Hansard — Thursday, April 17, 2008 a.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


Introduction and First Reading of Bills		11493
	Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement Implementation Act (Bill 32)
	Hon. C. Hansen

Committee of the Whole House		11493
	Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements) Act (Bill 16)
	J. Horgan
	Hon. R. Neufeld
	G. Robertson

Point of Privilege (Reservation of Right)		11498
	G. Robertson

Committee of the Whole House		11498
	Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements) Act (Bill 16) (continued)
	Hon. R. Neufeld /small>
	G. Robertson
	J. Horgan
	M. Karagianis

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		11506
	Estimates: Ministry of Education and Minister Responsible for Early Learning and Literacy (continued)
	D. Routley
	Hon. S. Bond
	J. Kwan

Hon. C. Hansen presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement Implementation Act.

Hon. C. Hansen: Mr. Speaker, I move that Bill 32 be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. C. Hansen: I'm pleased to introduce Bill 32, which is the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement Implementation Act. The TILMA agreement — the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement — was signed by British Columbia and Alberta on April 28, 2006. The TILMA seeks to reduce and eliminate barriers to the free movement of workers, goods and services and investments between British Columbia and Alberta in the furtherance of open, efficient and stable markets.

Bill 32 introduces provisions that do the following three things, all of which are necessary to ensure that the province meets its obligations under the TILMA as of April 1, 2009:

(1) It ensures the province has the statutory authority to exercise its rights and fulfil its obligations under the TILMA agreement.

(2) It provides the right of appeal and judicial review of panel decisions to ensure monetary awards are enforceable, all of which will effectively implement the TILMA's dispute resolution procedures.

(3) This bill amends a total of 16 acts. Two acts are being amended to allow the TILMA dispute resolution to be put in place. The other 14 acts are being amended to address discriminatory or other provisions that create obstacles to trade, investment and labour mobility, as identified by the applicable ministries. These 14 acts have specifically been identified as not being in compliance with TILMA.

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

Bill 32, Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement Implementation Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. C. Richmond: In this chamber I call committee stage of Bill 16, intituled Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements) Act, in the hands of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. In Section A, Committee of Supply, the estimates debate continues for the Ministry of Education.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 16; S. Hammell in the chair.

J. Horgan: I'm pleased to rise and participate in committee stage of Bill 16, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements) Act, or the low carbon fuel standard act, as many have come to know it.

We had an extensive debate at second reading on this legislation. Our primary concern when we moved a referral motion was to ensure that we looked at this bill with a view to food security, sustainability of products and privacy concerns. As we get to the introductory provisions of the act and the definitions, I have a number of questions. My colleague from Esquimalt-Metchosin will have a number of questions as we proceed through the bill.

At the outset the minister will have listened, I'm sure, intently to the debate at second reading. His staff will have had an opportunity to review some of the information that we on this side of the House made available to the Legislature and the broader public here in British Columbia with respect to the potential adverse consequences of advancing to set provisions for alternative fuels as set out in this legislation.

In terms of ensuring that the public has a clear understanding of the minister and the government's intent with this legislation, I'd like to start by just simply asking if he could assist my colleagues and me and the public with the definition of "carbon intensity" as outlined in section 1.

Hon. R. Neufeld: First, I should introduce the two gentlemen that are with me. On my right is Paul Wieringa, executive director of alternative energy, electricity and alternative energy division. To my left is Michael Rensing, air quality program analyst, bioenergy renewables branch, electricity and alternative energy division.

The description of carbon intensity, as I'm informed, is a measurement of grams per unit of energy. It also will measure the full life cycle of carbon. That means

from where it was produced to where it's actually consumed, so it's that full life cycle.

J. Horgan: One of the issues, again, at second reading was a concern that in the case of food for fuel and the overwhelming, increasing amount of literature on the subject, scientific debate…. As recently as just this morning in Vancouver at a meeting of COFI, Don Roberts of CIBC World Markets has been speaking about biofuels and, particularly, the conversion inefficiency. I know that many of us in British Columbia want to take advantage of the disastrous implications of the pine beetle, for example, and the production of ethanol from wood.

Cellulosic ethanol is one of the areas where we wish to make some progress. Someone as thoughtful and engaged in these discussions as Don Roberts from CIBC World Markets is concerned that the inefficiency of trying to generate a biofuel from wood waste, when you're looking at carbon intensity, really draws into question whether or not we should be proceeding on a large scale in this direction.

I think the argument goes that on local production for local consumption, it may make some sense, but if you're trucking or transporting large amounts of wood waste to a main distribution centre and then establishing infrastructure to get that product to market, the carbon intensity ratio really makes this an undesirable option.

I'm wondering if the minister, particularly because…. As a member from the Interior and the north, he understands and sees almost weekly, as he's travelling back and forth to his constituency, the devastation of the pine beetle. We have this optimism and hope that we can somehow turn this disaster into a positive, and biofuels and bioenergy are two of the components that the minister is working on with his colleague the Minister of Forests.

But again, an increasing body of evidence is telling us that the carbon intensity of this sort of initiative is really not going to work in our favour. Could he comment on that?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Certainly — and I'm not making light of this — there is lots of discussion in regards to carbon intensity, in regards to using food for fuel and those kinds of things. There's a lot of work being done in British Columbia and around the world. I mean, it's not just here. It's across Canada, across North America, in the U. S. and in Europe where they're working on these types of issues.

We know that in British Columbia there's somebody already working on actually getting biofuel out of trees — cellulosic, which the member talked about. That is certainly ongoing. Part of what this act will do will drive that a little bit more, because we have to meet that. The staff tell me that although there are different opinions…. You can hear different opinions on almost anything you do today, and I'm not saying one is right and one is absolutely wrong.

I think what we need to do is work with those experts, those scientists that actually work on this on a daily basis, and listen to them. That's exactly what we want to do. What we've been informed to date — the ministry and the ministry people that work on this — is that there is less carbon intensity in using the biofuels as a mixture with petroleum products, including all the trucking and including all of those kinds of things that would have to take place.

On top of that, I think we should think a little bit about the huge, vast amount of pine that's been destroyed by the pine beetle. That is a disaster on its own. We can't just ignore it and say that we're never going to use it. So even if you use some of that for electrical generation — and I'll expand the discussion a little bit — that may cost us a little bit more, but we have to take into account what it would cost just to leave it. What are those costs?

Those are not easy decisions to make. I shouldn't say "decisions," but easy information to get. But we have to look at all of those things in the best interests of trying to reduce the carbon that we release in the atmosphere.

I know that the member must believe in it to a degree, because he uses it in his heating fuel. If he didn't believe in it to a degree, I'm sure that he would say: "You know what? It's ridiculous that I should use food sources for heating my home." So really, although there's a need here to actually bring out some of these discussions, I think the member agrees with us that we need to figure out ways that we can lower our carbon footprint in British Columbia and the rest of the world.

There's a huge amount of discussion around climate change, and there are forces on each side, but I think the public generally believes that we need to do something and that we should be doing something now. That doesn't mean just jumping into anything, but actually looking at these things.

It's not as though we're actually doing something that's not being done in the rest of the world. There are jurisdictions that have much higher than 5 percent content — than us. The federal government…. It's going to be mandated at an average across Canada by 2010 of ethanol, 5 percent. That's no different than what we're saying in British Columbia. We're saying an average 5 percent. It's the same with diesel fuel. They're saying 2 percent by 2012; we're just saying 5 percent by 2010.

I hope that the member finds it maybe easier to understand that we should be looking at these things and we should be using some science, which we are, and we should be using our universities to help us with determining whether this makes good sense or not.

I know, also, from the discussion…. The member asked if I listened to second reading debate, and I did listen to most of it. I can assure the member that I did. One of his colleagues on the NDP side said that she would like to burn bio-100 — straight biofuel. So I believe that that member really feels strongly — in fact, a lot stronger than maybe a lot of other people.

I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm saying that that's the direction that that member feels we should be moving

in how we reduce our carbon footprint. I think we should recognize that, and I do. I recognize it as positive.

What we're trying to do is actually just have a 5 percent mix and work that out the best way we possibly can.

J. Horgan: The minister is correct. I do use bioheat in my home. My spouse and I made that decision based on information available to us at the time. I know I certainly don't have to speak for my colleague from Esquimalt-Metchosin. She is very well versed in this. She and her bio-Beetle are renowned in and around Esquimalt-Metchosin, and she will be discussing that at a later section in the debate.

When I made the decision and when many people in British Columbia and around the world made decisions to try and use this technology to bridge to a reduction of our dependence on fossil fuels, we did so assuming that we had the best available information. But as time has gone by, even since we had our second reading debate last week….

I note in the media that no one less important than Gordon Brown said the following. It's quoted in the National Post of April 11: "We need urgently to examine the impact on food prices of different kinds and production methods of biofuels and ensure that their use is responsible and sustainable."

The President of Tanzania, speaking to the African Union, said just again this week, April 10: "These days the farms have been put to biofuel production, creating a shortage of food and, therefore, creating a problem of high prices."

There are numerous other quotations. The United Nations issued a release on April 9: "Warning that soaring food prices could lead to increased poverty and unrest, several senior United Nations officials have called for urgent measures to tackle the global crisis, which threatens to hit the world's poor the hardest." This is a result of the transition from food to fuel.

I know that the minister and his government brought forward this bill with the best of intentions. I, too, in my personal decisions and my personal choices, with the best of intentions, am trying to reduce my carbon footprint. But when evidence starts to mount that we're on the wrong track, that's the time our constituents anticipate that we will do the right thing — pause, reflect, look at the scientific data — and rather than drive forward with recklessness, that we'll pause and reflect and make decisions that are in the best interests of our community and the best interests of our planet.

When we talk about the pine beetle, again, I do defer to the minister on this because of his constituency and the fact that he flies over it or drives through it with greater frequency than I do. We shouldn't mix — and I know that this will probably be the last comment on this — the bioenergy and the biofuel debate. We will have another opportunity to do that.

The notion of using beetle kill for electricity generation is one thing, and the prospect of perhaps creating a market for pellets. We already know that we do very, very well in Prince George producing pellets for export, and if we could use those pellets domestically or increase the production of those pellets domestically, that would be a good thing for the central interior, and it would be a good thing for the province.

As you do with sawmills, you could have moving sawmills to produce this product, potentially. I don't see that likely to happen with respect to biofuels, I think — a central location for production and then a distribution network to be established. Carbon intensity, again, which is the portion of the bill that I'm speaking to now, seems to be a bit skewed when we're looking at cellulosic ethanol. The notion that we use food waste or wood waste to produce biofuels makes sense to me, and it still makes sense to me.

But as I say, an increasing body of scientific evidence, world leaders making comments, the OECD…. The minister knows. He heard the debate at second reading.

I'm wondering that with this increasing amount of information, and these are not…. Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail — the headline of his article on April 11 says: "Blame Ethanol Subsidies for These Nasty Global Food Fights."

These are challenges that I think we have a responsibility to be aware of, at a minimum, and once we become aware of this information, that there are vast tracts of forest being removed in Brazil to produce food for fuel, we need to pause and say: "Is our policy direction contributing to the problem or alleviating the problem?"

I don't see, again, with the definition for carbon intensity as it has been described by the minister and was explained to me by his capable staff in a briefing, how we manage to do that in British Columbia with domestic supply, much less if we're relying on bioproducts from other jurisdictions to meet these targets.

When contemplating this legislation and this direction, did the minister and his government envision the establishment of a domestic supply chain for this, or are we going to be relying on food from other jurisdictions to produce this biofuel?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Look, I appreciate the member's argument. I appreciate that regardless of what issue we talk around or we discuss or have discussed in this Legislature about climate change, about reducing greenhouse gases, there has been total opposition from the opposition. I mean, it's always: "Let's wait for another ten or 20 years to figure something else out." That's how nothing happens. That's how we don't deal with things. If we don't upfront start dealing with things, we're not going to actually deal with them.

It may be the opposition's position to…. "Let's read the newspaper, and let's make decisions on that." Look, it's a little different when you're in government, and we need to actually reduce our carbon footprint. That's the difference between us and the NDP.

This government believes in climate change. It set a target for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 33

percent. I think it's incumbent on us to do that. It amazes me that an NDP opposition…. When I actually was in opposition, when they were here, they talked so glowingly about looking after the climate, and today it's: "We don't want to do any of it. We don't want to do cap-and-trade. We don't want to have a carbon tax. We don't want to have greenhouse gas reductions. We don't want to have renewable fuel — none of it."

So there is a difference of opinion, and I talked about that earlier in my remarks. You folks have one opinion, and your opinion…. I get it loud and clear, and I think the public is getting it loud and clear. You don't have a policy on it, you're not really sure about it, and you don't want to do it. That's okay. That's okay. We're elected to actually make some of these decisions and move those things ahead, and we will continue to do that in the best interests of British Columbians.

Maybe I should read into the record a couple of other things about food for fuel. I know you play on that all the time, but there are other ways that you can actually make biofuels, that you can make ethanol, than using food products. There are lots of other ways. They're being developed as we speak. I said earlier that in British Columbia there are companies that are doing that. We should actually encourage that. We should actually figure out how we can encourage that.

There's nothing wrong with doing those kinds of things in British Columbia. I don't think there is. It means jobs and investment. It means people actually will have less of a carbon footprint. If we can do those things, shouldn't we challenge ourselves to do them? Or should we just stand in the House and say: "Well, we read Jeffrey Simpson today, and I'm not sure."

So there is a difference of opinion, Member, a huge difference of opinion. We think we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We believe we have to. We believe that it's incumbent on us for generations to come that we start looking after where we live today. If that means that the rest of the world is not always with us, that's okay. But if we can do it in British Columbia, we should be looking at doing it, and we should actually be proud of that fact.

The member talked about food for fuels. In 2007 food prices increased about 4 percent overall. In 2007, the same year, the U.S. produced a record amount of ethanol from corn. The U.S. increased its surplus of corn to more than 1.4 billion bushels. In a record ethanol year the U.S. actually fed more of the world by increasing its exports of corn by 6 percent — increasing, not decreasing.

I know that you're pulling on the heartstrings of people and that you're trying to spread a little bit of that fear out there. We're not out there to take food off the tables of homes. We're actually trying to figure out how we can leave this place, when we do leave, in as good a shape or better than we came to it. If that means we have to look at different ways of doing it, we shouldn't be shy about doing those kinds of things.

It's actually going to happen with ethanol across Canada, whether you like it or not. So shouldn't we kind of start to prepare for that? Shouldn't we start thinking about that in the province of British Columbia? Or should we wait till that day? I guess that's what the NDP would do — wait till the day that the federal government says you have to meet those standards and say: "Oh my goodness. We never thought about it. We're not going to do it."

This is all about moving forward with some rational…. The bill doesn't say you have to use food totally. You can use all types of sources to make biofuels or ethanol.

I go back to the member. It's interesting. He says that there was no information about these kinds of things that we're talking about right now — about food for fuel and those kinds of things — when he made the decision to actually use biofuel in heat at his home.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Yes, it was. This has been a discussion going around for a while. It didn't just happen last Friday. There's been a discussion about this for quite a while. So I go back to the fact that the member must think it means something, or he wouldn't be going out to buy biofuels. Other members in that caucus must think it means something, or they wouldn't be wishing to burn 100 percent biofuel instead of diesel fuel.

You know, I can't quite understand that rationale. We can discuss this for a long time if the member wishes, or we can get on with doing the right thing and start looking at how we can decrease our carbon footprint in the province of British Columbia through a way that is actually less than most other jurisdictions — a 5 percent mix is less than many jurisdictions.

I think the U.S. is going to a higher mix, as I understand. Europe is doing the same thing, as we speak. So it's not as though we're way out there on a limb. We're actually trying to get prepared to meet the targets that we have to meet along with what the federal government is putting in.

Our reason for putting this in is that we want to reduce the carbon footprint in the province of British Columbia, and we want to do it through a number of mechanisms. We can disagree on those mechanisms if we want, and I apparently see that today. We're for reducing the carbon footprint; you're for increasing it. I guess it's just that simple.

The Chair: Members, I've listened to both members, and the debate is interesting, but it does sound like we are redoing second reading debate. We are in committee on section 1.

J. Horgan: I was speaking to the definition of carbon intensity, which is basically the foundation of the legislation. We're discussing whether we should do our level best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At second reading we had a litany of evidence that we presented to government as to why we should remove this bill from debate and go to a larger committee and

listen to all British Columbians and review the scientific data on the question.

I appreciate that the Chair…. I'll try very hard to stick with carbon intensity and the definition so that I can better understand how the minister came to the conclusion that proceeding at this time is in the interest of all British Columbians.

I heard clearly what the minister said, but consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, I think. I'm quite prepared to admit that I was precipitous in my jump to bioheat. I've discussed this with the producer in my community, the company that gives me my heating oil, and I'm going to do what I can to do more research on a personal level. But that's what I'm supposed to do.

I have a different responsibility as I stand here as the critic to the minister and also as a member of the Legislature for Malahat–Juan de Fuca. The people of my constituency expect me to ensure that what happens in this place is in their best interest, and as the minister said, we all want to leave this place a little bit better when we're done.

That's why I'm curious as to why the minister would want to ignore the increasing amount of evidence that the carbon intensity, which we're discussing here in section 1, is not necessarily achieved in the title of the bill and in the intent of the bill.

The Vancouver Sun on April 16 — again, this is since we concluded second reading debate — says quite clearly that as part of the trend that has seen record prices for rice, wheat, soybeans and other products, "largely as a result of an American policy to support biofuels, particularly corn-based ethanol…." So that's The Vancouver Sun. They say that the greenhouse gas is little better than gasoline in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, and the wholesale razing of forests and grasslands to raise ethanol food stocks make matters worse.

So when we're trying to determine what the impact, with respect to greenhouse gases, is on the production, distribution and use of biofuels, I don't see how evidence that we've put forward, and that the scientific community is producing on a daily basis, allows us to proceed with this. If our objective is to reduce greenhouse gases, and we're creating more by using the fuel, how does that work? I don't get it.

Just one more quote, and I'll leave the floor to another colleague to raise more questions. Again, a Globe and Mail editorial of the 15th titled "Ethanol and Hot Air." It goes as follows: "It will be no more comfort to the world's most vulnerable, as they struggle to find affordable food, that their plight has finally tarnished the allure of ethanol…. Once depicted as a non-polluting alternative to the world's dependence on fossil fuels, ethanol has turned out to be full of hot air. That should prompt governments, including Canada's, to curb their requirements for higher ethanol usage."

So, hon. Chair, as a member of this place, if I'm reading the daily media, I'm reviewing science on this question, and it's increasingly telling me that we're on the wrong track, don't you think it's my responsibility to put to the minister that quite possibly our target, as defined in carbon intensity, is not going to be met? That seems to me to be the responsible thing to do, and I'm wondering if the minister has not had access to this information and that's why he continues to drive down this course.

J. Brar: I'm pleased to introduce three wonderful individuals that we have today in the gallery from the city of Surrey, which is the second-largest city in the province. Of course, I'm one of those MLAs who have been elected from the city of Surrey, including Madam Chair coming from that city.

We have visiting us today Bukhtavar Singh Sandhu, who is a community activist very active in many, many community issues and a good friend of mine. With him is his brother who is visiting us from India, Mr. Sandhu. He has been a chairperson of many different departments with the current government of Akalis, the government we have in Punjab at this point in time, headed by Parkash Singh Badal.

With them, I'm also pleased to introduce Bob Hans, who was a candidate against me in Surrey–Panorama Ridge from the Liberal side.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I appreciate the member wanting to reinforce the fact that they don't believe that we should have a lower carbon intensity in the province of British Columbia — that they don't agree that we should reduce our carbon footprint in British Columbia. I appreciate that he continues to reinforce that with the public — any public that's out there actually listening. I'm not sure whether many of them at this hour of the day are out there listening or not, but you never know. There could be some, and there are some in the gallery today.

As I said earlier, it makes it very clear. I mean, the government believes we have to reduce our carbon intensity — that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The opposition, for whatever reason — I don't know — says: "No, we shouldn't. We should continue down the same path."

In fact, one of the other members in second reading debate actually confirmed…. The one that's so totally opposed to oil and gas in the province of British Columbia said that we should continue to use fossil fuels. We shouldn't use any biofuels at all. So there are some rather big contradictions in that opposition.

But I gather that the critic — I think it's the critic that would be relating the position of the NDP, if they have one on this; it's a little bit different depending on who you talk to — doesn't want to reduce carbon intensity.

Let me read into the record a couple of other things. The member talked about rice. Interesting. Actually, the cost of rice is up 77 percent. But rice is not used in the production of biofuels. It's not, in the world. It doesn't have anything to do with the price of rice.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Actually, the high cost of petroleum products…. To be able to go out there if, in fact, they're using that kind of product to grow or to fallow their fields or whatever they do to grow rice — that would probably contribute. But to say the reason the cost of rice is up is because of biofuels is completely incorrect.

Let me read into the record, Madam Chair. This comes from the president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, the president of the United States Renewable Fuels Association, the secretary general of the European Bioethanol Fuel Association and the president of the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association. Just one quick little thing. It says: "Worldwide hunger does not result from insufficient food production but rather from low income and unemployment, which limit the access to food."

You can argue all you want. I'm not saying that we shouldn't look at all of those kinds of things. We should trust the experts — the people in our universities, which we fund — to give us that information so that we can actually make good, rational decisions about carbon intensity.

I've told you that we have an opinion about carbon intensity that we've been given. It may be different than the one the member opposite has been given. Yes, it is his responsibility to stand up here and talk about these issues, but let's talk about them in a rational way.

We should not be different on trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But I find it amazing that the NDP don't think we should and that we shouldn't look at carbon intensity as a way of doing that. That's actually how you reduce your carbon footprint.

I'm a guy that's out there with oil and gas, where I come from, but if there are ways that we can do it — this isn't the end-all, be-all — I think it's incumbent on us to look at those ways so that we do have less of an impact on the environment.

I think all of us really believe that. We might have different ways of getting to that process, but looking at carbon intensity is a pretty straightforward way of dealing with less carbon into the atmosphere. We're not taking rice away from people to make biofuels.

G. Robertson: Well, as someone who's spent many years working in the food business and as a farmer, I'd just like to clarify with the minister that, yes, it is true at this point that rice is not a biofuel crop, but the shortages in the food system that are being created by biofuels are due to crop displacement.

It's a very simple principle where farmers start growing fuel and convert rice paddies into other crops for biofuels — such as corn, in this case; such as palm oil in the tropics. It's very, very simple. This is what's happening, in fact, across North America as corn crops are grown for fuel rather than soybeans or other grain or oilseed crops. It's a very simple formula that displaces the food in the system as acreage is converted for fuel.

If the minister hasn't done his research on this, which would be shocking, and is simply trying to defend a case on the spot in desperation as the world around us turns its opinion against biofuels and the production of biofuels from primary sources, unsustainable sources…. We really need to figure out what work has been done.

Maybe we're not cutting the minister and his government enough slack here. We can only hope that they've done the research to ensure that carbon intensity created by 5 percent requirement of biofuels in B.C. will be lower than the fossil fuels that are currently burned to produce that energy.

In terms of what's been done in research for this bill to be produced, what percentage of the biofuel requirement being put in place here is anticipated to come from domestic production?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Well, here we are. Now we're talking to the member of the NDP, the member for Vancouver-Fairview, who stood up in second reading debate and said we shouldn't use any biofuels. You know, the member said we should actually continue using fossil fuels. I remember listening, and it was with amazement that I heard it from that member.

Hon. R. Neufeld: It's amazing to listen to the member for Vancouver-Fairview, who by the way, wants to be — as I understand — the mayor of Vancouver. Yeah, it is kind of funny. You know, here's someone who thinks he wants to be the mayor of Vancouver, who wants to run as the mayor of Vancouver.

Let me read into the record the number of communities that have actually looked at carbon intensity as something that we should be doing. Lo and behold, Vancouver was the leader — Vancouver.

There's a whole page of communities across the province of British Columbia that are registered with B.C. biofuels and using biofuels in all the equipment they have on their streets. Now we have a person who lives in Vancouver, who says: "No, they shouldn't be doing that." It's interesting to hear the discussion from the member that we shouldn't be using biofuels, that we shouldn't reduce our carbon footprint.

Let me also say that — and I'm not a farmer; I was born and raised on a farm, but I left the farm at a fairly

young age — the notes I get from those who know about issues about rice say clearly that you don't grow corn in rice paddies. The member just finished saying that they're converting rice paddies to corn. That is in the record. That just came two minutes ago. I'm saying that doesn't happen.

I know the member talks incessantly about we shouldn't produce oil and gas in the province. He has no answers and no alternatives other than to stand and say we shouldn't actually be reducing our carbon intensity in British Columbia. That's what this bill is about. I can read into the record all the communities that actually use biofuels in their fleets. It's extensive. Most of the communities have caught on. Most of them understand.

It would be helpful if the opposition would maybe listen to some of those communities and say: "My goodness, what are you doing that for? You're destroying the planet." That's what you're trying to tell me today.

We say we want to reduce greenhouse gases in the province of British Columbia. This is not the end-all and be-all, but this is one part of how we get there — one part of how we actually leave a better place for those young people up there watching us right now than what we inherited.

We can discuss different ways of doing it, but different ways of doing it are different ways of doing it — not just the opposition saying we shouldn't do it at all. It's okay for me as a person to do it, but the public shouldn't have to do it.

What I'm saying clearly is that we ought to get on with it. Instead of standing in this House arguing about whether we should reduce our carbon footprint and help with climate change for those coming a long time in the future, we should actually get together on those kinds of things and think about how we can do them instead of just saying no.

G. Robertson: I agree with the minister that we must reduce our carbon footprint. Every single member on this side of the House agrees that we must reduce our carbon footprint and that greenhouse gas emissions need to go down very significantly in this province. We'll support all the initiatives that will do that, which will ensure that we hit those targets and beyond. We want more aggressive approaches to reducing our carbon footprint.

Here's a very simple question for the minister related to Bill 16 and carbon intensity. Can the minister tell us in this House today: how much will this bill and its ensuing 5 percent requirement for biofuels in the province of B.C. reduce our carbon footprint and our greenhouse gas emissions by 2020? He must have done the work to substantiate that. How much will it directly reduce our carbon footprint?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Biofuel alone will reduce by 2½ percent the 33 percent target that we want to meet. The low carbon fuel standard still remains to be worked on to figure out exactly how we're going to do that, but we want to be 10 percent less by 2020. That's in the bill.

G. Robertson: Can the minister just clarify that last part about the 10 percent?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm sorry. It's not in the bill. I said it, actually, in first and second reading in regards to the bill. We want to target 10 percent by 2020.

G. Robertson: Ten percent of B.C.'s greenhouse gas emissions? Can the minister explain what he's saying there in terms of 10 percent?

Hon. R. Neufeld: As I said, I've said it in the first and second reading debates. It's 10 percent by 2020 — the low carbon fuel standard that we want to actually achieve. It's not 10 percent of the 33 percent.

G. Robertson: One would assume — based on this 2½ percent greenhouse gas emission reduction resulting from the biofuel standard here — that the work would have gone into precise carbon intensity reductions resulting from these biofuels. Therefore, the constituents in the biofuel supply chain must have had some analysis as well.

Hon. R. Neufeld: The member knows from discussions earlier that there is a lot of study going on. There's study going on in our universities in the province in regards to cellulosic ethanol.

We don't have a number right now for that. What we have set is targets — 5 percent of biofuel and diesel fuel and 5 percent of ethanol into gasoline. What we want to do is reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions in the province of British Columbia by 33 percent. That will come through other ways also — tailpipe emissions, cap-and-trade, offsets and all of those kinds of things. There is a whole host of things that will get us to the 33 percent reduction of greenhouse gases.

G. Robertson: It's reasonable to not have specific targets in carbon intensity from cellulosic ethanol production, as it's in its infancy. At the same time, if a 2½ percent greenhouse gas emission reduction target is envisioned resulting from this bill, there must be substance and research to support that target.

What specifically was done in terms of research and biofuel sources to substantiate the 2.5 percent reduction? Were actual biofuel sources and their carbon intensity specifically analyzed over this period in terms of their net reduction to greenhouse gas emissions?

Hon. R. Neufeld: The staff tell me that they presently use, amongst numerous different ways of attaining the information and the results, GHGenius. It's a program that's used extensively across Canada and the United States to make decisions and work on these issues.

As I understand, the Canadian government is using it now to actually meet their targets that they've put in

place by 2010 and 2012. That's just one of probably many. If the member wants to know all of the studies that have been done, we can provide tons of information, probably, to the member on work that's been done in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, but I'm sure he's well aware of all of these kinds of things.

G. Robertson: I'm actually more interested in a very specific analysis that should have been done to move aggressively forward on a 5 percent biofuel requirement, as envisioned in this bill.

What percentage of the biofuel source is domestic, from production in B.C.? Obviously, transportation is a huge factor in the carbon intensity of fuels. A great deal less carbon intensity results from fuels produced here in B.C. My question is whether the government has done analysis and set specific targets for the amount of this biofuel that is produced here in B.C.

Hon. R. Neufeld: We have not set an internal British Columbia target which must be developed within British Columbia. I think the member probably knows full well that of the biofuel that is being used by, I don't know, 25 or 30 municipalities now across the province of British Columbia, most of it is generated, I think, south of the border, and they mix it in different ways, similar to the way Columbia Fuels does it.

We would hope that this would actually create a biofuel industry in the province. I know we've said that over three years we would look at incentives to farm-owned organizations in British Columbia to produce some of the biofuels that we would need right away. There are plants that are being built across western Canada. Husky, for instance, has, I believe, a 10 percent mix of ethanol in all their gasoline and has been bringing that from Saskatchewan, most of it, some from Alberta, for a decade or probably better.

G. Robertson: I continue to be very concerned that the detailed work hasn't been done to ensure that the carbon intensity of biofuels mandated by this legislation is, in fact, lower than what's currently in use.

This is obviously the great emerging concern around the world about the potential pitfalls of using biofuels. It doesn't sound like there's been specific work other than plugging numbers into software packages and coming out with general targets like 2.5 percent by 2020. If there isn't detailed work, if there isn't clear analysis of what is produced here in B.C., about what is potentially produced from cellulosic ethanol versus agricultural crop, one wonders how there can be specific targets and therefore specific requirements set into law in B.C.

The minister has said continually this morning: "We need to get on with doing the right thing so that we can reduce our carbon footprint." Yet if our carbon footprint is not precisely measured…. In this case, he has done nothing to specifically demonstrate that that work has been done. That leads the opposition to conclude that the 5 percent requirement is a shot in the dark and, quite possibly, a shot that was taken before the emerging body of science that demonstrates the perils of biofuels was known.

At this point, there is still the opportunity for this minister and his government to reassess what's being put in place here. I think the opposition will put forward amendments to try and bring some sanity into this piece of legislation before it's too late and before a requirement is put in place that has not been fully considered and researched.

I'll just ask one more question specific to the food supply implications of this bill — again, with the hopes that the work has been done to look at the potential impact of biofuel crops on the food system. What percentage of the biofuel supply that is anticipated with this legislation will result from food crop sources on agricultural land?

Hon. R. Neufeld: It always interests me, I guess, when this member stands and starts talking about the people who work in the ministry that actually get this information for us aren't doing a good enough job of doing it. I tend to think a little bit differently. I tend to actually admire the work that's gone on in my ministry on many of these issues relating to how we're going to deal with reducing our carbon footprint here in the province of British Columbia.

The member knows full well that there are other jurisdictions around the world. To say that we haven't thought it through and that we're just doing something that's absolutely terrible — that it's going to ruin the world and that it's the end of British Columbia as we know it today — is ignoring what's happening in the rest of the world. We're not higher than the rest of the world. The rest of the world is actually higher than us in many cases. The rest of the world is actually ahead of us in many cases, not in all countries but in some countries, in reducing their carbon footprint. They're actually ahead of us. We're behind. We should be thinking about catching up.

I understand that the member would rather stand still, would rather just look out the window and say: "No, we shouldn't do anything." I can understand that. I've heard from him constantly through these debates that he doesn't believe we should actually be looking at reducing our carbon footprint, that he doesn't believe we should be reducing greenhouse gases by 33 percent. And we're not fixated on the….

Hon. R. Neufeld: You had your chance to ask the question. I remained quiet while you actually asked. I mean, if we want to get into the heckle part of the world, we can. I'm actually not bad at heckling. If we want to do that, we can get there relatively quick.

British Columbia is looking at other ways. There are new generations of biofuels that are coming on, and

we should give credit to our universities instead of putting them down, instead of saying that we can't do it, instead of saying: "No, you can't look at other ways of actually creating biofuels from trees or from algae — from all kinds of things, not just food products." Right now, it's canola. It's non–food grade wheat that's used in the production of ethanol. That's probably the most of it.

I'm going to maybe take a little step into the farming world. The member talked about being a farmer. You know what? I live in a part of the province that has the largest amount of hectares under cultivation in the province of British Columbia. For once, just once, those farmers actually have an opportunity to more than just break even, to live a life like the member across the way has probably lived — maybe not quite as well, but at least bring their standard of living up a little bit better.

I've watched as some of those family farms have disappeared, not because of ethanol or biofuel but because they couldn't make a living on the land. I watched those families leave. The average farmer in British Columbia, I think across western Canada, is in their 60s. The young people don't even want to take it on, because they can't make a living at it.

What would be wrong with having a farm community actually make a living in northeastern British Columbia or in the Cariboo? What would be wrong with that? I know….

Hon. R. Neufeld: You shouldn't talk about the ALR. Yeah. You should remember Six Mile Ranch. That's what you should remember about the ALR.

So what's wrong with actual farmers in the northeastern part of British Columbia having an opportunity to make a living, provide a living for their families, to actually have a decent living? I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I know the member doesn't care about it, because he's from Vancouver. He talks about caring about it, but I don't think he cares about it, or he would think about it a little bit more.

So yes, the ministry and the institutions in British Columbia do a lot of work on this. You can be opposed to it. If you want to maintain the carbon footprint we have today and continue to use 100 percent fossil fuels, that's entirely up to you. We actually want to reduce it in a way so that we can do it meaningfully. That's where we're moving to.

You can be on the other side of the fence. You can vote against it. You can vote to keep the carbon intensity up. We actually want to keep the carbon intensity down and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

J. Horgan: I'll just make a few comments as we wrap up section 1 here. Certainly, the minister just said that we're behind and playing catch-up. I would suggest that had he not thrown the climate action plan of 2000 in the waste bin when he became minister, then we might not be in that position today.

There certainly were plans in place, following the Kyoto protocols in 1997, here in the province of British Columbia that were ignored and dismissed by his government. If we are playing catch-up, I think that there are plenty of places to place blame, and I wouldn't necessarily be focusing it on this side of the House.

I also want to correct the record. The member suggested that I had alluded to rice as a biofuel, and that was just one of many food products in a list in a quotation. He knows that, but I want the record to show that I didn't suggest that. It was just a list of food products that were in a quote from a newspaper.

Lastly, again, before we move to the next section, my colleague from Surrey-Whalley, a well-read and learned member, corrected me on a quotation that I gave to the House from Ralph Waldo Emerson that goes as follows: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." So I just want to make sure that those that are watching at home are clear on what Mr. Emerson said. He said that in the 1800s. It's as correct today as it was then.

J. Horgan: I just want to spend a minute or two on this section on requirements for renewable fuel content, in part 2 of the bill. Specifically, I want to refer the minister to correspondence he received from W.E. Stoner of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, a letter dated March 4. The minister will be aware of this. There have been a number of news stories on this. CKNW radio broke the story a couple of days ago.

The Canadian Petroleum Products Institute wrote to the minister with respect to this bill and said that they, too, had concerns about consumers in our province becoming guinea pigs or test subjects for this when distribution networks, the efficacy of the fuel blends, and a whole host of other issues had not yet been canvassed.

But what struck me in the correspondence, which makes four significant points about the potential impact of this legislation in the time frame of 2010 on the distribution network, is that…. The minister will know that I have significant concerns about the cost of fuel. I fuelled up this morning on the way in — $1.25 a litre. Certainly those people who live in my constituency — and certainly in northern constituencies, like the minister's — don't have access to alternative means of transportation. I'm concerned when I see someone from big oil say that this bill could "create supply risks."

When I hear the oil and gas sector say that supply risks may be on the horizon, what that says to my constituents is that the prices are going to go up, and they're going to go up significantly.

On this issue of the requirements for content and in light of Mr. Stoner's correspondence to the minister, can he assure the driving public that, since we don't

really have fixed targets or any idea of what the net benefit of the carbon intensity issues will be…? Can he quantify the costs to consumers of this legislation?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I appreciate the question. Yes, I did get the letter. Golly, if we responded to policy decisions to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the province of British Columbia by 33 percent by every letter I receive from every petroleum organization, I guess we'd probably be…. We might not be doing anything.

I appreciate that the member knows that the price of crude actually has a huge impact on the price of the product that comes from that crude. I'm not going to stand and say that it won't have a small effect. It probably will, but the price of gasoline and diesel fuel actually corresponds in most cases, always, to the price of crude.

I think the price of crude was at $113 today. It's right up there. The member says he fuelled up today and paid $1.25. We've been paying more than $1.25 for a while. I appreciate that.

None of us wants to see the price of gasoline or diesel go up. But as the raw product goes up…. That's not because we're going to mix renewable fuel in it. It's because of OPEC, it's because of the supply of oil in the world, and it's because it's controlled.

When we see people saying that we shouldn't actually be exploring for any more oil and gas in the province of British Columbia…. As that supply dwindles, the price will go up. I think the member would agree with me. He knows that full well.

J. Horgan: I heard $115 a barrel on the radio this morning as I was driving in. You know, the minister is off by a couple bucks, and it could be up by a couple more before the day is done. So I appreciate that. That's an issue that, of course, my colleague from Fairview canvassed at second reading — that in an era of peak oil and with rising, escalating prices, it's a commodity that has value beyond transportation that we may be foreclosing on, as a result of our desire to get it out of the ground and use it up.

So the minister is not alone in recognizing that we have challenges here and that consumers are going to be adversely affected by the gas tax that we're going to see coming in legislation in the next number of weeks.

I'm not absolutely comfortable, as the minister could well imagine, speaking on behalf of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, but they do make some reasonable comments with respect to how this legislation will affect their sector, and it's an important sector. The minister spent some time there in his private life, so he knows the challenges that the distribution network faces when trying to meet moving goalposts.

One of the suggestions…. And again, I rarely defer to Ottawa. I think the record should be clear on that. I'm not one that likes to wait for the federal government to take action. I think the minister and I are at one on that issue.

But in this instance, when we're dealing with an international problem that a national government should be taking leadership on, would it not be prudent, as suggested by Mr. Stoner, to harmonize the implementation of these policies to be consistent across the country, rather than to get out ahead of it — when the science is divided, when consumers are facing increased costs on an almost daily basis? Would it not be prudent, in the interests of managing the transition, that we do so in harmonization with the federal government? I'll just put that to the minister for his comment.

Hon. R. Neufeld: First off, it is coordinated with ethanol. The standard for Canada is 5 percent by 2010. That's what ours is — 5 percent by 2010 for gasoline. For diesel fuels, we do different. What we're saying is that we want 5 percent by 2010. The federal government says a mix of 2 percent by 2012.

So I appreciate what the member says, but the industry itself is going to have to adapt to a changing world, and it is changing. They're going to have to figure out how they're actually going to do it. They know how to do it. It's actually mixing biofuels and ethanol, although there are different ways of doing it, and some are probably better than others. That's not something that takes the revamp of a complete refinery. It does take some changes. I appreciate that.

I'm always interested when the member stands up and defends big oil. I was going to say it, but then I thought: "No, I'm going to be nice. I'm not going to say that." But the member said it himself.

I just maybe would read into the record from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It says: "Ethanol gets a bum rap." Just one part of it, and I'll quote: "'Transportation and gasoline costs would actually be even higher if ethanol weren't part of the mix,' Glauber said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is still studying the exact impacts, but ethanol's small 5 percent role in transportation fuels may actually translate into a 15 percent reduction in overall oil prices."

So there are varying views on these issues around the world. I say we should actually work as best we can to get to that target of 5 percent of each, so that we can reduce our carbon footprint here in the province of British Columbia.

J. Horgan: Mr. Stoner goes on, and this is again going back to the supply risks. He says:

Again, whenever I hear big oil say there's going to be potential disruptions or there's instability in Nigeria or — heaven forbid — instability in Alberta, that means my constituents are going to be paying more. So with

this proposed — or suggested from the industry — increase in volumes of imports, will that not have an impact on the carbon intensity of that 5 percent target?

You know, we can all say: "No, we shouldn't change." Change is difficult for anyone. I don't care who it is, whether it's that side of the House or this side of the House. That's why I'd like to see a change in opinion from the NDP and that they would actually agree with us that we should reduce our carbon footprint, but maybe I hope for too much.

We need to actually make those changes. Anything that I have done since I was fortunate enough to become minister in this ministry required some change. You can't change direction…. I mean, if we want to continue down that path of "use all you want; waste all you want; pollute all you want; do all that kind of thing," that's one issue.

But if we actually want to change and take a different direction and start looking at conservation — something that wasn't high on everyone's agenda — looking at our carbon footprint, looking at where we get it from, looking at how we develop it, all of those kinds of things…. That's a change.

I know that's what the member is bringing forward, and I appreciate that. As a critic, he should, but change requires some change. We can't do things the way we used to if we're going to actually change and reduce our carbon footprint. To reduce by 33 percent, to change our carbon footprint, and to have 5 percent mix of biofuels and gasoline and diesel fuel will require some change. It will require some change from the refiners — exactly.

If you don't want to do that change, if that's what the member is actually advocating — that we don't want to do that change because that may cost a little bit, and we want to stay on the old path of use all you want, however much you want, and forget the carbon content….

That might be the position of the NDP, but that's not the position of us. We actually want to move ahead with reducing our carbon footprint in the best way we can manage to do that. I think it actually is something that we all, regardless of what political party we belong to, should be thinking about to move forward to do those kind of things.

M. Karagianis: This morning I think we have canvassed a number of very cogent arguments from this side of the House following up on second reading debate. Some great questions have been asked here without necessarily satisfactory answers for this side of the House.

In this particular section, "Low Carbon Fuel Requirements," it sets the requirements for carbon intensity. In reading through this section I realize that there is an opportunity here for us to provide exactly what the minister has been talking about here this morning, which is the framework for change.

I would at this point propose an amendment to this section of the bill. I have that here, and I know that minister has a copy of this. I will read the bill out, that section 6 be amended as follows:

Just for the record, that clarifies subsection 6(1) that says: "A Part 3 fuel supplier must, for each compliance period, ensure that the weighted average of the carbon intensities of all Part 3 fuels it supplies in the compliance period, as determined in accordance with the regulations and subject to subsection (2), is no greater than the prescribed level." My amendment then adds the terminology for the prescribed level.

M. Karagianis: The impetus for this amendment…. As I mentioned earlier, we canvassed part of this issue at great length in second reading, and we have touched on it again this morning. I think the minister fairly outlined that change is required, a paradigm shift is required, but I also think that the arguments being put forward by this side of the House are around providing some guidance on how that shift occurs and reducing the risk.

Frankly, government is generally risk adverse, and really, this is a way of us reducing the risk that in the future there will be any interpretation of this bill outside of the intention of this House today. The minister has talked considerably about the intentions of government and the intentions of the House today while we work on this bill, but we often know that legislation becomes interpreted in the future by other members of government, other ministers, other jurisdictions within government.

The importance of including the language here in my proposed amendment today is around providing both that clarity as well as a framework that gives, I think, more security to the controversial debate taking place around the globe and certainly escalating day after day.

We see more and more controversy within all aspects of our society, whether it's industry response, as we've heard today outlined by the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca; whether it is the concerns of economists, as we've heard outlined both in the media and by sources — World Bank and other leading voices here in the economy; and the public debate on this as well.

I think the intention here is to alleviate the risk that in any way we will be engaged in this controversy in a negative way. In fact, I think it adds to the quality of this legislation and the intention of government as we move forward.

We've canvassed at great length here the concerns we have for how biofuel, and in particular bioethanol and biodiesel, will be produced in the future. When speaking to point (a) under my amendment, where the calculation is from source to consumer…. This speaks very directly to us calculating the carbon intensity and, therefore, the costs to the government and to society of recognizing that the source from which any of these biofuels come is as imperative a concern as our need to shift to alternatives here.

Food security is a growing concern, and as was outlined earlier in discussions here this morning, it is not necessarily about what's occurring within our own province. It's not necessarily about what's occurring within our own country. Because much of our biofuel sources from outside the borders, this is also about what's occurring in other countries and about the inevitable, I think, international standards that will have to be imposed in order to ensure that our move to alternative fuels and alternative options here, as we leave behind fossil fuel and move into the future, is going to…. We're going to have to move to protect food security.

Climate change has already left us at risk, for food security, without the added burden of us now having to compete for food lands with alternative fuel. The key to all of this is sustainability. We talk about that. We talk about it in a whole variety of ways here in the House, but finding a way to incorporate a standard that, I believe, will be engaged in internationally…. I know that many countries are now moving to creating biofuel sustainability standards, and I believe we have an opportunity here to lead.

I know that the government is interested in leading on this debate. Hence, they're bringing forward this bill. I think we need to engage in that. The content of my amendment here speaks to that, and it speaks to, I believe, what's already happening in the industry. I know that the industry, in the biodiesel end of the biofuel sector, is actually engaging very seriously in sustainability and looking at the product that they produce and ensuring that there is not that competition for food and ensuring that what we're doing is, in fact, using waste product here, which makes our lives better in a whole variety of ways.

I talked in second debate about General Motors engaging in new science around bacterial breakdown of human refuse and garbage and using that as a product. There are a whole lot of options around that create sustainability, that are not about threatening food crops or crop displacement or any of the other things that are occurring as we engage in this paradigm. There is no doubt in my mind that it does require a huge shift in the way we think about this issue around transportation, alternative fuels and what the future may bring, and how we actually show leadership in ensuring that we demand a sustainability level that is appropriate, responsible and thoughtful.

I would urge the minister to show support for this. I know the public will support the concept and engage in the change that's necessary in shifting to alternatives if we show that we are doing it in the most responsible way possible. The public will not engage in this — the public will not adopt new ways of approaching their transportation needs — if we don't set up the framework for them that shows and demonstrates and offers a security that we are doing this in the most sustainable and responsible way and that this kind of legislation will set the baseline for us moving forward.

I know the minister has characterized our concerns on how we move through creating this new green legislation as somehow being not in support of legislation. I would say that nothing could be further from the facts. What we are trying to do is engage with government to say: "Here are some of the missing components of creating a real greenhouse gas reduction act, and here are the pieces that are missing."

In fact, all of the controversy that's going on around the world and within our own community here on biofuels and alternative energy sources, whether it be hydrogen…. The government is engaged very aggressively in the hydrogen highway, which, frankly, is an untested, unproven, unsustainable system that probably is not going to bear any kind of results that communities can engage in for decades, if at all.

Right now it consists of a corridor that runs north and south along the coastline of North America. What that provides to the rest of the country, I don't know, but I see government is engaged in that and believes that that's an alternative option that may bear fruit in the future.

I think we have a real opportunity right now to create changes and amendments to this act that, in fact, would move us past the controversial point around alternative fuels and move us into such a leadership role that we will set the tone for the rest of the national and international and global debate that will take place.

This has already begun to happen in other countries, so we can learn some lessons and actually embed in our legislation some real language and some real legislative framework that sets us ahead of the game and, in fact, leads the way and gives us an opportunity to then go out and convince the public that biofuels are not products that are devastating or harming others elsewhere in this country or on the planet. Frankly, I think that people will engage more enthusiastically if they know that what they're doing is not hurting but is helping, is taking us forward, is moving us forward.

Every argument I've heard on this side of the House speaks to the need for us to create legislation that is thoughtful, realistic and sustainable. It does show such enormous leadership that both sides of the House here can engage in this, can support this and can move forward to promote alternatives in our community. We can't do it as long as food sources are being threatened or the economies of nations are being altered by the pressures of producing ethanol corn in order to satisfy urban uses and rural uses in the transportation sector.

I would hope that the government sees this as being a participatory amendment and that they would see

that this language in no way compromises the intention of their legislation but, in fact, enhances it, gives it a framework and, in the case of a biofuels sustainability standard, gives it the tools of real leadership. I would encourage the minister to give us a sign that this is an amendment that government would support, and I look forward to hearing further debate on this.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I appreciate the member's remarks. I know that she passionately believes in biofuels, in having less of an impact on the environment. I know that simply because of the lobbying she's done for government to actually start using more biofuels, to actually have members of the Legislature start using more biofuels, and she is on record as saying that she would use 100 percent biofuel if it was available.

I know the member passionately believes in this, and I appreciate that in every way that I can. I'm appreciative that she stands up and speaks to section 6 passionately, and I want to put on the record that — and I appreciate the amendment — it's already in the bill.

Actually, if you go to section 25(b)…. I'll read into the record 25(b): "establishing the greenhouse gas emissions that are deemed to be attributable to a Part 3 fuel, including, without limitation, greenhouse gas emissions related to the life cycle of the fuel and its fuel feedstock whether they occur inside or outside British Columbia."

I'm glad that the member brought that forward, because that's already in the act further on. Certainly, the ministry will be reviewing that as we move forward with regulations to make sure that we look at all of those things that she spoke about, about sustainability. Also, in the definition section, under "component," it further adds to the issues that the member brought forward in her motion.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I appreciate the way the member brought it forward to us and brought it to our attention, but I want to actually say to the House that those things are already in the bill as we speak today.

G. Robertson: I rise to speak strongly in favour of this amendment. I think it is extremely well considered. If we are to look at the pitfalls of biofuels that have emerged around the world, it's all about the source and how sustainable the source of the biofuel is, coupled with the carbon footprint of distribution of that biofuel. That combination right there is absolutely critical for ensuring that biofuel's carbon intensity is, in fact, lower than that of the fossil fuels consumed to produce the biofuel.

There are very troubling statistics around the carbon intensity of ethanol; around the net carbon intensity of clearing tropical rain forest to plant biofuel crops; the resulting loss of carbon in taking, in some cases, up to a century of biofuel crop production to actually come back into balance; and the ensuing carbon intensity reduction from that biofuel. If it takes a hundred years for a biofuel crop that has been carved out of an Indonesian jungle to get back to a net positive carbon intensity, one can see the folly of pursuing biofuels as an urgent, short-term strategy to reduce carbon emissions.

The carbon emissions for the coming decades will be significantly higher if we're pursuing biofuels from unsustainable sources, such as clearing standing rain forest in the tropics. The statistics on ethanol production in the U.S. and the use of nitrous oxide fertilizers with impacts on greenhouse gas emissions are very significant and troubling as well.

There are biofuel sources that are sustainable — second-generation biofuels, biofuels produced from waste. There are good-news stories in the biofuels realm. What this amendment encourages and mandates is that we be dedicated as a province to ensuring that we source biofuels sustainably, ensuring that the carbon intensity is not in fact greater and ensuring that the carbon footprint is in fact lighter from the biofuels produced.

The bill itself, with all due respect to the minister's interpretation of these sections, is pretty thin and allows for a lot of flexibility. There is no definition about life cycle in this bill that I've seen here, and the life cycle is absolutely critical in terms of analysis.

This amendment specifies "source to consumer," which is a pretty clear pathway in terms of the fuel chain. I think it's important to be specific here. It's critical, given the potential impacts on the environment and the potential costs to the planet. I will just restate my strong support for the amendment moved by the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin and encourage members of the House to stand in support of this amendment.

J. Horgan: I, too, want to support my colleague from Esquimalt-Metchosin and echo the closing comments of the member for Vancouver-Fairview — that the minister has characterized this debate as rigid opposition on this side to reducing carbon footprint. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our challenge here as members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is to ensure that as much rigour and due diligence as possible can go into the implementation of public policy. That's our job, and that's what we're doing. At no time has anyone on this side of the House ever suggested that we do not want to see our targets of 33 percent reduction by 2020 met. We unanimously supported that legislation last fall. I think there is no better indication of our support for the position than the fact that we stood here and supported it. So for the minister to suggest that we don't want to get there is not necessarily correct.

Although I thank the minister for pointing us to section 25, which will be regulation by Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council sometime in the future, it doesn't — as the members who spoke before me said — get us from source to consumer, and that's the challenge.

What we want to know — and why the member for Vancouver-Fairview was asking questions under section 1 on this issue of the requirements and the carbon

intensity — is how much it's going to cost to get biofuels from Brazil to Fort St. John. We want to know what the impact is going to be in the life cycle of the product. I know that the life cycle is sprinkled throughout the document — and the member will likely stand and point again to section 25 — but those regulations are not yet before this House.

Absent that, we want to ensure that in the body of the bill in section 6, part 3, we have, as the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin has put before us, an amendment that will ensure that the public will have some confidence that the government will be moving in this direction swiftly and that we can calculate and quantify what the cost is going to be from source to consumer. I don't think it's a difficult amendment to support. I know that if the government was genuine and sincere about wanting to find all-party support for this initiative, this modest amendment would meet the test.

With that, I'll encourage the minister to accept this amendment and we can move on to the next section.

Hon. R. Neufeld: To the members that spoke, both members: I appreciate the arguments, but I will go back…. I mean, when it said in here that there's nothing to do with life cycle in the bill, it's actually in 25(b), "life cycle." It's there. It already says in 25(b)…. The member talked about "calculated from source to consumer." That's in the amendment, and I appreciate that. That's already in the body of the legislation, which says: "…related to the life cycle of the fuel and its fuel feedstock whether they occur inside or outside British Columbia."

You know, "outside British Columbia" is outside British Columbia. That includes what the member talks about, Brazil. He wants to use Brazil as an example? That would include Brazil. In the legislation, that is already there.

There will be regulations that we will bring, which is normal. I know that I get the argument lately that we should have all the regulations with the bills all the time, but that's not generally the way it works. Those regulations will be developed as we move forward, to make sure that we actually take into account the body of what the member is trying to say. Don't take umbrage at all. I'm pleased that the member is reinforcing with an amendment what we already have in the bill, but there's no need to put it in there twice in two different places. We actually have the intent of that in the bill, and I think we should move on.

J. Horgan: Noting the hour, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
AND MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR
EARLY LEARNING AND LITERACY
(continued)

D. Cubberley: Before we begin today, I'm just going to ask for clarification of a point that was raised in two previous sittings surrounding the legitimate use of the laptop computer during the course of estimates.

There was an initial interpretation that everyone accepted, which is that it was not to be used for speaking notes during a presentation when a speaker had the floor, but it could be used outside of that, when a speaker did not have the floor.

Then there was the subsequent interpretation that there should be no use of it at all. I'm simply going to request clarification of what the protocol is so that we know what we're about and what the parameters are for using the device.

The Chair: Member, on April 16 the member for Saanich South raised a point of order regarding the use of electronic devices by members who are engaged in debate during Committee of Supply, Section A. Pursuant to the recent statement delivered by the Speaker on March 4, members of Committee A are reminded that they may use laptop computers and hand-held electronic devices, such as BlackBerry devices, to access textual information.

The practice governing the use of electronic devices in Committee A is identical to the practice in the House. However, it is important to clarify that members may use electronic devices to access information in support of the debate, but they must not rely on these devices once they have been recognized by the Chair.

Electronic devices cannot be used as speaking notes or be quoted from while in possession of the floor and engaged in debate. Of course, all electronic devices must be operated silently. This matter is, again, before the Speaker, and the Speaker always reserves the right to reconsider.

I would like to add one other point about electronic devices and cellular phones. Cellular phones are not to be answered in the House or put up to the ear while leaving the House.

D. Cubberley: Mr. Chairman, thank you for that. You'll get no argument from me on the latter point about cell phones in the House.

I would just ask for one further thing to be done, which is to ensure that all persons serving as Chair in here and all members of the Clerk's office have a common understanding about the response that was just given so that we don't bump into it again.

Having said that, I'm going to cede the floor to my colleague, unless the minister wishes to comment on that.

D. Routley: Can the minister inform me as to what the directions have been to the special adviser who has been appointed to Cowichan Valley school district?

Hon. S. Bond: We don't have the precise letter that was actually sent to the board here today, with us at this moment, but we will certainly get that sent to us. Now that we've had the ruling clarified, we can actually get that information.

I can tell the member opposite that the framework for the terms of reference was taken right out of School Act, in fact, with the appointment of a special adviser. It comes under section 171.1. In general, it is "to assist the board in the conduct of the affairs of the school district in respect of any educational, financial or community matters."

In fact, the key points would have included communication. We were concerned about the communication and the approach that had been taken. But generally speaking, it adheres to the requirements that are laid out in the School Act.

D. Routley: Since the appointment of the adviser, the local board of education has indicated its plans to reconfigure its grade configurations and build a plan by the end of June related to school closures and possible cutbacks. Does the minister think that amount of time is adequate for the community to have input and for the community's interests to be identified when it comes to the significant issue of reconfiguration?

The minister should remember that during the public meetings that the school board held throughout our district, there were resounding noes expressed unequivocally to the school board around school closure, investment in the Cowichan Place project partnership and reconfiguration of the grades.

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, anytime a board of education discusses any of those issues that the member opposite articulated — things like school closures or reconfiguration — there's always a very significant…. I shouldn't say always. There's usually a fairly emotional response, and one can understand that.

I'm not about to speculate today about the time frames that have been suggested, because we have sent in a special adviser, a very capable person who is highly regarded in the education system in general — Dr. Lee Southern.

What we've actually asked Dr. Southern to do is come back to me with a report — May 15, I believe, is the deadline — and work through those issues with the board of education. I'm not aware of the specific circumstances that the member opposite has cited and will be relying very heavily on the special adviser that we've appointed to bring back his report to me, which will then obviously go to the school board for their final decisions.

D. Routley: Definitely there is an element of emotion, and that was displayed by the Cowichan elders who

pleaded with the board not to take their children from the school that they were in and pleaded with the board to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Oftentimes in these debates and in these consultations, emotional responses are discouraged. In fact, the declared intention at the beginning of the meetings is to ignore the emotional component, which I think is a huge mistake. Of course, the commitment of communities to their small schools is what has kept them going so far.

It's always been claimed that these school closures were something that the board wanted to avoid. There's never been a statement by the board that they desired to close these schools. In fact, all of the trustees who are elected currently declared that without community agreement, they would not be in favour of closing small schools. The four small schools that are identified are all growing schools.

Oftentimes the minister and others who have advocated for small school closures refer to the educational or pedagogical reasons for doing these things — program issues. But in our case, in Cowichan Valley, that is not the reason being offered. The reason being offered is funding shortfall, and the reason that's being offered for that is an enrolment decline.

Can the minister commit that if the district and the community decide that it is their desire to keep these small schools open, that there is no driving pedagogical reason to close them and that if the only reason is funding, she will step up and guarantee and ensure that funds will be available to keep those schools open?

Hon. S. Bond: I will begin by articulating the responsibilities of the special adviser. We've made part of the assignment basically that the special adviser would consider the decision-making processes of the board and trustees, the district's management structure and its oversight functions, effectiveness of long-term planning and risk assessment of those plans, stewardship of capital assets, effectiveness of the board's community consultation and responsiveness, the state of finances and the level of student achievement.

I will correct for the record a statement that the member opposite just made. As Minister of Education I have not and would not advocate for small school closures. That is not my job; it is certainly not my intention.

Having said that, I also want to put on the record for the member's awareness the fact that in this particular school district, when we look at the number of students enrolled in this district today compared to what there was in 2000 and 2001, there are actually 18.6 percent fewer children in the school district. That would accumulate to almost 2,000 fewer children — 1,930 fewer children.

Like other boards across the province and around the world, districts are facing — and we can debate the use of the word "dramatic…." I would suggest that a reduction of almost 2,000 children in one school district is a fairly dramatic decline over a six-year period. It is unfortunate; it is difficult. But we do need to address the fact that we believe — and I believe personally, of course — that using resources is most important to put in classrooms that have children in them, not half-empty buildings.

This board, along with boards around the province, has to grapple with that issue. Of course today I cannot, as Minister of Education, stand up and suggest that because this particular board makes a decision that they don't want to close schools, I could simply save those. I would not be in a position to do that.

D. Routley: The minister has claimed that she would not advocate for school closures, and yet her own policies drive districts to consider that the optimum size for school districts is 400 for elementary schools. That would be the optimum size.

In our school district we've reduced that. We see our goal as being 200 students. But if we go with the 200-student goal, that closes most of our elementary schools — certainly the ones that we have here.

When the minister quotes the loss of enrolment in Cowichan school district, she points not to a demographic decline but to a failure of her ministry to fund education properly and to driving conditions into our district that have driven people into the private system.

In fact, the projections for school district 79 over the next five years are for K-to-6-aged children to chart downwards — yes, but only by 79 students over five years — from 4,086 down to 4,007. That is 79 students expected in decline spread over 18 schools — hardly reason to close these four schools. The loss of these schools would mean the loss of two programs of choice. One is a rural traditional program, which the ministry took great pains in promoting when it was first established in another school — which, I will add, was closed a few years ago.

We would not only lose that; we would lose the aboriginal school, Koksilah, which has cultural programs and language programs developed over a 30-year period and have been in place for three years — in fact, the first school of choice, not the one that the minister pointed to before. Those would be lost. We would lose over 140 child care spaces, 66 in Tansor School alone.

These are all important functions for the community, and we will pay a price for losing them. In fact, when districts have resisted the closure of schools, the ministry has intervened through phone calls, through pressure on boards. It's clear that is the case. The ministry cannot hide behind the autonomous decision-making of school districts when in fact they're driven into corners that they have no choice but one to fight out with, and that is the closure of schools and the sale of property.

When the ministry says that 50 percent of capital projects must be paid by the districts, where does the minister expect the districts will get that money, except through school closure? Whether or not the minister has stood in public and said that she stands for small school closure, her policies certainly have driven that.

I would like to examine what the minister has just claimed. She has just claimed that we have lost enrolment at double the rate provincially, and I'll agree with her. But the fact is that enrolment in private schools in our district is more than two times greater than the provincial average, and that has been created by the driving of students out of our system. When our school district closed Mount Brenton Elementary, there were over 140 students. The next year fewer than 100 of those were still in our district. We lost those students and their full funding package, far more than we could ever save by closing the school.

In our district we have 29 percent of our secondary-aged students in private school. In our district we have 17 percent of our elementary-aged students enrolled in the private system, 25 percent for middle schools. This is the result of the very policies that we're trying to resist right now — policies that are driving us to close these schools and that are driving parents to enrol their students in private schools.

The minister should address her own ministry's responsibility for the decline in enrolment in Cowichan school district. What does she have to say to those assertions?

Hon. S. Bond: The member opposite has asked me to comment on his assertions, and I'm frankly quite glad that the word "assertion" was used. I want to make it perfectly clear to the member opposite that there is not a policy in British Columbia today that looks at optimum size of schools. We have schools across this province that vary in size. There are bigger ones and smaller ones. To suggest there's a policy that says we're only going to build 400-student schools is inaccurate.

The second inaccurate assertion is that there is a policy around 50 percent of buildings having to be paid for by school districts — absolutely inaccurate. In fact, we continue to invest. In British Columbia over the last number of years we've spent over a billion dollars building and replacing schools. One can't imagine that school districts could even begin to contemplate 50 percent.

Perhaps the most egregious assertion that's been made is a suggestion that there's pressure from our staff on school districts in terms of making decisions. That's absolutely inaccurate.

I want to clearly articulate for the record the facts that exist in this school district. I don't want for a minute to deny there is passion and emotion and difficulty, but let's be clear. This school district has almost 2,000 fewer students in it than it did in 2000-2001. The district is expected to receive this year the same amount of operating grants, despite the fact that there is going to be a decline in enrolment.

Perhaps the member would like to check that with the school board. I'd be happy to hear if our number is inaccurate. But at the moment the number that we've been given from the school district, in terms of their drop of full-time-equivalent students, will be 416 this year. If you were to actually use the member's assertion that we build schools at the size of 400 or 200, that number alone would have a dramatic impact on this school district.

Perhaps the most significant piece of information that I'd like to share with the member opposite is the fact that this school district is actually expected to receive more than $1.36 million in enrolment decline and funding protection from supplementary funding next year to deal with declining enrolment. So to suggest for a moment — first of all, the three assertions that I've already corrected for the record — that this is essentially a funding issue is inaccurate.

D. Routley: I'm sure the trustees around the province will be very pleased to hear that there's no such agenda. Having served as a trustee, it was very clear that there was. Through the consultants who are appointed, through ministry direction to local administrators, it's very clear that there is. The minister and I can disagree on that, but I'll take my position to the school trustees who I've had experience with and particularly to the parents and students that I've served. I'm sure they'll support that.

It should be noted that the per-student capital spending in this province declined by 40 percent since that time and is only now climbing to a place that's equivalent to the per-student capital funding before the minister's government came to power. In fact, we have seen a decline in enrolment that is disproportionate to the demographic decline in our school system, particularly in the Cowichan school district. That is indicated by the participation in private schools. That is being driven by the conditions being forced upon the school district by the minister's and the ministry's policies.

In 2002 the school district adopted a budget model of concentric circles. For the minister's benefit, I'll describe that. The concentric circle model is a dot — the centre dot. That dot represents the student. Then services are layered out from that in circles further and further away from the dot, as they are judged to be less directly important to the student — the teachers, of course, administrators, maintenance and transportation. The supportive services for students wound up having the gravity of Pluto in that environment.

In fact, deep cuts were made to supportive services for students, both professional assessment services and physiotherapy services. There were deep cuts to teacher-librarian time. There were deep cuts to class-size ratios. There were very deep cuts to maintenance and transportation, which the school board is still staggering to deal with. We are dealing with mouldy buildings and deteriorating facilities, and yet it is true that we are being demanded to participate in these capital projects and put up money.

So we are driven into these ridiculous situations — the situation like J.H. Boyd elementary, which had been closed in the past but was being used as a maintenance facility and transportation facility in Lake Cowichan. Its fields were available for public use. That school site was bought for $1 in 1967, I believe, from B.C. Forest Products — $1.

Now the community, in order to keep it in public use, is being asked to pay $785,000 to the district to purchase it. Does the minister think that's fair treatment for the people of Lake Cowichan?

Hon. S. Bond: I want to do a couple of things. First of all, I want to just read something to the member opposite so that we continue to have this debate. The member opposite is absolutely correct. We're going to agree to disagree regularly, and I'm going to continue to put the facts on the record.

In Ontario alone, 550 schools have closed. In Saskatchewan the student population has dropped by 10,000 students and is projected to drop a further 13,000, and Saskatchewan has faced significant school closures. As we look across the country, Newfoundland and Labrador experienced sharper decreases in enrolment than any other province. In fact, in Newfoundland they saw a 20 percent drop in enrolment. The model in the province for dealing with declining enrolment looks at virtual classrooms, e-delivery.

If you perhaps do not take my word for it, we might want to look at what Statistics Canada tells us about the age populations in schools today. It is expected that we will lose millions of students across this country. What that requires is sound management by locally elected boards of trustees to deal with those issues.

I am delighted to put on the record this government's funding record in terms of the fact that we have 50,000 fewer children, and we continue to see increased funding. On the capital agenda, since 2001 this government has spent — with 50,000 fewer children in the system — $1.3 billion to build 26 new schools, 41 replacement schools, 147 additions, 25 renovations and 20 site acquisitions across British Columbia.

I think the record speaks clearly for itself. By the end of our term in 2008-2009, this government will have invested more than $3.1 billion in seismic and school capital projects across British Columbia.

In terms of the acquisition or disposal of property, there is an order in place that requires boards of education to actually declare what is surplus when it has been deemed surplus. That's a board's choice. It's based on their thinking about the future and the long- and short-term planning that they do. Once it's been declared surplus, it is presented to the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services. It will go through a process where we look at other potential government uses for that.

The second level of inquiry will then be around municipal governments. Local governments, I guess, is the best way to describe that. At that point there is a negotiation that takes place. The value that would be used would be fair market value.

D. Routley: As long as we get stuck at this point in the debate, I'll have to go back again to my daughter and her allowance and my request that the minister manage her allowance. If she's getting $15 a week, the minister could raise her up to $20 and tell her she's getting more than she's ever gotten. Then she could pay the MSP premium increases, her mom the teacher's salary raise and all the other downloaded costs — GAAP accounting, BCeSIS and on and on and on. The costs have been added on to school districts, and that's why we've had to cut. That is clearly the case, and that is a fact that can be laid on the table.

When the minister talks about jurisdictions that have lost similar or greater populations and about their tactics, I would ask her: what did they do? Did they add costs to the school districts at a time when they were losing enrolment? Did they pin the funding for the system on that declining factor? Did more money per student, in their experience, and fewer students add up to cut programs, closed schools, reduced capacity? Is that what happened?

I think that we have to talk about intent. I think we have to talk about why these things are being motivated. I think we have to ask about the drive to close smaller schools and consolidate populations.

I think we have to consider the commitments of this government to climate change and carbon emission reduction when we are displacing hundreds and hundreds of children in every community every year by small school, neighbourhood school closures. At the same time, the boards are being forced to make cuts to transportation. Our own board is considering a $200,000 cut to its busing in order to meet the demands of the ministry's funding formula. That will put hundreds of cars on the road every single day — thousands and thousands of tonnes of carbon added to the atmosphere.

Does that meet her government's goals? Is her ministry playing its part in reducing carbon emissions when it closes small neighbourhood schools?

Hon. S. Bond: I want to go back, actually, just momentarily, if I might. I know that staff and others certainly monitor the conversations that go on here, and I want to put on the record that the information we've been provided with in terms of independent school enrolment in the member opposite's riding indicates that in '06-07 there were 2,531 students enrolled in independent schools. And in '07-08 the number is actually 2,517. So the numbers that the district has provided us or that we have looked at in the database show a decline in the number of students in independent schools in that school district.

I also want to reiterate for the member opposite, because this will continue to be a discussion about the basic disagreement that the member opposite and I have over the facts. That continues each time the member comes and presents his view, which is absolutely appropriate.

I will simply give, once again, the block funding issues and the enrolment for the Cowichan school district for the member opposite. The enrolment changes over the last five years alone in this school district show that they have lost 12.6 percent of their students,

and the funding increases they've received are 10.5 percent. So we have fewer students and more money.

When we look at what the formula recognizes, in terms of…. Districts are very different. I know that where I live, there are many small communities. The school district serves a very widely dispersed area, as do many other districts in the province. In fact, our funding formula recognizes a number of things, including enrolment decline, of which many, many districts are taking advantage.

In fact, we spend, I believe, about $100-and-some million a year. We'll get that number so it's accurate. The formula recognizes districts with small and remote schools, districts in climates that require higher than usual heating and cooling and also protection from year-to-year funding declines. I think it's fair to say that the formula looks to try to reflect the variations that we see in districts across the province.

D. Routley: Does the minister measure programs' success by the amount spent or by their outcomes?

Hon. S. Bond: You know, all of us in this room and in this building have, I hope, one goal in common, and that's to see individual student success. That's what matters to us. It matters to every member of the team that's sitting in this room today — supporting the work of students across the province. We care that children in British Columbia are successful. We have gaps. We're working on those. Our primary goal is ongoing improvement, student by student, class by class, school by school.

D. Routley: Does the minister measure that by cuts in programs or by closed schools?

I don't know how she can make these claims, when in fact it seems rather Orwellian to suggest that so much more funding put into the system, so many fewer students to serve…. Yet what we have as outcomes are closed schools, cancelled programs, loss of services to disabled students, failure to meet the obligations of Bill 33 in terms of class composition, failure to support special needs students and failure to address autism in the public school system to an adequate degree. Those are the outcomes.

How does the minister explain this math — more funding, fewer students, fewer services?

Hon. S. Bond: I have to be totally candid. The member opposite's comments are incredibly disheartening from the perspective that….

Perhaps it's time to stand up and recognize that in British Columbia today we have some of the best outcomes for education in the world. There are no students in the world that exceed our students' outcomes. If the member opposite would like to speak about outcome measurements, British Columbia's system is one of the finest in the world. That speaks volumes about the programs, the teachers, the people who make a difference.

It simply does not mean that we do not have to grapple with 50,000 fewer children in our school system and the fact that…. If British Columbia were facing that alone, then perhaps the member would have legitimate questions about policy. This is in fact a global phenomenon. Families are different today than they have been. We are grappling with that, and this government, despite declining enrolment, has provided record levels of funding for public education in British Columbia.

D. Routley: A little thing called inflation, a little thing called downloaded costs — all those things add up to burdens on districts that equal cuts, because those things must be paid for. There's no place to go other than services in our classrooms.

When the minister talks about what process school properties that are deemed to be surplus go through before disposal, she mentioned that the government looks at other public purposes and then to local government. Two sessions ago I put on the order paper Motion 70, which called for the government to do an inventory of closed public buildings of all kinds, including schools, and do an assessment of their value for public use.

That was defeated by the government. Only one member spoke against it, the member for Prince George–Omineca, who has constituents who want to use closed schools for a variety of public purposes and petitioned him on that during the Standing Committee on Education's tour up there. If that's the screen it's being filtered through, I'd say the screen has got some pretty big holes in it.

When local area director Loren Duncan of the CVRD moved a bylaw — which was supported unanimously, including by a potential B.C. Liberal candidate — that public school properties be first designated for public use and that public assembly should continue in those buildings after closure by school districts, that bylaw was unanimously supported. That bylaw received submissions from the public. There were 63 positive submissions and one negative.

If the minister is listening to the community she's serving, she will hear that 63 to 1 in favour of keeping public properties public speaks volumes.

Will she stand up and support that bylaw, which was passed in the Cowichan Valley regional district? If there is pressure from the school district, which hopes to realize market value for that property…. If there is pressure through the Ministry of Community Services and that minister, will this minister resist that pressure, support that bylaw and support that public purpose being maintained for public properties?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, let's be clear: there's no pressure. What there is, is the reality of dealing with the disposition of assets. We've been clear in a ministerial order — I think it was in September of last year — that there is a process that boards of education must follow and must consider, and that's precisely what will continue to happen in British Columbia.

Ironically, it would be really energizing to hear the member opposite actually talk about some of the positive things that have happened with buildings across British Columbia, and there are extraordinary examples.

In my own community, in fact, just weeks ago, a brand-new concept for Prince George was a hub model in a school that had been closed. The community was very disappointed in school closures initially. Obviously, that's a difficult circumstance. We have three school buildings in Prince George that through partnerships between people like the Northern Health Authority, the city of Prince George and the Family Y…. All of those people have come together to create new life for those buildings and new programs for families.

Is that always possible? Not necessarily, but I can assure you that partnerships exist in this province that utilize that asset in a creative and thoughtful way. That was led by the board of education in Prince George, and I am seeing those kinds of partnerships all across this province.

D. Routley: I'll talk about some positive things. I'll talk about Honeymoon Bay Elementary School, which was renovated, seismically upgraded and promptly closed. I'll tell her some positive things about Koksilah Elementary, the excellent aboriginal programming and the success that that's bringing to children, and the fact that her policies will drive that school to closure. I'll tell her some positive things about alternate ed in Cowichan Valley.

The Chair: Member, all comments should be made through the Chair, and all comments should come back and be directed at Vote 25, the estimates for the Ministry of Education.

D. Routley: Absolutely, and in response to the remarks by the minister challenging me to be positive…. And I will be, because it was very positive.

The alternate ed programs in Cowichan Valley were serving students who had struggled immensely in this system before they were introduced to those programs, and now those programs will be closed. That was the discussion last night in the school district.

Those are the outcomes. Those were positive things, and they're gone, or they will be, if the minister doesn't step up today in this meeting, in response to these questions, and assure the people of the Cowichan Valley that their choices will be honoured. They choose to keep those schools open. They choose to have those services restored.

Will the minister support them and ensure that there's adequate funding to do those things?

Hon. S. Bond: What this minister will do is clear. I will support locally elected boards of education — I know that the member opposite was a member of one — in making the difficult decisions that are necessary to be made. This board came to the ministry — to me, to the minister — and said: "We need some help." I took the very unusual step of actually appointing a special adviser at the request of a board of education.

If the member opposite would like to make some assumptions or assertions about that, I would challenge him to do that. We'd be happy to respond to them. The fact of the matter is that we received a letter from the board of education requesting assistance in a variety of areas. That's precisely what we're going to do. We're going to provide assistance to that board of education, and we will look at a number of things.

I am not today going to speculate about the outcomes of the work of the special adviser. A very capable person was selected to work alongside the board, but the board was candid. They were having difficulty managing some of these issues. The fact of the matter is that boards of education across British Columbia have been managing difficult issues since long before this government came to power.

We are providing assistance. We will wait to see the outcomes of the special adviser's report, but — and the member would well know this, having been a school trustee — the board, locally elected, will ultimately make the final decisions. It is not my place or my intention today to either speculate about the outcomes or to make a decision about anything other than that the report will be done. It will be provided to the board, and they will do the job that they were elected to do.

D. Routley: Well, that is very disappointing, because I'm not asking the minister to speculate on the work of the special adviser. I'm asking the minister to commit to supporting my community.

My community has clearly, through public meetings, through submissions to the regional district on that bylaw, time and time again…. She's aware of the number of public meetings that have gone on, the organization, the strong push-back against these policies. Will she listen to those voices? If the community expresses that its will is that those schools remain open — they are viable schools with increasing enrolment, with a wait-list at Koksilah — will she support those decisions with adequate funding to keep those schools in operation?

Hon. S. Bond: Unlike the member opposite, I will not intervene in the role of a locally elected board of education. The decisions will lie with that board of education. They may be difficult. They may be uncomfortable. But they belong in the jurisdiction of locally elected school boards, and I will not be intervening in that process.

D. Routley: I'm not asking the minister to intervene. I'm asking the minister to step up and do her job and support our district with adequate funding for the goals that it establishes for itself — the reasonable goals and expectations that its neighbourhood schools which are well populated will remain open.

We've already closed nigh on 25 percent of our elementary schools, and with this, we'd be over 30 percent. That is far in excess of our enrolment decline. I don't think that it should be too big a reach for the minister

to be able to say that if the community of the Cowichan Valley says it wants those schools to remain open and if the trustees want them to remain open, then she will support that.

The minister refers to the board asking for help. The motion to ask for a special adviser was introduced at the close of a meeting, with no notice of motion. Every trustee who had voted against school closure knew nothing of its introduction. Every trustee who voted for school closure supported it. Everyone who didn't, didn't support the appointment.

There was a clear sense in the room, from everyone there, that this was an orchestrated event. The minister can deny it if she wants, but pressure comes from her ministry to districts to close small schools. Enrolment decline is always the excuse, but it's never a good enough reason. It's certainly not in our district, where we have resisted those closures on all the right grounds, educationally, but the minister's policies have forced us into that position.

If the district, if the people of the valley express their desire to keep those schools open, is the minister prepared to ensure resources? Is the minister prepared to ensure resources to keep Koksilah Elementary open? It's 140 students, 98 percent aboriginal, 30 years in development of its aboriginal language and cultural programs. Will she commit at least to protecting that?

Hon. S. Bond: I want to just clearly articulate for the record…. I think that the member opposite should think very careful about the statement that he just made.

This ministry responded to a request from a locally elected board of trustees. If there is some question about the process that took place with the board of education, the member's comments are best directed to the board of education.

I will clearly and unequivocally for this record suggest that he be very thoughtful about the comments that he made and would want the member to reconsider his suggestion that there were questions about that process. That is a very serious allegation that was made in this House and chamber under the protection that's provided to the member opposite. He may want to consider making that assertion in the hallway.

I would like to finish answering the question by simply pointing out that as Minister of Education I received a request signed by the board chair of the Cowichan Valley school district. Let me, for the record, read what the letter said.

At its open meeting of March 5, 2008, the board of education of school district 79, Cowichan Valley, approved the following resolution:

In fact, that letter is unusual by the very nature that, I think, there have only been four special advisers ever appointed in British Columbia. It's a matter that's not taken lightly, either by the board and certainly not by this minister.

D. Routley: I wonder if the minister has heard of Jacob's Law? Jacob's Law is a U.S. federal law which prohibits the sale of 15-passenger vans to any organization which transports students. That can be a school district, a college or any other public organization.

That law was put into place because of the propensity of these vehicles to roll over. They are seven times more likely to roll over in a crash — three times more likely generally; seven times more likely in a crash from the side. If the wheel of a 15-passenger van, fully loaded, is turned lock to lock over a 32-second interval at 50 kilometres per hour, the van will likely roll.

Cuts to transportation and transportation in yellow school buses with professional drivers have driven school districts to partner with organizations and use these 15-passenger vans to transport our students. Will the minister guarantee adequate transportation funding so that school districts don't have to resort to putting students in what are commonly characterized as deathtraps?

Hon. S. Bond: There have been no reductions in funding to transportation. The formula related to transportation and other items is reviewed every year by the Technical Review Committee, which is made up of superintendents and secretary-treasurers from across the province, rural and urban districts. There has been no reduction in transportation funding.

D. Routley: Will the minister immediately act to protect the students of British Columbia by banning the use of 15-passenger vans to transport students?

Hon. S. Bond: The issue of 15-passenger vans is certainly one that is challenging in terms of how we look at the use of those vans. I should be clear that, as we deal with school districts, there are a large number of school districts that do not use 15-passenger vans already. A number of additional districts joined that list, obviously, after the incredibly tragic accident that took place on the east coast recently.

Student safety is a priority for everyone, including boards of education. None of them — nor we — would contemplate consciously making decisions that would result in unsafe circumstances for students. We've been cautioned by the B.C. School Trustees Association to be thoughtful in how we react to the 15-passenger van issue. We've agreed to have further discussion with them about that. It's been very productive at this point.

One of the major cautions we were provided with is that the moment you remove a 15-passenger van arbitrarily from the road, you probably send five cars in its place, because parents will continue to choose to have

their children participate in sporting or cultural or whatever kinds of activities. That requires thought.

I do want to make the member, perhaps, more comfortable by suggesting that the risk management branch — the Ministry of Finance as well — long before this accident occurred — in fact, in February of 2006 — sent specific information to boards to help them make their decisions about the 15-passenger van use and in fact requires some very specific things about the use of these vans.

We are in discussion with B.C. school trustees about the use of them, and we continue to do that work in consultation with the trustees association.

D. Routley: The safest way to move a human being is not walking. The safest way to move a human being is not driving in a car. It's not flying in a plane. It's not in a boat. The safest way to move a human being is not in a highway bus. The safest per-kilometre way to move a human being is in a yellow school bus with a professional driver. It has the lowest rate of accidents, the lowest rate of fatality and the lowest rate of injury of any form of transportation on a public road, including walking.

We have those buses. Through funding-formula pressure, we are being forced to consider cutting busing services. We already have no services for field trips, except that which is supported by the fundraising of parents. Yet these two facts are before us — the safest possible way to move a human being versus one of the most unsafe ways to move a human being on the public road, and that being the 15-passenger van with its demonstrated propensity to roll over.

The national highway transportation safety administration in the United States issued repeated warnings — which is very uncharacteristic of them, to issue consumer warnings — about those vans. Jacob's Law was in reaction to the loss of hundreds of students from colleges, from public schools. Religious organizations in the United States ban them; the U.S. Navy bans them. Can the minister ban them for use in transporting students?

I don't really need to hear that that would put five more cars on the road, because that's not the reason they're being used. The reason they're being used is that there isn't enough funding to transport our students to extracurricular activities, to sports, to field trips. That's why they're being used. And if five cars are put on the road because one unsafe van is put off the road, that can't be blamed on the act of taking the van off the road. That is caused by the fact that there is not enough funding to support transportation for these activities. Will the minister support that funding?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, as I've said to the member previously, first of all there's been no reduction in funding to transportation in British Columbia. The second point that I'd like to reiterate…. And certainly, as a previous school trustee, I'm assuming that the member opposite would recognize the importance of the B.C. School Trustees Association. In fact, in my discussions with them, they have been very productive and very positive about a dialogue that's ongoing. In fact, it was the B.C. School Trustees Association that made the point about the unintended consequence of perhaps having more parental transportation involved, and that was considered a risk, as well, for boards of education.

We continue to have dialogue; we will continue to deal with this thoughtfully. I can only hope that the member opposite is not suggesting that boards of education across this province make decisions consciously to put children at risk. That is unacceptable and, certainly, not at all my experience, having been a trustee and also with the trustees that I work with across this province.

D. Routley: That is hardly what I've suggested. What I have suggested is that the minister is failing to step up and make a commitment to protect the children of B.C. by banning these vans. I am not suggesting that anyone else be involved in that decision. I think the minister could make it all by herself, and because there is not adequate funding right now…. It isn't a professional school bus driver who is driving that yellow school bus; it is already parents and untrained teachers who are driving those vans full of children.

I don't think the minister's argument holds water. In fact, it would be very helpful to the districts across this province if the minister were to make a consistent declaration that it is not acceptable for districts to seek to save money by resorting to transporting students in 15-passenger vans when they have clearly been shown to be a lethal hazard to occupants. That has been clearly shown in case after case.

It should be simple, I think, for the minister to stand up and say that it is unacceptable that the students of British Columbia should continue to be transported in 15-passenger vans.

Hon. S. Bond: It's very interesting that each of the arguments and items brought to the table today by the member opposite actually was a request for the minister to intervene in the role of locally elected boards of trustees — quite ironic, considering the member opposite's past and his relationship as a school trustee.

These are never easy decisions to make. The School Act clearly articulates that the responsibility for decision-making around transportation is in the hands of boards of education. What we on this side think is appropriate — and the member opposite was actually critical of consultation processes previously — is talking to the people who make those decisions.

In the discussions we had with the B.C. School Trustees Association, we were cautioned about simply creating an outright ban on 15-passenger vans. We took that seriously and in fact continue to have dialogue in a thoughtful and appropriate way with those who are locally elected trustees in this province. So I am not prepared to intervene in every decision that is laid out in the School Act as the responsibility of locally elected boards.

D. Routley: I didn't realize that asking for adequate funding was asking for intervention. I'm not asking for intervention so much as adequate funding.

Clearly, school districts wouldn't choose to use these vans, knowing how dangerous they are, and they do know how dangerous they are. Teachers wouldn't choose to expose themselves to liability by driving them when there's no professional school bus driver available. They choose to do those things because of a funding shortfall.

If funding the system in a way that's adequate to provide for those experiences for children is intervention, then I guess I'm asking for intervention. Will the minister intervene with funding adequate to support yellow school buses transporting students rather than 15-passenger vans? Yes, I'm asking for that intervention.

Hon. S. Bond: What the government will do is continue to fund British Columbia's education system at record levels. In fact, we're doing that at a time when we have 50,000 fewer children in British Columbia.

I have read into the record on numerous occasions, for the member opposite's benefit, the circumstances around his particular school district. Again I might remind the member opposite of — for example, in Cowichan — a 12.6 percent decline in enrolment and a 10.5 percent increase in the level of funding that district receives.

What I will absolutely commit today to the member opposite is that as a government, we will continue to make this a priority and provide record levels of funding for education in the province.

D. Routley: That commitment does nothing to meet the needs of the school districts, except to say that we are paying more than has been paid before in an environment when the fuel costs have soared by hundreds of percent over the same time period, when MSP premiums have been downloaded onto school districts to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, when all manner of downloaded costs were introduced to the system and when basic inflation can explain a lot of that increase.

We are still left with outcomes which are inadequate. It is an inadequate outcome in this world, as we consider our environment and carbon emissions and all of those issues, to close neighbourhood schools. It is an inadequate outcome for us to have to cut therapeutic riding for students who needed that. For them, that was every bit as core to their curriculum as math or English might be to a student not challenged the way they are.

If these things were true, then we wouldn't have made 10 percent after 10 percent cuts to our maintenance department until we are at a point where our buildings are mouldy and no longer being properly maintained. If all those things were true, if it really added up to more, we would see more instead of seeing less.

The minister is using the figures to her benefit. Per-student funding — yes, the most per student ever. But with all those downloaded costs, with a reduction in the number of students, that does not add up to increased services.

The minister should be forthright with British Columbians and admit that all of these increased costs have far exceeded any increase in funding that the minister has quoted. The results, the outcomes, are closed schools, cut programs and needs unmet.

Our district in Cowichan Valley now spends $500,000 per year on Internet and technology — $321,000 for Internet connections, $209,000 for things like BlackBerrys and cell phones — because our communications are antiquated. So we have to compensate with those services. Over $500,000 per year is going into technical requirements that were never there before the last few years. Yet there's no reaction, no funding for that, and we are left having to scrape from other programs to meet that demand.

The minister should show leadership, accept responsibility for these outcomes and make a commitment today to British Columbians and to the people I represent in the Cowichan Valley to ensure that funding will adequately support these downloaded costs, will adequately pay the downloaded costs of the teachers' contract that was legislated by her government, will adequately address the new technology demands and will adequately support transportation so that school districts do not have to transport students in obviously inadequate vehicles — 15-passenger vans. All of those things would not be happening if the districts had enough funding.

The minister can claim any amount of money she wants. The bottom line for my constituents is the outcome, and they reject it. They reject it publicly; they reject it repeatedly. They do not want their small schools closed. They do not want to reconfigure their grades and put their grade 6 children in middle schools. That has been clearly expressed. What that would do is empty even more elementary schools and give the excuse for more school closures. They do not want these things, and they have expressed that clearly.

No matter what number of millions the minister brings to the table, no matter what billions she brings, if the outcomes are the way they are now, it's a failure. Will the minister take responsibility for that and assure the people of British Columbia that adequate funding will be provided to meet all the needs that I've just listed?

Hon. S. Bond: What the minister will do is what we have consistently done, which is continue to increase funding in British Columbia for education. As I would like to point out to the member opposite, the per-pupil funding in the Cowichan Valley school district is actually expected to be almost $2,000 higher per student than it was in 2000-2001.

The only numbers that I intend to make clear to British Columbians are the accurate ones. I am once again going to repeat for the member opposite that

despite a drop in enrolment numbers of 12.6 percent, the member opposite's riding will receive 10.5 percent and has over the last five years.

I think what's really unfortunate is that these are challenging days in terms of the impacts on schools across Canada, around the world. While the member opposite would simply like to dismiss the fact that we have 50,000 fewer students…. I'm going to be perfectly clear for the record. We expect those resources to go into classrooms that have children in them. That's what boards of….

Hon. S. Bond: Let's talk about class size in Cowichan just for a moment, since that remark was uttered.

The number of classes over 30 in the Cowichan school district has actually decreased from 229 in 2005-2006 to 34. In fact, we have seen an 85 percent decrease in the number of classes that are over 30 in the Cowichan school district. I'd be delighted to have a discussion about the impact of class size, because this district has managed that issue incredibly well, when we look at the decrease from 229 classes to 34.

Are there challenges? Absolutely, there are. But I can clearly articulate one final time for the member opposite that the role of locally elected trustees is to manage their districts. Across this province we have seen board after board grapple with challenges and yet balance budgets, look forward with long-term planning.

The Cowichan board of education said clearly that they needed some help with the management and planning in their district. We are providing that with an educational leader from British Columbia. I look forward to having the work that Dr. Lee Southern will do presented to me and then back to the board of education so that those decisions and those concerns expressed by the member's constituents are considered.

Let's be clear. There will be consultation with the community. There will be a discussion, but at the end of the day, the decisions will be made by a locally elected board of trustees.

D. Routley: As a last comment, I'll sum up what I've heard: "No, no, no, no."

No, the minister won't guarantee enough funding to protect children from being transported in 15-passenger vans, because that would be an intervention, when districts clearly see an imperative to stop using them — a safety imperative.

No. 2, the minister said that no, she will not provide enough funding for my community to keep its schools open, if they should decide and if they should express to her that that is their desire, despite the fact that we have increasing enrolment in all the schools that are targeted.

No. 3, the minister will not provide adequate funding to meet the needs of technological requirements, downloaded costs that the ministry has imposed on districts such as MSP premiums. She will not adjust the formula. She's satisfied there's enough money in education, yet the outcomes are still cuts, dilution of services and closed schools. So that's a no.

She said that no, she will not be there to resist pressure to reject the implications of the CVRD bylaw which would protect the public use of public buildings.

So the minister has essentially answered: "No, no, no, no." Despite the fact that she claims, as she has before, that there's more money than ever in education, I'm still sent here by a group of constituents who aren't having their needs met, who are not satisfied with the dilutions and cuts that the ministry has imposed.

Hon. S. Bond: I would just like to finish my comments on a far more positive note than the member opposite.

Yes, we will continue to fund record levels of funding for education in British Columbia. Yes, we will continue to respect the autonomy and the authority of locally elected school trustees. Yes, we will provide assistance to the Cowichan school board to provide them with the assistance that they requested. And yes, our number one focus in British Columbia will continue to be on outcomes — student by student, class by class, school by school.

Yes, we will in fact continue to celebrate that British Columbia's outcomes in education are among the absolute best in the world, and that is what we will continue to commit to in British Columbia.

J. Kwan: I'd like to ask the minister some questions around some of the schools in my area. In particular, today I'd like to start with asking questions on behalf of the Friends of Dickens School.

The Friends of Dickens is a neighbourhood group and a subcommittee of Kensington–Cedar Cottage city planning committee. They really were formed to bring issues to the attention of representatives at the local level as well as at the provincial level regarding the retention of the building in their school, a wing of Dickens School that was originally built in 1913. They would like to see that building retained as a heritage site and be used for the community.

There are a variety of community needs in that neighbourhood — not in any order of priority. The area of a music centre or artistic centre has been considered. In fact, at one point there was a possibility where the Sarah McLachlan music school was going to move into this wing. It turned out that the space was not big

enough, and that deal fell through. It was very unfortunate because the community was very excited about it, and a deal was almost to be had.

At the end of the day, the negotiations didn't work out. It remains a viable space that could be used. The community also says they would like, as another possibility for consideration, to use that space for child care or even a seniors centre. Near that neighbourhood is the wonderful Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood House, which provides a variety of services in the neighbourhood, including senior services. There's some contemplation for potentially that use there.

So there's a whole variety of needs in the community, to be sure. People in the community are working like mad to see how they can sort of save that space and prevent demolition — which is slated, by the way, for later this year — in order to save a heritage building.

I should add that the Vancouver Heritage Commission has passed a unanimous resolution in support of the retention of this building. It is an icon in the sense of the heritage character of that era, and the retention of it….

On the issue around sustainability in terms of being able to use buildings that are still viable…. There's no need to tear down a building just because people want to tear it down and think that it's old and antiquated. Then you end up putting all the stuff that you end up tearing down into a landfill in an era when we know we should be reusing and recycling and really working and doing everything we can to save the environment.

Of course, in extending the use of that building on a school site, in essence, you create a community hub. Activity in the community and utilizing the school in ways that perhaps may not have been thought of before create a sense of community in addition to the school on the site.

To that end, the Friends of Dickens had numerous meetings with friends, with advocates in the neighbourhood — heritage advocates and so on. A few months ago they called together a meeting with a range of representatives — a round-table discussion, if you will.

As the local MLA, I was invited to participate, and I was delighted to go and participate. There were city councillors there. There was the school board chair as well as the school board trustee representatives, city council planning folks, heritage folks from the city heritage committee and so on.

At that meeting there were lots of ideas talked about with respect to that, but most notably there were no provincial government representatives there — I should say, on the government side — and people were kind of dismayed, and rightfully so, because they kind of needed all the players at the table in order to engage in this discussion.

The long and short of it is this. They're still looking for ways to keep the building, to stop the demolition and to ensure that the building is sustainable, that it becomes a vibrant core in the neighbourhood and that it integrates the potential arts or other community uses into this neighbourhood.

First I'd like to ask the minister: is she is aware of this issue, and if she is, what is her view? I have written a letter to the minister as far back as February 6, 2008, inviting the minister to come and participate in a round table with the Friends of Dickens and a variety of people at the table, including the school board and city of Vancouver representatives. To date I have not received a response from this minister.

I wonder if she hasn't heard about this issue. Has the letter gone missing somewhere? Or if she's heard about it, can she tell us what her response is?

Hon. S. Bond: We will certainly look for that letter. Obviously, I was not able to be at the round table, and the member has pointed that out. We will check the correspondence files for the member's letter.

I think the member brings some very valid concerns to the discussion. Yes, we are well aware of the issue. We are in the process of having a discussion with the Vancouver school board, because this particular situation is part of a very complex set of circumstances for this school board.

We would agree that the way we look at schools today and in the future is likely to need to change. As a government we have had a very clear emphasis, for example, on early learning and the provision of opportunities for families. We know the importance of child care and those kinds of programs.

What I can tell the member opposite is that we have a genuine interest in working with the Vancouver school board to discuss not only this particular facility but a number of others. The member opposite is correct. There are heritage buildings. There are needs for child care spaces. There are buildings that need seismic upgrades. We have a very good working relationship with the board of education in Vancouver, and we've committed to working with them and with parent groups like this.

I do appreciate the member opposite bringing this to the table. We are aware of it. Actually, I am quite looking forward to the discussion about…. Not only the schools we have today but the ones we build in the future probably need to be built differently, as well, to look at things like child care space and hub models and those things.

We are aware of the issue. We are working with the Vancouver school board. We also welcome the input from parent groups like this and also parent advisory councils. It is a work-in-progress as we look at these projects within the Vancouver school board.

J. Kwan: Yes, indeed, the school here that really initiated this process invited other parents from other neighbourhoods in the Vancouver school district to come and participate as well at this round table. There were folks from the Premier's riding who actually came, and there are a couple of schools there which they're concerned about. Queen Elizabeth comes to mind. General Gordon is another one on which they're working with the Premier.

My understanding is that they actually had a very positive meeting with the Premier, who had said that if you can get other schools on board or other areas and parents on board, they'd be willing to look at this. That's actually good news for Dickens, because Dickens started this fight right from the get-go and couldn't get anybody's attention until something happened in the Premier's riding. The Premier is saying: "Well, I don't want to be the only one that's doing that. If you can get other parents on board with other school districts, then maybe we can get something going."

Guess what. I'm an opposition member in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. I support an initiative in actually dealing with some 60 schools in Vancouver, in the Vancouver school district, where there are heritage buildings at issue, where potential closures of schools are at issue. Potentially, with some innovation and flexibility and willingness and creativity, we can actually make use of these buildings in the broader context. That's good for the schools, good for the neighbourhood and, frankly, good for our city.

In fact, the Friends of Dickens were so motivated to get this initiative going, as we discussed this matter at that round-table discussion, that there was talk about having a larger community meeting, inviting all sorts of people to come — an open invitation for people to come and participate and to explore ideas and concepts.

I think it was about two weekends ago, if memory serves me correctly. It could have been three — I believe, on a Saturday. Again, if my memory serves correctly, it could have been on a Sunday too. It's all a big blur. All our workdays become Saturdays, Sundays, and it’s all one big blur.

Anyway, on the weekend there was a wonderful, wonderful meeting that was held, an open discussion called Think School that the Friends of Dickens had put together, inviting all sorts of people from all walks of life to come. I think some 200 people in Vancouver showed up on a very rainy day, which is not unusual in Vancouver. People sat together and heard some presentations around these kinds of issues, including seismic upgrades — and I'll get to that at a later time — and then we all got put into smaller groups and smaller group discussions.

People were invited to talk about: "What are the challenges right now in your particular schools in your area? What is your wish list? What do you think could be done? What are the innovations that could be done?" It was a wonderful meeting. It really was. Really, the folks and the Friends of Dickens should be thanked for all of their efforts, continuous efforts for a couple of years now, in trying to get this initiative going.

The minister says that she's willing to entertain this and look at this. So I would reinvite the minister to come to a round-table discussion that involves not just the school board but a variety of the range of folks that were there at the round table, which included representatives from the Vancouver school board, from the Vancouver city council, the heritage department of the city of Vancouver, the heritage commission in the city of Vancouver, heritage advocates and concerned parents and representatives of the community organizations related to protecting the 1913 wing of the Charles Dickens School.

I would extend that invitation again to the minister to come and participate. I'd be very happy to coordinate that with the participants. In fact, they've asked me to initiate trying to coordinate something with the ministers.

That's why I wrote a letter. The letter was actually addressed to several ministers — the Minister of Education, obviously; but also the Minister of Health, because there could be some health-type initiatives that might be relevant; the Minister of Children and Family Development, because of the child care component; and last but not least, the Minister of Finance, because at the end of the day there'll be some costs associated with it.

The community, I have to say, were not just saying that the provincial government should pay for everything. They were very willing to explore a range of options — including private partnerships, different levels of government and so on, with everybody chipping in to play their part — but they were saying very clearly that we do need the province at the helm here because the Minister of Education should be and ought to be the lead with respect to this.

I would reinvite the minister. I won't read the entire letter because the minister can read it for herself. I'll just simply pass the letter over to the minister so she doesn't have to rummage through her files, because I made a copy of it to bring here. I would await contact from the minister or a representative from the minister's office so that we can arrange for that meeting and so that we can proceed. Time is of the essence because the demolition is slated to take place later on this year.

If we don't act on it now and we don't put a hold on it, I'm afraid that it's going to be too late, at least for Dickens School. That may happen for other schools, but we're certainly hoping that Dickens School could be included in a larger plan that really could be showcased to other communities on how this can be done, and done with innovation. I'll leave it at that. I'll thank the minister in advance for the call that I'm going to receive from her office in setting up this meeting.

The other issue that I do want to raise with the minister, because it also did come up at the round table, is the seismic upgrade issues. The parents there, as you could imagine, are very concerned with school safety and for their children in the event that that big day should come. That would be the big day not in a positive sense but rather in a negative sense, and that is an earthquake in our community.

First off, then, on this set of questions, I'd like to ask the minister if she could give me a quick update on the seismic programming with respect to the province, particularly in the city of Vancouver or for the Vancouver school district. What schools are allocated dollars for seismic upgrading? I'm not talking about just some sort of feasibility study. I'm talking about actual work that's being done. What is the time line?

While the minister is looking for the information, let me just put this on the record as well, because I think it's useful, related to Dickens. It's just background information, so there's no question here, just background information to fill the void.

The cost. The Friends of Dickens have actually done up some initial costing for the retention of the heritage building here. The original three-storey building is 8,600 square feet and was built in 1913. The cost to renovate and seismically upgrade it is estimated to be $3 million to $5 million. They do realize the vision and need the participation of the province, the city and the Vancouver school board. They are also recognizing that they also may well need private funders.

The building is scheduled to be demolished in the spring of 2008. Anytime now, later on this year, this is going to happen. Therefore, time is of the essence, and I really just want to emphasize that point.

Hon. S. Bond: I do want to just go back and touch on…. Actually, the best way to approach this is by looking at the whole package, not just the seismic pieces. The member opposite brings what is a very complex situation. As I referenced in my earlier comment, there are seismic considerations and there are heritage considerations. There's growth. There's decline. There are all of those things.

We are very much engaged in a discussion about how we look at this from a holistic approach. One of the things we're very encouraged by, with the Vancouver school board's work, is their concept of neighbourhoods of learning. The member opposite has referenced some of the things that are being considered, things like: what do you put in space that no longer has students in it? How do you build schools of the future? Should we upgrade seismically, or should we build a new building?

There is a vigorous debate. As I understand it, there are even groups within the school district who are…. One wouldn't be surprised by this, in the work that we do. Some favour retention; others say: "Demolish." There's a wide-ranging debate going on. But it's safe to say that we are very interested in looking at this from a very holistic approach. What could we do, what should we do, and how should we utilize the space? That dialogue is ongoing.

I am very cognizant of the member's invitation as well. We will contemplate that. I think that anytime we can have a discussion about those issues, it's more productive for all of us.

Just to fine-tune this around the seismic mitigation program in Vancouver…. I know the member opposite didn't want to know about feasibility studies, but once a project gets to feasibility study, it is actually in the seismic program. So you can't simply separate those out. That's an important part of the process.

In terms of the Vancouver board — I can only do it that way; I don't know which ones fit within the member's riding — I can give the general sense that as a government we've committed to $1.5 billion over 15 years to upgrade schools in 37 of our school districts. Currently we have 13 completed, 14 under construction and 36 commencing in 2008. And 16 of those, which will be in the process, will commence their actual physical commencement in 2009. Then we have a number that are still at district review level, but all of those are in the seismic process. So that's where those are at.

In terms of the Vancouver board of education, I can say that Captain James Cook phase 1 has been completed. Captain James Cook Elementary phase 2 will begin construction in 2008. Ecole Jules Quesnel is in feasibility stage, which means it's in the process. General Gordon — which has already been referred to, where there's some discussion — has a project agreement that will be expected shortly, but we are including that in our discussions with the Vancouver school board.

Kitsilano Secondary has a project agreement. Laura Secord will proceed to construction in 2008. L'Ecole Bilingue Elementary will proceed to construction. Lord Kitchener will proceed to construction. Lord Nelson is in feasibility, as are Queen Mary and Sir Guy Carleton. We will also see Sir James Douglas move to construction in 2008. Sir Matthew Begbie and Sir Sandford Fleming are also in feasibility. We have a project agreement for Trafalgar, and it will go to construction in 2008. Walter Moberly we're hoping to move to construction.

Significant seismic activity…. No, I shouldn't say it that way. That is not what we want to see. There would be significant seismic mitigation and upgrading and all of those things taking place in 2008 and onward.

J. Kwan: When the application gets put in…. The application, as I understand, is put in by the Vancouver school board, and then they get evaluated accordingly. The selection process, of course, is decided by the ministry themselves. Can the minister tell me how these schools are selected? Is it on seismic, or is it on the issue of seismic combined with the need for expansion? What are the criteria for consideration here?

Hon. S. Bond: To the member's question. A number of years ago — about three or so; I think it was actually a bit longer than that — there was a significant engineering study done on numerous buildings across the province. As a result, a list was created of the physical integrity of the building. That's really what the priority is based on.

The projects that are moving forward would have been in the top…. I think it started out being the top 80 projects based on the engineering studies that were done.

J. Kwan: Could the minister make that study available so that I can look at that list?

Hon. S. Bond: We'll have the staff actually look back and look at the format of the report. The best and most appropriate way for the member to get the information is…. The board of education creates its priority list, which is also funnelled to the Ministry of Education. That is certainly the practice we normally use.

Noting the hour, I would ask that the committee, rise, report progress and seek leave to sit again.

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	YEAS — 21

Brar	Farnworth	Kwan
Ralston	Cubberley	Hammell
Thorne	Simons	Gentner
Routley	Fraser	Horgan
Bains	Robertson	Karagianis
Krog	Austin	Chudnovsky
Wyse	Sather	Conroy

	NAYS — 39

Falcon	Reid	Coell
Ilich	Christensen	Les
Richmond	Bell	Krueger
van Dongen	Roddick	Hayer
Lee	Jarvis	Nuraney
Cantelon	Thorpe	Hagen
Oppal	de Jong	Taylor
Bond	Hansen	Abbott
Penner	Neufeld	Coleman
Hogg	Sultan	Lekstrom
Mayencourt	Polak	Hawes
Yap	Bloy	MacKay
Black	McIntyre	Rustad