Hansard — Monday, April 28, 2008 p.m.

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Introductions by Members		11607

Tributes		11609
	Hilda Rook
	R. Hawes

Introductions by Members		11609

Tabling Documents		11609
	Office of the Auditor General, report No. 1, 2008-2009, An Audit of Joint Solution Procurement and the Revenue Management Project

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		11609
	Social Workers Act (Bill 35)
	Hon. T. Christensen
	Motor Vehicle (Banning Smoking When Children Present) Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 36)
	Hon. J. van Dongen
	Carbon Tax Act (Bill 37)
	Hon. C. Taylor
	Mineworkers Safety Act, 2008 (Bill M204)
	C. Puchmayr

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		11611
	Workplace safety
	C. James
	Grant De Patie and Day of Mourning for workers
	R. Hawes
	City of Victoria Youth Council
	R. Fleming
	Richmond 911 Awards
	J. Yap
	Commemorative pin for Day of Mourning for workers
	K. Conroy
	Biodiesel businesses
	H. Bloy

Oral Questions		11613
	Funding for school playgrounds
	C. James
	Hon. S. Bond
	D. Cubberley
	G. Coons
	L. Krog
	J. Kwan
	S. Simpson
	M. Farnworth
	Release of report on B.C. Place roof
	N. Macdonald
	Hon. S. Hagen

Petitions		11617
	K. Conroy
	C. Puchmayr

Second Reading of Bills		11618
	Transportation Investment (Port Mann Twinning) Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 14) (continued)
	R. Austin
	J. Brar
	C. Puchmayr
	S. Simpson
	Hon. K. Falcon
	Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 21)
	Hon. G. Abbott
	A. Dix

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		11648
	Estimates: Ministry of Economic Development and Minister Responsible for the Asia-Pacific Initiative and the Olympics
	Hon. C. Hansen
	J. Kwan
	H. Bains

Hon. C. Taylor: I'm very pleased to be able to introduce some special people who are with us today. I would like us to recognize and thank, on behalf of the government and all British Columbians, a few of the public servants who have devoted most of their waking hours, I would say, over the last four months to prepare the government's carbon tax legislation.

The six public servants in the House today are from the core of that team. They represent a larger team of public servants from my ministry's tax policy branch, the Ministries of Attorney General and of Small Business and Revenue and a small number of area specialists from the Ministries of Environment and of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. Their creativity, hard work, dedication and professionalism surely represent the very best in British Columbia's public service.

On behalf of all British Columbians, I'm pleased to introduce and thank Anne Foy and Chris Dawkins, tax policy analysts with the ministry's tax policy branch; Elizabeth King and Ann McLean, legislative counsel and drafting team solicitor respectively, Ministry of Attorney General; Joel Fairbairn and Pat Parkinson, revenue administration experts from the Ministry of Small Business and Revenue.

I would also like to thank Glen Armstrong, director of tax policy branch of the Ministry of Finance, for his leadership in this matter. Glen is not with us today. He stands back from taking the front of stage, but Glen has put in remarkable work on our carbon tax policy.

So please join me in thanking these public servants and their colleagues for their creativity, hard work, long hours and devotion to duty. They truly give meaning to the B.C. public service motto "Where ideas work."

Also in the House today are some other very special guests, some key representatives from British Columbia's academic and environmental communities. British Columbians should be very proud of our province's legacy of environmental awareness and commitment to sustainability, and this government is looking forward to continued engagement and cooperation as we work to build a greener, brighter future for British Columbia.

Please join me in welcoming Prof. David Green, UBC economics, author of the open letter signed by 70 B.C. academic economists in support of a revenue-neutral carbon tax; from Sierra Club B.C., Susan Howatt, director of campaigns and community engagement; Colin Campbell, marine campaign coordinator; Martin Golder, board chair. From the David Suzuki Foundation, Peter Robinson, CEO; Ian Bruce, climate change specialist. From Voters Taking Action on Climate Change, Kevin Washbrook, director; Quincy Young, director; Estella Bastidas, director. From the Pembina Institute, Matt Horne, acting director, B.C. energy solutions program. From B.C Sustainable Energy Association, Peter Ronald, provincial coordinator, and Naomi Devine, board member. From the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Andrea Reimer, executive director. Please join us in making these special guests very welcome.

C. Evans: The Minister of Finance just missed two important people that I'd like to help her out with. To whatever extent I ever look competent or able to do this job, it's because Joanne Pagnini and Sandy Korman make that possible. Anybody here who actually wishes to show any appreciation for anything I've ever done, clap now, because they did it.

M. Polak: Today joining us in the gallery, we have a group of grade 11 students from the King's School in my riding along with their teacher Laurena Hensel. Would the House please make them welcome.

L. Krog: Not to contradict the Minister of Finance a third time here today, but joining us in the gallery are some people who haven't been introduced — in particular, some folks from the B.C. Real Estate Association who had breakfast with the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast and myself this morning.

I'd like the House to make welcome president Andrew Peck; Bill Benoit, who is well known; and Subhadra Ghosh, the new president of the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. Accompanying them are Messrs. Francis, Limer, Beehan and Tillie. Would the House please make them welcome.

R. Lee: Last September I had the opportunity to visit China with some friends from Williams Lake as a delegation, and one of the delegate members here today in the gallery is Willy Berger. He's the president of the B.C. Northern Real Estate Board. He was eagerly promoting B.C., and I would like to welcome him in the House — and also his colleagues.

R. Austin: I'd like to make a couple of sets of introductions today. Firstly, I'd like to thank the members of the B.C. Northern Real Estate Board for the information that they shared with some members of the caucus today. In the House I'd like to welcome Gary Shannon, the vice president; Joannie Brown, director; Shawn McCloughlin, who is the director and provincial government liaison committee chair; and lastly, Dorothy Friesen, the executive officer. I'd like to thank them for being here.

Secondly, I would like to follow my fellow member from Nelson-Creston and thank my two CAs, who do incredible work for me. I'd like to introduce Denis Gagné from Terrace and Roberta Walker from Kitimat.

Hon. L. Reid: I would like this House to welcome Lonie Belsey. Her husband Bill Belsey served the North Coast with absolute distinction and served this province. I would ask the House to make Mrs. Lonie Belsey very welcome today.

C. Puchmayr: I would like to introduce to this House Sherrill Gullickson, who is my constituency assistant. Lynn Osborn is also an assistant, but she could not make it today. Sherrill does incredible work as an advocate for the people of British Columbia, especially on homelessness issues and housing issues. So please make Sherrill feel extremely welcome.

I. Black: There's a constituent of the Minister of Economic Development and Minister Responsible for the Asia-Pacific Initiative and the Olympics with us today. He's also a good friend to many in this House. His name is Buzz Knott, and he was good enough to be my lunch date today. Would the House please join me in helping make him feel very welcome.

M. Sather: Joining us today in the gallery are my three constituency assistants, Sheryl Seale, Carly O'Rourke and Donann Kinar. They do a great job of keeping our very busy office going. Would the House please join me in welcoming them.

C. Wyse: I would ask the House to join me in welcoming the president of the B.C. Northern Real Estate Board, Willy Berger, who is from Cariboo South — my riding. Along with that, I would ask the House to join me in welcoming Gisela Janzen, who also belongs to that same board. They have come a long way to share information with us with regards to how they would like to see improvements made here in British Columbia. If the House would join me in making them feel welcome.

Likewise, in addition I would ask the House to join me in welcoming one of my constituency assistants, Marc Woons, who has joined us here for a couple of days. Marc is one of my assistants who makes us all look better in the Cariboo by ensuring that our jobs are extended across all the constituents in Cariboo South.

Hon. R. Thorpe: I would like to welcome representatives of the Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board and the South Okanagan Real Estate Board, Dianna Smith, Rob Shaw and Joe Pearson.

I would just pass on to the Minister of Finance that when I met with these folks this morning, both boards support the government's commitment to reducing greenhouse gas and to the carbon tax. I would ask this House to welcome these members to the Legislature.

G. Coons: I'd like to take this opportunity for a couple of introductions. The first is Victor Pristey from the B.C. Northern Real Estate Board from Prince Rupert. We had an opportunity to listen to their progressive initiatives and strategies improving the quality of life throughout our community. So I welcome Victor.

I'd also like to introduce two of my CAs, Pauline Woodrow and Erika Rolston, who keep me on the straight and narrow whenever I return to my constituency, no matter how crooked a path I do take.

D. Hayer: On behalf of the Surrey MLAs, I'd like to welcome members of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board: Valerie Burg, Sandra Benz, Vic Hryhirchuk, Debbie Jay, Kelvin Neufeld and Bernie Scholz. Would the House please make them all very welcome.

K. Conroy: I'm continually reminded of what a small world we live in. On March 1, I attended a conference in Rock Creek, where over 150 early childhood educators were meeting. I entered into a discussion with a woman who was going to get to buy the last available handcrafted logging truck made from pine beetle wood. This led me to such a reminder.

Birgit Larsen, who is now from Penticton, was born and raised in the same community as my mother in Frederikssund, Denmark. Her sister and my aunt were very close friends, and her mother remembered my mother, who had immigrated to Canada and now has a daughter in politics.

Today it gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome Birgit to the Legislature while she is here in Victoria to celebrate her son's birthday. I look forward to further discussions with her, and I ask you all to welcome Birgit here.

K. Conroy: It also gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce my constituency assistants, who keep me on the straight and narrow while I'm trying to keep all these guys on the straight and narrow. To Sheren Spilker, Edena Brown and Elaine Whitehead: thank you so much for all you do.

D. Routley: Nice to follow up the Whip for this sort of thing, isn't it? She does keep us on the straight and narrow, but we thank our CAs for keeping us on track. They equate it to cat herding. The most common question is, "Where's Doug?" and they always answer it somehow. Please make them welcome. They are Leanne Baird, Debra Toporowski and Patty McNamara.

D. Thorne: I, too, would like to welcome my CA, who is sitting up in the gallery, Laura Gullickson. She's new in my office, and I feel like she's been there forever.

I'd also like to say hello and thank you to my CA who is not here in the gallery, who's keeping the doors open back in the office, Linda Asgeirsson.

I would also like to welcome all the members of the Real Estate Association of B.C. whom I had the honour of addressing this morning, and we look forward to the dinner tonight.

R. Hawes: Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a birthday party for one of my constituents, who has just finished putting out a DVD of her favourite religious songs. I'd just like the House to recognize and help celebrate the 100th birthday of Hilda Rook from my riding.

C. Trevena: I think the House may recognize that we have a constituency assistants conference going on here. I would like to welcome one of my constituency assistants who very ably represents me in the real North Island, in my Port McNeill office, Norm Prince, who is quite new to my staff and does an admirable job.

I would also like to recognize my staff in Campbell River who will be joining the conference later, Lynne Stone and Kathy Smail.

I would like to join my colleagues to welcome my CAs who are here — Ruby Bhandal, who is just sitting right there, and Murray Bilida. They do the fine work, in fact, when it comes to credit and when people give me the credit. So I would like to say thank you. I would ask everyone to please make them feel welcome.

N. Simons: I would like to join my colleagues in welcoming my CAs who keep me on neither the straight, luckily, nor the narrow. Both Maggie Hathaway and Kim Tournat are in the House, and I'd like if we can make them welcome.

I further ask indulgence of the House to introduce some family members and caregivers of people affected by the closure of Corner House here in Victoria. They are Mike Schultz, Barb Schultz, Konrad Schultz, Trevor Schultz, Annetta Orrick, Angel Wybert, Mary Collins, Penny Gill and Liz Wortman. Would the House please make them welcome.

S. Simpson: I want to join my colleagues in introducing my CAs — Rachel Garrick, who's here with us today, and Brenda Tombs, who will be joining us later — and to thank them for all the work they do to take care of my office and do all the casework that comes into my office.

I'd also like to introduce my spouse, my bride Cate Jones, who is here with us today. Please make them welcome.

J. Kwan: On behalf of the NDP caucus, I'd like to thank all of our constituency assistants, who do a tremendous job for all of us when we're in the office and outside of the office. In particular, I would be remiss if I don't mention Stuart Alcock, who is not only my constituency assistant for the last five years; he was also one of the two teams, who were the two members in this Legislature, who took on a tremendous amount of work on behalf of many British Columbians. I'd just like to thank him for his hard work.

G. Robertson: In the spirit of inclusivity, I would like to welcome my CA Joni Sherman from Vancouver-Fairview and also Chantile Viaux, who's keeping the doors open on the home front. I'd just like to thank them for all the work that they do supporting me and, more importantly, serving the community in Vancouver-Fairview.

M. Farnworth: Well, everybody else's CAs have been introduced except mine. I guess it's because mine is on a holiday in Hawaii, but I know she's watching.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, I have the honour to present the Auditor General's 2008-2009 report 1, An Audit of Joint Solution Procurement and the Revenue Management Project.

Hon. T. Christensen presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Social Workers Act.

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

Hon. T. Christensen: I'm pleased to introduce Bill 35, the Social Workers Act. This new legislation will replace the almost 40-year-old Social Workers Act, bringing it up to date with other modern statutes for professional self-governance.

The legislation will replace the existing Board of Registration for Social Workers, where members are appointed by government, with a professional governing college where the majority of board members are elected. These changes will enhance the professional governance of registered social workers in British Columbia and improve protection of and accountability to the public.

A new college will represent the public interest while serving the professionalism of registered B.C. social workers. Under this legislation, a self-governing college of social workers will be created with a board accountable to its members.

Public protection will be enhanced by strengthening the college's disciplinary powers and by requiring employers to report terminations for misconduct to the college. All registered social workers will be required to report suspected abuse of clients by another registered

social worker. The college will be required to provide public notification of disciplinary decisions, and the college will have the authority to make bylaws in all areas necessary for professional governance.

These legislative changes support government's goal to build the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities, special needs, children at risk and seniors.

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

Bill 35, Social Workers Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. J. van Dongen presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Motor Vehicle (Banning Smoking When Children Present) Amendment Act, 2008.

Hon. J. van Dongen: I move the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. J. van Dongen: I'm pleased to introduce the Motor Vehicle (Banning Smoking When Children Present) Amendment Act, 2008. The legislation fulfils a throne speech promise to protect the health of our children by amending the Motor Vehicle Act to ban smoking in vehicles when children are present.

More than 4,000 chemicals can be found in secondhand smoke, including carbon monoxide, nickel, formaldehyde and arsenic. Secondhand smoke has also been measured to be significantly more toxic in the enclosed space of a vehicle than in a home. Although secondhand smoke is dangerous to anyone, it is particularly hazardous to children who are at greater risk due to their smaller lungs and the fact that their bodies are still developing.

The amendments ban smoking in motor vehicles where children are present and provide authority for police to issue violation tickets to drivers and passengers who contravene this legislation. Unpaid violation fines will result in refusal to issue drivers' and vehicle licences, as with all other unpaid fines under the Motor Vehicle Act.

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

Bill 36, Motor Vehicle (Banning Smoking When Children Present) Amendment Act, 2008, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. C. Taylor presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Carbon Tax Act.

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

Hon. C. Taylor: I'm very pleased to introduce Bill 37, the Carbon Tax Act, 2008. Bill 37 introduces a groundbreaking revenue-neutral carbon tax that will encourage all British Columbia families and businesses to lower their carbon footprint and will help meet our goal of reducing emissions by 33 percent by 2020.

As announced in the budget, the carbon tax is based on five key principles. First, the tax will be revenue neutral. The bill requires the Minister of Finance to table a three-year carbon tax plan with the estimates every year. This plan must show how carbon tax revenues, including excess revenue collected in previous years, will be returned to taxpayers over the following three fiscal years through tax cuts.

Second, the tax rate will start low — the equivalent of $10 per metric ton of carbon-dioxide equivalent emissions — and will rise gradually to $30 per tonne by 2012. This phased-in approach provides certainty and will allow all taxpayers time to make adjustments to reduce their emissions.

Third, low-income individuals and families are protected. The low-income climate action tax credit, to be paid quarterly, will ensure that those with lower incomes are, on average, more than compensated for the carbon tax they pay.

Fourth, the carbon tax has the broadest tax base possible, given current technological measurement and data limitations. The tax will apply to virtually all fossil fuel combustion emissions that are included in the National Inventory Report, representing about 70 percent of total emissions in B.C.

Finally, the carbon tax will be fully integrated with other greenhouse gas reduction measures. The carbon tax has been designed to help us achieve a very important objective while minimizing the impact on taxpayers, the competitiveness of B.C. business and the economy.

I'm very pleased to move first reading of Bill 37, the Carbon Tax Act. I move that the said bill be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 37, Carbon Tax Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

C. Puchmayr: I move introduction of the Mineworkers Safety Act, 2008, for first reading.

C. Puchmayr: These amendments to the Workers Compensation Act and the Mines Act transfer the authority of occupational health and safety for mineworkers to the jurisdiction of WorkSafe B.C.

These amendments and implementations and recommendations come from the Sullivan mine inquest — that the mines regulations be amended to meet or exceed WCB standards with regards to confined space and occupational health and safety regulations.

The amendments will provide an increased level of protection for mineworkers and non-mineworkers in British Columbia and will acknowledge that workers deserve access to the highest occupational health and safety available in British Columbia.

These amendments bring British Columbia in line with other provinces in which mine safety falls under the jurisdiction of provincial occupational health and safety regulations and the Ministry of Labour.

I move that the bill be placed on the order paper for second reading at the next sitting of the House.

Bill M204, Mineworkers Safety Act, 2008, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

C. James: Last year 139 British Columbians left their families and loved ones for work and never returned home. Many thousands more who did return suffered from workplace injuries, often very serious. For these injured workers, life will never be the same, and for the families of those killed, the grief will last forever.

Every year on this day we join together with B.C.'s trade union movement to honour the sacrifice of these British Columbians. At Day of Mourning ceremonies throughout the province British Columbians are gathering in public places, at workplaces, in houses of worship and in their homes to remember those lost and injured. These ceremonies express our collective responsibility to ensure that every worker in B.C. is safe and treated with respect.

Every road that is built, every tree that is cut, every berry picked and every window washed takes great effort and sometimes comes with the risk of injury or death. Some workers, like farmworkers, have too few protections and often work for very low wages. These workers are the most vulnerable in our society, and it is for these workers that we must measure our commitment to safety and to justice, because one worker lost to a workplace accident is more than anyone should bear.

Today in this House we should renew our commitment to making all workplaces healthy and safe for every British Columbian.

R. Hawes: I never met Grant De Patie. From all accounts he was a wonderful young man, full of life and full of all the promise that a 24-year-old can hold. On March 8, 2005, he made the kind of decision that a conscientious young man who knew right from wrong might make. He tried to stop a gas-and-dash at a local gas station where he was employed and tragically lost his life.

Most of us could not begin to imagine the grief and sense of helplessness at losing a son or daughter in such a senseless act of violence. While our hearts went out to the De Patie family, they began to tirelessly advocate for further protection for gas station employees. They wanted to ensure no one would be victimized, as Grant was, ever again.

On February 1 of this year Grant's law regulations made it mandatory for motorists to pay for gas before they pump. This, along with the working-alone regulations enacted at the same time, ensures that British Columbia's workers are better protected.

This is the annual Day of Mourning for workers who have lost their lives or who have been injured as a result of their work. It's a day to remember lost colleagues and reaffirm our resolve to ensure that everybody goes home safely after a day's work.

As we remember Grant, we remember the 139 British Columbians who lost their lives during 2007 as a result of workplace accidents or occupational disease. Our deepest sympathies go out to all the families of these workers, and we mourn with the parents, the spouses, the sons and the daughters.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all my colleagues to join in a moment's silence to remember Grant and all of the workers who have tragically lost their lives.

R. Fleming: Today in this House I would like to recognize the city of Victoria's Youth Council. Those familiar with our country's demographic challenges and skill shortages know that this country needs a better plan for continued prosperity as we progress as an aging society, a plan that would view young people as our country's greatest asset.

That means we can't complacently allow one in four young people not to complete high school. It means we cannot leave aboriginal youth and young people from poor backgrounds on the outside, at the margins of society, unable to access higher education.

While governments need to do everything they can to ensure that opportunities are offered broadly and equally to youth from different backgrounds, we also need to ensure that we're not just asking youth to study

harder for more credentials. Both government and the private sector need to engage young people to participate and define what citizenship in a democracy in this 21st century means to them.

Many municipal governments have found that by giving youth a voice in shaping decisions that affect their lives, cities can craft smarter policies and solutions. The city of Victoria formally established the Victoria Youth Council with terms of reference in July 2005. This council aspires to create opportunities for youth to become connected to their community by encouraging participation in civic life. The council is creating a collaborative learning environment where youth attain skills and experience to develop as leaders in their community.

Recently the council expanded their mandate to engage in more community collaborations between neighbourhood organizations and the municipality. These young people are being engaged to work with the community on problems related to the environment, planning and transportation, and to give insights into local social problems. Youth council members also shadow councillors, and they serve as volunteer representatives in every neighbourhood in the city.

The City of Victoria Youth Council is initiated through a group of dedicated and dynamic young people from all areas of Victoria. They meet approximately two or three times a month, and they encourage youth who are curious and interested to learn about what they are doing.

I invite all members of this House to join me in congratulating the current youth council and coordinator Katie Shaw for their enthusiasm and hard work to bring youth a voice in Victoria.

J. Yap: I rise today to recognize some exceptional members of my community. On April 23 the Richmond Chamber of Commerce hosted the sixth annual 911 Awards to celebrate heroes among us, the first responders to emergency calls. Each year the awards are given to first responders and others who have demonstrated outstanding bravery and made significant contributions to the community. Those honoured include personnel from the fire department, RCMP, Coast Guard and ambulance paramedics as well as those in the community safety sector.

There were 13 recognition categories this year, and all the nominees deserve to be recognized. The 911 Awards went to truly exceptional individuals — individuals like Const. Wayne Laviolette, who was named Police Officer of the Year for his outreach efforts with youth, and Insp. Tony Mahon and Cpl. Ron Paysen, who were honoured with the police officer Career Achievement Award.

Paramedics Karen Treffry and Glenn Shale were named Paramedic Crew of the Year for their exemplary efforts in dealing with the Richmond airplane-tower crash last October. Also honoured for their heroic efforts at the plane crash were Battalion Chief Glenn Tinkley, Capts. Doug Harris, Kirby Graeme and Brian Flett and their crews, who received the Fire Rescue Crew of the Year Award. Coast Guard employee of the year award went to Capt. Craig Rackham and First Officer Scott Bennett and crew, who braved gale force winds in a rescue mission last year.

The Community Safety Initiative Award went to longtime Richmond community leader Bob Ransford for his tireless efforts to raise funds for the Richmond RCMP's onside youth outreach program.

Richmond's 911 Awards are unique for honouring all first responders. I thank the Richmond chamber and all the corporate and community sponsors who recognize the value of this awards program.

I invite all members of this House to join me in congratulating the winners and nominees of this year's Richmond 911 Awards. They are all heroes.

K. Conroy: Today to help commemorate this workers' Day of Mourning, we are all wearing a pin that has come to symbolize health and safety. The pin shows a canary in a birdcage. As I'm sure most of you know, in the early days of coalmining, miners were sent into the mines carrying canaries in a birdcage to determine the air quality in the shafts. If the bird died, the miners had to quickly evacuate, or perish themselves.

Steve Hunt, a member of the United Steelworkers, designed the pin after sitting through Westray mining disaster hearings. The Westray mine was a coalmine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, where in 1992 a methane explosion killed 26 miners.

Steve felt that the Day of Mourning required a symbol that would ensure we not forget the tragedy of the miners and the lives lost. He took the image of the canary and used it to symbolize the plight of workers worldwide. Nothing got done until the canary died. It's much the same for too many workers today.

Today this pin is being worn across Canada and the United States not just by Steelworkers but by thousands of people from many different unions and by politicians like us on both sides of the House and both sides of the border. I want to thank the Steelworkers for their ongoing commitment to ensure worker safety and the creation of this pin, and also for their daily struggle to make sure workers in B.C. are safe on the job.

To the members of Local 480 in the Steelworkers union: thank you for providing all the members of the Legislature this pin that we can wear in solidarity as we remember workers who have died or been injured on the job and their families who are left behind.

H. Bloy: Reuse. Reduce. Bioenergy. I had the pleasure last Friday of attending and speaking at the announcement of the opening of three new biodiesel

stations in the Lower Mainland, one on Main Street in Vancouver and two in the city of Burnaby.

This is the largest ever opening of biofuel stations in one day in North America. Cascadia Biofuels is led by Mr. Curtis Mearns, who is known as the biodiesel guy in Canada. Cascadia Biofuels is the leader in providing alternative fuels in Canada.

At the event I met a former colleague, Ken Johnston, who is president of Novex Transportation and runs all of his vehicles on alternative energy.

I met Grant Saar of West Coast Biodiesel, who supplies the 100 percent pure biodiesel which is then blended with petroleum. West Coast Biodiesel is the largest supplier in western Canada, and they also sell to B.C. Transit and a number of municipalities.

I also met Mike Vanstone of New World Energy, who employs over 2,000 people in Indonesia growing an oilseed crop called jatropha, which is a non-edible source for the protection of biodiesel. It is grown on land that is not suitable for food production.

I met Rand Cowell of Cowell Volkswagen, who has a number of biodiesel cars available for test driving — and for sale, of course. Mac Christie, a longtime friend, was also at the event — a longtime advocate within the biofuel industry.

It makes me proud and should make all British Columbians proud to see private business, like the Cascadia group, leading the way in green energy.

C. James: For the second time in two months, the B.C. Liberals have completely botched a program that was designed to help B.C. children. Schools across this province need new playgrounds, but this government's misguided approach is shutting out many of the schools and communities that need them the most.

The government said that the program was needs-based, but two elite private schools in Vancouver, St. George's and York House, got funding while many east side Vancouver schools, who needed the money the most, were shut out. So were Surrey schools, Nanaimo schools, Burnaby schools, inner-city schools across this province — all left out.

To the Solicitor General: it was his program. How can he justify a playground program that gives handouts to elite private schools and leaves out the neediest schools?

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, it's an interesting question from the Leader of the Opposition, who has a long career in public education. It's ironic that during the decade that the member's party was actually in government, they did zero to help parents in British Columbia with playgrounds in this province. And let's be clear.

Hon. S. Bond: Let's be clear, Mr. Speaker. We've said that there are gaps, and there needs to be a look at the criteria. In fact, the Solicitor General and I have already discussed how we will move forward with those criteria. But I'll make this point — $7 million, the first time ever in British Columbia, to help parents with playgrounds.

C. James: Well, let's take a look at a couple of the schools that the government money went to. The annual tuition at York House is between $12,000 and $14,000. At St. George's it's $13,000 to $16,000.

Let's take a look at St. George's own website and see how the government's supposed needs-based handout is helping that school. St. George's has two gymnasia, an indoor swimming pool, three Plexipave tennis courts, four outdoor basketball courts, a full fitness centre and a multi-activity playground.

Again, my question to the Solicitor General: will he admit, after two botched attempts, that his government's playground program is broken, it's unfair and it certainly isn't needs-based?

Hon. S. Bond: Let's be clear. Today across British Columbia over 182 schools and organizations are receiving grants to help them with their playgrounds. That is something we are proud of.

Maybe it's time for the Leader of the Opposition to stand up and say definitively whether or not she supports independent school education in British Columbia. I urge the member opposite to stand up. We believe in choice, we believe in independent school opportunities, and we're going to continue to support independent schools.

C. James: The minister left something out. There's one thing that her government certainly doesn't believe in, and that's needs-based funding to make sure that those who need it the most get it. Both times the government botched this playground funding, and they actually required matching funds from the schools. That's a big part of the problem.

Many of the neediest schools can't actually fundraise and match those funds. The parents in those communities are already stretched. They're already trying to fundraise for other things in the school. The opposition has heard from many parents whose

schools didn't even apply because they knew there wasn't a hope that they could fundraise matching funds.

Again, my question to the minister…. This program is clearly broken. Will the minister commit today to a full audit so we can fix it and get the funds to the schools that need them the most?

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, last week we said that indeed the Solicitor General and I are going to look at the criteria to ensure that there is equity of access for those schools, for example, that don't have a parent advisory council. But let's be clear. The member opposite makes comments about that….

Hon. S. Bond: Let's just remind the members opposite that this is the first time in the history of British Columbia that parents have ever received any assistance from any government.

D. Cubberley: This is the second time this government has used an unfair process to allocate grants for playgrounds in B.C. — the second time eligibility criteria have been used to prevent schools from applying and to screen people out. So if you don't have a parent advisory council up and running at your school, you need not apply. If you don't have matching funds available, you're not going to get on the list. If you don't have the agreement of your school to install the equipment if the grant is approved, you're not going to get the grant.

Despite all those barriers to getting a grant, we see a news release that crows about this being based on demonstrated need.

D. Cubberley: Maybe the minister could clarify for the parents who are watching. Is the demonstrated need that of the kids who need playground equipment at their schools, or is it the insatiable need of Liberal MLAs for photo opportunities in their constituencies?

Hon. S. Bond: We've said clearly that we do have concerns. There are schools in British Columbia that do not have parent advisory councils. We have said that we are going to work with BCCPAC to ensure that perhaps we will be able to find a way for those schools to apply. In addition, we will reconsider the opportunity for those schools to apply without the matching criteria.

D. Cubberley: Well, this is the second time now that precisely those criteria have been used to keep those schools out of the application process. So it comes a little bit late.

I guess how the world looks to you depends upon where you're sitting. If you're one of those well-heeled schools with a lot of equipment already and you've got a grant, I guess it's the icing on the cake. If you're one of those schools that doesn't have any equipment at all and you're struggling to get money together to buy equipment, I guess it looks like: "Let them eat cake." That's what this government's process amounts to.

D. Cubberley: Are you at a point, Minister, where you are prepared to set aside reward-and-punish games around the allocation of these grants and put a fair process in place — and commit to it right now — that will put a playground within reach of every child in British Columbia?

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, last week we already made the commitment to clarify the criteria and to make sure that there would be access in place.

You know, perhaps the members opposite would like to say to the parents at the Wells Barkerville PAC or the Chilcotin Road Elementary PAC or, in fact, the Somenos Rural Traditional School or Brooke Elementary School…. It's 182 organizations across the province that have never received this kind of assistance before. We will continue to make sure that parent advisory councils and schools which do not have those councils have the opportunity to apply for grants that have never existed in this province before.

G. Coons: Perhaps the minister could make a few commitments to the constituents in Prince Rupert. Here's another example of this botched program. Kanata School, in my riding, was scheduled to receive $17,000, but it's scheduled to close in September and lose its playground funding.

Another school, Pineridge Elementary, is desperately seeking funding to build an accessible park for the community. There's not one CSA-approved park in the city of Prince Rupert.

Will the minister ensure that Pineridge Elementary gets the funding slated for the school about to shut down, so Prince Rupert can have at least one CSA-approved park?

Hon. S. Bond: The member opposite knows well that he sent a letter to the Solicitor General outlining his concerns. In fact, the Solicitor General responded immediately, saying that he would refer that matter to the gaming branch for consideration.

Let's be clear. One of the PACs that was mentioned there, I think, was a benefactor of $50,000 through the Rick Hansen playground program that this government created.

Pineridge's application to the minister was turned down. Apparently, it wasn't needy enough compared to the elite private schools in Vancouver. Prince Rupert has the third-highest level of vulnerability for students entering school in the province. As the minister said, it did receive $50,000 from the Rick Hansen Foundation. [Applause.]

G. Coons: I hope that the clapping goes after the minister makes her announcement that she will commit to funding for the school. But….

G. Coons: Pineridge has got $88,000, including the money from that foundation. But if the $100,000 is not accumulated by June of this year, they will lose that funding.

Again to the minister: will she commit today to a real needs-based program and make sure communities and schools that need it most get the funding?

Hon. S. Bond: The member opposite knows that the Solicitor General received the letter and has referred it for consideration. But let me remind the member one more time that the money that is in fact in the Rick Hansen playground program was provided by $2.5 million from this government that is being funded for that parent advisory council.

L. Krog: I represent the third-poorest constituency in the province of British Columbia. I've got some of the neediest kids in the province living in my constituency.

Prince George schools got 11 percent of the funding under this program. Nanaimo got nothing — nothing. So to use the minister's own words, perhaps she could clarify the criteria for me and my children and my parents today. How is it that Nanaimo got nothing and Prince George gets 11 percent?

Hon. S. Bond: …that were actually posted on the Ministry of Solicitor General under the gaming branch criteria. In fact, here is what the criteria said. The school had to have "no playground equipment or with equipment that is scheduled for removal during or shortly after the current school year or equipment that has already been partially removed; support from the local school authority…and matching funds already raised."

Those were the criteria that were posted on the website, and all of the grants were determined in an independent process by the branch, as it does with all other gaming grants.

L. Krog: I'm wondering what part of the concept of being poor this government doesn't get. When you represent people who struggle every day to feed and house their children, they don't have the time or the energy to raise matching funds. They're out trying to do the best they can for their children.

I'd like this minister in this House today to apologize to my constituents and commit openly here today that Nanaimo will get the funding that its needy children deserve.

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, let's be clear. The member's passion would have best been expended in the last decade when zero help was provided for any playground in this province.

Hon. S. Bond: We have recognized that we are concerned about those playgrounds and those schools

where there are challenges meeting these criteria. We are going to review the criteria. We will revise the criteria, and we hope to expedite the second round of applications to allow those schools also to apply.

J. Kwan: What is very clear is that these playground grants are anything but needs-based. We don't have Plexiglas tennis courts in our community, and we don't have swimming pools. Some of my principals call their playground spaces, frankly, mud pits. That's what they call them. None of these schools in my riding actually got the grants.

So my question to the minister is this. If she is going to rectify this problem, will she commit today to ensure that every one of the schools that need these playground moneys will be granted those dollars and announce that today in this House?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, we will simply reiterate the fact that for the first time in British Columbia, $7 million will go to assist playgrounds in schools across this province. We've said that we are going to look at the criteria. We will make sure that we take into account those PACs that cannot raise the matching funds and also may not have a parent advisory council. We've made that commitment. We will meet with the groups in terms of BCCPAC and gaming over the next couple of weeks and make those adjustments.

J. Kwan: The minister said, "Well, don't worry," back in March when the gaming grants were given on the basis of a lottery process. Now in April they say there's a needs-based grant that is being given to schools for playground purposes. Some of the neediest schools didn't get any of that funding. My riding only happens to be the poorest riding in all of Canada, and — guess what — those neediest schools didn't get any money. The minister says: "Don't worry. We'll fix it."

Well, you know what? My question to the minister is this. Will she admit that they were wrong and commit that every school in British Columbia which should have gotten the grant will be granted that money today?

Hon. S. Bond: We've said clearly that there needs to be a revision of the criteria. We are committed to doing that. We will have the discussion over the next two weeks. We hope to expedite the next round of grants. In fact, we will continue to ensure that playgrounds across British Columbia receive support from this government for the first time in history.

S. Simpson: I had the opportunity to talk to the chair of the PAC at A.R. Lord School, an inner-city school in my constituency of Vancouver-Hastings. She told me how she had been a student at A.R. Lord, and they have the same playground equipment that was there in 1971 when she was a student. She told me how, over the past five or six years, they have put together — through bake sales and small fundraising — $17,000 to support a playground. Then she told me how they applied for this money and were dismissed for some administrative glitch and got nothing.

So my question to the minister is this. The minister is saying here that she's going to relook at criteria. Will the minister commit that those schools that actually need the playgrounds will get them? No more talk. Playgrounds for those kids.

Hon. S. Bond: Well, the only talk that we've heard is from the other side of the House. The action was actually on this side of the House. For the first time in British Columbia, you know, parents….

Hon. S. Bond: You know, all of us want to make sure that schools across this province have playgrounds for children. The difference between this side of the House and that side is that when we heard that concern, we took the opportunity to find $7 million. For a decade the members opposite did nothing.

S. Simpson: This minister wants to talk about action. Well, the action we saw is a $220 million tax break for banks. Then the kids of the executives of those banks that go to York House and St. George's — they got playgrounds. East side kids got nothing.

S. Simpson: That's the Liberal answer to action — money for the most elite private schools in this province. The action British Columbians want…. They want real needs-based action. They want schools in constituencies like Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, like Vancouver-Hastings, like Nanaimo and across this province where there are kids who need help…. They need those playgrounds. Fund those playgrounds, and quit funding your friends.

Hon. S. Bond: You know, week after week we continue to hear from the members opposite that apparently they don't support options for families that include independent schools in British Columbia.

Let's just look at a couple of the independent schools, the other independent schools that actually got funding. Let's listen to this description. Oh, it's the Sun Haven School in Powell River–Sunshine Coast. Let's look at the rationale for that school. In fact, their playground consists of a rope.…

Hon. S. Bond: This independent school — their playground consists of a rope swing, an open field and forest area. No other equipment for the children to play on or to develop physical skills. We're going to support that school along with dozens of others across British Columbia.

M. Farnworth: This government's criteria were clearly off base. My question to the minister is this. The minister says that she wants to review the process. She wants to review the criteria. Well, did she not think of that when she reviewed the list of where the money is going and saw that it was going to St. George's and York House? Or did the fact that 11 percent of the money is going to Prince George, which has 2 percent of the population, just happen by coincidence?

Hon. S. Bond: I'm sure the member opposite is well aware of the process used by the gaming branch in order to actually select grants and grant programs. In fact, I did not see the list of schools. I did not make a decision about the applicants. In fact, that process was done by public servants in the gaming branch.

N. Macdonald: Two years ago the NDP asked the government if the roof of B.C. Place needed to be replaced before the Olympics, and we were assured that the roof was fine. Now almost two years later, the government is scrambling to put a new roof up at the last minute. Today we hear that we have a price tag in the range of $200 million. With spending needed everywhere, the public deserves to know the sequence of events that brought us to this point.

In June of 2006 the government — this minister — received a report on the state of B.C. Place, but the government has chosen to keep that secret. Will the minister commit today to releasing that 2006 report? Will he release it undoctored immediately?

Hon. S. Hagen: I'm really pleased that the critic opposite is finally taking an interest in B.C. Place. As I said before, the critic admitted to me just a few weeks ago that he'd never been inside the place, so I'm really pleased that he spent some time looking at this.

What I can say to the member and to the people of the province of British Columbia — through you, Mr. Speaker — is that the government has made a decision to keep B.C. Place. The government has made a decision to replace the roof at B.C. Place, and we are awaiting a report from David Podmore, who is doing a lot of work to bring some proposals and some recommendations to the government which the government will then act on.

N. Macdonald: I think the whole world knows the state of the roof on B.C. Place. They all saw it collapse.

What this minister was asked two years was: "Is that roof sound?" And we were assured it was. It is not. The government is at this moment scrambling to do a complete refit of B.C. Place. It is going to cost us more. It will be limiting our options, and the public needs to know what information the minister had. Will he release that 2006 report? Will he do it immediately?

Hon. S. Hagen: I wish the member would get new writers, because he's been asking the same question for several weeks.

Hon. S. Hagen: The answer to the question is just what I've said. David Podmore is presently working on some options for the government to consider. The government will fully consider those options. When we get that report from Mr. Podmore, we will do the work that we need to do. We'll make a decision, and we will present that decision to the public.

K. Conroy: I have 1,726 petitioners here asking the Minister of Health to keep the publicly funded beds at Castleview Care Centre open and not revert them back to private beds that were converted on the unfortunate death of Fanny Albo.

C. Puchmayr: I have petitions here from the steelworkers of British Columbia to the Premier and the Forests Minister asking for assistance in the drastic job loss that is going on in this province today in the forest industry.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call in this chamber continued second reading debate of Bill 14 and in Section A, Committee of Supply, for the information of members, continued discussion on the estimates for the Ministry of Economic Development.

TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENT
(PORT MANN TWINNING)
AMENDMENT ACT, 2008
(continued)

R. Austin: I rise today to speak to Bill 14, Transportation Investment Amendment Act, 2008, and I'd like to make a few comments with regards to this. Perhaps people are surprised that somebody who represents a northwest B.C. riding is standing up to speak to a bill that involves the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and setting up a new Crown corporation.

But I think it's important, as we see a province that is spending huge amounts of dollars to build increasingly large infrastructure here in the Lower Mainland, that there is a point of view to be expressed from those of us who live in rural B.C.

We know there is a continual rise in the population of those who live in the Lower Mainland. Quite correspondingly, we expect any government — not just this government — to make large investments for those population increases. But what is very troubling is this. What we see here in this bill is the creation of a new Crown corporation essentially to manage a public-private partnership.

When a large investment is made of this magnitude, we want to see, of course, that we get the best value for dollars. We want to ensure that those parts of the province, such as the riding that I represent, the area of northwest B.C. — where, in large part, our roads are falling apart at the seams…. We want to make sure that whatever dollars are spent in the Lower Mainland give good value so that we can then see some dollars, at least a few crumbs, coming to northern British Columbia.

What we see in this bill is a new Crown corporation being created. I have to ask the question: why do we need a new Crown corporation to do this? We have many very talented bureaucrats who work within the Ministry of Transportation. In fact, the Minister of Transportation has spoken very highly of his staff and told us many times in the House and in the little House that he is so proud to work with such a group of individuals who are able to run these kinds of projects.

But we see a time here where we're not using the skills and talents of the bureaucracy in this province. Instead, we're setting up a new board. We have to ask ourselves: why is there a new board being set up?

I think it speaks a great deal to what's happening in terms of the whole private-public partnership. We see private-public partnerships, and those of us on this side have a very different view as to how they operate and what benefit they bring to British Columbians. I want to just express for a moment what our concerns are with regards to private-public partnerships.

We have seen many jurisdictions around the world that have gone to P3s. Of course, the advantage of going to a P3 model is that for a large amount of money, a big project like this, you get to keep the debt off the books. You get to design something and bring in a private company that has to raise the funds. They get to raise the funds at a much larger rate of interest than if government was to raise the funds, and then they get to manage that and get guaranteed certain moneys that come back to compensate them for assuming that risk.

What we've seen in other parts of the world with private-public partnerships is that many years after they take place, the chickens come home to roost. In point of fact, the end result to the taxpayer is not that a major infrastructure was built at the best price.

In fact, what we've seen in other jurisdictions around the world is that it's sort of like taking a gigantic credit card on behalf of British Columbians and saying: "Well, yeah, we're going to build this hospital or this bridge or this road. It's going to cost X billions of dollars. We don't have to assume that debt right now."

Somebody else assumes it. It's not on the books, so that makes the government look better. Then that private company that builds that hospital or road or bridge gets to charge a fee. By the time all those fees add up and the payments that are made for however long the contract runs, whether it be 20 years or 30 years…. If you add up those total payments, they often come to a far greater sum of money than if the government had actually borrowed the money and run the project itself. Then at least the public would own that at the end of the day.

I think for those of us who live in northwest B.C. and see a project like this going ahead…. Seeing the kind of governance structure that is set up, we are very, very concerned about it, because it's not going to save British Columbia taxpayers in the long run when you have this done as a private partnership.

As if that isn't bad enough, on top of that, what we see is a new Crown corporation being created and another whole slate of people who have to be paid inordinate sums of money. Obviously, they'll probably be friends of the government who will be appointed to this board by the government. They will be managing this project.

I don't see why we have to have a new body to manage this project. We have Partnerships B.C.

Partnerships B.C. has been managing P3s. Why can they not carry on and do this role? What this is, is an opportunity for the government to reward many, many friends and put them on another Crown corporation — one that's not needed and that will increase the costs. What does that do for all of us in northwest B.C. or in the regions of this province?

Those of us who live in rural B.C. cry out for the crumbs left over for those things that aren't spent in the Lower Mainland. We can understand that to a certain extent. I'm not suggesting that we don't expect the majority of public dollars to be spent on a region where the majority of the public lives. That's obvious. But what we do expect is a sense of fairness that enables us to have some kind of quality of life, whether it be on our road system or in our health care or our education.

What we see with Bill 14 is an opportunity for the government to waste money — money that maybe could come to those of us who live in rural British Columbia and are seeking improvements to our road system.

Let me speak for a minute about one of the things that has been asked for in an area where I live. Last year, as we all know, there was a massive slide on Highway 16. The communities of Terrace, Kitimat, Prince Rupert and others were cut off for several days as a result of this slide. Yet there is another road that would have enabled us to actually use it had it been more upgraded, and that's the Cranberry connector.

People who live in northwest B.C., the city of Terrace and others lobbied hard to get this road, which is only a forestry road, to be upgraded to give us a sense of safety so that if anything happens on Highway 16, depending on where it happens, we will at least be able to have a safe route in and out for all of those who live in northwest B.C. But what do we get? Almost nothing, hon. Speaker. Almost nothing.

So when we see the kinds of dollars that are going in to create a new Crown corporation here in British Columbia, to manage a large P3 project such as the twinning of the Port Mann, it begs the question for all of us who live in northwest B.C. Surely we can do this in a more cost-effective way. Surely we can actually build these megaprojects down in the Lower Mainland and still have a few dollars, just a few crumbs, that can come back to those of us who live in northwest B.C.

Highway 16 is the only road that takes us west of Prince George all the way to Prince Rupert. When we speak to those who work on the roads for a living, who transport goods and services, they tell us very clearly that this is a road that is literally falling apart. There are so many parts of it that have been patched endlessly that it's simply not able to be maintained as a high-quality transportation highway. So I don't think it's a good idea at all for this government to be setting up another level of bureaucracy here to manage the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge.

I do think that another reason they are doing this, of course, is to make sure there is an element of safety away from this P3. As I've mentioned earlier, in five, ten or 15 years the chickens will come home to roost. At that point people will be able to assess how P3s actually work. The bills will be coming in, and we'll then finally realize what it costs for us to be actually building these large infrastructure projects under the P3 model. At that point, of course, it will be very useful indeed for there to be some distance between those who managed the project and the government itself.

I think what we see here is another way for the government to set up a system that enables them to benefit their friends with a cushy job on a new Crown corporation board. It enables them to recognize that if things go badly with this P3 model and if in ten years' time — oh, my goodness — the cost of this bridge ends up being far more than it would have been, then at least they can say: "Oh, it's not our fault. It's the fault of the independent Crown corporation. They were responsible for doing this." In reality, of course, it's the Minister of Transportation who should be held accountable for that.

I want to just say that I think this is the wrong approach. I think this is something that's going to damage all of us who live in rural B.C. I think it's not fair in terms of how the dollars are being spent.

We would expect that after all these infrastructure projects are built in the Lower Mainland, there would be sufficient funds for us to have an adequate level of transportation on our highways that gives us a sense of safety. We live in some of the areas that have the worst road conditions and the strongest winters — far worse than anything experienced in the Lower Mainland.

Here we are witnessing a waste of money and a method of governance by this government that is not going to bring this in at a specific price. We don't even know what the costs are going to be, and I think it is simply wrong. With that, I cede the floor to my colleague.

J. Brar: I would also like to speak to Bill 14. The member just finished talking about the different perspective from the rural area when it comes to building projects. We talk about bridges and roads. I bring a kind of local perspective because I am, of course, from Surrey–Panorama Ridge.

I would like to start and look at the history, where the idea of this twinning the Port Mann Bridge was conceived. October 2004 was the first time that this government was going to face the first test about its policies, because they had been in power since 2001. The test was the by-election in Surrey–Panorama Ridge. That was a huge test for the Liberal government who had been in power for almost three years at that time.

Of course, that by-election was very, very important, and the government was looking for an issue they could stand on and could talk about with the people of Surrey. When you try to short-list those issues, the first issue could be education. The tuition fees at that time had gone up in many areas 200 percent and in some areas over 300 percent. Tuition, education, was not an issue this government could stand up and speak to the people of Surrey about.

The second issue you can talk about which actually impacts people's lives is health care. As you know, Madam Speaker, and as many people know, health care in Surrey is in a crisis. It's a very, very serious crisis. In the ER people have to wait sometimes eight, nine or ten hours just to see a doctor. Many patients just go back. There was no ground to stand on for this government on health care to the people of Surrey and say that they have done a great job. That was not the case as well.

So what else is left? The other issue which this government could stand and talk to people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge about at that time was probably the traffic congestion issue. That's where — somewhere in a remote corner — the member at that time from Surrey or the minister at that time, the Transportation Minister, conceived this idea of building what we talk about as the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge.

So that's the history. When we went into the election campaign and there was a debate on that, I was very surprised to see that the government was out there talking about a huge project — the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and many other components of it and the Gateway project — and they don't even have a business plan to start with.

In my previous life I used to work as the executive director of a non-profit organization called SEEDS, which is Self-Employment and Entrepreneur Development Society, in Surrey, which basically trained new entrepreneurs. Even if the project is $5,000, every client has to have a business plan. But here we're talking about billions of dollars. Here we're talking about a project which could go on for years, and this government had no business plan at that time.

Of course, the government was not sure when they were going to start. The government was not sure when they were going to finish. They were not sure what the cost will be. They were not sure how the project is going to be built. But this was the issue, a priority to this government, at that time.

Now we're talking about after three and a half years, and we still don't know and the Minister of Transportation still does not know when they're going to start the project, if there's any project. The minister still does not know many of the questions as to what the total cost of the project will be. The minister still does not know many of the questions as to who is going to fund this project, and they still don't have a complete business plan on this project.

So the question: why, after three and a half years — when this has been a priority for this government and this government has gone out and spoken to everyone about this project — do we need a new Crown corporation? I don't understand that. I don't understand the rationale for that. The only thing I can understand is this. The minister wants to hide behind this Crown corporation.

We have seen that — a pattern of this government — whenever something goes wrong. You talk about the Canada line. A lot of small businesses are being hurt by building the Canada line on Cambie Street. The answer we have heard many times from the minister and the government is that this is not their job. "Talk to somebody else, because this is not our job. It's an independent Crown corporation."

In the same way, what we see here is that after three and a half years we have this new idea of having a Crown corporation — very, very surprising. When the minister does not have the answer, it's very fine to hide behind this new corporation. That's the purpose this Crown corporation is going to serve. That's what I think at this point in time. Other than that, I would like to hear from the minister what the rationale at this point in time is for bringing in a new corporation.

The other thing I want to say is this. In Surrey we do have a couple of bottlenecks when we talk about traffic congestion issues. When we talk about the Port Mann, that of course is a huge traffic congestion issue. But we have the other one, which is a relatively smaller issue. That is 72nd and 91. That's a much smaller issue as compared to twinning the Port Mann Bridge, which is a huge project going to billions of dollars.

Here at 72nd and 91 this minister had money from the federal government under the program called the border infrastructure program. There were six or seven components of the program, and one of the components was to build an overpass on 72nd and 91, which is the second bottleneck when we talk about traffic congestion in Surrey.

Guess what. This minister cannot provide leadership and resolve the issue with the city of Delta and, probably, a private individual who wanted access to the overpass. That project has been cancelled. That's a tiny, small project, and this minister could not complete the project, could not provide the leadership to finish the project.

Now we're talking about a project which is a huge-sized project, the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge, going from a $2 billion estimate a few years ago and going up to probably $6 billion now — about that. That tells you the ability and the commitment of this government on the Gateway program. We have been talking about it, as I said, for the last four years now, but we don't have a lot of answers.

I have said in the past that when we talk about building something like twinning the Port Mann Bridge and other components of the Gateway project, one must have a complete, fully developed business plan, talking about every possible component we need to include in that plan. But I am very surprised to see that the minister, when he talked about Surrey, failed to talk about public transit, which is a huge issue in Surrey.

According to the mayor of Surrey, the city of Surrey needs more than 500 buses now. The time line which we have got under this bill or about this project in the past goes beyond 2013 at this point in time. What it means is that basically, there will be no other buses until we're past 2013.

As the Surrey mayor said, some of the components of this project even go up to beyond 2020. That's a lot of

time. People need help now. Surrey's population has grown significantly during the last ten years. We need help now. We cannot wait until 2013 or 2020. People need that help now.

We cannot wait until 2013 or 2020. People need that help now, and that component — the public transit piece, which is very, very important — is missing from this discussion. Whatever we have heard from the minister until today, that is not a piece…. Without that, I don't think that it makes any sense or that it will make much sense or that the bridge will be very, very productive for us because we don't have the transit plan to support the bridge.

The other thing is the Crown corporation. The purpose which I see it will serve under this government is to manage a P3, because that's a new trend we have seen. The announcement is made, and after an announcement is made — after six, seven announcements — then you have a new announcement that this will be built under a P3.

I have seen that about Surrey Memorial, where seven different announcements were made by the minister and the Premier. After about two years of announcement after announcement after announcement, what we heard was that now it will be a P3 concept.

What we saw under that was that as soon as the P3 concept was announced, the price of that project went up from $126 million to $151 million, which is almost $30 million more. Also, there was a delay of one year. The new out-patient hospital has been delayed by one year. The emergency room expansion has been delayed by one year as well.

My fear is that after three and a half years of discussion…. A lot of civil servants have spent a lot of energy and put together a lot of different plans for this, and now we hand it over to a board which will be handpicked by the Minister of Transportation, and they run with it. That does not make any sense, because we have very, very professional people among the public servants at this point in time.

My fear is that the Crown corporation, its introduction in midway now…. What we will hear is that the project will be delayed further and the cost will go up, you know, as whatever we have. It has gone up almost triple already. I don't know how much it will go up because of this new component of a Crown corporation.

People of Surrey, people on both sides of the Fraser River, are very clear that we need to have a crossing on the Fraser River. I think that's not something debatable. That is clear. Everybody knows that. But at the same time as we need to do it as quickly as possible, we need to make sure that the business plan is complete and that it has a strong public transportation component to it, which is missing at this point in time.

People also want to know. I have spoken to many people in my city. One of the components which we don't know is tolling — whether we are tolling this bridge or not, whether we are tolling this bridge alone or other bridges in the province — because this bill doesn't say anything about it. It's silent. I know that if you toll….

The cost which was thrown by the minister, I think, about a year and a half ago was $2.50 for one crossing. If somebody's working on the other side, it will cost $5 per day. That is a lot of money. That is a lot of money for average families, for working families, and people are very, very concerned about that.

The concern is this, Madam Speaker. The cost is one thing, but usually what happens is that when you put a toll on any bridge, you need to provide an alternative. There is no alternative in Surrey, and the Minister of Transportation, who comes from Surrey himself, knows very well that there is no alternative in Surrey if you twin the Port Mann Bridge and put a toll on that.

The only name which I heard from the minister until today as the alternative route in Surrey is the Pattullo Bridge. Every person in Surrey and probably in the Lower Mainland and probably in the province of British Columbia knows very well, knows very clearly — you don't need to do any research — that the Pattullo Bridge does not have any more capacity.

Actually, the Pattullo Bridge needs to be replaced at this point in time. It is the most dangerous bridge we have in the region, and that is thrown as an alternative for twinning the Port Mann Bridge.

As I said earlier, it doesn't make any sense to bring in now, in the midway, a Crown corporation. The only purpose it's going to serve is, first, that whenever the minister does not have the question, the minister will use it as a shield, as it has been used in the past.

The second purpose it will serve is that it will bring in and manage the P3, which is actually, in the long run, going to cost more to the people of British Columbia as compared to less, because the private corporation, of course, needs to have profit out of this.

The third thing — what I've seen from this government in the past — is that as soon as you introduce the P3 concept, the project is delayed. So when we look at the benefit to the people of British Columbia, I don't see any.

The Crown corporation…. If it's going to benefit anyone, it will be the minister himself. The minister can hide behind it. The minister can appoint his own friends on the Crown corporation and give direction to them, whatever way the minister wants to.

As I said before, there was a small conflict when we talked about building a very small overpass on 72nd and 91 involving only one municipality, the municipality of the city of Delta, and one individual. Only three people, including the minister, and the minister failed to resolve that issue. So that's why we see now that the only way the minister can control these things is to have a Crown corporation, appoint his own friends to that and do whatever the minister wants to do. Other than that, I don't see this Crown corporation serving any purpose.

I would like to conclude by saying…. The other component, before I finish that, is the environmental assessment. At this point in time, what we see is that on one side the environment and climate change is high on the agenda of this government. But when we

talk about twinning of the Port Mann Bridge…. The level of environmental assessment which is done is very, very low at this point in time. It does not have the quality we need to ensure that this project will be a green project at the end of the day, as the minister sometimes talks about. Having said that….

J. Brar: I've said that from the very beginning, from the very first day. I've said that from the very first day.

I need to have a complete, full business plan to say what I do. You guys failed to provide a business plan until today. Is public transit part of that? We don't know. Are you going to do anything before 2013? We don't know the answer. What is the cost of this project? We don't know the answer. When are you going to start? What is the answer? We don't know about those things. What will be the tolling of one side? We don't know the answer.

We don't know anything about this bridge for the last three and a half years. How can I support something I don't know anything about? Where is the business plan? Now you want to hide behind it. That's what it is.

There is no plan in this. These guys talk about public transit. The Surrey mayor, who is friendly to this party, is on the record as saying that Surrey needs 500 buses today, and there's no comment on that from the minister. The only comment we have is that they are going to do that after 2013, so that's what it is.

I cannot support something baseless. I cannot support something which is totally incomplete. I cannot. I have said from the very first day that we need to see a full-blown business plan….

J. Brar: You did not have that when the by-election was there, you don't have that today, and I cannot support something you don't have complete information on.

I have said that the people of British Columbia from both sides of the Fraser River are very clear that we need to have a crossing on the Fraser River. But we need to have a complete business plan. We need to include the public transit in that, because people want to see that the average person can move around. People want to see that this bridge is fully utilized, that we can maximize the benefit from this bridge.

I would like to conclude, once again. The Crown corporation concept is a bit surprising to me after, as I said, four years of discussions. Suddenly, now we have a new body to basically manage this project. The only purpose it's going to serve is, as I said before, that the minister now is free to appoint his own friends to it and then will control the decision-making the way the minister wants.

Of course, the second thing will be that, under this, whenever something goes wrong, the minister has a shield to hide behind: "Oh, this is their fault. Because it's a Crown corporation, it's independent."

It's very common. We hear that from this minister on Cambie Street and many other projects. That's a very common response. This is nothing more than serving the minister, not the people of British Columbia.

Having said this, I would like to conclude by saying that I cannot support Bill 14.

Deputy Speaker: Before I recognize the next speaker, I would like to remind members of the House that if you wish to participate in the proceedings, you must be sitting in your own seat.

C. Puchmayr: I came to work today, and a debate broke out. So it's good to know that the other side is listening.

Bill 14 is certainly…. You read the legislation, and it's interesting how suddenly there needs to be another governance body overseeing a project. Here's a government that boasts about government being too big, that you need smaller government and that you need less government. Yet we've seen the democracy of people in British Columbia…. We've seen their democratic rights eliminated.

We certainly saw it with TransLink, where they had elected mayors and councillors that sat on that governance board, people that you could at least go to the polls if you weren't pleased with their decisions. You could vote them out of office. You could create a campaign against them and vote them out of office.

Here this government decides that they are going to have a handpicked board that's going to overtake those very initiatives. They meet in secret, they meet with virtually no requirements for disclosure, and they meet in a way that shields them from the freedom-of-information and privacy process.

It's odd, when you look at people who like to tell you that they believe in smaller government, that we've seen the Premier's office go from 36 people under the former NDP to over 200 in his office right now. That's almost three times those who sit in this House and who are actually controlling the business of the province without scrutiny, without debate, without adequate disclosure.

We've seen some of the legislation that's come forward, especially on the environmental legislation, where the alarm bells are being sounded by the Information and Privacy Commissioner saying that legislation that prevents the public from having disclosures of what is going on is not healthy legislation. We have to agree with that. If we want to live in and enjoy the benefits of a democratic society, we have to take what comes with that democratic society. That's disclosure, that's freedom of information, and that's the ability to

We're seeing that eliminated as opposed to being built in a stronger sense, and that's all from a government that ran the last campaign saying that they would be the most transparent and open government, bar none. They even had a couple of open cabinet meetings. That didn't last very long. That was part of their image of this new openness and disclosure so that the people of British Columbia could see the internal workings of government — the cogs, the mechanisms and the machinery.

It was how we could follow the genesis of legislation from there all the way to this table for hardy and healthy debate — and, hopefully, healthy and hardy amendments to the debate — so that the public is informed, so that we see where the legislation is coming from and so that, if there are concerns, people can actually go and inquire. They can go to the Privacy Commissioner, and they can make requests for information so that we have that transparent system in place.

It's really odd that suddenly there is this requirement for another piece of governance that deals with the Port Mann Bridge and with the twinning of the bridge. Certainly, you have to ask yourself what those reasons are. I think that by asking what those reasons are, you need to look at some of the other initiatives of this government.

You know, we looked at B.C. Rail when the B.C. Rail deal, the 900…. It wasn't sold; it was leased for 999 years or some-odd years. That's just a shocking revelation — that we would give away a railway and then advertise it and characterize it in such a manner as to lead people to believe that it still belongs to us. Wow, will there even be a planet there when that time comes to get that railroad back again?

Then to look at the cost of building…. If we look at the cost of the Evergreen line, we look at the cost of the Millennium line, we look at the cost of the Expo line, we look at the cost of the Canada line…. Just to imagine for the small fee that CN Rail actually paid to lease that railbed for ten centuries, what would that cost to build? You know, the cost to build that is absolutely priceless. So somebody certainly got a bargain.

Then what happens right after the railway turned over? I remember I was still on city council, and we received letters from concerned businesses up in the north. They were concerned because they weren't able to get railcars to their facilities any more. We received correspondence from people saying that the quality of the railcars wasn't that great because a lot of the good rolling stock, of course, was put on the north-south boundary.

Deputy Speaker: Member, I would remind you that the bill under debate is Bill 14, the Transportation Investment Amendment Act. If you could direct your remarks to that bill, please.

C. Puchmayr: I have been directing them to that bill. My comments are with respect to the establishment of this other form of governance, and why there seems to be a need to create this other form of governance only to oversee a project that the government is proposing. So we have to look at other examples of that. We have to look at other examples of where this government is trying to take away the public scrutiny of this.

This bill, again, will take away some of the public scrutiny on overseeing the development of that project. And by virtue of whoever's handpicked to sit on this…. Again, does it take into consideration the needs of the municipalities?

So this bill, I would have to ask myself and my municipality of New Westminster…. This bill is going to impose sort of a different governing body. Who will they represent? What are their terms of reference? What is the business case that is being put forward for this? Is it purely to see that you can get an outside developer to come in and build this project, build it in the 3P model and build it for profit? Or is it to really look at the long-term growth of the Fraser Valley, of the Cascadia airshed strip that we live on, to ensure we have adequate goods movement and traffic flow, but also, that we don't create further accumulations of greenhouse gases?

Again, you have another entity that is taking the public input, the public disclosure and the public participation out of it. It concerns me when you have a board or a panel that is handpicked by the government, that is really doing the work of the government, but they don't have to come into this House and give a disclosure to the people of British Columbia and to the official opposition so that we can actually ensure that it's a model that is necessary and is actually paying dividends for the people of British Columbia.

That's being stripped from this by the introduction of this bill. That is certainly a concern on this side. It's a grave concern on this side.

The thing that happens when you sort of privatize…. We're seeing some examples of it in England now. One of the original examples of privatization was under Boris Yeltsin in Russia when he handed a lot of the Crown corporations over to the business community to run, and it was a colossal failure. People became millionaires overnight — I'm not saying that this will happen here with this — but it became a colossal failure. It created a greater cost of providing services for the people of the country, all at the expense of the people of the country so that a few people could profit from it.

Again, you know, with this government I always have to be guarded and ensure in my debate that we're bringing in legislation that has, at the end of the day, the ability for a full and complete scrutiny by the public and by the Privacy Commissioner. I certainly don't see that in this type of legislation.

There are some needs that we certainly have with respect to goods movement. There is no doubt that we need to move goods through the province. My city, New Westminster, didn't embrace but certainly understood the needs for the north-south infrastructure program — the 91, 91A north-south goods-movement corridor. We did so by making some sacrifices, but we understood that there needed to be a parallel movement of goods on both the north and south sides of the Fraser and that it had to be implemented with some incredible mitigation so that we didn't have rat-running and people abusing the small, fragile neighbourhoods when we were encouraging more traffic to go into those areas.

When you do the Port Mann, you have to look at what has the best impact on the environment, what has the best impact on those communities that now don't have a voice any more in controlling the flow of traffic in their areas. So what I look at first of all is the air quality issue. If I were to build a bridge as significant as a bridge across the Fraser River or doubling the capacity across the Fraser River, the first concern has to be: what is it going to do to the air quality? How do we get goods from Penticton into Vancouver and down to the docks but do so without creating greater pollution in the airshed?

You have to look at some kinds of trade-offs. Here's a government that just introduced a cap carbon trade and cap-and-trade legislation and a carbon tax. Now look at the impacts of that type of a bridge development. If you're going to move trucks quicker over that corridor, wouldn't it be prudent to try to move more people into transit, into a type of a rapid transit model, so that there's an incentive for people to get out of their cars, get on to a train or a SkyTrain or some form of rapid transit and use a new corridor and a new bridge over the Fraser River?

What you've done now is you've taken steps to protect the environment in that very sensitive Cascadia airshed. You've also taken people out of vehicles and started the mitigation on the communities that would be affected by a huge volume of additional cars going through that community if you were to implement other means of building that bridge.

If you're now giving the private sector the ability to provide that service for you by setting up this type of a board, how are they going to maximize profit on building that type of a bridge? Are they going to be going after the trucking community and trying to gouge them for moving over the bridge? I don't think that's a really good idea if we're talking about goods movement and the viable economics of Penticton, the Kootenays and Vancouver. No, that may not be a good idea. So what would an independent builder do?

They would look at a toll, of course. A toll would have to maximize returns. So how would they best maximize that return? I guess more single-occupancy vehicles, because it's the vehicle that's actually tolled. You're not tolling the cyclist. Maybe they will toll the cyclists, but it's usually the vehicles all over the world with the little bar codes on the window. That's where you actually create your profit base and your volume of monetary return, and the tolling is by vehicles.

We now have conflicting issues here with respect to the environment, the airshed and the ability and rights of a private proprietor that builds that bridge and needs to get a 25- or 30-year return out of that. The best return for that individual will be single-occupancy vehicles.

The bridge could very well be built in total conflict with what the government is now trying to project — this new greenwash green policy. Why can't there be a board that consists of cyclists, pedestrians, transit users, the mayors of the affected communities — the mayors of Vancouver, of the Tri-Cities and of New Westminster? Why can't this group of people get together and sit down and look and say: "What are the issues here?"

The issues are that we don't want to create more pollution, but we need to move people and need to move goods. So what solutions would they come to? If there's no profit in it for them and if it's merely to do something that's good for the community, they may not go with tolling. They may not go with expanded use of single-occupancy vehicles. They may go with more HOV lanes and a streamlined transit system, rapid transit system or automated transit system, over that bridge — totally inconsistent.

You have two things going against each other. You have a company that needs to profit for their investors, which is…. You know, it's not a dirty word. I guess that's free enterprise. Somebody gets a bunch of investors together and says: "Look, we're going to build this bridge. Here is what I can do for you. I can maximize your profit. I can build a whole bunch of single-occupancy vehicle lanes, and here's the return you'll get." Or you could say: "Well, the real return we need is a cleaner environment and a cleaner airshed, so we need to build a different type of model here."

Now you have the environment coming up against the market, which is: how can I make a profit for my investors who I've already guaranteed a certain amount of return over ten, 25 or 30 years in the bonding formula?

When you have those types of debates that you need to have, you can't not factor those in there. You can't be blind to the reality that they conflict with each other. They absolutely conflict with each other.

If we're talking about this new green direction and green environment, why aren't we setting up a green twinning plan — one that has less impact on the communities, one that moves people, one that doesn't put pressure on the wetlands and the green spaces, and one that has alternatives to cars and yet is still able to move the goods from the Alberta border to the ports of British Columbia so that we can have a good, strong, vibrant export market as well?

This doesn't do it. I'm sorry. This will not do it. As soon as you have somebody going in there building a project for capital return for their investors, those

things are secondary. I'm sorry. When you have a race for profit, those things don't equate. That's not part of the argument.

Look at how long people have been trying to say that global warming is a hoax. Look at the scientists who used to say that, who have come over to the green movement because they feel guilty that they were actually misleading people on what's happening to the environment.

Now you have profit going against what could be a green bridge. If you go into this type of governance, I'm afraid you're not going to get a green bridge. You're going to get a bridge that has to maximize the profits for that investor for 20, 30 or 40 years — whatever the agreement ends up being. That's the wrong way to go.

The cleaner, cheapest way — the way that will create less damage to the lungs of the children and young people who live out in the Fraser Valley and the seniors who live out in the Fraser Valley — is to build a green model, to look at a green model. This takes that out of the equation. This completely takes that out of the equation, because no one is going to come along and build something that they can't maximize their return and their profit on.

Living in a community that is inundated with traffic, New Westminster, with 300,000-plus cars a day going through my city Monday to Friday — every day — because we're in the absolute dead centre of Metro Vancouver…. Living in an area like that, I would put a more people-and-environment approach to this.

I'm sure a lot of those communities around there would as well, not only because they're in the heart of it. They may not experience the same amount of traffic. But it's logical, and it's what everybody is talking about these days. It's less pollution in the airshed.

The producer of the bridge — is that producer going to now pay a carbon tax for all the extra cars that that proprietor has to put over that bridge to make a profit for investors in New York and other parts of the world? No, I don't think so.

There are already huge exemptions to some of the top 30 polluters in the province. They're already exempt from a lot of the green legislation. Who knows what will happen when all of this other legislation goes privately behind closed doors? We won't even know what regulations or who's involved in drafting those regulations.

The airshed is a very important issue. I know that often there will be weather warnings, and they'll go as far as Hope. You hear that people living in Hope with respiratory problems are being warned not to go outside that day or that week because of the air inversions and the noxious gases that are building up in that valley. If somebody isn't looking at that when they're looking at twinning the Port Mann, something is really disingenuous in this House. That is probably going to be one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas if we don't build that bridge properly.

Once we allow the market to dictate the profit over that bridge, eventually that bridge will be full, and there will be no farmland or very little farmland left. It will be like parts of California where it's just being gobbled up or parts of Chilliwack where it's literally coming out of the ALR and turning into condominiums and houses.

Once that's gone and everybody is moving out into those areas because real estate may be cheaper, we're going to have to twin it again. We're going to go to the same model, and it will be the same proprietor saying, "Jeez, I can get you a deal like I got on that last one," and now we've got 15 lanes of cars going over that bridge.

So we need to have the right focus. If we're sitting in this House or rising in this House and talking that we care about the environment and care about the airshed…. This model of this bridge is a disingenuous example of that. With that, I will end my comments.

S. Simpson: I'm pleased to get an opportunity to stand in my place and add a few comments in relation to Bill 14, the Transportation Investment (Port Mann Twinning) Amendment Act, 2008. As I start, I would note that there's been some discussion about what this bill is related to. I would note that in brackets in the name of the bill, it talks about the Port Mann twinning, but I find it interesting that when you read through the bill, in the actual bill itself, nowhere does it talk about the Port Mann twinning. I think it references "bridge" once in the entirety of the bill.

So what is the bill about if it's not about the title? Well, I think the bill has a lot more to do with the government's ideological preoccupation with privatization. We know that this government has that preoccupation, and it's particularly interesting that this government and this minister in particular would be looking to create more bureaucracies by creating the Transportation Investment Corporation, which is the Crown corporation created by Bill 14.

I'd remind people that in a previous incarnation, this was the minister who was responsible for deregulation, and he went on and on in those days about cutting regulations. Now, of course, he's the minister who's looking to create more bureaucracies. I suspect that when I look at that, it makes sense. I understand that. I understand that what Bill 14 does is add another layer to shielding this government from being accountable for their actions. This government has a track record of doing everything they can do to not be accountable for their actions.

Frankly, the Minister of Transportation is one of the leading lights when it comes to trying to not be accountable for his actions. You know, we just have to look. Most recently we saw it with B.C. Ferries and the pay raises in B.C. Ferries. The minister gets up and says: "Oh, I don't like those pay raises either, but there's nothing I can do about them."

Well, somebody should remind the minister that there is one shareholder for B.C. Ferries, and of course, that shareholder is the people of British Columbia represented by the minister. I'm sure that if the minister

wanted to deal with those pay raises, he'd have dealt with them. But that would have required a level of accountability by the minister that he's hard-pressed to show.

You know, this is a question of accountability, and Bill 14 is an accountability question. So what about accountability? We, of course, also saw as part of the privatization — and my argument would be that Bill 14 is about advancing privatization — this government and this minister basically rip authority away from local mayors and local councils with TransLink and give it to his friends, with a private board appointed essentially by him. So that's what we have.

Now he has privatized planning of transportation in the Lower Mainland, and that was just another removal of accountability. This is the minister who, whenever TransLink does anything, will say: "Oh, it's not me; it's TransLink. I'm not responsible for it." Of course, it's his board that he put in place that will in fact do the work and call themselves TransLink — not the mayors and not the councillors who are accountable.

So this is the issue. This is the minister who is full of bluster in this House whenever he gets an opportunity, but when you really look past it, sometimes you've got to really wonder whether the minister has the courage of his convictions to stand up for the stuff that he believes in. Not so sure of that.

Let's talk about that a little bit. It's quite relevant to Bill 14 because Bill 14 creates an infrastructure. It creates an infrastructure that allows the minister to be less accountable on all of these matters. Let's take, for example…. The government rammed through the Canada line when, in fact, the priority was to be the northeast sector. Everybody agreed the northeast line was to be the priority, but the government chose to ram the Canada line through first.

Canada line was clearly on the list — there's no doubt about that — but it certainly was not the top of the list. The Evergreen line, the northeast sector, was the top of the list, but the government chose not to do that.

What did they do? They avoided, and they avoided, and they avoided supporting the Evergreen line, the northeast line. Now the minister was up…. I saw him the other day, making announcements about which route it would be. We're all pleased to see that, and I know the people who live in that part of the province are hopeful that this time it might actually result in building it.

I note that the minister doesn't want to talk about the fact that if they hadn't killed the Evergreen line, the northeast sector line, it would be operating today. If it wasn't for this government's irresponsible action, that northeast line would actually be functioning today. But that's neither here nor there as far as this bunch is concerned.

Let's talk about promises. I just heard the minister talk about promises, and I think that's important. We should talk about promises. Let's talk about the promise not to sell B.C. Rail. That was a promise. I seem to remember the government making that promise. The government said first of all back in the '90s that it was going to sell B.C. Rail. Then, of course, they lost an election on that one. So they came back in 2001 and said: "Oh no, we won't sell it." But lo and behold, they sold it. It was a broken promise and a bad deal, but this is a government full of broken promises and bad deals. That seems to underlie this government's action.

Let's talk about what the bill does. What the bill does is create a structure for public-private partnerships. That's essentially what it does. That's okay. It does raise a question here about what the role of Partnerships B.C. is. What is the role of Partnerships B.C.?

Partnerships B.C. was put in place. I believe its executive director, its CEO or whatever the title that Mr. Blain has…. I haven't checked in the last while, but I think he was just about the highest-paid person in government — to run Partnerships B.C. That's okay, but you would think that maybe Partnerships B.C. would have the capacity to do the kind of work that the Transportation Investment Corporation has been set up to do. But apparently not.

I suspect the reason for that is that when you get to looking at what the premise behind public-private partnerships is supposed to be, you realize where this thing starts to unravel for the government. That's why the Transportation Investment Corporation gets put in place. The argument around public-private partnerships is supposed to be that you bring in the private partners, and you pay a premium for that, but they accept a degree of the risk in order for that to occur. The private partner takes risk, and in return for that, there's a premium.

Well, what we know is that almost without exception, private partners don't have the capacity to borrow at the same kind of preferred rates that government does. That's a reality. So it costs more. Also, of course, there's always the profit margin in there, as there has to be with private partners. That's their reason for being. So it should be. The profit margin is there as well. So they have to build that in — something that isn't there necessarily when something is done in the public interest by a public player.

That's what is supposed to happen. The trade-off is supposed to be that the private partner takes the risk. The private partner does the job, and they make their profit. We pay some premium for that. There's the trade-off. In return for that, among other things, we trade ownership of the asset. They'll say that somewhere down the road we may acquire the asset back, and in some cases, that may be the case. We'll look forward to seeing contracts at some point that actually tell us that.

But the problem here — and I suspect this is the reality of the case — is that it's getting pretty hard to find those private partners who have the wherewithal and the capacity to borrow that money and to borrow it at rates that they can afford. So what the private partner now says is: "Government, you create a Transportation Investment Corporation. You create this corporation that's put in place, and this corporation" — which the bill says — "has the capacity to in fact do that borrowing and to put that money in place."

What happens, in fact, is that we now have a situation where a Crown corporation begins to borrow the money on behalf of those private partners and presumably takes a share of the risk. We're borrowing the money, so we're taking the risk on this. So it starts to raise a question about the P3s — that the trade-off was supposed to be the risk for the profit.

Well, now we're all of a sudden taking the risk too. That's what Bill 14, I see, is doing. It begins to put in place a situation where, in fact, we take the risk rather than the private partner, which was supposed to be their part of the deal. That was supposed to be what they did.

This becomes increasingly a problem, because when you look at transportation plans…. I would call your attention, hon. Speaker, to one of the most recent announcements of the government. The government announced quite a grand plan, $14 billion of a grand plan for transportation. What we know is that in that $14 billion plan it was announced…. There wasn't any money actually attached to it, but it was announced. So the rhetoric was pretty good — no dollars, but lots of rhetoric.

What we start to see is: where are the dollars? So the government of British Columbia says about $4.7 billion of that plan is to be paid for by this government, by B.C. taxpayers through the government, and then another $3 billion and a bit by the federal government. Then TransLink and local governments will pay their share.

So we say: where is that $4¾ billion? Hon. Speaker, I've got to tell you that I was talking to somebody who spent time in this House, a long time as a member here, and they said: "Whenever you hear promises from the government around the good works and things they're going to do, take a look at the budget and see if there's any money attached to it. That's always a good place to start. Look for the money."

We look in this budget that just came through, the budget that we've just dealt with, and what do we see? Well, for transit we see about $826 million for roads and bridges in this budget, but for the $14 billion transit plan, we see $63 million for this year. What do we see here? One year, $826 million for roads and bridges; over the next four years, about a quarter of that in commitments for transit. That's why people in the northeast sector are concerned. They can read the budget too. What they see is more hollow promises.

You know, these commitments of the government have a time frame that runs to about May 13, 2009 — the day after the election. If they can get through that, they're all good to go.

What we have here is a government that is talking about a plan that there's no money for. We have a government that says the federal government will give us in excess of $3 billion. What have we seen? I think the commitment that we saw from the federal government was about $60-odd million. That might have been over two years too. I'm not quite sure. That's the government. They're on a long way there. If we're going to get this built by 2020, the time line on this, we're sure going to have to see a whack of money in later years. But that's really not what this is about. This is about empty promises, because empty promises are what we have.

As we move and look at this, we really need to ask ourselves: what is the public interest in all this? I think that has to be the question we ask ourselves on any piece of legislation that comes forward. Is it fair legislation? Is it effective legislation? Is the public interest served by the legislation?

Well, Bill 14, in terms of the public interest, creates a bureaucracy that…. It's dubious at best as to why we need this, until we start to realize that the reason we need this is because the private partners that this minister and other ministers have, in this sort of ideological bent for privatization of British Columbia…. They need to have the government underwrite the private partners, because those private partners are saying: "We're happy to own all your public assets, but we really don't want to have to pay for them, so you better set up the financing for us, and it better be at preferred rates."

In terms of transportation, we create the Transportation Investment Corporation as the tool to provide that for the private partners. If we're going to do private-public partnerships, then we should at least have a situation where the private partners step up and do their bit. Their bit says that they come, they take their risk, they borrow their money, and they make their investments. This bill says: "You get a pass." That's not in the public interest. That doesn't serve the public interest well.

I know that we'll get an opportunity and look forward to talking about this when we get to committee stage and talk about the detail as to what this bill does and doesn't do, and I look forward to that discussion absolutely. At the in-principle stage, the question has to be asked: does this bill serve the public interest? Does it serve the public interest to move forward on this? Does it serve the public interest even on the projects that it purports to support?

I was at a meeting yesterday. I had the opportunity to meet with some people from the Burns Bog Conservation Society. We know that they've raised concerns about the South Fraser perimeter road. We'll look forward to seeing how that all plays itself out as to whether the bog gets protected without too much incursion on agricultural land. That is the debate there, so we're going to see what they do there.

We have a government here, when we're trying to look at strategies to get trucks off the road and looking at strategies and talking about the need to move to road-to-rail strategies for the movement of goods…. Of course, that would have been a much more effective thing to do. If we hadn't sold B.C. Rail for a song, then we actually could have developed a road-to-rail strategy. Then we could have developed a road-to-rail strategy.

But this government is sort of: "Just pave it." This government has one mentality. This minister is the pave-it minister.

It's interesting. The message that I got, I would say, from the folks at the…. There were a number of

experts. There were a number of scientists out there talking about the bog yesterday. They were talking in quite a bit of detail about the biodiversity and the ecology of the bog. Of course, to a person, those scientists said that the biggest threat to the bog was the provincial government.

What did we hear about? I listened to Vicki Huntington, a councillor in Delta, out there. Vicki Huntington is certainly no New Democrat. Vicki Huntington talked about the biggest threat to the bog being the Liberal government in British Columbia. The biggest threat is the Liberal government in British Columbia.

To a person, folks were saying that's the risk to this bog — this government. Quite remarkable. So what does the government do? It adopts Bill 14. And what does Bill 14 do? It creates the Transportation Investment Corporation.

You know what we can be assured of? We can be assured of this investment corporation…. When this corporation is investing in projects that nobody in British Columbia but their friends wants, what we will see is the minister saying: "Oh, I have nothing to say about that. It's a Crown corporation. It's distant from me. Don't ask me to do my job. It's distant from me."

It's another level of this government and this minister in particular essentially walking away from their responsibility, walking away from accountability, walking away from transparency, but of course we've seen the litany of this.

The list is very long, and getting longer by the day, of this government walking away from responsibility — whether it's these matters or it's the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources being embarrassed by the freedom-of-information and privacy commissioner into pulling back on some of the most egregious attacks on that act that we've seen, trying to hide things from people in British Columbia. They were embarrassed to the point where they finally had to pull back on that — and a good thing. We were pleased to see that after raising those issues, but there we go. That's those ministers.

Who knows? Maybe somebody will embarrass the Minister of Transportation into rethinking Bill 14 too, but I'm not so sure that will happen.

Bill 14 is a bill that has only one purpose. The purpose is to advance an ideological notion of this government to privatize as many British Columbia assets as possible. This is another tool to drive us down that road. It's to do it in a way that essentially accommodates taking away the risk of private partners, though that's supposed to be the deal in the partnership. It's to take away the risk of private partners.

I look forward to the rest of this debate. The minister is hitching up his pants now. He's getting ready to go. I'm sure we'll see the interesting part of the rest of this debate.

At this point I'm pleased to take my seat. I'm pleased to hear the minister's comments on this, and I look forward to committee stage, when the minister actually has to explain some of the detail of this.

Hon. K. Falcon: It's my pleasure to rise in the House to wrap up the second reading debate of Bill 14. I have to say that listening to the member for Vancouver-Hastings, I sometimes wonder what kind of world we inhabit here. There is a cartoon that you can occasionally read called Bizarro, where everything is not quite as it seems. I feel sometimes, sitting in this House, that I'm part of that cartoon.

We just had a member for Vancouver-Hastings stand up and talk about how we were jeopardizing Burns Bog — that from an NDP government that actually was planning on paving it and moving the PNE over to Burns Bog. And they stand here and talk about the great threat that apparently we, the government that actually invested $73 million to preserve the bog for infinity…. We're the ones that are apparently jeopardizing the bog. Unbelievable.

All I can say is that what the member for Vancouver-Hastings should do is go back and pull out the old NDP plans. They're fascinating. You know, if you looked at their plans from the Ferris wheel, you could have looked over the former Burns Bog and seen what once was a very productive bog, the lungs of the Lower Mainland. From the rollercoaster you might have seen another part of the Burns Bog that was no longer there, as a result of where the NDP government wanted to go.

Well, the difference is that, as in so many different parts of public policy, we have the NDP that will say one thing and do something completely opposite to what they say, and on this side of the House we have a Premier and a government that when we say we're going to do something, we actually deliver on it. So when we said we were going to preserve Burns Bog, we went out and invested $73 million. Burns Bog today is protected, and Burns Bog will remain protected — unlike, as I say, the NDP….

Hon. K. Falcon: I've got someone over here chirping about B.C. Rail. Well, again I have to explain to the member opposite that actually we're here to talk about Bill 14. I know that the members want to talk about anything but Bill 14, and I can appreciate that because, you see, this is a challenge for the NDP. I understand that.

You see, this requires them to do something that to date we have yet to see out of the NDP opposition. It requires something that we haven't seen from the Leader of the Opposition, and that is that they will have to take a position on a major project in this province. I know how much of a challenge that's going to be, but we're not going to let them off the hook.

Hon. K. Falcon: No, that's right. That's exactly right. They won't be able to have it both ways. They

Bill 14 is a major step forward in the completion of B.C.'s $3 billion Gateway transportation program, and that is going to be seen as overwhelmingly good news for the citizens who are starved for any kind of public transit option over the bridge, which they currently do not have today and, in fact, have not enjoyed for over 20 years. It will certainly come as welcome relief to those that are caught in the 14 hours a day of rush hour congestion that they find themselves in across the Port Mann Bridge.

I would remind the member opposite and the members opposite that when we invest in major projects, when we talk about undertaking major projects — whether it's the Kicking Horse Canyon in that member's own riding, where we actually said we were going to do it…. The difference between when we said we were going to do it and when the NDP said they were going to do it is that we actually went out and built it and invested in it and stuck to our commitment.

When we said that we were going to build the Canada line, instead of sniping and opposing it as the NDP members did and finding 50 reasons why they ought not to support it…. They couldn't support it, and it was wrong. We should do it differently. We should keep sitting down and talking. We should have an endless series of tea parties and keep discussing these issues. That's what the opposition want to do.

The difference is that we actually sat down and worked with the folks that wanted to get this done, and it's being built today ahead of schedule and on budget. That is, again, an important difference between the members of the opposition and this government.

What Bill 14 will do is in the great tradition of W.A.C. Bennett and the B.C. Toll Highways and Bridges Authority, which was put in place in 1953 to facilitate the important construction of many tolled projects that were really the foundation for the infrastructure in this province that led to the economic growth that we saw well through the '50s and '60s, until it stalled ever so briefly in the early '70s under the NDP and then roared ahead again under the Social Credit government in the '70s. Then sadly, it stalled again in the '90s for a decade of decline that matched no other province in terms of the swiftness and the depth of the decline.

What this will do, under Bill 14, is ensure that the tolls and other congestion-reduction measures that we're going to put in place as part of this bridge will moderate traffic growth, will extend the life of the improvements and will improve and reduce congestion over time.

More importantly, this bill will also put in place the vehicle and the means to provide the public with options and alternatives that do not exist today, alternatives like public transit. As the members opposite and the members in this House would know, both the Premier and I announced the $180 million commitment to RapidBus, which will provide a rapid transit experience for folks that will allow people to get from Langley to Burnaby in 23 minutes, which is lightning speed compared to what we have there today.

We're also going to provide the largest expansion of cycling ever in the history of the province of British Columbia, with a $50 million commitment as part of the Gateway transportation program, so that people for the first time can not only cycle but walk over the Port Mann Bridge — something they cannot do today without taking their own life and putting it at risk.

It will extend HOV lanes out to Langley, something that has been called for as part of our livable regions strategic plan for 20 years but, again, up until this point has not been acted upon.

Government will approve the tolling framework to ensure that we protect the public interest. It's quite the opposite to what we heard from many of the members opposite who apparently haven’t read the bill and don't understand what's actually written on the page. This will, in fact, make sure that the tolling framework is decided by government. It's not going to be decided by the concessionaire.

We will also ensure, and I would remind the members opposite…. They're apparently startled and rather surprised that there's a Crown corporation being created, yet interestingly enough, when the members opposite were building the Millennium line, they set up a Crown corporation called RTP 2000 to manage the Millennium line project. Now, I know their memory is short, but surely they would remember their own project. It was the only one they can literally point to in a decade in power. I would have thought that they would have remembered that they set up a Crown corporation to manage that.

The new entity, of course, will fall under FOI legislation. It will be required to report back to the Legislature. There will be increased transparency and accountability, something that I hear every once in a while from the members opposite. They ought to be happy with that. The cost to the public is going to be very marginal.

As I mentioned earlier in my opening remarks, the board will be comprised primarily of senior civil servants. They're senior civil servants who do an exceptional job on behalf of the province of British Columbia, yet that doesn't matter, because the members opposite constantly have conspiracies. It's interesting, actually, to hear out their conspiracy theories. I know that they're trying to paper over the fact that they haven't yet come up with what the Leader of the Opposition calls a consensus position on this particular project.

It's worth putting on the record that it's been over two years since we actually, as a government, announced the Gateway transportation plan. We're going to be awarding the contract this fall for the construction of that bridge. The construction of the Pitt River Bridge on the north side of the Fraser is part of the Gateway project. It's actually under construction. The 156th Street underpass, which is going to be a key part of the completed Port Mann twinning, is under construction today as we speak and being very delivered very capably by the city of Surrey.

In spite of the fact that we've got a major project under construction — that we've got in our own

budget, which I would refer the members to, over the next three years over $600 million that will be invested as part of this $3 billion project — the members opposite are still trying to come to a position as to whether they support the project or not.

The fact of the matter is — and this is why it causes such turmoil in the opposition ranks — that the public strongly supports this twinning. The public understands that the original bridge, built in 1963 — without the cycling component, without any ability to put light rail over it, without any busing options — was built at a time when the population of the GVRD was 800,000. Today it's almost 2.4 million people, with the same infrastructure.

The fact that we're trying to deal with that and the fact that we're trying to move forward on a project which, by the way, ironically enough, the NDP promised in the '90s…. But it was just one of the many, many promises they made that were broken, and of course, there was absolutely not one dollar put towards actually getting it done. The difference is that we're moving forward on it, and this bill is a recognition of that.

During this second reading debate I've had an opportunity to listen to some of the members. I heard the member for Surrey-Newton say: "We've been on record that we support Port Mann twinning." Well, that's kind of news to me, because the last I heard, the Leader of the Opposition was on the record, very forcefully, I might add…. That's what was so exciting. There was a moment when I saw a decision being made, and it kind of excited me, because I hadn't seen the Leader of the Opposition or the NDP take a position on a major project.

She very forcefully, in front of all the cameras and the whole world, said: "It is the wrong bridge." Very dramatic. A position was finally taken. Of course, we never heard what the right bridge was. We just heard that this was the wrong bridge.

I was intrigued by that, and I thought: well, okay. So they've finally taken a position. They're now against the Port Mann Bridge, and they're now against the extended HOV lanes, the cycling and the fact that the new bridge will be built to accommodate light rail in the future, when the population growth out in the valley gets to a point where that might be something to be considered. That will all be possible with this new bridge.

Because the Leader of the Opposition took such a strong position and yet I was hearing members of the opposition in this very House, in the previous days, sounding like they were for this, I was genuinely confused. I did the only thing I could do, and that was to just go to the record, Hansard, and go to the record of what people have said in public, because it's written and you can look it up and anyone in the public watching this can check that.

I'll try and give you a sense as to the evolving position, I guess I could say, of the New Democratic Party when it comes to twinning the Port Mann Bridge and the Gateway project. For example, we have the Leader of the Opposition on October 11, 2007, on the Voice of B.C. saying: "When I spoke at UBCM, I said I was against the Premier's Gateway program. I was against it. It's the wrong plan. In fact, it's old thinking." She was asked: "So no to Gordon Campbell's plan?" "That's right. It's the wrong bridge." Okay. Well, to me that sounds pretty decisive, especially for the Leader of the Opposition.

Then I had the member for Delta North in the Surrey Leader newspaper, January 7, 2007, and the quote was: "Until all viable options have been explored, I don't think it should be built." Then we had the member for Burnaby-Edmonds, in Hansard April 24, 2006: "Twinning of the Port Mann Bridge is bad planning and is only a short-term band-aid approach to governance."

That sounds strikingly, to me, as though they're not particularly supportive of the Port Mann Bridge. But hold on. I ask the viewing audience out there to stay tuned here, because I've now got some different quotes.

Now I've got the Leader of the Opposition on that very same…. That can't be true. Is it the same program? It is the same program — October 11, 2007, Voice of B.C. The very same opposition leader is now saying: "I've been very upfront about the fact that I'm not opposed to a bridge. I'm not at all opposed to a bridge." So she's not opposed to a bridge, but she doesn't support that bridge. There's a mysterious bridge out there floating around somewhere that she supports. She just hasn't quite figured out where it's supposed to land.

Then we had the member for Surrey-Whalley on September 28, 2007. No doubt in reaction to the Leader of the Opposition taking a position for the first time ever on a major project, the member from Surrey-Whalley says: "Carole James has not said that she opposes building a bridge. A bridge is part of the solution. A bridge will be built."

Well, that's interesting. Literally days after the Leader of the Opposition took a position, her own MLAs from Surrey are running around saying exactly the opposite. The member for Surrey-Newton in the Globe and Mail, page S01, September 28, 2007: "It's going to be built. As far as my constituents are concerned, they overwhelmingly support twinning of the bridge and improving the transit system." Well, that's interesting too, because the member is now in direct contradiction to what his own leader is saying about it.

I don't know about you, but I find the mixed messages coming from the members opposite to be rather confusing. One of the beauties of Bill 14 is that it finally will allow for clarity — clarity for the members of the

opposition to actually stand up and vote on a bill and make a decision publicly that they can be held accountable for, and I'm looking forward to that.

I will commend some of the members opposite who have gone against the wishes, apparently, of their own leader, who said, I remind the public, "It's the wrong bridge and the wrong plan" — about as definitive an opposition as you can possibly get. I appreciate that some members, at least, recognizing that that's diametrically opposed to 90 percent of what the public thinks, are panicking and trying to get on the other side of the issue.

Maybe this is part of what the NDP calls consensus decision-making and coming to a consensus. The Leader of the Opposition talks about that a lot. I'll be interested in seeing how that pans out when the vote comes.

But I did listen to the members talk about: "Well, you know, we don't know whether this bridge will ever be built." This is their favourite line, by the way. I hear this often. I heard this when we talked about building the Canada line. The members opposite said: "Well, we don't think it will ever be built." I heard it when we talked about the Pitt River bridge. "Oh, it's never going to be built. I don't see enough money in the budget."

The NDP still haven't figured out how to budget, I'm sorry to say. They think that you put the entire budget of a project in the budget year in which you announce the project. I patiently try to explain to them that these projects get built over a number of years, and you actually don't need all the money up front. But it doesn't work. No matter how much I try to explain the obvious, they continue to just disbelieve, in spite of the fact that we have example after example. I'm just going to go through them.

The Pitt River bridge, the NDP promised. In fact, they promised it numerous times. The only thing they didn't do was deliver it or deliver any dollars for it. So we did. It's under construction today.

The Sea to Sky Highway. Again, promised by the NDP. They said they were going to build it. The only thing they didn't do to follow up on the promise was put any dollars towards it and actually get it built. We did. It's under construction. It's ahead of schedule. It will be built on budget.

The Canada line. They talked about rapid transit, and they talked about getting these things done. But, again, the one thing that was missing was the commitment of dollars and the initiative to actually get it done. They opposed the Canada line, and because of the leadership of our Premier and the support of the Finance Minister, the Canada line today is being built ahead of schedule and on budget.

The Evergreen line. This is the best one. They promised the Evergreen line. They even said they would commit $170 million towards it. Now the problem was that they didn't include one dollar in a budget anywhere for that $170 million commitment. It was another unfunded commitment, a broken promise to the people of the Tri-Cities.

So what did our government do? Our government said that we would honour the money that they did not put aside. We would honour the $170 million, and then the Premier, back in January, said that we would increase our contribution from $170 million to $410 million so that this thing would get built. And we said that we would go after the federal government and bring money. The federal government has delivered $67 million within the span of four weeks from when we asked them for the dollars, and they will be there for the balance. That is a project that…. We are now building a project office in Coquitlam and getting it built.

That's the difference between this government and the opposition. The opposition leader appears to have this idea that whenever you have an idea about a project that what you need to do is to have a sit-down and chat and talk to everyone — talk endlessly and, perhaps, even make promises. Don't worry about putting dollars towards it. Don't worry about being held to account. Just have a chat. Have a nice chat with everyone. Well, I'll tell you, that's not how things get done.

Then the member for Vancouver-Hastings talks about his horror, in addition, of course, to talking about Burns Bog and neglecting or forgetting the fact that his government planned on moving a theme park there and paving the thing. Our government said, "No, actually, we're going to go out and preserve Burns Bog," which we did in perpetuity, by acquiring it. He was horrified by the prospect of using a P3. He doubted again. He had skepticism about the largest public transit plan ever announced in this province's history — $14 billion. He said: "Gee, I don't see the money." The member couldn't see the money.

Hon. K. Falcon: I hear the member for Surrey–Panorama Ridge saying: "Where's the money?" The tragedy is that they still haven't learned to read a budget. If they actually went to our budget…. In fact, I will walk them through to the page number — it's 56 — and they will find that there's over $370 million just in the next three years for the public transit initiatives that we announced as part of the transit plan.

Hon. K. Falcon: The member opposite, again, says: "Gee, I don't get that. The whole $14 billion isn't there. Gee, if the whole $14 billion is not there, then it can't be a plan." I have to patiently remind the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, who still can't read a balance sheet or an income statement, that the reason is that these projects get built over many years, just like the Canada line, Member. I'll remind the member for Vancouver-Kingsway…

Hon. K. Falcon: …through the Chair, that the Canada line gets built over a number of years, and the

dollars flow over a number of years. If the members could learn to understand budgeting, boy, the discussions we could have in this House would be so much more fulfilling and so much more based on fact instead of a complete lack of knowledge.

So then we had the member from…. Now this was great, because there's so much good stuff that went on. We had the member from Surrey–Panorama talk about business plans. The member from Surrey–Panorama talked about how he once ran a business advising people on how to get jobs funded by the federal government, and this gave him that insight that is so critical to understanding business plans.

But, you know, the problem is that the member forgot that we actually had this discussion in previous estimates. I pointed out to the member that, yes, there was a business plan. In fact, the member could go look at the business case. It showed a 4-to-1 business….

Hon. K. Falcon: Is there an echo in here? The member from Surrey–Panorama apparently doesn't understand that he had his moment to speak. I'm just pointing out to the member that if the member would understand the business case — not only did it show a 4-to-1 benefit-cost ratio, one of the best benefit-cost ratios you can find — the work that was done on that project and the business case was extensive, but it would require some effort. He would have to go on the Internet and look it up. I realize that is a challenge sometimes for the members opposite, but they may want to make a little bit of effort.

You know, the member talked about how he was going to be against this bill, and I'm glad to hear that. I'm really glad to hear that, because the members and the residents of Surrey, who I have come to know very well over my many years of living in that community, will be very interested to know that the member from Surrey–Panorama is opposing this bill and the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge.

But you know, it's the same member that talked about: "Where's the money?" And once again I have to take them to page 56 of the budget. Page 56 of the budget shows, today and over the next three years, over $600 million for the Gateway program, with projects under construction and concession to be awarded on the Port Mann twinning this fall. We've got the South Fraser perimeter road in final environmental stage approval, and yet the members opposite are still debating whether they need to support it. It is really something to behold.

Then I had the pleasure of listening to the member for New Westminster. You know, when they talk about P3s…. I realize that some of their public sector union backers don't like the idea of private-public partnerships. I get that. But you would think that with over $8 billion of projects and 24 different projects in the province of British Columbia, characterized by two things — the fact that all of them are either ahead of schedule or on schedule or under budget or on budget…. You would think that with that scale and scope of evidence, even the socialist NDP would have to say to themselves: "My goodness, they may be on to something here." You know, you'd think they would look at their fast ferries and say: "I'm not sure whether the way we did it, which resulted in three boats that are sitting unused across the harbour…."

For the benefit of anyone that finds themselves in downtown, I encourage them to look across the harbour towards North Vancouver. You'll see the evidence of the NDP approach to building major projects. Three fast ferries, over $400 million written off, and they sit there unused. They bankrupted B.C. Ferry Corporation. That is the legacy and that is the approach that they, in fact….

They plead with government: "We must go back to having government take on all the risks. Why would we dare set up a situation where you transfer that risk to the private sector? Let us as government take on that risk." That's the NDP cry. But we're not going to do that, because we know what the evidence is. They should have learned their lessons. They obviously didn't.

The member for New Westminster, in an effort to find reasons why they want to oppose private-public partnerships, reached all the way over to the Soviet Union, and he talked about Boris Yeltsin and some of his failed privatization initiatives.

Now look, I have to tell you I know how upset the NDP are that the Soviet Union is here no longer. I know how much they were saddened by the collapse of socialism internationally and all around the world. They were devastated, and it was no doubt so upsetting to them. But to have to reach across to the Soviet Union and talk about a project nobody has…. He couldn't even name a project, but apparently, something went wrong there to Boris Yeltsin.

To somehow say that that's why we ought to stop moving forward with private-public partnerships — over 24 of them, representing over $8 billion in capital delivered on schedule, on budget — because they found out something went wrong in the old Soviet Union…. That just shows you how completely bankrupt of ideas and facts and information the opposition is.

The final thing that the members like to say that is also wrong is that we do this because we're trying to make sure the debt is not on the government's books. You'll hear this theme picked up by all the different members at different times, and they're wrong about that again.

I just wish when we had these debates in this House that somebody on the opposition would do their homework, that they would read the legislation, that they would understand how the accounting treatment for P3s is undertaken in the province of British Columbia — with, by the way, total concurrence and sign-off of the Auditor General. We work under the auspices of the Auditor General. The members opposite ought to know that, but they still seem to have some trouble accepting those basic facts.

What we have now is an important moment for the members of the New Democratic Party in the opposi-

tion, because the opposition are now going to have a situation where they are going to be held to account. They are going to have to vote on a bill that will be a determinant as to whether or not the Port Mann Bridge is able to go ahead.

That's what Bill 14 is all about. It sets up a Crown corporation. Just as they set up the Crown corporation to build the Millennium line, this sets up the Crown corporation to build the new Port Mann Bridge and bring all those improvements, all those benefits — the RapidBus, the extended HOV lanes, the fact that you're going to have the largest investment in cycling infrastructure. All of that is part of this.

The members opposite are going to have an opportunity to vote. I recognize that that's a challenge for them. I read into the record their differing positions on this.

We talked about how the NDP leader was so strongly against it. Within hours, the members from Surrey were running out to their local media, saying: "Oh, no. That's not really what she meant. We actually support it. Don't worry. We support this thing. She didn't sound like she did, but we really actually do." She says: "Well, it's not the right bridge at the right time." So apparently, there's another bridge out there somewhere that will land at the right time and become a bridge that they can support.

Let me just put on the record where this government stands. As with the Canada line, as with the Sea to Sky Highway, as with the Kicking Horse Canyon, as with the Pitt River Bridge, as with the $285 million of improvements we're doing to border infrastructure, we do exactly what we say we're going to do. We are going to twin the Port Mann Bridge. We are going to widen No. 1.

We have stood up, and we have defended why we're doing it. We've talked about the benefits that will result from it.

Nowhere have we seen a member of the opposition stand up and in any way say anything positive or say that they want to be counted and that they want to support it. I know that is always the case…. I see it when I go to announce the shovels in the ground for the Pitt River Bridge. Suddenly I look in the audience, and there, almost as if by a miracle, I see NDP members appearing. How is that? They oppose these projects, and yet when the announcements come forward and we're about to get going, the first thing I see is them trying to get onstage, and they want to be part of the announcement.

Well, I want to be clear about this. When you spend all your time opposing these major projects, you don't actually get to stand on that stage and pretend to take credit for something you opposed.

We are actually going to make sure that these projects get built, just like we did with the Canada line, just like we did with the Evergreen line, and we will do it over the opposition of the NDP. We will do it for the benefit of British Columbians and the Lower Mainland.

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

Bill 14, Transportation Investment (Port Mann Twinning) Amendment Act, 2008, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. B. Penner: I call second reading of Bill 21, Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2008.

Hon. G. Abbott: I move that Bill 21, Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2008, be read for the second time now.

As outlined in first reading, the Medicare Protection Amendment Act defines and enshrines the Canada Health Act's five principles and adds a sixth principle of sustainability for the province of British Columbia. The act also enshrines the values of personal responsibility, individual choice, innovation, transparency and accountability.

Government is making these changes so there's the utmost clarity around what the Canada Health Act means for British Columbians, what it stands for and how it's going to be there in the future for our children and grandchildren. The throne speech makes it very clear. Government is committed to the Canada Health Act, to our public health system and to the continued health care of British Columbians.

Last year the province launched the Conversation on Health, the largest and most wide-ranging public discussion and consultation on health this province has ever seen. Notwithstanding, I think, some regular disparagement about the process from the opposition, we heard some 12,000 submissions from the people of British Columbia, and we heard them from all over the province. We asked British Columbians to take an active role in the discussion and help shape the future of health care, and that they did.

A number of strong themes emerged from this consultation. British Columbians want an accountable and transparent system of care where the patient is first, where the system revolves around the needs of the patient. British Columbians want a sustainable health care system that focuses on preventative health and ensures access to high-quality care and health care providers. Finally, they want improved access, choice, quality and accountability in public health delivery.

As referenced extensively in the throne speech, a number of initiatives will be implemented to improve choice, quality and accessibility in health care to ensure that the health care system will be there for future generations. Amendments to the Medicare Protection Act provide clear definitions for the Canada Health Act principles of public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility. A clearly defined sixth principle of sustainability will also be added. The addition of these expanded definitions will not change how the Medical Services Plan is administered nor how the Medical Services Commission functions.

We have some serious challenges to sustainability. Health expenditures have grown at more than twice the rate of GDP over the last 20 years. They are growing at nearly quadruple the rate of inflation in this past decade. Everyone knows health care costs rise as a person ages. With the aging demographic of baby boomers, it's clear that costs to our health care system will continue to increase. Chronic diseases are also growing at alarming rates, and the cost to manage and treat those diseases is growing as well. Some 80 percent of demand on MSP, Pharmacare and acute care hospitals comes from patients with multiple chronic conditions.

The increasing use of medical services and the increased costs of new technologies have helped to contribute to our health care budget growing by several billion dollars over the last seven years. In fact, when we took office in 2001, the budget for health care in the province of British Columbia was $8.3 billion. In the current fiscal year, that rises to about $14.4 billion, excluding capital expenditures — over $14 billion. Currently, nearly 45 percent of total government ministry spending is on health care, and that number has the potential to substantially increase over the next ten years, due to the increased cost pressures.

If we look back about 20 years, the percentage of the overall provincial budget occupied by health care was about 28 percent. Back in 1995, just over a decade ago, the NDP Health Minister of the day Penny Priddy, in advising that the share of the provincial budget had grown to 35 percent of the overall provincial budget, said: "Surely 35 percent is enough."

Well, it hasn't been, and the budget continues to grow. As I say, it's now about 45 percent in the current budget year. We expect that by 2013, we will see the percentage of the provincial budget occupied by health care to be probably just over 50 percent.

Government is committed to a sustainable health care system that delivers excellent health care and is affordable and manageable to the province. Government acknowledges that British Columbians want better access, greater choice, increased flexibility and new options under their public health care system. We need to ensure that the public health care resources are managed efficiently in achieving quality patient care. We want to put in place ways to address patient choice, to give patients the opportunity to seek treatment in more than one way.

Our broader legislative program for this spring will provide the foundation for furthering these objectives. Access to qualified health professionals will be substantially expanded. We want to make better use of the expertise of pharmacists, naturopaths, nurses, ambulance paramedics and midwives as part of the overall health care team.

For example, pharmacists will have the authority to authorize prescription renewals for routine prescriptions, making it easier and more convenient for patients with chronic medications to manage their conditions. Naturopaths will be permitted to prescribe medicinal therapies as appropriate, and restrictions on their access to medical labs for prescribed tests for patients will be removed. Nurses will be trained and authorized to deliver a broader range of health services, such as suturing, ultrasounds, allergy testing, local anaesthesia and cardiac stress testing.

Ambulance paramedics will be authorized to treat and release where appropriate. This will not only be a time-saving measure for patients but also help to decongest emergency rooms. And midwives, finally, will be authorized to deliver a broader range of services

without a physician present to new and expectant mothers who choose to utilize their services.

These are examples of the kinds of things that we can do within the health care system to add innovation, to add choice and to add flexibility. These measures will be bolstered by expanded access to primary care, new independent living options and improved service levels in assisted living and residential care.

Teams of health professionals working together for patients will be available 24 hours a day to provide clinically appropriate care that is now only available in emergency rooms. New tools and support services will be created to help home care givers and family members who are providing in-home care.

Obviously, we'll have to work with various colleges and partners to establish what an appropriate time frame will be for these initiatives. In terms of health system renewal, the fact of the matter is that these actions will enhance the availability of choices for patients, and that's what British Columbians want.

Our government is moving ahead on a range of valuable ideas for health renewal, and this government wants to provide British Columbians with the very best in health care. We're committed to building a public health care system that's founded on the values of individual choice, personal responsibility, innovation, transparency and accountability.

We want to ensure that all patients in this province have timely access to top-quality treatment. Very importantly, we want to ensure that our publicly funded health care system is here not only for our own generation but for our children, our grandchildren and all future generations in British Columbia.

That is the B.C. Liberal health plan and a B.C. Liberal health plan that I am very proud of. I am looking forward to the comments of other members of this House. I'm particularly looking forward….

Hon. G. Abbott: Good. We're going to have some people on the other side of the House who are planning to speak. That will be very welcome, because I am looking forward to hearing from the opposition and having the opposition tell us about their plan. I don't know. I hope that's the case.

I see some hands going up on the other side. As former school teachers, of course, we're appreciative when hands go up on the other side. We think that when the hands go up, they may have answers to questions, so of course we'll be looking forward to hearing those answers.

I hope this is not a case of what we heard previously in this session — the NDP reflexively and ritualistically opposing any form of human endeavour in this province. I do hope they can find the time to tell us a little bit about their plan, to really put to rest the notion that the NDP opposes all forms of human activity.

I personally can't believe that would be the case, so I do look forward to seeing all the people underneath those hands springing to their feet to fill in what is at the moment — one must concede — a fairly blank puzzle in terms of what the NDP health plan is. So I do look forward to that.

I know that one day recently I said — and I've regretted it ever since — that the NDP must stand for no discernible policies. I've regretted that, because I'm sure there must be discernible policies, and I'm sure in the debate that will follow here, we will hear some of those policies. I'm looking forward to that, because the NDP health plan to date has been a combination of fearmongering, which is very unfortunate, and reflexive spending — commitments to spend, spend, spend whenever confronted by a policy, never looking at ways of resolving that problem or thinking about innovation or best practices. It's always spend, spend, spend.

I am sure I'm wrong on this point. That's why, like all members of government, we are looking very much forward to the NDP's comments here. I think they'll move beyond that. I think they'll actually tell us today and in subsequent days what their NDP health plan is.

I think that's very important because, you know, the people of British Columbia have a right to be concerned about what the NDP health plan would be. Members of the opposition here today — and I'm sure they'll remember this…. One of the things that characterized the NDP health policy back in the 1990s was that they bought entirely into the notion, which was then very commonly accepted, that the way to limit health care costs would be to limit the number of health care professionals practising in the province of British Columbia.

I think the opposition Health critic was confronted with that suggestion on Voice of B.C. or one of those shows. Maybe it was Paul Ramsey who admitted that perhaps they bought into that misguided notion a little bit more than they should have.

So I think, in fairness to the people of British Columbia, that of course they're going to be interested in hearing whether the NDP have reformed. Or are they still wedded to the notion that the way to control health care costs is to control the number of health care professionals practising in the province of British Columbia?

I'm looking forward to that. I think it's going to be very educational to hear whether they have moved from where they were in the 1990s, where we saw the number of physicians educated in this province remaining static at best. We saw the number of nurses that were graduating in this province actually decline over the period of the 1990s. That is something that I think should arouse the concern of British Columbians.

I don't blame British Columbians for saying: "Gee, we'd really like to know what the NDP's health care policies are because we're really concerned that they may still be wedded to the idea of limiting health care costs by limiting the number of professionals."

As it turned out, back in 1993 there were 839 nurses that graduated in the province of British Columbia — 839. In 2001 — and this is astonishing; this is through a period of provincial growth — 574 nurses graduated in the province. So 839 in 1993 and 574 in 2001 — a 32

percent reduction in the number of nurses being educated in British Columbia. That's an astonishing figure. That is a figure that should take our breath away.

The NDP, if one looks at their socialist roots, should have a strong affection for planning, as I think most people today have a strong affection for planning. How could an NDP government in the 1990s contemplate a 32 percent reduction in the number of nurses that they were educating when they knew full well that demographically the nursing population was getting older, and that a decade later there would be many nurses between 55 and 65 years of age contemplating retirement?

How is it that they would deliberately sponsor an approach to managing human resources that would see a reduction in the number of nurses being educated in British Columbia by 32 percent? That is a good reason why British Columbians would like to know: what is the NDP policy today? Are they going to support what the B.C. Liberal government has done in respect of doctors and nurses being educated in this province?

Will they continue to support what we have done, which we celebrated last September — a doubling of the number of physicians being educated in this province? We've gone from 128, which was consistent through the NDP years, to 256 physicians that will be graduating in the province. Since we took office in 2001 — this is an astonishing achievement — we have doubled the number of physicians that we are educating in British Columbia.

Naturally, British Columbians will want to hear from the NDP whether they support the 256 annually that are being educated in the province of British Columbia. Or will they go back to the number of 128 that held right through the period from 1991 to 2001, which we call the dark decade?

We'll look forward to that, and I know the members will want to seize this opportunity to reassure British Columbians that they have reformed in their thought, that they have moved away from limiting health care costs by limiting the number of health professionals. I look forward to that, because I'll want to see that they have in fact moved away from that.

I think they'll also want to see whether they support the B.C. Liberal government's 83 percent increase in the number of nurses being educated in the province. Again, I think this is quite a remarkable change that has occurred. We have gone from an era of 1991 to 2001, where we literally saw reductions of hundreds of nursing graduates annually in the province — a huge reduction. We have gone from there to an 83 percent increase in the number of nurses that we're now educating in this province — 3,000.

Yes, it's a great achievement — 3,383 new nursing spaces in British Columbia in just the past few years — and we're going to be increasing that again in the very near term. Are we going to catch up to the self-imposed reductions that the NDP brought during the 1990s?

Well, it's going to be tough, because you can't educate a nurse overnight. You can't educate a doctor overnight, but we've made the bold investments. We've made the strong moves, in terms of educating 83 percent more nurses in this province and increasing by 100 percent the number of physicians that we are educating in this province. It will go a long way to dealing with that self-imposed shortage that the NDP were so rigorously wedded to throughout the 1990s.

The other area where I think we'll be interested…. Will the NDP support the three-year nursing degree? That's something we worked hard on with the B.C. Nurses Union to develop an intensive three-year nursing degree. Will the NDP support that, or will they demand that we go back to something of the past? Will the NDP finally acknowledge that international medical graduates were a dramatically underutilized resource during the 1990s? You still hear stories.

Hon. G. Abbott: Apparently they're saying no, they can't go that far. We'll wait and hear what they have to say about international medical graduates. I'll be fascinated to hear.

Did you know…? I'm sure you did, Madam Chair, because you're a former Health Minister — or a portion of Health. You would recall very clearly that all through that period in the 1990s the number of international medical graduate residency spaces in the province was two.

No amount of begging by the international medical graduates or underserviced communities in the province of British Columbia would get them to shift off two residency spaces for international medical graduates — two spaces throughout the 1990s.

Well, I am proud to say that after taking office, we tripled that to six IMG residency spaces and then, more recently, in 2005, because I had the opportunity to do it, tripled it again to 18 residency spaces for international medical graduates in British Columbia. That has been a huge step forward.

Naturally, British Columbians are going to want to hear what the NDP has to say about that. Are the NDP going to support that dramatic expansion in the number of residency spaces for international medical graduates? Or are they still wedded to what was the hallmark of their health care policy, which was limiting health care costs by limiting the number of health care professionals? I think we will very much look forward to hearing that. I know all British Columbians will be looking forward to hearing that.

I've heard some disparaging remarks on this new group of health professionals from the opposition in the past, so I'll be keenly listening to this. I'll be listening to hear if nurse practitioners are part of the NDP's health care plan. They're looking at me with some puzzlement, and rightly so, because again, notwithstanding a lot of urging, they declined to have any nurse practitioner education program in British Columbia through the 1990s. There was not a single….

Hon. G. Abbott: The member laughs. The opposition Health critic laughs, but he'll have to get up and tell us what happened to the nurse practitioner program. Did it fall off the NDP agenda at the last moment? There was not one single nurse practitioner that was educated in the province during the 1990s.

Now, the members ritually like to get up and advance their case for a revisionist history of the 1990s, and I'll look forward to that. But I want to hear from the members opposite whether they now support nurse practitioners in the province of British Columbia. Is that part of their health care agenda in the province, or will it somehow disappear and maybe not be something that they want to fund or support?

Again, it is inconsistent with the notion of limiting health care costs by limiting the number of health care professionals. I'm looking forward to hearing what their views are now on nurse practitioners, because our government made the investment to bring in a nurse practitioner program in British Columbia.

We're now graduating 45 nurse practitioners every year in the province. Those nurse practitioners have proven to be a remarkably valuable resource in a variety of settings in British Columbia. Whether it's in emergency departments, whether it's in rural health situations, whether it's in underserviced communities in either urban or rural settings, they have been remarkably helpful.

The other area where I think we would be very interested in hearing the NDP's policy positions is around the area of residential care and assisted living. Back in the day, the 1990s, there was a total of some 1,400 residential care and assisted-living units completed by the NDP government — 1,400 units over ten years.

I am delighted to advise that just recently, a couple of weeks ago, I attended a very happy event in Vancouver, where we celebrated over 4,000 incremental residential care and assisted-living units in British Columbia since we took office in 2001. Those are not 4,000 beds. Those are 4,000 fine homes for people who need either assisted-living or residential care.

It has been a huge investment of hundreds of millions of dollars by our government, one that I'm very, very proud of. It is a huge step forward. I think that quite rightly, British Columbians would like to know whether the NDP supports that expansion of residential care and assisted living — and if they don't, to be blunt about it.

Not only have we now achieved more than 4,000 incremental expansions of residential care and assisted living — and we'll be hitting 5,000 later in 2008 — but we have also, during our years in office since 2001, updated, remediated, improved, retrofitted close to 6,000 other units across the province. That's something I'm very proud of. That is a very important part of our B.C. Liberal health plan.

But what's the NDP health plan? I'd love to hear that. I know they boldly committed back in the 2005 election to doing 1,000 units in the years after 2005. We have done over 4,000, and we will hit 5,000 later this year — over 5,000.

There are a lot of question marks in relation not just to the NDP themselves but to their policies. There are a lot of question marks in relation to the NDP policies for health care, and we do look forward to hearing about that.

We do know a few things about NDP ideas on health care. We know, for example, because the opposition Health critic has said it many times…. He has said many times — and I'm sure we'll hear it again today — that we have moved from being the second-highest health care spender back in the NDP day to seventh today in Canada. He repeats that many times and makes it an assertion that somehow there has been a reduction in quality as a result of that.

What he aims to do, I presume — and the member can enlighten us on this point…. What I presume he wishes the NDP to do — and presumably, he speaks for the New Democratic Party in this matter…. I presume he wishes to make British Columbia the second-biggest spender in Canada in terms of health care dollars. I presume that would be the logic of the thing.

Hon. G. Abbott: He's indicating to me that yes, that's correct. He's indicating to me that we should be the second-biggest spender in Canada.

In terms of spending, we would have to move up to the level of Newfoundland in order to be the second-biggest spender. We have to move up to the level of Newfoundland. Interestingly, though, by the Conference Board of Canada's judgment, British Columbia is the No. 1 health care delivery province in the entire nation. Whereas Newfoundland, I think, was No. 8 last time I looked.

Apparently, there's not necessarily a correlation between highest spender and best quality, interestingly enough. Apparently, we have agreement on this point that British Columbia should be the second-highest spender. To move up to that level, by very careful calculation, would involve the expenditure of about another $2 billion from the provincial treasury in order to bring us up to the per-capita level of Newfoundland.

What I know the NDP opposition critic will want to do on this point is to explain now: will that $2 billion come from additional taxes?

Hon. G. Abbott: Well, there's a start. There you go. This is the kind of thinking that took us where we went in the 1990s. "Oh well, we could just have that tax." Exactly, Member. Just that tax. There's a start. "There's a start," he says. So yes, $2 billion.

The members can tell us, and the member from over there is certainly on the right track. I'll look forward to him going through enumerating where they will find either $2 billion in tax increases or where they will see that $2 billion gathered from Education, Advanced Education, Children and Family Development, Environment, even Transportation, although

apparently they oppose all forms of human activity in relation to transportation.

Maybe that's not a problem. Maybe it's just that one big tax increase, plus taking away all the money from Transportation, because you don't want to do any of that anyway. So there you might have the $2 billion that you can devote to more health care.

These are the kinds of important questions that I know members of the opposition will want to enumerate as they have their opportunity to speak to that bill. That's really, I think, what they need to do. Is it tax? Is it taking dollars away from other ministries? Or is how you get to $2 billion a combination of those two things?

I think the NDP owes it to taxpayers, to patients to tell us what they will do in respect of that point. In fact, knowing just how intuitive this group is in terms of defining positions, I suspect they may be on to something. Where the NDP wants the most expensive health care system in Canada, I think all we want is to have the very best health care system in Canada.

We look forward to the opposition enumerating its position in respect to being the most expensive, because "most expensive" and "best" are two different things. If you look at the report, the comprehensive report of the Conference Board of Canada — 119 different factors, elements that the Conference Board of Canada looked at in terms of the success of health care delivery systems across Canada — what it showed, and showed in a very definite way, was that British Columbia has the very best health care delivery system in the nation.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it capable of improvement? Absolutely. That is why we are undertaking many of the bold measures that are contained in this bill and other bills that we will be discussing later on in this session.

But it's not just the Conference Board of Canada. The members opposite may wish to disparage that report or the Conference Board. The Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada — British Columbia, number 1. No jurisdiction in Canada holds a candle to British Columbia in terms of cancer care, cancer outcomes, programs around prevention, diagnosis, treatment, research. Right across the continuum of cancer care British Columbia is number 1 by a huge margin.

The B.C. Cancer Agency and cancer control in British Columbia are things we should be enormously proud of. You know, the NDP should be proud of them too. They helped build the B.C. Cancer Agency. They should be proud of it too. All I want to hear from them is that they continue to support it and continue to support the direction that we are taking in British Columbia in respect of cancer control. I'd really love to hear that.

I'd really love to hear that they're now supportive of more oncologists being educated in the province of British Columbia, that more nurses are welcome in the health care system of British Columbia. I won't repeat what I did earlier, but again, I think British Columbians have a right to know where we are going.

I'm sure one of the things we will hear regularly here from the NDP is that the term "sustainability" is some kind of code for some conspiratorial attempt to privatize the public health care system in British Columbia. I'm confident we'll hear that, because that's the kind of nonsense that has been consistently peddled by the opposition Health critic and the opposition leader during the past couple of weeks. It's a lot of nonsense, and I'm sure we will hear that more and more from the opposition.

I'm sure they'll…. I hope they'll vote for this legislation, but given that they've opposed everything else during this session, I expect they will be opposing sustainability as well, even though, as we noted when we introduced the bill, sustainability was something that concerned Paul Ramsey, the NDP Health Minister, as well, back in 1995. It's hard to believe now, but he felt strongly enough about sustainability that he actually put the reference to sustainability and what it meant into the preamble of the bill.

Yet now having it elsewhere in the bill is a conspiracy to rob British Columbians of the public health care system. It is interesting. The grassy knoll can be a very large place, I guess. It includes not just me. Paul Ramsay is up on the grassy knoll and perhaps many others as well. I do look forward to the NDP articulating that view, very appropriately, because we've heard some of the darnedest things, I must say, in debate on some of the energy bills, and I'm sure we'll hear it around this one as well. We'll look forward to that.

But sustainability is not a code word. Sustainability is an essential concept if we are to hope to have the excellent health care system that we have today be one that our children and our grandchildren can enjoy. There are a lot of reasons why we should be concerned about sustainability challenges.

I know that the NDP will tell us that there are no sustainability challenges. I'll look forward to hearing that. I'll look forward to hearing how they're going to add $2 billion to the health care system. I've explained the concerns that the public does have and should have around that issue.

In light of issues of sustainability, I was very concerned to hear that last Friday, I believe it was, the Leader of the Opposition, at a convention of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, had committed to eliminating, in its entirety, Bill 29. That's very interesting. I'm surprised the opposition members don't clap for that one. She said that she's going to eliminate Bill 29 in its entirety.

As you know, we have a bill that will be coming before this House that deletes three sections of that bill, but the opposition leader….

Hon. G. Abbott: The member asks, Madam Chair, and is inviting a longer dissertation on the Supreme Court's ruling. The Supreme Court struck down three sections of Bill 29. [Applause.]

What the NDP is saying…. At last, they found something that they could support.

If the Leader of the Opposition is committing to eliminating Bill 29 in its entirety, you should clap for this one too. No? No clapping?

I would have thought you'd be quite excited about eliminating Bill 29 in its entirety.

What will occur…. As the opposition, should they ever be elected in the province of British Columbia…. If they are proposing to eliminate Bill 29 in its entirety, they are proposing to return us to the complete inflexibility and unsustainability that characterized the health care system of the 1990s, that characterized NDP health care policies.

I'm looking forward to hearing how the complete elimination of Bill 29 will create that flexibility, and I'll be the designated speaker on the bill for the government, if I may, Madam Speaker.

If the NDP is proposing to eliminate Bill 29 in its entirety…. I'm looking forward to hearing more about this from the opposition members. How are they going to reconcile that complete lack of flexibility with the closure in the 1990s of the St. Paul's emergency room because we didn't have enough flexibility to move emergency department nurses from Vancouver General Hospital to St. Paul's Hospital? How would one even contemplate going back to the absolute rigidity, inflexibility and unsustainability of the health care system that the NDP created in the 1990s?

I want to hear that. If we're talking about the foolish and ill-conceived commitment of the opposition Health critic to another $2 billion in either taxes or cuts to other ministries…. If that's the case, I want to hear how that's wed to the complete elimination of Bill 29 and a return to the inflexibility, to the complete inability of government to manage health care that characterized health care in the 1990s.

How are they going to deal with ERs, emergency departments, that'll be closed because we don't even have enough flexibility in the system to move nurses from one hospital to another? Unbelievable.

Now, another point, I think, around sustainability that I want to speak to briefly here is around the claims of the opposition Health critic that percentage of gross domestic product would be a more appropriate measure of sustainability than the percentage of provincial budget that the health care spending occupies. The opposition Health critic has said this in many venues, most recently on April 8 in an NDP news release entitled "Health Sustainability Opens Door to More B.C. Liberal Off-loading," where he said: "Health spending…."

Hon. G. Abbott: Well, you'll want to hear this. Don't laugh at his quote. It is kind of a tiresome headline, I must agree, but there's no reason to laugh at it. It's your own writer, so don't laugh at your own work. I think that's kind of unfair and unfortunate. I know that your writers are frequently under strain as a consequence of the 30 minutes of question period that you have to fill every day, so don't laugh at them because of poor headlines. I think that's unfortunate.

The quote is this, and this is from the opposition Health critic: "Health spending as a percentage of B.C.'s gross domestic product was 7.4 percent in 2001-2002 and decreased to 6.9 percent in 2006-2007."

This is very, very interesting. He's saying that the percentage of GDP occupied by health care actually declined over those five years. That would be very interesting, were it the case or were there even an argument of any sort that could be made in respect of that. Unfortunately, the claim that is here and that is repeated numerous places elsewhere is entirely specious. It is entirely without basis. It is utter nonsense.

If one goes to reliable sources on these matters…. I hope that both sides of the House can agree that the Canadian Institute for Health Information might be a reliable source for that information. I certainly think it is. I hope all members of the House share the view that that highly reliable, highly professional organization speaks effectively on these matters.

If you go to the CIHI data — this is from National Health Expenditure Trends 1975 to 2007 — it goes through total health expenditure as a percentage of provincial GDP, 1975 to 2007. What that CIHI table shows…. Every year is listed there, but this is typical: 1981, 7.6 percent of GDP; 1991, 9.9 percent of GDP; 2007, 10.9 percent of GDP occupied by health care spending in British Columbia.

What's the difference between what the NDP opposition Health critic is saying and what that reliable, august organization CIHI has to say about it? How do we explain that? I know that the opposition Health critic is going to do that, and he will get an opportunity. I know he's impatient. He wants to get to his feet right now and explain how this works, and I'll look forward to that.

I understand that he arrives at his figure by deducting the portion of the provincial health care spending that derives from the federal government.

Hon. G. Abbott: That's not. Oh, okay. Apparently, he gets it by taking the total health spending times his grandmother's age divided by his uncle's age. No? I don't know. We're going to find out here shortly, anyway.

Now everyone is on pins and needles, including me, to hear the explanation that the opposition Health critic is going to have around gross domestic product and the share that health care spending occupies. I know my colleague over here who is, I think, a Harvard-trained economist is looking forward to hearing that explanation from the opposition Health critic as well. Yeah, we'll look forward to seeing that. Apparently, something's down on paper that helps to support it, and we'll look forward to seeing that.

I'll table this for the member. It is the CIHI figures for 1975 to 2007. I'm sure he'll have lots of reasons to agree that CIHI….

Hon. G. Abbott: Oh, Canadian Centre for Policy…. You're not basing your claims on Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, are you?

Hon. G. Abbott: Oh, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Wow. That is fabulous. So we're going to take some digestion of Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, put it up against the Canadian Institute for Health Information and make specious claims about the portion of GDP that is occupied by health care spending. Well, that is the sound of hitting the bottom of the barrel, when you pull in Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives to try to justify the absolutely specious nonsense that the NDP is trotting out here. It's going to be fabulous to hear that.

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Is that the same Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that, on the last day of leaving government in British Columbia back in 2001, they gave a whole bunch of money to so that they could continue their work? That same Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives? No, can't be.

And now we're going to use their figures to try to justify specious claims about proportion of the GDP that's occupied by health care spending. Well, that's a new one. We're going to look forward to hearing that for sure. That's going to be fabulous. The thing is….

Hon. G. Abbott: We've got the member from free lunches over here involved in it as well.

Hon. G. Abbott: Thank you, Madam Chair, and forgive my flight of rhetoric there. I know that I got everyone way too excited here. Let's bring the level down again and return to the calm discourse that so often characterizes this House.

The fact of the matter is that except maybe the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, no one buys the nonsense being trotted out by the opposition Health critic. No one who has the slightest affection towards reality and proper social science gives a moment's credibility to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. They have a rigorous ideological agenda. Everyone knows that, and we'll look forward to hearing from the member on that point.

I'll go to this source, though, and I'm going to conclude here very soon. I know members want to get up. I know that some members are very anxious to inform us about the NDP's health care policies. I did want all members of the House to hear this little bit. This is an article I have here. It is entitled "The Arithmetic of Health Care," and it is taken from a journal called Policy Matters. It's written by Janice MacKinnon.

I think that probably most members of the House would remember Janice MacKinnon. She is currently a professor of public policy at the University of Saskatchewan and, I think, is a very knowledgable individual. As the opposition Health critic was just saying, notably, she was for ten years a cabinet minister in the province of Saskatchewan during the tenure of Premier Roy Romanow. As she was a member of cabinet there for ten years, I think we can all agree that she would be quite a dispassionate source in respect of that.

Hon. G. Abbott: Well, maybe the members don't agree that she could be a dispassionate source, and I'll be very interested to hear what they have to say about what Ms. MacKinnon has to say.

I'd just like to quote briefly from this, because I think this goes to the point. This kind of articulates a more pragmatic, more centred, more non-dogmatic view of the world which, I suppose, in different circumstances and maybe in a different era, a different NDP party might articulate as well.

That is exactly the point that I was attempting to make. Ms. MacKinnon continues:

That's an important point. To me, that articulates very well the challenge we have around sustainability and, I think, very appropriately comes from a former Finance Minister during the government of Roy Romanow, the NDP Premier of Saskatchewan.

Hon. G. Abbott: He was a bad socialist, did you say? Oh, I see. Apparently, I may have hit on a sore point here. Apparently, Roy Romanow was of that moderate stream of New Democrat that is reviled here in the province of British Columbia. Yeah, they are considered to be far too moderate, too pragmatic to ever be able to be a part of this NDP party in British Columbia.

At any rate, I know we can have a lot of fun with that, but I think that the point Ms. MacKinnon is making is a very good one — that we have numerous challenges ahead. We know that in 2026 in British Columbia there will be about 1.2 million British Columbians over the age of 65. That includes me, by the way. Just to make sure that everyone understands, I'm part of the baby boomer generation as well and part of the issue, going forward.

Sustainability is a very important issue for any future government in British Columbia over the next one, two, three or four decades. It will be a huge issue. I hope the NDP surprise me with their comments here and articulate some understanding and, perhaps, sympathy towards the notion of sustainability as well. I doubt it, but optimism fires me every day of the week, so I do want to hope that they'll surprise me with some thoughtful comments in this area.

I can tell you this, Madam Chair, in concluding. For this side of the House we want to have a sustainable health care system, a flexible health care system, an innovative health care system and an effective health care system. In short, we want to continue to have the very best health care system in the entire nation of Canada and one of the best in the entire world.

A. Dix: What an embarrassing performance we just witnessed. The government tables the first legislation in recent memory in British Columbia that negatively affects public health care, at least in terms of the Medicare Protection Act, that weakens the principle of universality, and we hear this partisan nonsense from the Minister of Health.

He didn't have at least the courtesy to explain why the government was taking this step of changing the Medicare Protection Act. All we got was a long speech attacking the NDP. This isn't surprising, because clearly he is embarrassed by this legislation. He should be embarrassed by this legislation. It reminds us, this legislation…. We have to put it in its context, where it came from.

The Minister of Health is always interested in footnoting things. He was talking earlier about the percentage of GDP. The source for it wasn't the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. I don't know why he went off on that tangent. Perhaps he has a particular hate on for that institution or something. It's the B.C. Financial and Economic Review — published, of course, by his colleague the Minister of Finance. That's the source of the information. It's there, and it says precisely what was said in the press release. So that lengthy flight of fancy was very interesting.

On the bill, where did this idea come from? Whose idea was this? Well, I remember the last time in this Legislature that we had a major amendment to the Medicare Protection Amendment Act. The Minister of Health will remember it. Surely, in particular, the Minister of Economic Development will remember it. That Minister of Health, unlike this Minister of Health, introduced legislation in this House to strengthen the Medicare Protection Act in 2003, passed unanimously by this House.

We can't say the key detail, because there are parliamentary rules with respect to certain subjects, but suffice it to say that the decider wasn't involved in that decision. They introduced a piece of legislation in 2003. It got through the cabinet. Oh, I don't know how it got through the cabinet. Somebody wasn't vetting things. It got through the cabinet, and it passed unanimously in the Legislature.

It was supported by most groups interested in public health care. Its intention was to ensure that the Canada Health Act and the Medicare Protection Act were enforced in British Columbia. It was passed by the Legislature at first reading, second reading and third reading, and then it wasn't proclaimed.

What happened? The decider came. He came back from somewhere. It might have been Hawaii. I'm not sure where he came back from, but at the time that legislation came into place, he decided: "I'm sorry." For-profit health care interests got on the phone, and they phoned up…. I don't know who they phoned in the Premier's office; they phoned somebody.

He publicly humiliated his Minister of Health. He said: "I don't agree with this." Never mind that the

whole Legislature passed it. Never mind that they needed it to ensure that the Canada Health Act and the Medicare Protection Act were respected. He decided not to proclaim it. All that didn't matter, because the decider decided.

We are seeing the same process here. In 2000 when this idea was launched, it was launched by the Premier, of course. It was the Premier's idea. He said: "What we need to do is add sustainability to the Canada Health Act." It was his idea.

Then in the Conversation on Health he decided to spend $6 million advertising this idea. That's what happened. He spent $6 million advertising this. Now, what did he say? He said something similar to the Minister of Health. He said that he went to the B.C. Liberal convention. Oh, it was a strong speech on health care there. You bet.

He said, "Health care costs are growing at two to three times the rate of our ability to pay — two to three times." Then what did he say three sentences later? "Yes, we intend to cut taxes again and again in this mandate. The health care system is unsustainable. Basic health care services are unsustainable, but that's not my priority."

This idea came from the Premier. What does the Premier mean when he talks sustainability? What has this government meant in its record when it talked about sustainability? The Minister of Health referred to this. He said that you give health care less priority. You limit the scope of public health care. You move health care burdens from the public, from the health care system onto the sick, and you promote for-profit options. That's his definition of making the health care system more sustainable, a definition that you see in this bill. You see it.

What does he say? What does the Premier say? He says: "Yes, there it is. Our population is rapidly aging. The older we get, the longer we live, the higher our health care goes, even with healthy lives." Then he adds: "Within this mandate, we will provide even greater tax relief for B.C. families."

We say — and the Minister of Health will be interested in this — that the way you deal with health care is to actually make it a priority in British Columbia. That's what we say. We don't need a $6 million ad campaign from the Premier, which is what he gave us, to convince us of this nutty idea, this idea that forms the basis of this legislation — that there's a requirement to change the Canada Health Act and to add this principle to the Canada Health Act.

This idea came from the Premier, and nobody else supported it. What did the Minister of Health for Canada say? The Minister of Health for Canada, Tony Clement, noted New Democrat….

A. Dix: No, he's not a noted New Democrat. You've got to go pretty deep into the 19th century to be more antediluvian than this guy, and he's to the left of this government on these questions.

What did he say when the Premier and the Minister of Health took this idea to Ottawa? He said: "A complete non-starter."

Oh, let me quote what happened. "A chagrined B.C. Health Minister says in response, 'I was….'" What did he say? He said: "I'm surprised he would reject it out of hand." That's what he said.

This is something I am doing for the first time in this House. I'm going to quote Vaughn Palmer, the columnist for The Vancouver Sun, who said: "No one else was surprised."

The reality is….They took this idea on the road — $6 million in advertising — in the Conversation on Health, and unless they introduced it in the discussion, nobody called for this. Nobody asked it. It was the Premier's idea. He advertised like crazy. He spent public dollars, and nobody asked for it. Nobody supported it.

I'm sure that had the Minister of Health had people coming forward and saying, "What a great idea," we would have heard about it in his speech. Nobody supported it then; nobody supports it now. There aren't any validators for this position. It is completely unnecessary in order to address the issues the minister claims he's addressing.

What did the minister say at the time? Today, and recently, he didn't say very much. Recently he said, "Well, really what we're doing here" — I'm quoting from him — "is to highlight in the mind this idea." Even though we're talking about a change to the act, he wants to highlight in the mind the idea of sustainability. That's a reason for legislation.

That's the reason he claims. But at the time, what he was suggesting and what the government was suggesting, in fact, by wanting to reopen the Canada Health Act, of course, was to use this tool to mitigate other principles in the Canada Health Act. That is precisely what this legislation does.

The most important of those, I would suggest — it's not the only important one — is the principle of universality. That was the purpose, hon. Speaker. The Liberals believed that it would provide a check on the act's other five principles, all of which militate in favour of health care spending. The Minister of Health said at the time that that was his purpose. We can't presume to define the words in a federal law, but here we are in a provincial law, so they introduce into this bill the notion of sustainability. They say: "It doesn't mean anything."

The Minister of Health today was completely unwilling to give any argument as to what he's talking about. He mentions all kinds of stuff, you know. He wrote a letter to the Burnaby Now recently. He said that this is really about just sending ourselves a reminder. That's what he said.

Then he attempted to suggest that this was about dealing with people who suffer from chronic disease. That is in fact what putting this in the Medicare Protec-

tion Act was about. It's about dealing with people with chronic disease. From his speech, it seems to have been about the NDP health care record in the 1990s. That seems to be what it was about.

Whatever it was about, it had nothing to do, I would suggest, with the reality of what it means to put sustainability as a principle into the Medicare Protection Act. They failed to make this case. They were laughed out of the room at federal-provincial conferences. Not a single other provincial minister of health supported them. Not a single other provincial jurisdiction supported them. Nobody got up at the Conversation on Health and supported them. No one is supporting them now.

This was an idea of the Premier's — to use this technique as a means of limiting the scope of public health care, of limiting the amount of care British Columbians can expect from their health care system. Regardless of the fact that nobody supports it and that nobody takes it seriously, here it is in this piece of legislation.

It is embarrassing, hon. Speaker. What do they mean? What do they mean when they say: "It has no meaning; it has no significance"? Of course it has meaning. Of course it has significance. It is basic that when you change legislation — in this case, legislation that affects the activity of the courts — it sends a message to the courts.

It sends a message to the Medical Services Commission, to the Minister of Health and to the health authorities that this notion of sustainability is defined by the Minister of Health. It is this notion that sustainability depends on the percentage of provincial budget sent over for the health care budget.

The Minister of Health quoted a number earlier. It didn't appear in this speech today, but it appeared a lot in the advertising around the Conversation on Health. We remember it: 71 percent of the provincial budget by 2017 was going to be spent on health care — 71 percent. They're hiding it. It's somewhere in the backyard now. They're not using that number anymore. They buried it. It had so little credibility.

It was intended to scare people, and it was one of the things that they used to justify this course of action. They don't use it anymore. Now they use, I think, their latest. The latest one is 50 percent by 2013. "Oh, forget about that 71 percent by 2017. Forget about that. We're only, after all, talking about being off by $6 billion. We're only talking about that."

They were saying that, and now they're saying this. So the credibility of that is very much open to question. But here's what we know when we present legislation in the House. We'll just do some basic case law in Canada. What does it say? If the language of the law is changed, an intention to change the law is to be presumed. That's Ottawa v. Hunter. I'll send these over to the minister. I'm sure he'll be interested.

"In enacting legislation, the Legislature must, so far as it's consistent with the language of the act, be presumed to have intended some alteration in the law and not a mere repetition of the previous law" — Conger v. Kennedy.

"In construction of legislation, the court must consider the mischief the legislation has intended to remedy, the provisions of the legislation as a whole and the particular language of the section in question." That's Schofield v. Glenn.

"No part of an act should be treated as ineffectual or as mere surplusage if any other construction is possible" — Williams v. Box and so on.

What we know is what the Minister of Health and the Premier are attempting to say, which is that adding this provision to the law has no meaning, is wrong. It has meaning. It has significant meaning in the context of this bill, this important piece of legislation, and that's the meaning that the Minister of Health should have been talking about today instead of this long rant about things that presumably somebody might be interested in on his back bench.

This is the basic argument about this bill. You look at the structure of the list of principles of the Canada Health Act that's picked up again in the Medicare Protection Act. Let's take what the minister is doing more seriously than the minister took it. The intention is to place sustainability at the same level as the five principles of medicare that were already in the act. It may be the Legislature's intent that in giving guidance to understanding the object of the Medicare Protection Act, sustainability should be understood, in fact, as the primary object of the MPA. It's certainly the primary object of this amendment.

This is important. Sustainability has a different quality than the other principles, which speak to who benefits from medicare; what they will receive; their access to health care; their ability to receive care in their home province, another province; and who will ultimately run and be accountable for the system. It's a different principle. That's not to say we can't have a debate about it, because of course we can. But it is disingenuous in the extreme to suggest it has no meaning, and we're going to discuss what we think the meaning is in a few moments.

I'm going to say this. None of those five medicare principles can be said to conflict with or modify the others. Universality, accessibility and portability are arguably complementary aspects of the same principle. Universality, for example, is not limited or modified by public administration. Sustainability modifies, in the context of the Medicare Protection Act — as interpreted by the courts, as interpreted by the Medical Services Commission, as interpreted by the government — the other principles of the act.

That's the intention of the bill, and the minister fails to address it. He fails to address it. He says that when we address it — when we discuss what the government's intent is and put this bill in the context of the government's actions, which have been repeatedly to undermine the public health care system — we're wrong, and we're engaged in a conspiracy theory. But they do this. They have a bill. They've brought this bill to this Legislative Assembly, and they have no defence, no justification for the need to do it, except platitudes and non sequiturs.

What we have to say…. It's clear that all of the above suggests that as a principle given equal prominence to the others, in a list where it is the only one that can truly modify or limit the others, sustainability is meant to be understood as the key principle which must be weighed in all questions, including against the other principles.

This is what they've done with this legislation. And I remind you…. That's fair enough. The government has the right to act and to bring legislation into this House, but what isn't acceptable is to suggest, "It's just a suggestion. It's just highlighting something. It's not going to change anything. We're still committed, like we were, to universality," when everything they do, everything they say, suggests otherwise.

This was the Premier's vision. This is what he intended to do. This is what he was going to do when he raised this issue. This is what he was going to do and set out to do after he went to Europe with Dr. Vertesi and others. This is what he set out to do before he lost interest a little bit. His vision, in fact, was to mitigate public administration, universality and accessibility. And user fees — they have been encouraged, and they will continue to be encouraged, and privatization and for-profit health care will continue to be encouraged.

Those are the consequences of what they have done. They have decided that the principles of the Canada Health Act, defended by most other parties in Canada, are not their principles. The principles of public health care — which most Canadians, I think, support in their large majority — are not their principles. Well, fair enough.

I understand why those that write the minister's speeches, those in the Ministry of Health and the Minister of Health himself may be embarrassed to have this discussion and this debate. Clearly, it wasn't their idea. Clearly, it wasn't the idea of any people in British Columbia. Clearly it wasn't. It was simply the Premier's idea, and the consequences — we think, in the context of a government that has consistently undermined and shown a lack of priority for public health care — are in fact very significant.

The minister talked about percentages earlier. We talked about the thing that he's now embarrassed about, the embarrassing fact that he buried in the backyard, about claiming it was soon going to be 71 percent of government spending. The whole government said it. They didn't just say it; they advertised it. They sent a letter to every person in British Columbia, and they said it was going to be 71 percent of program spending. That's what they said.

They knew. Surely, they knew. Anyone with an abacus, a pocket calculator, knows that that wasn't in fact the case. Now they're saying something different. The numbers are completely different now. The scary number is now 50 percent in 2013. It's not 70 percent in 2017; it's 50 percent in 2013. That's what they're saying.

The fact of the matter is that the minister may…. We talk about GDP, and we talk about what it says. The people of the B.C. Financial and Economic Review, when I send them the minister's disparaging comments about their work…. You know, it's his long rant and diatribe about the quality of their work. When they say the percentage of health spending, we're talking about… It's different numbers. I think, with great respect to the minister, it's 70 percent public, 30 percent private. That's where you get the 10 percent off, the 7 percent. That's pretty straightforward. That's what it says. That's the source of the information.

After they hear in the Ministry of Finance, the terrible, vicious, nasty, sarcastic comments from the Minister of Health, it's going to be a tough road at Treasury Board next year, I'd suspect. But anyway….

But really, what it does and what the government has done…. The minister talked about using a percentage of the economy — our ability, in fact, to sustain our health care system — as a basis for assessing the sustainability, the continued viability of universality in a public health care system. He says that that's my idea. Oh, maybe the OECD doesn't count. The OECD — are they an NDP organization from the '90s?

A. Dix: A socialist front group. The OECD — well, one of the initials is the same as the CCPA, so maybe the minister doesn't like that.

J. Horgan: There's the confusion right there — four letters and one of them the same.

A. Dix: Four letters. So he didn't like how they do nationally and internationally accepted measures based on the percentage of GDP dedicated to the area. That's the international standard for assessing the cost of health care systems.

When I say that, when everyone else says that, the Minister of Health is in a different space. His space is that if you cut income assistance to single parents, which the Minister of Health voted for in this House and at the cabinet table, it increases the share of the provincial budget for health care spending. When you slash the Ministry of Children and Families in the provincial budget, it increases the share of health care spending. That's the measure, the only measure, that matters to the Minister of Health.

Oh, I don't think the OECD would view it that way. But to the Minister of Health, that's the vital factor.

As we know, when you're looking at the percentage of government spending that goes to health care, it depends on other factors. Non-health-related spending — like when they cut spending for children in care, like when they cut spending for single mothers, that kind of thing. When you engage in that kind of politics, which this government did, then the share

of health spending goes up. The minister says that that's significant, that it tells a significant story about health spending.

Of course, the second issue is how much governments collect in taxes. Of course, when you decide — even though, like this bill, no one asked for it — to cut taxes for the banks, yes, that has an impact on the financial capacity to sustain the universality of our health care system. I think that's obvious.

In fact, if you look at it, the main threats to the sustainability of our public health care system are the Premier and the Minister of Health. The Minister of Health says that he's proud of the fact that we've gone from second place in per-capita health spending to seventh place. He's proud of that fact.

He cites as his defence for this the Conference Board report. The Conference Board report, which showed British Columbia was No. 1 in Canada in terms of health measurements, was primarily based on health indicators from 2000, 2001 and 2002. In other words, the things that made us No. 1 were the NDP record on health care, and that record on health care is used by this government to justify starving resources from the public health care system. It is a shameful and embarrassing thing.

In fact — and we've seen this — health spending as a percentage of GDP has not risen significantly in 20 years, notwithstanding the comments of the Minister of Health. Of course, the document — I'm going to be delighted to send this to the Minister of Health because I know he's fascinated by this — that I'm referring to is page 95 of the B.C. Financial and Economic Review, which says that in '84-85 health care spending was 6.1 percent of GDP. Today it's 6.9 percent.

Now, 6.9 percent is more than 6.1 percent, but the difference between those two numbers over 20 years is not an argument to dismantle public health care, which is the course this government has been on. It is not an argument for that.

This contrasts with another important figure. I think the Minister of Health, as he was trying to work his way through the statistics there, might have been referring to a bit of this. It contrasts significantly with private spending on health care over the same period. According to the Canadian Institute on Health Information — same source as the minister — private spending in B.C. increased in the period from 1988 to 2007 by almost 100 percent. This compares to a dramatically lesser increase in public spending.

In fact, what's happened is that those areas of health care that are not guided, are not part of our universal public health care system, are seeing their costs rise out of control. The answer — the minister also referred to the Romanow commission report — may be, in terms of both the efficiency of our economy and the efficiency of our health care system, to expand the reach of public health care.

Most health care systems have it — 70 percent public, 30 percent private. It's those areas of private spending that have gone dramatically out of control and in particular out of control under this government. So I think on those issues we have to argue.

Let's take another group that I know the minister will disparage, because anyone, of course, who disagrees with the government will be targeted for that. The Canadian Health Services Research Foundation, what do they say?

They say: "Those who argue the system is unsustainable point to public funding and administration as part of the problem, rather than the solution…. However, as simple as this solution may be, it ignores the facts about which costs are rising and by how much, the ability of medicare to adapt, international evidence and, most importantly, the wants and needs of Canadians."

So let's list those down, the things that the minister is against: international evidence, the wants and needs of Canadians and British Columbians, and the facts. That seems to be the conclusion of the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation.

What we have in British Columbia under this Premier and this government is an effort to make our public health care system — which is the source not just of enormous good in our country, the combining of administrative efficiency and social justice — a place for profit. This is the intention of this government and this Premier. Because, in his view, health care is unsustainable, what we need to do is we need to change the rules of the game, and we need to off-load costs from government onto the sick.

The only thing that matters isn't that some people aren't, of course, on extended health plans, don't have to struggle to decide whether to have an eye exam, don't have to struggle to buy prescription drugs. That doesn't matter. We're going to add financial burdens onto all those people.

Let's look at it. Is the private sector able to provide health care at more sustainable — to use the minister's term — costs to society? All of the evidence, all of the evidence at home and abroad, is no. That evidence shows that countries with lower overall percentages of private health care are able to achieve greater efficiencies than countries which allow the private sector to play a larger role. That's what the international evidence says, and what have we seen under this government?

This is a government that refuses to learn about extra-billing in this province, refuses to go out and enforce the very act that we're talking about today. They say it's up to the patient, that they won't act without a complaint. A patient who needs care has to take on these interests, because the government won't find out.

They pass legislation in 2003. The Premier says: "You can't bring it into force." That's what he said, and now they say that it's only when people bring concerns forward that action will be taken, the cases will be referred. The Ministry of Health has become an empty suit in terms of protecting British Columbians from extra-billing under this government.

It's not the fault of the Ministry of Health. Dr. Penny Ballem was deputy minister when that legislation was drafted. The Minister of Economic Development was Minister of Health. The people in the

Ministry of Health believed in that legislation. One person in this province, one person, decided — because he's the decider — not to go that route, not to protect British Columbia patients from extra-billing, not to ensure that the law was enforced, not to ensure that British Columbia and the Ministry of Health had the audit provisions to enforce the law.

He got a phone call from some of his friends, and it was so important to him to protect those interests that he humiliated his then Minister of Health. He humiliated him by coming back and saying: "The Minister of Health may have passed that bill through first, second, third reading. He may have got it through the cabinet, but he didn't talk to me, and I am the decider." That's leadership, and that's what happened.

So what have we seen? What have we seen over the last few years? This is significant, because this is the piece of legislation we're talking about. We're talking about a government that has taken public health care from second to seventh place in Canada, and the minister is bragging about that. He thinks that's a good thing. I can just see the election signs now: "Vote Liberal. We're No. 7." That's where he has taken us.

He has also, I think, fundamentally weakened our support for public health care, our belief in the principles of public health care, and this piece of legislation is intended to be part of that effort. The principles of medicare enshrined in the Canada Health Act, supported even by our right-wing Prime Minister, even by other right-wing Premiers are too much for this Premier. It's too much for this government.

They walk in here, and they introduce legislation. They give a long speech about the NDP in the 1990s, and they don't tell us what they know, which is that this legislation will affect universality of health care. This legislation is intended to affect universality in health care. It could have no other intent. It has that intent.

Laws have meaning. If you want to say "Sustainability is a principle that guides our health care system" in your ministry vision statement, that's one thing. You put it in the law, and it has meaning. It has significance. Everybody understands that.

In this case, I suggest to you that what they have done is that they have attempted and they are attempting to set the table for their health agenda. They talk about our agenda in health care. They have the nerve to talk about our agenda in health care. They have the nerve to talk about it.

They bring legislation to this House that actually undermines the principle of universality in health care. We'll get to it….

A. Dix: Well, the Minister of Health will be disappointed. I'm sure he'll be disappointed.

They have the nerve to talk about our agenda in health care, when they have done what they've done to our public health care system….

A. Dix: They know this. They know the facts of it. They know the facts of the Conference Board study. They know and British Columbians know who they can trust on health care, and it isn't this government. It is not this government.

They know, for example, that the bill passed in 2003, passed unanimously in this Legislature, would be brought into force by an NDP government. They know that.

We're going to have a few bills, so we're going to have a discussion on a number…. Some we will support, and some we will oppose.

The reality of it is that the direction this government is going in is going to make health care more expensive for people. It's going to deny universality for people. They have created a health care system, and it's their system. It's their system that the Minister of Health won't defend.

The health authorities. They created this health authority model in 2001-2002. They created the health authority model. It's in shambles. Just in case the Minister of Health thinks it's just me saying that, who else is saying that? Well, the former chair of the Fraser Health Authority is saying it.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Look at this model. The fiscal year ending 2007, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is in deficit, and the fiscal year ending in 2008, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is in deficit, so $81 million in accumulated deficit.

The minister says, and this is the world he lives in: "They can't run a deficit." So here's what he says: "They can't run a deficit." So they run a deficit one year. He says: "Oh, they can't run a deficit." They run a deficit the next year. "Oh, they can't run a deficit. I'm funding them. Oh, I'm funding them at the level they need to be funded. They should be providing services."

All of the professionals in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority have rejected that view, and they're running a deficit now a third year. Maybe the Minister of Health, rather than giving his little dissertation on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, might have come here and said what they've sent him now, what the budget is that they've sent him.

I'm guessing that for the third consecutive year, he's going to have a budget on his desk from Vancouver Coastal Health, after he gave Vancouver Coastal Health 2 percent over last year's actuals in the budget — 2 percent over last year's actuals in the budget.

After he does this, I bet the Minister of Health, I'm sure, would love to get up and say what the budget is that they've sent him. Is that budget, in fact, for the third consecutive year in deficit?

Now, last year he fired the chair of the board. Well, somebody fired the chair of the board. Maybe it was the decider who fired the chair of the board. He fired the chair of the board for running a deficit. This year, I don't know…. I think it was somebody. Technically, I guess it was the cabinet. He sure didn't fire himself.

A. Dix: Well, maybe Paul Taylor fired himself, but Mr. Johnstone didn't fire himself.

So he fires the chair of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. He fires him for running a deficit and — get this — for criticizing the government by sending him a letter that was critical of the government, for sending him a letter that said that the government's budget was insufficient, for sending him a letter that said: "Maybe that drop in per-capita funding is having an impact on the patients in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority."

So what happens? He's not an NDPer, this guy, but he said something that disagreed with what the decider said. What was the consequence of that? No sustainability for him. He was fired.

You know what happened? They brought all the minds of the government into the thing, and they're running a deficit this year, and they're proposing a deficit next year. Mr. Johnstone must be asking himself: "Why did I get fired?" Maybe it wasn't for running the deficit after all. Maybe he was fired for telling the truth, for speaking truth to power. That's certainly what Keith Purchase said. Just to put it in context, Keith Purchase, I believe, not an NDPer. Trevor Johnstone, I believe, not an NDPer.

I think it's fair to say that this government's record has left the health authorities in a shambles. How do we know this? We're a month into the fiscal, and there's no budget. There's no plan. They just submitted their budgets now. All of them told the Minister of Health that it was inadequate to maintain present levels of service. Not me, but them. Not me, the designated speaker of the official opposition, but them, their friends, said this to them.

So this is the B.C. Liberal record on health care — in short, a record that has led to wait times for patients. For MRIs, 84 days in British Columbia, 30 days in Ontario according to the Canadian Medical Association — another socialist organization, the Canadian Medical Association. They said 30 days in Ontario, 84 days in British Columbia. They have the same public health care system. They have the same.

I'll send the minister the report. So 30 days in Ontario, 84…. My gosh, it's one thing for the minister to show his contempt for the Ministry of Finance. It's one thing for him to show his contempt for the OECD. It's one thing for him to show his contempt for the Canadian Institute for Health Information. But to show his contempt for Dr. Brian Day — this is a banner day in British Columbia.

This list of Canadians, this list of British Columbians whose views are unacceptable to the Minister of Health. This is the consequence. This is the consequence of what this government has done with respect to health care.

This piece of legislation, which the minister won't defend, affects the fundamental principles of public health care in Canada. This piece of legislation, that only one government in Canada has a radical, for-profit enough agenda to support — only one, this government, this illiberal government; only one government in the whole country does — is part of an agenda that has damaged public health care and has damaged the lives of many patients.

Hon. Speaker, as I see that you seem to be nodding to me in a knowing way — a fatherly, knowing way — I will take this opportunity to reserve my place and to continue with this speech, which I know the minister is looking forward to, tomorrow. I am looking forward to that.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT AND MINISTER
RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ASIA-PACIFIC
INITIATIVE AND THE OLYMPICS

Hon. C. Hansen: I won't make lengthy introductory comments, because I know our time is quite limited. Just to outline, I think that by agreement with the opposition members we're going to start with a focus on the Olympics and the Olympic secretariat and, probably tomorrow morning, go on to other aspects of the ministry's operations. At least, that's the tentative plan, and we will, obviously, take it as it proceeds.

Just by way of introductory comments around the Olympics, I think that what we see unfolding in B.C. is a tremendous success story. We see, for the first time in the history of the Olympic movement, that all the sports venues are going to be completed not just on time for the opening ceremonies but, in fact, completed almost a year and a half before the opening ceremonies. I don't think that has ever happened before in the history of the Olympic movement.

We see already that the sports venues at Whistler are completed and being used for world-class competition. I think we're getting rave reviews from athletes and officials from around the world who have had the chance to compete and to try those fabulous venues that have now been completed.

We see that the remaining sports venues that are still being completed are on schedule to be completed early this fall. I think that's a great tribute not only to VANOC and the organizing committee, but it's a great tribute to all of the men and women who were involved in the construction industry in British Columbia, whether it's the engineers, the carpenters, the welders, the bricklayers, the construction companies or the architects. I think it shows to the world that, at a time when there's a very hot construction market in the province, British Columbia can deliver projects of this scale in a timely way for the world to celebrate.

I think that on all other aspects of the Olympics, things are coming together. We obviously have less than two years to go. In fact, I think it's about 650-some-odd days from today.

There's obviously still work to be done, but I think VANOC is well on schedule to meeting those challenges that remain.

With that, I will throw it over to the opposition members, and we'll gladly field any and all of their questions.

J. Kwan: We're anticipating that the order of business in terms of estimates will be that we'll start with the Olympics questions. We're anticipating that we will likely complete that set of questions today. If there's any spillover, then it would likely centre around some of the riding-specific questions.

Then we're going to get into the ITA piece tomorrow morning. We're anticipating that for likely all of the morning tomorrow. Then into the afternoon we will first deal with the items related to the regional economic development portfolio areas for the minister; the forestry workers, in terms of the federal dollars that have been passed on to the provincial government; and then the various trust funds that the government has set up. Those are going to be likely very riding-specific or community-specific as well, with respective MLAs asking those questions.

Then we're going to move into issues around credentialing and around the labour agreements that have been signed. There are a number of them, and we'd like to get into some details around those.

After that set of questions we'll move on to the rest of the economic development area, like the trade files, the Asia-Pacific files and so on. We'll see how we do with time, and hopefully, we can get as many questions in as possible. If not, we'll likely do what we did last year, and that is to also pass a list of questions to the minister, if he doesn't mind, to see if we can get those questions answered accordingly.

At this point, I'm going to hand the floor over to my colleague from Surrey-Newton, and he will lead in the questions around the Olympics.

H. Bains: I do want to thank the minister and the staff that are here to help us in going through this file and having some of the key questions answered, as the taxpayers out there will be looking for some answers. I would not make a speech here because, you know, a lot of time was taken in the other House today. As the minister knows, it ate into our estimates time.

I would like to start on the area of security. As we know, this is one area that is on the minds of taxpayers, not only in British Columbia but all across Canada. Perhaps the minister will restrict himself. If he chooses to go outside of British Columbia and what their responsibilities are and how they will be coming to the table as far as funding participation is concerned….

The minister may go there. But I will try to restrict my questions to the responsibility of British Columbia and what the taxpayers expected to pay when it comes to the area of security.

Having said that, I will move to the agreement that was signed. I believe it was made on the eighth of December, 2006. This is the agreement signed between the government of Canada and the government of British Columbia. My understanding is that it was signed in January of 2007. Is that correct?

J. Kwan: Sorry. While the minister is looking for the answer, I just want to put this on the record and to confirm it with the minister — questions related to the TILMA area for which the minister has responsibility. We note that there is a bill before the House. It is our understanding, and it has been confirmed by the two respective House Leaders, that questions related to TILMA would be reserved for the bill discussion and that we would have wide scope in that discussion. Therefore, we would not engage in questions related to TILMA in the estimates process. I just want to make sure that's the understanding of the minister as well.

First of all, just before I address the member's specific question, I wanted to introduce the staff who are here with me: Annette Antoniak, who's the president and CEO of the Olympic secretariat; Jeff Garrad, who is the chief financial officer; Tom Lee, who is the VP, government and corporate affairs. We're also joined by Doug Callbeck, who is the assistant deputy minister for the Ministry of Economic Development.

To answer the member's specific question, it's our understanding that the security agreement that the member refers to was signed on the eighth of December, 2006.

H. Bains: Thank you for that answer. Just to have a few questions on that agreement…. First, if we go to the "whereases" under subsection (o), it says: "The parties agree to establish a process for regularly reviewing and approving any change to the initial operating budget or any amended operating budget, as the case may be."

My question is: has that process been agreed to and approved, and is it in place?

Hon. C. Hansen: The parties do meet, as provided for in the agreement for the security committee. There is not a formal process in place. It's not something that's there in writing that we're going to follow step by step, but the process is part and parcel of the workings of the committee. The process that would be required to review and approve any changes is a process that would be developed by that committee.

H. Bains: I would take it that there's a…. When two parties get together and put a clause in the agreement and say that the parties agree to establish a process…. Maybe the minister can tell us: is that a verbal process? Is it a written process, or is there a process at all? What is that process, and what does it look like?

Hon. C. Hansen: What the agreement provides for is that the parties would establish a process. It could be verbal. It could be more formalized, as necessary. At this point it is not a formalized process that's been put down in writing, but it is a process that would unfold in the course of the meetings of the committee. Should there be a requirement for a more formalized process, the agreement gives the latitude for that to be set out in a more specific and a more formal process — should that be needed.

H. Bains: When one reads this agreement, it says that they agree to establish a process. It seems to me, coming from the minister's answer, that there's no process at this particular time — unless I'm misinterpreting the minister's answer. Maybe the minister could clarify.

If there's a process, what does that process look like? If there is no process, the minister probably could tell us that there is no process and that they don't see a need to have that process in place at this particular time or that they are actually working on having that process. The process would define exactly how that review process would look and how you'd approve that. There must be some time lines. There must be some people appointed to look at that process.

What is it? Is there no process at this particular time, or do you feel that there is no need for one?

Hon. C. Hansen: There is very much a process, and it's actually set out in other parts of the agreement. The member will note that under where it describes the role of the committee, for example…. Let me just find a couple of the specific sections here that set out that process in the agreement itself.

"The responsibilities of the security committee." That is "to review the initial operating budget or an amended operating budget as the case may be, for the purpose of determining whether the costs itemized under that budget constitute actual incremental costs as defined in this agreement."

Throughout the agreement that process is set out for both the review of the initial budget and the review of any request for amendment to that. They are set out in the agreement. But beyond what's actually in the agreement, there is not a formal process other than that these issues come before the security committee and would be put on the agenda.

What I'm saying is that in addition to what's already outlined in the agreement, there has not been a need to develop a process that's more specific than what's currently contained in the security agreement itself.

H. Bains: What is under the "whereas" has no meaning, if that's the case. Further, if the process is listed somewhere else in the agreement, then my question is: what was the need to have that particular clause in there?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think if you go through all of the "whereases" — and this is typical of agreements of this nature…. We have from (A) to (O); (O) is actually the last one. Many of those "whereases" are reflected in other parts of the agreement.

I won't pretend to be a lawyer or to have any legal training, but as I understand it, the "whereases" are essentially more general in nature. They do form, obviously, an integral part of the agreement itself, and that is actually specifically set out. But it doesn't say that…. The "whereases" are always meant to be a bit more general, and more detail and specifics follow later in the report. The case of "whereas (O)" is a case in point.

H. Bains: Perhaps, then, we could move on to the body of the agreement after the "whereases."

At 1.01 in subsection (a), "the amended operating budget means" — it's the definitions here — "the initial operating budget as increased by an amount that has received the approval of the appropriate financial approving authority within each party in accordance with the procedures set out in this agreement."

My question is: has the minister seen any request for the amended budget? I'm not asking whether it's been approved yet. I'm asking whether it has caught the minister's eye — if there's going to be any amended budget and if the minister has seen one.

Hon. C. Hansen: Not only have I not seen one, but no request for an amended budget has ever come forward from the RCMP as provided for in this agreement.

H. Bains: So as we stand today, the budget for security remains at $175 million?

Hon. C. Hansen: That is correct. There is a requirement which the agreement actually sets out that the initial operating budget must be within the $175 million that has been allocated, 50 percent of that coming from the federal government, 50 percent coming from the province.

I think the other thing that's important to underscore is that the initial operating budget — the $175 million — is only for the incremental costs. If the member will refer to page 3 of 29 of the security agreement, he will see that there is a very lengthy definition as to what base resources are defined as and that the $175 million is only to fund what is defined in the agreement as incremental costs.

There are provisions in here…. If the RCMP should determine that there is a requirement for more than $175 million for those incremental costs, then there is a process by which they need to request an amended budget. No such request has ever been received — not by me, not by the security committee and not by any officials in my ministry.

H. Bains: Has the minister been advised unofficially whether there is going to be any need for additional funding for security?

Hon. C. Hansen: The RCMP have indicated verbally to the security committee that they do not believe that the $175 million is adequate for the security costs. What they have not provided us to date is a breakdown of the base resources, as defined in the agreement, separated out from the incremental costs.

There has been no official notification to me, as the minister responsible for the provincial side of this, that the $175 million is not adequate for what it is meant to be focused on, and that is purely the incremental costs as defined in the agreement.

H. Bains: So that I am clear, the minister is saying what British Columbia's responsibility under this agreement and the multiparty agreement — and what the minister has been advised by the RCMP — is. For the security to cover and to deal with what comes under British Columbia's responsibility by all these agreements…. Will $175 million cover that?

Hon. C. Hansen: Perhaps I can refer the member to section 7.03 on page 12 of 29. What that section says is: "As soon as it is reasonably foreseeable to the RCMP that the initial operating budget or an amended operating budget is likely to be insufficient, the RCMP will submit a draft amended operating budget to the security committee in a format and content to be determined by the security committee," etc.

H. Bains: The last question. The minister, as I understood, has told the House that the RCMP have said so far that $175 million will cover the responsibility that actually is incorporated in these agreements as the responsibility of the government of British Columbia — that that budget will cover British Columbia's responsibilities.

Hon. C. Hansen: I want to be careful answering the question, only because I'm not sure that I got the nuance of the member's question. Perhaps I can respond to it this way. If you look on page 4 of 29 of the agreement, under section 1.01(j), it defines the initial operating budget. It means the budget for incremental costs of $175 million equally shared between the parties, being the federal government and the province, "that may be amended in accordance with the procedure set out in this agreement."

What we have available for the initial operating budget is $175 million, to be divided between the federal government and the province. No request has come from the RCMP in the form that is required by this agreement to request any additional funds. I think the other thing that's important to underscore is that this $175 million is just for the incremental cost and is not in any way designed to cover the cost of base resources as defined in this agreement.

H. Bains: I think we're getting back to the same question that I asked originally — whether the RCMP unofficially have advised the minister or the ministry officials that $175 million to cover the responsibility of the government of British Columbia is sufficient or is not sufficient.

Hon. C. Hansen: The RCMP has unofficially advised the security committee that they believe that the budget for security will be greater than the $175 million. That has not been fully documented. What I think is most important is that there has not been a differentiation between what is a budget for base resources and what is a budget for incremental costs, as defined in the security agreement. The $175 million budget is only for the incremental costs.

Let me go back to the other parts here. Under section 1.01(h) on page 4, it says: "'games security coverage area(s)' means, for the purpose of this agreement, the policing and security coverage area(s) identified by VANOC or the RCMP, and approved by the RCMP and the security committee acting reasonably within the context of this agreement."

My question to the minister is: has this area been defined by VANOC and the RCMP, and has it been approved by the RCMP and the security committee?

Hon. C. Hansen: Yes, the security committee has addressed this need for a definition around the games security coverage area. While it has been largely defined, there is still some flexibility that is required until more details get sorted out. The games security coverage areas include all of the sports venues. It would include the athletes villages, and it would include other facilities that are of strategic importance to the delivery of the games themselves.

There is a recognition by the security committee that they may have to readdress that from time to time as the security planning continues and as their work with VANOC continues to define, potentially, other venues or other facilities that are of strategic interest.

H. Bains: Can the minister name those other areas that are strategically defined by the security committee that will be required and will be covered by this funding?

Hon. C. Hansen: I gather that there is some sensitivity around defining, in the public discussion, what some of these facilities might be and that for me to talk about areas that may or may not have security attached to them would be problematic. I guess what we don't want to be putting on the table for public discussion now is a facility for which VANOC and others and the RCMP may decide does not require security. Just by making that public would make that a security problem.

I think that it's fair to say to the member that it's the venues, it's the athletes village, and there may be other operational facilities added to the list.

H. Bains: The security coverage area that is listed in here and that is to be defined by these entities — is there a written document? If there is a written document agreed to by the security committee, is that available?

Hon. C. Hansen: That is a document held by the RCMP. They use that specific definition around coverage area to assist them in the development of their security operational plans.

H. Bains: So it's not available for the public domain? My questioning on this area isn't to compromise security. I want to be clear on that. But in order to look at the budget and where this budget will be applied as far as providing security, the only way to find out is: what is the coverage area?

If taxpayers don't know what their responsibility is, as far as the British Columbia taxpayers are concerned and, not only that, as far as the taxpayers who may pay through the municipal services — the policing, etc…. They want to know what their responsibility is when it comes to covering security — you know, what our area is and how far it goes and so how much they are expected to pay.

Hon. C. Hansen: I can certainly give the member a list of the venues that are part of the security area. That list is all of the sports venues, whether they're in Whistler or in Vancouver, the speed skating oval in Richmond…. They're all Olympic venues, and they will all be part of the sports coverage areas. I know the member has that list, but we could certainly make that available. In addition, you've got the two athletes villages in Vancouver and Whistler. They are definitely part of the security coverage areas.

When the member talks about municipal policing, I would refer him to the definition of "base costs," which is on page 3 of the agreement. "'Base resources' means those policing and security-related resources and services provided by: (i) the RCMP; (ii) the West Vancouver police department; (iii) the West Vancouver bylaw enforcement; (iv) the Vancouver police department" — I'll just skip down — "(vi) the Richmond RCMP…(viii) the Whistler RCMP…(xi) the Canadian Armed Forces…."

They are all part of base resources, and for what would be their normal responsibilities, those agencies would be considered part of base resources and not be considered part of incremental costs and therefore would not be funded out of the $175 million.

H. Bains: I guess my next question is about the incremental costs, which is the next subsection. There's a definition here. Maybe the minister could explain if they have identified what the areas are that they considered to be the incremental costs.

Hon. C. Hansen: This is an area where the security committee still has work to do, and that is to separate what are clearly base resources and what are clearly incremental costs. In terms of the budgets that have been presented to the security committee, as I mentioned earlier, they have not differentiated between the base resources and the incremental costs. That is work that is still being done. I can't give the member a precise list of what would be included in incremental costs until such time as those details are worked through.

H. Bains: So I guess the question that would be on the minds of many is if there's a security cost…. The security costs will be borne by $175 million, plus the base resources and perhaps the others that may go under federal jurisdiction — voter security and immigration and other areas. Would they be considering that as a security cost as well — such as voter security, immigration and water and air threat?

Hon. C. Hansen: The answer is no. So just to outline, there are sort of a couple of dimensions to looking at this.

First of all, when we talk about the games security coverage areas, that's essentially the security for the Olympic village, the security for the sports venues around the province. What is specifically not included is what we refer to as urban domain. So it's the cost that the RCMP or the local police force, in the case of the city of Vancouver, would have responsibility for in the normal course of events that take place.

If you think back to the fireworks festival in Vancouver, there's obviously a large policing cost that is associated with that that is incremental to a normal week's activity in downtown Vancouver. Nevertheless, that is still considered part of the urban domain and part of a municipal policing responsibility. Whether it's a Sea Festival, a fireworks festival or if you think about the party on Robson Street we had when we hosted the Grey Cup game a couple of years ago — those would all be the kinds of activities that we feel would be part of urban domain.

On the other side of that are issues around border security, issues around any terrorism threat that may or may not exist at the time. Then the other is the protection for what they refer to as internationally protected persons coming in — VIPs, basically — who would require RCMP security while they were in Canada. It could be heads of state, for example, or other dignitaries.

Those are considered to be part of the normal policing responsibilities of the RCMP or CSIS or, potentially, the Armed Forces. Those would be covered under base resources. So what we're looking at in terms of the incremental cost is just the incremental cost of providing security for the venues and the athletes village and potentially other things that may be defined by the security committee to be included in what's called the games security coverage area.

H. Bains: So there are three different areas. One is the coverage area that will be defined by the security committee or agreed to by the security committee. Then there's urban domain. This is a new one that I've heard since last week, and I don't see those words in this agreement at all — "urban domain." Is that something new that the committee has come up with, or was that always part of this agreement?

Hon. C. Hansen: In fact, I think if the member went back through our estimates last year, he would find that we were talking about urban domain last year as well, but I may be able to find that reference. It's not new. It's something that we've talked about all along, but the words "urban domain" are not in this agreement.

Where those kinds of costs are reflected is in the definition of base resources, when it says: "'Base Resources' mean those policing and security-related resources and services provided by the RCMP, the West Vancouver police department…the Richmond RCMP…Whistler RCMP…." They would all have responsibilities for their urban domain policing, just as they would for any other major event where there are large crowds that gather.

H. Bains: So urban domain, if I may ask the minister to clarify, means the same thing as base resources.

Hon. C. Hansen: I guess urban domain is one of those terms that gets used. In fact, we were just discussing whether or not urban domain has a precise definition in this context. It's a term we use and that is used within the policing circles to describe what would be the normal responsibilities of a police force in an urban environment.

When I read earlier about the definition of base resources…. Perhaps if I read towards the end of that particular section, too, it might help enlighten this. It says that the base resources mean those policing and security-related resources and services provided by…. Then I listed off some of the ones that are listed there.

Then it says: "…in the execution of their ongoing statutory responsibilities and mandate or contractual obligations…but excludes the incremental costs." So it is very much focused in on what the normal statutory responsibilities of those municipal police forces and the RCMP would be when they serve as the police force of record for a particular municipality.

When they're there to ensure that the streets are orderly and that there's appropriate control for traffic and crowds and that any kind of disturbances that might break out in the middle of a large event that has lots of spectators…. That would be something that would be considered as part of their ongoing statutory responsibilities and mandate.

H. Bains: So far what I'm hearing from the minister…. The urban domain — maybe it is something that is used out there by police forces, but for the purpose

of this agreement…. To find what the meaning of urban domain is, the only thing that we can go by is what is in this agreement. The only thing that is mentioned in this agreement is the base resources, and there's a definition of base resources, including the paragraph the minister read at the end.

To me, when the minister talks about urban domain and the responsibility in that particular area, it's the responsibility that comes under this particular subsection and is provided by these entities that are listed in this subsection. Is that not correct?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think that's a fair way to look at it. Urban domain is an expression that we use and that is used in policing circles to describe its function, but I think, as the member points out, it's better to look at the specific language that's in the security agreement. As we know, it takes up two-thirds of a page to describe what we use, perhaps in a more colloquial way, with the term urban domain. I think the member is correct. If we want to focus on the specific language in the agreement, that's probably the better way to look at it.

H. Bains: The minister used examples of Vancouver fireworks — I don't know what the official name is: fireworks, I guess — and there are many others. The Grey Cup, I think, is another one that the minister mentioned. I guess there were a few others.

The minister, as I understand it, is saying here that if…. Whatever incremental increases and the responsibility that comes to the base resources for those types of activities…. Could it not be argued, then, that if there is an ice hockey final or ice hockey game being played at GM Place during the Olympics, that that also comes under the base resource responsibility?

Hon. C. Hansen: As the agreement sets out, where there are incremental costs that occur for the security for what's defined as the games security coverage area, then that's what the $175 million is there to fund.

If there are some exuberant fans after Canada wins the gold medal in women's hockey — the day before they win gold medal in men's hockey…. If there are some exuberant fans that perhaps are going to celebrate over a pint or two of a beverage and take that celebration out onto the street, then we would be expecting — and certainly I, as a resident of the city of Vancouver would expect — that the Vancouver police department would be there to ensure that that is orderly and that the streets are civil. That's the ongoing responsibility of these local police forces, and that would be part of their base responsibilities to be provided by base resources as set out in this agreement.

H. Bains: So the government is saying that the security committee's responsibility will cover the game itself, because it is Olympic Games, but anything outside of that game — anything that happens before or after, or crowd control — is not the responsibility of this security budget. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Hansen: I just want to refer the member to the multiparty agreement that covers part of this. This is a section on page 13 — section 20 — and this is under specifically Vancouver's contribution. "If Vancouver is awarded the games, Vancouver will" — and it is subsection (b) — "at its cost, provide a level of police services that will organize schedules to accommodate the maximum allowable deployment to the games under Vancouver's normal financial framework."

So there are provisions in here. There's also a provision in the security agreement that basically says that all of the agencies that are part will undertake to provide as much as possible from base resources, without tapping into the $175 million budget, which is for incremental costs.

I think to go back to the member's specific question, if I remember it now from when he asked it, the incremental cost is for what is defined as the games security coverage areas, which are the venues, the athletes village and other facilities that are of strategic importance to VANOC.

H. Bains: Therefore, going by that multiparty agreement that the minister has read and the minister's own understanding, any incremental costs to Vancouver police that is related to these games — we're talking about the 2010 Olympic Games — will be borne by Vancouver police?

Hon. C. Hansen: No, that would not be a correct interpretation. What we are saying is that if there are incremental costs incurred by the Vancouver city police for the security that is provided under the security agreement…. In other words, if the Vancouver city police are called upon — perhaps some of them may be seconded as part of the security operation — to provide incremental service over and above what would be provided normally from their ongoing statutory responsibilities and mandate, through the Integrated Security Unit….

If they call upon the Vancouver city police to provide incremental services in securing the games for the games security coverage area, then that would be a cost that would be charged against the $175 million budget. If it is part of their ongoing statutory responsibilities and mandate, then they would be responsible to cover that out of their regular budgets.

H. Bains: So I guess the devil is in the definition of incremental cost. As I hear the minister say, any costs to Vancouver police before or after the games, or if they are called upon to do a massive crowd control, the minister's definition is that that is not an incremental cost to the Vancouver police, and therefore, they will not be funded for it.

Hon. C. Hansen: Those are exactly the kinds of discussions that are taking place now between those planning the security and the VPD and the other municipal police forces. We need to get to a point where

we can clearly define what should be covered out of base resources, because it is part and parcel of their ongoing statutory responsibility and mandate, versus what they may be called upon to provide, which would be funded out of the incremental costs.

H. Bains: When does the minister expect that to be finalized? When will we actually know what the definition is of incremental cost pertaining to this agreement — not only that but also agreed to by local policing, which is the base resource I'm referring to, whether they're in Vancouver, Richmond, Whistler or in between? When would the minister expect that to be defined?

Hon. C. Hansen: It is expected that those kinds of details would be sorted out by the end of this calendar year. From the time that security was first being planned, that was the target date — the end of 2008 — to have those kinds of details sorted out.

It's difficult to give an exact date because it is the RCMP, through the Integrated Security Unit, that is in fact driving this process, working, of course, with the security committee. It is not a time line that we drive unilaterally.

H. Bains: Let me move on to the other side of the spectrum here. It is about, again, what would not be part of the coverage area. What I'm referring to is border security, immigration, air/water threat. The minister, as I recall, said earlier to one of the other questions that, for example, if there's a terrorist threat, it is not part of the security budget.

Hon. C. Hansen: I think this is what's important. Yes, it's part of a security budget, but it's not part of the $175 million. The $175 million is to cover some very specific areas. In terms of border security, immigration and those types of things, that would very much fall into the responsibility of the RCMP and, potentially, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Canadian Armed Forces in the execution of their ongoing statutory responsibilities and mandate. Therefore, those kinds of things would fall outside of what would be defined in this agreement as incremental costs.

H. Bains: Let's be clear. The $175 million will only deal with the coverage area which, as I understand, has been partially defined, but there are some other areas that still need to be defined. I'm talking about the strategic areas where the games-related venues might be. Anything outside of that, whether there's a terrorist threat…. You know, the games will attract all kinds of attention, and there are all kinds of bad people out there who will be looking to promote their agenda at the expense of Canadian public safety and at the expense of these games.

What I'm hearing is that the committee will put together its security budget, and that budget will include terrorist threats, border and air security, plus this $175 million coverage area and the base resources. Will they be able to tell us what the total cost of security is relating to these games?

Hon. C. Hansen: If you look at how the budget is defined…. I think it is section 1.01(j). Subsection (j) says that the budget is defined as "the budget for incremental costs of $175 million equally shared between the parties." Let me find the right section here.

So in other words, the security budget that we're talking about here, the $175 million, is only the budget for the incremental costs as defined in this agreement. It does not include the base resources that are provided for by the various agencies. If there are issues around border security, for example, that's part and parcel of the federal government's normal responsibilities, part of their ongoing statutory responsibilities and mandate and, therefore, would not be part of the incremental costs and would not be part of the operating budget that we're talking about in this context. It would be part of their regular budgeting process.

I would imagine that it would be very difficult for any of these agencies to separate out the components of their base resources. You know, just as if there were a policing responsibility associated with a fireworks festival, it would probably be very difficult for the VPD to say that if the fireworks festival hadn't happened, their cost for the particular night might have been X. Clearly, the cost of providing policing on the streets in Vancouver is part of the ongoing statutory responsibility and mandate of that police force, just as the Canadian Armed Forces have ongoing responsibilities that would be covered out of their base resources.

H. Bains: So using that same example or analogy that the minister is using of fireworks, when the Vancouver policemen put together their budget ahead of their operating year, if they are told that there's going to be one fireworks festivity that will take place, if they are told that there will be the Grey Cup coming to town, if they are told that there will be a Stanley Cup final played in Vancouver, for example…. One day, hopefully, that will happen. I mean, if they are told that there are some of those activities that will take place, they will take into consideration, when they put together their budget, what the additional costs will be in providing security for those activities in Vancouver.

The same thing can be said here. The world knew, we knew as government, and we knew as people of this province and this country that the 2010 games are coming. Also, all the experts around security have advised everyone that when you have activities such as the Olympics, it attracts extra security challenges. Part of those also are terrorist threats, going through the war that we are going through, what's going on in the Middle East.

We know what we are facing, and the Canadian government knows what we will be facing, and 2010 actually becomes, as someone put it, a magnet for those kinds of activities. Therefore they ought to be, if they haven't, putting together budgets for what kind of terror threat there could be and how we are going to prepare

That's what my question is. Part of the security committee's mandate, as I see it, is to put together the overall security budget. Part of that will include $175 million to provide security for the coverage area, which is defined. I'm asking: is the other part, part of their mandate, or is it outside of their mandate when we talk about the terrorist threat relating to 2010 Olympics, if there's going to be any additional threats or anticipated threats? Border security will be another area.

All of that will be paid for by the taxpayers. There's only one taxpayer, as the minister fully well knows, whether it comes from the federal, the provincial or the municipal governments. The question that the taxpayer will be asking is: if there is a terrorist threat and they will be asked to pay — and I'm sure that they want to be protected from any terrorist threats — what will be the budget? Is it covered? The minister earlier said that it's not covered by the $175 million. So if it's not covered by the $175 million, that means that particular part of the expense is outside of the $175 million. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Hansen: Yes, that's correct. When the member says that the security committee has to be responsible for planning security — not just incremental costs but all of the security — that is actually not correct. It is the RCMP's 2010 Integrated Security Unit that has that responsibility. They sit on the security committee; they're part of it. But the security committee's responsibility is with regard to the incremental costs of providing security for the games security coverage area.

I have no doubt that the RCMP does an excellent job, in conjunction with CSIS and other federal organizations, of looking at what threats there may be to Canada. Whether it's associated with an event or associated with a piece of infrastructure somewhere in Canada, they're constantly monitoring those kinds of threats, and they put the necessary resources in place to make sure that Canadians are kept safe and secure.

I have no doubt that they will be doing the threat assessments with regard to the Olympics. In fact, I don't have to guess; I know that they are. But I think that it's also wrong for anybody to assume that the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games are some kind of an unusually high terrorism threat.

When you think about the Olympic movement, it is all about peace and understanding around the world. It is all about bringing nations together that can celebrate sport, can celebrate culture. In fact, I think that the Olympic movement has a pretty proud record of bringing that kind of understanding and initiatives to world peace, including the truce agreements they put in place in advance of each of the Olympic Games. I have full confidence that the RCMP and CSIS and others will make sure that the security measures are available and that the resources are put in place to make sure that Canadians and visitors are all going to be kept safe.

That kind of analysis is not part of the work of the security committee, nor should it be. The response to any kind of threat of terrorism in any part of Canada, whether it's a threat…. Certainly, in the media there's been speculation as to what some potential targets might be across Canada from sea to sea to sea. I have full confidence that the RCMP will address those and that any response to that would be funded out of federal resources.

H. Bains: I think I agree with the minister that I also have full confidence in our forces, whether they are police forces or the Armed Forces. They will be looking out and providing the required protection for our citizens here, and not only that but also to the visitors and to the athletes and spectators.

But that wasn't my question. The Olympics are going to cause incremental costs around security. Will the minister not agree with me that the additional traffic at the borders, additional traffic at the airports and the additional terrorist threats that they have to anticipate, must anticipate…? It's not me. It's the security experts around the Olympics that have made those statements that the Olympics are somehow a magnet to get the attention of the terrorists who may want to promote their own agenda.

Why would the minister not agree that there will be incremental costs in addition to the $175 million, which will cover only the coverage area that would be defined here?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think that might be a very legitimate question that a Member of Parliament might want to ask during an estimates process in the House of Commons. What we are talking about here is a commitment of $87.5 million from the province of British Columbia to cover our share of the security costs. What we're saying is that we have not been given any reason to believe that the $87.5 million is not adequate to cover our share of the incremental costs as set out in the security agreement.

What the member is talking about in terms of the potential for increased border costs or increased RCMP costs in other areas, such as terrorism, would be provided for out of base resources in that it is for the execution of the ongoing statutory responsibility and mandate of those federal organizations.

H. Bains: Section 2.04 talks about: "The parties will, to the extent that each is capable" — and it goes on to say — "encourage other federal, provincial and municipal departments and agencies to maximize the use of base resources in providing policing and security operations."

Are you not, then, asking the base resources or the local policing to take on extra, more than normal, when you ask them that they must maximize the use of the base resources?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think that this clause actually speaks to the point that I've been trying to make. It's that these various agencies have, as part of their regular responsibilities and their regular mandates,

responsibilities to provide certain services to the public in terms of public safety. What all of the parties undertake in this agreement is that they will maximize the use of the base resources to cover those rather than budgeting them out of the $175 million, which is there to cover the incremental costs.

H. Bains: But then it goes on to say in 2.07: "Any costs incurred by agencies and departments listed in section 1.01(b)" — which is all those base resources — "of this agreement relating to the policing and security operations within the games security coverage areas that are not included within the initial operating budget or the amended operating budget, as the case may be, will not be cost-shared in accordance with this agreement."

What this says here is that if any cost incurred by the base resources which would be Olympic-related is not listed in the initial budget or the amended budget, it could be incremental cost. You could interpret it this way: if you don't cover it in your initial or the amended budget, they're on their own. So they have to come up with their own policing and security and the cost that goes with it — right?

Hon. C. Hansen: Again, I think this speaks to the very argument that I've been trying to make. If the member is trying to make a point that the federal government may have security costs related to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in excess of their 50 percent share of the $175 million, I would suggest that he's probably correct.

What I'm saying is that from the provincial government's responsibility, we have no reason to believe that the $87.5 million that we have allocated as our 50 percent share of the $175 million is not adequate to cover the provincial government's responsibilities as set out in this security agreement. As we mentioned, if the RCMP believes that there is a requirement for additional resources over and above the $175 million for this part of the security plan, then they have a process whereby they can come forward and request an amended budget. They have not done so.

H. Bains: I'm more interested in…. Actually, my question was around the local policing. It could be Richmond RCMP, Whistler police or somewhere in between. Exactly what this says is that the costs incurred by these agencies "relating to policing and security operations within the games security coverage areas…." If you don't provide them security in that particular area, if it's not part of your budget, it means that they have to come up on their own. Therefore, the cost will be theirs.

If I'm reading it wrong, the minister may have to correct me and tell me what the meaning of this section 2.07 is. It talks about the security coverage area, and if you don't cover that particular area in the initial budget or the amended budget but security is needed in that area, that means that those agencies are on their own, and they have to eat up the cost.

Hon. C. Hansen: This is part of the work that the Integrated Security Unit is responsible for overall. I think it's obvious that we need for all of these agencies to be working in harmony together to make sure that the broad security needs are met. When it comes to the base, I think it's important to point out that first of all, as part of the multiparty agreement, as I quoted in the case of Vancouver's section here earlier, part of Vancouver's contribution is: "If Vancouver is awarded the games, Vancouver will (b) at its cost, provide a level of police services that will organize schedules to accommodate the maximum allowable deployment to the games under Vancouver's normal financial framework."

So each of the police forces at the local level will be engaged in looking at how they can best be a part of that broad security activity under the leadership of the Integrated Security Unit. As is set out in this agreement, that would be considered part of their base resources that they would be providing to the overall security operation.

H. Bains: The minister keeps on going back to Vancouver. I asked that question about Vancouver also. But what the minister answered back was that when we talk about the responsibility of Vancouver and the Vancouver police, any incremental costs will be borne by the security budget of $175 million — that the incremental security cost in Vancouver will be borne by the $175 million budget. The same thing will probably go, I asked the minister, in Richmond and Whistler.

But when this clause is read in conjunction with that answer, I see some contradictions here. It says here clearly that we're talking now in this section about security operations within the games security coverage area. If this security committee does not put adequate funding in their initial budget or the amended budget in the coverage area again, I might remind the minister, then the local policing, whether they're signatory to the multiparty agreement or not, are responsible to provide the security and, therefore, eat up the cost that comes with it.

Hon. C. Hansen: I have to come back to what the definitions in the agreement are around incremental costs. What we're talking about are costs over and above the statutory responsibilities and the mandates of these various organizations. We're also talking about the security operations that would take place within the games security coverage area.

It is much narrower than I think a lot of the people that have been commenting on the adequacy of the $175 million perhaps portray. The scope of coverage for this security agreement and, hence, the $175 million is really quite narrow in that it is limited to the games security coverage area. It's not something that is meant to cover all of the security costs that these various agencies may be facing.

H. Bains: I will move on to a different area. I'll have some questions about the security committee. Perhaps

the minister could advise us when the security committee was actually formalized.

Hon. C. Hansen: The first meeting of the security committee was held on February 15, 2007.

H. Bains: My understanding is also that they are required to meet on a quarterly basis. Is that correct? Maybe I should rephrase my question. How often are they required to meet?

Hon. C. Hansen: This is set out in section 4.04: "The security committee will meet, either in person or via any audio or video technological means that the security committee deems appropriate, at least once every three months."

H. Bains: Therefore, they must have met at least four times minimum by now, I would suggest. Perhaps the minister could give us the dates when they actually met?

Hon. C. Hansen: We don't have that information at our disposal, but I will endeavour to get that information to the member, and I'll send him a note.

H. Bains: Perhaps the minister could give us the names, for the record, representing the province.

Hon. C. Hansen: The three provincial representatives on the security committee are Annette Antoniak, as president and CEO of the Olympic secretariat; David Morhart, who is the Deputy Solicitor General for the province; and Kevin Begg, who is an assistant deputy minister in the Ministry of Solicitor General.

H. Bains: Therefore, the minister must have received over a dozen briefings on their activities. I'm referring to the security committee. When was the first briefing that the minister received from this committee?

Hon. C. Hansen: Actually, the president and CEO of the secretariat and I try to meet on a weekly basis. It doesn't always happen, just because of scheduling conflicts. Also, she has been involved with making sure that our B.C.-Canada pavilion in Beijing is going to be a big success. So there are times when it's physically impossible for us to meet, but there are times when we may be meeting on Olympic secretariat matters at least on a weekly basis. Whenever it's necessary, and certainly not less than once a month, we will wind up discussing issues of security in those meetings.

H. Bains: The committee was appointed in February of 2007, as the minister advised us earlier. I would assume that the minister started getting regular briefings soon after that. Perhaps the first one would have been March of 2007?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think the meetings that I have with the president and CEO actually started well before that. It's been really during the entire time that I've had this particular responsibility as a member of executive council. We will have discussed security in our regular meetings as necessary over that period of time. Certainly since the security committee has been formally established, she and I would have been discussing security issues, as I say, at least not less than on a monthly basis.

H. Bains: When would the minister have been advised for the first time in those briefings by the RCMP, who have done the financial resource cap analysis, that there will be additional funding needed for the security budget?

Hon. C. Hansen: At one of the security committee meetings — we're thinking it was probably June of 2007 — the RCMP did a PowerPoint presentation, not talking about the incremental costs but talking about the total security costs, and at that time indicated verbally to the security committee that it was likely to be greater than $175 million.

Well, I can tell you that when I learned that, I certainly wasn't surprised by it. We're not talking about the costs that need to come out of the $175 million. As I indicated earlier in our discussion today, there is still work to be done to determine exactly what should be funded out of the $175 million, because it is clearly incremental costs as opposed to what's in base resources.

The RCMP has not yet provided to the security committee a budget that differentiates between base resources and the incremental costs.

H. Bains: I guess we come back to the question then. If the RCMP is putting together a security plan for the Olympics, and it needs to look at what is needed to provide security for, what the funding requirement would be and what the total budget is going to be, isn't that, then, in the minister's mind, the security budget?

We can split whose responsibility that is after that, but when the RCMP says that the overall security budget must be X, and out of that we talk about $175 million of it to cover the coverage area, then when we talk about the security budget…. The security budget is for the Olympic Games, and part of that…. They're not going to look at the base resources included in that budget because the base resources are always there. So when they're given a task to put a security budget together for the Olympics, then they're looking at incremental costs that would be required to provide security for the 2010 games. Is that not a fair definition?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think, as we mentioned earlier…. I have not been given any information that would lead

me to believe that the $87.5 million which the province is responsible for providing is not adequate to provide the incremental costs for security as defined in the security agreement.

I'm looking at this from the perspective of what it is that the province of British Columbia has responsibility for. We have not yet been provided with any requests from the RCMP for dollars in addition to our 50 percent share of the $175 million. As we discussed earlier, there is a specific process for that as set out in the security agreement. The RCMP has not provided to us any request for an additional operating budget.

H. Bains: So is the minister saying that he has never seen a document called Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit: Financial Resource Gap that is dated September 9, 2005?

As the minister said earlier on, the minister has been meeting with the CEO and the president well before this security committee was established. Even after that, they are meeting on a weekly basis, as the minister says.

This document has existed since September 9, 2005. The minister said earlier that he didn't know that there were going to be additional costs on security — some time in September 2007. Is the minister saying that he wasn't kept abreast about this type of documentation that existed?

Hon. C. Hansen: It is our understanding that the document the member is referring to is work that was done by the RCMP looking at the total costs, not the incremental costs for the games security coverage area as provided for in the security agreement. So there is no reason why a document of that nature would have been brought to the attention of the Olympic secretariat, nor is there any reason why it would be brought to my attention.

I can tell the member that I have never seen the document, nor should I, and that there are lots of working documents within the RCMP. I have no doubt that there are many, many of them, but they are about the overall security operations of CSIS, of potentially the Department of National Defence, the RCMP.

What we are focused on and what the work of the security committee is focused on is just the incremental costs for the games security coverage area that would be funded out of the $175 million.

H. Bains: Perhaps I should ask the question: who does the security committee meet with in addition to the federal appointees and the provincial appointees?

Hon. C. Hansen: The security committee would meet with representatives of VANOC from time to time. They would also meet with representatives of the Integrated Security Unit. It is the Integrated Security Unit that in turn would have representation on it from, for example, the VPD and from all of the other agencies that are involved in the overall security planning that would go on. The security committee would meet from time to time with VANOC reps and representatives of the Integrated Security Unit.

H. Bains: So the Integrated Security Unit is not part of the security committee at all?

Hon. C. Hansen: The Integrated Security Unit has overall responsibility for the security of the games. That would include the relationship with all of the parties — whether it's the local police forces, CSIS or the Armed Forces — to make sure that they are all part of one security plan for the games.

The security committee has responsibility only for a subset of that. So they have responsibility for the incremental costs for security for the games security coverage area. The ISU, which is driven by the RCMP and chaired by the RCMP, has that overall responsibility. They would relate to the security committee in the areas that the security committee has responsibility for.

H. Bains: Is the Integrated Security Unit working independent of the security committee?

Hon. C. Hansen: The ISU is the 2010 Integrated Security Unit, and it is there to ensure that there is proper integration of the activities of all of the various policing and security agencies that have responsibility for base resources.

The ISU would report to the security committee for those areas that the security committee has responsibility for, which is the incremental security for the games security coverage area.

H. Bains: When I'm looking at a document that is titled Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit…. They put together a financial resource gap, and then it goes on to say: "The peaceful holding of the games." It's dated September 9, 2005. So this document existed….

In this document the Integrated Security Unit is talking about the entire area where security is needed so that we can have a peaceful holding of the games.

I'm a little concerned that they are working to put together the entire security plan, that the security committee can decide on their own what the coverage area should be and who is responsible for providing security for the coverage area and that the rest of that is left up to the Integrated Security Unit to come up with funding from wherever they can.

Hon. C. Hansen: The definition of the "'games security coverage area' means, for the purpose of this agreement, the policing and security coverage areas identified by VANOC or the RCMP and approved by the RCMP and the security committee acting reasonably within the context of this agreement."

H. Bains: Let me ask about the Integrated Security Unit — this document. When was this brought to the security committee's attention for the first time?

Hon. C. Hansen: That document is an internal document for the RCMP. I gather it was FOI'd or parts of it were FOI'd. I'm not sure what the context of that is. That document was never presented to the security committee, nor should it have ever been presented to the security committee, because it is about the areas, including base resources, of the overall security.

Again, I will repeat: the security committee has responsibility for the incremental cost of the security for the games security coverage area. The RCMP, through the Integrated Security Unit, has responsibility for the overall security, and I'm sure that's what that document was referring to.

H. Bains: But this document talks about $175 million. It's not talking about the overall budget for security. I'll read it to the minister.

So they are talking about $175 million. They're not talking about the overall security envelope. They are saying here in this document that that is not sufficient, because the scope of the venues and the scope of the security needed was not anticipated as is required now.

Perhaps the minister would clarify. All through this document I see that they are talking about $175 million, and they refer back to $175 million as the total cost for security. The minister says that that has very little to do with $175 million. Perhaps the minister could clarify how it is that they are only talking about $175 million, that they are not talking about the overall security budget envelope.

Hon. C. Hansen: As the member noted, that document he is referring to was from, I think, December of 2005. Am I correct?

Hon. C. Hansen: September of 2005. The security agreement was signed on December 6, 2006.

That document that he's got predates the security agreement, which clearly sets out what the base resources are — what the incremental resources are, what should be funded out of the $175 million and the fact that the initial operating budget needs to reflect $175 million — and that the RCMP has a process by which they can come back and request additional moneys, should they deem that the $175 million is not adequate to cover what it was intended to cover. They have not done that.

The other thing that I'll quote again from the security agreement, where it says, under section 7.03: "As soon as it is reasonably foreseeable to the RCMP that the initial operating budget is likely to be insufficient, the RCMP will submit a draft amended operating budget to the security committee in a format and content to be determined." No such request has been submitted.

H. Bains: I will just go on to read the same document. They are specifically talking about areas which to me, even if you look at the definition of the coverage area, or what security is needed…. They're making references to what was anticipated and what it actually will cost.

For example: accreditation. The accreditation area is another area where they are saying that it was anticipated that 80,000 to 95,000 persons connected with or providing services to the games may require accreditation. The financial reasoning document set aside $1.44 million, expecting that the individual cost would be $18 per person to provide this service. This per-person cost estimated clearly is insufficient based upon the number of clearances that will be necessary. In order to obtain 54,200 persons with a valid security clearance, it is estimated that approximately four times, or 216,000 security checks, will need to be conducted.

So again, they are talking about specific areas that are the responsibility of a security committee and the area to provide security within the $175 million. Here they're identifying a number of areas where they anticipate a lot fewer resources than what there actually would be.

They just didn't start this work without any mandate from anyone. They started in September of 2005 under a mandate to provide security for the 2010 Olympics, and they looked at what the budget would be. Someone must have told them what the budget is. They're not picking this number out of thin air — that $175 million. They are told that this is $175 million to provide security for the 2010 games. Here's an example. So how does the minister quantify these numbers when they are mentioning these specific areas?

Hon. C. Hansen: I reiterate that he's quoting from a document that was produced in September of 2005. Some 15 or 16 months later a new document was signed, called the security agreement. It actually sets out what should be covered out of the $175 million, and it clearly sets out a process whereby if the RCMP believes the $175 million to be inadequate, it can make a request for an amended operating budget. I can tell the member that no such request has been made.

What the member was reading sounds to me like a risk analysis as opposed to a budget. The authors of risk analysis will look at what may be worst-case scenarios. I don't know the context other than to say that it's a document that was put together almost five years prior to the opening of the Olympics. We're now 655 days from the Olympics.

The RCMP has done a lot of very good work of planning security and refining budgets over that period of time, but there's clearly still work to be done. Until such time as the RCMP foresees that there is a need for dollars in addition to the $175 million, we need to work on the assumption that they believe the $175 million is adequate for what it is intended to cover. Otherwise, I am sure they would have come forward with a request for an amended operating budget.

H. Bains: Perhaps I should go back to the beginning then. Who gave them the mandate to start working on putting together a budget? The document called Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit: Financial Resource Gap, dated September 9, 2005.

They must have received a mandate from somebody to start working on this. Or is the minister saying that that was a wasted exercise, that they just started on their own, that no one gave them guidance, no one provided them with what the budget was — that it was just their own inner document, and they just wanted to play around with some numbers?

How did they start working on this project? When you look at this document, it's quite extensive. They spend an enormous amount of time. That's a cost to the taxpayers. The minister is saying today that since the new document was signed 15, 16 months after this initial document, this whole document is wasted.

Perhaps the minister could clarify. Who gave them the mandate? Why did they start working on this project?

Hon. C. Hansen: I do not know who would have given them the mandate, nor should I know. The RCMP reports to a federal minister. They report through the federal government. I can tell the member that that document was not produced on the instruction, advice or direction of anyone associated with the provincial government.

The Chair: Committee A will now stand recessed until after the vote in the House.

H. Bains: I guess the question…. We were still at the ISU and the financial gap report that they did. The minister is saying that the minister doesn't know who mandated them to do this work or how they got around to doing this work. I think that is a serious concern.

To me, what is being said here is that the ISU are working on their own, independent of any mandate from the provincial government, that they are putting together a piece of document, and that they picked up the number of $175 million, which according to the minister, isn't the number they should be looking at. They are looking at the overall security, and $175 million is only part of that. Clearly, Mr. Bud Mercer has been quoted in the media that $175 million is not sufficient to put together security for the 2010 Olympics. He said that he doesn't know how they came up with $175 million.

Hon. C. Hansen: I think the explanation of that is quite simple. Bud Mercer has responsibility for the overall security plan, a portion of which the $175 million is there to fund. As I mentioned earlier, there is a process in the security agreement whereby the RCMP…. If Bud Mercer feels that the $175 million is not adequate to cover the incremental costs of security for the games security coverage area, then there is a process whereby he is obligated to come forward with an amended operating budget. No such request for an amended operating budget has ever been submitted.

H. Bains: In here, like I said before, they are referring to $175 million. Games security costs of operations, as identified in the Vancouver 2010 Bid Book, were projected at $175 million. They would assume the $175 million is the total budget for security.

Then they went through quite elaborate, specific areas about where this financial gap exists. The minister earlier said that perhaps I was reading from "Financial Risk." No, I wasn't. That was a separate section altogether, and they have identified a number of areas where the original anticipated cost was put together based on what the anticipated area coverage would be and the personnel needed. That scope has changed since the original Bid Book projections.

They are talking about $175 million. They are talking about the understanding that there's a $175 million security budget for the 2010 games. They're not talking about only the coverage area. They're talking about the security budget.

They took this number from somebody. Somebody gave them that number. If the minister doesn't know, perhaps the minister…. How did they pick up this $175 million? Who told them that the $175 million was the total budget for security?

Hon. C. Hansen: The document that the member continues to quote from was completed in September of 2005.That was a federal document. It's an internal federal document. Bud Mercer is part of the federal government, part of the federal RCMP operations. He doesn't report to the province or through the province. He reports through the federal minister.

Where the provincial government's responsibility comes into this is driven from the security agreement that was signed by the Solicitor General of the province of British Columbia and by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of the federal government. This is the document that needs to guide our responsibilities and our obligations with regard to security costs.

As I have indicated, the provincial government's share of that budget is $87.5 million. The RCMP have the ability to come forward with a request for an amended operating budget, should they…. Not only should they see, but in fact, it says that as soon as it is reasonably foreseeable to the RCMP that the initial operating budget is likely to be insufficient, they will submit a draft amended operating budget to the security committee. No such amended operating budget draft has been submitted.

H. Bains: Perhaps I could draw the minister's attention to the bilateral agreement signed between the provincial and federal governments. The last section, under "Miscellaneous Terms of Agreement" — 14.01; it's on page 18 — says: "Notwithstanding the actual execution date of this agreement, this agreement will be deemed to have commenced on April 1, 2004, and will end on December 31, 2011, unless terminated earlier as the parties may agree in writing."

So you could terminate earlier, but this thing, for all intents and purposes, is in place effective April 1, 2004. Based on that understanding, it seems to me, then, that this agreement that I refer to — or the financial gap document that existed, which was put together in September 2005 — is working under this agreement because this agreement is deemed to have been in place effective April 2004. Maybe you could clarify that.

Hon. C. Hansen: I would point out that this agreement was signed on December 6, 2007. The reason why it has an effective date commencing in 2004 was to provide for the fact that there were some charges made against budgets which could be deemed…. There were some very small amounts that were drawn upon for planning which would be considered to be incremental cost under this agreement.

In order to provide for those expenditures to be recognized under this agreement, this particular clause, 14.01, was put in place. It does not have the effect of going back and somehow validating every single document that somebody may have written at some time out of some office somewhere in the federal government and then stating that that has some kind of authority and validity as if it was written today.

Clearly, that document predates the security agreement. It was drafted by somebody in the federal government in a totally different context from what they would now have to draft in. Today — anytime after December 6, 2006 — they would have to develop those kinds of documents and that kind of analysis and make sure it was consistent with the security agreement that was signed in 2007.

H. Bains: Perhaps I could ask if the Integrated Security Unit has advised the security committee of any updated version of a similar document since the committee was put together. In other words, whether they have brought to their attention….

Going by this September 9, 2005, document, they must have done some update. Perhaps in relation to the new agreement signed in 2006, which is about a year later, has the security committee or the minister been advised by ISU of any updated areas of concern where they will need additional funding?

Hon. C. Hansen: There has been no gap analysis presented to the security committee from the ISU, neither the original one that the member has been referring to, produced in 2005, nor any subsequent document of that nature.

H. Bains: Does the minister know if the ISU is still meeting? Are they doing their work? After all, at the end of the day, they are in charge of providing security for the 2010 Olympics. What is the update on security as far as ISU units are concerned? How much work have they done? Has there been any update to anyone by ISU, or are they simply sitting, waiting for direction from the security committee?

Hon. C. Hansen: The ISU is part of the RCMP. It's led by the federal RCMP. It reports through a federal process. It is accountable to the federal Minister of Public Safety. It reports to the security committee with regard to the security issues that the security committee is responsible for as set out in this December 2007 security agreement.

I do not have, nor would I have, access to information about all of the activities of the Integrated Security Unit, but I do have confidence that the RCMP is doing a very thorough and comprehensive job at looking at the broad range of issues around security. They have actively involved the other agencies that need to be involved to ensure that the games are safe and that visitors and residents are safe and secure during the games in 2010.

H. Bains: Does the mandate not include a briefing to the B.C. Solicitor General or to the minister responsible for the games?

Hon. C. Hansen: I don't believe there is a requirement for the ISU to brief the provincial Solicitor General directly. There are provisions in the security agreement that… For example, they would review a request for an amended operating budget, and the security committee would then forward it to their respective ministers. In this case, it would be the Solicitor General.

I don't believe there is a requirement for the ISU to have a direct relationship with the provincial Solicitor General. I can tell you that, through the Deputy Solici-

tor General, there's a very constructive and ongoing working relationship. There is certainly the kind of working environment that should the head of the ISU have need to talk directly to the provincial Solicitor General, those kinds of meetings or conversations would be set up very quickly. But there is not a specific requirement for regular direct briefings from the ISU to the Solicitor General that I am aware of.

H. Bains: Who will decide whether we need additional funding, additional to $87.5 million? Is it the security committee that will decide, or is it the ISU that will decide?

Hon. C. Hansen: The process is set out in the security agreement. What it provides for is that it is the RCMP that will oversee and manage policing and security operations within the resources approved. It also sets out that it is the RCMP that, should they recognize that financial resources are not adequate, would have to present a draft amended operating budget to the security committee.

The security committee is then obligated to review it for the purpose of determining whether the proposed increase relates to incremental costs only.

H. Bains: I guess it is a bit confusing when on one hand you talk about "RCMP will decide," and then there is the ISU. Perhaps the minister can clarify: where does the RCMP fit in, and where is the ISU? Is it the ISU that will be deciding? Is that the RCMP, when the minister referred to the RCMP? Or is the RCMP also working separately and independently of the ISU?

Hon. C. Hansen: The Integrated Security Unit is part of the RCMP, so if there was a request for an amended budget that came forward from the RCMP, we expect it would come from the ISU as part of the RCMP. This agreement is broader. It says the RCMP generally, but in reality, that kind of a request would come from the ISU.

H. Bains: To clarify, the RCMP is a huge entity. It covers the entire country, and there must be a unit specifically assigned to deal with Olympic security. Whether they are working independent…. What is their mandate or the ISU flow from that RCMP entity that is dealing with the Olympic security? How is the ISU created in relation to the RCMP?

Hon. C. Hansen: The ISU operates under federal authority, and the ISU is created by the RCMP and is part of the RCMP.

H. Bains: So when the member said that the RCMP decided if there is additional funding needed for the coverage area, then the minister actually is talking about ISU?

Hon. C. Hansen: As I said a few minutes ago, we anticipate that it is the ISU, on behalf of the RCMP, that would submit that request under the accordance of this agreement. The agreement itself does not specify that that must come from the ISU. It simply says that it must come from the RCMP. But any request that would come forward, we anticipate, would in fact originate with the ISU.

H. Bains: I guess I'll move on to some of the other areas. It's anticipated that VANOC will be seeking private security services, which would be featuring 24-7 coverage for about 20 to 40 venues — a 365-day contract term. My understanding is that…. Would that money be coming out of the $175 million, or is that in addition to $175 million?

Hon. C. Hansen: Any security contracts or any security that is provided as a result of an RFP issued by VANOC would be provided for out of VANOC's operating budget and would not be a charge against the $175 million.

H. Bains: So we have a coverage area, and then we have another area that will be paid for by VANOC, which is…. Again, we are talking about providing security. Yeah, perhaps of a different nature. My understanding is that there is about a $10.3 million budget for that particular area of security. Is the minister saying that that comes out of VANOC's operating budget?

H. Bains: So the price tag for security continues to add on. It's not $175 million anymore. It's $175 million for a particular area. Then there is $10.3 million that will be paid for by VANOC's operating budget. Then we have the base resources. In addition to that, we have a terrorist threat, border security, immigration and any of the other costs that would come in addition to the coverage area.

Is anyone keeping a tab on how much the total budget is going to be? Is that the responsibility of ISU,

or is that the responsibility of someone? Who is responsible for keeping a tab on what the total security cost for the 2010 Olympics is going to be?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think it really depends on how one defines security. Just as an example, they have security today at the VANOC offices in Vancouver. That is paid for out of the VANOC operating budget. But I think what's important in the context of the estimates debate that we're engaged in today is: what is the provincial government's responsibility with regard to security costs?

We have in our budget $87.5 million for our 50 percent share of the $175 million budget. We have yet to be asked for any dollars in addition to the $87.5 million. So as it stands, the sole obligation and the total budget for security coming from the province of British Columbia is $87.5 million.

But my final point is that, ever since the Bid Book estimates were put together, everyone from the government side at all different levels of government, including this minister, has said and maintained that the $175 million is the security budget. If you ask and go back to the media reports, the president of the IOC was also quoted in the media when he was asked whether $175 million was sufficient. He said — I'm not quoting him, but words to the effect — that he didn't believe that $175 million was sufficient, and he said he had advised the official of that.

Torino officials came here. They said the same thing — that $175 million is not sufficient. Folks from Salt Lake City came here, and they said the same thing — that $175 million is not sufficient. No one ever stood up to explain to the taxpayers that the $175 million is only a portion of the overall security budget and that it's not the overall security budget. No one. I think that is something of concern to the taxpayers.

Now we're starting to find out that the $175 million covers only specific areas to provide security. The base resources will be maximized to provide security. Anything outside of the coverage area — whether it's border security, a terrorist threat, as we have established here earlier, or air or water threats — will be in addition to $175 million. So that is what I'm led to believe here today — that $175 million is only a portion of the overall security budget. The overall security budget is going to be much, much larger, as many people have anticipated right from the beginning. Would the minister agree with that statement?

Hon. C. Hansen: I will read for the member from Hansard from May 16, 2007. In response to a question from this member, I say in response:

Quite frankly, I take exception to this member trying to put words in my mouth which I have never said. If the member would only have listened to the answer that I gave to him a year ago, he would not have been repeating some of the misinformation about the $175 million over these past 12 months.

I have been consistent in my message — whether it's to the media or whether it's to this member or whether it's to anybody else that has asked — that the $175 million is to cover a portion of the security responsibilities, that our 50 percent share of that, at $87.5 million, covers all of the security obligations for which the province is obligated to pay and that nobody has indicated to us or requested in a formal way any additional dollars in addition to the $87.5 million that the province has in its budget.

H. Bains: Yes, the minister agreed with me last year, and that was 2007. The Bid Book was put together in something like 2002. Right through all of this time, from 2002 to 2007, everyone — all the experts that I mentioned — repeatedly said that $175 million was not sufficient for the security budget. Now for the first time the minister last year said: "Yes, it will be for a very specific and restricted area of coverage." So all the taxpayers have been right and experts have been right that the $175 million covers only a small portion of the overall security budget.

Again, it's been established today that the $175 million is only a small portion of the overall security budget. No one has said to the taxpayers what the total budget is going to be to provide security for 2010.

If the minister has the number today, perhaps the minister could stand up and tell the taxpayers what the total budget is for the overall security attached to the 2010 Olympics. If the minister knows that, perhaps the minister should share that information with the taxpayers. Then we will get on with our lives, and the taxpayers will get on with their lives to figure out how they're going to pay for it.

Hon. C. Hansen: I do not have that number. I have never been provided with that number. I'm not sure that the RCMP has a comprehensive number. The RCMP reports to the federal government. They report to the federal Minister of Public Safety.

If the member is interested in pursuing what the provincial government's responsibility is when it comes to security, we can canvass that, as we have quite thoroughly this afternoon. If the member wants to pursue what the federal government's responsibility is for Olympic security costs, perhaps he can send an e-mail to one of his cousins in Ottawa, and they can present that question to the federal Minister of Public Safety.

H. Bains: I may have to do that, since the minister is leaving the impression that they don't talk to their federal counterparts to find out exactly where they're at. I'll leave that there.

Maybe this is a good segue to go back to some of the other questions that I want to ask. Going back to last year's estimates, one of the questions that I asked….

The Chair: May I remind the member that all questions are directed towards this year's estimates.

The question that I asked the minister was: is the minister encouraging other Crown corporations to come and be their sponsors? I think this was in relation to ICBC's sponsorship and whether the minister was encouraging other Crown corporations to sponsor funding of the Olympic Games. The minister's answer was no.

Since that time, I'm led to believe, B.C. Hydro became a sponsor as well. We know that B.C. Hydro is basically one entity that supplies power to British Columbians. I don't see any commercial benefit to B.C. Hydro, as the minister indicated. How would they benefit from being a sponsor to VANOC in their commercial benefits?

Hon. C. Hansen: The arrangement between B.C. Hydro and VANOC is a purely commercial venture. All of the power that B.C. Hydro is providing to VANOC for the Olympic and Paralympic operations is done on a purely commercial basis. VANOC will be paying for that power on the same basis and the same rates as any other commercial customer would be paying.

Hon. C. Hansen: I don't have the exact number here — we can endeavour to get that — in terms of how VANOC valued that sponsorship. Their original operating budget was based on previous Winter Olympic Games, where the primary source of electrical generation for many of the venues was diesel-powered generators. In the case of Torino, as I recall, there were well over a thousand diesel-powered generators that were provided not only for the base power but for backup power as well.

By working with B.C. Hydro…. Hydro was able to provide them, first of all, with a much more environmentally friendly solution by not using diesel generators, to actually provide electricity that is clean, green B.C. electricity. VANOC was able to save a considerable amount from what they had otherwise anticipated to be their operating budget.

I don't have the exact number, but we will undertake to get that. It'll be one of the things that I e-mail or mail to the member subsequently.

H. Bains: I appreciate the minister providing that information. While you're at it, Minister, perhaps you could also define what kind of sponsorship this is. If VANOC was expected to pay the same rate as anyone else in B.C., then where is the benefit to VANOC? How do they actually realize this as a financial contribution by B.C. Hydro to VANOC? They will be adding that as a line item in their operating budget as well. Either it's a direct benefit or it is an in-kind benefit.

If the minister could provide me with that information — what kind of sponsorship is this, what's the total worth and how, in return, will B.C. Hydro benefit from being a sponsor of VANOC?

Hon. C. Hansen: We'll get the information on the value of the benefit as VANOC has valued it, and I'll also get the class of sponsorship.

To answer the member's third point, this is based on a cost saving to VANOC. They had budgeted for their electrical supply, and B.C. Hydro…. Because we have, I think, the second-lowest hydro rates in North America, just on a straight commercial basis, what Hydro was able to provide to VANOC using clean electricity…. As a result, VANOC does not have the extensive use of diesel generators. It is a big cost saving to VANOC, so that is the reduction in their cash disbursements that they would have had to outlay for their diesel generators. They have reflected that as a saving, and they have recognized that as having sponsorship value.

H. Bains: Staying with B.C. Hydro, there's also a request by B.C. Hydro to the tune, I believe, of between $7 million and $8 million. What they are basically saying is that 2010 critical infrastructure security…. They need additional funding to provide security to their infrastructure because of the anticipated threat to their facilities during the 2010 Olympics.

Can the minister comment on whether that would also be considered as a security cost?

Hon. C. Hansen: I don't have detail around what B.C. Hydro would have as their ongoing security requirements. Clearly, it's not something that I have been briefed on with regard to how Hydro generally approaches security issues, because those aren't unique to February and March of 2010. I have no doubt that they have ongoing security costs for their various infrastructure installations around the province.

I don't have specific information with regard to that. It's probably a question that you would have to direct to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, who has responsibility for B.C. Hydro.

H. Bains: I think the question arises that if B.C. Hydro is worried, and they should be, and they need extra resources to protect the facilities because everyone is worried and anticipates that there will be additional security concerns during the 2010 Olympics so B.C. Hydro is spending this extra amount of money…. My question to the minister will be whether the minister received a briefing from other Crown corporations and other public entities such as B.C. Ferries and TransLink. TransLink also, as I understand, have hired a consulting firm to provide them with a security plan to protect the tunnels during the 2010 Olympics.

My question to the minister is: has the minister been receiving briefs on how many different entities, different Crown corporations and public entities, are actually out there on the lookout to make sure that their facilities, their infrastructure is protected?

Hon. C. Hansen: I'm certainly aware of some of the public discussion that has taken place since the September 11 attacks about the need for all of our public institutions and infrastructure and services to be more vigilant about security issues. I have no doubt, although I am not privy to this information as other ministers on executive council would be, that the various Crown agencies and government bodies that the member mentioned probably have looked at what the new reality is in the 21st century to ensure that the public is safe and secure when they're using public infrastructure.

I am not aware, however, of any incremental costs that Crown agencies or public bodies would be incurring specifically as a result of 2010.

H. Bains: This document that I've got from B.C. Hydro clearly talks about 2010 critical infrastructure security. This is no different than TransLink embarking on spending extra money to protect their tunnels during the 2010 Olympics. There is incremental cost as a result of the 2010 Olympics. My question is whether the minister or anybody else is keeping tab.

We talked about all the other areas of security, but these are additional areas of security that need additional incremental security during the 2010 Olympics and, therefore, the cost that goes with it. Is anyone in the government keeping tabs on the provincial Crown corporations and public entities that will need additional security costs as a result of the 2010 games?

Hon. C. Hansen: The answer is yes. The various ministers who have responsibility for those Crown agencies would have overall responsibility for security costs within those agencies. If the member is asking whether or not any requests have come to government or to Treasury Board for incremental funding to provide for security costs over and above what those organizations would already receive, the answer is no.

H. Bains: Let me move on to a different area. I asked the minister during one of the question periods about the practice of not keeping minutes by the secretariat office. The minister at that time said he was not aware of that practice. I believe that was roughly two weeks ago.

Hon. C. Hansen: As I understand it, there was a decision to eliminate some of the paperwork around the general meetings that took place internally at the staff level within the secretariat. These are not meetings that would be passing resolutions for which there would need to be a minuted record afterwards. In order to streamline the efficiency of the operation, it was decided to shift over to making sure that there was a list of the action items that needed to be followed up on after each meeting and then the appropriate accountabilities at a subsequent meeting to ensure that those action items had been delivered on.

So that is totally in keeping with the general practice of the provincial government. It is a slight shift, because what they were doing in the past was over and above what was required, and they felt that that additional paperwork was redundant and did not provide added oversight and did not add to the administrative, operational side of the secretariat.

H. Bains: When did they actually change this policy? When did the new policy come into effect?

Hon. C. Hansen: This was a practice that changed sometime last year. We don't have an exact date.

H. Bains: Does the minister also know that VANOC have stopped sending minutes to the secretariat office, which they used to do?

Hon. C. Hansen: The secretariat is provided with copies of minutes to review, but the secretariat does not retain those minutes. It is something that VANOC would then collect after secretariat officials have had a chance to review them.

H. Bains: There was also a policy of VANOC sending minutes to the secretariat office, and those minutes

were kept in the secretariat office. If that is not the case now, when did that practice change?

Hon. C. Hansen: To answer the member's question, that was a practice that was changed again last year.

H. Bains: So I guess my question is: is it about the same time as the secretariat office decided that they will not keep minutes except the action items that VANOC also decided that the VANOC minutes will not be kept in the secretariat office?

Hon. C. Hansen: The two decisions were totally independent of each other and were made at different times of the year.

H. Bains: Will the minister be able to provide me both dates — when VANOC decided not to leave minutes at the secretariat office and when exactly the secretariat office decided not to keep the minutes of their meetings?

H. Bains: Let me stay with the secretariat office for a minute. When an action item is decided, there's a meeting in the office and a number of issues put on the table. Then, at the end of the meeting, decisions are made on what projects to proceed with, what projects not to proceed with, what the reasons were for proceeding with the projects, who was present, who made those decisions. That is pretty basic stuff to keep for whoever comes after to see when those decisions were made, by whom those decisions were made and why those decisions were made.

But if you don't have minutes, how would anyone ever know how that item actually got on to the agenda, who actually suggested that we should have this project to proceed with and who was there to make that decision that that project is a go and the other projects aren't a go?

Hon. C. Hansen: In this context, we're talking about a division within the Ministry of Economic Development. They make decisions as a team. It is the minister who is responsible for those decisions. I've got full confidence in the staff in the Olympic secretariat. I think they do a fabulous job. I think that if the public only realized how hard they worked, the public would be extremely impressed with the work that they do.

The way that they operate their internal staff meetings is totally in keeping with every other ministry, every other division within a ministry. The action items, as I mentioned, are documented so that the appropriate staff members know who follows up on what, and there can be accountability at a following meeting so that there's a report-out on what progress has been made on those particular action items.

As I say, it is entirely in keeping with the practice within the provincial government, and it is ultimately the minister who takes responsibility for those decisions.

H. Bains: I guess there's an agenda when there's a meeting, and that agenda stays with the action items. So there's a discussion on those agenda items. If only action items are listed as the outcome of that meeting, what happened to the rest of the agenda? How will the minister ever know what happened to the rest of the agenda?

Hon. C. Hansen: What we're talking about are staff meetings where the staff are coming together to report on the progress, decide on what actions are necessary. You know, I could ask the member in return: do you keep minutes of your caucus meetings? Clearly, the same kind of arguments could be made for meetings of the opposition caucus. I would suspect that minutes are not kept, but everybody knows what responsibilities they have and what action items they have. Within the ministry they have staff meetings, and they have action items that flow from that, and it certainly is in keeping with the rest of government and how it works.

H. Bains: I guess that sometime the decision was made by the secretariat office that the minutes of their meeting would be kept. I imagine that that was a decision that they made because they thought that was a good practice. At some time they decided that wasn't a very good way of, I guess, utilizing their time.

Almost around the same time another decision was made by VANOC. By the way, the CEO of the secretariat office also sits on their finance committee, and in fact, I think it's the chair of the finance committee, if I'm not mistaken. Co-chair? All right. Co-chair.

So is it a coincidence that VANOC also made the same decision not to keep the minutes in the secretariat office, and the secretariat office made a decision not to keep minutes any longer?

H. Bains: Will the minister agree with me, then, that the minutes that used to come to the secretariat office from VANOC were available through FOI? Now they're not. At the same time, the minutes of the meetings of the secretariat office were available through FOI. Now no minutes are available, except the action items.

So is it to keep the public in the dark, so that they will not get hold of the minutes of VANOC meetings that they used to have access to through FOI? I mean, that's the way the taxpayers will look at it. There was a time when VANOC would send their minutes to the secretariat office, and those minutes were available to FOI. Now they are not available.

There's been a huge question mark on the transparency and accountability of VANOC's doing their business, as far as them being open to the public and

providing information that the public needs on how their money is being spent. Now they have closed that — another small opportunity that they had to look at the minutes that used to come to the secretariat office, but no longer now.

So does the minister agree that those VANOC minutes are not available through FOI anymore and that they used to be?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think, first of all, to reiterate a discussion that we had a year ago as part of the estimates process, VANOC is a federally incorporated, not-for-profit corporation, and they are not in any way subject to the provincial freedom-of-information and privacy laws.

VANOC has adopted policies that make it the most transparent Olympic organizing committee ever in the history of the Olympic movement. They have regular media briefings. They've got more extensive information on their website than any previous Olympic organizing committee has ever made available. They have press briefings following every one of their board meetings. They also have the obligation to provide minutes to all members of the board of VANOC, and they, I'm sure, do that. But they do not have an obligation to provide minutes to the Olympic secretariat or to any other entity within the provincial government.

H. Bains: It could be viewed that they stopped sending minutes to the secretariat office because, then, through the secretariat office, the public has access to those minutes. Now they don't have that access.

I think that, as the minister responsible for the Olympics, where the public is spending hundreds of millions of dollars, not only on the venue construction but also in many of the other areas, whether they are paying through their municipalities or through security in different areas, the federal government…. VANOC is squeezing on and closing that door, a small opening that it had for the public to see what goes on behind those closed doors and how those decisions are made to spend taxpayers' dollars. Now that door is completely shut. Can the minister tell this House whether he agrees with that decision?

Hon. C. Hansen: As I mentioned, VANOC is the most open and transparent organizing committee ever.

I think it's important to make sure that the member recognizes that every single dollar that is spent by the provincial government with regard to the staging of the Olympic Games is totally subject to public scrutiny.

Let's be clear on what it is that the province is funding. The province is funding 50 percent of the venue construction. So we're talking about the capital costs of the new construction — a total of $580 million — split 50-50 by the province and the federal government. Those are lasting legacies.

In terms of the operating budget of VANOC, there is a grand total of $32 million out of a $1.6 billion operating budget that comes from the province of British Columbia. Some $12 million of that is for the medical costs, which we originally were going to cover directly, but through a decision with VANOC, we have transferred that $12 million to VANOC. They will now take responsibility for providing that within their operating budget. The other element in the operating budget is $20 million that we have provided to VANOC for the opening ceremonies of the Paralympic Games.

That $32 million is the only provincial government money that is part and parcel of the $1.6 billion operating budget of VANOC.

H. Bains: I just chuckle when the minister says that VANOC is the most open and transparent organization. An area that we're discussing here is that the minutes of their board meetings were accessible to the public. The public could have access to those minutes so that they could see how those decisions were made to spend taxpayers' dollars — whether it's $580 million or other areas that the taxpayers are funding. Now they're closing that door completely shut, and the public will have no access.

How can the minister stand and say that they are the most open and transparent when every action that they take…? When there's a demand for more transparency and openness, they make action to actually become less and less transparent and more and more secretive.

This is one example. I think if the minister wants to back up the statement, then the minister should be standing here today saying: "Look, those minutes should be made available to the public." They were made available before, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be made available to the public now. For them to take this action to not send those minutes to the secretariat office so that the public will have access to it is going exactly against how the minister has described VANOC.

They are not being transparent. They are not trying to be more open. They are, in fact, in reverse, trying to become more secretive. I expect the minister to stand up to VANOC and say: "Look, those minutes should be made available. Why aren't they available now, when they were made available before?"

Hon. C. Hansen: I don't think the member can dispute the fact that if they go to the VANOC website, there is more information available in terms of financial reports, in terms of operational reports. There's more information on the VANOC website than has ever been provided by any Olympic organizing committee.

Now, what the member is saying is that if VANOC has minutes…. He's confusing two things: the public getting access to minutes and someone being able to access a document through FOI. Those are quite different things, because even with FOI there are provisions for information to be severed.

What the member is arguing is that somehow there was a desirable access to VANOC minutes, because a confidential copy of something might have been sent to a provincial government office which then would make

it subject to a provincial FOI. I think that VANOC, as a federally incorporated not-for-profit corporation, has the right to decide — like any other federally incorporated not-for-profit corporation — whether or not they want their minutes to be public or not public.

I think what's important is: is there information that is being provided to the public on a regular basis? I think that anyone that reviews the website and looks at the information there would have to agree that the answer is yes.

H. Bains: Just in a similar vein but a different question in a different area. ICBC became one of the sponsors. If the minister could advise the House that the B.C. Utilities Commission started an investigation of whether an entity such as ICBC actually has a mandate to become a sponsor and provide funding to VANOC that is in two different areas.

One is to provide free insurance to the vehicles that will be used by VANOC during that time, to the tune of, I believe, $6 million. The additional funding would be by sale of the licence plates, to the tune of $9 million minimum, I'm told.

Is the minister aware that the B.C. Utilities Commission is investigating whether ICBC is within its mandate to provide that sponsorship?

Hon. C. Hansen: Quite frankly, I'd be surprised if the B.C. Utilities Commission was not. One of the things that this government did was ensure that ICBC rates, and what they charge their customers in the province, were subject to a review other than by the review of the cabinet of the province, which made some pretty strange decisions in decades gone by. By subjecting ICBC to the B.C. Utilities Commission, it actually forces ICBC to go before that independent body to justify the costs and the rates that they incur.

While I don't have any specific knowledge of the review that may or may not be underway, it would not come as a surprise, because I think that's part of the normal course of operations of the BCUC in terms of its relationship with ICBC.

H. Bains: Does the minister have any update on the investigation and whether they have completed that investigation? Or is it still ongoing?

Hon. C. Hansen: As I said, I don't have any specific information about a review that the BCUC may or may not be doing. I would be surprised if they were not looking at this as part of the normal course of their relationship between BCUC and ICBC.

H. Bains: Does the minister know whether the B.C. Utilities Commission is also looking at B.C. Hydro's sponsorship and whether they are within their mandate?

Hon. C. Hansen: Again, this is part of the new responsibility that BCUC has. We subjected B.C. Hydro to the review of the BCUC with regard to its rates and operations. I would expect that this particular arrangement with VANOC would be something that the BCUC would review in the normal course of their operations.

H. Bains: Perhaps the minister could, for the record, tell us what the overall budget is for the Olympic secretariat since its inception to the end of its mandate.

Hon. C. Hansen: The total operating budget for the secretariat for this fiscal year 2008-2009 is $8.797 million. In '09-10 the budget will be $9.587 million. In 2010-2011 the budget will be $4.377 million.

H. Bains: My next question is about the delegation that will be visiting Beijing. If the minister could advise, who is involved in that tour and what will the total cost be?

Hon. C. Hansen: Perhaps the member could clarify which delegation. There are actually a total of, I think, about 24 delegations that will be going from British Columbia to Beijing to be part of the programming that will generate from the B.C.-Canada pavilion. I could get the exact number on that, but I think that's roughly the case.

We anticipate that a few of those delegations will be led by ministers, but we have every intention of making sure that the B.C.-Canada pavilion is used to its maximum potential during that period of time.

H. Bains: Will the minister provide us with a breakdown of how many and which ministers and ministry staff are going on this delegation and who would be picking up the tab for their expenses to go and be part of this delegation?

Hon. C. Hansen: First of all, just to correct…. Apparently, it's 32 delegations that will be travelling to Beijing over the coming months in total. I should also correct one other thing I said earlier in the discussion. I talked about $20 million from the provincial government going to the opening ceremonies in the Paralympics. I was not correct. It's actually $20 million that goes to the operating budget of the Paralympic Games which is provincial government money.

In terms of…. I will be travelling to Beijing for the opening ceremonies of the B.C.-Canada pavilion that will be held in the third week of May. There will be other ministers that will be travelling. The Minister of Transportation will be there as part of a Gateway Week, with a Gateway and transportation delegation that will be there.

There are several other ministers that…. We're trying to sort out exactly when they can be there. I'm trying to encourage as many of my cabinet colleagues as possible to take the time to lead a delegation, because as we know, in China and other Asia-Pacific countries, having a minister of the Crown leading a

delegation is of great benefit to the kind of contact and the kind of relationship we can engage in.

H. Bains: I think my question was if we could get a list, and the names, of delegates — which ministers and how many members of that ministry and other staff. So if you could get names of all of the ministers and all of the delegates, the cost attached to it and also a breakdown of who will be responsible for that cost.

If the Minister of Transportation is going, is it coming from the Ministry of Transportation or is it coming from the Ministry of Economic Development? Who's paying for the cost, what are the cost breakdowns and what are the names of the delegates and the names of the ministers?

Hon. C. Hansen: A lot of that is being developed. Just to put this in a context, when we talk about a delegation, we're not talking about a provincial government delegation. We're talking about private sector delegations.

Just for example, during the week of the opening ceremonies of the pavilion — on the week of May 18, is it? — there will be a delegation from the Vancouver Board of Trade in Beijing at that time. So they will be part of our opening ceremony celebrations. Everybody that's going is paying for their own travel themselves, or their respective corporations or associations are, I would assume.

There will also be a clean tech delegation that will be there. Again, it's totally funded by the companies that are involved in that. So that's true of most of these delegations that are going.

In terms of the ministers that will be travelling, I don't have that kind of detail. That's not finalized yet. I can tell the member that I will be travelling. After we get back and I get all my costs calculated, I would be more than pleased to share that with the member.

H. Bains: I guess when you have private sector delegates, the expectation would then be that they pay their own expenses. I understand that the minister has to clarify that. But I'm talking about the government officials and government ministers who will be going on this delegation. What will be the total cost, and who is actually responsible for that cost? That's my question.

If the minister doesn't have the answer to that question today, perhaps the minister could tell us when that information will be made available, including the names of all the delegates. I'm talking about if their costs are being paid by B.C. taxpayers — who those delegates are.

Hon. C. Hansen: If we look at last year, for example, in 2007 the Minister of Transportation was in Korea with members of his staff. They were in China. They were in…. I forgot which other stops they had on the trip. In terms of the minister's travel, that was funded out of the minister's office budget. For the officials from the Ministry of Transportation that went with him on that trip, that would have been funded out of their respective budgets. That's true of all of the ministers that travelled last year. They would have been funded out of their respective ministry budgets. And that is true again this year.

The Ministry of Economic Development, with these travels, takes on the responsibility of assisting with the organization of the trip — a lot of the briefings and briefing notes that are provided to ministers, the background.

We also have in place, as the member may know, our trade and investment representatives based in some centres in Asia, and their time, as well, is paid for out of the Ministry of Economic Development to support the travel of other ministers and senior government officials.

As for the costs, as is true last year, if you want to go back and find any of the costs associated with any of the ministers' travel last year, that is available both through FOI and through public accounts, and that will be the case again this year.

H. Bains: All these private sector delegates that are going — are they by invitation only, or could anyone join in the delegation?

Hon. C. Hansen: We have certainly played a role in encouraging companies to get more active in Asia. We have had what we call the Think Asia workshops that have been done in a few dozen communities around the province now. In each of those we've encouraged the small and medium-sized companies particularly to get active in Asia. Where there has been an interest, we've tried to link them up with the appropriate industry association that may be leading a particular delegation.

In some cases, those industry organizations…. Like in the case of the board of trade, to participate in their delegation, I assume, means you have to be a member of the board of trade. You would wind up with the clean tech delegation. It would be companies that are involved in the clean tech industries. So it's not, in essence, open to the general public but would certainly be open to any companies that have an interest in that particular field. That would be true of all of the 32 delegations that will be going to China during this year.

H. Bains: Let me ask the minister…. It's to do with the Legacies Now question. According to the Treasury Board minutes on January 14, when discussing item No. 4, which was contribution to 2010 Legacies Now Society, unconditional grant was brought forward. The minister declared conflict of interest and withdrew from the meeting without participating. So could the minister advise us some details about this grant application?

Hon. C. Hansen: My memory is drawing a blank, so if the member can refresh me with the dates of those minutes….

H. Bains: I'll read the document. "Conflict of interest disclosures which pertain to cabinet decisions made public March 2005."

Now we're talking about…. The matter under consideration was the discussion of Treasury Board minutes of January 14, 2005, item 4, 2010 Legacies Now Society unconditional grant, and item 7, contribution to enhance biodiversity conversation. Hon. Colin Hansen, chair of the Treasury Board, was not present for discussion of these items.

It says: "Withdraw meeting, cabinet, January 26, 2005. Hon. Colin Hansen, Minister of Finance, declared a conflict and withdrew from the meeting without participating in the discussion of Treasury Board minutes of January 14, 2005, item 4, 2010 Legacies Now Society unconditional grant." Item 7 was contribution to enhance biodiversity conversation.

Hon. C. Hansen: I don't recall the detail of that. I have from time to time withdrawn from meetings where I was not sure whether or not the subject of discussion would involve a company that may be a client of my wife's company. I have on occasion withdrawn from meetings only out of an abundance of caution until such time as I knew for sure whether the subject in question or the discussion would in fact involve in a substantive way an organization that may, in fact, be a client of my wife's company. But I don't recall why I would have chosen to withdraw in that case. That's as best as I can recall.

H. Bains: Could the minister recall what this unconditional grant was to the 2010 Legacies Now Society?

The Chair: Member, just to remind you that we are debating the ministry estimates at hand.

Hon. C. Hansen: Legacies Now is a body that reports through the Minister of Tourism, Sport and the Arts, so in my ministerial responsibility I don't have a direct relationship with Legacies Now. I know that from time to time the province has provided grants to Legacies Now, and those are all fully itemized in public accounts.

H. Bains: Let me move on to another area. Perhaps the minister would recall that particular item. Again, it is the Treasury Board minutes of March 16, 2005, item 2. It is to deal with the Squamish-Lillooet cultural centre in Whistler.

It goes on to say: "Hon. Colin Hansen, Minister of Finance, declared a conflict and withdrew from the meeting without participating in the discussion of the Treasury Board minutes of March 16, 2005." Could the minister elaborate on that?

The Chair: Member. Member, it's just not obvious to me what this line of questioning has to do with the ministry estimates for this budget year. Could you clarify?

H. Bains: I think it has been a very contentious issue. Legacies Now, in many taxpayers' eyes, is part of the Olympic file. It should be considered as the Olympic cost, and therefore I think these questions are legitimate. There's quite a bit of funding actually that goes from the Ministry of Economic Development to fund Legacies Now. That's why I think these questions are appropriate.

The Chair: It's not apparent to me. Legacies Now, I thought, reported through to the Minister of Tourism, Sport and the Arts.

Hon. C. Hansen: I can clarify for the member that to the best of my knowledge there's no funding that flows from the Ministry of Economic Development to Legacies Now.

First of all, I don't think that the question that the member asked, given that it was back in history in a previous ministerial responsibility that I had, is relevant to these discussions, but I also don't appreciate the way it was left hanging, so I will address it in the same context that I would answer that question if it was asked to me by a member of the media.

If you were to look at my disclosure statement, you would realize that my wife has a financial interest in a small piece of real estate. It's a little condo that is in Whistler, which happens to be directly across the street from the new cultural centre. At the time that decisions regarding funding for the cultural centre were being made, I felt that it was inappropriate for me to participate in that discussion, that I should leave it to my cabinet colleagues so that my opinion would not have either a positive or a negative bearing on the decision.

J. Kwan: We'll be happy to take those questions to the minister responsible for Legacies Now, to get more details on the unconditional grants and so on. Thank you to the minister for the clarification and for confirming the fact that his ministry, Economic Development, actually does not provide any funding whatsoever to Legacies Now.

I'm going to move on to some other more local questions, if that's okay, because I think that's what I heard the minister say. If that's incorrect, I'll ask the minister to correct the record.

Hon. C. Hansen: As I said earlier, to the best of my knowledge there was no funding. I've been reminded that there is some sport development funding for amateur sport that did come from the Ministry of Economic Development. That's a relatively small amount. It was a few years back.

J. Kwan: In that case, if the minister could provide us with the information on how much money actually had come from Economic Development to Legacies

Now and what it is for, that would be appreciated. I don't need to get the answer now, but it will be just to get that information on the record.

I'm going to move on to some more local-ish questions related to my riding and the Olympics.

The minister will know of a group called the IOCC, which has been active on the Olympics file. They have been involved, actually, since day one, when the bid went in. In fact, they were in support of the Olympics. As we evolve and over time, we're seeing the impacts and, of course, the commitments that the government had made regarding legacies arising from the Olympics. Particularly in my riding, the issue of course centres around, although is not limited to, evictions and homelessness.

To that end, my understanding is that the IOCC had actually floated the idea of putting forward a dollar surcharge on Olympic tickets and merchandising and that that money would then be matched by the province and the federal government. That money would then go towards a homelessness fund to address the ever-growing homelessness challenges in the Lower Mainland and, certainly, in our province.

To date it is my understanding that VANOC has not responded to the group's request for this dollar surcharge. I wonder if the minister can update me on the progress of that and where it is heading.

Hon. C. Hansen: The only information that we have is, I think, probably the same as the member has, and that is what was in the media about this particular idea. We have not been approached by VANOC, or there has not been discussion in the finance committee of this particular concept.

J. Kwan: Could the minister follow up with VANOC, then, and flip it the other way? If they have not approached the minister, maybe the minister can approach VANOC on my behalf and say: what is your decision? Are you in support of this idea or not, and if so, can you get the progress going?

I personally, and I want to be clear on the record here, support this idea. I think it would be fantastic if the government led this and ensured that the ticketing and the merchandising with a dollar surcharge actually went into a fund that addresses and eliminates homelessness. I think it would be welcomed by the public as well. As we know, the homelessness crisis has reached just epidemic proportions. It really has. I won't go into all the details around that.

Will the minister commit, then, to go to VANOC and ask the chair what their decision and position is on this and then advise me what the answer is?

Hon. C. Hansen: First of all, at the time of the bid there were commitments made by VANOC with regard to social housing. Those obligations have been met. I think that if you look at the general challenge that we have with homelessness in British Columbia — it's certainly not just about Vancouver — that is a challenge that this provincial government is meeting.

We have seen a tripling of the budget for social housing in British Columbia. If you look at just the budget that was brought down in February of this year, it includes an additional $104 million for the implementation and expanded measures to break the cycle of homelessness through the provincial housing strategy. You will see that there are considerable resources that have been put in place.

So when you look at the operating budget…. I think that one of the great things about the operating budget for the Olympic and Paralympic Games is that it is a $1.6 billion budget, of which, as I mentioned earlier, only $32 million is coming from provincial taxpayers. One of the biggest income sources for VANOC is the ticket sales and merchandise sales. That needs to go, first of all, I believe, to ensure that VANOC produces the games that stay within their operating budget and do not in any way risk running a deficit.

I believe that the member is right in that there are challenges for meeting the needs of those who are homeless or those who are at risk of becoming homeless. I believe, as well, that the provincial housing strategy is going a long ways to meeting those needs. I think that we need to ensure that VANOC meets its budget and that the provincial budget goes for housing, where it is intended to go. But I'm not sure that we necessarily need to mix those two subjects together.

J. Kwan: To be clear, then, do I understand the minister to say that he will not ask the question and, moreover, that he actually doesn't support the idea of a surcharge for merchandising and ticketing towards homelessness?

Hon. C. Hansen: What I'm saying is that the provincial government has put in significant new resources to address the challenge of homelessness and housing and risk of homelessness — as I mentioned, a tripling of the budget for social housing. In addition, there are significantly more dollars in this budget this year to meet the challenges of housing and homelessness in the province, and those budget items actually amount to far more than a surcharge on tickets and merchandise would probably realize for a housing fund for the province.

J. Kwan: Let's just be clear about this. I didn't want to get into this debate, because it really doesn't fall into the realm of this minister. But seeing as he opened it up, I will actually respond in kind.

On the issue of housing…. The minister and the government talk about this a lot, about how the budget is much bigger than it ever was. Let's be clear about that and how that works. The fact is that if the government did nothing on increasing the number of social housing units in the province of British Columbia, that number would still grow.

Do you know why that is? It is because ongoing programs that are being subsidized in the housing sector for social housing will be additional dollars each year, even if the government did nothing and did not add one unit of affordable housing in the province of

B.C. That operating budget number will still increase because each unit that has been built does not go away the following year. They continue to exist until the building is demolished. Let's be clear. Those buildings actually don't get demolished very quickly or often.

So if any other government is ever in government and does nothing on housing, they can claim that the operating budget for social housing has increased from the previous year. That's just a matter of fact.

Let's set that aside for a minute here and not talk about that. We can get into that debate, and it's not going to get us very far. The fact is it's not addressing the homelessness problem in the way that it needs to. Since this government took office, homelessness has more than doubled — under this government's watch. No one can deny that.

The government has also gone to double-count their funding towards homelessness — or housing, if you will — through other pockets, pockets that they call supportive housing for seniors. Why? Because they didn't meet their own commitment in building the seniors long-term care beds. Those are realities, and I don't want to get into that, because that is not a useful conversation here.

I want to get to the bottom of a solution-oriented mode in addressing the homelessness question. I thought that my question wasn't meant to provoke anything, other than to say to the government that the group had asked for an answer from VANOC related to a surcharge for ticketing and merchandising. I simply asked the question: would the minister simply endeavour to ask VANOC if they would provide an answer, and what is that answer? And to be clear, for the minister to take the position then, if he wants to, and to say: "Well, I personally don't support it…."

From the way minister's answer was sounding, it sounded to me like he didn't support a surcharge for homelessness. If that's the case, say so. So be it. We will then agree to disagree, and we'll fight that fight another day. I don't want to have this fight here in estimates — that's not the purpose of estimates. I simply want my questions answered.

Hon. C. Hansen: I will attempt to give the member a direct answer. My concern in terms of VANOC's budget is that they don't run a deficit and that they, hopefully, have a surplus at the end of the day, because the surplus actually goes to amateur sport in British Columbia — a portion of it, at least.

Before VANOC were to take any kind of initiative around surcharges on tickets or portions of merchandise sales, I would first want to know that their budget forecasting would indicate that they would have the room within their budget to make decisions like that.

There are obviously challenges around housing, but it is not something that should necessarily be funded in a manner that the member is suggesting. My concern is that they use their ticket sales and their merchandise sales to ensure that the operating costs of the budget of VANOC are covered and that there is no risk of running a deficit.

J. Kwan: Can I just quickly follow up on this, then? We may have to bring it up tomorrow if we don't get done in this segment here.

Will the minister then commit to find out, then, for British Columbians and to provide this information to me: what are the forecast projections in terms of revenue versus deficit that VANOC has now for the Olympic Games, so that we too, the public, can look at those numbers and make a determination of whether or not the surcharge makes sense?

The other question is: what is the projected surcharge going to be? If it is going to be a dollar for merchandising and a dollar for ticketing, what would the projection be from VANOC on that item?

Hon. C. Hansen: All of that information is public information on the website. As part of the disclosure that VANOC…. We were talking about this earlier with how much tremendous information and transparency that they put on the website. So actually all of that information that she is referring to is available there.

With that, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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	YEAS — 39

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

	NAYS — 28

Brar	S. Simpson	Fleming
Farnworth	James	Kwan
Ralston	Cubberley	Hammell
Coons	Thorne	Simons
Puchmayr	Gentner	Routley
Horgan	Dix	Trevena
Bains	Robertson	Evans
Krog	Austin	Chouhan
Wyse	Sather	Macdonald
	Conroy