Hansard — Monday, May 12, 2008 a.m.

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Introductions by Members		12243

Private Members' Statements		12243
	Agriculture
	C. Evans
	B. Bennett
	Grandparents raising grandchildren
	K. Whittred
	K. Conroy
	Finding our way home
	D. Chudnovsky
	L. Mayencourt
	Protecting B.C.'s children
	R. Hawes
	C. Trevena

Motions on Notice		12252
	Komagata Maru (Motion 55)
	J. Brar
	D. Hayer
	H. Lali
	R. Chouhan
	L. Mayencourt
	B. Ralston
	J. Nuraney
	H. Bains
	Coroner's reports on domestic violence deaths (Motion 58)
	C. Trevena
	D. MacKay
	D. Routley
	J. McIntyre
	M. Sather
	M. Farnworth

K. Whittred: In the gallery today are a number of grandparents. I'm going to be making a statement in a few minutes about the particular role that these grandparents play in our society. I hope that the House will join me in making them all very welcome.

C. Evans: In 1973 British Columbia passed a law that made it illegal to use agricultural land for activities that would make farming that land in future impossible. The creation of the agricultural land reserve was seen by farmers of the day as expropriation of their personal wealth, which they called development rights, by the Crown.

Urban dwellers and planners, on the other hand, much more conversant with zoning and with the right and even the obligation of governments to engage in land use designation, saw the creation of the agricultural land reserve as simply the natural application of urban planning principles to rural land.

The borders of the original ALR were intended to enclose soils and climates suitable for food production. The original information was based on aerial photo technology and was generally assumed to be a pretty blunt instrument for making soil assessments. So a commission, the Agricultural Land Commission, was established to oversee the application of the reserve and also to allow landowners to apply to remove non-arable soils from the reserve.

Today the reserve is studied and admired around the world. I have personally spoken to delegations of farmers from Alberta, Ontario, Tennessee, Texas and New Mexico who have travelled all the way to British Columbia to see how the law works and to ask political advice on how they, too, might enact such a law. I heard recently that people from China have even expressed an interest.

In recent years, as development expands and it gets harder and harder to find affordable land to farm, I have heard only support for the existence of the reserve from the farming community. There is criticism for sure, but all of it within the context of growing support for the reserve.

The criticism focuses on two aspects. The first criticism is from farmers and citizens alike who argue — and, I think, with huge justification — that it's neither moral nor sustainable for British Columbia to have the best protection of farmland in Canada and at the same time the least provincial support for farmers. They ask: "Why would you save the land and then abandon the people who work the land?"

The second criticism is the perception amongst farm families that while they personally are asked to accept that their land is frozen by society in order to ensure food security for society, some people — and it's always other people — can get their land removed from the ALR and, as a result, accrue great personal wealth. Whenever some land is removed and somebody gets rich as a result, it creates tremendous market speculation and arbitrarily increases the cost of farmland in that region.

Last summer I was standing in an orchard in Kelowna with the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. I heard a third-generation grower tell us that his kids, even those kids who wanted to farm, would never be able to do so because speculative investment in ALR land by non-farmers had now driven up the cost of land in his community beyond its ability to produce food and make payments.

I submit that the present generation of politicians, those of us here in this Legislature, now has a crisis as severe as the one an earlier generation of politicians experienced before the ALR came into existence. In those days, in the 1970s, the crisis was caused by developers building suburbs and industry on farmland. Today, though, the crisis we experience is speculation driving up the price of land beyond its ability to produce food.

The end result, of course, is the same — which is to remove, for all practical purposes, farmland from ownership and production by farmers. The amount of acreage of land removed from the reserve in any region, of course, is irrelevant to this process. Even if only five acres of land are removed from the reserve in a given year, if the speculative value of an adjacent thousand acres prices all farmland in the community beyond the ability of farmers to acquire and then work the land, then the net result to food production is exactly the same as if the entire 1,005 acres had been removed in the first place.

All of this might lead us to ask: well, why is it that we continue to allow withdrawals at all? Certainly, it's not to continue to redefine the Canada Land Inventory information that originally created the boundaries of the reserve. In 34 years of withdrawals the boundaries have long since been adjusted and are now defensible.

Given, then, the crisis that speculative valuation has created in the value of farmland, given the negative feelings of unfairness that ALR landowners experience whenever other land in their community is removed while theirs personally remains frozen, given what we now know about the likelihood of food shortages in our society in the future and given that we've had three decades of boundary adjustments to fix the anomalies in the original boundaries, is it perhaps time now to question why it is that we continue to allow withdrawals at all?

Obviously, I don't know the answers to these questions. Nor is it up to me to make policy even for my own party, never mind for the Crown. I hope, though, by these remarks, to inspire some discussion on the subject.

I think 30 years is long enough to have any system in place without an evaluation and consideration of its original objective. My analysis is essentially that the ability of the Agricultural Land Commission to hear appeals and to adjust the boundaries of the reserve was originally intended to strengthen public policy by allowing citizens to remove inappropriately included soils. But today the removal has exactly the opposite effect of weakening public policy by creating unfairness and speculation.

D. Cubberley: I understand that now in the gallery, joining us here at the House, are 25 grade 5 students and five adults accompanying them, along with their teacher, Ms. Tanya de Frias from Rogers Elementary School in my constituency of Saanich, where my son also has the privilege of attending school. Would members of the House please join us in making them welcome.

B. Bennett: I would like to thank the member for Nelson-Creston for raising this issue in the House this morning. It's an important issue. His ten minutes and my five minutes will not give us enough time to really get to the bottom of this complex issue, but I do thank him for raising it. I also thank him for dropping a copy of his speech off at the Whip's office, which, I thought, was particularly civil.

I do agree with the member that I think it's time that we, collectively, have a good, hard look at the Agricultural Land Commission and reserve to determine whether they are, in fact, serving their original purpose.

I also agree with the member that there is a lot of land that has taken on huge value because of the folks who are moving into the rural areas of the province, particularly the Kootenays and the Okanagan, increasing the value of the land and essentially rendering that land, I suppose, unfit for agriculture, in the sense of the business case, because of how valuable it is.

I think there's a second reason to have a look at the Agricultural Land Commission and reserve, and that would take you right back to the very beginning when the member talked about how the reserve was first created.

When the reserve was first created, there were some people involved in that process that I happen to know. They're now in their 80s. They tell me that the boundaries for the reserve were drawn quite crudely and that there was a lot of land put into the reserve in some areas of the province. I'm not referring necessarily to the Okanagan, and I'm not referring necessarily to the Fraser Valley, but I do refer particularly to places in the Kootenays and some areas of the north, mid-north, central B.C., the Cariboo and, I think, even in the northeast, where the land that was put in the reserve should never have been put in the reserve in the first place.

You've got land that I'm personally familiar with within the reserve that has absolutely no topsoil. It's rocky in some cases, there are cliffs, and it's treed. The ranchers, farmers who happen to own that land, essentially, can get no value from that land. I think that they should have an opportunity to get that type of land out of the reserve so that they can actually make some use of that land and perhaps get some money back from that land. It's so that they can stay on the farm, on the family ranch, and continue to practise agriculture. I think that's another valuable perspective on this.

Incidentally, there was a promise made when the boundaries for the agricultural land reserve were first drawn that after five years the boundaries would be looked at and the land would be reassessed. If there was land that had gone into the reserve that should not have been there in the first place, it would be taken out. That second look never, ever happened, and I say that on behalf of the folks in my riding who have told me that and who were actually involved.

The member asks if we should continue to allow withdrawals at all. I think that's a fair question. I think we should try and answer that question collectively, but I think my position is pretty clear. If the land doesn't produce food, if there's no topsoil on the land and it can be put to better use, I don't think that we should keep ranchers, for example, in poverty just because of a principle that has no basis in reality.

I would point out that the government of the day over the past seven years has actually taken less land out of the reserve than the government of the day during the 1990s. I would also point out that the member for Nelson-Creston, I believe, was Agriculture Minister when the Six Mile Ranch debacle took place. That government interfered with a decision of the Agricultural Land Commission and tried to remove good agricultural land in that case. Although the member hasn't made this a partisan issue, that's something that I think I need to raise.

I would also say that there's no evidence that this government is abandoning agriculture. I remember very clearly that when I was first elected in 2001, my ranching community came to me and said: "If you do this, this and this, we will be okay. We're going to be fine."

"This, this and this" were the following three things. One was ecosystem restoration. "We need some more grass out on the land, and we need you to remove some trees and do some prescribed burning." The second thing was, "We need you to get a handle on invasive plant species," or noxious weeds, as they like

to call them. The third thing was: "We need you to make an investment in highways fencing."

We made an investment in highways fencing, thanks to the Minister of Transportation. We've made a huge investment in ecosystem restoration. We have a provincial program now with a good, healthy budget for that, and we have a very good invasive plant species initiative going in the province. We've done, I think, some very good things for agriculture.

C. Evans: The member is correct. I wrote out my thoughts, and I gave them to the Liberal government ahead of time so that we might have an actual, real, thoughtful conversation about the public policy benefit, or not, of further withdrawals. The hon. member chooses to use the moment to attack me personally for my historical record and to make partisan comments.

I actually like the hon. member, and I don't think that he would do that on his own, so I think those are the words written by the spin children that evaluate almost everything for these folks. I think the spin children should stay out of the hon. member's head and let him actually respond as an hon. member.

The member attacks me and my history for what he describes as manipulation of the reserve. Well, then, who better? Mea culpa. Every government since Dave Barrett has been accused of somehow manipulating the reserve. Why is that? Because the monumental amounts of money that come from withdrawals create pressures on governments that bring them to make stupid decisions.

Hon. Speaker, I'm saying: stop it. Let's just say it's over. The land reserve is not zoning, dynamic zoning that'll change with every municipal government. It's more like parkland or flood land. It is a reserve against the future needs of society. The boundaries are the boundaries. Let's just say that it's over and that the people who work in this room — the hon. member on the other side or myself or anybody else here — can't mess with it anymore.

K. Whittred: Members, yesterday we all enjoyed Mother's Day. I'm sure that many of you in this House, just like me, are grandparents. We probably had some sort of meal with our family, and I'm sure that if your grandchildren are like mine, we all got a fingerpainted card of some sort from our very young grandchildren.

This, however, is not the case with some grandparents. Some grandparents are, in fact, the full-time caregivers of their grandchildren. Members will recall that last year at this time I raised the issue of grandparents raising grandchildren. This is an issue which has been described as the social phenomenon of this decade.

Across Canada there are some 65,000 children being raised by grandparents, and in British Columbia there are about 10,000 children. Nearly 50 percent of these situations involve a single grandparent, mostly grandmothers, raising one or more grandchildren. But these are not just numbers. These are unique families, families with an abundance of love and generosity of spirit, but they are also families that are coping with heartbreak and loss, the heartbreak and loss of the parent of the child.

Research shows that children usually end up in the care of grandparents when their parents succumb to substance abuse. Each and every one of us in this House can think of people within our own circle of friends or family who are in that situation.

Many of the children in the care of their grandparents have challenges. Some come from difficult home situations and face attachment disorders, fetal alcohol syndrome and other psychological and physical challenges. Children will probably be grieving over the separation from their parent. Grandparents must deal with all of these issues as well as the anxiety around their own child, and too often they are very much alone.

Many legal issues face grandparents raising their grandchildren. The laws they face are complicated, and even more so when dealing with interjurisdictional boundaries. Lawyers' fees are expensive and often out of reach.

In a situation where a grandchild has to be taken to emergency, they may be denied medical service until proof of legal guardianship, authorization by a parent or a birth certificate is presented. This may be very difficult to do when the parent is simply unavailable.

Similar factors are barriers when attempting to access benefits such as the child tax credit, and I am told by grandparents that the education system, the mental health system, the addiction systems are all a bit of a mystery to navigate.

Over the past several years I have worked closely to support the grandparents group and their partners to help them achieve their objectives. In my statement last year I made several recommendations. One of those focused on raising awareness about the role of grandparents who become full-time caregivers of their grandchildren. It was my goal to help to put this issue on the radar screen.

To that end, I have one very positive outcome to talk about, and this is the funding for a legal research project. This project is being carried out by the Parent Support Services of B.C. in partnership with the University of Victoria School of Social Work. The Ministry of Children and Family Development, together with contributions of $15,000 each from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance, have contributed a total of $75,000 toward the research project, which is scheduled to be completed in December.

The project has four main objectives: to research legal issues, to create resource materials for grandparents, to promote awareness, and to help link and connect the grandparents together. This research project has been travelling all over the province and meeting with grandparents who are raising grandchildren, to find out what their needs are. To date 16 communities have been visited. Nearly 200 grandparents have participated, and close to 100 surveys have been conducted. By the completion of the project every part

of the province will have been visited. By making this comprehensive study, the project will be able to determine the overall needs of this growing group of families.

Several common themes have already been identified. These include insufficient support and accessibility to respite, counselling and daycare services. I have heard numerous untold stories from grandparents raising their grandchildren who have special needs like fetal alcohol syndrome, ADD and other challenges.

I received a poignant letter from a grandmother describing to me the heartbreak of coping while her newborn grandchild went through heroin withdrawal. These challenges are very real, and the grandparents do need support.

Lack of accessibility to legal expertise and financial support towards legal costs associated with securing permanency of grandchildren is another major issue. Many grandparents do not have the legal know-how or the financial resources to ensure that they have legal guardianship of their grandchild, and if they do, the costs involved can be enormous. Again, I have heard from a number of grandparents who have spent tens of thousands of their own dollars to try to ensure the safety of their grandchildren.

I'm going to quote for you from one grandparent that sort of sums up how they feel about their situation. She talks about the role that mothers play, and we're all familiar with those roles. Mothers often say, "You know, we're teacher, nurse, maid and cook," but this grandparent goes on to say: "But the public, politicians and ministry folk need to know that above all, grandparents raising grandchildren are also having to be legal experts, legal advocates, policy analysts and researchers."

My goal — and my participation with the grandparents group — is to try to make the situation more manageable, and that is the end to which I have worked.

K. Conroy: I'd like to thank the member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale for bringing this issue to the Legislature today, and I, too, want to welcome the grandparents who are here in the gallery. I look forward to meeting with them later and talking to them.

As I grew up, I used to think, especially when I had my first child, that being a parent is the toughest job that a person can face, and it's a job that you face without any kind of training. Anybody can become a parent, and it's the only job that lets you do that.

Then at 42, I found out I was going to be a grandparent, and I was surprised, I have to admit. Then I was pleasantly surprised to find out I was going to be a grandparent, with both our daughters having children that October. Our daughters have gone on to have more children, and I now have five grandchildren.

I know that one of the best jobs a person can have is being a grandparent. I can't imagine how tough it is for these grandparents who are here with us today and the other 65,000 grandparents across the country who do the job of not only being a grandparent, which is the best job, but also a parent, which is the toughest job. These people — and I know that it's men and women — face incredible odds and have a tough time with it.

Being a grandparent, I know that I'm a fortunate one. All five of my grandchildren still live with both of their parents, so that's a great thing for my grandchildren. They also have access to all of their grandparents and great-grandparents, so our grandchildren get a lot of strokes and cuddles and hugs.

I understand the difference between being a grandparent and a parent, and I understand for these people that are doing this job that there are some real, serious issues. I commend the member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale for the work she's done for this group in getting the funding for this research project.

My concern is that a year ago we did both speak to this issue. We both raised it, and some of the issues that I raised last year are, again, still issues for these grandparents. I think the biggest one is the issue around child care. It's very difficult to access child care in this province still today, and it's an issue for these grandparents as much as it is for any working parents or any parents that are raising children in the province. It is a concern that a year later we are still struggling with those same issues.

I also know that there are some real difficulties when you are a grandparent, which the member has also raised, about what kinds of information and services are available, and the help in raising grandkids. People obviously expect that the grandparent is going to be a grandparent and not actually going to be raising these kids. It's a real difficulty for them.

I know that some of them struggle with the Ministry of Children and Families and that they're actually an alternative to foster care. It's a very low-cost alternative for the Ministry of Children and Families. There's really no system in place to provide, as the member said, for children who have difficulties, such as the children with disabilities or fetal alcohol syndrome. So it's a tough one for grandparents who have to deal with that.

I think the biggest issue though, again, is the issue around the choice for child care and the lack thereof. I know that some parents that I've talked to…. I've been at different groups around when there were closures to the child care resource centres, and grandparents were there. That's where they get a lot of support. They go to the weekly drop-ins. They get access to toys. They were really concerned in our community that they might lose access to those services.

Even though there is the research, I think that we really need to look at more ongoing support, more ongoing funding and ensure that there is child care support, ensure that there is support for these parents. When we're looking at the issue of…. Quite often grandparents are on fixed incomes, and suddenly they're to take on the responsibility of raising another child, which can be very expensive, as we all know, and also very difficult.

I want to commend these people that are here with us today and other grandparents across the country who have taken on this task. I know that some of the

happiest times in my life lately have been being around my grandchildren, because they just give you this overwhelming love. I know it's just a wonderful thing to have, but at the same time, it can be incredibly tough to manage when you're dealing with actually raising the children.

I want to commend them for the work that they do. I look forward to talking to them further and discussing their issues in more detail. With that, I thank the member.

K. Whittred: I thank the member opposite for her insight into this issue and for her remarks.

In the time remaining, I want to just ask the question: what is next? This project has received some funding, and they are putting this material together to try to find out, at a grassroots level, what kinds of issues need to be addressed.

In the next year I think we can look forward to some formal research being done around exactly what kinds of changes the government might make to legislation, which would help to overcome some of the barriers in policy, case law and so on that I have mentioned.

Something that I am perhaps more excited about is the drafting of legal resource materials. I was told — and I would have really liked to have seen it — that in the state of Washington they have developed a workbook or a toolkit to assist grandparents to get through the challenging obstacles that sometimes they see in their way. I am looking forward to this being done in British Columbia. It would simply be a guide for parents to try to help them make their way and understand what it is that they need to do.

I have also worked closely with the ministries. I have talked the heads off, if you like, of both the Minister of Education and the Minister of Health to say that we need to be more sensitive to the needs of grandparents. We have to know that when we talk about parent advisory councils, for example, grandparents need to be welcome on those councils.

I'm pleased to report that there has been progress made in terms of support groups. I received a notice very recently from my own recreation centre saying that there was a support circle for grandparents raising grandchildren. I understand that in the next year, there is the possibility of a website, newsletters and various other kinds of on-line technology that will be used to assist grandparents to access information.

This is all good news, and I think it indicates that we are making some progress. I said at the beginning of my remarks that this has been described as the social phenomenon of this decade, and I think that is true. It's also a social phenomenon which knows no economic groups. In particular, I have had contact from people — the chair of my local Rotary club — who are in fact quite well off and who find themselves in the situation of being a grandparent raising a grandchild.

D. Chudnovsky: Today in British Columbia we face the worst crisis of homelessness that we've seen for almost 80 years. Not since the Great Depression of the 1930s has the level of homelessness in British Columbia risen to its current levels. Between 10,000 and 15,000 of our neighbours — people who we share our communities with — are homeless, and tens of thousands of others are at immediate risk of homelessness.

But it's British Columbia, and it's 2008. It gives us pause when we think about the dramatic levels of homelessness, because we aren't in Burma or in Bangladesh. It seems a contradiction that such a situation should face us. Why is it that we face the levels of homelessness that we do?

I think there are four fundamental reasons. The first has to do with incomes. A quarter of a million British Columbians earn $10 an hour or less, and all of us know that at that level of income, it's virtually impossible to find adequate housing. Those on social assistance, as well, face enormous challenges in finding appropriate housing. A single person on social assistance receives $375 a month as the shelter allowance portion of their social assistance, and everybody knows it's impossible to find adequate housing at that level.

A second reason that we face the problem of homelessness today is that the federal government, in the early and mid-1990s, extracted itself from the historical housing program that it had been involved in for many years before, a housing program which created tens of thousands of social housing units and co-op housing units across the country that many people are still living in and that provided the kind of housing necessary.

The provincial government did the same in 2002. After having been elected, the provincial government ended the provincial social housing program. So the provision of affordable housing and social housing was reduced to virtually nothing.

A third reason we face the crisis of homelessness that we have today is because of the deinstitutionalization of those with mental health problems in this province. We promised people with mental health problems that when the large institutions were closed — as they should have been closed; that was an appropriate public policy decision — there would be programs and supports at the community level that would provide for them in a way that made sure their needs were met. That didn't happen, and as a result, many of those people who have mental health problems today face homelessness.

The fourth reason why we face a crisis of homelessness today in B.C. is the cruel irony that when the real estate market is increasing dramatically — the value of real estate is increasing dramatically as it is and has been over the last number of years in British Columbia — and some people are getting very wealthy, at least on paper…. It's at that very time that homelessness increases because the marketplace rises at all levels.

Single-family dwellings on the housing market increase in value at the top, in the middle and at the bottom of that market. Rental housing follows. The

costs of rent increase at the top, the middle and at the bottom of the rental market, and as a result, those people who need accommodation at the bottom of the rental market aren't able to find it.

Where do we face homelessness? There's a kind of mythology in the province that the problem of homelessness is isolated in Vancouver and in particular on the downtown east side of Vancouver. We know there are horrific problems of homelessness on the downtown east side in Vancouver, but as I've come to see firsthand over the last number of months, the crisis of homelessness in B.C. is facing every city and town across the province from Cranbrook to Comox to Smithers to Abbotsford to Surrey to Victoria and Vancouver.

D. Chudnovsky: Merritt. All across the province people are facing homelessness. What do we do?

In general terms, it seems to me, we have to do three things to solve the problem of homelessness. First of all, we need to protect existing low-rent housing units. They're coming off the market at an enormous rate, and there needs to be protection of those. We don't need thousands of million-dollar condominiums in British Columbia; we need thousands of low-rent housing units.

Secondly, we need to build the thousands of social housing units, affordable housing units and co-op housing units that people need and deserve in the province. Thirdly, we need to provide the supports for people once they get into those units of housing.

For many people who are homeless, the solution is to get them a place to live, and they'll be fine. But for many others, there's a need for ongoing support so that their problems and obstacles and challenges can be met successfully and that housing can be successful for them.

Some problems are difficult to solve. We will not find the cure for AIDS quickly. The greatest scientific and medical minds of our communities and our societies will put their shoulders to the wheel, and generations to come will find a solution to AIDS. The problem of homelessness in British Columbia is not so difficult. What we need are homes and the supports necessary for people to be successful in those homes.

Thank you to the member for Vancouver-Kensington for raising an issue that I've really looked at over the last several years and is something I feel quite passionate about as well.

I'm grateful for the member raising it because I do think that when we're talking about homelessness, when we're talking about people finding their way home, it is a bipartisan kind of approach. It is something that is beyond politics and that we need to work on together and share our ideas and our views.

I've had the opportunity over the last seven years to work in my own neighbourhood as well as in the downtown east side on these kinds of issues. Certainly within my own neighbourhood, I know there are folks living in Vancouver-Burrard that are homeless. There is a number of approaches that we have taken as government to address those issues.

The most compelling argument I've heard has been our homeless outreach teams. The homeless outreach teams are social workers who go out in the middle of the night and visit with people sleeping rough. People who are sleeping on our streets in the middle of the night are woken up by a social worker, and they talk to them about their homelessness and suggest to them that there are ways to solve this problem. Those individuals get to come and have breakfast with the social worker, go to the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance, get connected with doctors and connected with a place to live — all within 24 hours.

That's been a huge success. In its first year we had 65 people in the West End who were affected by that, who actually got that program happening to them. So they found housing, they found mental health, they found addiction services, and they found just general health services as well.

That was a tremendous success and is now expanded to programs around the province. Literally 18,000 people around this province have been connected to services as a result of those teams' efforts. I'm very, very proud of that program. I'm also really proud that our government is taking a look at those who are at risk of homelessness. Nowhere is that more evident than in the downtown east side, but I know there are other areas of the community where that occurs as well, including the West End.

One of the things we thought we should do to support the ongoing availability of affordable housing was buy up as many of the single-room-occupancy hotels as possible. Single-room-occupancy hotels are not great, but they are a start and are a part of the housing continuum — and something worth preserving, according to every advocate in the downtown east side.

Over the past several months we've purchased almost 20 of those SROs, and we're not just buying them up and renting them out. We're actually upgrading them. We're making them fire-safe, and we're making sure they are accessible to people. We're making sure they're clean as well as affordable.

That's another area that has been important. It is time, as well, for us to take a look at the affordable housing stock in high-rental areas. I want to speak particularly about the West End. The West End has long been known as the most densely populated area in the British Empire, and it continues to do so today, even though there are opportunities for development there.

One of the crises we are facing in the West End is a loss of rental stock, and we need to halt that. We need to take the same kind of approach that we took with the SROs. We need to do the same thing with these buildings in the downtown core.

Why? Well, because those are affordable housing stock, and they need to be there for people who are on

low incomes. Those places are accessible to families and to kids and so on, because of the age of the building, because of the lack of elevators or what have you. We need to start looking at how we can put people in those places.

One of the great programs we've started is the rental assistance program, which is modelled on SAFER. What it does is allow a rent supplement to families so that they can access affordable housing in their neighbourhood without the stigma of living in social housing. This is affecting literally thousands and thousands of people across British Columbia and making it possible for them to live in good neighbourhoods in safe, clean, affordable housing.

I think that as we go forward, we need to push forward for holistic solutions to mental health, addictions and homelessness. These items are not separate and distinct. These items are inextricably linked together, and we cannot solve one problem without impacting the other two.

It's time for us to look for new solutions around homelessness, mental health and addictions. One of those ways is through therapeutic communities, which we have in northern British Columbia.

D. Chudnovsky: Thanks to the member for Vancouver-Burrard for bringing up a number of very, very important points as we look at what he calls the holistic approach to dealing with the problems of homelessness. Oftentimes, not always, they're connected with mental health and addictions problems.

First of all, he mentioned the issue of outreach workers. I think it's important that we give credit to the outreach workers who are working across the province today to try and connect homeless people with services that are available in their communities. They're working incredibly hard and doing a terrific job.

In my experience over the last number of weeks speaking with dozens of outreach workers, they explained the successes they were having. But all of them, without exception, said that if we're going to deal with the problem of homelessness, at the end of the day we need homes for the people. All the outreach workers in the world — though they do tremendous work, and they are an important part of the solution — don't create housing.

With respect to the purchase of the SRO hotels that the member for Vancouver-Burrard mentioned, again, that's a good idea that is helpful in the broad picture of dealing with homelessness in the community. But as the member opposite knows and understands, the purchase of those hotels does not reduce homelessness by even one person, because the hotels that have been purchased have people living in them.

Is it a good idea to buy those hotels? Absolutely. The member is correct to point to the purchase of those hotels. Does the purchase of those hotels reduce homelessness? Not at all. When they're purchased, people already live there.

In the downtown east side we know that affordable rental housing is disappearing at a rate of 3 to 1 in comparison to affordable units that are coming available.

I was intrigued by the comments of the member for Vancouver-Burrard about the protection of the rental stock in the West End. I think it's a really important point, one with which I would agree, except that I would expand it to include affordable rental stock across the province. While he mentioned it, the member didn't mention a particular program or particular direction.

As somebody who's very concerned about affordable rental stock, I certainly would look forward to discussions with the member and other members of government, if they have a plan or a program or an idea about protecting affordable rental stock across the province. He gave the example of the SRO purchases. Perhaps he or the government is thinking of purchasing and making available affordable housing stock. It's an interesting and useful discussion, and I look forward to that discussion.

Madam Speaker, there are some myths about homelessness which we will talk about another time.

R. Hawes: Every day in B.C. there are children that go home from school to houses in which the air is a toxic soup of chemicals and moulds. They go to bed at night with hugely increased risks of fires or of the door being kicked in by gangs coming to rip off their parents.

I'm talking about kids who live in grow ops. There are, incredibly, lots of times when we see grow ops taken down in British Columbia where there are children taken into custody, apprehended, because their parents have engaged in that activity with the kids living in the home.

For the most part, grow ops and the proliferation of grow ops have a connection to organized crime. Organized crime means guns, it means violence, it means fire danger, it means homes that are booby-trapped, and it means grow rips, which are when gangs try to rip off another gang for the cash and drugs that they have in their grow operation. These endanger innocent people and children every day in British Columbia, and every day we read about more and more violence coming from this kind of operation.

The other thing is that we all know people in neighbourhoods throughout our constituencies…. In fact, in our own neighbourhoods we know there has been a big proliferation of grow ops. We all know where there are some grow ops.

It doesn't take much to walk around some streets. You can smell them, and you can see the windows are all boarded over. You get a pretty good idea…. If you're living near one, and there's very little activity except when it's time to harvest, you know what's going on.

When you phone the police, the police have so many grow ops on their list to track down that it's very

difficult. Frankly, the laws make it very difficult for police to move on these without having built a great body of evidence in order to get a search warrant.

But there is danger in these for others. Our fire departments are put at risk and our homes are put at risk if one of them catches on fire. For that reason, we created an act in 2006, the Safety Standards Amendment Act, which gave the ability for B.C. Hydro, who track hydro use for everyone…. They always do, and they know exactly where there is spiked electrical use all over British Columbia.

They have now got the ability to give that information to municipalities for use by the fire department to track down whether or not there is fire danger in these homes through illegal wiring. That has resulted in a tremendous number of grow ops being taken down.

I want to particularly mention Surrey where fire chief Len Garis, who has been a leader in this throughout British Columbia, has built teams of inspectors that go out wherever there is increased hydro usage in a home to inspect and to ensure that there is not some danger created from illegal wiring or at least to determine the cause of the increased hydro usage.

In Surrey about 80 percent of the homes that are inspected were grow ops. I think that's a remarkable statistic and a remarkable success. What's happening in Surrey is it's driving grow ops from Surrey, as hundreds have been taken down. They're driving them to municipalities that don't have an inspection system like Surrey does.

In 2003 there were 14 fires in Surrey caused from grow ops, from illegal wiring in grow ops. By 2007 that figure had dropped to four fires. From 14 to four — I think that's a remarkable success. I think we should be applauding that success. Abbotsford has very progressively followed suit and has put together inspection teams. They're doing the same thing. Coquitlam is doing the same thing.

We all read in the paper in the last couple of weeks that there were a couple of families that were inspected. I know they took offence because they did not have grow ops. In one case it was a family who had rebuilt their swimming pool and hooked it up again, and it was heated by electricity.

You know, I kind of look at it as no harm, no foul. The inspection took place, and I know feelings may have been hurt by the inference that there could have been a grow op. But an 80 percent success rate in taking down grow ops through this inspection process or ensuring that the electrical use is not endangering anyone through improper wiring is, I think, a laudable thing that frankly overrides, in my view, the personal concern or the personal rights, actually — just as we override people's rights to not incriminate themselves by forcing them to blow in a breathalyser when requested. This is a similar thing where personal rights should be set to the side for the betterment of all of us and for public safety reasons.

As we move forward, other cities are beginning to look at this process. As they look at the process, some of them are adopting it, and some of them are very concerned and not moving ahead because they're afraid they could get sued or whatever. Those cities will become inundated with grow ops as the aggressive communities begin to move on high electrical usage and begin to shut down grow ops.

Those grow ops will find a place to go. Organized crime is there for money. That's why every time you see on television that a big grow op has been taken down, you usually see a big cache of guns and also a big stack of money, because that's what this is about. It's all about money.

Your safety, my safety, your children's and my children's safety really don't matter to these folks. In a case where there are children present, clearly their own children's safety doesn't seem to matter.

I'm looking forward to the response from the next speaker, and I would be happy to yield and listen to that.

C. Trevena: I'd like to respond to the motion about protecting B.C.'s children, and of course, we're all concerned about children in unsafe situations.

I find it very surprising that the member for Maple Ridge–Mission was talking largely about grow ops and organized crime with very little reference to B.C.'s children, which is very unfortunate when we realize that one in four of B.C.'s children lives in poverty. This is the fifth consecutive year that we have had that figure facing us.

If we are serious about protecting B.C.'s children, of course we need to look at grow ops. Of course we need to look at organized crime. We need to look at those things, but we need to look at what we're doing to make sure that B.C.'s children are being nurtured, are being cared for and are not living in poverty.

This is one of the easiest ways that we can start protecting our children and making sure they grow up healthy and safe so that when their time comes, when they are in their teens or are adults, they don't have any option to turn to crime, to continue the cycle or continue the low-level or high-level crime.

This is why it is so important that we have to address the very basic issues such as poverty, if we're serious about protecting B.C.'s children. There is no question that we are all in favour of looking after our children and finding the best way to do so.

The other areas that we can look at, as well as addressing poverty…. Easy ways to address poverty are looking at issues such as health care — providing good-quality health care for all of B.C.'s children, primary care, dental care, making sure that every child gets that equal access to our public health care system. This would be a great way to protect children, to keep them healthy, to make sure as they go forward that they're going forward in good health.

Part of this is obviously an issue of nutrition. Again, it brings us back to the fact that one in four of our chil-

dren lives in poverty. Again, B.C. is leading the country in child poverty. So health care, good nutrition — these are ways of protecting children. These are ways of making sure that we go forward into a society where we don't have to worry about crime and the soaring crime rates, because we have children who have been brought up and have been nurtured.

The member for Maple Ridge–Mission started his statement about concern about children going home to dangerous situations. I think one of the other areas of huge concern is those children who go home to empty houses, go home at the end of the school day where there is nobody there to look after them. Nobody is there to make sure they are safe. Nobody is there to make sure that what they are doing is safe. Nobody is there to make sure that they are safe. Nobody is there to make sure that what they are doing is safe. Nobody is there to make sure that they have opportunities to get outside, get some exercise, to eat right, to simply be safe.

That is because we really have a very poor system of transition from school to home. School finishes at 2:30 or three o'clock, depending on which school you're going to. The workday doesn't finish till five o'clock, so many parents have this huge gap here. Many parents can't afford to ensure that their children are given the child care, the after-school care, which would give them a safe environment.

So they are left literally as — as I think we still call them — latchkey kids. You know, they have the key. They can get in the door and get home. That is a huge danger for our children — just allowing them to come home, get off the school bus, walk home and be on their own. If we would address that, we would, again, be protecting B.C.'s children, looking at the whole picture.

I think the member for Maple Ridge–Mission had the very interesting idea of bringing forward this statement and wanting to talk about this statement. Obviously, talking about the issues of crime and violence in our society is something that is very profound.

But when we are talking about protecting B.C.'s children, we have to look at the bigger picture. We have to look at the picture of children in poverty. We have to look at the picture of children and health, children and nutrition. We have to look at the question of children and care after school, and that means we also have to look at the way our whole society looks at our worklife and how we do those transitions.

If we're very serious about looking at protecting children, at how we're going to make sure that we have the best-educated children as we go forward….

R. Hawes: Thank you to the member for North Island. That was an interesting general response to, actually, something I was trying to be kind of specific about. We all know there are lots of things that need to be done for children in this province. We are working very hard to ensure that our children are safe in all of the areas that the member spoke about.

But specifically, grow ops are causing a huge danger in our communities. They are a massive annoyance, a massive disruption. I hear from my constituents on a very regular basis about this problem. What are we doing about it? We are doing something through that inspection process and enabling municipalities to move ahead.

I live in Mission. I know that Mission is now developing a program of inspections similar to other municipalities. I know they're going to be working hard to make sure that grow ops are not going to continue to be that day-to-day problem in our communities that's putting our kids and our families at risk.

There's another part of this that's a problem, and that is homes that were used as grow ops that then find themselves back on the market. People are buying them not suspecting that they were used as grow ops.

In many cases, I'm convinced that there are homes that are being resold that still have dangerous wiring, homes that were taken down and not repaired after the grow op was removed and there was a superficial cover-up job done by the owner — often an owner that was running the grow op. They're not going to be making a disclosure, as required under the Real Estate Act. They're just going to sell the house. They're going to cover up the problem.

It's estimated that there could be as many as 30,000 houses in British Columbia that were former grow ops and that are on the market with no record that they were a grow op. This is a big problem. The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board is working on that problem right now. There is a committee that's struck. I'm proud to say that they've asked me to be a part of that committee.

I know that Dr. Darryl Plecas from the University of the Fraser Valley is working on it. He sees this also as a huge problem, for which there are solutions, I think, that are going to emerge and that will be workable.

The big problem here, though, for me is that in our neighbourhoods our children are being put at risk. Our children are being endangered because, as I say, often grow ops are booby-trapped. There's violence around them. There are guns.

When the wrong house is picked for these grow rips — and it could be your house or mine — the people who are coming in, as they're doing a home invasion, don't really respect the fact that they've hit the wrong house. I think they don't have a heck of a lot of care for your children or mine or your grandchildren or mine. They're just there to get at the drugs.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, the unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 55 without disturbing the priorities of motions preceding it on the order paper.

J. Brar: Today up in the gallery we have two very special guests visiting us. One is Sahib Thind, who is the founding president of an organization called the Professor Mohan Singh Foundation that organizes a huge fair called Mela Gadri Babiyan Da every year, which draws almost 50,000 people. With him is Mr. Samra, who is a writer and also an actor in Punjabi films. I would ask members from both sides of the House to make them please feel welcome.

J. Brar: I rise today to move a motion with regard to a century-old tragic episode of Komagata Maru and hope that members from both sides of this House will come together to bring an end to this dark chapter in the history of our country.

The Komagata Maru tragedy is a huge black mark in the history of Canada. It's a powerful symbol of the injustices and racism that took place on our land and of the policy of exclusion that was designed to indirectly halt immigration from India.

Why is it important to offer an apology for the incident of Komagata Maru? That's the question many people ask. First of all, as a country of equality, acceptance and opportunity, this dark chapter needs to be brought to an end. Secondly, it's almost close to a full century since this incident happened, and it shouldn't take a century to say sorry to the South Asian community and to the families of passengers. Justice delayed; justice denied. It's about time to apologize. Thirdly, it's important because when we deny or forget our past, we are bound to repeat it again.

It's a very interesting coincidence that the hon. Jason Kenney, the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism, came to Surrey last Saturday to make an announcement regarding Komagata Maru. When I learned that Mr. Kenney would be coming to Surrey to make an announcement, I contacted some stakeholders, and they told me that they expect both a formal apology and a permanent memorial in this announcement. Subsequently, I wrote a letter to Mr. Kenney letting him know that, at this point, nothing short of a formal apology and a permanent memorial is acceptable.

I was encouraged to learn that the federal government has finally indicated that an apology might be on its way. However, there's no certainty at this point in time as to when it will happen. Time after time, every government recognizes that the incident of Komagata Maru shouldn't have happened in Canada, but nothing has been done until today to put an end to this tragedy.

Since this incident took place in B.C., where a large number of South Asian community members live, it's important for the provincial government to show some leadership as well as offer an apology to the South Asian community and to the families of passengers. So that's why this motion has a role to play.

This year marks the 94th anniversary of the tragic episode of Komagata Maru. On May 23, 1914, a ship named Komagata Maru, carrying 376 passengers from India, entered Burrard Inlet in Vancouver. Following that lengthy journey they were turned away and not allowed to enter Canada.

I would like to appreciate the hard work and efforts made by the Khalsa Diwan Society of Vancouver to help passengers at that time. The Khalsa Diwan Society headed a campaign in support of the passengers. In this process, it spent considerable resources to convince Ottawa to let these passengers stay.

However, the government only allowed 24 passengers to stay in Canada. The Komagata Maru ship and the remaining 354 passengers were forced to leave Canadian waters in the shadow of gunboats and warships on July 23, 1914.

Upon return to India on September 26, these people were treated like criminals by the then British Indian government. Some of them were killed, and some were put in jail immediately after their arrival back in India.

It should be noted that the Komagata Maru ship and the passengers were denied entry in Canada due to a racist law of the time called "continuous journey" put in place by Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden at that time. It was known at that time that the ship coming from India would be stopping in Japan. That would not be a continuous journey. Thus, the ugly shadow of racism was hidden within the context of the continuous journey regulations. In chartering the Komagata Maru, Baba Gurdit Singh's goal was to challenge the continuous journey regulations.

For the past several years the South Asian community in Vancouver has been urging the federal government to deal with this dark chapter in Canadian history, as it has been done with some other communities. I would like to recognize the extraordinary work and role played by the Professor Mohan Singh Foundation to bring awareness about the incident of the Komagata Maru and to bring the issue of apology to the forefront.

Professor Mohan Singh Foundation, in 2002, initiated a petition asking for an apology from the Canadian government. With their efforts, this petition was presented to the Canadian Parliament with thousands of signatures. Again on July 22, 2006, the Professor Mohan Singh Foundation of Canada held a candlelight vigil to mark the departure of Komagata Maru from the

waters of Burrard Inlet. Subsequently, they also invited the Prime Minister of Canada to their function, where the Prime Minister of Canada made the commitment about this incident, but nothing had happened until today.

For more than 100 years the South Asian community has played a vital role in the growth and development of Canada. Rather than being bitter about the past injustice inflicted upon it, this community has participated fully in every aspect of Canadian community.

In thanking the Professor Mohan Singh Foundation and the Khalsa Diwan Society, I would like to conclude by saying that there are many other people who have played very important roles. I would also like to conclude by saying that I inform all the members of this House and members on the other side of the House that the entire NDP caucus will also be supporting this motion, because this motion is very important in the history of this country.

D. Hayer: First, before I start, I want to say thank you very much to the members of the Professor Mohan Singh Memorial Foundation and the Khalsa Diwan Society and many other individuals and groups and our community leaders in British Columbia and Canada who have worked hard to get this apology from the federal government and, also, to ask for some sort of memorial or some sort of place where they can remember so that incidents like Komagata Maru never happen again.

I want to say thank you very much to our community leaders — thank you very much for all the hard work you have done in the last almost 94 years — and to many members of the community. Without you, we would not be here. We would not be getting the recognition we're getting today.

I always appreciate the opportunity to speak about the tragedy that occurred 94 years ago when the Komagata Maru and the 376 Indian immigrants were refused entry to this country due to the racial discrimination.

It was a time when discrimination was rampant in this country. The people of many races — including Chinese, Japanese, Indians and even our own first nations, even the Irish, Germans, Africans, Ukrainians and French — suffered at the hands of intolerant people in Canada.

But today things have changed greatly. Not only is discrimination unacceptable in our society, but it is illegal. Immigrants from all corners of the world, from all races and all ethnic backgrounds, are welcomed here. They are wanted and they are needed in this country.

That is why I was heartened this weekend to hear Canada's Secretary of State for Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, affirm that the federal government is about to issue a formal apology for the tragic Komagata Maru incident and for the abuse of her 376 souls aboard the ship that lay for months in Vancouver Harbour. This is because of the hard work of our members sitting in the gallery and the hard work of our community and many organizations that have worked for this for the last 94 years.

It is also encouraging that Mr. Jason Kenney announced at the Grand Taj banquet hall in Surrey the availability of $2.5 million in grants to our Indo-Canadian community groups to recognize and remember the tragedy and the black mark on our country's history made by the Komagata Maru incident. The $2.5 million in grants can be used for monuments, plaques, educational material or exhibits.

These funds and the official apology from Ottawa will go a long way toward erasing the historical wrong that was committed against a minority that has contributed so much to our culture and to our economy. They are the proud diversity we celebrate today. They are part of this community, part of the British Columbians who really built this country and this province, as we celebrated 150 years of British Columbia's history.

I want to make it clear that this weekend announcement by the federal government is not the first time Canadians have tried to make amends for this tragic rejection of so many people. Our provincial government and our Premier expressed publicly on July 23, 2006, their regret of this grave injustice committed against those 376 Indians aboard the Komagata Maru.

We all must recognize and remember the tragedy. The black mark on Canada made by the Komagata Maru incident in 1914 must never be forgotten. We must learn from it.

Almost 20 years ago in 1989 when our Premier was the mayor of Vancouver, in partnership with the Komagata Maru Foundation of Canada, he created a memorial to the incident of the Komagata Maru in Vancouver Portal park. Through the same foundation in 1990, the B.C. Social Credit government provided $20,000 at that time for the informative historical education video to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Komagata Maru tragedy.

It is only appropriate that by the 94th anniversary on May 23, 2008, the Indo-Canadian community and Indians throughout the world hear of the official word of apology from our federal government to right the wrongs made almost a century ago.

Fortunately, opinions, beliefs and attitudes have changed dramatically over the intervening years. I am proud to say that the Port of Vancouver, the province of British Columbia and the nation of Canada are now a welcoming place to all.

In fact, this country is the best nation in the world, and British Columbia is the best province in Canada. It is a place where diversity and difference are celebrated, where people from all cultures and ethnic backgrounds not only join together, but they applaud and congratulate each other's diversity.

Is discrimination dead? No, unfortunately not. But the discrimination incidents are rare and are not accepted by any right-thinking person or any of our governments, and today that is why such a tragedy as the Komagata Maru will never happen again in our province and in our nation. Our future depends on it, and Canadian culture depends on it. I appreciate all the

H. Lali: I take my place in supporting the motion by the hon. member for Surrey–Panorama Ridge asking for an apology from the federal government for the Komagata Maru incident that took place 94 years ago.

I just want to point out that at the time this incident took place in 1914, British subjects were allowed to freely travel anywhere within the British Empire. We had a lot of people coming into Canada from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, but it became a problem for the Canadian authorities when people from Asia were also coming here to Canada — namely, from Japan, China and India.

Obviously, in order to restrict Asians coming here, the policies were very, very racist at the time. There was the continuous journey act that was put in place to make sure that if Indians were going to be coming to Canada, they would have a continuous journey. Of course, at the time, there was absolutely no service of a steam liner coming in from India. It would have to stop somewhere in China or Japan to be able to get here.

In 1914 Baba Gurdit Singh and nearly 400 Indians actually came from India to test the laws. It was not a continuous journey, and therefore, they were kept on the ship in the harbour, on the Komagata Maru, where the conditions were absolutely horrendous, as you know. The food, supplies, water and sanitary issues were actually paramount. The Khalsa Diwan Society at the time, and the Indian community, which was actually very small — it numbered around 5,000 in British Columbia — raised over a million dollars to help the folks that were on the ship.

Eventually, they were forced to return. The media were against them. The folks who sat in this House at the time, in the Legislature, were airing all sorts of racist comments — same thing with parliamentarians in Ottawa. Really, racism was the order of the day at the time. They were forced to return.

When the ship returned to Calcutta it didn't just end there. They were arrested by the British authorities at the time and actually ended up in a melee where many of the folks were shot and killed as they tried to make a run for it.

Obviously, I support the motion of the member that there ought to be an apology. It should be forthcoming in order to rectify the wrong that was done 94 years ago.

R. Chouhan: I, too, rise to talk about this motion that is dealing with the historic tragedy that occurred on May 23, 1914. Some 376 British subjects who came to the shores of British Columbia wanted to start a new life. You know, they believed that being British subjects, they would be allowed to enter the shores of Canada and would be welcomed like other people who had come to this beautiful country. They didn't know that when they arrived, they would be met with very racist laws and policies of the government of British Columbia as well as the federal government.

At the same time, Europeans were welcome to come to Canada. Not only were they welcomed, they were also given land to have a settlement in Canada. Unfortunately, people of colour were denied entry, and they were not allowed to settle in Canada. After two months they were forced to leave, on July 23.

Although Canada has come a long way to heal the wound and the insult endured by the South Asian community, the government of Canada and the government of B.C. must apologize. That's the only way we can tell people of the South Asian community that the insult that they had 94 years ago would be taken care of. Otherwise, it will continue as it was.

On the weekend the federal minister came to Surrey and made an announcement. I'll hold my applause. I would like to see when it is actually done. So far, it seems like it's a hollow statement in reaction to Bill C-50 and also the motion that is due in parliament this Friday. Again, I would support this motion and demand an apology from the British Columbia government as well as the federal government.

L. Mayencourt: I want to thank the member for Surrey–Panorama Ridge for bringing this motion forward. I first became aware of this several years ago, and I found it almost unbelievable that this kind of thing could happen in British Columbia — that we could be so racist as to take these individuals who had travelled for an enormous amount of time, an enormous length of journey…. We would turn them away and say: "No, you're not welcome here."

This is a very shameful part of our history, and it is something that we need to recognize. It's something we need to stand up against and say: "You know what? It's time to formally apologize to those individuals but also to all of their relatives." This is something that made me feel so ashamed of everybody that had kept this little secret for so long.

I very strenuously support this motion. I know that our party, the B.C. Liberals, supports this motion as well. It's time for an apology so that the healing can begin. It's time for a permanent memorial somewhere in Stanley Park that recognizes that we did something wrong in 1914. We were racist, and we need to address that. We need to do it in a very public way.

I support the member's motion completely, and I also support the opportunity for the federal government to actually issue a formal apology as well. Thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity, Madam Speaker.

B. Ralston: I rise to support the motion. The ship Komagata Maru arrived in the harbour of Vancouver on May 23, 1914. Gurdip Singh had chartered the ship in Hong Kong, gathered passengers and then sailed to Shanghai and to Moji and Yokohama in Japan. In each port more passengers joined the ship. The final passenger list, leaving Yokohama for Vancouver, was described as 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims and 12 Hindus.

The route of the voyage violated the prevailing Canadian immigration law requiring a continuous

journey from India without intervening stops. The law was designed to make legal immigration by British subjects of India impossible. While the Komagata Maru and its passengers waited in Vancouver harbour, a legal challenge to the law was defeated in the B.C. Court of Appeal. Despite the efforts of a shore committee of supporters in Vancouver, on July 23, 1914, the Komagata Maru and the bulk of its passengers — 352 — were forced to leave Vancouver harbour. The Canadian navy cruiser Rainbow escorted the ship out of Canadian waters.

I join my colleagues in calling for a solemn apology by both the provincial and federal governments and the building of a permanent memorial to the memory of the passengers of the Komagata Maru. While support for this initiative is widespread, I wish to comment particularly on the leadership provided by the Dr. Mohan Singh Foundation and Sahib Thind, a constituent of mine, and Jasbir Sandhu.

J. Nuraney: I too want to echo my feelings about what happened to the members on the Komagata Maru in 1914. It was an act that is absolutely not acceptable in today's times. Even then, the gestures that were made and the refusal for the people on the boat to land at Vancouver harbour was an act of injustice and racism and was outright outrageous.

I also want to say to the generations and the descendants of the people who first landed at the shores of Vancouver after that huge plight that an apology is certainly owed. There is no question about it in my mind.

I also want to further state that even in today's times racism rears its ugly head from time to time. We must all be very conscious and aware and diligent in our efforts not to have those kinds of attitudes prosper or be nurtured in our society today. I strongly condemn the act that took place during the time of the Komagata Maru, and I want to register my very strong protest of what happened then. It is my request to both levels of government that if an apology is required and needed, they should both come out and say so.

H. Bains: I am also honoured to support this bill and stand here with pride to cherish the courage of the passengers of Komagata Maru and to honour their progressive thinking, bravery, valour to challenge the laws of the day for social justice. These people put their lives on the line for their beliefs and to stand up for what was right.

Their vision for justice continues to remind us for coming generations that injustices should not be tolerated at any time. Whether they are societal or legislative injustices, we need people to understand that it is their right and their duty to oppose things that are not just.

Thanks to them, we have this country where there are established customs and beliefs and where we have enjoyed free speech and democracy. We as Canadians also owe them our gratitude and respect for giving us a stronger, united but diverse society where there is social justice for all.

While playing their part to make this a better society for future generations, they endured injustices — having to give up everything that they had, including for many to give up their lives. We must remember that it wasn't at the hands of some ordinary citizens. It was legislative injustices put in place by the governments of the day. It then becomes our duty as legislators in this House to recognize their sacrifices.

So by passing this bill in this House, this Legislature will take the lead and leadership needed and accept our responsibilities for those injustices towards that group of people. A formal apology will be the start to the healing process.

Once that part is done, then we can start talking about how we can educate our children so that no one in the future is subject to this type of humiliation. We do not need promises. We have seen many promises in the past by many leaders of this country, and we've seen another one last week. What we need is action.

I think what we see in this House is unanimous consent. I think that is a good start. I say that I would ask the Speaker, since there is unanimous consent here, that the Speaker test the House for a unanimous motion so that we can all send a strong message to the federal government that an apology is needed, and it must be now.

Deputy Speaker: Members, unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 58 without disturbing the priorities of the motions preceding it on the order paper.

C. Trevena: I stand here today to argue in favour of Motion 58, which is on the order paper under my name.

I don't think anyone in this House would disagree with our need as a society as a whole to end domestic violence. The whole concept of violence in intimate relationships is abhorrent. That one partner would intimidate the other, whether it's belittling or bullying is bad enough, and it's a far too little recognized form of domestic violence outside the circles of those who deal daily with such abuse.

Physical attacks within a relationship are, simply put, horribly wrong. In 2005, according to the Keeping Women Safe report, 74 percent of police-reported spousal assault incidents involved a male offender. Only 16 percent involved a female offender, and 10 percent involved both spouses.

When those assaults escalate and one partner is killed and, at times, children in that relationship are also murdered, we as a society ask: what went wrong? Why didn't we do anything? It's after the fact and too late for those victims, and those victims are usually women.

I think all of us within this chamber hear the echoes of the recent horrors of Oak Bay and of Merritt. I'll not speak of those cases because the coroner is investigating, and that is vital. It's vital that we have an independent office examining the evidence and trying to find out the sequence of events — of who knew what, and who did what.

What this motion argues for is an extension of that investigation so that every year there is a study of all those cases where death came as a result of domestic violence. This would allow us as a province to see where the gaps are societally and how we can fill them. We could see, for instance, whether the re-establishment of a network of centrally funded women's centres would fill the need, whether all police officers are trained in dealing with incidences of domestic violence, whether teachers are prepared to pick up the signals kids may be giving. These are all, perhaps, possible issues which might come from such reports.

In Ontario a Domestic Violence Death Review Committee was established under the authority of the coroner to do just this, to examine and review deaths where domestic violence has played a part. That committee includes representatives from the coroner's office, from the police, the Ministry of the Attorney General, victims assistance programs, academics and first nations.

In its 2004 report — this has been running since 2002 — the committee stated: "An important concern to the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, as a result of our review, is the extent to which these homicides appear both predictable and preventable, based on an analysis of all the known risk factors." Predictable and preventable.

That committee reviews all intimate partner and former partner homicides. It identifies the systemic issues in each case and makes recommendations to address the concerns. It identifies trends, risk factors and patterns so that intervention and prevention strategies can be found. It is this which is so important about having an annual review of all cases, and this is why, through this motion, this side of the House is calling for a greater examination of all instances of domestic violence.

We have the high-profile and horrific cases, but inevitably, other murders and sometimes suicides can be traced back to domestic violence. They go under the radar — a suicide, perhaps, because the woman was depressed or she'd become more isolated. At the moment these disparate cases are not looked at as a whole. So we guess where the gaps are, and while we guess at the gaps, we may be guessing wrong, providing services which may not help prevent the ongoing problems.

Of course it's important to have fully funded transition houses with 24-7 assistance. It's also important to have second-stage housing, but those aren't always found or funded. Of course it's important to have crisis lines, but not at the cost of in-person assistance. Would improved training for all police officers or for Crown counsel help in all instances? These gaps, which may be throughout society and throughout systems, need to be addressed but are not visible without an overall, systemic analysis of what has happened previously.

Someone said to me: "We don't need any more investigations. We just need to stop domestic violence." I wish we could just stop domestic violence. But while we try to get to that state, it's imperative on all of us to look at what has happened in other cases, learn the lessons from those cases and implement what we've learned.

I hope this House will give unanimous support to this motion so that we can take another step in dealing, as a society and as a province, with the outrage that is domestic violence.

D. MacKay: I would like to thank the member for North Island for bringing the motion forward dealing with domestic violence.

In a previous career I spent 28 years in the police force. I heard the member for North Island talk about the police training that was necessary to deal with domestic violence. It made me think back to my early career, when I was 19 years old. Members, I was actually 19 at one time.

I recall going to my first domestic violence complaint. I have to tell you that in those days domestic violence complaints were some of the worst complaints a police officer could attend, because usually people are pretty emotional when you go to these events.

I can remember walking into my first domestic violence complaint when I was 19 years old. A husband and wife were having a rather heated argument. We had got the phone call that this domestic violence was taking place. I walked in there, and I can remember standing between the husband and wife, who were obviously older than myself. They were having a rather heated argument, and I got in between them.

Finally, another member arrived, and he went with the wife, and I went with the husband and tried to settle things down. I can remember the man putting his arm around me and saying: "Sonny, are you married?" I said: "No, I'm not, sir." He said, "Well, you don't know…."

I've got to be careful how I choose my words here. I can't tell you the exact words that he told me about domestic violence and what it was like to be married. He did tell me that I probably didn't understand the first thing about married life. Obviously, I didn't. I wasn't married. I've always remembered that story.

Now, the good side of that story was that I don't think we ever got a callback to that residence over

domestic violence. It must have been a one-time incident. That didn't go to the coroner's office because there wasn't a death involved.

I did learn from that experience. I learned through my 28 years with the force what it was like to go to a domestic violence complaint. I suspect that today, when a police officer gets a call that they're going to a domestic violence complaint, they go there with trepidation. You never know what's going to happen because of the usually highly charged emotion of both husband and wife or of partners.

After 28 years on the force I then moved on to ten years as a coroner, so I saw the tragic results of some of these domestic violence complaints that did turn into a deadly situation. There's tragedy attached to the term "coroner," I guess because the coroner's office only gets involved after a death has occurred.

But there's the other side of it. There's the police side of the story that also has to be told. While I understand the emotion, to look at the coroner's reports, I think we have to go back a little bit further and include police reports as well.

The tragedy of going to a death complaint where domestic violence was involved has been with us for a long time. I don't know if we're ever going to find a simple answer to how to deal with domestic violence, because sometimes the death results from the first time they actually have a violent encounter. In some cases, these are ongoing complaints.

I don't know how many times I've sat down and typed up reports to Crown counsel on a domestic violence complaint asking the Crown counsel to make a decision on whether or not charges should be laid, only to have my time wasted, the court's time wasted and the prosecutor's time wasted because the victim normally did not want to proceed with charges. So there was a great deal of time and effort put into the prosecution side of the domestic violence, and it didn't proceed anywhere.

There's more than a coroner's inquest. Coroners also have a judgment of inquiry, with the exception of deaths while in police custody or if you're in custody in an institution or under control of the police. Those deaths automatically go to a coroner's inquest.

But there's the judgment of inquiry — which coroners do today dealing with deaths that are a one-person decision, based on the evidence that the coroner gets from the police and the pathologist — to look at who it was that died, where they died, when they died, why they died and how they died. How they died is usually given to the coroner through the pathologist's examination of the deceased.

Not just through the coroner's inquest but also through a judgment of inquiry there are normally recommendations made, if there's something glaring that has to be made in the form of a recommendation, to the appropriate agency to prevent a similar death from happening, whether it be from a car accident or, in the case of domestic violence, some recommendations to the police or to the government of the day.

Today the Coroners Service is reviewing homicides from 2005 to 2007 to compile stats related to homicides from family violence. Going forward, those statistics and cases that did deal with deaths from domestic violence will now be available to future coroners and coroners' inquests.

With those comments, I would close my comments and pass the floor to another member.

D. Routley: It is a privilege to rise in this House to speak on such an important issue. As a man, I must add that I speak from the side of the equation that is usually implicated in these disasters. So I speak with the open acknowledgment that it has been men who have generally committed these crimes, and it has been a failure of men to be able to deal with their own crises in life and to be able to resist these issues.

I think the motion calls for review — a domestic violence fatality review committee. Twenty-five percent of men who kill their partners are dead within 24 hours by suicide. In those cases, there's no great inquiry into how the justice system may or may not have served these families.

If there is a plane crash or a train crash, there is immediately an investigation into all aspects of what has occurred, but not in these cases. What we're calling for is a multidisciplinary review that will offer expert opinion to chief coroners in these cases, identify systematic shortcomings and identify risk factors so that we can learn from these tragedies.

I will disagree with the previous speaker. I think there are very few one-time incidences. I think that, generally, these issues develop over time, and definitely, the attitudes that permit these situations do develop over a long, long time. So we need to address those issues.

When we look to the record of the government in addressing issues of violence against women or services to women, we can see a government that has made choices to cut where it should have funded. Where they should have increased support to women, they withdrew support to women.

Between 2001 and 2004 the B.C. Liberals cut women's services budgets by over $18 million. This has disproportionate impacts on women. Cuts to child care, legal aid, housing, social assistance, women's centres — all of these impact women, and all of them leave them more vulnerable to the probabilities that they will be left alone when they need us.

They eliminated, in 2001, the stand-alone Ministry of Women's Equality. That was a broken election promise, and it has left women without services that they desperately require to address their needs.

In 2003 the B.C. Liberals ended the zero-tolerance policy on domestic violence and instructed Crown prosecutors to divert domestic violence cases away from the courts. In 2004 they eliminated $1.7 million in annual funding for the 37 community-based women's centres. These cuts leave people more exposed.

When probability turns out to be certainty, we are not permitted the excuse of hiding behind unintended

consequences. This government was warned about what the outcomes would be of those cuts, and that is a true tragedy. The government can reverse some of that by endorsing this motion and supporting the stand-alone review.

J. McIntyre: I, too, am grateful to the member for North Island for bringing this forward in the House this morning. I think we would all agree here in the Legislature and, of course, in society that there's no question that we want to find a way to put an end to domestic violence and the tragic implications of that.

I would like to set the record straight, actually, particularly with regard to the member for Cowichan-Ladysmith, who just spoke. In doing my research for today and to address the motion, I've discovered a whole array of services that the government is funding to help with this issue. I'd like to put some of this on the record, because I'd like to talk about today and what's going on today.

Support for direct essential services has increased by more than 40 percent since 2005. They go towards prevention; intervention initiatives, including transition houses; counselling; and outreach — all in an effort to connect women with the services that will help them and that will make a difference.

There's nearly $50 million right now going towards transition house services, safe homes, second-stage housing, counselling and outreach services to connect vulnerable women. In fact, last year Budget 2007 brought $2 million more for staffing transition houses 24-7. This funding means that all provincially funded transition houses will have around-the-clock service, on-site staff coverage, regardless of time of day, day or night, when women and children who are fleeing abuse need these services.

I had personal experience with that in Squamish, where the government funds Pearl's Place. It's a wonderful, welcoming home for families fleeing abuse. The government funded that last year, I think, with over $100,000 in this community alone to help with 24-7 funding. They also are very generous, including an additional $12,000 this year for the programs like children witnessing violence. Those programs are so important in communities, and I see that happening in my own corridor. We are funding programs and services.

These things are just an example of an array of some of the services. There are family justice services. There are police services. There is criminal prosecution, and there is an array of these domestic violence programs.

Let me tell you about one of them now, which is in assessment training. It's a new web-based training package that's been in partnership with Public Safety and Attorney General, the RCMP, municipal police, the Crown and the Justice Institute. They're looking at the nature and dynamics of violence against women. They're looking at understanding, assessing and investigating domestic violence.

They're providing an assessment tool to look at professional guidelines for assessing the risk of spousal assault. That's being designed for police and other justice agencies. There's going to be a pilot in Langley starting in May.

I would like to say more about this very important subject, but I would like to make sure that the public understands that this government takes this subject very seriously. We are funding, to the tune of millions and millions of dollars, a look at all of this, including, as my colleague spoke before me…. The coroner is already doing this review. They are flagging these and summarizing these issues.

M. Sather: I rise in support of the motion for an annual review of coroners' inquests and decisions in cases involving the coroner. Clearly, there are problems in the field of domestic violence. The previous policy, which was changed by this government, said that if there was a reasonable likelihood of conviction, the Crown prosecutors were to proceed with charges.

That has been done away with. It is now less likely, from what I've seen, that an individual — and we must recognize that it is almost always a male — will end up in treatment. They fall between the cracks. Unfortunately, the whole syndrome of domestic violence and the man who is being violent towards his spouse is an issue of power and control over her.

If he is not held to account, if he feels that he isn't being held to account, he is given a message that he can continue with the behaviour. Oftentimes these men are quite manipulative. They've learned how to manipulate situations to their advantage, and this is another example of how, then, they get to manipulate the justice system. They keep putting off and putting off reports to the courts and the like, even if it's a civil court.

My concern is that we can never, of course, absolutely ensure the safety of a woman in a situation like this, but we must do whatever we can to make it the least likely that a disaster will happen. I think the government needs to be aware of that — that that hasn't been a positive change in the field of dealing with domestic violence.

I worked for several years in a treatment program for men who had been abusive in their relationships. Around about the same time as that policy was changed, I noticed that the direction of treatment changed, and not in a positive way. We would use, for example, police reports to hold the men to account for what it said in the report, at least, that they had done. That was a difficult process, but important.

Then I found that the treatment provider was discouraging counsellors from using police reports. That is, again, just an open invitation, unfortunately, to these men to use their manipulative skills to say, "Well, it was her fault," or "I was pushed," and so on and so forth — all the kinds of rationalizations that are made. I think the government and the Solicitor General's office need to look at the treatment program.

There is a problem with restraining orders and the enforcement thereof. A restraining order is made in a civil court. It isn't necessarily filed with the police, so they may not even know that there is a restraining order, as happened in a case in my community. The only way that they, then, know is if the victim comes forward again to make a complaint of a breach, but that's one more hurdle for her to have to get over. That's another area that needs to be looked at. A coroner's review of cases, I think, could lead to much better services for women.

M. Farnworth: Noting the hour, I just want to make a couple of comments on this motion, which I support.

I think one of the things that comes about on the basis of having an annual review is that you're able to compare what has taken place over the year and to look at what in one case may be seen to be an isolated incident or component of a report and compare it over the course of a year. You can see threads and patterns.

You're able, I think, to get a better sense of some of the challenges that you face, as well as to look at recommendations that have come out of different reports. It ensures that what a government does is to implement recommendations that can have an impact in terms of society trying to deal with the issue of domestic violence, which as we all know, is something extremely serious.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.