Hansard — Tuesday, May 6, 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		12029

Tributes		12029
	Penticton community fundraisers
	Hon. R. Thorpe

Introductions by Members		12029

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		12029
	Doug Adair
	R. Hawes
	Agriculture on Vancouver Island
	D. Routley
	Langley Lawn Bowling Club
	M. Polak
	Cystic fibrosis
	S. Simpson
	Volunteers at Surrey community associations
	D. Hayer
	View Royal reading centre
	M. Karagianis

Oral Questions		12031
	Child protection services
	N. Simons
	Hon. T. Christensen
	M. Karagianis
	S. Fraser
	Child poverty in B.C.
	J. Brar
	Hon. C. Richmond
	A. Dix
	Government action on forest industry
	C. Puchmayr
	Hon. R. Coleman
	L. Krog

Standing Order 81.1		12036
	Adoption of government business schedule
	Hon. M. de Jong

Motions without Notice		12037
	Legislative sitting hours
	Hon. M. de Jong

Standing Order 35		12037
	J. Kwan
	Hon. M. de Jong

Second Reading of Bills		12038
	Public Health Act (Bill 23) (continued)
	C. Wyse
	M. Sather
	N. Simons
	R. Fleming
	S. Simpson
	B. Ralston
	G. Gentner
	J. Kwan
	J. Horgan
	Hon. G. Abbott
	Health Professions (Regulatory Reform) Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 25)
	Hon. G. Abbott
	A. Dix

Standing Order 35 (Speaker's Ruling)		12067

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		12067
	Estimates: Ministry of Forests and Range and Minister Responsible for Housing (continued)
	B. Simpson
	Hon. R. Coleman
	S. Fraser
	Estimates: Other appropriations

N. Macdonald: I'd like to introduce Joe Matthews. Joe is from Golden. He's here with the steelworkers. Joe and I were neighbours on Alexander Drive for an awfully long time, and I'd like the House to join me in making him feel welcome.

I'd like to make a second introduction. Kindy Gosal is also from Golden. He is here with the Columbia Basin Trust, and I'd like the House to also join me in making him feel welcome.

Hon. R. Thorpe: Mr. Speaker, as you're aware, last Saturday you and I had the opportunity to attend a very interesting event in Penticton. It focused around two great charities. One was the We Care program of Safeway employees, and the other was Agur Lake Camp Society, which is focused on helping children and families living with physical and development disabilities.

I would just ask all members of this House to recognize these two great organizations, the employees at Safeway and the Agur Lake volunteers, who have raised over $30,000 for this very worthwhile community activity.

L. Krog: I had the pleasure today of hosting a luncheon for three constituents of the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca. Some might say the lucky lady who was in charge of that delegation was lucky because she won lunch with me. Others on the opposite side would disagree.

However, I would ask the House to make welcome Irene Leslie Blake and Tony and Louise Yaremchuk, who are up in the gallery today.

D. Hayer: It gives me great pleasure to introduce 56 grade 5 students visiting from Pacific Academy, one of the best schools in Surrey, British Columbia, from the riding of Surrey-Tynehead. Joining them are two teachers, Mr. Rick Bath and Miss Nancy Bakken, as well as 30 parent volunteers who are taking time away from their busy schedules to help these students out. Would the House please make them very welcome.

H. Bains: Visiting us in this House today are many of my good friends from the steelworkers, where I spent many of my years before I came to this House: Kim Pollock, Kapel Koshio, Ed Pica and Alf Wilkins. They are here to promote the issues that are important to the working people in the forest industry and all the other issues to the steelworkers.

C. Trevena: I noticed also with the Steelworkers is Leslie McNabb, who as well as being a steelworker is the president of the Campbell River, Courtenay and District Labour Council. I hope the House will make her very welcome.

Hon. L. Reid: I have the absolute pleasure today of welcoming to this gallery Mr. David Hughes. He has served this province well on a variety of different boards, and I would ask the House to please make him welcome.

D. Routley: I would like the House to help me welcome four steelworkers, Rita La Jeunesse, Joe Matthews, Dave Stole and my friend Chris Sinkan from Local 180.

Local 180's president, as many will know, is Bill Routley — no relation. But when people ask me, I usually ask them how they feel about him before I answer the question. We're related through misadventure only.

I would like the House to help me make these steelworkers and representative workers welcome.

R. Hawes: In the gallery today is my good friend the mayor of Mission, James Atebe. He's here with Rick Bomhof, who is the engineer for the district of Mission. They're here to talk to the Minister of Transportation on some transportation issues. Could the House please make them welcome.

C. Puchmayr: I also have a couple of guests in the House today, and they're steelworkers as well. I hear they are down here meeting with the government today. Please make welcome Jeff Bromley and Alf Wilkins.

R. Hawes: Volunteers are the backbone of many smaller communities. They selflessly give of their time to make life better for everyone, and my community of Mission is one of those blessed with a very large contingent of generous volunteers.

As so often happens among volunteers, a few are standouts. They're the ones seen over and over at all varieties of causes and community undertakings. They never seek recognition, never complain, and are always willing to roll up their sleeves and go to work just to get the job done.

Doug Adair of Mission is one such volunteer. For over 50 years Doug has served the families of Mission in whatever way help was needed. He served as the chair of the school board, on the Mission Memorial Hospital board, on the Community Services Society board and in the Mission Historical Society. Doug recently worked on the documentation of Mission

veterans lost in conflict and personally gave 3,000 hours to make this project a success. His dedication and enthusiasm are obvious and infectious.

For me, nothing surpasses Doug's service as a councillor on Mission city council. When I was newly elected as a mayor, I can't stress enough how much I valued his steadying influence and incredible work ethic. I'm forever grateful for his support and wise counsel.

I'm thrilled that Doug Adair has been recognized with the British Columbia Community Achievement Award. He exemplifies the reason for acknowledging special volunteers through these awards. As a longtime Rotarian, Doug Adair is a living example of service before self.

For Doug, congratulations. I can't think of anyone more deserving of this award, and I'm proud to see you finally recognized for a half-century of service. Thank you, Doug.

D. Routley: I rise today to speak about agriculture on Vancouver Island. On Vancouver Island our history and our current state of innovation have given us a variety of production that's basically unmatched throughout our country.

We have so many vegetable producers — organic, hothouse. We have cranberry farms. We have the second-largest holly farm in the Cowichan Valley that has been there for almost a hundred years. We have wine producers and grape growers; many berry farms that have been there for many, many generations; shellfish farms; meat producers — beef, pork, lamb — and lamb producers that have also been there for many generations; many established dairy farms from our noted Dutch heritage.

These farmers are entrepreneurs — multilevel marketers who add value to the land through their bed-and-breakfasts, their farm-gate sales, local markets, local retail, local restaurants. They have the support of the community. Unfortunately, B.C. ranks seventh out of ten provinces in support for agriculture, and there are great agricultural exclusions that threaten the sustainability of agriculture on Vancouver Island. We need promotional assistance.

The reality is that there is only three days' supply in the event of an emergency — an alarming figure when we're told to prepare for five if there's a major earthquake. We produced 80 percent of our produce only 20 years ago, and now we produce only 3 percent.

The bright side is that 6 percent would be 100 percent more; 20 percent would be 700 percent more. We can do even better than that. All we need is support. We have community support, local business support, farmers' support. We need the support of farm-friendly public policy.

M. Polak: Well, the Canucks missed the playoffs once again, the baseball season is just getting started, and football training camp is still some weeks away. Ho-hum, one might say, not much going on. But there is an answer to the lament of the sport enthusiast who is experiencing symptoms of withdrawal.

The 2008 lawn bowling season has begun. On April 20, I joined the Minister of Forests and Range, along with other local officials, for the ceremonial first bowl at the Langley Lawn Bowling Club. For nearly three decades, men and women of all ages have enjoyed the physical activity, friendly competition and social interaction that lawn bowling provides.

The Langley Lawn Bowling Club has become a well-regarded volunteer organization in Langley. They have built successful relationships with all levels of government and with Kwantlen University College — soon to be University — the students of which participate annually in planting trees and shrubs donated by the city. The club's troupe of volunteers provide excellent meals, exciting special events and free coaching for those needing supervision, training or advice to improve their game.

For me, the opportunity to try a new sport was exciting, but the opportunity to be humiliated publicly was daunting. Nevertheless, I took my place on the green, took the ball gingerly in my right hand and rolled it toward the small white jack in the centre of the green. As I opened my eyes and looked toward the place where the shot from the Minister of Forests and Range had landed — quite a distance from the jack, I might add — my shot was nowhere to be seen. In a shocking case of beginner's luck and much to my surprise, I had shot the best bowl of the day, landing a scant two feet from the jack.

As the cheering died down, I realized why, year in and year out, the Langley Lawn Bowling Club and clubs around the province draw a committed group of bowlers and continue to see their sport grow through school and community outreach programs. Club member Marvyn Shore puts it best when he writes: "You can have a great time bowling by just being out there with friends, having a ball."

S. Simpson: May is Cystic Fibrosis Month in Canada. CF is the most common and fatal genetic disease facing young people in our country. It causes a mucous buildup by damaging the lining of the lungs and blocking enzymes from reaching the intestines to digest food. It affects about one in 3,600 children in British Columbia, including my seven-year-old nephew Liam.

Liam is a happy-go-lucky child who is full of life and energy. However, if this was 1960, he would likely not be alive. In those days CF kids seldom celebrated their fifth birthday. Today most live into their late 30s, and in 2006 for the first time, more than 50 percent of people with CF were over 18.

We are making progress, but we still have a long way to go. I know how Liam's diagnosis radically changed my sister and her partner's life focus and everyday routines; how it added significant cost, even

with government support; how every time Liam is hospitalized to deal with mucous buildup, it results in further damage to his lungs; how it has affected Liam's older brother Kyle, a wonderful young man who understands why he is often the second consideration in the family because of his younger brother's needs.

The day is coming soon when Liam will begin to understand the consequences of CF in terms of limits on his own life, and I know how my sister struggles with that inevitable conversation with her son. These types of pressures have too often led to family breakups, as parents find it increasingly difficult to deal with the realities of CF and the fallout on other aspects of their relationships.

This is what makes Cystic Fibrosis Month so important. I am hopeful Liam will live to collect his old age pension, but it will require more support from governments and individuals, including funding for medical research and increased support for CF families.

What can be more important than giving young people who are having their lives stolen from them by cystic fibrosis a better chance? What can be more important than saying to Liam and the other young people just like him that together we will beat this disease?

D. Hayer: Last week was National Volunteer Week, and nowhere in the province are there more active volunteers than in the city of Surrey and my constituency of Surrey-Tynehead. In the past weeks I have saluted such groups at Tynehead, Guildford and Port Kells Community Association.

Today I want to talk about Fleetwood Community Association and their very hard-working board of directors, who include president Rick Hart, vice-president Jane-Anne Anderson, secretary Joy Hart, treasurer Johanne Poirier and directors Deb Hughes, Bob Beacom, Carol Adams, Mark Lenglet and Roy Yorke.

Fleetwood Community Association has served the community for over 85 years. The association is celebrating this milestone with the tenth annual Fleetwood Festival on September 6. As a part of the celebration it has commissioned the life-size sculpture of Lance Cpl. Arthur Thomas Fleetwood, to whom the Fleetwood Community Association owes its name.

Another very important group of volunteers in my community is the Fleetwood planning committee, which is led by chairperson Heather Renko, vice-chair Mildred Davies, secretary Gay Calestagne and treasurer Bonnie Wright, along with activities directors Julie Smith, Barb Fletcher, Pat Madden, Lil Elliot, Mary Frolick, Edith Bamford and Jim Rowland.

Another important group in Surrey-Tynehead is Fraser Heights Community Association, which embodies a sense of community in the northern part of my riding. Fraser Heights has almost 20,000 people living within it, a population greater than many cities in our province.

I would ask the House to join me in saluting its members and directors, including Rob Langford, president; Ian MacPherson, past president; Frank Russell, vice-president; Heather Nelson, treasurer; Liane McMahon, secretary; and directors Kash Kang and Joanna Whittingstall, along with all the other volunteers in British Columbia who make our province a great province and great community to live in.

M. Karagianis: It's my pleasure to stand in the House today and share with members the story of the little library that could. Next week the View Royal reading centre will open at its new home in the Admirals Walk Shopping Centre. The reading centre is sponsored by the View Royal Community Association and is the new incarnation of the former volunteer-run View Royal Public Library.

The library was started in 1971 and has operated from the lower level of the town hall since 1997. Now the new location will continue a long record of providing much-needed library services to View Royal and to the residents of the first nation lands in my constituency.

Getting the new location and the new lease on life was no easy task. Three years ago I was approached by Jim Powell of the library board to assist with their urgent request for funding from the province. The dollars eventually came — much thanks — and the doors were kept open. But the town of View Royal needed the space, so two years ago a search began for a new home for the library.

The opening of the new location is a triumph for View Royal. It is a triumph for the enormously dedicated volunteers led by Jim Powell. It is a triumph for the exceptional leadership of Mayor Graham Hill and the View Royal council, and it's a tribute to the generosity and foresight of the View Royal Community Association.

I look forward to attending the opening ceremony later this month, and I hope members will join me in recognizing the dedication and achievement of those who have made it possible. This month View Royal turns a new page.

N. Simons: Today the Auditor General released a scathing report on the Ministry of Children and Families and its handling of child protection services for aboriginal children in this province. It identified significant flaws and underfunding and identified no sense of where services or funding are needed the most. It also went on to say that standards can't be met within the existing allocation of resources and, further, that there's a disconnect between management and the overworked social workers.

My question is to the Minister of Children and Family Development. How can he protect these

vulnerable children, and how can he ensure that their lives will be improved, when his ministry doesn't know how well his services are being delivered?

Hon. T. Christensen: We certainly appreciate the work that's been done by the Auditor General's office. His report does acknowledge the complexity of better serving aboriginal children and families across the province, given the need to provide culturally appropriate services and the reality that effective services do require significant collaboration between first nations, aboriginal organizations, MCFD and INAC.

That is the work that we are committed to doing. It's the work we are doing, and I'm confident that we are seeing improvement in services to aboriginal children and families across our province.

N. Simons: In 2001, 42 percent of the children in care were aboriginal children. In 2008, 52 percent are aboriginal children. The minister refers to doing what they're doing well. I fail to see any evidence that this ministry is addressing the issues at hand.

This report simply confirms that. It says that the ministry does not report on how well aboriginal children or child protection services are being delivered. What is this minister going to do to convince this House and the people of British Columbia that his ministry is taking this issue seriously and that careful monitoring needs to be in place?

Hon. T. Christensen: We recognize, as a government, that there are gaps in services between aboriginal and non-aboriginal British Columbians. This year this government was the first and so far only provincial government in the country to commit to Jordan's principle, to ensure that aboriginal children have access to equitable services.

We have recognized that those gaps exist. We want to ensure that culturally appropriate services are available to aboriginal children and families. The ministry's operational plan includes actions to better identify and address those gaps. I am expecting significant progress in the coming months on that front.

N. Simons: Jordan's principle is simply a principle if there are no resources in place to ensure that it can be applied. The Auditor General identified serious flaws. What is striking is that this ministry is deciding only now to consult with first nations and the federal government on this issue.

They've been telling the ministry for many, many months — if not years — what the solutions are, and it's only now that he's starting to hear it. It's probably because of successive reports that seem to indicate to everyone in this province that this minister is not handling his file.

Again to the minister: how is he going to convince people in this province that enough attention is being paid to this issue so that tragedies that we've seen time and time again aren't repeated?

Hon. T. Christensen: The member obviously hasn't been paying attention to the last number of years. This is the government that was instrumental in the Kelowna accord, through the first ministers meeting, to ensure that we established a positive path forward in health outcomes, education outcomes and other social outcomes to close the gaps between aboriginal and non-aboriginal British Columbians.

This is a government that has undertaken unprecedented consultation with first nations and aboriginal organizations across our province to try and find better paths forward to serve aboriginal children and families.

We admit that there is still significant work to do, but let's look at some of the progress. Since 2001 the number of aboriginal children served by a delegated agency has increased by 300 percent. In the last year the delegated agency that serves the Cowichan Tribes became only the second aboriginal agency in Canada to take on adoption services — the second in Canada.

M. Karagianis: Well, I'll tell you who's not paying attention in this Legislature. It is the Minister of Children and Families. The minister cannot claim progress here. The Auditor General's report is scathing. The Auditor General's report says that this minister is not even measuring good outcomes for children.

The report found that nearly 21 percent of families involved in the ministry saw a recurrence of abuse or neglect — 21 percent, one in five. That is nowhere near the goal that the minister had set, and that's up from the year before. That's exactly what happened to the little girl in Prince George who was beaten and neglected by her grandmother. This report shows that the minister is failing these children and their families.

When is the minister going to put real resources into the system so that front-line workers can actually check on children and their outcomes?

Hon. T. Christensen: The budget for child and family services today is 30 percent higher than it was when we became government. We've added resources, but we know that resources alone aren't the solution here. We need to be working closely with first nations, with aboriginal service providers and with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada to ensure that we're working in collaboration to better serve aboriginal children and families.

We've made progress. For the first time ever, we know that in the last year we have convinced INAC to start to fund out-of-care options so that there is an option for delegated agencies beyond taking a child into care in order for them to get the funding to care for that child.

At the beginning of April the Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society became fully delegated. They are now the largest urban aboriginal

That's the type of progress we want to see. We're seeing it. We going to continue to work on those initiatives, and we're going to see additional progress.

M. Karagianis: I think the minister better reread the Auditor General's report — again and again and again. In this report what comes forward is lack of resources, lack of funding and lack of planning. One in five families involved with the ministry experiences recurrences of abuse and neglect.

Despite years of the internal transformation that this government undertook and millions of dollars, the Auditor General's recommendations talk about the basics: consultation on needs, better measurement for outcomes, better resources, effective funding, an effective change management strategy. Those should have been the very first steps taken many years ago, not five years down the road as we see today.

Will the minister admit his failure and admit that his government has wasted six years and that aboriginal children have paid the price for that?

Hon. T. Christensen: I would respectfully suggest to the member that she read the report once.

Hon. T. Christensen: The Auditor General has made a number of observations, which we appreciate. He also observes in the report where the ministry's operational plan is starting to address those concerns. So we are certainly on the right track.

We appreciate the recommendations that have been made. We will continue to look at how we can be working in collaboration with first nations, with aboriginal organizations, with the First Nations Leadership Council and with INAC to ensure that collectively we can see the types of improvements we all want to see in terms of aboriginal children and families' lives.

S. Fraser: Twenty-one percent — that's how often abuse and neglect recur. This is not a good-news story to the minister.

The report also found that the ministry has failed to develop culturally appropriate services — something else the minister referred to, but not in the sense that the Auditor General did. Considering the lack of supports from this government, the Auditor General questioned the viability of transferring these services.

That's tragic — these reminders of abject failure of this minister only one week after the minister was humiliated in trying to bring forward legislation on aboriginal children without even consulting with first nations. It shows he hasn't done his work. He hasn't put the resources in place, and his plan will not meet the needs of aboriginal children.

When is the minister going to put children first and put the resources in place to protect children in care in this province?

Hon. T. Christensen: As I indicated, significant resources have been added to child and family services across the province. But it's important to note that the incidence of recidivism, a recurrence of abuse or neglect, actually dropped last year to 721 incidents from 962 the previous year. That's a 25 percent reduction.

We also found that the number of children found to be in need of protection last year dropped significantly from the previous year. That is an indication of progress in terms of how children and families are doing across this province. It's part of the work that we're committed to continuing to do to ensure that we do see better outcomes for aboriginal children and families right across British Columbia.

S. Fraser: The minister is pretty good at throwing statistics out. It's a bit of a shell game. We saw that increase in the budget of 30 percent. That was a lateral move from child care. That did nothing to help aboriginal children in care, and the minister should be ashamed of himself.

The minister tried to move ahead with legislation before communities were ready, before his own ministry was ready. He doesn't even know how much it will cost to ensure that the agencies can meet the needs of the children needing protection.

Now, the Auditor General is clear. There's a quote here. The report showed that the minister has no sense of "the real cost of having staff and delegated aboriginal authorities deliver effective, culturally appropriate aboriginal child protection services." That's pretty unequivocal.

Will the minister admit that after six years and millions of dollars, he and his ministry have not even done the basic work to ensure that aboriginal children are actually getting the services they need and they deserve?

Hon. T. Christensen: Since 2001 a 300 percent increase in the number of aboriginal children being served by delegated agencies, six additional aboriginal delegated agencies, only the second agency in Canada to take on adoption services, the largest urban aboriginal delegated agency in Canada. Since 2004 more than 1,500 aboriginal children in care of MCFD have been reconnected to their culture and community through the Roots Are Forever program. So we are making progress on a number of fronts.

Today we have 41 aboriginal early childhood development programs working in concert with aboriginal communities on the prevention end, the front end, of an appropriate child welfare program. So progress is being made.

It's interesting. What is the NDP's view of success in serving aboriginal children and families? Is it apprehending more children, as happened in the 1990s when we had the highest numbers ever?

J. Brar: Seven years — no improvements. Clearly, aboriginal children are not a priority for this government. Last week a new Statistics Canada report revealed that even though people in British Columbia are working hard, they're earning less. Now we learn that for the fifth year in a row, B.C. has the worst child poverty rate in all of Canada.

This government should be ashamed of that. So my question is to the Minister of Employment and Income Assistance. Why does a rich province once again have the worst child poverty rate in all of Canada?

Hon. C. Richmond: We are always concerned when we see a report such as this from Stats Canada, and we…

Hon. C. Richmond: …examined the report very carefully to make sure that we know exactly what it contains. One of the things that jumped right out at us is that Stats Canada themselves say that their statistic for 2005, on which the report is based, should be used with caution. Their own statistic, as they say, should be used with caution because the numbers from 2003 to 2006 show a definite downward trend in the low-income situation — a drop from 159,000 in 2003 to 133,000, a drop of more than 15 percent. The trend in the past four years is fewer children living in low-income situations.

J. Brar: It's very clear that this minister is completely out of touch with reality. This is the fifth wake-up call for this minister, and this minister still needs to review the report. Every year this minister stands up and defends against the reports provided by professionals. The fact is that 181,000 children in B.C. are living in poverty. It's tragic. It's a crisis.

It's clear that the priorities of this government are all wrong. The government is giving $220 million in tax breaks to big banks only this year and $327 million in subsidies to oil and gas companies. It's time. This minister needs to get up and start working for the voiceless and the most vulnerable kids of this province.

So my question, again, to the Minister of Employment and Income Assistance is this.

J. Brar: When will the minister stop denying the crisis of child poverty and start developing a comprehensive strategy to address child poverty in the province of British Columbia, starting with a raise to the minimum wage?

Hon. C. Richmond: When we examine the report from Stats Canada, we find they do not take into account the many programs we have in place for those below the low-income cut-off line. For example….

Hon. C. Richmond: We find the statistic that British Columbia is leading the country in the reduction of poverty. These are not….

Hon. C. Richmond: These are from Stats Canada. These are the statistics that you're quoting.

British Columbia is moving people out of low-income situations almost three times faster than the national average, from 2002 to 2006 declining by 3 percent and accounting for over 50 percent of the national reduction.

A. Dix: One thing we can say about these two ministers is that they may be humiliated, but they're not easily humiliated. Last Wednesday….

A. Dix: So let's review. Last Wednesday the Minister of Children and Families, after six years and $39 million, has to withdraw at the last second a bill he presented before the Legislature. Then the Auditor General condemns the performance of the government.

Yesterday in this House we learned of the case of a child who went from the responsibility of that minister to the responsibility of that minister and back to this minister. Now Statistics Canada says again No. 1 in child poverty — again. The Minister of Employment and Income Assistance prefers to deny the facts than to take action.

The Auditor General is wrong, Statistics Canada is wrong, and the child representative is wrong, according to the government. The only people who seem to be right are the public affairs bureau.

My question to the Minister of Employment and Income Assistance is…. Surely as minister, when he sees that we're No. 1 in Canada in child poverty, his answer shouldn't be to deny the facts. What action is he going to take? What concrete action is he going to take today to deal with the growing tragedy of income inequality in Canada?

Hon. C. Richmond: As of February 2008 there were approximately 51,000 fewer children living in families on income assistance compared to June….

Hon. C. Richmond: Let me repeat that, unless they didn't quite get it — 51,000 fewer children in families on income assistance compared to June 2001, a 60 percent reduction.

These people have some 400,000 new jobs to go to in British Columbia. We know that when these people leave income assistance and start their employment, they don't start at the top end of the income scale.

A. Dix: …shameful performance by the government today. Report after report…. You know, they can take shots. They can do whatever they want. The Auditor General has condemned them. Statistics Canada has condemned them. The child representative has condemned them.

Real children are suffering. To the minister: these people are our friends, our neighbours, people in our community. They're not "these people." They're us.

Will this Minister of Employment and Income Assistance stand up in this House and announce a plan to do something about the fact that we're No. 1 — the worst record of child poverty in the country — or will he step aside and let someone else who will take action take over?

Hon. C. Richmond: Here's another sentence right out of the report from Stats Canada. Statistics Canada emphasizes that these low-income rates should not be construed as poverty rates.

Hon. C. Richmond: …from Statistics Canada. It's the report. Mr. Speaker, just as an example that the report does not take into consideration….

We know that in British Columbia, for example, rent is expensive here. We know that. That is why we have the rental supplement program, where those earning less than $35,000 a year are eligible for assistance of up to $500 per month.

C. Puchmayr: Well, another day and another mill closure in British Columbia. Today 251 people in Mackenzie in northern British Columbia will be losing their jobs because their mill is going to close. This has nothing to do with the American economy or with the Canadian dollar. This is a pulp mill. It's a booming pulp market with record-high pulp prices. The mill is closing because it doesn't have a guaranteed fibre supply. They can't sell the mill because they can't get fibre supply to the potential buyer.

I'd like to read to the minister a quote from one of the people losing their jobs. He states: "That leaves me with 28 years' seniority, no job, no price for which I can sell my house and scared. We were the richest community in the province a decade ago" — that would be in the '90s — "and now we are nothing. We are a ghost town."

C. Puchmayr: To the Minister of Forests: the minister is failing. Will the minister ensure that there is fibre supply to Mackenzie so that this profitable mill can remain open?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I think we were all disappointed to hear that the deal to buy the Mackenzie pulp mill went sideways last week. We had hoped that over the weekend there would be an opportunity for that deal to come back together.

We've been in conversation this morning with the lawyers involved from our side as well as with people from the courts and stuff. We understand that they're still in discussion to try and see if that deal can be salvaged.

In addition to that, we understand there may be another party interested in the pulp mill. To the member opposite: we are going to do everything to make sure that the fibre supply is there for this mill, should we find an appropriate buyer. We hope that for the sake of the workers and the community of Mackenzie, that can be accomplished.

I spoke to the mayor of Mackenzie prior to question period, and I told her that we would be making any commitment we possibly can to make any deal that could come forward work if the opportunity presented itself.

L. Krog: You know, if talk were action, the problem would have been solved about seven years ago. We've had seven years of talk from this government and no action on forestry whatsoever.

Last week this minister stood by while 800 forestry jobs disappeared. Tomorrow in my community — people I know, my neighbours, my friends — 530 jobs gone with the shutting of Harmac. Good, family-supporting jobs. The reason is because Pope and Talbot has been trying to sell this mill, but nobody wants to buy it because there's no guaranteed fibre supply. That's the responsibility of the Minister of Forests, the last time I checked.

Within a few miles of that mill there's wood rotting on the forest floor instead of feeding fibre to that mill and keeping these jobs going. I want this minister today in this House to stand up and say what he is going to do to get fibre to Harmac before it's gone forever.

Hon. R. Coleman: The member might want to start by speedy passage of the piece of legislation before this House that allows us to create a tenure to go get the waste off the floor of the forest.

Hon. R. Coleman: I don't think the member should be disingenuous on this and say that it's all about fibre supply, because we have worked with this mill in the past to find its fibre successfully and will continue to do so in the future.

There are a number of reasons with regards to the Harmac issue. You do know it's a bankruptcy. You do know that there was a suitor there with regards to that. There are still some discussions going on with regards to Harmac.

Frankly, I know some people that work there too, hon. Member. I'm not happy about it, and quite frankly, I feel for them. We're going to try to find a solution to see if we can make this thing work.

Hon. M. de Jong: I just want to rise and advise the House that the government and opposition have come to a partial agreement pursuant to Standing Order 81.1(1) with respect to the completion of all the estimates and some of the bills. Those bills are as follows: Bills 14, 18, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39 and 41; and for debate of those bills through all stages to conclude by 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 29, 2008, if not earlier.

That agreement, I can advise members, also involves the deferment of the following bills for debate at a subsequent time following this sitting — that is, Bills 28, 30, 35 and 40. I'll speak in a moment to a third component of this, which relates to scheduling of a week of additional debate time. I'll come to that in a moment.

However, an agreement was not reached with respect to several pieces of legislation in accord with 81.1, and those bills include the following: Bills 20, 21, 24, 29, 32, 37, 42 and 43. I do wish to advise members that the government seeks debate and passage of those bills this session.

Hon. M. de Jong: I wish to further advise the House that as a result of conversations between the Opposition House Leader and myself, I believe I am in a position, with leave, to offer the following consensual motion.

J. Kwan: I rise under Standing Order 35 to seek leave to move a motion that this House do now adjourn for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance — namely, for this House to call on the Harper government to abandon the provisions to Bill C-50, which makes sweeping changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act without consultation and study.

Bill C-50 is now before the Select Standing Committee on Finance and could be moved to third reading at any time. If Bill C-50 passes as currently drafted, it will give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration arbitrary powers to move people up or off waiting lists, limit immigrants in the ability to reunite with overseas family members based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, and let officials prioritize temporary foreign labour over family-class and economic-class immigrants.

Immigration has played and continues to play a pivotal role in building B.C. If these provisions of Bill C-50 are passed, they will have profound negative effects on British Columbia and its families.

Mr. Speaker, I present to you a written statement of the matter proposed. If you find that this statement is in order and of public urgent importance, I would then move at the appropriate time the following motion: "Be it resolved that this House unanimously urge the federal government to withdraw the provisions of Bill C-50 that amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and to immediately allocate significant resources to make permanent immigration more accessible and efficient while ensuring family re-unification remains a priority in all immigration matters."

Hon. M. de Jong: Hon. Speaker, as you do, you may wish the benefit of my immediate reaction to the hon. member's submission. I haven't had the benefit of the statement, but I have heard her commentary today.

I have no doubt that there is widespread concern — certainly on the part of the member and I think other members — about the issue generally. It is, of course, a matter that is being considered by the Parliament of Canada during the course of the debates that take place around the legislation that the member has cited in her submission.

I am also mindful, however, of the rules that govern this chamber. I want to say two things about that. We need to be alive to the fact that with respect to Standing Order 35, the tests that apply in determining whether or not it may be invoked to interrupt the normal business of the day are well developed.

One of the tests that I know the hon. member is aware of, given her length of service here in this chamber, is not just the urgency of the matter. In fact, specifically, it is the urgency of debate in this chamber that the Speaker must turn his mind to.

Having said that, in the past what the Opposition House Leader and I have been able to do — the opposition and the government — on matters such as this is perhaps have a discussion about an appropriate means or time when the matter can come to the floor of the House of the Legislature. This may be one of those times. I'm not sure. I'm hearing the member's comments and concerns for the first time now. But I'm certainly prepared to have that conversation with the Opposition House Leader.

I regret, however, and fear that the tests that have been established through the years in this chamber around Standing Order 35 are not satisfied in this particular case. That doesn't mean we should resist having a discussion, but it does mean that the mechanism by which the hon. member seeks to initiate that discussion is, I fear, not applicable.

J. Kwan: Just a quick response to simply say I would welcome discussion with the Government House Leader to see if we can find a way to expedite this opportunity to engage in the debate on the motion that I put forward. I look forward to that discussion along with our Opposition House Leader.

C. Trevena: I would like to introduce in the gallery today Carl Larsen, who has been sitting watching the debate and watching question period. He's here for the second time, I think, and the last time he was here, he said that it was a little dry. His granddaughter Kaylah is one of the pages in the House.

Carl is a resident on Quadra Island — a neighbour and I would like to say a friend — who also is one of the very hard-working crew members on our ferry, the Quadra–Campbell River ferry…. I've forgotten the name of our ferry. However, Carl, who works on the ferries, is a good friend and good neighbour. I hope the House will make him very welcome.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call in this chamber continued second reading debate of Bill 23 and in Section A, Committee of Supply, for the information of members, continued discussion on the estimates of the Ministry of Forests and Range.

C. Wyse: Before lunch, I had the privilege of having your attention in debating the merits of Bill 23, the Public Health Act. Given the break at lunchtime….

I believe that before lunch I had mentioned that there were three cautions I wished to bring to the attention of the Speaker with regards to this particular bill. It's on that I wish to wrap up and close.

The first caution is that greater clarity may be needed with respect to public consultation on public health plans developed by public bodies.

The second caution is that the government is talking tough with respect to requiring communities to include mental health and addiction facilities and housing in their communities but does not back it up with adequate funding and resources to make it happen.

The third point once more, in my judgment, comes to the point of a government that claims to be open, transparent and accountable. My third caution is that once more, this bill is an enabling bill. What it does is grant the authority to cabinet in order to develop the regulations. That is the level of government that is least available for any type of transparency and accountability. That simply is how our system operates.

Before lunch I pointed out that this particular bill in actual fact removes the ability from an individual citizen to trigger investigations with health hazards. When you compare that the regulations are going to be developed by cabinet in secrecy, I challenge that this particular legislation provides for openness, accountability and transparency.

With that, Madam Speaker, I wish to conclude my remarks. Thank you for providing me this opportunity

M. Sather: I take my place to join in the debate on Bill 23, the Public Health Act. As has been mentioned by some of my colleagues before me, there are things about this act that I find quite acceptable and want to support.

For example, the legislation fulfils the government's throne speech commitment to ban the use of trans fats in the preparation of foods in schools, restaurants and food service establishments by 2010. The legislation itself does not ban trans fats but enables the regulation of health impediments. Insofar as those are effective — and I'm hopeful that they will be — I certainly endorse that move by the government.

I think it's been clearly understood — and there's all sorts of evidence and research to support the fact — that trans fats are not good for our health. I know my wife keeps close track of the trans fats that we might be eating in our home and actually has educated me a great deal on the dangers of trans fats. We certainly want to ensure that children in schools are not exposed to this substance, which in all likelihood is dangerous to their health. I note that it says in the preparation of foods, so I'm assuming that would mean things like cooking oils that foods are prepared with.

The whole issue of trans fats, however, is a bigger one. It certainly is a public health issue, and I think we need to ensure that we're getting trans fats out of our food products entirely. Anything the government can do to regulate and reduce the use of trans fats, particularly in our schools, I fully endorse. That's a good thing, a good part of this bill.

The general purpose of Bill 23 is to enable medical health officers and environmental health officers to investigate health hazard complaints. It supports preparations and responses for public health emergencies and ensures that government and health officials have the authority they need to mobilize resources and take action to protect public health. It provides the minister with new powers with respect to requiring public bodies, including health authorities and local governments, to develop public health plans to address emerging health issues.

My colleague the member for Cariboo South, who was up before me, mentioned some of his concerns around local governments and this act. So I won't delve further into that issue, other than to note that it's been brought up by my colleague.

The government says that the bill completes modernization of the Drinking Water Protection Act and other acts. In a few minutes I will talk a little bit more about the Drinking Water Protection Act and modernization. Yes, I'm sure there are antiquated sections of these various acts and acts themselves — as we heard, some of them go back to 1893 — that need modernization.

I think what the public in British Columbia are particularly looking for are tools to help them be assured that their public health is protected, and we're hopeful that these modernizations are going to do that. The minister may require that a public health plan be made to monitor factors, including public health, and the minister sets the terms of reference for the plan, including who must be consulted.

I want to talk a bit about — in fact, probably most of what I have to say today — the protection of drinking water, which is a truly essential part of protecting public health. We are fortunate in our part of the world to be blessed with good drinking water for the most part. Certainly, we know that's the case in Maple Ridge with regard to the water that comes out of our tap. In Pitt Meadows it comes from the Coquitlam watershed, which is secure and hasn't actually been affected by high-water events and runoff that in recent years has affected the Vancouver water supply, which comes from the Capilano reservoir.

We have good drinking water in my constituency that comes out of the tap. We know that in other parts of British Columbia, residents are not so fortunate. There are a large number of boil-water advisories throughout the province, which should be drawing our attention to the fact that this is a public health issue of considerable importance. It behooves us as government and governors on both sides of the House to pay great attention to this issue.

Local citizens, I think, in all communities throughout the province were paying a great deal of attention to what happened on the Sunshine Coast in the last number of months with regard to Chapman Creek and concerns that this was a threat to the health of the residents of that area. Local medical officials there concluded that the logging in Chapman Creek on the Sunshine Coast was a health hazard. They tried to invoke what they could to protect their community, which is laudable, which is understandable and which citizens are going to do. It's such an essential thing — drinking water — that citizens will rise up to try to protect that essential resource, and that's what happened there.

Their regional district was unable to act because they cannot develop bylaws to regulate forestry operations, and that was their concern. Their concern was about the forestry operations along and in the environs of that creek. The public was able to trigger an investigation into health hazards, and under the new law, which is Bill 23, a medical health officer is required to report a health hazard to a designated person. Our critic the member for Vancouver-Kensington has brought up the question of what this means and how that will play out via regulation or otherwise — the reporting of a health hazard to a designated person.

I know that in my community, as well as on the Sunshine Coast and I expect in other areas, local residents have some concern about what effect that will have on their ability to become engaged and to remain engaged in this very important public health issue.

Andrew Gage of West Coast Environmental Law said of Bill 23: "The Public Health Act shuts the public out at every turn." That's a very serious statement by a very…. I have met Mr. Gage. I consider him to be a very well-considered individual, not prone to

hyperbole, and I think that says a lot about their concern about how they are going to be able to protect their health vis-à-vis drinking water.

In my community of Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, in particular in the community of Maple Ridge, we have had concerns expressed not that much different than what was expressed on the Sunshine Coast.

There's a group in Maple Ridge called the Blue Mountain conservation group that has been struggling for years with regard to their safety and health around the watershed that is Blue Mountain, which lies above most of their homes.

In fact, the genesis for that group was that in the subdivision that some of them lived in a number of years ago, their water was surface water coming off Blue Mountain. That water was determined at that time to be unfit for human consumption, and they were no longer allowed to use that water. They are convinced that that determination had to do with the forestry operations and the public use operations on Blue Mountain, which led to the pollution of those surface waters. They've led a fight for a long time to try to ensure that their environment and their public health, through their drinking water, are going to be protected.

Of late both the residents of Blue Mountain and the residents of an area called Thornhill in Maple Ridge, which is nearby, have been expressing concerns about their groundwater and the quality of their groundwater, because all of this area — almost all of it, at least — depends on wells. They depend on wells for their drinking water, and they are very concerned about their health vis-à-vis those wells and what is happening to their drinking water supply.

They were able to get a spokesperson a few months ago from the Ministry of Environment to come out and speak to them about their concerns. You know, one of the things that you have to determine with aquifers is what the source is of the aquifers. The one thing they learned from that spokesperson was that in all likelihood, without the scientific tests to prove it — which are fairly complicated, as I understand it — Blue Mountain is the source of their drinking water and their well water, which to a casual observer stands to reason. It's situated above most of them, and water runs downhill.

The removal of forest cover is of great concern, as I said, to them. It can lead to increased infusion of aquifers with siltation. They have been looking everywhere, from insurance, from government, from a variety of ministries — and I'll go through a bit of that in a minute — including the Ministry of Health, for how they can become assured that their drinking water is safe and that their public health is protected.

Some of them, very much to their credit, have undertaken a monitoring program entirely at their own expense to test their well water, to be able to develop a baseline of data from which they can compare and will have objective data for any changes that might take place.

I attended a couple of meetings, at least, with government officials and with members of the Blue Mountain conservation group. If it wasn't such a serious issue, I would have to say that it was comical. But in fact it is a serious issue, so it wasn't.

I could fully understand, particularly after the years and years that this group has been struggling to get some assurance from government and to get some action, that their environment, their health and their water are protected. It was a complete merry-go-round, and sadly, nobody was taking charge.

There were several ministries involved in these meetings. There were representatives from the Ministry of Forests. There were representatives from Agriculture and Lands, primarily from the integrated land management bureau.

The question was: who's protecting our water source? That was the question that the citizens of my community put forward over and over again. Who is protecting our water source? Who is protecting our public health? They did not get any kind of answer, because it seemed that there really is no answer.

I asked the representative from the Ministry of Forests: "Can you speak to the issue of the removal of forest cover and groundwater? What is the connection, or in fact, is there a connection?" There is some dispute. It's not well understood, from what I've gathered, what the connection is, so I asked him to explain that.

He certainly knew what the meeting was all about, but he said that he had no knowledge and couldn't comment on that. That was very disappointing to me, and I think it was very disappointing to my constituents to not be able to be informed by government of what was going on.

Although the government spokespersons that were there…. They conducted the meetings well. They were sympathetic. They were empathetic. What did come out of it was that the Ministry of Health is responsible.

Some of them are my constituents; some of them are in Maple Ridge–Mission. They went to their public health officer and started asking questions. "How can you protect our drinking water supply, our public health?" They were told: "Well, in your case there's nothing we can do to protect your health unless people are getting sick, unless in fact the damage is already done."

This is totally unacceptable. That's too late. You certainly need to act if people are getting sick, but surely in this day and age we must act before people get sick to ensure that their health is being protected. My concern is that we're no further ahead. In fact, we may be further behind with regard to protecting drinking water and the obvious public health benefit involved.

Sections 57 and 58 of the Health Act are deleted by Bill 23. Those sections allowed individual citizens to trigger an investigation into health hazards, such as happened on the Sunshine Coast at Chapman Creek. Again, it was sad to see residents having to get legal representation and all the costs involved with that and those legal people having to search for something, anything, to protect public drinking water and finding it difficult to do so. Consequently, their challenge was ultimately unsuccessful in the court.

I think that far from being indicative of a frivolous case, it speaks volumes about the lack of protection that we have in this province for public drinking water. That's a shame, and that's really not acceptable. It's not acceptable at all in the 21st century, and it makes me wonder whether the government is…. I mean, I find it hard to say that the government isn't aware of this issue, because I think they're aware of this issue, but I don't see that the government is wanting to deal with the issue.

Lest anybody think that the residents of east Maple Ridge should just hang on until there's more development and we get city water…. I would suggest that is not a good solution. We in the Fraser Valley cannot depend forever on water from the Coquitlam watershed. Our population is growing significantly. We have two new bridges coming into Maple Ridge that are going to bring more people in, and we need people to be able to depend on the drinking water sources that they have in addition to water from the Coquitlam watershed.

This is the era of climate change, as we know. This is a time when we're seeing prolonged droughts in the summer. As it is, people in the area that I'm speaking of, the Whonnock area of Maple Ridge, frequently have to bring in drinking water by truck during the summer.

Government should be taking every opportunity to protect their drinking water because we can only expect that in all likelihood, there are going to be more challenges vis-à-vis the warming climate and drinking water. In fact, I predict that this will be one of the major issues, if not the major issue, in this century not only in British Columbia but throughout the world — the availability of safe drinking water.

Although the government has a climate change agenda and has brought in a lot of bills, there's nothing to do that I see that is going to address the issue of protecting drinking water. That's too bad, because I think this was an opportunity through Bill 23, the Public Health Act, to do that.

An essential part of doing that, however, is to ensure that the public is fully engaged in the process, because right now, once again, they're feeling shut out by this government. They're feeling the heavy hand of government saying: "Well, you pesky citizens that dared to rise up and challenge our authority over your drinking water…. We're certainly going to fix that." That's too bad, again, because punishing the citizens should not be the goal of legislation. Although Bill 23 has some good stuff in it, I fear that is partly what it is intended to do.

Last year I brought in a private member's bill, the Drinking Water Protection Amendment Act, 2007, because I wanted to do what I could. Even though I'm on the opposition side, I wanted to do what I could to address this problem. One of the parts of that bill was that subsection 32(4)(a) of the Drinking Water Protection Act is amended by 32(4)(a) saying: "…whether changes are required in land and water use within the watershed, including tree harvesting, agricultural uses, industrial, commercial or residential development or other uses."

These are the kinds of issues that are affecting drinking water. There are other issues as well, like drought, but we need to take the whole picture when looking at the safety of drinking water. I understand that it's a challenge for any government to do that. How do you manage to carry out resource extraction — to wit, logging — and still protect your drinking water? I fully admit that's no small challenge, but I think we have no other choice than to deal with that head-on.

I know that the people of Maple Ridge and the Blue Mountain Conservation Group are totally frustrated that the government is in no way taking on that challenge and has really dropped the ball in that regard.

Moving on to another part of this bill, which is an area of concern to me too, the government is talking tough with respect to requiring communities to include mental health and addiction facilities in their communities — in other words, talking about addictions and mental health services. I fully support that. I was a mental health therapist before I became an MLA. I've also worked in addiction services, so I fully understand how important it is that we improve those services — that government improve those services. So I'm glad to see that the government intends to do that.

However, I have to say that there's one thing since I've been elected that has surprised me about what this government has not done, and that's around the issue of detox services. You will know, Madam Speaker, that detox is a significant essential. Whether you do it yourself, which is not recommended generally, or whether you go to a detox centre, it's an essential first step to dealing with addiction.

Several years ago our closest detox treatment was in New Westminster. It was subsequently switched to Burnaby. Now it's in Surrey, and it simply is not good enough. It surprised me immensely, actually, that the government has not put in more detox services.

If you have someone who is fighting to get off an addiction and needs to go to a detox centre, first of all, some of these people — quite a few of them in my community and throughout the province — do not have a lot of financial wherewithal. I think it's safe to say that because of their addiction and sometimes attendant mental health issues, nor do they have a lot of internal capacity in terms of ability to stay focused on an issue to get there. I mean, some of them don't even have the bus fare oftentimes to get to Surrey. So it's a real impediment to have to go that far to access detox services.

On top of that — and I think this is a longstanding policy that probably predates this government; I don't know — the policy that you can't make an appointment for detox simply doesn't work. There should be the capacity to make an appointment and go in, like any other medical treatment. I hope something is going to happen positively in that regard because of this bill. Right now you have to go every morning at nine o'clock or whatever the time is and say: "Here I am. I'm presenting myself for detox." You get told more often than not: "Sorry, no room today. Come back tomorrow."

That is not acceptable, and it doesn't work. We talk a lot about homelessness, both sides of this House. We talk about addictions, how important they are, yet addictions services — and I'm focusing right now on detox — are sadly lacking. I don't see how we can really address homelessness, for example, in my community without adequate detox services.

I don't see that really happening in this bill. I look forward to the government — maybe the minister in his wrapping-up speech or maybe when we get to the committee stage…. This is a thick bill, and there's certainly a lot of stuff in here that we will want to examine. I'm sure the Health Minister will want to examine it with us and provide all those answers about how this is going to work, how this bill on the ground is going to provide better services — whether it's the protection of public health through the protection of drinking water, whether it's improvement in detox and other kinds of addiction treatment services or whether it's the issue of homelessness, which has been canvassed fully by a member before me.

I look forward to the answers to those questions. With that, I'll take my seat and pass it over to the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast.

N. Simons: I'd like to thank the previous members who have spoken on this bill, especially as it relates to an issue that's concerning to me as the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Powell River–Sunshine Coast.

I know that the Sunshine Coast has been mentioned a few times in relation to Bill 23, and I just thought it would be an appropriate moment to bring up some concerns I have about the changes that this legislation makes to the ability of the public to become involved in issues that they believe concern them and directly affect them. In this particular case, the residents of the Sunshine Coast, in very large numbers and in eloquent expression of community interest, spoke loudly against certain practices that were taking place in the Chapman Creek watershed.

The Chapman Creek watershed on the Sunshine Coast provides clean drinking water to approximately 90 percent of the population, and as such, it has for many years been the focus of a lot of attention and the focus of concern not just by environmentalists and conservationists but by the community at large. It was clearly evident in those demonstrations, with large numbers of people coming out to express their concern. They're concerned about the protection of our drinking water.

I think there's a renewed understanding and interest in how we protect our water not just for today but for years and years to come, because as we all know, there's nothing of more value in a watershed than the water. We have to recognize that the watershed on the Sunshine Coast…. The highest value in that watershed is the water that we drink and the water that we use to survive.

It's no surprise that when the community of the Sunshine Coast spoke vociferously in defence of their drinking water…. They did so this past summer upon realizing that some logging activity was going to take place, which could potentially have an impact on the quality of the water. At first it was unclear as to what response the community would be able to put forward in the face of Western Forest Products' ability to adhere to provincial regulations and, thus, not have to take into consideration, to the same level of concern that the residents wanted, the protection of drinking water.

Bill 23 specifically amends the Health Act, which actually, in effect, takes away one of the triggers, one of the mechanisms that the community has to have a say over what happens in their watershed. In this particular circumstance on the Sunshine Coast, there was a convergence of voices, a convergence of concern over this watershed issue. Residents in the hundreds turned out to public meetings and public demonstrations to express that concern.

I believe it was rewarding, in a manner of speaking, to see that the community was concerned and was on top of that issue, and it was drinking water and the protection of drinking water being higher on the list of priorities for the community than any other interest.

The Chapman Creek watershed has been the subject of numerous past public debates and has been central, in effect, to the debate over the protection of the public's drinking water source. In fact, in the past referendums have been held over how we were going to protect the water. Numerous legislative amendments were put forward in order to attempt to deal with what is the most precious resource on the Sunshine Coast. Unfortunately, the threats continued, and the sensitivity of the public to those threats grew over time as well.

So when the time came, in the summer when the issue was before the public, the community reacted quickly. I was informed that there was some intention to do some logging right in the watershed. I called up a representative of the company, and I suggested to him that it would likely result in some public response and that I wouldn't blame the public for becoming concerned.

There had been a moratorium on logging in this watershed. There had been a moratorium, for reasons expressed already, in order to protect the water against unforeseen circumstances. I think everybody should know that as the climate changes, so does the climate's impact on the earth, on soil erosion, on water and stream flows and ultimately on the quality of the water coming out of our drinking water treatment plant.

Many residents of the Sunshine Coast wondered how it was possible that the legislative framework — in other words, the laws that control or manage our water — could allow for legislation to exist that speaks only to the quality of water as it emerges from the water treatment plant and not before it enters that same treatment plant. How is it possible that the only safeguard that we have in legislation is for the water after it leaves the water treatment plant?

I think most British Columbians would agree that we should do what we can to ensure that water requires as little treatment as necessary. So while it's possible to treat water with chemicals and through

various processes, it would ultimately be better if we didn't have to do that and if we could keep our water as pure as possible.

Another quasi-legislative effort to protect the water in the Chapman-Grey watershed was undertaken by the regional government in full cooperation with the Sechelt First Nation under the leadership of Garry Feschuk at the time. Chief Feschuk went to Ed Steeves, and they discussed this issue. They said: "We need to make sure that the watershed is protected. This water has served our people for millennia, and it should continue to serve our communities."

Out of extensive discussion and deliberation, an agreement was signed in the Sechelt First Nation longhouse, and the joint watershed management accord was endorsed by those present. I say "quasi-legislative" because it doesn't hold, in fact, the effect of law in the province. It is certainly a statement of intent, and it is certainly a statement of value, but it doesn't have the legislative authority or the legislative teeth that the community wanted it to have in order to protect their water.

So you have a community on the Sunshine Coast, almost entirely reliant on this source of drinking water, that is searching for whatever legislative tool is available in that toolbox in order to protect their water. They went to public discourse, they went to joint watershed management accord, and then they were faced with the realization that the legislation itself is unable to adequately protect the drinking water source.

So as imaginative and progressive and forward-thinking as they were on the Sunshine Coast — and as they are on the Sunshine Coast — they looked for another legal mechanism. They found that legal mechanism, and they found that legal mechanism in the Health Act. Unfortunately, this is part of the Health Act that is going to be amended with the eventual potential passage of this legislation in Bill 23.

Specifically, what Bill 23 does is remove the ability on the part of a citizen, an individual citizen, to trigger a review to ensure that a health hazard does not exist. The public has had until now the ability to go and trigger an investigation into a health hazard. That's under sections 57 and 58 of the Health Act. They did so only because no other legislative tool was available to them. The regional district, which is liable for the quality of water being provided to its citizens, does not have the ability and the power to control what may impact that water.

So we have a situation where the legal liability for the quality of the water rests with the regional district, but the regional district at the same time is unable to influence the quality of the water going into the treatment plant. What I see there is a chasm between the public interests and the public's ability to influence that interest.

Perhaps there are other mechanisms in law that we have to rely on. Perhaps there exist other mechanisms in law that we'll have to rely on, but reassurance for not just the Sunshine Coast community but for various communities across the province who rely on drinking watersheds is necessary. We need to ensure that legislation adequately protects the public interest. There's no more important role for legislation to take as far as this issue is concerned. How we protect our water is defined in legislation, and it's defined in regulation. So the concern simply arises when we see some of those mechanisms being eliminated.

In this case, we eliminate the role of the public — the individual citizen. While this is not in and of itself an admission or a resignation to the impossibility of doing anything about protecting water, it simply eliminates one of those mechanisms that was used as a last resort, because the community was very concerned and remains very concerned.

The public will that was expressed in the summer was clear. They knew — we all knew — that the success or failure of this particular mechanism would result in the issue being brought to the attention of government. We recognized that forcing a particular industrial activity in our watershed to be suspended would garner the appropriate attention to the issue, the issue being how capable we are as a community and, in fact, as a society to ensure that protections exist for our water. Nothing really is more important than the protection of our water.

I do imagine that there are citizens in Powell River–Sunshine Coast who anticipated legislative change removing the individual's right to trigger an investigation. There were those — cynical, perhaps myself included — that thought this would be where government would try to close off one of the event avenues that the public has to express their concern about drinking water.

Some of us were also hoping, maybe against hope, that the province would look at the legislation that existed on the books and try to figure out a way we could ensure that our water is protected — to ensure that the legislative framework exists for all occasions, for all eventualities, whether they be climate change or industrial activity or even recreational activity.

We need to be able to have the mandate and the jurisdiction at a local level to protect water sources. Nobody understands that more than those who are reliant on that water.

I could add that hundreds of thousands of British Columbians are guaranteed, in essence, the safety of their water — residents of Victoria, residents of Vancouver — but we folks in the rural areas have to try and find something else on our tool belt that'll do what legislation does to protect the water for Victorians and for Vancouverites.

I think there's a double standard here that needs to be addressed regardless of the success of this bill. There needs to be an effort to ensure that our water is protected and to ensure that the water accessed by rural residents of the province is as safe as the water accessed by our urban friends and relatives.

With that in mind, it's important to realize and recognize the impact of this particular legislative change that's being proposed to the Health Act. We need to recognize that it has a direct impact on our communities. Our communities should be aware and

I leave it up to the public to determine whether or not removing their voice from this particular aspect of drinking water protection is a good choice. I personally think this could have been an issue addressed with a more positive rather than a more negative approach, which is the removal of the individual's right. However, on committee stage I'm sure that certain questions will also be able to be canvassed of the minister.

Really, to recap what happened, the regional district was unable to demonstrate that logging in the Chapman Creek watershed would result in an imminent threat, as required by the Drinking Water Protection Act.

We have to just for a moment, if I could stop for a second, recognize that the Drinking Water Protection Act requires an imminent threat and the demonstration of an imminent threat. I think most people in this chamber would recognize that sometimes imminent is too late. Sometimes we need to be a little bit more proactive to prevent that imminent threat from occurring but to first and foremost ensure that the public has the opportunity to provide input into how that imminent threat is mitigated.

When they failed to demonstrate an imminent threat is when the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association, a group that has a long history of some very excellent work on behalf of the broader community…. It's got a lot of broad support from numerous different sectors in our community. They filed a complaint, essentially.

I'll take my seat. I think the member opposite would like to make an introduction.

D. Jarvis: I apologize to the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast for interrupting his brilliant debate. That's what we're doing here, debating a health act in the committee stage.

I would like to introduce to you approximately 35 or 40 students from Drummondville, Quebec, who are here on exchange with the children from Laura Secord School. Would the people please say bonjour and welcome to British Columbia.

N. Simons: May I also add: c'est dommage que les Canadiens ont perdu mais à la prochaine fois, à l'année prochaine.

N. Simons: Well, I had to express that in French in case there were Canuck fans here. But it is too bad that the Canadiens are out of the playoffs.

As I was saying, my responsibility here in this chamber is to question the acts and the legislation that are being brought by government. Part of doing that is to point out where there maybe are some frailties, for lack of a better word, in the legislation and where perhaps some more attention could be paid, whether through amendment or through…. It may be unnecessary, if we are, in fact, reassured at committee stage that amendments are not required.

I certainly would have liked to see a government that at least speaks to issues of conservation and would see this perhaps as an opportunity to strengthen legislation that protects our drinking water. We need, obviously, to be vigilant. We mustn't let legislation, if it's in fact enacted, prevent us from suggesting better legislation, should that be needed.

What happened on the Sunshine Coast was that the regional district, acting as a local board of health, which is its right under some legislation, held hearings and issued an order. They held four days of hearings and subsequently issued an order restricting the industrial activity — not halting it, not vetoing it but restricting it.

What they considered the potential health hazard — that is, the harvesting of old growth within the watershed…. What they considered problematic was the logging on slopes of greater than 60 percent. Their conclusion was that it did pose a risk. Subsequent to that, the Supreme Court said that the complainants did not in fact make the case adequately.

Unfortunately, this has led the public of British Columbia, at least the public of Powell River–Sunshine Coast, to say: "Well, then, what are we going to do to ensure that our water source is safe? What are we going to do to ensure that a community that's landlocked, from which there is no road to another community…? How are we going to ensure that our water is safe?"

I'm hoping that the minister will be able to reassure and assuage any fears we might have about the protection of water. I don't want to put too heavy a burden on him, but it is his mandate. It is under his authority that the water we rely on in this province is protected.

Amendments to the Health Act might eliminate what they considered a bit of a nuisance, what they might have considered a bit of an impediment to the companies that provide government with so much of their funding. Perhaps other reasons exist beyond that. We'll figure that out, perhaps, at committee stage.

I can't help but think that the reaction to the activities on the Sunshine Coast, or what triggered government's intent to change how we protect our water, how we protect our health, was pretty much prompted by the actions of residents on the Sunshine Coast.

I want to reiterate that first nations and the non–first nations population of the lower Sunshine Coast, new residents and long-time residents alike, have said repeatedly that we need to ensure that our drinking water is protected. I certainly hope that this kind of

protection can be guaranteed somewhere in the act so that individuals whose right has been removed will still be protected by other legislative mechanisms.

Now, when the regional district formed itself, in effect, as a local board of health, it did so under section 37 of the Health Act: "A local board of health is established in each municipality, consisting of the council of the municipality." Elected representatives of the regional district on the Sunshine Coast heard testimony. They heard testimony from a number of witnesses. They are accountable to residents on the Sunshine Coast, and the residents of the Sunshine Coast spoke in clear and eloquent terms.

They said to their government: "We want you to do what you can to prevent hazard to our drinking water and to ensure that the provincial government is aware that we find the current protections inadequate." So we have one reaction, which is to eliminate that sort of thorn in government's side. I'm hoping that we can perhaps see an opportunity to see government come in with legislation that will protect our water.

We have a number of concerns. The concerns that I wanted to raise and specifically address today are specific to the concerns of Powell River–Sunshine Coast. They're concerned about other aspects of the legislation as well. Other speakers will obviously have the opportunity to address it. Whether it's a concern or the identification of an issue that's going to be canvassed further is really up to them.

This was an issue that dominated the public discourse. It dominated in conversation and was a top of mind issue. On the Sunshine Coast, as you all likely know, there is a very strong consciousness about the importance of managing and being stewards of our natural resources, whether they be our wood or our water or our minerals.

The Sunshine Coast has a wonderful mix of industry. That wonderful mix of industry also creates situations where you have a wonderful conflict between interests.

Our role as legislators is to take those conflicts and stickhandle them — slightly better than the Montreal Canadiens did.

We stickhandle those competing interests to ensure that ultimately the public interest is protected. I'm hoping that with this legislation, whatever happens to it in the next stage, we'll be able to fully examine the implications that it has on us and on our drinking water.

With that, Madam Speaker, I either adjourn debate, or I cede my place and allow one of my distinguished colleagues to continue.

R. Fleming: I'm pleased to speak to Bill 23 this afternoon to put some comments on the record about areas of the bill, the Public Health Act, that directly relate to issues, some of which have been quite animated in my constituency, and to some of the areas in this act that give cabinet extraordinary powers.

My colleague from Powell River–Sunshine Coast just talked at some length about drinking water protection in his community as one illustration. Here, too, in the capital region there's an experience, I think, that does touch upon the provisions in this act that I wish to comment on this afternoon.

I appreciate that we are dealing with over a century of legislation that is to be modernized by government at this time. Some of the previous legislation has titles that are not even the topic of polite conversation and that have long left the lexicon of health care and chronic disease management and preventative health care. I appreciate all of that — that these statutes do need to be updated and revisited and that often governments don't get to this kind of business for very legitimate reasons, I think.

Many governments in many sessions of the Legislature have come and gone where the Public Health Act has remained unexamined and not integrated and amalgamated into a bill like this — not this bill, but a bill like this — because other business of the House has more urgency. Sometimes that is very legitimate.

We saw earlier this afternoon that the government intends to have its way and push through many bills that deserve full scrutiny and fulsome debate, and that is unfortunate. That is a product of the inability to manage properly the legislative calendar and to also push through changes in the way that….

R. Fleming: It's very definitely related to changes to the way budget estimates are conducted in this place.

The point I'm making is that for legitimate reasons over many, many years governments have failed to integrate legislation into a new Public Health Act. I think that there's no problem on this side of the House with getting around to that business.

I think: why now? Perhaps Vaughn Palmer got it right when he commented that this is a year when the Liberals were "hungering for material to bulk up their post–Conversation on Health legislative reform package."

Indeed, if the minister or the government want to show progress by claiming a new compendium health act, then I'm absolutely certain that they're going to do that. It will potentially be brought in with closure or displaced by other bills that will be pushed through with the use of closure.

It's interesting that this bill comes after legislation where we debated sustainability. Again, it was a curious point that the minister…. I was going to say "members of the government side," but I don't think any of them spoke to it, although apparently they were proud to add a "sixth principle" to medicare. But it was interesting that the minister's justification for the act seemed to contradict itself on many occasions.

At one point sustainability was sold as having the virtues of its imprecision — that the word was meaningless. "Don't worry. This isn't in any way going to displace other principles of medicare or lead to attacks and reductions in health care services."

Then, on the other hand, it was used alternatingly by the minister to claim that this is actually an innovative, revolutionary change, a new practice that signified the boldness and vision of the government. Never mind that not a single other jurisdiction in Canada agreed with him, is not adding that clause to their….

Deputy Speaker: Member, just a reminder that the topic we are debating is Bill 23, the Public Health Act.

R. Fleming: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think I've made my point that some of the context of Bill 23 is similar to a previous bill that was up for debate, which is a bit hollow.

Let me get back to Bill 23 and some of the aspects of it. I think the segue has proved that the government doesn't have a lot to say and that as Mr. Palmer, indeed, put it: "This is great to bulk up a rather hollow agenda on health care."

I want to examine some of the provisions in the act that I think warrant debate, because this legislation does, indeed, afford cabinet some new powers. I think the area that members on this side of the House are particularly sensitive to and want to examine are the powers over local government, specifically.

It runs contrary, again, to government sentiments and statements on prior occasions about their respect for partnership with local government and for the authority and jurisdiction of local government. I think that is one aspect of this bill that does deserve some illumination.

I think that where other questions can be raised on Bill 23 is around the exclusions — basically, what isn't in this bill. In other words, it's the tendency we see from government legislation that is submitted to this House to leave up most of the details, most of the things that we should be discussing in this place, as matters of regulation for cabinet to enact and decide upon later, behind closed doors, away from full scrutiny and debate in this place, and with no obligation to consult those that are impacted.

Here we see it, to some extent, in Bill 23. This continuing theme that has run through a lot of legislation in the past during the mandate of this government.

I wanted to just speak to one key point that empowers the minister under this legislation to require public health plans that will monitor the health status of the public and factors that influence public health that may deal with communicable disease or health hazards. I don't think anyone would disagree at all with the ability for the provincial government to require that of local government.

Quite the contrary, I think that in terms of the aspects of this legislation that do, indeed, modernize and afford government the ability to do that, it's entirely supportable. I think where it perhaps could be improved upon is around the powers that give the minister sole ability to set the terms of reference for the plan.

Many regional districts in this province are involved intimately with the facilities that form their health care system. They have their own regional planners that compile health care information about their citizenry. They even budget and expend considerable millions of dollars — hundreds of millions of dollars — on the physical capital of the health facilities themselves. Of course, they work with health authorities on all the land use issues related to siting of health care facilities.

It seems to me that there should be some requirement that the minister at the very least involve local government, elected officials and staff, with the production of the terms of reference for public health plans. That, to me, just seems to be something that can only improve the quality, scope and thinking behind the plan — and, of course, the plan itself when it has completed the process.

But that's not in the bill. There is no onus at all on the minister to receive information or have the benefit of participation from those officials. In fact, quite the opposite. It's all about overriding and giving powers to merely order things instead of working in consultation for a stronger public health plan. I think that is a concern. I think it's perhaps the wrong approach.

In some cases, of course, it will make no matter of difference because the provincial government almost exercises sole responsibility for these kinds of things. But in other instances where there's expertise that won't necessarily be consulted, I think it will result in a weaker plan.

Another area of concern in this legislation is where it allows cabinet to override local government zoning bylaws that prohibit certain types of health services — for instance, a needle exchange or a methadone clinic. I want to speak to this for a moment because I can understand the positive motivation, I suppose, of the minister or the government to do this.

They have a responsibility to make sure that communities are respectful and inclusive and, indeed, to deal with what can often be controversial preventative public health services in their community — like a needle exchange, for example — when communities might otherwise be shutting them out.

It shouldn't take a municipal election to change mayors, for example, in a place like Surrey before the government can even have a conversation about some of these kinds of services. I just throw that out as an example — not one that's specific, but just a large municipality in the Lower Mainland. It shouldn't be the whim of political leadership at the local government level, but neither should it be forced through provincially.

I think there are going to be examples where local government zoning bylaws can be used abusively, irresponsibly, but I think there are also examples where local zoning bylaws can be used legitimately. Take the case of needle exchanges. There are a number of cities

in the United States and Canada that have zoning bylaws that merely set out a minimum distance for needle exchanges from schools and from school children by inference.

I think in the case of Boston and Chicago it's something like 200 to 400 metres. I don't want to get the examples wrong, but it is not a huge distance, recognizing that these are urban areas and that often services can be just some blocks from one another, and you're into a new neighbourhood. But there is a minimum. I think in some cases that's legitimate.

There was a real live example of this in the capital region not too long ago, where Vancouver Island Health Authority — I think with good intentions, but without the benefit of consultation — purchased a building where it suggested it intended to put a brand-new, expanded, fairly large operation needle exchange because it was being evicted from the current location, or the service provider was.

In this case it happened to be approximately 50 yards from an elementary school. Needless to say, there was some concern. A lot of the concern arose from the fact that nobody had been consulted at all — that, in fact, details were learned that the real estate transaction was going to close within 48 hours before the principal of that school knew that a new, quite significant regional needle exchange facility was going to be located there.

I think the health authority did the right thing in the end. It listened to the public and has now moved on to look at a different service delivery model in a different location within the capital region for that facility. It is a setback, no doubt, because I think service will be disrupted.

But when it comes to the two important public goals, they shouldn't be thrust upon each other in terms of where we provide public education safely and where we provide important public health services for intravenous drug users. In that case there would have been, I think, a reasonable rationale for local government to have a bylaw setting out a minimum distance.

We have such bylaws for casinos in most municipalities in British Columbia. There is a permitted area for those. They cannot be located within a certain proximity to other types of businesses. Even within the casino complex itself there are restrictions around where alcohol can be served and where gaming can occur.

There are also zoning restrictions on private liquor stores in the city of Vancouver and in the city of Victoria as well, recognizing that there are activities sometimes associated with those kinds of retail activities and the consumption of alcohol sometimes immediately after those kinds of retail activities which do not fit well with certain streetscapes and certain areas and certain other uses of land adjacent to them — such as public education in the example that I'm speaking to. So that's a legitimate kind of bylaw.

This legislation allows the government to simply run roughshod over those kinds of local bylaws, no matter how well-crafted and how well-considered they are, no matter how much public consultation has been done by local government. The province can do that, of course, without any public consultation. It seems to me that in some of those instances, the province ought to be working with the communities that it wants to help, instead of merely holding this over their head.

I do offer this to the government because there is a conundrum that municipalities have in trying to craft bylaws that make their communities better planned and allow the location of things like methadone clinics and needle exchanges where they feel they would work best in their communities. Sometimes a local government bylaw can be counterproductive to what the municipality is trying to do — if there is a controversial pre-existing location, for example, for a methadone clinic where it does not interface well with other types of activities in the immediate surroundings.

If you bring in a bylaw subsequently, of course, what you can actually end up doing is grandfathering that right or that usage into the current locations, the problematic locations. I think most mayors are aware that sometimes they are careful what they wish for through the use of new bylaw legislation.

Again, I say that there are very legitimate uses as well. We don't have in the city of Victoria right now any restrictions on where some of these types of preventative health facilities can be located.

It may be an opportunity in this case for local government to do the right thing, look at the downtown core, look at some areas or some precincts where they have a lot of health services and identify them as the best places to be. You can actually use a bylaw as a positive motive to locate health facilities of this kind rather than look at a bylaw as a punitive way to prohibit them from locating in various locations.

The legislation, in terms of how it addresses banning the use of trans fats in foods prepared in schools, in restaurants and in food service establishments by 2010…. I think that is absolutely laudable. That's a supportable element of this legislation. It's one that other governments have been quick to move towards. I think it's a debate that began and, perhaps unexpectedly, received multiparty support anyway in the last Parliament of Canada and became federally, at least, an expressed goal of the House of Commons. I think that B.C. moving to put specific restrictions and to put a date on it in our province is a good thing.

I think, though, that it does raise an interesting issue for the province in terms of meeting its goals for improving the health of its citizenry. Already you're seeing jurisdictions like New York and other places where there are trans fat bans in restaurants reacting to the worldwide food crisis that we're in the early stages of in terms of rising food prices. No doubt the production of healthier, better foods is something we're all interested in, but they cost more.

Legislation, by putting in restrictions like this, may actually…. I'm speaking specifically to how the regulation impacts schools, where we have meal programs at schools. There could be a real collision of interests here

around trying to move towards and take giant steps towards serving better food, making sure that nutrition for our school students is dramatically better than it is today and more comprehensive. It's already something that is not well budgeted for, not well resourced. Some schools manage it better than others, based on where they are and what kind of supports they might have in place that are voluntary, by and large.

This legislation and where we're heading in terms of food costs is going to be much more difficult for us to collectively aspire to what I think the intent of the legislation is, which is not to eat less or to stress family budgets more but, in fact, to raise nutrition and to bring healthier foods into schools. That's going to be challenged. That's going to require resourcing that I think the Ministry of Health needs to be involved in.

It's not good enough just to say that we're passing legislation, that we're going to change these laws, without taking some responsibility over to how the overall health condition of its citizens is going to be improved collectively. I think those are things that I would certainly like to hear the minister speak about, perhaps on another occasion or when he has the chance to speak later — what kind of strategies he's developing to do that, to raise nutrition levels and reduce the input of harmful substances into our bodies, make us healthier while also making it something that is broadly attainable.

I also want to speak to an aspect of the bill related to food. In this case, though, it's more about environmental safety that this legislation touches on. There is recognition in this bill…. I think it is good that the minister and the government can take action on harmful activities in our environment, in our lived environment that, over time, have been demonstrated to cause adverse, negative impacts on public health, such as chronic disease or even disability amongst sections of the population — anything that interferes with the goals of public health or, to quote the legislation, is "associated with poor health within the population."

I think that's a good thing. It means, one would hope, that government would be willing to finally take action on some environmental contaminants that certainly have demonstrated detrimental effects on public health. I'm speaking specifically about pesticides. There have been a number of municipalities that have moved towards banning cosmetic pesticides and other uses of pesticides in our environment. You know what? They have never had the benefit of coordination or really any active interest at all from this government. That's a shame.

When my friend and colleague the member for Alberni-Qualicum introduced legislation in this place to remove other toxic elements from the environment and a plan to do it that's doable — in this case it was pet-friendly antifreezes, which also have the risk of poisoning small children and have done so on some occasions — again, there was no interest from the government side in bringing about that kind of progressive legislation.

It's interesting. The powers will be here for government to take action on things like pesticides and other public health contaminants, but so far we've seen very little or no political will from the government on very specific, very well demonstrated and documented areas of public health to take that kind of action.

It's unfortunate, because I know in the two incidents that I just mentioned…. One of them is a substance — I've got to get the name right — that I think is called Garlon 4, which is sprayed on railway tracks. There are well-documented negative effects of that. There has been an opportunity for both sides of the House, in the life of this parliament, to cooperate, bring in new legislation to ban and seriously restrict those substances. In both cases government has used its majority to not allow debate or passage of those bills.

I want to talk a little bit about the drinking water elements of this bill. I think the sections that are of concern here, sections 57 and 58 of the bill, take away the ability of ordinary citizens to trigger investigations into health hazards. The examples that third parties that have had a chance to look at this legislation, environmental groups, are using…. What is being lost by the public is, you could call it, a whistle-blower element to public health legislation currently — the ability for ordinary, individual citizens to trigger investigations into health hazards.

My colleague from Powell River spoke at length about the logging activities in his area that threatened the purity of drinking water. I want to speak of an example that occurred in my community about ten years ago when the capital regional district was planning and about to borrow and begin a project to expand the Sooke reservoir for our drinking water system.

It was known that the area that was going to be flooded in the expanded region of the dam had former roadbeds in it. It had a section of railbed that would be underwater. It was known that creosote and other toxins were in that area. There were conflicting engineering reports saying that this was not a threat or that, in fact, it was a very serious threat to leach into the drinking water, and there was no agreement.

I look at this legislation and the way it works. We did achieve resolution in that instance. Those materials that were at risk of being hazardous were eventually, after considerable struggle…. It was really through citizens persuading their politicians in the end and overcoming considerable bureaucratic resistance to taking the proper precautions and removing that material that we were able to do that.

Again, I think it was the threat that these individual citizens banding together could force the chief medical officer or others to order an independent investigation into whether, in fact, there was a risk posed by those materials being within the new drinking water catchment that, in the end, broke the logjam and had the regional water commission overcome its reluctance to do so. It basically pushed the arguments aside from those engineers and scientists who felt that we could take the risk and made the opinions of those who felt that it was poor advice to do so carry the day in that instance.

I think that by losing that whistle-blower element in public health legislation, we're not doing ourselves a favour. We're not helping the cause of vigilance over clean drinking water. What we have here in this province is the envy of many parts of our own country, let alone the world. That cannot have enough protection, and ordinary citizens play a vital role in providing that protection.

I've just given an example of how that happened in the capital region. I worry that in other parts of B.C. the same dynamic could potentially be lost on future occasions, and I think that would be a shame. We would be in this place talking about potential repercussions of that at a later date, which I think could best be avoided.

I appreciate the opportunity to spend some time talking about a couple of elements of this bill that I think could be improved. I hope the Minister of Health was listening and will take it under advisement. Maybe when we get to committee stage of the bill, we can seek to make this legislation work better in the interests of all British Columbians.

S. Simpson: I just want to add a couple of minutes to this debate. We're debating Bill 23, the Public Health Act, and hon. Speaker, as you'll know, what this act does is update a number of statutes to help deal with public health issues and the role and authorities of medical health officers, environmental health officers and others.

There are a number of aspects to this bill that I certainly support. One of the ones that becomes clear right at the outset is the decision around the banning of trans fats in schools — around food facilities in schools and other similar facilities. That's obviously a positive thing. It's something that I'm very supportive of and something that makes good sense.

There also clearly are opportunities here to deal around health hazard complaints, looking at the authority of officials to mobilize resources and take action to protect public health, and requirements around the creation of public health plans. These are generally…. There are a number of significant issues here that are positive. What I want to do is talk about a couple of issues in particular — two issues that relate to the efforts of this bill — and deal with those in my comments.

The first one that I'll deal with does deal with concerns that have been raised around one aspect of the bill, and that relates to the decisions to make changes in the Health Act regarding who can lodge complaints or concerns around health hazards. It's been pointed out by a number of my colleagues that the incident related to the watershed at Chapman Creek…. You'll know, hon. Speaker, that that is a situation where the regional district was not able to deal with these matters through their zoning authority but, in fact, had complaints raised to them by individuals around potential compromising by logging activity, forestry activity, on the watershed.

Individuals raised those concerns. The local citizens were able to use the Health Act to trigger an investigation and a call to halt the logging by the regional district with its health board hat on. As we know, the courts overturned that decision and said that that was outside the authority…. I accept that decision. I think the important thing here was the ability of individual citizens to come forward and lodge those concerns and have them listened to and heard.

I do concern myself that these changes may begin to remove that authority, because under the new law it talks about local medical health officers being required to report to designated persons. The designated persons are not clearly defined. They will be defined by regulation at some future date by cabinet.

That may sort itself out to be all right, but the ability of individual citizens to be able to come forward should be protected. If the bill doesn't do that, then that is a concern I have around this particular piece of legislation.

I want to focus my comments really for a few minutes here on another issue, and the issue relates very much to my constituency. When I look at community-based health, public health, the creation of health plans, the role of health officers, the role that's played in communities…. I look at what happens in my own constituency in Vancouver-Hastings. I look at what happens in relation to people who have significant health issues there, whether it be health issues around addictions or health issues related to poverty.

Those are issues that are very compelling in my constituency. There's a significant population in my constituency that suffers those challenges. It has been pointed out earlier in discussions today in this House.

We know that poverty is a very compelling issue in this province. We have heard now through Statistics Canada that for the fifth year in a row, British Columbia has the highest levels of child poverty in the country. What we also know about that is that children don't get poorer by themselves. Poor kids mean poor families.

When we think about poverty and the relation of that to this work — the relation to the development of the public health plans that are talked about in this bill and how those plans get developed — it then becomes necessary to start to look at and talk about the social determinants of health.

If we're going to use legislation to encourage local governments and other officials to develop those public health plans that deal with issues in communities and if, as the bill does, it provides additional authorities to deal with issues like methadone facilities, needle exchanges and those kind of facilities, all of which are certainly important in the communities where they are provided, I think we also need to look at the broader question around social determinants of health.

What we know is that it's an area in this country…. It's certainly not exclusive to British Columbia, but it's an area across Canada where much more work needs to be done, where we haven't in fact done the kind of work to look at those connections between social conditions, conditions that people find themselves in, and the quality of their health.

There has been, at an international level certainly, research done on this. We know that in some parts of the world — in our Scandinavian countries, among others — there has been a greater amount of work done than has been done in Canada or in British Columbia. The World Health Organization has looked at these issues, and they have identified ten core social determinants that they believe begin to get at the issue. They are issues that they believe need to be dealt with.

Following that work of the World Health Organization, which of course was at a global or a very macro level, York University went on to do some additional work. They synthesized these issues and these formulations down and identified what they deem to be ten key social determinants of health that were particularly relevant to Canadians and to the Canadian experience.

They talked about early life and the provision of services around early life; education, the need to deliver effective education services; employment and working conditions — very important in terms of where income comes from and the conditions that people are required to work under; food security — obviously, the need for people to be able to get at and have available and ready access to sufficient amounts of nutritional food; and health care services generally and the provision of health care services, being available and accessible to citizens.

Housing is a discussion that we have in this House quite often — the need for everybody to have affordable and appropriate housing to meet their needs. When we look at these issues related to housing, the situation that we know is that it's pretty hard to ask somebody who is trying to maybe make changes in their life and to deal with other challenges, whether it be addictions or other challenges…. If they haven't met the needs around housing, it then becomes very challenging to meet their other needs.

That's an important issue, because Bill 23 also relates to housing issues and acknowledges those questions around things like housing. I accept that. I think that's a positive thing, but the challenge here related to that is how in fact we deliver those services.

Income has been identified by York University in their work — income and its distribution and how we ensure there's fair enough distribution of income to all British Columbians.

The social safety net. We talk a lot about the social safety net and making sure the integrity of the social safety net is protected. We certainly need to do that in British Columbia. It is a challenge in this province. The social safety net continues to fray, and it does become important for us to pay additional and extra attention to that in this province.

Social exclusion — a very important issue in terms of how people relate with each other and how people get alienated and get isolated and, when that happens, what it does to their health. We certainly have seen that. There are connections when you look at issues around mental health and social exclusion. There are clear correlations there that are important. I certainly see it in my constituency, where we have significant challenges around mental health and the need to provide services and to develop the kind of public health plans that the minister talks about in Bill 23, to be able to get at those issues and meet those issues for people.

And then unemployment and employment security questions is the tenth one that was identified by York University. What they've said in the work that they've done is that we in fact do need to frame health with serious consideration of the social determinants and how they affect health and what they do to the health of our society generally and certainly to those individuals who are most challenged.

In the work that we've seen done, it suggests that the weight of the evidence indicates that more so than what would tend to be biomedical or lifestyle issues…. We know that there has always been an argument made that biomedical or lifestyle issues are the ones that are most compelling in terms of deciding health. Well, the work that's being done at places like York University around these issues would suggest that maybe the social determinants are a greater and more compelling question in some terms in dealing with some of these health issues.

The weight of the evidence certainly indicates that the social determinants of health have a direct impact on the health of individuals and populations. They are the best predictors of individual and population health — those issues around the social determinants of health. They play a significant role in structuring lifestyle choices — I certainly see that in my constituency — and they interact with each other to produce health outcomes.

If I have a concern about this piece of legislation…. It doesn't begin to address that issue. It would be my view that we've seen a number of bills brought forward by the minister in this session, some of which we've started to deal with and others that will come in the following days.

None of those pieces of legislation, in my view, begin to get at those issues of social determinants of health. It is concerning, and it becomes increasingly concerning when we look at the kind of discussion or the kind of interaction we had today in question period around questions of child poverty.

It does become an issue, because we had a minister, the Minister of Employment and Income Assistance, get up and talk about those people — those people who were somehow just a statistic for him. We all know that that's not the case.

I know that in my constituency it is not about those people. It is about friends and neighbours. I know the member for Vancouver-Burrard would know the folks from his constituency who have huge challenges and who need to have those challenges met. I'm sure that he's very aware and cognizant of the social determinants of health and the important role they play in developing healthy communities.

We need to pay a greater amount of attention to that. We're not paying that attention today in this province. As I've said before, British Columbia is not alone.

I don't think we're paying that attention in provinces across this country. So it's certainly not exclusive to British Columbia, but we have nothing that we can be very proud about in terms of how we deal with those issues. That would be my view.

Now, one of the issues here is: who else deals with these questions? And how do they deal with them? It's interesting that when we look at some of the Scandinavian countries that view their responsibilities around public policy in ways that are sometimes dramatically different from what we do here in British Columbia, they have taken a different approach.

For example, in Finland the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health outlines an array of issues in areas that it believes are what they identify as preventative social policy. They connect those very much to questions of health.

The challenges that they lay out as needing to be met include support for the growth and development of children and young people; the prevention of exclusion where people are left out, where they're isolated, where they're alienated; supports for personal initiative and involvement among the unemployed — a very important challenge, as we need to find ways to engage people who are unemployed, ways to bring them in, ways to create opportunities that they can take advantage of; and promotion of basic security and housing.

Housing, as I've said before, is one of the most challenging issues in my constituency. If we're going to deal with the issues that many people have around addictions, around mental health issues, around poverty, around being able to find the opportunities to be able to improve their lives, and to figure out how we support that….

One of the realities we know is that if you don't have a safe, secure place to hang your hat at the end of the day, where you can be comfortable that you have this place to go home to…. It becomes very, very hard to get your head around all the other issues that you have to address when you don't have that housing security.

Without that housing security, I think we will be hard pressed to have much success at all in meeting the challenges of creating opportunities for people to make changes in their lives that will improve their lives and improve their circumstances.

This is something, as I said, that the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Finnish government certainly seem to have identified over time. They have identified a number of issues that they believe are critical around improving the efficiency and cooperation among primary, specialized and occupational health care organizations. They've talked about improved coordination, about providing support for the general functional capacity of people at differing ages.

This is important. This is something that's probably not easy to do and requires some thought — more thought, I believe, than we have necessarily put into it, and maybe the kind of thought that goes into public health plans as are referenced in Bill 23, to begin to look at how we deal with those challenges.

How do we promote lifelong learning? That's something that the Finnish government has looked at. Promoting well-being at work. What do we do to promote well-being at work? We need to think about those things. We need to ask ourselves questions about how we deal with those issues.

I'm sure, and I would think…. I know that we had some steelworkers in the crowd today, and we've had the discussions about mill closures in those communities. You have to ask yourself: when a Harmac closes, when a mill in Mackenzie closes, when those kind of things happen, what does that do over the next period of time to the social determinants of health in those communities?

Hon. G. Abbott: I know we've been patiently listening all day to people stretching the bounds of second reading debate. I think the member has crossed it here and should bring his comments into line with second reading debate on Bill 23.

Deputy Speaker: Member, and with the caution that you are debating Bill 23, Public Health Act.

S. Simpson: Absolutely, and I would suggest, to the minister's comments, that all of the comments I've made are relevant to Bill 23. They're relevant to public health. They're relevant to public health plans. Maybe the challenge the minister has here is that he doesn't understand what the role of his bill should be himself. Possibly if the minister had a little better grasp of the responsibilities he has as minister, we'd all be better off in British Columbia, but that may be asking a bit too much.

S. Simpson: I'm sure that the Minister of Small Business may get promoted to the Chair one day, and when he does, he can make comments about the Chair's responsibility.

Getting back to my comments about Bill 23. As I was pointing out before the minister rose on his, I believe, erroneous point of order, we do need to think about those issues as public health plans will require under this bill. We do need to think about things like gender equality. We need to think about social protections and how we provide incentives. The bill does talk about public health plans. That's a key piece of this, and that's what it talks about.

We need to talk, as we've discussed before in this House and earlier today, about how we deal with reducing welfare gaps and how we deal with ensuring that people have enough income.

Other issues that they've found in Finland, as I've talked about, in terms of how they've developed public health and health plans, are to deal with issues like the

promotion of multiculturalism. That is a health issue. I'm not sure the minister sees it that way, but it is a health issue.

I know, talking to people in my local community — local health officers, people who do work around public health in Vancouver — that they would tell you that multiculturalism is a health issue and something that they will deal with in the development of health plans. There's no doubt about that.

Controlling substance abuse. We know that in this bill, the bill has talked about the provision of services for that, whether it be around methadone facilities or other facilities and the need to provide extra tools to allow the government to ensure that those facilities can get built. Understandable. I think that the government ultimately does need to ensure that those facilities can get built. I support that.

It goes on also to talk about the need, really, for active participation in policy-making and that that becomes an important factor as well. All of these are critical. I want to talk about that active participation and a concern in regard to the bill, Bill 23.

Bill 23 talks about health plans. I think that's positive. I think we need to develop those health plans. If I have a concern as it relates to that, it really is the need, I believe, in the legislation to provide much greater clarity in terms of how that engagement with the public works.

When public health plans are being developed, when you're trying to engage community…. Particularly, these are plans that will in no way be exclusive, I'm sure, to just public officials. They will require non-profits to be involved in that, particularly if the social-determinants question becomes part of the compelling argument.

I know, in a place like Vancouver, the people who would engage this discussion. They would certainly come to the table and say that the social determinants of health — whether it be around dealing with poverty, housing issues or exclusion — would all be critical issues that they would want to be part of that plan. They'd want to be engaged in that discussion, and they would make a valuable contribution to that discussion.

I would hope that, in fact, we will get some sense — that may come in committee stage — a better sense of what the minister envisions in terms of how that consultation should unfold in order to develop those public health plans. The bill is a little bit lacking in terms of telling us how that will all occur.

The bill, generally, is certainly a supportable bill. It's like most things. Nothing is perfect; I don't expect perfection. I certainly don't expect perfection from this government. What we do have here, though, is a situation where the bill deserves support, but there are some key questions here.

I would hope that we'll find the opportunity in committee stage, when we get to discussing some of these issues and these clauses, to take that discussion to talk about how the government does or does not value the notion of the social determinants of health, how it does feel about those questions in relation to the whole array of issues that I believe that we know need to be components of any public health plan that's going to move forward successfully.

The other thing, just coming back to a comment I'd made earlier around…. This was in relation to the question of health hazards and who, in fact, has the right to initiate those kinds of concerns or complaints. We are seeing changes in this piece of legislation that remove the public and individuals from that discussion in some ways. I think that is a misguided thing for the government to do.

I would hope there will be some consideration of that and some consideration of changing those clauses to ensure that, in fact, the public and individual British Columbians continue to have a role in their communities to raise these issues around health hazards and to expect to have their concerns addressed.

With those comments, I will take my place. I'm sure that there are others who will be happy to join the debate.

B. Ralston: I want to rise and join the debate and offer some brief comments on this particular bill. The opposition broadly supports this bill. It amalgamates several rather antiquated statutes and consolidates them into one new Public Health Act, and it does add some additional powers for public health officers.

Certainly, it gives the opportunity for the Minister of Health to set terms of reference for public health plans and to set out — in a specified area or for a certain institution — goals, directions and the outcome of the plan, and it sets some measurement standards. All of that is worthy of support.

I suppose the concern would be that while this bill offers a broad policy frame in which to promulgate public health plans, the issue of funding then becomes more apparent. It's one thing to create a plan, and it's another to make it a reality by funding.

It is unfortunate in some respects that this bill is viewed as an adjunct to the health bills that the government is bringing forward, because public health is exceptionally important — public health in its broadest sense. As my colleague from Vancouver-Hastings has spoken to just moments ago, the social determinants of health are often more important than hospital care, particularly for acute disease, than many other factors in terms of increasing the longevity and health of the whole of the population.

Indeed, the sanitation advances in Europe — safe water and the disposal of human waste from cities — probably saved more lives than many other individual health measures that have been taken by people over the centuries. Certainly public health measures are very important, and the determinants of health are more important.

Indeed, looking at one commentator from York University, Dennis Raphael, he said: "As one example, adverse socioeconomic circumstances during childhood are repeatedly found to be more potent predictors of the incidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes than later-life circumstances and lifestyle behaviours."

While ActNow and programs like that, which often encourage lifestyle changes or quitting smoking, are not to be dismissed, the social determinants of health, particularly during the childhood years, are powerful predictors of the future health of individual citizens and, indeed, the broad health of the whole population.

That's why things such as income equality, which the Premier's Progress Board has pointed out, the persistence of long-term poverty…. In the Premier's Progress Board's most recent report in 2007 they identified monitoring and reducing the incidence of poverty as an important social goal. It's not clear just how that is reflected here in this bill or in the social determinants of health or whether there's that kind of understanding from the Ministry of Health in that respect.

Certainly there is reason for concern, given the recent Census Canada release, which shows that median wages in British Columbia fell some 11.3 percent since 1980, the biggest drop in Canada. The median earnings for individuals between 2000 and 2005 fell 3.4 percent. So the structure of income in British Columbia is becoming less equal, not more equal. That has consequences, if you look at all the literature about the social determinants of health, particularly for the health of children in the early years being particularly important in determining health in later life.

Those statistics from Census Canada…. I appreciate that the Minister of Employment and Income Assistance, as he so often does with any considered academic study, blithely dismissed it. But I think serious, thinking people and the population as a whole are troubled by those kinds of figures. They also confirm, I think, what people intuitively feel — that they're basically treading water for the most part and that a growing part of the population is seeing their income decline.

That has consequences for public health. It's perhaps beyond the ambit of this particular bill, so I won't dwell on it, but certainly public health does have that kind of significance in the array of policy instruments that are available to a government and available to a Minister of Health.

The other comment that I want to make briefly…. Sometimes these things are not seen as related, but whether it's inequality of income, whether it's job security and working conditions or whether it's housing and food security, all of these issues have a direct bearing on the social determinants of health. Where individuals find themselves in circumstances where they do not have adequate housing, the health consequences have become evident over a longer period of time.

One would hope that in these public health plans that the minister…. Should this bill pass, and there's every reason to think that it will, I would encourage the minister in developing these public health plans to look at those components — to look at the median income within the entity or geographic region that's being described, to look at the provision of adequate housing.

It seems to me that within the powers that are here…. It sets out in section 3 that the minister "may require public health plans," and in section 4 there is a mechanism for approval of public health plans. There is also a description of the relation of public health plans to other planning processes.

So, for example, given that the social determinants of health are important ingredients of public health, broadly speaking, in devising a public health plan, I would say it's important that the minister in this legislation consider, for example, the ability of the citizens within the described area or institution to be housed adequately. The relationship between these things is well established in the academic literature and the research literature, and I think most people intuitively understand that.

The minister hasn't…. I listened reasonably carefully, although the usual retreat to the 1890s or the 1990s — I think the minister sometimes confuses the two in his own mind — took place, so it was sometimes difficult to follow the flow of the minister's thinking on this particular bill.

Suffice it to say that I didn't hear that theme, that understanding, reflected or a commitment to include those kinds of dimensions, those social determinants of health, in public health plans. If the public health plans are to have any power, any ability to achieve the goals that are set out, these social determinants have to be looked at in devising the plan.

There are numerous other elements. My colleague from Vancouver-Hastings set out the World Health Organization's ten criteria for the determinants of social health. I want to also look at and just very quickly address a couple of others.

Education and care in early life. Again, these are important considerations as social determinants of health and ought to be included in any public health plan that is set forth. I suppose that when we get to committee stage — if we should — in discussing this bill, those are questions that the minister may wish to come prepared to respond to. Just what would be the ingredients of a public health plan? To what degree would they incorporate early childhood education and the availability of safe and affordable child care within the designated region? I know my colleague from North Island may be wanting to address that at some point in this debate as well.

These are simply themes at this stage. I don't want to dwell unnecessarily at any length on these. I just use those points to illustrate that the thinking about public health and public health plans that is set out in this bill is very important in achieving some of the longer-term public health goals.

Since the minister has expressed in his own inimitable way some of the public concerns about the cost of

health care…. In my view, these public health plans may be a way to address the long-term concern about the cost of health care. If the social determinants of health are properly addressed, that may have an impact on the ultimate cost of health services for individuals throughout the course of their life and particularly in later life, which is understandably a proper concern of the Minister of Health.

I want to draw those concerns to the attention of the assembly in this debate, and I would look at one of my colleagues, at this point, to continue the debate.

G. Gentner: I'm not going to take the same amount of time as most of my colleagues have in addressing this issue, probably to the delight of many opposite, but there are some concerns that I do want to talk about and debate. As we discuss this important bill, we take public health and safety for granted. Halfway around the world, in Myanmar, as we speak, there are close to 40,000 people who have lost their lives relative to a cyclone.

I bring it to your attention because years ago I was in Burma, and I did witness some of the poor infrastructure, the sewage on the streets, the lack of proper hygiene, the lack of medicines, the lack of inspectors — everything that we've come to expect and more, relative, of course, to Bill 23.

I remember a time when I had to give up my penicillin for a young chap, thinking that it would help his leg. What happened was that he sold it on the black market to keep his family alive, up and going, and consequently, he lost his leg. I bring that to your attention because those are some of the issues that are faced in the everyday life of the Third World or the developing world. Here today we take a lot of things for granted, I have to tell you, on both sides of the House.

I think it's important that we address this issue of Bill 23. You know, we talk about the need for health plans, and I think we will be supporting that on this side, but the real meat, the real crux of the matter will be during the debate at committee stage — the need to identify the kind of money that's going to make this thing work. If we don't have that opportunity, we may have to address it in estimates. However, time is of the essence, and I don't know if we'll actually get there.

We talk about more of a comprehensive approach on this side. As my colleague from Surrey-Whalley pointed out — the home of one of the greatest Little League baseball teams in North America, subject to defeat often enough by the Little Leaguers from North Delta — it's a component of not just a health plan. The more comprehensive, holistic approach is to look at the income versus that of the housing needs, hospital needs, social needs within the demography that exists throughout the region. This is something that I think is lost in this bill.

Hopefully, again, when we get to committee stage, we'll get some answers. This is a very comprehensive, large bill. Really, the devil is in the details, and I believe that there's going to be, hopefully, enough time to be able to discuss each section of this comprehensive bill.

We heard earlier arguments regarding the drinking water and the impact that development could have on watersheds and the needs for communities to have some independence to be able to address those issues very quickly. Frankly, I don't see, in this bill, how that's going to expedite the need for local communities to get on top of some of those issues, though I'm looking forward to hearing from the minister a response to that.

In my municipality we have something called Watershed Park, and we have probably some of the cleanest water in the world. It's comes from the Mount Baker uplifting — the artesian upwelling, so to speak, water that travels over a hundred miles to get to North Delta. It's there based on a contingency in case of emergencies, and Delta has developed quite an interesting system. You can use the water anytime. It bubbles up out of the ground, and people from all over the Lower Mainland use that wonderful water.

But how we are going to be able to monitor that through this legislation is really relative, in many ways, to the amount of money that's going to be put into the budgets to allow inspectors to not only gauge and look into the quality of the water but to make sure that it can be enforced to those standards.

When we look at another problem with this bill — and hopefully, we'll be able to get some answers from the minister — when we look at the whole gamut of health care in general in this province, there seems to be a lack of universal standards. We see the Fraser Health Authority has a certain standard — a cookie-cutter approach, so to speak, to long-term care homes, let's say — with different standards, perhaps, at VIHA.

We need some sort of equity in the provision of these types of inspectors for health safety. Again, if there's no equity, if the equity is very different throughout the region…. We have different approaches to health care in one municipality versus the housing that has different approaches and how they plan their communities and others. Again, what's lacking is, I believe, a larger comprehensive approach.

You know, local governments are now going to be seen as…. And it was there years ago, but I think there's going to be more impetus for local government to develop public health care plans relative to addiction services, facilities and housing within their own…. I believe it's going to be probably looked at through their own official community plans.

Unfortunately, official community plans, as the minister knows, are basically a guideline. That's all they are. The question is: how will those guidelines be enforced, and how much money will be put into this budget in order that the medical health officers can go and do the job they're supposed to do?

The question, therefore, arises of who will be liable for some of the problems of improperly instilling these health standards by the inspectors. If there's no money available, would the onus now be placed on the local authorities, the local governments?

What also comes into play is…. I want to talk briefly about my community here and some of the

examples that I see where this legislation could be implemented or won't be implemented.

We talked earlier, a few sessions ago, about the whole view about presumption — presumption in the workplace, who was responsible…. Who is responsible, for example, for the arbitrary decision-making on overhead power lines and how they can affect people's health? Will that be part of some of the need of these health plans and the need for a health inspector or officer to develop? It's quite wide-sweeping here. The question, again, is: how far are we going to go with this type of legislation?

When we talk about the responsibilities of local government…. It will be up to a local government, when it becomes aware of a health hazard or a health impediment, with this jurisdiction, to take action required by the regulation or section 120 and report the health hazard or health impediment to the health officer. The question is: what will the health officer do with that complaint? If there's, again, no money available, will it default onto the municipality to deal with that issue?

Of course, the other issue is: what is an impediment? There's a difference in many ways between what is a health hazard and a health risk versus what could be seen as a health impediment. A health impediment could mean a whole list of things. These are issues that we certainly will want to be addressed.

A local government must designate one of its members or an officer or employee of the local government as a local government liaison for the purposes of this section. Well, that is a huge cost that now could be placed on municipalities. For large municipalities, it may not be seen as too prohibitive, but for smaller municipalities, this is something that has to be considered.

The question, again, during the process would be: What is the off-load here? Is there any downloading on the municipalities? Are we seeing more download on the authority of health care plans, shifting more to the local government? What responsibility will the government take in ensuring that there's some proper type of liaison?

Under subsection 83(3), a local government may "(a) request a medical health officer to issue an order, under this Act, in respect of a health hazard." The question is: How is that going to occur? What is the process?

That is going to have to be questioned. What is the review process? If the health officer refuses to issue the order or to issue the order as requested for the local government, they can now request the provincial health officer to review a decision of the medical health officer. What is the time frame here? How long will that take? Will we get proper closure on this? Is there a proper appeal process?

These are issues that, hopefully, we will be able to deal with in the proper time allotted, which we are hopeful will be given the opposition — our due time at the committee stage.

Now, I want to go back quickly to "Duties respecting health impediments": "This section applies to a person who…engages in an activity, prescribed for the purposes of this section as a condition, a thing or an activity that causes or is associated with a health impediment." So what is a health impediment under the act?

This is something that…. I'm hopeful that we will be able to fetter this one out, because in my community, previously, I used to sit as a city councillor. One of the biggest problems we had, particularly with…. We're a family-based community and the issue…. I know that some of the issues going to be talked about here are addiction and issues particularly relative to proper clinics. But what is happening in my community is this ongoing increase of street drugs — crack, freebasing cocaine.

We're seeing kids…. You can ask some of the grade 5-year-olds where you can find some of the paraphernalia. They can tell you at any time what store you can go to. I can tell you there is a smoke shop not too far from where I live that is there to sell tobacco, but it's also known as a head shop. It sells such things as stash cans. They resemble pop cans, but they're there to hide substances. They sell small glass vials, pipes for crack. They provide all the infrastructure for cooking and preparing drugs for injection; felt-tipped markers with internal drug pipes; acrylic grinders; scales for weighing drugs; pipes that are used for inhaling crack cocaine; pipes that are made out of wood, glass, metal, synthetic, and they also come in many shapes and sizes.

Why I'm raising it…. Is this not an impediment to your health? So will an inspector be granted the authority of going into the smoke shops and saying: "In the best interests of our youth, we are going to shut this down"? Because I can tell you…. You know, I come from a culture, years ago in the 70s, where you could go to Gastown and buy what were called back then "bongs" and "hookahs," but we're seeing a very, very different type of street paraphernalia.

Would this legislation give the authority to the health inspector to shut down stores that sell drug paraphernalia? Many civil libertarians will say: "Well, that's a useless attempt. It's not going to work because they're still going to find it on the streets."

Nevertheless, it's a very frustrating thing for municipal government to try and shut these places down. They have a business licence. They're legitimate, and of course, the operator, the retailer will say: "I have a right to sell these pipes, because they could be used for tobacco."

But I raise it in the interests that maybe this is a mechanism for local government to say to the ministry: "This is a health hazard. This is a health hazard to our children." Perhaps through this type of procedure we could not have to wait for proper rezoning of these types of smoke shops selling these hazardous types of crack pipes, their paraphernalia. They're waiting for a local government. They cannot enforce that law. Maybe this is the way in which it can be done.

I bring your attention to it because it's a very major issue for me and my community, in the suburban parts of British Columbia. They're things that we seem not to address in this House.

I have to share with you another example. We could have a problem here regarding methadone clinics, etc. This specifically can look at the local government and the sharing that has to be done by one municipality versus the other. One municipality may take it upon itself to open a methadone clinic in the interests of helping out the drug addict.

In many cases it's warranted. There's no question there. But when you have a municipality on one side of the border that goes ahead and becomes very progressive in that type of administration of health, as opposed to across the other side of the street, where the municipality is in denial, you'll see that demographic change.

I can tell you that in my municipality…. Somehow we were guilty in Delta. I cite the instance where the city of Surrey shut down a methadone clinic, and suddenly a new one popped up in North Delta. Consequently, there was a huge outcry from residents in North Delta, suggesting: "Why should we take that risk? Why should we take that so-called social problem?"

Consequently, what happened was that there was a new incidence of B and Es happening in that particular area. There may have been a relationship or no relationship at all. I bring that to your attention because there's a larger issue here regarding just simply the enforcement and creating new environmental health officers, health officers to go in and deal with these health impediments. This is a larger social issue.

We have to be inclusive not only of the neighbourhood in which we're serving. This has to be each municipality and the regional context, so each municipality knows that if there is a crack house across the street versus one that isn't or if there's a store that's selling crack paraphernalia to kids versus another municipality that isn't…. There's going to have to be some liaison and coercion between all authorities — not just the Ministry of Health and not just one local government but all local governments. They've got to sit down and put together a regional plan that addresses health plans, that affects a whole region.

After all, where I live in Delta, I'm part of the Surrey Memorial Hospital catchment area. I live in Delta, but we recognize Surrey Hospital as our interest. We're part of that. So these health plans have got to be far more comprehensive, and they have to be inclusive, I believe, of all people.

There should be proper public hearings on how we derive them. The consultation process should be open, transparent, and at all times there has to be a process whereby people have an ability to appeal situations that come forward.

In closing, before I leave the topic to another colleague of mine, we're going beyond just a matter of putting the relationship, the onus, onto municipalities. We're going beyond that. It's more than just a zoning issue now. This is an issue that has got to be comprehensive, that deals with all municipalities in a comprehensive manner.

Finally, I have to talk briefly about…. We talk about third-party opponents to the bill. It's been reported now. I have to share with you that there have been examples where…. For example, the Northern Health Authority banned lemon cream and pumpkin pies for sale at a fundraiser. Now, it may seem like something that…. Bake sales may be a thing of the past.

We seem to be getting a little paranoid sometimes in what we do with our food. I can attest to the fact that my granny…. When I made cookies when I was a youngster, I ate the cookie dough and licked the bowl. If we keep going along with these standards….

There were good relationships with my grandmother, and that's how we developed them with the children. But we're losing something else in this world. I know it's needed. I know we're getting to more and more litigation in health care costs and the need to address these things, but we're losing the human aspect sometimes as we think we're going forward.

I just flag that for the members in the House. With that, I certainly will give the chair to my worthy colleague to the left.

J. Kwan: I have to first start by thanking my colleague from Delta, because he referenced me as the colleague to his left. I've got to tell you that coming from East Van, that's always a compliment.

Okay, I'm going to focus now. It gives me great pleasure to enter into debate on Bill 23, the Public Health Act. This bill is important to my riding in a number of ways. Of course, in the way in which the bill has been put out, it does address some of the old and antiquated provisions of the Health Act, the Public Health Act, the Public Toilet Act and the Venereal Disease Act. Having said that, the plan here is to allow for the health authorities, the medical health officers, to establish health care plans, if you will, in our communities.

Let me just outline some of the issues in my riding which are in critical need of attention and action from levels of government. I note that one of the key issues that centres around our health would be issues around the social determinants of health.

Little surprise, I think, for people in this House that time and again, when reports and studies come out that talk about social determinants of health in each of the communities and which sort of rank where things are at, we always find that my riding and the people in my riding rank worse, far worse, in comparison to the average, whether it's a provincial average or the national average.

What are some of these issues that are considered to determine the social determinants of health? They include things like income inequality, social inclusion and exclusion, employment and job security, working conditions, contribution of the social economy, early childhood care, education, food security and housing.

Being in a riding where a lot of my residents are very low-income, are very marginalized and are basically living on a day-to-day basis, on a survival level almost…. There are people who face many traumas in their lives, childhood traumas, abuses. The history that comes with their experiences really tells you that there are significant reasons why the constituents in my riding are struggling as much as they are.

When we talk about income inequality, we have a lot of people in the riding who are underemployed or unemployed, if you will. Many of them struggle with mental health challenges. Many of them struggle with addiction issues, and some of them actually struggle with what we call multiple-diagnosed. That is a whole range of health challenges and issues that they face, and that puts them at a far disadvantage in terms of income equality.

That's one piece, but there's also another segment in my community. In Vancouver–Mount Pleasant we boast about having some of the most diverse communities in British Columbia. At one point we were reported to have some 76 different languages in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. That's quite significant — 76 languages.

Imagine all the different places from which people come. Immigrants from all over the world arrive in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and make that neighbourhood their home. Why? Because we're welcoming, because we support each other and because we're very tolerant of each other. We respect each other's different point of view and different approaches and different cultures, and so on.

The latest census actually shows that the immigrant community, in fact, is falling way behind in terms of their earning capacity. In fact, it's worse than it was in the last census that came out.

The immigrant community is constantly struggling to make ends meet, not necessarily because they don't bring skill sets to British Columbia, but for some people, it is because they can't access the workforce or the profession for which they have been trained. They are faced with problems in the credentialing process, in the recognition process, and they're then forced outside of the profession that they've been trained for, making minimum wages and sometimes even worse.

On a survival basis, some immigrant families come, and they're hugely abused. I think that's not too strong a word to say — that they're abused by the employers with all sorts of violations of the labour standards act and so on. Some people may say: "Well, it's their choice. They don't have to take that job."

I'll tell you that having grown up in a family where in fact my mother worked as a farmworker for $10 a day and, at that time, supported a family of eight, it was a big deal. She had to do that — take that job and leave the house around four or five o'clock in the morning and not come home until nine, ten o'clock at night in order to support the family, because we needed it. We needed some form of income in order to put a roof over our heads and to put some sort of food on the table. It would never occur to her to reject that job because it's an abuse of her rights as an employee and in all sorts of ways. They're forced to engage in that workforce.

There are many people who now continue to struggle in that way. I'm not a unique family. My background is not unique, in that sense, from a lot of the immigrant families. This still continues, and it places them automatically at a disadvantage in terms of the evaluation of social determinants of health.

Social inclusion and exclusion is another category by which one evaluates one's health status. Again, in the community where you have a lot of people who are marginalized, social exclusion is the norm of the day. That really is the reality of many people who are faced with language barriers, who face issues around gender recognition and issues around age, struggle around age and age discrimination, and so on.

People are constantly trying to be recognized in some way, to be included in some way. If you're a person who is faced with an addiction problem or a mental health problem, you're doubly excluded in our society. That is the norm of the day which many of the constituents in my riding face.

Employment and job security. I've touched on that, and it's related to the whole issue around income inequality. For a lot of people, again, employment and job security sometimes is not a right where it should have been a right for people. For a lot of constituents in my community, it's actually more of a privilege, and that's the reality that I see going on, particularly in the downtown east side.

Working conditions are another aspect, and I mentioned earlier about my own family's background and history related to that. If you are desperate and if you really need the employment, you will sacrifice working conditions in order to make a buck, in order to survive. In fact, some immigrant folks, some members of the community, are working under the table, being completely mistreated. They face a variety of different dilemmas that have forced them into that position. There's very little recourse to assist them in any way, shape or form.

The issue around early childhood care. I'll never forget this. I met a constituent of mine who suffers from a variety of challenges, and he told me his childhood story. It just takes your breath away when you hear this and when you know that it goes on. He grew up in a family with a single mom who's a sex trade worker. In fact, he remembers being sort of put in a crib when he was a toddler while the mother did her work, as this was going on. That's how he grew up in his family. Some of the issues which he faced and continues to face today relate back to his history and the circumstances in which he grew up.

What is early childhood care for a constituent in that instance? In my riding there are a whole lot of questions around the lack of early childhood care. For some families, affordability is not an issue. They could actually afford to pay. The problem for them is that they can't access a space.

I just talked to a constituent of mine not so long ago who is a professional — an accountant, I believe, if memory serves me correctly — and she has been waiting almost three years for a child care spot. She has a drop-dead date coming up this summer in order to get access to child care. If she doesn't, she will not be able to get back to her employment, and that is a problem. She's got two children. It's an ongoing stress factor for her to try to figure out how to provide for her children and to ensure, when she gets into the workforce, that there are appropriate child care provisions for her children. And that's just one story.

I was out in Richmond not so long ago during a break week, I think, from this Legislature, or a Friday or something, and guess what. In front of a community centre, when I arrived, there were about 20 parents, I'd say, in the lineup. Some of them had been camping out in a tent since Monday in the hope that they would get a spot for their child in early childhood care. There were only five spots available, by the way, as the family members waited. There were only five spots available, and only two of them were permanent and full-time. The rest of them were part-time spots.

These members of the community, these parents, slept in a tent, one for as many as five nights, in the hope of getting a spot. By the time you got to the third person in the lineup, all that she was able to attain was to get on the wait-list for a spot. The rest of the people were out of luck. They were not going to secure a spot, and all they could hope for was to get on the wait-list.

It is astounding, when we think about it as a component piece to the social determinants of health, which impacts, ultimately, our well-being and our health care system and delivery of our health care plan, and so on. When you have a situation like that, it really does raise the question: why hasn't the government to date brought forward a comprehensive child care plan, a universal child care plan, that would meet the needs of British Columbians — for the children's health, for the family's health and for the economy of British Columbia?

It's no longer just the parents who are saying this. Business people from all industries and all sectors are coming forward to say that they need this plan in place and that it is important in all the areas I've outlined — socially, economically and in our health development.

On the issue around education. Again, in my community many people have a tough time accessing education. Especially at the time when you think about education, your ability to pay actually matters in whether or not you can get access to higher education. It becomes a problem for those families who are trying to make ends meet, who have children that they may not be able to afford to send to post-secondary education.

At a time when particularly the immigrant community, people with disabilities, with challenges want to get the upgrades to get into a profession so that they can get into better employment opportunities, the government is in the midst of actually cutting some of these programs.

At Vancouver Community College ESL programs are being reduced. Vocational programs for people with disabilities are being cut. As we debate this matter in the House, the government is engaged in actively not funding these programs. How can we sort of look at these matters and see how we can advance people's opportunities for better health outcomes?

Hon. G. Abbott: I've been waiting patiently for the member to touch on Bill 23 in her second reading remarks. I've waited about 15 minutes now, and I wonder if she might be getting close to discussing the bill at some point soon.

J. Kwan: Well, if the minister has a point of order to make, he's welcome to make it. The whole point is that if the minister actually paid attention to his bill, which just happens to be called the Public Health Act…. When we talk about health, we're looking at issues around the determinants of health and what some of those component pieces are that impact it.

If the government and the minister are serious about wanting to bring forth health plans that would address health outcomes, then they may actually consider some of these items that I've just talked about. Instead, the minister just gets up and says it's not relevant. That goes to exactly the point of why this government doesn't get it. They don't get it.

They don't get that those component pieces are crucial to a proper, comprehensive health plan. People might think it's funny, but when you don't have the income to put food on the table, to be able to eat healthfully, it's not a laughing matter. There are people who are hungry in the community, who have to eat and who resort to eating food that I bet you members in this House would not even contemplate that they would put on the dinner table or a lunch table. Yet that is the diet of many of the members in my community on a day-in, day-out basis.

Do you ever wonder why certain communities actually have a higher rate of diseases and illnesses? Do you ever wonder? I wonder if the Health Minister ever sat down and wondered: how come the aboriginal community has outcomes that are not so great? Maybe if the minister reflected on that and tied those issues into a health care initiative, the minister might actually be able to figure it out and join the dots and be able to come forward with a health care plan that addresses the core issue that will make a difference for the people in our community.

Food security is absolutely crucial to our health and our health outcomes. If you're marginalized, you don't have food security, and that is the point. Those are the realities for many people in my riding. They do not come from a place where everything is handed to them on a silver platter. They work their butts off on a day-in and day-out basis just to survive, and that is an issue around a health plan.

Related to that is the issue around housing. How do you expect a person to actually live healthily when you don't even have shelter, when you don't have access to

safe and secure housing, when the homelessness rate has more than doubled in the province of British Columbia under this government's watch?

I walk down in my community, and I don't think I've seen so many people who are homeless today than when I first started being an advocate in the downtown east side community in the early 1990s. It is worse today than it was when I first entered into this field wanting to advocate on behalf of people who deserve much better, who deserve some assistance and not judgment from people and from government members, who deserve some supports for them to actually have a better quality of life and who are not getting it. In fact, they're getting worse today than they were back in the early 1990s.

The minister says: "But how is that relevant to your health?" Well, it only just happens to be that a number of reports have come out to talk about the relevance of these factors to your health and your health outcomes. If you don't consider these matters, you have no hope of devising a health care plan that is comprehensive and that would tackle these issues for British Columbians.

Maybe the government just simply chooses to ignore that. Because it's easier, isn't it? It doesn't impact them specifically, but it's easier to ignore this segment of the population. And maybe it's easy to ignore them. Why are their voices often silenced? Because they don't have an avenue to bring their concerns forward and because they're simply just trying to survive on a day-by-day basis.

I'd like to point out the issues around a health plan. I wonder if the minister would consider, for example, the issues around bedbugs, a component piece that needs to be part of a health plan for people. If you come to my community, the bedbug situation is unbelievable. It is rampant. Imagine this. Every night that you go to lie down just to get a tiny bit of rest, you're attacked by hundreds of little bugs, attacking your body.

Is that relevant, do you think, to a health plan? And do you think the government is going to incorporate a bedbug strategy into this plan and require it to be dealt with, with solutions for people whose health is under attack because of those living conditions?

And what about this, on the issue around poverty generally? We talked about that. StatsCan just came out with a report that says we have the worst child poverty in the country yet again. Again we have the worst child poverty in the country. Those are children who are not getting access to healthy foods, children who are not getting access to appropriate housing, children who are not getting the access to proper support. Do you think that the government will actually put forward a health care plan that would tackle the issue of poverty for people?

It's been shown time and time again that if the government actually invests upfront in addressing these issues like poverty, food security and housing, the government would actually save money in the long term. Why is that? Because those individuals would not have to be in a crisis situation and ultimately use more of the health care system in the acute care beds in the hospitals, in the judicial system, and so on. You can actually save money by doing some of this preventative work as it relates to our health outcomes.

Maybe the government will even consider putting this in as part of its health plan. I urge the government to do so, because it is intrinsically linked — these issues. For the government and this minister to deny that…. He's willingly choosing to ignore the factors that impact our health outcomes and not doing his job to ensure that British Columbians get the appropriate health plans that are necessary.

I want to raise this issue as well. It's a raging issue in my community at the moment. That is the issue around the supervised injection site. There's been a lot of talk about the supervised injection site. This site, in my opinion, ought to be recognized as a medical health facility, because that's what it is. It actually provides a medical means for people who are faced with addictions, and it achieves the goals of reducing overdose deaths, the spread of diseases, and so on.

All of those outcomes, I would assume, are something that one would want to achieve under this bill and under these health plans that would get developed.

My question is: will the minister be prepared to actually put forward a recognition by legislation of Insite as a medical health facility so that we actually protect this service in our community that is actually producing positive outcomes?

Over 20 independent and peer-reviewed studies have already come forward to identify the successes of Insite to date. Yet we're still looking at it as possibly a criminal justice issue from the federal government. Isn't it time for us to actually take that out of the federal government's hands and put it in the hands of the province, who will then recognize it as a medical health facility? Isn't it time for us to do that and move on and not let politics trump science? Shouldn't we just move on in providing these health care facilities to British Columbians?

I would also say that aboriginal health is very dismal in my community. I think the member for Vancouver-Hastings and I share between the two of us the largest off-reserve aboriginal communities. From a health perspective, an educational perspective and life expectancy perspective, the outcomes rank with some of the worst numbers. I wonder whether or not the health plans that are going to be developed under this bill would actually address some of their concerns and their issues.

HIV/AIDS is among one of their concerns, and aboriginal housing — a lack thereof, actually. An aboriginal housing strategy has been called for by the aboriginal community for a long, long time. I ask this question: where is it? Where is that plan? Will the government incorporate that plan into the health plans that are being talked about in Bill 23, the Public Health Act?

I have to say that one of the items, although I say this with reservations, is that the government lauds the goal in the bill that they will address issues around mental health and addiction services in community plans. My question, then, is: where would the re-

sources come from to ensure that these facilities are in place, that these programs are in place?

Will the government attach to it the budget necessary in order to realize the goals that have been set out by the community or in these community health plans? Without it, this is just another bill that doesn't mean anything and that is not going to realize the goals that it has set out to do.

Along with that, the government has got to link all those issues that I talk about into part of the health plan. If you don't link those things, then again it's an ad hoc approach to addressing the issue, and it's not going to suffice. If I had to venture a guess, I would just simply say that if the government ignores housing, food security, education, early childhood care, contribution of the social economy, working conditions, employment and job security, social inclusion and exclusion and income inequality as component pieces to a health plan, then we're doomed to fail.

We're doomed to continue in the process of an inadequate plan, of an ad hoc, makeshift plan. We're doomed to continue in a situation where study upon study has come forward that says: "You can either link these items together — do the work now; do the preventive work that's required and put forward a comprehensive strategy — or you can pay later. You can pay later into other areas that will cost taxpayers ultimately more money."

One of the things I wonder about and I note is that the bill does not allow for citizens to trigger investigations into health hazards. I wonder why not. Some of the people in the community, on the ground, would know best what some of those health hazards are.

I mention the issue around bed bugs, for example, which are rampant in my community at the moment. Would the community be allowed to raise those issues, and therefore, the health authorities would be compelled to come forward with a community plan to address that in a way that actually provides for solutions with the problem that people are faced with?

I think these are important questions that need to be put. I think it is important for the government to consider in the context of this bill that as these community health plans are coming forward, they don't do this in isolation with one narrow scope, but rather with a wide scope of comprehension to it that takes in the issues that ultimately matter in our health, and that the social determinants of health need to be considered as a component piece.

In fact, it has to be part of the development of a community health plan, because without it, I would predict that it would not be successful, that it would be ad hoc and that we would be back to the same old approach of piecemeal health care delivery. I don't think that's what British Columbians are looking for.

J. Horgan: It's a pleasure to rise in my place and speak to Bill 23, the Public Health Act.

I've listened to the debate this afternoon. Certainly, we will be supporting this bill that improves and updates the Health Act in significant ways. But certainly at committee stage, the devil's in the details. This is a 55-page bill. There's a dense amount of text in here covering a wide range of subjects.

What struck me — and the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant just raised it — is the ability for individuals or communities to trigger investigations. That may well be compromised by this bill. So when we get to committee stage, certainly the Health critic, the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, will be probing into this issue, and I will be listening very intently to the minister's responses.

This is a concern in my community particularly. I think the minister also comes from a rural constituency. In my area there are multiple watersheds that residents in my community depend on for potable water. I'm reminded of the Chapman Creek issue on the Sunshine Coast, where the Health Act was used by the regional district to try and curtail what they believed at that time to be inappropriate logging practices that were potentially compromising the health of the community.

If, in fact, these amendments in any way compromise a community or an individual's ability to access the acts to protect health in the rural areas, I'm certain that the minister would want to clarify that. So I'm looking forward to that discussion.

Hon. Speaker, as you'll know, I have spoken many, many times about the west coast of Vancouver Island and those communities that are stretched along the strait of Juan de Fuca — in particular, Jordan River, Otter Point, Shirley and other small communities that are dependent on the fresh water that is in abundance, certainly in the rainy season, in my community.

I'm reminded, as I said, of the Chapman Creek case, which was groundbreaking. Although, I believe, the Supreme Court eventually overturned that ruling, it was a test case. I know that the Attorney remembers it very well and will want to ensure that individuals and regional districts and municipal entities are not compromised in their ability to protect citizens by any amendments that we may inadvertently bring forward into this place.

The other issue that I listened to other members speak about was the notion of public health plans. I know that the current minister, certainly a fellow who would be earnest in this regard, would probably want to ensure those plans were as comprehensive as they could possibly be to ensure that all citizens of British Columbia are protected. But as I listened to other members discussing that element of the act, it struck me that it's almost an open-ended process, when preparing a public health plan.

There are variables that…. You know, the mind wanders, as it often does in this place and you're listening to members speaking on legislation. I was brought to a smile to think of the current Minister of Health contemplating plans for public health up and down the coast, inland and up toward the Peace country. I'm certain that he would have a grand time, envelope in

hand, scribbling on the back, ensuring that public health was protected at every opportunity.

But as our critic and other members have said, we will likely be supporting this bill, certainly in principle, at second reading. But in a dense document like this, the devil is in the detail. Although we have today been visited upon by the guillotine and the Government House Leader restricting our debate in this place on bills that are to come, I'm certain that we'll want to spend a good deal of time at committee stage on Bill 23 to ensure that the public is not compromised in our effort to modernize and update the legislation.

There are a lot of very good, compelling reasons to bring forward these amendments. The member for Vancouver-Kingsway touched upon those. I'm confident that when we get to committee stage, when the minister has the opportunity to explain…. Although I'm reminded of Bill 21, and I know that we don't want to go backwards. We want to go forwards, ever forward. But we certainly did have a long discussion about Bill 21, and it was just a small, small bill relative to what we've got before us today.

So when we get into the detailed stage, I'm confident that the minister will assure me and citizens in my community that if their drinking water is in peril, they can still access the Public Health Act to ensure that that basic fundamental right in British Columbia is protected and it won't be compromised by corporate raiders interested only in levelling watersheds in the interest of their profits so that they can contribute those profits in some modest way to the B.C. Liberal Party.

With that, I'll take my seat and thank the minister very much for listening so intently to my remarks, and I very much look forward to committee stage on Bill 23.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no more speakers, Minister of Health to conclude debate.

Hon. G. Abbott: It's a pleasure to rise and close debate on Bill 23. It is always good to hear from the opposition, to hear the perspective of those whose glass is always half empty and must always be half empty. It is always informative to hear the latest in leading-edge 19th-century socialist thought as expressed in this chamber.

There's been much said during the course of this debate. I'm glad that at times the debate strayed even into Bill 23 areas. It was informative in that sense. We certainly heard a theme over and over in the debate about the social determinants of health. One certainly can't dismiss those. Those are important issues, and that's why I was so remarkably patient and not jumping to my feet and trying to bring people back to the debate. Of course, they are important.

On this side of the House I think that we have often said that one of the best social programs that a government can have is the opportunity to have a job, and certainly one of the areas where we have made tremendous progress in the past seven years is in the area of employment. We have seen literally hundreds of thousands of new jobs created in this province over the past several years, and that's something that I think everyone on this side of the House is very proud of — those over 400,000 new jobs.

We have, in fact…. I can remember having been around this area of public policy for some time. I can often remember the hopes that people would express back in earlier decades about full employment. In fact, what we've had for recent years is something akin to full employment, certainly the lowest unemployment rates ever recorded in the history of this province.

Again, I think we should be proud of it. We should be proud of it, particularly given the economic situation that we inherited back in 2001 and given the levels of unemployment that we inherited back in 2001.

Hon. G. Abbott: I'm not sure if the member from Juan de Fuca wants to continue his second reading remarks. I found them quite compelling. He could continue them if he wished, but I guess that would be contrary to the rules, so we can't do that.

The situation, of course, that we inherited in 2001 was reflective of the fact that the NDP government that was in power for a decade, from 1991 to 2001, had taken us from first in terms of economic growth and employment and so on to worst in the nation by 2001. That takes some doing in a province with the rich resources that British Columbia has in its possession.

The NDP government was able to succeed, where no government of any stripe had ever succeeded before, in taking British Columbia from being a have to being a have-not province by the end of its term in 2001. That was a remarkable piece of social and economic determinism by an organization with a profound commitment to 19th-century socialist thought and the rigorous and constant pursuit of that thought.

Hon. G. Abbott: So often the member for Comox Valley, the Minister of Tourism, Sport and the Arts, gets passionately engaged on these issues. I cut him a lot of slack in that. I know he's relentlessly baited by members on the other side of the floor. He resists and resists until the moment where he does have to explode, get involved. It's just the passion that he brings to game, Mr. Speaker, as you know.

I did want to say, though — and this is an important point because it's further to some of the remarks I

heard earlier — that that economic growth has allowed our government to make investments which could only be promised but never delivered in the decade before. I think one of the examples — and it's going to be opening very soon — is the Abbotsford regional hospital and cancer centre.

That was promised for a decade. Right through the 1990s Abbotsford was promised but never delivered by the former NDP government. We've made a $355 million investment there. We're investing over $200 million in Surrey Memorial Hospital. We're investing over $300 million in Victoria's Royal Jubilee Hospital. That's a wonderful thing — again, a promise the former government made but never delivered on.

There are lots of them: the Victoria General Hospital, expansion of their emergency department; Vancouver General Hospital expanded; Prince George Regional Hospital expanded in pediatrics and soon to expand to cancer care and a full-range cancer centre in Prince George; and Vernon Jubilee Hospital; Shuswap Lake General Hospital; and countless other community hospitals where investments have been made.

We're now investing $700 million to $800 million a year, and we're able to make those investments because we are enjoying prosperity once again in the province of British Columbia. People are working again. Government revenues are flowing in. Those government revenues are being directed to reinvestment in health care facilities across the province, and that's a wonderful thing.

The NDP talk. You know that. We deliver. I think that's the big difference between the opposition and the government. They talk; we deliver. They talked about these investments all through the 1990s but were never able to deliver on any of them, which is, I guess, disappointing perhaps. It's disappointing to me and, I'm sure — secretly, in the quiet privacy of their own homes — probably rather disappointing to them as well. It is the economic growth, the economic strength of this province that allows us to make those kinds of investments.

We're also investing…. I think this is very important. This is an issue that was raised repeatedly by the opposition Health critic and others, around health human resources. It is the prosperity of the province that has allowed us to make an unprecedented investment in health human resources.

Hon. G. Abbott: Now I know they're trying to bait the member for Comox Valley again, and I think that's unfortunate. He's trying to not strike back, but we have made unprecedented investments in health human resources — doubling, for example, the number of physicians that are being educated at UBC and elsewhere.

Just last September the Minister of Advanced Education and I went to the University of British Columbia to celebrate the fact that we had moved from an intake class of 128 back in 2001 to an intake class of 256 last September — doubling of the number of physicians that we are educating in this province, after, I might say, a decade where the number of physicians we were educating remained static.

We've also made…. I'm glad that the member from Surrey raises this point with me. I'd almost forgotten the point, but I'm glad that this member raised it. Yes, we have made huge investments in nursing as well. The member is right. Yes, the member is right. The number of nurses graduating in the province of British Columbia did decline by hundreds during the 1990s.

He's right. It's good that he should mention that and remind me of that 32 percent reduction over the decade of the 1990s and the number of nurses that were graduating in this province. What have we done? We have made a huge investment in this area.

Fortunately, again, we are going to be able to make health improvements. I thank the member for pointing that out. We have been able to make huge investments — now over 3,700 new nursing spaces in the province of British Columbia. That is a huge achievement.

The member is right, as well, to raise the issues. Yes, I am glad to point out to the member that we have made investments in a whole range across the spectrum of programmatic areas — the primary care charter, ActNow B.C., reducing surgical wait times since 2001 — dramatically, in a great many areas, I might add. Huge investments in electronic health, electronic medical records, electronic health records.

Hon. G. Abbott: Thank you for mentioning that. I'm glad the member from Surrey pointed that out — the new centre for dual diagnosis for dealing with people who have both mental illnesses and drug addictions that is going to be in Burnaby at Willingdon. I am glad he pointed that out. I'd almost forgotten that. I'm glad he mentioned that, because it is mentioned in the throne speech.

Hon. G. Abbott: …Mr. Speaker, of how our government acts. Their opposition talks; our government acts and delivers. There are so many examples of that. I'm very grateful to the member from Surrey for pointing some of those out, because sometimes I do forget. It's helpful for members on the other side to remind me of that.

Hon. G. Abbott: He is right to remind us of the stark contrast between NDP rhetoric and their actual performance as a government back in the 1990s.

Of course, as advocates, as evangelists of leading-edge 19th-century socialist thought, they often get

caught up in a world of utopian thought. They think sometimes that the world that they imagine is actually the same world that they delivered when they were in government. Of course, there's just a dramatically stark contrast between those two things. It is good to point that out.

The things that I remember…. I was here for a fair good portion of it. Other members may have been here for all of it, but I remember the chronic deficits year after year, the unemployment year after year, the stark declines in the number of people who were delivering in health human resources, the minimal reinvestment in facilities, programs, health human resources — all of those areas.

The members are right to remind me of those, because that was the real…. It wasn't the utopia that one might construct from some of their comments today. It was that stark reality of an economy gone sour and social programs that were suffering as a result of it.

Yes, the member is right to point that out, absolutely. The NDP talks; we act. We deliver. That is the reality.

The Public Health Act, Bill 23, the same Bill 23 that they so strongly support…. [Applause.] I am deeply appreciative that they support this bill, because I can't imagine how long debate would go on if they opposed it. I really can't. So I am deeply appreciative that they support it.

This is a bill that will help us meet the challenges of the 21st century. It will equip us remarkably well in a whole range of ways to deal with those. I do look forward to the members' remarkably insightful, incisive and persuasive comments during committee stage debate on this bill, and I look forward to questions from the opposition as well.

Hon. G. Abbott: I move that the bill be referred to Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 23, Public Health Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. B. Penner: I call second reading, Bill 25, Health Professions (Regulatory Reform) Amendment Act, 2008.

Hon. G. Abbott: I can't imagine the kind of excitement that must be coursing through those benches right now. I've not even begun my second reading comments, and already they're excited to hear the contents of it.

I move that Bill 25, the Health Professions (Regulatory Reform) Amendment Act, be read a second time now.

In our 2006 government launch of the Conversation on Health, we engaged the public in British Columbia on what the important issues were for the future. British Columbians told us loud and clear that one of the key pieces in addressing the sustainability challenge of our public health care system was to increase access to our health professionals.

Too many people don't have family practitioners. They don't have access to the primary care services they require to manage and address chronic diseases early on. Instead, British Columbians are having their chronic diseases manifest themselves and end up in the acute care system, costing many times more to address the issue than it would have if they'd been addressed through primary care.

In the Conversation on Health, British Columbians told us they wanted more accountability in the health care system. So we'll be in part addressing that issue through changes to the responsibilities of professional colleges.

I know the members opposite don't agree that consulting with British Columbians is a useful exercise. On this side of the House….

Hon. G. Abbott: What? You disparaged it through the whole process. You're not trying to hitch your star to that wagon now, are you? Imagine that.

Hon. G. Abbott: On this side of the House we do believe in consulting with British Columbians about the future of health care. We believe it's the right thing to do. We believe that the Conversation on Health was a worthwhile exercise and has laid the groundwork for a sustainable health care system for the future.

The present Health Professions Act has been in place since 1990. Throughout the 1990s there were a number of minor amendments. In 2003 we introduced a number of significant changes to make improvements, and Bill 25 builds upon these.

Government recognizes that this act needs to be expanded to align with the growing demand for health services in our province, as in the rest of Canada and around the world. The growing demand for health services didn't happen suddenly. Since the early 1970s the population of British Columbia has been steadily getting larger and older. Between 2001 and 2031 the population will increase by 31 percent. In the next 20 years the province's population of seniors will double,

from approximately 636,000 seniors in 2008 to more than 1.2 million in 2026. All the while, health professionals reflect that that same demographic will be retiring. It's a well-known fact that as people age, their needs for medical services increase.

We have doubled the number of medical positions available through UBC and affiliated universities. We've added over 3,700 new nursing education spaces since 2001, a 93 percent increase, just announced earlier today by my colleague the Minister of Advanced Education. We can report that the number of practising nurses has jumped to over 40,000 in B.C., an almost 10 percent increase since 2001.

We recognize that there is still more that can be done. In the throne speech we announced a number of changes that affect the Health Professions Act. These changes are vital as we look to the future of our province. With this new legislation we are embarking on an ambitious plan to lift barriers and open the doors to the province to welcome health care providers. We want to ensure that every health professional is enabled to use all the skills for which they are trained as well as able to expand their scope of practice.

We want to enable collaborative teamwork between various health colleges so that everyone can bring their skill sets forward to meet the health care needs of British Columbia. The act expands the mandate of the colleges to foster interprofessional collaborative practice between health professionals in the workplace.

Bill 25 will also clarify public policy around transparency of health profession colleges, particularly in relation to their disciplinary proceedings. Information relating to most disciplinary actions will be made available to the public.

In addition to being transparent, this legislation will make British Columbia a more welcoming place for health professionals from other parts of Canada. Health professionals who are certified to practise in other Canadian jurisdictions will be welcomed to practise in B.C. and have their credentials recognized.

It will ensure that health care workers can fully use their skills and not be barred by unnecessary practice, credential and licensing restrictions. That includes permitting internationally educated professionals in certain professions specified by the minister to work under an individual-specific restricted or provisional licence. This restricted licence would be permanent, while a provisional licence would carry the expectation of upgrading to B.C. registration requirements.

Canadians trained outside B.C. will be able to practise in B.C. and, through other initiatives, will be finding residency positions to support this action. Streamlining the process for the recognition of foreign credentials and the licensing of doctors trained outside the country or the province is long overdue. We will also address credential creep, the gradual increase in educational requirements to enter a health profession.

With this new legislation we'll require that colleges provide government with the information required for health human resources planning. We need this so that we can plan ahead and ensure we're on the right track to meet the future needs of the province, based on demographics and population.

These amendments will also streamline the college bylaw approval process and help cut down on red tape, allowing colleges the right to make decisions that are consistent with their statutory duties.

As part of this new legislation we'll also establish a health professions review board to review registration decisions brought forward to the review board by registering professionals. The review board will have the power to review and take over inquiries that are not completed by the college within a specified time period. The review board will also be able to review the decision on how to resolve a complaint if it is anything less than a full disciplinary hearing.

We'll also establish new advisory panels which will provide advice and make recommendations to the minister on systemwide issues such as entry-to-practice requirements and scope-of-practice expansion requests or disputes. The advisory panels will not review decisions in individual cases but will provide advice based on input from health authorities and professional associations.

In conclusion, health professions regulatory reform sets the stage for opening doors not only for health professionals who are in the province and those who may be considering moving to our province but also for the people of the province, most of whom access the health care system. The original intent of the colleges will be maintained, ensuring that colleges have the tools that guarantee that their members are safe and competent in their practices.

Standards to protect the public will not be compromised as a result of our amendments. It will provide a new standard to promote fairness and accountability in college registration and the inquiry and discipline process, and ensure that college operations lay out consistent rules by which all professions work.

This government is committed to working towards finding new ways of making our health care system work for patients. We're committed to building a world-class public health system that enables health professionals to view B.C. as a prime location to work, live and play.

I ask that all members support this important piece of legislation, and with that I move second reading.

A. Dix: It's an honour to rise in this Legislature. The minister, I think, can take that applause for himself as well, since the government benches seemed singularly uninspired by his most recent address. But in our hearts we were cheering for him, so I'm sure that the hon. minister will take sustenance in that.

A. Dix: Well, the minister's sleep is of primary concern to me, I say to the member for Port Moody–Westwood.

It's important, I think, to start with this debate, which has real significance. The minister, of course, in his inimitable way, only talked about some of the issues in health human resources. We'll attempt in the course of this speech — and as the designated speaker for the opposition, I'll hopefully have the time — to fully raise all of the critical issues in the debate. I know that the minister is looking forward to that in particular.

I want to say, first of all, that in a general sense this is another bill like the previous bill, where there are a number of different measures. There are measures to address the issue of qualified health workers, so there's the new health professions review board. There are advisory panels to provide advice to the minister on issues with respect to health human resources.

There are significant changes that have come in terms of the way health professional colleges function, in terms of issues of transparency and accountability. There are also some specific licence issues with respect to internationally trained physicians and issues regarding pharmacists in particular — all of which we'll deal with in some detail in this debate and, of course, further at committee stage.

I just want to start by saying I think that the minister in his speech, I know unintentionally, failed to address a critical aspect of the health human resources question. In the small bit of time I have left this evening before the main part of my speech — which, if the Government House Leader calls the bill, will take place tomorrow afternoon — I'll just deal with a critical aspect of this question that the minister didn't raise, which is the issue of retention.

The minister talked, in closing debate on the previous bill, about the government's commitment to openness and accountability. He talked about the Conversation on Health in that context. The member for New Westminster is here, and I know that he'll raise some of these issues in this debate.

Just as an example about the government's relationship with the consultative process, and it really relates to this bill in a very specific sense, it's not just an issue of recruitment that's in question here. It's an issue of retention. We've seen recently at Royal Columbian Hospital those issues highlighted, I think, in a particularly stark way. The fact is that because of neglect on the part of this government in particular, the situation at that hospital — which is in some ways a symbol of other health care institutions across British Columbia — has become particularly bad.

Now, we all remember this. In 2002 and 2003 and 2004 health professionals, nurses, doctors, community members in that community were making the case again and again to the government that they needed to continue with the investments at Royal Columbian that this government had discontinued, that they needed to maintain St. Mary's Hospital. I don't know what the number of petitions was. I do recall driving through New Westminster, which used to be where I worked, where my previous job was, seeing hundreds — and the member for New Westminster may correct me — even thousands of lawn signs from ordinary citizens saying: "Save St. Mary's Hospital."

The minister talked about this turning hospitals into condos. On this government's health care record, in that case, certainly, turn hospitals into condos. They rejected that view. Then coming forward in that debate…. It's important to know that they rejected not just the views of the doctors, the nurses, the health sciences professionals and the health care workers but also of citizens, patients, community members and city hall.

They were all rejected; they were all swept aside, because the government was determined to tear down that hospital. The Premier, in that case, was like Ronald Reagan. It wasn't tear down that wall; it was tear down that hospital. He was determined to do that, and it didn't matter what people said.

This relates, I think, to this issue of retention of health care workers, because, of course, in that case they were ignored in a fundamental way that I think has affected the way people in that community and people across, in fact, the Fraser Health Authority view the government's record on health care and the health care system.

So what happened subsequent to that? They had raised the issues in 2003 and 2004 and 2005 with the previous Minister of Health, issues around Royal Columbian Hospital, the consequences of those decisions. Health care workers raised those issues. Nurses, even though they're constrained often by the health authority in terms of their freedom to speak out on those questions, brought those issues forward to the Minister of Health in the appropriate way. Doctors, who are less constrained, brought those issues forward to the Minister of Health in a forceful way, and they were repeatedly ignored.

Everyone remembers what the Minister of Health said in 2006. He referred to what seemed to be an appropriate participation in the public debate by health professionals in that case, doctors and nurses and others, as alarmist. That's what he said in 2006. They were alarmist. And he's still calling them alarmist.

The reality is, though, that that hospital has become, even though the work that the doctors and the nurses do is heroic…. My colleague from Burnaby-Edmonds had family members there. I've had many constituents there and family and friends who have been at that hospital. The work done by doctors and nurses and others is frequently heroic in that hospital because the halls are filled with beds, and this is really the main innovation of this government in health care. They talk about innovation a lot; it's hallway medicine. It's certainly their innovation at Royal Columbian Hospital.

The consequences of that and how it affects this bill is that the issue of retention, of creating a workplace where it's possible to express through your labour what you have learned at school if you're a nurse or a doctor, is becoming more and more difficult. We have dozens of people waiting, admitted to the hospital on a regular basis, who are sitting in the emergency room with nowhere to go because every hallway is full.

They were warned again and again and again. What's this meant? Well, recently it's meant that many

nurses, a large number of nurses…. Not only are there vacancies at Royal Columbian Hospital, but a significant number of nurses have left Royal Columbian Hospital. The minister is aware of this; it's not a secret that in the last few weeks a number of nurses have left Royal Columbian Hospital because they cannot continue, in their view, to continue to operate in that context.

When the minister talks about the government's health record and talks about the recruitment of health professionals, I think that the issue of retention and the issue of the quality of supports that people in the health care system get is a major one. And it affects it in every sense.

The first thing nurses will tell you, if you go around the province, in terms of that issue, is significant issues…. I travel. I know the minister travels. I know he meets with nurses. I know I meet with nurses. We travel around the province. On this issue of retention, the issue that's raised by this bill, the issue of recruiting more health professionals to address the province's long-term needs in terms of health care labour force, what do they say? They say the hospitals or the health centres or the long-term care centres are not as safe as they were. They have made this case profoundly.

So in some cases, we have had very serious incidents that have happened to nurses at hospitals in British Columbia where they have to call off site to get security. There's no longer security. You make a call off-site, and they try to contact the person on site.

I would say that those significant issues around security, around support on the wards…. The minister talked about health human resources without mentioning the government's major contribution to that, which was, of course, Bill 29, sections of which have been ruled illegal by the Supreme Court and which we're looking forward to debating in this Legislature and hearing what the minister has to say, what his explanation is for the government's conduct in that regard.

We do know this, that the government sent a message to a whole bunch of other health care workers that we need for the future. We need LPNs. In fact, the role of LPNs is seen as expanding in many respects by the government, sometimes by necessity and sometimes by design. We need care aides. We need people to work in our hospitals to provide support services, because those are critical in making hospitals a decent place to work and in retaining health care workers.

What did the government do at that time? They sent a message that they didn't value the labour that those workers were providing. In many cases they privatized their jobs, leaving them with massive wage cuts. I mean, the smallest wage cuts in those sectors were 15 percent; for many people it was up to 40 percent. The consequences and the message that sent from the government…. It certainly wasn't from the people of British Columbia, who I don't believe were in favour of that.

The message it sent on the health human resources question from the government was that we don't value the work of health care workers. Now, in many of those professions — according not to me but to the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, the Fraser Health Authority and the Interior Health Authority — we're suffering shortages after the government essentially targeted that group of workers for attack.

So when the minister talks about the record of the government in this regard, I think it's important. It sends an important message when we talk about the changes provided in this bill and the desire, which I think is shared on both sides of the House, to encourage people to enter health care as a profession at whatever level.

If you look at the reports, hon. Speaker, just to give you one sense of it, this is not doctors and nurses. Take a look at a report provided by the Fraser Health Authority about just health sciences professionals. What did it say? It said that B.C. will need an additional 1,154 FTEs — that's full-time-equivalents; that's 1,154 more full-time workers — in diagnostic imaging by 2015.

BCIT, the only institution in the province with a diagnostic imaging program, is expected to train only 600 additional technologists by 2015, resulting in a shortfall of at least 554 medical imaging FTEs. You will note, hon. Speaker, that this is an area of the government's advanced education record that was not discussed in the minister's speech, but I'm sure that when he closes debate, he'll be raising it.

A report from the B.C. provincial laboratory coordinating office and the B.C. Academic Health Council said that by 2011 there will be a cumulative provincewide shortage of 232 medical laboratory technologists required to maintain — get this — existing levels of service. Another area not dealt with in the minister's speech.

The Physiotherapy Association of British Columbia reports that there are currently 190 vacant physiotherapy positions in B.C. Half of the physiotherapists currently working in B.C. plan to retire in the next 15 years.

In the Fraser Health Authority there are currently 165 vacancies in six health sciences professions: medical lab technologists, medical radiology technologists, physiotherapists, pharmacists, ultrasonographers and nuclear medicine technologists. These vacancies are projected to reach 432 in 2011, an increase of 161 percent. It's significantly higher in the case of that health authority than the shortfall of RNs, which itself is very significant.

In short, what we've had from the government over the past few years, if you look at the whole picture of health care, is an extraordinarily mixed record. Yes, the government has expressed its elitist views. I'm glad that the member for Peace River South is here, because he may agree with this part of what I have to say.

Mr. Speaker: Just to remind the member not to mention if people are in or out of the House.

A. Dix: I'm sorry, hon. Speaker, and I apologize to the member for Peace River South. I'll comment on his views without any further reference to his being here or not.

I think that it's fair to say, hon. Speaker…. I'm glad that you rejoined us because that seems to be an indication that we're in the short period before we end. Then we'll relaunch this debate tomorrow.

The member for Peace River South, I think, when he opposed Bill 29, as the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and the member at the time for Vancouver-Hastings did, was making this point. In fact, the government's record in this regard — its reckless disregard for the need for care aides, for the need for LPNs and for the needs of the health sciences profession, its messages to people that this work didn't count as much as other work — now unfortunately has serious consequences, and not just for the health care system or for seniors, although those consequences are significant.

I know that the ministers who voted for that reprehensible piece of legislation, Bill 29, may be grumbling, but it's the reality that the health care system is addressing the consequences of what happens when a government sends the wrong message and also specifically devalues the work of certain professions. So what's left?

The government and its allies still want to drive down wages. So we have these scenes, which are disastrous scenes in terms of trying to promote the health care professions — disastrous scenes in Nanaimo, where again and again a group of workers that we need in the future gets laid off. What message does that send?

Hon. Speaker, you may have some things to announce to us before the end of the session, it looks like.

As I prepare to adjourn debate, I would say that in general we support much of what's in this bill. We'll be supporting this bill in principle at second reading, although there are several different elements of the bill that we'll be going through in detail during the second reading debate tomorrow. We do have concerns with a government that has taken half an approach to the looming shortage of health professionals, the current shortage of health professionals.

With that, as designated speaker, I reserve my right to continue this debate and move adjournment of the debate.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, earlier today the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant rose under the provisions of Standing Order 35, seeking to make a motion for adjournment of the House to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance — namely, the progress of Bill C-50, which is stated to be before the federal parliament in the Select Standing Committee on Finance.

The hon. member alleges that the bill as presently drafted gives the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration sweeping powers in relation to the waiting lists affecting immigration into this country without adequate prior consultation. The Government House Leader response suggested that the matter is of some concern to many members and indicated that he would be having some discussions with the opposition in relation to this matter.

However, the Chair must examine the request of the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, bearing in mind the fairly stringent provisions of Standing Order 35. I think all members would recognize that the contents and progress of Bill C-50 fall squarely within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament and fall outside the jurisdiction of this House and, accordingly, would fail on this ground alone.

Again, while I'm sure that most members would agree that the matter itself is an extremely serious one, what the Chair must decide is whether the ordinary business of this House should be set aside because the urgency for the debate has been established. I am unable to find that the urgency for debate has been established. In this regard I refer hon. members to the decision of Speaker Shantz quoted on page 62 of Parliamentary Practice in British Columbia, third edition.

On both these grounds the member's application fails to meet the standards well established in this House in relation to Standing Order 35, and so I rule.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS
AND RANGE AND MINISTER
RESPONSIBLE FOR HOUSING
(continued)

The Chair: Just before we start, I would like to remind all members of the House that there is to be no discussion with members of the gallery. If you want to speak with someone, it should be done outside of this room. It's the same rules that apply in the big House.

B. Simpson: I did have a brief discussion with staff about the order. We're going to do a little bit of work on B.C. Timber Sales, and I've got a request for a more comprehensive briefing on that after the questions I've got.

Then we're going to move into some state of the industry — coast, Interior. Then I want to get on to the land base and look at forest health, mountain pine beetle, some issues around NSR, Forests for Tomorrow. There will be some worker safety and fire and then, hopefully, depending on time, moving into the waste and bioenergy issues. I would hope that we'd be able to move through some of this fairly quickly given that we've got a lot to canvass in a very short period of time.

With respect to B.C. Timber Sales, I want to address the issue that I had raised previously. In last year's estimates, BCTS's operating areas got hit quite hard with the winter storms. I'm wondering if there was any cost analysis done on the impacts of those winter storms on BCTS infrastructure and any implications for BCTS's operating areas in terms of loss of merchantable volume or any rehabilitation and restoration work that needs to be done.

Hon. R. Coleman: We don't have the costs, but we have moved forward and fixed any of our roads or infrastructure already. We made adjustment to our sales. That's all been accomplished, and we had no appreciable loss to our timber inventories as a result of the storms.

B. Simpson: Did the ministry do an analysis of the impact of blowdown throughout the coast region? I had heard that there was significant blowdown. If it wasn't in BCTS's operating area, was there any assessment done of the cumulative impact of those storms, not this past year but the year before?

Hon. R. Coleman: Our approach to this is that we let each district do its job individually. On a TFL, the licensee has responsibility for the issues with regards to infrastructure and those sorts of things. On the TSA, the timber supply areas, we work with them to prioritize where there's blowdown and that sort of thing for specific salvage operations. We just manage the storms as they come. Of course, some years are better than others, as the member knows, but we leave it with each district office. So if we had to get the empirical information, we'd have to go to each office to get that.

B. Simpson: I'll come back to that maybe a little bit when I deal with the land base issues and inventories.

With respect to B.C. Timber Sales, the meetings of the timber supply leadership team from April 15, 2008…. There was an Interior issue raised with respect to the growing amount of grade 4 pulp logs. I'll read from it directly: "A substantial proportion of logs going through Interior mills are classed as grade 4, which is causing challenges on the pricing front."

So what is the challenge to B.C. Timber Sales of an increasing grade 4 going through our Interior mills?

Hon. R. Coleman: It doesn't actually affect B.C. Timber Sales pricing. They get paid. They do the bids. Basically, what they've done is actually shortened up the terms of the sale, the period of the sale, so that people can get in and get the wood out at what it was cruised at so that the wood doesn't have an opportunity over a long period of time to degrade further with regards to the stand that they believe they bought.

B. Simpson: There's that aspect to it, but doesn't the fact that…? Particularly in the central Interior, the companies are able to push grade 4 through log drying and various other things that they're allowed to do. Doesn't that negate the MPS system? How does that work? If they're booking at two-bit stumpage, does that drive the prices up for others who are not able to do that for their logs based on the market pricing system? I have to admit that I've talked to lots of people to try and get them to help me understand the stumpage system, both on the CVP and the MPS, and I'm still as confused as ever.

I know this is an issue that's been raised. Whereas the major licensees get more and more two-bit stumpage, one of the issues raised in the structural review of B.C. Timber Sales was the fact that BCTS doesn't have to log the profile. If they tend to put out more green wood, higher-profile wood, then their wood is more pricey. That adds to potentially no-bid sales — all kinds of things.

I'm just trying to understand. If we've got more and more going to two-bit, how does that impact the MPS validity? What does it do to BCTS's operational capabilities and the revenue that it generates?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, BCTS does have to log the profile. They can't be selective. They actually have to log the profile, and they try to match it up to the same profile that is being logged by the majors.

B. Simpson: That was a bit of a non-answer to the question I asked with regard to the major licensees being able to go more and more two-bit stumpage and how that impacts the MPS system.

With respect to logging the profile, then, I hear different. I hear differently, and the government heard differently during the BCTS structural review. Is that actually audited, and are regional managers for BCTS audited against the profile in their operating areas? Is it guaranteed that they're putting the profile out there?

Hon. R. Coleman: Maybe I misunderstood the question, so I'm sorry if the answer wasn't what he was looking for.

We actually audit quarterly. We produce on the website quarterly the representative analysis by species of all the sales of BCTS compared to the major licensees. For instance, in balsam at 4.3 percent in one case, and major licensees were at 5.8. Cedar — we're at 1.9, and they're at 1.9, etc. This information is the quarterly performance summary for B.C. Timber Sales. It's actually produced on the website on a quarterly basis.

The other issue in the structural review that needed to be addressed was the no-bids and the impact of the no-bids on the MPS system. I know that no-bids are still an issue in some regions more than others, where you've got mill closures. You've got people coming out — for example, logging contractors that are down in the southeast, where the whole operations are down.

Are no-bids still an issue, and how is it going to be addressed so that we're getting that correction in the market pricing system that everybody wants to see happen?

Hon. R. Coleman: Let's deal with the coast. On the coast, basically, no-bids have dropped almost completely. In the last year fiscal year we actually had one no-bid in the entire fiscal year. No-bids haven't dropped dramatically in the Interior.

There are a number of issues with regards to that. Number one is that we do try and push people to the lower-quality woods. We try and protect the green for the long term. In some cases that is basically a challenge of finding the customers. Of course, because of the slowdowns, there are not as many people chasing the wood that want wood.

We have made a recent appraisal manual change that my guys figure will help that issue, so we'll be able to do a change in the upset and be able to adjust that and see if we can attract more customers.

B. Simpson: Again, for the public that pay attention to this and for my own edification, to see if I'm right, the issue on the no-bids in terms of pricing is that if there's a sale put out and nobody bids on it, it's not entered into the system as a zero bid so it doesn't correct the pricing.

The minister articulated it well. It tends to be some of the lower-end sales that are put out, which people don't bid on. Because they're not bid on and only the higher-value sales are bid on, then the MPS system is driven up, and that MPS is supposed to set the benchmark for stumpage. That's the understanding I've been given.

Unless we have a correction, where we can somehow enter no-bids into the system, will that not continue to be a perpetual problem and drive up stumpage in a given region that has a number of no-bid sales?

Hon. R. Coleman: No, we don't average everything out across. What we do is stratify the good versus the lousy. Basically, that allows the market pricing system to have the integrity.

We've had this looked at by international experts with regards to how we do it, and it has been an accepted practice. We don't believe that the lower-quality no-bids have the impact the member is describing, because we are still representative of what is being logged in the profile, per our quarterly assessments, etc. Because we're making a change to the appraisal manual, that'll allow us to encourage more of the lower-quality bids to go through.

B. Simpson: During the restructuring, the issue was raised — and it's related, as I understand it, to the no-bids — as to whether or not the profile is being put out in the market pricing system. B.C. Timber Sales has a requirement to maximize revenue to the Crown, and it's also supposed to set the market pricing system. During the structural review, those were seen as competing objectives.

Post–structural review, how is that being resolved? It was one of the things taken into account and taken under consideration post–structural review.

Hon. R. Coleman: I hope this answers the member's question. If not, we'll try it again. You're right. I had identified that. We discussed this actually in estimates, I think a year or so ago, that the upset bid might skew the numbers if we weren't getting the bids.

So we changed the corporate goals and basically allowed that maximizing the revenue of the government would be subject to the requirement of cost and pricing references, as stated in goal 2 of the strategic goals — which is to provide a credible reference point for costs and pricing of timber harvest from public land in British Columbia — and supplying timber for auction as stated in goal 3, which is to provide a reliable source of timber through the market through open and competitive action, which also helps with MPS.

What we have done with the appraisal manual changes…. In the past — I guess you could say back two or three years ago — if we had no upset bid, we would just basically put wood on the shelf. Today we re-advertise it without the upset bid. Even in some cases, it still happens that nobody wants to buy that wood. We will take it out even with the consideration that it doesn't reach the upset price now.

B. Simpson: I'll make my request now. I do have a couple of other questions, but I had asked, around the time of the structural review, for a briefing with the ADM responsible. I guess it's the CEO now, is it? Or what is it? Is it still ADM of B.C. Timber Sales? That briefing was denied at that time, and I'm wondering if I can get, through the minister, an opportunity to sit, because I'd like to understand the role of BCTS and the strategy going forward.

The Crown is the largest land holder now, at 20 percent. It's a very important role. It's an important role for communities. It's an important role for secondary manufacturing value-added and others that want to get

access to that fibre, particularly as we're looking at all of the tenure changes that are going on. So I wouldn't mind an opportunity to sit and understand BCTS more clearly and get a more comprehensive briefing from the ADM and his staff. That's one point.

The second point I want to make, though, is the point I made earlier. Are there any B.C. Timber Sales business units that are having a difficult time finding fibre on the ground? When they go to realize their allocation from the takeback, or they actually go to realize sales, are they having difficulty finding real volume on the land base?

Hon. R. Coleman: We're not having trouble finding volume. We don't have that constraint. We do have some challenges trying to find the full range of the economic profile to meet the customer's needs, the bidder's needs, because of the changing needs and the issues out there. That is in some areas a challenge for us.

With regards to a briefing, I'm still negotiating what I have to give the guy to do a briefing with you. Actually, he says it will be fine.

B. Simpson: I would appreciate the opportunity to do that, so I'll keep the remainder brief.

As far as I'm aware, the BCTS annual report hasn't been released yet. Last year I had it at my disposal. One of the things that I had asked about last year was that BCTS as a major Crown licensee would start reporting out silviculture obligations as a separate line item so that that obligation and liability was clear to British Columbians. Will that be a change in this year's report?

Hon. R. Coleman: The annual report, I'm told, will be published in June. Yes, it will be in the report.

B. Simpson: I have subsequently gone through a number of the major licensees — the publicly traded companies. They're now starting to report it out. I think it's something that we should all be paying close attention to over the next little while, because it is an accruing liability. In a world of climate change, it might become a real liability for a lot of these companies, including the Crown, as a licensee.

Just very quickly then. This has been a tough year for B.C. Timber Sales — just like for everybody else. My understanding, from notes that I've got from the timber supply leadership team…. There's a variance of about $86 million from target on the revenue side.

One of the questions that has been asked about BCTS is their actual operating expenses, benchmarked against the industry — whether or not BCTS operates efficiently and effectively. If I understand from the figures I have in front of me, we're looking at about $9.50 a cubic metre in general operating or inventory costs versus an industry standard that I'm told is between $3 and $4 a cubic metre. I stand to be corrected on those numbers.

Is one aspect of what BCTS struggles with somehow getting those operating costs down to what would be considered industry benchmarks?

Hon. R. Coleman: We have no reason to believe that our costs are higher. We feel we're benchmarked to the average of the industry. We can do some work through our revenue branch to break that out and be able to have that available for when you do the briefing with B.C. Timber Sales.

B. Simpson: I found one of the notes I was looking for before about accessing volume. It's from a report-out to the Timber Sales Advisory Council meeting. It is stated here that Mike Falkiner reported out about getting B.C. Timber Sales volume to market. It says that it's difficult as a result of holdups due to forest stewardship plans and first nations–related issues; log dump issues; pressures on BCTS operating areas, which we discussed; and no-bid sales.

There was a specific discussion about the situation in the north. This is the point that I wanted to get to, because you've covered that off; that is, that there's a growing percentage of the land base with a piece size that falls below 0.2. It's getting lots of no-bids, while at the same time there's a shortage of chips for pulp. So BCTS, according to this, was going to look at whether or not we could move that as chip logs.

Now, I think that's vital, given the discussion we've had in the Legislature, particularly Interior mills. Also, it's my understanding that if we fail to do that, we are now chipping more and more logs that are good roundwood logs that should be used — either held in abeyance for future operations when these sawmills come up or used for other purposes and getting out to entrepreneurs that want to have access to that wood.

So will this be resolved quickly — any of the small piece size that are effectively becoming no-bid sales? Can we convert them into chip sales of some kind, start chipping those logs instead of chipping the tens of thousands of cubic metres of logs?

I think it will also give us an opportunity to protect some of our midterm timber supply if we do it right. If there's an adjustment on the land base, we can protect midterm timber supply, which, as the minister heard, in the Quesnel area — and I'm sure in the Prince George area — is becoming a bigger and bigger issue and a bigger concern for those communities.

Hon. R. Coleman: We are doing that now, actually. We are identifying pulpwood stands. We've actually put some up for sale in the Okanagan. We're doing it across our regions. It was a direction that I gave after a meeting with the pulp sector and myself, with the ministry staff. They are actually moving out what will be sales of pulpwood stands. They're moving those out. They're going to be doing it aggressively so that they can do exactly what the member has described.

B. Simpson: A particular concern that's been directed to me is in the area of the Canfor pulp mills in the Prince George region and the Mackenzie pulp mill. Of course, we don't know what's happening with that mill, but both those sets of operations were beginning to get into whole log chipping to keep their chip

supply. Will B.C. Timber Sales be aggressively trying to change that out? If so, how soon might we see those sales go out for chip from B.C. Timber Sales?

Hon. R. Coleman: This is a provincial initiative — all regions. The southern area, where we were identified as the most significant partner, is where we moved most aggressively in the beginning. We had a couple of pulp mills down there actually chipping as much as 40 percent.

In Prince George they're doing about 20 percent whole log chipping of pulp logs, not sawlogs. We are canvassing them, and we are looking to where we can do exactly the same thing there as well.

B. Simpson: My understanding is that a lot of what's happening up in the north has to do with the push to two-bit stumpage. So there are a lot of logs being graded as pulp logs that may not be pulp logs because of how we're allowing that to happen. We don't have time here to get into the whole self-policing that's going on — the fact that the scaling system has fallen off, and so on — but that's an issue that I think begs an investigation at some point.

I think that is what's happening up in that north area. A lot of that wood is available at a two-bit stumpage or at a pulp grade that I actually think in many cases, from what I've seen and from people I've talked to, is reasonable wood that could be used for other purposes. So I'm glad that this is going around. I hope that we can get that rationalized, because I'm afraid that we are too much into our midterm timber supply in that whole area.

A couple of quick ones here. There have been rumblings in my area. I got a phone call from the Peace and a phone call from the Vanderhoof area about B.C. Timber Sales's sales with decked wood where the wood is being burned. What happens is that the contractor makes the bid and takes the better profile off. There's still decked profile there, but they can't sell it. That wood is getting burned decked, as well as whatever waste is on the ground there. I'm wondering if I can get some advice from the minister as to whether or not that is actually occurring. If so, is it being tracked and dealt with?

Hon. R. Coleman: We're not aware of any. If the member has any specific examples, we're happy to investigate and look into it.

The final question is around failed contractors. We know that we have a number of contractors around the province — the coast in particular, but we're beginning to get it in the Interior — that are working on very, very tight margins. They may bid on a B.C. Timber Sales sale with an upset price, and then they go to the market and find that the market won't bear that price, and they either can't sell the logs or have to undersell them. In some cases they go bankrupt.

So does B.C. Timber Sales track the amount of bankruptcies that are going on and, I guess, how much that ends up costing them? My understanding is that there may be a silviculture deposit, but it won't likely cover what the actual silviculture requirements were. So is that tracked — the failed contractors and the cost to B.C. Timber Sales? And if so, is there a figure there?

Hon. R. Coleman: On all our sales we do the silviculture. So we've already built that in, and there's nothing that can happen with regards to somebody not having enough to cover it, because we already budget that in. We've had very few turn back, and most of these actually have marketed their wood before they bid.

With regards to bankruptcy, that's not something that this ministry…. With regards to outstanding bills and stuff — that would be Small Business and Revenue. If I get a chance, I'll ask my colleague in Small Business and Revenue whether they track that or whether that information could be available to the member.

B. Simpson: I would look forward, then, to the more substantive briefing. I do have questions around the amount of site preparation and the cost associated with B.C. Timber Sales carrying out all the silviculture. I didn't realize. I thought that some of the contractors had the right to also do the silviculture, and I didn't realize that it was all done by BCTS.

There have been questions raised with me about that aspect of B.C. Timber Sales's operating costs and the fact that they still do significant site prep when other licencees do not. The reason for that is the plug size. It's pretty convoluted. So I will roll that into whatever briefing we end up setting up there.

I'd like to move on for a little bit just into the state of the industry before and then come back to deal with the land base. As BCTS says in its projections, it is projecting for next year to continue on a bit of a downward slope on its revenue. What is the government's understanding of where we are going with this market condition?

What does the government see in its projections for when we might see a rebound?

Hon. R. Coleman: The analysts predicted that there would be no improvement in 2008. The most optimistic forecast is that you would see an improvement about mid-2009 where the markets in the U.S. would start to turn. We would actually see an improvement in mid-2009, then moving into the balance of 2009 being better a bit and then better into 2010. It's not optimistic for the next 18 to 24 months.

B. Simpson: We've had the projections. In fact, we saw the inklings of this downturn in 2005 when prices started to soften. Even in the central Interior where we had done the investment, we were starting to have companies not making the kind of money that those investments warranted. Mind you, I think that when I

raised that with the minister in 2005, that that's how I got the nickname Chicken Little because I was saying that the sky was falling. Unfortunately, the sky has fallen.

We've had a long lead time leading up to this. It now looks like it's going to go longer. I have seen analysts out as far as late '09, first quarter of 2010 — the ones that are looking at the fact that we still have not seen the end of the sub-prime. We still have not seen the end of the foreclosures, the impact on the banks and the impact on investments. There's a lot of stock, house inventory, that's out there that still has to be picked up before you get into rebuilding.

Again, as we canvassed yesterday, it's unfortunate that we don't have a robust value-added in the secondary manufacturing industry, because it could be growing during this time frame.

The real question is: how much is this going to dramatically impact communities? Mackenzie, with the potential loss of the Pope and Talbot pulp mill, now virtually has no employment base. I think it has got one shift running in the Canfor mill. AbitibiBowater is moving out. They're going to have trouble with their secondary remanufacturing, etc.

For some reason, the minister chose to visit Fort Nelson and to go up there when there was an announcement of a whole bunch of mill closures. The minister has a leadership obligation on this file. We've been over this again and again and again. The main town that the minister flew into when there was announcement of closures was Fort Nelson. He didn't go into Mackenzie and address that issue. He didn't go into Fort St. James. He hasn't gone into Castlegar or Grand Forks.

So what is it that the minister is going to do to provide leadership to these communities, independent of this round table where the jury is out whether it's going to happen or not? Because that's the long-term view. Where is the leadership on the short term? Why just Fort Nelson? Why not all those other communities that are hurting just as much — Chetwynd is in there, and Terrace saw its last mill close down — where the minister goes in and holds a town hall meeting, just like Fort Nelson was given the opportunity to have with the minister?

Will the minister go out to those communities, meet with those communities, make himself available in town hall meetings, hear directly from them what their issues are and what their concerns are and hear directly from them how all the government programs, federal and provincial, are simply not helping them with their more immediate needs?

Hon. R. Coleman: That sounded more like a question period question than an estimates question. I went to Fort Nelson because I was invited to the community — not one that I called. I've spoken to the mayor of Mackenzie and the mayor of Fort St. James and to those communities and told them that if they wish us to come, when they're ready, we will. We've made that offer, and we will go to those communities.

I've also had conversations with the mayors in Castlegar and Grand Forks, but particularly Castlegar as we came through the issues with Interfor etc., and conversations with regards to that.

I guess the problem that the member probably has is that I'm actually honest with people. I know that I can't go in and start up a sawmill and create a market for it. I know that what the member just described is the truth. He talked about the sub-prime mortgage market — the housing market in the United States going south, when 85 percent of our market goes there. The basis of our industry has really been sawmilling for a long time, and that's where most of our volume goes.

The sub-prime mortgage market is actually having additional effects, as the member knows, and it may actually have an effect on what has happened, in my understanding, with regards to this whole offer with regards to the Mackenzie pulp mill. The lending markets have shut down, for lack of a better description.

I just had a conversation with some people, a couple of the major chartered institutions, in the last two weeks where actual business cases have been brought forward by their money market guys — the guys that actually go out and seek this business out as the places for the financial institutions to invest. Quite frankly, they've been told no. "We're not lending. We're not going in. We're not moving any dollars."

That's not just in forestry, by the way. It's in a number of things, because the crunch in the United States in sub-prime is evidently deeper on the available cash than most people thought it was going to be. So it's going to be recapitalization. I think that as we work through this, we have to be mindful of everybody that's involved and try to work with all the parties.

I had one company in to sit with me recently that said: "You know, basically we're okay until about 2010, 2011 because our debt is secured to that point. Then in the following three years after that, we have three large blocks of debt that come up, and we need to know that we're stable by then, because the lending markets need to turn around by then."

To the member's answer, I actually spoke to the mayor of Mackenzie this morning. She was at another event. We will have a conversation, probably over the weekend, with regards to going there. I will be in touch with Fort St. James now that we have the concern with the other mill that isn't going to have the sale.

There's that piece, and then we also bring in economic development and community services with regards to community infrastructure and things like that. I know that the member mentioned yesterday that there's one person in that department, but governments have traditionally stepped up and covered things like policing costs and health care costs and have made sure that the schools are fine and that sort of thing. That's a commitment that the government would be making. I've spoken with the Premier about that.

The challenge, of course, as the member has identified it…. I don't know that I would have predicted, when we had 2.1 million housing starts in the United States just a little over two years ago, that it was going

to go this far flat. I think we all knew that the market was a little overinflated down there, but I don't know that anybody predicted the huge collapse in sub-prime market. Obviously they didn't, because they wouldn't have wanted to invest their money at that level, because it's literally billions and billions of dollars now that are at risk.

When those billions and billions of dollars come out of the market, they can't be leveraged back against any other markets for money, so that just actually changes the whole profile of the lending.

The round table is about the future, but I'll tell you, there isn't a day goes by that I'm not talking to somebody in local government or to somebody somewhere about an issue with regards to forestry and trying to find out a solution with regards to something that I phone my guys on and say: "What about the fibre supply in this particular area? Are we doing something that's stopping us from having progress in a particular area with regards to success?"

You have to think in terms that the industry is in tough, and we have to be prepared to be as flexible on the ground as possible.

You know, the member can get up and question my leadership if he wants to for the next couple of hours. That's entirely up to him. But I can tell him realistically that I think we're doing everything as a ministry and as a government that we can do.

I just think that…. It's very tough to see the situation in the housing market in the United States today and notice what that does to the people in my province. We're four million people; they're 300 million–plus people. We rely on their market way too much, frankly. That's why we spent millions of dollars in diversifying into other marketplaces. But they take a lot longer to build than having one that is right there and easy. Every time it switches back on, we tend to go back to it, even though we're trying to build markets elsewhere.

There's no question. I think that the member described it well — sub-prime, the dollar. I mean, every penny it goes up, it's $130 million to our industry on a sustained level. So you had an 85-cent dollar maybe 18 months ago. Today you have a par dollar.

You have housing starts drop from…. We were trying to do our budgets going into December. We had 2.1 million housing starts in '06 and '07. Going into the end of this last fiscal year, as I'm trying to give the numbers to the Treasury Board, we were given a number of housing starts in the U.S. as anticipated being 1.2 million. Within about 30 days the predictions came back at 900,000. Within about 30 days they dropped again to about 800,000 housing starts. In a 90-day period you lost another 400,000 housing starts.

I talk to the industry all the time, and I certainly know what it does when you have nowhere to sell the wood. The most recent conversations I've had with analysts and with, frankly, some CEOs and people in the industry…. They think there's still got to be a few more billion board feet come out of the marketplace before the price actually comes back and stabilizes for the production levels.

There's not a day goes by that we're not trying to find solutions on any little issue that comes to us with regards to forestry as to what government can do.

B. Simpson: I don't want to get into a protracted debate back and forth here, but I do want to make some comments.

This has been in the making for some time. It was already collapsing when we signed the softwood lumber agreement, and I pointed that out at that time. But the minister, in his answer to me, points out all the things that communities are telling me are missing, that workers are telling me are missing — a community stability program that immediately comes into play to stabilize funding for the schools, to make sure that the health care is available and to make sure that they can continue to maintain their infrastructure; a plan for addressing people running out of EI.

We've had a situation here already, and it's been expressed to the Minister of Income Assistance, where people are already starting to run out of EI. They're asking the Minister of Income Assistance. The Minister of Income Assistance says that income assistance is available, and they say: "Yeah, when I have a mortgage, I can get income assistance?" I don't think so — right?

We're missing that comprehensive approach, and that's what people are saying is missing from this government. We don't have a community stability strategy that immediately kicks into play. We don't have a worker strategy that kicks into play. We've been trying to get the government to do that for the last two years. It's still not there.

Now in many circumstances we're into situation critical, where the last mill is closing, where people are moving off of EI, and we still don't have something in place. I know that we canvassed $129 million yesterday, but that $129 million is a drop in the bucket relative to the numbers that we're going to be dealing with here, particularly if it goes to older-worker transition. Two-thirds of it's gone right off the top.

So my question to the minister is this: has the ministry had any discussions at all? The minister correctly says…. I would dispute that it's only the dollar and the market. We've been saying that all along.

Public policy has collapsed the industry down to a few high-volume dimension lumber producers that are into the U.S. marketplace. That was public policy that drove that. That's why the damage is so deep this time.

But the minister indicated that volume needs to come out of the marketplace. Has the government at all considered or discussed with the major licensees, particularly in the Interior, an industrywide curtailment in conjunction with the federal government — supporting the workers so that we'd go to three-day shifts right across the board, or whatever the configuration is, to get the volume off, stabilize those workforces in those mills and keep those mills operating? You're still going to be dealing with chip issues and so on, but you've got

the workforce there. Top it up with a combination of EI and some provincial government assistance to keep them going.

My sense is that the Americans want us to get volume out. We get volume out. We keep the mills running. We keep people employed. We extend the opportunities for them on EI and so on by having them earn. Has that been considered, where we do something as dramatic and strategic as taking the volume out in a way that doesn't pick losers and winners but gives all those communities an opportunity to get through this situation that we're in?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I patently disagree with the member's first portion of that description, but I think that we've had that debate, and we could go on with it.

You know, there are individual companies that are using the EI top-up program today. Just for the member's information, that program does exist. There have been some discussions internal to the ministry with regards to what the member describes, with regards to us taking a portion of the production out of the market. It leads to some very interesting problems.

Where a particular company says, "We're not doing that," I don't know that we can force them. If we force them, then the next thing would be that they'd say: "How much are you going to compensate me for? Because I'm better off when I'm at high-efficiency level, my costs are going to be driven through the roof. Therefore, you need to offset my costs as well."

I don't know how that would be accepted by someone down the road who wasn't getting the same offsets, if they were a company that was a lower-cost or a higher-cost producer, whatever the case may be. So no, we haven't got that program in place, and although there's been some preliminary discussion, there's nothing in front of us to have any further discussions at this time.

B. Simpson: What about a community stability package of some kind? I've asked the Minister of Community Services. She's certainly not offering that service. Phone somebody down in her ministry, and she'll ask you whether you've tried this, that or the next thing. The Economic Development Ministry doesn't do it. They're looking at the $129 million as their only approach.

Is the government putting together a community stability package? You've already got Mackenzie now potentially in the situation where none of their mills are operating. Fort St. James, Grand Forks, Castlegar and Campbell River — all of these communities are seeing the end of forestry as they know it and the possibility of it not rebounding, depending on how things go, if we collapse the industry down.

The other side of it — we'll get into it a little bit more — is that this is the immediate issue, but as the minister heard in Quesnel, if we persist in addressing the mountain pine beetle the way we are, we're accelerating when those communities start to have their issues. Canfor there said that 2012 is what they're looking at now.

Is there any movement in government to come in for resource-dependent communities with a comprehensive, joint-venture approach with the federal government, if that's what it has to be, to come in and stabilize those communities?

My concern is that if this is out to 2010 and we do want to ramp back up again, we're going to need those communities, and people will have fled. We're in a tight labour market for all kinds of demographic reasons. It's going to be very difficult to get people back into those communities again and get those mills back up. So what will happen is that the wood will move. The wood will move into the highly capitalized mills in the mountain pine beetle area that will be starving for wood at that time, and we will have permanently lost communities in this province if we don't do something.

The question is: do we have any inkling on the part of government to put together a community stability program that gets in and makes sure those communities survive this situation?

Hon. R. Coleman: We have a number of programs in government for rural and remote communities and infrastructure programs and stuff like that.

I think it's clear that, frankly, the base services for these communities — whether it be paid for by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Solicitor General with regards to policing and those issues in those communities, highways, etc. — will be maintained.

That stability fund for a province is probably best described in two places. One is the contingency of government and the forecast allowance. I think if we had to, we would be back at some point in time, after our first quarterly review, looking at our finances and saying: "What do we have to do for a particular community?"

I don't know that it's necessarily a stabilization fund. We've spoken to these communities and said: "Look, we're going to be there to make sure your basic services are protected and taken care of." I would assume that money would come from, basically, the budget of government.

It's an interesting way of looking at from the member's perspective, but I think that in some cases, you know, the Health budget is there, the highways budget is there, the Education budget is there, the post-secondary education is there and those things.

We have already had conversations about how we target education opportunities into these communities through Advanced Education for the purposes of making sure that the trades and the opportunities for education that we would provide would fit to the demographic and the people who are going to want specific types of training in these communities and those sorts of things.

That doesn't preclude that that discussion might not take place in government at the next level. From here, I've sat down with the other ministers and said: "Look, you know, we have these communities." I make sure everybody is aware of the fact that we have challenges on the forestry side and how it's going to impact communities.

The Premier has been very clear on the fact that these communities' basic services will be maintained, and I believe that the forecast allowance of government is probably strong enough to take care of that.

B. Simpson: I will move on. I've got a couple of questions on communities, but I guess what I sense from being in a number of estimates, listening to what goes on in question period, is that those communities need a champion at cabinet. As the Minister of Forests, for forest-dependent communities I think that the Minister of Forests is best suited as that champion to pull these programs together. I did not get that sense from the Minister of Community Services. I did not get that sense from Economic Development or anybody else in that cabinet.

These are forest-dependent communities. They need a champion — someone who's going to go to bat and make sure that it's not some ad hoc thing down the line that may or may not come together if the money is there or not there. We need to actually get in and to do something. I would hope that the minister would pick up that challenge.

Now, with respect to Fort Nelson, which the minister did visit, the minister made some statements there — and it's in the public domain — about point of appraisal and about utilization standards, changes that the minister believed were going to help keep that community going.

I can tell you that the feedback I get is that people get a little distraught when the minister goes into different areas and makes promises without consulting with the rest of the industry or promises are made, as in the case of the Mackenzie situation, where the Minister of Agriculture and Lands somehow floated some volume out to keep Canfor operating in Mackenzie. Other communities don't get that. Midway didn't get that when it was struggling to keep that mill going.

Was the point of appraisal change made? That's what the minister said publicly. Were the utilization standards changed specific to that region, or was this a provincewide change that occurred?

Hon. R. Coleman: Let's be clear, because I don't want the member to misunderstand what happened in Fort Nelson. In Fort Nelson you had something that hadn't happened in another community.

First of all, the sawmill had been gone for almost four years. The point of appraisal system says that the point of appraisal for lumber is changed after five years after the last mill leaves. That's been in place for some time. The point of appraisal was not changed in Fort Nelson. There was no ad hoc decision made in Fort Nelson that day I was there. I listened to the community. I told them I would take their concerns back to government, and I would go to work and see if there was a solution to the issue.

We did look at the point of appraisal as one of the options — to change the point of appraisals or to eliminate point of appraisals or to shorten the time frame for point of appraisals so that we could adjust it. I asked for work to be done on that. That was one of the options brought forward to government.

Another option that was brought forward — because of the fact that there were no sawmills in this particular area, and we had some wood that we wanted to move — was whether we could move to set the stumpage based on the profile at a lower rate, because of the transportation costs and everything else to get it to a mill other than the one mill, which was a plywood plant.

We made a three-month order-in-council change to the stumpage rate in Fort Nelson. It was not something that was taken lightly. It was not a decision that was easily made by cabinet, because obviously the discussion that it brings is as the member identified. We worked it through. Basically, we had to make a decision.

The decision was made on the basis that we had a community that had lost their arena, and everything had collapsed. The community was prepared to take less costs from the industry if the mill could operate. The union was taking a 5 percent wage cut from all its members, and the management was taking a wage cut from its members.

Was there something we could do with regards to the stumpage costs in that particular area, given the fact that there's no other competition for the particular profile of the wood and the peelers, which would go to the plywood plant, were not…? What do you do with the rest of the profile? If it's going to have to leave, then you have to put in the transportation calculation, and does that affect the price?

B. Simpson: It sure would be nice if a whole bunch of other communities got that kind of attention. It sure would be nice, because that's what they're asking for — for the minister to come in and sit and listen to the community and figure out what can be done to keep mills operating, what can be done within the minister's purview and control to do something. Why Fort Nelson gets it, and these other communities don't, escapes me. That's exactly what needs to be done. Those are exactly the kind of sacrifices that everybody has to make and be willing to make.

There are other locals that have made the same sacrifices but have gotten no support from the government — for the government to come to the table and provide the same kind of opportunities for changes to the regulatory environment or the utilization standards or costs to the mill. That is what gets people's anger up — that that occurs.

I could make this very political by saying that that's one of the minister's friends, an MLA, whose riding was at risk there, and that's why that happened. I hope that's not the case, but I'll tell you that there are a bunch of communities that would like that same kind of attention. I hope that the minister gets out and does that.

We're going to talk about one more community in a second here, but I have a quick question that I would be remiss not to address. The only offer of support on the table so far for forest workers is the $129 million fund.

The government, despite rhetoric from the 1990s when this was done, failed in the revitalization trust to take into account that the individuals who were getting that trust had to pay tax on it. The minister well knows that there are a lot of contractors out there who are very upset that that occurred.

Will that be rectified in this $129 million trust so that they don't end up getting money that they then have to turn around and pay tax for — in this case, federal money coming in that they just paid back to the federal government? Will that be corrected in this $129 million coming in?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I will go to other communities, quite frankly, and I would take umbrage at the fact that the member thought it was because the MLA was a colleague of mine that I went up to Fort Nelson, but that's entirely up to him to do that. In actual fact, I have been in other communities that are non-held ridings as well, and I spent a lot of time with a lot of people with regards to the issues in these communities, and I tried to solve them.

The forestry revitalization trust, just so the member knows…. Although it was actually made very clear in writing to people that those moneys were taxable, we have actually provided some legal assistance for them to deal with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency to try and appeal the CCRA rulings.

The reason that the community development trust has been taking longer than anticipated is for the very reason that we're working out the CCRA things at the front end on this one. We think we have those worked out. It was the intent from the beginning to try and make sure that we had this one, from the tax perspective, worked out so there can't be any confusion. My understanding is that we're there, although it's not my ministry that's done the work.

S. Fraser: Hello to the minister and greetings to your senior staff and deputy minister. I have a few questions to start with.

I'm representing the forest community of Port Alberni. I have had a commitment from the minister to meet with the community members to deal with some of the issues, and I don't recall that ever being acted on yet. I know that there was a weather problem with the round table meeting, so I know that had to be cancelled. We are very much looking forward to that meeting being rescheduled in a timely way.

A bit of a problem with how that was set up. The community was given very little time, and a lot of people had to scramble to prepare to meet with the minister. Many sectors were not even invited — I think that was a mistake — which are directly involved and facing some of the realities of the forest industry in Port Alberni. I think that an inclusive round table would be better than an exclusive one. Ten minutes is a tough time to put forward the multitude of issues that are affecting the workers in the Alberni Valley.

The $129 million fund. I know we get a lot of inquiries about that, so I look forward to that being made available. I'm hoping that it will be made available to go where it needs to, to the workers that have faced a lot of problems and a lot of hardship from forest policy.

Since 2004 and the 77,000 hectares removed from TFL 44 happened in the Alberni Valley — I might remind the minister, against the recommendations of the staff of the day…. They suggested that giving that land to then Weyerhaeuser out of the tree farm licences without compensation back was not a good idea.

I'm hoping that the Auditor General will be able to actually get to the bottom of just what that cost my forest community, Port Alberni. I believe that money should have come to help. You should have bargained for that. The previous minister should have bargained for that. If there was land to be removed, it should have been a full public process, and compensation should have been made available for the inevitable hardship that that decision caused.

Since then, about a year ago…. We've had a lot of different studies done in the last few years. The Alberni industrial review, specifically dealing with the issues around Alberni Valley forestry issues…. A lot of it fell out of that 2004 decision to remove those lands and completely ring the Alberni Valley with private lands — no public control. The changing of the Private Managed Forest Land Act certainly led to some of those problems too.

Where are we at with the industrial review? Will we get some commitment to tangible resources from the minister to help implement the recommendations of that review?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I don't know whether my travel to Port Alberni is jinxed or what the case is. The first time I tried to get there, after I'd been there to visit my staff, I was fogged in and couldn't get in. The second time I was sitting at an airport where it was, frankly, pretty sunny in the Fraser Valley and told I couldn't land at your airport because of snow. That was just recently.

At this stage, just for the member's edification, the Port Alberni community meeting with regards to the round table…. Presently, in my schedule, June 5 is on hold for that. Now, that doesn't mean that that is the day until we actually confirm that we have people that can attend that day. But at this point, that's the hold date to try and see if we can schedule back into that community.

If not that day, it won't take place the next day, because the next day I'm in Williams Lake and Castlegar and so on. From that standpoint, maybe I'll just drive it this time, except I have Treasury Board in the morning. It's a question of getting there, but we're going to get to Port Alberni.

Basically, I'll just give you some background. On June 7 there was a final report released with 19 recommendations on the Alberni forest district. That was something that was done by a consultant. In December 2007 our facilitators, Ministry of Forests and Range facilitators, led an all-day session with the community. I don't want the community to think that anybody from forestry except for the minister has had trouble getting there. We've actually been there a number of times, facilitated meetings and invested, frankly, some significant dollars.

We led an all-day session with community and business leaders from Port Alberni to develop an implementation plan for the top eight priority recommendations. Those topics included property taxation; expanding of the city boundaries — that was one of the initiatives; so the city boundaries expansion would be the Ministry of Community Services; we can't actually expand your boundaries, right? — highway access into the valley; the Alberni rail branch line; and development of a strategic economic development plan.

In June of 2008 the ministry is facilitating a number of meetings with stakeholders to scope out and develop implementation plans on the remaining recommendations. Those include the private managed forest land, the forest technician training, access to tourism development and business courses related to tourism, agricultural viability, log sort, airport development, concentration of harvesting rights, aggregation of tenures and Port Alberni as a retirement destination. All are identified issues within the report, so out of that will come those.

At some shift there will be…. I think there would be a shift where the Ministry of Forests and Range staff should move this over to the Ministries of Economic Development and Community Services. From the standpoint that a lot of those things…. They're good — right? — but they're not experts at, you know, adjusting municipal boundaries and rail lines and getting the Ministry of Transportation to do something about a highway and those sorts of things. Those things are all pieces of work that I understand are ongoing, and plans are being attached to them and being brought to the various departments of government.

S. Fraser: We'll be looking forward, tentatively, to June 5. I appreciate the minister getting that into his calendar, at least. Hopefully, that'll work out.

I understand the multitude of issues that came out of the Alberni industrial review, and the recommendations span many ministries. The minister has already alluded to the challenges sometimes to getting across the Island. Hopefully, when the minister meets next time with his peer the Minister of Transportation, he can put a plug in for the alternative route that we've been pushing for. There's a very good plan coming forward from the regional district, and a lot of work has been done there. That's good. But there've been other problems.

The minister talked about education and some of that retraining. Again, if you can talk to your colleague the Minister of Advanced Education, there's been a cut of 2 to 3 percent budget on the three-year planning process. It has not been a help. It has been a hindrance to training in the valley and in other places and other post-secondary institutions across the Island and the province. So I appreciate that.

I'm speaking fast because I have very limited time, I understand. I wish we had not had 62 hours removed from our estimates process because it's hamstringing many of us. I'm going to switch reluctantly now because I still have other questions I'd like to ask about the Alberni industrial review, but noting the time.

I'm going to go to forest safety. We've got a number of studies that have been done, reports and reviews, two coroners' reports in the last while — in the last year, year and a half. There's the Auditor General's report on forest safety, and there's a recent Forest Safety Council ombudsman's review dealing with forest road safety. Can the minister let me know what concrete steps are being made as a result of any of these reports?

Hon. R. Coleman: We committed to meeting all the recommendations in the Auditor General's report. There is, on the website, our recommended action and time line for each one of those particular issues.

We have established the interagency group that the Auditor General recommended and also put a report on the website with regards to planning and safety. That was also part of it, and WorkSafe has installed these new regulations.

The only thing I don't have is some numbers that I know I have in some other binders: how many SAFE-certified fallers there are, people that have taken the course, how many companies have become SAFE companies and those sorts of things, which was and continues to be a pretty important initiative.

We have also, through B.C. Timber Sales, taken the lead role with regards to the Forest Safety Council SAFE company certification program. We're actively pursuing certification across our entire operation and expect to achieve that goal this year.

Since April 2007 B.C. Timber Sales requires parties who bid on contracts or undertake work on our timber sale licence to be registered with a SAFE company program or they don't get to bid. We've engaged the service of three external auditors who are undertaking audits of our operations to follow up on the audits, with regards to matchup last year versus this year — whether we're doing better or not, all of our safety programs and those sorts of things.

S. Fraser: There are a lot of pieces to forest safety. There has been a large percentage of forestry accidents, for forestry workers and for others on forest roads. So that's an issue that is certainly near and dear to me.

I've raised this issue a number of times, certainly with the Minister of Transportation and with the Minister of Forests regarding the Bamfield road. The status of that road is often almost impassable, and we've had death on that road, injury on that road and a dispro-

portionate number of accidents according to the RCMP. I've attended public meetings in Bamfield on this, and certainly it's been discussed in Port Alberni too. The road, of course, runs from Port Alberni to Bamfield.

In the Forest Safety Council ombudsman's report entitled No Longer the Road Less Travelled, they have a specific recommendation to deal with roads such as the Bamfield road. They actually go as far as to cite the Bamfield situation as a case in point for addressing problems on forestry roads that have other uses — that have developed uses as community access for first nations communities, non–first nations communities and, of course, a large tourism sector, which is the case in Bamfield.

You've got the marine station that's there. There are 3,500 students travelling that road to go to the marine station. So safety is important for forest workers and for the residents of Bamfield and many visitors. The West Coast Trail is also there. The recommendation — it's No. 1 on page 7 — says: "The province should establish a new public highway designation for resource roads that serve as the primary or secondary access roads for communities. The new designation would have clearly defined standards for construction, maintenance and enforcement, and be funded and resourced similarly to the public highway system."

Does the minister have any comments? Will he be looking to implement this recommendation?

Hon. R. Coleman: If the member opposite had heard any of my comments with regards to that report he would know that. Not at this time. I think that the ombudsman, frankly, stepped outside of what I think his mandate was with regards to that, and I don't think had taken in the fiscal side of that recommendation as to what it would cost taxpayers and how you would identify these roads.

So we have a couple — the Bamfield road is one — where we spend about $450,000 a year, actually. I remember one day it was in the news. I was anticipating it in question period, so I actually had the number. I knew that if you'd only asked me that question that day, I would have been able to say that the graders are out there today, because they had gone out there that day because they were doing some of their maintenance.

This is one of the ones, though…. I don't know that the Resource Road Act would actually necessarily hit it either. There is some discussion between us and Transportation on how we can get to deal with a couple of these particular roads in B.C. that have more of a community use as much as they do a resource use.

Those will be ongoing discussions with the government, but we'll continue to do our maintenance piece on the Bamfield road as the Ministry of Forests.

S. Fraser: I just want a clarification. The minister said $450,000 for the Bamfield road maintenance. The last I heard it was just over, I think, $230,000. That was the budget that the Minister of Transportation had stated. I know just by exploring these questions earlier that that money is going…. I don't know if it's Western Forest Products or the private managed forest lands companies that the road goes through. It's not given specifically for maintenance. It's given as an agreement that the public will use those roads.

There's no oversight by Highways or by the provincial government on whether or not those roads are up to public safety standards with that money. It's strictly up to the companies involved as to whether or not it's up to their industrial standards. That's dependent on whether or not the companies are even harvesting in the area or in a portion of that road.

The whole relationship we've had spans many governments, as the minister knows. I'm not placing blame here. It is no longer adequate for safe travel.

If it has been raised somehow, if it has been doubled, that may well address some of the problems that were associated with that road maintenance. But again, only if there are specific stipulations put in for the maintenance of that road to the standards that we need. We need basic public safety standards to be met for that road, over and above whatever industrial standards the licensees hold.

Hon. R. Coleman: That's the number just coming off of the top of my head. I think it may be an aggregate number between the two ministries. What I've done is just sent a note and asked if somebody can get me that note. I'll share that with the member when I get it, just in case I'm not entirely correct on the dollars. I will be happy to share that with the member.

S. Fraser: I appreciate that information and that clarification. I might be very happy with knowing that somebody has doubled the amount of maintenance, which has been stuck at that 200,000-and-something level for every level of estimates that I've been to. If somebody has doubled it, I suggest that might be a step in the right direction.

I'm just going to finish off, because I'm out of time. I'm going to go off the safety issue now, although I certainly could go further with that. I've got so many reports on this. I think today is the third ship in the last week in the Alberni port loading raw logs and destined, in my understanding, for South Korea, Japan and other jurisdictions who will be milling that wood and turning it into wealth for other jurisdictions. It's a bitter pill for workers to swallow.

I know that the minister has referred to Catalyst's paper machine No. 4. It is back up, and that's great. But it's not all great. It's a small bit of good news in the context of a lot of bad news.

I visited the Catalyst mill not long ago, just before the startup. If you talk to a lot of the workers there…. There were workers that had been there for 31 years who were basically being put on call — a terrible position with that kind of seniority — with no security, the potential for not getting called back, for losing benefits,

that whole series of problems that happens with workers that are put in that situation. Others are being forced to leave their jobs.

As we see these ships leave the harbour, as we see the trucks leave the valley, does the minister have any comment on that in closing? These logs are coming off previously publicly controlled lands, TFL 44 lands, and they were taken out of that protection. The Private Managed Forest Land Act allows them to move this stuff out as fast as they can. I'm amazed how fast they're loading these ships. It's at record speed.

The concern I heard at the Catalyst mill when I toured there, not just from workers but from management also, is supply. It's whether the industry needs chips or fibre or…. The question is secure supply.

There's a domino effect, as the minister and his staff know. If one plant goes down, that can affect the supply of another plant and so on and so on. That's the spectre that workers in the Alberni Valley are working under, even with No. 4 back up again.

Can the minister comment on if he has any thoughts about trying to stop that fibre, that value, those logs and those jobs from leaving the country?

Hon. R. Coleman: I think if the member read the report on log exports, he's aware of just how difficult this issue is. The recommendations were not particularly strong.

I've been trying to work with the federal government to get them to move on some issues with regards to logs off private lands — frankly, not with success. We are still in discussions with them with regards to it. They have to make a decision on whether they're prepared to put a tax or something on those logs. That's within their jurisdiction, and we've talked about matching that up with whatever we would do on logs off Crown lands. They have some nervousness about that. We haven't reached an agreement on it.

But I can tell the member that there is some work going on in that issue, with that particular part of it. Then there's always the issue of whether the logs in a surplus test — if they're surplus to the marketplace — should be allowed to go, which is another discussion that takes place with the federal government on the private logs as well as within B.C.

Then there are the areas of the province — the Central Coast, Mid-Coast particularly — who tell us that they need to have a 35 percent allowance for the export of logs. So they cannot survive in the logging business up there because there's nowhere for those profiles to go. Therefore, they wouldn't be able to cut any profile, and those jobs would be lost.

I think one of the authors of the report on log exports in one meeting said to me: "The best of luck to you, Minister." There's still work going on. We're trying to get to where we can find a solution.

B. Simpson: Thank you, Chair, and welcome to our fun time. There are other phrases that you could probably put to it.

Anyway, I just want to try and quickly wrap up some pointed questions on log exports. One I'll ask in the form of a request. I'll then move on to the land base, starting with the coast, moving into the Interior and into mountain pine beetle, and see where we get to. We've only got about an hour and a half or so left.

The minister's comments about private land logs and a potential tax on that are interesting. It would be interesting to see if there is any information that comes forward on that so that we could look at it as well. I don't know if there's anything in print. One of the things that is troublesome is, if we go back to yesterday's comments about the northwest plan, the way that those comments were framed in the minutes was that that may be the future fibre basket for post–mountain pine beetle.

There are lots of discussions that the midcoast, north coast, parts of the Island…. We may actually have to shift over, depending on what happens with the mountain pine beetle, and we will get into that shortly. We may have to shift over and look for alternate sources of fibre. Yet it strikes me that what we're doing just now is exporting a lot of the remaining residual, valued fibre and cutting it down and doing it for export in order to keep loggers employed. The minister has already indicated that in the case of the north coast, about 35 percent is what they need as an export in order to keep people employed up there.

Has there been any strategizing on the part of the government to look at the next ten or 15 years, with the entire province as a fibre basket, if you will, and to look at our current log export policy in that light? As a future source of fibre on the coast, is it the right decision for us to continue to issue OICs exporting that wood out? Or would it be better for us to hold that wood and look at some kind of transition program for the loggers that are in that area, or some other mechanisms to support them in the interim? Has that work been done at all?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I don't know that the North West Loggers Association or the people in those communities would like somebody to say that nobody's going to log up there. The reality up in the northwest is that…. When sitting down in the communities of Terrace and Prince Rupert a week or so ago with the Premier and in meetings with those communities with regards to their future and economics, they're very interested in pursuing some bioenergy initiatives,

either with Hydro or in cooperation with Hydro, relative to the decadent timber up there. If you can get that out, it's pretty good growing stock up there, and you can replace it with something better.

At the same time, because of the percentage that's decadent, you do need to find two areas for the fibre. The green wood that's up there can be used for other things if you could get your logging costs averaged across, because you could do something with your decadent by having a parallel industry like bioenergy. They actually made one of the better presentations I've seen, made by a lady from the economic development side, on how those things could marry up. So I think the northwest has given this a great deal of thought.

Now, on the data side…. We collect the data. I guess if we can suss out what data the member wants, but it's not a…. Well, there's not, according to my guys, a thing where we said, "Here's the entire fibre of British Columbia as one big TFL" — or whatever you want to call it — and "Where are we harvesting today versus next week or twenty years from now or thirty years from now?"

It tends to be by region and, I guess you could say, almost by climate zones in many ways. So I don't know of anything that's taken that look that they've advised me of.

B. Simpson: Just a point of clarification. My comment stemmed from a comment that, apparently, the deputy minister had made with respect to the northwest plan at a forest investment board meeting. It was in the minutes. I can go back and check that. I raised it yesterday — that the northwest could potentially be a fibre basket, post–mountain pine beetle. That's what stimulated my comment.

I have had conversations with the people in the northwest. And I've had these conversations all around the coast — in fact, it is floating around the coast — with the people who are on the ground. Is this the right thing for us to do, liquidating this asset that might be the future fibre basket for what happens post–mountain pine beetle? In the Interior, if there are areas that the falldown is so deep, that technology is mobile these days. We move it down to the States. We move it to Russia. We can move it to the coast.

That's the context I asked. The answer I got is that the work hasn't necessarily been done. My understanding — and it's part of the struggles we have with mountain pine beetle — is that we tend to do things on a timber supply area. That's how we take a look at it whereas I think we do need to take that bigger step back, particularly in the world of climate change and what's happening in mill closures all around the province.

I just wanted to close off log exports with a request and then a question. I wonder if it's possible for us to get a single report on the OICs that exist and the volumes for those OICs, so that we can actually see that in one place. I won't belabour that point here by asking specifically.

However, there is the one that we raised in question period that we would like an answer for, and it is MacKenzie sawmill in Surrey. There's apparently a request, an application for an OIC for standing green log exports from the Soo TSA and TFL 38.

The history of that is that the MacKenzie sawmill has a standing agreement. It was an Interfor mill and they have a standing agreement that they get first right of refusal. However, the TFL and the licence has flipped to the first nations, who I believe now are asking for an OIC to export those logs.

The MacKenzie mill wants to maintain its rights, which it understood it had when it went into the agreement with Interfor. One of the collateral damages that will occur there if that mill — it's an independent sawmill — doesn't continue is that there will be implications for remanufacturers in the area, as well, because they provide feedstock to those remanufacturers.

Can the minister clarify, on the record, what the status of that application is and whether or not there's an intention to sign that OIC?

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm going to be really clear about this one, because the question that was asked in the Legislature was completely wrong in the way it was couched and the way it was presented.

The member had a letter from somebody to the Timber Export Advisory Committee, not to the Minister of Forests, requesting them to consider an export with regards to an application that was made by — I believe it was the Squamish First Nation — with regards to the export.

There is no OIC. Nothing happens until after the Timber Export Advisory Committee makes a recommendation. At that point in time, a recommendation could come to the minister who could then decide to have an OIC. Let's be clear about that.

The question was completely wrong. When I spoke to the media afterwards, I said that this letter hasn't even been sent to the minister nor has it been cc'd to the minister. It was faxed to us later that afternoon. So the way the issue was presented was wrong. However, I can advise the member that that export advisory committee has met, and they have not recommended this, so there will be no OIC recommendation coming to the minister.

B. Simpson: I just want to be clear for the record that this member did not ask that question; it was the member for Surrey-Newton. If I recall, the member did ask the question couched in terms of the letter going to the advisory board, not in terms of the minister. So there's no need for us to get into that debate. If the answer is no, that will make the MacKenzie sawmill feel good about that.

I want to move on. I'm very conscious of time, and there's quite a bit of material on the land base side to move through now. The context for this series of questions through the coast to the Interior — mountain pine beetle, looking at the Forests for Tomorrow program, the forest land base investment program and all of that — is that without healthy forests, we don't have a

However, we don't really know the state of the forests if our inventory is not up to date and if we're not actually collecting the data that we need or if we're not using the correct metrics, and I'm going to argue that case in the situation with not satisfactorily restocked or NSR, and then, finally, if we're not adopting sustainable adaptive forest management on the land base.

Unfortunately, we won't have time to dig into the future forest ecosystems, but I have wholeheartedly supported the future forest ecosystems initiative of the chief forester right from the outset. We have advocated for more resources to be given to that, because a fundamental question we have to answer is: what is the implication of climate change for adaptive forest management?

If you take a look, for example, in the Interior, where we are taking large tracts of forest down, if we're replacing that with even-age pine stand, is that the right thing to do, particularly when modelling suggests it might be Douglas fir that may be the most suitable species in the climate as it changes?

That's the context for trying to understand where we're going with all of this, and I'm going to start on the coast and then move to the Interior. I'm going to take a look at some of the programs that the government's going around, giving announcements about around the province.

Starting with the coast. I just didn't have the time to go and do this myself, so hopefully the minister's staff has it right away. What is the coast annual allowable cut versus actual harvest? What are those two numbers?

Hon. R. Coleman: Earlier I was having a discussion with the member from Port Alberni with regard to the Bamfield road and some money we were spending on it. I thought he was going to ask me a question about that particular road, that particular day in the House, but the one I actually had the information on was the Zeballos road, not the Bamfield road. There are too many roads, I guess.

I will undertake to get the numbers for the member for Alberni-Qualicum with regards to the Bamfield road.

The annual allowable cut on the coast is 18 million cubic metres, and we harvest between 13 and 14 million.

B. Simpson: Is it fair to say that that undercut on the coast has been going on for quite some time? We're generally undercutting about 15 to 20 percent on a continuous basis on the coast. Is that correct?

B. Simpson: Has there been any talk about taking that undercut back and getting it out to other tenure holders or others that might be able to get it into the marketplace in different forms?

Hon. R. Coleman: We've just had the discussion here that we might want to offer you a more intense briefing on this particular subject because it gets pretty complicated. But I'll answer the question, and you can decide whether you want to. We do that, where we'll take the undercut and put it back out again.

Our challenge has been that we get an unintended consequence when we do that. What we do get is more people chasing the best wood, and it brings more pressure on the land base. Basically, that's why we've taken the money we've invested in FPInnovations to try and find more aggressive markets for the lower-grade wood like hemlock through FPInnovations. So what we do is manage that.

We do have the management of the undercut, and what we also do is partition the cut within the AAC to try and deal with that issue as well, chasing the blocks, because the most economical wood is what everybody tries to go get or they try and they don't. So we're trying to get to where we're getting more discipline on the land base and also create a market for some of this wood that we'd like to see come out.

Just on this discussion, it's a bit complicated. I know the ministry is happy to sit down with you on this one.

B. Simpson: I will take advantage of that, but I do have some pointed questions to understand what's going on. What percentage of the AAC available is hem-bal?

B. Simpson: That's what I've got. I've got about 60 percent to 65 percent here, which automatically…. As the minister said, you use partition and so on. But automatically, the majority of the cut on the coast is in the fir and going after the cedar. That's what we're doing on the coast just now.

Has there been any discussion about doing a correction to the AAC for the coast to address the reality that what we're doing is liquidating the high-value fir and cedar on the coast? With that perpetual undercut, if you actually do the math and the calculations, I think you'll find that it's an unsustainable level of cut that's occurring in the high-value stands. There aren't enough partitions and various other things to correct that. That's what's going on.

In particular — again, because of time constraints, I'll throw a bunch of this out just now — a recent news article that came out, on cedar, pointed out that the coast is really living right now on cedar. It estimated that about 50 percent of the total cut on the coast is cedar, and it's a gold rush mentality. Everybody wants to get that cedar into the marketplace first because that's the high-demand product. In fact, if we go on that path, then the question is: are we liquidating our cedar assets in this down market? The other is, of

Has there been any discussion about really sitting down and taking a look at that coast cut? You've got the undercut. That's a problem. You've got the issue of cedar and fir being liquidated. Is that a sustainable level of cut? Are we doing a review of the coast cut within that context?

Hon. R. Coleman: The member is correct, I think, in his description. On the coast, in the timber harvesting landbase, 60 percent of merchantable volume is hem-bal, and 22 percent is cedar.

Since 1995 cedar harvests in the northern TSA have been above the proportion indicated by the inventory, while hem-bal has been below. The areas that have been affected include the north coast, the midcoast, QCI and Kingcome TSAs. The issue is helicopter logging of high-value cedar leaving low-value species and poor-quality trees behind, which may be reducing productivity and future economic opportunity in the residual land base. This is just so that the member knows that we have identified the problem.

The Forest Practices Board issued a report in January 2008 that criticized this practice. We have moved to more strategic guidance policies, partial cutting and the need for clear, measurable targets. The resolution that we've put in place is a team of industry and government. The coast's FRPA implementation team has made progress in improving the stand-level practices with increased monitoring and training.

There's a new management plan, resulting from the coast action plan, which will also work to resolve any landscape-level issues associated with the potential overharvest of cedar. The timber supply review process will pay attention to stand- and landscape-level issues associated with cedar harvest patterns.

The chief forester is considering the use of partitioning the annual allowable cut to manage the harvest rates in hem-bal and cedar. We have recently made it possible to do that subdivision. The chief forester is live to this. We're expecting him, actually, to move on the partitioning of the annual allowable cut to deal with these harvest rates so that we can deal with this issue.

B. Simpson: The minister went to the Forest Practices Board report. That was going to come up next, and I do want to come back to that. There are other implications of that report.

It strikes me as odd that the government's coast action plan statement is: "In the shorter term, harvesting old growth is required to maintain economic stability and meet market demands," while we do this five-year study on how to shift to hem-bal.

The Coast Forest Products Association in their gargantuan report — and I did not read it all; I read the executive summary — on page 6 says: "One significant conclusion developed from the project research was that old-growth harvest consumed in the specialty sector, including western red cedar, should be given full industry and government support."

So the demand on the market side is to continue to log those while we figure out the second-growth question. But I'm hearing that the minister is saying as a result of the Forest Practices Board, and I'm sure there are other people saying: "Hang on a second. Is this sustainable?"

That's the ultimate question. At current harvest levels, are we at risk of extinguishing the remaining high-value cedar and fir on the coast?

B. Simpson: I think there are people out there who would dispute that vociferously — on the Queen Charlotte Islands, certainly. They'll go and tell you that there's probably a difference between high-value cedar for market and canoe cedar. Canoe cedar is a 1,000-year-old tree. So the downfall in those stands is significant, and what we're considering as high value in old growth is significant as well.

In this whole calculation of old growth, which we're going to continue to log, albeit with maybe some partitions and some cleaning up as a result of the Forest Practices Board on the selection logging that went on, there's also the question of climate change. Without question, the biggest sink for carbon is old-growth stands. As we start to value carbon more, why wouldn't we try and move more rapidly out of old-growth logging, out of those higher carbon–concentrated stands?

Is that part of any of the discussions that are going on about land management on Vancouver Island? In particular, where there's a demand for an old-growth strategy or on the coast in general, is carbon part of the equation now?

Hon. R. Coleman: At the risk of entering into the climate change discussion, an old-growth forest is a larger sequestration of carbon, but it's not actually a better carbon sink than a younger forest. The fact of the matter is that the younger forest actually suppresses more carbon because it's growing more, but wood is a carbon-friendly product. If a tree is cut down and is turned into a two-by-four that goes into a house, the carbon is still sequestered.

When they do the calculation in and around carbon sinks and all of that stuff, it's a rather interesting and quite complicated exercise. I've seen a number of presentations because I sit on the cabinet committee for climate change.

We need both, frankly, on the coast. We need some old-growth harvest, and we need some second-growth harvest. We need to have them both sustainable. We can't be overharvesting our second growth as it grows because we don't want to have a negative impact on the long-term timber supply. There still is room for old-growth growth, and there are old-growth trees on the coast. I don't think we want to say that we won't do either.

We said in the coast forest plan that we would try and shift some to second growth, but there would always be a harvest of old growth because there was an industry there. Frankly, most of the old growth, outside of what is the forest that's available for harvest, has been protected in conservancies or parks or whatever. I think the amount of fibre that's available compared to what's protected, if I remember correctly, is about 3 to 1. There's no question that both are going to be part of the industry on the coast for a long time.

B. Simpson: I would refer the minister and his staff to a recent report put out by the Land Trust Alliance of British Columbia that was done by S.J. Wilson and Dr. Hebda. The issue here is the issue of carbon release. Yes, young forests will, over time — a hundred years or whatever the rotation is — take a bunch of carbon out of the air again. They don't actually take it on the front end of their growth cycle. They take it in the medium term, 35 to 40 years, when they start to bulk up. So for about 35 years, you've got a minimum uptake of carbon.

When you go and harvest it, particularly old-growth stands that have a lot of locked-up carbon, and you take into consideration the waste and soil disturbance, the release of that carbon is quite significant. In a carbon-constrained world we need to start paying more attention to the release in order to get all of our emissions and our GHGs into the atmosphere down.

That's why an old-growth strategy that tries to prevent liquidation of old growth is much more important now than it ever was before — notwithstanding the attributes of biodiversity and all of the other things that old growth brings in. That was my question.

That sense of looking at old growth through a different lens, through a climate change lens, of not releasing that long-stored and very high volume of stored carbon…. Has that lens been put on? Will we be getting an old-growth strategy for the coast, as the Western Canada Wilderness Committee has been asking the minister for some time and believe that the minister has promised them they would get?

Hon. R. Coleman: We're going to still harvest old growth. There's still going to be some old-growth harvest. Whether we manage the waste better, I think, is important. When it's harvested, the carbon is still sequestered until such time as the product either is burned or rots, which is one of the concerns, as the member knows, with regards to the pine beetle.

We are working on what, I guess, you would call an old-growth strategy. The chief forester has established a future ecosystem initiative, and that's to learn how to adapt the forest and forest management to changing climate conditions, including managing a tree species, forest health, fire and other resources — i.e., like carbon. The intent is to have our ecosystem remain somewhat resilient to carbon-change stresses in the long term.

A strategic plan has been developed and a management structure implemented to guide the delivery over the next three years. This includes integrating resilience practices into the management framework and growing our knowledge — i.e., research, forecasting, monitoring, policy evaluation and monitoring to verify that the management framework remains effective under future control.

There are currently over 30 projects supported by this. The current funding includes $908,000 in project funding from the Forest Investment Account to the forest science program, $5.5 million through the future forest ecosystems scientific council and a significant shift of internal funding and staff resources to resolve this information and policy issues.

B. Simpson: I'll leave that alone. I think the minister has got into some generalized funding, and I was dealing with a specific issue here. I do have to move on.

With respect to the stated objective on the coast to move into second growth, it seems that we're going to try to do that in an aggressive fashion in two forms, or the government is going to. I'm not involved in it.

It's two forms. We want to be able to harvest the stands sooner, so we're going to do fertilizing. We're going to do some seed stuff. As the Forest Practices Board and others have pointed out, we're actively converting the coast over to hem-bal because of our silvicultural practices. We're continuing to see a hemlock-balsam forest come back in behind in a fir-cedar forest.

My question to the minister is this. We already have a problem in the marketplace with hemlock and balsam — in getting markets that like that product because of its characteristics. My understanding from forest science and talking to scientists is that when you accelerate rotation, at times you actually change the wood characteristics. You start to make the wood even punkier. You make the wood less strong.

As a consequence, are we not going to defeat the purpose of what we're trying to do in the marketplace, because the characteristics currently of hem-bal are suspect? We're trying to address that. But if we go to faster rotations, do we not then deteriorate the structure of the wood fibre and, therefore, deteriorate the characteristics?

Hon. R. Coleman: The answer to the member's question is no. According to my experts over here, only with extreme growth rates do you lose the structural qualities of the wood. In a place like Brazil, where they'll grow a Douglas fir tree in 12 years, the structural quality is definitely compromised. What we're trying to accomplish is…. A 50-year type rotation versus a 70- to 80-year rotation does not have any effect on the structural quality of the wood.

In addition to that, we have a development project right now, a characterization of hemlock-fir wood attributes in terms of end-product potential, which has objectives. I'll read the objectives. Basically, it is to "characterize the value of the potential of old-growth hem-fir in relation to key biogeoclimatic subzones and/or a site index to provide data needed to identify

the marginal stands for given end products and to characterize the stands of trees in terms of wood-product attributes to identify market values to provide technical data for market-support, product-development, stand-management decisions."

That's to do with the hem-bal stuff. It's a $3 million program that's part of the FPInnovations package.

My answer to the other question was actually a categorical no. We just can't grow them fast enough. Even in the best of situations, we can't grow them fast enough to actually damage the structural qualities of the wood.

B. Simpson: Again, maybe I'm reading the wrong stuff, but there are questions. I've talked to foresters who've worked on both the coast and the Interior who, again, dispute that. The minister has to rely on whatever is available and whatever his staff have available to them.

With respect to the coast, one of the things that's interesting in how the government is going to move into second growth is the productivity data of the second-growth stands. If I understand this right, if we update the site productivity data, it may lead to an estimated 18 percent increase in the long-term yields.

Is that simply the fact that we think that they're growing faster out there, that we're going to update our data and say that they're growing faster? Or is this actually that there's some real volume out there? I don't understand what this does to actually give us more volume on the coast.

Hon. R. Coleman: I'll try this. We think that the old model of measuring growth underestimated the stands' growth rate, in the old models. So we have moved to new models to measure the field sampling on our TSAs. Where we've done this, we have found that there's about a 16 percent gain in productivity for each TSA. We've found that they're actually growing faster.

Right now we're spending $500,000 this year on the field sampling in five additional TSAs. That work is getting done to basically identify the growth rates. That will then go into the longer-term calculations with regards to the timber supply and the chief forester's calculations, because we'll have better data to really let us know just how fast the trees are growing.

The old model was an old model, and so we're using more modern technology in measurements. When they tried the first few, they thought that that was the case. They were proved to be correct, and now they're going to do the rest of the TSAs to be able to determine that information scientifically and then provide that information into the mix.

B. Simpson: So that will adjust the potential upward on the cut level. It doesn't address the issue of what we're cutting, the need to partition and all of that stuff, because it's in the second growth, which is where we're undercutting. So until we make that transition to that…. I guess we're waiting for the five-year study and all of that stuff to happen.

At the same time, though, the Forest Practices Board report that the minister referenced points out that the stands they looked at — the 1,500 hectares they were looking at that were harvested annually using that particular harvesting approach — are being classified in the system as stocked stands when, in actual fact, they're not. They're stands that won't have another cut.

As part of the outcome of what the minister's going to do to respond to the Forest Practices Board, will there be an adjustment in the standing inventory on the coast to account for the fact that these are actually NSR blocks now?

B. Simpson: I just have a quick question with respect to compliance and enforcement. I can't get into it too much, and I don't want to have the minister to have to change staff here.

I have a copy of the revenue risk management plan for the coast region for April 2007 to March 2008, which in my understanding is a requirement for Treasury Board submission.

In reading that, there are a bunch of questions here about whether or not we're actually able to get the data that we need to make sure that the Crown gets the value from the forest land base.

Accurate and timely stumpage rates. It says that appraisal errors continue to occur at high frequency. Apparently the officer, the comptroller general, was making recommendations on a model that was proposed on that. The number of rejected crews has increased significantly since the implementation of MPS. There is a risk of scaled timber not being billed or not billed in a timely manner. It continues to be a risk. Transporting unscaled timber, there's a whole range of inaccuracies in data collection.

Just a quick question. Is this a result of a shortage of staff to do this work in a timely fashion? Is that what has to be addressed on the coast? Or is it problems with the systems, so that it looks like the coast in the collection of data to make sure the Crown gets duly paid for what comes off of the land base is threatened?

B. Simpson: It's the coast forest region revenue risk management plan. Every region has to submit one on an annual basis.

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, my staff believes they have the adequate resources to address compliance and enforcement, and they don't feel that there's any shortage there.

This report just identifies issues arising from a risk management analysis, which is probably, as much as anything, good business. Then what we do with our compliance and enforcement is target the highest priorities. That is actually good policing. It's something

that modern policing has taken on with regards to identifying where your highest risk areas are — where you move your resources to deal with your highest risks based on data and information and assessments. I guess it seems to be applying here as well.

We have pretty consistent compliance, quite frankly, within the industry, according to our guy's assessment. We do identify risks and issues from time to time, and obviously, we target those.

B. Simpson: Well, the consistent compliance, I think, is an "oops" on the part of the minister. There's a Forest Practices Board report out today, Compliance Inspections and Management, a special report that actually asks why compliance across the districts is so inconsistent and what needs to be done to make that more consistent. Since the report was out today, I expect that the government will have a response at some point.

I want to come back to the risk management part of it, but under the Forest and Range Practices Act, the forestry revitalization strategy, there was a promise that compliance and enforcement would be increased in order to ensure that we actually continue to have sound forest management and that we continue to be able to do what we need to do to make sure that the revenue to the Crown was assured and kept up.

That was an explicit promise in the forestry revitalization strategy: as we moved to a results-based world, compliance and enforcement would be increased in order to give the guarantee to British Columbians that the public forests were being well managed and that the revenue to the Crown that was due to the Crown was being collected.

In 2003 there were 317 FTEs assigned to C-and-E. Now there are only 292, and it is flatlined going forward. So my question to the minister is: where is the increased compliance and enforcement?

Hon. R. Coleman: Just before I answer the question — because the member brought up the Forest Practices Board report — the fact is that we've already made the changes that address some of the board's recommendations to enhance consistency.

We have a more robust quality assurance program to ensure we're conducting the right number of inspections in the right places. We've developed a new procedures manual and additional training. We're in the process of making changes to the reporting functions to our CIMS database. The goal is to ensure more accurate input for more useful reporting.

The variability in numbers between districts is expected. After all, there's a great deal of difference between the kinds of activities going on — the experience of forest companies, along with the terrain, timber types and risk factors. You can't expect the data for one coastal district with a small number of longtime operators with curtailed operations to have the same inspection numbers as an Interior district, with the pine beetle epidemic, being salvaged.

The key finding of this report is that B.C. forest companies do follow the laws in place for the protection of the environment, and the board's own independent audits back that up. So that's just to that report, and the reports are always interesting. Audits usually…. I remember that my father was a Revenue Canada auditor. I think there was never a time where he didn't find something that he had to write about when he did an audit.

We do try and respond to the Forest Practices Board's audits. The briefing note I have is that we've already started to move, because we're in discussion with these guys on a regular basis.

So we do this on a business analysis, with regard to our C-and-E staff, to meet the requirements. I'm told by my staff that 96 percent of the people in British Columbia are, on the forest practices side, compliant. We have the 300 staff, and they feel that with the sound and solid program in place and the regime for managing how we do this, that that is a good complement and that we're meeting our objectives.

B. Simpson: I know there are all kinds of questions out there about grade checks, about the weigh scaling, about waste assessments. Waste assessments are huge. There's actually going to be a pilot project — I believe it's within B.C. Timber Sales — to try and figure out how to get out and get the waste checks done before the piles get burned.

We have issues with compliance on waste, I think, all over the province, because we can't get out in a timely fashion and do the waste audits. We have issues. In fact, the same report from the coast points out that the increase in the weigh scaling is an increased risk for getting revenue to the Crown. We have issues all over.

The promise was made to British Columbians that compliance and enforcement would be increased. I think it's something the minister needs to take a very close look at. In fact, the annual report this year has the perceptions of Ministry of Forests and Range at 62 percent in the eyes of the public. I would think that benchmark would have to be a heck of a lot higher for me to be comfortable that MOFR is either communicating what it's doing or doing its job properly.

From the ranchers and the loggers and the people who are out in the bush seeing the kinds of forest practices that are going on, the waste piles that are going on…. Seeing those waste piles burned and questions about whether or not the money has been actually paid for that, it's no wonder that people's perceptions of the forest service are not very high right now. So that needs to be addressed.

But we do need to move on. The last thing on the coast — and I've promised somebody that I'd move on to mountain pine beetle, and he's come back into the room to do that — is the issue of take or pay. We have a combination of two things on the coast that the minis-

ter already admitted are relatively new — the weigh scaling — and then, of course, we passed some legislation about timber marks and timber moving in the water.

But the weigh scaling issue seems to be an issue on the coast — and the take or pay. In this risk assessment, it indicated that significant revenue risk concerns will continue to be raised regarding take or pay and the impact on stumpage integrity on the coast. I believe that that whole issue of waste assessments is the same issue, technically, in the Interior.

Other than just a little pilot project with B.C. Timber Sales, is there an undertaking on the part of the government to check and see whether this take-or-pay policy is actually working, whether or not it serves British Columbians well and whether or not we're actually on top of making sure that it's not being abused in order to avoid stumpage?

B. Simpson: Then let's move on to mountain pine beetle and other land-based things, and we'll leave that behind. My next report, the chief forester's report, is where I'm going to.

With respect to the mountain pine beetle, I just want to get on the public record some of the numbers that are being bandied about now — maybe, if the minister could, the total area, the total cubic metres, impacted in the mountain pine beetle areas, as we understand it today.

Hon. R. Coleman: The estimate to the summer of 2008 is that 14.5 million hectares are now affected, and this calculation includes the green attack, the red attack and the grey attack. The cumulative volume killed today is 625 cubic metres of timber harvesting land base, and that's about one-half of the total pine at risk. If you add the green attack into that number, it would be 710 million cubic metres.

B. Simpson: Again, the magnitude of this epidemic is huge. How much of that estimate of the Ministry of Forests will end up in non-recoverable losses?

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm being advised that that's actually an impossible question to answer because it will depend on the success of bioenergy, biofuels, other uses of the logs for pulp that wouldn't go into a sawlog and whether the market turned around and there was a more aggressive opportunity to harvest and use the sawlogs. We don't have a definitive number.

They could throw around non-definitive numbers, but I'm not prepared to put those on the record. It wouldn't be fair to my staff to do that because it's not something that they can actually predict over the next ten to 20 years.

B. Simpson: According to the Forests for Tomorrow business case, they have done some numbers and calculations on a very conservative basis. It's about 3.2 million that they're not going to get at and about 350,000 or 450,000 hectares, depending on what numbers you use. The point I want to make, though, is exactly what the minister has indicated, which is that there are a whole bunch of factors at play here.

The chief forester, when he issued his report, Timber Supply and Mountain Pine Beetle Infestation in British Columbia — and I had this meeting with the chief forester — attempted to go through all of the data that we had and came up with some scenarios for the future of the mountain pine beetle area that suggests that we've got quite a wide range of potential falldown in a midterm timber supply, depending on what options he's got.

The chief forester's report — and again, the reason I'm blowing through this is just because of time constraints, because we have to close debate today. He says that he's still only calculating mature pine impact in his modelling, yet we know — and I've got the data in front of me — how much juvenile-stand impact is accruing. Our younger stands are being killed by this.

He doesn't take into consideration other pests or diseases in that calculation. He doesn't take into consideration other constraints on the land base, which the minister got an earful of from the licensees in the mountain pine beetle area in the Quesnel area.

I guess my question is: why has the ministry not been able to pull together some meaningful data — full pests and diseases for impacted timber supply areas, the full range of impact on juvenile stands, the best guess on shelf life and alternate uses — and given a projection, for timber supply area by timber supply area, of what those communities can expect, within a range within their own communities?

I've seen a study that COFI did a number of years ago. To my knowledge, the ministry has not released, on a community level basis or a timber supply area basis, the kind of data that communities need to understand what it is they're dealing with. They're not robust models, and they're not on the TSA level. As far as I'm concerned, in the feedback we got, this chief forester's report, unfortunately, didn't really amount to anything for anybody. It didn't tell us what we need to know.

In the Quesnel area, for example, the rumblings are that we could be — and I saw it in a West Fraser presentation — at a sustainable-cut level of 2 million cubic metres post-mountain pine beetle, all the way down to some people saying that there's less than half a million cubic metres of cut. Well, if there are fewer than half a million cubic metres of cut and some people are saying that it's not worth talking about a cut, that's a heck of a lot different than for "back up to pre-uplift levels."

Why can't these communities get data to allow them to do the kind of planning that they need to do? What's the holdup?

Hon. R. Coleman: The chief forester has a significant amount of data that he models his best assessment on with regards to his report. He has increased data

information in his report. He actually bracketed the juvenile-stands data and gave an assessment and a variable of what it could be. It all comes down to how long you can use the wood, what kind of strategy you have, whether there's bioenergy involved, whether there's pulp paper and all those sorts of things.

The chief forester is happy to go and meet with any community that wants to talk about the data for the chief forester and the timber supply in their community at any time. I think that that offer is there. If he has a community that wants to do that, he can contact the deputy, or he can contact the chief forester, and we'll facilitate that so that any community that doesn't think the data is there is provided with the information as it is there.

In addition to that, we continue to invest in the accumulation of more modern or more up-to-date data on a regular basis.

B. Simpson: The chief forester was at the Cariboo regional district, and I believe he has made a presentation to the city of Quesnel. Again, because there's no modelling of other pests and diseases, of juvenile-stand impacts, of the implications for utilization standards in which….

In order for us to get one cubic metre of log out for these mills to use, we're leaving a 1.5 to 1.6 ratio, so we're leaving a higher volume of waste. All of that is not modelled in. That's the problem. When the chief forester does go to communities, he talks about all the stuff that he still doesn't have modelled in. That's what the communities need.

I've had this conversation directly with the chief forester about the need to fast-track that modelling. Is there any attempt just now…? I know we're funding the future forest ecosystems and so on, but the modelling side of this, the inventory side of it…. On a discrete timber supply area basis, do we have any projects underway to fast-track more robust modelling so that we can actually model this forward?

Hon. R. Coleman: Yes, we are aggressively fast-tracking some other research with regards to this to improve all our data, and that research is including all other pests as well as the impact on juvenile stands.

That data is being worked on in a fast track through the beetle-kill area specifically through this year. That's the area we're targeting at the moment because of the infestation we're dealing with. So that work is being done. It is being fast-tracked. It is being done today, actually.

B. Simpson: I think the sooner we can get that available to people, the better. Part of the problem we have just now is that in the absence of good information, people are all over the map on what's real. Right now it's driving decisions about what people are doing with their homes — whether they're going to stay in the mountain pine beetle–impacted area or not. Those decisions are being made today, and therefore, we need to try and stabilize those communities as much as possible.

With respect to mountain pine beetle…. I know we've got just about 20 minutes left here, so I'd like to go through this fairly quickly. Is the mountain pine beetle emergency response team still active?

B. Simpson: It's the only part of the ministry's website that doesn't have an active website. There are no minutes of meetings. There's no sense of what that team is doing. I can go on and see minutes of B.C. Timber Sales and of the Forest Investment Account, and I can do all kinds of things. Here we have the number one challenge in the Interior and there's no information flow from it.

I think it would be nice for communities to have some information flow from that and at least an active website with some updated information and some links and so on. So if that could be considered by the minister, I'd appreciate it.

Where is our coordination with the federal government? Again, if we had time, I would go through it. I note that the federal $100 million that we got from the Martin government, and I would have questions about PricewaterhouseCoopers' involvement in that and about them getting a cut of that money going out the door. I have the report from an FOI on that.

I'm more interested in the so-called partnership with the federal government that we should have in a situation like this. The communities were promised that that would be coordinated, but as everybody knows, Western Diversification is doing their own thing. It's not coordinated with what we're doing with Northern Trust. Neither of those is coordinated with what we're doing with the beetle action coalitions.

Again, I'll make my pitch to the minister that I made to the Minister of Community Services and to the Minister of Economic Development. Would somebody please go and pull all those partners together in a room, sit them down and figure out how we can rationalize all of those programs in a way that communities don't have to keep taking proposals off the shelf, dusting them off, rewriting them and firing them to yet another funding agency that yet has another pool of money? I believe that the minister heard that loud and clear from the mayor of Quesnel when he made his presentation to the round table.

Is it possible for us, either through the emergency response team or the ADM assigned to this or whatever, to try and figure out how to rationalize all those programs? They're all tripping over each other, but there doesn't seem to be any money flowing to anybody.

Hon. R. Coleman: I guess the preference would have been with the federal government if the money had been dealt with the same as it was with the community development trust, where it was just sent to the province to deliver. However, the decision wasn't

made on the second group of funding coming from the federal government to do it that way.

The pine beetle response team actually meet regularly with the Western Diversification and NRCAN to work with the priorities. We have influenced their priorities to match up to ours on most occasions. There is a plan, as a result of a presentation coming forward on the status of pine beetle, to bring these parties together to deal with what the member describes, and that would be led by one of the ministers of government along with his colleagues. Most of the WD and NRCAN stuff, I think, goes through Economic Development, but it would include myself as well.

We talk regularly with our federal counterparts whenever we think there's a little bit of a hitch. We'll deal directly with the minister. Our staff will advise us if there's something with a meeting within NRCAN or WD that needs to be addressed so that something doesn't go sideways in the wrong direction.

I would say today that even though there are sometimes the perceptions of little issues out there and the perceptions of, maybe, some odd problem, overall we'd have to say we've had a pretty good collaboration with the federal government on most of these things and are matching up. That's not to say there is not ever going to be some challenges between different levels of government, as the member knows. We continue to work with those in trying to build those relationships and keep them pretty consistent and working together.

B. Simpson: I'll take the minister at his word that that's what is happening at his level, but at the community level their heads are spinning. It's like watching the Poltergeist. They are struggling with it because they have to make a separate application to NDI, a separate application to WD, and they have got the beetle action coalitions that are still trying to put their overarching plan together, which those individual applications are somehow supposed to fit into and integrate with.

In many cases, the money is not flowing and hasn't flowed yet out to those communities. I'm glad to hear that that rationalization or at least an attempt to do that on behalf of those communities may take place.

With respect to what's going on in harvesting in the mountain pine beetle area, there have been serious concerns raised. I believe the Quesnel timber supply area group has met. They have an issues paper that they've given to the district manager. There are issues up in the Vanderhoof area, and it goes back to this whole thing of whether the volume is there.

Again, at the round table the minister heard some of that in a presentation, where there's concern that we are accelerating the harvest too much in the mountain pine beetle area. If you coupled that with the utilization standards, then the volume that's coming off is not indicative of the land base that's being disturbed.

One of the questions that I've been asked by a number of people in the silviculture realm is: "Why don't we have a better idea of the area harvested?"

The way it's been posed to me is that right now — particularly because, most likely, the mountain pine beetle area is influencing this — we're reporting a decreased area harvested and an increased volume. Yet the reality is, based on what's happening with utilization standards, that we should expect a very high area harvest relative to that volume — more than what we would have normally.

So in the mountain pine beetle area, is the area harvested being taken into consideration as well as the volume harvested, as we do the longer projections on what might happen to that fibre supply?

Hon. R. Coleman: Two things. If the member's question is if we are looking at the area, not just the volume, as we do our calculation, our work, the answer is yes.

I would like to just put one quick thing on the record. Some people, if they read Hansard, may wonder why I don't comment on comments that were made at the round table. When I open the round table, I do advise people that I won't be using any of their comments in a public forum, because I want them to be open during the round table. That's why I don't comment on any of the comments that are attributed to somebody that may have been at a round-table meeting in my discussions in the debate.

If anybody is wondering why I wouldn't be doing it, that's the reason. I make it clear at the beginning that people are free to speak, and if they want to say something publicly, that's up to them too. But I do the undertaking that I won't do that at the round table. That would be the reason that I don't comment on those.

B. Simpson: My comment with respect to Mayor Bello is something that he had indicated to me and he stated publicly. All he did was come in and make it formal in the round table. My comment with respect to the timber supply review is, again, just a reflection of what's going on in my community. All it was, was presented at the round table.

Again, with respect to the timber supply issue, the comment that has been made is that that area harvested has to be underreported. "It has to be," is what I'm being told. I don't know that for myself, but here's the scenario for a sawmill working in the mountain pine beetle area.

For them to get a two-million-cubic-metre volume into that mill of the sawlogs that are going after on the short log program…. We're being told that there are 2.6 million or three million that are actually harvested. Our waste that is out on the land base is indicating that. So we would expect for the same amount of volume coming in, a larger portion of the land base to be disturbed. Yet the numbers that are being reported by the ministry don't reflect that. That's the question I've been asked.

How can that be that when you've got such a large amount of waste being left on the ground? Your volume coming in is actually higher than your average volume — about 8 or 10 percent higher than the aver-

age volume — yet the area harvested has stayed reasonably the same. It doesn't connect. That's the question that's been asked.

Hon. R. Coleman: Two things. There may be a delay on the GPS and the report. They could report in the area that they do electronically, but they do that after the harvest. They do some GPS, and then they report that area in to the ministry. But we do know the volume sooner than that because of how it's scaled, etc. That work does go on, and we update those records on a regular basis, and we do maintain that data.

I'll ask a final question on an important point in the mountain pine beetle area, but I would appreciate, given that we've truncated estimates, the opportunity to ask for some briefings on some of these subject areas. I was hoping to get to the Forests for Tomorrow and try and peel that apart and what we're actually doing on the land base.

The NSR figure is very interesting, where we've gone from 0.59 to one. NSR, again for the public, is that if it's one, it means for every tree we've harvested or disturbed — that are lost to pest, disease or fire — we've got a tree replanted. That's a one ratio; 0.59 means that about 40 percent is not being addressed. We were moving towards 0.59. All of a sudden now we're at one because of some recalculations.

Yet in the studies that I've done, the area disturbed out there from fire, pest, disease, the mountain pine beetle area that's disturbed…. When you're looking at 14 million hectares, I don't understand how it can be sitting at one. So I wouldn't mind a briefing from the ministry on that.

More to the point just now — and it goes back to the round table, where we started all of this off — is whether or not the minister, if he's sitting in the round table and hears a plea for immediate action, will take immediate action where necessary. In this case, particularly in the Quesnel TSA, but I believe it's happening in other TSAs where we've given uplifts. There's huge concern just now, and the words that are being used are the gold rush mentality, the Wild West.

We have competitions in overlapping tenures, and there's a fear that the government is going to issue even more tenures out there when people are wondering where the wood is. So the Quesnel TSA group, in their issues paper I believe, have asked for an accelerated timber supply review for that area. I'm sure there are other TSAs that have asked for accelerated timber supply reviews before any more tenures are issued and to rationalize the existing tenures and operating areas.

Will that be done? Because it's essential, again, for the livelihood of the people who live in there that we understand that we're managing this mountain pine beetle situation as best we can.

Hon. R. Coleman: Whether it's through the round table or anywhere else, if somebody has a particular issue they want me to deal with, I actually immediately phone staff or have my staff contact the deputy or the regional office with regards to an issue to try and solve it. That's the operating environment of this ministry.

In closing, though, I want to thank the member. First of all, we're aware of the concern, and we are accelerating the work that the member asked me about. So he can be aware of that.

I want to thank the member for his estimates debates today. You know, there are two opinions here, of course. The member would like longer; I think ten hours is enough. That's an opinion. We may not share the same.

However, I do, in closing, want to thank my staff and the ministry that have been here for the last couple of days. I do believe, quite frankly, although there are issues and questions that our guys have to challenge themselves every day with, they deal with one of the most complicated environments in government. Somebody once said to me that they thought the Ministry of Forests was more complicated than the Ministry of Health, and I can honestly say in some ways I believe it is.

The emotions that are attached and the issues that they have to deal with and the people's lives that they deal with every day are very important to them. They really believe in this province. They do a great professional job. At no time during these debates was there any question of that either by myself or the critic. I do think they deserve to be complimented because in the toughest of times they're still keeping their head up, and they're doing a good job on behalf of British Columbians.

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm sorry, Chair. I thought I had to move them all as a ministry tomorrow when I was finishing up, because I'm still doing estimates tomorrow.

Actually, I'll do the direct fire and the Forest Practices Board, but I think I have to debate housing and construction still.

Hon. R. Coleman: We could have done that. I don't know that the critic for Housing would have been particularly happy. He probably doesn't have many questions because we're doing such a great job on that particular file anyway.

I move that the committee rise, report resolution on votes 34, 35 and 51 on the Ministry of Forests and Range and ask leave to sit again.

Hon. R. Coleman: I move that the committee rise, report resolution on votes 34, 35 and 51 on the Ministry of Forests and Range and ask leave to sit again.

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	YEAS — 40

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

	NAYS — 30

Brar	S. Simpson	Fleming
Farnworth	Kwan	Ralston
B. Simpson	Hammell	Coons
Thorne	Simons	Puchmayr
Gentner	Routley	Fraser
Horgan	Lali	Dix
Trevena	Bains	Robertson
Karagianis	Krog	Austin
Chudnovsky	Chouhan	Wyse
Sather	Macdonald	Conroy

Tuesday, May 20th	Two distinct sittings:
	10 a.m. to 12 noon
	1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday, May 21st	1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Thursday, May 22nd	Two distinct sittings:
	10 a.m. to 12 noon
	1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Friday, May 23rd	Two distinct sittings:
	10 a.m. to 12 noon
	1:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.]