Hansard — Thursday, May 15, 2008 p.m.

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Introductions by Members		12499

Tributes		12500
	Ron Butlin
	Hon. I. Chong

Introductions by Members		12500

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		12501
	Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill M211)
	G. Gentner
	Anti SLAPP Act, 2008 (Bill M212)
	L. Krog

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		12501
	Criminal justice system
	D. Hayer
	Homophobia
	N. Simons
	Safe graduation celebrations
	I. Black
	100th anniversary of Britannia Secondary School
	J. Kwan
	Vancouver Opera in Schools program
	J. Yap
	World records in B.C.
	G. Gentner

Oral Questions		12504
	Softwood lumber agreement
	B. Simpson
	Hon. R. Coleman
	Government action on forest industry
	D. Routley
	Hon. R. Coleman
	C. Evans
	Government support for forest workers
	R. Austin
	Hon. C. Hansen
	Seismic upgrades for schools
	D. Cubberley
	Hon. S. Bond
	M. Farnworth
	Availability of beds at Royal Columbian Hospital
	C. Puchmayr
	Hon. G. Abbott
	A. Dix

Second Reading of Bills		12508
	Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 26) (continued)
	H. Bains
	C. Wyse
	D. Cubberley
	J. Kwan
	D. Routley
	G. Gentner
	S. Simpson
	J. Brar
	N. Simons
	M. Farnworth
	Hon. G. Abbott

Speaker's Statement		12536
	Rules for public bills in the hands of private members

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		12536
	Estimates: Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (continued)
	Hon. R. Neufeld
	Hon. K. Krueger
	J. Horgan
	N. Macdonald
	C. Puchmayr
	G. Gentner
	M. Sather
	C. Wyse
	G. Robertson

Hon. R. Thorpe: It's my pleasure today to introduce to the House one of my constituents from the district of Westside, Mr. Jim Wilson. Jim is here today with the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, and I hope the House will join me in making him very welcome.

M. Karagianis: I was very delighted today to look up in the gallery and see a very dear friend of mine here. I know I may have missed her most recent birthday. I'd like the House to please give a special welcome to my friend Janet Labh.

Hon. O. Ilich: We often get guests that come from Ottawa, and we always think that they're from a political party or they're representing some federal ministry. We tend to forget that there are a lot of really terrific people that live in Ottawa who are just regular folk.

Today it is my pleasure to welcome a visitor from Ottawa who represents one of those regular Canadians who just happen to call Ottawa home. Please join me in welcoming the mother-in-law of my ministerial assistant, Mrs. Irene Lafrance.

D. Chudnovsky: Today it was a treat for me to have some time to visit with some wonderful young people who are friends of our daughter and are visiting in British Columbia. They spent some time on Long Beach and some time here in Victoria and in Vancouver. Please help me in welcoming Michelle Firestone and Guillermo Cruz.

Hon. W. Oppal: I have a number of staff from my ministry in the House today. They are Connie Richter, who is the executive coordinator of the Deputy Attorney General's office; Janet Labh, who is a senior executive assistant in the deputy's office; Debbie Mar, who is the executive administrative assistant to the legal services branch; Sheena Heuman, executive coordinator at the legal services branch; Anna Andrade, executive administrative assistant to the management services branch; and Jacquelyn Jacobi, who is executive administrative assistant in the multiculturalism and immigration branch.

Hon. Speaker, these people do a fantastic job, an unbelievably fantastic job, and I would like the House to make them welcome.

G. Gentner: In the House today is Genevieve Gord. Genevieve is from the Université du Quebec. She's here in B.C. lecturing. In my family we refer to her as the French kid. She was part of a French immersion exchange program with my daughter. They became very good friends many years ago. In fact, Genevieve wound up standing up for my daughter during marriage. It's an incredible relationship, and I encourage all British Columbians to welcome any exchange program with the province of Quebec.

Hon. I. Chong: On Tuesday I was pleased to introduce my administrative assistant Linsey Cole, who I mentioned was getting married this weekend on Sunday. While she is busily preparing for that very special day on Sunday, a number of her family members are visiting, and they are in the gallery today. So I would like to introduce Alison Cole, her sister from Italy; her uncle from Saskatchewan, Tom Helpenny; and her father from Fort McMurray, Ian Cole. I hope the House would please make them all very welcome.

D. Cubberley: Minutes ago I had the pleasure to be part of a rally of some 100 people who have assembled here today and who are themselves either Lyme disease sufferers or relatives of those who have Lyme disease. They are here today to try and raise the awareness of legislators about the incidence of this very troubling disease and the difficulty these people have in getting a timely clinical diagnosis of their disease in British Columbia.

Lyme disease is a relatively new phenomenon in our awareness, but its incidence is far greater than we are generally aware, and there's a great deal of work to be done to sensitize doctors in the health care system to the need for treatment.

A number of those who are part of the rally today are joining us in the gallery. I want to first mention professor emeritus of UBC Ernie Murakami who is now a retired Lyme disease physician in Hope. He is British Columbia's first, foremost and, Lyme disease sufferers would tell you, probably our only Lyme-literate doctor who, unfortunately, is now retired from practice but is continuing to try to train new physicians to recognize the disease.

He's also joined by Jim Wilson, who was introduced by the Minister of Small Business and Revenue, the head of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, who lives in Westbank. He is also joined by Margie Johns, a Lyme sufferer and a supporter from Brentwood Bay; Eleanor Miller, who is a Lyme sufferer from Oak Bay, British Columbia; and Sue Aldice, who is a Lyme sufferer and activist from Sidney, British Columbia.

I would ask all members of the House to recognize the green bracelets that some members are wearing to raise awareness of Lyme disease and to welcome all of those protestors, activists and hopeful people who wish to change our views on Lyme disease to the chamber today.

Hon. J. van Dongen: I am very pleased to introduce to the House today Wayne Sandberg, who is my neighbour on Matsqui Prairie, a hard-working part-time blueberry farmer. I think he has his son with him. I also want to acknowledge Barbara Edwards, professional agrologist from my constituency, and also to acknowledge the Cole family that were introduced by the Minister of

Community Services and Tom Halpenny from Saskatchewan, because they will soon be related by marriage to my very capable executive assistant Chris Tupper. So I ask the House to make them all very welcome.

S. Fraser: It gives me great pleasure to introduce two constituents from Port Alberni. They are part of the contingent representing the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge that I spoke of earlier this week. Ron Paulson is the chair of the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, and Dave McCormick is the director of marketing and sales. I'd like to thank the Minister of State for ActNow B.C., who hosted a lunch today to learn more about this exciting initiative that will showcase the best youth hockey in the world.

I would ask everyone here to make Ron and Dave feel very welcome, and I would ask the minister of state to give them money.

R. Lee: Joining us in the Legislature today are 76 grade 10 students and some parents from Burnaby Central Secondary School, an excellent school in Burnaby. The school also hosts an outstanding soccer program. Would the House please help me welcome the students and their teacher Miss Dana Dunne here today.

J. Horgan: I, too, want to join with my colleague for Saanich South and introduce some friends that are here today to raise awareness about Lyme disease. My good friend Alison Kirby from the interior is here. She's been suffering from the disease for a number of years. She's joined by her fantastic family, the Finertys — Drew, Brad, Mary, and the matriarch, Dell. In true Irish fashion, they're here today to support Alison in her fight against Lyme disease.

J. Nuraney: We have in the gallery today two of my good friends and my constituents from the riding of Burnaby-Willingdon, soon to be called Burnaby–Deer Lake. They are Tom and Gayle Neilsen. They are in the gallery today, and I'd ask the House to please make them feel very welcome.

D. Routley: I have three constituents visiting who are Lyme sufferers or the parents of Lyme sufferers — Lee Rider, himself a Lyme sufferer; Jay McQuay, the father of Mary McQuay, a Lyme sufferer in very late stages of the disease; and Kimberly Stepanski, the mother of a seven-year-old Lyme sufferer — all of them feeling very frustrated at what they see as a gate keeping them from the services that they need for their children or themselves. They're here to see to that issue.

R. Cantelon: I'd like to join with the member for Alberni-Qualicum in welcoming guests on the U-17 committee — Ron Paulson, Colleen Sawyer, David McCormick, and, from Nanaimo, Darci Osborne, and Paula Peters from Oceanside.

I want to make particular note of this tournament. These will be the finest hockey players under 17 in the world. The Attorney General should take note and stop moping about the loss of the Canucks, because the best players under 17 will be here in British Columbia for the first time in this great tournament.

To give you some of the names of the players who have graduated from this tournament: our own Joe Sakic, Sergei Fedorov, Mats Sundin…. In fact, in the last professional hockey draft, 20 of the top 32 first picks came from this tournament. So it's going to be an outstanding tournament, and I encourage you all and your constituents to take part and cheer on B.C.'s team.

Let's give these hard workers…. And may I add that this is a whole inter-island, mid-Island thing? Cowichan Valley, Comox, Campbell River and Nanaimo got together in a great spirit of cooperation to make this world-class tournament work.

H. Bloy: I want to wish somebody very special to me a happy 94th birthday today — my dad. My dad worked hard all his life raising our family, and he was always there to support us and nurture us. My brother and sister and I have done quite well, but it was only because of my dad being there all those years and being with us.

I know he's watching today. He's a regular watcher of this program. I just want to say happy birthday, Dad, and all my love.

Hon. I. Chong: Today I would like to introduce a very special man, a truly incredible British Columbian, Mr. Ron Butlin. Although Ron retired from business many years ago, for the past 16 years he has volunteered with the Greater Victoria Festival Society as the chief organizer of the Island Farms Victoria Day Parade and the Island Farms Santa Light Parade. These two parades bring joy to tens of thousands of Victoria residents and tourists alike.

This year Island Farms Victoria Day Parade will be particularly spectacular, because many of the local organizations within Victoria who will be entrants in the parade will have floats and displays celebrating their very special anniversary during our very special sesquicentennial year.

Mr. Ron Butlin ran a successful management consulting firm and was director of Team Canada for the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series. He has also organized and run a total of 18 B.C. Summer and Winter Games. While he is physically not present in the gallery to be welcomed because of his busy schedule for this weekend, I know he will be watching introductions. So I ask the House to join me in thanking Mr. Ron Butlin for all his years of volunteerism.

Hon. M. de Jong: I met my first politician when I was ten years old. He wasn't an MP, an MLA or even a mayor or a councillor. He was a school trustee. His name

was Ray Sandberg. Sadly, Ray passed away a couple of years ago, but today in the gallery his grandson Josh Sandberg is here with his father. He is a regular attendee at the monthly breakfasts that I hold in Abbotsford, and when I consider some of the things that he has said and done, I suspect that there is a seat down here on the floor waiting for Josh Sandberg.

Hon. P. Bell: It's always worthy to note birthdays of members in the House, and although this particular gentleman's birthday isn't today, it is tomorrow, and I would ask that the House please wish a very happy birthday to someone who is turning 53 tomorrow and may be sitting immediately to my right.

G. Gentner: I move the bill Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008, be read for the first time today.

G. Gentner: On Tuesday I received a phone call from a Delta resident not knowing what to do. B.C. Transmission Corporation had knocked on his door and, like it or not, bulldozers are on their way. Against the wishes of thousands of residents, high-voltage power lines are being pushed through. Two years ago this side introduced the same bill, which fell on deaf ears. I reintroduce it today.

This bill stipulates that proposed high-voltage transmission lines located within the vicinity of settled areas, parks, recreation areas, residential schools, public schools, child day care facilities and playgrounds will come under immense scrutiny under provincial law. The bill mandates the Utilities Commission to weigh adverse effects, including EMF fields and all policies concerning public health and safety.

On Tuesday night the Premier spoke about cancer prevention. In the last year in the House we've come to recognize presumption for firefighters. Today we must recognize the precautionary principle in all our legislative actions. This bill spells out stringent new siting criteria for overhead electrical transmission lines within residential neighbourhoods.

In many jurisdictions legislation has tightened up EMF regulations. The bill directs the Utilities Commission to consider keeping high-voltage transmission lines away from residential areas and states that any proposal to increase voltage of transmission facilities within residential areas would automatically trigger a review to see if a viable alternative can be found.

It's time to err on the side of caution. It's time to put high risks to health aside. It's time to listen to the people of British Columbia.

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

Bill M211, Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

L. Krog: I move introduction of the Anti SLAPP Act, 2008, for first reading.

L. Krog: For those at home who may be watching, this bill has nothing to do with corporal punishment. This bill has everything to do with public discourse and the right of people to participate in the democratic system freely and without fear of being slapped with suits designed to chill citizen participation. It is designed to prevent others' powerful interests from harassing or intimidating citizens and citizen organizations with respect to the bringing of civil suits.

The bill provides that people who believe they are the victims of such suits can bring motions to dismiss and allows for substantive costs and punitive damages, if necessary, to discourage the bringing of such suits.

In addition, this bill will protect the rights of citizens generally. It is an important part of the democratic process, as I've said, that citizens feel free to take on powerful organizations.

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

Bill M212, Anti SLAPP Act, 2008, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

D. Hayer: Almost every day there's another headline of a criminal walking away from justice. In brief, it's a common perception that criminals get an unreasonable break from our courts, from our penal system, thereby outraging community sensibility. Are these feelings due

to lack of knowledge of our law, or are they due to a criminal justice system increasingly out of touch with ordinary Canadian citizens' concerns of what is right or what is wrong with our system?

Almost every week we read of murderers, rapists and other criminals whose personal rights seem to take precedence over the rights of the victims. Mr. Speaker, this has to change. This has to stop. For every criminal who gets treated a bit lightly or who is allowed to roam free while awaiting refugee hearings, there are dozens, hundreds, even thousands of victims who cry out for justice. Victims often, in their nightmares, remember the horror that crime has brought to their lives.

The way the Canadian justice system has evolved, many victims believe that their rights are considered less important than the rights of the criminals who have devastated their lives. Victims and their families get a life sentence, while perpetrators of violence get a slap on the wrist.

Ordinary citizens must send a clear message to the Attorneys General across Canada that the scales of justice are seriously out of balance and that criminals must be held to a higher standard of accountability when they steal, rape and kill. Every elected member of every political party must condemn leniency toward criminal behaviour and strengthen the rights of innocent victims and their families and our law-abiding society. Lawmakers owe it to the sense of fairness and security of our law-abiding British Columbians and of all Canadians.

N. Simons: This Saturday, May 17, marks the International Day Against Homophobia. On Monday, The Centre in Vancouver, which provides support, health, social services and public education for the well-being of the lesbian, gay, trans and bi communities and their allies, hosted its fourth annual homophobia breakfast at the Coast Plaza at Stanley Park.

Over 350 people came out to demonstrate their interest and support in making our communities more accepting. Sponsors included the Hospital Employees Union, the B.C. Cancer Agency, the B.C. Cancer Foundation, the Centre for Disease Control, the Nurses Union, Fondation Emergence, Gay and Lesbian Educators of B.C., the Gay and Lesbian Business Association, Vancouver Coastal Health and the Georgia Straight.

As members know, homophobia is just as bad as racism. It's ugly, it's preventable, and it has no place in our communities, urban or rural. It also comes in many forms, from hate crimes to workplace discrimination to simple harassment. Homophobia is expressed by those who engage in it and also through the silence of those who see it and don't speak against it. It reveals itself in exaggerated debates over religious doctrine as well as in the guise of debates over school curriculum.

We know that these gay and lesbian youth are more likely to have experienced physical and sexual abuse. They're more likely to have run away from home, more likely to become pregnant as a teenager or to get someone else pregnant. They're more likely to have experienced emotional stress, suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide. And they're more likely to use tobacco and other drugs, less likely to participate in sports and less connected in school. These statistics are troubling, and they must be addressed.

According to a study for the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS about to be released, the younger a person is when they come out, the greater the chance that they'll be attacked, which highlights the importance of tolerance initiatives in our schools.

Mr. Speaker, let's recognize that one way we can all do our part is to recognize that as leaders, as teachers, as community leaders, as coaches we have to model tolerance, acceptance and, in fact, the celebration of diversity.

I. Black: High school graduation is the celebration of hopes, dreams, opportunities, melancholy moments, anxiety about change, teenage romance, celebration of lifelong friends and overwhelming gratitude to teachers and parents alike. For all the magic that this represents, these possibilities and a young person's hopes and dreams can vanish in an instant from just one unsafe decision at a graduation party.

As you know, teenagers under the age of 19 aren't allowed to drink in British Columbia. In theory, drinking and driving should not be an issue for graduation celebrations. But in reality, as we all know, it is. There is a long and sad history of horrible and sometimes fatal grad-related accidents around this time of year.

According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, in Canada one out of every eight deaths and injuries in road crashes is a teenager. Road crashes remain the number one cause of death of youth aged 15 to 19, and two out of every five teens killed on the road have been drinking.

To help combat the risks and give young people choices, safe grad, or dry grad, was a concept introduced when I was in high school. A safe grad aims to equip high school students with more information, skills, peer support and community support to plan safer celebrations.

I am very, very proud and enormously grateful that all four secondary schools in my riding are staging a safe grad this year — Pinetree and Gleneagle Secondary Schools in Coquitlam, and Port Moody's Heritage Woods and Port Moody Secondary. This involves just a ton of work, and I really want to thank the teachers for their extra efforts well above and beyond the call of duty, and the parents and community volunteers who care enough to stay up all night to make it happen.

Co-chairing these in my area include Judy Collin and Wendy Weiderick, Rosemary Keane and Becky Anderson, Tracy Buza and Kelly Dibley. I would like to thank all these parents and wish the young adults in my community a safe and exciting celebration in the coming weeks.

J. Kwan: I rise in the House today to congratulate all of the students, staff, alumni and, in fact, the entire Britannia Secondary School community for celebrating their 100th anniversary this year.

Britannia is the oldest remaining secondary school in Vancouver. The first classes were held in the Admiral Seymour building in September of 1908. In September of 1955 the gymnasium and cafeteria were added to the old building, and it was also at this time that grades 8 and 9 were added to the enrolment. During the 1966-67 school year a new wing was constructed, providing additional industrial education, home economics and business education classrooms.

In 1972 Britannia became Britannia Elementary-Secondary School. The elementary school opened its doors in 1975 with 370 new students for a combined total of close to 1,800. In 1975 there was the incorporation of the Britannia Community Services Centre Society, and that year Britannia became a community school.

Over the years we have seen the school expand in scope. Today it represents a model development for its multi-use complex, which includes the high school, the elementary school, an adult education program, community centre, ice rink, pool, library, child care centre, teen centre and seniors centre. Its grounds span over ten acres, and there is not one part of it that is not being used at some time during the course of the day. It is the heart of the Grandview-Woodlands community.

Grads down through the decades include a B.C. Premier, a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, a Chief Justice of the B.C. Supreme Court, an Attorney General, atomic physicists, architects, designers, professors, journalists and, of course, the MLA for Vancouver-Hastings.

There will be a Britannia centennial reunion on May 16 at Britannia, and on the 17th, an open house that will feature a living memory exhibit as well as an Italian barbecue and Chinese tea.

I ask all members of this House to join me in wishing Britannia a wonderful 100th birthday.

J. Yap: I recently found myself sitting in my seat, anxiously awaiting the show. The house lights were low, and the buzz of the audience was palpable. As the orchestra music began to swell and the first pitch-perfect notes came from the actor in the spotlight, I knew I was in for a real treat.

This scene could have been taking place in any of the finest opera houses around the globe, but along with the students from St. Joseph the Worker School in my riding, I was fortunate enough to be treated to some professional opera right in our very own school. This is the objective of the Vancouver Opera in Schools program.

The Vancouver Opera, founded in 1958, has always placed an emphasis on education and bringing the art of opera to the masses. It was that vision that led to the Vancouver Opera in Schools program in 1972, a touring road show of sorts that would bring the classical beauty of opera to our province's children.

Each year since its inception the Vancouver Opera has put together a group of professional opera singers, along with full sets and costumes, and sent them around the province, touring everywhere from Metro Vancouver to northern B.C. Adapting classical operas to the English language and making them more accessible to children has helped to bring an art form that felt out of reach into the lives of youth around British Columbia, reaching an estimated 1.6 million students to date.

This year Rossini's The Barber of Seville has been adapted by Vancouver Opera's Ann Hodges to become The Barber of Barkerville in honour of B.C.'s 150th anniversary. While the location of the famed opera has changed to Barkerville, the story and relationships remain true to the source. So far this season the opera has toured 136 schools, performing for an estimated 50,000 young people.

I invite all members to join me in thanking the Vancouver Opera, including their education manager Patrick LeBlanc, for their award-winning program to ensure that the arts are available for all British Columbians. Bravo.

G. Gentner: British Columbia is a remarkable place, and so are its citizens. The province is a record holder in so many ways.

Delta's Burns Bog is the largest dome bog in the Americas. Terrace claims the world-record 99-pound chinook. The world-record size for a sturgeon was found 50 years ago in the Fraser River — 20 feet long and 1,800 pounds. Vancouver's Sam Kee building is considered the world's narrowest building.

In 1994 Squamish set the world record with an astounding 3,766 eagles counted in one day. Oh, those dismal '90s. I hope they come back. In 1993 the world's first fuel cell–powered, zero-emission transit bus was introduced at Science World…

G. Gentner: …and I did get a chance to drive it. On some days we hold North America's highest gas prices.

There's Rick Hansen and Steve Nash, and there's that little Mundigel Meraw. In the early '30s she broke seven world marathon swimming records, including a swim from Vancouver to Bowen Island in less than seven hours. She also lost her bathing suit along the way.

Harrison Hot Springs has the largest sandcastles, and Hells Gate boasts a record 232 flavours of fudge. The world record for the Grouse Grind is under 27 minutes.

At the end of this month there will be a new record. Earlier this week a new title was registered in the Guinness Book of World Records. The claim reads: "The highest amount of responses for a government of a

parliamentary democracy in one term of office that uses the excuse that because the issue was before the courts, or similar inferences, it refused to answer the question posed by the official opposition during question period."

The count today is 125 and counting. The count will continue until the end of the session. It's a dreadful record, a record no other government will want to beat. This matter is no longer just before the courts. It is now before the Guinness Book of World Records.

B. Simpson: In the Premier's lukewarm defence of the Minister of Forests yesterday, he claimed that one of the minister's successes was the softwood lumber deal. While the Premier was making that questionable claim, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that will add punitive trade barriers to our softwood lumber shipments across the United States. That bill passed through the Senate today. This is a direct political interference on the part of the U.S.

The Premier claimed that the softwood deal would bring certainty. That's now a questionable claim. What is the Minister of Forests going to do to ensure that the forest sector is not saddled with more costs and to ensure that our lumber shipments can cross the U.S. border freely?

Hon. R. Coleman: We have a softwood lumber agreement with the United States — between two countries, Canada and the United States. We expect it to be honoured. What the Congress has done and what the Senate has done is not acceptable to us, nor is it acceptable to Canada. We intend to defend our position under a trade agreement that's been signed by both countries.

B. Simpson: Well, so much for certainty, which is the only way that this government legitimized this deal — with certainty.

During the softwood lumber negotiations, this minister said that we were the big dog at the negotiating table. He said that we were driving the bus of negotiations. Well, we're now in a political dogfight. U.S. politicians are interfering with what we consider to be a bad deal in the first place.

What is the big dog going to do to drive a bus down to Washington to secure our interests and make sure that our lumber industry has free access to the U.S. market?

Hon. R. Coleman: I don't know whether I'm getting heckled more on this side of the House or that side of the House.

It's stunning, actually, that the member opposite now, all of a sudden, somehow thinks that we should have a softwood lumber deal, when he says: "We should abrogate it. It's no good for British Columbians; it's no good for Canada. We didn't want the $2 billion back."

We have a trade agreement. We have arbitration available to us. What the Congress has done and sent to the Senate still has a lot of process to go through. We have our lawyers working on it, Canada has their people working on it, and we will work through this. One thing is for sure, and maybe this should be instructed to members opposite. It's a fact.

It's a very good example of why we need a softwood lumber deal with the United States. The lumber lobby in the United States is incessant in trying to damage the industry in the province of British Columbia and the rest of Canada. That's why we need a softwood deal, and that's why we expect both countries to live up to it.

B. Simpson: We sacrificed a lot in British Columbia for this bad deal. We left a billion dollars on the table…

B. Simpson: …for the U.S. lumber lobby to do exactly what they're doing just now with the U.S. Congress and Senate. The industry was saddled with a 15 percent border tax and the worst market conditions we have ever experienced. The province had to give up sovereignty over forest policy, despite this minister's claim at the time that that wouldn't happen, and the government lost its ability to support communities and forest workers in their time of crisis.

That's what we gave up to get a bad deal — a bad deal that now the U.S. Congress and the Senate are now further undermining with punitive trade barriers through legislation, the first time ever that they've used legislation in the softwood lumber dispute.

When we need political leadership, once again, what do we see? A minister who will relegate himself to the sidelines, who will be a spectator, who will send lawyers. This is a political dogfight. It requires a political response.

What will the minister do today to commit to this House that he will show the political leadership necessary on this issue?

Hon. R. Coleman: Well, first of all, let's be clear. You want to abrogate the softwood lumber deal. You've said that publicly. You have no interest in working with the United States to try and solve the deal. You would rather have a 30 percent duty or higher at the border today, with the protectionist country south of you just taking the heart out of the rest of the industry in the province of British Columbia. That's what you'd rather have.

You would rather have a 30 percent duty on any high-value projects going across the border than a 15 percent high-value cap at only $500, because you would rather take the heart out of that piece of the industry on some principle that you think you can't have a deal.

You know what? The fact of the matter is that for the first time in many years, there's been some stability in the trade of softwood lumber on both sides of the border in North America. We intend — with the government of Canada and with the Ambassador of the United States, who we are in contact with — to defend the rights of Canada with regards to that.

One other thing. Let's be clear. This isn't done yet. There's an opportunity for a veto. It would have to go back to Congress for another two-thirds vote. All that work will continue on, and we will defend the rights of us under the softwood lumber deal.

D. Routley: The minister obviously isn't prepared to take his responsibility for the failings of the softwood lumber agreement, but softwood is not the only failed forest policy of this government. For weeks we've pointed to situations where mills are closing. All they need is fibre, but this minister's policies won't allow that.

In a review of TimberWest by Citadel Securities, they say the following: "The company does not log but contracts out its harvesting. It does not mill, having closed both its sawmills. What it is doing is preparing to become a full-time real estate seller and developer. To its credit, it has deceived no one as to its intentions, but one wonders how long the Minister of Forests can accord the rights and privileges of a forest company to one that does so little forestry."

So what's it going to be — continued log exports? Mills starved of fibre, not able to address markets that they have? Or will the minister step up today and reverse these policies? Provide fibre to the mills. Keep the jobs in B.C.

Hon. R. Coleman: We have tenure in British Columbia. We actually do get fibre to our mills, and we'll continue to do so.

D. Routley: It's unfortunate that, again, we have complete denial from the minister. We are losing jobs that we don't need to lose. Mills that have markets are closing because they don't have fibre, and yet that's the answer from the minister.

Well, you can use a hammer to build a house, or you can use a hammer to tear it down. That minister has used the tool, the hammer of forest policy in this province, to tear down our industry. He tears it down with fibre monopoly. He tears it down with raw log exports. He tears it down with a broken social contract.

The report goes on to say: "As mills close, logs could be exported, and there began a chicken-and-egg debate. Had the mills closed because of a shortage of logs, or were logs being exported because there was a shortage of mills?"

Well, we know the answer to that. We know it was the broken social contract. We know it was the failed forest policies. The minister should admit it, and he should resign if he cannot promise this House that he will stand up and use policy to guarantee the jobs of British Columbia forest workers.

Hon. R. Coleman: You know, hon. Member, the largest capital investment that's taken place in the province of British Columbia in the modernization of our sector took place between the years of 2004 and 2007 — billions of dollars of investment in modernization.

The member opposite refuses to understand the markets. I get that. The member opposite refuses to understand the investment we've made in forest innovations to actually find markets for hemlock in China and Korea and Japan — the $25 million we've invested in that, the $642 million we put into mountain pine beetle to find markets and take care of the land base in the province of British Columbia.

This government continues to make investments and continues to work with forest companies to make sure the fibre flows in the province of British Columbia.

Hon. Speaker, for 14 years before I got here, I was an independent logging contractor. Killing trees and talking here is all I know. I think I understand.

The market goes up, and the market goes down all the way across the world. It always has. In 1982 the market was in the basement. We had to hide our cat in the bush to keep the repo man from taking it away. But we came back. The job of the minister is to see to it that the people are there when it comes back.

We get it that the market bottoms out. This is the first minister whose public policies appear designed to wipe out the independents before the market comes back. There are — I'm so proud of this — seven independent sawmills in my constituency today. My question to the

Hon. R. Coleman: The opposing statement puts the first part of the statement to false, because there are seven guys running over there and still there. The presumption that the member makes at the beginning…. He actually makes his own argument at the end.

C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, we have an industry on its knees, and I get a specious, shallow comment — playing games with words instead of taking responsibility for the survival of the oldest industry in British Columbia.

I've met the ministers all the way back to Williston. It didn't matter what political party they were in. They thought their job was to make the industry survive.

I think this minister has cut a deal with the majors to wipe out the independent sector. My question to the minister is: were you instructed to kill this industry, or are you doing it on your own?

Hon. R. Coleman: What we've been doing is fixing ten years of a mess they left behind in forestry in the province of British Columbia.

Hon. R. Coleman: By their own admission, when they were in government, they added a billion dollars in cost to the forest industry in British Columbia without one benefit. That was a quote from one of their own members when they were in government in the 1990s, with the Forest Practices Code.

Hon. R. Coleman: We have continued to build on forest policies for the province of British Columbia. We have attracted investment. We have the most competitive industry, and frankly, we are going to be there with the industry that we continue to work with. We have the most aggressive regulatory review going on right now, and the work will continue.

R. Austin: Last week at the North Central Municipal Association meetings in Prince George, the Premier announced $2 million each for the communities of Mackenzie and Fort St. James.

R. Austin: A mere ten days prior to this, the Premier was visiting Terrace, whose last mill was closed down by West Fraser before Christmas — one of over 50 mills to have closed in the last couple of years. No claps?

This federal aid package was announced in January. So why was there no announcement of help for Terrace? Is this becoming just a slush fund for the B.C. Liberals to pick and choose which communities they want to help?

Hon. C. Hansen: I had the pleasure of visiting Terrace just recently, and I was impressed with the dynamism in the community and the excitement about future opportunities that are there.

It is clear in the way we have rolled out the community development trust that forest families around British Columbia are eligible to benefit from it. But I think the member has to recognize that if you look at the statistics, Fort St. James and Mackenzie are hit to a much greater degree than any other community in British Columbia. That's why we said that we're going to be there for forest-dependent communities around British Columbia with the job creation program, the tuition program and the assistance for older workers.

I can tell you that the Premier made that announcement in Kamloops last Friday, and on Tuesday of this week, exactly — Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday — four days later, there were staff from the Ministry of Economic Development, staff from the Ministry of Forests and staff from the Ministry of Community Services who were in those two communities to make sure those dollars flow as fast as possible.

D. Cubberley: Yesterday the Minister of Education was asked point-blank whether B.C. Liberals were breaking their promise to fast-track the seismic upgrading of 80 high-risk schools by 2008.

In the midst of an experience in China that shows just how vulnerable school children are in a severe earthquake, this minister's response is to claim that B.C. Liberals hadn't promised any such thing. She said: "I don't think it said that. I think it said 'in the process' or whatever the definition is. I mean, our commitment has always been that they would be in the process and moving through that and ready to go, and that's where they will be."

So we've moved from 80 fixed by 2008 to no fixed time lines whatsoever, and that sounds just like what it is, which is a broken promise.

D. Cubberley: My question is: will the minister apologize for B.C. Liberals' broken promise? Will she commit the resources to complete the 80 schools by 2008, or will she continue to deny they ever made such a promise?

Hon. S. Bond: I can say this for sure. This is the first government in the history of British Columbia that put together a $1.5 billion commitment to seismically upgrade schools, and we're committed to that.

What's most embarrassing about the member opposite asking the question is that when that opposition was in government, they chose a liquor warehouse over schools. We will not do that.

D. Cubberley: You know, a commitment without the resources to implement it is a broken promise. This government gave its word. They said it mattered. They said seismic safety mattered. They said it was urgent. They said they were going to fix it, and then they turned around and broke their word. They never funded the promise they made to British Columbians. Their response to getting caught, to being asked directly, is to claim they never gave their word at all.

Here it is in black and white from the news release, "The first 80 schools to be upgraded over the next three years as part of the province's $1.5 billion plan…. No other government has ever done this. We're fast-tracking seismic projects at 80 high-priority schools" — 80 schools, three years, in black and white. Nothing.

Here's my question to the minister: is the message to British Columbians that they just can't trust the B.C. Liberals to keep their word, to keep their promises, even when it concerns the safety of kids at school?

Hon. S. Bond: Let's look at what the NDP Education Minister said in 1997, and you know what….

Hon. S. Bond: Paul Ramsey in The Vancouver Sun said — and let's listen to the reaction when you hear the quote: "The fact is we are not going to unroll a huge budget to fix old schools." What is that? That was then, and this is now?

Hon. S. Bond: We made a commitment — $1.5 billion. In addition to that, this government, by the end of 2008, will have spent $3.1 billion on capital. That's a commitment.

M. Farnworth: In 2001 they cut the capital budget by 50 percent. That didn't build or refurbish many schools. In 2005 — March 7, 2005 — the minister's own release said: "We're fast-tracking seismic projects at 80 high-priority schools so that students will be protected as soon as possible." Was this press release right then, or is the minister wrong now?

Hon. S. Bond: We made a commitment to $1.5 billion, to a 15-year program to seismically upgrade schools, and we will continue to honour that commitment. We are working with boards of education. We are moving projects forward.

In fact, we will have by the end of the year almost a hundred projects either under construction, completed or ready to go to construction. That's our commitment.

C. Puchmayr: On Tuesday there was another code orange at Royal Columbian Hospital. On Tuesday there were 60 patients in the emergency room waiting to be decanted into other departments, 60 patients clogging the emergency room in a code orange. Those beds that they needed to be decanted to were not available, again. A code orange is an alert that is used in the event of an emergency such as a plane crash or a natural disaster.

When will the Health Minister take seriously the crisis at Royal Columbian Hospital, and when will he deal with the crisis that continues almost on a daily basis at Royal Columbian today?

Hon. G. Abbott: I noted in the media this morning that the Leader of the Opposition was claiming that there had been a code orange at Royal Columbian Hospital. This member of the House has just got up and repeated the same entirely specious claim.

Neither Royal Columbian Hospital nor Fraser Health Authority has any record of a code orange. That is definitively….

Hon. G. Abbott: The member's assertion is definitively false. I call on that member to get up right now, withdraw his entirely false claim and apologize to the people of British Columbia and apologize to the caregivers at Royal Columbian Hospital for his entirely false claim.

A. Dix: On Monday the minister said: "One of the things I won't be doing is submitting the political judgment of the member for the medical judgment of the professionals." The people who say there was a code orange are the doctors and the nurses who were there.

If it comes to believing the doctors at RCH who were there or the minister, I'll take the doctors. If it comes to believing the nurses at Royal Columbian Hospital who were there or the minister, I'll take the nurses.

A. Dix: It's been deny, deny, deny for four years about Royal Columbian Hospital from this minister and his predecessor. When will he stop it with the deny, deny, deny and do something about the real crisis facing patients at Royal Columbian Hospital? Why doesn't…?

Hon. G. Abbott: Sounds a lot like code red-in-the-face to me from the part of this official opposition. Code red-in-the-face.

There was no code orange. He can ask Royal Columbian Hospital. He can ask the emergency department officials at Royal Columbian Hospital. He can ask the Fraser Health Authority. There was no code orange, and this member can spin as fast as he wants.

If he can come up with a memo that asserts there was a code orange on Tuesday, I welcome him to do it. I'll bet there's no memo that says code orange.

Hon. G. Abbott: When I was at Royal Columbian Hospital and met with all the medical leaders at Royal Columbian, they shared with me this document. It's a site development plan proposed for Royal Columbian Hospital, approved by the board of trustees of the then health authority. Among the things this has is this beautiful tower that they were….

Hon. G. Abbott: The only problem was that they couldn't get a Minister of Health from the NDP to listen to them.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call continued second reading debate on Bill 26 in this chamber and in Section A, Committee of Supply — for the information of members, the continued estimates debate of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

H. Bains: I'm going to speak about Bill 26. I am in fact honoured to stand here to talk in this House about how the government can bungle up the democratic rights of its citizens and how they can try to fix it. That's what the intent of this bill is. This bill will repeal parts of 2001 and 2002's Bill 29, after the Supreme Court rejected many aspects of that bill.

Let me say this. One of the reasons that I am here, one of the reasons why I made a decision to seek election and seek a seat in this House, is a result of Bill 29 that which this government brought on in this province, which affected many thousands of workers who had democratic, constitutional rights to bargain freely through freedom of association under the constitution. For years they bargained with the employer, and they were able to negotiate some of the very basic, fundamental rights that workers need in order to do their job at their workplaces.

This government came in, after making a promise with the same workers and their representatives that they would not tear down the legally bargained collective agreements that were in place. Once they got elected, they did exactly the opposite. They came in. The first act of this government was to tear up the decades-old, legally negotiated collective agreements by the Hospital Employees Union on behalf of their workers.

In my view, in a democratic society, Bill 29 was the worst attack on the democratic rights of its citizens anywhere in this world. It was and will remain one of the darkest spots in the history of this province in removing the constitutional right of freedom of association.

At a time when we have seen, in this House and many other legislatures all across this country and the parliament of this country, legislators and parliamentarians working hard, trying to recognize and redress the wrongs of the past, this government came in and did one more wrong. It was the benefit of the union that the workers had…. On behalf of their workers, on behalf of their members, they challenged Bill 29's legality in the Supreme Court.

Guess what. Exactly what they were told when they were bringing in Bill 29…. The Supreme Court of Canada said that they were wrong. Had it not been the benefit of the union that those workers enjoyed, those workers would have been left without any redress. So I want to thank the HEU, BCGEU, B.C. Federation of Labour and many other health care unions and the workers who are members of those unions, who took the unjust law that was passed in this House by the Liberal government and challenged it in the Supreme Court and were able to reverse it.

I must say that many aspects of the bill were struck down by the Supreme Court, but it will not reverse the negative effect it has left on many thousands of workers that were affected by this bill. These were women in most cases. Many of them were immigrants, if not most. These were new Canadians. Many of them spend their lifetime serving our province, serving the patients' needs in our hospitals and in care homes.

With the stroke of a pen, this government took all of their rights — decades-old, legally negotiated bargaining rights that they once held. They were gone, and it was shocking. The sound waves of that unjust action of this government were felt all across this world. No wonder the ILO, International Labour Organization, made a comment about this. No wonder the Supreme Court of Canada made a comment about this and told this government that they were wrong.

Who were these workers? These are not just numbers. When we talk about it, 10,000 sounds like a number. It is a number, but behind those numbers are families — the real people, people who went to work day in, day out so that they could provide the services in our hospitals to our patients. These are real families. These are our neighbours. These are the people that we take our kids with to the hockey games, to the soccer games. These are the people we meet at our shopping malls. These are the people we have a chat with over the fence.

These are real people, and they have children. There are about 10,000 of them, like I said — most of them women, and most of them immigrant women. This is something that is going to stay with us because of the negative effect it has left on the lives of those workers, those women, those children whom the mothers had to come and face, to say: "Johnny, that game that I was promising you, I can no longer afford. The trip that I was going to take you on, I can no longer afford to take." That was the result of this government's action on those workers.

At that time, the arguments were made that the health care system is too expensive and that we need to bring the cost down. Guess who they targeted. It was the lowest-paid workers in the health care system, the people who were making $17 or $18 an hour, and we're talking about seven years ago. Even today you cannot live on $17 or $18 an hour. You cannot make a living today, never mind seven years ago.

Seven years ago they thought that was too much. With the stroke of a pen, like I said, those salaries were gone; their jobs were gone. You know what was worse? I sat across from a company that wanted to come in and take the contract for cleaning services in some of the hospitals. They told us across the table: "We will not hire those people that have been let go under Bill 29, because they will bring the union back. They will ask for their rights again."

That's how bad it can be in this day and age, in this country, in this province. It's unheard of. This was and will remain, like I said, one of the darkest spots in the history of this province, and we have many. We have many.

Whether you talk about taking the rights of its citizens to vote, whether it's to take the right of its citizens to practise in their profession…. We have all of those legislations, and many of them were debated in this House. People sat on these chairs and made those laws. You know what? Decades have gone by. The same thing happened seven years ago in this House. They created another dark spot in our history pages. That will stay with us.

This Bill 26 goes…. They're forced by the Supreme Court ruling that they must redress the wrongs of that legislation, but it will not change the lives of those people who were affected by it. Permanent scars are left on those families and those children. Why? Why did they do that? It wasn't because of the cost. It wasn't because of the efficiency that they were seeking in the health care system. But that was the reason, the front

they used so that they could get away with their spin-doctoring of this very, very bad bill — bad law.

I must say that I was ashamed to be a British Columbian that day. You know what? I decided on that day that I was going to do something. Like I said before, that is one of the reasons why I sought election — to be here so that never again, while I'm sitting in one of these chairs, will this Liberal government bring in a law like that, will never be allowed to do that.

Like I said, these were the lowest-paid workers in the health care system, and they picked on those. They threw them on the street, and many of them ended up taking 15 or 20 percent pay cuts. I would say that at least they had a job, but what a way of keeping your job. The government comes in, and that decades-old, legally negotiated collective agreement and the rights that you have negotiated in those collective agreements are gone. No other reason except that the government brought in the legislation. No other reason, because that's their ideology. They couldn't see workers prosper in this province.

The real reason, I tell you, is and was so that their multinational friends could come in and make a profit on the backs of the lowest-paid workers in the health care system, at the cost of our health care services in this province. That was the real reason, because it did not change an iota.

Actually, the services got worse. Cleaning — the laundry services were not what they used to be. No wonder we have seen post-surgery infections on the rise ever since they made this law, ever since they kicked those workers out of their jobs. Those were the professionals. They knew exactly what was needed to be done in those hospitals to keep those hospitals clean, and they were let go. Their multinational friends came in and decided that they will be the ones who are making the money, not the workers.

You know, that is a shameful history that is being built and was built by this government. You know what, Madam Speaker? This bill goes part of the way to correcting that. Thanks to the labour unions, thanks to HEU and thanks to the Supreme Court of Canada and the judges who saw through it — that this government was wrong and that this government has to correct their wrongs. And so that we don't have to wait 70 or 100 or 90 years for people who would come after us, they would talk about apologies — apologies for the actions of this government.

I applaud the effort of those labour unions who took this bad and unjust law and challenged it. I said the real reason was so that their multinational friends could come in, so that they can boast to their friends, those multi-millionaires and those multinational companies: "We are open for business." That was their motto. They're open for business on the backs of the working people of this province and their wages and on the backs of the health care system of this province.

That was wrong. It was wrong. It was a shameful act. I had hoped that we don't have to wait 70 or 80 years to apologize for the sins and the mistakes of this government — that somebody from that side of the House, the Liberal side, the Minister of Labour or the Premier would stand up and apologize to those workers. They don't have the audacity to stand up and apologize and say that we were wrong to those workers. They still haven't admitted….

The reason we have Bill 26 before us is because the Supreme Court orders it so, not because one day they woke up and felt that they were wrong. It's not that one day they felt guilty and that they want to do some atoning of their past mistakes. No. If they wanted to do it, they could have stood up and said sorry to those workers. They would have made them whole.

They didn't. They didn't say sorry. They didn't make them whole. They didn't apologize at all. So to me, this government cannot be trusted. They will do only what they are forced to do, as is the case in this case.

Who were some of the folks who came in and took over our cleaning services and laundry services and provided our health care services? Here is a list. I have a long list, but I'll read a couple. Retirement Concepts donated $12,000 to the B.C. Liberals between 2001 and 2006. In fact, it was $11,855 between 2001 and 2006 — close to $12,000. They billed the B.C. health authorities $45 million in 2006 and 2007.

So yes, their friends are making money on the backs of our health care system, on the backs of those workers who were let go. What about those workers? I met many of them. Many of them, every time I went door to door during any campaign…. Every few houses I go to, they will tell me: "You know what? You don't have to worry about us. We're not voting B.C. Liberals at all."

When I talked to them, what were the issues? This was one of the issues. They would tell us that either the person herself or himself was affected by this bill, Bill 29, or someone that they knew was affected and was let go. It was all done to please their multinational friends.

When you look at what kinds of services were left behind and whether we received efficiency, whether it was less costly…. No. There was no efficiency gained. There wasn't any cost that was saved. The minister will stand up today and continue to say that our health care is unaffordable. That's what the minister said. It wasn't this minister; it was the minister before him — that it is unaffordable, unsustainable. That's why they brought those actions. This minister, seven years later, is saying the same thing.

So where is the efficiency? Nowhere. Where is the cost reduction? Nowhere. All you've seen here as the result of Bill 29 was to fill the pockets of their friends and multinationals. That was the effect, and that's what they achieved.

What did we see in the hospitals? Since 2002 hospital cleaners and cooks' wages have roller-coastered from $18 an hour, on average, to a low in 2004 between $8 and $10. That's the effect on those workers.

Madam Speaker, I want to talk to you about what kind of service we received as a result of these changes. The opposition learned, working with the Hospital Employees Union, that the Vancouver Coastal Health

Authority reduced cleaning hours by 153,500 hours every year when they privatized hospital cleaning in 2003. So we got less. The workers were let go, and we got less service, but it's costing us more. That's the mantra of that government. The working people, the middle class, pay more but get less. They work hard longer, but fall behind. That's the result of that government. Those are not my words.

Statistics Canada came down and gave us those numbers. Those folks who were paid at the lower part of the salary spectrum — since 2003 their salaries have gone down by 3.5 percent. I believe it is 3.5 percent. The top 20 percent of the salary spectrum gained 20 percent. No wonder. That's the result of this government's action and this government's attack on the middle class and the working people.

Coming back to the hospitals again, we have 153,000 reduced hours for cleaning services every year in Vancouver Coastal Health Authority alone, and it goes on in the rest of the province. The Information and Privacy Commissioner, David Loukidelis, ordered the information on service levels to be made public after the union was initially denied access based on the protection of commercial interest. Those are the kinds of excuses we have come to see from this government.

You try to get any information under freedom of information. They find excuses after excuses. I don't know if Wite-Out is in the open stock. Are they trading on the open market right now? If they are, I think their shares are probably way up there today because of the amount of Wite-Out that is being used by the government side when it comes to giving us freedom of information.

Despite all of that stuff — despite the complaints that the patients had, despite the claims that the unions had, despite the facts that the independent bodies of this province had to say about the lack of services and the poor services in the hospital — Dean Waisman, president of Westech Systems, a company that was hired to perform external and independent annual housekeeping audits on all B.C. health authorities since 2005, has made public comments in defence of privatized cleaning services.

Guess what. "We are going to tell the public how bad we are or how good we are, and we will hire somebody who will come in and tell the public — do some spin-doctoring and put some numbers together — so that hopefully, the public will never know the truth behind it." This is what he said: "I think the hospitals are cleaner now than they have ever been."

Well, if anybody has seen the hospitals lately or in the last six years…. I have, because some of my close family members were in there. I have seen blood on the floors and the walls. I have seen dirty laundry stuck in the corners. I have seen it with my own eyes, and I was told by many patients that that's the way it is. It's widespread.

But here we are getting information from their agents, who will come in and say that everything is fine, just like the Minister of Health will stand up every day in question period and say that everything is fine in the health care system out there, that there is no waiting out there, that there is no code orange and that we are fearmongering.

Well, I want the Minister of Health to come with me…. I have challenged the minister many times to come to Surrey Memorial Hospital and spend a few hours with me in the emergency ward. He hasn't taken up that challenge yet — not yet. I put that challenge again to the Minister of Health, who missed this point, it seems to me.

I challenged twice, actually, in my speeches that the minister should come with me. We would sit in the emergency ward of Surrey Memorial Hospital. Let's spend about a day in there, Minister. Let's see how the real patients go through.

H. Bains: No, no. Don't go to some nice corporate offices and sit there and do some photo ops. Come with me to where the blood is. Come with me to where the pain is being suffered by the patients. It's in the emergency ward. Come sit with me for a day. I'll sit with you one day in that emergency ward. Let's see and talk to those patients about what they think.

Never mind your spin doctors. Never mind your agents, who are making money on the backs of the health care workers, who are making money on the back of our health care system. Don't listen to them. Come listen to real people. Then you'll find out what the system is like. You will find out why people in Surrey are saying that if my beloved one ever gets hurt or injured or is ill, I will not go to Surrey Memorial Hospital. That's how bad they believe it is.

That is not to say anything about the health care professionals that we have in the hospital. They have nothing but praise for the doctors, for the nurses and for other health care providers in Surrey Memorial Hospital, because they are working hard. They are working with what they are given. They are working with the limited resources they're given, but they're doing the best they can. But this minister, this government, is not helping them, not giving them the resources that they need to provide the service that they think is needed to our patients.

That's what's happening in the health care system as a result of this government. You know what? It wasn't that they didn't know what was going on. When they brought this bill in, they were warned. They were warned by many, including the two members of the opposition. One of them is sitting right here in the House, who is with us on this side of the House. I'm proud to be part of the caucus that was here at that time, that defended the patients and that stood up hour after hour, night after day to defend the rights of the working people, and this government wouldn't listen.

This is what they said when they were trying to defend the actions of this government. I'll read this for the record. "It is a patent untruth that somebody gets 56 weeks of job security after working one day. It is

going to come back to haunt this government, perhaps in court." And it did, and it came true.

The absolute untruth of the repetition of that kind of statement, the absolute untruth of this government somehow taking office on May 17 and being shocked about the wages and working conditions of our health and social services community is just going to have to be revealed at length.

Why is the government bringing in this bill? Why do we have this bill before us? Well, even though there's nothing new here — even though this government knew absolutely everything in detail about the wages and working conditions from the public record, from private meetings with individual unions, private meetings with individual constituents, even from newspaper ads and articles describing the wages and working conditions — somehow they say: "Oh my gosh. We woke up one morning, and we discovered the truth, and the truth was horrible." This was Joy MacPhail. This is from Hansard of January 26, 2002.

They were warned. Time after time they were warned by the members of this House in the opposition. But did the government listen? Did the minister listen at that time? No.

Here the very respected member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant stood up and said….

C. Wyse: It is indeed my pleasure to get up and speak in favour of Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act. [Applause.]

I am absolutely certain that the minister will be equally applauding my rationale for supporting Bill 26 and the need for it to be here. Bill 26, in actual fact, in part is required to amend Bill 29.

Let me read for the House for the record the title of Bill 29 that has caused Bill 26 to be here. The title is the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act. That's the actual title that was so misleading. The improvement that was put on the plate was taken to the courts, and the courts made some rulings. It made some rulings on the arrogance of Bill 29. It's because of the rulings of the courts that we are here and that I have the privilege to be speaking in favour of Bill 26 and certain portions of it.

Bill 29, to put it into context, is the bill that removed existing collective agreement provisions dealing with contracting-out and consultation about contracting-out and stripped unions of their rights to negotiate contracting-out and consultation as part of the collective bargaining process.

The bill also eliminated successor rights for health and social services union members whose jobs are privatized or transferred, rolled back deals reached to move to wage parity between genders and also between workers in the community and those in hospital facilities. It also banned the unions from suing over the bills.

One thing that the government should be recognized for is the result ruled by the Supreme Court. It established that collective bargaining is a right protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is the outcome of Bill 29, leading us into Bill 26 and why I am here speaking in favour of it.

It is not just because of the ruling dealing with the rights of the unions and their workers, though I am proud to be here recognizing that aspect of it. I also want to recognize the absolute, utter chaos that was put into the delivery system for care in the health system, particularly for our seniors. As a result of that, we have got seniors being affected. We had communities being affected. We had workers, as I have mentioned, being affected.

It would be great, in my judgment, if we were here because the government, after having seen the effect of this particular bill, had said: "Yes, we need to have Bill 26 in front of us. We have seen the error of our ways. We have seen the effect that it's had upon the care given to seniors. We have seen the effect that it's had upon our communities. We have seen the effect that it's had across British Columbia. Therefore, we have simply recognized our error. We're sorry for that, and we've introduced the bill." That, for me, would be quite an astonishment.

However, I have to form the conclusion that we're here dealing with the bill I am speaking in favour of because the courts said: "Do it. You've got one year to try and unscramble the omelette that you put together — that mess that led to huge reductions in the level given to our more vulnerable people here within the province."

More than 9,000 health care workers were laid off, most of them women. Widespread chaos did develop, particularly in the seniors care area, right across the province. I've shared with this House that one of the reasons, quite likely, why I'm sitting in this chair in this House is a direct result of what came out of Bill 29 — the effect that did develop in communities throughout the Cariboo. I've been up in front of this House on numerous occasions raising issues around levels of care for seniors that have been provided right across the entire riding I have the privilege of representing.

The community of Williams Lake, in actual fact, made its own case around the need for this particular

bill. The community of Williams Lake sent its own delegations to meet with the minister on this item of seniors care. They met in Kamloops. They sent representatives down here. They sent a 12,000-signature petition from a greater community of Williams Lake of about 25,000 people.

They met with the minister. They extended invitations to the minister to come to their community and see for himself what the effect had been of the bill that we're here in support of. To my knowledge, that offer has never been taken up.

We have seen what has unfolded in my community. Right through to 2008 concerns have been raised about the effect of what rolled out of Bill 29. It contributed to the closure of facilities for seniors care in Williams Lake — of Deni House, Heritage House and Cariboo Lodge. It led to protests. It led to a huge reduction of service to the seniors in our area. There were health care workers that were forced to leave. They were left unemployed. They didn't have jobs, necessarily, to go to. I had individual members approach me as their MLA and look for whatever assistance my office might be able to provide.

Before I was elected, I was approached by individuals as a community member to see what advocacy work I might be able to do on their behalf to find places for their loved one to be in, in some cases, or to find improved levels of service to be provided to them as the transition was made from those three facilities to other care facilities. The answers that were received by representatives here in Victoria, both ministerial staff representatives and others, really were not satisfactory in the judgment of those individuals or of the community at large.

The chaos that developed in the provision of this health care service for seniors in Williams Lake also overflowed into the hospital in the acute care area, because there was no place for them to go. Therefore, the service needs were provided for in the limited acute care beds in the hospital — a level of service not deemed to be that type of service to be there. But that was the only place left for them to go, for them to be. Also, those members in the community were left in care facilities that were not at all able to provide the services. The community saw what was happening as a result.

My community will be celebrating the bill that I'm here to be supporting, but there's a hollow victory to it. Because of the arrogance that took place over this period of time, there was a level of service delivered that was inadequate. That did not need to happen, but it did. There will be people in my riding that will be pleased that I'm standing up, telling this story. They will be pleased that I'm speaking in favour of this bill, but it's a hollow, hollow victory to them.

They would have preferred that the minister and the government had actually taken their concerns seriously and moved on them simply because, as people of British Columbia, they brought forward their concerns, not being required to be clubbed to do it by the Supreme Court. That is what they would like to have happened. It's not what did happen.

So we have had a situation that leaves me somewhat satisfied to be standing here, but I feel very much like an individual that's been involved in a fight that I won, but it really was not a victory that was worth winning at the price that was paid, a price that was paid by all British Columbians — a fight that was on the back of people that could not defend themselves, a fight that was on the back of the communities here right across all of British Columbia, a fight with a government that believed that they knew what was right and best and moved accordingly.

It's a hollow victory for me to be standing here speaking in favour of this particular bill, but I am pleased to be here to do that, because it is as a result of another segment of our society that stood up and said: "We're going to fight this."

It was the unions that went ahead and forced this to take place. It was a fight that was not won here in the Legislature, but it is a fight that will be taken out of this chamber again and will be dealt with by the public when they do an examination of this bill. The courts have ruled that the government overstepped their bounds.

There are other bills that are in front of this House that have, equally, warnings from legal areas wondering about where they are going with their legalities. The courts will deal with them. As we have seen, five years ago when this government decided that they were going to go down the road that led us to the need for this particular bill, we had one or two individuals stand up and say: "Whoa. Step back. Have a look." Unless there's a second wind, a second examination, there will be other situations that will be occurring again.

In speaking in favour of this bill to correct such an error, I also feel it's my responsibility to draw attention that we don't want to repeat that practice. We wish to encourage the government to open their ears, to listen and move prudently so that the chaos that was developed, that affected not just workers but seniors, communities, and the entire province….

I wish to close with saying that I am pleased to be voting for this particular bill, particularly with this amendment in it to correct such a gross error that took place by a government that was arrogant and would not listen, and the community paid the price.

D. Cubberley: I appreciate having the opportunity to speak to this piece of legislation. Like the member who spoke before me, I will be speaking in support of the bill, but the support is qualified.

I want to take the opportunity to look at several things that the bill is going to do and try to indicate my interest in seeing the bill strengthened so that it does those things more effectively.

Like the member before me, I do want to begin by adding my voice to the many people who have spoken in this chamber, who have expressed their disgust with this government's unilateral actions towards the Hospital Employees Union members who supplied valued services

to B.C.'s health care system, who supplied those services for a living wage and fair benefits, and who made a very important contribution to the delivery of health care.

I think, in part, the problem that we have today is because the concept of a living wage and fair benefits is one that is somewhat foreign to the globalist mindset that tends to preoccupy many of the members opposite, especially those at the pinnacle of power.

I'm also dismayed that the government, really having been found guilty in the courts of the land, still continues refusing to bargain in good faith with its employees, sneaking around behind the collective agreement, and still declines to apologize publicly for what is unseemly behaviour — behaviour that, in fact, dishonours the Legislature, in my view.

I would like to see government atone for the damage that was inflicted on families and communities across British Columbia, the dislocation which I experienced directly in my own community and the impacts on our hospitals and our care facilities. It was a tremendous change in the sense of the scope of it, affecting thousands and thousands of lives, and the saddest fact of all is that the government, which acted outside its obligations, cannot point to a single economy or efficiency today that it achieved through this unilateral action.

What we look at, when we see our system today, is we see that our hospitals are less clean. The food people are eating is worse. Workers earn lower wages. They leave their jobs more frequently, and seniors get less care. Now, that is not an accomplishment to be proud of. That is one to reflect upon and ask ourselves as a Legislature: what went wrong? What should we not do again in the future? An astounding outcome, from what was by any account ideologically motivated action.

I feel that there's a place for shame on the part of the government, because what it did was engage in legislative bullying of those who are, in many ways, the most vulnerable people in the health care system, people that the government had, as it was making its way to power, explicitly promised they would not harm, whose collective agreements it said it would not tear up. Then, in fact, it did that upon taking power.

This bill affects a number of important changes, and I want to comment on those that affect the complaint and disclosure provisions of the Medicare Protection Act, because for me they're a very important piece of it. First of all, in order to establish a context, I want to give a little history so that we can understand, again, the importance of the compliance function within our legislative provision regarding the ban on user fees.

The ban on user fees, of course, is the linchpin of a publicly funded and universally accessible health care system, where access depends upon need and not upon ability to pay. So in that regard, before we had a Canada Health Act, medical services were available like any other consumer good in society. The amount and the quality of those services depended entirely upon the individual's ability to pay. In other words, we were just like the U.S.A. in that regard, where health care currently consumes 16 percent of the gross domestic product of the entire country and is projected to rise to nearly 20 percent by the year 2017.

What's intriguing about health care as a percentage of GDP expressed in that manner is that it's eminently sustainable from a right-wing government's perspective. You could expend nearly 20 percent of your GDP on health care, and the reason for that is most of the 20 percent is private pay. It isn't paid by government. That's one of the reasons why I think members opposite don't really like the reference to GDP, because it does provide a good comparator, and it shows just how efficient our single-payer delivery system is. The difference in medicare systems is who is paying.

Medicare was introduced incrementally by provinces across Canada, beginning with Saskatchewan, with its go-it-alone universal and compulsory hospital insurance plan, in 1947, which happens to be the year of my birth, Madam Speaker. It was followed in 1957 by the federal Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act, which enabled federal transfers to provincial insurance plans that covered both in-patient and out-patient hospital services so long as provinces agreed — and this was the beginning of no-user-pay — to make the services available on uniform terms and conditions to all residents.

That made it universal, and it made the access to the system subject to need, which is the very heart of the design of health care provision in our medicare system. With federal funding of 50 percent coming in for agreed hospital costs, Saskatchewan — bold innovator that it was under the legendary T.C. Douglas — was enabled to extend its coverage beyond hospitals, which it undertook on its own without any assistance from the federal government, to all medical treatments. That came into effect in 1961 — the medicare system that we still enjoy to this day and which all governments have attempted in their manner to cultivate, with several exceptions, and it may include the one opposite.

Between 1962 and 1971 provincial health insurance initiatives were introduced. They were bolstered again by federal investments, but at that time provincial laws discouraged but did not yet fully outlaw extra-billing or user fees.

By means of the provincial creation of medicare — and it was a creation of the provinces, triggered especially by Saskatchewan — private-pay medicine was quickly replaced almost holus-bolus with public-pay medicine. The vehicle was a dozen individual systems of universal health insurance operating in tandem, which pooled the risks and the resources needed to address the risks and allocated access to all on the basis of need, not on the ability to pay. In other words, the private market in health services that had pre-existed health care was replaced with a system of public health insurance, partially funded federally, which covered a wide range of medically necessary services.

Many of us celebrate that fact, because that was the beginning of medicare, and it is the basis of medicare.

But some still rue the day this ever happened, apparently, like a couple of the Premier's close friends, Dr. Brian Day and Dr. Mark Godley, who, when they see Canada's most supported social program, see it as the work of Big Brother. They see it as something insidious, something that needs to be undermined and taken apart.

Big Brother, as the member for Vancouver-Kensington reminded us, is the image on the opening slide of Dr. Day's presentation as the keynote speaker at the opening of the very first Conversation on Health. His comparison was to say: "Health care, Big Brother."

It didn't seem to bother the Premier at all. I haven't heard the Premier take a position on Big Brother, and it leads one to the very strong suspicion that he may in fact share this view of mandatory universal health care, pooling risks and resources. He certainly has never distanced himself from it publicly.

Even within his own family, Dr. Vertesi, whose book I've had a look at, subscribes to an identical point of view in his published writings. Universal health care with mandatory participation and no user fees is Big Brother, because it removes choice.

That, to me, is an extreme right-wing — indeed an extreme libertarian — view. The interesting thing is how totally at variance that is with public opinion, with the Canada Health Act and indeed with our collective experience of health care.

I believe what some are really ruing is the loss of the freedom that they once had, and that doctors in the United States continue to have, to charge whatever the market will bear for the service. But I would have to say that the loss of that freedom is very much offset, many times over, by the gain in freedom that the overwhelming majority of people participate in because they're relieved of the anxiety around their lives and the lives of their children — those they value and love — and the worry of being struck by illness and having to pay for it out of their own resources.

In the early going, some physicians did persist in billing beyond provincial fee revenues, and that phenomenon gathered steam in the late '70s and early '80s. That prompted a now-famous review by Justice Emmett Hall, which in turn led to the introduction of the Canada Health Act with its now-famous founding principles — principles now being amended via a Trojan Horse fifth principle called sustainability by this government, a principle that has never been defined and indeed the need for which has never been defended. This is led by a Premier who himself has expressed doubt about the sustainability of a universal health care system and who has not distanced himself from an image of it as Big Brother.

A principal objective of the Canada Health Act was to address the issue of user fees and to establish clear criteria for federal financial support for medicare. Universality of health care requires the policing of the issue of fees. It requires vigilance, and it requires compliance.

One compliance mechanism was the power to reduce federal transfers to provinces that continued to allow doctors to charge user fees. It has, in practice, turned out to be a relatively weak compliance mechanism if the second compliance mechanism isn't working. The CHA encouraged provinces to implement that by asking them to strengthen and enforce provincial legislation prohibiting physicians from double-billing.

Then with all of those measures in place, what happened was magical. The problem largely disappeared again until the mid '90s, when it re-emerged across Canada in every province in concert with the rise in the relatively new phenomenon of private clinics.

This was a new form of business association by doctors which was used to provide an array of services, some of them medically necessary and some of them publicly insured. In other cases they were cosmetic, things that were outside the medical care plan. There was no problem with what happened there. Some were dedicated to insured services and operated within the law, and there was no problem with those. Some sought to use the corporate framework to reintroduce user fees in novel ways, like facility fees.

I would note to the minister, because we have at times duelled over this in a mock fashion, that there is no problem with clinics as a form of practice by doctors, a way of organizing a practice, nor is there with the incorporation of doctors. The problem lies with the reappearance of the practice of user fees, requiring patients to pay a supplementary fee or a fee to expedite access beyond what the Medical Services Commission allows.

It can be styled a service fee, a registration fee, a facility fee or any other name you might like to give it. But if government tolerates fee-charging by clinics, what it's in fact doing today — and what I believe this government has done by turning a blind eye throughout the seven years of its oversight — is permitting a private medical sector to begin to develop with a deep public subsidy.

Why should we care if a public health care scheme is used to subsidize the development of private medicine? Quite simply, we have to care. We have to care about it, because it reintroduces user-pay. User-pay screens out all those who cannot afford the premium at the time they need the care, and it sends them to the back of the queue or to a secondary queue.

To the extent that physicians are allowed to do that through an associated practice, they enrich themselves more than those who are practising solely within medicare, and they tend to work fewer hours per dollar earned than those who are working within medicare. They actually remove needed capacity from the universal plan that's serving everyone, and they transfer it to the private-pay plan, which serves only those who can afford it.

In British Columbia the Medicare Protection Act in 1995 superseded the Medical and Health Care Services Act of '92 with the intent of reinforcing the commitment of the province of British Columbia to provide universal benefits for medically necessary services without user fees.

This was made explicit in the preamble, which states in part: "…WHEREAS the people and government of British Columbia believe it to be fundamental that an

individual's access to necessary medical care be solely based on need and not on the individual's ability to pay." From that principle the rest of the act, the declaration, flowed.

The Medicare Protection Act provided tools to the Medical Services Commission to meet the obligations placed on it to police the incidence of extra-billing, and it placed a prohibition — and this is central to the matter we deal with in the legislation — on disclosing the identity of a physician under investigation.

The intent there, I believe, was to protect individual doctors against unwarranted public exposure from a participant in the plan making a claim about a fee. That was the intent at the time. There was a flaw in that. We'll discuss that.

There was a further flaw in the fact that the Medical Services Commission was not actually given the tools it needed at the time the act was passed to undertake comprehensive investigations, audits, of service delivery in the newly emerging form of private clinics. That was a flaw in the design of it at the time.

Its version of enforcement of individual physicians delivering care — doc-in-a-box — in their individual offices was overtaken quickly by the clinic phenomenon, which did some good things for health care, and we can all agree to that. But it lent itself to one very bad thing, and that was to fuel the reintroduction in some practices of user fees in new and novel guises.

That phenomenon grew Canada-wide, and it happened so quickly that in the same year that the Medicare Protection Act was brought in, federal Health Minister Diane Marleau wrote provincial Health ministers a letter regarding enforcement of the Canada Health Act, which still serves as one of the most important documents in interpreting it in courts and in provinces today. She identified the growth of a second tier of health facilities operating outside the regulatory framework as a serious threat to Canada's health care system.

Then she finishes: "It must continue to mean that as the nature of medical practice evolves."

So the original Medicare Protection Act was not in fact in step with the rapidly evolving nature of medical practice, especially as regards clinics and the clinic phenomenon. That would be from the outset, and I would acknowledge that.

But when the B.C. Liberals came to power in 2001, I think it seemed very convenient to avoid the question of adapting the act to the current circumstances and very convenient to place the compliance function on a complaint-only basis, where the Medical Services Commission did not involve itself, on its own initiative, in enforcing the act — it waited for complaints to come — and to keep all of that process in the dark and under wraps.

That certainly has fuelled the growth in user fees in British Columbia in the diagnostic sector and in other sectors. It fuelled the incidence of doctors practising at one moment in private medicine and at another in public medicine, with or without a fee. It was convenient, I think, to put the compliance function on hold, to direct the MSC to take a hands-off approach, to wait for complaints without letting the public know that it had a role to play in bringing those complaints forward and to handle the few complaints that did come forward behind closed doors without reporting the decisions to the public.

That compliance function was so far behind by 2003 that it once again caught the attention of the federal government, which pressed the province for change, under the threat of docking the provincial government some of the federal moneys being transferred.

Under the threat of that federal penalty for non-enforcement of the Canada Health Act on the issue of user fees, the then minister introduced amendments to provide greater clarity about charges that are not permissible; to clarify when it's inappropriate to bill patients or unauthorized third parties, such as friends or relatives, for medically necessary services, including diagnostic services; to confirm the commission's authority to respond to complaints by auditing relevant billing records, including those of diagnostic and medical-surgical facilities; and to strengthen audit and enforcement provisions to bring them into line with those in other provinces — in other words, to modernize the act — and to specify penalties for individuals and corporations, because corporations were becoming a significant form of evolving medical practice.

The minister at that time downplayed any notion of a policy shift for government — clearly wanted to minimize that part of it — and emphasized that it was modernization based on the discovery late in the prior century that the Medical Services Commission lacked the tools to do due diligence and the follow-up expected by Health Canada, which ultimately led to the amendments.

The minister noted — and I believe he was sincere: "I think there are principles at stake. We've made commitments to the public in this province that we're going to uphold the five principles of the Canada Health Act, and we need to make sure we have the tools with which to do that."

Then along came British Columbia's Great Decider, the Premier. He clearly disagreed, perhaps prompted by the ire of some of his acquaintances in False Creek, and he put the entire thing on hold by not proclaiming the regulations.

The growth of extra-billing continued apace into 2006, when the current Minister of Health finally, after nine months of dithering with the Copeman clinic, referred the matter — the billing scheme of the Copeman clinic — to the Medical Services Commission for investigation.

Ironically — it's kind of a bitter irony — in order to undertake the investigation of the Copeman clinic, the cabinet then had to proclaim certain of the parked 2003 amendments in order to be able to legally undertake the investigation — just as, I hasten to add, the opposition had suggested and indeed tried to provoke the government to do prior to this occurring.

This investigation brought to light new problems with B.C.'s enforcement — or not, depending on where you're sitting — of user-fee prohibition, so fundamental to the continuation of medicare and required by law. Most important was the matter of how any complaint would be handled, given that enforcement is almost entirely at this point complaint-driven, the absence of any kind of public participation in whatever deliberations might be held by the Medical Services Commission and the inability under the act, as it's narrowly interpreted, of the public to review the reasons for a decision once a case had been determined.

There is this fiction that the Minister of Health has no latitude to table documents regarding the Medical Services Commission decision in the Copeman clinic's billing scheme investigation, which suggested that it did not violate the Canada Health Act. No information about individual physicians needs to be released in order to provide that decision, because the problem was about the clinic's billing scheme. Everyone already knew who Mr. Copeman was, because he enjoyed a great deal of publicity around the idea of challenging the Canada Health Act.

It was the Minister of Health himself who had actually referred to the matter, so there was no secret about who it was that was under investigation. Therefore, there was really no anonymity to be protected and no requirement for the decision to remain secret.

What it shows, I think, with perfect clarity is the desperate need in British Columbia for reform. This bill contains what I would call a baby step in the direction of needed change, but I don't think it goes anywhere near far enough.

Leaving disclosure of the results of any investigation and the reasons for decision to the minister to determine — just to consult with himself about whether it is or isn't in the public interest for the public to know how it's been reasoned that something does or doesn't constitute user fees and does or doesn't violate the Canada Health Act — doesn't, to my mind and I don't believe to members of my party and caucus, meet tests of accountability and transparency that are required in order to ensure the stewardship of a public health care system.

This is a province — and I try to illustrate this and do it out of my own experience, which I had repeatedly as the Health critic — where you can walk into an enrolled physician's office and at the reception desk see a prominently placed sign indicating that if you do not wish to wait for diagnostic tests that you would receive under medicare, you can get your procedure done immediately for an added fee. It will give you a phone number where you can telephone.

This is a province, as well, where a doctor can be doing enrolled medicine at one moment and as part and parcel of the same procedure, perhaps in the same office or perhaps without you ever leaving the room — I believe it's quite possible — can begin to practise private medicine. This is a province where a doctor can offer a patient an opportunity to quickly move up the queue for a medically necessary procedure in return for a fee.

This is a province today where for reasons that we aren't allowed to know — we aren't allowed to know them, because we aren't allowed to see the reasons for a decision — the Medical Services Commission enables a billing scheme that gives people who are part of the club preferential access to enrolled doctors in return for the fee they've paid to join the club — a facility fee.

This is a province, as well, where if you are willing to pay extra money — if you have extra money that you can pay — you can get your diagnostics done more quickly, and so you can jump the queue to treatment. That's very, very significant if you think about the kinds of sequential bottlenecks people face in trying to, for example, get to a point where a hip or a knee replacement operation is going to be authorized under the Medical Services Plan.

If you can move the diagnostics along quickly, you might save six to eight months of waiting. If you can come up with just that little extra bit of money that greases the skids, you can go to the front of the line.

This is a province where, unfortunately, we continue to see that user fees are proliferating under the surface and that we have, in effect, the growth of an enlarging private medical scheme which is heavily subsidized by public medicare. This is a province, too, where those responsible for this continue to order a quite passive complaint-based regime at the Medical Services Commission.

Now, we on this side believe strongly that there needs to be a much stronger compliance function in the era that we're in, because user fees will undo universal health care and put us on the slippery slope of two-tiered medicine and move us over time towards what we see to the south of us, where 47 million people in 2006 had no medical insurance and where the single largest cause of bankruptcy is inability to pay health care bills — every year, year in and year out.

But what we have to deal with is that this is a province where our government of the day passively supports incremental movement in just that direction, because it flows money and resources into private medicine which is being publicly subsidized. That occurs because the policing function is not being taken seriously enough.

This is a province where if you can pay, you get quick access, and if you can't pay, you get to wait. That's

anathema in this country. It's anathema to British Columbians; it's anathema to Canadians. We need a mechanism clearly dedicated to enforcing the Canada Health Act, not games with the definition of what it's there to do or the addition of some ill-defined principle of sustainability. We need vigilance and resolve to ensure that those billing under medicare aren't allowed to extra-bill patients.

I believe the proposed changes to the Medicare Protection Act regarding disclosure of the results of investigation, proposed in this House by the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, are the right direction to move in. With reinforced vigilance, those changes will enable government to address the issue of user fees and ensure that medicare is available to all on the basis of need, not on the ability to pay.

With that, I will bring my remarks to a close and thank the House for the opportunity to make them.

J. Kwan: I rise today to enter into debate on Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008. Let's be clear. This bill essentially repeals sections of Bill 29, a bill that prohibited collective agreements from including provisions that sought to limit, restrict or in any way regulate the contracting-out of non-clinical services. It also repeals a subsection of Bill 29 that voids the provisions in collective agreements that required consultation with unions prior to it being contracted-out.

This bill is significant in a number of ways, because this bill really provides for what I would call partial victory and a recognition of what the workers in the field were saying and what the opposition was saying to the government when the government introduced Bill 29.

Bill 29 was introduced on Sunday, January 27, 2002. In fact, on that day there were a number of bills that the government brought to the floor of this very Legislature, which violated international labour laws, if you will, and which the ILO had actually condemned the government for doing. They brought forward on that very day a series of bills that violated the workers' right to be consulted and collective agreement rights in terms of their negotiations.

It was a Sunday, and it was late in the evening. In fact, the debate went into the middle of the night. I know this well. You know why, Madam Speaker? Because I was here. I was one of two members in this very Legislature arguing against this bill and telling the government that it was not the way to go.

The government at that time — the then Minister of Labour, Graham Bruce, and the then Minister of Health, who is the current Minister of Economic Development — ignored all of that advice. In fact, more to the point, they made fun of and chastised the people who raised those concerns. For every vote that was called on Bill 29, with all these sections, every single government member rose from their chairs and voted for the bill. There were only two voices in the Legislature opposing that, myself and the then member for Vancouver-Hastings, Joy MacPhail.

Let me just say this before I get too deep into this debate, because it brings back memories and, frankly, hurtful memories. But more to the point, for the workers who were in the field, who had to experience Bill 29 and live through Bill 29, let me first say this. I want to thank the workers for having to endure this, having the courage to take the government to task. The HEU, on behalf of its workers, took the government to court and won.

It is not easy, if you think about it, because these are just your average workers who have worked all their lives to fight for rights in the labour market, to get a better standing in terms of economic status, to actually be able to gain the employment and the recognition of the importance of it to a health care system, to be compensated for it and to be respected in their field.

They are a significant component of our entire health care continuum. They were the people who were attacked relentlessly by this government, with their ripping-up of collective agreements — contracts that prior to the election, the Premier had promised he would not rip up. These people, these workers in our community, had the resolve to stand up to this government through their union, who took the government to court. Thank goodness the court saw beyond it, and the court made a judgment against the government.

That is why we're here debating Bill 26, not because of the government's own volition in recognizing that they were wrong. It took the courts to tell them that they were wrong. Bill 26 is a bittersweet victory, because the ramification and the damage that followed after Bill 29 was significant.

Every health care worker that I talked to talked to me about how injurious that bill was to them, both personally and in their work environment. People lost jobs. Families suffered because of this government's action and their cavalier way of dealing with labour rights in the province of British Columbia.

The health care system suffered, as well, because patients in the health care system didn't get the services that they needed and deserved. The government went and contracted out, and there have been ripple effects. Even to this day we experience some of those ripple effects of some of the contracts of some of the facilities that went to the private sector. The service delivery is not up to par, cleanliness issues are also at stake, seniors are being mistreated in a significant way, and the list goes on.

At that time when the government passed Bill 29, in the middle of the night on Sunday…. I think it was three or four o'clock in the morning or something like this — in the middle of the night, when people had gone to sleep and didn't expect the Legislature to be sitting and having a major debate that would have huge ramifications in the delivery of the health care system, on the impacts of the workers, on the impacts of the health care system, on the impacts of the patients in British Columbia.

The government passed a bill, and afterwards people went and complained to international bodies about the

actions of this government. The ILO was one such body which received complaints about this Liberal government's actions on Bill 29. Of course, not just Bill 29 — Bills 2, 15, 18, 27 and 28. These bills had ramifications that impacted some 150,000 workers in the health care sector, in the education sector and the community social services sector.

The government imposed contracts on teachers, health science professionals and nurses. That's the record of this government. In some cases, as I mentioned, this government ripped up the very same contracts that they themselves had imposed by legislation. All the bills — every one of those bills, including Bill 29 — were found to violate the international labour standards that are respected in democracies worldwide.

That's why we're here with Bill 26 — for the government to redress that, because the courts forced them to do so. In uncharacteristically blunt language, the ILO ruled that the B.C. government repeatedly violated the rights of workers by refusing to negotiate contracts with their unions and by using the Legislature, because they had the numbers to do so. And sure enough, the government had 77 of them at that time to ram through legislation.

The UN body was also highly critical of the government's counterclaim that those complaints were somehow frivolous, that they were vexatious — that, in fact, the ILO should not even bother considering them. How outrageous is that?

The ILO, of course, ruled differently. They ruled and condemned the government's action, and rightfully so. Of course, that wasn't the first time, in the year 2003, that the United Nations body actually condemned this Liberal government. They also, within about that same period — maybe by about a month — reviewed the state of women's equality in Canada. The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women set a precedent when it singled out one province, in particular, for criticism. Guess which province that was? Yup, British Columbia. Not a record that we should be proud of, a record which is now etched in stone. So not once, but twice we were condemned.

In thinking back, some of the conversations that I had with the health care workers since Bill 29 and some of the issues that arose…. I'll tell you, morale amongst the health care workers was perhaps at an all-time low. Workers didn't feel that they were valued. Workers didn't feel that their rights were protected at all. At the stroke of a pen in the middle of the night, government can change legislation, change the contracts, rip up their contracts, and then they're left behind with nothing to show for all of their years of hard work and all of their years of negotiations.

In fact, there was a poll that was done. Three out of four union members polled say that morale on the health care front lines has deteriorated. More than half often or almost always are physically or mentally feeling stressed at the end of the day, and 90 percent agree that the way things are going in the health care sector…. There were serious mistakes that could be made that could harm patients or hurt patients.

That was the fallout of Bill 29. Since 2002 hospital cleaners' and cooks' wages have roller-coastered from about $18 an hour, on average, to a low in 2004 of between $8 and $10 an hour. This is after contracting-out. Those workers, I would say, are the backbone of our health care system. They are the people who prepare the very necessary services that are required in our health care system, and it's hard work. Imagine the demands of the job on you both physically and emotionally. If they did make a mistake, the ramifications of that are enormous for the patients.

The government didn't recognize that when they brought in Bill 29. They rammed through Bill 29 and said that it was essential for the government to act, to rip up collective agreements, to rip up contracts and not to honour what the Premier had promised to those workers prior to the election.

To our best estimation, between some 9,000 to 10,000 health care workers in these facilities lost their jobs. They lost their livelihoods. Some 9,000 to 10,000 people lost their jobs because of the government breaking their own word to not rip up collective agreements. That was the reality of Bill 29.

I would say that in the health care sector, the fallout of Bill 29 was probably the largest mass firing of women workers in Canadian history. Many of them are immigrants who have come to make a better life for themselves and for their families, and work hard to do that. Little did they know that with the stroke of a pen, a broken promise from the Premier became reality for them, and they lost their jobs. That is the effect of Bill 29 that the government could not deny.

As I said, HEU, on behalf of their workers, had the gumption, had the strong belief that the government was wrong, had the courage and the resolve to take the government on. In some ways it's kind of like The Little Engine That Could — the workers that could take a big government to court and then win.

The court ruled on June 8, 2007, that "the government has not shown that the act" — that is, Bill 29 — "minimally impaired the employees'…right of collective bargaining. It is unnecessary to consider the proportionality between the pressing and substantial government objectives and the means adopted by the law to achieve those objectives." The court ruled that "the offending provisions" of Bill 29, which included sections 6(2), 6(4) and section 9, "cannot be justified as reasonable limits" set out under section 1 of the Canadian Charter. The government, in essence, ruled those sections of Bill 29 unconstitutional.

That's what happened in the courts, and that's why we're here today debating Bill 26. It's not because the government, of the government's own volition, recognized the errors of their way. Rather, the courts forced them to do so. Let's be clear. The government fought to try to fight that court case every step of the way. Let's be clear. They have big government lawyers on that case, yet they lost.

Why? Because British Columbia does have a strong and proud history of trade unionism, those laws mean something. Those rights actually mean something — that a government even in the context of a 77 to 2 opposition

cannot bring in laws that violate the constitution. I think it is important to actually note this.

The government, I hope, understands what they have done, and I hope that the ministers and government bench MLAs would take the time to talk to these workers. The workers will tell you, and they will recall how they were impacted by Bill 29. Many of them have already lost their jobs, and there's nothing, frankly, that the government could do to recapture the damage that has been done to these workers. There's nothing they can do to erase that part of the history.

Many of these workers deserve an apology from the government. They deserve for the government to acknowledge that they were wrong, to say that their broken promise is unconstitutional and that it is unacceptable. These workers deserve that acknowledgment.

Bill 29 itself the government decided they wanted to ram through. I recall one particular passage from the then Minister of Labour, Graham Bruce, that was, frankly, incredibly offensive. What the minister said at that time was to suggest that the government had to act on this, because somehow he deemed that if the government didn't, health care workers on the job, hired on the same day, could somehow reap significant financial benefits by the end of the day. It's just bizarre commentary from the then minister at that time.

I recall my good colleague, the MLA for Vancouver-Hastings at that time, questioned the minister on that — on where the heck did he actually get that information from, which was blatantly untrue. Of course, the then minister went on to defend his position, along with the rest of the government bench, and just continued on and continued to plow through all of that.

At that time we tried to minimize the impact of Bill 29 as much as we could. We brought forward amendments suggesting that the government cannot do this, in the minimum, unless the contracting-out results cannot allow for layoffs to take place, for example. Of course, the government voted against such amendments in the House. We tried to limit the scope of the contracting-out provisions with amendments as well. That, too, in a vote of 77 to 2, was voted down by the government.

As we know now, the health care system is reeling from these impacts. One only has to look to Retirement Concepts services for seniors, which the government, the Health Minister, did nothing about. A case in point would be Beacon Hill Villa in Victoria. It became scandalous how its seniors were being treated at Beacon Hill Villa. The government insisted that it was only an isolated incident — that somehow the opposition was fearmongering, that this situation was simply not true.

It turns out that it's the minister who was wrong and that there had been ongoing issues with Retirement Concepts related to their management of the facilities for seniors. New allegations of poor care by Retirement Concepts surfaced in other communities, including the Casa Loma Seniors Village in Courtenay, the Nanaimo Seniors Village, the Wellesley in Victoria, the Dufferin Care Centre in Coquitlam, the Golden Ears Seniors Village in Maple Ridge. There continue, of course, to be problems with these seniors care facilities and, in fact, problems with Summerland Seniors Village, problems with the Williams Lake Seniors Village.

In total, eight of the 15 facilities operated and owned by Retirement Concepts have been at the centre of quality-of-care complaints.

J. Kwan: I challenge anybody on that side of the House to say that I'm wrong. If the Minister of Revenue wants to get on record to say that, he's welcome to do so. He can take his place, instead of muttering that I'm wrong. I challenge him to get up in this House and get on the record and say that.

J. Kwan: And the Minister of Education says: "I'm on my feet, because he can't…." Well, it won't be long because we're only allowed, in terms of debate, half an hour, and there will be ample opportunity for the minister to get on record, including the Minister of Education, who was also present at that time, who voted against Bill 29.

Of course, all of that, as my good colleague from Vancouver-Kensington says, would take courage for the members opposite to actually stand up and take a position. Actually, it does take courage for the government members to stand up and admit that they're wrong. So far, I haven't heard that from any of the members on that side of the House. I heard justification from that side of the House — excuses after excuses why they were okay to break the promise on Bill 29.

I heard the minister go on a rant about the 1990s as though somehow it was the New Democrats in the 1990s who brought forward Bill 29. Not so. This government bench and every single one of those members on that side of the House right now were there and voted for Bill 29.

So I challenge the Minister of Revenue; the Minister of State for Childcare; the Minister of Education; the then Minister of Health, the now Minister of Economic Development; the Minister of Forests; and now the Minister for ActNow to all stand up in this House — to admit that they were wrong in bringing forward Bill 29, to give an apology to the workers that they brought forward Bill 29 and caused such damage and injury to the lives of the health care professionals and to the patients and the health care system in the province of British Columbia. I would so welcome that.

Wouldn't that be nice for a change for a government to have broken a promise and then to get up to acknowledge that they were wrong and get on record in this very chamber where they did that awful deed of bringing Bill 29 into the House and passing it through just because they had 77 members on that side of the House in support of the bill — in the middle of the night, on a Sunday night, no less? I think it was three o'clock or four o'clock in the morning. I challenge any

Just like we predicted for Bill 29 — that the government would not admit that they were wrong, and we said that they were wrong then — I predict that none of those members will have the guts to get up to apologize to the workers in British Columbia, to the patients in British Columbia and to the health care system which they wreaked havoc on because of Bill 29. I am willing to bet that none of them will have the guts or the courage to actually admit that they were wrong.

I will close with this. For the person who's heckling louder than anybody else, which happens to be the Minister of Education, get up right now, because I see my green light is on that signals my time has run out. Get up right now and get on record, and say her piece if she has the guts to do so. I look forward to all these members getting up and actually speaking out for a change and actually showing British Columbians that they have the decency to admit that their Premier broke a promise to the health care workers and that they have the decency to apologize for it and that they have the decency to actually get up to acknowledge that they were wrong.

D. Routley: I think it's a symptom of the arrogance of this government that this Bill 29 was ever passed and that this bill now is necessary. It's a symptom of the arrogance that would have led them to feel that they could break such promises to British Columbians and not pay a price for that. This is a swaggering arrogance that most governments would need many, many terms to acquire, but this government is like a car with low mileage but very high wear and tear in terms of its accumulation of mileage under the arrogance bill.

Yes, this is an arrogant government that pushed through a bill that has been clearly shown by the Supreme Court to have been unconstitutional. This is a government that was condemned by the ILO repeatedly. The International Labour Organization of the United Nations condemned this B.C. Liberal government repeatedly for the arrogance that they showed in damaging the rights of workers in British Columbia.

That's why we're here. That's why I stand to support the idea that that should be remedied, at least in some measure. But even as this government puts forward a bill that essentially admits that their previous bill, Bill 29, was wrong, was illegal, they are still afraid to stand up and take responsibility for that act. They're still unwilling to face the legacy that they have created in people's lives.

Someone who I know well acquainted me with an excellent phrase, and that is that probability is certainty unproven. So I would apply that phrase to the outcomes of Bill 29. When a government is warned repeatedly by the people it serves that what they're doing is damaging them, what they're doing is damaging the fabric of their communities, the fabric of their society, and that government ignores those warnings….

It ignores the warnings that a certain percentage of these people would be dislocated to the extent that their lives would be damaged, that their families would fail, that a certain percentage would commit suicide and that a certain percentage would lose their homes. Well, that was probability. That was probability until events proved it to be a certainty.

Once a responsible person or a responsible government is warned of consequences, warned of outcomes, they no longer have the excuse of unintended consequence. Every damage that they did to the lives of workers was a probability they were warned of and became a certainty, and for that, they're responsible. They're responsible for the recklessness of ignoring that.

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member, I would remind you that we are discussing Bill 26.

D. Routley: Yes, Madam Speaker. Bill 26 — its purpose is to redo the wrong of Bill 29. Bill 29 was the point in time at which this government could have heeded those warnings. It could have realized that, yes, the probability that these 9,000 or 10,000 workers who were displaced, mostly women…. The probability that their lives would be ruined in one fashion or another, that they would lose their homes, that their families would break up, that some would suffer mental illness, that some would end up committing suicide — those were warnings. Those were probabilities.

Those became certainties, and for that the government is responsible for having ignored that. There is no unintended consequence as an excuse to hide behind for a government that was warned, that was repeatedly condemned for the action.

But what did it take for this government to pull back? Was it a moment of consciousness? Was it a moment of conscience? No. Only once they were ruled to have been unconstitutional in the first place did they finally agree to sit down and negotiate a settlement, which is now represented in this piece of legislation.

The government imposed a dislocation on the people of B.C. that has resulted in irreversible negative effects in their lives. Bill 26 will not restore those families that didn't survive. Bill 26 will not remedy the mental illnesses that were suffered. Bill 26 will not remedy Bill 29 in fact, because Bill 29 happened. Those things happened in those people's lives. These things happened in our hospitals and in our senior care facilities.

We're still paying for that legacy with diminished standards of care for seniors, with diluted standards of cleanliness in our hospitals. All of those things are consequences we will continue to pay for.

D. Routley: No, they don't care. But the member beside me from Burnaby does care. I know that. He's a hero of mine. This member founded the Farmworkers Union. This member was a director of the HEU during that time. He witnessed what happened to his members. He saw firsthand what happened in the lives of hospital workers throughout this province, who were affected so terribly by Bill 29. He saw it in real personal terms.

We saw it throughout the province in real personal terms, and now Bill 26 fails to change all that — any of that, really. Yes, it removes some of the elements of Bill 29 which were most particularly offensive, but it does not restore the damage that was done in people's lives.

We saw wages go from $18 an hour on average in '04 down to between $8 and $10 in '04. They're only just now climbing up to $13. Remember, this is in a province that leads this country in child poverty and that has the highest overall poverty rates. This is the province that has the most rapidly declining real wages in the country.

Did this bill play a part in that? Absolutely, it did. It still does — Bill 29, that is.

And this bill will not change that fact. This bill will not change the fact that predominantly women were negatively impacted by people who were warned. They ignored those warnings in an arrogant push to get their way, to direct benefit to their friends and to take from those they didn't really like very much — like union workers, like women, like immigrant workers. That's what they did.

Bill 29 firings remain in infamy as the largest mass firing of women in the history of Canada. Remedy that legacy, Mr. Health Minister. I don't think so. I think the legacy of that will be felt by families for generations, in fact. Repeated warnings and repeated untruths.

The former Labour Minister, formerly the member for Cowichan-Ladysmith, told this House the government had to act because somehow he decided that workers who worked only one day would get 56 weeks of severance benefits. It was ridiculous then; it's ridiculous now. Bill 29 was built on a ridiculous and insulting premise.

Finally, after the ILO ruled them to be breaking international labour standards, after our own Supreme Court ruled that they were unconstitutional…. Finally, they attempt to turn back the clock and negotiate their way out of the corner, the guilty corner of what they did. It's a reckless disregard and a gross irresponsibility to ignore the repeated warnings of the people we serve.

The people we serve paid the price for that arrogance and that refusal to listen. We suffered national and international shame as these laws were condemned globally and nationally. This government is a breaker of contracts. Can the people not look to their government to lead in terms of labour standards, in terms of social standards? Evidently, not anymore in B.C. as evidenced by Bill 29 and even by this bill.

The ILO ruling showed that we had violated international covenants. The ILO found that the B.C. government violated the United Nations convention on freedom of association affecting more than 150,000 workers in health, education and community social services. It imposed contracts on teachers, health science professionals and nurses.

In uncharacteristically blunt language, the ILO ruled that the B.C. government repeatedly violated the rights of these workers by refusing to negotiate contracts with their unions and by repeatedly using the Legislature — this House, which we're elected to in trust — to arbitrarily enforce its will.

This wasn't the first time the ILO or other United Nations bodies had criticized and condemned this B.C. Liberal government. In the same month there was a review of the state of women's equality in Canada, and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women set a precedent when it singled out one province, B.C., for particular criticism.

The UN committee said that it is "concerned about a number of recent changes in British Columbia which have a disproportionately negative impact on women." It urged the provincial government to analyze its policy changes and funding cuts "as to their negative impact on women and to amend the measures where necessary."

Well, they ignored that too. They didn't amend those statutes, and women paid the price for that. Women throughout this province paid the price for that and continue to pay the price for that to this very day, and that is shameful — shameful for every person in British Columbia, certainly for my daughters. It was about discrimination.

This province had proudly achieved some gains in pay equity before this government came to power. The privatization in health services eliminated 30 years of pay equity gains in British Columbia. It put us at the bottom of the barrel in respecting women in the workplace — this formerly progressive province, before this government applied its measure.

Bill 29 turned back the clock 30 years in terms of fair wages and working conditions for women. My young daughters — the legacy they will inherit from this government is not one to be proud of.

What they did undermined the security of women. What they did undermined visible minorities. What they did exposed women and visible minorities to a vulnerability. It exposed them to greater gaps in their income, greater gaps in their health status, greater gaps in their security. Greater gaps are the theme of this government, and Bill 29 was a horrible example of how that plays out in real people's lives.

We've had some really ridiculous claims around the privatization and the standards that it has brought us. During the privatization the government was warned repeatedly, again, that privatizing cleaning standards would lead to lower standards in our health centres and hospitals, would lead to greater rates of infection, would lead to greater incidences of resistant infections. But did they listen? No, I don't think they listened. I don't think they listen to very much.

They didn't listen to the ILO. They didn't listen to the people they were affecting. They didn't listen to the people who elected them. They didn't listen to this House. They didn't listen to anybody until finally the Supreme Court knocked them on the head and said: "You must change this."

Did they have the responsibility to stand up at any point and recognize their responsibility for what had been done in this province? No. There was no moment like that. This is not that moment. This is the moment when they're being dragged kicking and screaming to this outcome.

We were told that there would be no reduction in cleaning standards. Well, the opposition learned through a freedom-of-information request that the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority reduced cleaning hours by 150,500 hours every year when it privatized. Well, 150,000 hours of cleaning, and this government, this minister, claims that the hospitals are clean, that the standards are up. It's a ridiculous claim, just as ridiculous as Bill 29 was, just as ridiculous as it was to break other promises — long-term care beds for seniors; B.C. Rail; just today, seismic upgrades in schools. Broken promises one after the other.

Vancouver Coastal Health Authority reduced its service level assumptions during the bid negotiation process in order to acquire a lower bid. They actually reduced the standard that they were advertising for, and the minister still claims there's been no dilution of standards. It's a sad claim from a sad minister.

Dean Waisman, the president of Westech Systems Ltd…. This is the company that was hired to do their external and independent audits. You know, it's the audits that the workers hear about on the board. "Make sure your area is clean when the audit is done tomorrow."

Yeah, it's those independent, surprise audits. This is the guy who is hired to do them. This is the guy who is hired to be an objective judge of standards, and he has made several biased comments in defence of privatized cleaning services.

He actually had the gall to say: "I think the hospitals are cleaner now than they ever have been." What a ridiculous statement. Some 150,000 hours in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority — and cleaning standards are up?

D. Routley: Yes, it is rather Orwellian, isn't it? Two plus two equals five, going to raise your chocolate rations from 30 grams to 25 grams — all those kinds of truisms.

The B.C. Liberal government should be writing that book all over again in a new context, and the context is British Columbia in the 21st century with a government that has traded away decency, respect and responsibility for the arrogance that they so quickly acquired and so quickly applied to this province.

He also said: "Oh, the hospitals in B.C. are doing a great job." Waisman said there's no correlation between the level of cleanliness and the spread of infection. He says that no one has been able to prove that cleanliness and infectious diseases are connected. This from the person who should judge the cleanliness of our hospitals?

Madam Speaker, I would ask you to go to the Centre for Disease Control website — either one; pick it — Canadian or U.S. Both of them will tell you that the number one barrier to the spread of infectious disease is cleaning. That is the number one barrier to infectious disease, and that was the number one target of the government.

D. Routley: The member for Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain tells me that our mothers told us that. Yes, we did learn some simple lessons from our mothers that have really been entirely ignored by our Health Minister — entirely ignored.

The infectious agents in an institution are like the level of liquid in a cup. Cleaning depresses that level. It doesn't eliminate it. Cleaning in a shopping centre, cleaning in a school, cleaning in a high school versus a kindergarten class — different levels are required. In an operating room or a long-term care facility, higher standards are required. In order to keep the level of infection down, like the water in the cup, you must apply those standards consistently and without fail. If you stop, the infection rises, and the obvious outcomes are realized.

It's not something that you can just turn the tap on and off with. Once we lose those standards, they're very difficult to regain, and we're seeing the result of that. We're seeing our hospitals repeatedly hit by aggressive infections. We're seeing increases in those infection rates that are being blamed on — I don't know — better viruses, stronger viruses.

I'm sure there are a few stronger viruses in B.C. right now, but I don't really attribute them solely to hospitals. The real problem has been the lowering of standards that the B.C. Liberals have brought to our province, and Bill 29 was an important and crucial tool for them to break the standards in British Columbia. Bill 26 is the B.C. Liberal government being dragged kicking and screaming to the table of responsibility for what they have done.

They took away the jobs of British Columbians. They ruined the working standards of women in British Columbia. They did it in order to direct-benefit from their supporters and in an ideological rush to privatize.

We pay the price for that. We do as British Columbians. We are the ones who pay for their mistakes, not them. They aren't even prepared to stand up here and own up to them. They aren't even prepared to take responsibility, despite being condemned by the International Labour Organization, despite being condemned by the Supreme Court of Canada for what they did.

Yet Bill 26 is just this government being dragged kicking and screaming to the table of responsibility, and they're not even prepared to stand up and take that responsibility. Not one of them will stand in this

House and acknowledge that what they did was wrong. It's wrong to the people of B.C., wrong to the standards that we expect, wrong to the women of B.C., wrong to the workers of B.C. and wrong to the public health system in B.C. — wrong, wrong, wrong.

Not one of them will stand up and say it, despite the fact that this bill essentially does that for them. They were wrong. We wouldn't be sitting here and I wouldn't be standing here talking about this if they hadn't been wrong.

D. Routley: They should apologize. It's shameful. What they did to people will be felt by those people for the rest of their lives. Their families were dislocated. They were dislocated. Communities were dislocated. The obvious outcomes were realized.

I'm going back to the first theme here, and that is the theme of unintended consequence. That is only an excuse to the responsible when they haven't been warned. But when the responsible or those who should be responsible are warned and they ignore those warnings, and when that probability is proven to be certainty, then they bear the full weight of responsibility for their decision, the full weight for what they did, the full weight of affecting people's lives — the women, the workers, the health system of this province. They bear that responsibility, and they have a lot of explaining to do to the people of British Columbia.

I once worked as a cleaner, and when this government imposed cuts on us, they brought a model to us. It was called the concentric circle model. It placed the student at the centre of that circle, and all the services to the student in the education system were radiating out in bands from that centre dot. Of course, the teacher was the first circle. At least they got that part right.

It was a discriminatory model, because the further out you get…. I mean, as support workers, we felt as though we had the gravity of Pluto in their universe. We were the external ring. But apply that model to the airline industry. Put the passenger at the centre, and you can quickly see that the de-icer of the wings might be a radiated circle somewhere out there. But it's damned important, just like a cleaner in a hospital is damned important to the outcome.

Hon. G. Abbott: Near as I can recall, Madam Speaker, the phrase "damned" is not a parliamentary expression in this or any other parliamentary chamber.

D. Routley: Yes, Madam Speaker. I'd be pleased to withdraw those words that I said twice or three times.

D. Routley: I'll just use other words to emphasize exactly how devastating this government's policies have been to workers, particularly to the women of B.C. Yes, I can use a few other descriptors that might be more acceptable to the Minister of Health, but none will have him bear any less responsibility for what he did to those people's lives.

D. Routley: They definitely have no shame, because a person who could break promises as readily as this government does or all of its ministers do would certainly have to have no shame — absolutely.

Well, look at B.C. Rail. We had a real big promise to the people of B.C. not to sell B.C. Rail, didn't we? So instead, they gave it away. Instead, they made sure that their friends got a hold of it.

Let's examine other broken promises. Bill 29 — yes, it's a broken promise. The Premier promised not to tear up contracts. B.C. Rail was a broken promise.

The 5,000 beds that were promised to seniors was another broken promise. What did it take for the truth, for justice to be reasserted in this province? Was it a moment of goodwill? Was it a moment of conscience, a realization in the dark of night, as they lay on a pillow and thought about what they'd done to the lives of women, to workers in this province? Was it the fact they couldn't sleep because of the feeling they had? No. Nothing like that brought this government kicking and screaming to acknowledge that Bill 29 was wrong.

It took the Supreme Court. It took the International Labour Organization. It took the people of B.C., the women of B.C., crying out from the effect of what this government did, which that minister is prepared to stand and defend. That's what it took to drag them kicking and screaming to this place for this moment of account, where this bill, Bill 26, really tells us that they were wrong.

We knew it. The people they affected knew it. The women they dislocated knew it. The children who couldn't join their sports club because their parents' wages had been cut in half knew it. They knew it was wrong. The ones who couldn't bump, the ones who had 30 years service…. When their regional hospital was downgraded, they couldn't bump to another facility. They knew it was wrong. I think even their bankers knew it was wrong when they didn't make their mortgage

payments. They probably knew, too, that it was wrong. I think even the chambers of commerce knew it was wrong when they saw personal bankruptcies and businesses that were failing. These effects are long and broad.

They all knew. Everyone who was dislocated by the actions of this government, that minister, knew that it was wrong.

But what did it take for this government? A moment of conscience? No. It took years of struggle. It took legal attack. Finally, the government withers from its position that everything is okay with what they've done and offers us this bill. Oh yeah.

Let's go back to the words of the Premier. This is from November 2000 in an interview with the Premier. It was with The Guardian. I'm going to read a little section of this exchange. The Guardian asks:

Wow. Now, that's a description. I would certainly assume that Bill 29 would arise from a position like that. They are front-line workers who are necessary.

The Guardian goes on to ask about a specific example. A 48-year-old housekeeper who has finally, after decades of struggle, come up to the average wage in B.C. — does she have anything to worry about in terms of privatization from a B.C. Liberal government? The Leader of the Opposition then, now our illustrious Premier, says: "I say no. What she's going to find is that the people in B.C. and the government are recognizing the value of the work she does."

Trouble is, he didn't say that it was half the value she was making then. "More importantly, she's going to find the quality of work she's able to do is more rewarding and fulfilling." Absolutely. Less pay, more work. That is fulfilling and rewarding.

That's the reward I'm sure she was counting on. That's the reward that she encourages her children to believe they will encounter from having worked harder and with commitment, but it's certainly not the reward this government offers. The reward this government offers is to tear away benefits and take away from people. That ends my comments on this lovely government's Bill 26.

G. Gentner: I, too, rise to speak relative to this Bill 26. I suppose we will support it, and it's certainly something that…. Hopefully, through the committee stage, we will be able to grasp more from the minister on some of the sections. However, we have to take this bill in context — the context of what history is in this province.

There are so many issues in this province that come and go politically and that have a lasting impact on our social fabric. This redresses the ills of the past. In fact, this Bill 26 is really the "ministry with egg on its face" bill. It's a bill that has got to wipe itself up over the mess it created, which completely changed the position of a longstanding relationship, a good working relationship with labour, unions and people who were giving their lives, giving their time for a livelihood that was suddenly shaken and destroyed by something that was very arrogant and pretentious.

That's what Bill 29 was. It was scornful of the relationship over the years, the development of good relationships between management and labour, and the understanding of collective bargaining. That was to be suddenly ripped apart like some scrap of paper — a social fabric, a social contract that had been put together from many, many years of negotiation.

You know, the bill repeals sections of Bill 29 that prohibited those collective agreements from including provisions that sought to limit, restrict or in any way regulate the contracting-out of non-clinical services.

I mean, it was a fundamental shift that, in its hastiness and almost belittling attempt on the workers of British Columbia, was contemptuous — what Bill 29 was all about. It is why it's important to address the aspects of Bill 26, which does try and reconcile the portentousness, if you will — the conceited, big-headed selfishness — that this government portrayed in its Bill 29.

It repeals a subsection that voids provisions in collective agreements that required consultation with unions prior to contracting-out. I'm quite aghast even today at the bombastic or slapdash approach that this government had for years and years and years of building a collective agreement system within our province and how we work.

Even today in this House, we may not like what the other side does, but there is some toing and froing. There's some negotiating that occurs. That's the nature of the parliamentary democratic system. It's the nature of conflict itself. We resolve those things in open discussion. That is what this Bill 29 had tried to do — just rip apart that decent way of dealing with differences in a collective bargaining scenario.

You know, hon. Speaker, what you've got to understand is that this government has total disrespect for the meaning of labour, and it had total disrespect for what the union movement brought to this province.

I know we get the jeers about unions now and then from the members opposite, and the disdainful view and disrespectfulness that's spewed out of the mouths of many, relative to those who are trying to do whatever they can to eke out a livelihood and try and make things better, whether it be not only wages but better pensions, better health care, some equity in our province.

This was the vindictive nature of the government of its day. It was very clear, upon winning the election…. What was one of the first things the government denounced? I think it was the Ginger Goodwin highway. They completely renamed it — ripped it apart. That was a basic social, historical import that this province was proud of. It's part of our history to know that people stood up to Pinkerton cops in this province — stood up, gave up their lives in order to put forward a labour movement, put forward the rights of collective bargaining.

People gave up their lives for that, hon. Speaker, but you know, the pompousness and the rashness of the government suddenly decided that, no, we can't name our highway after somebody who was willing to stand up for the fundamental rights of workers in this province.

Now, why I say it was almost imperious, what had happened years back with the implementation of Bill 29, is because the government and the Premier used sweeping powers. It was done because it had a sweeping majority of 77 members. It had no respect for the outcry of minority rights — none whatsoever. It forced through Bill 29. It's kind of like an oxymoron here: the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act. Well, heaven forbid. Let's look at the shoddy mess we are today in the province relative to the implications, ramifications of what that act really derived to today — what happened because of it.

There's no improvement here at all. It's complete chaos because of, shall we say, a bombastic, brassy, shameless, condescending view of government over those who are trying to fetter out their daily lives and get a decent wage. That was a penalty foisted on those and many that were perceived to be friends of the NDP, and therefore, they were going to be punished — people who really, for some measure, didn't spend much of their time in political life. Maybe many didn't even vote, but they were victims. Victims, I think, of a very foolhardy and yet brazen Bill 29, which in many ways sort of painted the future for where this government was heading.

The bill removed existing collective agreement provisions dealing with contracting and consultation regarding the contracting out. It stripped unions of their right to negotiate contracting and consultation as part of the collective bargaining process. It still amazes me today that it had the audacity and thoughtlessness to think that it could get away with it.

The bill also eliminated successor rights for health and social services union members. You think about the rights — the years it took to develop those rights, those of successorship, of seniority. I mean, it's not a matter of negotiating every day a different wage for a different member, because there are, in the collective agreements, successor rights that are built in, in lieu of wage increases. Those are important to the workplace.

The bill also eliminated successor rights, but basically, it was a device to try and privatize or roll back deals reached to move to wage parity between genders and also between workers. For years and years and years…. We do know that there is a disparity today between the wages of men and women. We are trying every day to undo those wrongs.

But suddenly, in an industry such as that of health and care which is primarily made up of women…. It was a vicious, demeaning attack on women who were part of a collective bargaining process that this government had no respect for at all. As a result of the legal action by the unions….

You know, it took many years to put together an argument, and I'm happy to say now this is one item that's not before the courts. It's now been decided. This action by the Supreme Court of Canada in June 2007 ruled parts of Bill 29 illegal and established collective bargaining as a right protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I have to say that in many ways — I know it caused a lot of hardship for many, but — I suppose that's a part of the Charter that in the end had to be challenged. Unfortunately, I hate to admit that it was the province of British Columbia that had the audacity and the disrespectfulness to workers to actually go forward with it. I find it is a very, very rash and hurried attempt, upon winning government, to try and trample over those rights.

Now, Bill 29. Provisions were eliminated which eliminated contracting-out provisions from current and future collective agreements. I mean, talk about far-sweeping provisions under Bill 29. It not only completely gutted the history that went into making the collective bargaining system in the province, but it was to irrevocably change the meaning of labour and unions in this province. That was the essence of Bill 29.

It was, without question, swollen-headed. It was based on an ideology that was self-centred and disrespectful to workers. It also prohibited union consultation of contracting-out plans and, because of that, violated the Charter's right to freedom of association.

That's a fundamental aspect of our society. For the Supreme Court of Canada to come out and agree with the union movement and say that this is a contradiction to the right to freedom of association…. Such a vile and base, contemptuous bill this Bill 29 was.

The ruling gave the government a one-year deadline to deal with the offending provisions, forcing them to negotiate with the affected unions. So we're here because of the Supreme Court of Canada. We're not here because of the goodwill of this government — not on your life. It was a blatant attempt to run amok our view of the right of freedom of association.

Whether you like it or not, unions have a right in this province. They built this province along with their friends — friends outside the union movement, yes. They'll sit down and work out differences with contractors, work out differences with, of course, large corporations and with governments, but the government….

The government's blatant attempt was put in check. Thank heavens we have a charter we can be proud of, a charter that we can hold well above the actions of this government. So we waited for the year deadline to deal with the offending provisions, and here we are today.

The government is somewhat recanting. It's realized that it's time to sit down and realize that there's more to life than just one bottom line. There's a bottom line that includes the social fabric of our country and our province and the environment.

It was a 6-to-1 decision. The court ruled that the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act passed by the British Columbia government in 2002 trampled on the rights of health care workers in that province. It was an attempt to crush workers' rights of

I note that across from me we have the Attorney General, and I somewhat suspect that perhaps if he was in the chair back then, we wouldn't even have been here. We wouldn't have gone through this exercise. Perhaps he would have caught it well before the ideologues, those of the members opposite, whose mainstay was to crush the union movement in this province, in particular that of the health care workers.

Again, I have to say thank heavens we have some constitutional rights in this country. If there was no such charter, this government would continue to rip and tear collective agreements like never before, at its own convenience and, of course, for their own friends.

Had the government got away with this, this was just the beginning of the end. It would go beyond just health care, attacking perhaps nurses. It would start ripping — and it certainly has tried — the rights of teachers, and then it would certainly have gone into the private sector, whether it be construction workers or other public sector workers. But thank heavens we have some constitutional rights.

Bill 29 amounted to the denial of rights to their workers to bargain collectively across the health and social services sector. Once in place, the law effectively rewrote collective agreements to facilitate the government's plan to contract out union jobs, to contract workers and pay them less for their same work. That's what it was all about. The government can brag about how it saved all this money, but in the end, it didn't save money.

It caused great hardship for families, many of whom lost their jobs and many of whom, of course, had to find their way on welfare lines. They lost their homes, where they had to be remortgaged. I mean, there's total contempt for working people who built this province. That is the rub, that's the essence of what Bill 29 was all about, and that is why we're here today to redress it relative to Bill 26.

Once in place, the law effectively rewrote collective agreements to again facilitate the government's plan to contract out those union jobs. So here we are. We are here because of the government's own blunder, a blunder that not only dismantled health care in the province but that produced immense hardships for families simply trying to make their ends meet, and the ends they were trying to meet were those of the private contractors, those of private care providers.

It was devastating, it was repulsive, and it was stomach-turning. There's no other way to call Bill 29. To think that the pompous, self-centred and arrogant Liberal government could think that it was above the law. That's what it attempted to do.

What did the courts say? "What is protected is simply the right of employees to associate in a process of collective action to achieve workplace goals. Government measures that substantially interfere with the ability of individuals to associate with a view of promoting work-related interests violate the guarantee of freedom of association under…the Charter."

Now, why is it that it took all of these years and all of the inconsiderate, insensitive attacks on working people? Why did it take so long, this self-denial, this pretentiousness? Why did it happen for so long? Some of those families will never recover what they've lost. Seniors in this province will never recover from the disparaging, contemptuous type of care that has resulted from the actions of this government.

That is the Supreme Court of Canada. Now, what government would not have got it before? What government would not have figured out before inflicting that type of pain on individuals, families, patients, residents — inflicting total chaos to our health care system…?

What kind of government would do that? A government that doesn't care. It doesn't care. It cares about its corporate friends but doesn't care about people who work every day, going to work. It doesn't care about you. It doesn't care about me. It simply doesn't care.

And that's what built this country. It's what built us. We are somewhat different than those south of the 49th parallel, and we should be proud of it. We have a social welfare network system. Oh, there's a word people might want to talk about, but it's something that we should uphold. We believe in a decent society that's willing to look after each other, and we have a health care system that's been built on those very principles. Again, one of those principles is to adhere to the nature of the need for people to assemble freely and, of course, to be able to bargain collectively.

We are talking about the violation of basic human rights as seen in the Charter, and thank heavens the government is now seeing the error of its ways, but it has been forced to by the courts. This is what the court struck down: a provision which gave increased power to employers to contract out services. It nullified collective agreement restrictions that were already in place. Could you imagine? It nullified those provisions from being negotiated into collective agreements in the future.

To think they could just suddenly, with the stroke of a pen or a quick-fix bill, ruin everything that has been worked upon. They thought they could get away with it. It planned to wipe out a whole century of embittered history that evolved to give people a decent chance to bargain for their labour. It's totally disrespectful, what Bill 29 put on the table.

It's a provision which violated collective agreements' clauses that required prior consultation before contracting out and also prevented future collective agreements from containing an obligation to consult about contracting out — unbelievable. It's portentous, and it was very rash. This was total disrespect, if not imperious. What W.A.C. Bennett called…. He wasn't always a friend of labour. He used to call working people the little people. They were called the little people. But there was some compassion there, back in those heady days of the Socreds. I admit it. But that was a different group back then. They were small business people. Shall we say hardware owners?

They weren't run by big corporations outside the province, the globalized economy whereby Accenture is able to create call centres outside the province. That's

how this government now works. It has no respect for the history that has been built here. They have more respect on the globalized view on how to destroy labour in the province of British Columbia. No consultation, no mediation, no civilized approach to government changes to the health care system — that's what was put on the table.

Now, a provision that prevented collective agreements from restricting layoffs and bumping rights after layoffs for a period of months…. Could you imagine what that would have done regarding seniority rights in this province? Again, you know, when we bargained at the table — it's something that the HEU and other members did — in lieu of giving up other potential experiences in the workplace, what was on the table at the time was, instead of increased wages, that there would be some seniority rates to bid on certain jobs.

You think about it. You get old, and you still have some worth in your job. You could be in your 50s, or you could be in your 60s. You've spent all your time building up seniority rights to get ready for retirement. Suddenly those seniority rights are ripped from underneath you. Now suddenly you're back to a job when you were 20 years old, competing with others who are 20. That's not just.

At least with a collective agreement those provisions were put in to look at the changing of people's lives and how they would offer their labour, perhaps, in a different way. But those were negotiated through the collective agreement. Of course, the government tried to put those awash.

If that principle was applied, that same principle of seniority, to the Liberal caucus, half of the members of cabinet would have been replaced long ago by young upstarts. Perhaps that's what we're going to see. There will be no seniority rights. But they do count for something, even over there, I think. I can only hope. Maybe we can hope that there should be no seniority rights on that side. Maybe we'd have a different approach to things.

But in the collective agreements, they are there, and they're there for good reasons. Obviously, security for those workers considering a long-term mortgage or parenting and finding a school where children could have some longevity were all gone. That's an important part of the idea of building community — some longevity, some security.

I know that the government opposite doesn't believe in the notion of security of the workplace, but it does help build a strong community, knowing you're going to be there, not having to uplift your family at the whim of a government, uplift your family and try to find schooling somewhere else, go into another community because the job's no longer there. That security, that stability, is an instrument that the government should be upholding.

Now, in order to quash the statutory provisions, the court also had to be satisfied that provisions did not meet the defence of being reasonable and justifiable limits in a free and democratic society. It was simply blatant, and it was — I guess it was slapdash. I'm sorry to repeat it, but that's what it was — slapdash. Wow.

Perhaps naivety was its excuse, but this government deliberately set out to create a dysfunctional form of health care in British Columbia in order to privatize it. The instrument it used — it was a blunt instrument — was Bill 29. Make no bones about it. Reason was thrown aside under Bill 29. Thank heavens it was caught by the Charter. It was caught in the Charter. It was caught by the Supreme Court of Canada. This government toyed with the notion of suspending fundamental freedoms and democracy.

That is why we are here today with Bill 26, a bill that tries to save face for some of the most degrading, unabashed legislation to families that this country has ever seen. I mean, it's a shame. Throughout the whole rest of the country of Canada, they look at this notion and what this government tried to do. It's shameful, and to think this used to be a leader in collective bargaining.

This was a province where, in many ways, there was hostility. We've had sort of a frontier labour-management ethic here in the province for some time. I'm not going to get into the battles of the western miners in Boise, Idaho, coming up and doing their little thing up in the Kootenays. That's a history I hope we will never revisit, but there was a lot of conflict. That conflict was resolved through the collective agreement process. That piece of history was going to be absolved by this government.

So this degrading legislation to this country, as put forward by this government…. I mean, this government should be absolutely ashamed of itself. It should apologize. There should be an apology written in the preamble on this Bill 26.

I mean, the government should extend the session until they hear all the debate. Time's up. With that, I'll take my place and look forward to the committee stage and further discussion of this debate.

S. Simpson: I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill 26. I know it's unfortunate that this bill has to be here, but the conduct of the government back in 2002 — the irresponsible conduct of the government, the illegal conduct of the government — leads us to this place today where we're debating Bill 26.

Hon. Speaker, as you know and, certainly, as the members across the way know, Bill 26 came about because of this government's conduct back in January of 2002 at the time when they brought forward the bill of the day, Bill 29. The Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act is what it was called.

What that bill was…. They brought that bill forward on a weekend, and they debated through into the night at a time when the government was probably feeling pretty full of itself. It had 77 to 2 in terms of numbers of seats in this House. They debated through the night, ramming through a bill that ripped up collective agreements, that ripped up collective bargaining rights, that threw thousands and thousands of workers — mostly women with modest incomes — out on the street in terms of their jobs and ended up creating a situation where, if they were able to get back to work in the private

facilities that this was all about creating, they went back at dramatically lower wage rates, with fewer or no benefits.

What the government did at that time was incredibly arrogant. It took and essentially tore up legal contracts, and it tore them up with no justification. It tore them up with no consultation. At no time did the government choose to sit down with the unions and have a discussion about those collective agreements. They simply tore them up.

I guess one of the most concerning things is that they did this, breaking promises that were made by the Premier — promises that I read about in the HEU newspaper, The Guardian, which interviewed the Premier when he was still opposition leader before the election in 2001. I remember that discussion.

The discussion of contracts came up, and of course there were grand assurances by the Premier that contracts would never be torn up. But then, of course, we've seen grand assurances by the Premier about things like "I won't sell B.C. Rail" too, and we know where that went. So we had grand assurances that the contracts wouldn't be torn up, and then operating like a tinpot dictator, that's exactly what he did. He tore up those contracts.

When I look around the world and I look at some of the people who conduct themselves like that, one of the traits that tinpot dictators tend to have is that they tend to not keep their promises. They tend to find convenient ways to get around that. I would hope that's not what we would see in British Columbia, but in fact, Bill 29 did exactly that.

That's what Bill 29 did. As a result of that, to their credit, we saw the Hospital Employees Union, the B.C. Government Employees Union, the B.C. Federation of Labour say that if this government wouldn't respect workers in British Columbia, wouldn't respect modestly paid workers in British Columbia, government workers who delivered services in British Columbia, then they, as the unions, would defend their members to whatever degree was necessary. Thankfully, they were able to go to the Supreme Court of Canada and get justice that this government was going to deny those people.

The Supreme Court of Canada was very clear, I believe, in its ruling. What the Supreme Court of Canada said is that no matter what sense of entitlement this Premier and this Liberal government might think that they have, however dismissive they are of democratic rights in this province; however dismissive they are of the law and of contracts; however dismissive they are of women workers trying to make a living, trying to support their families; however dismissive this government is of all those sectors; however dismissive they tend to be of everybody excepting those people who write cheques to the B.C. Liberal party, what we see instead….

At least the courts said you cannot do that. You cannot breach the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that's what you've done. Government of British Columbia, B.C. Liberal government, you do not have the right to breach the constitution, to breach the Charter. That's what this government did.

What the government did is they did that by tearing up those terms in the collective agreements that provided protection for these workers, provided protection around contracting-out — that said if you contracted out services, the workers and their collective agreement would go with it. But they tore that up. The reason that they tore that up is because as they moved towards greater privatization of our health care system…. One of this government's grand goals is the privatization of health care. That's the great goal for this government — how to privatize our health care system, along with privatizing our energy system.

What they said was: "We can't get our friends to do this unless we tear these collective agreements up, unless we create a situation where a woman working in one of those facilities, in a seniors facility, who might have been making $35,000 to $36,000 a year with some benefits…." All of a sudden she loses her job. She comes back to work for the new private operator, and she's making a salary in the low 20s. She loses $10,000 a year. She loses benefits.

Well, that's not right. But what we saw here was a government that was happy to do that, a government that thought that was just fine, that thought that was justice — Liberal justice, Liberal fairness. The Supreme Court of Canada, quite rightly, said that that was wrong. The Supreme Court of Canada, quite rightly, said: "You cannot do that." The Supreme Court of Canada said: "You cannot attack the rights of free collective bargaining, attack the collective agreements that were negotiated in good faith by both sides." But that's in fact what the government chose to do.

So what was the result of that? More than 9,000 health care workers were laid off in the province, the vast majority of them women looking to support their families. What was the other result of that, in terms of services? We saw the growth of chaos in the system, particularly around seniors care, and we continue to see the results of that today.

We see that with the conduct of many of those private companies. Obviously, the one that comes to mind most quickly for people is Retirement Concepts, but we see that in company after company where they are not delivering the quality of service that seniors in a province like British Columbia should be able to expect. That's wrong, and this government needs to fix that.

But how do they deal with this issue around seniors care? Instead of taking action to improve seniors care in British Columbia, they brought in Bill 29. They ripped up collective agreements. They created the scenario for workers to be laid off; for them to download and privatize services, to turn them over to their friends; and then for many of those workers to come back into workplaces, doing much the same jobs

These are not workers that were getting paid like cabinet ministers. These were not workers that were getting paid like the Premier. These are workers that were making a modest wage, making $35,000 or $36,000 a year, but that was too much. This government thought that was too much too, so this government was happy for those workers to go and make $25,000 a year. That was okay — a $10,000 pay cut.

Well, it's not okay. It's not okay at all. What we saw in this whole notion around the privatization, around the cost-cutting, was the impacts, again, that it's had on seniors, on the services that are delivered to them, on the levels of care, and the impacts it's had on a variety of other interests that are affected by these decisions that, in fact, resulted from Bill 29. It's a big problem.

It's a big problem when you have a level of arrogance from a government — first of all, that the arrogance existed at all; second, that they were prepared to ram through Bill 29 over a weekend, passing it finally at three or four o'clock in the morning, ramming it through with no meaningful consultation with the people who are directly affected by Bill 29. It was duly noted in the judgments of the court that the lack of consultation was a serious, serious problem, but the government believed that it was above that. This government and this Premier believed that they were above consultation.

Again, it reflects a trend in this government around secrecy, around arrogance, around an arbitrariness in the decisions they make, around a belief that they know best and that decisions coming from the cabinet room should be beyond reproach and certainly above consultation with British Columbians, certainly above a discussion with those people who will be impacted and affected by those decisions that are made.

We see it, hon. Speaker. We saw it in Bill 29, which led to the court case that led to the government coming back, with its tail between its legs, with Bill 26. We've seen it in a whole array of pieces of legislation that are occurring in this session. In one of the most glaring aspects of that, we will see it in the number of bills that this government will pass this session through closure, without proper debate in this House.

Now, part of the concern with this is not only the devastation that happened to many people's lives. It did turn people's lives upside down. I know, in talking to people who live in my constituency, health care workers who live in my constituency…. Many of them are still working now without benefits and for wages that are not equivalent to what they earned back in 2002, when their jobs were thrown out by this government, when their collective agreement was torn up.

They've continued to work in the system, but they have not been able to regain the levels of wages or the levels of benefits that they enjoyed at that time, and as I said, they were not overly generous then. They were working wages, but certainly, they were not overly generous. They haven't been able to get those back. These are people trying to raise families, and they're still struggling. They struggle because of the arrogance of Bill 29 and the results of that.

As my colleague the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, one of the two courageous members of the Legislature who stood up to the onslaught, along with my predecessor, Joy MacPhail, who was the member in Vancouver-Hastings prior to the last election…. They stood up and fought to try to protect the rights of British Columbians, to try to protect the democratic rights, to try to protect the legal rights — as we now know from the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada — to try to defend the legal rights against an onslaught from a government that has totally disrespected the law, a government that clearly, if they would have talked to somebody before ramming this through, would have probably been told this was illegal.

If they would have talked to somebody, I'm sure they would have gotten the advice that you can't do this; it's illegal. But there was a sense of entitlement about this Premier and a sense of entitlement about his friends in his cabinet that said that that didn't matter. That didn't matter because we've got 77 seats, and we're the government, and we can do whatever we please. It doesn't matter what the law says, doesn't matter what we're doing to low-income British Columbians, doesn't matter about those seniors who will be hurt in those facilities when we do this, doesn't matter because we've got the right because we've got 77 seats.

One of the remarkable things about this now is that they've brought Bill 26 in. The minister who introduced the bill had a few innocuous words about it at the beginning of the discussion, but not one of these members in this discussion…. And the large majority of those 46 members on that side were here in 2002. The large majority of those members sat in this place in 2002.

They stood up in this place and voted for Bill 29. They voted for this bill that breached the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They voted for this bill that put 9,000 workers on the street. They voted for this bill that undermined the integrity and quality of care for seniors, and not one of them has the decency to stand up, engage in this debate and say: "We were wrong, and we're sorry. We made a mistake. We were wrong, and we're sorry."

Part of leadership requires you to respect those people, particularly in the case of government. Part of leadership requires you to demonstrate respect for those people you govern. Part of leadership is about having enough respect for those people that you govern to talk to them about the decisions that you will make, to seek the advice of people who will be impacted and to give fair and legitimate consideration to that advice.

Should you choose to make decisions, and sometimes you do, that are contrary to the advice that you're getting from the people that you govern, you should have the courage of your convictions to stand up and explain why. When you make a mistake, a terrible mistake like

Bill 29, you certainly, if you're any kind of leader at all, would have the courage and the decency to stand up and apologize for what you did. But that requires a level of leadership that we've not seen in the last seven years in this House.

This bill will pass, and it will be a good thing, and we will see some accountability come back because of the courts — not because of this government but because of the demand of the highest court in the country, the Supreme Court of Canada. We will see some structure and some fairness returned.

As some of my colleagues before me have said, that won't undo the damage for lots of those people. That won't undo the damage for the people who have lived under the impact of Bill 29 for the last six or so years — people who have lived with wages that are certainly lower than they deserve and lower than their union negotiated, that live without the benefits that their union negotiated so that their family would have some security of those benefits that left and, for many of them, for the jobs that they no longer have.

It hurt families. It created undue damage to families. It had a real impact on the ability of those families to live the life that we all want to live.

The government often talks about British Columbia being the best place on earth. Well, after January 28, 2002, when the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act, Bill 29, passed in this House at four o'clock in the morning, or whatever it was, I'm sure there were thousands and thousands of workers who, when they woke up and realized what the government had done…. When they woke up and realized that their futures had been seriously jeopardized by this government's conduct, I suspect not many of them felt that they were living in the best place on earth that day.

I suspect many of them were wondering: what on earth happened? They were thinking back to reading The Guardian, their union newspaper, not that long before that, when the Premier, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, in an interview in The Guardian, the HEU newspaper, said: "We're not going to tear up contracts. We don't do that stuff."

The reality is this. The Premier, when he was the Leader of the Opposition before the 2001 election, was interviewed in a feature interview in The Guardian, the Hospital Employees Union's newspaper, and he said: "We respect workers. We respect your members. We won't tear up your collective agreements."

S. Simpson: Well, you know, it kind of makes you wonder. The real question here is: did he believe it when he said it, or did he know that this was coming later? Well, we'll never really know the answer to that question about whether he believed it when he said it. But that's a big question. You wouldn't even have to be a cynic. You could probably get away with being just a little skeptical to think maybe he didn't believe it when he said it. Maybe he didn't, but we'll never know that.

Sadly, I have a suspicion that the Premier isn't going to engage in this debate, come into the House, stand up and tell us about what he thinks about Bill 26. I suspect the Premier's not going to come into this House and stand up and apologize to the people of British Columbia for the black eye that British Columbia got because of their conduct around Bill 29. He's not going to come into this House and apologize for his conduct. He's not going to come into the House and apologize for telling the HEU one thing and doing something absolutely different.

He's not going to come into this House and apologize for treating the people of British Columbia with an unbelievable level and degree of arrogance that came in the way this bill moved forward in such short order. Sadly, not only is the Premier not going to do that, but I suspect that the Minister of Health isn't going to do it, and nor are any of his colleagues on that side going to stand up and make that apology on behalf of the government — not one of them.

What we can only hope is that this Bill 26 and the dressing-down that this government got by the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in very strong terms that this government had breached the Charter…. We can only hope that if they learned any lesson from this, it's that they can't get away with doing this again. We can only hope they learned that, and we can only hope that after May of next year they will never, ever get the chance to do it again.

But as I said, the passing of Bill 26 — and we will certainly look forward to this bill passing — is little comfort for the people who got hurt by this. It's little comfort for the people who are concerned about the conduct of the government, and it's little comfort for people who expect their politicians to be accountable.

We always hear in British Columbia…. We hear it here; we hear it elsewhere. There's always that criticism of politicians. People are cynical about their politicians. When they put out the polls about who you trust, politicians always kind of rank down there with lawyers.

Politicians are looked at cynically. They're looked at cynically because the public questions whether they can believe them, the public questions whose interest they're acting in, and the public questions why politicians don't seem to listen to them.

The big challenge we have to improve the credibility of the job we do as politicians is to engender more trust for politicians by acting in a more trustful way, in

a more honest way, in a more straightforward way. It's to engender some confidence by actually engaging people in meaningful discussion about public policy issues that are important, including engaging in debate, which is a foreign matter for the folks on the other side on most issues. It's in keeping our promises, and when we say we're going to do something actually doing what we say. If we're going to do that….

Well, this government has a long way to go. Time after time, they breach those three. This is probably the most glaring example we've seen in a while, because it's an example of the breach of all of those, not with an argument made by this side of the House, not with an argument necessarily made by the unions, but with the determination by the Supreme Court of Canada — by the most senior jurists in this country.

The Supreme Court of Canada are the ones who said that this government's conduct gets hauled into question about those matters of talking to people before you do things to them, about being forthright and honest and about keeping your promises and your commitments.

Just in the last minute or so here before I stand down, I do want to ask one more time…. I know that my colleague from Vancouver–Mount Pleasant asked this, and I believe my colleague from Delta North even made a suggestion. It might make a fine amendment. Maybe we'll need to amend this should we ever get to committee stage. Maybe we'll have to amend it to the "health statutes apology to the workers" amendment act.

I don't know. That might be a worthwhile thing to do. Maybe we'll have to put an apology in the preamble of the bill, because certainly the people of British Columbia and the people directly affected deserve that apology from this government.

In all seriousness, there is a time for government to say: "We were wrong." There is a time for government to say: "We acted inappropriately." There is a time for government to say: "We didn't treat you fairly." I do believe that if this government…. If you really went back, maybe you'd take this one back and have that chat in the cabinet room again with the Premier next time he's around there. Maybe, just maybe, there would be a decision that: "Yeah, we do need to make that apology. We do need to say, 'This was a mistake.'"

However you choose to say it — that will be up to you. If you choose to say it in a place other than here in the Legislature, where it probably belongs; if you choose to say it outside of here; if you choose to say it in a letter to those unions; if you choose to say it in a press release; if you choose to say it directly…. Maybe you want to go knock on the door of some of those 9,000 people you put out of work and tell them that you're sorry.

However you choose to do it, if you really want to be leaders, if you really want to show some leadership, then you have an obligation to be prepared to apologize when you make such a terrible, terrible mistake as you made with Bill 29.

If you really want to be leaders, you need to show some leadership and make the commitment today that you will never, ever abuse your power like that again. In a democracy, that abuse of power is totally and completely unacceptable.

I look forward to the continued debate on Bill 26. I look forward to the opportunity to hear from more of my colleagues. And I certainly do hope to hear from some members from the other side, if they would sheepishly stand up and say: "Hey, you're right, and we're sorry. We messed this one up."

J. Brar: I'm pleased to add my thoughts to Bill 26. To begin with, we are here debating this bill not because this government wants to give more rights to workers. It is because of the historic decision made by the Supreme Court of Canada, which gave directions to this government to go back and fix this problem. It's because the two opposition members, the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and Joy MacPhail — the only two members of the opposition at that time — fought back for the workers.

It's because of the strong, able and wise leadership by the HEU to face and deal with this piece of legislation, Bill 29. They fought back and went to the Supreme Court of Canada, and they won. As a result of that, we are here today debating this Bill 26.

Bill 29 — I just want to put on the record — is a huge black mark in the history of this Legislature. That is the creation of the B.C. Liberal government. That will go into history as a legacy of this government, basically attacking the rights of the workers.

The story begins like this. Just before the election, the Premier, then a member of the opposition, went and met with HEU workers and made the promise that the Premier was not going to touch the collective agreements already signed by the union. But after the election, the Premier was different. They did the opposite. They won a historic victory — 77 MLAs in this House.

Rather than providing a responsible government to the people of British Columbia, they start attacking the workers of this province. They start attacking the teachers of this province. They start attacking the health care of this province.

The list goes on. The Premier was different before the election. The Premier was much different after the election, and this Bill 29 is not the only example.

This Premier made a promise to seniors to build 5,000 long-term care beds — before the election. After the election the Premier did the opposite. They didn't build those 5,000 long-term care beds.

Before the election this Premier promised the people of British Columbia that they were going to provide the best health care to the people of British Columbia — when you need it, where you need it. After the election they did exactly the opposite. Now, the term "when you need it" means that you don't need it everywhere.

Similarly, they made the promise to the people of Surrey that they were going to build a new hospital.

That was, again, just before the election in 2005. It has been three years. Nothing has happened. Now we know that the government promises to build the hospital after the next election.

So the list goes on. The Premier was different and is different before the election, and the Premier does totally the opposite after the election.

B.C. Rail. Another example. The Premier is on record…. Actually, it was part of the New Era document, the promise they made to the people of British Columbia, specifically, that they were not going to sell B.C. Rail. But when they came to power, they did the opposite. That was this B.C. Rail sale, and there are a lot of questions about the B.C. Rail corruption case at this point in time going on.

When they came to power this bill, Bill 29, was passed in the middle of the night, and they ignored at that time the two members of the opposition who were telling them the stories of the workers. They ignored the workers of this province. They ignored the stakeholders of this province. They also ignored any ethical standards of any government when it comes to the rights of the workers.

They passed Bill 29, and that bill has had a very, very serious impact on the lives of the workers and their families — on 9,000 workers by the stroke of a pen, by this Premier, by this government. Their jobs were taken away — 9,000 workers. The majority of those workers were immigrant workers. More surprisingly, the majority of those immigrant workers were women, hard-working women building this beautiful province, and their jobs were taken away.

On one side, we talk about the settlement program for immigrants, to make the settlement program easy so that they can be part of the mainstream as quickly as possible. But in this situation they did the opposite. They took the jobs away from them by the stroke of a pen in the middle of the night.

I know one individual who used to work in HEU at that time. She is a single mom and has two kids, and both the kids were going to university at that time. Because she lost her job — of course, she had to pay bills, her mortgage — she could not provide the support she could have to her daughters. As a result of that, they had to make a difficult decision, and that was not to go to university. That is a huge impact on that family. Think about it. We're talking about 9,000 families in the province of British Columbia impacted by this Bill 29.

This bill has lots and lots of messages in it. The first message which I get from this is that in this beautiful province known as British Columbia the government, which came to power with 77 MLAs, thought at that time that they were above the law. They forgot that their responsibility was to make law to make people's lives better.

They thought for a moment that they were above the law. They tore up the agreement signed after long, respectful negotiation between the government and the workers. They didn't care about those workers; they sent a strong message that they didn't care about the workers. They don't care about the teachers. They don't care about the average family. That is the message this Bill 29 sent out in the province and in the country.

The only people they care about are the people who are their friends, and particularly the big corporations — the people who have a lot of money. They don't need any support, actually, from the government, and those are the people this government cares for. They don't care about the workers. That was the single, strong, clear message this government wanted to send through Bill 29.

The second message Bill 29 sent at that time: this Premier has the power to take away that which the people of British Columbia created in the 20th century, the rights of workers, by the stroke of a pen. That's the message this Premier wanted to send by Bill 29.

It also sends a message that the Premier and his party can make any promise before the election, and they don't need to respect it after the election, as I mentioned before. Promise after promise after promise, and they're all broken one by one. We have lots and lots of examples of that in front of us.

This bill also has a message in it. It is that the workers of this province will fight back. They will fight back to the end, and they will fight back for their rights. At the end of the day this message is very clear. The workers in this situation were right, and this government was wrong.

That message has been sent by the workers, and that message was made more clear by the Supreme Court of Canada when they said this bill is illegal. This is an illegal bill created by the government of British Columbia just to attack the workers and the families of workers. This bill also has a message that workers of this province will fight back for equality. They'll fight back to protect their jobs.

I am proud, standing in this House today, that we have a court system that functions and which makes government accountable. Even if this government doesn't want to be accountable, the Supreme Court of Canada sent a very strong message that you need to go back and give workers the rights they had at that time.

So what we see at the end of this bill is that this government made a huge mistake. It's a huge, big black mark in the history of this Legislature. The only way, as many of the members have said before me, that this can be taken care of and that somebody can show some leadership, is to stand up in this House and say sorry to the workers of this province — to apologize. I think that's the right thing to do. That will send a message that there is some leadership in this party, in this government.

The Premier should stand up in this House. The Minister of Health is quite a gracious man; he can do that too. Stand up in this House and say: "We made a mistake." It will not repair the damage done to the families, but it will show some leadership.

Having said that, I will continue looking for the comments made by the other members and watch what

happens at committee stage. The member next to me wants to contribute his comments.

N. Simons: It gives me pleasure to have the opportunity to add my voice to this debate on Bill 26, which is amending Bill 29 among other things.

We all remember, I remember, that Bill 29 was introduced and tabled and passed within a very short period of time. In fact, it was passed in the dead of night with the former MLA for Powell River–Sunshine Coast sitting in the chair.

Twenty-three cabinet ministers who are still in this House voted that night — 23 cabinet ministers who were part of this government and part of that decision to make this egregious change in contracts, putting people out of work and putting families in some cases into desperate straits. So 23 of them who are still here in cabinet voted in favour.

I would point out that one member of the government side voted against it. One member who's still here voted against it. The member for Peace River South had the foresight at the time that was lacking among the ministers of the time.

The four cabinet ministers who currently have announced they won't run again were not in this House. They have been awakened to the arrogance of this government, which was so quickly pointed out to the people of British Columbia in January of 2002 in the dead of night, when, contrary to promises made, they ripped up contracts and put families, workers, hospital patients in jeopardy.

It was a sad day for British Columbia. It's an equally sad day now that no lessons have been learned and that legislation can be once again passed in this House without adequate consultation, without the adequate protection that the law is supposed to provide. The government, when something gets in its way, will change the law to make it easier for them to do what they want to do.

So 33 members currently sitting on the Liberal side of this House were in this House at 3:55 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, the 27th of January. They, save one, voted in favour of the largest layoff of women workers in the history of Canada. I don't know whether my concern is that this lesson hasn't been learned….

I'm not going to call them all the words that they know apply. I'll just point out to anybody who's watching that a government that thinks it can get away with everything might try to do that. With a majority of 77 to 2, this government will take full opportunity to ram through legislation that could be damaging to the people of British Columbia.

We know it's been damaging. In my health authority alone 153,000 hours of hospital cleaning were eliminated from the contract. Nobody can fool anyone into thinking that that didn't have an impact on the quality of care that patients in the Vancouver Coastal region had to endure.

The member for Peace River South knew that the legislation being passed…. He might not have known that it was unlawful at the time. He might not have known that it would generate outcries from labour organizations and human rights organizations, and not just in North America.

This was an egregious act against workers in our health care system, and I would submit that many of the damages that it caused have yet to be addressed. The families, the lives of people in Powell River and the Sunshine Coast and every riding in this province, were disrupted by the unlawful passage of Bill 29. Millions of dollars are now required to be spent to make a first attempt to right the wrongs. But let's just make it clear. We can't right the wrongs in their entirety.

We know that children no longer played the sports that they were previously engaged in. They may not have been able to rent that clarinet. They may not have been able to participate in activities around their community. Families may not have been able to pay their mortgages or go on a summer vacation or go to work with a feeling that they were valued.

This legislation was insidious in so many ways. It was so clear, immediately after it was passed, that it was bad law. It wasn't good legislation. It was full of holes. It doesn't help that the deputy minister at the time was then brought back and worked as a consultant to the ministry. The number of mistakes this government has made, their inability to manage a legislative calendar — those pale in comparison to the egregious impact that the layoff, the largest layoff of female workers….

I note that ministers opposite laugh. It's the largest layoff. Let's not pretend that it's 9,000 jobs. These are 9,000 jobs of people who have families, that have commitments to their community, that volunteer, that are active members of the arts community. They are and they were in many respects the fundamental members of a community that were disrespected with the slash of a pen, contrary to a promise.

This is the same government that promised one thing and delivered another, that saw their opportunity to pass legislation in this House in the face of a diminished opposition, to pass legislation to serve its needs, to promote the privatization, by increment, of our public health care system.

It's not surprising to me that the four cabinet ministers who currently sit in this House, who were not here that late Sunday morning, are not interested in running again. There is a point, I believe, where members of this Legislature recognize that there are some philosophies and some ideologies that are so damaging to their own communities that they find it difficult to remain working for a government that only thinks about the bottom line.

Well, I know families in my constituency that were hurt, and I know that no apology will right the wrongs of the past. But a simple acknowledgment, at some point, that the highest court in the land has told them that their actions were unlawful. One would think some contrition would be evident. But no.

In fact, we see legislation tabled in this House that reflects no one's interest but government's. We see the

alternative tabling and withdrawal of legislation that indicates a lack of clarity, of vision, of planning, of competence, that is unfitting for a government in a parliamentary democracy.

I don't think the members of this House, the members on that side, who were there in 2001 and 2002 and '03 and '04 and '05, who were party, who could be considered accomplices to the unlawful act, accomplices to Bill 29…. They sit with their heads buried in their notebooks, wishing that everyone had forgotten, like they planned for us to forget because they passed it early morning on Sunday, 27th of January, 2002.

One member, one lonely member from far up north who was in touch with his constituents, said: "I cannot stand with my government and vote for this." He was the right one. The rest of government thought against it. Everyone in the province knew it was egregious. Everyone knew it was a breach of promise, a breach of trust, in fact. It was an assault on what we as British Columbians and as Canadians think of a value that we cherish, and that is fairness.

If anything was chucked off the table of this House, it was the value it placed on the citizens of the province. It was the concern that members in this House, who passed this legislation, had for people who worked in our health care system.

We see it time and time again — legislation such as this. This is in its most obvious form, for everyone in the province to understand, but there are elements of the arrogance in a lot of the legislation that is currently being debated and passed without debate in this House.

I don't want to tell British Columbians to be very afraid, but let's be vigilant. Let's continue to be vigilant, because one of the earliest things this government did was something thrown out by the highest court in this land.

They should have known at the time that it was going to happen. They shouldn't have put the 9,000 people out of work. They should have thought about the welfare of hospital workers and the welfare of families. Had they done that, this law would have been defeated when it should have been. With that, I take my place.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, and noting the time.

M. Farnworth: I do note the time, hon. Speaker, but I rise to make a few brief comments on this particular piece of legislation — on two points. One, I wasn't here at the time, but I watched the debate or watched what took place. I watched it from Bulgaria, a country that was in transition from an authoritarian government to a democracy.

I remember at that time thinking, you know, I've left a democracy to come to an authoritarian regime that's becoming a democracy, and what I'm seeing is the democracy I left becoming an authoritarian regime.

I look at this title, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, and I'm reminded of a phrase that I learned when I was in Bulgaria. [A language other than English was spoken.] Roughly translated, it means something along the lines of: "Who are you trying to kid? You know, I live here. I'm not a tourist."

The title of this piece of legislation is innocuous, but it's like: who are you trying to kid? It should be named the "Supreme Court of Canada is slapping this government to make it climb down" bill, because that's what this is. Or "egg on your face" bill, because what a government tried to do was use the absolute tyranny of majority to tear up a contract. They had promised that they would not do it. The Premier had stood up and specifically told workers — health care workers, government workers — that he would not tear up their contract, and he did.

The results of that were to have a traumatic effect on the lives of many working people, many of them women, in this province. I came back from Bulgaria and the Balkans, and in 2005, I campaigned and knocked on doorsteps in my riding of Port Coquitlam. The impact of this bill and the betrayal of this bill was palpable on the doorsteps at that time.

I still remember running into constituents who told me that they had to sell their home, because they couldn't afford to keep it because of the reduction in wages by what this government did. One woman was in tears trying to tell me how this bill, Bill 29, impacted her.

This bill is here today as a result of the government's arrogance in ill-thought-out public policy, and we have seen that happen on occasions this session, again and again and again. We saw it this morning with saying a section on the miscellaneous bill will not go ahead. We saw it a few weeks ago with the Minister of Children and Families.

I don't have time to go into it. I just want to remind this House that we must not allow ourselves to get into this situation. Public policy must be well thought out. Government commitments must be honoured. We must not be in a situation where it takes the Supreme Court of Canada to strike down an unjust law because of the tyranny of a majority government that doesn't want to listen.

That's why we're here today. So with that, this bill hopefully closes a shameful chapter in this government's term from 2001 to 2005, and I hope we never see the like of that again in the history of this province.

Mr. Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the Minister of Health closes debate.

We have heard over many hours from the opposition a long series, I think, of very extreme, intemperate and inflammatory assertions in respect of this bill.

I am not going to let those inflammatory assertions go unreturned. I do intend to provide many more comments in my closing remarks in respect of Bill 26, so I reserve my place and move adjournment of debate.

Mr. Speaker: I've had the opportunity to review Bill M207, First Nations Heritage Protection and Conservation Act, 2008, which was introduced in the House by the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin.

The bill would require expenditure of public funds, contrary to Standing Order 67, and is therefore out of order in the hands of a private member and will not proceed to second reading.

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

Hon. R. Neufeld: By agreement, we're going to do the mining division, and I'll turn this over to the Minister of State for Mining.

Hon. K. Krueger: Just briefly. The opposition doesn't have a lot of time, so I'd like to focus on what they would care to ask about.

I do want to introduce the people that are with me. Deputy Minister Greg Reimer is to my right. Doug Callbeck, assistant deputy minister responsible for management services, is to my left. Dave Lefebure, acting assistant deputy minister for the mining and minerals division, is behind me to my right. Dave is the province's chief geologist. To his left and just behind me is the executive director for regional operations, Butch Morningstar.

I want to comment very briefly about the B.C. geological survey, which Mr. Lefebure heads up full time, and has for years. They're a wonderful organization that the people of British Columbia owe a lot to. They're in, I believe, their 114th year of mapping mineral occurrences. They've mapped over 12,000 around B.C. We're tremendously proud of them and of all the other people in the division and of the state-of-the-art technology we have, things that the rest of the world comes inquiring about.

We just had a meeting with representatives of PNWER this week, and they want to know about the B.C. success story in mining. It's a credit, certainly, to the small army of civil servants, just over 100 people, who work in this division. Spectacular successes in PricewaterhouseCoopers report released this week, the 40th annual report card on B.C.'s mining industry, are tremendously encouraging again. I credit the industry, the people that are with me and the people that I just spoke of.

I want to mention safety as well. In spite of the fact that this industry moves such huge quantities of rock and deals with such gigantic equipment, it has the best safety record of any heavy industry in B.C. I was just advised yesterday that WorkSafe B.C. says that the record is down to 1.9 lost-time accidents for every 100 person-years of work, which is way better than most heavy industry in B.C. and the best of all.

I don't want to take a lot of the opposition's time, but I did want to talk about those successes and also the tremendous achievements that are happening all around the province with first nations, as industry is embracing, together with government, the responsibilities to consult with and accommodate first nations. There are some great partnerships that I wish we had time to talk about, but I'll yield the floor to the opposition critic, and we'll deal with the matters they wish to raise.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister. I know he's very proud of the sector, as we all are here in British Columbia. It's a dynamic part of our economy. I know that in his role and function as the booster for the industry, we'll be hearing of that as the afternoon progresses. I appreciate him not outlining too much of that at the front end.

We do have a lot that we want to talk about. I have a number of colleagues who want to participate in the discussion. I'll give the floor to my colleague from

Columbia River–Revelstoke, who has some comments to make, and then we'll proceed with other questioning.

N. Macdonald: I just have two questions. I realize that time is very, very tight. There'll be a number of statements that I'll make just to put them on the record, and then I'll ask for the minister's response. I'd like to thank staff. I'll get to it, then.

On this date two years ago — in fact, exactly today — Mr. Doug Erickson went as a contractor to a small water-sampling shed on the Sullivan mine in Kimberley. As he went down into the shed, he found himself in an oxygen-depleted environment, and tragically, as people know, he died. Two days later three others would die looking for him.

Now, there had been no due diligence on the shed or the system that collected water. The minister, in the regulations that he's put together, included requirements that included having no sheds built at the foot of mine-waste sites, and if sheds were required, that there must be piping systems in place that will make sure that oxygen-depleted air cannot gather.

It sort of points to the fact that Teck Cominco should have gone through a process of due diligence on the shed. Teck Cominco broke section 3.2.2(1) of the HSRC, which requires workers to sign in and out of worksites, and section 3.2.3 of the HSRC, which requires employees working alone to be checked on every two hours. Mr. Erickson was left dead for two days. The mines inspector, in his report, said that following those rules was important and that they should have been followed.

With the coroner's inquest there were a number of recommendations. The coroner's jury heard a week's testimony last summer and said that there were 16 things that needed to be done to make sure such a tragedy did not happen again. Recommendation 12 calls for the increase of penalty provisions with enforcement of the Mines Act to reflect the seriousness of non-compliance.

Hon. K. Krueger: This event was a terrible tragedy, and I know that we all agree on that. Once again, I never feel right about talking about it without expressing our empathy to the families and friends of the loved ones who were lost in this tragedy. The first worker was, of course, a tragedy. The three people who died trying to help him were following the noblest human instincts, and what happened was awful.

I think that some of the things that have been said in this spring session have been awful too.

This shed had been in place for over four years. It had regularly and frequently been visited by workers without any hint of a problem. The fact that chemical processes sometimes create deoxygenated atmospheres is well known. The phenomenon that occurred at this particular site was that a drainage pipe became the means by which a dumpsite, acting like a giant lung under exactly the wrong atmospheric pressure and temperature conditions, created this concentrated, alternating flow of deoxygenated atmosphere that led to the tragedies.

We haven't heard of that ever happening anywhere in the world before. A team of scientists based out of UBC are still studying it, trying to make sure that it never happens again — that we can convey our sad experience to the world. Obviously, we deeply regret, and I know the employer does too, that this ever happened.

There were violations by the employer. The chief inspector of mines, the deputy minister and others attended promptly when this tragedy was reported. The chief inspector of mines' conclusion was that although there had been two violations, they did not lead to the tragedy. It was a totally unforeseen event. We followed the chief inspector of mines' recommendations. It's up to the chief inspector to decide whether penalties are levied or not. Government doesn't interfere with that.

There followed a further investigation by the ministry, and then the coroner's inquest that the member just referred to. Almost every recommendation of all three of those inquiries was followed to the letter. There was an initial recommendation by the chief inspector of mines with regard to not allowing people who weren't certified for a minesite to go into the scene of an emergency, which was not embraced. It could lead to the kind of situation that we heard about for a while with the Coast Guard, where divers couldn't go into overturned vessels by themselves.

The recommendation the member just spoke of, recommendation No. 12 of the coroner's inquest…. People who serve as coroner's jury members are, frankly, not nearly as conversant with mine safety as the mine safety inspectors that work on the job in British Columbia every day. We have three dozen people in this department. They're experts. They're tremendously respected. They work hard on making sure that there are updates to the code wherever that is appropriate.

There are very significant penalties that employers will incur and do incur if they fail to meet the requirements of the code. These can include the shutdown of an entire site for as long as it takes to make sure that workers are going to be safe. Our inspectors deal with those issues all the time.

There were fatalities in our aggregate industry last year. The inspectors have worked tremendously hard to make sure that those stopped happening, and thank God they have stopped happening. We trust that will continue to be the case. We take every worker injury, let alone every worker fatality, tremendously seriously.

But this member said on the record in question period on April 9 that the company had broken two regulations. He said: "Teck Cominco built a structure that four people died in. Teck Cominco broke two regulations…. Because of that, somebody died." That just isn't true, and it isn't fair. It doesn't honour the memory of

those workers. It shouldn't have been said, and I want to give the member the chance to withdraw it.

This is a company that is a great corporate citizen. They raise millions of dollars for Children's Hospital. They treat their employees well. This industry pays its employees more than any other heavy industry in the province. PricewaterhouseCoopers said yesterday it was an average of $101,900 last year.

Companies pour whatever it takes into worker safety programs. I go to the mine rescue competitions all over the province, and I see how companies, mine managers, unions, employees work together. Everybody takes it very seriously, and that's why they have the best safety record of any heavy industry in the province.

Then the member went further and suggested that we didn't adopt changes with regard to penalties to companies because of Teck Cominco's donations to a political party. That is a terrible thing to say. The code review committee is comprised of three union representatives and three management representatives, chaired by the chief inspector of mines, who's an absolutely principled individual, and that impugned the integrity of every one of them.

They wouldn't have stood for a moment the government not implementing their recommendations. They did their job. They did a very thorough job. They achieved a consensus. I wasn't in the room when they were working on it. They worked on it for days. They came to us with a set of recommendations, and we adopted every one of them. I gave the member the OIC the day that we did it.

So those were wrong things to say. The actions by the company did not cause the fatalities, and nobody has found any basis to say that. It had absolutely nothing to do with political donations that the recommendations were adopted as they were and that things weren't done that the member might think should be done.

I wonder if the member actually has some additional penalties in mind that he thinks should be imposed. Much more importantly than that, I want to give him the chance…. From day one when I met him, I respected this member and thought a lot of him, and I don't think a lot of those things having been said.

N. Macdonald: Okay. The minister can reach the conclusions he wants, but the fact of the matter is there was a very clear recommendation. The expectation is that the recommendations of the jury would be acted upon, and they haven't been.

What I would say is that without meaningful penalties, you are not going to have rules followed. I think the jury and any layman can recognize that you need meaningful penalties. That's something that people see when they're driving a car, when they do any activity — that there are meaningful penalties. The jury certainly had every opportunity to judge whether there were meaningful penalties.

It's clear that provisions of regulations were not followed. The mine inspector reached a conclusion. Well, that's fine. That's not the conclusion the coroner's jury reached.

Teck Cominco had obligations. There were important safety rules to follow; they didn't. There were no penalties. So why would they follow the rules in the future? That's not a conclusion that I have reached; that's what the coroner's jury reached.

The coroner's jury said that penalty provisions had to happen. It is a political decision. It is the minister who is responsible who has decided not to act on recommendation 12. This minister is the public official. This minister makes the decision whether recommendation 12 goes ahead or not.

The fact is, and it is members of the families who are aware of the fact, that Teck Cominco is a major donor. For the minister to say that that's not potentially a factor in decision-making…. I think that the public does look at donations and does raise the question. You cannot escape that scrutiny. The member would raise the same questions if it was the other way around. The fact is that it's $1.13 million to the member's political party, so the public raises that question.

The fact is that the corporate entity, Teck Cominco…. I received phone calls shortly after the accident. There's no question that people within that corporate entity were hurt a tremendous amount. They knew Bob Newcombe very, very well. Their commitment as individuals would be to make sure that regulations are going to be in place. The process we went through was to have a coroner's inquest.

Now, if the Ministry of Mines…. I had an opportunity to watch WorkSafe B.C. at that inquest in the Ministry of Mines. The suggestion has been…. We have limited time, so this will be the last opportunity that I'll have to ask a question, but the question has been asked a number of times. Have we set up a structure that is going to work properly for safety? Other provinces use the equivalent of WorkSafe B.C. Watching the inquiry, it was clear to me that WorkSafe B.C. was totally focused on worker safety, whereas the Ministry of Mines will have a range of interests.

So the final question that I have for the minister, and I won't really have an opportunity to respond again, is: is he convinced that he has a structure in place that works best for mine safety? Because many would say that WorkSafe B.C. might be a better structure, so that you would have that separation of roles that makes it difficult with the Ministry of Mines.

Hon. K. Krueger: The record obviously will show that the member passed up the opportunity to apologize, which I think he should have taken. I'm really disappointed.

Hon. K. Krueger: I'm very disappointed with that. The member says he'll decide. I think it's essential that people act with integrity in this place, and I think it's essential that people should not….

N. Macdonald: Certainly. I just suggested the minister keep his mind on answering the question and don't question my integrity, and I won't question your integrity. This is an emotional topic. It's emotional for me. It would be emotional for you if you knew the people involved. Let's just keep it on a level where you're dealing with the question. Answer the question, but certainly don't question my integrity.

The Chair: It's not technically a point of order, and the minister has the floor.

Hon. K. Krueger: People were accused of being responsible for fatalities when the company was accused, and it isn't true, People are being accused, apparently, of not bringing in the right recommendations, according to this member, because apparently he thinks that they were somehow influenced by a political party with regard to donations. That's an utterly false and specious accusation against anyone — utterly false.

N. Macdonald: Are you asking me a question, or are you answering a question?

Hon. K. Krueger: Does the opposition actually believe that a minister of the Crown….?

J. Horgan: Point of order. We have precious little time to address, perhaps, one of the most important ministries in government today, based on the death of the forest industry. To get a sermon from the minister is absolutely inappropriate. He's been asked the question. He shouldn't come back with a question. He should answer it.

The Chair: I would encourage all members to focus on the debate because of the limited amount of time, but each individual has up to 15 minutes to make their statement.

Hon. K. Krueger: The opposition appears to repeatedly be suggesting that a minister of the Crown should ignore the outcome of a process that's established by statute and should just add other provisions after the code review committee has made recommendations. To just come up on a political basis with other provisions for the code…. How would that possibly work to anyone's benefit, in practice? Is that what these members would do if they ever found themselves in cabinet — just override processes and do things for political reasons? Apparently.

Do they actually think that the three members representing workers and the three members representing management and the chief inspector of mines gave in to some sort of political pressure, based on donations? How could they say such a horrible thing? So those are allegations that need to be answered, and they are answered on the record. The member has made his choice not to apologize.

To answer the question that they are always asking on behalf of Jim Sinclair and the B.C. Federation of Labour, we absolutely believe — and we demonstrate the results every day in this ministry, and throughout this province — that the provisions we have for worker safety in mining exploration and in mining are working better than any other approach in any other industry in British Columbia. These are the best results of any heavy industry in safety. They have been delivered for a long time, and there is continuous improvement.

We have reduced the frequency of lost-time injuries in the mining industry by half in the very recent past, and that performance is holding steady in spite of the fact that the industry is ramping up very rapidly and, as the critic just said, is becoming one of the economic powerhouses of the British Columbia economy.

You can't argue with these results. For over a hundred years this ministry has had responsibility for worker health and safety, and there has been continuous improvement.

The critic is angry. It has taken a little time to answer those questions. I don't want to anger anyone, but questions like that have to be answered.

C. Puchmayr: The code review has nothing to do with the questions that are being asked here. The code review does have a process that is looked at. What we are speaking of here is looking at a model that is superior.

It brings levels of safety both from WorkSafe standards, with respect to confined-space entry, and from the mine safety and reclamation code. It puts them together to get the best possible standards that are available and then decants them from the Mines Ministry and puts them into WorkSafe, which is a more independent wing of governance and inspection.

Almost all provinces in Canada have done this. After the Westray disaster the minister went on record saying that there's no way the ministry in charge of promoting mining should also be in charge of health and safety in mining. That's a ministry in a province that certainly isn't a socialist province, and they've seen the issues that arose from when you have the same type of governance looking at mining that could possibly come into conflict with promotion of mining.

We're just asking for a better system here. Is the minister prepared to look at decanting the mine safety and reclamation code provisions and moving them over to some independents?

That isn't going to curtail the mining industry. It's not going to affect the mining ministry, other than it will put an independent lens on health and safety in the mining industry. That's what the families of the four people that died on that minesite want. That's what we want. That is good for British Columbia, it's good for mining, and it's good for the health and safety of people.

Hon. K. Krueger: Just as he did on April 9, this member follows the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke, who has just been asking me about fatalities, recommendations that flowed from that tragedy and what was done with those recommendations. Then he says, having repeated all of that, that his question has nothing to do with the code review committee.

Well, of course it does. The code review committee was investigating and considering what changes should be made to the code because of the recommendations that flowed. It's silly to say there's no relation, when we're following the very same sequence that these members did in question period.

Again, we have the best results of any heavy industry in British Columbia. How can the members argue that the system is not effective? WorkSafe B.C. itself doesn't want to be responsible for minesites. They don't have the expertise that this ministry has. They don't have the kind of mines inspectors that go out and do this job day in and day out.

When I go to the mine rescue competitions, the miners — who come running out in full regalia, not knowing what situation they're going to be up against — are working on scenarios and being reviewed by our mine inspectors, who have in some cases actually been involved in the original situation after which the role play is patterned. I invite these members to come out to mine rescue competitions and see for themselves.

The industry takes safety tremendously seriously — everybody involved in the industry, and that includes every government representative and employee. The employees, the union members and their unions, mine managers at all levels deliver results that are unmatched by anyone else.

So we will not be changing this system. It's a system that's tried and true, and it's more effective than any other that's in place in any other industry in the province.

C. Puchmayr: Again, the mine safety and reclamation code and its review does not have the issue with respect to the findings, with respect to what the coroner's inquest has found to be an issue that needs to be addressed. The fact that four people died….

There were two serious breaches of the mine safety and reclamation code. Some say that the first person died because of the breach of the code, which caused the second person to perish, which caused the paramedics to perish. So in essence, there were breaches and violations which the mines inspector wrote Teck Cominco up on, breaches of the mine safety and reclamation code that created the dominoes that ended up creating the fatalities.

In many cases in British Columbia…. In my own community a sawmill worker was killed inside a hopper chute trying to unplug it. He was pinned against the side and asphyxiated. There was over a quarter-million-dollar fine levied against that mill for that one fatality.

We're seeing the EnCana issue, where WorkSafe B.C. has actually issued a fine against EnCana for the death of a young worker, Mr. Filiathro, who was on an unregistered snubbing machine — uncertified, unregistered, no manuals. He succumbed to a violent death from trapped gas in that piece of machinery.

Here we're seeing that when WorkSafe is involved, there are fines that are being levied that are supposed to be a deterrent. Here we have a case where four people perished, and there wasn't a nickel, wasn't a penny in fines that were levied against Teck Cominco. So it's no wonder, Mr. Minister, that there's some concern out there in that industry.

It's also the people that come onto those sites, such as the paramedics and the fire crews, who fall under a different governance and create confusion. We're saying bring it all together so that there's no confusion, so that everybody is reading off the same sheet, and we'll have a better standard of health and safety.

The rest of the country is starting to do it. I suggest that the minister should take back what he said and look towards putting a model together that is good for all workers in British Columbia.

Hon. K. Krueger: I don't think that the member was engaged earlier when I dealt with a very similar question to what he just offered. His recitation of the sequence of events is erroneous. I don't think that the critic wants me to repeat myself and go over those things again, so I'll ask the member to read the record of my answer to the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke.

J. Horgan: I had hoped that we would be able to spend some time on the positive indicators within this

sector. I don't believe that we'll have a lot of times for that, so I'm going to have to cut right to a series of questions that have been raised recently from the industry.

There's concern, a lack of consultation. I'm wondering, before I get to that though, could the minister advise me how many mineral mines have been brought into production in British Columbia since 2001?

Hon. K. Krueger: The critic used the term "mineral mines," and aggregate is obviously considered mineral; so are what they call industrial minerals. I think he might actually want me to focus on metal and coalmines. He's nodding. The answer is….

Hon. K. Krueger: Okay. The critic says just metal. The answer I have at the moment is nine in the last two years, counting one that's going to be announced this week, but that is metal and coal. So in a moment I'll break that down for the member.

There were no new mines between 2001 and 2005. It takes a while to go through the processes to open a mine, but we have close to two dozen that are currently in the approval processes at various stages. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated in their report yesterday that these will lead to 16,000 construction jobs and 15,000 operating jobs, and those jobs, as I know the critic knows, go on for decades, in many cases.

J. Horgan: Well, one of the challenges…. I know that Red Chris has been in the press lately. Galore Creek — we'll be touching upon that, I'm sure, as we get to other electricity issues later in the afternoon.

Come to mind, on a separate file, the Graymont lime plant and quarry in Prince George removing itself from the environmental assessment process, correspondence from the AMEBC with respect to consultation around expropriation…. I didn't think we'd be able to talk about Bill 43 today, but as the section in question has been removed from that bill, I think we're probably free to do that.

As much as the indicators…. Certainly, I read with enthusiasm, as did the minister and the Minister of Energy, as well, the report on results in 2007, and there's tremendous cause for optimism with commodity prices being where they are. But I think the canary in the coalmine, if I can use that metaphor, for this sector is when the industry starts spending a lot of time on the phone to the critic. I think that when things are going well, the critic doesn't get a sniff. When things aren't going so well, the critic gets a lot of e-mails, envelopes and phone calls.

I'm flagging this for both ministers, because I absolutely recognize the importance of a vital and vibrant mining sector to our economy in the south of the province, not just in those areas that would benefit from the direct jobs of construction and operation. But I'm hearing increasing murmurs. The uranium decision, which we can debate on its substance, is an example that's been brought to my attention of an absence of consultation, decisions made by government without a fulsome interaction with the industry.

Again, as I say, I would be interested to hear, in the time we have, the minister's rationale for the uranium announcement some weeks ago.

I'll put all of this out in the 15 minutes or the time I have available so that the minister can give it back to me, and we can get him on his way as quickly as possible.

There are challenges to go with the tremendous optimism that we read this week in the report on the industry, and I'm wondering if the minister would care to spend some time talking about those challenges. In particular, with respect to what was formerly section 32 of Bill 43, what was the extent of consultation with the industry before that legislation was brought into the House?

Hon. K. Krueger: I would welcome the advice of the Clerk on the first issue the member raised. This legislation is still, arguably, before the House. The Minister of Agriculture and Lands did announce today that that provision of Bill 43 would not be moving forward.

The Chair: Minister, it's legislation that's still before the House, and it has to be voted on. It has not been voted on, so we should direct our debate towards the estimates.

Hon. K. Krueger: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sure that's understood by the critic, and I'll happily deal with him on that after that process has been completed.

The critic asked me about umbrage that representatives of industry have taken over various matters. One that he didn't mention, and actually it was legislation that we did a year ago, is notice to surface rights holders having to be given by explorationists before they enter onto the land. That is on that gunny sack of issues that the critic has been hearing about.

We believed that that was the right thing to do. We put it in the throne speech in 2007. We've done it. We've carefully tried to deal with the difficulties that arise from that provision, but we have enacted the necessary regulations to be effective June 2, so that's this exploration season.

Free miners who have had the right in the past to go ahead and explore on people's land without notice — lots of them don't like that, and they've made it very clear. It's not as if consultation didn't happen. It did happen, but they didn't like the outcome. Nevertheless, we think that in this millennium property owners, many of whom thought mistakenly that they owned subsurface rights, expect some notice.

There has been a small but growing number of unfortunate occurrences. One involved people exploring around a children's camp, when the camp is required to have criminal record checks on all its employees and

any other adult who goes there. Others involved what looked almost like vandalism to people's property — their trees, the surface of their land — by people who claimed that they were within their rights because they were explorationists.

It's not as though anything arrived by stealth. We said in our throne speech of 2007 what we were going to do, and we've done that.

Uranium. In spite of what the critic has been told by whomever, we did consult with industry, and I was very unhappy with the results of the consultation. The Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia, the Mining Association of British Columbia, representatives of their choosing and I and some of the officials who are with me — one is with me, and I had other officials with me as well — met with the industry and told them that we contemplated making a change with regard to uranium policy. That was June of 2007.

There was not only an angry reaction, and we heard all the same negativity about a change in uranium policy that we've heard this year, but there were also people that threatened to take advantage of the knowledge that they now had with regard to their activities on the stock market. So we waited a long time to make sure that that didn't happen. I think that was a very unfortunate thing. But it is false for anyone to accuse us of not having consulted on uranium policy.

We'll be really interested…. The opposition has been quite silent on their position on uranium, except that the opposition's Whip has told me — she did it with a smile on her face, and she's a nice person, but she wasn't joking — that she's going to do all she can to take credit for the policy that we've adopted. I had never actually spoken to her about it before we took the action we did on uranium.

The issue that the member raised initially has been dealt with, as he knows, today. The Resource Road Act is the other item in that gunny sack that I don't think the member mentioned just now. We actually think it's fair that other heavy industry should share the burden of the forest industry when it comes to maintenance of roads that are jointly used. That is something the opposition may not agree with.

Certainly, there are challenges. On the other hand, look at the results. When I was sworn in on February 7 of 2007, I quickly was given a series of briefings by senior staff. It was just before Budget 2007. What they said to me was: "Minister, you have to make sure that we get the budget allocation we've asked for, because we have fewer employees than we did in 2001, and we have 30 times more work." I said: "Thirty times more work?" They said: "Yes, 30 mines. We're working on 30 mines for government, and we were only working on one before you became government."

The industry had almost been annihilated. Our major challenge — and frankly, it's industry's challenge; it's first nations' challenge — is capacity to deal with the tremendous economic activity that's flowing from mining. At any given time we have about half of all the major mining projects coming on in this whole, huge country of ours — half of them here in B.C.

We're all struggling to keep up — industry, first nations, the provincial government and the federal government, which just announced a major projects office last fall and a recognition that they were struggling to keep up. They apportioned $30 million a year for five years to deal with that issue.

So, yeah, we have challenges. Our challenges are keeping up with the opportunity while doing everything right, because we don't want to have any more environmental problems such as the ones that we've been able to start cleaning up from the past, from days when reclamation wasn't mandated or wasn't properly funded. We can do that because we not only have balanced budgets but surpluses. I wish we had time to talk about some of those success stories, but we don't.

But for every challenge, there are many accomplishments. I believe that the communities of this province that have been dependent on sawmilling from the pine forest for generations and now look at 1.9 billion dead pine trees and wonder how the families are going to survive in the communities, how the community is going to survive, are going to be able to because of mining.

The industry gives government credit for things like Geoscience B.C., which was created with a $25 million grant by our government. It is exploring for minerals that couldn't be detected under conventional exploration means but can be with high-tech equipment, which is being funded by the grants they have received. We just gave Geoscience B.C. another grant for $6 million to capitalize on the tremendous success of their QUEST program last year and now to do a QUEST West program from Vanderhoof to Terrace.

There are a lot of good things to talk about. Sure, our challenges are principally volume. Also, where in the world will we get all the people that we need? The Minister of Forests and the Minister of Economic Development have been on the record and the Premier has, as well, with regard to retraining displaced sawmill workers. We think that many of them will very naturally take to working in the mining industry.

I'll try not to be long-winded here. There are things I'd like to talk about all week.

J. Horgan: I'll say it again: Red Chris, Kemess North, Galore Creek. I didn't get a number back on those metal mines since 2001, but there are three right there that are going nowhere, as near as I can tell.

Again, I don't dispute, and I don't want to get into an ideological debate about how we went from 81 cents a pound to $3.54 a pound. I know the minister will want to take personal credit for that and the government's activities in that regard, and that's great. Gold, $363 an ounce to $926. These are all tremendous opportunities for all British Columbians, not just those in the mining sector, because of the benefits that accrue to the Crown as a result of that activity.

In an unusual circumstance, I think, in these discussions in this place, I find little to quibble with about the inherent bounty of British Columbia. But it wasn't

brought to us by the current government; it wasn't destroyed by the previous governments. It's just here. We happen to be living in a time….

J. Horgan: Well, it is. We happen to be living in a time when the value of those commodities has never been higher.

The challenge we have…. The minister has acknowledged it. He recognizes it, and the industry recognizes it. We need people, we need permits, and we need power. I'll discuss power with the Minister of Energy shortly. The people challenges are apparent to everyone, and not just this sector but other sectors.

But there's increasing concern, as I said, and that's why I'm getting phone calls and e-mails. I'm delighted to talk to these people. I've been trying to break down their doors for some time, and I'm pleased that they're now giving me the opportunity to share some of their concerns.

One of the concerns raised with me is the on-line staking process and the impact that that has had on traditional geological work. Of course, the minister raised the changes to the Mineral Tenure Act. I don't think we need to go back and discuss that. He talked about resource roads, which are before the House. We can have that debate in the other place. I look forward to that.

There are troubling signs on the horizon for the industry. I know that the minister wants to point to the positive, and I don't want to deny him that opportunity. But there are significant challenges, and I'm wondering if the minister can tell me and this committee what he and his ministry are doing to try and resolve some of those challenges, particularly in the metal sector, where I don't believe we've had any mines in production since 2001.

Hon. K. Krueger: In my zeal to answer his grab-bag of questions at one time, I overlooked that. I meant to answer that. Out of the total of nine that I gave the member, two are metal mines, five are coal mines, and two are large aggregate mines. But as I also mentioned, PricewaterhouseCoopers says 20. It's a moving target. There are more and more mines coming on stream all the time for consideration.

We have significant challenges making sure that first nations' concerns are addressed, that they're included. Many of these companies are showing leadership in the new relationship by entering into their own revenue-sharing agreements with first nations. The Osoyoos Indian band and Merritt Mining Corp. just announced one of those on Monday. We saw one of those happen in Kamloops recently, and there's a new metal mine under construction there — New Afton.

The member makes some points that have to be responded to, and I hope he'll remember that he's the one who raised them. He says, for example, what the opposition always says, which is that the success of our mining industry has to do with commodity prices. Undeniably it does. So does everyone else's mining industry across the country and around the world, but their success is not the same as ours.

We have tripled our share of exploration investment in Canada from what it was when the NDP left power — tripled the share of Canadian exploration. We had an increase…. Well, 2006 was our best year in history, with $265 million in exploration investment — the best in history. The next year, 2007, we topped it by 57 percent. Exploration around the world went up 37 percent.

Surely the member, in fairness, must think that that must have something to do with government. The industry has said many times publicly that it has a lot to do with government.

The member wants me to talk about Red Chris, Galore Creek and Kemess North. I gladly will. I think a lot of people in industry will think it's hilarious that the member presumes to challenge this government on our success with mining.

Galore Creek — a fabulous cooperation between government, the Tahltan First Nation and NovaGold, and NovaGold will tell anyone that. I was present with the CEO, Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, in Toronto when he had a press conference. He said that at every stage of the permitting process every deadline was met by both governments, and he had no quibble at all with the process.

We were all tremendously excited when Teck Cominco partnered in financially, because it was known to be a prodigiously expensive undertaking. They believed, when they started construction, that it would be $2.3 billion. As they began construction, they moved very rapidly. It was a tremendous effort. They had the largest helicopter operation other than military, as I understand it, that Canada has ever seen.

I was there in October last year. They had ramped up from early July. They had 804 people on the payroll. They had construction camps established all along the road right-of-way and at the mine itself. They told me that instead of the 1,000 people they believed they would have employed, they were going to have 1,500 by July.

In November a decision was made to put construction on hold because it was turning out to be far, far more expensive than they had anticipated. One of the reasons was that an error had been made by the engineering firm that did their feasibility study. They couldn't use their very large haul trucks to build their tailings dam, which by federal regulation has to be 275 metres high. They would have to use much smaller trucks. They would go from 12 million trucker-hours building the dam, which they had budgeted for, to 30 million, and that would take them an additional two years.

Mines always have to be concerned about how long it takes to build and get into operation and start paying off the capital. They had initially believed that they could pay it off in perhaps as little as three years at current prices, but when you're looking at an addi-

tional two years just for a tailings dam, you have to have a second look. That's what they're doing.

It is on hold. It is not a project that's been abandoned, and it never will be. The CEO of Teck Cominco, Don Lindsay, told me himself that the industry spent $3 billion exploring around the world in the previous two years, and they hadn't found anything to rival Galore Creek.

They believe — I think we all believe — that Galore Creek is going to be as large as Highland Valley copper, which still employs a thousand people after working since 1962. It made a billion dollars profit in 2006, even though it pays those top-end wages to its employees.

So Galore Creek is a success story. The fact that it's on hold has absolutely nothing to do with any failure by government.

Kemess North. Surely the member knows what the situation is at Kemess North. The company believes they have a $3.5 billion deposit, but it's not something that would necessarily be economic to mine if it wasn't for the high prices. They had a plan that they wanted to go ahead with. They would like to have been under construction by now, and they could have been, but first nations had very profound concerns about what the operators were going to do with their tailings.

The plan was to put the tailings in a lake that the first nations hold to be very spiritually significant. There was an independent panel during the environmental assessment process that recommended against that mining plan being approved. My colleagues who have statutory responsibility to make that decision and apply their signatures to it accepted the recommendation of the panel. Surely the opposition doesn't criticize them for that.

I've talked with Northgate, the company, about ideas to do the mine in a different way. I've talked to first nations a number of times. These are very tricky issues to move ahead on in a responsible way with the understanding that we have about nature, about science and about responsibilities to first nations — which were ignored for nearly 150 years, until our Premier became Premier and created the new relationship with first nations.

Red Chris had a setback in federal court. They are dealing with that, as I understand it, in the courts today, and we'll see what the outcome is. But yeah, nobody has a magic wand to make these projects go ahead. They are complex. There are many tough issues to work through, but we are working through them.

I don't think that the critic fleshed out very much the criticisms he's heard about Mineral Titles Online, but I can tell him — and I'll gladly put it on the record — that I hear from people from around the world about what a tremendous system Mineral Titles Online is.

People don't have to jump out of helicopters to uncertain landings. I've heard stories of explorationists falling through snow cornices trying to do their job in the winter. People don't have to put up fencing, pound stakes in the ground and slash trees. They can stake their claims over their personal computers from anywhere in the world. It's working tremendously well, and it's much more environmentally friendly than the old way of doing things.

There are doomsayers, and I hear them all the time. I saw a reporter this week, after the PricewaterhouseCoopers report was released yesterday, who said that the reaction from some people in the industry was like a frightened toddler wandering in a dark alley, when actually, the mining industry is the biggest, brawniest, most positive economic player on the scene.

That's how one writer put it, and I thought: I've seen some of that. It's by no means anything other than a relatively small group of people, but some people have set their hair on fire over anything that they consider to be a setback.

J. Horgan: In the Kelowna Capital News, April 8, 2008, "Lakeshore Gravel Pit Nixed," it says: "The concerns noted in the deliberations relate to the lack of sidewalks, small road shoulder area, no guarding, lack of sightlines and significant presence of recreational — parks and beach accesses — facilities along the road." So: "The chief inspector, in his deliberations, has judged that the risk to public safety outweighs the value of the resource." That was in Kelowna, a government constituency.

In Malahat–Juan de Fuca, the Dale Arden Log Hauling Ltd. application to open up another 8.3 hectares of aggregate production was met at a public meeting in my constituency by 80 people talking about sightlines, about no sidewalks, about road safety and about access to Muir Creek, a proposed protected area. They talked about kelp harvesting, new economies for the west coast of Vancouver Island and a bed-and-breakfast that had been in place for some considerable period of time.

Now faced with an increased number of trucks and pups coming out of what has become and what was initially a residential area, 70 people were speaking against a proposal to expand an existing facility — which, I am led to believe, has been in contravention of their permit a number of times since it was granted back in the 1980s.

I'm curious, because it is a bit of a crapshoot when it comes to aggregate approvals in British Columbia. Some make it; some don't. It seems to me that the good people of Kelowna, according to the quotes in this news clipping, are absolutely delighted with the outcome of the process there. But in my community, where multiple piles of correspondence… The minister would have seen them, and certainly the inspector would have seen them.

It's an actor who — I'm led to believe by the capital regional district — is in violation of some ordinances at the local zoning level, yet the government, through the inspector, issues an extension of a permit to the same

player, who does not respond to concerns by the capital regional district. This is a big deal. I mean, it's not just in my constituency.

I would suggest, and the minister would know…. I know he's going to get up and talk about the value of the resource and its importance to construction — roadbuilding in particular — and on and on. I understand all of that, Minister, and I don't want to begrudge you your moments to say those things.

But there has to be a better way to have a public process than to encourage the public to engage and have them go through tremendous amounts of work, time and resources; come to public hearings; make their case; make compelling arguments about new economies in locations like my community in Otter Point and Shirley. The Muir Creek Protection Society is absolutely apoplectic at the prospect of more aggregate production in an area that should and soon will be designated as a protected area.

If the good people of Kelowna can be successful with the Ministry of Highways stepping into the breach and saying that road safety, traffic safety, is a concern, I'm wondering in this instance if the minister can tell me why it is that sightlines, road safety, children catching the bus to school in the morning…. There are some restrictions on the new permit. In fact, there are significant restrictions on the new permit. But it doesn't seem to matter, because there are no site visits anyway.

Can the minister explain to me so that I can advise the people in my constituency and, in fact, right across British Columbia that…? When they see a notice of meeting for a gravel application in their community, is there any point at all in coming out? Will the government listen to the concerns of communities?

Hon. K. Krueger: Our process is a very, very careful process for evaluation of an application for a permit. I think that the critic knows that. Although I appreciate his attempt to inoculate against me talking about the value of the industry, I think it's important to put it on record, because he has put criticisms on record.

Depending on what's going on in the economy, British Columbians use between nine and 15 tonnes of aggregate each, per capita, per year, just maintaining and rehabilitating existing infrastructure. Yes, we need this material for roads, hospitals, schools, bridges — everything we do. And it is the least expensive construction material. The biggest user of it is government.

In some parts of the province it's in scarce supply. In other parts of the province it's plentiful. Although it's cheap, it's very heavy to transport, so you try to make sure that the resource is not sterilized close to areas that are going to be having a lot of construction.

Kelowna, the Okanagan Valley, are under tremendous pressure from construction. People's decisions in Kelowna in the past have sterilized a good deal of the resource, and it's putting pressure on neighbouring communities, especially Lake Country. We in the division probably spend an inordinate amount of our time on aggregate issues, because these concerns come up very commonly.

Every one of us lives in a clearcut. We know that. We've got a basement, because there aren't trees growing there anymore. Our basement is almost always made out of concrete, and that uses aggregate. Aggregate is sand, gravel and crushed rock, and it's a huge and burgeoning industry in British Columbia.

We get these applications, and more and more we try to put the onus on the proponent. You talk to your neighbours. You find out what the issues are. You try and find out what people's objections are and think about how you could ameliorate those, satisfy your neighbours. We put a huge amount of time into this permitting process. Some permits are refused. On others, people eventually give up on their application because they don't want to meet all the conditions.

Dealing with the Arden situation. As I understand it, this is private land divided into three lots. It's actually been a gravel site since the 1970s. There was a full public process, even though it wasn't actually required. There were 51 conditions imposed on the operator. There were several site visits during the review process by our personnel, who met with the owner twice when the permit was issued to make sure that he understands all the conditions. He'll be closely monitored, and the input of the member's constituents will be taken seriously.

The member says that he is certain that I had an accumulation of correspondence. He made sure of that by giving my direct e-mail to his constituents, I think, because I got about 50 communications directly to me, and that hardly ever happens. Nor could my system really deal with it if everybody did that.

There have not been any compliance issues found with this operator with regard to the new permit conditions. We know that people don't want to see gravel trucks in their neighbourhood and that they're fearful of dust. They don't like the idea of noise. We impose all sorts of conditions to try and deal with those things. At some sites we find the concerns of neighbours and of residents to be concerns that we can't find a solution to.

The Kelowna operation that the member started out talking about…. That road absolutely, in our view, would be unsafe as far as the many other users of the road. It's not built for the kind of heavy truck traffic we are talking about. That operator could still come back for a permit if they find an alternate way in from the other side of their property. That's probably not likely, but if they do, it won't put neighbours in danger.

We take all of these issues very seriously. The permitting process is very thorough. I thought that the critic came fairly close to suggesting that the decisions of the chief inspector of mines might be influenced by elected people. They aren't.

I had people inviting me to take credit for the outcome in Kelowna, and I told the media that that was a decision of the chief inspector of mines. I don't get involved, and if I did, I'd have to shoulder the blame

from unhappy constituents as well. But I'm no expert. He is, and so are the people who work for them. They do their job. They impose conditions; then they monitor to make sure the conditions are met.

J. Horgan: Is there a duty to consult with first nations before giving mine aggregate permits?

Hon. K. Krueger: I have been involved in some of those consultations with first nations myself. They've come to me — or proponents have — upset that first nations are consulted, and that's even on private land. My people assure me that yes, in every case first nations input is invited and that there are consultations with first nations.

J. Horgan: Will the minister confirm that the Beecher Bay band, the Pacheedaht band and the T'sou-ke Nation were consulted before this permit was issued?

Hon. K. Krueger: The Pacheedaht and the Te'mexw First Nations were consulted, and my people believe that those designations include the other first nation that the member named.

J. Horgan: That consultation — what did it consist of? Was it correspondence? Was it visits? Was it a telephone call?

Hon. K. Krueger: The consultation was by correspondence in this case, and that is routine with private land consultations.

J. Horgan: Would the minister provide me with copies of the responses from those first nations?

Hon. K. Krueger: We're not sure that there were responses, but if there were and if the first nations consent to it, we would release that correspondence.

J. Horgan: Well, I had a discussion yesterday with the Minister of Aboriginal Relations in the truncated estimates process for that ministry. We talked about a duty to consult and accommodate on issues right across British Columbia. As a former Forests Minister who had, in the quote from the Supreme Court, dishonoured the Crown in a deletion of a tree farm licence in 2004, he is acutely aware of the responsibilities and obligations — not just as the minister now, but from a previous interaction with the courts.

For the minister to stand and tell me that consultation took place is fair enough. Letters were sent. Capacity is the challenge. The minister knows this, and certainly, the Minister of Energy knows that capacity within various bands is uneven at best.

Is the minister saying that letters were sent and we don't know if there were answers? We don't know if the first nations received that correspondence? Was it registered mail? Was there a read receipt on an e-mail?

Hon. K. Krueger: My staff assure me that letters were sent. They are unaware of responses. I hear from first nations — and I talked about it earlier — that they do have capacity issues. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did not write a letter on an application involving private land.

Capacity is an issue for all of us. Government is moving to try and streamline the processes to make consultation less onerous for first nations. We will review the file, and we'll get back to you on these questions.

The member had expressed an urgency in getting through the Mining estimates. We've spent a lot of time on one application. I recognize that it's his own constituents, and I'd do the same thing if I was in his shoes. But I really don't have anything more to tell him right now except that we will review our file and advise the member of what's pertinent.

J. Horgan: Certainly, the Arden pit is in my constituency. I have many, many — in fact, 100-plus — constituents living in a rural community on the west coast of Vancouver Island that are profoundly unhappy that what had been….

We talked in estimates last year about violations of the previous permit with respect to the Arden pit, so I use this as a symbol and as an example of the aggregate sector right across the province. I've spoken with the member from Mission who has been working on the Fraser Valley pilot.

It's not confined to my constituency. It's a big, big problem — not just for us as elected representatives, but for the people in the communities that we represent. For people to come out in large numbers, to do massive amounts of research, to do land title searches, to explore alternative economic activities in their community, and to have someone who has — I'm advised — not lived up to the spirit and intent of the initial permit to be granted a second and additional permits on larger pieces of land…. It is disheartening, at best, for constituents who take government at face value.

I am speaking as the critic, and I'm speaking as the MLA for this particular area, but a recent public opinion survey put us down well below lawyers in terms of public sympathy for the activities we undertake. It's in no small measure a result of decisions like the Arden gravel decision, where people came out in good conscience and expressed their concerns, and there were very, very few people that weren't being paid to say it was a good idea at the meeting.

Representatives from the ministry were there. You can review the tapes of the discussions. There were very positive ideas put forward — people trying to find ways to make money on the west coast of the Island. It's a long way away from here as the crow flies. It's even further if you try to drive there on the West Coast Road.

The Ministry of Transportation advises me that they have significant concerns about sightlines. The school bus stops right in front of where this pit is going to be.

I guess, as I look at the clock, we want to move on. But I can't impress enough upon the minister that we all are suffering, certainly those in rural communities that have aggregate deposits, from a process that's not rigorous enough with respect to the public participation.

If you're not going to listen to people, don't invite them. Just issue the permit, and then let the chips fall where they may. If you're going to genuinely listen to people and consult with people, you don't just send them a letter. If the first nations on the west coast of the Island have a genuine concern, if they don't have the capacity to get back to you, it's too late. This permit was issued in March. The public meeting — it's not a hearing — took place in December. When did the letter go out? What did you ask them to consult about? Was there an accommodation?

I know that it's not the minister's responsibility, nor is it staff's in the Mines branch, but these very same people have had the Western Forest Products' private land deletion visited upon them as well. They were going about their business blissfully as citizens of British Columbia, assuming that the neighbourhood they lived in was a rural area that had resource lands dedicated to forestry — that are now going to become real estate lands.

They thought that a bad actor was going to finish up his process. He was going to close his pit. That permit would expire, and the end of…. Aggregate collection at the mouth of Muir Creek would stop. Instead seven hectares of land has now been opened up for more production.

The people in my community are profoundly unhappy, and they're not alone. I have members in the North Coast, in Powell River and in the Interior — all concerned — who have asked to speak, but we don't have the time. The minister can repeat it if he wants to put it on the record, but we understand the value of the commodity.

As I said to someone in the restaurant today, if industry is going to have to pay a premium to get the product from a distance farther than a subdivision or a rural community, that's going to be put into the cost of whatever it is they're doing anyway. So it's passed on to the customer — whether it be government, whether it be real estate, whether it be construction — and to try and get the cheapest product possible at the expense of communities, in my opinion, is wrong.

I would hope that the minister…. We have been on this for a couple of years now, since he was sworn in. In fact, the previous minister and I engaged in this discussion not three years ago. So it's a big deal. I'm not doing it just because it's my backyard. I hear it from everyone. The minister hears it from his colleagues as well. It's a problem. I would suggest that it might be useful for us to come up with a solution to what has become quite a challenge for people in our communities.

Hon. K. Krueger: My understanding is that this operation has been a gravel site for over 30 years. Two of the neighbours who are unhappy with the operation actually purchased their property from this operator and, obviously, knew that it was an industrial site and had been used for a long time. I sympathize with them, as I genuinely do with a lot of the people that I hear from.

I get vociferous complaints from one site in the Okanagan where the people actually live in a reclaimed gravel pit, and they don't like to see gravel pits near them. Aggregate is a necessary thing, and it's very blithe for the opposition to say, as the member for Skeena said one day: "Ah, just pass all the costs on to industry. They've got to do business anyway." Well, that certainly drives up the cost of people's housing, of construction, of infrastructure for government. It also puts a lot of wear and tear on public roadways, and that has to be paid for somehow.

I am told that some of the residents in the area declared a park on private property and just started calling it a park, when it is actually somebody else's property. People like to see everything left in its natural state around them, many times, but the very place they live in is not in its natural state. There is growth, and these things have to be worked out between people.

It's completely unfair to suggest that the public process and the process itself did not have any result. There were 51 conditions imposed on the operator. That is onerous. He's being monitored. The inspectors went and checked for compliance on April 24 and May 12 and didn't find any violations, any non-compliance, on those conditions.

I urge the member to be fair to the civil service — they're doing their jobs — and also to the operator. He had a pre-existing operation. I don't know how many of the constituents that the critic and I have heard from have been there longer than 30 years, but if not, then obviously they knew what was there when they decided that they were going to take up residence.

J. Horgan: Just to round this out, then, and I'll send the minister on his way. I don't mean to besmirch his staff. I know he wasn't suggesting that. I know that it's a tough job.

But the results seem to be consistently in favour of the applicant and against the community. Probability tells me that that shouldn't happen as regularly as it does. That tells me, then, that the process that our public servants are forced to comply with has some deficiencies in it with respect to community participation.

It's not that they're not doing what they're supposed to do. I'm not suggesting that at all, and the minister isn't suggesting I said that. I'm saying that it's not working effectively for communities. We need to find some way to amend the process so that if people are going to dial in and engage in public debate…. We all want to encourage that, whether it be on these issues or other public policy issues. I think that makes for a vibrant democracy. But people are dialling out or tuning out of our processes in huge numbers, and the minister

knows this. This is the sort of thing that feeds the cynicism of: "Why should I bother?"

I guess I don't begrudge Mr. Arden his ability to make a couple of bucks, but it is right on the coast. It's on the beach. It's at the mouth of a creek that is at the headwaters, as drinking water for the community. It's industrial activity that's continuing beyond what had been contemplated 30 years ago.

Thirty years ago it wasn't an industrial operation to the scale and extent that it will be as a result of this permit. It was a small operation. You dig up a bit of rock. You move it around. You send it to a buddy. You fill up a truck. That's fine. It's a lot more than that now. The roadway, I don't believe, will take it.

As I say, I have discussed this with the Ministry of Transportation. I know they're part of the process. They don't have a veto — maybe they shouldn't have a veto — but they appeared to have something to say in Kelowna that had weight, and it didn't have the same weight on Vancouver Island. That's the contradiction I wanted to bring to the minister's attention.

Hon. K. Krueger: I have no burning desire to have the last word, but I do want to make it clear on the record that the Kelowna permit was denied because there was no way to impose conditions that would satisfy the concerns that the experts had with that site. In this case, a lot of conditions were imposed, and that's why the decision was made as it was.

As far as economic activity in this province, if nothing was allowed to proceed unless there were no objections from anyone, very little would be happening. We would have a very sad economy. We're doing our best. We welcome public input. We are very genuine about our public input processes. The critic has raised some examples where that ended up in the project not being allowed, and others where projects have been allowed with conditions.

I want to thank the critic and the members opposite and, certainly, all of the staff who joined me today and who work so hard for the people of British Columbia, every day. Thank you, everybody.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'd just like to introduce people that are with me. With B.C. Transmission Corporation, Doug Little, VP of customer and strategy development; Bruce Barrett, VP of major projects; Janet Woodruff, VP of corporate services; Les MacLaren, with the ministry; and, of course, the deputy minister, Greg Reimer.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister, and I welcome him back. Also, welcome to the staff from B.C. Transmission Corporation.

My colleague from Delta North is going to be asking some questions. He has just has some issues to resolve in the chamber with respect to the crossing to Vancouver Island and the cable.

Before we get to that, I wonder if the minister could just, for my edification…. We've heard a large number being bandied about with respect to the cost of upgrades to the transmission system. Perhaps if the minister has an opportunity to give us an overview of the capital costs and what the major projects are that we can see from BCTC in the next three years.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Sorry about taking some time. I show that the ten-year total, fiscal '09 to fiscal 2018, is $5.1 billion. That's comprised of, for instance, the Interior–Lower Mainland; upgrading that line is $584 million. Just growth in tying in systems across the province and improving systems…. For instance, the Tsawwassen transmission line over to Vancouver Island — would be a further almost $3 billion. Just to sustain is $1.4 billion.

I assume that when they say "sustain" — and I'm just going to explain this on my own; I think I'm right — that means upgrading the system across the whole province of British Columbia and would include smaller projects that are across the province where there has to be some form of upgrade to maintain the system. So that's just a pretty high-level report.

J. Horgan: My sense was that the $5.1 billion figure, a ten-year capital plan, was replacing virtually the entire system, certainly up to the Peace and to the Columbia. It doesn't necessarily include, you know, things that come along, whether it be failure on the Island from Campbell River south or anything like that.

This is major capital on the two primary systems down through the bridge — Columbia and Peace? Basically, hooking up the bridge system, the Columbia system and the Peace, and meeting us down in the Lower Mainland — that's the $5 billion over the ten-year time frame?

The focus of the question is the numbers out in the public mind. We've got to completely refurbish our transmission system. Of course, we do have to upgrade to meet increased load demand on those wires, but it's not as if we're…. I don't want to leave the public with the impression that we've got a failing transmission system. We've got a significant capital project here. It's a big number. I'm wondering if you could just walk us through why we're doing it and what the priorities are.

Hon. R. Neufeld: The member is correct. We don't have a failing system. In fact, we've got a very good system in the province. I know that we are all proud of the system that we have in British Columbia, but some of the system that was built decades ago obviously needs some upgrading. It's similar to anything else. After you drive a car for a lot of miles, you need to do some work on it. There are necessary things that have to be done.

I just asked what an estimate would be for the whole transmission system, and we kind of took them by surprise. They're not exactly sure, but it's probably $30 billion to $40 billion. So it's a huge amount of money that's invested by the ratepayers across the province.

This is to upgrade some of those systems across the province. I know that in the northeast they had to upgrade some lines to actually service areas that were growing relatively fast and needed three-phase power, the Interior–Lower Mainland, to bring the load from the Columbia system back into the Lower Mainland, where most of the electricity will be used. That's to help compensate for the new generation that's going to go in Revelstoke and Mica. And also Columbia Power Corporation is bringing plants on line — Brilliant — and is looking at building Waneta and those kind of things.

I'm sure the member will have questions about that later on. It's about upgrading the lines to Vancouver Island that have reached the end of their lives — the subsea cables that we'll discuss a little bit later, those kinds of things — and also tying in new generation that we're experiencing around the province of British Columbia, to start meeting our load growth.

J. Horgan: I know that the Burrard Thermal plant, even when it's not generating electricity, is an integral part of the system. Could the minister explain? Again, I put this out there because the plant hasn't been running for a number of years. It's the backup generator.

If we get into strife we can fire it up and find offsets for any of the GHG issues. I believe the particulate challenges were partly remediated in the '90s. But just for the public's benefit — because I know there are many, many people on the Lower Mainland who believe that Burrard Thermal should be mothballed — I'm wondering if the minister could explain what impact the mothballing of Burrard would have on the transmission system in terms of its stabilizing effect.

Hon. R. Neufeld: The Burrard plant is — the member is correct — in the Lower Mainland. Half of Burrard is ready, almost at a moment's notice, to actually fire up and run, in case something happens to the system. In fact, there have been a few times when they've had to fire it up, especially on some really cold days. When it's cold in the Lower Mainland, you can bet it's cold in the rest of the province. It has been used for backup for those purposes.

Also, it's generally cold a little bit south of us. It's not readily accessible electricity to get from the U.S. or from Alberta, because they would be experiencing the same thing.

Burrard is in the process of being reviewed by B.C. Hydro. As we speak, the B.C. Utilities Commission, I believe, is reviewing what it could actually be in the stack of B.C. Hydro, as to how much it could generate. It's been there for, I believe, 6,000 gigawatt hours a year, but never in its life has it ever generated that. Everyone knows that.

Being old technology from the '60s, the…. I think B.C. Hydro has now approached the B.C. Utilities Commission about actually lowering it from 6,000 gigawatt hours to 3,000, which is probably a little bit more realistic. In fact, that's probably…. If you look at this historic generation of Burrard Thermal — other than maybe a little crisis in California; it might have hit a little bit, peaked, higher than that — it generally has been below that right from the beginning.

In 2014 there will be a review by the Crown of whether they should keep Burrard Thermal in place at all or what they should do with it. I'm not going to try to expand on what they think they might do with Burrard at that time.

J. Horgan: My question was more about the stabilizing effect to the transmission system. I partially understand it. I know the ADM knows it very, very well, and he has told me 15 times. It didn't stick. I'm wondering if it stuck with you and if you can explain it to me.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm sorry. I forgot that part of the question. But it does provide voltage support. They call it VAR. The engineers can explain that process to you, how that takes place. There is a constant need to keep the facility there to actually provide that support.

J. Horgan: That was the point I wanted to make. I also want to say how much I enjoyed saying "the ADM" there. I enjoyed that very much.

My next question with respect to the BCTC is: have they been tracking the costs of hooking up independent power producers to the grid? Is the additional cost part of contracts, or is that an additional cost to the Crown?

Hon. R. Neufeld: In BCTC's…. In the numbers that I had quoted before, to tie in all new generation across the province was $934 million. That is comprised of…. Let me back up a bit. The IPP would have to build their own transmission from their site to the transmission line, wherever it's the closest. To upgrade those transmission lines across the province to be able to handle that new electricity — it's for the benefit of all of us — is the cost that is incurred by BCTC.

There was $100 million for connections for generation prior to the 2006 B.C. Hydro call for tenure, and $200 million for generation-awarded contracts in the 2006 B.C. Hydro call for tender — so that would be after the call for tender.

J. Horgan: That $300 million is included in the $934 million figure? I'm getting a nod for that. Okay.

I get the minister's point that whether this is public power or private power, the cost of hooking into the system is the same. There's no difference. The cost is the cost. Those generating facilities that are a long way off the track…. Their getting from the powerhouse to the system — that's their cost. The hookup cost is absorbed by BCTC. Is that part of the contract process with the IPPs?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Just in case I misunderstand the member's question, the IPP would be responsible to tie their generation into the transmission system. It then becomes a responsibility of the whole system to actually upgrade the system to be able to handle that. So the member is entirely correct. Regardless of who builds the project, you still need to actually develop the transmission system to be able to handle it.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister for that. Before my colleague from Delta North brings up some issues around Tsawwassen, I'm wondering if staff could…. With the upgrades that are contemplated in the capital plan, will that reduce the energy lost in transmission to the system? I understand that it's about 40 percent. Is that number correct?

First of all, what's the loss to the system today, and what will the benefit be of those capital improvements? How will we reduce our energy loss?

Hon. R. Neufeld: The Transmission Corporation is doing a comprehensive loss study to find out where they can reduce the loss. The loss is actually an average on the whole system of 5 to 7 percent. That's significant when you think about all the electricity that we have going through those lines.

There are things that are done differently today in transmission that, as I'm told by the engineers, anyhow, help to save more electricity and actually transmit it instead of losing it. The folks tell me that, for instance, in the Interior–Lower Mainland, ILM, because of the technology that will be used in that process today compared to the older lines, you will actually see a saving of 90 megawatts just in that one system alone. I know that in other places in the province they've told me that they're putting in a lot different technology to see if they can't minimize the loss.

The other thing is that the new control centre will actually help them move electricity in a much better fashion than what we had in the old control centre. It's a remarkable system that we have, and it's updated to today's unbelievable technology that's there. I've had an opportunity to tour it. Not that I would say that I understand it, but when he explained it to me, it was remarkable what they're doing in trying to figure out how they reduce the losses and actually move electricity in the best way that we possibly can in the province to reach everyone and in the end save the ratepayers money.

J. Horgan: I just want to make a comment. I know I shouldn't be wasting the precious time, but I visited Peace Canyon, and the operating room there is filled with the old dialling phones. I know that's one of the projects in the safety audit that I reviewed from some FOI'd board minutes. It was one of the higher priorities in the system, and I can see why. With the technologies we have today, with our kids being able to run circles around us, it was pretty strange to see a telephone with a dial and a wire.

G. Gentner: It sort of gives me memories of what the meaning of heritage power is for Hydro. Unfortunately, there haven't been those types of improvements. It's unfortunate, too, that…. The minister just made a mention of a loss of 5 to 7 percent of energy on transmission lines. If there's a real conservation effort, it would bring into perspective some of the problems we're now witnessing in Delta.

Right to the quick: why did the ministry, in particular the BCTC, misrepresent the people of Delta when the minister had sent them a letter prior to the last election stating that the overhead route through Tsawwassen had been abandoned in favour of burying or rerouting the power lines?

Hon. R. Neufeld: First, the member said the ministry and BCTC. I don't think the member meant to include BCTC, but it's interesting if he did. There was no misrepresentation, and maybe I could ask the member to further ask the question a little bit more to explain to me what he means by misleading?

G. Gentner: I'd be very happy to. I said "misrepresent," and I quote from the minister to Delta Optimists, February 9, 2005: "What I committed to residents is to look at all the other alternatives, that they" — namely, BCTC — "better study them to see not only how they can actually complete the task but how it least impacts residents."

In the Province in 2005 the minister was stated as saying: "We have to find the best route that has the least impact on human beings."

In a letter to the residents concern on March 24, 2005: "With the consultation process completed, the BCTC has decided it will not construct new overhead 230 kilovolt lines on the four kilometre section of the existing right of way in Tsawwassen. The BCTC welcomes input from communities and individuals in regards to this project, and I encourage you to keep in touch with them as they develop a new route."

Of course, from the member for Delta South, this is an e-mail from Maureen Broadfoot, who was an advocate on behalf of TRAHVOL. She stated that the member for Delta South "spoke with the minister yesterday in Victoria. He stands by his e-mail to you on April 1 that 230-kilovolt overhead lines will not be constructed along the four-kilometre section of the existing right-of-way in Tsawwassen."

I can go on and on with more examples of where the minister has made a statement back then, before the election. I also have some correspondence here from Michael Costello, then president-CEO of BCTC, regarding this matter.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm glad to put on the record for the member what actually transpired.

The discussions around the lines through Tsawwassen began in 2003-2004. I met with TRAHVOL in Tsawwassen on February 1, 2005. I mean, I met with the people —

not on February 1 — and they asked at that time if we would look at some other routes. BCTC had already identified some other routes that had not gone before the B.C. Utilities Commission yet. I said, "We will look at that," and they actually asked me if we'd put it underground — the people in Tsawwassen, TRAHVOL.

So I wrote the letter to the people, and the BCTC went to the Utilities Commission in the following year with a proposal. Their number one proposal that they put forward to the Utilities Commission was to go underground. Now, that was a cut-and-cover project, six feet or so, I believe, below surface. They would have to go in the backyards, down the right-of-way and dig a trench and put in, I believe, cement caissons — yeah, to be able to run the wires in there.

That's what BCTC went to the Utilities Commission with. That's what TRAHVOL actually asked me to do — to put it underground. I believe it was more expensive at the time, but BCTC went with that proposal to the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Now, let's be very clear here. The ministry does not make the decisions unless you elect to actually give a direction. The B.C. Utilities Commission actually makes the decision on this process.

When they began, and I'll just read into the record some of the discussion at the B.C. Utilities Commission…. It's a quasi-judicial body. Everything is recorded verbatim, the same as it is in the House.

The member, Miss Broadfoot, representing TRAHVOL, when being examined, said…. I'll read the question to her from Mr. Carpenter. "Let me just, before I come to the next point…. After the formation of TRAHVOL, it would be fair to say that TRAHVOL pursued its interests fairly vigorously, in terms of doing what it could to attempt to make sure that there were not either overhead or underground lines installed along the right-of-way in Tsawwassen. Is that correct?" Miss Broadfoot: "Correct."

Then, additionally, in discussions, the question was asked again. The person representing TRAHVOL said: "But in any event, let there be no mistake that our clients object not only to the construction of new lines overhead but also underground. As well, in light of everything we know, TRAHVOL objects to any existing high-voltage lines over their property. Hence, we have a complaint before the commission."

They were very clear with the commission. BCTC has the rights to go overhead; BCTC does not have the rights to go underground. So they would have to acquire those rights from the landowners on that section through there. They were firmly told that there is no way they would ever get the rights to underground.

At the end of the day, the BCUC — the B.C. Utilities Commission — makes those decisions in light of all the information that comes forward. There were hundreds and hundreds of presentations made to the B.C. Utilities Commission. I can only assume…. I've never talked to the commissioner about this. I don't talk to the commission. In fact, since he's been appointed I've never talked to the commissioner about anything, because I don't think it's right for me to do that.

The commission, in their wisdom, said: "You don't have the rights to go underground." You would have to expropriate those rights to go underground. I can only assume, in the best interest of meeting a time line to actually have those lines constructed, that you'd need to go overhead. That decision was made very clear by the Utilities Commission, not by the government and not by BCTC. That's what BCTC is carrying out.

G. Gentner: Well, the minister didn't deny the fact that he was quoted in the Vancouver Province: "We have to find the best route that has the least impact on human beings." That was the position before the election, and now we hear the rigmarole — with all due respect, a little bit of doublespeak here — as to the fact that the citizens had to go through this maze of bureaucracy and commissions in order to get something done and then they're told, of course: "Heaven forbid. You didn't ask to go underground enough."

Now, CTV quoted the minister last Saturday night as having said that the original plan of B.C. Hydro and BCTC was to underground the lines through Tsawwassen, but apparently, this was refused by the residents — we just heard the minister say that — because they would not be buried deep enough to ensure safety for persons living near or standing or walking over the lines.

So my question is a simple one: why did the minister not demand that the BCTC bury the lines deep enough, in a manner which will guarantee no harm to persons passing over and living near the lines? Why would not the minister and/or the BCTC engage in a consultative process with the residents to try and do this?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Coming from a member talking about doublespeak…. I mean, my goodness, I'm firmly on the record, and I haven't changed my opinion about this at all. It's the NDP that have been all over the map on this project. They haven't been able to actually come up with a firm position one way or the other on the project at all, and they want to come in here and say that other people are doublespeaking. I stand by….

Hon. R. Neufeld: I stand by what I said. I think that if the member were to even try to be rational, even try to think through it just a little bit, he could understand what's taking place here. I can tell you that the critic for your party certainly understands it and is on record as saying that the process is moving forward. We need electricity on Vancouver Island. The process was fair. It went through an environmental assessment process. It faced three court challenges.

Hon. R. Neufeld: The member thinks it might go through a couple more. I don't know. It may go through a couple more. I'm not sure.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Okay, I qualify that. You did say just some of that, but you did say that the project was going to move ahead and that the BCUC had made a decision. And they had. There's no doublespeak here at all. If there's anything that's mischievous, it's what the member is trying to put on the record here. I think I've put on the record very clearly what took place initially.

There's a need. Those cables are actually being decommissioned this fall. There's a need to tie that electricity in by October. We've tried many things to actually work with the residents of Tsawwassen. The member may not know it, but there are quite a few people in Tsawwassen along the right-of-way that are working with the BCTC cooperatively on this project. I think the BCTC went with at least seven different routes. The B.C. Utilities Commission actually makes that decision.

I'll maybe get just a touch political here. I know that the member may not like what the B.C. Utilities Commission makes decisions about. Maybe if that member were in government, he'd like to make another directive to the B.C. Utilities Commission. It was commonplace in the 1990s that you made those decisions behind closed doors in the cabinet room, to actually circumvent the process.

Actually, there is an environmental assessment process, and there's a B.C. Utilities Commission process. There are refunds made to those people that present to the Utilities Commission — and, in fact, in substantial amounts. So the public can actually be heard. That's exactly the way you do it, and you have to do it in a quasi-judicial fashion, which is the way the B.C. Utilities Commission works.

J. Horgan: Now I'd just like to move along up the coast to Highway 37. The minister was here when I was discussing some of the challenges of the proposed mines in and around the northwest — Galore Creek, Red Chris. I didn't mention Shaft Creek. I don't know if there are any problems there.

One of the motivations for discussion in the northwest around the electrification of Highway 37 has been the positive prospects for mining development in the region. I don't know if we want to get into too much discussion about whether these mines are going to come on stream or not.

I do know that in my discussions with the Tahltan Nation, they are certainly supportive of a mine or maybe two mines to supplement those jobs that will be lost when Eskay Creek shuts down. But certainly, I have heard no one from the Tahltan Nation say that they are desirous of multiple minesites in and around their territory.

One of the motivations for the electrification, of course, was to feed these industrial sites. Can the minister advise me what the current state of play is? He, for the record, could maybe explain his decision to step back from the negotiations with the private sector on assisting BCTC in paying for this line. Could he give us an update on what the current state of play is on that?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Yes, I'd be happy to. We had worked for a long time with the proponents of the Galore Creek mine. NovaGold first — and then Galore Creek, obviously — was a project that had some significant support in the northwest and with the first nations in that area. The company had done a lot of work on gaining that support. At the time, the mine was contemplating spending about $158 million on their own transmission line to pick up at Stewart, at the junction of the road into Stewart — that is, Meziadin Junction.

We approached the company to say: "Look, there are other mines along the route." We have had discussions with the Tahltan too, so the member is aware of that. "There are other mines in that area that may require electricity. Why don't we work together on this? I mean, your $158 million that you're going to spend…. Why don't we look at putting into place a 287-kilovolt line and actually tie that right back into Terrace, because that's where it would have to come out of. At some point you'd have to tie into Terrace and bring that line forward."

That was estimated to be a cost of about $400 million at the time. So Galore Creek agreed to fund, I believe, $158 million of that $400 million. That was their avoided cost. We had an agreement with them that we would move forward with that to meet their construction schedule of a mine.

In the interim, I guess, internally in Galore Creek they decided to do a review of their costs — of whatever their capital costs were to bring that mine on stream — and found out, at least from what I understand, that those costs had almost doubled or had doubled. The company said: "Just a minute. We have to stop and have a look at these costs again before we move forward."

As minister responsible, I said that now that we don't have a private sector partner…. I think the member would agree with me. In fact, I believe he's on record someplace as saying that it should be partly funded by industry, to build that kind of an extension.

So we as government said that we would put on hold the building of that line until there was significant interest from someone, either the same partners or other partners, that would come forward with dollars, that would actually say: "Yes, here we have…. Government on behalf of the taxpayers or the ratepayers, you have a quarter of a billion dollars on the table; we will actually match into that with about $158 million to make sure that the line is built to their project."

That's basically where it stands. The offer is still there. It's still on the table. We still await those people, such as Galore Creek or others, to come forward to say that they have the financing to do that.

J. Horgan: Well, I was at a meeting with the minister at the roundup in January, and concerned citizens from the northwest…. I know my colleagues from Skeena and North Coast, the MLAs for that area, are very concerned about employment prospects in the communities but also concerned that Hydro ratepayers not be unnecessarily burdened by this clear benefit to industry.

I'm wondering. If we have an approximate capital cost of $400 million for a 287-kilovolt line, what would the capital cost be for a 138-kilovolt line, and would that be sufficient to service Galore Creek?

Hon. R. Neufeld: That was the position we were in to start with. Maybe I didn't explain it well enough. When we first started talking to the other mines that thought they might want to open their mines in that part of the province, there was actually a requirement for a lot more power than what a 138-kilovolt line could build. So a 138-kilovolt line from Galore Creek back to Meziadin Junction at that time was estimated to be $158 million.

When I say their avoided costs, they were going to expend that kind of money to build that kind of a line, and we said: "Why don't you just expend it with BCTC, and we'll build a bigger line? As others tie onto the line, we can actually recover some more of those costs from other mines to help defray the cost for the ratepayers."

J. Horgan: Well, I guess we go from a $158 million capital cost that NovaGold was going to absorb themselves to a $400 million process that is going to assist other industrial activities in the area — $400 million to service others. Who else was coming to the table? I guess that's my question.

I'm not as intimate with these issues as is the minister or the members for the area. My understanding was that the 138-kilovolt line was sufficient for the one project, which was the one that had the endorsement of the Tahltan, but that increasing to 287 kilovolts to service other mines did not get so much enthusiasm from the Tahltan. I'm wondering how much of that differential between the $400 million and the $158 million is going to be the responsibility of ratepayers. Who else is coming to the table, I guess, besides Teck and NovaGold, to offset the capital costs?

Hon. R. Neufeld: There were a number of others. I'll just list a couple. Shaft Creek was one that could have tied into the system. There was a possibility for independent power producers to actually generate electricity in the area and put electricity into that line. Red Chris was another one.

The other great part about building the line was that, along with that cost of $400 million, we would have brought grid electricity into a number of communities along Highway 37, which would have eliminated much of the diesel generation that takes place in Bob Quinn, Iskut and Eddontenajon. All of those small places that have for a long period of time generated their own electricity using diesel fuel would have had the opportunity that many of the rest of us do today to have electricity off the grid.

J. Horgan: So Schaft Creek is a Teck Cominco project, and they're now partnered with Galore Creek. It's just down the road. I mean, I know the geography there is not just down the road. It's not that simple, but proximity is reasonable. Red Chris is closer to Iskut — a longer distance. There is the benefit of hooking up those citizens to the grid. I understand that, but there are very, very few people there. That's not to say that we want them to continue using dirty fossil fuels to generate their electricity, but….

Did Red Chris and Shaft Creek come to the table with dollars, or are they just coming to the table with load demands?

Hon. R. Neufeld: If they wanted to hook onto the line, they would have to come with dollars, not just load forecast.

J. Horgan: That's one of my concerns, with respect to our desire to become self-sufficient. We canvassed that this morning, I think fairly clearly, and both of us will have our chance to wrap up on that closer to 6:30.

But the load demands for these projects are significant. So obviously if we're putting in the transmission infrastructure to facilitate that industrial activity, we're going to have to find the electricity somewhere. Because we're committed, by statute now, to self-sufficiency by 2016, where are we going to get the 500,000…? I could be using megawatts here. I'm sure I should be using kilowatts. I'm looking to the ADM. He's not helping me out here. Maybe after May 12 he'll help me out.

A lot of load demand for each one of these industrial activities. Where are we going to get that energy once we've got the line in place?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Those are the good things about what's happening in the province. I don't know. Maybe the member is saying: "We should just stay stagnant. We shouldn't actually have any load increase. We shouldn't use more electricity. We should actually just have an economy that's very quiet."

It's a little different than the way we look at it. That's why some 400,000 jobs were created in the province. That's why this is the chosen province to invest in, because people think they can come here, create jobs, make an investment and actually have that investment

pay off. When you do that, of course you're going to use more electricity. It's not just by immaculate conception. You have to generate it. You have to go out on the land base and figure out some way of generating that electricity.

We can't…. I mean, we're net importers now. We need to look to the future. The future in this province is bright. It is very bright.

I'll give some credit to the member. Earlier he talked about the price of commodities being up. I've never been shy to say commodities play a huge part in what happens on the land base, whether it's oil and gas or minerals or all of those kinds of things. That's actually what drives a good part of the investment, but you also need an investment infrastructure that people can feel comfortable in building in so that they have that electricity.

But your member for…. I'm going to be corrected here. It's either North Coast or Skeena, one of the two.

I just want to do a little…. I had some quotes thrown back at me earlier. I'll just read this one. This is the member for Skeena. It says: "Going back to Galore Creek, I think it's an interesting project because this is one that's been supported by the first nations — by the Tahltan, who live in that territory — and also by the environmental non-governmental organizations who have come forward in support of the Galore Creek. There are, of course, many deposits, as other members here have alluded to, in northwest B.C. Many of them were discovered in the '50s and '60s, and certainly now it's an economically feasible time for them to go forward."

So that tells me that, actually, every once in a while, there's a bit of a pearl of wisdom that comes out of debate in the House — from both sides of the House, by the way. That's one that I totally agree with. It's economically viable. Why wouldn't we go ahead and do it? Does that mean we have to build new generation? Exactly.

If we want to stay flat…. That's not what this government is going to do with the province of British Columbia. We want to move forward, employ people and keep the unemployment rate at about 4.2 percent, where it is today. It's an historic number that's never been hit before.

J. Horgan: I don't disagree overly much with the minister on this issue. Where we divide, unfortunately, is that we have.… Again, I gave the energy plan a B for its conservation initiatives, and I'll never be able to live that down. Nonetheless, 50 percent of new load from conservation is an admirable goal, and I support it wholeheartedly. But two mines wipe out all of those compact fluorescents and all of the weatherstripping you're going to find anywhere just by their being and the load that would be required to service that activity.

I think we need to have some balance. The Tahltan people, who have lived for a millennia in the northwest, recognize that they want activity in their community that will support employment. They believe that one mine will do the trick. When that one is finished, they'd like to have another.

It's that thinking of the people in the northwest that I believe the member for Skeena was referring to — that sustainable development in its truest sense is just that. And the people in the community can sustain…. Well, they can sustain Galore Creek. They're not sure they can sustain Galore Creek, Schaft Creek, Red Chris and on and on. If we're just going to be shipping in workers from northern Alberta or from the Maritimes or from Southeast Asia, then what's the benefit to the people in that community who have been there for millennia?

I've said on record, and the minister knows that, that I support the electrification to the extent that it provides employment for the people in the community. It doesn't mean airlifts of foreign workers or workers from other communities coming in to do two weeks' work and all of the social upheaval that that involves. Again, if these other proponents, these other industrial activities are going to be ponying up some money, my concern is that BCTC becomes a clearing house to expedite new load demand on a system that the minister has already said is challenged.

I appreciate that we're not going to stay flat. I appreciate that we're going to be growing, whether in the residential sector or the industrial or commercial sector, in terms of the rates, but we've got low-cost power for industry, and we've got increasingly high-cost power for residential users. We're telling residential users to stick some lightbulbs in and to change their evil ways, unplug their computers and on and on.

That's all good, but all of that action, all of that public activity will be lost with two more mines in the northwest.

Hon. R. Neufeld: It's interesting to hear my critic talk about: "Well, if you put on two mines, it actually eliminates all the good things that people are doing to conserve energy." Of course there is going to be load growth, and of course we should have conservation, and of course we should be advocating it. Each and every one of us in this House should be advocating conservation. The first thing in the energy plan that we had was conservation, and we should continue to do that.

I don't know if the member is advocating that we shouldn't do conservation — just forget conservation and build new generation to meet the new load growth? That's the flip side of what the member said. I think, and this government thinks, that conservation is very important. We think that we can — and B.C. Hydro thinks that they can — actually conserve up to 50

percent of what our new incremental supply will be going forward. If they can do that, we should have that target, and we should all be happy to try and meet that target in the best possible way that we possibly can across the province.

If we can conserve energy, regardless of whether it's electricity or oil and gas or forestry or whatever, we should be trying to do that. The energy plan, as I stated first off, is conservation of 50 percent, but we need to actually look at what's going to happen with load growth.

If the member is saying that maybe the only jobs we should create in that part of the province are what can be serviced by people who live exactly in that part of the province, that's an interesting approach to take. They certainly didn't take that approach in the 1990s in the northeast part of the province. It wasn't just the people in the northeast they were playing to. It was other people who came from other parts of the country. We have open borders, and we actually want to see investment happen in the province of British Columbia.

We want to see growth in British Columbia. I want to see my kids stay in British Columbia, and I'm sure the member's exactly the same. Even though they met up in Greece at one point in time — it's great to go out and see the world, but we actually would like…. I know the member would want and I know I want my children back. They don't have to specifically be where I live — maybe that would be better in some cases — but in any event, at least to have some opportunities in the province of British Columbia. I think really in the member's heart, he totally agrees with me.

J. Horgan: We got almost an hour before we went back to the 1990s, and I think that's a good sign.

I don't want the minister to misunderstand me, hon. Chair, and I know in your judicious way you're going to help me get through this next exchange. I didn't say at all that we want to discourage conservation. What I said was that by the very nature of encouraging more industrial load, we'll be subsidized by lower than market costs for the new load that we'll have to find to service those. Coupled with a partial subsidy with respect to the transmission line, it's a pretty good deal for a sector that's already looking at record-high commodity prices.

So I just wanted to go on record to say that I support, and this opposition supports, true sustainable development with the Tahltan. Encourage Galore Creek, absolutely, and if the community is favourable, Schaft Creek or Red Chris, whichever one of those two. The concern that I've heard repeatedly from people in the community is: "We want enough work for the people who live here and to not experience a flood of fly-by workers who are coming in to do shifts and then taking off."

That's not to say they don't want growth in their communities or that they don't want new people to come to their communities. I'm not suggesting that either, Minister. What I'm saying is that all of the hard work to try and conserve energy in the southwest will be lost by a third mine chewing up load in the northwest. To subsidize the transmission line and then to subsidize that new power seems to me to be misguided and wrongheaded when we are in a position, as the minister said earlier, to be in a net deficiency of electricity today.

I don't know where we're going to get all this ten megawatts at a time from IPPs; it doesn't seem to make sense to me. Fire back, and then we'll move on.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Again, if you're going to have economic development and you're going to create jobs, you're actually going to probably use some electricity. We're probably going to use more electricity going into the future than we have before, just simply because people are going to want to use as much green, clean electricity as they possibly can. We're fortunate in the province of British Columbia to have 90 percent of our electricity come from green, clean sources.

I know what the member says about what the Tahltan have said, and I probably speak to the Tahltan as much as the member does. Just recently I had an opportunity to talk to a number of key people with the Tahltan, who said that maybe they would have liked to see a project actually go ahead, because right now, they're saying: "Well, we have one mine closing, we have no employment, and nothing on the horizon that could happen relatively quick."

The member for Skeena says that we should be building the line with some caution. The member says, "With some caution," and that's why we actually took some caution. We said no. We just won't have the B.C. Transmission Corporation go and invest that kind of money when markets are the way they are today and the possibility of the industry actually paying part of the costs. That's why we went to the industry and said: "Look, you're going to have to pony up some dollars, folks. We're not going to do this totally alone."

In fact, I was just in Smithers recently — my goodness, not just recently. Ever since Galore Creek said they were going to review what they were doing, we said we're not going to build the line until they've done their review and actually pony up with some dollars. They've been very clear. Galore Creek has said: "No dollars, nothing. We're not paying anything. Stop and review." That's the message we got.

The communities up there are all saying: "You know, government, you should go…." They're lobbying very hard, Member. "The BCTC, the ratepayers, should just go ahead and build the line into that area. Go ahead and build it, $400 million, and hope that someone comes." We get that lobby pretty hard from a lot of people up there. In fact, I just met with all the mayors up in Smithers not that long ago. The Chair was with me on one of those occasions, and that's basically what they're saying.

Prince George, when I was there, was saying the same thing. People that are close to where the member

from Cariboo is from were saying: "Just go ahead and build it." We've resisted that and said: "No, there has to be a significant contribution from the industry." There has to be a significant contribution from the industry, and the contribution for any further mines to hook into that line — let's say it goes ahead in its original form…. They would have to pony up with some dollars too. They wouldn't just be able to hook to the line for nothing. They would have to pony up, and I'm sure they would — if, in fact, they get through the environmental assessment processes and all the things they have to do.

I don't know what else to say. Obviously, you can say that if we do some conservation, a new mine's going to wipe that out. That's part of economic development, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing conservation. That's our number one goal, and I'm sure that's the member's number one goal.

J. Horgan: Well, I'll just ask if the generation/Power Smart representative could make their way over. My colleague from Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows has a couple of questions. That would be of assistance.

I will agree with the minister that it's sad that the Tahltan and the people of the northwest were looking at an abundance of riches not 12 months ago and now are looking at Eskay Creek closing down and no prospects in the immediate future. I understand the situation the minister finds himself in, and I appreciate that the project will go when it makes economic sense to do so and when all of the stakeholders have had their input.

M. Sather: Continuing on the conservation theme, I wanted to ask the minister about energy conservation in non-residential buildings. I'm thinking of buildings that, for example, were built a while ago and over the course of time their energy efficiency falters. These buildings need to be recommissioned to a better state of energy efficiency, perhaps including some improvements.

I wanted to ask the minister: what programs or incentives has he put in place for energy recommissioning in commercial, institutional and industrial buildings?

Hon. R. Neufeld: The member is asking about commercial. B.C. Hydro has given me the number that covers residential, commercial and industrial. If the member wants that broken out, it'll take me a little while to actually get that information.

Last fiscal year they would have spent $70 million through Power Smart to work with all of those — residential, commercial and industrial — on things like new insulation, doors, windows. I use that as the average thing that goes forward, but in industrial we can work with industry to a degree on electric motors and upgrade those to use much less electricity but still have the same kind of horsepower.

This coming year they're intending to spend $100 million on Power Smart. We've also, through government, announced for the public sector — this is public sector buildings; it was just announced here a while ago — $75 million to look at our schools, hospitals and all the buildings that the public own across the province to see what we can do to actually bring them up to a better standard.

All new buildings will be built to LEED standards. That will mitigate, hopefully, over the fairly long term, what has to be done to those new buildings. But we're looking at $75 million for the older ones that the public own.

M. Sather: Looking at the buildings, then, and the building side in terms of energy efficiency, my understanding is that there are monitoring systems that can assist in terms of achieving efficiencies. Some of those systems are of the type that…. Well, I've heard of one case, for example, where in the building they set in a monitoring system, but it was dependent on the staff or the occupants to…. They still had the capacity to adjust their thermostats and so on, which threw off the system, and they kept having to go back to basics, to starting over again, to get the kinds of efficiencies they were looking for in the building. They felt that they really weren't getting those efficiencies.

But there is other technology — I guess you could call it smarter technology — that doesn't require any human intervention, if you will, once it's in place to monitor buildings, the HVAC systems, etc., to allow for those kinds of savings. I understand it's 20 percent of electrical energy and 30 percent or more of natural gas.

Can the minister comment? I think he has heard, perhaps, about some of these systems. I wonder if he could comment on where the government might be with those kinds of systems in terms of whether or not he feels they're advantageous to put into place in, let's say, public buildings.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Hydro has some programs in place where companies, I guess, or people that own these commercial buildings can actually get a hold of work through B.C. Hydro to look at building reconditioning, heating and venting and all of those kinds of things.

I don't know how much of that the member wants to talk about. Let me just, maybe, say it from a really high level. If we could save energy and still provide the comforts and the working atmosphere that need to be provided, that's what we should be looking at. That's what Hydro and the government will be doing through these programs so that we can actually start using less energy, much the same as many other jurisdictions do around the world on a per-person basis.

We've taken for granted for too long, I think, our electricity and our energy, and we have to change that process. Hydro has that in place through Power Smart, through all kinds of programs. So if you have someone who is maybe having some trouble or something, just

make sure they get hold of Hydro. Or if you want to, you can send them to me, and I will direct them to the right place.

J. Horgan: With that, I would think that it's time to bring on the gas group. I thank very much the hydro and electricity people for their time and attention. We'll be taking up the remainder of our time discussing that important sector.

I'll start with the minister, with one I'm hopeful he'll be able to answer before the crew gets here. In the throne speech the government referred to the energy corridor in the north. I've never been really clear on what exactly the government meant by that. Was it a series of pipelines? Was it transmission lines? What, could the minister advise, is the energy corridor referred to in the throne speech?

Hon. R. Neufeld: We've been working with the Haisla First Nation for quite a while on an energy corridor. There's lots of interests in the northwest of…. We see those pipelines coming, regardless of where they're coming from, whether they're going to move dilutant across the province to Alberta or whether they're going to move oil out or whether they're going to move LNG in or whether they're going to move natural gas out and actually turn it into LNG at the port of Kitimat and take it to other markets.

Dealing with all the individual first nations across that area is going to be quite an undertaking. So the first nations themselves have put together a group and have come to government and said: "Look, we can help with this process and work together on trying to have things that benefit first nations in any way that we possibly can and to benefit communities that would be impacted along the way and also to look at employment opportunities and all of those kinds of things."

It's a corridor that would go through the northwest. Actually, what we're talking about initially is only from Prince George to the coast, because that's where the first proposals have been. But I would assume now that they're talking about the line coming from Edmonton. Enbridge, again, has brought that forward. They've done a lot of work with first nations across the northwest. We'll have to start working with those that are further east, from Prince George to the Alberta border, and we'll be doing that.

J. Horgan: I'm right, then, in saying that having the Enbridge proposal revived over the past six months led to the statement in the throne speech that the government envisioned this corridor which would be a series of pipelines either moving condensate, dilutants or others east and any finished products west.

With the statements that were in the throne speech, one was left…. I certainly had a series of media calls, and I've never met a microphone that I didn't like, but it was a difficult position for me to be in because it didn't have any meat on the bones. The minister has talked in generalities about what is envisioned. What regulatory processes would this corridor be up against provincially, and what federal impediments would there be to success in the short term?

Hon. R. Neufeld: The one that had been talking to government and is talking to government…. I'm going to be careful here, because I'm told it's in the EA process, and the member, I know, understands this. It's not that I don't want to talk about it; it's that I'd better not. It's Pacific Trail Pipelines. That's the initial one.

I know that Pembina and Enbridge have been in discussion with first nations also along that route about what they would do. If, in fact, it is a line that crosses the border, it all of a sudden becomes the responsibility of the National Energy Board and would come under the Canadian environmental assessment process because these are large projects. All of them are large projects.

The one, Pacific Trail Pipelines, is within British Columbia, and that's why it's in our environmental assessment process. So regardless of what would happen on that corridor, they would have to meet all the rules and regulations that are in place, either federally or provincially, to have that happen.

It's to try to corral — to put it in a kind of an upcountry term — into one area anything that we envision could happen now or in the future, so that people aren't all over the place trying to put them in. So there's some sense of where they would go, which is, to be perfectly honest, something that we should have done a long time ago in the province of British Columbia, with a whole bunch of things, not just these kinds of things but transmission corridors — we've just had a long discussion about that — transportation with highway corridors and all of those kinds of things.

This is a way to start that process, to maybe think about how we can look to the future for that.

J. Horgan: Well, I recall, sometime in the last century, discussions around that very thing — rights-of-way with Delgamuukw and Supreme Court decisions with respect to treaty obligations, to land claims. It made it increasingly difficult for activities that had gone on in the past to go forward without significant consultation and accommodation.

We've touched upon this. The world is a different place, and that's generally a good thing. I'm wondering, as we talk about moving oil and gas back and forth from wellhead to tidewater — if that's in fact what the corridor is contemplating — what the extent of first nations consultation will be.

When I met with Enbridge, two years ago now, their biggest obstacle was not just the number of watercourses that were involved, which are significant; it was that duty to consult and accommodate.

Again, I know that the throne speech was envisioning the development of the corridor in a futuristic way, rather than as something that's going to happen in the next 12 to 24 months, but does the minister have some confidence that there is capacity through that corridor

for first nations to manage the overtures that are going to be coming to them from various organizations and entities?

I know that there are competing projects, as well, coming from Kamloops. I don't know if that's contemplated. I know that the minister is not going to be picking winners here, and I'm not suggesting that you do that. But there are competing interests to get to the coast, and those first nations are going to be played off against each other at some point, inevitably. Does the minister have any confidence, not that the Oil and Gas Commission can meet those challenges but that the first nations themselves can?

Hon. R. Neufeld: That's actually a good question. We talked a little bit about that earlier, about even gravel pits and having enough accommodation money so that they can deal with all the projects that are coming at them on a constant basis in a province that's growing dramatically.

I think that when you look at this and you think about the Haisla and some of the other first nations that got together…. I wouldn't say that all of them would say, "Hey, this is the best thing since sliced bread," but I think it's pretty forward-looking for bands like that to start thinking out there in the positive, into the future, saying: "This stuff could happen to us. These things could happen. How can we actually get together to manage these kinds of things in a way that makes good sense for the first nations?" I think it's great that they've actually brought that proposal to us to do that.

As far as accommodation goes, yes, the member is correct. There will have to be accommodation given to help those first nations. Or if they form a group and — I think that's part of what they want to do at the end of the day — have one group negotiate on behalf of all of them, I think that's probably going to be a pretty difficult process to do.

I think that the member has been around here long enough to know that that's probably easier said than done, so I'm not saying that could happen. But at least these folks are thinking out far enough to figure out how they can get together to start talking about these things in a rational way. It will cause some problems with trying to accommodate, trying to make sure that people have the money to get the expertise, to get the third-party information so that they know exactly what they're doing.

I don't say that this is an easy process. I think it's one way to start a process that may work, especially since the first nations brought it to us and said: "Here's our proposal. What do you think?" I think it's incumbent upon us to look at that in a serious manner.

J. Horgan: I agree with the minister. With the Haisla participating at the coast, that's a positive and a good place to start. The minister quite rightly said that as we move east, it becomes increasingly difficult to get consensus among first nations, among communities, and I wish those proponents well.

I know that — certainly in my interactions with Enbridge, a very upfront group — they're not going to beat around the bush. They've got deep pockets, they've got objectives that they want to realize, and they're not going to scrimp on important issues like consultation and environmental permitting and protocols.

The watercourses amaze me. You live in this place, and you know that there is lots of water and lots of mountains, but when the engineers inventory it for you and tell you how much it's going to cost you to get three kilometres, it's quite staggering. Should we have an estimates process in 2009, I look forward to an update on the energy corridor.

I have some colleagues that have joined me, wanting to discuss a couple of issues. We've got some worker safety issues, and we've got sour gas issues. I'll give the floor to the member to Cariboo South to start with sour gas.

C. Wyse: The minister, I know, is aware that there's growing concern about poisonous gas being emitted from wells, whether they be oil or gas, and I know the minister is well aware that some of these wells are located near schools, buildings, neighbourhoods and communities.

Likewise, I'm reasonably certain that the minister is aware that the Northern Health Authority has raised this concern about the health effects upon populations. As a matter of fact, on December 4, 2007, Northern Health received a report called Population Health and Oil and Gas Activities.

Minister, this report in actual fact was started in 2005, and as I've mentioned, it was received by Northern Health on December 4, 2007. Even if it had started late in 2005, that is still more than two years for the report to have been compiled.

My question to you, Minister, is: when did your ministry receive that report? How long did they review that report, and when did they submit their response to Northern Health Authority?

Hon. R. Neufeld: That will take a little bit of work. We don't carry that around in our back pocket here, but we certainly will get that information, and we'll provide it to the member as soon as we can.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Yeah, well, you're going to have to listen to my answer, I guess.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I live in the part of the world where most of the sour gas is produced. I live in the Fort St. John area, and the people up there have lived with it for an awful long time. We take the Northern Health report seriously, and I've said that we would

implement it. We have actually been doing many of the things that the report asked to be done, prior to even receiving the report. The ministry and the Oil and Gas Commission will actually do whatever they can to make sure that that's all done.

I want to bring the member's attention to the WISSA report that was done. It was, in fact, commissioned by the previous government just about a year prior to the change in government. The WISSA report was done up over a number of years — quite a few years, actually — to get some actual, solid information. I think that something like 24 doctors were involved with this report. It went across northeastern British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan to gather all kinds of information about sour gas, and that report has actually served to form a lot of the things that the Oil and Gas Commission and the industry do in the province of British Columbia and across those other jurisdictions.

C. Wyse: To the minister: I appreciate his comments, and I appreciate that he will provide the information to me.

My understanding is from comments that were made by Dr. Lorna Medd, who was the medical health officer, formerly, of Northern Health. On December 8 she publicly stated in the Alaska Highway News that the original report that was submitted to your ministry contained within it the recommendation that the agreement for the implementation of the recommendations would be done through a memorandum of understanding.

Now, I have a signed declaration from members of the Peace country that likewise states that in the report they had actually seen before it was distributed, the original report did contain within it the recommendation that the implementation to the report would be done through the memorandum of understanding.

However, in the report that was finally tabled on December 7, that aspect of the report had disappeared — that there would be memorandum of understanding to implement the recommendation.

My question to the minister is: what happened to the statement that the memorandum of understanding would be used to implement the recommendations?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Again, in regards to Dr. Lorna Medd's report, as I understand and am informed by the ministry, the report was given to the ministry. The ministry reviewed it, made its comments on the report and gave it back to Dr. Lorna Medd. She gave it to Northern Health. That's, I guess, the route that it went. I think I'm correct in that.

C. Wyse: I would appreciate the same assurance that the minister would ask his staff to review their records — I recognize they don't have them here — to see whether the report that they originally received contained in it the reference to a memorandum of understanding and what happened to that recommendation, if in actual fact it did exist, when it was returned back to Dr. Lorna Medd.

I would seek the assurance from the minister that he would have staff do that and then forward the answer on to me.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Again, I'll say that the report was given to the ministry. The ministry provided their comments. It was Dr. Lorna Medd's report. We have no control over what Dr. Lorna Medd does with the report. She then put the report out.

That's the way the process would take place. I committed to the member that I would get the dates and what transpired with the ministry, to give their comments in regards to the report. It's not as though it's our report; it's her report.

C. Wyse: I don't believe I can be any clearer. There are people that say the document that was sent over to the ministry included reference to a memorandum of understanding. When the report came back, it had disappeared, and Dr. Medd makes reference publicly in the December 18 Alaska Highway News that in actual fact that is the case.

I've made the request to have the ministry staff just check to see whether that is the case. I have his response. I will then move on to another question on the same item. It's not particularly satisfactory. I believe that the ministry staff would be able to go back and check that through.

My next question to the minister is: could the minister please tell us what the ministry stakeholder consultation process, the Northeast Energy and Mines Advisory Committee, NEEMAC, had to say about sour gas?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'll tell the member again very clearly that Dr. Medd submitted a report to the ministry. The ministry gave their comments. The ministry doesn't actually write the report. Dr. Lorna Medd wrote the report. She released the report. The ministry gave her their comments. It's actually quite that simple. We don't write their report. The ministry didn't write the report. It came for information from the ministry, which they gave their comments on. If you're trying to infer that she couldn't put her own report out with her own information in it, I don't know what hold this ministry has over Dr. Lorna Medd.

Dr. Lorna Medd was the regional health officer in the area — not working for the ministry, not working for the Oil and Gas Commission. She actually did this on her own — with going out and looking at some literature and, interestingly enough, not talking to very many people. But she actually came up with a report. She gave it to the ministry, and they gave their comments in the report. She's quite welcome to put her report out. That's relatively straightforward, I think.

NEEMAC — I'm pretty proud about it. It's the first time in British Columbia's history that we've actually asked all kinds of people to sit down, from different groups and organizations to environmental groups and

landowners from the northeastern part of British Columbia. We asked first nations to participate and almost anyone that you can think of — industry, the Oil and Gas Commission, the ministry and the regional governments — to sit down and say: "What kinds of things would you like to talk about?"

That process has been ongoing for a while. There is lots of discussion. If the member wants the minutes from all the meetings, I can actually get the minutes from all the meetings. We don't carry them around in our briefcases, but we can get that to the member.

Let me tell you that the people up north are pretty happy about NEEMAC. The people who sit on that NEEMAC committee are pretty darned happy that they're having influence on what government down here in Victoria does that affects them on their land base. Every one of them would say the same thing — that it's the first time they've had the opportunity ever. They're happy, and they're using it.

C. Wyse: To the minister: I thank him for acknowledging that he will get me the information I requested of him in my question. I'm quite appreciative.

One of the main recommendations of the health report now…. Just so I don't confuse things, the Population Health and Oil and Gas Activities says: "Rapid growth of the oil and gas industry within the province of British Columbia has outpaced our understanding of possible health and safety impacts on communities." Additional public health and safety measures are needed.

My question to the minister is: what public health and safety measures has the minister initiated since receiving the report?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Actually, we won't need to send the minutes of the NEEMAC meetings. They're on the website of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. Click on it, and you can read all the minutes you want, Member, on what happens with NEEMAC.

The report, as the member said, made a statement. I'm not sure I agree with the statement, but it made a statement about how the health authority was not able to keep up with the growth that's taken place in the oil and gas industry in northeastern British Columbia and made some recommendations to Northern Health about what Northern Health should do.

C. Wyse: I've quoted from the report the recommendation that is contained in it, and I can appreciate that the minister may want to blow it off. However, that's the recommendation from the report. My question was a simple one, in my mind — what the ministry has done to expedite that recommendation.

I have another question for the minister. Again, another recommendation from the health report is: "Expedite the provincial review of current setback regulations and emergency planning zones; in particular, apply health-based criteria wherever possible."

So again, my question: could the minister share with us here whether he has undertaken a review of the sour gas well setbacks, and would he also enlighten us on the new setback recommendations if, in actual fact, there are some?

Actually, the member is entirely incorrect. I don't know. Maybe he wants to take the position that I blow this stuff off lightly. I don't.

I'm trying to answer the questions as curtly as he's asking the questions, because he says he doesn't have much time. If he wants me to take a little bit longer, I'll actually accommodate the member with that, and we can just take a little bit more time, if that's okay with the critic.

There are setback regulations in the province of British Columbia that are similar to other jurisdictions. What's undertaken, in fact, with emergency planning zones and setbacks is that the industry has to actually tell the Oil and Gas Commission how sour they think the gas may be. In some cases it may not even be sour.

Generally, the industry knows. Not always do they know, but they will have those discussions with the Oil and Gas Commission, and the Oil and Gas Commission will make those decisions on setbacks in the best interests of the people that live there and are close to the well sites.

It's no secret that the Blueberry First Nations are probably surrounded by the most sour gas of any place in the province of British Columbia, and we have been working with the Blueberry to figure out what we can do there — in fact, going as far as actually looking at another route out of the reserve so that they don't have just one route out of the reserve.

We will continue to work with NEEMAC on setbacks. A bill that I have before the House, the Oil and Gas Activities Act, which I think members voted against in second reading, has a section in there that will deal with setbacks so that regulations can be set to actually deal with setbacks, likely on a scientific basis. But those discussions still have to be held with NEEMAC and with the people that live in the northeast part of the province of British Columbia to make sure that we actually meet their needs.

I'm certainly going to say to the member that for ten years the NDP were in government, and not once did they come to the northeast part of the province of British Columbia and say to me or to anyone else: "What do you think about setbacks?" Not once. Not once did they come up there and say: "What do you think about the activity that's taking place on your farms?" Not once.

This government, my friend, actually made that commitment to work with people, landowners. Are they all going to be happy? No, but generally speaking, they're a heck of a lot happier today, even though the activity has actually doubled, than they were in the

1990s. So at least we're listening to the people, and we're using scientific information, not innuendo, to deal with it.

J. Horgan: Just on consultation with landowners, has the minister contemplated changing the status of lands that are being compensated for, from agricultural to industrial, when industrial activity is going to be taking place on agricultural land — to benefit the landholder?

Hon. R. Neufeld: No. We don't drill a lot of wells, to be perfectly honest, on agricultural land. I think that's probably a little bit out of proportion — on actual agricultural, farmed land. There are some wells, but there are not a lot of wells in comparison to the amount of wells that we drill every year.

The practice has been, prior to our government and still is today, that that portion of the land is actually reassessed as industrial and stays that way until at such point in time ever in the future it's returned to agricultural.

I just want to go a little bit to health and safety. I know that there are certainly some concerns raised with the serious increase in the oil and gas sector. My question to the minister is: what types of programs, specifically, outside of WorkSafe, is the ministry working at to work with the industry to address the issue of the fatalities and the serious injuries in the oil patch?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Yes, this is a serious issue in the northeast part of the province of British Columbia with the oil and gas industry. The oil and gas industry is a fast-moving industry. In many cases, there are younger people working, and sometimes they don't have the experience required or, I hope, most of the training. I know that the companies that work in the northeast part of the province of British Columbia are concerned about health and safety all the time — as is the member, as are the government and the people in the northeast.

There is an organization in the northeast part of the province called Enform. That's formed by government, industry to provide training that's required for workers in the oil and gas industry. We will continue to strive…. In fact, WorkSafe B.C. will continue to strive as hard as they can to reduce those claims.

As I understand, at least from the last report, and that's maybe what the member is talking about, is that the injuries are usually longer. They're more catastrophic, I should maybe say. People are off work longer than they are in other industries, but the numbers of injuries are less than what they are usually in other heavy industries. So we need to look at those things in a realistic way and work with industry and the ministry and those companies that are operate up there.

It's not just the oil and gas industry; it's the service sector. That's where most of these people that are injured work. We have to work with that service sector in northeastern British Columbia as best we possibly can. There's an organization in the northeast part of the province of British Columbia that represents the service sector that we will continue to work with to make sure that the proper training actually happens.

To advance a little more proper training, in Fort St. John we've built a $12 million facility at Northern Lights College to enhance training for workers in the oil and gas industry, in all kinds of fields. The industry has donated $6 million to that $12 million facility. There are programs that are put in place in Northern Lights College. Whether it's Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson or any of the one of the other communities, we do try to do as much training as we possibly can to meet the needs of the industry.

C. Puchmayr: I agree that there are incidences of young people getting hurt, but the report also states that experienced people are getting hurt, as well, from objects flying. They're getting hit with certain objects. You know, the incidents…. You're correct, it's about half of what the overall industry rate is. It's about 1.6 per 100, as opposed to 3.1.

The recovery times are extremely long. They're longer because the injuries are more severe. The injuries are five times more severe than in other sectors. So my concern is not only with the new workers and the young workers. It's also the fact that senior workers are getting hurt as well.

I'm certainly pleased to hear that there are some initiatives put in place, but I'd like to know from the minister how long some of these other programs have been put in place. Is there going to be a review period where we can look at possibly upgrading the type of training or really looking at the causes of the accidents and dealing with them directly and more specifically?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Yes, there are. You know, safety is everyone's concern. It's not just one group or one organization that keeps safety at heart. The industry, along with government, along with WorkSafe B.C., along with the organizations and groups that we have in northeastern British Columbia, actually don't accept the fact that people are getting hurt. No one wants to have that happen.

So they are doing — I'm sure, in their very best way that they possibly can to review, to improve, to do better — all of those kinds of things as we move forward in training and working with people so that they're not badly hurt and off work. We will continue to do that.

C. Puchmayr: The other issue that I sort of want to flag…. There's the Filiathro case, a young, 21-year-old worker that…. I think the company was Northern Snubbing, in the gas snubbing industry. A really serious, avoidable fatality, a real concern with supervision on the site, and a snubbing machine that was sort of built and put together…. It wasn't properly tested. It wasn't certified. It didn't have the proper manuals. I

know that EnCana and Northern Snubbing did receive punitive damages or were given a fine for that.

What has the ministry done to ensure that equipment such as that is not showing up on the sites unregistered or without manuals and to ensure that young people, especially, aren't using equipment that isn't certified on those sites?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I maybe should be, but just off the top of my head I'm not familiar with the case that the member refers to. I probably wouldn't be able to talk about it anyhow. That would be a responsibility of WorkSafe B.C.

WorkSafe B.C. is responsible for those kinds of things in the northeast or whether it's in the southeast or wherever it's at in the province. I would think that…. After what the member describes that took place, WorkSafe B.C. is probably doing its best to make sure that doesn't happen again.

C. Puchmayr: This may be the last question. The actual incident was dealt with by WorkSafe B.C. A fine was levied against the company. The families have been asking for a coroner's inquiry for four years now. We put a recommendation in to the coroner, citing the provisions of an inquiry which we thought met the test. Certainly, right now there is an industrial inquiry going on by the coroner's office.

So my question to the minister, and this probably will be my final question: will the ministry uphold or enforce the provisions, the recommendations, that come out of that inquiry?

Hon. R. Neufeld: All the more reason why I probably shouldn't comment on it, if there's an inquiry going on right now. Out of recommendations that come out of inquiries such as the member talks about, I'm sure that companies will have to adhere to those kinds of recommendations. But not only that, WorkSafe B.C. will be ever more vigilant to make sure that doesn't happen again.

C. Puchmayr: Unfortunately, that isn't always the case, because a lot of the recommendations of an inquiry sometimes go to the ministry, sometimes WorkSafe B.C. I just want the minister to understand that it isn't a recommendation to the company. It could very well be a recommendation to the ministry.

I would only hope that the minister would look at those results and would deal with them with the focus of ensuring that nobody else becomes a fatality on the jobsite and that he upholds any of the recommendations that are made in the inquiry.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm sure any of those recommendations that would be made to anyone — regardless of whether it's the ministry or the industry or through to WorkSafe B.C. — would be upheld.

J. Horgan: I want to now move to a subject that we canvassed fairly extensively last year and that the minister and I agreed to disagree on. This is coalbed methane in communities that are decidedly against it.

The minister and I went back and forth at some length, and I've appreciated very much our interactions today. I mean, there are issues that we divide on, and we're not belabouring the point. We're not making a lot of speechifying in the short time we have available. So I'm hopeful that we can continue that as we run to the end of the hour we have.

Last year we were talking mostly about Telkwa. We touched upon the southeast and, more importantly to me here on Vancouver Island, the coal deposits and the coalbed methane that accompanies that in the Campbell River–Comox area.

But the minister will know that the Shell play in the Tahltan territory, the so-called sacred headwaters of the Skeena and the Nass and the Stikine, has become topical. There's litigation underway, I believe, and I know that the minister is not going to want to talk about that, per se. But in the throne speech, in an effort, I believe, to mitigate some of the bad press that coalbed methane has been receiving, the government made some overtures with respect to wastewater.

Could the minister advise the committee what examples he can point to since the throne speech or since our discussion last year where wastewater has been disposed of effectively and in compliance with where the government was going in the throne speech?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Actually, the commitment was made in the 2007 energy plan, where produced water must be reinjected below surface on new wells in the province of British Columbia. That's the first — at least, that we're aware of — across North America that that rule has been put in place.

But the member asked for a place where that's happening right now. In northeastern British Columbia, in the Hudson Hope region…. Hudson Hope, by the way, I know was listed and has been listed as one of the places that were against coalbed methane. Now there seems to be a bit of a turn of events in Hudson Hope. They're seeing their first actual commercial building permit that they've issued for about 20 years in Hudson Hope. A new motel is being built, new shops are being built, and people are employed. Not that there isn't any controversy. People are pretty happy about what's going on there.

The water that's produced out of Hudson Hope is trucked to disposal wells and disposed of. That's not unlike — I think the member and I have had this discussion before — with conventional natural gas. Most conventional natural gas and oil actually produces water too.

Even in the ten years — I'll go back to the '90s — that the NDP were in government, that water was hauled away and disposed of in underground aquifers. It still is being done today — at least, across all of North America that I'm aware of — as that is how they get rid of produced water.

We don't allow water to be released to the environment anymore on new wells that are drilled in the province of British Columbia, and we'll uphold that.

J. Horgan: The minister mentioned that the wastewater was being trucked to disposal sites. I assume that's in some proximity to Hudson Hope. Is that to current holes, or is it being disposed of in some other way? Are new holes being drilled to dispose of the water, or are we just taking advantage of proximity to a bunch of holes in the ground?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm not exactly aware, because they would probably go to different places. Maybe I should have waited and let the Oil and Gas Commission give me the information. But there are wells that are licensed for disposal of water across northeastern British Columbia, and they would be disposing of that water in those wells.

J. Horgan: So in the case of Tahltan territory then, I don't think the same access to…. The greater distances to move water if you're going to be taking it to the northeast where there are opportunities to dispose of the water. What proposals has the Oil and Gas Commission received with respect to the Shell plays in the northwest, and how would they be disposing of their wastewater?

Hon. R. Neufeld: In the northwest there are three wells that are drilled now. If they were to produce water, the company would have to find a way to de-preinject that water. It certainly wouldn't make sense to haul that water a long distance. What they'd have to do…. In fact, those are some of the things that they do in these projects, and that's why it's hard to deal with coalbed gas. They would have to drill some wells to discover whether the geology down below, deep below, well below any aquifers, would be able to accept produced water if, in fact, there was any produced water.

J. Horgan: So that we can provide in this debate some comfort to people who are vehemently opposed to this activity in the northwest, can the minister update me on the status of the Shell play and what obstacles remain to the industrialization of that area?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I think the member is obviously well aware that it is a big challenge. Shell didn't go into that area not thinking that it would be a big challenge. Shell has activities around the world and has the ability to get the technology that's needed to do that kind of work.

There's an opportunity for them and for first nations. They have an agreement with Tahltan. They have an agreement with the Iskut First Nation that I have seen. They are initialled on actually not saying that you can go ahead and do everything but that we need to start the process of talking about how you're going to do it, under what conditions you're going to do it and those kinds of things.

As I understand, Shell has done some work this year on the road into that area and is continuing to do some scientific work which they would be required to do and scientific work that they've been doing since they acquired the tenure a number of years ago in that area.

J. Horgan: Can the minister confirm that if Shell is not able to secure a final agreement with support from the Tahltan and the Iskut, their play will not go forward?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I think it's incumbent on Shell, and they know it, that they have to work with the communities in that region — that being the Tahltan — on trying to come to some agreement.

The member and I talked earlier about the Tahltan and mining. The Tahltan are actually employed on the project. Their environment company is employed on the project. There are people from the Tahltan First Nation working on the project, as they have right from the start.

As a ministry we don't get involved in between those talks. The Tahltan and Shell will continue to do that. We'll have to wait and see. I'm not today going to prejudge anything that could happen in the future in this Legislature.

J. Horgan: But with the new relationship in mind and fairly vocal opposition from, certainly, the hereditary leadership in that community, I would think that the duty to consult and accommodate, which we've discussed intermittently throughout the day, would be a high priority for this ministry and for the Oil and Gas Commission.

I'm wondering if, in light of the new relationship, the Oil and Gas Commission has any instruction from the minister or executive council in any other form to ensure that adequate consultation and accommodation takes place. I know that it certainly happens in the minister's territory or neighbourhood, and I'm wondering if that's going to be extended to the northwest, to Vancouver Island and to the southeast.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Yes, in view of the new relationship, although before the new relationship even came along, we were actually doing those consultations with first nations, regardless of where activity was taking place across the province of British Columbia. Obviously, you have to continue to do that. There has to be accommodation and consultation that takes place.

Whether everybody actually stands up and says, "Yes, I agree with it," you have to see at the end of the day…. I know that the member could probably go to his own community and just ask a simple question about whether we should block this road off. You'd probably get a lot of people saying, "Yeah, I like it," and you'd get a whole bunch of people saying: "No, I don't."

We need to actually…. Without trying to incite anything in those discussions that go on between the company and what work the ministry does and what work

Aboriginal Relations does with the Tahltan and the Iskut…. Like I say, they have a signed agreement, both the Iskut and the Tahltan, with Shell. We need to be careful about how we characterize that process.

I know there are those out there that would like to characterize it as the worst thing in the world. But those are the same people that live in some other part of the province of British Columbia and maybe, like the Tahltan, say: "We don't want any interference from all the outsiders telling us what we should do in our area. We actually want to make those decisions ourselves." That was in a press release put out by Curtis Rattray when pressure was coming on him.

I think we should let the process work out the best it can. This government, I can tell you, will not allow something to happen that would be catastrophic. To be perfectly honest, I can't imagine Shell would actually want that. I mean, Shell is a company that's worldwide, and they wouldn't want that scar on their reputation either. So we'll be very careful about how we deal with those issues.

J. Horgan: Moving to climate change, the government's climate change secretariat and the plans for achieving our greenhouse gas emission targets by 2020. Does the Oil and Gas Commission have any role at all in assisting and formulating policy and regulations to meet those objectives?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Ever since we released the energy plan, the one that you gave, I think, an A…. No, you actually gave a B to….

Hon. R. Neufeld: To a portion — okay. Well, maybe you wouldn't give a B to this portion. This is about reducing greenhouse gases, and maybe you don't want to give a B to that either.

But I'm sure the member agrees with me that in the energy plan that was released in 2007, things like flaring and greenhouse gas reduction were part of that energy plan about offsets for generation of electricity using natural gas, complete sequestration of CO₂ if it's generated by coal — all of those kinds of things.

We will work closely with the Oil and Gas Commission and the ministry. The ministry has people that can actually work with the secretariat on all of these kinds of issues so that we can come up with some of the best things that we can to reach our target of a reduction of 33 percent by 2020.

In fact, on February 7 — I can send this over to the member — the Oil and Gas Commission released its flaring, incinerating and venting reduction guideline for British Columbia. That was released as a result of what came out in the 2007 energy plan.

J. Horgan: I look forward to the document, and in fact, flaring is where I was heading next. So I'll ask a question, and maybe the minister can refer to the document or staff.

With respect to the oil and gas sector, we hear quite regularly that individuals are being asked to make their contributions to this challenge, whether it be through a carbon tax on automobile fuel and home heating fuel, whereas large emitters are getting a bit of a pass.

We know that the cap-and-trade system that we're proposing in legislation in the other place is still before the House. We know that the western climate initiative is still struggling with expectations of new leadership in the United States at the federal level.

I'm wondering if the minister could give me an indication at what level…. How many tonnes of emissions does the February document propose to reduce?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm just asking the staff for…. They have percentages of a percentage, which is probably difficult to understand. What I'd rather have is the tonnes that would be reduced — and I think that's probably what the member is asking about — in flaring, 50 percent of it by 2011 and completely done by 2016.

I'll commit to the member that we'll get those numbers so that you have them, rather than take up time.

In terms of how the industry is responding. We don't hear, down here at the bottom of the province, the discussion that the minister, as a representative of the constituency of Peace River North, would hear on the street about the impact of climate change plans on the sector, in terms of what's going on in the coffee shops and on the bar stools in and around this community.

Could he enlighten me on how the industry is responding to the challenges that they face if we're going to meet the challenges that have been set by legislation?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Actually, I don't know anything about bar stools. I quit sitting on them about 25 years ago. But the coffee shops — obviously, there's discussion about it there.

But my discussions with industry, which has to actually reduce and meet those targets…. I wouldn't say that they're not concerned. They obviously are, and we're concerned also. We want to make sure that we still remain competitive in the oil and gas world, because it is a big part of our employment and revenue for the province of British Columbia.

The industry, in general terms — at least to people I've talked to, unless they're saying something different after they talk to me — is quite pleased that British Columbia is taking a leadership role, that they actually have an idea of…. They know where they're going. The old talk about Kyoto and all that kind of stuff was just talk, and it rumbled around all over. Nobody met anything, and there were holes you could drive a truck through anywhere.

They are actually working well with the ministry. I think they're working well with the secretariat in how

we actually achieve these targets, which they have to eliminate. But we're all ever vigilant about how we do that and how we do that in a way where we don't economically harm the industry but we still meet those targets.

J. Horgan: It's that competitiveness, with the industry right on the line. I know that the member for Peace River South and I discuss this periodically as well — that the challenge for oil and gas on our side of the line is not just PST. I mean, there are other significant issues. The competitive advantage in a climate change environment if the jurisdiction immediately to our east is ignoring the international community and ignoring where the world needs to get to….

What steps can the minister take to assure this committee that we're still going to keep on track, even if it does create an imbalance in terms of competition with our neighbour, in terms of meeting our targets?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Well, I don't think Alberta is going to be immune to CO₂ release. From anything I read, at least what I read in the newspaper, and when I talk to the minister in Alberta, they're facing increasing pressure from a whole array of different people from within their province, outside their province, about what they're going to do on GHG reduction. They will probably have to start looking seriously at that.

The staff just told me that the industry has a 12 percent reduction, and they have to pay $15 a tonne. That's presently what happens in the province of Alberta. That's from a high level. I don't know anything below that, and I don't think the member wants to talk about that here. But I'm sure that they're going to face increasing pressure to actually deal with their GHGs also.

G. Robertson: Just a question to the minister specific to the finite resource of B.C. natural gas. Concerns have been raised around the province that there are a limited number of years left in terms of our resource. Estimates that I have seen in research state that northeast B.C.'s reserves could be exhausted in 33 years. Obviously, if the ministry is still set on its goal of doubling production of B.C. natural gas, it would be half that time — 17 years.

Given the government's goals for significantly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, given that fossil fuel production is 21 percent of B.C.'s greenhouse gas emissions and given that there's a finite resource here generating revenue for a finite number of years, has the minister got a process in place for reviewing the maximum value back to taxpayers from the revenue through the royalty and, as other jurisdictions have looked at, increasing royalty rates?

Within that analysis, is the minister considering a change to the subsidy regime, the incentives, that totals $990 million over these next three years? Is there a concrete plan in place to review the current set of commitments around subsidies and royalties of the finite resource, given the amount of greenhouse gas emissions being produced and the limits to that resource for future generations here in B.C.?

Hon. R. Neufeld: It doesn't surprise me, the question coming from the member. Maybe he hasn't been reading the newspaper lately. Maybe he hasn't been paying attention to the ministry releases on unconventional gas and my colleague the member for Peace River South. It is huge.

We see all kinds of shale gas and tight gas being developed, estimated to be 500 trillion cubic feet in the province of British Columbia. That's 500 trillion cubic feet just in unconventional gas that actually is estimated in the province. If you put that in perspective, when we produce just over a trillion cubic feet a year, you can do the math on that. I don't know whether 500 years from now we'll be using natural gas or not. I'm not sure, but I know that this ministry, this government, is actually maximizing every dollar we can get out of our royalty structure, out of our proposals.

I can tell you some of the things that we've done and what's resulted from the programs that we've put in place. I'll read these stats. Some of it even goes back to before we became government. Between 2000 and 2006….

I notice the critic smiling, because he agrees with me on these programs. He has to agree with me, because he was one of the advisers to the last government that cut different royalty rates. The thing they didn't do…. They weren't transparent with the public. They just arbitrarily did it in that little back room over there. They cut some of them by 100 percent, some of them by 50 percent.

Actually, just prior to us coming to government and up until the end of 2006, industry capital investment has grown by 239 percent. Natural gas well-drilling increased by 71 percent. Natural gas reserves — and maybe the member should listen — were up 46 percent in that period of time. Natural gas production grew by 27 percent in that period of time.

So when the member stands and talks about a finite resource…. No, there's not just a little bit out there, and that's it. They continue to actually explore and look in all kinds of regions, specifically in the northeast. As I said, around Dawson Creek there is huge activity taking place with some of the unconventional gas.

In Fort Nelson, just out of Fort Nelson, the Horn River basin is bringing in the highest revenue per hectare that we have ever seen in the province of British Columbia and bringing in major players to actually drill and look for natural gas in that area. They tend to think that that area today could produce eight to 12 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, but they won't know until they delineate it some more.

That's how you actually acquire and know exactly how much gas is there. In comparison to those numbers I gave the member earlier…. We'll just go across Canada to see how we compare in other jurisdictions. Our industry, in capital investment, grew by 239 per-

cent in the province of British Columbia. Industry capital investment was up 93 percent in the rest of Canada. We outstripped them by two and a half times.

Natural gas well-drilling increased by 71 percent in the province. Natural gas drilling was up 53 percent in the rest of Canada. Natural gas reserves were up 46 percent in British Columbia, and natural gas reserves were down 11 percent in the rest of Canada. So natural gas production grew by 27 percent in British Columbia and grew by 4 percent in other jurisdictions.

I would say that we're actually doing relatively well. We had a record year, with $1.2 billion in land sales through a straight auction process. That's not bad. That goes a long ways — maybe the member is not aware of it — to actually help with health care, with education and all the services that each one of us in the House talks about.

We constantly hear from the other side during question period to spend more, yet you don't grow the money on a tree. You grow it through investment across the province of British Columbia, going out and actually exploring for it.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I know that the member doesn't like it. The member would rather…. This is one member of the opposition…. At least the critic understands natural gas. He understands that it's a great industry and that we actually benefit from it in the province of British Columbia. This member asking a question would rather have it not happen. I get that clearly. I've got it clearly every year. You've come to me and asked questions. You'd actually like it to stop.

You know what, Member? It's not going to stop as long as we're in government. It won't stop as long as we're in government. We'll continue to have record unemployment records across the province — 4.2 percent. I don't know if you liked double digits when your party was in power. That's fine. But listen. I like 2 percent in the northeastern part of the province of British Columbia. I like 4 percent across the province. I don't like 16, 15 and 12 percent unemployment.

J. Horgan: I see that we're coming to the end of our delightful day in Committee room A. I want to thank the ministry staff for the tremendous amount of work that I know they did to prepare for what they thought would be a couple of days, maybe three or four; as we've done that in the past. I have to confess that I miss the big binders. I pine for those days of carrying around 500 pounds of briefing notes. I want to thank the staff for all the work they do to keep the minister and the executive team on top of the issues as they break in a very dynamic sector.

I also want to thank the minister. Until recently we had an agreement that we would keep our antagonism to a minimum, and I think that's been beneficial to get through.

J. Horgan: Well, as we're running out of time. I want to give the minister the same two minutes that I'm going to use right now to close the debate, so he can have his shots then.

I want the record to show — and anyone who has been following the debate would be fairly clear — that we divide on a number of issues. Coalbed methane remains the same, our division. The government supports it, and the opposition prefers to see communities chart their own destiny when it comes to industrialization of previously unindustrialized communities.

We divide on independent power production. Hydro's own documents say that if there is an attrition rate of 50 percent on the independent power production that was contracted in 2006, it will save ratepayers $18 million. I think that's an indictment of a policy that doesn't make sense to ratepayers, that doesn't make sense for B.C. Hydro.

The government doesn't want to identify the downstream benefits as a provincial asset. It's not, then, about security of supply, because we have access to that block of power whenever we want it until 2024. We don't necessarily have access to independent power at the end of those contracts. So if it's about security of supply, then again, we have to divide.

The challenge we have as an opposition is that we're given a little bit of time to address an awful lot of issues. I know that the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources is working full out to provide revenues to the treasury so that we can pay for the items that both my colleague from Fairview, myself and members of all corners of the House want to see in our communities.

So there's no dispute there, and it's not about stopping this and stopping that. There are nuance differences, and there are substantive differences. Had we had more time to debate those substantive differences, I think that the public would have benefited from that.

With those remarks, I genuinely thank the minister for a quick back-and-forth. He may advise his colleague the mines minister that that might be a better way to get through more material when he has the opportunity. Thank you very much.

Hon. R. Neufeld: As always, I thank the member. He comes across with some thoughtful questions. I've always enjoyed the debate with the member in regards to this ministry, and I'm hoping that that continues.

Actually, I hope that continues, but in all fairness and in all truthfulness, the member actually — other than maybe having to look at the party line a little bit — has had a lot of experience with the oil and gas ministry in his previous life and understands the benefit of that industry in the province of British Columbia.

I know that we divide on coalbed gas, and that's fine. I know that during the '90s, coalbed…. In fact, half

the wells that are drilled in the province of British Columbia for coalbed gas took place in the 1990s. The choice then was not to tell the people what they were doing, bit just to go ahead and drill the wells.

I don't think it's actually cricket that the member comes forward now and says: "Well, we don't agree with it." I know the member understands full well that if, in fact, he were in this position, he would have to look at all of those things and weigh all of them in light of what the public wants, what the community wants, what the first nations want and what's best for everybody in the province of British Columbia.

Sometimes those decisions aren't easy to make. But I guess, as they say back home, that's what you get the big bucks for, to actually go and make those decisions, and you had better have thick skin.

IPPs — we do divide on it. The member agrees with me — I think, to a degree — that we need the electricity. The difference there is that they want the public to build it all, and we say that we should be able to harness some of the energy from the independent power producers, from the private sector, to actually go out there and build some of those projects. That's actually the only division. The member is on record as saying: "If it were just built by the public sector, we'd be okay with it."

There is access to those contracts after they end in 40 years. Let me remind the member that they have a permit for 40 years to actually use the water and pay a rental fee for that, but they have to renegotiate that at the end of 40 years and also for the land. I think government comes in, in a pretty good place to negotiate not a bad deal 40 years down the road. Maybe the member will be here. I don't know. I can guarantee you that in 40 years I won't be here.

The downstream benefits are an asset to the province of British Columbia. We just differ on how they should be used. I know that the member advocates using them differently than what his party did in the 1990s. We use them for the benefit of all British Columbians, knowing full well that we'll have to renegotiate that.

So thank you very much, Member, for your time and for your thoughtful questions.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I move that the committee rise, report resolution and completion of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and ask leave to sit again.

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