Hansard — Monday, April 28, 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


Private Members' Statements		11589
	Seniors care in rural British Columbia
	N. Macdonald
	B. Bennett
	Investing in Surrey's well-being
	D. Hayer
	B. Ralston
	The soldiers of industry
	C. Puchmayr
	R. Hawes
	Steelhead
	R. Sultan
	R. Austin

Motions on Notice		11597
	Seniors representative for B.C. (Motion 56)
	C. James
	R. Cantelon
	C. Wyse
	M. Polak
	L. Krog
	B. Bennett
	G. Coons
	L. Mayencourt
	G. Gentner

N. Macdonald: I take my turn here to speak about rural health care, seniors care in particular, and to take the seven minutes that I have available to me to speak on that topic.

Seniors care in rural British Columbia is something that is, of course, critically important. Very often when we talk about health care we fall into numbers and figures, when the important information that we receive — the important information that we need to pay attention to — should be based on the experiences of seniors in our communities.

The election process is an excellent time to really get a sense of what's important for people. Last election in 2005, like many rural politicians I spent my time going door to door and talking to people in my area about what was important. Of the issues in front of people at that time, the most important issue in many cases dealt with seniors care. There had been a real adjustment in the facilities. A number of facilities closed. There were changes to home support and in many, many government services to seniors.

It was at the top of people's minds. As you went door to door and talked to people about that issue in particular, to a person, the values of rural British Columbians came through. What each and every one said, except for one…. I mean, of all of them I had only one person who did not say clearly that the care of seniors should be at the top of any government's list.

I can say with complete clarity that seniors care is of incredible importance to people in my area — and I would say, in speaking to colleagues and listening to people here in the House, that it is across rural British Columbia — and, I would think, to all British Columbians.

We need, with the care of seniors, to get it right. We need to make sure, as legislators, that we put in place a framework that we provide and resources to get that done properly. Since becoming an MLA, of course, you hear a great deal from people in your area. At our office we receive about 2,000 contacts a year, and many of those deal with seniors care and the issues that seniors have in making sure their interests are looked after properly.

The last opportunity I had to move through and have community meetings specifically on seniors care was this February before the session began. In each of the communities that I represent, we had meetings with seniors groups. We had meetings with the wider seniors community and invited them to come out and talk through the issues that they needed dealt with. We heard at those meetings a number of concerns, a number of things that needed to be worked through. I'll just speak about a few of them that came forward.

One of them was around complaints mechanisms, about the need to be able to bring forward issues in a way that worked consistently for seniors. That's one of the issues that came forward at each of the meetings.

The other issue that came forward at each of the meetings was around residential care and the need to increase the number of staff available to residents of residential care facilities. The feeling was that there were not enough people in place to look after their needs.

Now, all of those point to a need for us to do certain things better. Because of that, some solutions have been put forward by the Leader of the Opposition that I think provide mechanisms for making improvements not only for seniors in rural communities but for all British Columbia seniors.

The first of those acts was a private member's bill, the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act. What it suggested was that we put in place a mechanism for going into residential care facilities, having those inspections unannounced, making sure that they happen a minimum number of times and having the results made public.

Subsequent to that, we've had changes. We have had changes in how some of the inspections have been reported out — and I think really positive changes. Now we can get the reports and look at them and share them with residents, and that's a small step forward.

The other thing we talked about is the seniors representative act. The idea with the seniors representative act is that you would have an independent officer of the Legislature that would look at seniors issues, act as an advocate for seniors, investigate concerns that seniors bring forward, and report directly and publicly to the Legislature so that there could be no opportunity for the government to massage messages or try to control the information that comes forward.

My experience in bringing forward seniors issues is that 90 to 95 percent of them you move through the system, and you can solve. But when you come to some fundamental systemic issues, some fundamental systemic problems, especially if you bring them to this Legislature, you put seniors issues into a place where the debate is difficult on the people bringing the issue forward and very often seems to be dismissive of the issue. So it doesn't seem to me to be constructive in the way that it needs to be.

What we would see with an independent officer of the Legislature, like a seniors representative, is something that we would all be familiar with. It would be like what we have with the Auditor General. An excellent

example would be the children's representative, where you have a person who is putting forward information that is really unassailable. Rather than having a debate about whether the information is correct or not correct, we are given a set of information. We are given information that is accurate.

Those are the things that we need to put in place to make rural British Columbia safe for seniors. With that, I look forward to the response and the opportunity to answer.

B. Bennett: I want to thank my colleague from Columbia River–Revelstoke for raising this important issue and for providing me with an opportunity to give my perspective on the topic. My perspective is actually quite different.

When I go around and talk to folks in the East Kootenay, including people from Columbia River–Revelstoke…. In fact, I golfed with some of them this weekend. I had a fundraiser, and several people from the member's riding came down to help raise funds for me and the party. I appreciate that.

I talked to a lot of people on both sides of the East Kootenay, both his riding and my riding, and I hear a different story. I hear a much more positive story. I understand that for the opposition it's important to paint this picture of inequality between rural British Columbians and urban British Columbians. I understand that that's one of their main strategies going into the next election. So I don't blame them for that. I guess that's just part of partisan politics.

But to the member's motion. I think it's important that health care for seniors be the same, regardless of whether you live in rural B.C. or urban B.C. The standards must be the same, and the care must be the same. Seniors must feel just as protected and cared for in rural B.C. as they do in urban B.C., and I think they generally do.

My experience over the past seven years as an MLA is obviously different than the member's experience. When I was first elected, in places like Fernie they had some very old facilities that were ramshackle. They were low-to-the-ground frame buildings with long, dark hallways, very small rooms, very narrow doorways — not particularly positive places to spend the last years of your life. The same was true of Cranbrook, where I live.

The one point I want to make very clear, because this has come up over the years, is that just because those facilities were not up to snuff is no reflection on the people who cared for those seniors in those facilities. I think the people who cared for those seniors in those facilities did a great job and worked as hard as they possibly could to make sure that seniors were comfortable. But it was difficult, given the conditions they had to work under.

In Fernie in the past seven years we've put together a brand-new facility for seniors called Rocky Mountain Village. It's a beautiful facility. We moved the seniors from the old Tom Uphill Home in Fernie over to the Rocky Mountain Village. We've created special areas of the residential care facility for dementia patients, where they have less noise and things going on around them. They're little pods that seem to work very well for dementia patients and their families. We've also added assisted living to that facility and to the new facility in Cranbrook, Joseph Creek Village.

Of course, we had no assisted living at all in 2001. It was never heard of; I'd never heard of it, in fact. Certainly, all the sizeable communities in the Kootenays now have assisted living as well as either new or renovated long-term residential care facilities.

Although the member expressed his aversion to statistics, I think there are some statistics that do have meaning for this debate. One is the number of seniors facilities or long-term residential care beds created by the NDP. I understand that during their ten years, it was about 1,400 net; whereas our government in the past seven years is up to 4,000 new residential care beds net.

I think that kind of statistic actually has great meaning, because it shows that we're not just talking about it. It shows that we're actually doing something about it. Obviously, that has to be important to seniors and their families.

I remember back in 2003 or 2004, when we announced we were going to be moving seniors from the Tom Uphill facility in Fernie over to the Rocky Mountain Village…. I can recall the angst that existed in the seniors community in the Tom Uphill. Their families were upset; the seniors were upset. Everybody was talking about it. It was on the front page of the newspaper that we were supposedly going to close this venerable old community facility built with community money and supported by volunteers for so many years.

It really was a hard time for everybody concerned. But I also remember, the first day that facility was opened in Fernie, that I walked up to a senior, a lady who was there as a…. We don't call them patients anymore in those kinds of facilities. But she was there, and she said to me that had she known the quality of the facility that she was going into, she would not have been so worried about moving from the Tom Uphill over to the Rocky Mountain Village.

Of course — Madam Speaker, I see my time is just about up — the Tom Uphill facility today is an affordable housing complex for seniors in the great city of Fernie. We actually sold that facility to the city of Fernie for $10 — a $1½ million facility.

I could go on all morning about the great things that have been done for seniors health care in the Kootenays.

N. Macdonald: I thank the member for East Kootenay for the response. The member for East Kootenay and I have a long history of debating. We have very different perspectives, and again on this issue, those perspectives would be markedly different.

But this is the point that I would make. What would help the debate a great deal is that rather than

having just these debates — and we will, as the election moves forward — to have in place a mechanism that will work for seniors, where the facts are not argued over but are investigated by an independent officer of this Legislature and are put in front of this Legislature as facts, as problems that need to be fixed.

A fine example is our new children's representative, who puts us in a place where then we start to focus on how to solve problems. We're not arguing over what the problem is. When the idea for a seniors representative was put in front of seniors groups, they said it was an excellent idea. And it's not just them.

I only have a minute, so I'll just read…. We asked the local governments about the seniors representative: "Is this a good idea?" What local governments in these communities said was: "It is a good idea. It should be put in place." You have Revelstoke, the local government of Golden, Radium Hot Springs, Invermere, Canal Flats, Kimberley — every single one of the local governments.

In Golden's case, as with many of them, it was unanimous. Each member of those councils said that was the direction we needed to go to make improvements in rural seniors care. In the East Kootenay, it is Fernie; it's Elkford for sure. In other communities, their seniors groups came forward and said: "That is the way to move forward."

We have again had an opportunity to speak about seniors care. It is a commitment that I have made to make improvements in seniors care. It's a commitment that the NDP has made. I'm sure all legislators and all people in British Columbia want to do what's right for seniors in British Columbia. As I said, I have had only one person say that we cannot do a good job, a great job for seniors, and we all know that we need to do the best we can.

The seniors representative is one of many ideas that we should be considering. We should keep our minds open on that issue. We should make sure we do everything we can to treat seniors in the best possible way we can.

D. Hayer: Health care is top of mind in my constituency and probably in all constituencies around the province. There have been a great many improvements in health care provision over the past seven years — unlike the 1990s when little was done to ease congestion, reduce waiting time or improve patient care. The NDP would have you believe that the bed shortages we have just occurred today. The truth of the matter is that the bed shortages we have today are a direct result of ten years of inaction when the NDP was in power.

Yes, they did build a couple of buildings. But through their fiscal mismanagement, they did not have enough money to finish them, and they did not have enough money to make sure those units in those buildings were complete. Not one patient entered those buildings, because there were no beds in them. They were just concrete walls.

Let's not forget that during the 1990s when the NDP was in power, they cut 3,334 hospital beds. On the other hand, our government took action. One of the first things our government did was increase the health care funding and begin a massive building program.

As we have new hospitals sprouting up all across the province including in our city of Surrey, we will be tripling the size of the emergency department at Surrey Memorial Hospital. Construction is beginning on the new $151 million Surrey out-patient hospital opening in less than two years.

Health care funding under our government has almost doubled in the past seven years. When the NDP were in power, they had spent $8 billion on health care. Today we are investing over $14 billion, almost double the funding in just seven years. That tells you, Madam Speaker, what a strong economy and good management can do.

Our province has doubled the number of first-year medical student spaces at UBC, with 256 of them currently occupied along with 224 more postgraduate training positions. This greatly enhances the availability of GP doctors and specialists for B.C. residents. Under our government we now have three university medical training facilities — UBC, UNBC and UVic — built with a $134 million investment by our province. Plus, we are planning a fourth medical program at UBC Okanagan in Kelowna. When all these undergraduate expansions are complete, our province expects to graduate 288 medical doctors per year — up from 128 when our government took office in 2001.

B.C. is tied for second place in Canada with the most doctors per 100,000 population. In total B.C. is investing $382 million over the next four years to implement changes — double the support for physicians, improve our primary care system and increase funding for chronic disease management.

In relation to our nursing staff our government has invested $174 million to educate, recruit and retain nurses in B.C. We have increased the number of new nursing seats by 82 percent since 2001, with more than 3,300 new seats for nurses created. More than 10,000 nurses across the province have been funded for continued and specialty education since 2001.

One of the first construction projects announced by our government was Abbotsford regional hospital and cancer centre, which will be accepting patients in a few months. That was talked about by the NDP for ten years, but they never did anything. This enormous facility will have the latest and greatest equipment possible to serve the rapidly growing population of the Fraser Valley.

Madam Speaker, you might ask what this has to do with Surrey. Well, Abbotsford's new hospital and cancer centre has everything to do with Surrey, because it will greatly reduce the demand at Surrey Memorial Hospital. Right now Surrey Memorial Hospital acts as the regional centre for the valley, and its cancer centre

is used by people east of us. When the Abbotsford campus of care opens, it will free up emergency ward beds in Surrey and will open up much more space in Surrey's cancer centre. The Abbotsford centre will take away patients from Surrey Memorial Hospital, opening up more beds and reducing wait times for Surrey residents.

But Surrey doesn't have to rely just on Abbotsford to free up bed spaces. We have already added 60 more beds to Surrey Memorial Hospital, and another 60 are under construction. We are building a new Surrey out-patient hospital. We have just renovated Surrey's B.C. Cancer Agency centre, providing new radiation therapy equipment and increased chemotherapy capacity.

We have not overlooked those who deal with substance abuse. The Creekside Withdrawal Management Centre was opened last year, providing 30 beds and offering treatment for both men and women. In addition, the Creekside centre includes six beds dedicated to youth. For those suffering from mental illness and addiction and who are homeless, there is support in Surrey's Phoenix Centre, which was opened last year and provides 28 addiction stabilization and recovery beds. It also provides 36 transitional housing units and a training centre.

Last fall our government launched the elective renal access surgery program in Surrey. To put that in perspective, Surrey Memorial Hospital performed 19,150 CT scans last year — an average of more than 52 CT scans a day, 365 days of the year. At the same time, Surrey Memorial Hospital diagnostic imaging department performed almost 6,400 MRI exams. On top of that, more than 25,000 surgeries were performed at Surrey Memorial Hospital, and more breast reconstructions were done at Surrey Memorial Hospital last year than anywhere else in British Columbia.

The family birthing unit at Surrey Memorial Hospital is the busiest single-room maternity care facility in western Canada. Because of the foresight of our government to build the Abbotsford regional hospital and cancer centre, more surgeries and CT scans will be done for Surrey patients. Surrey Memorial Hospital will have more capacity. Health care in Surrey is good, and it is getting even better as the pressure is taken off Surrey Memorial Hospital and as the new Surrey out-patient hospital comes on stream within the next two years.

I look forward to the response from the opposition, because I am certain they will agree that we have a good health care system in Surrey and that it will be getting even better in the future.

B. Ralston: Well, I wasn't advised in advance of what the topic would be other than "Investing in Surrey's Well-Being." I thought, frankly, that the member might want to talk about what many people regard as a very important issue in Surrey — crime and safety.

When I talk to my constituents and constituents in the member's riding, that's one of the major issues they're concerned about. Yet this government, in its budget and its throne speech, has promised, I think, a review of sentencing procedure by a judge yet to be appointed and some kind of plan in the late fall. When I meet with victims, when I meet with police officers or run into police officers in my work as an MLA, there's a wide concern about public safety in Surrey. So when you talk about investing in Surrey's well-being, I thought the member might be talking about that.

But let's deal with the topic that the member raises. He's obviously received a briefing from Fraser Health. I received a somewhat similar briefing last week as well. There's a cascade of figures there but the usual and regrettable distortions of the past. The cancer clinic that the member speaks of very proudly was, despite his aspersions on the previous decade — and after all, his government has been in power for seven years, so you'd think they would be willing to talk about what they're doing — opened during that period of time.

The hospital was expanded, the pediatric clinic was open, and there were a number of initiatives. I say this from a firsthand perspective, having been a member of Surrey city council and sat on the Surrey Memorial Hospital board in 1988 and 1991. I was able to see firsthand what the member's predecessor party wasn't able to accomplish in terms of health care in Surrey.

The member speaks about health care and some of the promises that were made. We will remember that in the third week of the election campaign in 2005 down at No. 10 Highway and 152nd, the Premier — beleaguered by the issues of health care and concern of Surrey residents about the public health care system in Surrey — made some promises, none of which have been carried out yet. They're still in progress some three years later, with the prospect of the expanded emergency room opening some time in the next 18 months with some revisions and the out-patient hospital opening sometime in 2011.

Those are direct responses to what Fraser Health Authority has identified as a shortage of acute care beds. They were obliged to run last year with the $40 million deficit, and in their annual report last year, released in the spring, they spoke of the immense challenges and the immense pressures of growth. After all, a third of the population of British Columbia resides within the geographic boundaries of the Fraser Health area.

The government is somewhat belatedly coming to deal with these issues but not in a way in which the Premier promised, not on the timetable that the Premier promised. Frankly, public confidence, regrettably, in public institutions — whether this is a deliberate strategy or not, I don't know — is not where it should be. The Surrey emergency at Surrey Memorial continues, in my dealings, to receive expressions of concern and a lack of public confidence in it.

The cascade of figures aside, people are still deeply troubled by this government's record on public health care in the Fraser Health region and particularly in the city of Surrey. The member's arguments are far from convincing, and I doubt that he'll be able to patch that

D. Hayer: I appreciate the comments from the opposition member. You know, as always, they have a different take. They always seem to say that we don't know what the topic is.

When we talk about the well-being of Surrey, I thought we were talking about health care. That's what the well-being of the people is — health care. It is to make sure that our government, as it's done for the first time in seven years…. We are actually going to be putting a new hospital in Surrey — the Surrey out-patient hospital. We are actually going to be tripling the emergency side. It's going to be a state-of-the-art emergency room there. This was not done under the NDP. We are finally doing it.

You know, the NDP talks about it and complains about it, but we are actually building 5,000 net new residential care beds, assisted-living units and supportive housing with home support units by the end of 2008. To date we have built 9,599 new and replacement beds and units, including the 4,053 net new beds and units. In addition, there will be 2,401 bed units under construction. We have done a lot in health care.

It's not like the NDP when they were in power for ten years. They didn't do much on health care. We want to make sure that the health care system keeps on improving, that we have a better health care system over the term we are in power, not like the 1990s when we actually went backward.

We also have a CareLife Fleetwood residential care facility in Surrey for seniors, which is a great facility we invested in. Those people who helped build our province — we will make sure of their lifestyles and that they are looked after. They will enjoy the health care facilities we are building. By the way, this centre opens the way for construction of Surrey Memorial Hospital's emergency room expansion.

CareLife Fleetwood's facility provides 191 residential care beds for our most vulnerable, our seniors, and 157 of those beds are publicly funded. CareLife Fleetwood, in my riding of Surrey-Tynehead, is a $38 million investment in new, innovative care for seniors. It was built as a complex of four neighbourhoods which will provide private rooms for 177 residents and semi-private rooms for an additional 24 seniors. This is a state-of-the-art facility in Surrey. It was built to provide for the comprehensive health care needs required by our seniors. Surely, the NDP member can't be against that.

This facility allows for the new emergency department expansion at the Surrey Memorial Hospital, which is part of the $200 million Surrey health services capacity initiative. Surely, the NDP can't be against that.

I'm sure our government and our accomplishments that have been done are really appreciated by our community, by our constituents. How can our investment and accomplishments not be appreciated by the NDP? We have put more money into education, transportation and the environment because of the way that we manage the government.

C. Puchmayr: I rise here to speak in my debate, which is titled "Soldiers of Industry." Of course, today is the day of mourning, April 28. It's the national day of mourning for workers who have died on the job, so I think it's very understandable that "Soldiers of Industry" is linked to that.

Just like soldiers who go out to war, many of them don't come home at night. They succumb to the hazards of their deployment. The same thing happens to many workers who go out, packing their lunch kit or their briefcase, and they head off to work. For something that is often no fault of their own, they will succumb to a horrible industrial accident that will take their lives. So there is certainly a parallel there. They both have people that love them. They have loved ones. They have husbands, or they have wives. They have parents. They have brothers, sisters.

Those people will not be coming home because of something that happened on the job at the worksite. What we need to do, and what we need to focus on, is to ensure that we don't regress, that we don't go backwards and start deregulating the industrial worksites and deregulating the standards that we have been building for over a hundred years in this province. We need to continue to build so that we have stronger standards.

You know, it's not just labourers who are going out and twisting rebar or crane operators or longshoremen or brewery workers. It's any worker — paramedics who succumb to the stressors of the job, police who die in the line of duty or who also succumb to the stressors of the job or firefighters.

We were fairly progressive in the last session in bringing in presumption-of-cancer legislation, which at least assisted the firefighters and volunteer firefighters in the defined cancers from the amendment that this side made. At the very least, for those that are exposed to these incidents that create industrial maladies on the job, there is something in place for them to make it easy for them to access some diagnosis and some immediate payment for their disabilities.

Some workers go out on the job and come home not ever the same again. Some workers go out on the job and sustain horrific accidents and injuries that alter their life and their quality of life forever. They have to live with a permanent disability for the rest of their days, and for many of them those days are shortened. Some workers go out on the jobsite coming home exactly the way they left — in good spirits — but unknown to them they have been inhaling toxins that end up in their body and will eventually manifest themselves into a serious industrial disease. Again, it creates very serious and severe life-changing impacts to those workers and to their families as well.

You can imagine, if your father or mother is suffering from asbestosis or mesothelioma, the pain that you see and the suffering that you know they're enduring on a daily basis just because the work that they were involved in, or the place of employment, had released exposures to

those toxins. Those things can stay in your body for 20, 30, sometimes 40 years before you actually realize that the exposure has created some very debilitating damage to your lungs, and you are now suffering and in a terminal state. You will certainly be suffering from lack of ability to breathe and function properly and the lack of ability to even sustain a quality of life with your children or grandchildren. Those are all things that can be eliminated.

We've come a long way in the past in establishing regulations. Some people say that health and safety regulations are written in blood. The reason they say that is because when you see an accident happening over and over again, you start to say that something has to be done to prevent this. We do have ways of preventing this, and the way to prevent this is to establish a regulation.

Normally, when a regulation is established, it's done jointly between the workers, the employer and the governing body, which is the Workers Compensation Board. You're able to produce a regulation that will eliminate those fatalities or serious injuries in the workplace.

Unfortunately, we have seen quite a severe and reckless reduction in that. When you deregulate just for the sake of deregulation and you don't look at the impacts of that deregulation, it's nothing short of reckless.

We're seeing now, certainly with inquiries commission reports and with the WorkSafe coroner that has been established to look at some severe accidents in the forestry industry…. We're now seeing recommendations saying to the government that they need to readdress this. They're saying to the Workers Compensation Board that they need to have a serious look at the impacts of deregulation so that we can prevent future fatalities from happening.

C. Puchmayr: My colleague has been briefed on the topic, and I look forward to listening to his comments on this.

R. Hawes: Madam Speaker, before the clock starts on my response, I seek leave to make an introduction.

R. Hawes: Today there are 38 grade 11 students and two adults with them, along with their teacher Mr. Ralph Wiens, from Samuel Robertson Technical Secondary School in Maple Ridge — a fine school that is turning out kids that are going to fill lots and lots of very key positions in the technical area of our province. If the House could please make them welcome.

R. Hawes: Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for New Westminster for bringing the topic. Today is the day of mourning for those who have lost their lives in the workplace over the past year.

Last year there were 139 deaths. Many would say — and I'm sure we all agree — that even one death is too many, but the fact is that people do die in the workplace. Frankly, it's going to continue to happen — hopefully at a reduced number as we move forward and look at regulation and try to make regulation that makes sense and that we hold employers accountable for their actions.

Hopefully, that does help reduce the number of deaths, but there are going to be tragic accidents that happen from time to time. There is nothing anyone can do to avoid that. We can only pray that those who do go to work return home safely and that we see fewer and fewer deaths as time goes on.

We live in a very busy province. At a time when the economy is firing on all cylinders, there's a tremendous number of people employed in all kinds of occupations across this province that do have some element of risk to them.

The member mentioned forestry. Mining is another one. There are a number of occupations like that. I'll use mining for an example. I know the aggregate industry has a safety committee and is working extremely diligently to cut down on the number of accidents that occur in gravel pits throughout British Columbia, and they're having great success. But in spite of that work, accidents will happen.

I think back to when I was a young guy, just a couple of years ago, going to high school and working in construction jobs and once in a packing plant. I can think of lots of times when I cut corners and did things in the workplace that were perhaps just a little bit silly in an effort to get the job done quickly or maybe please the boss or whatever. As a young man, I was of course invincible, and I was capable of doing all kinds of great things — so my 16- and 17-year-old mind told me.

As we think about workplace safety, I don't think we should put it all on the provincial government or WorkSafe B.C. or the employer. I think we really ought to also be speaking to employees out there because there's a responsibility on the employees' part, as well, to make sure they are doing things that are safe.

I know there are lots of employees who would do the same things as I did when I was a kid. In your exuberance to do a good job, you go overboard. You cut a couple of corners, and you think things will be fine. That one time they aren't fine, somebody gets hurt — perhaps it's you — and maybe somebody loses their life. It's tragic when it happens.

I can't help but think of Grant De Patie from my own riding. Grant De Patie, as a young man working in a gas station, saw somebody doing a gas-and-dash, taking off without paying. Grant reacted the way that somebody who really understands right from wrong would react: he got angry about it, and he ran out and tried to stop them. Probably on Grant's part, he shouldn't have done that. He paid for it with his life.

It's tragic when that sort of thing happens, but it's very difficult to tell people who are on the jobsite who

react on the spur of the moment, to say: "You know, you should read the regulations."

When we took office, there were over 40,000 regulations in, at that time, WCB, now WorkSafe. I can tell you that I actually was part of a group that looked at those regulations. We asked employers and employees how many of them had read the regulations, and we could find no one who had read, I mean, a book that's inches and inches thick, full of some regulations that are so complex that you could read them over and over and not understand them.

So there is a place for regulation, but there's also a tendency often in government to overregulate, and when you overregulate, people lose sight of that regulation. They stop reading it, they stop understanding it, and they stop paying attention to it. They do what they think is naturally the right thing to do in the workplace.

To me, it makes an awful lot more sense to make sure we have regulation that is sensible, that is understandable and that is actually put in front of employees and employers so that they not only read it and understand it but follow it. When you've got as many regulations as there were before, I don't think that's possible. It turned out not to be possible.

Madam Speaker, I'm glad this topic has arrived. It's a tragic topic, but thank you for the opportunity for saying something on it.

C. Puchmayr: You know, to live in a society where we can go to work and risk not coming home and say that it's just a part of life or a fact of life and that too many regulations are not good for business…. That is very troubling to me.

In the De Patie case, we've heard often of gas-and-dash in gas stations. The reason the young people are going out there and going after the person that's stealing the fuel often is because the owner of the gas station is taking it off of their paycheques, which is a breach of the Employment Standards Act. Whereas another deregulation by this government was that they deregulated the law that stated that every place of employment needed to post a copy of the employment standards branch regulations so that the workers could actually see what their rights were.

It's not only the workers that need to see what their rights are. Businesses can change hands on a daily basis. Somebody can go into the city, get a business licence, buy a service station and not really understand the onus and obligation on them as an employer on how to ensure that their workers are protected and kept safe on the job.

When you cut back on inspectors as WorkSafe has done, when you cut back on compliance orders, you don't have the resources for people to go out there and educate the new employer and make sure that the worker understands the requirements and the hazards of the job that that worker is engaged in. We have seen too much of it.

I know that when the working-alone regulations came in, I listened to the radio, and I heard the comments by the Small Business Minister, who was actually caught off guard at the new regulations. His comments were that he thought that this government was putting more of a business lens on everything. Well, what about the people lens? What about putting a human lens on industrial relations, on health and safety in the workplace? Isn't that where you start?

People should not think that young workers are going in there and taking chances because they're invincible. Many young workers are taking chances — and not only young workers, I might add — because they want to keep that job. We saw it in the forest industry, in the fallers, where the faller that could get the most amount of trees down, that landed the trees with the least amount of damage was more likely to get that contract back again.

When this government, under the forestry revitalization agreement, changed its standards and took out the engineered standards on roads, you had no way of saying to a forest company: "You're in violation of a standard because your road doesn't meet a standard." There's no recommendation. There's no prerequisite for that standard.

So on the Day of Mourning let both sides work together to make sure that we make this province the safest place on earth to live.

R. Sultan: I want to talk today about the shortsightedness of fishers and the mendacity of politicians. I want to talk about steelhead. I will be inspired by the anger of the hon. John Fraser, Order of B.C., Order of Canada and chair of the Pacific Salmon Forum.

B.C. steelhead are found from Haida Gwaii to the Fraser in an estimated 391 watersheds containing 423 steelhead stocks along the length of our Pacific coast and all around Vancouver Island. They make their way through the deep mountains of our north and the deserts of our south. Steelhead are, to many, the most precious of all our fish, representing the very best of our province in so many ways. They are trout, but what a subspecies — sea-run rainbows, ocean travellers, aggressive and strong, growing to 30 pounds and a metre in length.

On the present trend line, we are losing them. Why? Let us count the many ways, starting with climate change. Our government, despite some criticism, has received worldwide attention for trying to do something about that. Nevertheless, ocean temperatures appear to be rising, and with it predation of our steelhead at sea.

Ocean survival rates are falling sharply. That means we must redouble our efforts to improve freshwater survival rates. Ashore our steelhead run into urban sprawl, shrinking freshwater supplies, habitat destruction, still-existent bad logging in places, rising water temperatures and wilful destruction of steelhead stocks through mismanagement of the commercial salmon fishery.

Despite the obstacles, within its non-ocean domain our provincial government is doing its best to ameliorate the situation. Ministry of Environment official Craig Wightman,

for example, rallied community and corporations to remediate silt flows on the Cowichan River from the Stoltz slide.

Our Minister of Environment and our MLA for West Vancouver–Garibaldi spearheaded the restocking of the Cheakamus River after the toxic CN chemical spill. The Premier has strongly supported the $21 million funding of the living rivers trust fund managed by the Vancouver Foundation, including $10 million for the Fraser salmon and watershed program, $5.5 million for Georgia Basin, and $5.5 million focused on Vancouver Island.

The B.C. Conservation living rivers team has postulated the vision of healthy watersheds and sustainable fish populations through shared responsibility, stewardship and wise use of water.

While priority is placed on salmon stocks, what's good for salmon is generally good for the steelhead, which brings us to the sad story of the conflict between the commercial salmon fishery on the Skeena and the rich tourist steelhead fishery of Terrace and Smithers, which is slipping through our fingers.

Let's turn our attention to Prince Rupert two years ago. Without mentioning any names, one local politician complained that the Minister of Environment had failed to support rural communities. He went on to say: "The danger of overescapement is that four years later, you have no fish coming back." I didn't quite get the logic of that one.

"It's a no-brainer and it's going to fall…right on the minister. Perhaps it means more workers who couldn't meet their federal EI hours falling back on provincial social assistance."

Well, here we see a particular rural economic development strategy in full flower, Newfoundland-inspired to be sure, and now there are no more cod. Oh well, there are still a few steelhead on the Skeena that we've not yet managed to kill. Go to it, lads.

The Daily News gives credit where credit is due. "Lobbying Efforts for the North Coast Save the Day," said the headline, and they described how the locals had kicked down the doors in Ottawa and Victoria to result in yet another opening for the commercial fishing fleet for sockeye. It was also said that there is no crisis in steelhead and no crisis for sockeye.

The Terrace Standard did not share their enthusiasm, drawing its own acidic conclusion.

Others have e-mailed the DFO, observing that: "All the fishermen I spoke to expressed little desire to participate in reviving steelhead or coho."

Now, the regulations suggest that all fishers must have revival boxes and all steelhead must be released, yet there's no record of compliance, which is no surprise since there's no effort to monitor the fleet. I'm informed, casually, that steelhead go into the oven, not back into the ocean, and that DFO, in a distant capital, has other preoccupations.

The steelhead face many, many man-made challenges, and we non-fisher southerners must accept our share of the blame. Right outside my office window, North Shore Streamkeepers hopefully watch every returning steelhead on the Capilano as best they can, but in truth, it's a losing battle with a tall Cleveland dam that even the most athletic steelhead cannot leap over.

My spies tell me that one mayor on Metro Vancouver's water board, in charge of this river's health, suggests their role is to provide water for our lawns, not the propagation of steelhead on the Capilano. So much for the conservation ethic.

As mankind presides over this dwindling species, we should spare a few moments to ponder what or who might be next.

R. Austin: I'd like to thank the member for West Vancouver–Capilano for once again highlighting the dreadful state of the steelhead fishery in our province. He is correct that this is, I think, one of the reasons why we have tourists coming from all over the world to this province, because it is the king of the fish, for those who enjoy fly-fishing especially.

In fact, talking about fly-fishing, I believe that it's the Skeena that holds the current steelhead world record for a fly-caught fish. Regularly, the average steelhead coming out of the Skeena is still to this day, eight to 15 pounds, although it's certainly not uncommon for 30 pounders to be caught almost every single year.

Let me get to some of the specifics of what the member was speaking about. We, of course, have had to worry about all of the man-made disasters, the decisions that have been made in past year when perhaps we didn't care so much about the environmental considerations of our wild fish species and created dams or did logging practices that, as the member quite rightly pointed out, were disastrous.

We now seem to have a new era in this province, probably brought about largely by climate change. I think it's true to say that the average British Columbian is now focusing a great deal on the environment and not making it so much an argument between economics and the environment, but recognizing that we have to do things to take back what is happening in terms of climate change and to recognize that it's a balance — not just a balance between the economy and the environment but that we need to have both.

I want to speak for a minute about the commercial fishery that happened last year and the reopening. I think the member is correct in saying that DFO has a responsibility to manage all fisheries — not just the wild salmon fishery but all fisheries — in a manner that is taking care of conservation.

Certainly, I would agree with the member's comments in terms of bycatch. Certainly, I heard lots and lots of criticism from people in my riding directly, who worry very considerably about the lack of regulation or the lack of oversight when DFO makes a decision to open up the wild salmon fishery largely for political purposes. I would agree there.

People are desperate for jobs, so the decisions are made, perhaps not by the biologists but rather by the lobbying that happens in Ottawa. I don't think that that should take place. We should have a fishery, whether it be a commercial fishery or a sport fishery, that is managed for conservation purposes at all times.

I'd like to also quickly highlight one other topic that's coming up in our riding, in our neck of the woods, and that is in northwest British Columbia we now have the threat of coalbed methane. I'm sure that the member opposite would agree that at this point we don't really have the technology to extract coalbed methane in a safe manner.

We have seen that the Skeena watershed is one of the great pristine rivers and watersheds that has not been damaged by industrialization, as has happened in so many of our southern watersheds. Now we have coalbed methane that could threaten the Sacred Headwaters, the actual place where the Nass, the Stikine form — the beginning of those rivers. I would hope that the member opposite and the governing side would recognize that this poses a great threat to the steelhead fishery and do not allow this to take place.

Once again, I thank the member for his comments. I think it's very important for all British Columbians to recognize that we have a great treasure here, and it's one that we have to protect for our future generations and for the state of our economy. I just want to mention very quickly that in steelhead season in the town of Smithers and in Terrace you cannot get a hotel room. They are all packed, as people come from all over the world.

R. Sultan: Well, I would like to compliment the member for Skeena on his views. It's not very often that I want to leap up and say that, but I think we agree on the value and the environmental icon that is the steelhead. On that, although it may not happen very often, we can wholeheartedly agree. I further agree that any projects which could conceivably tamper with the purity of the waters of the Skeena must be looked at very, very carefully indeed.

I would like to wind up by sharing with you the gist of an e-mail I received from the hon. John Fraser. The gist of it is that he has heard a story that because of the dearth of fishing opportunities at the mouth of the Skeena, there is a sense that perhaps the fleet is going to move down to mid-coast British Columbia and concentrate their efforts in the Bella Coola–Bella Bella area.

He says to me — I'm sure John would not object to me quoting him: "The issue raised by this e-mail, if accurate, needs immediate attention. The policy that allows a lot of fishing boats from the north to potentially devastate the steelhead stocks in the waters contiguous to the Dean and to Bella Coola is inexcusable." He asks both governments to take immediate action to find out if that is true.

I was tempted to title my talk, somewhat esoterically, J'accuse, borrowing from that distant characterization of the Dreyfus affair. But I realize that not many of the perpetrators are students of European history, and my own knowledge is pretty flimsy.

I think it is right to stand in this Legislature today and make the accusation that through timidity about hanging on to one's jobs when the politicians come kicking at the door, through ignorance and lack of foresight on the ground, through seeking of short-term political gain compounded by the all too common feeling of "I really don't give a damn about our natural heritage" — which one encounters, believe it or not — we have exaggerated the natural perils of our environment and placed this important British Columbia icon at risk.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 56 without disturbing the priorities of motions preceding it on the order paper.

There's no question in my mind that seniors need an independent voice and that British Columbia needs a representative for seniors. I certainly hope that all members from both sides will support this motion and the creation of an independent representative for seniors.

Anyone that has gone through the challenge of having a relative, a family member or a friend go into long-term care and having to make care decisions knows how difficult that time is. It's a difficult time for the senior as they give up some of their independence and look at going into care. It's a difficult time for the family as they make very tough decisions for individual seniors and people that are a part of their family.

It's a difficult time for seniors, in particular, who aren't living in their home community, who don't have family close by. As our world gets more mobile, it happens more often that seniors actually don't have their family in town.

That's why this motion is so important. Seniors, particularly those living in care facilities and their families, need someone who can act on their behalf, who can speak up for them and certainly someone who will hold the government as well as the health authorities accountable for what's going on in care facilities.

Far too often in this province we hear about seniors falling through the cracks. We hear about those issues often from the media and from the opposition. That's where those issues get raised and where they become public. Many of these tragic cases actually involve neglect and even abuse. But there's no way in our province right now for families or the public to actually find out what's happening, to be able to share that information, to be able to ensure accountability and, most importantly, to be able to make improvements.

If we take a look at the advocate for children and families, that's the key to that independent voice. It's the opportunity to learn from mistakes, to learn, in some cases, from tragedies and to do everything we can to ensure that that doesn't happen again.

A representative for seniors could provide that same kind of support, could monitor the performance of various programs and services to ensure that they're integrated, that they're coordinated and that they're accountable — accountable to the seniors of our province who built this province, who deserve to know that in the last years of their lives they can have services that are accountable and that provide support to them.

Not only will that support our seniors; that actually improves our entire public health care system. If there's one issue I hear most often, when I travel around this province, about our health care system, it's that people want more accountability. They feel that the health care authorities aren't accountable enough. They feel that the government isn't accountable enough. It's a piece that people feel is critical to improving our health care system.

It's not simply about more resources but also about more accountability in the system, and that's, again, the strength of looking at an independent office for seniors. It will provide that opportunity to improve not only care for seniors but, in fact, all of our health care system.

A representative could help ensure that seniors get the best care possible and that where there are gaps, we work together to improve them — where communities, health authorities and government all work together with the independent officer to improve care for seniors — because we know that there is a crisis for seniors in our province.

Too often the people who are the most vulnerable are threatened with separation. We all remember the Albo story from the Kootenays, the tragic story of seniors who were separated in the last — it turned out, sadly — days of their lives. That shouldn't happen in a province like British Columbia, and we should be doing everything we can to make sure that that doesn't happen again.

Far too often we've seen seniors forced to put up with neglect, with cuts to staffing levels, with declining levels of care. We know that the health care workers in our province are doing everything they can to care for residents. We have extraordinary people who work under very difficult circumstances to provide care for seniors.

I know, from the personal experience in our family with my grandparents when they were in long-term care, that for many residents who don't have family close by, those staff are family. Those staff are the only family that those seniors have. As I said, they do extraordinary service, but they deserve better. They deserve more resources. They are stressed out.

I talked to individuals who go into this line of care because they care about seniors. They're in tears at the end of the day because they just can't provide the quality of care they want to. Again, an independent voice for seniors will be able to speak out on their behalf and provide that kind of support for the resources they need.

We don't have to look very far from this Legislature to see one of those examples — that's Beacon Hill Villa, a facility that is right behind the Legislature itself — to learn how important it is to have a seniors representative. For years there were significant reports of neglect and even abuse, and those reports were kept from the public.

Those problems only surfaced because the opposition filed requests through freedom of information. That shouldn't be. We shouldn't have to find out that there were problems — that the facility had been told not to take in further residents until the problems were addressed — through freedom of information and the opposition. Those reports should be out there, and the public has a right to know what kind of care seniors are receiving.

That was a shameful, shameful example of the kind of treatment that seniors are getting. That shouldn't happen in our province. The information wasn't released, and real changes…. We still wonder whether real changes are occurring there, because again, there's no one to speak out on behalf of those seniors.

We have to do better. We must do better on behalf of the people who built this province, and a representative for seniors is one step to get us there. That position could make sure that the inspection reports are public and followed through on. They can make sure that the reports were actually dealt with and that real change occurred. They could speak up for seniors and their families at places like Beacon Hill Villa and hold the government accountable for the kind of care that seniors are getting.

Seniors deserve that independent voice. Seniors deserve an advocate, just as children and youth deserve a children and youth advocate. Seniors deserve the same.

R. Cantelon: I believe the motion is to encourage discussion of the situation regarding seniors and seniors

representatives. I think certainly it is a topic we should discuss, and I support the motion to discuss. I do not necessarily and, in fact, do not support some of the ancillary things that would perhaps fall out, as suggested by the Leader of the Opposition.

I represent the community of Nanaimo-Parksville, and this area has the largest percentage of seniors in British Columbia. It has the highest demographic of seniors; in fact, the fastest-growing demographic is 80-plus. These are my constituents. I want to say to you, Madam Speaker, that there is no reticence on their behalf in making their views known — certainly to me directly and to other officials in the community. So it becomes an issue of how we respond to the needs.

I think the first way to respond is what this government has done. The first way is to upgrade and improve what were, frankly, very, very poor conditions for seniors. I think that in the previous decade we saw a situation where seniors were essentially warehoused in conditions that you wouldn't want to put your mother or father or anyone that you cared for in. They were substandard.

I credit this government…. It's been a great delight to me to participate in the openings of many facilities in my constituency that greatly improve the condition of seniors. It used to be that men and women, couples, were separated when they went to homes, and now that's been reduced to as low as 70. It was over 500. Now with the congregate care concept, people are able to share living spaces in a common facility.

We've seen several open up. The Kiwanis Village in Nanaimo was one that was renovated and retrofitted to the new concept of congregate care to combine assisted living with residential care services. It's been a great improvement.

The Arrowsmith Lodge has opened up in Parksville. There's a new 150-bed facility in addition to that opening up in Parksville. I participated in the opening of one in Qualicum Beach, and one will be open next year in south Nanaimo. All of these facilities have greatly improved the capability of meeting the growing needs of seniors, and we've seen the wait-lists drop dramatically.

Now, with all this change, of course, it does require, and has required, more consideration in placing seniors in homes and involvement of seniors, loved ones and parents. It's been quite an interesting experience, and I have to compliment VIHA and, in fact, every health authority in terms of responding to the needs and the cares and the concerns of seniors. Every health authority has a very astute and independent licensing bureau that has acted very effectively.

We had some situations where the management changed in one of the facilities, Nanaimo Seniors Village in Nanaimo, and I was happy to talk to the representatives of friends and relatives of that village as they expressed their concerns when the change in operation occurred. We had meetings with them, and I want to tell you that the licensing bureau of VIHA responded very well to those concerns and had meetings separately and directly with the friends and the relatives of that facility. The transition happened, and it went very smoothly, I'm happy to report. I didn't hear back complaints.

I think that VIHA responded to it very, very well. I want to compliment their staff for the attention that they gave to this facility, as I know they do for all facilities. In this particular instance, I know that over the summer during the transition period the licensing bureau and their representative, the director of residential care, visited the facility over 20 times and had an extensive review, from food to bathing to a wide range of standards that the provider is required to meet in order to maintain their licence.

It was made very clear to me by the representative of VIHA for residential care services that they would not be hesitant to pull a licence, step in and take over the management of the facility themselves. I think that kind of direct response to patient care by visiting the facilities can't be beat.

Frankly, the idea of some sort of centralized ombudsman — which would duplicate the ombudsman we have now, and I'll talk about that — would not be as responsive as this facility that VIHA operates was.

This individual personally visited these facilities, as I mentioned, 20 times over the period of the summer. The instant there's any concern or any causes for concern raised by the residents, the response by VIHA has been tremendous. Visiting the facilities, going over the menus, talking to the residents and talking to the managers has been very effective in the Nanaimo Seniors Village case, a smooth transition to new operators. Their vigilance throughout the area and throughout the Vancouver Island Health Authority area….

Certainly, though, the new facilities are absolutely breathtaking. In visiting them, the quality of care, the standard of care that has been developed is really impressive. It rivals the new private care facilities that people pay up to $3,000 a month for. I mean, the meals, the recreation areas, the quality, the standards, the interior design — everything is tremendous. In walking through and talking to the residents — as I do when these facilities are officially opened, although they are already occupied — the response of the residents is really, really tremendous. They love the new facilities. The care that they're receiving from the operators is personal, attentive and, as I mentioned to emphasize, very, very caring.

We're creating an entirely different environment for all our seniors. We're not warehousing them any more. It's unacceptable. A lot of the problem was that a lot of these facilities were…. Four beds to a room was the standard. Certainly the dignity and privacy of seniors needs better care and better facilities than that. We've been doing just that, and it's been a great boon.

So the licensing is one immediate recourse that is very broad and very specific and very intensive in monitoring the facilities, but there are other recourses, of course, that seniors have. I mentioned that one is that they call up their MLA. The friends and relatives of the senior residents phone up. I'm sure both sides of

the House have had…. Perhaps not. Perhaps everything's going so well they don't need to. But I have on one occasion, at least, met with them, and it's been a very positive experience. The response of VIHA to those concerns was immediate and effective. Now, that's one level.

The other level, of course, is that the seniors themselves or friends and relatives of the seniors can approach the manager, the operator of the facilities, directly and raise questions. Sometimes this is the most effective way to correct minor concerns or deficiencies, whether it be health or diet or some other issue that they wish to raise. It's certainly been my experience, again, in talking to people, to the residents, that the operators are very concerned and very responsive. It's not about warehousing.

They want to provide continuing care. They want to provide a better standard of life. These seniors have spent their whole lives working in British Columbia and sometimes other areas, and they deserve the care and respect that accrues to the efforts they've made over the years in making this province the great province that it has been.

The other recourse, of course, is that we have the manager. You can go directly to the manager. I think that's an effective way to get minor things done.

Then you can raise issues either with your MLA or directly with the licensing bureau, and that worked with VIHA. Call VIHA up. Complain. VIHA has an effective way to respond to that. The directors of residential care are certainly very concerned. They're certainly prepared to drop the hammer down on a residential care facility, if it's not being operated to current standards.

Finally, we have, as well, the Ombudsman. I think the Ombudsman looks broadly at all personal issues relating to inequities and unfairness and is certainly prepared and able to respond with as comprehensive a report as may need be required.

In conclusion, I think there are several levels of opportunity. I think the discussion about how we deal and work towards monitoring seniors care is a very important discussion to have. In that discussion I think we see that there are several levels now which operate in a complementary way. I think it would be adding to an unnecessary entanglement of bureaucracy to add another level of supervision.

I support the motion that we should have this discussion. I think where the discussion leads to is that we have greatly improved the care and attention given to seniors, especially with respect to facilities, and that we and this government will continue to support vigilance for seniors concerns.

R. Hawes: In the gallery today we have 38 students from Samuel Robertson Technical Secondary School. Earlier I was able to introduce 38 grade 11 students from the same school. These are 38 grade 12 students. These students will be graduating this year and going on to their post-secondary work, hopefully at the technical level, because we know that in B.C. we need lots of skilled people. So could we please give them a warm welcome.

C. Wyse: It is indeed my pleasure to stand up and speak to this motion with regards to the creation of a representative for seniors in British Columbia.

Very recently I wrote the Minister of Health on this very topic. I would like to read to the House the three points that I drew to the Minister of Health's attention upon this particular need.

In my riding, upon being elected, almost second to transportation issues has been the number of concerns drawn to my attention, along with my colleague MLA Bob Simpson, with issues around seniors care.

Deputy Speaker: Member, the member for Cariboo North is the correct way of referring to him.

C. Wyse: My colleague from Cariboo North. Thank you for drawing that to my attention.

The points to be made for the need for such a position run somewhat parallel to the need for a child advocate position. When we look at what has happened around seniors care between 2002 and 2004, 26 residential seniors care facilities were closed across the province. That removed 2,529 beds, or 15 percent of the actual beds available for our seniors to be in. In Williams Lake that left us with a great shortage of this type of care facility.

Home support services, likewise between 2001 and 2005, had a reduction of 12 percent in total home support hours, leading to a 24 percent drop in home support services. That led to situations across Cariboo South, my riding, that led to a steady, consistent number of concerns being raised about the level of care provided to the seniors in our area of the province.

That is in contrast to the offer of 5,000 long-term care facilities for seniors by 2006. In actual fact, not only did we not meet that; we had reduction in availability. We had it changed to residential care and assisted-living beds by 2008. That left a level of care facility required by our more vulnerable seniors likewise not being met.

The complaints in the Cariboo continue to come in to me. They have concentrated primarily around the neglect and abuse attributed to low staffing levels and high staffing turnover. However, there have been complaints brought forward with regards to the assisted living and concerns that individuals have had with regards to the care provided to their loved ones in the Cariboo. They have been referred to the registrar, and the response that they have received back from that particular registrar is one of: "It is beyond our mandate. It does not fit into the criteria set forward for the provision of the quality and the care provided for your loved one, your senior."

To suggest that MLAs are in the position to continue to monitor these items…. I beg whether that should require the amount of time that has come out of my office in pursuing these individual concerns that have been brought forward. Assuredly, it is part of my job. But it raises the point about whether that aspect of providing for the oversight for our more vulnerable seniors here within the province should rest amongst the offices of all 79 of us.

Similar to the child advocate, it suggests that someone should be assigned that responsibility so that, clearly, all 79 of us could refer those complaints to that office, and they would be impartially reviewed.

When I was in my riding last week and I found that I was speeding, I thought to myself this analogy: I should be self-monitoring myself. I should be pulling myself over to the side of the road, and I should be charging myself with speeding. However, the chances of that having taken place are relatively slim, for that to have occurred. I suggest that when we have self-monitoring put into place for our seniors, for our children, we in essence are asking the same set of circumstances to also fall into place.

This is a responsibility for all of us in this House. This is not a responsibility that should be being mandated to our office, to our office staff and to us as MLAs to be pursuing.

I thank you for this opportunity to speak on this particular motion. I hope the debate will contribute to the government seeing the wisdom of actually enacting upon the wisdom that has been shared through this debate, and put an advocate into place for seniors.

M. Polak: In considering the debate that would be upcoming today — over the weekend, over the past week — the first thing, of course, that one does is read over the motion. You ask yourself: "Okay, here's this motion; why would this motion be coming forward?" I suppose, given that the motion asks for this House to support discussion and debate of the creation of a representative for seniors in British Columbia, one could say it's already been dealt with in the sense that we voted to have the motion come forward. Therefore, one is supporting discussion and debate.

I suppose one could also consider, as I did, that it's simply a transparent attempt to have a motion come forward to discuss an issue that would otherwise be ruled out of order because it would be imposing a cost on the Crown. So notwithstanding the fact that this is another attempt at some openly transparent politicking around seniors, let's discuss the matter of a seniors representative.

I wasn't surprised to see that the discussion revolves around putting in place a representative because it actually has become kind of a standard response for the opposition to any issue. That is, to talk it to death, not to take a position — no, no, no — and to throw up something that is ostensibly motherhood and apple pie, something you couldn't reject. Instead of saying, "We have a seniors' plan; this is what we would do for seniors, and here's what we would do instead of what you're doing," which is what you would hope an opposition would do….

Instead of doing that, what they want to do is have a committee or a representative or a commission or an inquiry or a review. I had this feeling when I was reading the motion that I had seen this go past before, that I had actually, in this House…. Since I was elected in 2005, this seemed like a really common occurrence on the part of the opposition, but I wondered, was that just my perception or was that really the way things were happening?

I took a little look back, and this is just a partial list, but the ways in which the opposition has responded to various issues where they've chosen…. Rather than taking a position, as government has done, they've instead chosen to simply ask for people to talk about it more because it's hard to say no to that. Let's take a look back.

Call for a public review of all private power sales. "Instead of just opposing it, well, we'll review it. We're not going to give you a position. We'll review it." Review Bill 37, MLA pay raises. "We'll review it. We're not going to take a position. We'll review it" — although they did take a position, but then they took it back.

Call for a public, independent safety inquiry into B.C. Ferries — right? There's no plan. There's no outlining of what we would do. There's: "Let's have a review and talk about it." Review of why there have been so many CN derailments. No talk of what we should do instead or how the minister should behave instead. Instead, it's just: "Let's have a review."

Public inquiry into the B.C. Place dome. Not a plan, not an outlining of what they would do as opposed to what government would do, but a review. A probe into the bidding for contracts to rebuild the Departure Bay ferry terminal. Again, not a plan. Broad review of the justice system following the tragedy in Merritt. A review of the Duke Point power project. Call for an independent review of forestry deregulation. Complete review of health care under the Interior Health Authority. Call for a full public inquiry….

M. Polak: Oh, it gets longer. A full public inquiry into transportation of farmworkers. A complete review

of WorkSafe regulations. A call for an inquiry into Royal Columbian. A full public inquiry to save our ferries. Independent third-party review of health care. Call for review of the ALR process. Call for an inquiry into high gas prices. Call for review of private-sector power again. Call for a mental health advocate, and most recently, the call for an all-party committee to talk about climate change.

Oh, it gets better. Considering the fact that all the opposition has for a plan is to sit around and make more plans, I was put in mind of one of my favourite cartoons that I have posted on my desk. I actually received it from my father. He's 79 years old. He hates the kind of standard politics that takes place across the country and has for decades, and he likes to remind me that the job in government is to get something done and not talk about it.

He gave me this cartoon. It's a Dilbert, if anybody's familiar with Dilbert. You have Dilbert walking along thinking about his day, and he says: "Today I had a choice of doing something important that no one would ever realize or doing something useless that would look like an accomplishment. So instead, I attended meetings until I could no longer appreciate the difference."

The fact of the matter is that the opposition continues to propose all-party committees, reviews, inquiries, commissions, representatives and anything else they can think of to avoid taking a position on issues and to avoid proposing what their actions would be. Thank goodness that is not the way this government has behaved.

Instead, the Premier took it as an important piece of his direction as we took office in 2005. As a result, we saw the Premier's Council on Aging and Seniors come out with a report in 2006 which surprisingly did not recommend having a seniors representative.

So what problems would we be wanting to solve? Well, we want to ensure that our facilities are maintained in an appropriate way so that seniors are treated fairly. We have independent licensing authorities. They're able to go in and have unannounced inspections. They review complaints. When concerns are raised, here's the transparency and accountability….

M. Polak: When concerns are raised, those licensing inspectors are able to provide families with inspection reports. They're able to address the concerns that families might have.

But we've gone even further. As we looked at the health care system, we realized that there needed to be something closer to the ground in terms of facilities and health authorities, where people could actually have an ongoing monitoring of what's going on in health care. So we are putting in place, as committed to in the throne speech, new patient care quality review boards that will take place across the province and will ensure that we have ongoing monitoring and input from the community around what's happening in health care. That stretches out beyond into extended care, into assisted living. We have an assisted-living registrar — again, action. Not just talking about it — action.

We've certainly gone a long way in what we've done to support seniors who need our assistance. Average wait times for residential care — there was a problem. There was certainly a problem. Did we simply appoint a committee? Did we simply appoint a person? No. We decided to take action. As a result, we've decreased those wait times from over a year in 2001…. I mean, think about that — waiting a year in the twilight of your life to get into a residential care facility. Now it's less than three months. That's incredible, that turnaround.

During the entire time that the NDP held power in the '90s, they added a total of 1,460 residential care beds. In the six years that our government has been here, it's close to 4,000. That's on top of the fact that we've had to remediate a whole bunch of beds in facilities that were left in such a horrible condition that you couldn't even use them for seniors. We've remediated over 5,000 of those beds, and they are now brought up to best-practice standards.

We've increased the home and community care budget by over 50 percent since taking office. As was mentioned before, the campus-of-care model has been a huge success in improving our ability to keep seniors couples together. In fact, the number of separated couples has dropped from 615 when the NDP were in power. Today it's 70. It's not perfect yet, but boy, we're taking action. We're taking action instead of just having meetings.

The other area that seems to have been lost on the opposition is that we actually have somebody around the cabinet table who spends her time advocating on behalf of seniors and seniors issues, thinking about and planning for, in an effective way, the action we can take to improve their lot. As a result of having a minister around that table who is responsible for seniors issues, we've seen some dramatic changes in the way we help seniors to live independently longer.

For example, our government renewed the seniors supplement. That's something tangible. It's in the hands of seniors. They're able to use that money to be able to support themselves and stay independent longer. We expanded the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters. That's something that helps people like my dad. My dad's not flush with cash. He doesn't own a house. He's going to be renting, and he's going to be renting for some time. Low-income veterans pension. This is something that helps everyday people to have their own choice about a place that they stay.

We've increased the levels of assistance and expanded eligibility to include people who pay pad rentals on manufactured homes. That's action. That's action based on concerns we needed to address.

For seniors who have pension funds that are locked in, they now have some greater flexibility. We've changed the Pension Benefits Standards Act so that they can make some different decisions around how they handle their pension.

In the budget of 2007 we increased the threshold at which homeowners qualify for the full grant. So here they are. They've lived in their home that they bought cheap, and now it's worth $950,000.

This is clearly a contrast in terms of opposition and government. We have a plan, and we have a way in which we're going forward to help seniors. We've already accomplished a lot of those goals. We're going to go further, and we're certainly going to do more than just talk about it.

L. Krog: Well, nothing's changed in the B.C. Legislature. I just heard an accusation this morning from the member for Langley that we were engaged in openly transparent politicking. Oh my, what a shock — politics in the B.C. Legislature. I'm so glad that the members opposite were awake to the prospect of politics in the B.C. Legislature. Why, they're the cleverest government that's ever existed.

You know, it just amuses me so much that they're talking about these boards and other bureaucrats being added to care for seniors when, in fact, this government's dismal record has led us to this very motion this morning.

When children were in trouble in this province, the NDP government of the day brought in a child and youth representative, and when this government came in, they got rid of the child and youth representative. They got rid of it. Then to their great embarrassment and to the misfortune of the children of this province, they finally did the right thing because the opposition pressed them.

I just wonder if it has occurred to the members opposite this morning that maybe the reason that the concept of a seniors representative has such widespread public support is because people recognize that when we were in power, we didn't need one. When these folks are in power, we need a seniors representative in the province of British Columbia.

It is a recognition of the fact that this government's health care policies, including Bill 29, were wrong-headed and led to an obvious and clear reduction in the quality of care for the people in our province who, like the children of this province, are generally voiceless, can't care for themselves and need more assistance than any other segment of society.

So we on this side of the House this morning are proud to support the motion brought forward by our leader, to discuss as best we can and with some sense of intelligence, one would hope, in this House what is a sensible thing to do — the appointment of a seniors representative.

Now, you know, I can't imagine why the members opposite wouldn't all be standing up this morning and saying that it's the right thing to do, instead of waxing on about what they've done and what they've not done and the dismal '90s and the usual rah, rah, rah.

If they're going to suggest that we shouldn't have a seniors representative, I want them to stand up this morning and tell us that we shouldn't have a representative for children and youth, then — that that's a dumb idea. Tell me why it works for children and youth in this province, but it doesn't work for seniors who are just as vulnerable.

My simple question is…. Stand up, members opposite, stand up and tell us why what makes sense at one stage of life doesn't make sense at another. If I can hear an answer — you know what? — I'll change my mind, but I don't think I'm going to hear it.

I look forward to hearing this continued debate this morning. I look forward to the members of the opposition reminding this government that it has a responsibility to the seniors of this province and appointing a seniors representative would be the right thing to do.

B. Bennett: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for giving us an opportunity to stand in the House again and discuss and debate health care. I appreciate the member that went before me. He gave his usual articulate and spirited defence of the motion, but frankly, I would be a whole lot more impressed if the motion actually stated that the NDP opposition wanted a seniors representative, because that's not what the motion says.

The motion says that they "support discussion and debate." Now, how difficult would it have been for them to just say: "We support the appointment of a seniors representative"? But no, they didn't do that. Why didn't they do that? Because they have a hard time, they have great difficulty taking positions.

As my colleague from Langley said a few minutes ago, there are a lot of examples of that great difficulty that the opposition has in taking positions. I can say unequivocally that I don't support the notion that a seniors representative should be appointed in this province, and I'll tell you why.

When I first got elected — and actually before that — I got a little bit involved locally with the health council. In the East Kootenay we had six health councils, and it was very, very political. Each health council representing each community tried to get as much as they could possibly get from the then NDP government in terms of budget.

They might get a piece of equipment. For example, the Columbia Valley hospital got a knee scope. I can recall that their health council did. Well, that knee scope sat in a closet for two years. It was never used. Not one time was it ever used. Why wasn't it taken down to the hospital in Cranbrook, which they then called a regional hospital but really wasn't? Why wasn't it taken down so that patients would actually benefit from that investment?

The reason why that knee scope was never taken down to the regional hospital so that it could benefit patients was because of politics. The good folks in the health council in the Columbia Valley had got that knee scope and, by golly, they were going to keep it in the closet until there were some doctors that could actually

use it, until there were some nurses who could actually support those doctors and until they actually had the facilities that would allow them to use that knee scope. So there it sat in that closet for two years.

There are many other examples of the same sort of thing that I could cite if I had time. When we finally had the courage to take the politics out of health care management, which is what we did in 2001 when we created the Interior Health Authority…. Love them or hate them — you know, that's up to the individual — they manage health care on the basis of what is good for the patient, not what is good for the local politicians, not what is good for the MLA.

Having come through seven years as an MLA, I can tell you that for four years it was not easy being an MLA in the East Kootenay. I could have rained on the IHA parade every day. There were all kinds of opportunities for me as a politician to criticize the health authority, but I didn't do that.

B. Bennett: I didn't go political against the health authority, because I believed and I still believe that they're making very, very difficult decisions. They've got a set budget. They've got more money than they had when I was first elected. We've put billions of new dollars into health care, but it's still not enough. It's never enough; it's never going to be enough.

I might be wrong about this, but I believe that we have to allow professional health care managers to make decisions about what's best for patients — not me. I'm a lawyer, you know. I was a fishing lodge operator. I don't know what's best for patients. I'm going to leave it to the professionals to decide that.

What's come of this depolitical…? I can't say it. Political. Can somebody say that for me?

Well, I'll tell you. Again, I have to speak from experience in my own area. What's happened is that the IHA and the government have decreased wait times for seniors wanting residential care facilities from two years when I was first elected. The families used to come into my office, and I don't blame them for being upset. They would wait up to two years to get a bed in a residential care facility. The average wait today in the East Kootenay for residential care is two months.

Every single town in the Kootenays of any size today has either a new facility or a renovated facility for seniors — getting better all the time. I've said this before; I'm going to say it again. We have assisted living in the Kootenays. We had nothing like assisted living to serve seniors before the IHA was created by our government.

As for the investigations, the audits and the advocates that this motion implies, we do have a strong independent licensing branch. Let me just say that we have a patient advocate in the Kootenays, in the East Kootenay. His name is James Neve.

James Neve is, I think, roughly my age. He might be a little bit older. He's a registered nurse. He was also manager of the WCB office in Cranbrook. His father was a country doctor for over 40 years in the East Kootenay. He's our patient advocate.

I've got lots more I could say that's very positive. It's not negative, unlike what comes from the other side of this House. But I want to leave some time for my colleague.

G. Coons: I'm pleased to speak to this motion, which refers to the inaction of this government. Our elders deserve to be treated with the highest level of care and respect. However, seniors throughout British Columbia are facing grave difficulties with a care system that is cold, impersonal and fails to take individual needs into account.

This government has squeezed seniors into homes like Acropolis Manor in Prince Rupert, where units are cleaned once every two weeks unless there's a spill and where once-weekly showers are the order of the day. The standards used by this government do not meet the needs of the frail and elderly in this province. Those that require home support see substandard levels of cleanliness and staff attention that are proof of this government's callous regulations that concentrate more on cost control than quality care.

This House must recognize the plight of seniors in this province by creating an independent representative. This representative would give seniors and their families access to a non-partisan advocate with the voice needed to implement the changes that must be made in seniors care in the province. We must move beyond minimums, move beyond the bare provision of services to the provision of quality care with our elders. We cannot do this without taking the concerns of seniors, families and advocates into consideration.

Within the first few months of the election in 2001, this Premier cancelled the Seniors Advisory Council and closed the office for seniors. This Premier — despite a promise to build and operate an additional 5,000 new intermediate and long-term care beds by 2006 — closed beds, closed hospitals and emergency rooms, cut home support and home care to seniors and separated married couples who lived in intermediate care facilities.

He froze seniors supportive housing projects. He used federal money dedicated to housing for private

assisted living. He increased MSP premiums by 50 percent, and he dramatically hiked prescription drugs for over 80 percent of our seniors.

I stand in this House voicing the concerns of my constituents, who want the continuity and security that an independent representative would bring — someone who will monitor the performance of various programs and services to ensure they are integrated, coordinated, non-discriminatory and accountable.

That's why I support this motion. I'd like to demonstrate my commitment to seniors not only in my constituency but in the province. After all they have done for us, for their children and for this province, our seniors deserve their own voice in this Legislature.

L. Mayencourt: Well, how soon they forget. Just less than ten years ago, we were told through the Vancouver Province that the lack of staff was hurting seniors care at the long-term care facility at Oak Bay Lodge. What's more, this happened on September 18, 1997.

When the member for Nanaimo stood up and said, "We didn't need a seniors representative; we didn't need a seniors advocate," when they were in government, I know that's bunk. My father was a senior in their term. My father had to deal with issues of substandard care under their watch. It's very well and good for us to discuss this. I certainly want to make it clear that I support the idea of getting this motion before us and getting some debate on this issue. I think that's important. But I also think it's important for them to recognize that they can't come in here and claim to be lily-white.

Those folks sitting on that side, including the member for Nanaimo, did not provide adequate seniors funding, did not provide adequate advocacy. For them to stand in this House today and say, "We didn't need it because we were so good," is a load of hooey. It is time for members opposite to acknowledge the fact that they failed seniors in the '90s. This government has been producing results for seniors — 5,000 new long-term care beds being built; renovation of over 3,800 of the care facilities; including things like the Seniors Games, like opportunities for seniors to receive more shelter aid as a result of this government's dealings with them.

I sit in this House, and over and over again for the last seven years I have heard this kind of stuff come from the people on that side. It's unethical, and it's time for them to own the responsibility for what they have done in the '90s, before they start coming in here and claiming to be — I don't know — so chaste.

G. Gentner: I've never heard so much hooey in all my life. I hope the parliamentarians will take a notation on this. This is now part of the parliamentary language in the province of British Columbia.

Speaking about the load of hooey, I will end the debate by suggesting that when you hear from a nurse from Nova Scotia who was headhunted by Beacon Hill Villa to come here to fill the void…. She came here thinking this was a very rich, profitable province, beautiful, etc. — coming from poor Nova Scotia. She came and saw the dismal performance of that organization and the terrible type of accommodations for seniors. She said to me: "Guy, I would never come here. This would be moving into the Dark Ages in British Columbia."

A need for an advocate for seniors is more that just an advocate for seniors. It's an advocate for the seniors' families. It's an advocate for the people who work in that ministry, in that type of care facility. I appeal to the members opposite to give it a good think. This is a very progressive motion that this government has the power to enact.

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