Hansard — Tuesday, April 29, 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		11703

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		11704
	University Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 34)
	Hon. M. Coell
	Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Vehicle Emissions Standards) Act (Bill 39)
	Hon. B. Penner
	Residential Tenancy Act Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill M205)
	D. Thorne
	Lutheran Camp Concordia (1992) Society (Corporate Restoration) Act, 2008 (Bill Pr402)
	R. Cantelon

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		11705
	Ed Chynoweth
	B. Bennett
	Ann Elmore Haig-Brown
	C. Trevena
	ActNow B.C.
	I. Black
	Heritage fair in Port Alberni
	S. Fraser
	Trees and Arbour Day events in B.C.
	M. Polak
	Constituency assistants
	C. Puchmayr

Oral Questions		11707
	Funding for post-secondary education
	C. James
	Hon. M. Coell
	Funding for adult students with special needs
	C. James
	Hon. M. Coell
	C. Puchmayr
	D. Thorne
	Funding for post-secondary education
	R. Fleming
	Hon. M. Coell
	J. Kwan
	Release of report on B.C. Place roof
	N. Macdonald
	Hon. S. Hagen
	Tree farm licence land removals on Vancouver Island
	D. Routley
	Hon. R. Coleman
	Community consultations with Roundtable on Forestry
	C. Trevena
	Hon. R. Coleman
	B. Simpson

Second Reading of Bills		11712
	Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 21) (continued)
	N. Macdonald
	J. Rustad
	C. Trevena
	R. Sultan
	C. Wyse
	B. Ralston
	M. Sather
	D. Chudnovsky
	J. Horgan
	M. Karagianis

Speaker's Statement		11742
	Rules for public bills in the hands of private members


Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		11742
	Estimates: Ministry of Economic Development and Minister Responsible for the Asia-Pacific Initiative and the Olympics (continued)
	J. Kwan
	Hon. C. Hansen
	B. Simpson
	G. Coons
	C. Trevena
	J. Brar
	Estimates: Ministry of Community Services and Minister Responsible for Seniors' and Women's Issues
	Hon. I. Chong
	C. Wyse
	C. Trevena
	G. Gentner

C. James: I have two guests in the gallery visiting today. Many of the members in this Legislature will have heard me talk in glowing terms about the James Bay Community Project and the good work it does in our community as well as in primary health care.

Today in the gallery I have Hanne Fair, who is the executive manager of community and family programs, and also the chair of the James Bay Community Project board, who is involved in a number of activities. I think it's fitting that she's here during Volunteer Week because this is someone who in fact holds up the volunteer organizations in greater Victoria. She is a community activist. She is someone who has provided incredible mentoring in standing up for yourself to many people in our community as well as to me, in particular. I would like to introduce my mom Mavis DeGirolamo.

Hon. R. Thorpe: Members of the House, today we have 45 federal and provincial senior tax officials visiting in British Columbia. British Columbia is co-hosting this national meeting, and I would ask all members of this House to make these officials welcome in British Columbia.

Hon. T. Christensen: It's my pleasure to welcome three young people today who were good enough over the lunch hour to help launch a new work experience and cultural exchange pilot program for aboriginal youth in our province.

We are joined, firstly, by Stan Williams. Stan is a special adviser on youth initiatives with the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and he is coordinator of the ministry's Youth Advisory Council.

Joining Stan we have two very special guests, two of our aboriginal interns who have been working with the ministry over the course of this last year — firstly, Don Tom of the Saanich Nation and, secondly, Ellen Newman of the Haida, Kwagiulth and Coast Salish nations. Both of them have been doing excellent work building relationships between the ministry and first nations. I would ask that the House please make all three of these young folks very welcome.

Hon. S. Hagen: This week we are celebrating National Volunteer Week. In this province over one and a half million British Columbians volunteer an average of almost 200 hours a year. I was pleased to host several of these volunteers from Victoria in my office today for lunch, and they are now seated in the gallery.

Accompanying Lori Elder of Volunteer Victoria are Norman Ellison, Ted Simmons, Henry Minto, Derek Swallow, Helen Taylor, Barbara Dunahee, Kathy Reid, Bruce Ingram, Flo-Elle Watson, Joseph Boutilier and Sylvia Bachop. Would the House please join me in thanking them for their dedication to greater Victoria, making it a vibrant, healthy community.

Also joining us today in the House is Rick Brant, who is the chief executive officer of the Cowichan 2008 North American Indigenous Games host society. With less than 100 days until the opening ceremonies, Rick and his team are working hard to make the Cowichan games the largest and most successful games to date. Would the House please join me in making him feel welcome.

Hon. I. Chong: Today I'm pleased to introduce a class of grade 5 students along with their teacher Mr. Chan and some parents, who are touring the buildings and are now joining us for question period.

Among the students is one in particular that I'd like to acknowledge, and that is the grandson of the Clerk of the House, Mr. MacMinn. That's Grant Nicholson. I would ask the House to make Grant, his classmates, the parents and teachers all welcome.

D. Routley: I would like to introduce to the House a neighbour of mine. Nick Wade has come with me on a job shadow today. He's an 18-year-old high school student who was born about a year after my family moved in down the street from his. His older sister and my daughter grew up together.

He's a very aware young man. He's very concerned about our province, and he's come here to get a taste of what it's like in this building and what it's like to see political process underway. I'd like the House to please make him welcome to this place.

I'd also like to join the Minister of Tourism, Sport and the Arts in welcoming Rick Brant to this House. He is the CEO of the NAIG games, and it gives me one more opportunity to invite all these members to Cowichan this summer for the 2008 North American Indigenous Games. It's going to be a wonderful bridge between communities. Everyone is volunteering.

Hon. M. Coell: I have a number of guests joining us in the Legislature today: from Capilano College, the president Greg Lee; from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, their president Ron Burnett and chair George Pedersen; from Kwantlen University College, Skip Triplett, their president; from Malaspina University College, Ralph Nilson, their president, and Robin Kenyon, their chair; from University College of the Fraser Valley, their president Skip Bassford, their chair Rob Nicklom and his wife Orla.

Hon. W. Oppal: I would like to introduce 140 students accompanied by their teacher Chris Ascher from David Thompson Secondary School in my riding. Would the House please join me in welcoming them.

Hon. B. Penner: Once upon a time I attended Sardis Elementary School and had a teacher by the name of Mr. Adrian Stoutjesdyk. Today he's the principal of Mount Cheam Christian School, and he's here with 23 of his students doing a tour of the Legislature. I ask that the House please make them all welcome.

R. Hawes: Joining the university presidents in the gallery is the president of the University College of Fraser Valley Student Union, Mario Miniaci. Could the House please make Mario welcome.

Hon. M. Coell presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled University Amendment Act, 2008.

Hon. M. Coell: Mr. Speaker, I move that Bill 34, University Amendment Act, 2008, be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. M. Coell: I'm pleased to be here today to speak about the amendments to the University Act. This legislation paves the way for special purpose teaching universities to be created in this province. It includes amendments to the University Act, setting out the general mandate of a special purpose teaching university.

These new institutions will focus on teaching excellence. They will also conduct applied research and scholarly activities that support their programs. The amendments allow special purpose teaching universities to be designated by regulation, further defining the specific mandates and programming of each institution as well as the region it serves.

The amendments will create a separate senate for each special purpose teaching university. They also include a new process for appointing university chancellors. Finally, the legislation includes amendments to ensure a smooth transition to university status for these institutions.

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

Bill 34, University 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. B. Penner presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Vehicle Emissions Standards) Act.

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

Hon. B. Penner: I'm pleased to introduce Bill 39, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Vehicle Emissions Standards) Act. This bill is a component of the government's climate change strategy.

We took our first step in the fight against climate change with the enactment of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act last November, setting out targets to reduce British Columbia's greenhouse gas emissions by at least 33 percent below 2007 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050.

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Vehicle Emissions Standards) Act will help us achieve those targets by putting in place vehicle greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions standards for new light-duty vehicles such as cars, SUVs and minivans. These standards will be equivalent to those identified in the state of California and will become more stringent for each model year until 2016.

When fully implemented in 2016, the standards will achieve a reduction of personal vehicle GHG emissions of nearly 600,000 tonnes annually in British Columbia. This amount is over and above the reduction expected from the new vehicle fuel efficiency standards adopted nationally in the United States and committed to as a new minimum by the Canadian federal government.

Compared to current voluntary fuel consumption standards in Canada, this is a reduction of approximately one million tonnes annually in B.C. in 2016. The standards will also translate into significant fuel cost savings for British Columbian drivers.

In addition to setting GHG emissions standards for new vehicles, the act will require larger vehicle manufacturers to include a percentage or set number of zero emission vehicles in their fleets each year. This requirement will be based on California's general approach and will target both GHG emissions and air pollutants.

The act enables manufacturers to generate credits for vehicle GHG emissions that more than meet the requirements. These credits will be transferable between manufacturers and model year of fleets as a flexible compliance approach, following California's model.

Mr. Speaker, 17 U.S. states have adopted or are in the process of adopting the California model, while six others are actively considering it. Twelve out of Canada's 13 provinces and territories have indicated support for tailpipe greenhouse gas standards, with Quebec now in the process of making final revisions to its draft regulations. Including British Columbia, the population of jurisdictions adopting the California model totals 176 million. If that were a country, it would be the sixth largest in the world.

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

Bill 39, Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Vehicle Emissions Standards) 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.

D. Thorne presented a bill intituled Residential Tenancy Act Amendment Act, 2008.

D. Thorne: Today I move introduction of the Residential Tenancy Act Amendment Act, 2008, for first reading.

D. Thorne: It gives me great pleasure today to be introducing a piece of legislation that amends the Residential Tenancy Act to provide more protection for tenants. It increases the amount of notice that a landlord must give a tenant in the event of renovations that require the tenant to vacate their residence and of conversion to strata title. It increases the compensations payable to tenants in these circumstances.

It also allows the tenant the right of first refusal, giving them the option of continuing residence following the renovations or conversion, and prohibits the landlord from raising the rent any more than would otherwise be lawful.

Finally, it allows the tenant increased time to pay overdue rent or dispute an eviction notice and increased time before eviction due to the non-payment of rent.

This act is an acknowledgment of the imbalance of power that exists between landlords and tenants, particularly with regard to the many avenues available for landlords to eject tenants with very little notice and compensation. With this act, British Columbia recognizes and protects the rights and interests of tenants in a way that is fair and reasonable to landlords.

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

Bill M205, Residential Tenancy Act 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.

R. Cantelon presented a bill intituled Lutheran Camp Concordia (1992) Society (Corporate Restoration) Act, 2008.

R. Cantelon: I move that a bill entitled Lutheran Camp Concordia (1992) Society (Corporate Restoration) Act, 2008, of which notice has been given on the order paper, be introduced and now read a first time.

R. Cantelon: As the title implies, this is an act to restore the incorporation of a very worthy organization and bring it again into good standing.

I move that the bill be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.

Bill Pr402, Lutheran Camp Concordia (1992) Society (Corporate Restoration) Act, 2008, introduced, read a first time and referred to the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.

B. Bennett: On April 22 one of Canadian hockey's great pioneers and builders, Ed Chynoweth, passed away at the age of 66. Ed was president of the Kootenay ICE and chair of the Western Hockey League board of governors. Ed brought the ICE to Cranbrook in 1998, and he insisted at the time that the team be known as the Kootenay ICE. Cranbrook and the Kootenays are better off because of Ed's leadership, and incidentally, Ed would want me to say this. The ICE have had the top-winning percentage in the WHL since Ed brought the team to the Kootenays ten years ago. He was a big man with a big personality — dynamic, strong, always positive, with rock-solid integrity.

Ed Chynoweth was the commissioner of the WHL from 1972 to 1995. He brought the Quebec League and the OHL — that's the Ontario Hockey League — together with the WHL in 1973 to form the Canadian Hockey League. Now there are 60 teams from east to west in two countries, and players come from all over the world to compete in the Canadian Hockey League. Ed was president of that league from 1975 to 1995.

In 1981 Ed forged a relationship between the CHL and Hockey Canada that allowed for Canada's best juniors to compete in the world every Christmas. My wife and I try not to miss any of the world junior tournament that appears on television each Christmas. It was a great honour and a privilege to drop the puck before the championship game in Vancouver between Canada and Russia in 2006, and of course, Canada won 5-nothing.

One of Ed's proudest accomplishments is the WHL's comprehensive post-secondary education plan — one year of books and tuition for each year played in the WHL. That's a significant part of Ed's rich legacy. Ed Chynoweth built the WHL, and in his honour last year, the league renamed their league championship trophy the Ed Chynoweth Trophy.

Ed is survived by his wife of 45 years, Linda, and his two sons: Jeff, who is the general manager and VP of the Kootenay ICE, and Dean, who is the general manager of the Swift Current Broncos. Ed's funeral will be held in Calgary on May 5 where, no doubt, many hockey luminaries will come together to celebrate one of Canada's great hockey men, Ed Chynoweth.

C. Trevena: I have spoken in the past about Roderick Haig-Brown. Today I'd like to talk about Ann Elmore Haig-Brown. It's almost too easy to say "his wife." Yes, she was his life partner and true companion, but Ann Elmore Haig-Brown was a remarkable woman in her own right. Like her husband, she was a conservationist and an intellectual. She was a librarian, and she was a teacher. She was a very strong advocate for women.

Before Campbell River had a shelter for women fleeing abuse, Ann Elmore often took women into her own home. Even after the transition house named in her honour opened in late 1987, Ann Elmore continued to take women in. She said at that time, the time of the naming of the house, that it was much easier to find a bed for a sister in need than to make a speech of thanks, and she also said that women must stick together. Now the Ann Elmore Transition House provides shelter for more than 250 women and children a year.

Ann Elmore was a community activist, a fighter for social justice, an honourable woman who was highly respected. May 3 marks the 100th anniversary of her birth. As part of an ongoing celebration of the Haig-Browns this year, there's been a lecture series on women's issues, on harm reduction and on restorative justice. On Saturday there will be a celebration at Haig-Brown House in Campbell River when the city will mark the day as Ann Elmore Haig-Brown Day.

At the time of Ann's death in 1990, her daughter Valerie said: "When you think of my mother, plant a tree." So as part of the celebration on Saturday, there will be a commemorative tree planting. I invite all members of the House to come to the celebration on the banks of the Campbell River and to mark the anniversary and the legacy of this remarkable woman.

I. Black: In 2005 our government announced a noble goal — to be the healthiest jurisdiction ever to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Since the launch of the ActNow ministry and the work of its many partners, what we're witnessing is a resonance with the public of that message, that healthy living goal.

While it's rewarding to see the ActNow programs receive international acclaim from the World Health Organization for the third time since November, what is really inspiring is how a call to action has been embraced by our communities, our families and our school children across British Columbia.

Last year almost 86,000 British Columbians visited the ActNow B.C. mobile pavilion. This year's 20-city tour is stopping in my city of Coquitlam on May 29 through June 1. I've already had conversations with school teachers in Coquitlam and Port Moody who are excited about bringing their school kids, and they're going to walk there.

Those of us who took the opportunity to visit the pavilion earlier today saw its terrific balance of interactive games — I personally liked the piano — education and the health assessments. Some 1,852 people received such ActNow health assessments last year, with almost 70 percent of them saying that they would seek medical advice and/or make lifestyle changes based on their experience. The word is getting out.

The mobile pavilion is still on the people's front lawn from the recent Victoria Times Colonist 10K run where over 10,000 people participated with 3,000 of them in the ActNow walking category. There were 54 government teams, up from 39 last year, with 1,200 government employees participating.

In addition, when my eight-year-old and I ran the Vancouver Sun Run two weeks ago, we were part of over 59,000 total participants — another record — 24,000 of whom were in the ActNow walking category.

Please join me today in celebrating the hundreds of thousands of British Columbians who are embracing a change in lifestyle, the message of investing in your health, and the simplicity and fun inherent in being active and eating properly.

S. Fraser: One of my favourite events of the year is the annual heritage fair at Echo Centre in Port Alberni. The event is put on through the Alberni Valley Museum. The dedicated volunteer committee has been doing this for six years now.

This Friday, May 2, local students from Maquinna, E.J. Dunn, John Howitt and Wood elementary schools will join other students from central and north Island to participate in this two-day extravaganza. The students are travelling from as far as Ucluelet, Courtenay and the Comox Valley.

The students create fantastic heritage projects which are displayed in Echo Centre for public viewing and for judging by panels of local judges. The judging is the hardest part, I know. I am one.

These hard-working students are in for a real treat. They get to participate in a variety of workshops and get to ride to McLean Mill on the Alberni Pacific Railway. How fitting for a heritage fair. This vintage train is a steam train from the past, and it's full of exciting surprises, which I will not allude to yet.

Old Steam Logging Locomotive No. 7 travels through scenic Alberni Valley to deliver the kids to the mill, which is a national heritage site. It's the only steam-operated sawmill left in Canada. It's an exciting step into the past, into another era.

Meanwhile, we judges will be locked in mortal combat. After a lengthy viewing process and inter

views with the students of course, the judges are locked in a room to duke it out — a vicious tug-of-war trying to decide who will ultimately be chosen for awards. Very difficult. They're all award-inspiring.

In the end, the overall winner will travel to the national heritage fair, which is in Victoria this year. Hats off to all the volunteers and the museum staff and especially to the participating students. You are all winners in my eyes.

M. Polak: Over British Columbia's 150-year history, trees have been an integral part of industry and everyday life. Our heritage from the time of British Columbia's first peoples is inextricably linked to trees. Since the 1930s when reforestation began, six billion trees have been planted across the province. In fact, on April 17 the six-billionth tree was planted in Kelowna — a ponderosa pine.

A lot has changed since the 1930s. Today communities across B.C. are embracing the importance of trees like never before. Their excitement at being part of a greener and healthier province is evident in the enthusiasm displayed at community arbour days every year.

This year on April 27, the township of Langley held Arbour Day festivities in South Aldergrove Park that saw 150 trees planted in honour of British Columbia's 150 years. Community leaders and residents planted trees in memory of loved ones. The Kwantlen First Nation participated by leading us in song and prayer.

Most importantly, on that day a former township councillor, the late Muriel Arnason, was honoured with the planting of a black hawthorn tree by her daughter Petrina. As we look ahead to another 150 years, the memory of pioneers like Muriel, who was a staunch advocate for green initiatives, will serve to remind us of the importance of trees. As we reach toward our goal of net zero deforestation, we're off to a good start.

Forests for Tomorrow will see an additional 60 million seedlings planted over the next four years. We can all do our part, and I look forward to next year's Arbour Day and a chance to plant another piece of B.C.'s history.

C. Puchmayr: They say that behind every successful MLA, there are great constituency assistants working at the local level. There is no doubt that our constituency assistants play a critical role in the functioning and the governance of our province.

They serve the members of each community in the province and enable us to perform our duties. They keep their fingers on the pulse of the community while we are away at the capital. They follow up on our work with constituents, and they strive to unshackle the many barriers to access government and ministries and their programs.

In my community we have a very high workload that can only be fulfilled with the assistance of the professional advocates that we call our CAs. They work with seniors on shelter and health care issues. They work with homeless people needing assistance, many of them with psychological maladies. They work with doctors and health care professionals, community and business groups, just to mention a few.

Our offices throughout the province are non-partisan and are accessible to all individuals and organizations needing assistance. Some of our ridings are geographically large, with communities spread over such a distance that they require two and sometimes three satellite offices. There is no way that MLAs can be everywhere at once, and we rely on our constituency assistants to work with our constituents and to act as our representatives in our absence.

Look in the blue pages or the phone book or google us, and chances are that the first contact to your MLA will be a professional, hard-working constituency assistant. I invite all members of this House to join me in thanking these dedicated individuals for all of their hard work, because they truly are the unsung heroes on the front line of the community needs.

C. James: Over the last month colleges across British Columbia have been cutting programs, laying off faculty and downgrading services. The reason? The B.C. Liberals pulled the rug out from underneath them. The Minister of Advanced Education single-handedly changed the funding formula midyear, midterm. As a result, we see colleges that are facing shortfalls and valuable programs that are being axed.

In a letter to her board, Susan Witter, the president of Douglas College, called the minister's funding scheme unbalanced. She sounded the alarm about significant negative impacts on the entire college system.

My question is to the Minister of Advanced Education. Can he explain how his widespread cuts, brought on by his broken promises, actually help people access higher education in British Columbia?

Hon. M. Coell: Only the NDP would think a $68 million increase in a budget is a cut.

Hon. M. Coell: Only the NDP would think that spending $1.7 billion on infrastructure was harming colleges and universities. The creation of four trades

complexes — one at BCIT, one at Kwantlen, one at the University of the Fraser Valley, one in northern B.C. — producing thousands of seats for trades and technology in this province…. Only the NDP would think that was harming education.

C. James: The only response from this minister to the people across this province who are losing programs and services is: "No big deal. Don't worry about it. It's nothing."

Well, let's take a look at the programs that are being cut. In Prince George at the College of New Caledonia, four adult special education programs are on the chopping block. "No big deal," the minister says to those special education adults looking for programs. Three similar programs at Douglas College are also facing cuts. Rory Summers, the president of the B.C. Association for Community Living, calls the cuts alarming. He says they deny access to post-secondary education based on disability.

So my question again to the Minister of Advanced Education: does he really think that these programs for adults with special needs are so trivial that they can just be washed away — and he doesn't care and his government doesn't care about those programs?

Hon. M. Coell: In the last week this government has created five new universities….

Hon. M. Coell: I want to know whether the members in the opposition are for that. On this side of the House we're for it. I know they're going to be against it, because they've been against everything we've done for post-secondary education.

Hon. M. Coell: Maybe I'll bring it home for the Leader of the Opposition. Maybe she should go have a walk around Ring Road at UVic — $200 million worth of buildings. Thousands of new spaces and a new medical school at UVic, in your hometown. Doubled the number of nurses in your province. Post-secondary education in this province has never been in better shape.

C. James: Perhaps the minister would like to take some time to sit at the public meeting in Prince George as I did, to listen to parent after parent stand up and talk about what it was going to be like for their adult to no longer have access to post-secondary education — to no longer be able to get out of the house every day and get programs and services that make a difference in their lives. That's what's being cut by this government, and that's appalling, Minister.

The Premier has a great goal to support people with special needs. How does this help support people with special needs? At Vancouver Community College vulnerable students are also facing cuts. As VCC comes to terms with a $5.8 million deficit, cuts to ESL programs…. "Nothing," the minister says. The elimination of positions in the developmental disabilities program. "Nothing," says the minister. Downgraded counselling services and cuts to programs for visually impaired students.

C. James: The American sign language and deaf studies program at VCC is facing cuts. This is a unique program to B.C. There are absolutely no alternatives to that program.

So my question again: will the minister now put a stop to these cuts and give the funding to the colleges that they need?

Hon. M. Coell: This government has created thousands upon thousands upon thousands of new spaces at colleges and universities in this province. The thousands and thousands of new spaces go with $1.7 billion worth of infrastructure in this province, building and rebuilding campuses throughout this province to make sure we've got space for more and more students using them.

C. Puchmayr: Many of the programs on the chopping block at Douglas College are also designed to help students with disabilities and barriers. One of the casualties is a program to help students with learning challenges to develop workplace skills. Three other programs are for adults with barriers. Those will be cut. Losing these programs will be devastating to those in need.

It's the minister's fault. It's the minister that created the shortfall in the budget. Will the minister finally admit his mistake, admit that it's a step backwards for people with disabilities, and put those programs back into our communities where the need is?

Hon. M. Coell: The member mentions Douglas College. I would invite him to come to the opening of their $34 million new building tomorrow.

D. Thorne: It's not just the New Westminster campus of Douglas College that is facing cuts. The David Lam campus in Coquitlam will be hard hit, and I don't think that opening a new program and closing other programs justifies one another.

I can't wait to hear the minister's rationalization for my question. Here are some of the programs….

D. Thorne: Here are some of the programs that this minister calls small. I guess he doesn't care if these kinds of programs get shut down as long as we're opening new buildings.

Here are some of the programs: customer service and cashier training for people with employment barriers; the opportunities enabled program for adults with disabilities who are looking for work in the IT sector; and worst of all, the new directions, which is a program for students with brain injuries.

This minister trivialized these programs and their students when he defended these cuts and said that only small programs would be cut. How can he stand by that feeble defence when he is about to open new buildings but strip education away from so many people with disabilities?

Hon. M. Coell: The member mentions the David Lam campus, and that is indeed where a $34 million building will open tomorrow with the funding for the students in it.

R. Fleming: The minister started his answer to the first question by saying that it's only the NDP that is opposing the cuts to the education budget this year. I think he should take some credit, because it includes the University Presidents Council, the B.C. College Presidents association, CUFABC, FPSE. Every student organization across British Columbia is asking this minister why he failed on March 12 to honour his funding commitment to his own budget.

He hasn't answered questions here today as to why he thinks it's okay that programs for people with learning disabilities and visually impaired students can go by the wayside. That's okay with him.

I want to ask him about North Island College. Instead of receiving $700,000 in new funding, they're now cutting half a million dollars from programs. On the chopping block for September are computer science and IT programs, campus-based applied business technology programs, and there will no longer be an adult-based basic education program that is classroom-based at the Port Hardy campus.

Can the minister explain how reducing adult education upgrade programs in Port Hardy serves our literacy goals in this province?

Hon. M. Coell: I think a question to the NDP would be: why did they vote against a 40 percent increase in the budget for Advanced Education?

Why did they vote against $1.7 billion in capital construction on colleges and universities in the province of British Columbia? It's hard to imagine that they have a position on post-secondary education when they vote against it every chance they get.

R. Fleming: Well, it would be nice to get an answer to a question that is on the minds of a lot of British Columbians, as to why this minister on March 12 pulled back his funding commitment and cut over $50 million from B.C. colleges and universities.

This government's own Campus 2020 report — this minister has failed to look at its recommendations — recommended massive improvements to student financial assistance in this province for first nations and low-income students so that they can take their equal place at our colleges and universities.

B.C. has the second-highest debt level in the country. Tuition fees are 15 percent higher than the Canadian average. But incredibly, in this Budget 2008, the StudentAid B.C. budget was cut by $20 million. Now the minister's core funding cuts to institutions are adding local campus-based cuts to student financial assistance. Simon Fraser is planning to cut $1.5 million from its scholarship and bursary programs and to eliminate tuition waivers for students over 60 years old.

Does the minister think that cutting campus aid programs to students is an acceptable impact of his failure to honour his funding commitments?

Hon. M. Coell: I think the question on people's minds is: do the NDP support the creation of five new universities in British Columbia? The presidents are here; the chairs are here.

Hon. M. Coell: I think the members would like to hear whether they support the University of the Fraser Valley. Do the NDP support that? On this side of the House, we do. On this side of the House, we support Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Do the NDP?

Hon. M. Coell: Does the member for Nanaimo support Vancouver Island University? On this side of the House, we do.

J. Kwan: In a letter to her board, Susan Witter, president of Douglas College, called the minister's funding scheme unbalanced and sounded the alarm about significant negative impacts on the entire college system.

Hon. M. Coell: Every institution of post-secondary education got an increase in their budget this year — $68 million. Douglas College was one of those that got an increase, and tomorrow they get $34 million of an increase for a building and the subsidy for those students to be in those classrooms.

J. Kwan: Is the minister saying that the president of Douglas College is wrong, that she's just simply saying this for fun and that they're cutting programs for people with disabilities just because they feel like it? Or is it because the government is not providing the funding that they need? Will he own up to that and fund the colleges today?

Hon. M. Coell: I know the members opposite don't realize that $68 million is a lot of money. Every institution gets an increase in their budget, totalling $68 million plus $200 million in capital for this year — $200 million for capital this year.

N. Macdonald: Two years after the NDP warned the government about the roof of B.C. Place, the government is still scrambling to keep secret its mismanagement on a second Olympic venue. PavCo promised a report on options for the roof of B.C. Place at the end of March, and it is now the end of April. We have seen this before. The people of British Columbia know the government kept all information about the building of the convention centre secret, and the public found out too late just how bungled that project was.

The people of British Columbia deserve specifics about the plan for B.C. Place roof. Who are the contractors for this project, and what are the options being considered? Be specific.

Hon. S. Hagen: As I said yesterday in answer to the question, David Podmore is working on a number of options that he will be presenting to government. When government receives those options, we'll be making a decision.

N. Macdonald: I'll tell you what sounds familiar. It's the government standing up and saying, "Trust us," while…

N. Macdonald: …they hide the truth about mismanagement from the people who are ultimately going to pay for this minister's mistakes. It is exactly like the convention centre, exactly like it. There is a looming deadline, there are unknown costs, and there is no plan. The public has a right to know what is going on, because they are ultimately going to be paying for it.

The minister says he's going to receive a report. Will he table it publicly so that the public knows what is going on, or is he going to continue to hide the mismanagement on a second Olympic project?

Hon. S. Hagen: You know, I'm saddened to hear a member from the opposition slagging the reputation of a person like David Podmore, who has decades and decades of experience in heavy construction. As I've said repeatedly in this House, Mr. Podmore….

Hon. S. Hagen: As I said, Mr. Podmore and his team are working out some options that he will bring forward to the government when he is ready to do that. As far as other comments, if the member wants to go to the website of PavCo, he can look at three engineering reports that are posted on the website.

D. Routley: The Minister of Forests has allowed the removal of lands on Vancouver Island from TFL over

sight. When questioned, he gave this quote: "There are 3,300 people at Western Forest Products employed in the coastal forest sector in British Columbia. It was an important decision to help them put their business plan in place to put themselves on an economic footing to protect those 3,300 jobs."

Since those statements, what have we seen? We've seen four Western Forest Products mills close. We've seen the loss of several hundred more jobs, the last mill being Ladysmith. The minister failed. He failed the communities of Jordan River and Vancouver Island. He failed the workers by not getting assurances for their jobs. He failed the people of B.C. when he allowed this removal without any compensation.

He states the reasons for the removal of the lands, but all his reasons fail to make sense. Will he today, before there is any sale of land, stand in this House and say that he will return those lands to TFL oversight?

Hon. R. Coleman: I don't know why this member hates Western Forest Products, the people that are employed by it and the communities that it serves so much. If you take a look at Western Forest Products in one of the worst market trends in the history of the province of British Columbia, in the history of the forest industry….

I don't know. Maybe you don't like the 175 employees that are presently working at Alberni Pacific sawmill or the 155 that are working at Somass sawmill in Port Alberni. What about the two mills in Nanaimo — 159 and 102 millworkers on top of that? As a matter of fact, hon. Member, they have seven mills operating, three reman mills and 17 logging operations going on Vancouver Island right now.

D. Routley: In fact, I'm very fond of Western Forest Products. They're a great employer in my community.

I don't even hate the minister, but what I do really despise is anyone who could stand in this House and defend those actions by saying, as he said: "We removed some lands from a tree farm licence. They were private lands. I'm not selling them. The reality is this. You know, the member goes out and goes on about the thing in New Westminster. Why don't you also admit to the member for Cowichan-Ladysmith that at the same time that mill was closed, they opened another mill in Cowichan-Ladysmith?"

Well, I've got news for the minister. In fact, that mill has closed. That mill has closed. Just one more casualty of failed Liberal forest policies. Others — Munns Lumber; Madill, famous equipment maker…. There were many others, too many to list here. Last week some 5,000 bidders took away hundreds of pieces of logging equipment from an auction in my riding. It was a sad day. It was a crime that it happened at all.

Don't stand and blame the markets. These closures mostly occurred before the market turned down, and in any case…

D. Routley: …someone is cutting our logs, which are being exported raw from this province.

Hon. R. Coleman: That's the most nonsensical diatribe I've heard in this House in 12 years. To the member: there are virtually no logs being exported from British Columbia right now, because the market is that bad for logs as well.

Hon. R. Coleman: The piece that I found the most sad about the member's comments was this. We talked about the Saltair mill reopening when I talked about Western Forest Products when we had that particular debate. The Saltair mill is still open today and employs 124 people.

C. Trevena: Despite this government's best efforts, the forest industry is still the heart of North Island's economy. But when the Minister of Forests and Range launched the Forestry Roundtable in Campbell River, almost four months after the Premier first announced it, he didn't give people much time or much notice. The minister had two meetings, one in Campbell River and one in Port McNeill. Neither was more than an hour long — an hour for forestry in Campbell River and in Port McNeill. These weren't open to the public. They weren't open to workers. They weren't open to some of the stakeholders. It was invitation only.

We've got a mill going down in Campbell River. We do know that this mill is closing in a couple of weeks, and yet the minister dismisses this in one-hour meetings. I hope that the minister isn't serious. I'm taking the fact that he isn't being serious about the round tables being dismissed in an hour.

I'd like to ask the minister: when will he come back to the north Island to have real consultations about the future of an industry that we all depend on?

Hon. R. Coleman: It was a broad invitation list that goes out to the round table. I don't know where the member gets her information. I sat in the meeting for two hours and 30 minutes. Everybody at the meeting

had up to ten minutes to speak. Every one of them had an opportunity to ask questions — two hours and 30 minutes and then for another half an hour after the meeting for consultation with first nations on top of that in both communities.

B. Simpson: This minister has the audacity to talk about nonsensical diatribe. In the same statement he talks about no log exports from British Columbia occurring right now. In the same statement he claims the Ladysmith mill isn't closed down. The minister doesn't even know his own file.

What bothers me most is that this minister has the audacity to say to us that we hate one of the companies that we're asking questions about. What the reality is, is that this minister so detests hearing the truth about the forest industry from the people of British Columbia that this round table that he's got going, this sham, is invitation only. It's a couple of hours maximum in communities, and we get some bullets on the webpage.

I have a challenge to the minister today. According to the bullets that you've got on your webpage, the issues are tenure security, tenure reform, forest health and waste, new social contract for communities and workers.

The Leader of the Opposition has an agenda for the forest industry that could be enacted right now.

B. Simpson: …and the restructuring that the industry needs for the future. My challenge to the minister is this. He was in Quesnel, the heart of the mountain pine beetle, on Saturday for 1.5 hours. Will he add an hour and allow me to come in and brief the round table on how to address this crisis now?

Hon. R. Coleman: The member for Cowichan-Ladysmith was talking about a mill that I mentioned in comment in the House, and that was the Saltair sawmill. The mill that took an indefinite closure last week was a different mill. So you get your facts straight, and you decide to figure it out.

I get that you want to insult every company in B.C. that's just trying to survive in one of the worst markets in the history of North America. I know you don't care about them. I know you don't care about their capital investment or their future investment or their employees or anybody else.

I also find it absolutely ridiculous that the member thinks he should come and brief a round table when he absolutely refused to even recognize that it had any value in the first place.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call continued second reading debate on Bill 21 in this chamber and in Committee A, for the information of members, continued Committee of Supply debates on the estimates of the Ministry of Economic Development.

Bill 21, I'll remind people, is what is called the Medicare Protection Amendment Act. Like many of the acts that come before us from this government, there's an Orwellian sense to the choice of words used to describe the act. With the term "sustainability" added as a sixth principle of the principles of medicare, we have what is in essence a step in undermining the existing five principles — five principles that have served British Columbians and Canadians very, very well.

What I talked about earlier was just the fundamental importance of health care that is based on need as opposed to health care that is based upon the ability to pay. That is something that most Canadians would point to and say is the most important, the most civilized part of Canada. On something as important as health care we, as a greater community of British Columbia, pool our resources. In fact, we pool resources from across Canada to make sure that regardless of somebody's situation in life, they are looked after in a time of medical need.

That's something that I know the NDP, the people of this caucus, feel deeply about. In fact, it is something that the people of British Columbia feel incredibly strongly about.

When the Premier has at various times tried to put forward ideas, tried to put forward actions that would undermine health care in this province, the reaction from people is strong. In the community that I come from — and I'll just touch on a few of those things — the Premier is not trusted. This government is not trusted

on health care. There is a fundamental feeling that this government will work to undermine the services that are important to people in my area, and we just have to go back to the history that we have in the Kootenays.

We look at the beds that were shut, the facilities for seniors that were closed. We look at a hospital that was closed in Kimberley in such a short time that it resulted in chaos. It's something that's still a deep wound in Kimberley, a community that contributed $20 billion worth of resources, of wealth, to this province over its 100-year history. When that mine runs out, the hospital that the community, the union and the company, Cominco, built with community funding was closed in a matter of months — and all of the chaos that that created. As you go through the riding, you hear stories similar to that, almost as dramatic as that.

For all the other issues that were in front of people last election, that was the main issue — seniors care and health care. There is a depth of feeling that goes with that.

In rural areas, any attempt to move away from the idea that people in all parts of the province, regardless of their wealth…. That services should be fundamentally different is a fundamental problem. There are always going to be challenges to providing health care in rural areas, but what we have decided as a matter of decency is that we would attempt to provide care in all parts of the province, and that's something that is fundamentally important.

As I have said before, this bill is one that defines the difference between the two parties. Last week I had an opportunity to go into a school in Kimberley and meet with classes to talk about the Legislature and to describe for them what it was like here. One of the questions that the students asked was: "Well, what's the difference between the NDP and the B.C. Liberals?" Trying to be as careful as I could with the answer, I gave some notion of what the differences, the general groupings are.

One of the teachers said, "Well, basically the NDP believes more in public education and public health," and then described the B.C. Liberals. Fundamentally, that's it. The protectors, the creators of public health, are the NDP and continue to be. Those that people should fear in this province are the B.C. Liberals and this Premier. He is not trusted. He should not be trusted on this issue, and it is an issue that is fundamentally important to people in this province.

I'll just close with a reminder to people about this whole argument around sustainability. The figures that they used initially have been abandoned because they were completely discredited. I remind them about a fact that I think sits clearest. When we talk about health care costs being too great, we need to remember that $13 billion is what the people of British Columbia pooled together to look after the needs of all British Columbians and that $10 billion is spent on lotteries and put into slot machines.

If British Columbians are asked, "Is there room to make up?" well, people will give up lotteries and slot machines far before they will give up health care. That's a fact that every single British Columbian knows.

So the whole argument put forward around sustainability — in fact, the lack of argument that's been put forward…. We have not heard any government member stand up and actually explain what the purpose of this bill is. It has been completely absent. There's been no description about what the purpose of this is. We can only guess at the meaning. Because of the record of this government, we have every reason to be suspicious.

With that, I take my seat. I look forward to the debate, and I look forward to working — if not in this Legislature, in the election to follow — to make sure that health care in British Columbia is there for every single British Columbian, regardless of their ability to pay, but based solely on their need. That's the civilized thing to do.

J. Rustad: I am pleased today to rise to speak to the bill, the Medicare Protection Act. Before I start, I just want to ask the member a question or just pose it rhetorically about the member for Columbia River-Revelstoke, who's suggesting that the people in this province are spending money in the way that they want to spend money — that he thinks he knows better. Is the member really suggesting that he wants to take people's money that they may have to spend on whatever reasons they want to spend it on and that he knows how people should rather spend that money?

I mean, perhaps he's talking about a total socialist state where all the money would come into the government for him to be able to allocate accordingly. However, that digresses from the purpose of this act.

The purpose of this act is…. It adds a concept called sustainability. I want to talk for a second about that, because I decided I'd look it up in the dictionary, just to bring it out. Sustainability is a characteristic of a process that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely.

Health care is precisely that. We want to be able to maintain and improve services, but we have to be able to have that health care service offered over time. We have to make sure that it is there for our generations, our kids, our grandkids and that it's there for us when we need it.

Sustainability is a very interesting concept. I want to touch on this a little bit, because the member for Vancouver-Kingsway came out and said that he thinks…. We have the best health care system in Canada, according to the Canadian conference board, but he thinks that's not good enough. What he would like to see is B.C. spend the most money of any other province in the country.

Well, I find that very interesting, because what we're talking about is being able to offer quality services — not a race to see who can spend more. We want to make sure that those dollars are spent effectively. We want to make sure that the taxpayer has the best value for the money and, at the same time, that we're offering the best services possible. That is what sustainability is all about.

The member for Vancouver-Kingsway also said that this idea of sustainability is the Premier's idea. Well, I have to tell you this, Madam Speaker. I'm proud that we are looking at adding sustainability, and I'm proud that we have a Premier who's able to stand up and take leadership on this issue to bring forward some concepts and ideas that are going to keep our health care system vibrant and healthy for many, many generations to come.

When you think about sustainability, you might ask: why is this important? What is it about sustainability? I want to just look at a simple example about sustainability. If a taxpayer in this province was bringing in and earning $50,000 a year and was spending $55,000 a year, would that be sustainable? Over time, what happens is that shortfall would end up putting the taxpayer in a very, very difficult position.

I'll just give you an example of that, and that is our debt. In 1991 we had about $17 billion in debt in this province. By the time the NDP were finished in this government in 2001, that had grown to over $34 billion — a 100 percent increase in debt. That type of thinking is not sustainable.

One of the constituents in my riding, Paul Stevens, came up to me when I was out at a chamber meeting and said: "You know what? We need to see a reduction in our debt. What happened in the 1990s was totally and completely unacceptable. We need to see a reduction in that debt."

We have spent more than $10 billion in capital investment in this province, and at the same time, we've actually reduced our debt. We've actually been in a position where we have seen the type of investment that's needed in this province — new hospitals, new roads, new infrastructure that's needed. At the same time, we've managed to maintain and lower our debt. That is what the principles of sustainability are all about, unlike what the opposition had railed on about in the 1990s.

Currently we have about 45 percent of our budget being spent on health care services. Two-thirds of all new spending is going towards health care. By 2013 it's estimated that that will rise to 51 percent of our budget — 51 percent. Just a 1 percent increase in our budget would probably wipe out four ministries' entire budgets, just to try to find a 1 percent increase.

The member of the opposition, the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, the critic for health care, states that he wants to see the highest spending levels in Canada here. Well, where's that money going to come from? Where would those additional dollars come from? If you're going to be talking about even a 1 percent increase, you're going to start talking about eliminating ministries.

Or is the member suggesting that they want to see tax increases — that they feel the tax burden on the people of this province is too low, and they want to increase it? When you're talking about wanting to increase spending, that's what you're saying. You're saying that you need to bring in revenue so that you can spend additional dollars.

When you talk about sustainability, you have to also think about what it means for us in this province. We need to attract nurses. We need to attract doctors. We need to bring people, skilled tradespeople, into this province. You don't do that by driving up taxes and stagnating the economy. People can go anywhere they want in this country that we have.

We have the best place on earth here. We're making it the most competitive place. We are attracting people. The opposition's idea seems to be that they want to crank up the taxes and drive people away, just like they did in the '90s. I find it just absolutely amazing that the opposition did not learn those lessons in the 1990s.

Health care is one of the fundamental things that government can provide. As you know, it's our largest expenditure. We have some pretty significant obstacles coming up in health care, and that's simply because of what's happening in our society today.

For example, there are more than 1.3 million people in B.C. who suffer from one or more chronic conditions, and over 90,000 people suffer from four or more. Those numbers are anticipated to grow. Chronic disease is the biggest obstacle to sustainability of our public health care system. The amount of resources required is phenomenal, and we need to be able to provide those resources, but we must make sure that we can sustain them over time.

Some of the steps we are taking in terms of sustainability in this act are that we have implemented banning smoking in vehicles where children are present, and we've also banned smoking in a number of other venues around the province.

From where I come from, northern B.C., there are a lot of issues around tobacco use. Tobacco use is much greater there than in other areas in the province. So these are great steps towards trying to find ways to curb that particular problem, which can reduce a whole bunch of health care issues that come from that.

We're also looking at banning the use of trans fats in the preparation of food in restaurants, schools and food service establishments by 2010. Trans fats are something that never leaves your body. Those are the types of things we need to be looking at and addressing in order to try to create a healthier environment.

Some of the other innovative things we're doing. We're promoting ActNow, and we're promoting opportunity for physical fitness. Just 30 minutes of exercise a day and five fruits and vegetables can make a world of difference in people's health. All it takes is just a few steps. People are healthier, and their chances of cancer are reduced dramatically — all of these sorts of issues. Those are the kinds of things we are trying to do about sustainability, and that's what is part of this bill. That's part of making things sustainable.

Also, there are some other innovations that we're doing, and this is a big issue for me. As my parents age, they tend to have to go to the doctor more. Sometimes they have prescriptions that need to be filled. My mom, for example, has to go to a doctor every three months to get a prescription filled. It's the same pre

scription that she has been taking for a number of years, yet she can't just go to the pharmacist and get it done.

Well, that's a change that we're bringing in so that seniors and people who need prescriptions can just go to a pharmacist and get them filled and get them renewed without having to go through that expensive process and creating all that redundant work. Those are steps towards helping to create a sustainable health care system.

Similar with nurses. We're giving nurses more opportunity to be able to utilize the skills that they've been trained for. These are things that help to bring efficiencies in our system. Those are the types of things that come from leadership and from direction that our government is giving. The opposition, which has taken no position on many of these things, just seems to oppose. There is no plan, and there is no leadership coming from that opposition.

Madam Speaker, when you think about health care in northern B.C…. I just want to talk about some of the things that we have also done to help make it sustainable in the north.

Sometimes attracting doctors and nurses into the north can be challenging. So what we have done is implemented at UNBC the northern medical program to train doctors in the north for the north. It has already made a huge difference in the level of health care that's being offered in the north. We've more than doubled the amount of nurses that have been trained, and we're training a significant number of new nurses now in northern B.C. All of those things are critical towards making health care sustainable, and those are steps that our government is taking.

Similarly, we're implementing and bringing in a new northern cancer clinic in Prince George, and we've implemented a northern cancer strategy. In the city of Vanderhoof we just implemented a new cancer service there as well.

Those sorts of things help to provide the kind of services that are needed in the north, but it's all part of being sustainable. It's all part of improving services in the areas and making sure that those services can go forward and be sustainable.

This bill fulfils our government's throne speech and our commitment towards health care. As I mentioned before, two-thirds of all new money goes towards health care. By putting in the principles of sustainability as well as enshrining in law the principles and values that provide the foundation upon which our health care system is built, it is truly an example of what leadership is and what is needed with regards to health care.

I want to touch on one other thing. I've gone on and talked a little bit about it here. Health care is not about buildings. Health care is not about professionals that provide services. Health care is about the patients that need those services. The opposition critic stood in this House and railed on for two hours in some repetitive rhetoric that went on. Not once did I hear the opposition critic say that patients are what the issue is and what we need to be considering.

Fundamental to what we're doing with health care is making sure that patients have the services they need in this province — not wait-lists and not the strategy that the opposition had implemented in the 1990s, which was creating a shortage of doctors and nurses and professionals so that there was a limited amount of services that could be offered.

J. Rustad: They reduced the number of nurses that are being trained. They didn't expand the number of doctors that are being trained.

The member for Yale-Lillooet seems to be denying that, but that's okay. He was here in the '90s when that happened, and he knows very well that that's what happened.

Under our government we have seen a dramatic increase in that training. It's those health care providers that provide those services for patients, which are the core of what health care is.

The Medicare Protection Amendment Act takes a huge leap. It enshrines those principles that are the core, but it does bring in that new concept of sustainability. I know, in talking with constituents in my riding, they want to see a government that manages their money well, that can provide services, that can be there when it's needed but, at the same time, respects the tax dollars that are collected in this province and manages that well.

That is what the principles of sustainability are. That is what our government has done. Clearly, from what the opposition has said, they're not interested in that. They're not interested in sustainability. They're not interested in knowing what is in the best interests of patients. They seem to want to hit some record of being the top spenders in the country. Well, they tried that in the 1990s, and they ruined this province. Our government will not go in that direction.

You know what I find interesting? Even though the opposition members that have spoken so far have talked against sustainability, back in 1995 they brought in a plan that actually had sustainability as one of the key components. Yet now they seem to have just ignored that, and I think I understand why. It's because there is a lack of leadership on that side, and they just want to stand up and oppose anything.

That's very unfortunate, because I know that the people in this province, when they elected an opposition, wanted them to be able to be effective. They wanted them to be able to speak. Clearly, there is no vision coming from the opposition.

That is what defines us on this side of the House and the opposition on that side of the House. We have a vision for where we need to take this province. We have a vision for how we need to get there. We have a vision around sustainability, around fiscal responsibility. Those are the driving differences.

I challenge the opposition to put forward some plans and ideas. The health care critic, who went on for two hours, in the early part of his speech mentioned

that he'd get to talking about some policies and what the NDP believe in. Well, I waited with bated breath for two hours, and yet not one thing came up — not a single one.

J. Rustad: Yes. As the Minister of Health says, we are still waiting. I suspect that when future speakers from the opposition come up to speak, we will still be waiting. I'm sure the opposition leader hasn't quite taken a position yet, so no one else wants to come forward and kind of give their opinion on where things should be going.

I want to close by saying that our government has been taking some phenomenal steps in health care. When you look at the investments in the facilities around this province, when you look at the investments in the training and providing and expanding those opportunities, when you look at….

I just want to bring up one other one in Prince George, because I'm very proud of the programs that we're offering in Prince George. Just recently at CNC we opened up the new medical laboratory technologist program. That fills a huge need in northern B.C. As we all get older, when we go to see the doctor, we have many more exams that we have to go to, many more tests that need to be done. But you need people to be able to do those tests.

J. Rustad: The member just said that's not sustainable. I find that very interesting. The opposition member says that something is not sustainable. Are you suggesting that perhaps we shouldn't be doing those sorts of things?

Quite frankly, being able to do that additional training means we will have the professionals available to be able to do those tests, to provide those services for years to come. We are doing that training for northern B.C. in northern B.C., through the great facilities that we have. Through part of the cancer strategy, we plan on doing even additional training within the north to help meet the needs of a cancer clinic in northern B.C.

As I was saying, we've been taking a tremendous amount of initiative in health care to make some changes, to bring things into a state of sustainability. When you look at a quadrupling of the rate of inflation — what our budget has been increasing over this decade, quadrupling the rate of inflation — that clearly cannot continue.

We need to start doing things differently. We need to look at ways that we can have more effective use of those dollars. Innovations such as at the UBC Centre for Surgical Innovation — those are the kinds of things we need. We need to stop thinking of what we did 50 years ago and to bring health care into the 21st century, look at the challenges we're facing and be able to meet those head-on with strategies so that our children can also have the same benefits and the same type of health care systems that we have today.

I'm very pleased to have had this opportunity to talk to the Medicare Protection Act. I am very pleased to have had this opportunity to talk about some of the great programs happening in northern B.C. towards sustainability.

For once, it would be great if the opposition would come out and — instead of having NDP or no discernible policy — support what is fundamental for our province. That is proper fiscal management and sustainability in our services so that we can improve our services and so that they will be there for us and for generations to come.

C. Trevena: I rise to speak against Bill 21, the Medicare Protection Amendment Act. I was interested to hear the member for Prince George–Omineca trying to define sustainability, because this is what the issue is about — the addition of the principle of sustainability to the act.

As well as the principles of public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability, accessibility, we now have this principle of sustainability. According to the member for Prince George–Omineca, the principle of sustainability has something to do with eating your five fruits and veggies. It seems to be a little strange, a little vague. He was talking about that and something about finances, but we really haven't seen and haven't heard a definition yet about what the government means by sustainability.

The concern from this side of the House is that when the government puts in a principle of sustainability and starts talking about sustainability, it is one or maybe two steps towards the introduction of increased user fees and a greater level of privatization within our public health system. As we are well aware, we on this side of the House are very strongly and very determinedly in support of a public health system that is truly public for everyone in B.C. — that the principles of accessibility and universality are underlined. We want to make sure we do everything to ensure that it is there for people when they need it.

I'd like to put this debate into a little bit of context because when people come into it, they are listening to a debate. When there are many people speaking, they're obviously not going to be aware of everything that's happening. So I'd like to put a bit of context into this debate.

The bill itself is very short but I think very, very significant. I think this might be one of the most significant pieces of legislation to our public health system that we will be seeing. This is why many of us on this side of the House will be speaking against it.

In context, in 2006 the throne speech was full of issues about health care and the health system. The Premier was talking very strongly about health care, and then we saw the Conversation on Health start — going around the province talking to people who wanted to participate in the Conversation on Health.

Then we saw this concept of sustainability start to filter in and the move more and more towards what seemed to be a privatization of our health care system.

It's very interesting when we talk about sustainability because in including it in legislation like this, B.C. would be the first province to legislate this principle into its structure of public health and into its health provision — that there would be, as well as the five principles, this principle of sustainability. Not only is it not something that any other province has done; it's something that even the federal government, which we know is a very right-wing government at the moment, doesn't want.

In fact, the federal Minister of Health, Tony Clement, has written: "The federal government does not intend to open up the Canada Health Act. We believe there's plenty of room for positive innovation within the current legislation." Whether or not one has any faith in what the federal government is talking about as positive innovation and what that might mean, there isn't a need to open it up; whereas the provincial government has clearly decided that they want not only to open it up, but they want to put in this principle of sustainability.

Sustainability is really one of the words of the 21st century that means everything to everyone. I think if you went around these chambers and asked every member what they define sustainability as, they would have a different meaning for it. Some would talk about economic sustainability, and some would talk about balancing the books. Some would talk about long-term planning. Some would talk about environment. Some would talk about triple bottom line — that we're talking about everything, all the different parts of finance, environment, social issues. All are part of sustainability. Everyone would have a different interpretation.

Madam Speaker, if you left this House and talked to people, I think there would be hundreds of other interpretations of what sustainability meant. It is the word that means everything to everyone.

However, in the context of health care in B.C., it has very much come to mean financial sustainability. When we talk about financial sustainability in health care, we start to talk about how we can maintain it. We take, as I said a few moments ago, a few steps until we start talking about increased user fees and increased privatization.

The Finance Minister last year started raising this issue when she had the PowerPoint demonstration which showed the level of spending on health care and defined this as not sustainable. It really created this buzz of fear and concern and almost panic of "What are we going to do?"

Our health care system, the health care system that every Canadian…. I think every Canadian really believes in public health care. It's one of the things that identifies us as Canadians.

I think people started to get really worried and very concerned about whether we were going to have health care for our generation as we the boomers move on, as we get older — whether our kids are going to have health care. What's going to happen — whether it is all going to crumble, whether we do need to turn to some sort of privatized model, or what?

At that time, the government claimed that current health spending was 44 percent of the budget and that it would rise to more than 50 percent by the year 2013 and 71 percent by 2017.

This was the PowerPoint. This is what the figures were that were put out there to put the health care agenda of this government into the public domain. Costs are going to rise exponentially — 71 percent by 2017. This is all very much within our lifetimes, very much within our time when we will see it. We'll never be able to afford it, so what are we going to do? We're going to have to start making sure that people pay for things.

One has to ask: how accurate are these figures? How are figures being interpreted? I credit the Finance Minister. She is a former journalist, as am I. As a former journalist, I think the Finance Minister could tell you, as could I, that you have statistics, you have the interpretation of statistics, and you have a story to tell. So you can, if you wish, interpret the statistics to tell your story.

I believe this is what the government is doing. It looks at the statistics, and it wants to tell its story. It wants to get its point of view out and so will use those statistics to get its point of view out that the health care system is in financial crisis.

Now, our point of view on this side of the House is that yes, there is a crisis in the health care system. No question, there's a crisis in the health care system. In my own constituency of North Island, we've got emergency rooms closing in Port Hardy and Port McNeill, and we've got people moving from one to the other. We have patients being moved from one hospital to another, from Alert Bay over to Port McNeill or from Port Hardy to Alert Bay, depending on what's open.

Yes, there's a crisis in the health care system, but our view of the crisis in the health care system is one of how it's impacting patients. The government's view of the crisis in the health care system comes down to dollars and cents. It comes down to the issue of: "We're not going to have enough money. How are we going to make it happen? We're going to introduce this concept of sustainability and bring everything down to the sense of 'we cannot afford it.'"

I know there was some debate earlier in this House about how we are measuring how much the health care system is costing. I think that when people get the bold figures, they do get worried. There's no question they get worried because, as we say, we care about our health care. But the percentage of money that the government spends on health care really depends on three things.

One is obviously the amount of money it chooses to spend on health care, but there's also how much money the government is spending on other items, on other programs. This is bound to have an impact when you're looking at the proportion of money that goes on health care compared to the proportion of money that goes on other spending. So you spend on health care, and you cut on other services, as we have seen this

government do over the last seven years. We've seen cuts in women's services, cuts in child care, cuts in education, cuts across the board. Time after time we've seen cuts, and we see that the amount that goes into health care seems to be higher.

The other way that the proportion of spending on health care seems to go up is when you measure it against how much revenue you're taking in, and this government has cut taxes. No question, it has cut taxes. It's getting less revenue in, so however much it's spending goes up compared to the amount of money it gets in. It's quite basic and can be described quite simplistically. As other figures can be described simplistically to give the scare side, it can also be described quite simply how it's really not that scary.

The member for Prince George–Omineca is talking about how this side of the House is going to tax and tax and tax and tax so that we would be spending more on health care. I would like to see where the member got that information from. While this is obviously a way that a government can raise money, this isn't something that this side of the House, in this iteration, has ever been saying — that we are going to be doing this as a way to increase the money available for health care.

I think what we have are figures telling a story, figures being delivered in a way which tells a story the way that the government wants to tell it. Those figures are being interpreted the way the government wants to interpret them — which, of course, is their right. With their media operation, there are hundreds of people in their public affairs bureau putting out the various spin lines very regularly, working very hard down there. I mean, I give credit to them. They do work very hard down there. They put out the information, and they can sell their story pretty easily.

C. Trevena: There are many slogans. My colleague has just said that it's a slogan. There are many slogans that can be given. The concern is that sustainability is a slogan which is insidious. It is insidious; it's creeping in. Sustainability. We keep hearing: "We have to have sustainability; we have to have sustainability." It undermines the strength, the real strength of our public health system. It undermines the real strength of our Medicare Protection Act.

I don't see why we need this principle of sustainability. We all believe in maintaining and strengthening our health care system. We want it. Everybody wants this health care system to be sustainable, because every person in B.C., in some way or another, is relying on it. I'm a little concerned that we even need this.

I think we all know that there are private sectors already within the health care system. We all know that. Our concern is that this is opening the door to greater privatization because, again, this concept of sustainability has not been properly explained.

We have doctors' offices that are already private. We have clinics. We know that we have clinics. We keep getting quoted back about clinics. We have clinics which are private. But nowhere in the world where there is just private medicine is that proven to be more sustainable. I think we just have to look south of the border to see that a fully private system is definitely not sustainable.

I come from England where there is a two-tier health care system. There is the public system, the national health system, and there is also private. If there is the money, you can make the choice. But the national health system was very strong and had a great deal of investment in it. My colleague from Columbia River–Revelstoke spoke quite eloquently about how the British system helped his daughter, because she was a child when he was in England. She didn't have to pay.

One of the other things that the British system did in its choice up to a certain point — I think it ended it a few years ago — was free dental care. This was part of the national health system that made a choice that every child would be allowed to have free dental care. Dental health was seen as part of fundamental health. This was one of the choices in that system.

The other aspect that my colleague didn't touch on, because obviously he wouldn't be aware of it, is that seniors in Britain, even now, still get free prescriptions. Not a penny. They don't have to pay. They don't have to worry about drug plans or anything. They get free prescriptions. My parents are seniors, and they both get free prescriptions. So there are times when we really have to look at what is available.

Also in Britain there are free eye tests. We all have to make choices. We have to make choices about what we're going to be providing. When we're looking at what is sustainable and what isn't sustainable….

C. Trevena: I know that the minister is trying to talk to me, trying to catch my attention, but the floor is mine. The minister has had his hour to speak.

As I was saying, where there is private health, it's not proven to be more sustainable. In Britain, where there is this two-tier model, where the National Health Service can provide good care in certain aspects…. As I say, in Britain they've chosen, for instance, to have free prescriptions for seniors, which I think is something that is very, very valuable. They never have to worry about that.

In Britain in 2004 the National Health Service was charged 47 percent more for hip replacements performed by private surgical clinics than those in public hospitals. A coronary bypass operation cost 91 percent more in private practice in England than it did through the public practice. Again, if we're looking at sustainability as a cost issue, we should really be looking at investing in our present health system and not creating this fear factor that our present system is not going to be able to be maintained and that therefore we have to move to the private.

I have to say that this government, the B.C. Liberals, does keep perpetuating the myth — as is the political philosophy of the government side, the

neo-conservative philosophy — that without competition, costs are higher. So we have to have competition. We have to have more privatization because that will give people more choice — this idea of individual choice — and this will bring down costs.

People will have their choice. They'll be able to go out there with their $100 that they got from their environmental rebate and have that choice to spend it on their health care. I mean, let's take this to the next stage if we bring in the sustainability and allow the sustainability idea to go through.

Again, it's been proven that the lack of competition does not necessarily increase costs. It doesn't necessarily mean high costs. If I can quote from the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation…. If we were arguing that lack of competition does lead to higher costs, we would see that in countries where there are parallel private systems of care or public-private systems or those market-based, the costs would be so much lower. But they're not. In fact, Canada's costs are in most cases among the lowest.

As individuals here in our system, we already pay a great deal for our health care, and I find that shocking. I really do. I believe in a public system. I believe in public health care. I believe it's one of the signs of our civility that we have a public system. It's one of the really strong parts of our safety net. If you do get sick, you should be able to be looked after wherever you are. But sadly, that isn't the case.

We're already paying, because we are paying for essential services. If you need an eye test, you have to pay. Any optometrist will tell you that the eyes tell you how healthy you are. Everybody knows that dental care is private, but now we're talking about having to pay for physiotherapy. The list of the number of things that one has to pay for goes on. Chiropractic, podiatry, physiotherapy, eye tests — these have all been delisted.

On top of that, people are paying extra for private insurance, which covers things that the public health system doesn't cover. So we're already creating those tiers — those who can afford private insurance, those who are lucky enough to get a job where they get private insurance paid for. You need that to get the coverage. You need that because it helps to pay for your drugs. Like I say, God help you if you're a senior.

We are, as Canadians, very proud of our publicly funded health care. As I mentioned, it really defines us, and it differentiates us. That is because access to public health care is a great equalizer. The fact that everybody ends up, effectively…. They have access to high-quality care wherever they are, whether they've got money or not, if they need it.

If you get cancer, you get the same quality care largely wherever you are. It's much harder for people in rural communities to get access to it, but we get high-quality public health care in B.C. I think the fact that quality health care is a great equalizer means that we really should be supporting that. We should be looking at what the problem really is. It's not an issue of financial sustainability. It's not a question of that sort of sustainability. I think it's trying to find some solutions, trying to find ways of making the system work for us.

For instance, I cited the issue in my own constituency where we have a real question of sustainability with doctor shortages in the north end of the Island, where we have literally constant closures of the emergency room in one of the hospitals — whether it's Port Hardy or Port McNeill or at times Alert Bay — which means that we're seeing people moving around.

We have to address this. We have to look at ways of dealing with this sort of sustainability, with the medical sustainability, the staffing sustainability, whether we're looking at nurse practitioners, whether we're looking at increased use of clinics — how we can be very inventive, how we can be innovative, how we can really make sure that the innovation we can use comes from the people and not from changing the act to create this sense of…. There's the fear factor — putting the sustainability idea in.

Instead of looking at how we're going to be shifting towards the private sector, let's start looking at some of the ideas. As I say, the nurse practitioners are great. Let's start looking at more clinics. Let's start looking at, instead of spending a lot of money on locums, possibly using some of the money that goes to locums in incentives to get and keep the doctors and other people in the medical profession to stay in communities, particularly in rural communities.

One idea that was suggested to me by a doctor was that we've got people retiring, particularly to Vancouver Island. People are retiring to the communities. How about encouraging some of the doctors who retire to practise part-time? Get a couple of doctors, two or three doctors, to continue their practice part-time. They can still practise one or two days a week and be on the golf course the rest, and that might help. Look at different ideas.

Also, invest in primary health care. We don't necessarily need all the bells and whistles all the time. Invest in home care so that we can keep people out of the hospitals, out of the long-term care beds for as long as possible. Look at these ways, and these will start dealing with some of the issues. When we have the whole concept of sustainability, we will be tackling some of these issues.

I think we also have to look at the structures that we have, the health authority structures. Instead of having basically empires growing with very centralized health authorities who want to create their own monolith, let's bring it back to the community. The community can help bring it back down to reality and make the health system, our public health system, very sustainable.

The ideas are out there. The ideas are definitely out there for how we could make our health care system sustainable. I think the bottom line is that people of B.C. want quality health care. They really do want high-quality health care. They do want to see that their system is maintained and sustained, and they want to see an investment in it. They want to see a commitment from their government in health care.

Other members have suggested that this is going to be a debate that will carry through the election. I believe it will be a debate that carries through the election, because people are vested in health care.

As I end my comments on this bill, I go back to the concept of sustainability. Over this last session I think that members on this side of the House have talked about our view of sustainability. We have a document and a philosophy on how we're going to create a sustainable B.C. Our view of sustainability is the holistic view of sustainability. It is a view of sustainability that really does include a huge variety of aspects.

So it isn't just the financial sustainability interpretation. It isn't just the environmental sustainability interpretation. It is looking at everything with a lens of how we are going to make this accessible for everyone; how we are going to make sure that there is local control; how we're going to make sure there would be a democratic approach, which is again bringing the structures back down to the local level; how we can make sure that it is equitable and also how we can look at full-cost accounting.

So when we are looking at the cost of it, we're not just looking at the financial cost of the dollars and cents that we are investing in health care, but the cost of not investing in health care — the cost of poverty and how that impacts on our health care, the cost of homelessness and how that impacts on our health care system. These things have to be weighed in when we are looking at sustainability.

We can't take our health care system out and put it separately as a body that is there to be attacked, to be pared apart. It is part of our society. I think we should all be very proud that we have a health care system that is part of our society, that can be accessible to everybody, that is universal and that is free for a large part of the population.

I think we really do need to make sure that when we are starting to tinker with any of the health care legislation…. There is a lot of health care legislation in front of us at the moment. I'm sure we're going to have a very lively debate, and I hope there is a debate. I hope there is a back-and-forth between the members, because this is extremely important. Health care defines us.

My colleague from Columbia River–Revelstoke mentioned that this is what differentiates us, our side in the opposition, from the government side. But I think it is also something which does define all of us — the fact that we do have a health care system, that we are proud of it and that we need to invest in it.

I think we all have to be very cautious about how we are going to make sure that it can be sustained — that it can be maintained, that it is going to be available for everyone when they need it and where they need it — and that it will be sustainable in the truest sense of the word, which means that it will be sustainable for everyone as we go forward.

We can't just accept that it is a matter of how much it all costs. It is irresponsible not to take that into account. But I think we have to be very aware that when we start playing with our health care system, we are truly playing with the health of all of our society.

With that, Madam Speaker, I will conclude my remarks, but I will be opposing Bill 21, the Medicare Protection Amendment Act.

R. Sultan: I am pleased to comment on the Health Minister's Bill 21, the Medicare Protection Act. This British Columbia act adds a sixth principle — sustainability — to the five core principles of the Canada Health Act, these other five being public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility. This British Columbia act also defines those other five principles, a rather crippling oversight on the part of the original authors, but then there are a lot of other things that they didn't foresee as well.

The Health Minister has explained that the sustainability of our largely public health system is a serious concern, since health costs unchecked can grow beyond the current 44.6 percent of provincial government spending to 50 percent by 2013 and, according to our Finance Minister, could even reach a 71 percent share if we merely project the status quo.

The opposition Health critic has had a bit of fun suggesting that the statistic of 71 percent has turned out to be an awkward bit of rhetorical overkill and has therefore been taken out in the backyard and buried, never to be mentioned.

I strongly disagree with that assertion. One can easily construct an expenditures model based on historical growth rates for the economy, current levels of taxation and projections of health spending. After listening to the Health critic's unflattering prose yesterday, I got up at 5:30 this morning, fired up the laptop, got Excel out on the screen and built my own little model on the kitchen table without the helpful intervention of any aides or Treasury Board officials, based on simply reasonable "trends and asks" in the current context. Presto.

It's quite easy to foresee health care spending rising to 50 percent of this government's budget by 2013, only five years from now. If one projects the more aggressive "actual asks" in the current context, one can easily see the Health Ministry's share of the pie climb to 70 percent and more by 2020. No big challenge, and I didn't have to go and dig it up in the back yard.

Is this the Health-share budget future which our government in waiting sitting opposite has in mind, with essentially a continuation of the status quo? If so, they really have a serious obligation to explain to us and to British Columbians where the extra 7 percentage points of the budget share five years from now, for one example, or indeed the conceivable extra 27 percentage points of budget share in 2020 is going to come from.

Is it going to come from the schools budget? Is it going to come from the universities — five new ones just created? Are we going to squeeze down the number of social workers in Children and Families? Maybe

The pie is only so large, and there are many mouths to feed. It's helpful to recall that as recently as 1984, the health share of the budget was a little bit more than 30 percent. Over a 30-year time span, we are witnessing what seems to me to be quite possibly a doubling of the role of health care in the provincial budget. As health's share of budget grows, other important things like spending on schools and universities will surely be squeezed, and the seats on Treasury Board grow even more uncomfortable.

Many of us believe in the importance of maintaining a balanced menu of government services, and I believe members on benches opposite strongly subscribe to that view. Citizens ask many things from government, and rightly so. The government has 23 ministries and many obligations beyond the doctor's office. Health care must indeed be entrenched on a more sustainable basis.

All of this has been attacked vigorously in this Legislature. The opposition Health critic has described Bill 21 as weakening the principles of the Canada Health Act, as unsupported across Canada, as devoid of substance, as an idea coming from a sole-source decider and as completely unnecessary. I'll have more to say about that loosely aimed barrage later, but right now I'll merely remark that other friends of the Left have also chimed in.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, with characteristic attention to their funding sources, declares that the numbers cannot be believed even when they're published by CIHI, the health industry's equivalent to Statistics Canada. The Canadian Centre much prefers to make up its own numbers.

Our local health economics heavyweight, Prof. Robert Evans of the University of British Columbia, has pronounced in his usual scholarly prose that it's a phony issue. Vancouver Province, April 10. Not exactly a referee journal, Mr. Evans. He quotes further: "They are providing themselves with a legal basis for shifting the funding from the public to the private sector."

Who is Professor Evans, and what are his bona fides? He will be best remembered in history, I predict, as having concluded some 20-odd years ago that the reason health costs are climbing so fast was that we had too many doctors. Those pesky doctors, always seeing patients, always prescribing costly pills and ordering blood tests — dollars here and dollars there. Pretty soon we're talking serious money.

He became identified with what came to be called the Vancouver school of health economics. As described by SFU academic David Cohn, the Vancouver school conceded that medical care was important but relatively minor when compared with the social, economic and environmental factors in determining our health.

You might say they concluded that health care was too important to be left to the doctors. They recommended reforming health care so that the relation between medicine and the state was shifted — and these are David Cohn's words — somewhat away from the autonomous profession towards that of the labour force.

You might call it a Marxist theory of medicine. I think you can guess how much the doctors loved all of this. Our socialist government of the day, anxious over the growing medical cost burden, bought into the Robert Evans theory and choked off any growth in medical school enrolments, preferring to see British Columbia maintain its dependency on doctors from elsewhere. They cut nurses training a third, if you can believe it — good high-paying union jobs cut by a third.

Hospital construction essentially stopped. Even when the tower was half completed on the site of my old high school at 12th and Oak Street in Vancouver…. It sat empty for many, many years until this government completed the job. For the last seven years as epitomized by that tower, as a matter of fact, this government has been scrambling to try to catch up and indeed repair some of the harm.

For those of you following — with great, intense interest I'm sure — the statistical to and fro of this debate, here's a curiosity for you. While listening to the slings and arrows coming at this side of the House yesterday, I took time from ducking to take a closer look at the CIHI data on the growth rate in the growth rate of health care spending. That's right — the growth rate in the growth rate.

The question is…. Health care continues to become a more important component of the economy, but at what rate? It turns out that the growth rate of the growth rate was around 2.3 percent per annum in those bad, dark Socred days, dropped to a puny 0.8 percent under the NDP in the 1990s and has since rebounded to 1.1 percent under the B.C. Liberals. How about that?

No wonder the previous NDP government ran such a penny-pinching, stressed-out, cut-cost, don't-invest-for-the-future and don't-innovate health care system. They cut the growth in the growth of health spending by almost two-thirds, and to them, Robert Evans was a theoretical saviour. You can look it up — page 123 of their report on health expenditure trends, CIHI 1975-2007, bottom half of the page.

I guess my mathematical quirkiness tends to bubble forth. I said: here's a great campaign slogan for re-election. The NDP cut the second derivative. But then I thought: not many people are going to catch it, so we'll drop that brainwave.

With all of that, you might say a lot of us now approach Professor Evans's theories of cutting health costs by reducing the number of health professionals with a bit of caution. Let us concede, however, that the critics have performed the useful service of raising the profile of a fundamental, very important health policy issue. How much should government spend on health care, and what is sustainable?

Journalist Will McMartin, in Tyee last September, printed a series of tables arguing that the Finance Minister was simply crying wolf, that there was no medical cost crisis in government finances and that the crowding-out thesis, which he did not deny, was simply the result of government not spending enough on everything else. Government's total share of the provincial

economy for health and everything else has slipped from 20.9 percent of the economy in the first flush of the NDP era, in 1991-1992, to a mere 15.9 percent in 2005-2006 under this government and to 15.8 percent today.

Therefore, it was pointed out that since health care spending itself was not cut but, in fact, in the last two years has continued to grow at a pace significantly faster than the growth rate of the economy through NDP government and B.C. Liberal government alike, it's no surprise that health care's share has grown and then grown some more.

We are told the fault, dear Brutus, lay not in the stars but in ourselves, because we have not been spending as much as we should have been spending on everything else. Stripped to its essentials, the McMartin thesis suggests that this government has made a big strategic blunder by demonstrating tax and spending restraint. That 25 percent personal income tax cut that our government made on the first day it was in office was a huge mistake. Removing low-income people from the tax rolls entirely was another big blunder. The NDP, which has adopted McMartin's analysis with gusto, is once again revealed as the tax-and-spend juggernaut it really is.

But to leave the matter simply at that is a bit superficial. Let's consider a couple of other points. The first is: would British Columbia have performed as miraculously as it has — the envy of Canada if not the world — without those tax cuts on our first day in office, coupled with another innovation, spending discipline?

As an economist, I pay a lot of attention to Marty Feldstein of Harvard University and the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In a recent working paper titled The Effects of Taxes on Economic Behaviour, Marty has come close to endorsing Mr. Laffer's famous diagram sketched on the back of a napkin, pointing out that tax cuts pay for themselves. In other words, the proposition that economic growth stimulated by tax cuts can help the fiscal situation…. That proposition gains academic respectability — but, I would add, as long as we don't overdo it. Let's skip over quickly the fiscal record of the current Washington administration.

Our big fiscal policy question is: would we have more or less to spend on health care if we had not cut taxes? The NDP says more. I say less, and if that is true, McMartin's argument and the NDP's tax-and-spend theory go out the window. Indeed, I would argue that it was precisely the failure of the previous NDP government to grasp this point that forced them to become parsimonious, penny-pinching and very short-term in their thinking with respect to health care.

The NDP's higher taxes led to out-migration and lower investment, helped put the economy in the tank, slowed the growth of tax revenue — that's what high taxes did — forced the deceleration in the growth of health spending and set the stage for the poor performance in health administration during the '90s, leaving the many issues that this current government had to deal with.

The second point that I think should be considered is the proposition that regardless of its share of the government's budget, health care's share of the total economy continues to grow. It is true around the world, whether we're talking socialism or free enterprise. The United States, struggling with the disaster of its free market approach to health care, is now devoting one dollar in five to that sector in the economy and is bankrupting its automobile sector in the process.

CIHI tells us that we are spending little more than half that amount, but we're getting there. Why not? When it comes to immortality, why not go for the gold?

And another thing. It costs about ten times as much to keep these old bones of mine going as it did when I was a frisky 20-year-old, and I have not noticed anybody else getting younger either. So add it all up. Medical care is going to cost more, and this is on a collision course with finance ministers right around the world, whether we're talking Sweden, France or Canada — or for that matter, Hillary, Obama or Mr. McCain.

With so much of this cost now lifestyle-driven and with so much of this life science technology now discretionary, if not exotic, we have moved into an entirely new health care world far removed from the simpler days of Tommy Douglas and far removed from my own family's Dr. Coburn operating from a second-storey walk-up. I think it was above a fish and chips stand on Kingsway, as I recall. He made his house calls to our place, it seemed to me in my youth, armed with not much more than an enema syringe and a couple of aspirin tablets in his black bag. That was health care when I grew up.

Today's radically transformed economy is not sustainable under those old rules. I don't think it is. I think that in their hearts and minds the NDP knows that too, but it's an easy political hit to deny it.

Yesterday the minister concluded his remarks by referring to one Janice MacKinnon, and I would like to as well. Janice MacKinnon became famous as the first provincial Finance Minister to balance her books in recent times in Saskatchewan under an NDP government — under a good socialist, Roy Romanow. It's helpful to recite portions of an essay she wrote, since she is a tried and true NDP stalwart who served a competent western Canadian social democratic NDP government with distinction for about a decade and since so many of her views should find an audience in this debate today and refute the notion that the principles underlying Bill 21 may not find roots elsewhere.

In a July 2004 IRPP, Institute for Research on Public Policy, paper titled "The Arithmetic of Health Care," she worked over some of the same ground as Will McMartin did in his Tyee article. She says — and I'll quote at length; I'll just keep quoting until I say unquote:

That's what Janice MacKinnon said, an NDP prescription from an NDP stalwart and a seasoned NDP Finance Minister — no right-leaning radical, but merely a political leader with both humanity and common sense. Sounds to me like she was embracing the principle of sustainability.

I have no idea whether this Health Minister or, for that matter, this Finance Minister plans to take advice from an NDP Finance Minister, retired or not, but I think they should both think carefully about her words. For us here in British Columbia, sustainability is an issue.

C. Wyse: With all due respect to my colleague from West Vancouver–Capilano, eventually an old high school math teacher might show a little bit of discrepancy in how you take a percentage and move it around in any direction you want at any time and have fun with it.

Before I get into that, with due respect for my colleague, I think what also needs to be mentioned here is this point. That is that a budget is an expression of political decisions. That's in actual fact what a budget is. It's a collection of a whole variety of different items that are taken into consideration when the budget is brought forward. There is a whole range of items that come into play when those decisions are made.

To turn around and suggest, for example, that the youth should not pay for an increased cost because they will use health less than the elderly, taken in isolation by itself, begs other issues. Does that also suggest that seniors shouldn't pay for education because they're not having a family? Does that also suggest that drivers should pay more than non-drivers because they don't use the roads? Away we go with that type of discussion. When you try and move things out into isolation, you will get into all sorts of contradictions.

In looking at this bill — Bill 21, the Medicare Protection Amendment Act — I wanted to listen carefully to what my colleagues opposite had to suggest, because we are talking about defining the word sustainability. When you get into defining what sustainability is, in my judgment…. I wish to hear in actual fact from the government what they had in mind with sustainability.

It's possibly my lack of understanding; I accept that. But to date I don't understand why this bill has been brought in. There are still questions that are outstanding for me. The government representative, the Minister of Health, in my judgment still has not explained the rationale for why the bill is being brought in.

What I did hear was quite a period of time on what this side should be doing and questions of that nature. But this bill does not belong to this side of the House. Therefore, that responsibility rests with the minister. It rests with the government to explain what is going on, what is the background for this bill.

With the discussion that has been taken to date, I would be voting for something as a pig in a poke. Therefore, at this particular point in time, this bill in my judgment is not supportable. Possibly with extensive clause-by-clause analysis, possibly with a myriad of amendments, this bill may be salvageable. But in the present form it is not supportable.

I mentioned earlier about where this bill has come from. In 2006 the throne speech did focus upon the unsustainability of health care — no question. The throne speech defined that health care was unsustainable. It was used to kick off the Premier's tour of the province on health.

That tour was sent out with a preconceived conclusion that it was unsustainable. Now we'll go out and find it, and we will then fix a problem that we've already said exists. Now after that was done, lo and behold, that wasn't the message that was brought back.

We've heard consistently — as a matter of fact, the words of wisdom by my colleague opposite likely are still reverberating through the room with such a high ceiling — that the numbers for the health portion have gone to 50 percent and then to 71 percent. Lo and behold, that is based upon percentages, those lovely items that statistics and statisticians love, where you can move numbers around by changing the parameters that you're talking about.

When you develop a percentage, it involves the amount decided to be spent on health. That comes into play — again, a political decision that fits in with the budget. But what also comes into play is how much is

spent on non-health-related items. That has an effect upon the percent. Likewise, how much the government collects in revenue also comes into play, and that revenue includes taxes.

When you take in all of those items and move them around, the percentages that result — those numbers, those conclusions, those results in a budget…. That political statement that was made is moved about. Going to the tried-and-true method of evaluating where costs come from — many economists, statisticians, health care providers and experts, of which I'm not one, being a former mathematics teacher, a long time ago now — those figures get moved around. We have reductions in revenue that have taken place — billions of dollars of reductions in revenue, with an effect upon the amount of revenue that is available to be spent upon all services.

When we look at that gross national product, what we do notice are two things. British Columbia has gone from second to seventh in per-capita spending on health care. Likewise, the percentage of GDP was 7.4 percent in 2001-02 and has decreased to 6.9 in '06 and '07.

At the same time that that has happened, there also has been a passing on of health care to private health plans and to individuals. Some examples. The government increased the MSP premiums by 50 percent and delisted services, including physiotherapy and vision care. That increased the costs for individuals in private insurance plans. The median expenditures per household for private health insurance increased from $360 per year in 1997 to $600 in 2006, and the costs for private supplementary insurance, including delisted services such as vision care and physiotherapy, increased from $256 in 1997 to $480 today.

Now, you might wonder why I bring up those items and bring them up in this particular conversation. When that shift did take place in 2001-2002 through to 2005-2006…. Upon being elected, I continued to get people that were recently retired and had worked out what their pension was going to be, what their income was going to be and what their expected costs were going to be. They found it quite a rude awakening when their MSP costs were doubled, when a variety of other services that they would have expected and were expecting to be covered were no longer covered.

That is the effect of this movement of costs being shifted from the public system onto the private system and is the effect that it does have upon individuals as well as upon the availability of the private health care plans. I have seen the effect, directly, of changes from the public system being funded with a shift into the private care.

That brings me to one of my final points that I wish to talk about. Besides that slide from second to seventh in health care spending among Canadian provinces, the other aspect about sustainability that comes into play is the definition of the word "sustainability."

In a remote-classified area they might argue that the health system is not sustainable because there's an ambulance sitting there fully equipped but there's not a paramedic available to drive that ambulance. In that part of British Columbia, of which there are numerous areas, they might argue, clearly, that the health care system is not sustainable. So that definition of sustainability is really wide open.

What I have heard to date is that it's simply one of percentages. I have demonstrated, at least to my satisfaction, that when you talk about percentages, those numbers may be moved around, very much controlled by the parameters that are included and not included in arriving at those percentages.

When we also examine the bed-to-patient care in British Columbia, it has dropped to 1.8 acute care and rehabilitation beds per 1,000 population, which compares to the Canadian average of three. Is our health care system sustainable because the beds aren't available? Or is the health care system not sustainable because there were budget decisions made that shut down those beds and they were no longer available? When we were dealing with an amendment upon sustainability, it is not supportable, given the information that has been provided to date.

No one in British Columbia from the Conversation on Health has requested this shift. As I mentioned earlier, that started in a predetermined, set conversation, with a throne speech delivered here, which I heard with my own ears in 2006. But the public has not run forward and embraced that claim, given the Conversation on Health. There has not been an adequate explanation of this bill. It's not supportable.

Madam Speaker, with that, I thank you for the time to bring forward my concerns on this bill, and I look forward to clause-by-clause debate on this non-supportable bill.

B. Ralston: I rise to speak on this bill, Bill 21, the Medicare Protection Amendment Act. I suppose the first question that one might ask is: why is this bill so important in the view of the opposition, and why are we so concerned about it?

On its face, it's a very brief bill, relatively short. It really introduces amendments to the preamble to the Medicare Protection Act and takes the same principles and adds them as directions to the operation of the Medical Services Commission. The Medical Services Commission is the public body which operates, on behalf of British Columbians, the Medical Services Plan. It administers the plan, and it has a number of powers under this act.

The bill itself proposes some amendments to the preamble to the Medicare Protection Act. In that act are, as other speakers have set out…. I'm going to read from the present preamble. "WHEREAS the people and government of British Columbia wish to confirm and entrench universality, comprehensiveness, accessibility, portability and public administration as the guiding principles of the health care system of British Columbia and are committed to the preservation of these principles in perpetuity." That's part of the preamble.

What this bill significantly does is seek to amend those five principles by adding a sixth principle of

sustainability. It's significant that it's added as a sixth principle in the preamble, not as an addition or further comment. There are some other parts of the proposed amendments which do that as well.

One might ask the rather pedestrian question: why is a preamble to an act considered by the opposition to be so important? Well, the answer, perhaps regrettably, involves one to move to textbooks about statutory interpretation and how the courts of law look at legislation, because one can well imagine, after the Chaoulli case that went to the Supreme Court of Canada, that there might be occasions where decisions of the Medical Services Commission or of the government might be challenged in court.

So in order to interpret what the government is doing, the court would look to this act for assistance in interpreting the intention of the Legislature. The Interpretation Act, section 9, says: "The title and preamble of an enactment are part of it and are intended to assist in explaining its meaning and object." So the preamble and its changes would assist the court in interpreting some specific action of government in administering the Medical Services Plan.

The principle of statutory interpretation also considers that it's presumed as a principle of interpretation that they're not doing this for nothing. They're not doing this for no reason. When an amendment is introduced to an act, it's deemed to have an intention to change the law. There's a case that says if the language of the law has changed, an intention to change the law is to be presumed.

In addition, other principles…. "No part of an act should be treated as ineffectual or mere surplusage if any other construction is possible." In other words, the judge is presented with the act and asked to interpret it. The judge would be pointed to the preamble and the words in the preamble and asked to give them meaning, to presume that the Legislature intended something when they introduced the act and introduced these changes.

One can presume that the addition of this concept, sustainability, is a very important one because it elevates it to the same level as the other well-known principles of the Canada Health Act incorporated in this provincial statute. If a judge were to come to interpret those principles, sustainability would be given equal weight with all the others. Those are basic principles of statutory interpretation. But the concept of sustainability really demands an explanation.

In this debate the Minister of Health, one of the senior ministers in the government of one of the largest provinces in the country, on a matter of important and urgent public concern on health care, simply refused to explain what he meant. He says in the debate from his speech in Hansard that "a clearly defined sixth principle of sustainability will also be added."

Not only did I listen to the minister's speech, but I read the Hansard record of his speech, and nowhere in that speech, despite meandering on and through various political circuits and backwaters over a period of more than an hour…. He never offered for the public a clearly defined sixth principle of sustainability. He never said what that means.

One has to be very disturbed by that because of the importance that a court might well and would well attach to it in the future. Fortunately, though, although the minister was not forthcoming here in public debate, he was a little more forthcoming, apparently, when responding to questions from journalists.

In a response in an article in the Globe and Mail, he is quoted as saying the following: "The government does not intend to open up the Canada Health Act. We believe there's plenty of room for positive innovation within the current legislation." It's a framed statement of values. The definitions can take on critical importance in issues that may be argued in courts of law. They can be very important in terms of framing principles to guide governments.

Now, the minister didn't say that here, and he was unwilling to say that in debate. Given the legislative schedule — that we are now 14 days, according to the rules, from the adjournment of the session — it's very unlikely that this bill will be put forward for committee stage debate where we'll have the opportunity to have an exchange with the minister as to why he declined in second reading to offer a definition, despite apparently claiming that he would.

So we won't hear that from him here in the Legislature on the record, but it's clear that he is alive to the reality that this definition assumes a very important legal significance when it comes to interpretations of the operations of the Medical Services Plan, decisions of the Medical Services Commission and decisions of the government.

One of the responses — again, not dealt with here in the Legislature — was that as also part of the preamble…. And I'm going to read from it, just to accurately quote it, so that I can discuss why I think that it is of a different order, and I think most lawyers would agree: "WHEREAS the people and government of British Columbia" — this is a further part of the preamble — "recognize a responsibility for the judicious use of medical services in order to maintain a fiscally sustainable health care system for future generations."

And the preamble goes on: "AND WHEREAS the people and government of British Columbia believe it to be fundamental that an individual's access to necessary medical care be solely based on need and not on the individual's ability to pay."

I think what the minister said — he didn't say it in debate, because he got sidetracked by some of his political obsessions, I think — is that this inclusion of the phrase "fiscally sustainable health care system" is equivalent to what he's introducing as a principle in another part of the preamble.

It then begs the question: if he thinks it's already there, then why introduce it? Why introduce something that's already there? It's completely unnecessary and merely repeats what's there. When asked that — again, not replying here in the Legislature — by journalists, he was quoted…. I'm quoting from Mr. Palmer:

"If sustainability was already mentioned in the preamble of the legislation, what was the significance of adding it to the text of the legislation as the Liberals were doing? Abbott had to struggle to answer that one." I refer to the Minister of Health. I'm just quoting from the article. "He said it would serve as a further 'reminder of the need to run the system as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.'"

So the minister is engaging all the mechanisms of the Legislative Assembly, the drafters. We're devoting time here in the Legislature to debating this legislation, and according to the minister, at least if he's quoted accurately, and I presume he is — a very senior journalist — it's simply as a reminder.

One really wonders whether that is, in fact, what's going on, or whether it's his earlier statements to another journalist that these issues take on critical importance when they're argued in courts of law. I suggest very strongly — and I think the minister really knows that; he just doesn't want to say it here in the Legislature — that this change is an important one that will guide legal interpretation of the operation of the Medical Services Commission, the operation of the Medical Services Plan and, in future, issues that may arise before the courts.

Maybe he said he doesn't want to speak in the Legislature about this because it's also a principle of statutory interpretation that the record of Hansard, and particularly the minister's comments on a piece of legislation, can be used as an aid to interpreting the legislation.

Perhaps he's been advised, in order to assist the future legal use of this legislation, that he ought not to speak about it and rather merely avoid the point, because what he does say could be used to interpret the legislation were it to come before a court.

One commentator says…. I'm quoting from a decision where the court says: "It is now well accepted that the legislative history, parliamentary debates and similar material may quite properly be considered as long as it is relevant and reliable and is not assigned undue weight." The very debate that we're having here, if and when this matter comes before the courts, could assist the courts.

The minister really hasn't set out to assist the court to decide what the true meaning of this legislation is. He's perhaps unduly modest. Perhaps he doesn't want to state the result that he hopes for. Whatever, he has been given an opportunity here in the Legislature to explain his legislation as the Health Minister, a senior minister with one of the largest budgets of any ministry in government. What does he mean by this legislative change? Is it just a reminder? Is that why we're here, or is there something else at play? He has not given an explanation as to why he has introduced this bill, despite ample opportunity to do it.

Now, maybe that's because he realizes in his heart of hearts, and he's maybe too modest to say, that he's simply being directed by the Premier to put this legislation forward, that this idea of adding a new principle to the Canada Health Act and to the Medicare Protection Act is uniquely an idea of the Premier's. It's not supported elsewhere in the country. Most notably, as the member for Vancouver-Kingsway pointed out, the federal Minister of Health, Mr. Clement — one would have thought a reasonably politically compatible point of view to that of the Minister of Health — has said that he was unwilling to even consider the idea and not even enter into the debate, dismissed it out of hand. So alone in Canada, and perhaps alone in cabinet, but nonetheless, since he's the Premier, that's why this legislation is before us.

Perhaps we'll hear from the Premier on what he views as the challenge here, what his definition of sustainability is, why this bill is being brought forward and what interpretations in future court proceedings he hopes will be gleaned from it. So far, I await that speech with some anticipation, if it should come.

Now, the other amendment that's brought here, again to the preamble…. This, I appreciate, may seem a bit esoteric, a little bit removed from the ordinary concerns that people have about the health care system. Again, there is an addition of other principles, and they're not of the same order as the sustainability word that's used, whatever it may mean.

The other amendment that's brought here in the bill is a further addition to the preamble: "WHEREAS the people and government of British Columbia are committed to building a public health care system that is founded on the values of individual choice, personal responsibility, innovation, transparency and accountability."

There's a further addition to the preamble: "WHEREAS the people and government of British Columbia wish to ensure that all publicly funded health care services are responsive to patients' needs and designed to foster improvements in individual and public health outcomes and ongoing value-for-money for all taxpayers."

These are legislative changes in the enactment designed to assist the interpretation of the act, to assist the interpretations of the action, the administrative decisions, of the Medical Services Commission.

Now, what do other people out in the community think? For example, what does sustainability mean? The people at the False Creek Surgical Centre, private health providers, believe: "We plan to add to the minister's accomplishments by expanding on the cooperative system of blended private and public health care. This finds increasing approval among Canadians. This direction promises to make the health care system sustainable for future generations."

So private providers believe that this definition of sustainability will lead to an expansion of their business. Where they get that notion from, I'm not sure. Maybe they've received some private assurances from the government. It's difficult to know, because the minister wouldn't deal with the question directly in his speech that he gave initiating this legislation.

One can also well imagine…. These are only questions at this stage, because there's been no explanation. The minister didn't even touch on this part of the

changes to the preamble. What does personal, individual choice mean? It can mean personal liberty, but it also can mean an obligation that if you want certain health services in the future, to pay for them yourself.

Personal responsibility. Certainly, there may be an obligation, one that's hard to disagree with notionally — the idea of personal responsibility. But what does that mean when it comes to dealing with health care? Does it mean that people who smoke or people who are considered to be obese would be deemed to be devoid of personal responsibility and, therefore, have a different access to the health care system? Who knows? It's an open matter of interpretation.

Certainly, these are concerns that the minister must address, because these changes are brought for a reason. It will be presumed by a court that these aren't simply mere words but that they are brought for a reason. They change the intention of the act, and they will affect court interpretation of decisions of the Medical Services Commission and of the government.

So personal responsibility and individual choice may mean providing more of one's own money to pay for health services. That may be a definition that's assigned by a court. It certainly may be argued by government lawyers on behalf of the Medical Services Commission in the future that that's what it means.

Doubtlessly, the minister has legal opinions from the drafters of the legislation, and I think the proper thing to do would be to share with the public those concerns of the legal drafters and the legal advice that he got. Why are these words being added? What is the prospective interpretation of these words when these matters come to court?

The other principle here, ongoing value for money…. That phrase is used by various parts of government, typically when audits of various government operations are performed. On the surface and in itself perhaps innocuous enough, but what is the intention? Why is this being added to the preamble? Why is this being put forward as something that a court might be asked to use to interpret a decision of the Medical Services Commission? If something is deemed not to be value for money, might that mean that an individual patient would not be entitled to receive that service?

There are a number of questions that arise when looking at the very serious words that are put into this preamble. Regrettably, the minister has not held forth, not explained the very basis of this legislation. That, in my view, is a reason for deep concern about this legislation.

It's somewhat analogous to the bill on giving the government power to toll highways and bridges. The stated purpose of the legislation in the Legislature is very contrary to the actual wording of the legislation. This seems to be a tactic by government ministers — to introduce a bill and then speak about something else and pretend it's connected to the bill that's before the House.

I think the minister used, in his discussion of this concern raised by the opposition…. He dismissed it, in his usual dulcet tones, as a conspiracy theory or a grassy knoll. I think that seems to be a favourite one. I would really beg to differ, and I would strongly suggest that these are legitimate and important questions about this piece of legislation and how it will impact our public health care system.

The public health care system. We heard some discussion about its economic cost from the member opposite just moments ago, but it's also clear that business leaders regard our public health care system as a significant advantage to business and the competitiveness of business vis-à-vis our global competitors. Mr. Baillie, the former CEO of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, in a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade entitled Health Care in Canada: Preserving a Competitive Advantage stated: "Moving away from a single-payer, publicly funded system might cost the government less. But it will cost the country more."

I suppose the minister would reject that because it's a view that disagrees with his, or appears to disagree with his, but this is a former CEO of the Toronto-Dominion Bank who is recognizing the reality of the public health care system, particularly vis-à-vis the United States. It's an advantage for employers. They don't have to bear the cost as a cost of running their businesses, running the health care costs. Indeed, in many businesses in the United States the private provision of health insurance to employees is a significant cost burden on their operations.

Here's Mr. Baillie saying: "Wait a minute. Just wait a minute. Moving from a single-payer, publicly funded system might cost the government less. But it will cost the country more." This is not some wild-eyed socialist. At least, I don't think Mr. Baillie…. I haven't seen him at party conventions. He might be, but I doubt it somehow. It's the former CEO of the Toronto-Dominion Bank saying that.

These are not issues that should be taken lightly. When we look at the positions of British Columbia and Canada in the global economy, that kind of cost advantage, that kind of social advantage from a publicly funded health care system — where the kind of marked social divisions that one sees in many parts of the United States don't exist — is a significant economic and social advantage, never mind the fact that it's a more just society in which to live.

There are others who have expressed their concern about the tack that the government is taking, because the argument that was put forward in the fall of 2006, directed from the Premier's office, I presume, was also picked up by the Minister of Finance.

One recalls that at the news conference concerning the quarterly report in December of 2006 this spectre of health care costs rising to 71 percent of the budget was floated. The people that heard that were very unreceptive to that, and the minister has since abandoned that line of argument entirely — completely dismissed from her vocabulary.

The Premier, similarly, at the launch of what was then called the Premier's Conversation on Health,

made a very similar argument — similarly banished from his vocabulary and disappeared entirely from the rhetoric and the stock speeches of government.

The concern that was raised at the beginning of the Premier's Conversation on Health…. It's obvious that there was an assessment of some kind when that statement or that position did not receive any public support whatsoever. Certainly, in the considerable submissions that were made to the renamed Conversation on Health — the title "Premier" was dropped from it — it became very clear that the public did not support that position.

Nonetheless, notwithstanding the lack of public support, notwithstanding the view of very senior former executives, the CEO…. I just mentioned Mr. Baillie of the Toronto-Dominion Bank. "Don't move away from a single-payer system," he says. The position of Mr. Clement, the federal Minister of Health — it's a non-starter.

We have this bill here before us seeking to change and to add a new interpretive principle to the operations of the Medical Services Commission and the Ministry of Health and the delivery of medical services here in the province of British Columbia. The argument that it's not sustainable finds no echoes anywhere, other than perhaps when the Premier is in his office and talking with his closest advisers. That appears to be the ambit of the support for this notion.

I want to quote further from an article by Mr. Fyke, who is a former member of the B.C. Royal Commission on Health Care and Costs, the Seaton Commission, commissioner on the commission of medicare in Saskatchewan, a former Deputy Minister of Health in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and the former CEO of the Greater Victoria Hospital Society. He expresses some sympathy for the government being concerned about what's called sustainability.

M. Sather: I rise today to speak against Bill 21, the Medicare Protection Amendment Act, such as it is. Whether it's a meaningful bill or a meaningless bill, as was very ably canvassed by the speaker before me — the member for Surrey-Whalley…. We'll set that aside for a minute.

We on this side of the House can't assume that the bill has no meaning whatsoever. Therefore, we are opposing it, because we are concerned that, as ill-defined or undefined as it is, the government does have some reason for passing this bill, for introducing this bill.

We know that the Conversation on Health was sprung by the Premier a couple of years ago. It was the Premier's Conversation on Health, and there was a lot of talk that accompanied it about how unsustainable the health care system was in British Columbia. The government has been trying to sell the people of British Columbia on that concept ever since. The purpose, I believe, of the Conversation on Health was in fact to sell that to the people of British Columbia.

In fact, it's a modus operandi that's become all too common and popular with this government, and that is to denigrate and to run down public systems and public institutions. That's what they do in advance of wanting to gut them. We're seeing that very much here again, notwithstanding that the minister's saying: "Oh, I'm sure you're going to hear all these wild-eyed tales about privatization. You know, people on the grassy knoll."

M. Sather: "Pretty much accurate," the minister says. "It's what we've heard so far," he says. Obviously, it's a reference to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

I mean, why would British Columbians possibly think that this government might be into privatization?

M. Sather: "Exactly," the minister says. There's no proof, surely, out there that that's the case and that that might give them some cause for concern. Not these guys. They would never be into privatization.

You know, when they sold B.C. Rail, which was owned by the people of British Columbia, that wasn't a privatization. No. In fact, remember how they said: "We didn't even sell it, as a matter of fact. You've got it all wrong. We just made a 990-year lease. Anyway, let's not quibble over the details."

Then we've got B.C. Ferries, which has been pretty much privatized — in name only a Crown corporation — run by a CEO from the United States, whose main claim to fame is to raise the rates. What people in British Columbia are concerned about is that their rates for health care are going to be raised, that they're going to be paying through the nose while the government downloads on them, and we've seen plenty of downloading from this government.

What other reason is there for the people of British Columbia to think that this government just might be considering further privatization? Well, look at the issue with the so-called run-of-the-river projects — a massive attempt to privatize the provision of energy in this province. No doubt about that. They're now up to 8,200 sites that they're pushing — all private, no room for the public body. B.C. Hydro not allowed. But, hey, why should the people of British Columbia be concerned?

B.C. Hydro itself. I mean, they bring in that august body, that company Accenture, from that tax-evading Bermuda-based company which the Minister of Energy clearly loves dearly, even though they're, you know…. They won't even….

M. Sather: The minister is really exercised, and you know that when the minister gets exercised, you've hit a sore spot with him. He's got a lot of sore spots, so it's not that hard to hit them.

M. Sather: Accenture becomes you. Yeah, it does indeed. Just the fact that the state of California….

M. Sather: Just because the state of California wouldn't deal with them, they're good enough for this privatizing government in British Columbia — just fine, just fine.

Close to home, getting back to health care, we had in our hospital — and we still have, and in other hospitals — rethermalized food. Rethermalized food — one of the Health Minister's favourite things. He should come…

M. Sather: He should come to Ridge Meadows Hospital, like I did. I sat there with the group from the hospital while they had to eat this horrific food in front of them, and I, of course, didn't have to — and didn't.

This is a government that talks about…. You know, we've got the member for Maple Ridge–Mission, who is going on the hundred-mile diet. That's a great thing. That's something that….

M. Sather: "It's a good thing," the minister says. Then why, if the hundred-mile diet is a good thing, are they bringing food from everywhere outside of British Columbia — from Ontario, from the state of New York — for the rethermalized food? No hundred-mile diet there.

What about long-term care? Do the people of British Columbia have any concerns about privatization of long-term care? I wonder.

M. Sather: No, not that side. Certainly, the minister is not concerned. He's shown that over and over again. He's quite happy with it. But I'll tell you, the seniors in my community are not happy about it.

M. Sather: You know what? This is great. You know, the minister opposite, the Forests Minister, is talking about how they just want to get rid of me, but I'm not the one that took an excellent long-term care centre in Maple Ridge, the Golden Ears Retirement Centre, which had….

M. Sather: The member says that you couldn't get in the washroom with a wheelchair. As a matter of fact, the Golden Ears Retirement Centre…. This is extremely insulting, by the way, to the seniors of Maple Ridge, who built that and who maintained it under a non-profit organization for years and who had a stellar reputation in Maple Ridge for the quality of care that was provided at Golden Ears Retirement Centre. It was a true home. Everyone in Maple Ridge knew about the homey atmosphere of Golden Ears Retirement Centre, and people were very happy to see their loved ones there.

So what happened, through the Fraser Health Authority, at the behest of this government? Well, they came in, and they said: "You know what? Your long-term care facility is not up to scratch. You know what? You've got to remodel that long-term care centre."

And they went: "Okay. We will see what we can do." So they went to the bank to see if they could get a loan, and the bank said: "Sure. No problem, just as long as the health authority assures us that for the number of clients they say you must have, they're going to fund that."

So they thought: no problem. Why wouldn't they? But lo and behold, uh-uh. The Fraser Health Authority said, "Not going to fund you," at the behest of this privatizing government. So what did they do? They had to close that excellent facility. They had to sell out that excellent facility in Maple Ridge.

Who do you think ended up owning that facility? Retirement Concepts, one of the friends of this government, one of the solid donors to this government, who came in and are paying….

M. Sather: The Forests Minister says that this is a grassy knoll. This is how out of touch this government is with my constituents, with the seniors of Maple

Ridge. I assure you, they're totally out of touch with the seniors in my community.

What's happened since this donor to the B.C. Liberal government, Retirement Concepts, has come in? They have cut pay to workers, and what effect has that had? It's had the effect that they can't get workers, because there are other facilities in Maple Ridge that these workers can go to that pay more. So guess what. When they have a choice of doing a shift where they get three bucks an hour more, or more, instead of going to Retirement Concepts, they go to the other facility.

Retirement Concepts. It's not only in Maple Ridge. We saw it here in Victoria and other centres. The care has gone downhill. There are not enough workers there to do the care. But I guess that's all part of what this government calls a conspiracy theory. It is no conspiracy theory. It's clear and obvious fact that the people of this province are extremely aware of. Certainly, the seniors in my community are aware of it, and they've made submissions to this government about their concerns. But from the clear response I heard from the government side today, they could care less. They don't care.

We know that this government is privatization-prone, and that is the reason why we have concerns about what this bill really means. As the member for Surrey-Whalley said, every word in law has some meaning. Now, the Minister of Health — for maybe legal reasons, or that he just doesn't know what to say — didn't bother to define what he means by sustainability and what it means in this act, but it probably does have some meaning, and we'll find out down the road what that meaning really was.

This bill talks about individual choice. Well, individual choice is great if you have money. If you have the money, you can make a choice to go to Hawaii, or you can make another choice, a career choice. If you have to — and it looks to me more and more like we are having to — seek private health care in this province because of this government, then you will have the money to do that.

But if you don't have the money, you don't have the choice. You are dependent upon the public health care system, which we hope there will be something left of when this government is finished with it, but we're not confident that that's the case at all. It's another one of the buzzwords that the government likes to use to bring in their privatizing penchant.

The member from the North Shore, West Vancouver–Capilano, was talking earlier, and I like listening to that member, because he is a learned member. I didn't quite agree with him on his assessment of UBC professor Bob Evans's point, when he said that they — being this government — are providing themselves with a legal basis for shifting the funding from the public to the private sector. That is a concern. We had a discussion about that earlier, and I'll talk about that a little bit more. There was a motion that was brought in by the government, and we had a discussion about that.

Another buzzword of the government in the preamble to this bill is talking about personal responsibility. All right. We heard a lot about that around climate change too — how we all should take personal responsibility for climate change. Certainly we should. We all need to be doing more.

But what about the government's responsibility? Is the government going to leave people of British Columbia, especially the most vulnerable people — seniors, those on low income — to fend for themselves and say: "You take responsibility, because we're abandoning you in the name of sustainability"? We're concerned that that's where this bill is taking us and that's where the government is heading.

Accountability. That's another buzzword that the government likes to use. You know, these are motherhood words. I mean, accountability is a positive thing in general parlance. No one would particularly have a problem with it, but it's the way that this government uses these words and what they mean by accountability.

Like in education…. We see it with the FSA testing and so on. It's all about having schools more accountable, but what we see is that it's lining schools up one against the other, the haves against the have-nots. Again, that's not where the majority of British Columbians want to go, but I think that's what this government is going, albeit stumbling, toward. I think that's the direction in which they're heading.

The bill talks about reasonable access to medically necessary services. What does that mean — reasonable access? Who defines what's reasonable? If you can't pay or, as the member for Surrey-Whalley said, if you haven't taken enough personal responsibility for your own health as judged by someone, does that mean, then, that you're being denied access because it's not reasonable? We don't know. We don't know where this bill is going, and I don't think the government knows either. At least, the minister certainly won't tell us.

The minister downplayed any legal significance of Bill 21. He did say: "It's a framed statement of values. The definitions can take on critical importance in issues that may be argued in courts of law." Well, it sounds to me like it's an invitation for their private friends to do just that — to take it to court and check it out, kick the tires, see what they can get away with.

I'm sure the government is very fond of the Chaoulli decision in Quebec and would like to see their private provider friends here try it out in British Columbia. Maybe this is a helping hand, a leg up for those folks to be able to have a go at the public health care system. We certainly know that the Copeman clinic, the False Creek Surgical Centre and Acure Health seem to be deliberately challenging the statutes with respect to extra-billing, and this government and this minister have no interest whatsoever in challenging them.

M. Sather: Why would you want to challenge…? The minister says to himself: "Why would I want to challenge my friends?" "These are not only our friends," says the minister, "but they're our donors."

M. Sather: They're important people. Doesn't want to mess with that. The minister doesn't want to mess with his friends…

M. Sather: They're never happy, especially…. They're not happy, particularly when they're abandoned by their own friends, like the federal Minister of Health. He said: "I'm not going to open up the Canada Health Act." He said: "These guys are on their own."

M. Sather: The minister was totally surprised about this. He was, I'm sure, very disappointed because he wants some validators. He expected some validation from his friend the federal Minister of Health, but it wasn't forthcoming, and the minister was sorely depressed.

M. Sather: Yeah, he likes the last century. We know the fondness of the minister referring to the last century. The problem is that the minister in this century is actually supposed to be responsible, and he doesn't want to be responsible.

The throne speech. This throne speech in 2008…. "The Medical Services Plan will be required to be administered in a manner that is fiscally sustainable and provides for British Columbians' current health needs without compromising future generations' entitlement to similar MSP benefits." What are similar MSP benefits? Not the benefits they have now but something sort of similar, somewhat akin to what we've got now, somehow vaguely recognizable to what we have now? Who knows?

My suspicion is that this government and this minister are actually quite happy to make this bill vague, to not define it and to have the courts define it. Then the minister can say what this government is so fond of saying, "Well, you know, it's before the courts. We can't talk about it. It's before the courts. Furthermore, we wouldn't meddle with the courts. Let them do it for us," instead of the minister having the intestinal fortitude to stand up and to define this bill — what it's really about.

He doesn't have that courage, and that's too bad. The minister is a big talker. He's a good talker. He can go on and on. But the courage part of it….

M. Sather: That's right. Courage and substance go together, and it's just missing. It's missing.

Health care spending. This government goes on about unsustainability while they've cut spending in many ministries which…. You know, by logic, if you cut part of the ball out, the other part that remains becomes relatively larger.

Rather than using the model that they use, they should use GDP. GDP is a better measure. In '01-02 our spending was 7.4 percent of GDP, and it decreased to 6.9 percent in '06-07. Then we could talk about per-capita funding. Per-capita funding in this province dropped from second in Canada to seventh.

Members opposite say: "Oh, the NDP wants to spend a whole bunch more money." Mind you, the member for West Vancouver–Capilano also said we were too tight-fisted in the '90s, so it was a bit different.

Six other provinces in this country are managing to spend and to provide, but somehow our province has dropped to seventh place. But it doesn't mean that the people of this province aren't paying more. They're paying more, all right.

Private spending on health care has been steadily increasing. Median expenditures for households on private health care increased from $360 per year in 1997 to $600 in 2006. So the people of the province are paying more, and they're not duped. They know they're paying more. They know that the government is off-loading on all kinds of user fees and that they have to pick up for those. It's costing their families more.

The costs for private supplementary coverage for prescription drugs have more than tripled their share of GDP over the last two decades. That's the kind of thing that's not sustainable — private provision of drugs that are costing the people of British Columbia big bucks. They know it. The seniors in my community are certainly mad about the downloading of prescription costs onto them. They haven't forgiven the government for that. They haven't forgotten it at all.

At the same time as they did that, the government was delisting rehab, eye care and podiatry services. Those are more services that the people of this province have to pay out of their own pocket, and those services increased from $256 per household per year in 1997 to $480 today, about an 85 percent increase.

At the same time, the median wages for people in the province have gone up about 2.3 percent a year, or about 25 percent. That's what's not sustainable — that the costs are being unloaded on the people of British Columbia. Their incomes aren't keeping up, though, with those costs. But the government says: "It's off our books. You can take care of yourself. That's part of personal responsibility."

The government is always talking about going to a market-based system, but the thing is that with public health care, that system doesn't really work. It's not a market-based system. Studies in the U.S. have shown that investor-owned hospitals were associated with 5

percent more deaths and 20 percent higher costs as opposed to not-for-profit hospitals.

That's not even to mention the benefits to business that the former speaker, the member for Surrey-Whalley, brought up. It is a benefit to business to have a solid public health care system, which the minister says, on the one hand, that he's going to maintain and that his government is committed to. At the same time, they bring in these privatization-like amendments — what, to scare people? Who knows? They don't say what the definitions are and what the ramifications are going to be.

Privatization has been costly in other places, too, like in Britain. Hip replacements in the private sector were 47 percent more. Coronary bypasses were 91 percent more. Are these the kinds of costs that the people of British Columbia are looking at paying? I think so. I think they are looking to pay those costs if this government has its way.

The OECD has described fee-for-service as an inefficient method that undermines cost controls. The private sector knows that too — that going strictly private is not really sustainable for them. So they want to have both. They want the public system to pay them while they charge people privately at the same time.

We remember the trip when the Premier went to Europe with his brother-in-law. Actually, the Premier seems to have kind of abandoned, as was mentioned earlier, the Conversation on Health. His name was dropped out of it, and we hear that the Health Minister had the unfortunate job of having to report to the Premier: "You know what, Mr. Premier? Despite your insistence that the health care system is unsustainable and we've got to do something about it, the people of British Columbia are saying that they really value their public health care system, and they want it to stay solid."

That apparently wasn't all that popular of a message, but the minister is given kudos, I'm led to understand, by his caucus for having the temerity to challenge the Premier on that front. Now it seems that the Health Minister is left to himself to defend this bill. I don't see the Premier really particularly backing up where the minister is going with this. If he does, I'm sure he'll come and tell us all about that.

I mentioned earlier that we had a discussion in this House on a motion — I think it was from the member for Maple Ridge–Mission, actually — on patient-centred funding. That's another one of the mechanisms that this government seems to be pretty keen on. You know, the belief that lack of competition leads to higher costs. It works in the private sector, so why shouldn't it work in the public sector as well? We'll just make those hospitals compete for patients. That'll do it.

It's not just about moving the money with a patient from one hospital to another. It's about having them compete with each other, and — I think this is particularly important for this government — with the private sector. That's what Dr. Day says. That's what Dr. Profit says. That's what the messiah for this government when it comes to health care says. That seems to be the direction that this government is going in.

But if lack of competition leads to higher costs, then countries with parallel, quasi-private systems of finance like Australia, those with parallel public and private systems like France and Germany or market-based systems like the U.S. should be far lower, but in fact they're not. If you look at Canada as a whole, British Columbia being part of it, health care spending as a percent of GDP is 9.8 percent. Australia is almost identical, just slightly lower at 9.5 percent. France is quite a bit higher at 11.1 percent. Germany is quite a bit higher at 10.7 percent and, of course, the U.S. tops the list at 15.3 percent.

D. Chudnovsky: I am pleased and feel a sense of responsibility in responding to the minister and the government's Bill 21. I think that I'd like to begin, if I may, by talking about context. I think it's important that we situate the submission of this bill for debate in the government's actions over the last number of years.

Specifically, I recall a time, Madam Speaker, and you'll probably remember it as well, when the Premier announced that he was going to have a conversation on health care with the people of British Columbia. It was presented to this House and to the people of British Columbia as a great innovation that the Premier wanted to hear from the people of British Columbia about what they thought about the future of the health care system in the province. He was going to have a conversation with them.

Conversations, as I understand them, require two sides. If you're going to have a conversation, you have to have at least two people involved. A funny thing happened on the way to the conversation on health care. A funny thing happened. What happened was that the Premier disappeared from the conversation on health care. The Premier got lost somewhere on the way to the conversation on health care.

Now, I'm a teacher, and I've had the need over many years…. I know you, too, Madam Speaker, are a teacher, and we've had the situation over a number of years where we had to have a conversation with students or with parents or both about education. Imagine if you or I as teachers had to have a conversation with a student or their parents or both of them about education, and we didn't show up at the conversation. They came to the conversation, but we didn't show up.

Well, that's what happened with respect to the Premier's conversation on health care. The Premier disappeared from the equation, but the conversation continued. Somebody had to be responsible for it, so I guess it fell to the government in general to be responsible for that conversation on health care.

Thousands of British Columbians attended the conversations on health care across the province, and they made it known what their views on the future of health care were. So it's worthwhile talking for a minute about what it was they said.

This is from the results that were published by the people who organized the conversation. British Columbians said that they wanted a public health care

system. They wanted public health care. They wanted medicare. They kind of got used to it, and they thought that was a good idea. They said they didn't want two-tiered health care.

Everybody in the province should have available to them, to him or her, regardless of whether they're rich or poor, regardless of whether they live in rural areas or urban areas, regardless of whether they were born in British Columbia or came and chose to join us here in British Columbia…. The people of B.C. believe that everybody deserves a single-tiered health care system. Everybody should get the same care.

The people of British Columbia believed, as they expressed in the conversation on health care, that there shouldn't be privatization of health care. They want a public health care system. I'm going to talk a little bit more about why a public health care system is better than a private health care system in a few minutes, but clearly, the people of British Columbia, in their conversation — despite the fact that their Premier didn't show up for the conversation — nonetheless said: "We want a public health care system." They don't want privatization.

They didn't want contracting-out. There was no call…. In fact, there was a preponderance of opinion opposed to the contracting out of services under the health care system.

They don't want a for-profit health care system. This was in the conversation that the Premier didn't show up at, maybe because he didn't want to hear what people had to say. Maybe he didn't want to hear that the people of the province didn't want a for-profit health care system. They don't want user fees. All of this at the conversation that this Premier called, that he didn't bother to show up at, but the people of the province showed up at.

So that's the message. That was the message that was delivered to government in the conversation on health care. Now, with respect to sustainability, at the conversation on health care what the people said was that they wanted to sustain a public health care system. That's what they wanted sustainability on. They said: "We want the sustainability of public health care. We want to sustain a situation where we don't have two tiers." That's what they said about sustainability.

"We want to sustain a situation where we don't privatize the health care system." That's what they said about sustainability. "We want to sustain a situation in which services aren't contracted out." That was their notion of sustainability. "We want to sustain a situation where we don't have for-profit health care in British Columbia." That's what they said about sustainability. "We want a situation where we sustain a provincial health care system where there aren't user fees." That's what they had to say about sustainability.

We found out more about that because there were media reports, Madam Speaker, and you'll recall them, I know, and members opposite will recall them. There were media reports about a conversation that the Health Minister had with the Premier in a cabinet meeting. I don't know how the media gets reports of what goes on in a cabinet meeting, but I didn't hear anybody denying it, so I assume that's what really happened in the cabinet meeting.

According to the media, there was a kind of — dare I say it — argument at the cabinet table between the Minister of Health, who came out looking like a bit of a hero, I've got to say, in this article…. I've got to say it. The Minister of Health…. There was this argument between him and the Premier, so said the article in the paper, and nobody's denied it that I know of.

D. Chudnovsky: The Premier came out looking pretty badly, and the minister came out kind of riding a white horse. It pains me to say it.

I will get back to my regular discourse, when it comes to the Minister of Health, in a few minutes. For the moment let me say that in this article the minister took on the Premier. The little minister who could took on the Premier, who wanted to go ahead with all of this stuff. So said the article, and nobody's denied it, including ministers opposite. I haven't heard them deny that this is what happened at the cabinet table.

Deputy Speaker: Member, I'd like to remind you that we're on Bill 21, Medicare Protection Amendment Act, and I am having a bit of trouble relating your remarks to the act.

I will continue by saying that in that conversation, as it was reported, there was a dispute between the minister and the Premier over this very question that was taken up in the conversation on health care, which the Premier didn't show up at, that results down the road in the legislation which is before us.

Apparently — so says the journalist, and it's not been denied — the minister reminded the Premier about what the content of the submissions of the people of British Columbia were during the conversation on health care. He reminded the Premier, so I'm told, that the people didn't want all this privatization that the Premier seems to be so excited about.

We're told in this article in the press that there was a kind of a beef between the two of them. We want to congratulate the minister for standing up — at least in that argument, apparently — for public health care against the Premier — the prince of privatization, the titan of two-tier health care, the czar of contracting out. So thanks to the minister for having taken that position on those questions.

Unfortunately — or, apparently — the Premier's the boss, so we have before us a bill which can easily take us in the direction that the people spoke against in the conversation on health care, which the Premier didn't bother to show up at. In that conversation on health care, the people were clear about their support for the principles of the Canada Health Act. They were clear in their resistance to increased privatization.

Nonetheless, despite what apparently were the heroic efforts of the Minister of Health to resist, the Premier and the minister bring us this bill.

The big question before us, of course, is: what do they mean by sustainability? It's an important question because it goes to the heart of the debate that we're having here today and to the heart of our understanding of what it can and might and may mean.

We need to look for some help in understanding what sustainability means, because it's not there in the bill, and it's certainly not there in the public comments of the minister. It's certainly not there in anything that anybody has said in debate from the other side of the aisle here. That has not been made clear to us. So we need to look at other evidence to give us some help in understanding what it is that government might mean by sustainability.

It's not so hard to find that information because this government, particularly this government, has made a whole number of policy decisions and taken a whole number of steps and brought forward a whole series of legislative actions over the last number of years in the name of sustainability in the health care system. They've done it over and over again. So we need to have a look at those because they can be evidence. They can help us in understanding just what it is they mean. They've not been clear to date — and we invite them to be in this debate — about what sustainability means.

When we look at the evidence, we can make a determination about what it is that they mean. So let's get some examples of what this government has done in the name of sustainability.

In the name of sustainability, they brought in Bill 29. They brought in Bill 29 in the name of sustainability and broke, rewrote and freely negotiated collective agreements to allow for the massive contracting-out of services in the health care system. In the name of sustainability, 9,000 people lost their jobs. The articulation of the reasons for the bringing in of Bill 29 are exactly the same as the ones that they've used now. It is evidence to show us what it is they mean by sustainability. Thousands of health care workers….

Now, there's a bit of a fly in the ointment on that one because the Supreme Court of Canada, the highest court in the land, has told them: "You broke the law in the name of sustainability. You broke the law. You better get back to work with the representatives of those health care workers and come to an agreement that doesn't break the law." But why was it done? It was done in the name of sustainability. So we've got a clue as to what they mean when they talk about sustainability.

What else have they done in health care in the name of sustainability? They stole 15 percent of the salaries of thousands of health care workers across this province in the name of the sustainability of the health care system. They took it away with the stroke of a pen. Rewrote those contracts. Broke those contracts. Why did they do that? They did it, by their own words, in the name of sustainability of the health care system. So that gives us a clue as to what we're talking about here.

The government doesn't come to the House and explain to us what sustainability means. The minister, in his conversations with journalists outside of the House, isn't able to make clear what he means by sustainability. But we have some evidence.

We have more evidence of what they mean by sustainability in the health care system. What about the reduction in the standards and levels of cleanliness in the health care system that patient after patient after patient in communities across the province have told us about and complained about?

Why was it done? Who's doing it? First of all, it's the contracted-out contracts that have contributed to the reduction in the standards of cleanliness in hospitals across the province.

Why was it done? They told us — same language as they're using now, the very same language that they're using now: "We're doing it in the name of sustainability." That's for sustainability. "We're going to let these international corporations" — whose purpose is not health care for British Columbians, whose purpose is to be responsible to their shareholders…. "We're going to let them do that, and the result will be reductions in cleanliness." That was done in the name of sustainability.

Despite the fact that this minister is unable to explain to us what he means by sustainability, unable to explain to the press and the media what's meant by sustainability in this bill, we've got some evidence from their actions and from what they said about those actions over the last number of years.

What else have they done? What other evidence have we got about what's meant by sustainability by this minister? Well, what about the crises in funding of the health care regions?

Their own appointees — the appointees of this government, this minister — who are the senior administrators of the health regions in this province, one after another say in letters to the minister and in public comments and in other letters between themselves and other administrators that there's a crisis in health care in this province. "We don't have enough money to do the work that we need to do. The levels of resources provided to us by this government are inadequate to do the job that we've been asked to do."

When the government is asked about that, what do they say? "Sustainability." They talk about sustainability. They talk about the sustainability of the budget.

So despite the fact that this minister is unable either in this House or outside the House to explain to the people of British Columbia what he means by sustainability, we've got some evidence. We know what he's talking about because they've taken all kinds of other measures in the name of sustainability, and that's evidence for us and for the people of British Columbia in understanding what it is that they're trying to do with this bill.

We've got other evidence. We've got other evidence from this minister as to what he means by sustainability, even though he's unable to explain it. What about the crisis in emergency rooms across this province?

Doctors, nurses and health professionals from across the province, in the Okanagan, in the Lower Mainland, in the north, writing to the minister and writing to the health regions and saying: "We have crisis after crisis after crisis" — code purples, I think they call them — "in emergency rooms across the province."

The minister and the government, in response to those reports, tell us that we have to be sustainable. So despite the fact that he's unable to explain it in this House, and despite the fact that the minister is unable to explain it outside the House, despite his inability to tell us what he means, despite this government's inability and unwillingness to tell us what the sustainability legislation means, we've got evidence from their own mouths, from their own words, as to what they mean by sustainability.

They didn't build the 5,000 long-term care beds that they promised years and years and years ago. They didn't build them. How come they didn't build them? They didn't build them, we are told….

The minister, every time he gets up, tells us that we've got to be careful about the sustainability of the health care system. What does that mean in English — where people live, where seniors live in this province? What does sustainability mean? It means we don't have 5,000 long-term care beds that were promised. That's what it means. That's what sustainability means.

What does sustainability mean in English in this province? It means crises in emergency rooms. What does sustainability mean in English in this province? It means health care regions that don't have the resources that the administrators appointed by this government say they need.

What does sustainability mean in English? It means the robbery of freely negotiated salaries and benefits from people who work in the health care system, who do the hard-slogging work in this system. That's what sustainability means in English.

What does it mean? It means Bill 29, an illegal piece of legislation. That's what sustainability means.

These guys — these people on the other side, the members of this government — can pretend, can scratch their heads and try to figure out a way of explaining what sustainability means that will satisfy somebody, that might satisfy somebody. But they've been unable to do it, and they are unable to do it because what sustainability really means is reductions in health care services to the people of British Columbia and attacks on the people who do the work in the hospitals and clinics and emergency rooms around this province.

We invite somebody, anybody — the minister or the Premier, who he fights with around health care policy; it doesn't matter to us — on that side to get up and explain to the opposition and to the people of the province what sustainability means in a way that isn't consistent with the actions that they have taken over the last number of years, which mean, in the end, reduction in services for the people of the province and attacks on the people who do the good work in the health care system.

Well, why not move towards a privatized system? Apart from the fact that the people of the province have said absolutely clearly that they don't want to and apart from the fact that the people of the province are committed to public health care, committed to medicare, committed to a single-tier system, committed to a non-privatized system — apart from all of that, which should make a difference to the learned ladies and gentlemen on the other side….

Apart from the fact that the people don't want it, why not move to a privatized system, to a two-tier system? Well, because all of the studies show that the care of the sick isn't as good if it's privatized, if it's two-tiered. Mortality rates are higher. Results aren't as good.

The fact is that the people of the province are pretty smart. They know and understand that when the goal and the motivation of those running the system is a return on the investment of the shareholder, the results are different than when the goal and the motivation of those running the health care system is the good health of the community. They're two completely different things, and the people of the province understand that.

That's part of why they believe in and support public health care and support medicare, and it's part of why they were probably pretty happy when the minister was reported to have butted heads with the Premier on this question.

We're disappointed that the minister, since then, seems to have moved along with the Premier on this one. But for the moment that there was a titanic struggle in cabinet between the little minister who could and the prince of privatization…. For that moment, we congratulate this minister for having stood up for the people of B.C., who would want him, the little minister who could, to stand up against the prince of privatization. The people of the province would be happy that he did that work for them.

D. Chudnovsky: The minister says he got a little credit. He'll get lots of credit from this side if he stands up to the prince of privatization and stands up for our public health care system — a single-tier public health care system, the one that the people of the province want. He'll get all kinds of credit here if that's what he does.

Now, there's another reason why privatization is the wrong way to go. It's not only because the results aren't as good but because those who administer and deliver health care and prepare policy on health care — because that's what's done by people who administer the health care system — shouldn't be beholden to private interests. The people who are responsible for the health care system in British Columbia should be responsible to the people of the province.

If you've got a board of directors that meets in Cleveland or in Fredericton or in Brussels, for that matter, every three or four months to discuss policy and that is responsible by law, actually — not just by inclination but by law — to the shareholders of their company, they're oftentimes going to make very different decisions about what has to happen than if they're elected representatives of the people.

Even representatives of the people who make poor decisions make better decisions than the people who are responsible simply to the profits accruing to shareholders. They're two different operations, two different purposes, two different notions of what it is that health care is all about.

You know, even the worst government has to face election, and the people get to make the decision as to whether that government continues. That's very different. It's a very different kind of accountability than those who are working for private for-profit entities. Private for-profit entities have a legal responsibility to do the best they can for the shareholder. The bottom line is king. But even the worst government has to face the people.

The executives of private corporations don't have to face the people. They're not accountable to the people for their health care. They're accountable to their shareholders for profit. Our health care system has to be one in which those who are responsible are accountable to the people for their decisions, not to the shareholders for their profits.

For all of these reasons — the people don't want it; it's not effective; accountability does mean something, and we have all kinds of evidence from this government as to what so-called accountability means; because privatization is bad for health care — we on this side and I proudly…. I'll stand with my parents and my constituents and my family and my children in support of public health care and the principles of the Canada Health Act, with medicare and with a system of health care that treats everybody in this province the same, no matter where they come from and no matter how rich or poor they are. I will be voting against this bill.

J. Horgan: It's a pleasure to rise. With my baritone voice today I'm following the lead of the member for Langley — who had a bit of a frog in her throat as well this morning, ironically — to speak about health care in British Columbia and in particular Bill 21, the Medicare Protection Amendment Act.

It's with some enthusiasm that I participate in this debate, as I laboured through the minister's diatribe yesterday, anxiously awaiting a definition of sustainability, hopeful that after 40 or 50 minutes the minister would come to a position on what that actually meant and why we were here debating this bill in the first place, so that we would all have a better understanding of what the government's objectives were. Unfortunately, that never happened.

What we did get…. I'll read from Hansard, hon. Speaker. These are the words of the Minister of Health from yesterday. These are in the Blues. They may change, but I rather doubt it. The minister said the following with respect to the amendments that are before us now. He said: "Amendments to the Medicare Protection Act provide clear definitions for the Canada Health Act principles of public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility. A sixth clearly defined principle of sustainability will…be added."

That's fine; that's why we're here, but the minister went on to say the following: "The addition of these expanded definitions will not change how the Medical Services Plan is administered nor how the Medical Services Commission functions."

There's no change in administration, no change in function. That begs the question, and we've been asking it on this side of the House today, led by the member for Vancouver-Kingsway: if we're not changing administration and we're not changing function, what in the world are we doing here? Why are we not dealing with other business? Why are we not addressing some of the challenges in communities right across this province?

Instead, we're here because the Premier decided at some point between 2005 and today that the term "sustainability" may well have some value to dismantling the public health care system in British Columbia. That is why we are here.

The Premier started his Conversation on Health last year. Those that are paying attention at home will remember that the Romanow commission, the most exhaustive study of the Canadian public health care system of all time, concluded its reports in November of 2002 and outlined quite clearly that the public, universally accessible system that we've all come to know and embrace here in Canada was not at risk. In fact, it was thriving and would continue to thrive.

But that wasn't good enough for the Premier, for the member for Vancouver–Point Grey. Instead, he embarked on a Conversation on Health. Before he did that, the Finance Committee, of which I'm a member, was charged with travelling about the province, speaking to British Columbians. We went to a number of different locations north, south, east and west to hear the views of British Columbians.

Before we left, we had a sit-down with the Minister of Finance, and she gave us the stark reality. It was the "oh my goodness" — the ominous report from the minister that escalating costs in the health care sector were unsustainable and that if something dramatic was not done, the total amount of the budget devoted to health care by 2017 would rise to 71 percent.

Now, the assumption any thoughtful person would come to was that this was a crisis. It was an hour of need for all British Columbians to come together, to rally to protect our public health care system, and to try and stop the escalation of costs. What the minister didn't report to the Finance Committee before we went out on the road…. And it was readily available in the B.C. Financial and Economic Review from July of that year, 2007. This was three months before the minister charged us with travelling about the province.

What the minister didn't tell us, didn't tell the committee and didn't tell British Columbians — in the multi-million-dollar ad campaign that accompanied the launch of the Conversation on Health and the launch of the Finance Committee's travels around the province to discuss health care and other budget matters — was that the total percentage of gross domestic product, the GDP, of British Columbia and the relationship of that to health care spending had, in fact, been going down steadily since 2001-2002 to the point where in 2006-2007 the total percentage of health care spending was 6.9 percent, down a full half a percentage point from the last year of the NDP government in 2001.

I would have thought that that would have been interesting data for the minister to refer to in his remarks yesterday. Unfortunately, his rendition of the 1990s lacked any context and lacked any real rigour. It was just a rehash of the public affairs bureau speaking points on what happened in the decade of the 1990s.

I don't want to divert too much away from Bill 21, hon. Speaker, but I do think that it's important to provide some context. As the minister took us for a merry jaunt down memory lane, I think it's reasonable for me to do so as well.

What the minister forgot to advise this House and the public at large was that when the federal Liberals, the opposite number of those on that side of the House, came to power in Ottawa in 1993, in order to balance the budget — the runaway deficits that the federal Conservatives had brought upon federal parliament over their eight years in government — they proceeded to take a billion dollars from the social health and transfer payments that were coming to British Columbia. A billion dollars yanked out of health care spending and social spending in B.C. as a result of federal actions.

Now, at the time the Leader of the Official Opposition, the now Premier from Point Grey…. His response to that was, I believe, that they didn't cut enough. That was his response. They didn't cut enough.

What was the reaction of the government of the day, the government of British Columbia at that time? It was to fill that void. It was to ensure that all British Columbians continued to have access to the services and programs that they had come to expect in British Columbia, whether it be under a Social Credit government or a New Democrat government. But the leader of the B.C. Liberal Party sent a message to then–Finance Minister Paul Martin and then–Prime Minister Jean Chrétien: "You didn't cut enough."

So that was the response of the B.C. Liberals in the 1990s: "Cut more. Cut more." The response of the NDP government at that time was to continue to provide services to British Columbians, particularly health care services. You will see, throughout the decade of the 1990s, that expenditures on health care increased, as they have increased since 2001.

I give the minister full credit. He'll articulate, I'm sure, when he closes the debate on this bill, the growth in expenditure in this sector. But he's being disingenuous, at best, by not recognizing that the proportion of health care spending to GDP has gone down under this watch, not up. It's gone down.

So the challenge we have as legislators is that if there is no real challenge here…. By cutting the budgets — as they did in 2002-2003 for Children and Families, for other agencies of government, human resources…. By reducing the amount we spent in those areas of the budget, it inevitably would increase the percentage of health care in the total budget. That's basic math.

I'm saddened that the Minister of Transportation can't join in on the debate at this point in time because he likes to talk about basic math, and that's pretty fundamental. If the pie gets smaller and you're expending a certain amount on health care, it's inevitable that the percentage of the total pie is going to go up.

But that was doom and gloom to the Minister of Finance, when she charged the standing committee on Finance to go about the province. As we travelled around, we heard a whole range of comments and thoughts on how the budget should be put together. We heard from business groups that there needed to be more austerity measures. There needed to be reductions in debt and reductions in spending on social programs but an increase in services for some of their own sectors.

It's quite self-serving in some ways to go and talk to different groups, and I know ministers would get that when they hear from stakeholder groups. They hear the shopping list of needs and demands, and they do their level best to meet that need. But to send the committee out, as the minister did, and say that we are in a dark, dark time and if we don't take immediate action — this was, of course, over a year and a half ago — the consequences will be dire for our health care system….

Well, they've revised the number down from 71 percent by 2017 to 50 percent by 2013. So this is a movable target, a movable feast for the Minister of Finance. When you're fearmongering…. I often hear the Minister of Health accuse us, on this side of the House, of fearmongering, but I think it's pretty hard to say anything but fearmongering when you say to the public that if we don't do something quickly, our health care system is going to go down the toilet. That's what the Minister of Finance did, and that was supported by the Premier, of course, and the Minister of Health.

We travelled around the province. Everybody received a flyer. I won't lift up the flyer, but I'll read from it. It said: "We need your help, and we want to talk about this." And it goes on to say the following. This is from the Conversation on Health brochure, which also accompanied the Ministry of Finance materials. It says: "The Conversation on Health also aims to develop a sixth principle of the Canada Health Act — sustainability, which will ensure B.C.'s health programs and services are available in the future. This principle and the five Canada Health Act principles — universality, accessibility, comprehensiveness, portability and public administration — are expected to be enshrined in legislation."

So that explains why we're here. The Minister of Health couldn't explain why we were here yesterday after an hour of debate. He couldn't tell the public. He

couldn't tell other legislators in this place why the heck we were adding another phrase to the Medicare Protection Act. But the Premier did it two years ago, before he sent out the member for Langley on her trip around B.C. to have a conversation on health. They had already come to a conclusion on what they wanted to do, and they wanted to add this additional principle.

I'll read it into the record, because I believe it's important. It's Bill 21, section 5.7, "Sustainability," and it goes as follows: "The plan is administered in a manner that is sustainable over the long term, providing for the health needs of the residents of British Columbia and assuring that annual health expenditures are within taxpayers' ability to pay…." Well, that seems pretty clear — ability to pay.

The editorial writer at the Victoria Times Colonist — the journal of record in my community, the newspaper that my constituents turn to for guidance on issues of public import in the capital regional district — had the following to say just last week, April 13, on the minister's crusade. "Giving Up the Fight to Save Medicare" is the header on the editorial, and it says that the Minister of Health claims that "the new provision will 'strengthen B.C.'s health care system today and secure it for future generations.'" That's the assertion of the minister. The assertion of the editorial writer is quite the opposite. It says: "In fact, what he has done is shift the burden of health costs from his shoulders onto ours" — from his shoulders or government's shoulders onto patients.

That's the key issue in this entire debate, hon. Speaker, and if the government had a little bit more jam and was a bit more candid with the people of British Columbia and just said what they wanted to do, call a spade a spade…. "I want to reduce spending on health care, so I can use it for other purposes." Go ahead. "I want to contract out more programs."

My colleague from Vancouver-Kensington did a great job of reminding us of the first term of the B.C. Liberal government and how they approached health care with an axe rather than with a pen. They took the axe to, primarily, health care workers — 9,000 lost jobs. Those that remained had their wages cut by 15 percent. Contracting out of services that had been provided by well-trained and capable individuals, now contracted out for the minimum wage and pennies more.

Since 2005 I've had the good fortune, I suppose, of being in the health care system. My spouse had a procedure done successfully — tremendous care, as always — at Victoria General Hospital. And my mom has been in and out almost every six months, it seems. We often joke with her that she doesn't have to phone the fire department to get a man to climb through her window. I'm happy to do it for nothing. She doesn't have to phone 911. But she's also had tremendous care from the health care system.

It's not a burden at all, in my mind and certainly in the minds of my constituents, to continue to maintain and support and promote public health care in British Columbia. That's why it's so curious.

The minister will know; they do polling. They've looked at the numbers. British Columbians overwhelmingly support public health care. Editorial writers confirm that — the pulse of the people, as it were — talk shows, you name it. Any place where British Columbians gather to discuss this issue, the conclusion is inevitably that the public system is far superior to any privatized model that the Premier, the member for Vancouver–Point Grey, could contemplate in his nirvana of private sector dominance over the will of collective decision-making, which has been the backbone of, certainly, Canada and British Columbia with respect to health care for generations.

So it's troubling and disappointing to have the minister yesterday speak for an hour-plus and not come clean and not say: "Look, this is what we're trying to do here. We think that we can reduce costs by just saying that if we don't have enough money, we're not going to pay." That's the conclusion that the editorial writer comes to. This is, again, the Victoria Times Colonist. "It simply says that beyond a certain point, the government does not have to pay."

If you look further into the section in the act that I referred to earlier, hon. Speaker, after "ability to pay" it goes on to say: "…without compromising the ability of the government to meet the health needs and other needs of current and future generations."

Now, what in the world are those other needs? I'm sure the minister will have an answer. He's a witty fellow. I often enjoy listening to him in debate. Often he has something to say, but this…. I'm sadly disappointed with this bill. Bill 21 was certainly not his finest hour. Even as he traipsed through the 1990s, neglecting the position of his leader at that time — that the federal government should cut more from the B.C. health care budget, not less…. That's been forgotten.

I was speaking to a group at lunch about this mysterious curiosity in British Columbia — that right-wing politicians can have an epiphany, can say, "I've decided to change my mind," and anything they've said in the past is absolved. It's all forgotten. Okay, you've got it right now. Off you go.

Left-wing politicians or politicians on the left of centre carry the yoke of any social democratic government anywhere in the universe. If there are social democrats on Mars, it's our fault — you know? It's quite staggering that you can change your stripes on the right; you've got to bear everyone's stripes on the left. That's fine. That's a cross we bear, and I think that's why we're so chipper most of the time. We're happy to do it. But those on the right….

The member from Point Grey said: "Cut more. A billion is not enough." Today when he inserts in legislation against his minister's wishes — or at least that's what we were led to believe, from the leaks out of the caucus room…. Against his minister's wishes he inserts sustainability as a sixth principle of the Canada Health Act.

Not even the neo-cons that are running the country now, Prime Minister Harper's Health Minister, would contemplate opening the Canada Health Act. Monique Bégin comes to mind as the last person who tried to

open the Canada Health Act. Of course, I'm probably the only one here that can remember. Maybe the Minister of Health can remember.

Again, I'd like to go back to why we are here. The whole point and intent of legislation — as I'm led to believe, based on my study and the analysis and the wisdom of the Clerks who help us through these things and others — is that if we're amending an act, we're doing so because there's a problem.

What's the problem? Well, the minister in 60-plus minutes yesterday identified that there may have been problems in the 1990s. I think they're conjured up in his subconscious rather than in reality. But he didn't talk about the Minister of Finance's number of 71 percent by 2017. That number's gone by the wayside.

That's not a number that's going to be quoted by anyone coming up to the next election. They floated that balloon. It came down in a thud, primarily because of data that was collected by the same Minister of Finance's staff, which said that just is patently not true in terms of impact of total spending with respect to the GDP.

Is health care spending rising as a percentage compared to other costs of the provincial budget? Yes, it is. That's fair comment. We'll indulge the Ministers of Finance and Health on that question, but that's where it's got to stop. You can't keep saying to the public that there's too much money being spent on the most precious of social programs in this country. You just can't do it.

That takes me to my own constituency, where there are a number of health care initiatives that are stalled and awaiting — I don't know what — maybe an election to change the policies and direction of the government. But certainly primary health care is a vital concern in the community of Sooke in my constituency.

Currently there is a request for proposals out to encourage docs and other health care providers to come together and coalesce to provide primary health care in that community. It's some 45 minutes by car on a good day from Victoria General Hospital. As a friend of mine said, you can do a lot of dying on the highway in 45 minutes.

Having access to primary care in your community was, I thought, something that this government stood for. I recall the Premier saying that on numerous occasions. Before he got religion on sustainability, he was talking about providing services to constituents in their communities. Well, that seems to have fallen off, and what we're doing instead is talking about inserting language to somehow change the intent of the Medicare Protection Act.

The Interpretation Act, section 9. If you were going through the statutes, hon. Speaker — and I know you like to do that on an evening, if there's nothing else to do — if you were looking at the Interpretation Act, section 9, you would find the object of the act is as follows: "The title and preamble of an enactment are part of it and are intended to assist in explaining its meaning and object." That seems reasonable to me. That's probably why they put it in the Interpretation Act — because anyone can interpret that.

Again, another curiosity. If we're trying to explain the meaning and intent of an act in the objective and the preamble, why in this instance do we have the following in the preamble of Bill 21? It goes as follows: "WHEREAS the people and government of British Columbia wish to ensure that all publicly funded health care services are responsive to patients' needs and designed to foster improvements in individual and public health outcomes and ongoing value-for-money for all taxpayers."

Value for money. Again, on the surface, that sounds fine. Why would we put it in a preamble to a piece of legislation? The Interpretation Act says that by doing so, we're trying to assist in explaining the meaning and objective of the act. As lawyers and others comb over the debates in this place and legislation that we pass, they look carefully at what the minister had to say in introducing their act.

I recall that when I worked in government, leg. counsel was very reluctant to put preambles in any bills. They strongly resisted it, in fact. They said that by adding a preamble, you're only opening yourself up to misunderstanding and potential challenge.

Again, we're here amending an act for no particular reason. As the minister himself said, it will not change how anything is administered or any functions of the act. So we're here because the Premier wanted to be here, because a shiny thing went by, and he said: "Oh, I think it's sustainability. I'm going to follow that until something else comes by."

He sets up a Conversation on Health and clearly identifies before the show goes on the road what he wants to see. He has the show. People come. They don't talk about it. They don't understand what sustainability means. They have no definition of any consequence. They don't report on it in any meaningful way. It comes back, and here we are debating Bill 21 and the insertion of the term, "the sixth principle of sustainability."

Maybe I'm wrong, but…. How many years have we been at this? When did Monique pen this last? I'm asking my colleague. It was a long, long time ago.

J. Horgan: It was the '80s. There you go — the glorious '80s. That was before the dismal '90s, in the minister's mind. He might remember the '80s.

He might remember that it was hard-fought to get to those five principles. So why in the world, when there are no other jurisdictions in Canada that are interested in or even contemplating opening up the Canada Health Act, is it that in British Columbia we have to be, as I'm sure the Minister of Transportation would say, leading the way on doing something that's unnecessary?

Or is it necessary to achieve a different objective? What I'm saying is that the objective I believe sustainability is targeted at is reducing public access, shifting the burden from the government and from the health system to the patient. Then what happens? Where is this choice?

Also included in here are the so-called innovative principles that are outlined in the bill that inevitably will lead to a privatization of the process, something that British Columbians and Canadians have been very, very clear on as recently as the Romanow commission not six years ago, comprehensively across the country.

I'm sure that the then Minister of Health, the current Minister of Economic Development, might have even sat down with former Premier Romanow and given the views of the government of the day. In fact, he introduced, passed and almost got through an act of his own, before the Decider, as my colleague from Kingsway has affectionately named the member from Point Grey, intervened and said: "Not on my watch."

Instead, we had the health care tour of Europe. That was a four-city tour. It kind of got stalled a little bit, but I know the Minister of Health has picked up the ball and is running with vigour and enthusiasm — if some curiosity as to why, in fact, we're here. He is at least running with vim and vigour. He has the bit in his teeth, and he's going with great gusto.

I'm hopeful that when we conclude debate on Bill 21, the minister will take the opportunity to actually explain to British Columbians what the heck we're doing this for. Why are we inserting a sixth principle into an act that is already certainly the envy of many other jurisdictions?

The United States will be grappling, I'm sure, with these issues following the November elections. Health care is on the mind of an aging baby boom population. They want to ensure that they have access to services.

The minister talked, and I absolutely agree with him that expectations continue to rise with respect to what health services should be provided, what procedures are available, what technologies should be accessed. I note that in the Conversation on Health dossier that was passed out, the first heart and lung transplant in British Columbia was in 1989. I can remember that when we were in government, a single-slice MRI…. There were a handful of them in British Columbia, and then multiple-slice MRIs became the vogue. Keeping up with the technology is challenging, and it's costly.

But there are innovations that the government could be looking at with respect to bulk drug buying and other issues that the minister is, I know, reviewing and will be discussing in estimates with the critic when the time is right, if we have any time for estimates this year. I know that the government is on a tight time line. They want to get out of here as quickly as possible, with as little debate as possible on these actually monumental changes in the way we do business in B.C., in the way we access the health care system.

Sustainability, according to the minister, has no impact on administration or function. Then why is it there? I made reference earlier on to the Interpretation Act. Also, another legal presentation that the member from Kingsway touched upon yesterday…. I'd like to read that into the record as well: "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, not a mere repetition of the previous law." That's Conger vs. Kennedy, which I believe was cited yesterday. So it's not just a repetition. There needs to be some purpose to amending an act.

We've had some bills come forward this session. Bill 18, I believe, is still before the House at second reading. It might even be at committee stage now. It is completely hollow and empty, and we'll come with details later on.

That's challenging enough, when you have a government that brings forward legislation that will have regulation by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council sometime in the future. But when they come forward with legislation that, after 60 minutes of debate, they can't even identify why it's here, that's troubling and I think a profound waste of this House's time and a profound waste of taxpayers' money. If there's no mischief to be solved by amending the act, then why are we doing it?

Identify the problem. The minister could have identified the problem in his dissertation yesterday, but instead, he chose to indulge himself in partisanship, and that's fair enough. That's okay. I know he doesn't get a chance to let loose. It's a good opportunity. He only gets to speak for 15 or 20 minutes in question period. He's confined to at least 28 minutes because it takes us two minutes to ask the question.

I don't mind him indulging himself, and in fact, I quite enjoy hearing him on most occasions. He's witty. He's thoughtful. But he was so off base yesterday and he so missed the point that I think that for that reason alone, I got out of my sickbed to come in here today and respond to him. I was hopeful that I could have responded to him at the time, but he did go so on and on filibustering his own bill that I had to wait until today to speak to the issue. I've enjoyed every minute of it, hon. Speaker, as you know I always do.

But what's the point? It's kind of like the Seinfeld bill. It's the bill that really doesn't have any point. Or is it as mischievous as we've made it out to be? My friend from Vancouver-Kensington and my friend from Vancouver-Kingsway have clearly identified this as an opportunity to privatize and dismantle the system we've come to enjoy in British Columbia. So it's one or the other. Either it's a Seinfeld bill about nothing, or it's here to dismantle public health care. You decide.

M. Karagianis: I stand to join the debate here that was so ably launched today by my colleague from Vancouver-Kingsway. I sat here listening to the remarks of the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca. I thought that in his closing remarks he did talk about something here — monumental change, a bill that is bringing us monumental change.

Frankly, the public would be surprised, I'm sure, to see what a really tiny little bill this is — just a couple of

pages. You know, often in this House we get legislation that is huge, thick, complicated, complex. When you are changing the laws in this province that affect the lives of every single human being in this province from now and far into the future, it often takes a great deal of language, complicated detail and complicated information in order to create that kind of legislative base, to create the laws of the land.

When it was first tabled, I was fascinated to see how big this was going to be — this monumentally changing piece of legislation, as the member from Malahat so rightfully calls it. Here it is, only a scant few pages. So the old saying that good things come in small packages is far from true here, because in fact, there's something very insidious with this bill. It looks very innocent on the surface, but when you begin to look underneath at the real language that's incorporated here, you have to ask yourself a great number of questions about how the government could present it as being an innocuous piece of legislation.

How could the government possibly stand and present something and claim it's so completely innocuous? Yet they felt compelled to make fundamental changes to some legislation here. Why would they do that if it was innocuous?

Why the need for this inclusion of some terminology here and some changes in the Medicare Protection Act? What is the government's purpose behind this? If it's so innocuous, then it certainly can stand up to all kinds of scrutiny from this side of the House. I would say, given the comments by the previous speakers here and certainly the initial comments of the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, that this is anything but an innocuous piece of legislation, and it does not stand up to scrutiny.

The public health care system, I think, is a pivotal piece of the basis of what Canada is about. It sets us apart from our neighbours to the south, with whom we are very interrelated. We have an economy that's interlinked; we have culture that's interlinked. We have a whole number of behaviours north and south of the border that have created this country. One of the things that separates us from our U.S. contemporaries south of the border is this issue around health care.

In fact, in this country we fought for and won a very courageous battle to create universal health care, and this has become a tenet on which this country is built. In fact, it's one of the things that people feel most compelled by, most focused on when they need it. I would say that we are standing here right now debating something that is extremely monumental in the history of this province and as we move forward.

I remember having a university student ask me a number of years ago in a public debate: "What's the big deal about public health care? Why do we have to support and fight for public health care?" I said that, very simply, it's because public health care allows any person in this province — in fact, in this country — to access health care when they need it, regardless of their financial situation, their health condition, their culture, their background in this country, their age or any conditions. They are allowed to access health care. It is affordable, and it is there for those people, for any of us, when we need it.

We're at a crossroads here in determining whether or not health care in the future will be available when and where we need it, regardless of our income, regardless of our background, regardless of our health circumstances. We are at a pivotal road here in British Columbia in determining whether we will go forward with the same kind of access to health care that we have enjoyed in the past.

I know that previous speakers have talked about some of the work that's been done in the past to analyze the health care system across Canada and to determine some of the very issues that we're discussing here about universal accessibility to health care and our ability as a country and as a province to provide that.

When the Romanow report was first launched, I actually became an active participant in that. I went on line, and I participated in the Romanow report. It was a considerable report. It took a great deal of time, it took a great deal of thought, and it took a great deal of commitment to read through all of that report and to answer the survey that was included — to answer the questions to help participate in that debate that was taking place across Canada.

I was very impressed with the report that Mr. Romanow compiled, which hundreds and hundreds of Canadians participated in and hundreds and hundreds of British Columbians participated in. That report helped to craft a snapshot in time of what we had in the way of a health care system and of what we wanted in the way of a health care system, and it laid down the belief and the rules by which we wanted to proceed in this country.

I think it was very clear. There was nothing left ambiguous or left to the imagination in that report. If you participated in it, you knew it was thorough. You knew that it absolutely indicated what it was that Canadians and British Columbians wanted in the way of a health care system.

It's been very disappointing for me that here in British Columbia we have a government that has completely discarded the Romanow report as irrelevant in this extremely monumental debate that we are having on universal health care and public health care in the province. We have a government that has completely discarded a huge and very comprehensive piece of work that's been done on this.

Instead, we have a Premier who embarked on his own conversation on health care, set the terms of that, sent a group of individuals around to listen to British Columbians and then, at the end of that process, immediately discarded that health care discussion and relegated it to the same heap in file 13 that the Romanow report was put in.

We have a government that, on the face of it, has said: "We're bringing into force a very innocuous piece

of legislation that really does fundamentally change the Medicare Protection Act in this province. We've disregarded the Romanow report. We've disregarded the health care conversation. Instead, we have brought forward a preamble here with a very insidious framework, which has been set up in the preamble."

I think it's important for us to take a look at exactly what this language is, what the implications are and why, in fact, it is such a monumental change. I know that the word "sustainability" is a bit overused. It's becoming a bit of one of those catchphrases that can mean all kinds of things. I'd like to spend some time looking at exactly what the term "sustainability" does mean, in this case, in reference to health care.

If we are in fact looking at health care and we've discarded one of the most significant documentations for the preservation of public health care in the Romanow report and discarded entirely the conversation we had with British Columbians on what they wanted with health care and have now introduced the term "sustainability," which has no relevance whatsoever to any of those reports, I think it bears closer examination.

So it's my intention to look a little bit closer at this, because in fact, I think we have an imperative right now, which is to save the public health care system. I think everyone here in this House, as legislators, has that imperative. I think that for the province of British Columbia and the citizens of British Columbia, we have that imperative. I know that whenever any of us have had recourse to have an experience with a health crisis, we view the issue of public health care in a different way.

Hon. Speaker, noting the time, I would adjourn debate, and I will reserve my right to speak again.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, Bill M204, Mineworkers Safety Act, 2008, was introduced yesterday by the member for New Westminster. I've had an opportunity to review the bill. I note that section 9 imposes an impost, that section 37 creates an offence and that various sections impose obligations on the Crown. The bill is therefore out of order in the hands of a private member and will not proceed to second reading.

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

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

J. Kwan: Yesterday afternoon we were just finishing up on some of the Olympic questions on which I have some more specific, sort of local-related questions for the minister. At the close of that session the minister went on to say that all the commitments that were promised by VANOC have been met. I just want to go back to that for a minute here.

The minister will recall the inner-city inclusive commitment statement, which was ultimately included in the Vancouver bid documents for 2010. At that time, informal commitments were made from VANOC to the IOCC concerning finding funding so that they could ensure that benchmark studies and evaluation of the impacts of the games for the inner city could be conducted.

The informal commitments were made to the IOCC. In response to questions from skeptics who suggested that the commitment statements were unlikely to be implemented, the bid committee reassured them that the IOCC was "the official watchdog" of the 2010 Olympics, guaranteeing the implementation of the promises made by the bid committee.

I just want to put on the record that the key promises made in the inner-city inclusivity commitment statement were as follows — that it:

Since the bid document has gone in and since Vancouver, British Columbia, has been awarded the games, over 1,300 units of single-resident-occupancy hotel rooms have been converted to other uses or are in the process of converting, according to the Pivot Legal Society.

Hallmark events also have a legacy of evictions, which disproportionately affect low-income people and senior citizens. One example would be Expo 86. Over 1,000 people were evicted, and numerous deaths were associated with the evictions — particularly of one individual, Olaf Solheim, for which the NDP government subsequently built a project in his honour. They named the project as such — a social housing project.

The minister said that all these commitments have been made. It continues, aside from the initial bid process going in and the awarding of the games, that closures of the SROs have happened. In fact, low-income housing closures from December 2007 to April 2008 total an additional 448 units.

They're the Star Beach Haven hotel, 19 rooms; the Backpackers Inn, 42 rooms; 334 Carrall Street, 30 apartments; the Marie Gomez Place, 76 apartments; Dominion Hotel, 67 rooms; Columbia Hotel, 69 rooms; the Phoenix Apartments, 18 units; the Colonial Residence, 144 units; Pacific Hotel, 58 units; and the Sinclair Hotel, 15 units.

Dr. Kris Olds, a former Vancouver city planner who studied Expo 86 evictions, was involved on the advisory committee on a Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions report, which was released in June of 2007. The report was entitled Fair Play for Housing Rights Mega-Events, Olympic Games and Housing Rights. On January 21, 2008, he gave a talk on his report at SFU Harbour Centre to an audience of about 180 people, and I was there as well.

It was one of the most comprehensive global studies to date of the impacts of hallmark events on housing. There was actually a document that outlined multi-stakeholder guidelines, and that was part of the report. The report utilized a human rights approach to address these legitimate concerns in the lead-up to 2010.

From that report from Dr. Olds, it is clear that the link between mega-events and the adverse housing impacts is there, and that it's also consistent that housing concerns can no longer be ignored when these events are planned and staged.

In Vancouver the type of evictions that have taken place in the community are basically two types. In fact, one of the evictions that took place led the community advocates to actually report out on the first official Olympic evictions of the 2010 games — when an SRO owner declared on television that he was evicting his tenants so that he could renovate, raise rents and make room for Olympic workers. So that's actually on the public record.

To date, the IOCC still has not received anything, any funding, from VANOC or other government agencies of the host province so that they can actually document and have a benchmark to establish the rates of change and the impacts in the community in terms of the bid related to 2010.

My question to the minister is this. Is VANOC ever going to fund the IOCC so that they can get going on this work, so that we can have some benchmarks here so we can compare the impacts of the Olympics in our community? Or is the accountability simply on the basis that no funding is provided to the watchdog organization in our community, so therefore, the government can claim that they have met all their commitments? Is that the intent?

Hon. C. Hansen: First of all, in the comments I made yesterday about VANOC having achieved their commitments…. That was in the context of housing. If you go back to the time of the bid when a commitment was made for social housing, that is being realized with the additional social housing units that are part of the Olympic village being built in Vancouver.

I think that when the member starts doing comparisons betweens Expo 86 and the 2010 Winter Games, we're talking about two very different types of events. In the case of Expo it was a six-months-long undertaking that attracted over two million. I forget the exact number of visitors that came to British Columbia during that period of time. For the Olympics we're talking about 17 days. With the Paralympics we're talking about an additional 12 days.

In terms of a commitment that nobody would be made homeless as a result of the organization of the games, I've heard that come from other people, with all kinds of innuendo that there are dozens and dozens of people that somehow are being made homeless because of the planning of the games. I put that challenge out. Name me one person who has been made homeless by the actions of VANOC or any of the other agencies that are involved in organizing for the 2010 Olympic Games.

I think the member runs through lots of examples of projects that may be under development. She mentioned the one individual who was on television saying that he was going to convert his SRO into a facility for Olympic workers. That is the one example. I saw that same newscast, and I also saw the newscast later where he changed his mind. He decided instead to work with the community and make sure that it continued to provide housing for individuals who needed that type of housing.

In terms of the benchmarking that the member asked about, we are now working, looking at how that benchmarking can best be done. We expect to be able to roll that out in the next few months.

J. Kwan: The minister mentions the Olympic village. Of course, the original commitments for the Olympic village were that there would be a breakdown of one-third, one-third, one-third in terms of the housing mix — one-third of which would actually go into social housing, one-third into market housing, and another third to medium-market housing. That, of course, got reduced to 20 percent in terms of the social housing component. It was actually one of the first acts of the council that came in.

The Olympic village — if that's the example which the minister can hold up to say that VANOC and the organizing committees and the host province and city have met their housing commitment, I hate to tell you, Mr. Chair, that they have already fallen short on that commitment.

The other thing that I want to say very clearly is this. VANOC actually started out with some good intentions, maybe, at that time, because they were trying to get through a referendum in the city of Vancouver for a yes vote. There was an inner-city inclusive commitment statement that was put out. That statement listed a number of things. It included housing, amongst other things as well.

Arising from that, there was a commitment to consultation, and there was actually a round table that was chaired by B.C. Housing representatives. It included a variety of people, ranging from the private sector to the public sector, the civil society sector, non-profit society representatives and a broad range of people. I've never seen anything like it. I have to congratulate VANOC for actually putting this together and for allowing the process to unfold.

What happened was that a report was produced out of that. There were a number of recommendations arising from it, of which one recommendation called for development immediately of 3,200 units of affordable housing. To date, the government has not met their commitment. VANOC has not met their commitment. The last time you talked to VANOC about that, they pointed the finger and said: "It's not my responsibility." They said: "It's someone else's responsibility."

Everyone else is pointing a finger at someone else to get that job done, yet those recommendations came from a consultation process around the Olympic Games, involving a variety of people in an unheard-of, unprecedented state. All of the participants involved in that round table — whether it's the non-profit sector, the civil society sector, the public sector or the private sector — unanimously agreed on all of the recommendations.

What happened after that? The report was not posted on the VANOC website. No news release was issued. The only reason why the public knows about that report is that it was leaked to the media and then it was reported out. I asked questions of the minister then, in the Legislature during question period, around when the government is going to commit to realizing those recommendations. To date, no action.

The only thing that VANOC has come forward with in addressing the homelessness question is that they plan to spend $500,000 on a temporary homeless shelter during the games, and that was it. We all come from a place where, I assume, we all know that a temporary shelter is not a home. When people get displaced, putting them in a shelter during the times of the games does not actually address the problem.

The minister will say: "Well, show me one person who has been evicted." I invite the minister to come to the downtown east side. I will take him on a tour so that he can talk to the people directly — not just hear it from me — who are impacted by these games in a negative way. He can see for himself what that means for a community that is already marginalized, that is already struggling on a day-by-day basis.

I'd be delighted to accommodate the minister with that on any scheduling options that he wants to put forward. I'd be happy to arrange for the organizations who are working on the ground in the community, who are trying to assist members of our community in this challenge that's ahead of them.

My question to the minister, then, is this. How can he say that the Olympic village has already met the housing commitments when the original housing commitments for the Olympic village was a one-third, one-third, one-third breakdown and it got reduced to a 20 percent breakdown?

Then in addition to that, the ICI report, the Inner-City Inclusivity committee report, which was unanimously endorsed by every participant at that round table, has not actually come to realization. I ask the minister: when are they going to commit to the 3,200 units of affordable housing that are being called for in the ICI report?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think it's important to understand the role and the function that VANOC has. VANOC is responsible for the organization of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. They're responsible for the athletes and the Olympic family when they come to British Columbia in terms of their transportation needs, their accommodation needs and the other supports. They're responsible for making sure that all our venues are being built to the international standards that the Olympics require, and quite frankly, I think they're doing a tremendous job in it that regard.

What VANOC has undertaken in terms of their formal commitments, they are well on the way to delivering on those obligations. What VANOC is not responsible for is solving our homelessness problem in British Columbia or any of the other issues that confront us as a society. I am certainly anxious to ensure that they deliver on the commitments that they made, and I am confident that they will achieve those.

Let me talk specifically about the housing policy in British Columbia, because there is a tremendous amount that is happening that this member is not

prepared to acknowledge. In Budget 2008 there is a provision for an additional $104 million over four years to implement and expand measures to break the cycle of homelessness through the provincial housing strategy, Housing Matters B.C. That includes emergency shelter programs — $78 million. I accept the member's point that an emergency shelter is not housing, but it is an important part of addressing the needs of homelessness in British Columbia.

We have the homeless outreach program, which has been tremendously successful, with an additional $13 million that's in the budget, and that stretches over 40 communities. To date 2,500 people have obtained housing as a direct result of these outreach services. The studies show that 80 percent of the people housed were able to maintain their housing and still have the benefit of that today.

There is the homeless rent supplement program. There's an additional $3 million over four years to provide an additional 750 rent supplements to help homeless people find rental accommodation in the private rental market. There is also $10 million that's going into the predevelopment cost for city-owned sites.

We've reached agreement with the cities of Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna to expedite the approval process for about 1,500 new social and supportive housing units and shelter beds, and the cost for expedited predevelopment will help those begin construction at the earliest opportunity.

In general, since 2001 this government has committed to creating more than 13,500 new units of subsidized housing. This includes a commitment to more than 4,000 new and integrative supportive housing units and shelter beds under the provincial homelessness initiative. In total, there are now more than 3,500 supportive housing units across the province, compared to 1,300 in 2001.

J. Kwan: The minister likes to read off that list, which I'm sure is the script for every single cabinet member of the government, because they all read off that same script.

It doesn't change the fact that we actually have a record high of homeless people under this government's watch. That's not a made-up number; it is a reality. In fact, just yesterday a report was released that says the Fraser Valley has a significant increase in homelessness. Mission, of all communities — it's not the downtown east side; let's be clear — their homelessness rate increased by some 30 percent. So it's true that the homelessness has become a pandemic issue in the province of British Columbia under this government's watch.

But I'm not here to debate the homelessness question broadly. I'd be happy to engage in that debate with this minister, but I know that those issues will also come up in the Housing estimates debate. People will take up with the Housing Minister…. The point that I'm making is more specific and is related to the Olympics and mega-events and their impacts in communities — and, more particularly, their impacts in the inner-city community and their impacts in the community of the downtown east side, which I represent.

There's no denying it. If people come down to the community, they will see what the impacts are. People call it beautification. They call it all sorts of different names, but all of that is being done in preparation for one major event. It happens to be called the 2010 Olympics. That's the reality of it, and the community members know it.

People will say: "Jeez, no one specifically said that you're being evicted because your room is going to be taken for the purposes of visitors and workers, related to the 2010." Yet all the speculative action is happening in that community, and coincidentally, it just happens to be close to the time when the Olympics or mega-events are being announced.

I'm sure that's all coincidence, and we're just sort of imagining it. If that was the case, maybe the government would have actually, to ensure the record is straight…. Maybe I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I'm willing to admit it. But let some other independent group actually do that evaluation and set the benchmark.

VANOC has failed on that, even though they said that they would do it. Maybe in the coming weeks something will come forward. Maybe. I don't know. We'll see what the announcement is going to be.

We'll also see who is going to be funded to do this work and whether or not that group is going to be truly independent or if it's somebody else who's just going to pay lip service to the government's message and the spin-doctoring they want to put out.

I want to move on to another related piece. Has the minister heard of the multi-stakeholder guidelines that were developed by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions?

J. Kwan: This report was done by, again, an independent group of individuals, many of whom are not from Vancouver and who actually study mega-events and impacts of mega-events and look at the protection and promotion of housing rights. They have a number of principles they have set out on this.

I have actually written a letter to the Premier asking him to consider adopting the principles within the multi-stakeholder guidelines developed by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, to which the Premier said that yeah, he'd take a look at it.

I'm asking this minister… I'll be happy to pass along a copy of this report and its guidelines to him for his evaluation. I would ask the minister to commit, once he's had the time to digest the report and its information, to respond to me and to advise whether or not he as the minister will be prepared to adopt these guidelines for the major mega-events for 2010. I'll leave it at that and let the minister respond.

Hon. C. Hansen: I'd be pleased to take a look at the document and look forward to receiving it from the member.

J. Kwan: I would assume that that includes a response from the minister on the request for him to adopt the principles of the multi-stakeholder guidelines developed by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions.

Hon. C. Hansen: I will certainly give her a response. In terms of what kind of substantive response that might be, I would want to look at the document first. It's a response that may more appropriately come from the Minister Responsible for Housing, but as I say, I'll certainly take a look at it and get back to her.

J. Kwan: Well, I'll just say this on the record. I hope that it's not going to be one of those responses where the minister just passes the buck. It's very easy to do that, to say, "Well, you know, I have taken a look at it," and for all I know, it might have just sat on the shelf. The staff crafts a letter, and the minister signs it and says: "Thanks very much. I'm going to pass the buck on to someone else."

I hope that it's not going to be one of those responses. I hope that the minister will actually take this seriously, because the report is about impacts from mega-events, and it was a study worldwide with respect to that.

We can learn from it. We can adopt these principles, and we still have time. Maybe I'm eternally optimistic or something, but I actually think that we still have time, if the commitment is there, to adopt these principles and do it right, for the community that not only matters in my own riding but that matters for all British Columbians and Canadians.

I think it matters, also, for other host communities that may be coming down the road. They could learn from us how to do it differently and how to ensure that such an event is celebrated by everyone. We have a huge opportunity here, so I hope it's not going to be one of those pat answers that the minister is just going to pass the buck on.

Now I want to also highlight some of the key pieces which were not addressed and which the multi-stakeholder guidelines would address if there's a commitment to that. That would be that right now there is an absence of written funding commitments to a neutral watchdog group that can establish benchmarks and measure impacts and, therefore, avoid the difficulties in proving that evictions or displacements are Olympics-related.

I think that would be beneficial on all sides. Beneficial to the government…. If they say, "Hey, none of this actually happened," then you have third-party independent people to come forward to say that. Then for the people who are disadvantaged…. If in fact it is happening, they have someone who can give them a voice and ensure that they have some rights afforded to them. It could work both ways.

Right now there's an absence of budget dedicated to the implementation of socially sustainable recommendations made through whatever community consultation process has been established. Right now — and that's the issue here — there isn't a budget from anybody anywhere to say that they will spend this money to meet these commitments that have been made, whether it's on housing or anything else. That's what needs to be done in order for the community to know and see that it's happening, as opposed to some sort of ad hoc approach that the government has adopted.

There's an absence of dedicated government representatives with authority and mandate to bring forward necessary legislative amendments as required and to participate in all consultation processes, and the multi-stakeholder principles will also address that concern. There's the presence of dedicated budget to anticipate the failure of social sustainability commitments. It's also an important piece, and it's also spoken about in the principles of the multi-stakeholder guidelines.

Then another piece is that right now the language for social sustainability commitments is insufficient and is not precise enough so that one could measure its outcomes, so that you could evaluate it with something tangible in terms of ensuring that social sustainability commitments are actually met.

Last but not least, there's the question around the absence of any enforcement mechanism in the event of the disregard of the commitment statements by the host governments and/or VANOC. I think that's important as well — to make sure that someone is enforcing it, to make sure that the work is actually getting done.

I say this on behalf of the folks in my community who are very concerned about it. We want to celebrate the Olympics, and we want it to be a success. But we want to make sure that it is a success for everyone and, most important of all, that the people who are disadvantaged in the community are not further marginalized because of major mega-events.

Hon. C. Hansen: I think the best I can say in response is that I certainly share that goal and that objective as well, and I know that VANOC does. I know that they are looking forward to a very successful event — the Winter Games in 2010 — and we want to make sure that it's a great experience for everybody in the community.

J. Kwan: Well, then I will look forward to the minister's answers. I'll look forward to VANOC's answers with respect to the request for a surcharge on merchandising and ticketing, which the community has not received an answer on. I will look forward to the multi-stakeholder guidelines being adopted, and I'll look forward to the recommendations from the ICI report also being implemented by the government. I think, then, that at that stage we can certainly claim success by all.

I'm going to move on at this juncture to the next phase of the estimates debate, because time is of the essence here, and hand the floor over to my good colleague from Cariboo North. It's either north or south; sometimes I'm directionally challenged. He's going to

ask some questions around the regional economic development front, the trusts, along with the federal forestry workers funds.

B. Simpson: Just to start off, I'd like to explore the federal money first and then go into some of the trusts and other activities that are occurring, particularly in the mountain pine beetle area, and then regional economic development in general.

With respect to the trust, I need a point of clarification. When I was in the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance debates, the minister indicated that he had the lead for this $129 million from the federal government. I've seen subsequent correspondence that says the Ministry of Labour has the lead. I wonder if the minister can actually outline how this fund is structured, who has got what parts of it and who is the lead agent for it.

Hon. C. Hansen: I think I was in this House at the time that we touched on that part of the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance estimates. I think at that time that he was referring to the LMDA program.

The responsibility for the rollout of the community development trust moneys, the $125 million from the federal government. The Ministry of Economic Development has overall responsibility for that, but we are working closely with the Ministry of Forests, with the Ministry of Labour, with the Ministry of Community Services and with the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance.

B. Simpson: I have some notes from some meetings that some unions were at and that some of the representatives of logging contractors were at. They indicated that they were meeting with the Ministry of Labour.

They indicate that this fund is broken down into four broad areas: older worker transition, tuition assistance, reforestation projects and highly impacted communities. I wonder if the minister can give a sense of what the breakdown of the funding is into those four envelopes. If they are in fact the correct four, what are the breakdowns for that, and which agency will be the lead agency on those parts?

Hon. C. Hansen: The member is correct. In the press release that was put out by the Prime Minister when this was first announced, it was targeted on those areas: tuition assistance, pension bridging for older workers and job creation. We are also recognizing that there is a very small number of communities that have very significant impacts, so we are also looking at whether or not a portion of this fund needs to be targeted at that.

We have not yet finalized, until we get through this consultation process…. I think what the member may have learned about is one of the consultation meetings that we are now embarking on.

We recognize that there are elements of this that are going to be very complex and that we need to work closely with the communities, with the workers and with the pension plan administrators, for example, when it comes to the older worker transition programs. We need to get input and a good understanding as to what the cost implications would be for the various elements of this program. We think we're pretty close to being able to finalize at least the allocations to each of these areas. Then we will start rolling it out as fast as we can.

In terms of the actual moneys, the actual dollars were received from the federal government on the second of April, and it was actually only yesterday that we finally sort of passed the hurdles necessary so that we could get access to the funds.

We are trying to move as quickly as possible. We recognize that there are families and workers in these communities that need access to these funds in order to benefit from the programs that we'll be rolling out, so we're trying to get on this as quickly as we can.

B. Simpson: There's a lot there that I think we need clarification on. With respect to the access to the funds, where are the funds right now? My understanding is that the Prime Minister came over when the Globe conference was on and brought a cheque. Are those funds sitting with the provincial government just now in general revenue?

Hon. C. Hansen: These funds were expensed by the federal government in the last fiscal year, so they are a '07-08 charge at the federal government level. It would be very difficult…. First of all, we could not have properly flowed those funds in the last fiscal, even if we had received them in March. We need to be able to set up a process whereby we can flow these funds over the three-year duration that the fund is intended for. That requires the establishment of what's called a section 25 account. It is a dedicated account that's used to manage these funds, and then the funds can flow out of that account over a few fiscal years.

It is our intention to front-load that. We recognize that workers need access to that kind of financial support now, not three years from now. It's our intention to front-load that, but the approval for the establishment of the section 25 account was only received yesterday.

B. Simpson: Does that account require a third party to manage the account? I know that when we got the $100 million federal money for the mountain pine beetle activity, for some reason the government went to PricewaterhouseCoopers and had them run that account. Will there be an intermediary involved in flowing that money over the next three years?

Hon. C. Hansen: As I understand it, the difference is that the pine beetle money did not flow to the province of British Columbia. It was kept arm's length, and it was managed by third parties.

In this case the funds are coming to the provincial government, and they are managed by officials in the ministry in the context of the section 25 account.

B. Simpson: I wonder if the minister could give a little bit more information about the consultation

process. Who is being consulted? How is that looking? How do communities or groups that want to have some say in this get involved in the consultation process?

Hon. C. Hansen: For these consultations we're going to try to get out around the province. We're going to be talking to the unions, as the member knows. We're going to be talking to the pension administrators. We're going to be talking to the impacted communities. We're going to be talking to the various forestry organizations as well as forest companies.

We're certainly open to input and advice from anybody. If anybody that the member is in touch with has ideas as to how we should shape the rollout of these particular funds, please encourage them to send me an e-mail or a letter, and we will gladly take that advice into consideration.

B. Simpson: Again, just so I'm clear, do they come to the Ministry of Labour or the Ministry of Economic Development? Because it looks like the Ministry of Labour is the one that's out having the conversations with people.

Hon. C. Hansen: It is the Ministry of Economic Development that has overall responsibility for the rollout of this program. There is one individual in the Ministry of Labour who has some particularly beneficial experience, knowledge and expertise. As a result, he is leading the formulation of elements of this program, and he's also leading the consultation.

The actual consultation work that is being done has been undertaken by the Ministry of Labour. They are doing that on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Development, which has overall responsibility. So if anybody has ideas and input, they could certainly direct them to me, and I would be glad to make sure that that is taken into consideration.

B. Simpson: According to this individual in the Ministry of Labour…. The minister says a three-year duration and the formulation of the elements of this, but according to the notes from the meeting, this is what the people who were there were told: "The bulk of the money will be spent in year one. Most, two-thirds of it, will be spent on older worker transition. It will be a lump sum payment and not a pension bridge."

Then there are issues around tuition, etc. There's a comment here that the fundamentals are determined at a high level, and there's not much room for significant adjustments. So there's a sense that the Ministry of Labour person is saying that this money is already allocated. The envelopes are basically there, most of it is going to be out the door fairly quickly, targeted at older workers, and the older worker transition will be lump sum payments to take them out of the industry.

Hon. C. Hansen: Well, we've certainly, notionally, come up with some allocations. There's still lots of flexibility in that, and we do want to get the input from the consultation process before we lock in any of these details. So we're open to flexibility.

I use the words "pension bridging." I know that's a formal term. I think it's probably better to keep it as "a bridging to pensions." That may be a better way to look at it. Again, we're quite prepared to work with the various stakeholders and get advice from individual workers as to how we can best do that.

I do want to also emphasize that we are very conscious of the fact that in many or most of these communities — at least I would hope that it's in most of these communities — where we have seen layoffs in the forest sector, these are going to be temporary in duration. We fully anticipate that there will be a recovery in housing starts in the U.S.

In fact, if you look historically at housing starts in the U.S., you will find that whenever there has been a precipitous drop in housing starts, it's been followed by a spike. I guess there are lots of people speculating as to whether or not we will see that kind of a rebound and a spike this time. Certainly, I have talked to lots of people who believe that is what will happen.

We are trying to design this program in a way that ensures that the workforce will be supported and be able to continue in sustainable, healthy communities until such time as those jobs return. We've heard people talking about the sun setting on the forest industry in British Columbia, and I think that kind of talk is not warranted.

I think the forest industry does have a dynamic future — not without its challenges, needless to say — but we want to be careful that we don't drive workers out of this industry permanently when we may actually need those workers to fire these mills up in, hopefully, not too long a time.

B. Simpson: Well, I won't go on a riff about the U.S. housing market because we're tight here today and closing at 4:30, but I was at West Fraser mill's community meeting in Quesnel last night as part of their AGM. I can tell you that there's a company that as they look at the long-term projections, that bright horizon is further and further away. In fact, one of the senior managers quipped that the light at the end of the tunnel is a banker with a flashlight coming to try and find them. That's how desperate they see the situation, and they don't see the past being an indicator, necessarily, of the future.

With respect to the older worker program, I take the minister's point about sustaining the workforce and sustaining the communities, because that's exactly what we have been saying. Let's not transition all of these people out and then try and start these mills up again and find that we don't have the community infrastructure or the workforce to do that. That's the worst-case scenario. But the forest industry in most of those communities has an older workforce. In Quesnel the average age of that workforce is 55-plus. It's not a very young workforce.

Under this fund how will older workers be defined? What will constitute an older worker?

Hon. C. Hansen: We have not tried to attach a definition to older worker at this point. I can remember my big shock when we were rolling out the older workers program a few months ago, which is a totally different program. I was shocked to find that that was anyone over the age of 50.

In this context I think that we do want to get that advice from the consultation process. The other thing is that when you start looking at bridging to pensions, that is a very expensive process. It's really a case of, you know, the more years you try to bridge, the fewer workers you can help. We certainly anticipate that that is going to be a very, very expensive portion of it.

So that, again, is something that we hope will come out of the consultation — that we will get the advice that will allow us to give a definition to older worker that will be meaningful and be able to help the workers who need the help.

B. Simpson: Again, for clarity — because as the minister indicates, there's some sense of urgency to this in many communities around the province, and I'll get to what defines a vulnerable community in a second — what is the time frame? When will we land on the definition of an older worker, particularly if two-thirds of the money is going to go into that, as the minister says? If you define it too early, you end up giving quite a chunk of money to those individuals who still have lots of years left of viable work. They can go work in the oil patch or go somewhere else. When will we know what the definition of older worker will be?

Hon. C. Hansen: I would expect that we will be able to roll out some of these details within the next few weeks. I am very anxious that we get on with this program as fast as possible.

The one element of it that we know we can move quite quickly on is around tuition. I think we will see that a lot of these workers were laid off and perhaps are still receiving the benefits of EI, and while they're on EI, they are able to get into some kind of training program that will help them realize the opportunities that may be available to them. So we think that we've got the systems in place to roll out tuition programs very quickly. It may take a little bit longer to roll out some of the job creation initiatives in the communities.

Finally, I think that the one that will be the most difficult for us to roll out is going to be the transition for older workers, and it's just simply because of the complexities of it. We've got lots of issues around how that may impact on some pension plans. Even if it's not actually a formal pension-bridging program, it can still have implications in some cases. There are also issues around what the income tax treatment of these moneys may be. Again, we're trying to get there as fast as we can, but there are certainly lots of complexities for us to work through.

B. Simpson: On the tuition piece, then, there are some questions around whether or not people will be eligible for both older worker transition and tuition. If tuition goes out in front of older worker transition, you could create a bit of a quagmire there. On the tuition will that be constrained?

We've been down this path before in this province in a lot of sectors, including a big program in the late '90s called, I think, Forest Renewal B.C. or something, where we went down and did this work. The workforce has changed. The labour demand has changed dramatically. I was involved in that program from a community perspective. The difference, then, is that we didn't have the labour force demand for training people to some kind of transition. Now we certainly do.

Where's the work done before jumping into tuition? Where is the work being done to make sure it's a meaningful labour force transition, that it dovetails with some kind of labour force strategy and, as we canvassed in question period today, that it doesn't butt up against the fact that there aren't programs available for some of these folks to come into, like forestry programs that are being cancelled or outdoor tourism programs that are being cancelled, etc.?

Is there a labour force strategy and some kind of document behind what we're going to do on the tuition side on this that we can look at?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think it's important to recognize that this program that we are rolling out, which is going to be specifically targeted at forest workers, is just one of many programs that we have in terms of employment bridging and retraining, etc. For example, we are in the process now of rolling out the labour market agreement programs, the LMA programs, for which we have resources of, I think, $83 million a year.

Hon. C. Hansen: Oh, $66 million a year. Gee, just when I thought we'd found some more money there.

Then there's also the LMDA program, and while that is still a federal government program, it is being transitioned to the province over the coming years. The LMDA program specifically targets and supports individuals who are on employment insurance, providing to them retraining opportunities, etc. We want to make sure that this program, as we develop it, doesn't duplicate those programs and that it actually dovetails with them for the maximum benefit to these workers and their families.

The member asked the question about whether older workers could also get tuition. While we haven't…. Again, it's part of the detail that we…. We don't want to go into our consultation with our minds made up on this thing, but our general sense is that, no, any worker that qualified for some kind of the bridging program as an older worker would not have access to the tuition benefit, as well, on top of that.

Mind you, they may use the financial resources that would flow as a result of that bridging program for

some kind of a retraining program that they might want to engage in, and they would also have access to other programs as well.

B. Simpson: One of the questions that the minister didn't answer is the whole issue of program availability and how does that match. Some of the regions that this is occurring in have dispersed campuses and are struggling just now with some of the restructuring and their own funding to keep some of those programs going, so if the minister could speak to that.

Also, the whole question, going back to the minister's statement of principle guiding this, is: how are we going to ensure that these individuals are actually retained in their communities? If we are pension bridging and giving people a chunk of money and they bail their communities with that chunk of money because they can move and they're mobile, and if we retrain the workers that are able to go through the retraining and they leave, then we haven't met the principle of stabilizing those communities and providing a workforce there for those mills to come up.

Hon. C. Hansen: If I had all those answers, we wouldn't need to go out for consultation. The member's question, I think, just underscores part of the complexity of trying to make sure that this program has a net long-term benefit to communities.

In terms of the college programs we will be working closely with the various colleges and training organizations in the province. It's certainly a great opportunity for them. If they know that there are a few dozen workers in a community who all have access to tuition assistance, we expect that they will customize programs to actually target those particular groups of laid-off workers, perhaps even to the point of being able to take programs into those communities.

We will be trying to make sure that the workers who are involved have knowledge about where programs are available. We can't guarantee that it's all going to be coming to their particular community, but we will try to ensure that there is access to those programs and that they get access to the information they need so that they can make those types of decisions.

B. Simpson: It is a complex process. That's why, again, the consultation process is critical; I agree with the minister.

So we have the older workers and the definition of older workers. We have the issue of tuition, being careful that doesn't take people out of these communities. How is the minister or the ministry defining vulnerable communities in the first place? How does a community become eligible for some source funding from this? What criteria might be used?

Hon. C. Hansen: In terms of the various elements of this program we've got the older worker program, and that's targeted at individual workers. There's a definition that we will be establishing in terms of what defines somebody as a forest worker. That would apply for both their older worker program as well as their eligibility for tuition. That's aimed at individuals.

The third element, which is the job creation element, is one that is aimed at communities. We actually went through and looked at the percentage of employment, community by community, that was forest-related. We ranked those from the highest dependency on the forest sector to the lowest, around the province. We realized that it's not something where you can draw a line and say that, statistically, any community that is at this threshold qualifies, and everybody else doesn't.

The approach that we are inclined to take at this point is to ask communities…. When they are making applications to this fund, these communities would need to make a case as to why they are an impacted forest community. We are going to make sure that the flexibility is there, in other words, to ensure that. I am just trying to think of what else I can add to that. That probably sums it up as best I can.

B. Simpson: I am just struggling with this a little bit, because now it's a self-identification process. That's what the minister is indicating. You've got some sort of criteria based on a vulnerability index, I would assume, that they float out there about how much of the economics in a community is based on the forest industry. That index exists.

The problem with that, though, is that you've got communities that are in crisis now. You've got communities that have already passed through the crisis and are still struggling, so their vulnerability index would be very, very low because they're no longer forestry towns. They're no longer dependent on forestry, but they haven't got a new economy that is driving those communities.

You've got communities like Mackenzie, Fort St. James, Castlegar and Grand Forks that are in transition just now. If we don't stabilize those workforces, then when the lumber industry does come back, that's where the green wood is, and we don't want to transition those folks out of those communities. But you have the heart of the mountain pine beetle — the Vanderhoofs, the Quesnels, wherever — and their vulnerability is five or eight years from now. We better start having a transition strategy just now for them, because they've got a real adjustment that they're going to have to make in the short term.

So how does the self-evaluation capture all of those variations of what constitutes vulnerability? How will communities know that they're supposed to self-evaluate and declare themselves in need of some assistance from the government?

Hon. C. Hansen: That will be part of the process and the information that we'll roll out to communities in terms of how that process will work.

As we tried to come up with some kind of an empirical, objective process — that sort of "let the

numbers crunch, and you land where you land" — we felt that that wasn't appropriate. It really would wind up drawing lines, and you'd wind up with a community just outside of it feeling hard done by, yet there may be communities that would be inside that line that perhaps have lots of other opportunities.

I think it's important to recognize that this particular community development fund is not the answer to the challenges of the mountain pine beetle. It's not the answer to the challenges, overall, of the forest sector.

We have put in place the pine beetle funds that are there. We've put in place the funds for the geoscience work that is being done throughout the Interior and to look at other industries that may have viability in the Interior in the post-pine beetle world.

Then we've also put in place the three development trusts — the Northern Development Initiative Trust, the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust and, as they now call themselves, the Island coastal economic trust. Those groups are looking at how they can best support the transition of their regional economies to new industries and new economic opportunities.

I think that this particular fund will help some forest-dependent communities provide some jobs for laid-off forest workers so that they can stay in the community, stay employed and have a paycheque coming in until such time as, hopefully, those mills reopen and they can re-establish their careers in the forest industry.

So this fund, in terms of the job creation aspect of it, is for jobs that would be specifically targeted as short- and medium-term employment opportunities to provide for stable opportunities within these communities.

B. Simpson: I'm just conscious of time so I'm going to have to go through some things here. Again, the minister had offered, at one point, a briefing on this. It might be worthwhile that once some more of this is known we could get a briefing simply because lots of the MLAs in our caucus have communities that fit these criteria and have seen lots of workers lose their jobs over the last little while. So a more fulsome briefing would be appropriate.

Some quick ones, if I could. Then I do want to go on to the trust question, and we have regional economic development questions. With respect to silviculture, the fourth area, is that part of what the minister's ministry is going to do or is that going to be just hived off and some money allocated for incremental silviculture at the Ministry of Forests?

Hon. C. Hansen: When the member says the fourth area…. If there were silviculture projects that might get funded out of the community funds, that would be the third area that we had talked about. So it's potential that a community might want to come forward with a plan to re-establish or to replant areas of the urban forest that have been decimated by mountain pine beetle.

What we have to be very careful of in this program is that none of this money gets spent in a way that would compromise the softwood lumber agreement. These funds are not to the benefit of the forest companies. They're a benefit to the individual forest workers and to benefit the communities in which they live.

B. Simpson: The minister answered my next quick question about the softwood lumber agreement, because I know that's overarching all of this. Thank you for the clarification on silviculture. However, the person from the Ministry of Labour, speaking about it differently, does speaks about it as a fourth envelope — it will be silviculture and forest health activities — which is different than what the minister is saying is a subset of communities.

So just clarification on that then. Would Kamloops, then, be able to apply to this for money that they've been asking both the federal and the provincial governments to give them for that urban forest, for danger trees, for fire, all of that stuff? Would that be invited from Kamloops?

Hon. C. Hansen: The answer is yes. Kamloops, like any other community that has a forest industry employment base, would certainly be eligible to apply for funds under this. We would rank them based on the percentage of the population that is in the forest sector, and we would look at what the unemployment rate was in a community, what kinds of other job opportunities there might be that the displaced forest workers may have access to without this program. We'd be looking at all those elements in evaluating an application from Kamloops or any other community.

B. Simpson: And there's the rub, the catch-22, where Kamloops has effectively been transitioned out of the forest industry. Mills permanently closed, forest licences sold and going elsewhere, and the diversion or the switch on employment bases over to call centres…. So being very careful about how that is all managed, because they're picking up the tab and the residents are picking up the tab for significant dollars for the mountain pine beetle impact in that urban forest.

Again, a quick question on provincial contribution to this. I know that the minister has referenced the trust, and I do want to get some brief questions on the trust here. Will the province be contributing money to this particular fund and this particular activity?

The early indications are that the lion's share of this will go to older workers. That doesn't leave much for tuition, and it doesn't leave much for communities to address this particular issue. So will the province be adding money specifically to this program?

Hon. C. Hansen: The province has put funds into the various development trusts that we talk about and, I gather, will talk about. Also we have funding that has gone specifically into the pine beetle response through the Ministry of Forests and is going in. And we have funds that are going into pine beetle response with regard to the geoscience work, as I mentioned earlier, and other things.

In other words, is the province putting in additional moneys to meet this challenge? The answer is

yes. Is the province putting specific money into this program, the community development trust, over and above the $129 million that is coming from the federal government? The answer is no.

B. Simpson: That does take us to the questions of trust and other regional economic development initiatives that the ministry has underway. How will that be articulated?

Part of this, according to the Ministry of Labour person, is to try to leverage funds from other sources in order to extend this $129 million as much as possible. So where you have regional economic activities going on, will there be a dovetailing of what this fund can contribute with activities that are already on the ground? You've got pilots on the ground. You've got trusts on the ground. How will that be articulated?

Hon. C. Hansen: As I mentioned earlier, this program has to dovetail with other programs like the labour market development agreement programs that are available to displaced workers in the province. We will be working closely with those other groups to make sure that this program works in harmony with those. We have our regional staff, the regional economic staff, around the province in various communities. They, too, will be involved in the rollout of these programs and will be assisting us.

When we talk about levering funds from this program, it's not like saying, you know: "I'm going to put only $3 on the table, and you don't get the $3 until you come up with $9 from somebody else." That's not the kind of leveraging that would happen with a program like this, partly because that actually delays programs sometimes. We want to get on with making sure that this money is out there, working and helping forest-dependent workers and their families.

B. Simpson: The minister goes to the point that I want to go to with respect to all of the activities that are out there. The minister has referenced the trusts a number of times and the money for mountain pine beetle, etc. Does the minister's staff actually go back and look at what those trusts are doing and not doing and how that trust money is actually flowing out to the stated intent in the legislation?

Hon. C. Hansen: We get regular reports from the trust in terms of the programs they're flowing out.

I think it's important for the member to recognize, and I'm sure that he's aware of this, that the trusts are totally independent of the provincial government. They are arm's-length. We cannot give them direction in any way. They are totally independent, and I think, by and large, they're making some great decisions.

I think that the Northern Development Initiative Trust was the first one out of gate, and I think they went through a lot of the growing pains. The other trusts have been able to benefit from the groundwork that was done by the Northern Development Initiative Trust. So the other trusts have the opportunity, I think, to get dollars flowing into communities much faster than the NDI was able to do.

B. Simpson: As the minister pointed out, when you require leveraged funds, you do cause a delay in getting programs on the ground and getting money out the door. All of the trusts, particularly the Northern Trust, require a leveraging to occur.

The minister may be aware that the $185 million that the Northern Trust was given has accumulated to $200 million. I think in their last balance sheet it's $195 million, so it's $10 million to the good, and you have a whole bunch of initiatives out there that people are struggling to find that other source fund in order to leverage Northern Trust fund. There isn't a good coordination or articulation there.

So let me paint a quick picture here to be time sensitive. In my neck of the woods you have the Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition that's gotten money from the Ministry of Forests and Range to go and to lay the groundwork for future possible work to be done in that heavily impacted mountain pine beetle area in the transition out of forestry. They've got quite a bit of money to do studies and so on.

They come along and those studies, none of them, articulate with Northern Trust. There's been dialogue back and forth, but Northern Trust is doing its own thing. It has its own mountain pine beetle money, of which I think $8 million, maybe, has gone out the door. If you look at the interest that they earned on the $32 million, not much of the real money has gone out the door. Yet it was supposed to be fast-tracked and assist mountain pine beetle communities. It hasn't.

Then you have the federal government coming along in western diversification with their $33 million that has everybody revamp all of their proposals to meet the federal bureaucrats' needs for submissions. And now in many cases you get into a catch-22 where if you can't get guarantee of the Northern Trust money, you can't leverage the western development money, and neither one of them are willing to give the go-ahead without the other one signing off on it. Communities have felt that they're in a bind.

Now you've got another fund coming along that's going to be over top of all of this for forest-dependent communities on some kind of vulnerability index that's going to start moving employees out. Well, CCBAC has got a retention and retirement program, and they've got a worker transition program. OBAC has got one as well — the Omineca Beetle Action Coalition.

I'm wondering if it isn't time for us to really assist these communities and in a region pull all these people into a room and say: "What are we doing?" How do we really get our collective act together to make sure that these communities have one-stop shopping to go to, that they know the rules of the game and can leverage what they need in order to redo what they need to do in their communities for whatever that future holds for them?

Right now it's layers upon layers. You've got communities running around like chickens with their heads

chopped off trying to figure out what the rules of the game are to put their hands up to get some resources.

So that's my pitch to the minister. Somebody needs to take the leadership on this, to step back and say: "Okay, what is the lay of the land? What are all the pockets of money? Are they overlapping, or can we bring them together in a tighter way so that the communities like Mackenzie and Fort St. James and Vanderhoof and Quesnel and other communities actually can make sense of this and aren't running around in circles trying to please different masters?"

For what it's worth, that's what I would put to the minister. That really needs to be done at this juncture. I'd give the minister an opportunity to comment on that, and then I want to turn it over to my colleague to ask some specific questions.

Hon. C. Hansen: You know, I can appreciate the challenge that some of these communities are facing, but I think the simple answer is that there is a need for many provincial government ministries to be involved in this process. When you talk specifically, and I think we've got to be careful….

When we talk about forest communities that have been impacted by these recent layoffs, that is not unique. That's not just the mountain pine beetle area, of course. There are communities around the province, and certainly forest workers around the province, that would want to have access to some of this support, whether they're in a pine beetle area or not. The pine beetle response is led by the Ministry of Forests, so that is, you know, the one-stop shop for pine beetle–related issues. Obviously, this ministry is involved as other ministries are involved, but it is the Ministry of Forests that has the lead responsibility at this time.

I guess through our economic development staff in these communities around the province we do try to assist and try to make sure that we can simplify that process for them and work with communities to make sure that they get access to these various resources. We do try to pull it together as best we can. It is not something that lends itself to one big megashop that could administer all of these programs, but we certainly can do more to try to make it simpler for those communities.

B. Simpson: So there is the government's initiative on FrontCounter B.C. to attempt to rationalize a lot of different initiatives. The minister's own point about forestry with respect to the mountain pine beetle…. Well, the Minister of Forests has already indicated that it's now an Ec Dev need and is absolving himself of that. Community Services has a part of it for their community transition program. So everybody has pieces, and Northern Trust was given the money for that area.

So again, the argument doesn't hold. I would just ask that as you're rolling this program out, as you're consulting people, ask that question to people. I think you'll hear loud and clear that they need more help and leadership to pull this together to help them to make sense out of it, whether it's the crisis now or the mountain pine beetle in the future.

G. Coons: Thank you, Minister. It's something that I brought up…. I communicated with your office last week — something that's vital to our region for economic development, and that's the Tsimshian peninsula project connecting the system of roads and bridges and ferries linking Kaien Island, Digby Island and the Tsimshian peninsula with Prince Rupert. I think there was an MOU between the provincial government, the federal government, the city and the two first nations, Lax Kw'alaams and Matlakatla.

As the minister knows, it's a vital component of the region's economic development strategy, especially since they've hired Dale Richardson, I believe, as the gateway regional project manager. One of the projects he's looking at is the potential road and ferry improvements to Digby Island and the Tsimshian peninsula.

The federal government recognizes the importance of this network, not only within the community and within the region as we move forward. The federal government basically says a fixed-link integrated transportation system can serve as a further catalyst for the transformation of Lax Kw'alaams, Matlakatla and Prince Rupert into an economically self-reliant and socially vibrant region, taking full advantage of what it has to offer.

I'm just wondering at this point in time — and I sent some communications to your office — what the current status is of the project. What are the time lines?

Hon. C. Hansen: I did receive the member's e-mail, which he had sent both to me and to the Minister of Transportation. I asked my staff to check in terms of who would be lead on the response. I understand that the member will be getting a response to that communication, and it will come from the Minister of Transportation on behalf of government.

But we in the Ministry of Economic Development have not received any formal proposals in this regard. Perhaps the Ministry of Transportation has, but from my perspective, the work of this ministry…. Whether it's the work of our economic development office or based out of the Smithers office — that works in the northwest issues — or whether it's Dale Richardson's work as the gateway coordinator, we will certainly endeavour to be as helpful as we can and supportive of the work that would be done by the Ministry of Transportation.

G. Coons: I notice in my nightly reading the major projects inventory put out by the ministry. In 2006 the start and finish were question marks, and 15 months later, in December 2007, there are actually time lines and dates on them. The start date would be summer of 2007, and the finish date would be summer of 2009. In the communications between the ministers and the

ministries, I would hope it would be clarified if those are the actual start and finish times.

The one concern that we've had in discussions with some of the proponents is…. There's a feasibility study or updating of information that is happening right now. There's a concern about where funding is coming from. Close to $200,000 is needed for that updating of information or feasibility studies, even though this has been in the works for over ten years. I guess the proponents are still asking for some startup funds. I'm just wondering if perhaps in the communications that those concerns can be clarified.

Hon. C. Hansen: Just for clarification around the major projects inventory. We have an individual on contract to us who watches for information in the public domain about major construction projects. The major projects inventory is constructed on that basis. I think if the member were to read the qualifiers at the start of that report, he would realize that these are not government-supported projects necessarily.

I can't speak to this specific one that the member is referencing as to why those time lines would have been attached, whereas previously there had been question marks. I don't know the answer to that other than that it would have been something that our contractor would have gleaned from some public communication, perhaps coming from the proponents of these particular projects.

As for the feasibility studies, if there was the ability to undertake something like that, that would have to come from a lead with the Ministry of Transportation.

C. Trevena: Minister, I just have a couple of questions. One is on the Island coastal economic trust. The Island coastal economic trust has been quite successful. I know that the chair did come to have a meeting with you earlier this year to ask for extra funding. I wonder if this is something that you have been able to move on — whether there will be extra funding for the trust.

Hon. C. Hansen: I agree with the member. I think that the Island coastal economic trust has done a great job. I've had the pleasure of being part of the rollout of some of their announcements. Even though all of the $50 million that the trust has originated from the provincial government, we still, and we made this clear to the trust initially…. They can still come to the province to lever their money that we provided them. They can lever that to get more additional funds from the province.

If you look at some of the projects, whether it's the airport at Cassidy or whether it's the…. Well, there are a bunch of them now. The cruise ship terminal the hon. Chair is reminding me of, because he actually worked very hard on some of those projects. Actually, I was up in Port McNeill and Port Hardy last week, on Monday, where there were some additional announcements that were rolled out.

I guess the short answer to the member's question is…. If I can rephrase it slightly: is there money in this year's budget to provide additional funding to the trust? The answer to that question would be no. But we have not ruled out the possibility of being able to flow additional moneys to these trusts at some point in the future. That's probably about as precise as I can be.

C. Trevena: I will ask you, if I might push a little bit, to be a little bit more precise. Obviously, to be able to encourage people and communities to get their applications in, the trust is looking for a little bit more definitive answer.

I wonder if the minister, when he says "in the future," could say whether we're talking the next budget cycle or just some time…. The trusts have to go off on their own way for a little while, and then they can come back in a few years' time.

Hon. C. Hansen: The answer to a question like that would have to come out of the budget process. Certainly, what we have before us in our $225 million budget that is the subject of this estimates debate…. We do not have any room within that budget to provide additional resources to the trust.

Now, as I say, the provincial government is still prepared to consider supporting projects that the trust is also supporting, as we saw evidence of last week.

C. Trevena: On a different subject, you and I have had many discussions about Port Alice in the past, and I have another question that I may be pre-empting. I'm not sure that this has come to your desk yet. I have just received it. But Port Alice has been trying to diversify. The mill has reopened, but it is trying to diversify. As the mayor has said, part of the transition study was for it to diversify. It's been very eager at trying to develop a marina.

The last place it went to for funding, the Canada–British Columbia municipal rural infrastructure fund, has turned down the application for a marina. The village has had funding from Island coastal economic trust, the Coast Sustainability Trust and the village's own borrowing. They have now come to your ministry as well as to the Minister of Community Services, really, I think, for rapid assistance, for help on funding and for ideas to go for funding, because if they don't get this extra funding, the whole project falls apart, and the marina is a key part of the village's attempts to diversify and to keep its community going.

So I wonder if the minister has any positive news for the mayor of the community.

Hon. C. Hansen: Actually, I was in Port Alice, and Mayor Pepper took me to show me exactly where that project would be located. Quite frankly, it's a great project. It is an opportunity that was identified, as the member indicated, out of the funding that came from the Ministry of Community Services, out of their community transition fund at the time.

Actually, that funding for community transition was done at a time when it was not obvious that the mill was going to be able to reopen. So it was even more important that the community look at other

opportunities, and this was certainly one of them that flowed from that. Needless to say, we're all pleased that the mill was able to reopen and is a going concern today.

In terms of the municipal rural infrastructure fund, there was about — I forget the exact numbers — $300-some-odd million available from the federal and provincial governments combined. We had over $1.3 billion worth of applications coming from communities around the province.

It was unfortunate that for every project that we were able to celebrate and provide funding for, there was obviously more that we unfortunately had to decline, in spite of the fact that there were a lot of really good projects. I would certainly put this marina project among those.

To the member's specific question in terms of other sources of funds, I will continue to watch for opportunities there. I don't have any spare change in my back pocket right now that may be able to help them or flexibility within my budget. But as some of the new federal-provincial programs are rolling out, there may be some opportunities to take another look at that particular proposal.

C. Trevena: My final question, and it's going back a little bit, perhaps a bit more specifically…. I wasn't in for all of my colleague from Cariboo North's questions about the federal funding for forest-dependent communities.

As you know, in Campbell River we have the TimberWest mill that is due to close in a couple of weeks, and the union that is working at the mill has been trying very hard to find ways of keeping that mill open. They're also looking, obviously, at ways of helping those members if they can't keep the mill open.

So I wondered whether there would be any flexibility for getting money from either that fund or another fund through for both immediate transition for those workers who aren't continuing working and, subsequently, whether it would be an issue that could be considered — whether that funding could be going towards helping to keep the mill open, because they have a study saying that it is a viable mill and can be kept open.

Hon. C. Hansen: This fund will flow to displaced forest workers, and there will be a portion of it that will flow to communities that are impacted by it, but there will not be any of these financial resources that will go to the companies. It will be specifically for the forest workers.

There will be provisions in there for bridging to retirement for older workers. There will also be, I think, good access to displaced forest workers for tuition grants so that, while they are still on employment insurance, they're able to get into training programs that will help them to either launch into, perhaps, a new occupation or a new career within the forest sector when those mills are restarted or, potentially, get training that would help them to seek employment in other fields.

J. Kwan: We are going to switch gears, if you will, to another area that the minister is responsible for, and that would be the credentialing area.

My first question relates to Capacity B.C. I note on the website that Capacity B.C. is a policy round table that has been formed to collectively represent internationally trained professional associations throughout B.C. A recent meeting of Capacity B.C. outlined a series of key issues and recommendations to the minister.

I wonder if the minister can give me an update on the recommendations put forward from Capacity B.C., and whether or not the government intends to adopt those recommendations.

Hon. C. Hansen: It was a very good meeting that I had with Capacity B.C. I think they certainly bring some expertise and some great ideas to the table. I very much enjoyed the meeting.

As I indicated to them at that time, we've looked at the Ontario legislation. We believe that we can accomplish far more by getting the credentialing organizations on-board to ensure that they are much more aggressive on breaking down the barriers for internationally trained professionals and that they get speedier credentialing for ITPs in British Columbia.

We are watching the Ontario experience, and I believe that we have made more progress in British Columbia since Ontario brought in that legislation than Ontario has. We have done it not by bringing in the sticks, which is what the legislation does, but by working with the credentialing bodies. I think that in some of the meetings that I have had with the credentialing bodies around the province, I have developed a better understanding of the challenges that they face.

Many of these are quite small organizations. They have limited funds, and they've got limited capacity to engage in the process of trying to verify credentials from other parts of the world — the translation process and things like that. So we've started to work with them. We've actually brought a lot of these credentialing bodies together so that they can share best practices and approaches that they're each taking. In many cases, that allows them to streamline it and do the job better that they weren't able to do previously.

We've also provided funding to these bodies — $1.5 million to help them to streamline their processes, particularly as it pertains to international trained professionals. So while we have not ruled out the idea of a legislative response, we think that we're making good progress. But clearly, there's a lot more that needs to be done, and we're going to continue to push on this file.

J. Kwan: I do note the time, so I'm just going to put these questions on the record. Maybe the minister can respond to them through some other means if we run out of time, because I do have two other areas that I sort of want to quickly canvass as well.

Could the minister, then, outline for me which of the areas he thinks that we've been superior to Ontario and which of the areas in which the Ontario experience has been superior to ours? There has to be some areas where they are superior. I've talked to some folks in that sector who tell me that the Ontario model may very well, in fact, be better than that of B.C. So I wouldn't mind actually getting that from the minister in specific terms — what those are and particularly as they relate to outcomes.

The other thing that I'm interested in…. The minister said that he's been in consultation and discussion with the various professional bodies. I wouldn't mind getting from the minister the list of those credentialing bodies that he's actually spoken with. More specifically, given that they're getting funding from the government, what are they being asked about, and what are the outcomes in terms of expectations from these bodies?

I know from previous experiences and, again, from talking to people in the sector that oftentimes these credentialing bodies, professional bodies and so on, have a lot of things to say about things. Usually they're barriers as to why other foreign professionals cannot sort of get into the system and so on.

I'd be very interested in knowing what it is that they're doing proactively to break down those barriers. How do they measure their outcomes of success, and do they match up with the government's outcomes of success? If the minister can give me that. I don't have to have it today — again, noting the time. I'd be happy to receive it in a letter or whatever — some other format.

Hon. C. Hansen: I'd be pleased to try to provide that information to the member.

J. Kwan: Thank you to the minister and his staff in anticipation of that information. Arising from that, I may well have follow-up questions, as well, but this leads us into that discussion.

I do want to touch on, related to this area, the B.C.-Philippines workers agreement that has been signed. Within it, there are many questions that I want to ask, but there are some basic ones that I want to ask the minister at this point. Could the minister advise: who are the recruiters for this agreement?

Hon. C. Hansen: It is accredited recruiters in the Philippines. In order to become a recruiter in the context of this agreement, they would have to get a licence from the Philippine Department of Labour in order to provide that recruitment service under this agreement.

J. Kwan: On the question around ethical recruitment practices, what are the concrete measures or methods, if you will, to ensure that ethical recruitment practices are engaged and that the rights of the workers are protected while they're working in B.C.?

Hon. C. Hansen: The ethical standards of the recruiters would be dictated by the Philippine Department of Labour as part of their accreditation process in the Philippines. What we will also be doing is providing orientation information to workers coming into B.C. under this MOU. That will provide them information about provincial labour legislation, including information about employment standards and the rights that they would have.

That information is now being developed, and it would go out to every worker who comes into British Columbia as part of this program.

J. Kwan: Are there spot checks in terms of the enforcement of labour standards once the workers are here in B.C.?

Hon. C. Hansen: The compliance with the employment standards with these workers would be the same as compliance under employment standards that we have now, which is driven by the Ministry of Labour. But in addition to that, there is also a labour attaché who is being…. In fact, I think he's now in place at the Philippine consulate in Vancouver. So it will be a full-time employee of the consulate who will be there to assist workers should they be facing any particular challenges with regard to their employment status or their employment relationship in British Columbia.

J. Kwan: I raise this point particularly for workers who are foreign workers in this context, as the minister can anticipate — right? Here you have a foreign worker who is here with employment opportunities, primarily because of the employer, but if the employer is mistreating them and there are no spot checks, the risks associated with those workers are enormous.

How would they get those things addressed? Where would they go? Ultimately, if they complain, they may very well actually lose their employment. So the ramifications are enormous for a lot of these people, which is why I asked the question.

I understand the general standard labour practice, although I think it's insufficient even for the general population, let alone for the foreign workers. I think that that layer of complexity and the challenges they face make it even more difficult for them.

I appreciate, too, that there may be a labour attaché at the consulate to deal with that. Even then, I'm not that confident, to be honest with you, in terms of the success rate of dealing with these issues.

So I hope that the minister will actually take that up as a further step to look into to ensure that there are protections for these workers. It's just tremendously difficult for them. I've spoken with some Filipino workers who have been mistreated to the point where they're in such a conundrum that they can't really quite decide what to do. They're kind of hooped, frankly, and there's very little assistance available to them.

I just want to highlight that, and I'd like the minister's commitment to actually look further into it and to come up with, again, concrete measures in dealing with these items. I think it's good to have the orientations to let people know at least what the laws are, but we can't stop there. I don't think that relying on a labour department or ministries whose function right now for the better part of enforcement is self-regulating…. It is not going to be good enough for these workers.

I also want to ask the minister this question. B.C. is working, I understand, to shorten the permitting times and to increase the transparency of the decisions related to the temporary foreign workers and immigration decisions. So could the minister please tell this House: is there an ultimate goal? What would be the optimal time in terms of that processing time, and how can we actually shorten it? Sometimes they do sort of get bogged down with respect to that.

Hon. C. Hansen: The temporary foreign worker program in Canada is one that is driven by the federal government. We've been very active in lobbying the federal government, first of all, to extend the duration for temporary work visas in Canada, which we were pleased to see them do. They have extended it from one year to two years.

We have also seen them bring in what they call the expedited labour market opinion, whereby for those occupations where there is already a demonstrated shortage of Canadian workers, those work visas can be processed without, first of all, going through the very lengthy process of doing a labour market opinion for each and every worker.

I think that now the federal government has expanded that list of occupations to about 28 — somewhere in that neighbourhood at least. We're encouraging them to add more occupations to that. It doesn't mean that the employer no longer has to demonstrate that there are not Canadian workers available. What it means is that they can get on with the processing of the temporary work visa application and can actually put the documentation in place to demonstrate that there are not Canadian workers available. They can do that after the process is underway rather than before the process gets started.

Through each of these measures, there is some streamlining. We have also encouraged the federal government to add additional staff in their posts abroad that need to be part of processing temporary work visas as well as other immigration matters. To the credit of the federal government, I think that they have responded, and there have been some additional staff resources added to some of the key points. Manila is one case in point where the federal government is expanding the number of staff in order to process some of these applications in a more expedited way.

J. Kwan: One last quick question on this piece, and then we're going to move on to labour markets. I know we only have two minutes.

On the labour attaché in Vancouver that the minister talked about, which would be supplied by the Filipino government, I assume, and paid for by the Philippine government. With respect to the complaints, if there are complaints registered through that process, is that information on the public record? Can one access that information? If so, how? Would the minister be able to access that information, and if so, how?

Hon. C. Hansen: In terms of any information that would be generated from approaches to the consulate labour attaché, that would be a decision by the Filipino government. It's certainly not something that we would have access to, nor would we have a say in. It's up to the Philippine government that would govern the policy with regard to information that might be released from their various posts internationally.

J. Brar: The government of British Columbia and the government of Canada signed two agreements. One of them is the labour market agreement, known as LMA. The other one is the labour market development agreement, the LMDA. I would appreciate it if the minister can provide a brief summary as to how much the total budget involved in both the agreements is and when, in fact, they're going to be effective, moving from the federal government to the province.

Hon. C. Hansen: The labour market agreement that was signed recently provides $66 million a year over six years. That program is aimed at working individuals who need upgrading in areas of literacy, for example, but it's also aimed at retraining opportunities for individuals who are not eligible for employment insurance benefits.

The LMDA program actually amounts to about $300 million a year that will be transferred to the province, because that hasn't come into effect yet. The LMDA process is aimed at providing training programs and other assistance to individuals who are receiving employment insurance.

J. Brar: Thanks to the minister for the response. Particularly if you talk about the LMDA, at this point in time all the programs under the federal government — the job search program and the employment programs — are being offered through a number of non-profit agencies and private agencies in the province. Those programs are going to move to the province, effective, I think, next February.

A number of those contracts are one year, one to three years, one to two years. My question is — keeping in mind the time: how is the province going to respect the existing contracts? That's one question that I would like the minister to respond to.

The second one. My understanding is also that the staff at this point in time, the federal government employees who are dealing with and manage those agreements, are also going to move with the agreement to the province as well. What is the contract that the province has for all the staff members who are going to move? Are they going to continue their jobs, or will there be any layoffs? What is the process? If the minister can explain that.

Hon. C. Hansen: First of all, with regard to the existing contracts…. The contracts that are in place as of next February when this program is transferred to the province — those contracts continue. The province is committed to continuing to respect all of the contract obligations that are in place under the program.

In terms of staffing, it's our hope that we will be able to attract the majority, if not all, of the staff to transfer from the federal public service to the provincial public service. We think that's important for continuity, and I know that there have been discussions between the two unions involved.

We've also looked at some of the other transitions. Quite frankly, I think it's a pretty attractive package, because the employees would actually wind up with a better wage and benefit package under provincial government employment than they would be receiving under the federal employment that they currently are realizing.

J. Kwan: I know time is of the essence here, and my good colleagues are waiting patiently. So I'm going to ask a batch of questions related to the labour market agreements and, hopefully, get it done in one minute — so I'm told.

The big issue around the labour market agreements centres on the stakeholders, actually, who have third-party concerns — right? — because they are the people who will be impacted. For example, Winston Leckie, the executive director of Opportunities through Rehabilitation and Work Society, has been on record saying: "I'm…concerned that there might be a reduction in program choices and flexibility. I remain optimistic, but they need to involve the community in how this transfer happens."

I've heard from a variety of communities who have this concern around the consultation. My questions. How will the community be involved? Does the ministry have plans to involve communities in ensuring that choices and flexibility are maintained? Would the government develop a schedule to invite the stakeholders to come and participate? Which stakeholders would be chosen for their involvement?

What are the measurements of outcomes and benefits of the investments in these areas, related to the participants, the service delivery and the participant impacts? What are the targets, if there are targets that are set, for these labour market agreements, and how would the government measure success in that context?

Who would be reviewing, and how will this information become public so that people can access that information?

Then I understand that there will be joint committees established between B.C. and Canada. My questions would be: who are the folks that will be on this committee? How will they be chosen? Again, what are the measurable goals and outcomes related to that? Related to it, as well, would be the issue around operating costs on this. What will the operating costs be?

I'm going to truncate a whole bunch of these questions into this sort of collapsed way. Again, I hope that the minister can provide me an answer — if not today, through some other format, a letter or some format like that. Then arising from there, if I have further questions, I'd be in touch with the minister's staff.

Hon. C. Hansen: We will certainly undertake to provide the member with as much of that information as we possibly can.

J. Kwan: Last, I just want to thank the minister for the estimates debate. Particularly, I'd like to thank his staff, who offered the briefings — the minister who offered the briefings and the staff who attended the briefings — to our various MLAs at the cabinet offices in Vancouver. We appreciate that very much.

Because time is of the essence…. As we note that in the small House here, because of the pressure of having to not allow the estimates process to take place in the big House, we, the opposition, lose some 60, 70 hours of estimates time. We're very much cross-pressured in terms of trying to get our questions in, and we're trying to move forward as fast as we can. So there will be areas which we have not canvassed.

I note in Economic Development that I have not even touched on the Asia-Pacific file at all, which I had wanted to do, and I have not touched on the trade files at all, which I had wanted to do. Even on some of these areas, there were only a scant few questions that we were able to put on the floor.

I trust that the minister, if the need arises and the request is put to the minister, will also offer briefings and communication with his staff so that we can get answers, not only to us as critics but, more importantly, to British Columbians.

Hon. C. Hansen: I appreciate those comments. I, too, would like to add my thanks to the staff for the great work that they've done in preparing for the estimates process as well as all of the other days of the year, including the weekends. It's certainly much appreciated, and I think the province is very well served by the staff in this ministry.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
COMMUNITY SERVICES AND
MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR
SENIORS' AND WOMEN'S ISSUES

Hon. I. Chong: Before we begin the estimates, I would like an opportunity just to make some very, very brief opening comments. I am very pleased to rise today to present the Ministry of Community Services estimates for 2008-2009.

I would like to introduce a few members of my staff who are here today. To my right is Dale Wall. He has been our deputy minister since the beginning of this year. Behind him is Gary Paget, acting assistant deputy minister for local government. To my left, Barbara Walman, assistant deputy minister for seniors, women and community services, and behind me is Shauna Brouwer, assistant deputy minister of management services.

In addition, if it is required, there will be members from the Public Service Agency, where Deputy Minister Dave Byng will be attending with his assistant deputies Lynda Tarras, Doug Caul and Barry Wilton — that is, if there is a requirement to bring in those members from the Public Service Agency.

I just want to say that it has always been a privilege of mine to be the Minister of Community Services since appointed in 2005, in June. Having served in public life at the local government level, and I know many members of the House on both sides have done so…. It never ceases to amaze me — the creativity, the innovation that local governments have with their professional staff to ensure that the citizens they serve receive the best and most up-to-date services in their communities.

The mandate of our ministry is to promote livable, sustainable communities that provide for healthy and safe places for British Columbians. This year we are again seeing our communities strive even further to have, and continue to be, greener, healthier, more accessible places, more safe places, more inclusive places for their citizens to live.

That is because there are a number of exciting programs and initiatives that we have put in place since 2005. We continue, year after year, to look at these initiatives and partner with our local governments, through UBCM in particular, to ensure that they take place.

As the minister responsible for our Public Service Agency, I do recognize and respect the very vital and important work that is required of our public servants, because they do provide those valuable services each and every day to British Columbians right across our province.

It is important in this aging-demographic society that we live in that we continue to build an even more dynamic, even more productive and even more engaged public service, one that is second to none and that has an opportunity to continue to attract the very best and retain our very greatest talent in our public service.

Another reason why I am extremely proud, as well, is that British Columbia has been named one of the top 40 employers in British Columbia for our public service. That certainly is a reputation that I think those who work in the public service hold in high regard.

It is very crucial for us to be able to continue to provide vital services for British Columbians through our Ministry of Community Services. We rely on all government ministries throughout and across government to do that.

In addition, we do have our area for women and seniors, which we continue to find ways to improve upon. I'm very pleased that over the past year I have had an opportunity to go to many of our communities and visit many of our front-line workers providing most important services to our women and children fleeing abusive relationships.

I have found that the people who work on the front lines continue to do an exceptional job and continue to do it with great passion and great dedication. I just want to say, if they're paying attention, how very much I appreciate the amount of time and energy that they continue to put towards the very difficult job that they have.

I just want to say that this very briefly summarizes the main areas of responsibility that I have, and I'm pleased to entertain questions from my colleagues.

C. Wyse: I wish to start off by acknowledging the support that I've received in my responsibility as critic for local government services and by acknowledging the cooperation and the professional manner in which I've been dealt with by her staff. That having been said, now we're into another part of the job and the task items that we have facing us.

Like the minister, I have spent a fair bit of time in local government myself, both at a municipal level as well as at a regional government level, and bring the myriad of experiences that local governments often have to deal with, with having responsibilities to be picked up for what isn't also dealt with by other levels of government along the way, with them being closest to the population, and with them being closest to be able to be got at, if that's the right terminology, by the electorate. It is with that that we begin our discussion here.

I wish to acknowledge at this moment that the minister and I will be under time restraints. There has been a reduction in the amount of time available for estimates. I will, as we unfold, be seeking the cooperation of the minister in providing answers to questions that we may not have time to go through here in this process.

As we have worked out with this cooperative measure, I am going to turn over to a colleague to ask some questions of the minister from the area of seniors.

C. Trevena: Actually, I'm going to be asking about women's issues, but that's quite all right. My colleague

is going to be asking about seniors shortly. Again, I'm very mindful of the time and the amount of possible areas we could discuss when we're discussing both women's issues and seniors' issues.

I would like to ask the minister first a very straightforward question. We have the estimate for 2008-2009 of $61.7 million. When we take out the basic $3.5 million for salaries…. I was wondering if the minister could give some guidance on how much of this money is actually going to the section which is talking about the operating services of support services to women and their children, as well as mentoring women for the workforce and prevention initiatives — those three areas which are specifically related to women in the minister's mandate.

Hon. I. Chong: Perhaps the best way to provide that information to the member is to list the number of community programs for women's services, which are those that we contract to.

For example, in our transition houses for the '08-09 year — and these will all be '08-09 fiscal year — we have allocated $31.379 million, approximately; for our outreach and multicultural outreach services, $3.717 million; for our Children Who Witness Abuse program, which is counselling services for children who have witnessed abuse, $4.97 million; for our Stopping the Violence counselling, and that is counselling services for women who have experienced abuse, $7.827 million; for prevention activities, we have allocated $1.941 million; and for our mentoring program, the amount we have is about $500,000.

When you add those all up…. If the member has a calculator, she should see that would amount to an aggregate total of $50.334 million.

C. Trevena: That's very helpful from the minister. I would like to go through a few of these piece by piece. But first off, if I can just go through the line items, I notice that there is also here budgeted $125,000 for advertising, and I wondered whether that is right across the board or for any specific project plan. What's actually going to be included there?

Hon. I. Chong: I just wanted to ensure I had the correct calculations. They were changed. The amount in our documents indicates an amount for the entire ministry, and I was looking for the $125,000 specifically that the member was inquiring about.

For our women's and seniors' and community services programs, this generally relates to advertising and publication charges for guidebooks. As the member will know, we have done more of these publications in other languages as well. So that's in part sometimes where there are anticipated additional costs associated with it, but generally, it's not outside advertising per se — more to do with ensuring information is available and brochures are available, particularly in some of our resource centres as well as for the transition houses.

C. Trevena: Because it is seniors' issues, I assume it would also cover the seniors handbook which, actually, I've got to say as a constituency MLA, is extremely popular. Thank you for that one.

If I can go through some of the breakdown of the funding, just over $31 million, $31.3 million, for transition houses…. Earlier this year, the minister started funding some transition houses 24-7. This was clearly a great need, but what I've been hearing from transition houses, including transition houses in my own communities, is that they have been operating round the clock without getting the funding for it and are continuing to operate round the clock and are not getting any increasing funding for that.

I wondered, firstly, if the minister could talk a little bit about how that money is being allocated, and secondly, if now her ministry is seeing all the transition houses in the province looking at 24-7 operation.

Hon. I. Chong: First of all, I do want to thank the member for acknowledging the seniors guides, which are publications I think all our MLA offices use — and use to such an extent that before we publish a new annual allotment, we always seem to run out. If she has any extra, I think there are other members looking for them, but they're very well-utilized guides, and they've been in place for a number of years.

In terms of the transition houses, perhaps the best way to provide information on the 24-7 funding is this: while I acknowledge that a number of the transition houses that we provincially fund — about 63 of these around the province — had been operating 24-7, some had, as the member noted, not been funded to provide 24-7. So some people were stretching hours, relying on volunteers for some time. But a number of houses were actually funded for 24-7.

When it came to my attention that that was not in place, we received the additional budget lift a year ago to ensure that we would be able to provide funding that would not be reliant on those houses looking at volunteers providing the 24-7.

There were even some houses on a very strange calculation. They had funding for 22 hours, and there was an hour in the day — between two and three and between six and seven — where there was actually no staff person. How they managed that I still don't know and, again, I take my hat off to them for being able to provide the kind of service they did. So it was a commitment of our government, and certainly one that I personally had, that that should not continue, and our transition houses that we do provincially fund have the 24-7 staffing in place.

While I acknowledge that there are always requests for more dollars, our staff in our ministry, through our four contract managers who work with these transition house operators, advised what dollar amount they felt they needed to have to be funded for 24-7 staffing, and that's how we came up with an amount that we presented. We requested a budget lift over a year ago, as I indicated.

After we got the budget lift, I went back out and visited a number of transition houses. So 33 of them,

actually, as I say, were managing without being funded. Now they have all received the additional dollars. If the member wishes, I could give her the breakdown.

I also want to make it clear that while I was visiting a number of these transition houses in the summer, some in fact had been providing the 24-7 services all along, and I made a commitment to them that I would allow them to receive the dollars right back to the April 1 date, which is the fiscal year. So some had gone another six months into the year dipping into whatever savings they had. This allowed them as well to replenish some of those reserves that they had to use up.

I'm very pleased that by January of this year all of our transition houses were able to put in place their 24-7. In some of the locations it was difficult. They simply could not hire the staff complement that they needed, because of their location — because of attracting staff for the area. If the member would like a list of how the additional dollars were provided to these 33 additional transition houses, I can certainly provide that to her

C. Trevena: All transition houses now are fully funded 24-7 for the number of beds that they are contracted for. So if the transition house has in some way been able to work it around that there are more beds available, more space available, than they had been contracted for, they wouldn't be getting the 24-7 funding for that.

Hon. I. Chong: I should clarify that it's not so much that they're funded for the number of beds they are contracted for. Certainly, we do contract for a number of beds.

What the 24-7 accomplished was to ensure that there would always be a staff person in the house 24-7. However, they decided when they needed those staff people — if they need three people in the day and one at night, or if they need two and two, or whatever their complement is.

This is how our contract managers worked with the transition house providers. However, they felt they needed the additional dollars to ensure that, no matter what time of the day or evening or early morning hours, there would always be a staff person in the house 24-7.

C. Trevena: If I might just pursue this a little further, Minister. So the funding is going for the staffing; it's not going for the beds. Has there been any increase in funding for transition house spaces as well as the overnight staff, so that the transition houses can actually take in more women and children?

Hon. I. Chong: When we first received our substantial budget lift in our ministry for Women's Services, which was in 2004, I believe, with a $12.5 million overall lift, a portion of that was for increased hours; for counselling; for outreach, which was never there; for training, as well, which was not always available.

Also a component of that — I think it was $5.9 million of the $12.5 million, or $6.9 million, and I can get that figure — was strictly additional dollars for our transition houses that did acquire more beds in some cases. Not in every house, but again, it was based on the assessment that the contract managers made in contacting our transition house providers.

So there was initially that lift that provided more beds in '04-05 when we received the budget increase. The more recent $2 million lift that we received last year was to ensure staff were in place 24-7.

C. Trevena: Then there has been no increase actually in the ability for the transition houses, through your ministry, to be able to get more funding. It would have to be through health authorities and other ways of getting the actual space since 2004-2005.

With that, I would like to move on, if I might, to the need for transition houses. There is in the budget just over $1 million for prevention. I'm assuming this is prevention of violence against women. I note that recently there's been an announcement of half that amount — $500,000 — going into an opportunity for teaching seven to ten year olds about healthy relationships on the model that was done from Saltspring Island.

I'm very interested to see that this could be the case. If I'm reading this right, approximately half the budget on prevention issues is going into this one project. If I'm wrong, I'd very much like to have that clarified. If I'm right, I'd like some sort of explanation about why the justification to put that much money into that one project.

Hon. I. Chong: There was some confusion because when I originally read out the various activities or program areas, I indicated it was $1.9 million for prevention. So when the member indicated $1 million, we were trying to match up so that we had the same line item, I guess, is the best way to describe it.

So $1.9 million for prevention activities of which $1.2 million was allocated towards what we call our partners in prevention program, where we, again, looked at organizations that were looking at innovative projects to look at prevention.

There were, I believe, nine projects that were provided for — nine grants. These projects were for increasing awareness, teaching skills to build healthy relationships and changing attitudes and behaviours that lead to violence in the first place — which is what prevention is designed to do.

In this past year we were collaborating with organizations that would have a focus with men and boys, in particular, because that was important to engage them as partners in prevention, which is the name for the program, and getting the message out that violence against women and girls is unacceptable.

So the grants that were available through the $1.9 million… It was $1.2 to nine projects, I believe, which are still, some of them, being implemented throughout the province.

We did provide $500,000 to the Saltspring Women Opposed to Violence and Abuse, their community development and research society, which is SWOVA, I think. Many of us know of that. That was to facilitate their Respectful Relationships, R and R, in up to about nine communities. They have had huge success and have actually received some national recognition in so doing.

C. Trevena: Thank you, minister. If you could explain what the other eight projects are, then.

Hon. I. Chong: I'll just read into the record how the $1.2 million was allocated. Abbotsford Community Services received $150,000, and their project was called Village of Men.

The B.C. Association of Specialized Victim Assistance and Counselling Programs, which is BCASVACP. Their program was called renewing resources for safer communities, and they also received $150,000.

Another organization is Children of the Streets. Their program was called preventing sexual exploitation awareness tour, and that was about $85,658.

The North East Native Advancing Society, NENAS. Their project was called pathways to power, and that was $150,000.

The SWOVA community development and research society, which I've just mentioned, is Widening the Respectful Relationships, R and R Circle. They received, also, another $150,000.

The Victoria Family Violence Prevention Society. Their project was called Fantastic Fathers, and they received $72,553.

The Williams Lake policing committee had a project called Violence Awareness and Prevention Northern Symposium and $105,824 was granted.

The Women Against Violence Against Women Rape Crisis Centre, which is also known as WAVAW in Vancouver, was called the Super Power Project. That was $150,000.

I do want to say three of the nine projects that I've just indicated involve working with aboriginal communities. We are, again, expecting the program coordinators to provide reports to us outlining their progress, as some of them are still being implemented.

C. Trevena: Just reading the titles, and obviously not knowing all the details about them, it sounds to me that out of those nine projects, only four of them were possibly directly related to women — the others being focused on men and boys and healthy relationships.

We've got the B.C. association one — I have their report — for $150,000. We have the preventing sexual exploitation. I'm assuming that's aimed particularly at young girls and young streetworkers. There is the North East Native Advancing, which might be a women's project, and then there's the money that went to WAVAW, the Women Against Violence Against Women — $150,000.

Minister, with such a limited amount of money going on prevention — $1.9 million for the whole of the province for prevention of violence against women — I wonder if the minister could clarify how these grants were approved and why they went to the specific organizations.

In the interest of time, I'll throw in a third question there — the thinking of why they've gone to organizations that are working with men rather than organizations that are working with women.

Hon. I. Chong: Well, we do continue to work with organizations that deal with prevention of violence issues with women. We continue to, as I say, take a look at other ways to deal with prevention of violence.

I think we would all agree that since all forms of violence are unacceptable, stopping violence is everyone's responsibility. As I indicated last year, when we began this process, we decided to dedicate an amount of dollars specifically to fund projects that would deal with raising awareness — and, in particular, young men, boys and even older men — regarding the areas of violence. These projects were geared towards that.

The organizations themselves may be, in fact, considered as women-serving agencies, but they did come forward and say that we need to look at projects as well that deal with young men and boys. So I will say that these projects were focused, as I indicated, with collaborating, with raising awareness, especially with men and boys.

We do continue, as I say, to fund organizations that do work with violence against women. Certainly, the member will know the B.C.-Yukon Society of Transition Houses violence is preventable project. We continue to fund that as well.

But if we were to never look at the possibility of a project that engaged young men and boys to ensure that they are able to ensure that they can help to break the cycle of violence, then I think we will be missing out on a great opportunity where we can start breaking that cycle. That is how some of these projects came about.

Maybe I can just very quickly explain one of these, the Village of Men project in Abbotsford. This especially, as well, is about producing information in English and Punjabi public service announcements that model non-violent behaviour for men and, therefore, provide contact information of where to go for help — again, reaching these people.

The Fantastic Fathers curriculum is, again, a straight-based educational initiative for fathers and has been developed and is being piloted in Victoria. We do take a look, where we can, at opportunities with organizations that have a history and knowledge of looking at ways to break that cycle of violence. These are how these projects were chosen — on that basis.

C. Trevena: While I understand that there's obviously a need to break the cycle of violence, there is also

a need for the extra support for women. I would ask the minister, for instance, on the Abbotsford instance — where we have PSAs in Punjabi so that the men can learn the ways that they should be treating women, is how I understand it — was there any money that went for assistance to the women who might find themselves as the victims of abuse? Or was there any money that went to equal public service announcements so that the women might identify that they were being abused and then have somewhere that they could go for support if they found themselves in this position and wanted to start to talk to somebody about this situation?

Hon. I. Chong: While we continue to fund services in communities around the province, and certainly Abbotsford is one of them, through the transition house services where they've got outreach, there is a resource — I believe it's the Women's Resource Society of the Fraser Valley — that, as I say, provides a number of outreach services for us. They do reach out to women and ensure that they have information that they may need. As I indicated, we have multicultural outreach that we have also expanded on.

I can also advise the member that we have provided a number of brochure information that have actually been quite helpful. The Help in Healing series of information was developed for the public, as well as to help family, friends and neighbours in recognizing the signs of violence and how to assist women. These have been made available in English, French, Chinese, Punjabi, Filipino, Persian and Vietnamese. There is another brochure that is called Am I Safe? It was written specifically for aboriginal women, and that, too, is available in English and in French.

We are always seeking ways of raising awareness as best as possible, working with our service providers, finding ways to, as I say, break the cycle of violence. It means to continue to work with the service providers we have. It also means reaching out to those organizations and looking at projects that may add value to the work that is already being done.

Specifically for Abbotsford, the Abbotsford Community Services has the stopping the violence counselling program. With that, they do provide information where women can receive services, and as I mentioned, the Women's Resource Society of the Fraser Valley have received dollars for multicultural outreach services.

C. Trevena: I'm very aware of time pressures here, so I just have a couple more questions on this. The stopping the violence counselling money…. I wondered how much of this is going through transition houses or whether it's going through women's resource centres or other facilities. This is, again, another way, as the minister quite rightly said, of getting the message out. How is it actually being spent?

The secondary one. Again, because of time: how much of this has gone to Women Against Violence Against Women and Vancouver Rape Relief — if any money has gone to those two?

Hon. I. Chong: Well, my staff will specifically look up the two that the member has requested. I can say that the stopping the violence counselling or the Children Who Witness Abuse counselling services are funded to the agency that requests it. In some cases it will be the transition house because they would like to have the counselling at the transition house within the transition house location.

In other cities we will find that the resource centre may decide that they would rather it be in a community place that they have away from the transition house, and they will work with the transition house to ensure that they accommodate the travel that's required. Or we could have a transition house society that runs it as well as the resource centre and provides that. We don't dictate necessarily where that service should be provided, just that there be that service available in the community.

For the Vancouver Rape Relief Society transition house, we have them receiving $487,046, and for Women Against Violence Against Women, the rape crisis centre where they provide our stopping the violence counselling program, $125,049 is what they receive.

C. Trevena: The minister has also talked about women's resource centres, women's resource societies. I think it would be quite fair to say that women's centres are still struggling along. There are still some trying to keep open across the province.

In the minister's own budget I see nothing, apart from part of getting stopping the violence counselling money, possibly getting some prevention money or possibly some multicultural money, for funding for any of the women's centres. I wondered if the minister has any budget line that could be interpreted as, therefore, women's centres to receive, and how would these organizations go about getting it?

Hon. I. Chong: Well, I know that the member is aware that a decision was made some years ago in 2004 that we would be providing direct essential services for women and children escaping violence, and these would be services that provide safe places like our transition houses, our safe houses and our second-stage housing. We would also be providing direct services for counselling and multicultural outreach or outreach itself and would also provide dollars for training and looking at prevention initiatives.

That is the direction that we took a number of years ago. However, I've indicated that whether it's a resource centre, a society or a women's centre, if they are providing those direct services, they will continue to be able to receive the dollars for those direct essential services.

I can tell you that, for example, I am aware that 100 Mile House and District Women's Centre Society receives from our ministry $129,572 for the safe house that they operate as well as for counselling services. I also know that Golden Women's Centre Society, which I've also visited as well, provides a safe house there and outreach services, and they have a total of $109,018.

So there are a number of the centres that still receive dollars because they provide the direct essential services that we said we would continue funding. That is a decision that we made in 2004.

C. Trevena: I thank the minister for the explanation. I still think it's very troubling. Every time that I stand here in estimates it gives me the opportunity to politically say that it's very troubling, particularly as each year we see more women who are the victims of violence and more children who are the victims of violence.

There are many other ways of reaching women, apart from through the transition houses and that sort of outreach. I think that many women could be caught through a safety net if there was funding for women's centres without necessarily being specifically on, as the minister describes it, direct funding.

I have, however, two more questions before I will cede the floor to my colleagues, who must be getting quite frustrated. One is continuing the theme of violence against women. We had the report that was published last week — it was partly funded by the Ministry of Community Services — Keeping Women Safe. It came up with 65 recommendations on ways of keeping women safe.

I know that it's not the sole responsibility of this minister. However, as this minister did fund it, I wondered if there was going to be a commitment from the minister that some of these recommendations that relate to her ministry will be funded in the coming year.

Hon. I. Chong: The member is aware that the report is fairly recent. I believe that the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General has received this report and is also going through a number of these recommendations. We will certainly be working with other ministries involved in a number of these recommendations to see how we are able to implement them and how we're able to ensure that we have the level of service that is important to ensure that women are safe.

I do note that, while there are a number of recommendations in the report, there are a number of things that have already been looked at. For example, one of the recommendations was requesting increased funding for existing and new community-based victim services, in particular for marginalized groups. I understand that an additional $17.5 million was provided for that, not from our ministry but from, I believe, Public Safety and Solicitor General.

There are also issues regarding, I believe, coordination of women's safety. We, in our ministry, do provide about $300,000 annually for what we call community coordination for women's safety, CCWS, another acronym. More than 90 communities in British Columbia have participated in those initiatives. So we are very interested in this report, and we will work with the lead ministry to ensure that they have our input to see how a number of these recommendations can be utilized to ensure safety in all our communities.

C. Trevena: I thank the minister for the time and for the questions. I just would really like to, again, put the argument forward that, while we do need to be working with everyone in the community to be breaking the cycle of violence and to be working on making sure that women and their children are never seen as targets in violence, I would urge the minister, when she is thinking on how to spend money, to put it towards women's services rather than necessarily ones that are supporting men learning. I think that there is a greater need at the moment.

With that, I will hand the floor over to my colleague, who is going to be asking about seniors services.

G. Gentner: Just before I move to seniors, I would like to express my concern. The minister mentioned the amount of work that's being done on brochures as a means of outreach. In my community a young girl — she was two years old — was murdered savagely by her father, who was mentally ill. There were language barriers, and it didn't matter what brochures were sent there. It didn't work.

It's an unfortunate situation. It's now a single mom with two young ones, and it really hit my community very hard. I won't dwell on it any further, but for the record, it's not a criticism of the government. It's more of a criticism of us as a society. We've got to address this and address it together. Again, there's more here than just plain outreach.

I am, on the opposition side, the critic for seniors — seniors health, primarily, but I've sort of defaulted into other aspects that surround the need to deal with seniors, having gone to the province and talked to many people. There are three major issues, of course, and that is with health; with seniors' income, which affects the delivery of health; and, of course, with housing. They're all interrelated.

I want to ask the minister very shortly…. I really want to find out what the role of her ministry is, relative to seniors. I know that I've read the purpose and the statements in the service plan, which I think is, compared to previous ones, not as voluminous — it's very small. Maybe that's because the ministry believes it's more succinct. I don't know, but I feel that it's lacking in content relative to how you measure performance.

I'll give you an example of what I come across. Bruce Lioness was 80 years old, and he passed away wheelchair-bound. He died in his wheelchair. When the family went to see him, his bed was riddled — it was filthy with bedbugs. This is a major issue in the inner city.

It was at Oppenheimer House, and the reason I raise it is because it was owned by the city of Vancouver. So here's an issue that is relative to income problems, health problems and a homeless issue, which is not all your ministry. I understand that. It's owned by the city.

I guess where I'm going with this is that I'd like to know…. Let's start off…. I know we've had a seniors advocate–type and a Seniors Advisory Council. Can the minister explain to me what exactly the parameters are of her role relative to seniors?

Hon. I. Chong: To the member: I thank him for his participation in this, and I would ask the critic in this area to thank the member for North Island for being succinct as well.

In the area of seniors issues our ministry is working across government, particularly with other ministries, where seniors issues comes about. The member is right in saying that health is one of the primary concerns that seniors have, and areas related to health will be the responsibility of the Minister of Health.

However, his staff will consult with our staff to ensure that if there were to be changes, or were there to be some policy direction he makes, he asks us to provide further input from the kinds of comments that we receive when we meet with seniors and seniors organizations.

In the area of housing, as well, the member is aware that the Minister of Forests and Range and Minister Responsible for Housing takes care of the assets — the tangible assets being the housing that is available — and is certainly working across government to ensure that the appropriate housing support is available for seniors, whether it's assisted living or supportive housing or whether it's independent living with some level of support or some level of health care provided.

The member also indicated that income dependency is an area of concern to seniors. As the member will know, the Minister of Finance — I believe a year or two years ago — introduced the seniors supplement, increasing that to provide for more certainty for that.

So the member is correct. There are a number of ministries that do have specific programs dealing with seniors. We do work with these other ministries to ensure that we have a coordinated effort to addressing a number of these issues.

Our ministry as well was responsible for the Aging Well in B.C. report that was commissioned with Dr. Baird. There were 16 recommendations that were tabled, and we are working towards implementation of a number of those recommendations.

It does require, as I say, a cross-government look. Our ministry has led a comprehensive cross-government review of the report and of all the programs that are available, which the report was requiring to be in place or to ensure they are sustained. That work is still ongoing. We had put a progress report out in July 2007, outlining a number of initiatives that were underway. We do have in Budget 2008 some dollars that will be made available to support an action plan in response to that report.

We are moving forward. We are looking to ensure that we build a good system of supports for seniors, but we acknowledge as well that a number of ministries will be involved and will engage with us. We will ensure, where it's appropriate, that the particular ministry that has the lead on it understands how that program fits in with some of the recommendations that were made through the Aging Well report.

G. Gentner: I guess my supplemental to that is: am I, here, to believe that there really isn't a lead agency in government? If it's a coordinated effort, and if a senior has a problem that is dealing with housing, income, finance or with a seniors organization — they all mesh together — and they're caught in this maze of trying to get help, where is the lead agency and how is it filtered? Is this your job as the ministry, or how does it work?

Hon. I. Chong: We do have, and we implement it through our ministry, our seniors help line where, in fact, seniors can call, where there is a live person at the end of the phone. We worked in cooperation with the Ministry of Health to establish that because most of the questions do, apparently, become health-related.

The advisers on the other end of the seniors help line are, in fact, able to help that senior navigate to what specific area they need. It may be that they need a federal program, even, or they may need to deal with pension issues, or they may need to, as I say, look at housing in their specific area and what non-profit agencies they might want to join or be part of. The seniors help line is designed to provide that. So our ministry, as I say, was instrumental in putting that in place.

We are coordinating a number of programs so that there will be a one-stop shop so that seniors know where they are able to go and get help. We have, in part, the seniors guide that the member for North Island referenced. It is, I guess, a handwritten version or a book version, as opposed to a web-based version, that begins to identify a number of senior services and programs right across government that are available. I am advised that — well, certainly by the MLA for North Island — it's well used. I know that other members use it and publish it in their media or their MLA reports as well.

So we know that it's well used, and we know that we can continue to improve upon that. We will continue to do that. Because there are so many services and programs for seniors right across government, it is about ensuring that they at least have a place to go to. Our seniors guide, our handbook, as well as the seniors help line, is that first place, but as I say, we are working to improve that.

G. Gentner: The help line is a good idea — no question there. What I derive from the answer from the minister is that it's more of an initiative, financed mostly in part by the Ministry of Health. The minister also mentioned this need for a one-stop shop. It sounds good, but really lacks any leadership, in my estimation, because I don't know how that coordination works.

Can the minister tell me: are we going to see — I don't see in the budget here — a seniors advisory council?

Hon. I. Chong: In Budget 2008, as I indicated, we have some dollars allocated for us to implement our Aging Well report. Within those recommendations there is an effort to ensure that we have an opportunity to

have seniors access one place where they can see where they can receive assistance from a service or program. I hope that the member doesn't minimize the value of a one-stop shop — maybe that's not the best phrase for it, but one coordinated place where that will be. Our ministry will be the lead in ensuring that that takes place.

The Ministry of Health certainly is funding the seniors line, but we were the ministry that put that in place when we heard from seniors that they needed to not just sometimes go through a book but actually have a place that they can call.

So we are working, as I say, to implement the recommendations through the Aging Well report that was certainly well received by a number of seniors organizations. When we have that available, we certainly will make it known to all members as well as have it on our website so that everyone is aware of what services they can provide to their seniors.

G. Gentner: So this one-stop shop — this one-place recommendation, so to speak — from the Aging Well report. Would the minister suggest this is going to be what is known as a seniors advocate?

I should say that our government supports over 100 programs and services and policies and pieces of legislation that directly impact and indirectly affect seniors in the province. So as you can imagine, we do need a way to coordinate all that information. Our ministry will be involved in that.

If he is specifically asking for a seniors advocate…. I have heard members opposite speak on that, and I think it's primarily to do with health. If that's where that attention is focused, then perhaps the member might find it more useful to take that up with the Minister of Health.

G. Gentner: I'm not going to belabour the point. I mean, seniors advocate…. We can call it anything we want. It's going to be interesting to see what type of one-stop shop the government comes up with.

The Aging Well in B.C. report came out in December 2006. We're waiting for a government action plan. When will that be public?

Hon. I. Chong: As I indicated, the report was tabled December 1, 2006. Within six months we did indicate a progress report on a number of initiatives that were underway. That is on our website.

Since then, we have, as I said, led a very comprehensive cross-government review of all these government services and programs — well over 100 of them — ensuring that the areas of recommendation have been addressed in that. There are some items that we will be working on specifically, but the action plan is not yet complete.

We have been in touch with the author of the report, Dr. Patricia Baird. She has been kept informed fairly frequently as to what we're doing in our progress — her recommendations as she put them forward — to ensure that we understand her intent and that she also understands how we are progressing. I would just like to say that it's been a very good working relationship.

Anytime she offers any more commentary on how we're moving forward, we certainly take that very seriously. We're continuing to work on that, and the author of the report is very much made aware of the progress we're making on it.

G. Gentner: Well, it leads me to another question. You've been working through this now since December 2006. I don't see in the budget where there's money set aside for any legislation to implement the recommendations in this budget. Is that correct?

Hon. I. Chong: We don't generally set aside, I guess, a budget item for legislation per se. We have in our budget $23 million, I think, set up over three years to deal with the action plan that we will be putting in place. We also know that the legislation that was introduced that dealt with one of Dr. Baird's recommendations, which was the elimination of mandatory retirement, took place last year. I don't believe that additional dollars were necessarily budgeted on that, but it was a piece of legislation that came forward.

I would imagine that if there are other changes we need to make to legislation, they could be done. But I'm not sure where the member is headed in terms of thinking that we need dollars for legislation, unless he means for some implementation of specific policies.

G. Gentner: No, this is an estimates debate, and I'm not going to debate legislation. But it's interesting. It's clear that…. I don't see any legislation coming forward in the immediate future that's going to address the recommendations from the Aging Well in B.C. report.

Therefore, the question I have for the minister is: why is it taking so long for this government action plan to come forward?

Hon. I. Chong: I don't want to further the comments made by the member, but I want to be clear regarding his statement about budgeting for legislation. The Aging Well report, apart from indicating that we had to eliminate mandatory retirement….

That was the only legislation the report actually made reference to that would be required. So I just didn't want to leave it that the report, the 16 recommendations, actually required a number or pieces of legislation that had to be brought in. However, if there is a requirement to do so in terms of implementing the recommendation, we'll certainly look at that.

I want to say that Dr. Baird and her council spent well over a year to develop this report. I think it was about a year and a half to put these recommendations together. We did indicate to her that we felt we would also need at least that amount of time to go over her recommendations and to ensure that a comprehensive review would be undertaken, that we would look at

how these recommendations could be implemented in terms of how they would impact communities, what costs may be associated with it, and the scope and extent to which some of these recommendations should be reached.

I should say to the member that a substantial amount of work has been done, and I can appreciate the fact that he may not see that. We have our progress report indicating a number of things that have been identified, but there continues to be work across government, because there will be impacts and there will be areas of responsibility and scope, if you will, that may engage with our communities to ensure that they are able to provide for a number of these things in the recommendations.

That work is ongoing, and the fact that we have dollars in our three-year budget to put this plan in place, I think, should indicate the commitment that our government has to ensuring that we put in these recommendations. Again, Dr. Baird has been kept informed all along on these recommendations and our progress.

G. Gentner: How much is to be spent on the response to the Premier's Council on Aging and Seniors Issues? A vote appropriation description under women, seniors and community services…. We're looking at estimates for '07-08, close to $56 million. How much of the budget will be spent to address these issues?

Hon. I. Chong: I'm not clear where the member is getting his numbers. In the '07-08 budget year there was not a budget item specifically for the seniors area that he's mentioning. I'm not sure what dollars he's referring to.

Where it is in our budget in '08-09, '09-10, '10-11 and going forward…. This is where $23 million has been provided for, so for the '08-09 year $5 million has been set aside initially for this.

G. Gentner: The $5 million is for the three-year period — correct? No, it's just for this year. Okay, because I was referring to page 71 of estimates under…. It does make mention that money will be spent. "This sub-vote provides for policy development" and everything else "and response to…." So this year we're spending $5 million on this specific report. Do I have that correct?

Hon. I. Chong: For fiscal year '08-09, $5 million has been made available, which are new dollars in our ministry to deal with a number of the recommendations in the Aging Well report. I think that in '09-10 that amount is $8 million and in '10-11 it is $10 million, so the three-year rolling budget is $21 million, which is what I referenced earlier.

G. Gentner: So the $23 million will be addressing all the 16 recommendations?

Hon. I. Chong: The $23 million over the three years is to allow us to implement the action plan, but I would not say that it's necessarily all 16 recommendations of the action plan. Dr. Baird indicated she recognized that this was a long-term plan and that some parts of the recommendations may require longer-term funding or may not be able to be implemented immediately. I think she was very clear on that.

At this point we have received $23 million over three years. I would expect that as a number of the other recommendations, which are the more long-term recommendations, are able to be developed based on impacts, cost and scope, those will eventually be provided for as well. But initially, this is the amount that we are working with.

As the member knows, they're three-year plans, but each year it's a rolling change. Next year the amounts, obviously, could change. They could be increased, or they could be altered in other ways. It will depend upon how we were able to implement these 16 recommendations. As I say, working with Dr. Baird as to her intent and how she saw the long-term recommendations, in particular, being implemented will be of great assistance to us as we move forward.

G. Gentner: The reason I ask the question is because some of those recommendations are health-related and, of course, some are housing, and here we go again. But if we're seeing that this ministry is going to spend $23 million addressing the issues raised in the report and implementation, would I be wrong to suggest that this ministry is planning, in the three-year period, to be the one-stop shop?

Hon. I. Chong: In relation to the two items the member mentioned, particularly health and housing, I do believe that because with health in particular you require the services of health care professionals, that would in all likelihood still remain an area that the Health Ministry would be responsible for.

However, we would want to make sure that as the ministry that is looking at the Aging Well report and ensuring that the recommendations long term are being addressed, we would, as I say, work across government — which is what I indicated we are doing — to ensure that that will be provided for, certainly, in the long term as well.

The area of housing, too, continues to be improved upon. A variety of options are being provided for seniors, and the minister responsible for housing will continue to receive the budgets for that.

As I say, with our $23 million, it may not be that…. While the recommendations are implemented and we will follow those recommendations through, the dollars that require that recommendation to be fulfilled may not necessarily run through this ministry. Again, particularly with health, we would not have the capacity. We would not have the expertise and knowledge to deal with the health-related issues that the Ministry of Health has.

I don't believe that dollars — the way they end up in a budget — are the final solution to how we implement these recommendations. What's important is that

G. Gentner: Can you explain to me how much of the $23 million is earmarked for administration?

Hon. I. Chong: I'm not able to advise the member of that because we are still working on a number of initiatives and working across government. Currently the staff who are in our ministry are working within our overall ministry budget, so we've not allocated additional staff persons or put administrative dollars towards an additional staff person just to deal with that. They are able to do it within our ministry.

I think it's fairer to say that we would certainly want to keep administrative costs to a minimum. It is about providing the services or the programs that is of greater importance, especially to those who have been following the recommendations.

G. Gentner: I realize that the minister suggested $5 million were spent this year. Therefore, if I am correct and that's the plan, the minister would know how much of that would be spent towards administration.

Hon. I. Chong: Again, I don't want to leave the impression with the member that there won't be administration costs, but because the plan is still being developed, we don't have the figure that he's asking for, if he's asking for a specific number.

As I say, we have $5 million allocated this year. Certainly, as much as possible, those will go to direct service or programs, but until we have completed the work that we need to do, I cannot give the member that specific cost. Maybe by this time next year I will be able to, because we will have that in place by then.

G. Gentner: I find it a little strange that we're talking about $5 million. In the world of the multi-billion-dollar budgets it may not seem very much, but I find it strange that the minister cannot tell how that money is going to be spent. Can the minister tell us: of that $5 million, what type of program it will go towards?

Hon. I. Chong: As I've indicated to the member, we are working across government. We are ensuring that where there are programs currently existing that can be supported or enhanced through other ministries, we see how that fits in with the recommendations in Dr. Baird's report. As I say, she's aware of that.

The $5 million we have set aside is to take a look at a number of those recommendations — some of which are short-term and others which we know are long-term — that we can work towards implementing.

Again, while I say that we haven't the exact figure that the member would like to know in terms of administration costs, we do acknowledge that there will be some, and we will keep those at a minimum. But at this time I cannot share with him specifically what that dollar amount will be, because we are still developing how we are going to implement some of the recommendations as provided in the Aging Well report.

G. Gentner: Senior outdoor fitness areas. This still falls, I guess, in some of the recommendations. We saw in the throne speech mention of seniors'…. I hate to use "playground" with what's happened to the B.C. Lottery Corporation recently, but there will be money allocated for seniors' playgrounds? A seniors' outdoor activity area would probably be the best way to describe it. Can the minister explain her ministry's involvement in this program?

Hon. I. Chong: I think the member will recall…. If not, I'll just provide, for the benefit of Hansard, that the Premier spoke in his 2008 throne speech of the importance of helping seniors stay active and healthy, because doing so certainly will reduce the pressures on our health care system.

I believe that the Premier also indicated that we wanted to see a number of seniors' community parks established — now seniors' community parks. For that reason, definitely our ministry would be involved in that, because I think it's important, especially because it does come out of one of the recommendations.

We have spoken, as I say, with Dr. Baird on the importance of having seniors have access to forms and ways that they can remain healthy and active in their communities. So that will take place, and our ministry absolutely will be involved in those.

G. Gentner: Well, you know, I'm in a community that sort of pioneered the project. There's one in my community. The Delta South member…. It's a roaring success. So we support that type of initiative. It works well with the whole idea of ActNow.

One of the provisions or suggestions is that you're going to appoint a minister of state on aging to champion a coordinated change agenda across government, establish a secretariat within the ministry, other than the Ministry of Health, and coordinate aging-related initiatives and policy across ministries. So I guess my question here would be: if that's the recommendation — and, clearly, the minister seems to suggest that there won't be such a minister of state — is it not true that this recommendation will not be adhered to by the provincial government?

Hon. I. Chong: I just want to thank the member for sharing his views and support on the seniors community park. I am familiar with the one in Tsawwassen which, I would agree with the member, has been very successful and very well received. It's one of the reasons why it is important to see our seniors stay active and healthy in our community.

As I indicated to the member, of these 16 recommendations outlined in the report, some are short term and long term. Obviously, the more short-term one that we were able to deal with is mandatory retirement. Some other ones, which are long term, have more

I should also say that while Dr. Baird introduced 16 recommendations, that is not to say that every single one of those recommendations needs to be, I guess, established in the formal way in which she expressed it. I believe that if we are able to provide the service and the attention that she believes would be attached to those recommendations that the member outlined, we can accomplish that. So that is one of the reasons why, as I say, we have kept Dr. Baird informed about our direction, where we're headed and how we will deal with all her recommendations as we move forward.

G. Gentner: Time is of the essence. Our last question is somewhat of a municipal issue as well — secondary suites. We hear over and over again that for seniors, it's a…. I know there is something called grandparent suites. Coach houses are being used. What incentives is this government making for municipalities to provide good building code, accessible building suites for seniors — secondary suites?

Hon. I. Chong: As the member is probably aware, secondary suites are an issue that municipalities are grappling with. Some call them illegal suites, and some don't even acknowledge that they should be in their communities. The critic for municipal government well knows, and we both know, that we have dealt with this. I know that the member for Saanich South, who has also served on Saanich council, has had to deal with that issue. It never goes away, and there's never a right answer. Every community will deal with it in whatever fashion they can.

I think what's important is that when we are dealing with suites, and if they have been authorized — I guess that is the best way to say it — by a municipality, they actually are safe and accessible. What we will encourage municipalities to do is ensure that whatever form of building takes place — whether it's commercial, institution or housing — they think about having age-friendly communities and, therefore, age-friendly buildings in whatever shape or form.

Again, I'm glad to know that the member for Saanich South is able to acknowledge this as well. In the municipality of Saanich they have actually been very highly noted for having an age-friendly municipality and city, and have done great things.

We will continue to ensure that as we work with local governments and municipalities in their building, they look at age-friendly initiatives, whether it's accessibility or whether it's lighting, and that those things take place. But building inspections will still be the purview of the municipal governments in place.

C. Trevena: I have a change of hat here, working as the North Island MLA instead of as the critic for Women's Issues.

A couple of questions for the minister. Last year, obviously, there was the split of the Comox-Strathcona regional district and the establishment of the two new regional districts. I wonder if the minister could tell me, now that the dust has settled, how much that split has cost.

Hon. I. Chong: First, I should offer the fact that I appreciate her concerns.

That occurred last winter. I have heard from members on both of the regional districts, who are actually working very, I think, productively and progressively forward. I think that they are certainly doing their part to ensure that they are able to serve their citizens in the best way possible.

I can tell you that our ministry has…. We will continue to provide ongoing support and advice as is needed. In terms of financial dollars, we have offered implementation grants and ongoing regional district basic grants to the Comox Valley regional district. They are receiving a regional district basic grant of $776,000 over five years.

The Strathcona regional district. Their regional district basic grant is $922,000 over five years, for a total of $1.7 million for the two of them — which is, when you take a look, $1.07 million more than had the Comox-Strathcona regional district stayed in place and not been restructured.

Also, in 2008 restructure implementation grants of $200,000 to both districts will be available to assist them in establishing their new structures. Those are the costs that we have paid out at this time or have offered to pay out at this time.

C. Trevena: At the time of this split there was a figure being discussed of up to $6 million to effect the split between the two, not for the ongoing running cost but for how much it's actually going to cost to break it up and get the two new regional districts going. I wonder if there was anything near this figure or whether it's the figures that the minister is quoting us just now — that there has been no difference between the end of the last regional districts and the two new regional districts getting this new funding and that there is no difference in funding there.

Hon. I. Chong: I think she is aware, and I'm aware, that there was an independent report that was prepared and that estimated the cost of restructure at $6.6 million. To this day, I can tell you, I don't know how that figure was determined. I had indicated that it was someone else's calculation. There was no substantiation from our part — that we could see that that would be the cost associated with it.

So as I say, what we have done is provided the dollar amounts, an aggregate total for the two regional districts of $1.7 million over five years to date — which, as I say, is over a million dollars more than what they would have received — and their implementation grants. We will continue to provide advice to them and ongoing support if that's required. But at this point, those are the resources that have been given to the regions to manage this particular subject matter.

C. Trevena: I thank the minister for that. I think everybody here is very pleased it wasn't $6.6 million.

My last question on this, which the minister might be able to give some guidance on…. At the time of this split, the Ka:'yu:'k't'h'-Che:k:tles7et'h' First Nation — that is one of the five first nations that signed the Maa-nulth treaty and so now has its own governance structure — did ask to be included in discussions about the split. That didn't happen, and I wondered if the minister is working on any structures to ensure their inclusion as equal partners at the table with the regional districts, seeing as they fall under one of their regional district areas.

Hon. I. Chong: I do want to advise the member that at the time that the regional districts were separated there was consultation with the Maa-nulth through the treaty table, through the treaty process. There was some consultation that was undertaken. Our facilitator is still currently working at this time to help to build relationships with first nations and the appropriate regional districts. He's continuing to do that. Once that has been concluded, we will have an idea exactly how we can accommodate first nations involvement with regional districts.

C. Trevena: I'll quickly switch to another topic, still on the west coast. I don't know whether this has come in front of the minister yet. I was just asking the Minister of Economic Development about funding for Port Alice. The letter has just come through from the mayor to both the minister and the Minister of Economic Development. Their last hope for funding for the marina has fallen through, but they have had funding from other areas. This is part of their attempt to diversify, following the transition funding that did come through the ministry.

The mayor is seeking, I think, really urgent advice about where they can get the funding, because if they don't get the matching funding by June, I think most of the other funding falls through. I would ask the minister if she has any advice now and, if not, if she could address this with great urgency and come back to me.

Hon. I. Chong: I appreciate the member's interest in Port Alice. Obviously, it was a pretty difficult time for them a number of years ago. We were able to assist in helping them develop some economic revitalization, and I know that the marina project was a critical component of that. My understanding is that Port Alice had requested some funding through the regional trust, and I think originally the amount was about $200,000.

The dollars they were hoping to receive through the MRIF fund…. The Canada-B.C. municipal rural infrastructure fund has been fully subscribed — well, has been oversubscribed — and it has been difficult to select projects that would be successful. The member probably knows that 60 percent was for green projects — strictly water, sewer, those types of projects — and the other 40 percent was for non-green, such as community development and things like that. So 40 percent allocated around the province wasn't a significant amount.

The next program that is available is the Building Canada fund. We're not sure whether this project would fit that. Given all that, I just want to let the member know that we took all that into consideration. Our staff went and spoke to the CEO of the regional trust and asked whether they would consider reopening their application, having a second look at it and see if they couldn't apply for some additional dollars.

We can't guarantee the result because that regional trust, as you know, is independent from government, but the CEO — I think it's Jim Cameron — was receptive to saying that they would be willing to take a look at that. That development was as late as last Friday.

We're hopeful that there might be an opportunity there, but again, we can't guarantee what the result will be. We did convey that to the mayor of Port Alice, and he was very pleased in that. The member may wish to continue to follow up and maybe make an appeal to the regional trust as well.

C. Wyse: I move that the committee rise, report resolution on the Ministry of Economic Development and progress on the Ministry of Community Services and ask leave to sit again.

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