth strategy that had just been blown up on a whim by the Minister of Forests.

Could the Minister of Community Services stand in her place today and explain to the people in my community why she has been mute on an issue of fundamental importance to growth and development in the capital regional district?

Hon. I. Chong: I hope the member realizes that when deciding on whether or not to approve a bylaw, I am legally obliged to consider matters of provincial interest. That includes whether the affected stakeholders have been consulted and whether they have been heard.

While the member would like to suggest that the bylaw has been in our office for two months, I will correct him and correct for the record that that is not true. The bylaw actually was received by our ministry at the end of February, about six weeks ago.

Staff routinely, when they receive these bylaws, ensure that all outstanding matters are reviewed, and they have done that. There was one outstanding matter which was not resolved until late Friday at 5 p.m. When I came in this morning and saw that matter resolved, I was then able to sign off on the bylaw.

I would respectfully hope that the member does not continue to perpetuate untrue statements — statements that he is not familiar with.

J. Horgan: I know that the minister would like to confine her participation in her government's actions to the past six weeks, but as I'm aware, she's been on executive council for a considerable period of time. When the decision was made to destroy the regional growth strategy in the capital regional district last January, the minister had responsibility for the file.

My question, again: following the Association of Vancouver Island Municipalities convention in my constituency this past weekend where, when the minister was asked, she said: "The issue was complicated…." Will she do something quite simple and support a unanimous resolution from the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities and do the following: resolve as an urgent matter to declare a moratorium on the sale and land transfer of all land currently zoned as forest or resource land and a moratorium on the development approvals within these forest lands?

That's not complicated. You may not feel you have a legal obligation, but you certainly have a moral obligation to stand up for the people in your region. Say no to these withdrawals. Do it now.

Hon. I. Chong: Firstly, I would like to remind the members and all members of this House where authority lies in terms of land use decisions. The Local Government Act provides regional districts with the legal authority to make land use decisions and consider them in the broader community interest.

When they make those decisions and when they require approval or a decision by the ministry, then they come into my office for me to review to ensure that the process of consultation has been adequate and whether first nations have also been adequately consulted.

That is what has occurred in this particular case. Land use decisions are under the purview of the local government. When there is a request for a change and where I am to be involved and engaged in that, then I certainly take that responsibility seriously.

B. Simpson: I sit here thinking: what great irony that the Minister of Community Services is sitting there talking about due process and consultation after the fact when we have canvassed in this House time and time again that the Minister of Forests failed to consult with the public, failed the public interest, failed — as we find out now — to even protect the animals on the land base in this deal.

Where was the consultation that occurred before? There was another member of that cabinet who sat quietly. We now have news, as we signalled to this government months ago, that the first nations would challenge this in court — this Western Forest Products release.

My question is to the Minister of Aboriginal Relations. The Kwakiutl are now going to challenge this decision in court. We warned this government that that would occur. Will the Minister of Aboriginal Relations commit today to engage with the Kwakiutl and make sure that we don't have to go to the courts? In the spirit of the new relationship, will he deal with that first nation and redress their concerns?

Hon. M. de Jong: Thanks to the member for the question. This government and each member of this government take very seriously the obligation that we have to consult and, where necessary and appropriate, to accommodate first nations for decisions that are made. Our record in that respect speaks for itself.

B. Simpson: That member's record is crystal-clear on this issue. [Applause.] Hold your applause. That member, as previous Minister of Forests, was found to have dishonoured the Crown in a previous private land release. That minister knew the road that the government was on. That minister knew what had happened in the first case.

My question to the Minister of Aboriginal Relations…. The Minister of Community Services won't commit to stopping this on Vancouver Island. There are a number of first nations who are concerned that they're going to have to take the government to court in the Pope and Talbot decision pending in the Kootenays.

The minister failed to protect first nation interests in the Weyerhaeuser case. He's failed in the Kwakiutl case. Will he stand up now and say: "No more private land releases in this province until full consultation with first nations occurs"?

Hon. M. de Jong: Thanks, again, to the member for the question. It's an ironic question when you consider that all across British Columbia, aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities are celebrating the manner in which a new relationship has been created in British Columbia.

Whether it's land use planning decisions that have taken effect because of that new relationship, whether it's reconciliation agreements or whether it's forest and range opportunity agreements that have given first nations their first real opportunity to become involved in forest operations in British Columbia…. Or maybe it's one of the six communities that have signed on for an actual treaty, a final agreement….

Confronted by an opposition that can't seem to make up its mind when we're discussing aboriginal matters, our record speaks for itself.

R. Fleming: Last week Simon Fraser University announced program casualties from the Minister of Advanced Education's failure to honour his three-year budget commitment. The latest is a 34-year-old program that provides credit courses to senior citizens.

The minister has been in denial about emerging program cuts and layoffs across B.C.'s college and university system. Now he's saying that his broken budget promise is the fault of the institutions. They took his ministry's three-year budget plan too literally. He said: "We were the first government to do a three-year planning budget, so I think people just assumed it was not just an estimate, but it was an actual. So I think there's a little bit to be learned from that."

My question to the minister: is the minister saying to college and university presidents that the lesson they should learn is that his word and the word of this government's service plans don't count for anything?

Hon. M. Coell: I think the member should maybe go visit SFU. Go visit the new buildings on the campus. Go visit the Woodward's site. Go visit the $1.5 billion in construction on our universities which that member and that opposition voted against — every penny of it.

The budget for advanced education has gone up every year since we've been government, and every year they voted against every penny of it. This opposition doesn't know what to do with advanced education other than complain about huge increases in construction and huge amounts of money going into programs. I don't know whether that member has gone and bothered to look at any of the institutions, but they're doing great.

Hon. G. Abbott: In accordance with section 14 of the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, I am tabling the major capital project plan for Fort St. John Hospital and residential care facility.

Hon. O. Ilich: I'd like to take the opportunity to table the 2007 annual report for WorkSafe B.C. and also the 2008-2010 service plan for WorkSafe B.C.

Hon. M. de Jong: In this chamber I call continued second reading debate on Bill 18, Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act, and in Section A, Committee of Supply — for the information of members, continued debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance.

G. Gentner: I continue with the referral or the amendment made by the member for Vancouver-Hastings relative to Bill 18, and I'm basically wrapping up. I know my time is almost at an end.

I brought to the attention of all members of the House the lack of transparency in this bill, and this is where I believe the opposition has one of our gravest concerns. If we are going to enter into this new era, the 21st century, relative to cap-and-trade and how we're going to deal with an issue that's going to impact all of us — the environment, our children, our grandchildren — with the horrors that are being predicted for 2050, I believe we need an open book, an open discussion, a consultative approach that's consensus-building. That is why this referral motion has come before us today.

Last Thursday I ended my remarks giving a brief description of what had occurred relative to some e-mail that was bantered back and forth by a committee struck by the Ministry of Environment — namely that with regards to emission standards for wood-fibre boilers, specifically, of course, in the area of agriculture…. It was very enlightening to find out who was telling who what to do in what ministry.

That is of grave concern because without that transparency, the opposition would not have had the ability to ferret it out and bring it to attention today. We believe that without proper amendments and proper recapitulation, so to speak, with the government opposite, we're going to be going into a very shallow area of transparency. I think it's incumbent upon all of us to represent our constituents as we move forward into the 21st century regarding how we're going to deal with this most concerning issue of global warming.

Hon. Speaker, when you look at my constituency, that of North Delta, and I think to probably even the same extent to all constituencies, particularly those which share in the Fraser Valley airshed from Delta all the way up to Hope, there is an inversion layer created by carbon. It's there year after year. We see a mini-climate that is cyclical, which has evolved with the microclimates of the Georgia Strait. What happens when there's a cooling off the straits versus the warmth of the land mass up the valley is that it creates some interesting weather patterns.

For some time now Delta has been very concerned with the greenhouse industry. I'm not here to single out the greenhouse industry. We can talk about the big polluters, but we seem to refuse to acknowledge the cumulative effect of the smaller polluters. When you start looking at the cogeneration that's happening up and down the valley and the ability now to plug into the grid which, of course, the Ministry of Energy and Mines is so adamant to support, we are going to see an increase of cogeneration everywhere in the valley. Without a proper and open discussion on transparency and what this cap-and-trade means, I think we could be losing out on some very fruitful discussions and amendments to move into the 21st century.

I know that in 1997 the GVRD amended the permit, for example, for Houweling Nurseries in my community and required the nursery to cease using wood fuel for its boilers by the end of 1999. It went back and forth between the authority…. Why I raise the GVRD, now Metro Vancouver, is that it's an agency that has been delegated the authority to regulate air emissions in the Lower Mainland.

The GVRD had some time with this one. It went back and forth. They committed to consultation with the industry. Five years later they reaffirmed their position to refuse to amend the permit. However, afterwards of course, it was the Ministry of Environment, through the B.C. Environmental Appeal Board, that oversaw and went beyond that and submitted that Houweling Nurseries wasn't required to obtain a permit from the GVRD because it was somehow

exempt as an agriculture operation. So there are exceptions already built into the legislation, and those are discussions that should be amply discussed in a very transparent manner. My concern is that that is going to be lost in this legislation.

Of course, years later in June 2007, the Ministry of Environment has come forward with a policy paper, the Agricultural Waste Control Regulation: Wood-Fired Boilers policy intentions paper, but admits that a more comprehensive review would be undertaken within the next few years. Here we are again. We are going forward with a new direction which we certainly welcome. It's needed. But when it comes down to looking at the cumulative effects of all boilers in the Fraser Valley, that has somehow followed its way onto the shelf.

I'm quoting the Minister of Environment to Delta — for example, June 26, 2007. The mayor received a letter from the Minister of Environment stating: "The GVRD remains the lead agency responsible for managing air quality issues within their boundary. The GVRD's authority, delegated to it under the Environmental Management Act, is the primary instrument available for managing air emissions from greenhouses within the GVRD area."

Again, what is the role of local government? What is the role of the regional governments to play in this most important and perhaps sweeping legislation, if there's a lack of transportation that is not inclusive?

Also on July 17, 2007, the Fraser Valley regional district sent out a letter limiting its concerns, outlining its concerns, to the agricultural waste control regulation team working on behalf of the Ministry of Environment stating: "Combustion of fuels other than natural gas, oil and other gaseous materials is highly sensitive in the Fraser Valley regional district." Again, where is the consultation with the Fraser Valley regional district, and where is the support?

There is also talk, discussion, and the Fraser Valley regional district has been very concerned about visual smoke densities, the increased opacity and another problem they have. They state that there is no focus on nitrogen oxide in the intentions paper.

Where in this discussion of Bill 18 will we enlarge that discussion to talk about NO_x and of course acid rain? It's all interrelated — the global warming, how we're seeing dimming throughout the planet. We can move very quickly and create legislation and suggest this is somewhat illuminating, so to speak, and steadfast. However, it certainly is refusing to look at the larger picture.

The Fraser Valley regional district also stated that — and this, of course, was only a year ago — for new boilers, the proposal is to optionally allow provision of a manufacturer's certificate as proof of compliance with emissions requirements. Certificates are a poor substitute for actual stack-commissioning tests to determine compliance. That's the position of the Fraser Valley regional district, but you know, when you look at it….

As I brought it forward Thursday afternoon, the position of the government is to simply accept the manufacturer's certification of boilers without doing proper public, endorsed tests of smokestacks, etc.

There's a lot of hypocrisy on the other side, opposite, relative to that of pollution and how we are going to deal with global warming, and it's not inclusive. Again, it is not bringing in local government. Not only is it ignoring some of the current concerns by Abbotsford city, the Fraser Valley regional district and Metro Vancouver, but it's ignoring those valuable delegated authorities. That's what the ministry has done for many years — delegated the authority of regulating the ambient air in the Lower Mainland airshed.

Abbotsford suggests that this particular airshed is very vulnerable to particulate matter pollutants because of the mountainous regions which trap them. This is very important because one can have the strictest regulations in the world, even zero emissions, but if there is neither monitoring nor strict enforcement, it is meaningless. That is from the city of Abbotsford.

This is a real red herring because, frankly, when we look closer at Bill 18, the question of enforcement and the interrelationship between local governments is very questionable. Here we are, going to a cap-and-trade system, yet it certainly isn't outlined properly in Bill 18 how we're going to deal with that.

Of course, this referral motion that's brought forward is to step back and take a breath. Let's look at this, and let's talk to local government. That's all we're asking.

Also, a decision was made by, again, the environment advisory board, and they said the following: "With respect to particulate matter, opacity odours emitted from wood-fired boilers used in agricultural operations within the GVRD, the district director has no authority to require a permit that imposes further requirements beyond those set in regulation." In other words, the trust and the social contract evolving with local government that they were to be delegated the authority to regulate particulate matter, opacity odours from wood-fired boilers, etc., is null and mute. It's void.

It certainly is wrong, what's happening with this legislation. I think it's only incumbent upon the government to step back and seriously address how all the team, all members of government — local, regional and, of course, provincial — and all people contribute and make things better.

In conclusion, in my community of Delta, there's been a real lack of consultation on this issue. The difficulty with it is that when you register or regulate or look at the cumulative effect of air ambient qualities, it's done in monitoring stations that have a hodgepodge of locations — dynamic — instead of having monitors right on the stack. It's been very costly and very ineffective. Frankly, Metro Vancouver and other jurisdictions have had a hard time and a difficult time, particularly with the government, to assist in that type of monitoring.

It's not the cumulative effect alone that we should be looking at and worrying about when it comes to carbon. We have to seriously look at who the real

polluters are. To do that, there has to be law whereby the emitters have monitoring on every other stack.

My municipality, amongst others, is very concerned with that. We hope the government will reconsider its position and take a stronger look at the referral motion that's been brought forward by this side.

C. Wyse: It is indeed my pleasure to get up and speak in favour of the referral motion. Bill 18, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act, is a very important piece of legislation. There is no question in everyone's mind — at least those minds that are willing to share their thoughts with me — that cap-and-trade, effectively designed, will reduce pollution and at the same time keep the economy and communities strong.

I'd like to repeat that, Madam Speaker. There is general agreement that cap-and-trade, effectively designed, will reduce pollution and keep the economy and communities strong. But when you look at the bill as it stands right now, it begs — as a matter of fact, it cries out loudly for referral — to be referred to a committee so that it can be studied and have some actual meat put on about five different areas I've identified that require further information before any informed Legislature in this House can vote upon it.

Before I go into those points, one of the aspects that comes into play is the different processes that have taken place previously by this government. An agreement called the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, in actual fact, was signed off quite quietly by the side between two cabinets, between two provinces. There's a component contained within that agreement that there has been very little discussion given to.

We hear about trade. We hear about labour mobility, but the part that the government has been reluctant on and, as a matter of fact, has run and hidden from is the investment component. One of the items that I will come back to is the need for transparency and accountability and the chance to approach the government from various segments of British Columbia.

When we look at the investment component, when we look at the report that was provided to the UBCM on how local government would be able to address greenhouse issues and climate changes, very clearly their report stated that they would be severely limited in implementing any type of a carbon-dioxide-gas reduction.

As a matter of fact, their report was so damning, so concerning, that in a time and a vote that no one can recall…. With one dissenting vote, all the delegates at the fall annual meeting of the UBCM voted to have discussions undertaken with the provincial government and that without major changes to the TILMA agreement — nine or ten of them — the UBCM would not be able to proceed. Their opposition — based from their lawyer, Mr. Lidstone — was based around the environment, the investment component.

We are looking at an enabling legislation that is suggesting…. That is not a strong enough word. It is legislating that the enactment would be turned over to the cabinet — a cabinet, once more, that makes their decisions in private, in secrecy and beyond accountability.

That is why I stand here in front of you in this House speaking for the referral motion, speaking for the opportunity not only for local government to be able to have their say but also for industry, individuals, environmental groups — in other words, the whole cross-section here in British Columbia.

The bill is an enabling act. It doesn't, in actual fact, deal with a broader issue. The broader issue of Bill 18 deals with the 40 percent reduction of gases that are not captured by the fuel tax that was introduced by the government. That is not an insignificant amount. That is a major aspect of dealing with the issue of climate change. It is the implementation of the cap-and-trade component being done effectively that allows the economy and our communities to remain strong.

As with TILMA, which was done in secrecy in cabinet, Bill 18 requests the same enabling legislation. Once more, without the referral motion passing, you can see that British Columbia is left to react rather than being in a position to respond.

There are legal opinions by environmental groups that enunciate, in their opinion, that underneath the investment component of TILMA there are a variety of actions that TILMA will impede here in British Columbia — certain things to proceed to protect the environment, particularly at the local government level. One of those areas falls within the greenhouse gas areas, never mind species and so on.

It is important that this House hears what I am saying today and supports the referral motion so that there is adequate time to review the effect of this particular bill, to provide input to an item that, if it is not done correctly, will not protect the environment necessarily but will definitely have an effect on the economy and on community stability.

With that, I stand here in front of you now, having done what I believe is my responsibility as critic for local government affairs. I have drawn the attention of this House to that particular item, particularly the Minister of Environment, so that he may also take into account that sharing of information as he looks at Bill 18 in the future.

Now to return to some of the broader issues that I mentioned — why the House should be voting for referral. Referral gives us the opportunity to obtain information and answers to questions that are raised by the bill. To turn over the authority and power to the cabinet so that they can walk outside the doors of this Legislature, close them behind us, if you like, go off in secret and then determine the answers to these questions…. That's the process with Bill 18 being passed where it stands. That's why legislative committee work is required.

Now, there are a number of questions. How many permits will be issued, for example? If there are too many permits issued, one of the effects becomes that there isn't enough value. There isn't necessarily enough force behind them in order to reach the limit of targets

that are being set. Without an answer to that question, it then begs the need for further study.

To empower cabinet to go away in their wisdom, without any other input being required, to answer that question has the cart before the horse, in my mind. That is why I'm standing here in front of you attempting to convince this House to support the referral motion to a legislative committee.

Likewise, what sectors will be covered by the regulations? It's a very important question. Right now, as it stands, with the western climate initiative, only facilities that produce 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year are required to report to Environment Canada. In British Columbia there are 38 of those. Do we need to lower that threshold? I'm not in a position to answer that question, nor am I willing to turn that over completely to the cabinet to have them go away, without the review that this Legislature has, to answer that question. At this moment in time, I do not even know if the cabinet is willing to seek answers to those questions.

For me, it is another reason why we should be voting for referral so that that information can be brought together, so that it can be examined. Then, in a knowing fashion, the people of British Columbia will have an understanding of what the effect of Bill 18 will be, rather than being asked to accept it as a pig in a poke.

A third possible question needs to be answered — a third question that would require a committee to be reviewing it — and is another reason to be supporting the referral motion. How will these permits be allocated? The legislation doesn't say that. It simply enables the cabinet to do such. There are different options that are used around the world to determine how permits are awarded.

Should there not be a chance to provide input — public input, input that's open to scrutiny — compared to what Bill 18 presently would allow to happen? To go and make the decision, with minutes never given — simply the results of the decision — on an item that is crucial not only here in British Columbia but to the world in general, as we have heard on numerous occasions…. To have it sent off to a group enabled to deal with these items — and I'm only at question 3 — to me, begs for the referral motion to pass.

So another possible question that should be answered before Bill 18 proceeds further is: how big will the penalties for non-compliance be? An item. Do we simply accept on goodwill? Do we need a big stick? Do we need big carrots? What is the answer to that question? What should it be? Again, in my opinion, it is a reason for referral, a reason to go out and collect that information with both sides of the House.

Another question is: what restrictions will be placed on the alternative compliance units? Where I am from, upcountry, I didn't understand what that meant. So I had somebody explain it to me, and they used the word "offsets" — where you can make some trades, some changes.

There may be, and there seems to be, a general consensus that there's a need to allow for offsets in the industry for a short term so that adjustments can be made. There appears to be agreement in British Columbia. However, it raises the question once more. Offsets do not signify the change. How long do they last? How many of them are given out?

I think that the intent of Bill 18 is to move for improvements on the environment but that at the same time as moving on that, the economy and the stability of communities are not destabilized at the same time. On this very same point, same question, once more, to me, suggesting that there is the need for referral to pass is a review to make sure that previous lack of legislation around reforestation that did have a compliance for reforestation to take place doesn't become an offset….

Where I'm coming from, that could be looked at as palming something off the table that should be done, that was required to be done but now, with the rules changing, gets credit at another card table — gets credit for something that should have been done. I'm not saying that is what is going to happen, but without there being the openness of discussion that the referral motion would allow to take place, I'm left in a position to have to assume that the cabinet would do that.

The people of Cariboo South did not elect me to make those assumptions. They elected me to stand up when the opportunity presented itself to bring forward their concerns in the venue where they could be heard. Clearly, that is not in the cabinet room where Bill 18 takes this legislation. Therefore, I find myself in an awkward situation, speaking for a referral on a motion — that I need to explain why the referral should pass.

When I'm back home in Cariboo South, I'm hoping that they will allow me a little bit of grace. These are the rules that are required for me to be in the House to bring forward their concerns. I will be able to explain to them that I had to use the back door in order to try and ensure that cabinet doesn't take this out the door, behind closed doors, so that we do not know what's happening with such an important item.

That leads me to another question, which, in my mind, begs for the referral motion to pass. What sort of government oversights will there be on the cap-and-trade regime?

When I was driving last…. I'd like to share a little bit of a story with you about oversight and it being done by self-policing and how it doesn't work. We've had practice here for the last several years that oversight is to be provided by the individual groups that, in actual fact, are looking after themselves.

I've asked a few people over the last week how that works when it comes to speeding. I asked people about the last time that they were driving down the highway and they were breaking the law and they were speeding: "How many of you said, 'Whoops. I'm speeding here. I'm breaking the law,' then pulled over to the side of the road and wrote yourself a ticket?" They looked at me like I was right off the wall. They thought I was certifiable in a whole bunch of different ways. I've got a colleague, a friend of mine that, in actual fact, would second the motion.

But they did understand that there are many, many circumstances — whether it be our forests, our seniors care facilities, whether it be whatever — where self-policing is not adequate. As a matter of fact, they recognized, as Mr. W.A.C. Bennett recognized, that there are places in which government has a responsibility — as a matter of fact, it has a duty — to look after on behalf of all four million people here in British Columbia.

That's why referral here is important. It is ensuring that the cap-and-trade is going to be effective, that it is not going to be done behind closed doors. It is not going to be controlled by who made the largest amount of contributions to whatever party might be in power. Those are the items that beg this motion to pass.

Those are six questions that I believe require the opportunity for British Columbians to respond to before Bill 18 goes ahead. In addition, I pointed out to the cabinet minister how another piece of legislation — the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement — likewise has an effect here upon how things proceed. Now, those are two items.

I mentioned, I believe, that I have five, but I doubt that I'm going to have time to get through all of them in the same detail. So I'm going to now move on to the third point that, in my mind, begs the referral motion to pass, and that is one of the accountability part.

The cap-and-trade is left up to regulations. Regulations are changed quite easily, not with an awful lot of scrutiny and not necessarily with a lot of thought, particularly when you're dealing with the bill, which asks us to go ahead and do something.

If I was back in Cariboo South and I was sitting around the coffee table back at home, I would describe Bill 18, the way it stands right now, as: "Trust me. I'm with the government. I'm here to help you." I can report to this House that that particular defence and explanation doesn't carry very well, at least in the Cariboo.

So that is another way of approaching that the cabinet does give itself the unlimited ability to distribute the carbon allowances by whichever means they determine, which in that type of form become a possible real asset value.

Earlier today we were debating the effect of the result of taking what was an asset value for British Columbians — tree farm licenses, things that have been in place for decades…. A change in regulation along the way, a little change here in legislation, a little nudge there, and the next thing you know, something that belonged to all of British Columbians ended up belonging to a corporation that, all of a sudden, was no longer seeing the value in the forest industry. They were now becoming a land developer.

Carbon allowances come with real economic value, and that becomes available to be bought and sold. That significant item requires more input than what this bill presently provides. That would be my third point for the need for passing this particular motion, the referral motion.

Thank you for waiting, Madam Speaker, and for so kindly listening to me. I've taken some of my thoughts, and I've rolled them into different places. I appreciate your kindness to wait for me to recollect where I wish to go with the next point.

My next point is that the bill itself is incomplete. In actual fact, sections of this bill leave unanswered questions in addition to the ones I've raised. Section 26(1) states that corporations can commit an offence under the act, but guess what. "Corporation" is not defined.

That term alone becomes important. That term alone demands that we pass the referral motion. In the United States, the Supreme Court of the United States narrowly, 5-to-4, ended up defining a corporation in the United States of America and giving a corporation the same rights as a human being.

Since then, that is how their law has been driven. A corporation, an entity that exists legally on paper only, has been given the same rights as a human being. You cannot walk past legislation that does not include definition that is crucial to the understanding and the implementation of the act. If we pass the act the way it stands right now, the cabinet gets to walk outside these doors in secret, and they determine who a corporation is — they alone.

It's another reason why, in my mind at this moment in time, the referral motion must pass so that we can take a piece of legislation and we can flesh it out as we started off — at least in my discussions in my mind — to obtain a cap-and-trade situation that, if effectively designed, will reduce pollution and keep the economy and community strong.

Where I'm from, community is a very broad word. We need all of our communities to be kept strong. We need an economy that allows that to take place, but in the new world of realization, we recognize that issues around the environment concurrently — and if not concurrently, at the head of the parade — need to be leading us from here on in. If changes are not made — if I may say so — wisely, we will end up in a very bad set of circumstances.

In closing, I call upon this House to support the referral motion so that the answers to these very important questions may be found. With that, I thank you for your time and patience.

C. Puchmayr: I, too, rise in support of the motion to refer Bill 18, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act. There are some very compelling reasons to go into committee stage on this. I think referral to a legislative, all-parliament committee is an excellent way to go to try to come to some realities and conclusions to some of the very ambiguous language in the bill and the very large loopholes that it can create without actually having points and triggers in the legislation itself.

The actual bill itself is an enabling act which sets the regulation. It allows setting regulations, but it doesn't set it by legislation. That is very concerning to this side, and it's very concerning to many British Columbians who would like to know what a true

cap-and-trade is. Is it merely a cap-and-trade that everyone looks at on first blush and says: "Well, it's great to cap emissions, and it's great to look at a system that creates some incentives towards capping emissions"?

What is it precisely? What are some of the triggers? What are the penalties? Who plays a role in making those decisions? If the public doesn't play a role in it, who is making those decisions, and how are those decisions made? Are they made behind closed doors? Who are the people that have the ear of the government that are able to set the policies and the regulations of the cap-and-trade act? That is certainly very concerning.

We look at the impacts that cap-and-trade will have. The committees that are involved in it…. Certainly, there are a lot of environmental committees that are looking at the positives of cap-and-trade. We also have to look at all of the impacts of cap-and-trade, and we have to have something put forward that everyone can look at so people can do an analysis of whether it's fair, whether it fits in with the rest of the climate initiative that is ongoing right now, so we can clearly understand the positives and also look at the potential negatives of cap-and-trade.

How do we address those negatives so that at the end of the day, the conclusion is that we have a system that's going forward, where we're showing some leadership, where we're actually doing and playing a role in cap-and-trade?

We've heard of the Premier's blue-ribbon panel on the environment. Again, here's a group of people that are hand-selected. No disregard for who the people are or what their credentials are, but the fact is these are people that aren't democratically elected. These are people that were handpicked by the Premier. Many of them could have business interests, and I think one of them is the president of Mobil Canada. Obviously, there is an advantage to sitting inside that very small tent and making decisions that could have a very positive effect to your own corporation or your business interests.

Again, this legislation promotes that same kind of possibility of people getting together in a very small, select group and sitting down and coming to conclusions on cap-and-trade and the potential of cap-and-trade and the impacts of cap-and-trade. Certainly, without having that in a public format, there is the ability for someone to actually take advantage of that and profit from having the very ear of the government on the cap-and-trade system.

This isn't just something that is coming forward from the opposition. This is even David Loukidelis. The Privacy Commissioner has expressed a concern in a communication to the government, as well, about how the actual legislation itself creates exemptions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. One needs to be alerted when the Privacy Commissioner makes those kinds of comments.

We certainly have to sit up and listen to the concerns of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. We're seeing that there's more potential for secrecy. There's less potential for disclosure. There's less potential for FOIs. We may never find out whether or not somebody can actually be benefiting from having the inner ear of the inner cabinet.

So I think a legislative committee, to get together to look at all the different impacts and to look at what is required or what we can do together to create a system of cap-and-trade that is fully transparent, that has absolute disclosure so that every member of the public can look at the document and see precisely how it works…. People that are affected by large industries may have some concerns. People heading into contract negotiations with large industries need some kind of a concrete document that they can look at to see what impacts this type of cap-and-trade legislation will have on them.

Those are very important questions that go unanswered in this legislation, or in this, basically, enabling legislation, that sets the ability for someone to write those regulations after the fact and also for the regulations to continually be able to be modified and to be changed without any impacts or without any input from the public.

So if we can support this motion…. I think it's an easy direction to go. It certainly will create transparency, because these committees are committees of the public. These are committees where meetings can be televised. People can be called to the legislative committees, and they can be asked about the potential impacts of this type of legislation, what kind of legislation is required. We can talk to business groups. We can talk to labour groups. We can talk to environmental groups, all in the same arena with the government and with the opposition.

I think it's very important that we not go forward with this until all the t's are crossed and all the i's are dotted, and that certainly isn't happening right now.

The other thing that we're seeing now in British Columbia in this Legislature which is unprecedented is a change in how this House is managed. Estimates are all put into the small House. We're not seeing a full disclosure of the estimates process. There's certainly a fear on this side and a concern that we may run out of time for estimates. We may not have enough time for the public, through their official opposition, to address the issues of the estimates.

Some of the ministries may not even get a chance to get in front of the minister. Some of the opposition may not even be able to ask the ministers about their own service plans. You take that right now, and you take this type of enabling legislation….

Let's say that next year the Ministry of Environment…. If the government decides that they don't want to bring them forward into the estimates process, they can run the calendar out. They can literally run the calendar out on the estimates process. We'll end up not only having an enabling act that allows us to write regulations and change regulations without any public disclosure, without any public consultation, certainly no open public consultation, and then suddenly, when it comes time to look at the service plans and to ask the minister about cap-and-trade — you know, where the downfalls are, what is positive about it, how it is

interfacing with the rest of the climate initiative — we may not even have the ability to do that.

If that isn't a concern in itself, it certainly should be to the other side as well as this side. There is a real concern here when you start heading into government secrecy, when legislation is done with very little public disclosure, very little public input. We certainly have to have some concerns, we have to express those concerns, and we have to do so vocally. We have to talk to our communities.

Our constituents are speaking to us about it. They have questions too. People that support cap-and-trade are going to say: "Cap-and-trade is a good idea. Do you agree that cap-and-trade is a good idea?" Well, yeah, cap-and-trade is a good idea, but we need to see how the legislation is going to work on cap-and-trade so that we can see the positives and the negatives and have an ability to have some influence on the negative impacts that cap-and-trade might bring.

There are sections in here with cap-and-trade where you can buy offsets from companies that aren't producing. Where's the technicality with respect…? Can a company that is polluting a lot start other shell companies and then buy offsets from each other — from themselves, actually? This would be just an incredible shell game. But without legislation, I'm concerned that that is a possibility.

We'll have all this good, green legislation, and we'll all pat each other on the back and say, "You know, we're doing this for the environment; we're doing this to save the planet," yet shell companies will be going around it and offsetting the pollution targets. So those are very real concerns.

We have an industry in British Columbia that is starting to make a huge comeback, which is the foundry industry. At one time they went to China because they thought that they could get cheaper commodities in China. You know, they were right. They were right. They got cheaper commodities in China.

I spoke to a couple of foundries just recently. I toured one of them and spoke with the son of the owner of another one. They said that yeah, the commodities were cheaper in China but that they've sent whole shipments of castings back because they were so inferior, and they couldn't get a consistency. It shows that the industries in British Columbia, especially in the foundry industry — which has been around for a hundred years in British Columbia; I think there's only about seven of them left — are building quality products, and they're paying good wages. They're creating an interesting trade and a stable workforce for people of British Columbia, and they're doing so by producing, possibly, something that may create greenhouse gas.

So how do we deal with the foundries? How do we keep those high-paying jobs in British Columbia but also assist them in an ability to maybe look at some different alternatives or to look at ways of assisting them in reducing some of their greenhouse gas exposures?

That's what you do when you bring everybody to the table, and that's what you do when you sit down with all the different groups. You sit down with the business groups, the labour groups, the environmental groups and you say: "Here's what we have here. Here's what our goal is. How do we best achieve that? How do we do that and keep meaningful employment in British Columbia as well?"

It's fine to have a cap-and-trade system in place, but we can't just have a cap-and-trade system that encourages pollution. We have some of the largest polluters that are exempt from cap-and-trade. I think it's 40 percent of the producers of total greenhouse gas emissions that will be exempt. So how does that happen? Why are they exempt? Why aren't they brought into the fold so that there's a complete analysis of what they provide, what they do, what their exposure is? How do we work with them to ensure that they're not exempt but to also ensure that they continue to be a viable industry?

If they're in the oil and gas sector…. I mean, the oil and gas is right here. You can export manufacturing to other countries, and you can bring in foreign workers, but the oil's in our ground. So the oil is there, and there is a cost to taking that oil out of the ground. How do we work with that? When you have oil companies that make billions and billions of dollars in aftertax profit a year, surely they can play part of this game. Surely they can come to the table with us and be part of the cap-and-trade initiative.

The other states in the western climate initiative, the other players, all have fairly open disclosure. They have legislation that's governing them, and they have directions that they're going with respect to that. We don't. For some reason we don't want to go that way. So, you know, there are a lot of unanswered questions.

For instance, how many permits will be issued? What is the overall cap? What sectors are covered by the regulations? What sectors are not going to be covered by the regulations? Will that change? Can that change? Obviously, there's not going to be legislation, so if a regulation regulates a company that is covered by it, you can also set a regulation that says they're not covered by it. So that's very concerning.

How will those permits be allocated? How big will the penalties be for non-compliance? Will there be penalties or will there be a sliding scale? Will some companies be penalized and some not be? What restrictions will be placed on alternative compliance units, on the offsets? What sort of government oversights will there be on the cap-and-trade regime?

There's not a lot of accountability. It authorizes cabinet to introduce any kind of trade regime and change at any time without legislation or oversight. That's very concerning to me. You know, in a time when we're talking about openness and transparency…. That was the key, the hallmark, to the election campaign last time. The Liberals' campaign slogan was: "The most open and transparent government of all time" — or "bar none" or something like that.

We haven't seen that openness. We've actually seen a loss of democracy. We've seen a loss to the estimates process. We have seen a closing of the calendar. We saw closure on a very important bill last year which

was the bill that brought in the independent power projects. The bill which brought in the independent power projects received closure. Something as important as that this government elected to close.

C. Puchmayr: The member for Kamloops–North Thompson…. I see he's suddenly awakened here. The other day when I was trying to get some questions out of him in his role as junior minister, he didn't really want to talk too much. He certainly says a lot when he's in the background heckling. That just shows…. There's a lot of secrecy, but with that secrecy comes a lot of hot air, I'm afraid.

D. Thorne: Today I rise to speak in favour of referral of Bill 18 to an all-party committee. I think Bill 18 is probably one of the most significant pieces of legislation that we have debated in this Legislature, certainly since I have been in this Legislature. It is the enabling legislation for a cap-and-trade system in British Columbia. That's a system that I certainly support and have always supported setting up.

I think we're at a point in time in the history of the world and the environment where we're left with very few choices for what we can do as government on a large scale to try and mitigate the damage that we — our generation, actually — have already done to the environment and to the world. I certainly support the idea of a cap-and-trade system.

Speaking in favour of referral to an all-party committee, to me, is speaking in favour of Bill 18. I believe it is an important enough piece of legislation that everybody should have a voice. It should be fully transparent. The public should be involved in not just bringing forward enabling legislation and then leaving the balance — the meat, the law itself — up to cabinet fiat…. I think that is opening up cabinet and the Legislature, as a whole, to cries of not just lack of transparency but secrecy, no accountability and, perhaps down the road, all kinds of screams of favouritism, etc.

I think this referral motion would be something that everybody in this Legislature would support. It might not only help the bill to become better in the long run, in the end when it's passed, but it would also avoid all of these potential lawsuits and cries of favouritism and secrecy, etc.

When you have a bill of this magnitude dealing with some of the biggest industries in British Columbia — in fact, probably within the world actually, but today we're only speaking about British Columbia…. When you're dealing with industry and a situation like the environment and capping emissions, which means capping the industry itself in some ways, then I think you have a burden of transparency that is beyond belief. I don't believe we've ever discussed a motion of this magnitude where we're talking about this kind of business.

Some of the significant problems that I see in just passing this and sending it off to cabinet are the same kinds of issues that have been raised by my colleagues — and not just by my colleagues but by significant third-party stakeholders in this, not the least of which would be our freedom-of-information independent officer of the Legislature, Mr. Loukidelis, who has made his points very, very clear to several ministers of the House. In so doing, of course, we all became aware of those issues.

Speaking for myself and the official opposition, we are very concerned, as is Mr. Loukidelis. I can't believe that the members on the government side of the House wouldn't be equally as concerned about Mr. Loukidelis, whom they hired to do a job.

Unless I misunderstand the purpose of Mr. Loukidelis's position, I believe he is there to give us advice on these matters of freedom of information and that we are obligated to take his advice because he is the person we have hired as the expert — which means we sit here not as experts, as people relying on the information that he gives us.

Another important stakeholder that is looking at us in the matter of the environment would be the public, made up of many people of many different positions.

I see that one of the ministers is so interested in what I'm saying that he has come up and is sitting right in front of me and is listening. That is quite gratifying to me.

I think the public in general is getting more and more jaded as the days go by with government — with us. They think that we are not always as transparent and accountable as we could be in many different ways. Here we have an opportunity to move on — to move in the direction the public and the freedom-of-information officer want us to move in — and open up this bill to public scrutiny, to transparency, rather than having all of the bits and pieces, the meat of the bill, brought in by cabinet fiat.

I'm just going to go through a few of the reasons that I think secrecy is a huge problem with this bill. In doing so, I am going to refer to the letter that Mr. Loukidelis did write to the government and copied to the official opposition.

Mr. Loukidelis has pointed out to several ministers his concerns around section 36 of Bill 18, where he talks about third-party information being protected unnecessarily and adding to the scope of section 22 in the Freedom of Information Act where a trade secret may be exempt from the bill but not information regarding it.

If this bill were to pass, if regulation were to be brought in by cabinet to speak about information that was brought forward to government anytime in the future, then this would be almost nullifying. That's how I'm reading Mr. Loukidelis's letter. It would nullify the whole purpose of freedom of information in this aspect.

He says that he is aware of no credible reason why the kinds of third-party information addressed in this bill in section 36 would merit all but unprecedented protection that was contemplated originally by the section of the Freedom of Information Act. That is one of the major concerns that Mr. Loukidelis had, and he does not understand why information supplied in confidence would necessarily not be covered under that section.

Just looking through it…. He has pointed out that section 36 — he phrases it in a more concise way — makes a sweeping confidentiality. It will deny the freedom-of-information access to previously accessible corporate data, and it relates to a market that will be potentially worth hundreds of millions. That was what I was referring to earlier with the scope of this bill and the size of the industries that we are dealing with when we talk about capping emissions.

The trading part, of course, is just as important, but the meat of this bill is really the capping of emissions. That means that if I have an industry and my emissions get capped because I've used them all up in the first seven months of the year, then I have to find another industry that can give me some of their emissions to use so we don't go over a certain quota.

A lot of corporate information would be secret. That leads to, as we can all imagine, all kinds of questions that will arise out of this bill because of that one section. Even if information was supplied in confidence by the government, it might be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, but certainly it would cover any commercial, scientific, technical or financial information, which might not then fall under freedom of information.

It's an extremely broad definition for this information, with respect to a trade secret. One wonders what small amount of information might be left that actually would fall under freedom-of-information regulations. Secrecy and transparency would seem to be the areas where the government would be open to criticism on an ongoing basis about this bill — were it to pass in this form, without any public consultation with anybody from the public.

There are many, many unanswered questions from a bill with such significant stakes as this kind of bill. We have no idea, because these are the kinds of issues that will be dealt with at cabinet, as to how many permits would be issued. In other words, what would the cap be? That's the meat of it. What would be the cap? How many people would be covered under it? How many permits would be issued? What sectors are going to be covered by these regulations? One of the biggest issues here would be: how will permits be allocated?

I'm no expert in industry or in any of these issues, but I can't help but think that these permits would become some of the most valuable permits or trade issues in the province. I've lived in Trail for five years. I know a little bit about how Teck Cominco works and those kinds of issues. I'm not picking on them. I just happen to know them because I lived there.

I would assume that Teck Cominco would be a perfect candidate for a permit for cap-and-trade emissions. Now, I could be wrong. Perhaps they wouldn't be, but I'm assuming that they would be a perfect example of a rather large multinational kind of company that obviously has had problems in the past with pollution issues. That would lead me to think: carbon emissions. I mean, we don't say "pollution" anymore, it seems. But when you're talking about carbon, carbon emissions and cap-and-trade, I think you're talking about a place like Teck Cominco.

How valuable these permits will be. That's another reason why transparency and accountability become the most important order of the day. I would hope that I'm not speaking into the wind. I would hope that the members on the other side of the House would surely agree with that and would also agree that these permits will be very, very important.

Penalties. How big would penalties be? Personally — and this is just my personal opinion — I don't think a penalty could ever be big enough that it would stop a big industry like Teck Cominco from pretty much following the order of its own business.

That certainly was my experience when I lived in Trail. They would get their hands smacked all the time. We were always hearing about them getting their hands smacked because they'd dumped into the Columbia River incorrectly or had done this or the other thing. They would get their hand smacked, and they'd get a big $5,000 or $20,000 fine. I lived there in the '70s, and that was a fair chunk of money, but the next day there was another smack on the wrist.

Obviously, you've got to go so high in order to stop a huge industry of that magnitude. You've got to go so high that you probably would never go that high. I don't see penalties for non-compliance as being as big an issue to the general public in the future as the permits and the restrictions.

I think that restrictions that might be placed on alternative compliance units, the offsetting, could probably be very, very important. One thinks about the area of subsidies. That's a word that everybody gets nervous around — subsidies — or not nervous, depending on where you're coming from on any given day or who the subsidies are for.

Of course, I'm not speaking about subsidies today. Or am I? I'm not sure. Maybe cap-and-trade someday will be considered a kind of subsidy. Who knows?

Who knows where this road will take us? This is a new road, and the government may feel, because they have 11 or 12 more seats than people on this side of the House, that they know all the answers, that they know where this road is going to take us. But I don't believe they do.

I don't believe anyone in the world right now knows where this road is taking us. We do not know what is happening in the world with the environment. We are doing what we think is best. We're doing what we think is our very best, and we don't know where the road is going. So we don't know what permits will be considered in the future, and we don't know how anyone is going to feel about that.

We're very clear, as I was saying a few minutes ago — and certainly it engaged the other side when I brought up the word "subsidy," so it seems to be something that the government is very interested in…. We do know where the different people stand on subsidies and on who gets subsidies, and as we know, the two sides of the House don't always agree.

D. Thorne: We don't always agree on who should get subsidies, if anyone should get subsidies — right?

You know, I suspect — if I'm still here in three, four or five years' time — that I'll be standing up and discussing at that time permits and capping emissions and trading emissions and carbon this and carbon that. We'll be discussing it, and we'll be a little further down that road, that dark road that we can't see right now — no light down there. We're just plowing ahead and hoping we're doing the right thing.

Heaven only knows, we might all find, four years down the road, that there's a better way that we'll be discussing. Cap-and-trade will be gone, and we'll be discussing something else. We don't know because there's no light down that road. No one in the world has been down that road yet — no one.

Even the Governor of California doesn't know where that road goes, because he hasn't been down that road. He's doing what he thinks is best too. He thinks he knows the goalposts on the road, and he hopes he's doing the right thing, but none of us really know. So these are all unanswered questions. They're all unanswered questions.

I stand here today, and I wonder: what kind of government oversight will we have on a cap-and-trade system? What will that look like? What will that mean? I would suspect — as I say, the road is dark, and I can't see down the road — that the members sitting opposite from me today don't know much more about that road than I do.

This is something, because this is an enabling bill, that will get discussed at cabinet. There are a good number of cabinet ministers sitting across from me, so they're going to be in on all the discussion when the regulation comes in — when these questions that I just read out start to get answered. These are some of the people here who will be answering the questions, doing the discussion.

Whilst I believe that the members here today from the opposite side are, I'm sure — they wouldn't be sitting there if they weren't — quite capable of engaging in that discussion and coming up with what they think some of the answers might be and debating them, etc., and trying to find the goalposts and lights down that dark road…. I just think how much more illuminating, how much better for the people of British Columbia, if more people were involved in that discussion.

More ideas, more insights, more discussion — that's exactly why I support referring to an all-party committee that will not just have members from both sides but also have more of the general public, who have many ideas and good thoughts and who may in fact be the ones that would best find those goalposts and lights down the dark road that we're just starting out on.

Just because they're not elected here to the Legislature, it doesn't mean they can't participate and give us good information for the really dangerous job that we have to do with pollution issues. We're in a very dangerous position. People are looking to us to save something here, to do something good and to bring in legislation — in other words, ideas — that might work and might save us from the damage that our generation has done to the world and to British Columbia.

I can only say that I can't see the downside of it. I'm sure the members on the other side will be pleased to hear that that's pretty much all I can think of to say here at the end — that I cannot see the downside. Why would the government not want to refer this to an all-party committee? Why would they not vote for this amendment when more ideas can only be good? And why wouldn't we listen to the experts who have not been elected?

Perhaps the only reason that these experts in the general public haven't been elected is because they don't like the process. They don't want to be standing up here doing what we're doing today, but that doesn't mean they're not still going to help us to do this very important job.

D. Thorne: I think the member for Kamloops probably wants to speak when I'm done. It would appear so. I'm sure he'll stand up and, hopefully, say that he agrees with what I'm saying — that the more light we illuminate the subject with, the better we will all be in British Columbia. With that, I just once again say that I'm in full support of the amendment.

C. Trevena: I stand here to support the move to refer this bill to an all-party committee. I've got to say that I think we use the committee structure very poorly. We have the opportunity to actually move on with a lot of legislation and a lot of issues through the committee structure. This would really be a great test case to see how we can use this committee structure, because I think we all agree that cap-and-trade is one of the ways forward to deal with greenhouse gas emissions.

We, along with environmentalists and along with the government side, are all very aware that cap-and-

trade is a way that we can be working very constructively to deal with greenhouse gas emissions. So referring this bill to an all-party committee would allow us to sit down, talk together and talk as legislators in a discussion rather than in a debate where we stand up and give our point of view, and then the members of the government stand up and give their point of view — which they obviously aren't doing for their referral, but where it is opposing sides.

We can sit together, talk about these issues, hear from expert witnesses, really take it on — actually do something innovative for B.C., do politics differently in B.C., say that we have an issue that is of vital importance to all of us in this province. There's no question that climate change is an issue of vital importance, and let's deal with it as grownups.

Let's deal with it where we sit and talk it through, where we discuss it, where we hear people's opinions. We can work together so we have a bill that is complete, a bill that doesn't have what I think many people on this side of the House…. We've been discussing this for some time now. It has a number of gaps, and this is why we want to refer it to a committee.

A committee can take it on, can look at the gaps, can work out how to fill those gaps, can work out how to say: "These are the issues that we need to look at before we take it back to the House, before we vote on it." If we don't do that, I think there is going to be a perception that this is all being done in secret and that this is all being done behind closed doors, which I think would be really unfortunate for an issue that is so important as climate change, as greenhouse gas reduction.

The Minister of Health this afternoon introduced a health amendment bill. He said very clearly that he was doing it because he heard from the people of British Columbia, in the Conversation on Health, the need for transparency and the need for openness. He mentioned several times the word "transparency" and how this bill was going to improve transparency.

The government clearly has the language of transparency, but it isn't turning that language into the reality. I haven't had the opportunity yet to read that bill; it's only just been introduced in the House. But at least in this bill, that concept of transparency — the idea of openness, the idea of ensuring that there is public involvement and public understanding — isn't there.

We are seeing something that is a piece of enabling legislation. Because of that, there are things that aren't there, but it appears to this side of the House — and this is why we'd like to see this bill referred to an all-party committee — and to many outside that this is being done with a veil of secrecy. It's being done without the necessary discussion, without the opportunity to fully debate the issues, without the opportunity to hear who is actually being consulted on some of the things.

As I go on with my remarks, I'll go into this a bit more, but we're talking about the level of emissions that any one sector or one company will be able to have. In basic language, with emissions we're talking about pollution, so we're saying how much pollution a sector can have. We want to make sure that we are very fully aware of who is being involved in the consultations in saying that.

We want to break away from this real veil of secrecy. We really need transparency. The words have been said so often by the government — the concept of transparency. We need to have that transparency in reality, not just in words. It has been said many times in the course of the last three years that the government had said that it was going to be the most open government and the most transparent government. We see more and more often that there is less transparency and that we really don't know what's going on.

Even the climate action secretariat is a concept which is really very interesting. You're going to bring together very bright minds to discuss climate change. The fact that that is not within the realms of freedom of information, again, is a real concern. One has to ask oneself: what has the government got to be afraid of? This is something we all want to see. We all want to see that climate change is tackled. We all want to find the best way of tackling climate change. So how are we going to do it?

It's not going to be done through being secret. It's not going to help anyone. It's not going to help the people of B.C. It's not going to help the initiatives that the government is involved with, and it's not going to really help the greater issue, which is the issue of climate change. We are in a situation where we have some very groundbreaking legislation, potentially, in front of us. We've got the fuel tax, the carbon tax legislation. We've got this legislation. We've got legislation that is dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. We've got legislation that's dealing with climate change.

But twice now, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, an independent body of the B.C. Legislature, has had to write to ministers responsible to say that they are being too secret.

In the case of Bill 16, which I spoke against because I was very concerned about the use of biofuels and ethanol — the use of food for fuel — the independent Privacy Commissioner wrote to the Minister of Energy and Mines. For this case, the Information and Privacy Commissioner has written to the Minister of Environment saying that the bill would be at odds with the policy reflected in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

This is very concerning, when we have an independent body writing to the minister and saying: "You are potentially contravening an act. You are potentially contravening the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act."

I would hope that alone would encourage the government members to support our motion to refer and say: "Okay, we've been warned. It could be a bit dicey here. Let's make sure that we're all quite comfortable with it. Let's take it out of this chamber, take it to a committee for a while, sit down and talk it through. As we talk it through, let's make sure we get it right." This

We're talking about greenhouse gas emissions. We're talking about our future. We're talking about the future not just of our province, not just of our friends. We're talking about the future of the planet. That's why we have to get it right. That's why it's important to be hearing as many opinions as possible. That's why it's important that we are part of the western climate initiative.

Bravo for that, but there is very little point of doing these things if you are going to do them all in secret, if you're going to be giving the House, elected representatives, a piece of legislation — as we are seeing in Bill 18, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act — which is so thin and leaves so many questions unanswered.

We really don't know enough about what is in this bill to be able to move forward on it, and that's why we need to refer it. We need to be able to take it out so we can flesh it out. We need to be able to put it with a committee so that committee can do an extraordinary thing for the B.C. political system. It can sit down and talk constructively about how we can move on and fill in some of those gaps.

At the moment it's an enabling bill which hands the authority to fill in those gaps simply to cabinet. Much as I respect members opposite as honourable members who have been elected by their constituents, cabinet is not necessarily the best place to be filling in the blanks on a piece of legislation which is so important — on the cap-and-trade bill. I really am not certain that the Minister of Environment with the Minister of Energy and Mines and the Minister of State for Mining would be among the best people that should be filling in all those blanks.

We don't know who is being consulted to get those blanks filled in. One of the very simple things that is missing in this bill, which is quite extraordinary…. We're talking about cap-and-trade. As my colleagues say, for those who just tuned in, cap-and-trade is a system of putting a cap on emissions to allow companies to trade pollution credits to meet that cap. So it is a way of using the market and innovation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce pollution, to reduce those gases that are damaging the environment.

That's another issue. It doesn't actually say which emissions are going to be targeted, but I will move on to that.

It's a system that uses market forces. It isn't saying autocratically: "This is what we want." It's not the government coming down. It will allow industry to use market forces to reduce their emissions, but we don't know by what level they should reduce their emissions. We don't know what the cap is. I would have thought this would be one of the simple fundamentals.

I did get the bill, like we all did. I flicked through it quickly, sort of like: "Okay, where's the magic figure? Are we going to be able to support that magic figure? Will it be too low? A bit worried it's going to be too low…." We go through it, and it's not there at all. There isn't a figure. There isn't a magic figure there.

The Pembina Institute has suggested that the figure should be 33 percent below the levels of 2007 by the year 2020. This might be the right figure. This might be too generous. It might be too harsh, but we don't know. We don't have a figure to compare it to. We have not been given a figure. As I say, it is one of those surprising blanks that really does need to be filled in before we can move on with the rest of the debate on this bill. We can't debate the bill if we don't know what the cap is going to be. Really, it's blindfolding us. It's expecting us to make wild guesses when we're having the discussion. I would hope it would be a discussion.

On the very fundamental reason that we don't know what the level is going to be, should we be saying: "Let's take it out, sit down and talk about it"? That's why I would hope that the members opposite, the government members, would look at that and say: "Oh, that's true. If we don't know what the cap is, yeah, let's go back and work out what that cap should be and what the target should be and sit down and have the discussion about this." I hope to see them voting in support of it.

One of the other glaring omissions in this bill, as well as not saying what the level of cap is going to be, is that it doesn't actually mention what sectors are involved. It doesn't say which of the bad guys are going to be targeted. Is it going to be a blanket brush? Is it going to be everybody, or is it going to be just the aviation industry?

We know the aviation industry is a massive polluter. Is it going to say: "Okay. WestJet, Air Canada, Pacific Coastal, all the airlines, you are the target. You are the ones we are going to be asking to reduce emissions"? Or is it going to be broad-based? Is it going to include all industry in B.C.?

We don't know what is involved, what sectors are involved, which industries — whether it's just going to be the top ten. If it's the top ten, that includes, I've got to say, the co-gen plant in Campbell River. So it's going to have an impact on my community, on how that plant works on the way forward there.

There is so little detail here. We are giving over these questions to the cabinet, to the executive council, to decide. The executive council may be able to be well informed on this and may bring in its experts, but it would be very nice to know, before we actually are asked to vote on it, what is involved and what impacts the cap is going to have on what industries.

It really is of great concern that we're just being given this, and they're saying, as one of my colleagues said: "Trust us. Here we are. Trust us." I think we really need to have a reasoned discussion. If we don't — and this may be completely wrong — people are going to assume that the government is going to go to its friends and say: "We'll do a bit of bartering here. How much do you want? How much do you want? Okay. You're going to be exempt. We like you. We don't like you."

We would hope, of course, that they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't just go to their friends and make sure their friends were okay and that levels were set which would suit the industries that were clearly in support of them. We would hope that wouldn't be the case.

But without having that discussion, without being able to take it to a committee and saying: "Let's have an open discussion. Yes, let's hear from industry. Let's hear from environmentalists. Let's hear from local authorities. Let's hear from a wide range of sectors, a wide range of people about what will work, which industries should be involved, what should the cap be…." Instead we get something that is very sadly lacking.

Another big gap, because this is a market-driven way of dealing with emissions, is that there are no details on the permits. This is all done on a permit basis. The industry gets permits. It's allowed so many permits, and it can trade permits. But we don't know how those permits will be allocated — again, another big question mark for a piece of legislation that is using the market to drive it.

We don't know how the market is going to be impacted by this. We don't know what those permits are going to be, how they're going to be allocated or what requirements there are going to be. Will companies be able to bid on them? Will there be an auction?

It's quite extraordinary that the government just says again, "Trust us. We know that we can do it. The cabinet can set it. We'll be fine. Leave it to us, and then, of course, the market will decide" — which is part of the cap-and-trade system.

Like the permits, we don't know what the penalties will be. There will be penalties for those companies that do not meet the emission targets. It's a carrot-and-stick approach.

Another thing that we have to expect the executive council to say: "We'll fix it. Don't worry. We're going to be talking to people. We know what we'll be doing, what the penalties are going to be." Are they going to be very big, or are they going to be tokens? How will they be enforced?

I mean, this is one thing that we've seen time and again over the last seven years of this government — the fact that enforcement often comes from the industry. We're seeing more and more the concept of self-policing and that it's the responsibility of the industry to look after itself.

I represent an area where there's a lot of aquaculture, and the fish farm industry is largely self-policing. Is this going to be the solution for cap-and-trade under the B.C. government model? Is it going to be that industry is going to be self-policing? We don't know. We really don't know.

Again, because it's enabling legislation, we don't know how the penalties will be enforced, what the penalties will be or how big they'll be — whether they will be token, whether they will be big or whether it will actually make a difference on that level. You want to make sure the stick is big enough so that the carrot should be more tempting than the stick. We don't know what the mechanism for oversight is going to be or how they will be self-policing.

We need to have enforcement. We need to have rigorous enforcement, particularly when we're talking about cap-and-trade. If we don't talk about rigorous enforcement for this, it really negates the process. If we're just saying, "Well, it's okay. You're going to be fine. You've done your deals; you've done your trades. You know what your emissions levels are going to be. Go to it, and we will let you at it, and you just tell us if it's all okay," that's going to really undermine the whole emissions process. It's going to mean that we're going to have continued….

I know there will be certain industries that will work very hard, but there will be certain industries that will think they can get away with it. It's inevitable. There's always going to be some that are going to say: "We'll try and get away with it." So we really need to make sure there is a serious level of enforcement. That requires oversight, and that is not here in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act. We don't see it. Again, it's: "Trust us."

This act is a really fundamental act. It is going to have a huge impact on B.C. and, hopefully, on the country. I would hope that the government realizes the import of this act. This is why we do need to take it off the table here and refer it to committee. The import of the act….

We are going to be asking industry and sectors of industry to reduce emissions. Reducing emissions is going to mean that they are going to have to change the way they do business. I would assume that the government side would understand that when you are asking an industry, a sector, to change the way it does business, this is a ground shift. We are going to be seeing an enormous change in the way that industry does business — again, without having the debate here.

We all know that we need a strong economy. We all know that we want to have a B.C. where wealth is shared, where there is an equitable distribution on a solid economic base. But to have a solid economic base when you are having a major shift, as this will be is….

If I were working in industry, I would be very worried by this. I would be very worried that I would be going into an unknown without details, which might have fundamentally changed the way I have to do business, with government again saying: "Trust me."

As we move forward through the ways that we deal with climate change, we are going to see a shift in the way we live and work. We have to. It's the only way that we are actually going to reduce emissions. The only way we're going to reduce greenhouse gases is if we all take the responsibility — if industry takes the responsibility, if government takes the responsibility and if individuals take the responsibility to actually act. It's going to mean a major change in the way we live.

Yeah, we've got the fuel tax. We're going to be seeing a lot fewer people driving. We're going to be seeing a lot more use of public transit. We've already got the issues of food security. There is going to be a big change in the way that we live as we go through this century.

Here we are at the beginning of the century. I mean, this is really laying a foundation to be tackling climate change, to be tackling greenhouse gases. That foundation should really be built on something solid, not

something that is so insubstantial as the act. I say "insubstantial," because we don't know what is going into it. That is why we need to take it out of this realm, have a discussion and see what's going to go into it.

The future will be different. We need to have a sustainable future, and "sustainable" is the catchword. It's the word that everybody is using. The government uses it; we use it. It's an easy phrase these days. But that also means a sustainable economy. It means that we have to have an understanding of how we get there.

As I say, this is too thin to allow us to have that comfort zone, and I think it's too thin to allow industry to have that comfort zone. In fact, frankly, I'm surprised that the government hasn't had lots of calls from industry saying: "Look, we would like a few more details too. We do have trust in you, but we would like a few more details. We'd like to see what they are so that we can actually plan a bit."

What we are asking isn't revolutionary. We're asking something that's very simple. Coming from the British parliamentary system, I grew up watching the House of Commons where the Commons has a very successful committee system. The House of Commons in Britain has a very successful committee system where you can sit down and actually discuss issues, where you can take it out where there is a full debate. You can take it where it isn't just one side of the House standing up and then the other side of the House standing up, wondering whether one side is listening to the other. Take it to an area where you can actually have a real debate and where the details can be filled in.

We have mentioned on this side of the House several times what our party…. The NDP's standing committee on environment and the economy has a document, Sustainable B.C., where it's looking at the issues of sustainability, of how we move forward.

One of the elements of that, as well as looking at the broader issues of what sustainability means, what resilience means — how we are going to actually create a future that is a real future for all of us, not just for some, but is a just future…. It's got a section, and one of the elements that underpins it is the concept of democracy and due process. If we want to be sustainable as a province and we want to move forward as a province, we've got to have that commitment to democracy and to due process.

This, again, is why we need to take this out to a committee, because that is due process. It's due process to refer it from this House to a full committee where we can actually discuss it, where we can get the people presenting to it and where we can hear the alternatives.

At the moment we have our committee stage when we debate the bill and where it is going line by line, but that's not a discussion. That's not where we can hear the witnesses. It's not where we can get a fuller conversation about what we want to see for greenhouse gas reduction.

B.C. is part of the western climate initiative. It involves western states and involves, I believe, Manitoba as well. That initiative is moving quite fast. It's moving on these issues, but it hasn't actually resolved some of the issues that we are being asked to support. What we're going to see is that the western climate initiative will come up with its recommendations at the end, and B.C. will, through this piece of legislation, sign on to their recommendations without us having the chance to see those recommendations.

Because there is so little meat to this bill, because there are so many fundamental issues for our future and because the committee system actually works and is a way of really doing the business of the people of B.C. effectively, efficiently, fairly and democratically, I would ask all members of this House to support this move to refer this bill to a committee, and do it as swiftly as possible so that we can get on with this very fundamental issue.

S. Fraser: I will be speaking to the amendment. That's on second reading of Bill 18, for those who are new to the gallery or those that are just tuning in. Bill 18 is the cap-and-trade bill that was introduced, and we've made it to second reading.

Here we are. We have a referral motion. I should take a step back for those that have just tuned in, as I mentioned. Cap-and-trade is probably an initiative that everyone understands is supportable. The theory of cap-and-trade has been acceptable to members on all sides of the House and those concerned with leaving a legacy to future generations — a very fundamental legacy, I would suggest — of survival of the planet, an atmosphere that sustains life. It's very basic, and probably no other issue is more important.

Cap-and-trade is an integral part of any climate change plan. The government members and the Premier, certainly, are probably late in recognizing the issue. There was a lot of denial initially over the years with this government around climate change, the Kyoto protocol and such. That being said, credit where credit is due. There's been an acknowledgment that something needs to be done.

The cap-and-trade bill, Bill 18, which the referral motion is talking about, should be a supportable one. However, the referral bill was deemed necessary, and I support it. It's got to do with how a simple and supportable bill was handled and managed by the government.

Bill 18, in its essence, needs to be transparent. It has to be done in the most open and accountable way. I know those are words that the government members and the Premier throw around a lot. The action in Bill 18 and other actions of the government do not reflect the premises of transparency — not the way I read them — or accountability.

I actually went to the point of looking up "transparency" so that I had this right. Wikipedia — I've used that before in this House. It's a quick place to get a generally accepted definition. Transparency, of course, can have many different meanings. As it speaks to humanities — I think it's the appropriate one here — it's about openness, it's about communication, and it's about accountability.

Before I go further, having openness, accountability and communications is essential when it comes to fighting the scourge of climate change, and the public must be an active participant from the beginning. As critic for Aboriginal Relations, I know and have learned that consultation is essential to have buy-in from all sides. Coming in at the end of the day with a solution or a plan that did not incorporate adequate consultation can doom even the best plans.

In the interests of saving the planet, if you will — and I don't think that's overstating it — our role as legislators with cap-and-trade legislation in this case, if it's going to be successful, must be communicated, open and accountable — the definition of transparency.

Very concerning was the letter sent by Mr. Loukidelis, the Information and Privacy Commissioner responsible for freedom of information. This doesn't happen very often. A quote from his letter to the Minister of Environment, just one section, says:

The Privacy Commissioner has stated very, very clearly that this act is fraught with problems because it is everything but transparent. Again, the definition of transparency is openness, communication and accountability.

It's not just the issue of whether or not the public can see what's happening here or take part in what's happening and be part of the solution and have buy-in to that solution — because I think, at the end of the day, cap-and-trade will affect all of us; we'll all have to pay for that in one way or another — but there is a lot of money at stake.

Part of cap-and-trade…. Essentially, the metaphor would be that the cap is the stick part of the legislation in Bill 18, and trade is the carrot, if I can just explain that quickly — the cap being a cap on emissions. That's a costly thing, potentially, for industry and for companies that have levied a cap under this legislation, although that isn't clear the way it is written.

The other side of that is that if a business strives for and is successful at reducing its rate to come under the cap, if they can make changes that leave them an excess, they can trade that. So there is a profit that can be had. While cap-and-trade is essentially quite an intangible concept, the fact is that there's a lot of money at stake. There is a lot of profit that can be made, and any time that that is the case, it is essential for any government to ensure that there is full public scrutiny of that process. That isn't happening here. It's not just the members from the opposition stating that. That's from the Privacy Commissioner.

If this isn't transparent — which it is not, obviously — then the next thing Bill 18 could be would be translucent. Translucency has a different definition. It is, essentially, diffuse. Arguably, this is a diffuse piece of legislation that is being proposed by the government side, but "diffuse" means you can sort of see what's happening but just not the clear images of it. This is not about translucency. It's not transparent, and translucency doesn't go as far.

I had to go to Wikipedia, and "opacity" is another term. We have sort of a linear range from transparency through translucency to opacity. Opacity, according to Wikipedia, means that it reflects, scatters or absorbs. That sounds more to the point of Bill 18 and the way it's been designed by this government.

I must say that it's interesting, because there's a certain irony in the further explanation that Wikipedia gives opacity. It says: "Both mirrors and carbon black are opaque." Carbon is used as an example of something that's opaque. Of course, we are dealing with carbon credits in this legislation, potentially, and carbon is a big part of that.

I just noted that there's a strange irony here. Wikipedia also said that heavy smoke is opaque. It suggests that both mirrors and carbon black are opaque and that heavy smoke is opaque, so now we have another irony. We have mirrors and smoke, or smoke and mirrors, as a part of what we're seeing with the legislation being brought forward by this government. If managed properly and designed properly by government, it should be something that's eminently supportable by both sides of the House.

They dropped the ball on this one, because opacity is the wrong way to go when dealing with our future and the future we're leaving to generations ahead of us. The bill itself needs to be referred to a committee of the Legislature. This is certainly not precedent-setting. This is one of those cases where both sides of the House and the public themselves should be part of that discussion, part of the solution and also part of the buy-in of that solution.

The legislative committees that we've seen here are set up in a way that is non-partisan, in theory, but they are involving both sides of the House. They are also done on the formal record of Hansard. Therefore, they are accessible to the public. Therefore, they move what this government has proposed as an opaque piece of legislation to a transparent piece of legislation through the realms, in a way, of translucency, which was in the middle.

There's a great deal of wisdom in having this referred to committee, which is why I'm supporting the referral amendment. If we can involve all sides of

the House in part of the solution in an open and transparent way, then the public can be assured, because the check and balance is there, opposition and government.

The check and balance are there to ensure that there are no other motives for the decisions being made and for the recommendations that are going to come forward from what is now an opaque, dark and murky process where the public has been excluded. The opposition certainly has been excluded from opposing or supporting, because we've been kept in the dark in that opaque place that I refer to, as opposed to being transparent.

In Bill 18 we MLAs from both sides of the House are being asked to give the cabinet huge power, massive power, to impose rules that can be of benefit or cause great hardship to businesses, companies, corporations and communities in B.C. So to have buy-in from the public and from business, it is essential that this be done in an open and transparent way.

Now, there might be other ways to make this an open and transparent process — probably bringing a bill forward that was better thought-out than Bill 18, maybe not in its goals but in its principles and how it is to be forwarded through a process which, through this government, is anything but transparent and in no way inclusive.

The stakes are significant in the cap-and-trade process that's being proposed. There are billions of dollars at stake. Any time that you look at the chance for a government to have, maybe, its decision-making swayed by interests that support a party…. It is not in the interests of any government or any party to have the spectre of influence from outside leading to policy positions.

Now, we saw this spectre. I'm not going to make an accusation, but a coincidence…. We saw large donations from forest giants going to the Liberal Party, and we saw huge tracts of lands removed from tree farm licences, against even ministries' own internal reports and recommendations.

It does not look as though it has integrity when that happens. Even if there was no mistaken motives for the decisions being made and even if it's a coincidence that massive amounts of money have traded hands here in that situation — even if that's all a coincidence — the appearance brings a cloud to the process.

So it's in the government's interest to open this process up, and it's not my opinion solely. Certainly, the opposition takes that position. But we are agreeing with an independent oversight from Mr. Loukidelis in this case, whose letter to the minister…. It was dated April 4. So this is very current. I note also that David Loukidelis, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, cc'd that to us — to our opposition critic. He wanted us to know about his concerns.

As a member of the opposition, I'm certainly doing my part to raise those concerns. It is what we're supposed to do as opposition. But it shouldn't take the opposition members here repeatedly telling the government side that they should listen and heed the advice of the Information Commissioner.

A legislative committee is the referral motion. We bring Bill 18 and the issue of cap-and-trade to a legislative committee, a special committee that could engage the public, engage business, engage NGOs and the environmental community in what should be a good-news story, where we're all working for the same goal — to provide a healthy environment and atmosphere for future generations. A wonderful opportunity was lost by this government by not making this process transparent.

There are other legislative committees, as I said. This is not precedent-setting. To have cap-and-trade, Bill 18…. To have the discussions and the planning around how to implement that done at legislative committee is similar to other things. We've had a special committee that the Premier called and empowered, a legislative committee — both sides of the House — dealing with sustainable aquaculture. Now, truly, there's a problem there on the 55 recommendations, I believe, that we came up with for that committee.

The member for Nanaimo-Parksville made comments a couple weeks ago in the press, saying that those recommendations likely are going to be ignored. I guess having a legislative committee involved, if it's going to be ignored, is not wise. I don't believe it was wise for the government and the minister responsible to ignore those recommendations. So that's not the model I'm….

It is the model I am referring to of a legislative committee, but how it's dealt with in a meaningful way from the government side would have to be addressed. They would have to not have a special committee put forward here to address the importance of cap-and-trade. That would have to actually be listened to. I think it would be important.

Those recommendations involve the public. Certainly, with the Special Committee on Aquaculture there were thousands of submissions from individuals and groups. So it is unfortunate that the government has chosen to just ignore those recommendations — also very costly. I don't know what it cost for that committee to sit and do its travelling and take submissions from the public. Hansard was involved. They travelled with the committee. It's pretty cavalier for any government to just ignore that stuff.

Our idea in this amendment would be to involve the public by involving both sides of the House in a legislative committee. The way that the New Democrats would foresee that committee acting is that its submissions and recommendations made would actually be listened to by government and the minister. You'd think that would not have to be nailed down and verbalized because it's a pretty basic no-brainer, if you will, that a committee's work should be heeded. Obviously, this government doesn't quite see it that way.

The proposal in this amendment is to move this important piece of legislation, which is — I mean, based on the legislation as it stands — premature at best. The government has not prepared this legislation

It's a very difficult thing to vote on as MLAs, I would suggest, from any side of the House — to vote on a piece of legislation, enabling legislation, that doesn't really give any answers. It just raises more question marks. That's a problem because you don't really know what you're voting for. Now, if we were voting for a process that was going to continue on in a transparent way, well, then I think that that would be something that we could probably give some leeway to, but that's not what we have here.

What we do have is the amendment, which corrects that mistake made by government, a very fundamental mistake, to do this all in secrecy, to have an opaque process as compared to a transparent process.

The type of legislation which is enabling, as I mentioned, for the cap-and-trade system leaves all aspects of the future regime to deal with that in the hands of cabinet. We also heard about the open cabinet meetings. Well, we know what happened to those. The public needs to have the assurance that they can see what's happening and that they can also see if there are caps levied on certain industries or not levied on certain industries. This is important.

If they're not levied on certain industries and we, the public and the opposition, can't see the rationale for those decisions, it will cause suspicion, and suspicion will cause the public to lose faith in the credibility of the recommendations. The public and the opposition may well surmise that something other than protecting the environment and the atmosphere is at play when exceptions are made with some groups, with some industries, especially with a government that solicits and certainly makes a point of receiving large amounts of money as contributions. When that happens, the public sees that as there might be some expectation of some quid pro quo.

Whether that's true or not, whether that's really happening, the spectre of that is there. If we have it cast doubt on a valuable piece of legislation, so valuable a piece of legislation for our future generations, then the government must be aware of that. Assuming that they are, that suspicion from the public could lead to a dismantling of the recommendations or a failure of people to buy in. That would be tragic because in theory this is a piece of legislation, Bill 18, that both sides of the House should be able to support.

We've seen just recently what's happening with the proposed gas tax. Again, both sides of the House, all members in the House can agree that a carbon tax is also an essential piece. It's part of the puzzle — cap-and-trade being one, carbon tax being the other. But bringing in a gas tax that was done, again, in an opaque way, arrived at opaquely instead of transparently — if those are the right terms, and based on Wikipedia, I think they are the right terms — that's led to certainly a cause for great concern amongst many sectors.

In rural communities, I've certainly heard a great concern that the gas tax as proposed, not as a carbon tax…. They don't see that as part of the solution. They see that as an unfair tax or a money grab in areas that have no options or have a climate that requires more heating or where no buses or public transit are available. They're seeing themselves as being targeted unfairly. That didn't necessarily have to happen. This government could have involved the public in those discussions.

Now, I know the members opposite, many of them will have heard these concerns, not just from rural communities, but from businesses, from school districts, from hospitals. There's been an increased cost due to a carbon tax called a gas tax that is not being accounted for in budget and that is going to cause hardship and cuts to services.

Again, you make decisions in a siloed way, this government does, that is not inclusive. That's problematic, and it just doesn't make sense. And it certainly doesn't make good government. Secrecy is a problem with this government. In this instance, in dealing with cap-and-trade, this government should rise above that secrecy.

Now, I mean, we're in a process right now where we're not doing estimates in this House. We have less than 100 hours of estimates. The most important scrutiny in the province for overseeing budget is the estimates process. The public relies on us, the opposition, to do that job. Instead of 160 hours left, we have less than 100 hours left in that process. A conscious decision made by this government — the opposite of transparency, the Wikipedia definition of opacity. I'd be generous. I'd go translucent, but translucent means diffuse, and this isn't diffuse. This is opaque, according to Wikipedia.

Questions will be asked, when some day decisions are made about who gets what cap and what industries get the potential for billions of dollars at stake with the cap-and-trade method here that could be brought forward. The public will be asking: why did one sector get this cap? Why did another sector get consideration? Was there favouritism?

As I've mentioned, even if there wasn't overt graft, the fact that this is done behind closed doors with no public consultation, no ability for the loyal opposition to be able to do their job and their scrutiny, the check and balance that the parliamentary system requires, no ability for that to happen, the public will ask those questions. They will be rightly skeptical.

And you know what? We do not need scepticism. We need pragmatic action when it comes to dealing with climate change.

I mentioned before that the legislation as proposed, Bill 18, raises more questions than it does answers. As much as we on this side like the idea of moving forward with cap-and-trade, to do so the way Bill 18 is laid out is fraught with problems. Raising these issues about transparency is essential for us in the opposition to do, because it reflects our concern that the government's management and handling of this bill will lead to failure and not lead to the solution that future generations, our children and their children, deserve.

The legislation doesn't say how the caps will be allocated or where they'll be allocated. We're being

asked to vote on this. There should have been some discussion about that. There should be a venue of discussion for that, Madam Speaker, and that's where the amendment bill comes in. Amending the bill to send it to committee would allow that discussion to happen in an open and public way. I think it would go a long way towards mitigating the suspicions that will come out of the opaque process about who gets what and why.

At the end of the day going to committee will answer, certainly, a question about how the caps will be allocated. Will these caps come in by sector? Will they come in by company? How will that be decided? Again, this is being done behind closed doors against the explicit recommendations and concerns raised by the Privacy Commissioner.

So who is the Privacy Commissioner? The Privacy Commissioner plays an essential role in this place. It doesn't matter who is in the government seats and who is in the opposition seats. The Privacy Commissioner has a role to play to protect the public. To protect the public is not just about perception, although in this case, it's perception and reality. By exempting portions of Bill 18 from the Freedom of Information Act, we are dooming this process.

H. Bains: I also rise to speak in favour of this, in my view, very wise attempt to refer this Bill 18 for more discussion so that an all-party committee can look at what's behind this bill, how it will affect the citizens of this province and what kinds of ramifications it will leave if it's implemented as it is laid out before us.

I think it's a noble idea to have both parties engaged on an issue, on legislation that will have enormous effects on how we conduct ourselves as citizens, how our industry operates in this province and how it affects our health as citizens of this province. I think that for that reason we should not be rushing into any piece of legislation that has those kinds of effects on our lives.

I don't want to talk about whether this bill goes far enough or doesn't go far enough. I think I'll leave that for another time. But I do want to make a statement that I think we are all starting to realize that we do need to deal with the climate change issue.

I think this side of the House is fully committed. We actually mean what we say. We do want to deal with climate change issues. We're on record; this party is on record. They have been the champion of dealing with environmental issues over the years.

I know that the Premier came on board, although very late, perhaps for political reasons. Perhaps he's starting to see the light. Nonetheless, when you see a Premier of this province who never talked about…. I think the environment wasn't part of his vocabulary only six months ago, or prior to that. He's starting to talk about issues that are pertaining to the environment and how we deal with that in this House. I think that is a good start, in my view. Finally, somebody is starting to pay attention.

So we are all actually trying to deal with this issue of climate change. Not only do we need to deal with that here — to set an example for others and so that we don't simply do lip service — we are actually trying to practice what we say so that we can go outside to the rest of the world and say: "Look, you need to deal with your issues as well in those countries." The environment is such that you can't put walls around your countries, your provinces or your houses. What we do here affects the citizens across the globe, and vice versa. I think we need to be cognizant of that fact. Therefore, we all must be dealing with this issue seriously.

We must commit our resources, attention and energy towards this, because we owe it to our children. We want to make sure that we leave our province and this world a little bit better than what we inherited from our parents and grandparents. I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done when it comes to the environmental issues of the day.

Having said that, I think this bill will have, like I said, an enormous impact on our lives if you allow it to go through. Therefore, we should take a second sober look. We need to do that so that both parties of this House can go around and engage the citizens of this province, engage the industry, engage those who work in those industries. How will it affect them, their jobs, that industry? How will it, in fact, impact our environment, and therefore, how will it impact our health and the well-being of our citizens?

All of that is common sense. All we're talking about is common sense — to go and consult those citizens who will be affected by the legislation that we would be voting on here. What's wrong with that? I don't see why anyone on that side of the House would object to that notion.

I see a minister and the members of the government on the other side continually trying to say: "No, we want to bamboozle this bill through. There's no way that we are going to go and talk to the citizens of this province. There is no way that we're going to talk to the workers and their representatives."

They're all concerned. They do care about their environment. They do want to make changes and make sure that we deal with the climate change that we're facing right now, but they are concerned how it will affect them. All they need is a voice. They want someone to go and talk to. I think government owes it to them, and we owe it to them, to make sure we listen to them so that we don't make decisions in these walls and just leave the vast majority of the public out there. I think that is the wrong thing to do, and I don't think we should allow that to happen here.

When you are drawing attention from important people like David Loukidelis, who is concerned…. He is a person who is making sure that the government's information — or the decisions made in government ministries and at other places in the government — is available to the public so that the public knows exactly

In fact, he wrote a letter to the minister. I will read for the record the letter that Mr. Loukidelis has written to the minister.

There is a serious concern exposed by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia. I don't think we should take this letter and not pay enough attention to this or take this letter lightly, because the implications are enormous if we do that.

As we know, we're talking about enhancing democracy. People have been talking, over the last few years, of a democratic deficit that exists in this province and also in this country — and, actually, all across democratic governments across this world.

I think what the referral does is that we are trying to enhance democracy. We're trying to engage the public, which is part of having a strong democracy at work. As you know, over the years there has been a desire by the public to have the government more open, more accountable and more transparent, and that, therefore, is why we have the legislation that came before us, such as freedom of information, which was brought by the previous governments. I might add that it was this party that brought that legislation for the purpose of making the government more accountable, open and transparent.

This Premier actually campaigned that this government will be the most open and most transparent in the country, but it became the most secretive government that I have come across. Here's another example that if you don't agree with the referral, if you don't engage both parties, if you don't engage the public, if you don't engage industry or the workers who work there or citizens who live around those industries, you are actually choking the very basic fundamentals around democracy.

I think there are other examples. It is becoming a trademark for this government to continue to be secretive, to make decisions behind closed doors and to leave the public out, to leave the workers out, except a select few — the folks that they simply want to work with. Those are their friends, and those are the people

they actually can count on during the election campaigns. Those are the folks who actually come to their aid when it comes to the election campaign funding. Here's another example, I think, of how this government can actually go back and pay back those folks who actually have been supporting them by not allowing the rest of the province to engage them in discussions about this bill.

This question that keeps on coming back to my mind, ever since this bill was introduced and when my very capable critic actually brought a referral motion, is: why would anyone oppose this referral motion? Why would anyone say no to public consultation? Why would anyone say no to the workers who will be affected by the changes that we are talking about through this legislation?

I think it is a dangerous, dangerous precedent that we are setting when we make decisions behind closed doors and continue to keep the public in the dark, continue to keep the industry and the workers in the dark. I think there are a lot of other people, not just this side of the House, that are opposed to just moving ahead without consultation. There are number of other third-party people who are concerned about this.

I just mentioned that the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner is very much concerned. Then there is Mr. Darrell Evans, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. This is what he had to say. "Yet another attempt by the Liberals to place corporate information behind an iron curtain" — a very, very concerned person. I think he should be concerned, and so are we. The public should be concerned. He went on to say: "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 whenever public work is done and taxpayer funds are spent."

How could you disagree with that? That's the question. How could you disagree with that? And here, from the media, Stephen Hume said: "What worries Loukidelis and should concern the rest of us are the sweeping confidentiality concessions offered private corporations that might benefit hugely from selling carbon credits acquired by meeting emission targets." April 9, 2008, in The Vancouver Sun. "Hide from public scrutiny the details of who is reaching what target and how emissions are monitored, and the process seems ripe for abuse by the unscrupulous." April 9, 2008, The Vancouver Sun.

The list goes on. There are many others who are showing the same concern that this side of the House is showing, that the industry is showing and that the workers are showing, but this government has continued to say that they're not listening. Now, that is a shame.

Here's someone from the industry, Dave Price, VP, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. "We are a growing industry in British Columbia, and we are being encouraged by the province to take steps to grow. So we need to see how the system builds in that fact and builds in competitiveness of the industry so that it does allow it to grow."

You take a look at a wide spectrum of folks who are really concerned about the bills that are before us, and I think what this referral does is ask the government to take a second sober look. Go and consult those people who will be affected by this. Now, what is wrong with that? I don't understand why anyone from the government side would not agree to that very simple, basic, fundamental principle of our democracy.

I think there are a lot of questions that are unanswered. Even if you simply talk about the bill, there are many unanswered questions. Until those questions are answered, how do you say yes or no to this bill? It's very difficult. That's why, if we allow this bill to go out and allow people to participate so that we can learn from what concerns they may have, then we could fix those concerns so that they would benefit. The industry would benefit and make sure that it is efficient, that it is environmentally friendly, that it is not polluting our air and water, that the workers are not losing their jobs and that the communities that live around it live healthy lives. So I think it only makes sense that we go back and talk to those folks.

Now, there are many concerns, many questions, when we talk about cap-and-trade. This bill will give enormous powers to the cabinet. They're the ones who could decide when and how to come up with a cap, but how do you know that that is the right thing to do? I think those are some of the questions that need to be answered before we say: "Yes. Go ahead and do it."

It's a huge mistake if you continue on this path, to continue to say no to consultation, to continue to say that the public doesn't matter and continue to say that you know best, that the cabinet knows best, and that you will come up with all of the answers, whether you like it or not.

I think that is a basic, fundamental mistake that we can make in a democracy. We shouldn't allow that to happen. As long as I stand here, along with my colleagues on this side, we will fight tooth and nail to make sure that democracy prevails, that the public will have input, that the industry has a say and that we all decide what is right and what is wrong — not just few folks, a few elites, going around the cabinet table and deciding what's good for you. That's not going to happen. That's not democracy, and that's not transparency. That's not openness, as the public desires to have in government these days.

I think, also, that when we go back to folks to talk about this, there are many things that we can talk to them about and get their advice on. I think it's a shame that that opportunity is not offered by this government, and I think that's why it's a really, really sad affair if the government side does not go along with this referral.

Now, this bill has left many unanswered questions, as I said before. I know that my colleague from Vancouver-Hastings brought those out in his speech, and he actually enlightened many of us on the real

issues behind this bill. We're really thankful to our member for Vancouver-Hastings for enlightening us. Hopefully, the folks on the other side also listened. I'm sure some of them who were here listened and were paying attention, and hopefully, they will vote with their conscience, rather than….

Maybe this is a time to break away from the caucus unity on that side. I'll see how many of them actually are serious about dealing with climate change and if they have the courage to stand up to the Premier and say: "Look, we need to go back to the public. We need to get their opinion. We need to see how it affects their lives."

Now, if we are able to do that, there are many unanswered questions that we can have answered, such as: how many permits will be issued, and what is the cap? How do you decide that? How can someone sit around a cabinet table and decide that? Those answers lie out there in the industry where people are actually working. They know what it takes. But I think the government is telling them: "We'll tell you what's good for you." They think that's what democracy is all about. "You elect us. We'll make decisions for you, and there's no way we're going to come back and consult you, although it affects you negatively."

What sectors will be covered by regulations? That question still needs to be answered, and we don't know that. Again, through this bill, the cabinet is saying: "We'll tell you." But the public has no input, and that is a shame.

How will those permits be allocated? How do we know that? How do we measure the pollution coming out of a factory? How do you do that? Are you going to go around and put meters around those chimneys or their exhaust pipes? Those are the questions. They're legitimate questions that the public needs to have answers on. The only way to do that is if you go and give them the opportunity and ask those questions and the minister stands up and answers those questions before you put them in the legislation.

How big will the penalty be for non-compliance? Again, no one has any input. No one is asked their opinion. What restrictions will be placed on the alternative compliance units? What sort of government oversight will there be on a cap-and-trade regime?

When we have all those questions that are unanswered, how do we say yes or no to the bill? It's very, very difficult. Even if you want to help bring some legislation to deal with the climate change that we all face, you need to have all of the information. Then let's make our decision based on the entire package — all of the information that is needed to make a decision on that bill.

If you give only half of it or make some statements and then hide behind those statements — no one knows what's behind those headlines — then I think you're not doing your due diligence. You're not doing your job as your constituents have elected you to do. They expect you to look at the bill and get all the answers before you say yes or no, but it's hard to do that when you don't get any answers from this government or from this minister. The minister decides that he will be the one who will be deciding what the answers are to those questions, whether you like them or not. There's no dialogue. There's no consultation.

That is unacceptable. That's unacceptable to me, it's unacceptable to this side of the House, and it is unacceptable to the public. That's why we need to send this bill out for consultation. Both parties will sit down and put our heads together, put all those questions on a table, consult the public and see what their concerns are. Let's see how we can deal with those concerns and, at the same time, deal with climate change issues that we are facing through this bill.

You can't do that if we don't have the opportunity to deal with those questions, get the answers and do the research. Many times if you make a decision…. I've seen it in the forest industry before. You try to make decisions behind closed doors, only to find out that the workers who are affected by those decisions have been uprooted from their homes, from their communities, where they have lived for generations. I don't think you want to see that happen. You want to make sure that their concerns are looked at, dealt with, before you move ahead and make a decision.

I would recommend to all members of this House that this is our duty to get all of the information, to get answers to all of those questions and that we go out and consult our citizens, go out and consult industry and consult the workers, their representatives, and ask all those questions. "How does this affect you?"

Once we have dealt with all those concerns and provided them with the answers and assurances that this will deal with the climate change issue in reality…. At the same time, we are trying to protect your jobs, we want the industry to thrive, and we want the communities to live a healthy life as a result of our decisions. I think then and then only should we move ahead and make a decision on this bill.

I think it is paramount and not only just on this one particular issue. What we said earlier was that the basic, fundamental tenets of democracy are openness, transparency and accountability. If you don't practise that, if you try to muzzle that and if you try to choke that, I think we will be answering to our generations to come. "Where were you when democracy was being choked?" I say that I was there to defend it, and so were my people on this side. I ask the government to do the same thing.

L. Krog: We are debating today, for those who are watching at home, an amendment that Bill 18 not be read a second time now but that the subject matter be forwarded to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives.

Some of the people watching today across the province may be wondering why the opposition is giving so much time to this particular amendment, to this motion. The answer is really very simple. It is because, for the opposition — as I would hope the government side does and as I would hope most British Columbians appreciate — climate change is the issue of our generation. It is the issue.

Throughout history we have been called to face great challenges from time to time. Whether it was the generation who struggled through the Great Depression, whether it was a generation who went off to fight in the Second World War, we have been called by the national interest, if you will. Surely, I would submit, climate change is a far greater issue than any of those that I have described.

History will judge our generation on what we did when we were confronted as a society, as a generation with the overwhelming evidence and agreement of all rational scientists that climate change is occurring at a far more rapid pace than has occurred throughout history — subject, of course, to some great natural disaster — at any other time.

We understand absolutely that climate change is largely a result of what we as a species do on our planet — how we manufacture our goods, how we transport our goods, the way we consume the resources of the planet. It is the driver behind global climate change, behind global warming. We have a former Vice-President of the United States, who but for a matter of a few dangling chads would have been President, going around the globe educating people to go out and talk about what former Vice-President Gore understands is the challenge of our generation.

I suspect that the government is wondering: well, why isn't the opposition simply jumping on board? This Bill 18, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act — what could be wrong with that? The title is quite innocuous, in some respects. The title, you might argue, is even positive. It talks about a system of greenhouse gas reduction. Who could be opposed to that?

Everyone understands that we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the responsibility is most particularly important for Canadians, who are amongst the highest consumers of energy in the world. We are a consumptive people. We consume goods and energy at a rate unprecedented in human history and virtually unprecedented around the globe in a per-capita sense.

So why would the opposition be opposed to this bill? We're not opposed to the bill. We're opposed to what the bill doesn't do and the way it purports to do it.

Over in Zimbabwe they're in the middle of a real crisis. They've got a Prime Minister — corrupt as can be, the laughingstock of the British Commonwealth — who won't leave office. Why? Because he went from being a national hero leading the fight for democratic change and instead ended up being that most reviled and commonplace of all political failures — that is, quite simply, a dictator. Pure and simple, a dictator. Didn't want to pay attention to a parliament. Didn't want to pay attention to an opposition. Didn't want to pay attention to the voices of those who in any way opposed what he wanted to do.

That is fundamentally the problem behind Bill 18. It is why I speak so strongly in favour of the motion by our Environment critic to see this forwarded to a select standing committee. If we are to tackle global warming in a meaningful way, if we are to do it in a meaningful way, it needs to have the support of all of the people of British Columbia.

It should have the overwhelming support of the opposition, not just the government. It should have the overwhelming support of the environmental community. It should have the overwhelming support of the mothers and fathers of the next generation.

Once you've recognized what the enemy is and you're called upon to do your part, you have to ask yourself: how are you going to do it? What's the strategy? What's the plan? What's the scheme?

We all know what the motivation is. The motivation should be our passionate belief that our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren should inherit a better Earth than we did. That should be what motivates us. But there's just this niggling part of me that, when I look through this bill, leads me to be somewhat suspicious of the government's motives.

When I talked about the strategy and getting behind it — behind the scheme, supporting something that would make a positive change around global warming…. In order to inspire that support, you have to believe that the leadership, so to speak, is sincere. Enjoying the honour and privilege it is to represent my constituency in this House, I have to ask myself as a legislator: is the government sincere? Is the plan laid out? Are we ready to rock 'n' roll, as they say?

Well, when you look through this bill, you have to come to the conclusion — if you're a rational, thinking human being — that just maybe the government doesn't quite have it all together yet. Maybe this is in fact part of that wonderful window dressing that this government seems to clothe itself with every session — some new obsession, some new interest, something that's attractive, perhaps, to the voters.

The reason I say that is because when you actually start to look through this bill, you realize fairly quickly that there's not a lot of substance here. This is not what it purports to be. The reason I question the government's motives in this is because if they were truly committed to a cap-and-trade system — a thought-out, logical, potentially successful and supportable cap-and-trade system — it would be laid out in this bill.

The opposition wouldn't be asking to refer it to a select standing committee. It would be there. We could see it. We could debate it. We could talk about it. We could understand it. We could go back to our constituents and say: "Look, this is what the government is proposing to do. What do you think? Do you like this? Should we go back and support it?"

But I can't do that, and I use the words very carefully. It's not that I won't do it. It's not that I don't want to do it. It's that I can't do it, because there is nothing here for me to take back to my constituents that I could even lay out in a series of flip charts and say: "Here's the government's plan. This is the cap-and-trade sys-

tem. This is how it's going to work. This is why I support it or I oppose it." There's nothing here.

What there is here is another example — and we have seen it in this House many times — of this government's desire to diminish again the role of this assembly and the members elected to it. We have seen it in bill after bill, some high-sounding principle followed up by enormous regulatory power all vested of course, as we understand the system, in cabinet — not vested in this House, not vested in this assembly, not vested in the most important of our democratic structures in the political system in British Columbia, but vested in cabinet.

You know, I can't help but think that if Glen Clark had tried to bring in this bill — Mike Harcourt or Dan Miller — there would have been such a hue and cry on this side of the House where the opposition used to sit, where the government used to sit. There would be such a hue and cry. They'd be organizing rallies around the province, they'd be talking about this dictatorial government, and they'd be talking about how they're trying to jam this down your throats without telling you what they're up to. That's what would be happening.

I could write the speeches for the members on the other side if they were over here in the opposition, seeing a bill like this dropped in their laps and being asked to support it just because we all understand. And I repeat, hon. Speaker: we get it. We know that climate change is the issue. We understand it. We just don't believe the government is sincere in its efforts to actually do something about it. If the government was sincere, this bill wouldn't be a miserable 24 pages. This bill would actually set out the form and the substance of a true cap-and-trade system.

If you start to flip through this bill, it becomes readily apparent that what this is really talking about is the passage of a bill that will vest in cabinet incredible regulatory powers which will not be subject to debate in this chamber, which will not be subject to public input, which will not be subject to what generations have fought for. That is the right to be in this chamber, to oppose the government, to ask questions, to criticize and, in some cases, to approve. But it isn't here.

You get to section 2, just past the definitions, and there's your first hint. Subsection 2(4): "Unless otherwise permitted by regulation…." Drift on to part 4, subsection 5(1): "For the purposes of limiting greenhouse gas emissions in a compliance period, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by regulation, establish a cap on the BCAUs that may be made available under this section for that compliance period."

Then we get on to section 9. "The director may, in accordance with the process established under the regulations, issue or direct the issuance of BCERUs for…." Blah, blah, blah.

Get on to section 10. "A BCERU may only be transferred or retired through the compliance unit tracking system and, if applicable, in accordance with the regulations."

Section 12. "An RCU is recognized as being transferred or retired for the purposes of this Act if it is transferred or retired, as applicable, in accordance with the regulations."

Section 14. "BCAUs and BCERUs are to be recorded in the compliance unit tracking system as established under this Act or as designated by regulation." I think the members opposite are maybe getting the hint.

Section 15. "An administrative authority designated under subsection (1) is responsible for administering the compliance unit tracking system in accordance with this Act and the regulations."

Section 16. "On issuance by or under the direction of the director in accordance with the regulations…." Then we go on to section 17, and it talks about the operator being subject to the "administrative penalty established by the regulations."

Section 18 is the section which has the subtitle, for informative purposes, "Imposed administrative penalties: failure to retire compliance units." Section 18(1): "The director must take action under this section, in accordance with the regulations." So the director is required to do something, not because this House told the director to do it, not because this Legislature debated it, not because the public had a chance, through its elected representatives, to criticize, but because it was made by way of regulation.

Section 19: "Administrative penalties in relation to other matters. Section (19)(1): "The director may take action under this section, in accordance with the regulations…." It goes on and on and talks about "in accordance with the regulations."

The bill is only 24 pages long. You get to page 17, section 37: "General regulation powers." Section 38 talks about "Regulations in relation to regulated operations and reporting operations." This is where it's really interesting, and I wonder if the constitutional lawyers in the Ministry of Attorney General stayed up all night wondering about this one. "Without limiting any other provision of this Act, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations as follows: (a) establishing regulated operations and reporting operations for the purposes of this Act by…."

There used to be a time when you couldn't be found guilty of a crime unless parliament or somebody had actually decided that what you were doing was wrong. A legislature had actually considered it. It wasn't the king's fiat who decided he didn't like you that got you chucked into the Tower of London. Parliament actually had to pass something that designated the behaviour to be criminal or offensive.

Operations in British Columbia under this regulatory authority will be designated as essentially engaging in illegal activities at the whim of cabinet. Some members on the opposite side may say: "Oh, the member exaggerates." No, it's here, and you don't have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to read this section to understand what we're talking about. Lord knows, the members opposite will point out that I'm not from Philadelphia. But it's pretty clear to me.

Some classes of people in British Columbia, some operations, will be designated as criminal under this by cabinet regulation, and others will not. Talk about Animal Farm and some pigs being more equal than others. So we're going to have two classes here. We're going to have those that cabinet decides are committing offences and those that they decide aren't.

I realize that the concept of rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies is a long-held tradition in politics. I understand, in the cynical view of the public, that's what the public believes.

I've just got to step back and ask myself: what does this bill really mean when it can't even, in the context of the legislation here open for debate, point out who's going to be the bad guy? What behaviour is going to constitute illegal activities? That's just section 38.

Then we've got section 39, "Regulations in relation to compliance units"; section 40, "Regulations in relation to compliance unit tracking system"; 41, "Regulations in relation to administrative penalties"; 42, "Regulations in relation to appeals"; 43, "Regulations in relation to inspections"; 44, "Regulations in relation to other matters" — seven pages of a 24-page bill awarding regulatory power to cabinet.

I realize that it may be tiresome for the members on the government side to hear me say this, and I may be boring the Clerks by going on like this. I've had to say it more times in the last three years than I ever had to think about it in four and a half years back here in the '90s. But the fact is that this government finds this place to be an annoyance. It's never made clearer than when you see a bill like this presented to the Legislature, and we're asked to just slide it through.

The fact is that this government doesn't want to have a Legislature. It wants to have power awarded to it by passage of a bill, and then it wants to regulate whenever, wherever and however it chooses without any consequences, without debate.

You know, I'm starting to feel like old Bill Bennett when he screamed in this House: "Not a dime without debate." Well, I'm saying to the government side: "You know what? No legislation without debate. No regulations without debate." You don't get to tell British Columbians when they're committing illegal activities unless this House, assembled together, decides it — not because it's decided over in the west annex in some closed cabinet meeting.

Gosh knows, we don't have any more of those open cabinet meetings. There was another little reform that disappeared.

L. Krog: "What happened to those?" some of my colleagues ask. Yes, what did happen to those? Well, you know what I think happened to those? I think it became pretty clear that no one believed the charade anymore, so like the Premier's many interests that pass from time to time, we just let it drift out on the evening tide. You know, Tennyson's Sunset and the Evening Star — it just went out on the tide. There was no moaning at the bar that night. It just slid gently away.

I wonder if the Attorney General has read this bill. I wonder if the lawyers on the other side of this House, on the government benches, have read this bill. I wonder if they've taken the time to consider it.

What we're asking for on this side of the House, in the greatest challenge facing our generation, is simply that maybe the folks who managed to get the majority in the last election — who were only 4 percent ahead of the New Democratic Party provincewide — might want to rely on a little collective wisdom. Maybe they would like to invite members on both sides of the House by way of the legislative committee, the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives, to actually contribute instead of just trying to slide this thing through here without debate — award them their regulatory powers and hope and pray that they do the right thing.

The fundamental question before this Legislature with this bill is one of public trust. The public doesn't trust this government. It may come as a great shock, but the public doesn't trust this government.

You know what, hon. Speaker? The really awful thing is that it's pretty clear the government doesn't trust the public. When they bring forward a bill like this, which says, "We don't want to have the opposition having a real say by way of a select standing committee," when the government brings forward a bill like this and says, "We're not prepared to take it around the province and let people consider it or give advice or have input," what they're really saying is: "We know that we're right, and people should just trust us. They should just trust us. They should just pass this, give us the authority and let us get on with it, and we'll announce the program."

But I don't think there's a program. I don't think there's a plan. I don't think there's a strategy. I don't think there's a system in place. I think this government is buying time so they can go out in the next election and announce gleefully, "Look, we're leaders. We passed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act. We passed it. We're sincere about our fight against climate change and global warming. We're sincere. Now, whether or not we've actually gotten around to developing all of those regulations" — which should be the substance of the bill, which should be debated in this House…. That will be, of course, another question.

My niggling, sneaking suspicion is that the government doesn't really have it together. It doesn't have it together in terms of the scheme, and with great respect, I don't think it really has it together around sincerity. I don't believe for a moment that they have any trust in the public or the opposition to make a meaningful contribution by way of participating in what is, as I've said many times today already, the greatest issue and challenge of our generation.

If there was ever an opportunity for the government to actually extend a hand across this House and say, "Let us work together on this challenge," it is now.

It is now. I've heard the usual arrogance. I've heard the usual dismissive comments. I haven't heard one word from the other side that would indicate they're at all sincere about working on the challenge of our generation.

I think this is about plain old politics. I think it's just the same old stuff that the opposition has come to see from this government for the last seven years. That is: "We're going to say one thing, and we're going to do another." Or even worse: "We're not going to do much of anything. The passage of the bill, the political hoopla to surround it, is probably about as far as we'll go."

Even if I believed the government were sincere, if I believed for a moment that they were serious about a cap-and-trade system…. They're asking all of us, instead of referring it to the select standing committee for comment, to just trust that they'll come up with the right system.

You know what? If it doesn't work or it's not acceptable, instead of coming back to the Legislature and changing an act, they'll just sit around the cabinet table behind closed doors, in secret away from public view, come to a decision, make it and carry on.

You know, hon. Speaker, it's getting harder and harder to convince the public that what we do in this place is important. Declining votes, voter participation — it's a signal of something. Now, for some it means they think the problems are so overwhelming that they don't trust politicians or anyone to tackle them. So people kind of hunker down and hide.

For others it is because they don't believe that we're sincere. There are many reasons. But if you respect the parliamentary traditions that have been established over hundreds of years, then you have to step back and ask yourself: what kind of government thinks that it gets to drop a bill in this House and ask for public support when it is essentially asking for a carte blanche for cabinet to set up a scheme that around the world is being recognized as a responsible action to be taken on the part of all governments to global warming?

How sincere are they? I don't think they're very sincere. I can't; I wish I could. I can't help but think that if we were sincere about dealing with climate change, if this act represented some sincerity, there would be mention of the major polluters in this province.

You know what? We all want to do our bit, whether it's buying cars that don't pollute as much or using public transportation. But what do we know? We know that about 15 percent of greenhouse gas pollutants in this province are produced as a result of transportation. But the oil and gas industry, the cement companies, the big industrial polluters that are responsible for such an enormous portion…. They weren't even covered by the proposed gas tax. It wasn't going to touch them except somewhat inferentially.

Again, I've got to step back and ask myself: if we're really going to institute a cap-and-trade system that makes sense, that will respond to that great generational challenge, that will make me feel proud as a legislator for being here…. If we're really going to respond to that, then let us put that scheme before this House. Let us hear in clear terms what it is the government proposes to do, because I just don't see it. You know why I don't see it? It's not because I've got progressive lenses and don't read that well. It's not because I'm going blind. It's because it isn't here.

This is just one more flimflam. This is the travelling medicine show. You're just going to take this little tonic here, this little bill, and swallow it, and British Columbia will be a leader. The Premier and his government will get re-elected, and everything will be fine.

You know what? It doesn't fly with the people who elected me to this Legislature. It doesn't fly with this opposition. So I'm going to support the motion to refer this to the select standing committee. I hope all members of this House will do so. You know what? We are sincere about fighting. We're sincere about the challenge placed in front of this generation. We want to actually do something.

This isn't about political charades. This is about doing the right thing. So to the government I say: do the right thing. Support this amendment. Show that you're sincere. Let us institute in British Columbia a cap-and-trade system that isn't some bit of political chicanery but that is in fact a sincere, genuine and hopefully successful response to the issue of our generation.

A. Dix: It's always a great honour to follow the member for Nanaimo in debate. He of course inspires and probably inspires other members of the House to participate. I sense that after the speech by the member for Nanaimo — and my colleague from Surrey-Whalley is agreeing with me over there — there seems to be movement on the government side.

I sense that. I wish he could have had more time, because following him and following his discussion of parliamentary democracy and his knowledge — not just of parliamentary democracy but of the history of this province and the history of the politics of this province — is always a learning experience for me.

I'm glad to be following him, and I'm glad to be speaking to this important amendment at second reading stage put forward by my colleague from Vancouver-Hastings.

I just want to read the amendment for people watching out there, just to ensure that they really understand the central importance of this debate to the future and to this legislation. My colleague from Vancouver-Hastings has moved that Bill 18 not be read a second time now but that the subject matter be forwarded to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives. This, I think my colleagues would agree, is a gift by the member for Vancouver-Hastings to members on the government side.

I think that we've increasingly seen, through this session and past sessions, a government moving away from the best traditions of cooperation and parliamentary democracy, moving away from the idea that this Legislature can contribute to parliamentary democracy and increasingly using the worst legislative tactics to

For example, in this session of the Legislature we saw a motion come forward from the government side that broke an agreement and a tradition around estimates debate in this Legislature. We saw that motion come forward, and after a couple of days of debate we saw the government bringing closure to drive that motion through.

The intent of that motion — we're seeing it now and its effect — is to deny the estimates debate hours and hours of time in this Legislature. One of the most critical things that we do here in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia — discuss the budget of the government by ministry — has been denied.

I think that's why this motion is so important. What this motion does is give the opportunity to the government to reconsider its direction in that regard. We saw the government, which had in fact established a parliamentary calendar in 2001, renege repeatedly in recent years from one key element of it, which is having fall sessions. We saw a government go against what it had said so that the average session — the time we have in session — is less than at almost any time in recent history, in recent memory in British Columbia.

They used closure to deny legislative time for the estimates. We've seen them use their control of the agenda to deny legislative time and legislative debate on important issues of legislation. Now we have an opportunity here, this gift from the member for Vancouver-Hastings to the government. It's a government that has gone in this direction of moving away from openness in parliamentary debate, moving away from giving opportunities, in fact, to all members of the House to have serious debate of critical issues.

My colleague from Vancouver-Hastings, as I've said, with this motion would allow this critical issue of cap-and-trade, this critical issue of climate change, to be referred to the Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives so that the people of British Columbia — members of this assembly but also the people of British Columbia — can have their say on this critical issue.

People might ask: "Well, isn't there a public debate now? Aren't you having the debate now? Why would you need this?" I would say that why you need it is because there's nothing in this bill. There's no detail in this bill — nothing, zero, not a thing.

I just want to bring another supporter, fundamentally, of what the member for Vancouver-Hastings is saying here — Dr. Mark Jaccard, who I believe is a professor at Simon Fraser University. Dr. Jaccard has said: "B.C. is still a long way from implementation of a cap-and-trade system." He further says: "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." So says Dr. Jaccard. So where's the urgency?

Why not have public hearings? Dr. Jaccard's position, really, is that we should wait and see, that we should hear from the public. It's reflected not in what the government is saying on this motion but in what the member for Vancouver-Hastings is saying on this motion. There's no need for urgency. There's no need to drive it through, to introduce it one week and pass it the next week and not have public debate. In fact, I think everybody would agree with the position of the member for Vancouver-Hastings.

If this bill had detail, if it had substance, if there was meat on the bones, then perhaps we could have that debate. We could go through committee stage now. We could have the detailed questions about this cap-and-trade system, but let's just see.

What do we hear from the Ministry of Environment? We refer to what the Minister of Environment and a reflection on him…. This is the story, when he came out: "B.C. Introduces Carbon Cap-and-Trade Legislation." The government has not said what the pollution cap will be, how much it will cost to buy pollution credits or what penalties will be imposed on violators. Let's understand this. These are the key questions, the fundamental questions, as to why the subject matter of this motion, these critical questions, should be referred to a legislative committee. I think the government should be thanking the member for Vancouver-Hastings for his suggestion.

Now, what else have they said? What else has the government said? "It's too early," says the government, "to say whether those credits will be sold, auctioned off or simply allocated." Too early to say, but they're coming before this House, putting forward this legislation without any of these details and expecting to get — the term is a French term, but it's an important term — carte blanche to do whatever it is they want behind closed doors.

A. Dix: It's a blank cheque. Well said by the member for Vancouver-Hastings. He doesn't speak French, but he understands, I think, the notion of carte blanche.

What we have, therefore, if you look at this legislation, is legislation that is essentially empty of the key content that is required to have a debate. It isn't ready. Its proponents say it isn't ready.

So rather than ramming the legislation through and handing over a blank cheque to the government, why not actually pause at this moment? It's not like we're delaying anything. They aren't ready. They're not ready. I just want to repeat what Dr. Jaccard eloquently said on this matter. He said: "We're still a long way from implementation of a cap-and-trade system."

A. Dix: "We are still a long way from implementation of a cap-and-trade system." That's what Dr. Jaccard says. If we're a long way away, if we're a long distance away, what would be the harm of having the players come in public and have this debate at the Committee on Legislative Initiatives? What would be wrong with that?

If you are not afraid of the debate…. We shouldn't be afraid of the debate, because these are important issues. Surely, on an issue of this central importance to the government's agenda, to the future of the province and to the opposition's agenda, that agenda should be the subject of serious discussion, serious debate and citizen participation.

Instead, what we have here is really the opposite of that. They want to use closure with impunity, as they have in this session. They want to use closure with impunity. Then, as well, this bill is sort of the legislative draftsperson's expression of closure.

Let me tell you what I mean, because the member for Nanaimo took us through the bill. His guide to the bill was very helpful. It's extremely helpful. What did the member for Nanaimo point out? In section 37, "General regulation powers," what they do is they set out the right of the government to make regulations. Section 38 is similar: "Regulations in relation to regulated operations and reporting operations." They don't tell us what those regulations are going to be. It's the power to make regulations. Section 39 is: "Regulations in relation to compliance units."

All of these issues could be the subject of the legislative committee, of real public debate — section 40, "Regulations in relation to compliance unit tracking system"; section 41, "Regulations in relation to administrative penalties"; section 42, "Regulations in relation to appeals"; section 43, "Regulations in relation to inspections"; section 44, "Regulations in relation to other matters" — and finally, the regulation of regulation. In section 46, the bill will be brought into force, of course, by what? By regulation.

A. Dix: Now, I know they don't have a minister of deregulation anymore. He has changed spots. They deregulated the minister responsible for deregulation after he did his best to take an axe to health and safety and environmental protection regulations in British Columbia. He's gone off, and he's doing something else.

What this process says is that, really, we don't trust the public, and I think that the member for Nanaimo really put this point in its historical context. We don't trust the public. We'd rather have this discussion take place in a back room, where we can barter back and forth with industry and where the public is kept out.

Now, what happens? We all know in this important area of climate change how my constituents experience this question. It's their desire and often their financial need…. Often constituents don't have access to a car or the means to operate a car. What happened recently on another critical question? Of course, we're talking about transit fares. There, decisions were made in secret, against their interests. Fares were raised. No public opportunity for discussion for them.

So while some people get access to a back room to have these discussions away from the public domain, other people just are dumped with the consequences of these government decisions. If you're living in my colleague the member for Surrey-Whalley's constituency, either you're forced to pay, I think, unreasonable increases in transit fares, which we've seen under this government…. The basic single-zone fare has increased by 67 percent since this government has come to office, at a time when the minimum wage has been cut by 25 percent. In that case, no room for public discussion, no room for back-room discussions between transit users. They don't get to come into a back room with the government and have these discussions.

This approach to the issue of cap-and-trade suggests that the public should be kept out, that in this issue of central importance to the public, the public should have no place or right to take part, and we disagree. I think it's extremely helpful to the government, because I think this is a profound weakness in what the government's doing that will cost the fight against climate change support and understanding and cost the government support and understanding. My colleague from Vancouver-Hastings has stepped out. He has stepped out, and he has attempted to help the government along.

I want to talk about another aspect to this bill, because this is a theme. This motion put forward by the member for Vancouver-Hastings is a motion that says we need openness in this process, we need public input in this process, and we need public debate in this process. By the way, there's time, because the minister and Dr. Jaccard and others have said very clearly that they're not ready to go forward. Other supporters of the government's plans have said, "We're not ready to go forward yet," so there is that time for public debate. We could have that public debate right now.

On that theme, what is another critical issue that we need to discuss? It comes down to section 36 of the bill. We have a bill that's essentially an enabling bill. It doesn't say what's going to happen. It doesn't say what cap-and-trade will look like. It simply enables the government — because they don't want to have a fall session; they don't want to have a spring session next year — to do whatever they want, whenever they want. It's an ideal bill. It kind of meets all of the qualifications from this Premier about what represents an ideal bill.

What else does it do, hon. Speaker? This would be, I think, another critical subject that I know members of the opposition and perhaps even members of the government…. You'll recall — my colleague from Surrey-Whalley will recall this — the member for Peace River South and his work on freedom of information. I think if the member for Peace River South, for example, were on the committee, he'd be asking some of these questions as well as opposition members, and contributing to and improving the bill.

Let me read what the Information and Privacy Commissioner has to say about the bill, because I think what he has to say is critical in terms of our understanding of where the government is going. He's referring to section 36 of the bill. He said that it "would represent a significant encroachment on the overriding FOIPPA policy of accountability through access to

information, a particularly important consideration in relation to climate change measures and their enforcement. I urge you to withdraw these changes."

He goes on to say: "…a matter of significant concern considering the importance of environmental protection measures relating to climate change and the need for openness and accountability in the monitoring and enforcement of such measures."

Now, who is another person who would be an outstanding witness to come and talk to the committee about this legislation if the member for Vancouver-Hastings's motion passes, which I most definitely hope it will? It would be Darrell Evans from the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association.

What does he say? This statement is slightly Churchillian in tone; it must be said. He says: "Yet another attempt by the government to place corporate information behind an Iron Curtain. 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 taxpayer funds are spent."

As my friend and part-time speechwriter the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca said in his outstanding presentation on this issue…. He made the point that these are critical aspects of the bill.

Let's understand this. You have a bill that doesn't say what it's going to do. We have a plan that isn't ready to come to fruition. We have a bill that's been condemned as — and I want to just say this — the placing of "corporate information behind an Iron Curtain" — that's capital "I," capital "C" in that expression. That's what Darrell Evans said.

What we are saying in opposition to this approach of the government to this thing is that we should shine the light of day on it. That's what the member for Vancouver-Hastings is saying by this motion. We must shine the light of day on what's going on here. We should go in a different direction.

The member for Vancouver-Hastings suggested…. He said: "You should speak on this, because I think you'll be able to reach the government." I hope we will be able to reach the government on this important question. He suggested that we might be able to bring them over, and I think we can.

Just to point it out. We have a bill that is essentially a vehicle to create regulations. We have enormous public cynicism, including in the environmental community, about what's going to happen when the government and the corporate sector get in a room on this bill. We have enormous public cynicism.

The government may say, and they can legitimately say…. They certainly can when the Minister of Environment comes as a witness to these hearings that are created by this motion when it passes. He may legitimately say: "Well, there's no need for that." Well, then, why not have the hearings? They're not going to have the system in place, so why not have the hearings? Why not have a committee go through the details of these proposals, these ideas, and make recommendations? Why not give the public a chance to speak? Why not talk to the Information and Privacy Commissioner and say: "How can we make this bill comply with the spirit of that act?" Why not?

It's not like we will be delaying the government's initiative. The only way we could be delaying the government's initiative with this is if they had no plans to have a sitting this fall, if they had no real plans to introduce anything next spring, and on and on.

I don't believe that could happen. It's on the calendar. They've already shrunk this session by closure and by taking away opposition rights. They've already done that. They've already in the past said with respect to the fall session, "Well, we might have it or we might not" — having shrunk the spring session in length. So they've taken away the opposition's right to oppose in the spring session, and then they've taken away the fall session.

We're going to take the parliamentary calendar and the government at its word. They want to have a fall session. Wouldn't it be a good thing to have this question, this central question in the climate change debate, be a central piece of that fall session after months of important committee meetings involving members of all sides and, most importantly, members of the public?

Why wouldn't the government agree with this? This motion is in the government's interest, but more important than that, it's in the public interest. It's in the public interest to have a detailed discussion on what this is about.

Now, what are the questions that are left unanswered? You may say to me: "Well, we have a sense of what this is about, and there are regulation powers." What are the key questions that haven't been answered? According to, amongst others, the Pembina Institute, here are some of the questions that haven't been answered. How many permits will be issued — i.e., what is the cap? What sectors will be covered by the regulations? How will those permits be allocated? How big will the penalties be for non-compliance? What restrictions will be placed on the alternative compliance units, the offsets?

These are reasonable questions for us to have in public, and we should hear from everybody. We should absolutely and first and foremost be hearing from the business community. We should be hearing from the business community. We should be hearing from environmental groups. We should be hearing from labour unions. We should be hearing from individuals. We should be hearing from municipalities. We should be hearing from mayors.

This is important, and, believe it or not, shockingly, I was surprised to learn that there's no rush. They've created a bill, a sort of machine of regulation.

A. Dix: Who says there's no rush? Well, effectively, the Minister of Environment has said there's no rush, because he says it's too early to say, on the key questions with respect to the legislation. So he says there's no rush. Dr. Jaccard, a very distinguished professor, I believe from Simon Fraser University, has said: "We're still a long way from implementation."

I think it's extremely clear, as a result, that we need to take time to deal with these very serious issues in this Legislature, that we need to take time to give the public and others a right to participate. And we need to take time to ensure that this debate about cap-and-trade takes place in public, takes place when people can understand what's going on, takes place in a context, hon. Speaker, where you and I and everyone else can hear what the views of the important players in the debate are.

So let's listen. Let's listen to the public, let's listen to the Legislature of British Columbia, and let's give them an opportunity and give everyone an opportunity to take part in that process.

Now, I believe that what you'll get from that, what the government will get from that…. I understand what the opposition will get from that. We want to participate in that. We have ideas. We want to participate. I understand what the public gets from that. They believe their voice should be heard in this debate, and they don't want to see a bill that overruns freedom of information and enables, essentially, a set of private negotiations between the government and players, a sort of plutocrats' corner. What they want to see is a more open process.

So the public benefits. Sure, the opposition benefits. The groups benefit. The legislation benefits. British Columbia benefits.

I'm going to make one more point, because the member for Vancouver-Hastings wanted me to emphasize this point in this speech: the government benefits. The government benefits, because what will emerge, I think, under those circumstances is a process in legislation that is more respected by the public, that engages the public, that includes the endorsation of the public and will lead to, in fact, a stronger system than we would have if we allowed them to do what they want to do now, which is to create a machine to produce regulations and a process of private deals, secret deals, between the government and some major players in industry.

They can't want that. It can't be good for the climate change issue, and it can't be good for the government.

Hon. Speaker, I see you are preparing to perhaps say some things on some other matters, so I'd like to take this opportunity to reserve my right to continue and to move adjournment of the debate.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, Bill M202, British Columbia Rail Corridor Safety Act, 2008, was introduced today by the member for Cariboo South. I have had the opportunity to review the bill. I note that sections 3, 4 and 6 create an impost. Therefore, the bill is out of order in the hands of a private member and will not proceed to second reading.

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

Hon. C. Richmond: A quick introduction. We're joined today by the deputy minister, Cairine MacDonald. Welcome back. Nice to see her back after an illness.

The other staff that were here were introduced the other day, but just to refresh everyone's memory, Andrew Wharton, ADM of policy and research division; Heather Davidson is in the room with us, assistant deputy minister, regional services division; Sharon Moysey is here, ADM and financial officer in management services division; and David Curtis, executive director, corporate planning and operations division.

J. Brar: Thanks to the minister for the introduction of staff members again. I particularly welcome the deputy minister, Miss MacDonald. I know she was sick last week. I hope you're doing fine now.

Keeping in mind the time limit — my earlier information was that we were going to go to the end of the day today, but now I know that we only go to 5:15 — I'm going to move to a new topic, which is similar to what we were talking about last time. It's about what we call the employment program for people with disabilities.

I want to know what percentage of people with disabilities reported any earnings at all and what percentage of people are receiving full $500 earning exemptions?

Hon. C. Richmond: I think I've got all the information that the member wanted. The total monthly caseload of those on PWD is 60,087. The cases declaring earnings per month are 9,233 or 15.4 percent of PWD cases. Those declaring in excess of $500 per month are 2,094 or 3.5 percent of the PWD cases.

J. Brar: The PWD caseload has gone up significantly, as I'm aware and the minister recognizes, which is almost 70 percent if you go back between 2000 and 2008. This is actually into the upwards direction if you look at when we compare that with the other part of people, which is the ready-to-work category.

Can the minister provide for me why the caseload on this file has gone significantly up as compared to the ready-to-work file?

Hon. C. Richmond: Actually, there are a couple of reasons why the number of PWD clients has gone up and the expected-to-work has gone down. First of all, in determining who is eligible for income supports, the ministry expanded the definition of "disability" to specifically include mental illness, to provide those individuals with income supports and additional services that will make a difference in their lives. So we expanded the criteria.

Also, it's because of an aging population and people living much longer than they did before. So the persons with disabilities are on the increase while, of course, the persons that are expected to work are on the decrease because we have put over 50,000 people back into the workforce of the expected-to-work category. That's a good time to be doing it, especially since about 2004-05 when the economy has picked up significantly. We have the lowest unemployment rates as far back as records have been kept.

We have been very successful in putting a lot of people back to work, and the ones left on that list of expected-to-work who are still collecting assistance are either in a course and learning skills to get back to work…. Also, they are the most difficult ones to employ. The easier ones have already been placed back in the workforce.

J. Brar: If we look at the business service plan, the minister does establish what we call the performance measures for the B.C. employment program — in other words, for people in the ready-to-work category. But when it comes to the people with disabilities in the program for that, which is the employment program for people with disabilities, there are no performance measures for that in the service plan. Can I ask the minister why they're missing?

Hon. C. Richmond: Although an actual performance measure may not be in the service plan, we do have a form of performance measure for PWD clients applying for EPPD.

First of all, I should point out that the program is strictly voluntary. It's not compulsory like it is for those expected to work. Secondly, it's open to all people with disabilities, not just those who are clients of the ministry. So there are some people who are not on PWD assistance that are eligible.

We do have a performance measure where we are encouraging people who wish to re-enter the workforce and are PWD status to avail themselves of the program. Some of them may want to do just part-time work, some may want full-time, some may want to work up to the $500 allowance, and some may want total independence.

So we do have a form of measure of evaluating their performance, but it's not as rigid or as strict as the one for expected-to-work.

J. Brar: I will take it as, at this point in time, that we don't have the specific performance measures as we have for the other programs, particularly the B.C. employment program for what we call ready-to-work people. I will leave it at that.

I would appreciate, if at a later time the minister has some specifics on this…. I think we are spending a lot of money. I understand the client group and the sensitivity around that area. I understand that and appreciate that as well. But at the same time, we're also spending almost $44 million on this program alone for five years. We need some accountability from the service providers. So I will leave it at that at this point in time.

I want to move on to a new report that the minister is probably aware of. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recently released their report called Removing Barriers to Work: Flexible Employment Options for People with Disabilities in B.C. This report urges the provincial government to adopt a series of recommendations that would make employment possible for many more British Columbians with significant disabilities.

The primary focus of this government policy has been on those individuals able to participate in the labour market on an equal footing with their non-disabled peers when provided with limited accommodation and unbiased opportunities. Less attention is paid to those who may be able to participate only on a part-time basis or at a level below the norm of expected productivity.

The CCPA report found that the community-based supportive employment program tracked in the study achieved placement rates of 36 to 54 percent for people with a psychiatric disability and 47 to 81 percent for people with a developmental disability, while MEIA

performance-based programming — employment program for people with disability, EPPD — achieved a placement rate of only 12.5 percent over four years.

So keeping that in mind, will the minister expand quality-based adult special education programs, given the evidence that these programs have been very successful in supporting young people with disabilities to transition into mainstream employment?

Hon. C. Richmond: I think I got the gist of the first part of the question. It was the college-based special education programs. That really doesn't fall under this ministry. That's under the Ministry of Advanced Education, Minister Coell, and I'm sure he will be happy to comment on that during his estimates debate.

But I do want to inform the member that through community consultations with stakeholders on EPPD, it was recognized that some individuals who have developmental disabilities may need a slightly different approach to achieve their employment goals. Therefore, Community Living B.C. and this ministry will jointly fund a three-year customized employment demonstration project. Procurement for this project is expected to commence in the spring of 2008.

J. Brar: I would like to just go on. They made a number of recommendations under the CCPA report, which I just mentioned a couple minutes ago. There are some recommendations that I think are important to look at, so I'm going to just mention those. I would like to ask for a response from the minister about those recommendations.

I believe, to the best of my knowledge, that the recommendations I'm going to mention are part of the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance, but it may not be true, so the minister can correct me on that.

The first one that they recommend is to ensure that individuals receive continued medical and dental benefits at the same level as provided while on income assistance until they receive an equal or greater level of expended benefits from their employer, as is the case in Ontario. Can the minister respond to that?

Hon. C. Richmond: I will read into the record the answer to the question for the member. I think it answers it pretty fully.

PWD clients and persons with persistent multiple barriers, PPMB, receive earnings exemptions beyond which income is deducted. When they leave assistance, PWD and PPMB clients retain all their aftertax earnings and all of the above benefits retained by employable clients. They also retain provincial benefits — Pharmacare prescription costs paid 100 percent, medical equipment and supplies; basic dental and orthodontic; and employment services, EPPD — and federal benefits — the working income tax benefit and disability supplement.

I know we're not supposed to use props, but I'll just show the member. We have a good brochure, Working: More Than Just a Paycheque. It shows all of the benefits that people are entitled to, both expected-to-work and PWD and PPMB clients. I will table that with the Chairman for the member.

The other recommendation that the CCPA report makes is to maintain the bus pass provision or provide $120 per month transportation allowance for people who can't access public transportation, with the possibility of additional transportation support based on individual need for people who are working and are not receiving PWD benefits.

I have received a lot of letters on that as well, so if you can comment on that.

Hon. C. Richmond: At the moment, hon. Member, persons with disabilities, PWD, who leave income assistance for employment or Canada Pension Plan disability benefits are not eligible for the annual subsidized bus pass after the calendar year in which they leave assistance. While we in the ministry regularly review programs and services, at this time we don't plan to expand the bus pass program.

J. Brar: The other recommendation which is also very important, particularly to move people with a disability to meaningful employment….

I appreciate the earnings exemption we have at this point in time, which is $500, which could probably be an incentive for people to move from income assistance to work. But when we talk about people with a disability, they have all kinds of disabilities, and they will not be able to work as any other regular worker who can commit for 35 hours or 15 hours or whatever. Sometimes their disability decides they're up and probably good to work for two months, and then they're not good to work for one month.

What the report recommends is…. It's talking about developing working credits for that to even the flow of earnings exemptions for those who, because of their disability, have fairly dramatic fluctuations in their ability to earn employment income. Working credits are used to average the earnings over time so that people who can work significant hours but only intermittently are not penalized.

I think that's a good system. I would like to ask again what the response of the minister is on this one.

Hon. C. Richmond: To answer the member's question about averaging income over a certain period of time, we have looked at that as we do look at all options from time to time. At this moment we are not contemplating doing that, but one thing we have done to make it a lot easier for persons with disabilities is allow them to move into the workforce and back out.

If their job only lasts two or three months, they can move back onto assistance. They don't have to start over at square one. They'll just move back onto income assistance, and they don't lose any of their benefits or have to fill out forms or anything like that.

We did make that change to allow people…. A lot of times with persons with disabilities, the nature of the work they get is temporary. They can work for a couple of months, and then they're laid off or their job ends. So we've allowed them to move back and forth into the system and into part-time or full-time work again without any penalty.

J. Brar: The other recommendation the CCPA report indicates is a very interesting one. At this point in time I know that we have an employment program for people with disabilities. There are three or four different providers offering that program, but they're probably talking about a new concept, about social enterprise. They recommend to provide stable, long-term four-year provincial government funding for three to five social enterprise coordinating groups around the province to support vision development and ongoing social support for social enterprises employing people with disabilities and/or a combination of people with disabilities and people without disabilities.

Again, I would like to ask the minister what the minister's response on that one is.

Hon. C. Richmond: We are always looking at social enterprises, and whenever they're brought up to us, which is not too often…. But we are interested in finding ways to encourage the creation of social enterprises, especially for persons with disabilities.

The self-employment program is intended to provide support to clients engaged in operations that are as small as seasonal, part-time microenterprises or as complex as businesses that require full-time involvement, significant loans for equipment and inventory, and paid employees.

I think this would be a good time to remind the member and others who may be watching this program — the six or seven; I don't know — of the good work that's being done by WorkAble Solutions, which is a self-advocacy group. They work in conjunction with the ministers council on disability, and they're having some great successes working with employers, both large and small, to encourage them to hire the disabled.

Also, it works in conjunction with our 10 by 10 Challenge that we have out to communities to increase the number of persons with disabilities employed by 10 percent by 2010. That has been taken up enthusiastically by 59 or 60 communities in the province now, and some have achieved some great success. If I get a chance later, maybe I'll expand on that and give out some of the results of some individual communities and how successful they've been on the program.

J. Brar: I appreciate the updates on WorkAble Solutions as well as 10 by 10. I think that when we call 10 by 10 formally, I'll ask you a question on that.

I would certainly like to ask a question, since the minister mentioned it. Is there any special program funded by the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance to encourage people with a disability to seek employment with or participate in the Olympics?

Hon. C. Richmond: I'm so glad you asked. I've got a lot of information on that.

Through the ministers Council on Employment for Persons with Disabilities, we have worked very closely with the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We're using them as a catalyst in establishing our 10 by 10 Challenge, a council initiative to increase employment for persons with disabilities by 10 percent by 2010.

A key aspect of the government's provincewide disability strategy, the challenge is aimed at increasing the current employment of persons with disabilities from 132,000 to 145,000 by 2010 in communities across the province. Communities and business sectors have been provided with challenge targets and supporting tools such as WorkAble Solutions materials and the Measuring Up guide, a document prepared by the 2010 Legacies Now, which allows communities to assess their levels of accessibility and inclusion for persons with disabilities. The challenge is a win-win proposition. Skilled workers are given the chance to join their local workforce, and employers are provided with skilled and dedicated workers.

The province provided 2010 Legacies Now with a one-time $900,000 grant to establish Access Works, a program that will help persons with disabilities benefit from employment and volunteer opportunities resulting from the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Access Works is a unique endeavour that will aid persons with disabilities to take full advantage of all the exciting opportunities leading up to 2010 and beyond.

Over 40 agencies — including the Neil Squire Society, the program's lead disability service provider; the Canadian Mental Health Association; the Canadian National Institute for the Blind; and the British Columbia Paraplegic Association — are enrolled in Access Works. Working with these providers, Access Works will establish connections between organizations needing to fill a job and volunteer positions with disabled persons who are qualified for these opportunities.

In addition to its role in facilitating employment and volunteer opportunities, Access Works will also identify potential joint economic ventures between business, disability-friendly organizations and disabled entrepreneurs.

J. Brar: My question was particularly on one piece of this, which the minister mentioned in the detail offered just now. That's about the $900,000, I think, grant given to Legacies Now. I would appreciate it if the minister can briefly tell me the purpose and if there are any set goals or targets for that money.

Hon. C. Richmond: To answer the member's question as completely as I can, we have not set specific numbers for these organizations, but we specifically chose people who are very skilled at hiring the disabled, such as Neil Squire, the CNIB, the B.C. Para-

plegic Association and others who really understand and work with these people all the time.

We do have a commitment from VANOC that they will do their very best to comply with our wishes. That is by increasing the number of disabled people employed by at least 10 percent by 2010.

J. Brar: My understanding is that this is a stand-alone, one-time grant and that it's not part of 10 by 10. That's my understanding. If that's not it, I could be corrected.

If you're spending close to a million dollars on this one and, as the minister said, there are no specific numbers, then how can we establish the accountability for the tax dollars we're spending — if there is any accountability at the end of the day?

Hon. C. Richmond: We will be getting reports back from all of these institutions that we talked about. They haven't been up and running that long, but as the program progresses, we will be getting progress reports and final numbers on how they're doing.

It is a one-time grant. You're correct in that. It was $900,000, specifically to build on the excitement and the publicity that the Olympics will garner for us. It's an aside from an Olympic event but naturally using that event to build on the number. And as I said earlier, we know how many people with disabilities are working now, and we'll be able to measure it.

J. Brar: Just so that I'm clear, I want to put on the record that I support the initiative. I'm not against the program. But being in my past life part of the non-profit sector and receiving grants from government, I understand that whenever government gives you money, even if it is $10,000, they always bring back with that grant: "This is what we want. This is what the expectations are."

Having said that, having no expectations listed, the reports won't serve a meaningful purpose. That's my comment on that. I would like to move on to a new question.

The minister just mentioned a few minutes ago, about the people with disabilities, that if they lose employment, they can come back again. Again, that is one opportunity they have, but my understanding is that the disability designation is not a permanent one. Each time they come back, they have to go through the whole process again. That's one question. The second one is: why is it not permanent? If the minister can respond to that.

Hon. C. Richmond: Earlier I said that we have revised the rules so that people can move into employment and out again. It was always a concern to people that if they got a job for two months or three months and then had to come back onto the income assistance roll — it's PWDs we're talking about — they might have to start all over again with an application. That is not the case anymore. They can move in and out of employment into temporary employment.

As to whether it is a permanent designation or not, technically, no, it's not. But for all practical purposes, it is, except in very rare occasions. That would be that while it is within the authority of the minister to rescind an individual's designation, in advance of which administrative fairness would require a review, the ministry has conducted designation reviews in only a handful of very exceptional cases — for example, where there is clear indication of the falsification of evidence on a PWD application. That's the only time that a PWD has been rescinded. So while it is not absolutely permanent, for most practical purposes, it is.

J. Brar: I would like to move on to a new line of questions, but before I do that, I would like to just make these few comments and ask the minister whether this is actually a line of questions I should be asking this ministry.

Recently the government of British Columbia has signed a couple of agreements with the government of Canada. One is called the Canada–British Columbia labour market agreement, known as LMA. The other one is called the Canada–British Columbia labour market development agreement, known as LMDA. I would like to know whether these agreements have anything to do with the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance.

I'm asking because, particularly the labour market development agreement — the second one which I asked about, providing the employment programs which are now under the federal government — and the employment program to people on employment assistance, as compared to income assistance…. It would make sense, in my opinion, to move those programs, when they move to a province, within the Ministry of Employment because the Ministry of Employment is providing very similar programs. So before I start asking my question, I would like to know, Minister, whether those contracts have anything to do with the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance.

Hon. C. Richmond: I just wanted to get the exact description of the two programs that the member mentioned.

First of all, the LMA, the labour market agreement, is a program being transferred to the province by the federal government, as the member said, with funding of $66.4 million annually for five years. And yes, it will be run out of this ministry, but on that program there will be several ministries delivering the LMA program. There will be other ministries involved, but it's basically run out of this ministry.

The LMDA program is quite different, and it's quite extensive. The staff of both provincial and federal governments have spent the best part of the last year negotiating the agreement. The agreement was signed in February of this year with the federal minister, the Hon. Monte Solberg, and now they are working on working out all of the details because it is a very complex program. Yes, it will be run out of this ministry, and we will take responsibility for the program on

I can tell you that it involves approximately 268 staff who are in the federal government now, and they will have a choice of probably three options. They can have the choice of transferring to another branch of the federal government if they wish to stay with the federal government, or if they're older and approaching retirement, they will probably have the option of a bridging or a buyout to take their pension. The third option is that they will come over and work with the provincial government and transfer from federal to provincial staff.

So it's very complex. As you can imagine, there's a lot involved, and we're dealing with a lot of people here who all have different goals and objectives and aspirations.

The program is $288.2 million a year, and it's in perpetuity. I should add that the federal government has divested itself of this program in several provinces. B.C. is not the first to do it, but it is a very large and very complex program, and as the member said, it involves people on employment insurance. So it's a good fit to come over to our jurisdiction, where we already are running several similar programs.

As I said, that takes effect next February 1. By then we'll have all the details ironed out, and the program will be transferred.

J. Brar: Thanks to the minister for that very useful briefing on the program. That actually does answer quite a few questions that I would have otherwise asked on these.

I have a similar set of questions for both the agreements. I will probably ask those questions, and the minister can respond as it relates to both the agreements, rather than asking the same question separately for both. These are simple questions in my opinion.

My first question is: can the minister tell us as what client group each agreement, the LMA and the LMDA, will serve?

I'm asking the question so that I'm clear. As of today the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance programs — whether it's the B.C. employment program or EPPD, the employment program for people with disabilities — are, in my understanding, limited to people on income assistance only.

Similarly, a lot of programs offered by the federal government at this point in time, particularly by the ministry of — they keep changing different names; it used to be HRDC at one time — social services, only serve the people who are EI eligible. That's why I'm asking this question as to what client groups these two programs will serve.

Hon. C. Richmond: I think we got it straight. It's a little confusing at times; they tend to overlap.

The labour market agreement will allow the province to invest in labour market development strategies for non-EI-eligible individuals who are either unemployed or who are employed and low-skilled. The Ministry of Economic Development will have oversight responsibility for ensuring that LMA funds are targeted at key labour market priorities as identified in the WorkBC action plan.

The LMA program will be delivered through a number of government ministries, including this ministry, the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance. It is specific. To name some of the groups: immigrants, aboriginals and women — amongst others. But those are the three principal groups.

The Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance will utilize LMA resources to build upon existing programs and services that support persons with disabilities. In particular, MEIA intends to expand return-to-work supports for a broader range of disabled individuals, increase access to assistive technology and workplace accommodations, provide work incentives to encourage disabled persons to move off government income support and into full-time employment, and increase employment opportunities for aboriginal persons with disabilities by addressing specific gaps in employment training.

When we get to LMDA…. The LMDAs are funded under part 2 of the Employment and Assistance Act. All LMDA programs and services must be similar to the employment benefits and support measures, EBSMs, described within the Employment and Assistance Act. LMDA programs and services are intended to assist employment insurance clients and the unemployed general public to prepare for and obtain employment.

In addition, sector-specific initiatives to assist employers to meet their human-resources needs may be implemented under the LMDA. A devolved LMDA will provide the province with an opportunity to create an integrated made-in-B.C. labour market system that will meet the needs of all British Columbians.

These programs and services will complement existing provincial employment programs. As I said, the LMDA EIA part 2 budget is $288.2 million, and at the moment it's in perpetuity. The LMA program has a five-year time limit on it. The LMDA does not.

Now, that's quite a bit of money moving from the federal government to the province. I would appreciate if the minister could tell me: where will that money go? Will that money go to the general revenue, or is it going to go directly to the respective ministries which are going to work on those programs?

Hon. C. Richmond: The reason that it won't appear in this year's budget is because the agreement was signed after the budget. It is targeted to specific programs. The LMDA will be coming specifically to this ministry and, in the LMA, to the ministries that I mentioned that will be involved.

The other thing that I should add, though — and it's very pertinent to this — is that we are bound under this agreement to honour contracts that the federal government already has with service providers, however those contracts last. They could be in the middle of a contract, or it could be a year, two years or three years left on the contract. Some go up to three years. We are bound to honour existing contracts.

J. Brar: Thanks. Actually, that's a bit of an interesting comment. My understanding was that the provincial government would maintain the federal program for two years, but what the minister said is something different. It could be two months. If the contract ends in the next two months, then it could be a different thing. I just wanted that clarification. It's not a flat two years; it is based on the contract.

But is there any limit? Is it clearly at the end of the contract, or does it have time attached to it?

Hon. C. Richmond: To make it perfectly clear, we take over the program on February 1, 2009, and we honour any contracts that are in force. The member is correct. There could be any amount of time left, and I think the maximum is up to about three years or maybe a little less. As contracts expire and we assume those programs or the service providers for those programs, it will all go out to competitive bid again — RFPs — for contracts, but the contracts this time will be with our ministry in the provincial government.

J. Brar: The organization called ASPECT — I'm sure the minister and the minister's staff is aware of it; it's called the Association of Service Providers for Employability and Career Training — made a submission to the Select Standing Committee on Finance, which has a lot of direct relationship, of course, as to what happens in the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance.

Just to put on the record, ASPECT represents a membership of more than 150 employment training organizations, with approximately 30,000 employees in 60 communities throughout British Columbia. ASPECT members are both non-profit and private organizations that provide community-based employment and career training specifically designed to assist individuals in overcoming their barriers to employment.

ASPECT also joined hands with some other organizations and made another umbrella organization called the B.C. Career and Workforce Development Alliance. They have been very, very concerned about the whole transition of this program. I'm sure the ministry is also very, very careful to make sure that the transition of the programs is very smooth, because it's a huge transition, in my opinion, to take over. It's a huge initiative for the ministry as well.

They made three recommendations. I would like to see the response from the minister to those recommendations. The first one is that the government ensure that key members of the B.C. Career and Workforce Development Alliance are included in the advisory committee struck to implement the LMDA funds. Can the minister respond to that?

Hon. C. Richmond: Currently the transition office is developing a process to consult with LMDA stakeholders. It is anticipated that this process will be established by April of 2008, which we are in now, so we're just about there.

In addition, the ministry has created a website that allows clients, community groups, service providers and federal Service Canada staff to provide direct input to the LMDA transition project team. I have the site address here. It's, essentially, labourmarketservices.gov.bc.ca.

Our procurement processes are designed to fairly evaluate all proponents, whether non-profit or for profit. Our staff have met with ASPECT in the past and would be pleased to meet with them in the future. So we do want to involve groups like ASPECT and other stakeholders in the transition process.

J. Brar: One of the concerns which is very common among many stakeholders providing employment programs now funded by the federal government is that the model used by the federal government is much different than MEIA's. In particular, the program of the federal government is delivered by many, many non-profit small organizations throughout the province and probably some private organizations as well, whereas the employment programs of MEIA are offered by three or four — particularly by two big organizations — big contractors.

The fear is that these programs may also be centralized and handed over to these big corporations. I would like to see what the response is from the minister on that. Is that a real fear of those organizations, or is this just not true?

Hon. C. Richmond: Just to give a recap of how a lot of our contracts have been let. BCEP — that's the B.C. employment program — is delivered by three prime contractors. We're using GT Hiring Solutions, WCG International Consultants and THEO B.C. These contractors work with over 80 community-based service providers to ensure a range and depth of services are available for clients. Services are available in both rural and urban areas, as determined necessary by the ministry's caseload demographics.

The contractors are required to flow through a minimum of 25 percent of the service fees to community-based providers. Over 35 percent of service fees have been paid to these service providers since the program's inception in July of 2006. So they're required to flow through 25 percent, but since the program's inception over 35 percent of service fees have flowed through to these providers.

We make no distinction between profit and non-profit agencies during our procurement processes. Both profit and non-profit agencies can participate in the open bidding process.

On the EPPD contracts there are ten contracts, as you said, held by three contractors: THEO B.C., West Coast Group and Neil Squire Society. Out of these contracts, worth $18 million, eight contracts are geographically based for all clients and all disabilities and two disability-specific contracts in the Lower Mainland serve individuals with mental health and mobility and physical impairments.

The contractors utilize 30 service providers and over 70 identified community partners for individuals' referral and services. Over 50 percent of the $18 million in contracts was awarded to not-for-profit organizations — over 50 percent. While EPPD contracts do not stipulate a percentage flow-through to community-based service providers, the disability-specific needs of many EPPD clients will ensure that contractors acquire the services of agencies that are positioned to address the needs of those clients.

I think that people do not have to have a worry about where the RFPs will go out. Everyone is entitled to bid on them. Just by the nature of the contracts, a great percentage flow through to community organizations and not-for-profits.

I can't get into all of the details, but as you can imagine, the other thing we will have to do as we take over this LMDA program is sort out the physical location of a lot of things like offices — which offices should stay, and which should go — so that we do not duplicate services and overhead. As I said earlier, there are a lot of details to sort out in this program. It's a huge program, and it involves an awful lot of people.

J. Brar: So my understanding on that is…. I understand the explanation, which means that at this point in time the big corporations actually have the pie. Then they are asked, probably, to bring in the other sectors — the non-profit sector or small organizations, which in one case receive only 25 percent. My understanding from that is that a similar system could follow for those programs in the future.

Having said that, keeping in mind the time, I would like to move to some questions that I received from the clients. One of the questions I have is from Robert Holmes and his wife. They're disabled and are on disability benefits. Robert is having surgery in the near future, and his wife is receiving cancer treatment in Campbell River. Instead of being helpful, in their opinion, MEIA has made their life a nightmare.

First, MEIA asked this family of three to stay in a homeless shelter in Campbell River while receiving cancer treatments, at a cost to the taxpayer of $240 per night, instead of the $60-a-night motel the family asked for. They had to fight back to get a motel room. This would have put their young daughter in the same room as drug addicts.

Second, the ministry denied their travel expenses 14 times, saying that this is the policy — each time you have to appeal and get it. They get back all 14 times. I don't understand that policy as well.

The question the family is asking now is this. The Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance paid 20 cents per kilometre for fuel costs while they're travelling for medical appointments. This rate was set a couple of years ago when the gas price was about 90 cents per litre. Today it is over 115 cents, and sometimes it even goes up beyond that. So it's almost 25 cents up. This does not include the gas tax, which could quicken horribly as well.

The ministry policy at this point in time states: "The ministry authorizes over the allowable 20 cents per kilometre if there is a significant gas price increase." So I would like to ask how the minister defines the significant gas price increase, in this case.

Hon. C. Richmond: The member is correct. Our policy is that any rate above 20 cents per kilometre will be authorized if there is a substantial increase in the price of gas, unless there are less expensive modes of transportation available.

We reviewed the cost of operating a vehicle, factoring in the cost of fuel, but it hasn't been done for a couple of years. In February of '05 we did increase it from 12 to 20 cents, but I think that you're absolutely right. With the way that gas is going right now, we better have another look at it pretty quickly, because it has gone up, like you say, about 25 cents a litre. We will be having a look at that.

As you know, I can't comment on individual cases. We can only talk on policy and the general policy but not as it applies to a specific family.

Just to clarify something I said before, so that no one gets the wrong impression. When I said we will be looking at offices throughout the province, it will be to become more efficient and cut down the overhead. I don't think we're going to be moving or closing any offices, but we may be amalgamating some offices with LMDA and with ourselves.

It's too early yet in the process to have chosen a model for the RFPs. We haven't chosen a model — how we're going to go out and look at these programs. The program for LMDA is different than programs…. They're similar but different. So we haven't chosen a model yet.

But I just wanted to just make that clear about offices. We're not going to be looking to close a bunch of offices. We're just going to be looking to be more efficient and see…. Maybe there are properties in communities that lend themselves to amalgamating offices.

J. Brar: I understand the minister cannot probably comment on the individual cases. I brought this case in as an example. There may be many other people who are in a similar situation.

Particularly, I appreciate the response from the minister. I think what the minister is saying is that the minister is committing today to review again what you call the allowance and probably adjust it to the level, which is good.

J. Brar: Yeah, I just want to mention that. This family…. I spoke to Robert a few weeks ago, and he told me that they travel about 800 kilometres every three weeks for medical appointments, which is a huge mileage they have to go through. So the allowance around the gas is very, very important for them.

Just to put that on the record. When the minister or an MLA goes on legislative duty, the policy of the government is to give them 48 cents. You know, those people who earn a very good salary, in my opinion, get 48 cents as compared to people who are very, very vulnerable and on income assistance and particularly going through a tough time — both husband and wife are on sickness and disability — and travelling a lot. It doesn't make much sense to give them just half of what the minister gets.

I won't ask any question. I will just take the commitment from the minister on that one. With that, I will probably move to my other questions and hand it over to my fellow member here.

This is another case where I just want to explain the story to the minister, again so the minister understands that story. There may be other stories like that as well.

A 14-year-old boy, Tavin, if I pronounced it right, succumbed to leukemia a couple of months ago, and his mom, of course, was trying to help him. From the day he was diagnosed, it was a struggle for the mom. She had to basically quit the job and, unfortunately, go on income assistance.

Of course, it's very, very tough when your son is in hospital and you're only receiving $500 per month, when you're to make numerous trips to hospital and probably spend some money on things that you otherwise won't spend. She got, as per the explanation here, her income assistance reduced.

My question to the minister is whether the minister can explain why the ministry reduced her income assistance benefit. Is that a policy — when her son was in hospital?

Hon. C. Richmond: I think that I heard the member correctly. The boy is suffering from glaucoma?

Hon. C. Richmond: Glaucoma, I think. Anyway, I don't have any specifics — you know, an answer to say why this particular woman's income assistance was reduced. I have no knowledge of that.

But, as in the case of the other person too, if you will give us the specifics — their names, etc. — we will look into it. Just as a random case you bring me and say, "Why was her income assistance reduced," I can't tell you. But if you give me the letter that you received from her, I will look into it.

On the previous one, I want to make it clear, too, that on the gas prices, we've committed to review it — not necessarily increase it, but we'll review it. Let's face it. I don't think that gas prices are going to go down. Maybe that's what everyone was hoping a few months ago, but I doubt that very much.

In both these cases, give us what you have on file, and let us look into it — especially the latter one if her assistance was reduced. We have no way of knowing why unless we know the case we're talking about.

B. Simpson: Before I start this line of questioning, I just want to clarify whether or not the minister has this program. It has to do with $129 million transferred from the federal government in the announced community stability fund, the $1 billion community stability fund. So just check and see if that fund or any portion of that fund is being managed through this ministry.

Hon. C. Richmond: No. We do not have responsibility for any portion of that fund. It comes under the Ministry of Economic Development.

B. Simpson: I just want to be clear, because there've been discussions about the older worker program, possible pension bridging, all kinds of things. The minister's ministry won't manage any of that in the foreseeable future? Is that correct?

Hon. C. Richmond: The answer is no. We work with the other ministries on these programs, but they're not our programs.

J. Brar: Well, the program I would like to dwell on, then, is the outreach program that the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance runs. The outreach program is run by the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance and also run by the ministry for housing. Can the minister clarify as to what is the difference? If the minister can just explain to me how these two programs stand alone and work for the same cause, that would help to understand the issue first.

Hon. C. Richmond: Yeah, it is a pretty complex program. It's easy to see why it's a little bit confusing.

The original outreach pilot program was done by our ministry, funded by our ministry, but now the program has literally been taken over by Housing. We work very closely with them, and it's mostly our staff that are the outreach workers, in many cases. We work with Housing and other ministries, and $3 million annually comes out of our ministry to pay for our staff who work with Housing across the province.

It is, of course, to connect B.C.'s most vulnerable with housing, health and income supports that will make a real difference in their lives. A lot of these people that we outreach to are people who, let's say…. Many of them have never been in a government office. They don't even know the programs that are available for them, so that's why we go out to them.

I don't have the statistics in front of me because they are with Housing, but the program has been very successful, and the retention rate has been fairly good. The Minister for Housing said to me the other day that the retention rate on the program has been close to 80 percent. So it has been successful, but not 100 percent. I don't know if we'll ever reach 100 percent success.

In all the larger urban centres the staff have regularly scheduled hours at the major hospitals. Other hospitals are served on an as- and when-needed basis. Clients being discharged from correctional facilities have access to prerelease phone services in regions that contain correctional facilities, primarily Fraser, Kamloops and Vancouver Island. We do extensive work on predischarge inmates in prisons to try to put some stability in their life the minute that they are discharged.

In Victoria and Nanaimo the ministry has also established downtown outreach service offices that are located with other community social service providers. This allows the staff to reach clients who are uncomfortable attending regular government offices and ties our services with those of our community partners.

It is a complex program and funded out of more than one ministry. This ministry has funded projects that offer specialized outreach services that continue to run through partnership funding such as Vancouver homeless outreach and Kamloops integration project. Of the 2,613 files opened provincially since our homeless outreach project began in October 2005, 1,804 files were still open as of January 18, 2008. Of the open files, 1,391 included shelter. That's 77 percent of these clients that have shelter and are receiving assistance.

J. Brar: Can the minister tell me the number of FTEs working in the outreach program under the MEIA program?

Hon. C. Richmond: The number of FTEs working on outreach in our ministry is 38.

J. Brar: Last brief question on the outreach. Then I'll move on to something else.

In Surrey, the second-largest city in the province, now with probably close to 500 homeless people — which is also second largest — there are only one and a half FTEs for outreach, which is nowhere close to the capacity which is needed. I don't know whether that's funded by MEIA or the ministry for housing.

My question is: is that a sufficient number, or is there any review going on to actually add some more people to do the outreach work to reach out to the 500 people who are homeless in Surrey?

Hon. C. Richmond: I don't have absolute numbers of how many work in outreach in Surrey. I don't know where the number of 1.5 comes from, but we can get those numbers.

Here are several pages on service delivery in Surrey, just to give you an example. A lot of it is outreach: "job placement success, Surrey and surrounding areas, employment and community assistance programs, interpretation and translation, mental health and community corrections."

Just for example on this one…. "MEIA Fraser Health and the community corrections and B.C. Housing have a joint project building on previous pilots in the Fraser region. MEIA and Fraser Health co-fund six mental health and addictions liaison providing services in seven employment and assistance offices." So there's a lot of FTEs there.

Community corrections provides community corrections workers who work in the same seven employment and assistance offices. Then there's corrections outreach, corrections prerelease project, Surrey pretrial, drug and alcohol facility outreach, service integration coordinator, Phoenix Alcohol and Drug Recovery and Education Society — MCFD have outreach there — hospital outreach services, homeless outreach, homelessness committees, emergency social services outreach, immigrant services outreach, residential tenancy and integration and outreach, fire commissioner, Surrey fire department — on and on it goes.

It sounds like there are a lot more than one and a half FTEs working on outreach in Surrey.

J. Brar: I will put that on the record. I appreciate what the minister read. As for my understanding, there are two places where the outreach workers who are specifically to reach out to the homeless population in the city are. One is at Highland House, which is a shelter place. The other one is called the Front Room, where homeless people come, and they can have a cup of tea, take a shower, change and all that kind of stuff. Those are the two which I know from the activists and which are specifically for outreach work.

Having said that, I would like to move on — keeping in mind the time — to a new topic, which is Child in the Home of a Relative. That's a program which was, and probably still is, part of the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance. I know the program is moving to MCFD, but the question I would like to ask the minister is: will that impact in any way the funding of this ministry, and is there any transition plan for that?

Hon. C. Richmond: As with any program, it's prudent to review its operations and benefit to clients. We are working with the Ministry of Children and Family Development to determine how Child in the Home of a Relative fits into government's continuum of services and programs for children.

This Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance will continue to hold responsibility for the program CIHR. The Ministry of Children and Families will provide child welfare services to those CIHR applicants who are identified through screening as benefiting from child welfare services. The program will transfer to that ministry. We don't have a date yet as to when, and when the transfer is made, the funding for the program will go with it. The funding at the moment is $19.5 million a year.

N. Simons: Thank you to the minister and his staff for being here to answer questions. I'd like to just follow up on the CIHR question.

My understanding was that the entire program was going to be transferred to the Ministry of Children and Families, and I understood that there was, in fact, a time line. Are there any individuals specifically charged with ensuring that that transfer occurs? Does the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance have any FTEs working specifically on that transfer?

Hon. C. Richmond: To answer the member's question as best I can, there is no specific date for when the program will transfer. It is being worked on, on a continuing basis, and the only two dedicated staff working on this are the two deputy ministers.

N. Simons: Can the minister explain what services — apart from those services available to any child in the province — he means when he's talking about child welfare services? Are there any special services that the ministry is offering children in the home of a relative that other children in the province are automatically eligible for anyway?

Hon. C. Richmond: Sounds like a relatively simple question, but it's fairly complex. Children in the home of relatives may apply. This is over and above what we pay — the maximum monthly rate. It's a table that goes from birth to five years to 18 years. So it starts at $257.46 and goes to $454.32, and all rates in between.

A child in the home of a relative may apply for the Canada child tax benefit through the Canada Revenue Agency, which automatically generates entitlement to the B.C. family bonus program and the B.C. earned income benefit. A child in the home of a relative may be eligible for child tax benefits of up to $272.59 per month for each child, plus an additional $100 a month under the universal child care benefit if the child is under the age of six.

These payments are in addition to the rates for a child in the home of a relative, which I just quoted. Besides that, a child in the home of a relative receives the same benefits as any other child on income assistance in the province.

N. Simons: Are some of those benefits that families receive for the care of their children…? Are some of those benefits just mentioned also clawed back in the calculation of the monthly allowance for parents looking after relatives?

Hon. C. Richmond: The child tax credits are income-tested, they're income-based, and that's federal taxation. We don't claw anything back.

N. Simons: In fact, the amounts mentioned may not be everything that those families receive. The federal government may put their hands into their pockets. Fair enough. I understand that.

The question I have is with respect to the transfer of programs that go with a child in the home of a relative. Was that a statement the ministry made — that they would be transferring the entire program to the Ministry of Children and Family Development? If so, while I'm still on my feet, was there a date when that announcement was made?

Hon. C. Richmond: The best I can find out about a date is that it was reported to the standing committee of the Legislature that we're working towards a date. I can't tell you the date that was said. We did not pin down a date that the program would be transferred, and as I said earlier, the two deputies are still working on that and trying to iron out the details.

N. Simons: Well, that's fair enough. I think partly the question is motivated by the fact that the representative is interested in allowing those children who are under the Child in the Home of a Relative to be under her purview as receiving designated services, I believe it's called.

So with that, just to get an idea, how many children…? If you can give me just a brief, historical…. What's the trend in the number of children in the home of a relative — maybe this year compared to last year, a couple of years?

Hon. C. Richmond: I can give the member some numbers here starting in 2001 and coming up to 2008, which will be an estimate. In 2001 there were 4,381; the next year, 4,510; the next year, 4,170; the next year, 4,368; 4,459; 4,577; 4,719; and an estimate for this year of 4,767.

N. Simons: It appears that there's a growing trend of children being placed under that program. Well, we can account for some outliers, I suppose, but there seems to be a general trend that we've stayed above the 4,400 number since 2004 or perhaps 2005. My concern is whether that's a reflection of something that's happened, maybe, in other ministries.

I've heard from social workers that they're being asked to consider this as a less disruptive measure when dealing with child welfare issues, and I'm not sure of the intelligence or whatever — the reasoning behind that.

I'm wondering if the ministry has any projections for how this number may increase if the alternatives in the Ministry of Children and Families continue to decline.

Hon. C. Richmond: It's very hard to predict the trends, but according to our senior staff, the trend, they feel, is for it to remain flat or to grow very slightly. There doesn't seem to be any indication that it's going to grow, other than what's indicated in the numbers that I gave you — growing slightly. Other than that, I

N. Simons: All of it's helpful. I wonder if the number you gave — the 4,000-and-some — includes those first nations children living on reserve under the guardianship financial assistance program?

N. Simons: I suppose that sort of leads to the question as to how those services are going to be transferred. Will they become, in fact, child welfare services? Because children who are living in the home of relatives, not always but in many cases, are there because of something that prevents them from being able to live at home. There could be a number of factors. We all know that extended family helps raise children in all communities. It's not specific to any one.

My question is whether or not the minister might be able to announce at some point when the target date for that transfer is occurring, simply because as a community…. I think it's important to recognize that some of those children do have some higher needs, in terms of resources and plans and services. If the minister could perhaps give a projected target date for those transfers to occur.

Hon. C. Richmond: The answer is no; I can't give you a date. Like I say, it's being worked on and being discussed very thoroughly by the two deputies at the top level of government. I can tell the member this: as soon as we have a date, you will know.

J. Kwan: My question relates to, first of all, the issue that I raised with the minister in the Legislature during question period. That is regarding Darrell Mickasko. The minister took the question on notice.

The question, to refresh the minister's memory, is around whether or not Darrell Mickasko was denied a damage deposit from the ministry. I wonder if the minister has that answer now.

Hon. C. Richmond: Yes, I do. But again, it's a specific case which I would rather not comment on in public. I don't think it's fair to the family, etc. I will tell the member this, that we have written you a letter with the details in it, and it's in that letter. You should have it by now or by the end of today.

J. Kwan: That is good, because I had written the minister a letter inquiring about that on behalf of the family prior to me raising the question in question period. It was such a long time since the letter was sent, and I didn't receive a response. I had met with the family again, who really wanted to know. Therefore, I took the opportunity in the Legislature to raise it during question period one day. So I'm glad.

I'll wait until the end of the week. Hopefully, the answer is forthcoming, as the family has been in contact with me around this issue and they continue to be concerned, obviously. The last time I saw the family was at Darrell's memorial service in my community. So I thank the minister for that.

On the same kind of track, if you will, on damage deposits more generally, I also wrote a letter to the minister some time ago, to which the minister did respond, which I appreciate. I have the response in front of me right now, where the minister advises the number of people who only get support with two or more damage deposits outstanding. Then the minister had broken down the regions and what those numbers looked like for me.

I'm wondering. Does the minister or, within the ministry, does anybody actually take the initiative to ask these individuals who have been turned down for a damage deposit for the second time…? I know that certainly in my community many folks are not able to get the damage deposit back because the landlord is not returning it to them.

Does anybody from the ministry ever initiate that process for the recipient? If they don't get the damage deposit back, does anybody in the ministry inquire about what they're going to do around their living situations?

Hon. C. Richmond: It's a fairly complex answer, so I'll do my best. I might not get it in exactly the right order.

Our people are working and training with the residential tenancy people, because ultimately it is their responsibility. But we are endeavouring to train our staff with the RTO people to help clients, and we make every effort to make sure that clients don't get evicted. That's the last thing we want.

We have cases on file, just so the member knows, where people have been issued multi-multidamage deposits — in fact, ranging 20 and beyond; 20 times people have come for damage deposits. So it's really extenuating circumstances when we turn someone down for a damage deposit.

There are exceptions: additional security deposits are issued if a person is fleeing an abusive relationship or they're required to move due to health and safety concerns; have to move because their rental premises are being sold, demolished or condemned; or they are homeless and require a security deposit to secure accommodation. So we go to all lengths possible to see that someone does not get evicted or does not lose their damage deposit.

We also have a team that we work with, and it includes housing. HITT, it's called, for a slang term. It's our HIT team. We work with people to combat unscrupulous landlords. There are some out there, as we all know. Most landlords are pretty good, but there are some out there who are unscrupulous. We do work with our team, which includes the city of Vancouver and the police and our workers to make sure that clients are not unfairly treated. I hope that answers the question.

J. Kwan: Sort of, but not really. Let me maybe break down the questions, then, in this way.

First of all, on the question around damage deposits, the minister mentioned that his staff is working with the folks at the residential tenancy branch to try and deal with the matter, particularly where eviction comes into play. The issue with damage deposit is not so much that you get evicted if you don't pay a damage deposit; it's more that if you don't pay a damage deposit, you actually can't get a unit. Therefore, it renders somebody homeless.

On that first question, whether or not the ministry staff is working with anyone to assist people, in terms of what other alternatives they have…. So if a client comes to the ministry and asks for another damage deposit and, under the government's policy, they have reached their maximum threshold of two and they're rejected for a damage deposit, what happens to that client? Does the ministry follow up to say: "Okay, now what is your housing option, given that you now don't have a damage deposit"?

Hon. C. Richmond: I'll be as clear as I can on this. Clients are limited to a maximum of two outstanding security deposits, unless they are exempt from this requirement. I read off a list of exemptions — like if they're fleeing abusive relationships or health and safety concerns, etc.

They have the option of either repaying the security deposit in a lump sum when returned by the landlord or through a monthly cheque reduction of $20 per month. We have several people doing that.

Clients can receive a third security deposit once at least one has been repaid or they've made arrangements to repay it at so much per month. I don't know if I can be any more clear than that.

J. Kwan: Yes, I understand all of that. I understand what the policy is, and that's what the minister is doing, reading me the policy. I know what they are. That's not my question, what the policy is.

My question is: when the ministry turns down a client's request for a damage deposit because they have reached their maximum threshold of getting a damage deposit under hardship or otherwise, does the ministry staff — the caseworker, in that instance — follow up with the client and ask this question: "What is your housing option now, given that you're refused a damage deposit"?

Hon. C. Richmond: The answer to the question is yes, our staff does work with people to find them an alternative or to find them accommodation. We collaborate with a number of stakeholders — CHMA, B.C. Housing — to provide outreach services in order to connect homeless or at-risk individuals with ministry supports, which include conducting intake interviews, helping to complete application forms, connecting clients with community services for housing information. And yes, additional security deposits may be provided in situations where a client is homeless and requires a security deposit to secure accommodation.

We do require clients to bring in an intent-to-rent form to receive a damage deposit. Sometimes we give them the form, they don't come back, and we don't see them again. Some have come back multiple times and received damage deposits. All they have to do is complete a simple form from a landlord to show their intent to rent at a specific address.

J. Kwan: I just want to clarify the answer to my question. Is the minister saying that every time a client comes into the ministry's office asking for a damage deposit, which they have reached the maximum threshold of, and the answer from the ministry is, "No, you're not qualified for a damage deposit," then the ministry staff follows up and refers the person to some housing person in the non-profit sector or within the municipal government to find them housing accommodation to make sure that they're not left homeless?

Did I hear, essentially, what the minister's answer is to my question, and that's what the practice is? Wow.

Hon. C. Richmond: It is expected that our staff take on this responsibility and do everything possible to point them in the right direction and to make sure that they secure housing. It's not our responsibility to find people housing, but it is our responsibility to make sure as best we can that they are pointed in the right direction and are given every chance to find accommodation.

The one form that we do insist they bring in is an intent-to-rent form that they have found a place where they're going to stay, signed by the landlord. They bring this form in, and then usually they are given a damage deposit.

If a client comes in and brings an intent-to-rent form to the ministry and asks for an additional damage deposit…. They have exhausted the number of damage deposits that they're allowed, they are not paying the overpayment deductions — the $20 or lump sum payment or whatever the case may be — they're not fleeing from an abusive relationship, and they are not being evicted from accommodations being sold or condemned.

They're just not able to get their damage deposit back from the previous landlord for whatever reason, and they show up. They need new accommodations at that point, and they have an intent-to-rent form. The worker then turns around and says: "Sorry. You're not qualified. Our policy says that you're not qualified."

Is the minister saying to me that the staff will then proceed to try and assist that person though will not guarantee that that person will find alternative accommodation? Is this what the minister is telling me that the ministry staff will endeavour to do?

Hon. C. Richmond: I'll answer the member's question as best I can. We do expect our staff to work with

people the best they can to provide accommodation for them. We have a policy in the ministry that we try never to turn anyone away. In most cases it works. We don't like to turn anyone away. If they need accommodation, we will try and find a way to make it work.

If you have a specific situation, let us know, and we can deal with it. There are some — what would I call them? — bad actors out there, who I've run into in my own constituency and who seem to trash every apartment they rent. The landlords won't give back the damage deposit, and in a case like that, we just can't keep on giving damage deposits when someone may be….

In the one case I recall, it was drug addiction and drug parties in the suite. The place gets wrecked, and it costs the landlord $10,000 to repair the suite. This happens over and over. So we've said: "If it happens twice, you're not going to get another damage deposit."

That's rare. Mostly we try to accommodate people, and if they have reached the limit of two, we will even suggest to them: "You will start now paying at the rate of $20 a month, and we'll give you another damage deposit."

I do reiterate that we try never to turn anyone away. Secondly, if you have a specific case, please let us know, and we'll look at it.

J. Kwan: Yes, there are a number of specific cases that are going on in my riding, but I'll save that for another day in terms of raising those issues with the minister.

More specifically, the minister is saying they'll do everything they can to prevent someone from being homeless. So if a person comes to the ministry office and asks for a damage deposit with the intent-to-rent information, and so on, and they've reached their maximum threshold — I won't go through all the categories of maximum threshold — and the ministry staff says, "No, sorry, you're not qualified," and the person then says, "That would mean that I'm homeless," does that then change the government's position, and that person will then be issued a damage deposit?

Hon. C. Richmond: I guess the best way I can answer the question is that we cannot give an ironclad guarantee that every person in the situation you described would receive another damage deposit. I think it would depend on their history.

If it was really bad, they may be turned down, or they may be pointed towards a shelter, especially until we can iron out the situation. If this person is genuinely homeless and they haven't a bad record, as I said, of damaging suites, the staff do have the flexibility to say: "We're not going to see you homeless. We will give you a damage deposit." But to make an ironclad guarantee that everybody who comes in and asks for one is going to get one…. I can't do that.

As I said, some have had up to 20 and more damage deposits, because they do bring in the required form, and they have been paying it off. They tend to move an awful lot, I guess, so we do have some with multiple damage deposits.

J. Kwan: When the minister says that they would determine that on a case-by-case basis and that only people with a bad record would then be rejected because they had trashed previous places before…. If that's the case, let me ask this question. How does the minister go about determining that the person has a bad record and that the place prior to them leaving has been damaged to such an extent that they could not get a damage deposit back? Does the ministry proactively undertake that work to find out? How do they determine a bad record?

Hon. C. Richmond: Mr. Chairman, I will do my best to answer the member's question.

First of all, we don't go out proactively looking for the bad tenants, if you like, but we do have their record. We know what their record of damage deposits is. As I said, many have had ten, 15, 20 damage deposits, but they're paying them back on a $20-a-month basis. We also know, by their record, whether they fall into the category of people who habitually trash rental accommodations. Beyond that, I don't know if I can answer any further.

In our outreach programs, as I gave the previous questioner, we have gone to great lengths through that program to find people housing, people who have had difficulties. So 77 percent of the clients that we have taken in have shelter and are receiving assistance. We do our best to find them shelter, get them into shelter, get them shelter assistance. I have to reiterate that it's really not our responsibility to find people housing. That's not our responsibility. We pay them a shelter allowance. It's up to them to go and find their accommodation, but we do everything we can to assist them.

J. Kwan: I get it that it's not the ministry's responsibility to provide or find the housing. Sorry, I should rephrase that, to be very clear. It's not the ministry's responsibility to find the client housing, but it is the ministry's responsibility to ensure, under income assistance support for the individual, that they get the support portion and the shelter portion.

The shelter portion they could not get access to under the government's policy…. If they reach a maximum threshold of damage deposits, it could potentially jeopardize the individual's shelter portion. That is my point.

If the minister says they don't proactively work to find out which client is a "bad actor" — the minister's words — on damage deposit issues now, how is it that the minister would know from previously that they have a bad record, that they have not gotten their damage deposit back because they have trashed their previous premises? If the minister can't find that out today, how would they have that record, and where would that record come from?

That doesn't make sense to me at all, and that is my issue. There are people who may have more than two or three or five or six, whatever, number of damage deposits outstanding — not a fault of their own but

because the bad actor happens to be the landlord who wouldn't return the damage deposits. That happens, quite frankly, often in my riding, in the downtown east side.

I know that the minister will say that it's the responsibility of the client to go after these landlords and then to go to the residential tenancy branch to recover that. Mr. Chair, I've been an advocate in the community before, and I've got to tell you how difficult it is for the client to go through that process and be successful. Many of them don't know the laws. They don't know where to actually go about trying to get their damage deposit back.

Now that the advocacy provision of many agencies, including legal aid, for administrative law has been eliminated by way of funding by the government, there are very few people out there in the community that could assist such an individual to go through that process. Of course, with the closure of the residential tenancy offices, that makes it even more onerous.

I know the minister says that you can actually go and do the phone-in. I can tell you the litany of problems with phone-ins with residential tenant complaints and how unsuccessful those attempts are for many clients — not, of course, accounting for the notion that many of these clients that I'm talking about don't even have a phone.

I won't belabour those points. I'm just making the point here that there are people in the province of British Columbia who I believe are made homeless as a result of the fact that they can't access a damage deposit.

The minister sent me information around the questions that I asked on how many people are not getting damage deposits because they're not eligible. The minister gave me information on the number of cases, the number of recipients and how many of those are on the overdue payment deduction.

By my calculation, when you work out all of these, in the Vancouver Island region there are 24 people who are not getting a damage deposit, who are only receiving the support portion. I wonder how many of those 24 are homeless because they don't have a damage deposit.

In the Vancouver coastal region the number is 65. How many of those are made homeless because they can't get a damage deposit? In the Fraser region the number is 62. In the Interior it's eight. In the north it's four. I think these numbers contribute, to an extent, to the homelessness rate in the province.

Let me just go to this question. The minister had written to me, and it says in this document: "Ministry workers can now issue up to two additional security deposits for clients who are involved in homeless outreach pilots." For those individuals who are involved in the homeless outreach pilots…. Presumably, then, they issue additional security deposits, at least an additional two, which the minister says they qualify for.

For those individuals who get those two additional security deposits, do they have to pay them back? Are they on an overpayment deduction program with the ministry, and do they have to be agreeable to that program before they get any assistance from the homeless outreach workers?

Hon. C. Richmond: The answer to the last part of the question is, yes, they would have to go on accounts receivable and pay off uncollected damage deposits. I should add that one of the reasons we're doing this program with the residential tenancy office is to assist our staff to find ways for people to tackle the residential tenancy office. We want to have people who are experienced, in every part of the province, to assist people to go through the residential tenancy maze, if you like, for want of a better word, and assist them in every way to do that.

It's quite rare that we turn someone down for a damage deposit. It doesn't happen very often. I think the numbers that the member had was 163 people of 100,000 clients. So 163 out of 100,000 are not very many. It is very rare that it happens.

J. Kwan: From my good colleague's instructions, I'm only allowed to ask one more question, so I'm going to ask this one last question.

On the damage deposit issue. It's a serious issue in my riding, where many people are not able to get the damage deposit back. I would venture to say that while there may be some who are damaging suites — so legitimately, they're not getting the damage deposit back — there are many, I've got to tell you, who are not getting the damage deposit back because the landlord is refusing to return them.

Has the minister contemplated a program where the damage deposit is actually held in trust by a third party? It could be a non-profit association, or whatever the case may be, so that unless there is proof of damage, those moneys would go back to the ministry automatically. Therefore, it would not penalize the clients, and more to the point, it would ensure that the clients would be able to get their damage deposit back should they want to move on to a next residence.

Hon. C. Richmond: Well, I thank the member for her thought on this, and it's a good thought. Maybe we should put a damage deposit in trust, perhaps with the Ministry for Housing or with the residential tenancy branch — a third party other than our ministry. It's maybe not a bad idea and something we should pursue.

J. Kwan: Really my last question. Will the minister endeavour to take that up with the Minister for Housing?

J. Kwan: Okay. I will now leave. They're going to throw stones at me if I don't, so I'll stop asking questions.

J. Brar: I just want to conclude by saying thanks to the minister and thanks, particularly, to the staff members for their hard work in helping us out over the last two days and for their patience with all the questions. Thank you very much for that, too, before we conclude the debate on the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance.

The Chair: We will now stand recessed until the Minister of Transportation arrives, at which time we will reconvene with Ministry of Transportation estimates. Committee A is in recess.

G. Coons: Thanks again for coming in. You can sort of see we're mishmashing here. A couple of us, my colleague and I, will hopefully get some questions out to the minister.

I just want to clarify something that the minister has said recently. "We increase our subsidy to the ferry corporation every year." I'm just wondering, over the last four years — in 2003, '04, '05 and '06 — the provincial subsidy has been constant, stagnant, at $91.8 million. The only increase has been the federal subsidy and when the Queen of the North sank and money went into that.

I believe there needs to be some clarification that the service fee has remained stagnant until the Queen of the North sank. And of course there's the social program that puts money in. But there has not been any increase in the provincial subsidy except for when the Queen of the North sank. Is that correct?

Hon. K. Falcon: Member, in the last couple of years, what you'll see every year increasing is…. There are social programs that go into the ferries. As you know, we subsidize the cost of seniors, those with medical issues, students, etc. That has increased every year as part of the overall increase.

The base amount. The member is right. For a couple of years the base amount was static, even though the social program component continues to increase every year. For example, last year, '07-08, it was $11½ million. The year before it was $11 million. You'll see that tick up every year. The base amount last year went up by, I believe, about $13 million. That was to reflect the increase that the member correctly referred to for the new vessel on the northern routes.

The other thing, last year, that the member would be well aware of is that on top of all those increases, we provided an additional $7 million to help keep future fuel increases down — it actually went toward the fuel deferral account — for the northern and minor routes, in an attempt by government to make additional contributions to try to keep down fuel increases.

G. Coons: I just wanted to confirm that since 2003, '04, '05 and '06 the base amount for the provincial subsidy remained at $91.8 million. There have been other areas that have gone up, but the base amount for, say, the minor routes has remained the same.

The second thing I want to talk about is route 40 and the importance of route 40. There are many concerns with not extending the season for route 40. The Cariboo regional district, the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association, both Cariboo MLAs — North and South — have had concerns about the economic need and the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars in businesses, restaurants and hotels. It affects Highways 19, 20, 27 and 99.

The ferry advisory committee for the north and regions…. The people on the central coast have been trying to get information about the Queen of Chilliwack. The minister, unfortunately, the day the Queen of the North sank, in his press release said that the funding was approved for the three new ferries. The minister said it was "several hundreds of millions of dollars."

I'm wondering how much was allocated on that day. What is in the budget as far as hundreds of millions of dollars, and what is the status of the Queen of Chilliwack and the replacement?

Hon. K. Falcon: The member will know that the province, in making an additional $13 million annual investment each and every year towards putting into place the new Adventure, which is now sailing on the waters…. The member will know that was about a $100 million cost.

The Expedition, of course, will increase our annual subsidy by another $22 million — again, demonstrating, I believe, the strength of our commitment to northern, remote communities. That Expedition will come on stream just prior to the summer of 2009. It represents a total investment value of about $200 million, so that's $300 million just between those two vessels.

In terms of the third vessel to replace the Queen of Chilliwack, we're still in discussions with the ferry corporation with respect to what that replacement would look like. Those discussions haven't been finalized at this point, so I don't have a nailed-down value on that one for the member.

G. Coons: I guess that also included in there somewhere is the $68 million that for insurance purposes B.C. Ferries got for the sinking.

Again, the concern with route 40 is the Chilliwack. As the minister knows, by 2012 it can't be sailing. There

was documentation by Capt. Trafford Taylor, who is the vice-president for B.C. Ferries for new vessel construction. He indicated that if you don't have…. "There's a huge competition for yard slots. If you want a ship today, you're not going to get one until 2012 at the earliest, and every year it's going to increase more."

I'm just wondering if the minister is going to commit to having a new vessel by 2012. Some of the documents that I've received here through the core review indicated that route 40 was a candidate to be abandoned. Actually, it says: "Notwithstanding the foregoing, B.C. Ferries may at any time after the first two years of the term abandon route 40 if it's unable to find alternate service."

I realize that they've changed that from two years to the five-year term, but I'm wondering if the minister can commit to two things: a new vessel for route 40 to replace the Chilliwack and that route 40 is not a route to be abandoned.

Hon. K. Falcon: Look, Member. There's no question in my mind. I've seen nothing that would suggest that there wouldn't be continued service on route 40. I have no doubt that there will continue to be service on route 40.

In terms of what the vessel will look like, as I said, that's part of the discussions we're having with B.C. Ferries right now. All the options are on the table in terms of how that service would best be provided.

Again, the member is correct to point out that there is an expiry date in terms of the vessel's eligibility under the SOLAS federal regulations in terms of how long it can operate. This, unfortunately, was a legacy that we were left with. The average age of the ferry fleet is 42 years old.

The ferry corporation has done, I think, a pretty exceptional job of trying to rejuvenate and replace the vessels on this route — right across the ferry fleet, in fact. But it does take time. The member is correct to point that out. We're working hard. We're negotiating with Ferries, and we'll do the best we can to come to an agreement that makes sense for the public, makes sense for route 40 and makes sense for taxpayers.

G. Coons: Again, I go back to the press release. It says that the government approved funding for three new vessels. I want to highlight the concern of getting it out in the tendering line so that it's ready by 2012. The concern up and down the coast is that this route will not have a new vessel by 2012 and that it's a candidate for abandonment, so I'm glad the minister has made the commitment that there will be a vessel out there by 2012.

I have a couple of questions about fuel surcharges. I'm just wondering if the minister could explain how fuel surcharges are now going to be put into the realm of public notice and with ferry users and how fuel surcharges will be applied in the coming years.

Hon. K. Falcon: The commissioner has set up a process for part of performance term contract 2, the second term, for how the commissioner is going to be looking at fuel increases. That, apparently, according to my staff, is available on the website; I don't have the details with me. I do know that it will include continued requirements by the ferry corporation to demonstrate what tangible steps they're taking in terms of improving their fuel efficiency on their vessels and the fuel utilization that's being undertaken by the vessels.

So all aspects of the ferry corporation — how they operate their vessels, the speed at which they operate their vessels, all of those kinds of things — will also be examined by the ferry commissioner to ensure that they're doing everything they can do to try to reduce their fuel consumption.

G. Coons: Yes, and it's under memorandum 24, I think, that B.C. Ferries and the minister or the government has agreed to. Basically, it changes the method of applying for fuel surcharges away from section 42 of the Coastal Ferry Act where there were strict guidelines and legislation, to enact a fuel surcharge. Right now, and this is a quote from the ferry commissioner: "Changes to the fuel surcharge may not be made more frequently than quarterly, and B.C. Ferries must give 15 days' public notice of the change. An application under section 42 of the Coastal Ferry Act…will not be required." The method of adjustment may result in changes to the fuel surcharges or rebates by route group occurring at different times.

In other words, we have gone to a set procedure — legislation — that requires public input, requires B.C. Ferries to justify what they're doing, to now in a year — not more than quarterly…. Four times a year they can request a fuel surcharge, with 15 days' notice — no public input. Over the length of this term they can request 16 fuel surcharges with no public input.

My question is: why did the minister allow and ignore legislation in the Coastal Ferry Act to let fuel surcharges be enacted with no public input?

Hon. K. Falcon: This is a decision that was made by the independent ferries commissioner. The independent ferries commissioner, of course, being independent from government and from elected officials, including myself, makes decisions on how best to move forward.

Though the member could ask the commissioner directly if he wishes, I think that the likely rationale was that in an era of fuel increases becoming less extraordinary in the sense that you've got continual upward pressure on oil prices, going through that very lengthy process almost became a moot point. They'd be going through that process, and already you'd seen fuel prices increase even more. I think that the public recognizes now, sadly but realistically, that we're in an era where it is likely that fuel increases are probably more the norm than the exception.

What I suspect the independent ferries commissioner was likely doing was saying: "Look, rather than pretend we have to have a process here that will always be behind the times in terms of how long it

takes to go through this process of public consultation and input and everything…." Recognizing that much of the input he hears, presumably, is probably the same as what he heard last time, he said: "Let's have no more than four times a year when the rates and the fuel surcharge decisions will be analyzed and deal with it that way."

That's what I'm speculating, Member, but again, you'd have to ask the independent ferries commissioner directly, because that was his decision.

G. Coons: I would expect the minister to take more responsibility for the legislation in the Coastal Ferry Act and ensure that section 42 was followed or that there were some amendments to section 42 to allow this to happen, which I don't believe the minister has followed through on. I find it pretty ludicrous that the minister would follow through on this commitment with B.C. Ferries behind the scenes and put the onus on the commissioner that he made a good recommendation in contradiction to legislation.

But thank you for that, Minister, and I hope that there will be legislation coming forward to amend the Coastal Ferry Act and section 42.

The next questions I have are about — and thank you for your letters — the duty remission. It was about $13.9 million for the Northern Adventure to offset increases for the non-major routes. The letter the minister sent to me about that…. He said it was to offset fee increases for the non-major routes, but the remission order from the federal government had specific direction, as indicated in their press releases and three comments from federal ministers.

They basically indicated…. This is Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty: "By remitting these duties to B.C. Ferries, our government is recognizing the challenges faced by those living in northern B.C."

The other minister was the hon. Chuck Strahl, who basically said, "Many coastal communities that the ferry served" — meaning those on the north coast. And David Emerson looked at the link between northern B.C. and the rest of the province.

So I'm wondering why the minister and B.C. Ferries indicated that the duty remission would go to all the minor routes and not go to the northern routes, as directed by the remission order?

Hon. K. Falcon: Well, first of all, I thank the member for the question, because I think this was an important point. Candidly, Member, it would have been nice to have the opposition…. When we were lobbying for that duty remission — not to have to have taxpayers pay that — it would have been nice to hear some support from the opposition benches, which I didn't recall hearing at all. In fact, I believe that the opposition was in lockstep with the shipyard union workers, saying that that should be paid. I think that that wasn't a good decision.

What we could have done, and what initially the federal government was going to wish to require us to do, would have in effect allowed us to apply that toward the capital costs of the new Northern Adventure. We didn't want to do that, although it would have benefited us, frankly. It would have reduced the annual subsidy requirement that we have in place, the $13 million a year. It would have actually resulted in government having to pay less had we applied it toward the capital cost of the vessel.

What we instead did, first of all, is we went to the federal government and we said: "It would be lunacy to force B.C. Ferries to pay a $13.9 million penalty for the crime of going out and seeking a replacement vessel after searching around the world, recognizing the dramatic impact that the sinking of the Queen of the North had on northwest coastal communities — that it would be lunacy to punish them for going out and doing the right thing and finding the only available vessel they could find after searching the world, retrofitting it and investing a hundred million dollars so we could restore service and to then penalize them for that."

What we said is: "Instead of penalizing for that, which would make absolutely no sense, give us back those dollars, and we will apply it towards reducing fee increases on all the minor routes," so that there would be a benefit for all the minor routes.

You add that on the $7 million contribution that I made reference to earlier, and we're talking very significant dollars that the province, the government, lobbied hard to bring about.

I am pleased to say that the federal government…. I want to take this opportunity to thank them and to thank Minister Emerson and Minister Flaherty in particular for working with us in this regard, because what it did is essentially provide a benefit for the minor routes in that those dollars, that $13.9 million, would go towards reducing fees on the minor routes.

I think that's something that should be celebrated, and I thank the member for bringing that to the attention of the public, because it was a very important contribution. It was a very significant policy fight.

As I say, I would have liked to have had the opposition and all of us speaking in unison in one voice, calling for that. We weren't able to achieve that, but at least the government was successful in lobbying the federal government to listen to the concerns so that we could provide further assistance on trying to keep fees down on the minor routes.

G. Coons: Again, I find it a bit interesting that on one hand he says that the ferries commissioner has the right to lobby the legislation and to start to enact rules and memorandums, as the automatic adjustment mechanism with fuel surcharges, and then on the other hand says he doesn't have a say in how fare caps are going to be directed.

In July '07 the ferries commissioner said: "The province is in a position to determine how the rebate is applied. If it is applied to reduce fare caps, it will be reflected in our final decision. We estimate that it would reduce the growth of the fare cap on the non-major routes from 6.7…to 6.3…per year in performance term 2…."

Now, the remission order clearly, in my mind and the mind of us on the north coast, was directed for those on the northern routes and not all the non-major routes. That was July '07. In September '07 the commissioner, in his final decision order on the performance term 2 price cap, says: "An adjustment to the price cap shall be made if the provincial government decides to direct the federal government rebate of import duty and related GST on the vessel Northern Adventure to the benefit of ferry customers."

My question is, again: has the minister contacted the ferries commissioner to see about his adjustments for the fare caps? And will they go down, not for the minor routes…? Obviously, they haven't gone down for any of the routes, but will the minister direct it to be put towards the northern routes, as the remission order from the federal government directed?

Hon. K. Falcon: It seems to me, Member, that the important issue here is that this government — unfortunately, without any support from the opposition — made it a position of the government that we were going to go to the federal government and fight to make sure that GST would not be payable on a ferry corporation vessel that was needed to restore service to the northern coastal communities. It seems to me that the important issue is that all of those dollars — that $13.9 million or $13.8 million; whatever the number was — will go towards helping to prevent future fee increases on the minor routes, the subsidized routes, in the system.

That seems to me to be exactly what we want to be trying to achieve. I would have thought I would hear some recognition or some thanks that at least we fought the fight to bring that about. We certainly got no assistance from the NDP. It was this government that fought this fight. While you were hanging out hiding in the bushes, I was up there making the argument publicly and taking on all the critics, like your friends over in the ferry workers' union there, your friends over in the shipyard workers' union, and saying: "No, no, no. There is a broader public interest here to help to keep down future fee increases for subsidized routes, for all the minor routes." And we achieved that.

That was actually something that was positive. It builds on the $7 million contribution we made last year to again try to keep the fee increases on the northern and minor routes reduced as much as possible. That's an over $20 million commitment right there alone, in addition to the new vessels that they're getting — the Northern Adventure; the Northern Expedition, which will be coming out next year; and of course a third vessel, ultimately, to replace the Queen of Chilliwack.

That's progress. That's a significant benefit. That is a huge departure from the decade where, unfortunately, we saw virtually no investment in the fleet or the terminals.

As I mentioned to the member in our last discussion that we had, $837 million worth of capital investment has been made since we've turned the ferry corporation into an independent authority — on new vessels, terminal upgrades, vessel upgrades, etc. That's pretty significant. And the fact is that over the next 15 years, $2.4 billion will be invested by the corporation to continue that fleet renewal. I think that this effort at reducing future fuel increases has been very significant.

G. Coons: I realize the time. I think that there's a fine line between hiding in the bushes and having your head buried in the sand, as most ferry-dependent communities believe that the minister has been placed.

I'm going to pass it on. I do want to give some written questions, Minister, because of the time frame of our estimates being cut back. I would like to talk about the B.C. Ferry Authority — I'll put this in writing — and some more stuff about the Transportation Safety Board and the sinking of the Queen of the North, the regulators and the alternate service providers and the progress of that, along with the debt, apparently, of $1.2 billion that B.C. Ferries has.

We didn't get to inland ports. I'd like to talk about some stuff about inland ferries and whether or not the inland ferries will fall under the carbon-neutral proponents that this government is putting forward and, obviously, about eight or nine questions with ports, dealing with the transportation partnerships program; the strategic B.C. port development; the Gateway project; phase 2 of Prince Rupert and first nations consultation; the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative report that came out; the B.C. green ports initiative; and the small ports strategy.

These are issues that I think are very important, that we need to get out. I wouldn't mind putting them in writing for the minister in the next week or so, so that we can proceed on that. With that, I would like to pass it to my colleague.

G. Gentner: I'm going to quickly move into discussion of the South Fraser perimeter road, and I'll let staff get their heads over it. I'll quickly ask the minister a question relative to Highway 91.

This weekend we had a wonderful fish release program; 25,000 chum fingerlings were released. However, I have to bring it to the attention of the minister that Highway 91 is quite a mess. It's turned into, unfortunately, a truck stop. There's a pullout there. I counted 24 four-litre containers of motor oil and 21 large containers of antifreeze.

I know that Mainland has a contract with a subcontractor who's cleaning it up and, I think, is doing a terrible job — on the record. This is leaching materials into a water stream that provides fish. We're talking diapers; we're talking mattresses. It's really quite a mess. I bring that to the minister's attention. Hopefully, he can properly address it.

Now, relative to the situation of the South Fraser perimeter road, as it keeps moving along…. Let's have a quick, generic question. Can the minister tell us what the truck capacity is once this South Fraser perimeter road is completed? How many more trucks will this

Hon. K. Falcon: The member will know, coming from Delta — as I do, coming from Surrey — that right now the local roads in Delta are truly a nightmare. Their River Road, in particular, is just horrific in terms of truck traffic.

If the member goes on the website, he will know that more trucks are coming — probably a 30 percent increase by the 2031 planning horizon. Right now those trucks are going through residential neighbourhoods in Delta and Surrey. They're going along 88 Ave. They're going along 96 Ave. They're going along River Road.

What this South Fraser perimeter road will do — and that's why it has been called for as part of all the regional planning processes for the last 20-plus years — is provide a dedicated express route which gets them off local roads and puts them on a connector. That will be a huge and important relief to neighbourhoods and certainly have a big benefit to the economy.

It's why I think it's unfortunate that the member continues to oppose it when there has been widespread support at the local level and the regional level for two decades now.

G. Gentner: Well, 30 percent is a remarkable increase by 2031. I will agree. But the minister is aware of Mr. Chris Badger's position on the new merging of the two ports. He suggested on record that he believes the Fraser River can increase the amount of capacity on a water-based container highway. It could take thousands of polluting trucks off the road.

He has gone on to say that the cost of transferring containers more than once from deep-sea vessels to short-haul vessels and then to trucks or rail in their trip from port to market will be a cost saving with the increase of gas, etc. We're looking at a very different world than what was planned 20 years ago on the South Fraser perimeter road — from what many years ago was proposed.

My question, therefore, is: with the increased gas prices, can the minister explain to us what role the Fraser Highway will play, as the two ports are merged, as a new highway between the Deltaport and the facilities in Surrey, whereby it is estimated that it is only at a 10 percent to 15 percent capacity in the Fraser docks areas for Surrey?

Hon. K. Falcon: I want to clarify the member's question. He mentioned Fraser Highway. I believe you meant South Fraser perimeter road. Is that correct?

G. Gentner: No, I was referring to the Fraser River as a new highway to move containers.

Hon. K. Falcon: I am aware of Chris Badger's comments. In fact, I know Chris. I think he does an exceptional job on behalf of the old VPA, now the new VFPA — the Vancouver-Fraser Port Authority. I agree with him wholeheartedly. We have actually — this government and me in particular — encouraged the VFPA, and have for some time, to look at short sea shipping options. We think that's one way that you can help deal with the issue of traffic. We do not lose sight of one of the original purposes for trying to….

One of the reasons why they've been talking about this express route for the last 20 years is because what was needed was a route that would provide easy access from the port, which everyone anticipated was always going to grow in terms of traffic — perhaps not as much as they realized in terms of the global shift taking place and the emergence of Asia as a major manufacturing hub. Nevertheless, it was always anticipated that you still needed to have a better route to get from the Deltaport to markets either south of the border on Highway 15 or east on Highway 1.

That is what is so important here, because we know that there's going to be a growth in commercial traffic as the economy grows, as the population grows, and we know that the local roads, in Delta in particular, are totally incapable of handling the increases that are being forecast.

So although short sea shipping and the Fraser River as a route is something we push and we will encourage strongly, it is not the only answer. It is one part of the solution, but it's not the only part. I'm pleased to see that the VFPA have been relatively quick to embrace that and start to explore those ideas.

I would hope that the member opposite and the opposition will support the VFPA as they more concretely try to identify locations in which short sea shipping would work and will no doubt deal with the kind of local opposition that you will often see when you undertake a major project. It's very easy to throw your lot in with critics of any major program or any major undertaking that is happening. As government, it takes a little more leadership to support some of these efforts, as I will be doing on the short sea shipping front.

G. Gentner: Captain Badger is responsible for operations, transportation, logistics and marketing and leads the development of the Vancouver-Fraser Port Authority's reputation as a driving force in the advancement of Canada's logistics chain.

He also goes on to suggest that each barge could take 200 trucks off the road in one tug. "Doesn't produce as much pollution as 200 trucks," he said, and: "It's not hard to imagine the impact that would have on local roads and air quality."

Has the ministry taken into account this new Fraser River highway in its $1-billion-plus project, the South Fraser perimeter road?

Hon. K. Falcon: We're very excited about the opportunities in short sea shipping, and Mr. Badger is well aware of some of the benefits of short sea shipping. The member should also know that Mr. Badger is also a very, very strong proponent of the South Fraser perimeter road. There are repackaging facilities. There are shorter trips. There's a local economy, both in Surrey and Delta, that needs to be served and addressed.

Short sea shipping is one piece of the puzzle of dealing with a growing economy and growing congestion, particularly the truck congestion, but it is not the only answer. It can help you on some of the traffic that is not going to be localized in nature, but we still have to deal with the fact that we've got local roads — as the member should know; River Road in his own area being chief among them — that are tremendously congested today and that are going to continue to get worse. We hear pleas from the populations along corridors like River Road that are asking for relief from this.

That is why short sea shipping will form one part of the solution, but it is not the only part. It is an integral part and it will be perhaps even a growing important part, but it won't be the only part.

G. Gentner: Can the minister tell me if he believes that the new policy or legislation coming forward relative to cap-and-trade will encourage more short sea barging up and down the river, as opposed to the need to use trucks, up and down freeways?

Hon. K. Falcon: I can't speculate on cap-and-trade. That's a process that's under development right now, and so I won't even try to.

What I can tell the member is that the member should be aware that short sea shipping also involves more terminal handling, so there are emission challenges around the extra terminal handling that's involved and the movement of the containers in and around the ports. That's a challenge that has to be dealt with. Of course, the member would know that there are marine emission issues, too, that have to be looked at.

One thing we should point out, though, with respect to the trucking sector and emissions, is that we are working very closely with the trucking sector. We don't for a second think that they are going to be, nor do they wish to be, eliminated from doing their bit to reduce emissions and greenhouse gases.

There are lots of new technologies that are coming on stream. There are aerodynamic technologies. There are the new super single tires that we discussed at the most recent meeting of the transportation ministers from across Canada back in Ottawa. There's engine technology, including companies located in British Columbia that have made significant progress for reducing what they call NO_x and SO_x along with greenhouse gases.

All of those are being explored by this government. We are going to do everything we can to ensure that from an environmental point of view we will improve what we currently have in Delta today and in Surrey today. We're going to do that by making sure that we can work with the industry to utilize the latest technologies to bring about some of the best possible improvements.

G. Gentner: I understand that the minister has admitted he doesn't quite know — and I appreciate that — what the impacts of cap-and-trade and the gas tax will be on the viability of South Fraser perimeter road.

My question is now directed towards the loss of the context of heritage from my community, North Delta — particularly that of River Road. Years ago, of course, the Vancouver Port Authority expanded, and Delta received $3.4 million in a cultural amenity fund. My question to the minister is: how much will Delta receive for the loss of heritage from a similar fund?

Hon. K. Falcon: We're working very closely with the heritage society in archiving and also doing inventory work of heritage attributes. We have made sure we do that outside of the area that will be specific to the actual South Fraser perimeter road, so we'll continue to work closely with them.

I know we've identified some heritage assets — like heritage houses, etc. — where we're going to make sure that they've got appropriate access, etc. We'll continue to do that as we go forward. I thank the member for the questions.

Hon. K. Falcon: I move that the committee now rise and report resolutions of the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance and ask leave to sit again.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.