2009 Legislative Session: First Session, 39th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 6, Number 3

[ Page 1679 ]

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2009

The House met at 1:35 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Tributes

TED NEBBELING

Hon. G. Campbell: I rise today to pay tribute to a colleague and a friend of many of us in this chamber. The former mayor of Whistler, the former MLA for West Vancouver–Garibaldi, passed away this morning after a long bout with cancer.

As those of you who knew him would know, Ted was a passionate and committed public servant. As the mayor of Whistler, he actually watched and helped guide that community to a world-class resort centre recognized around the world for the quality of its lifestyle and the quality of its community.

He was dedicated to his province and to his town. He was the minister of state for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games bid following the election in 2001 and travelled all around the world to try and ensure that we were successful in attaining that bid.

It is, I think, sometimes difficult for all of us to remember that we all are mortal in this world. It's hard to believe that someone that had the energy, the capacity and the real joy of life, like Ted did, has left our midst. I know that he was the first sitting cabinet minister to marry a same-sex partner. I'm sure his partner Jan will miss him greatly, as will his family, as will his friends and as will all of us.

He made a huge contribution to his province and made the world a little bit better and little bit brighter for all of us. I hope that we would send our condolences to Jan and the entire family.

M. Farnworth: We on this side of the House would like to join with the Premier in extending our condolences to Jan, Ted's partner. The Premier very eloquently said that Ted brought an energy to this House. All of us in this chamber, myself and a number of my colleagues who served with him back in the '90s will miss him. We join with the Premier in sending condolences to Ted's family and his partner.

J. McIntyre: I'd also like to add just a few words of tribute to Ted Nebbeling, who was my predecessor and my friend. He was a self-made man, a successful entrepreneur and a fighter right to the end, and he had many supporters and friends all around the world. He was sensitive and generous and had a wicked sense of humour and sense of play.

He was one of my closest friends, especially at the time that I had the privilege of being his riding president for six years, and trying to manage him was an amazing and memorable challenge.

As the Premier noted, he served as the first minister responsible for the 2010 games, and I'm so very sorry that he will not be here to see the flame lit in Vancouver in February 2010. I know that his spirit will be with us.

I also know that he worked very hard on the Community Charter, something that has a lasting effect in the province. He's a man well deserving of tributes.

Our hearts go out to his partner, his beloved partner Jan Holmberg, as he begins to deal with his deep loss. I just want to assure Jan that we'll all be there with him.

Introductions by Members

M. Mungall: Well, when I first started, I didn't think I'd be introducing so many guests from my constituency as it's so far away from Victoria. But today I'd like to introduce to the House Sheila Haegadorn. She's come all the way from Kaslo, B.C. Please make her welcome.

E. Foster: I rise today to introduce four constituents of mine. Maria Doyle, Debbie Taylor, Jody Berry and Cory Fryer are visiting the House today from the city of Vernon. They are in Victoria as members of the staff of the city attending the workshops for local government professional administrators. They've enjoyed their stay in Victoria and are here in the House today to see how a different level of government works. I ask the House to make them very welcome.

J. Rustad: As with the member for Nelson-Creston, it's not often you get the chance to introduce people that come from your riding. Today I have the pleasure of introducing two people in the House, Navi Bhatti and Amy Green.

[1340]

Navi is from the community of Houston. Both of them are here attending the University of Victoria. Navi is also the president of the Education Students Association at UVic.

We had a great opportunity to go for lunch today and have a chat, and she left me with a quote that I would like to share with the House. This is from Eleanor Roosevelt. "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things you think you cannot do."

Mr. Speaker and the House, please make Navi and Amy welcome.

Hon. K. Falcon: Today in the galleries we have a couple of pharmacy students who are currently doing
[ Page 1680 ]
their four-week rotation at the drug use optimization branch of the pharmaceutical services division. I'd like the House to welcome Cesilia Nishi and Jerrold Perrott, who are both with us today.

Hon. S. Thomson: Mr. Speaker, I'd like you to join me in welcoming four representatives from the B.C. Fruit Growers Association, who are here in Victoria today: the president, Joe Sardinha from Summerland; their vice-president Kirpal Boparai, who is from my riding in Kelowna-Mission; Glen Lucas, their general manager; and Josée Larocque, their communications director.

This is the association that represents those growers that bring us those great B.C. apples, cherries and soft fruits. I'd like the House to join me in making them welcome.

Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

WIGS FOR KIDS PROGRAM

L. Reid: I would like today to dedicate this statement to Ted Nebbeling, because it would have made him smile. Ted was my daughter's godfather, and I can tell you he was absolutely enchanting in that role.

The title of the statement is "Wigs for Kids." The Wigs for Kids program, British Columbia Children's Hospital, was started in January 2006 by Bev Friesen and 11 other women known as the Ya-yas.

They fundraise year-round for monetary or silent auction donations, and every spring they hold an annual Wigs for Kids silent auction. This is their major fundraiser, with all the funds going to the purchase of wigs for kids from all over British Columbia who have lost their hair to cancer or other serious illnesses.

At any given time in British Columbia, there are 300 children receiving treatment and another 1,200 in long-term treatment. In many cases, these kids will suffer temporary or permanent hair loss. The children go through an extremely difficult time, and it's even tougher when they lose their hair.

Kids may be healthy enough to go back to school, but their life has changed. Other kids and even some adults can be uncomfortable with side effects like baldness. A wig can help those children resume a sense of normalcy when they return to everyday life. Their baldness is a question that they then don't have to answer.

Any child who has suffered hair loss is eligible to receive a wig fully paid for if they so wish. Each wig costs approximately $2,000, but this cost drops to $600 or $800 if the hair is donated.

Colleagues, I'm calling upon you. Hair must be at least eight inches long and chemically untreated. I welcome donations of hair. Please call my office for more information.

They are always looking for help with this, and the projects are very important to countless British Columbia families. There are challenging issues, no question. The leader of this group is Bev Friesen, and she would absolutely welcome a call from any one of you. Please stay in touch.

COLLEEN McCRORY AND
VALHALLA WILDERNESS SOCIETY

K. Conroy: The Valhalla Wilderness Society was founded in 1975 in New Denver in the Slocan Valley. It started as a group of local residents who wanted to save the forested slopes of the Valhalla mountain range from logging. After an intensive eight-year campaign, Valhalla Provincial Park was won.

The registered charity became involved in other provincial, national and international environmental projects. Valhalla has spearheaded campaigns that now protect over 1.25 million acres. Over the years, its board of directors and staff has included a diverse mixture of scientific expertise, political strategists, public spokespersons, and literary and artistic talent.

Colleen McCrory was one of the society's chief activists and its longtime chairperson, who passed away suddenly in July of 2007. Colleen was recognized for her work with many awards, both national and international. However, one of the lasting legacies of her work was the securing of the Valhalla Mile property. Thanks to a huge outpouring of public support and donations from across Canada and internationally, the Valhalla Mile — a mile of beachfront property on the west side of Slocan Lake — was successfully purchased and transferred to B.C. Parks in April of 2009, becoming part of Valhalla Provincial Park.

The Valhalla Foundation for Ecology and Social Justice, the Land Conservancy of B.C. and B.C. Parks worked jointly to raise the $1.5 million needed to secure the property from a private land owner. The addition of the Valhalla Mile to Colleen's favourite park is a tribute to her memory and to her outstanding dedication to the conservation of the natural world.

[1345]

The campaign to secure the Valhalla Mile was coordinated in Colleen's memory by her brother and colleague Wayne McCrory and his wife and fellow conservation activist, Lorna Visser. "To protect the Valhalla Mile and have it added to the park was one of Colleen's dreams, so this acquisition gives us great joy," said Wayne McCrory.

On July 1 in New Denver a celebration was held to mark this historic event, with supporters in attendance from across the province. It was indeed a tribute to the work of an incredible person and all of the people who are the Valhalla Society.
[ Page 1681 ]

BRUCE'S COUNTRY MARKET

M. Dalton: For generations, travellers driving along the Lougheed Highway in Maple Ridge have stopped at a familiar landmark, Bruce's Country Market, with its distinct fishing schooner lodged next to it. Bruce's Market was opened in 1948 by Bruce and Elnora McEachern and is still owned by the McEachern family. Of the 70 employees, 16 are part of the extended family, and the rest are virtually adopted, calling Bruce and Elnora Ma and Pa.

When it opened 61 years ago, the local board of trade said that it wouldn't last six months because it was too far out of town. It seems like they proved the pundits wrong. Bruce's Market is the salmon retail outlet for its fleet of ten gill-net boats, a processing plant and smokehouses. There's also a produce department, a gift section and a large deli.

Bruce's Market holds regular events like the fall Apple Fest, when 100 varieties of apples are sold. Country bands play while friends socialize over gourmet food. On Mother's Day, Spring Fest is held, featuring their specialty: wild salmon, barbecued or smoked.

When I asked Darrel McEachern what the key to success was for all these years, he said that it was serving people what they needed at the time. The business has seen lots of variation and sidelines, including selling washers and dryers for a time. He said that people today are looking for a specialty food experience that is organic, convenient and delicious. Bruce's Market does not disappoint.

On September 17 a final goodbye was said for Bruce, who died at the age of 89 years old. Today I pay tribute to this man devoted to his family, faith and customers. Maple Ridge is a better place because of him.

RAIN FOREST PROTECTION
IN INCOMAPPLEUX VALLEY

M. Sather: Most British Columbians are aware that the west coast of our province is a rain forest. However, not that many know that we also have an extensive inland temperate rain forest in southeastern British Columbia.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Incomappleux Valley, a place I will never forget. The upper Incomappleux is an ancient and truly magnificent ecosystem. I stood beside its massive red cedars, 12 feet in diameter and 1,800 years old. I saw western hemlocks as large as those found on the coast. I saw huge white pines, larger than I've ever seen in my years as a biologist in B.C.

We walked by trees that had been recently rubbed by the grizzly bear, leaving his telltale silvertip hair behind. We searched massive tree cavities looking for early-denning black bears. We followed the trail of the mountain caribou, who feed on the abundant lichens of the forest in early winter.

Scientists believe that the upper Incomappleux forest is thousands of years older than its oldest trees. It is still the great unknown. Although there has been minimal research in the Incomappleux to date, already scientists have discovered nine species of plants not known to occur anywhere else in the world.

Incredibly, probably due to its obscurity, the upper Incomappleux Valley is not protected by any park, protected area or land use plan. The Incomappleux is the crown jewel of the inland temperate rain forest. It is not replicated elsewhere. To lose it would be unforgivable.

I invite all members to visit this ancient forest. Let's work together to ensure that our grandchildren and their grandchildren can do the same.

OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY
IN COMOX VALLEY

D. McRae: You can feel the excitement and buzz in the Comox Valley already. In fact, we've been anticipating this moment for quite some time now, and I'm not talking about the first snowfall at Mount Washington. I'm talking about the upcoming 2010 Olympic Torch Relay.

[1350]

The torch will be arriving in my constituency on Monday, November 2. Communities, organizations and countless volunteers have been working tirelessly to ready events for this exciting day. On Monday morning the torch will arrive in Fanny Bay — you might have heard of their famous oysters — and travel through the historic coal port of Union Bay and the former logging town of Royston. It will then be welcomed in Cumberland by local singers and dancers.

Torchbearers will then carry on to Courtenay for a community celebration in Lewis Park. The torch will be welcomed by aboriginal tribal dancers, and several community choirs and dance groups will perform, including True Colours and Dance Medley. The torch will then leave Courtenay, stopping by the traditional big house of the Comox First Nation where it will be blessed. The torch will then travel to the town of Comox, then passing through CFB Comox and the farming communities of Merville and Black Creek on its way to Campbell River.

People in my community are excited and honoured to host these events. Not only is it a great way to embrace the Olympic spirit and support our athletes; it's an opportunity for individuals and families to get together and celebrate their community. We are lucky to live in one of the most beautiful places in all of British Columbia, and what a way to showcase both B.C. and the Comox Valley to the rest of the world.

At this time I would like to recognize the amazing work done by the chair of the torch committee, Marilyn Tevington, and the other members of the torch committee who have worked so hard to make this event a
[ Page 1682 ]
success: Randy Wiwchar, Ron Weber, Ken Grant, Don Larson, Leslie Baird, Marty Douglas, John Watson, Kirk McFarlane, Alan Douglas, Leo Richards and the RCMP detachment of the Comox Valley.

I ask the House to join me in wishing the Comox Valley and all communities across Canada the best of luck with their upcoming torch relay events.

VALHALLA WILDERNESS SOCIETY
RAIN FOREST HIKING TOUR

G. Gentner: I want to follow up what my colleagues have said about the Valhalla Wilderness Society and our excursion to the Incomappleux headwaters about 12 days ago.

As a city slicker I knew, when the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows and one of our guides compared their grizzly mauling scars — and the fact that I was one trek member who didn't carry any bear mace — that this venture could become exhilarating. During our hike between the headwaters and the isolated ancient rain forest, one of our team members took a tumble off a fallen tree. At about 3:30 she had dislocated her elbow and had a spiral fracture in her right tibia.

It was raining, and in an hour the dank, wet forest was going to get darker. While the injured party received first aid treatment by my esteemed colleague, two members hiked down to our base camp for a stretcher, thermal bag and blankets. By 5:30 we began our slippery descent.

It took the full team to assist. Along hazardous terrain, two members were harnessed at both ends of the stretcher while two more were on the other side steadying and propping up the poles, and two others were there for navigating purposes.

While the slender, lankier MLA took his place in the front harnessed, the pudgier fellow took up the rear, weighted down with the others' backpacks and flashlight in hand, sometimes crawling on hand and knee, instructing team members on their footing on rocks, stumps, snags and up and over massive logs.

We inched our way step by step over a long precipice to the river canyon below us. It took us more than three hours to reach our all-terrain vehicles, which then carried us over boulders and debris from avalanches, through washouts and partial bridges. By ten o'clock our injured party was admitted to Nakusp hospital.

I would like to thank our guides, forester Craig, bear biologist Wayne, lichenologist Toby, guide and mountain hostel owner Pat and, at the base camp, Ruel for their skill and poise during a mishap that could have been disastrous. They were experienced, ready and equipped. Today Ann is recovering from her injuries, but her and the members of the Valhalla Wilderness Society's resolve is stronger than ever to protect this ancient rain forest.

Oral Questions

HOSTING OF OLYMPIC GAMES
DIGNITARIES AT TERMINAL CITY CLUB

K. Corrigan: New documents reveal the government has spent half a million dollars to entertain select guests at Vancouver's Terminal City Club during the 2010 games. My question is to the Premier. During a time when the government is cutting funds for kids' sports, hospitals and schools, why is it spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at one of the most expensive venues in Vancouver without public knowledge?

Hon. I. Black: If you look at the Olympic logo, it says: "British Columbia, host province." That logo says it all.

[1355]

Our job is to host this $4 billion revenue-generating spectacular event, and that means we will host international dignitaries. It means we will host community and national leaders. It means we will host international investors and leading academics from around the world. This is our opportunity.

We have a job to do. It's to show the world the very best of British Columbia, and we're going to do just that.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

K. Corrigan: Well, it's an opportunity for a lot of private parties, it sounds like to me.

Last week we learned that close to a million dollars had been spent on taxpayer-funded luxury box suites for B.C. Liberal MLAs and their friends. It took an FOI request…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

K. Corrigan: …after question period before the government agreed to come clean.

This week it's half a million dollars to "entertain business representatives and foreign dignitaries at an elite private club in Vancouver." Again, how did the B.C. Liberals justify spending millions of tax dollars to entertain a select few without any public oversight or accountability?

Hon. I. Black: This is about economic development. It is about economic development, which means one has to be able to do economic development. It means you want to do….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.
[ Page 1683 ]

Just take your seat for a second, Minister.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members.

Continue, Minister.

Hon. I. Black: Now, I know the opposition has been against the games and continues to be against the games all the way through. That part is not new. It's not new to this side of the House. It's not new to the people of British Columbia, who I suspect are enormously disappointed in that stance, but nonetheless.

This is about economic development, which means it's about doing business. When you do business, you generate taxes which, if I may point out the obvious, generate the ability to deliver health care and education to the record levels that we are in this province.

So yes, we need facilities to host people in business. We have the opportunity to have one of the most centrally located business-hosting venues in Vancouver, the Terminal City Club.

But do you know what, Mr. Speaker? It doesn't stop there, and I'll tell you more in a minute.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

R. Fleming: My question is for the new minister for the Olympics. Last week his colleague the former Minister of State for the Olympics admitted in this House that she had no plan whatsoever for almost a million dollars in luxury suites and luxury box tickets that were going to be handed out to government MLAs and their friends — no plan. She admitted she had no plan until it was raised in this House, and the damage control was undertaken over the coming days after that.

Will the minister, or whoever, stand in this place today and tell us why, if this is such a good way to conduct business, the government is conducting business and giving out a large untendered contract worth $500,000 that puts more food and drink in the friends of the government — in their mouths?

[1400]

Hon. I. Black: Clearly, the member is not familiar with team sports, because it takes a big team on this side of the House and across this province to put on one of the best events that this province has ever seen.

I don't know if the member has had the opportunity to look out onto the front lawn and see the excitement that's building for the torch event that's coming this Friday, but the excitement's building, and everybody seems to understand that.

But you know what? That same excitement is felt in the venues where we've got the opportunity to play host. They're not just limited to the Terminal City Club, a venue that is needed for its size.

Oh yes, it's also at B.C.-Canada Pavilion, one of the most exciting and energizing areas. We will invite that member and all British Columbians to B.C.-Canada Pavilion, which has been the showplace of excitement and opportunity at the last two Winter Olympic Games and which will be at this one as well.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

R. Fleming: You know, taxpayers might have a little more respect for this government if they got an explanation, if they got information about how government is spending the money. Right now they're getting an explanation from this government about why kids' sports are being cancelled in British Columbia — because there's no money — and why health care services are being cancelled — because there's no money in British Columbia.

The minister should tell the House today, if he has a plan for how this Terminal City Club hosting business is going to provide value to British Columbians, why other British Columbians should go without public services while this kind of activity is going on, and then table that plan in the Legislature.

The question for the minister is: will he do that today? Will he show who's coming to dinner and why and what purpose it's serving for the people of British Columbia?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: We're not going to continue, Members.

Hon. I. Black: Well, there are 250,000 people coming, and they're coming for more than dinner.

You know, the member speaks of the expectations of British Columbians. Well, I can tell you that British Columbians expect us to leverage the greatest opportunity that we've seen in economic development in a generation, and we plan to do that.

But you know what? It's not just British Columbia. Every province in this country is setting up pavilions in British Columbia because they recognize the opportunity. The part of it that may be instructive to the members opposite is that that also includes the NDP province of Manitoba. They understand.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Continue, Minister.
[ Page 1684 ]

Hon. I. Black: There's not a jurisdiction in the world that wouldn't give its eye teeth to host the Olympic Games. We're proud it's us, and we plan to take full advantage of it.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Just wait, Member.

Members.

B. Ralston: Will the minister explain why this half-million-dollar contract was not tendered?

[1405]

Hon. I. Black: The NDP's approach to this situation is absolutely shocking. You are going to be seeing, in 107 short days, the best and brightest athletes in the world, but also the best and brightest investors, researchers, scientists and potential customers of British Columbia products and services coming right here to British Columbia. Yes, indeed.

Our job is to open the door, not to close it. We saw for ten long years what happens when you close the door to business, when you close the door to opportunity and when you close the door to jobs. My goodness, there is nothing like the Olympic Games to open a door, and we're opening it widely.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The member has a supplemental.

B. Ralston: Will the minister explain why this half-million-dollar contract was not tendered?

Hon. I. Black: There are some great venues in downtown Vancouver where we plan to do some hosting. We've talked about the Terminal City Club — a venue which, incidentally, is one of the few venues of its size that can accommodate the vast majority of the larger events that we plan to host.

But beyond having the B.C.-Canada Pavilion, we're also welcoming the world to Robson Square to see the B.C. Showcase. We're welcoming them to the Asia-Pacific Centre, a venue that's very close to Robson Square.

For years the Asia-Pacific Centre has been doing precisely what the Olympic Games represent, which is saying to the world, "Come to us, invest here, create opportunities here and create jobs here," and that's what we're going to do.

M. Farnworth: The question was pretty straightforward. We don't need the boosterism speech. We just want to know what 4½ million British Columbians want to know, which is…. Good business practice thinks you'd put something like this out to tender. So can the minister tell us why the contract was not put out to tender? It's straightforward.

Hon. I. Black: I accept the fact that the members opposite don't understand the benefits associated with the games. Most British Columbians seem to get it, but so does the vibrant small business community in British Columbia. Let me express…. Because the member comes from a community that's got some fantastic small businesses, in the middle of Small Business Month let me shamelessly take advantage of that to tell you the small businesses that are benefiting from the Olympic Games.

How Canadian is this? Blade Pro Products Inc. of Vancouver has got the contract for a licence agreement to produce branded hockey blade tape, and they're going to use this to accelerate their goal of becoming the number one way to tape a hockey stick.

The Olympic Games are affecting the small business community as well.

DISTRIBUTION OF GAMESTOWN 2010
OLYMPIC GAMES TICKETS

V. Huntington: My opportunity now being here.

Last week the Minister of State for the Olympics told this House that the Olympic secretariat had purchased 3,000 tickets to the 2010 games. Of the 3,000 tickets, she stated that the communities will be receiving some of these tickets through GamesTown 2010.

My particular interest was piqued when she added: "We have members from Delta South. We have tickets to Delta North."

However, on the GamesTown 2010 website, there is no mention of Delta winning any tickets, no mention of any community that won tickets. What it does say is that 600 communities participated in an early-bird draw for 24 pairs of tickets — 24 pairs.

[1410]

We also know that the average value of the secretariat tickets is $300. However, the minister informed the House that the GamesTown 2010 tickets were valued from $20 to $200.

My question is to, I guess, the Minister of Economic Development. Can he please advise all the members of the House which of the ridings among the so small list of 24 communities have been recipients of the GamesTown tickets? Can he tell the House how many tickets in total are being distributed to the communities, and can he explain why the secretariat is not sharing the more valuable tickets with the communities of B.C.?

Hon. I. Black: The distribution of whatever Olympic tickets are touched by government will be fully accounted for.
[ Page 1685 ]

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

V. Huntington: The minister and my colleagues might be interested in knowing that there are only 80 tickets available through GamesTown 2010. That's 40 pairs of tickets to the 600 communities that have applied for them.

Meanwhile, there are volunteers in my riding and in every riding in this House who have for several years given their time and energy to the Spirit of B.C. program, promoting and championing the Olympics within their communities. Moreover, there are former Olympians in Delta South that have not, unbelievably, been offered tickets to the very event they embody, the very event that wouldn't exist without them.

Will the minister commit today to offering some of the 3,000 secretariat tickets both to B.C.'s former Olympians and to the dedicated Spirit of 2010 volunteers?

Hon. I. Black: There's no doubt that the Olympic Games are for all British Columbians. The government's job, as we get ready for this exciting event, involves a lot of different activities. Part of it involves running the contest that the member opposite has discussed and making people from across the province feel as though they are very much a part of this great event and that they will benefit as a result.

We have, through the efforts of our government, got a great hosting program planned to reach out to those people around the world who can make a unique difference in British Columbia through additional economic development. We accept that responsibility of hosting them appropriately. Again, any tickets involved with this effort will be fully accounted for.

Waiting times for surgeries in B.C.

A. Dix: The health authorities, under the direction of the Minister of Health, have announced the cancellation of more than 10,000 surgeries between now and March 31, 2010, the end of the fiscal year. This will increase wait times for B.C. residents across surgical categories.

Now we learn that the B.C. Liberal government is in discussions with the province of Saskatchewan to use the capacity created by the cuts to welcome their patients for surgery at a price. Why is it acceptable for the Minister of Health to cancel surgeries in Surrey and Kelowna to make room for people from Regina and Saskatoon?

Hon. K. Falcon: I'm very glad he asked the question, because as a result of the investments we've made in British Columbia in innovation in facilities throughout the province — by the way, innovations and dollars the NDP opposed — we have seen the average medium wait time for hip and knee surgeries decline by 50 percent in the province of British Columbia.

Not only that, we have seen the volumes of hip and knee surgeries over doubled, to over 12,000 operations that are performed annually in British Columbia. That is a record level that we never even got close to under an NDP government.

Here is the thing. Because of this and because of the investments we've made, we actually are in the situation where other provinces, including Saskatchewan, are saying to us: "With the innovations you've made, the investments you've made…. We've got wait-lists. Could you help us?"

I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker. We ought to be proud that other provinces are looking to B.C.'s leadership and looking at ways that they can also help their wait-lists and deal with the excellent services, excellent facilities and excellent doctors we have in the province of British Columbia.

[1415]

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

A. Dix: I know the Minister of Health is operating without a binder today, but the fact of the matter is that if he's on the distribution lists for the cuts in surgeries announced in Fraser Health, the cuts in surgeries announced in Vancouver Coastal Health and Vancouver Island Health, he gets all those notes. In fact, he approved them — 10,000 surgeries cut. Those are only the announcements so far — tens of thousands of people on a waiting list in British Columbia.

Is it really the Minister of Health's policy to sell off the spots that he's cancelled for people living in British Columbia — in Maple Ridge, in Mission, in Surrey, in Kelowna — and offer them to other provinces? Is that the new position of the Ministry of Health and the Minister of Health?

Why doesn't he use the surgery time in British Columbia to close the wait times…

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Member, just….

A. Dix: …in British Columbia? Why doesn't he do that?

Mr. Speaker: Member.

A. Dix: And why doesn't he explain to British Columbians waiting for surgery across the province why he's selling off their care to the highest bidder?

Mr. Speaker: Minister, before you start speaking, I think there's an apology in order.

Hon. K. Falcon: I apologize for whatever it is the Speaker is asking me to apologize for — absolutely.
[ Page 1686 ]

Mr. Speaker: Minister. Minister, sit down for a second, please. The comment that was made is to be withdrawn. Now, would the minister please withdraw the comment that he made to the opposition critic.

Hon. K. Falcon: Certainly, Mr. Speaker. I withdraw.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed, Minister.

Hon. K. Falcon: So let's understand. I think it might be helpful to read something out of a newspaper article that perhaps will inform the member opposite. "'The wait-lists are horrendous,' said Victoria clinic director Dr. Brian Weinerman. We're sending people to Bellingham just to reduce the pressure" — this was in reference to an article in the Vancouver Sun about hundreds of B.C. cancer patients having to travel to Bellingham to avoid waits of up to six months for radiation treatment — "cancer experts said Wednesday."

Now, the interesting thing about that is that that actually took place on August 22, 1996, while that critic was the chief of staff to the government that was sending patients, cancer patients, out of the province to receive care.

The difference with us is that we have reduced wait times by 50 percent in British Columbia. We've got provinces looking to us to say: "Can you help us with our wait-lists?" That's the difference.

Here's the best part. The best part is that not only, in the discussions we have as we engage in this discussion, do we have the opportunity to have our costs covered for doing the procedures, but we can charge a premium that makes sure that British Columbians have the ability to get additional services quicker and faster right here in British Columbia.

J. Horgan: Well, only in Liberal bizarro world would cancelled surgeries be good news for British Columbians. George Orwell would be proud of the minister for that remark just a minute ago.

What is the message he's got for the thousand people on Vancouver Island who have had their surgeries cancelled because this government won't adequately fund health care? What's the message to them? Move to Regina? Move to Moose Jaw? Is that the message from the minister?

Hon. K. Falcon: No, the message from the minister will actually be the facts. I know the members are always uncomfortable with facts, particularly numbers. So I'll give the member some numbers that he might find interesting.

In 2001, which is the year we came into power and the year following up the NDP government, there were 2,908 knee replacements in the province. This year — 6,975.

Hips and knee surgeries are at record levels in the province of British Columbia. They are not being cut. They are at record levels, and that has been a record that this government has invested in as a result of innovations like the UBC Centre for Surgical Innovation, which is being recognized across the country for the work they do. And they opposed it. That's what they always do. They oppose good innovation.

[1420]

EARLY INTERVENTION PROGRAM
FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

M. Karagianis: Today hundreds of families in 20 communities across British Columbia have gathered together to protest the cuts to autism funding for their children. These parents are protesting the cuts that have reduced therapies to the very lowest level, a level that will not allow their children to experience successful outcomes.

To the Minister of Children and Families: I would like the minister to explain to these families how any of her decisions are fair or equitable.

Hon. M. Polak: I'm happy to say that the member is absolutely wrong. There has been no reduction to the autism program. In fact, it's increased this year by $1.6 million. That brings it to a level that is ten times what it was in 2001.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

M. Karagianis: That information from the minister is actually just not factual. The early intervention program in this province has been cancelled for the 70 children at a time who experienced that intensive intervention behaviour. It's gone, cancelled.

B.C. has one of the lowest spending levels anywhere in the country. So 70 children at a time…. Now, 600 children successfully have gone through this program. Hundreds are on waiting lists now to get this program so that their children can very successfully enter school and go on to achieve excellent outcomes.

To the families who have come here to this House, I would like the minister to please explain why increasing hardship to families with autistic or special needs children is the priority of this B.C. Liberal government.

Hon. M. Polak: In British Columbia, unlike other jurisdictions in Canada, we have a commitment to ensure that every single child and youth with a diagnosis of autism is provided with financial support to help their intervention, and for that, there's no wait-list.

The member well knows that the entire budget that was devoted to the EIBI program is being returned into the autism budget, and that will help to serve hundreds of families all across British Columbia. Right now the EIBI program services 70 children in approximately seven communities in British Columbia.
[ Page 1687 ]

We are working with those service providers, and we are ensuring that, contrary to what the member is saying, those families will continue to be provided with the proper intervention for their child. They will receive the funding support that the rest of the autism families in this province will receive. We are committed to ensuring that they all receive service.

M. Elmore: Today hundreds of families are speaking out against the cancellation of the early intervention program and the decision to leave autistic children without the level of support that can make a difference in their lives. These cuts are senseless and shortsighted.

We know that we will pay more in the long run for supports for these and other special needs children because we didn't give them the strong start in life that they deserve. Their voices are being ignored by this government.

At a time when this government is squandering tax dollars on luxury boxes for a hand-picked few, these families are asking why their children are at the bottom of the priority list.

To the minister: why are autistic and special needs children paying the price, and why is the government cutting this effective program?

Hon. M. Polak: First of all, to suggest that children with autism in this province will not receive intervention, and to frighten parents in that way, is absolutely irresponsible.

[1425]

We are working with community development centres around this province — those that have had the EIBI program and those that have not — to ensure that not only are we creating a transition plan for those 70 children but also that we are able to best serve the 6,000 children with autism that we serve all across this province.

[End of question period.]

K. Corrigan: I seek permission to make an introduction.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Introductions by Members

K. Corrigan: I'm very happy to see that we have in the gallery today Ken Robinson, who is the president of HEU, a former colleague and a friend of mine. You'll make him welcome, please.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, in Committee A I call Committee of Supply — for the information of members, the ongoing estimates of the Ministry of Housing and Social Development. In this chamber, continued second reading debate on Bill 17.

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 17 — HEALTH STATUTES
(RESIDENTS' BILL OF RIGHTS)
AMENDMENT ACT, 2009

(continued)

M. Karagianis: I'm happy to continue my comments on Bill 17. Just to recap my earlier comments on this debate, I certainly see Bill 17 as being a rather weak replacement for the seniors advocate that the Leader of the Opposition and the B.C. NDP have been calling for.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Certainly, the fact that government feels that it needs to establish a bill of rights for seniors says to me that the need for seniors to have some kind of advocate is greater than ever. Unfortunately, I think this is a weak replication of what is really needed.

Certainly, in looking through the terms that are laid out here on what the rights of the seniors will be…. I alluded towards the end of my comments yesterday that for eight years we have seen a reduction in the quality of services provided to seniors here in the province of British Columbia. We have seen a reduction in home supports and other things that would have allowed seniors to live a longer, healthier life in their own homes before requiring residential care. It certainly begs a lot of questions about all of the various items included in this bill of rights for seniors.

I talked yesterday about the change in the kind of residential care that's being offered to seniors. Certainly, many of the options available to seniors in the past have slowly been eroded away to kind of a one-size-fits-all assisted-living kind of care provision, with residential care sort of morphing out of that kind of assisted living and costs going up for seniors all the time.

One of the other aspects, I think, of this Bill 17 and the need for this bill of rights for seniors that flies in the face of reason somewhat…. Some of the language that's contained in here is, in many ways, kind of motherhood statements around the kinds of things that seniors should expect — you know, their rights to health, safety and dignity. One would always assume that that's exactly what all families hope for their senior members who are put into residential care and that all seniors, frankly, should be expecting that would be the minimum they could expect in the way of treatment.

[1430]

But I go on, and when I go through the various items here in the bill of rights for seniors, I see that not only are seniors to be treated in a manner that promotes their
[ Page 1688 ]
health, safety and dignity, but seniors are being guaranteed now to have their lifestyle and choices respected and supported.

I have to say, again, that flies in the face of reality here for many seniors. We've seen over the last eight years this propensity from the government to begin to erode away the public facilities here in British Columbia in favour of privatized facilities, or this need to move seniors around to fulfil contracts with privatized companies.

I know that within my own community, many seniors have been stripped away of some of their choices. The Priory in Langford, which has long been a very superior and excellent environment for seniors, has recently had a number of their seniors units taken away from them. The number of units has been reduced at the Priory. Those units, when I contacted the health authority, it turns out, have been moved over to a new facility that just opened over on Gorge Road in the new Selkirk facility for seniors.

If we're truly going to allow seniors their choice of lifestyle, then it means that if they want to stay in their communities, that should be one of the first priorities for those seniors.

Yet the seniors that were in the Priory, taking those spaces in the Priory, have now been denied the choice for them to stay in their community, where their families can live nearby and the families can see those seniors on a regular basis. Now, instead, those seniors have to live downtown, if in fact they want to take advantage of those spaces.

It would seem to me that this movement out of public facilities into private facilities, or out of residential care in your community to residential care units miles away from your family, does not in any way support this bill of rights, where the government is now claiming that the seniors will have a choice in where and how they are supported and what kind of residential units they will be able to access.

This goes on to talk about their right to have their personal privacy respected, to have visitors and to communicate with visitors in private, to keep and display personal possessions in their rooms. Why in the world would we not assume that a caring and compassionate residential care situation would automatically provide that for seniors?

The fact that we have to embed this into a bill of rights speaks to me very strongly of the fact that we have lost touch very much with the control over some of these new privatized seniors care facilities. That, unfortunately, is a tragedy for many seniors.

The reality here is that we have got a huge loss of residential care spaces, particularly in this area here in the south Island. That is a huge jeopardy for many seniors, and they feel threatened by this.

We're seeing many closures of programs, support programs and residential care facilities here. Many of these will be in favour of privatized units.

I see that as one of the driving forces here in having to establish a bill of rights. We no longer have that control over how privatized residential care providers treat individuals.

We've seen some horrendous examples coming out of Cowichan Valley, where the Cowichan Lodge was closed. Seniors were then forced into a privatized facility. They've now had their cost of living jacked up over and over again. They're now being charged for all kinds of things they never were before.

Is that one of the reasons we need to provide a bill of rights — to go in and find a way to protect those individuals? We can't. Everybody in this House knows that we've had long and deliberate debates about privatization and about our ability to provide oversight and direction to these residential care providers.

It seems to me that when I look at all of the things that are included in this bill of rights, this is what it's about. It's about trying to assure seniors that if they go into a privatized facility, they're not going to end up having many of their personal and private privileges taken away from them, or they're not going to find themselves charged for every little thing that they do and use.

[1435]

I've heard some stories out of Cowichan Lodge. Certainly, the seniors in my community are very concerned. As we've seen the erosion of some of the options for them, I think that they see this as kind of thin gruel, to think that a bill of rights is in any way going to provide the security and sense of safety and dignity that they are hoping for.

The reality here is the lack of government action on long-term care beds. I know we canvass this frequently, but the BCMA, which is hardly considered a faction of New Democrat research, have themselves come up with the real factual evidence of what's happened here around seniors care in British Columbia.

We know that the B.C. Liberals continue to insist that they have built all kinds of long-term care beds, but according to the BCMA, there has been a net decline of 552 beds, up to and including 2007, here in British Columbia. That's just a fact. BCMA is supplying this.

The number of people receiving home support dropped by 24 percent, and the government has broken their promises to work with non-profit societies to build and operate new beds. In fact, it's all gone to privatization. Beds have been closed in government and non-profit-operated nursing homes to be replaced by beds opened in private facilities. That's evidence from the B.C. Medical Association.

Rightly, I can see that the government has been forced to the wall here to try and create a bill of rights to rectify some of the problems that they've created with their own impetuous desire to do away with public and non-profit seniors care and replace it with privatization.

I'm not going to get into the debate at this point on how assisted living is, in fact, not a substitution for residential
[ Page 1689 ]
care, because I think that will be canvassed at length by other members of this House. I am very concerned about the fact that so many of the options that we actually do need here in the province are not being supplanted in any way by this bill of rights.

It's the fact that we actually have to embed in language the rights of the senior to participate in freedom of expression. "An adult person in care has the right to participate in his or her own care and to freely express his or her own views, including a right to the following," and there's a list here. I want to just go back to this. A senior has a right to participate in his or her own care. How can they participate in their own care if the choice is only one option?

In the case of Cowichan Lodge, those seniors had no option. It was either have no care or have privatized care. In the case of those citizens and seniors in my community who have seen units within the Priory closed, they have been forced to either take units at the Selkirk home or take — what? — nothing. What are the options?

If you give seniors only one choice — you can't stay in the publicly run facility or non-profit-run facility because we're shutting that down; you're going to have to move to the privatized facility whether you like it or not — and then we have government trying to embed language in here that says, "An adult person has the right to participate in his or her own care," how is that possible?

You could participate in your own care, but you only have one choice. Go out of the publicly run facility and into the privatized one, where, frankly, government says: "Oh, we don't have a lot of control over that, because that's privatized." Certainly, the public has no way of finding information out, because that's all protected by freedom of information from any kind of disclosure. It seems to me that this bill of rights is a lot of language with no substance.

It reminds me of many of the slogans we've seen from this B.C. Liberal government over eight years, where they march out a fancy-looking slogan or a fancy-looking program, don't fund it, don't give it any substance and make sure all the activities around and supporting that system are contrary to the slogan. That somehow is considered to be satisfactory.

[1440]

When you look at the choices that are being given to seniors in this bill of rights…. We talk about their ability and their freedom to choose the kind of care they want, "to participate in the development and implementation of his or her care plan." Well, for those individuals who are now stuck in privatized residential care and being billed for Kleenex and aspirin, anything that they take, in a way that they never were before, how are they able to develop and implement their own care plan?

How can you fulfil this when government has not made any effort to protect the public seniors residential care system, has foisted all of it off into privatized hands, where seniors are now paying more than ever before?

I mentioned this yesterday. The government at one time were protecting seniors by saying that only 70 percent of their income could go towards their care. Now they've jacked that up to 80 percent of their income that can go towards their care. More money into the privatized caregivers' hands and less for the senior. When we talk about a senior's right to participate and develop their own plan, the choices are few.

"To establish and participate in a resident or family council to represent the interests of the person in care." Well, that's now saying that others can step in. Granted, that sounds very good on the surface, but again, how is a family to intervene — right?

The next point on the step is that his or her family or representative can participate in a resident or family council on their behalf. If so much of this is eroded service, and families object to this, where are they to go, and who are they to speak to? Frankly, you know, this continued erosion of services to seniors….

Families have been fighting back and complaining for a long time about the reduction in home care, about the reduction in the number of services that their seniors are receiving, and now we have a bill of rights that's embedding language in here that, frankly, I don't think the government can actually make good on. I don't think that the government can enforce this because they're not enforcing it now, and the options are not there for many seniors.

It goes on to talk about the senior having the right to be informed of "how to make a complaint to an authority outside the facility." Well, we have seen here in the province of British Columbia — in fact, only steps away from this Legislature — abuse foisted on seniors who were unable to speak out for themselves. That was at the hands of approved residential care providers who are still providing care here in the province of British Columbia. So how in the world is this bill of rights going to protect them if seniors are being mistreated, abused or neglected, especially by privatized residential care providers? What good does this bill of rights do for them?

It certainly didn't help many of the seniors here at Beacon lodge. Are we going to see more stories like this, or is this a way to keep the cap on them? "Oh, they have a bill of rights now, so they have the right to complain." Well, I have a father who's in the very advanced stages of dementia, and he could no more speak out for himself if he was being neglected than could my cat.

So what happens, then, with these seniors? It seems to me that as you go through each piece of this bill of rights…. "The Rights to Transparency and Accountability." Well, when did that ever stop this government from privatizing away, protecting the privatized partner from any kind of disclosure?

If this is going to be a real, supported and accountable bill of rights for seniors, then the government is going
[ Page 1690 ]
to have to really change their attitude in a big way about how they've been treating seniors for the last eight years and how they intend to treat them in the future, because most of this is fancy language that in no way bears a resemblance to what's really going on in the world for many seniors who are losing their rights. It's costing them more for services. They are feeling less secure about their choices in the future as they see government close down many of the facilities that we've just seen.

Under VIHA we're seeing huge closures right across the south Island here. That gives seniors a great deal of concern in my community. This bill of rights in no way whatsoever will give them comfort because the government simply can't back it up. It's fancy language with no substance behind it.

[1445]

You know, this goes on to say that the scope of rights here, set out in this bill, the rights set out in these clauses: "are subject to (a) what is reasonably practical given the physical, mental and emotional circumstances of the person in care" — absolutely; that is critical — "(b) the need to protect and promote the health or safety of the person in care or another person in care, and (c) the rights of other persons in care." Absolutely.

For seniors who are selecting their own care and managing their own lives…. Let's be honest. Many of us are headed in that direction sooner than later, and I would hope that a bill of rights will really protect me as a senior, the seniors in my community, and give some security to the families who are looking after their seniors' care.

L. Krog: One gets the impression that what we really have here is the political equivalent of a band-aid over a very seriously infected cut. It's all about covering it up. It's not really about assisting and dealing with the serious problem that exists underneath. It won't make anything better, but it will provide cover. It will provide cover, and that's about all it's going to provide.

My grandmother spent the last years of her life in a facility in Parksville. Trillium Lodge, a not-for-profit facility built by the community, supported by numerous volunteers, provided excellent care. She was often fond of quoting old Pope John, who very kindly used to say: "God bless the very young, and God bless the very old."

The reason the Pope said that, I think, is self-evident. Because at those stages of life, that is when you don't necessarily have any ability to protect yourself, to look after yourself, to control events around you, to even request or express in an intelligible way what your needs are, what your concerns are, what your cares are, whether you're sick, whether you're healthy, where it hurts even.

My father-in-law ended up in a facility in Nanaimo — Malaspina. It was the old hospital. He died with Alzheimer's, unable to express himself. Able nurses would be able to perhaps determine whether he was in pain or where it hurt.

So I have incredible respect for the people who work in long-term and health care facilities generally, and I understand the pressures that they face every day. This bill is a recognition, however, that seniors don't always get the care that they deserve or the care that they need. This bill is a recognition that there is a political problem for the government as well.

My leader, during the last election campaign, advocated strongly for the appointment of a seniors representative, someone who would be an advocate on behalf of seniors in the province of British Columbia, someone who would ensure that seniors received good care, someone who could deal with investigations into the care that was provided.

The member from Esquimalt has just finished listing a number of facilities within, literally, walking distance of this very Legislature where seniors didn't get the care they deserved, where seniors didn't get the care that this bill describes now as a right.

You know, on one hand I've never been fond of the use of the term "rights." We throw it around in common parlance nowadays as if there were rights to all kinds of things which, from a legalistic perspective, we don't really recognize. But there are expectations.

There are expectations in a society as wealthy as ours that when you're a senior, you're going to be cared for. You'll be sheltered. You'll be provided with health care appropriate to your needs. You will be somehow safe. The blessings that the old Pope called for would be, in fact, delivered to you. You wouldn't have to worry about who cared for you. You would have supportive people around you.

The reality is that in British Columbia today we have worked very hard, particularly on Vancouver Island, particularly in the Interior within Kelowna, Penticton areas, at encouraging retirees to move to British Columbia. We have strongly encouraged it. The business community has asked for it. Government policy has helped support it, arguably. We want people to retire here.

[1450]

But the reality for many of those seniors, let alone those who are native-born British Columbians who spend their whole lives here, is that when they have come and when they get older, when they become infirm and unable to care for themselves, there is no family available to care for them.

Their children are back in Regina or Moose Jaw or Mississauga or St. John's. They're not there to go in and check and see if mom and dad are okay, if they're getting the care they need. The only support system you will have at the end stage of your life in a facility will be the support system provided by the paid staff, by the people who work in that facility. You won't have the benefit of family to comfort you.

So what you will be is — quite simply, in many respects, as you often are living to a ripe old age — isolated, alone,
[ Page 1691 ]
unable to fend for yourself, not capable of expressing in many cases what your needs are.

It's entirely appropriate for patients, for people at that stage of life, people in care, to have rights. I would call them more expectations than rights. We will call it a bill of rights, but it's not quite the same. Let's not pretend we're going to give it the same strength and authority that we do for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We recognize in our legal system that the right to a trial will guarantee you…. A free trial in a serious criminal case will entitle you to legal counsel. There's no question about that. The state is going to ensure that you get your defence. The state, through our justice system, will ensure that you have the right to free speech.

But the rights that are enumerated in this statute — in this bill, rather — are ultimately subject to money. That's what it really gets back to. It's fine to talk about the rights to health and safety and dignity, but if there isn't sufficient funding, the rights almost become meaningless.

I'm not suggesting this is part of some government plot or anything like that, but the fact is that without appropriate funding, the rights that are enumerated in section 1, which would add the schedule which will be entitled schedule 7…. Those rights are dependent on cash. Those rights are dependent on the ability of government to fund. Those rights are absolutely dependent on the government's willingness to make seniors care a priority.

The law is a funny thing. Anatole France once said: "The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor to beg in the streets, to steal bread and to sleep under bridges." It's a lovely phrase.

We're going to, presumably, pass this bill. I don't think there's any question the opposition is going to oppose this bill. This does move us forward, however slowly and however tentatively. We're going to support this. But it becomes quite meaningless if it isn't accompanied by the real political willingness to pay for it. These rights really are something that has to be supported by money, by budgetary priorities, by a government that is serious about this.

I come back to my point. Some of us in the opposition just have the feeling that this is a political band-aid. This is exactly what I said it was. This is a reaction to an enormous political problem this government faces, and that is the strongly held belief by many British Columbians, seniors in particular but their children as well, who believe that, in fact, seniors are not getting the level of care that we as a civilized society believe they're entitled to.

That's what it really comes back to — a growing sense in British Columbia that we aren't treating our seniors, the most vulnerable of our seniors, in a way that befits a civilized society. That's the problem. I sadly suspect that that's really what this bill is all about. There's nothing in here that says the government's committed to spending money.

[1455]

It even has a section referring to the scope of the rights. It says that the "rights set out in clauses 2, 3 and 4 are subject to (a) what is reasonably practical given the physical, mental and emotional circumstances of the person in care, (b) the need to protect and promote the health or safety of the person in care or another person in care, and (c) the rights of other persons in care."

What it doesn't include is a section (d) that tells us the truth. These rights are subject to the Treasury Board approving the appropriate funding to ensure that there is staffing that can actually deliver on these rights.

It's all well and good to talk about the right "(a) to be treated in a manner, and to live in an environment, that promotes his or her health, safety and dignity; (b) to be protected from abuse and neglect; (c) to have his or her lifestyle and choices respected and supported, and to pursue social, cultural, religious, spiritual and other interests."

How can you protect someone's lifestyle if they're suffering from dementia and in a wheelchair that they can't operate themselves — if they're absolutely dependent on someone to push them everywhere to participate in any of these events? How is that right to health and safety and dignity supported?

It puts me in mind of something that President Johnson once said, I think around the passage of the Civil Rights Act. He said basically it wasn't enough that you could take a people who had been held in chains their whole life and set them beside another runner in the great race and say, "We're equal" and "go for it," and pretend that that was equality. It didn't work.

So when we talk about these rights, there are no rights unless there is support. Without that support, the rights become meaningless. They become a sort of salesman's puffery, if you will — the kind of language that's used all the time by people who want to sell you a bill of goods and disappear. That is what many of us think we're being sold. It's a bill of goods.

We don't have a Charter right to health care, but as Canadians it is probably our one strong universal public value — that we will have the right to health care. We have an expectation that it'll be delivered in a timely way and that seniors in particular — again, amongst the most vulnerable amongst us, those in care and facilities — will get the treatment that they deserve and the treatment that many of us are going to come to expect.

As are the vast majority of members in this chamber, I am part of that great postwar baby generation. The statistics say that by 2020 in British Columbia the proportion of seniors will grow from 14.2 percent in 2007 to 19.2 percent in 2020. By 2030 nearly one in four British Columbians is going to be over the age of 65. That's from the report of the Premier's Council on Aging and Seniors Issues, November 2006.

It's a staggering figure. Where does this bill of rights figure in a future where one in four of us are over 65?
[ Page 1692 ]
Where does this bill of rights figure in a world where, based on present expectations, fully a quarter of us will be retired or expect to be retired? Realistically, I'm not sure any of us will be retired. We'll probably all still be beavering away in this House on behalf of the people of British Columbia, and I hope we all have the good health to do it.

I see the member from Mission has poked his head up. He's interested in that concept, too — that he'll be here for a very long time. And I'm delighted to hear that.

But the reality is that we're not all going to enjoy good health. Many of us are going to end up in facilities of various kinds requiring various levels of care. So when I hear the government wax so eloquent about solving the problem with a bill of rights without any commitment to the funding and support that's needed, I have to ask myself: "Just how sincere are they?"

The Hospital Employees Union, I think, has wisely pointed out, having taken a quick look at this bill, that really these rights are largely dependent on providing minimum staffing levels. These rights are dependent on numbers which, frankly, don't bode well for the exercise of these rights by British Columbians.

[1500]

What do we know? We know that in British Columbia we are not providing the funding at the same level as other provinces in terms of the numbers of hours available for care in facilities. We know, for instance, in 2003-2004 the per-capita spending on home care in British Columbia was $82, below the national average of $91. We had one of the lowest utilization rates for home care in Canada.

Now, what that tells us is that we're not supporting them at home to stay in their homes, which is a very good thing, which should be one of the primary goals of government policy — to ensure that people remain in their own homes, in the security of their neighbourhoods, in the security of a dwelling that they're used to. That would be the best thing.

What we know, in fact, is that seniors aren't necessarily getting that support they need to stay in their own homes, so they are going into facilities. Assisted living at first — you know, a couple of meals a day, a room to stay in, hopefully some companionship — and then on to higher levels of care.

Imagine, hon. Speaker, how difficult it must be if you still have your ability to comprehend the world around you. You have no family. You're dependent on a facility for everything: to toilet you, to feed you, to move you, to engage you in any activity that you might wish to participate in — entirely dependent on the facility.

Imagine, hon. Speaker, what that must feel like if you're in a facility where you know it's essentially a business. It's a for-profit facility. Imagine what that must feel like. This isn't Trillium Lodge where, as I mentioned, my grandmother spent her last years — a not-for-profit with a good union staff, people who retained their jobs for years; people who developed that familiarity with their patients, if you will, with the residents; people who knew each other.

We're talking about for-profit facilities, and we all know what this government did with Bill 29. We all know what happened to a number of people who worked in health care, in long-term care facilities. We know what has happened in Nanaimo, Nanaimo Seniors Village, on various occasions — mass layoffs of staff. Imagine what terror that must strike into the hearts of the seniors in those facilities, hon. Speaker, facing the prospect that staff that they were used to relying on, staff they'd come to know, were going to be gone.

If we're going to talk about the commitment to care, if we're going to talk about rights to health and safety and dignity, rights to participation and freedom of expression, rights to transparency and accountability, we have to talk about those other things. We have to talk about the reality of what it is to be a senior, what it is to be entirely dependent on others, and what kind of a system we're creating if these rights are to have any meaning at all.

Government policy has, without question, encouraged more and more private health care delivery in this province, for-profit facilities. That is what the government believes philosophically is the best thing for our seniors. I don't believe for a moment that it is the best thing for our seniors. The members of the opposition don't believe it for a moment, and hon. Speaker, I suspect that if you polled them, the vast majority of British Columbians don't either.

People understand what the profit motive is all about. You know what, hon. Speaker? Many of us on this side of the House have either run a small business or a professional office, worked in businesses, worked for employers. We understood the necessity of profit. You've got to have a profit. People don't invest; people don't get employment. You know, you can argue that there's no incentive.

But when it comes to the delivery of care for people who have lost control of their lives in every sense because they are entirely dependent on others — the concept of them being cared for in facilities where the motive is profit.... Surely that should strike us as just somehow not in accordance with those great Canadian values around public health care.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that all of the facilities in this province that are for-profit facilities aren't delivering good care. I'm not suggesting for a moment that their owners don't have some interest in providing the care, and think it's a good thing to do and don't actually see it as probably one of the best businesses they can be involved in. But at its root, the facility won't survive unless it makes money, unless it makes a profit.

[1505]

On one hand we've got a facility where there's no interest in making a profit. It's there entirely devoted to
[ Page 1693 ]
delivering a service. On the other hand we've got a facility where someone has to make a dollar, where there are investors who expect a return.

I'm no rocket scientist, but I think it's pretty clear to me what kind of facility I'd like to be cared for in. I think it's pretty clear to me that I want to be in a place where I know the people who are running it and the whole operation are devoted to delivering a service for me when I need it. It's not, at its root, a place designed to make a profit.

If you're going to enforce these rights, if these rights are to have any meaning whatsoever, then they have to be supported by the money, and they have to be part of a system where the primary goal is not for profit. The primary goal is, in fact, assuring that one of the most vulnerable groups in our society, seniors in the end stages of life, get the care that they deserve.

You know, there is, as I said, a difference between expectations and rights. I think most of us who have grown up post-war generation — and, indeed, pre-war — expected that when we got old, if we became so ill or infirm that we required residential care, care in a facility…. Our expectation was that we would receive that care, that we would receive the kinds of supports to ensure that we could live out our last days in dignity. If we are to live out those last days in dignity, then surely we have to do more than just provide what I will call a statement of almost platitudes.

It says in section 4:

"An adult person in care has the right to transparency and accountability, including a right to all of the following: (a) to have ready access to copies of all laws, rules and policies affecting a service provided to him or her; (b) to have ready access to a copy of the most recent routine inspection record made under the Act; (c) to be informed in advance of all charges, fees and other amounts that he or she must pay for accommodation…."

It strikes me that one of the things I might like to also see is not the most routine inspection reports made under the act but the extraordinary ones, the ones where the facility that I'm housed in are, in fact, in violation. Surely I have a right to know that as well. I don't see that enumerated here.

Forgive my cynicism, but when I see that we talk about the "adult person in care has the right to transparency and accountability," gosh, I've got to tell you, most British Columbians were hoping to get that from this government — this transparency and accountability — but that doesn't seem to be the case. We just went through an interesting question period today where we couldn't get a decent answer around the issue of accountability for an expenditure of a half a million dollars for boxes.

If we do have this right as seniors in care, persons in care, to transparency and accountability, what are the specifics? How's it going to be enforced? Who's going to guarantee that it happens? Who's going to deliver it? Why not a seniors advocate? Why not someone who is independent?

We have figured out in our society that the appointment of independent officers of this Legislature is a good thing. We've got an independent conflict commissioner, we've got an independent Auditor General, we've got an independent ombudsperson, and we have independent persons like the child and youth representative, who we know are there with a guaranteed and fixed position with an ability to protect the interests of the people who they are statutorily required to protect.

This government could have included the appointment of a seniors advocate. It wouldn't have been unreasonable in this bill. I think it would have been, if you will, an acknowledgment of what I've had to say about the good work of my party and my leader around the appointment of an advocate, but it also would have said, I think, in a very clear way to British Columbians, that this wasn't just a political fix.

[1510]

This wasn't just the political band-aid that I talked about. It was a sincere attempt by the government to remedy the problem that they acknowledged by bringing this bill before the House, and that is that seniors care in this province isn't what British Columbians believe is good or right or proper. It also would have been, I think, a more effective solution to dealing with the issues that confront our seniors in care.

But instead, what we have is the whitewash. We've got the statement of rights. I think the member from Esquimalt talked about form versus substance. We've got the form, but we haven't got the substance.

We've got a tiny admission by the introduction of this bill that there's a problem, but we're really not quite prepared to go far enough to actually deal with the issues. We've got a great statement of what seniors are entitled to. I suppose you could call it the wish list. And that's all it will be — a wish list, a statement of higher ideals to which we aspire if it becomes meaningless.

There's a statement attributed to President Jackson when they removed the Cherokee and sent them on the Trail of Tears. The Chief Justice of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall, presiding over the Supreme Court, decided that the removal was illegal. Of course, what happened was…. The response, historically attributed to President Jackson, was: "The Chief Justice has made his decision. Let him enforce it." Well, in fairness to President Jackson, history has finally figured out that he never actually said that, but it's a great story because it illustrates my point.

Passage of a bill like this is meaningless unless there is the government apparatus to enforce it, unless there are designated persons interested in doing their work. We know, for instance, what this government has done around employment standards. We have the shell there. We've got the form, for example. But if an employee has a problem, they go to employment standards, and then they're sent back to discuss the problem with their employer.
[ Page 1694 ]

Well, I'm sure that's of great comfort to a 17-year-old kid who's desperate to help support his family or a 25-year-old single mom with a couple of kids at home. She's going to go back to the employer who's harassing her or making her life difficult and try and solve the problem. It doesn't cut it. There's a real world out there.

What senior is going to feel comfortable trying to assert these rights if they're not satisfied that they've got a government system of enforcement that will genuinely protect them, that will ensure that they're taken care of, that will ensure that the complaint they've made will be supported and a remedy found? Where is that guarantee? It's not in here.

You can submit a complaint to the patient care quality…. Let's see. "In addition to any complaint that may be made under this Act, if a person in care believes that his or her rights have been violated, the person in care or a person acting on his or her behalf may submit a complaint under the Patient Care Quality Review Board Act."

What sort of funding does the Patient Care Quality Review Board Act appointee get? Are we going to guarantee that it's a priority? Is it going to be like funding for the Nanaimo children's festival, through a gaming grant — going to disappear? Is it like funding for parent advisory councils — going to disappear? Is it like support for a whole series of things that this government claims to believe in — going to disappear down the priority list?

So I come back to my main point. The opposition will support this. It's a step forward. But the proof is in the pudding; the proof is in the delivery.

Will this government step up to the plate and provide enough competent, qualified people to ensure that those vulnerable adults and people in care get the care they deserve, get the enforcement of the rights that this bill enumerates, receive and be entitled to exactly what we believe they are entitled to, and that is to security and safety and comfort at a time when they are most vulnerable?

[1515]

Without all of that, what we are doing here is essentially engaging in a public relations exercise. The people of British Columbia expect and deserve better. Most particularly, seniors, adults in care, deserve better because if they don't get it, all we are doing here is contributing to the growing cynicism around government and its ability to deliver services and protect its citizens. That's all we're doing.

I sincerely hope that the government, either because it's a political problem or because they sincerely believe it, are going to back up this bill of rights, if you will, with the kind of support that is required in order to ensure that the lofty ideals set out in it are, in fact, implemented, that our seniors are protected. They deserve to be protected. They helped build this province, and God knows, we're all going to get there some day.

Deputy Speaker: Members, with your indulgence, I would like to take a moment to recognize someone who has just come into the public gallery. A dear friend and former colleague, Mr. Alex Campbell, has joined us from the district of Richmond. He and I were school administrators together, and I would ask the House to please make him very welcome.

N. Macdonald: I, too, will take my place to speak about Bill 17, which is the residents bill of rights, an amendment to the health statutes act.

Section 3 in this bill lists the rights of adult persons in care. There's a fairly extensive list, and most of the things that would be listed here are fairly self-evident: to be treated in a manner and live in an environment that promotes the individual's health, safety and dignity; protection from abuse or neglect. It lists pretty well, with a dozen statements, things that people should be able to expect in care in this province.

The difficulties that you do have with the bill…. I think the sentiments expressed are so self-evident and so reasonable that you're not going to get anybody voting against them, but I think that we have to look at the context in terms of what's being put forward here.

First, when you look at the bill, there are modifiers. There are things like "if practical." So a statement like: "Somebody should be treated in a manner, in an environment, that promotes the individual's health, safety and dignity…." It modifies that where it says "if that's practical."

Then it also makes it clear — it's explicit in the amendment here — that there's no right of action. So there is nothing here that really allows anyone to act upon any of these expressions of standards if they are not kept, because first it modifies…. It allows an out with "if it's practical or not," and then it is explicit in saying that there's no right of action.

Essentially, what you have with this amendment is something that is — I think many of my colleagues have said it — a communication piece. It solves a political problem, and I would make the case that it really does not in a substantive way correct the problems that are there for people that are depending on residential care in this province. Those people are predominantly seniors.

I think what people know is that in any society, you really judge the quality of that society by how it organizes itself to look after those that are vulnerable. In many parts of the world the family structure does that. In Canada it's not only the family, but also the wider society pools the resources to look after those that are vulnerable. Those include children, of course; those that have fallen sick or are disabled in some way; those that have fallen into poverty; and of course those that find, because of age….

They're seniors, and they're in a position where there is a certain vulnerability, especially as they move on. Very often the physical constraints become such that they have to move into care or else one of the things
[ Page 1695 ]
that many of us see with people as they grow older is the onset of a very difficult situation related to Alzheimer's, which is increasingly common.

[1520]

It is something that is very difficult, not only for the individual who suffers from it but also for family members and the wider society trying to help those people. It creates real challenges. I think that as politicians, we have the ability to interact with a large number of people. Certainly in rural areas, and I suspect for most of us, the election process is a process of going door to door, talking to an awful lot of people and getting a pretty clear sense of what people think about provincial politics.

My experience over the past four years has also included all of the community meetings that you attend. I can say with absolute sureness that the values that are there for the people that I represent…. One of the strongest values, articulated most clearly in 2005 during that election, but again in 2009, is that people want seniors treated with dignity and respect. To do that, we need to get the residential care piece right.

What I would assert and certainly what I heard door to door is that it is a piece that this government has consistently failed on, that there is a consistent problem with residential care in B.C. for seniors and that people don't accept that that is the way it should be.

So what I would suggest and, I think, what most who would look at this would suggest is…. What you have is, essentially, an act that is to solve a political problem. It really is not going to make a difference for anyone in terms of the care that they receive. The problems that are there are not going to be solved by this.

All that it does is provide an opportunity for the government to stand up and say, "Oh, don't worry. There's a bill that somehow looks after that," and hope that people don't ever have to experience it and find out that it actually doesn't provide any of the protections that one would presume were there with the legislation.

It's in no way a bill of rights. It is an expression of sentiment, and I would say that it's a cynical expression if you don't have the resources that are needed to provide things like the dignified care — the environment that promotes an individual's health, safety and dignity.

If you don't have those things funded properly and put in place, then a statement which gives the impression that you have a right to it, I think, is cynical. It wouldn't be the first piece of cynical legislation or cynical communications from this government.

I think all of us who worked here between 2005 and 2009 remember the stage where we went through the five great goals. It was essentially a statement — five things that the B.C. Liberal government was failing on. You had this statement that they would say again and again and again to try to get the public to believe that there was going to be some movement on those issues, and there wasn't.

I think you could go through a long list. The heartland strategy — it was the same thing. This expression, this communications plan, about what was going to happen — in the end, there was nothing to it.

That's the problem with this bill too. To make these statements, even if you do it in the form of legislation, is meaningless if it doesn't come with some of the resources to find solutions to real problems that seniors have.

What I would put in front of people is that the values of the people that I represent…. I know that those values include looking after our seniors properly. What they expect is that the real problems that are there are fixed and that we should not simply substitute an expression of sentiment and say: "Well, that's the problem solved."

That's the concern that I have. Expressing this is an attempt by the government to make it look like they are actually doing something or are serious about something, when in fact, the problems that are to be solved will take resources and they will take work.

[1525]

I think the context that we have to look at when we look at this bill is an understanding that what we will get shortly is a report from the Ombudsman's office — or the ombudsperson, if that's what they're going to be called — where it lays out some of the challenges for seniors.

Regardless of what is laid out, I think there's no question that in the public mind those shortcomings have been pretty clear. The area that I represent, from 2001 on, when this Legislature was filled almost entirely with B.C. Liberals…. The area that I now represent had one failing for the seniors after another.

I said during the 2005 election that the failure of this government in looking after our seniors was consistent and that it was comprehensive, and everybody knew that that was the case. Residential care beds were closed in Invermere. They were closed in Golden. You had the whole hospital closed in Kimberley. The impact of those closures was profound.

It wasn't just the closures. It was the fact that people were forced to move from the community because beds that had been there were no longer there. It was additional costs. It was changes to the supports in home that hadn't been thought through. It was a significant problem for one senior after another.

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

People in the area that I represent, in Columbia River–Revelstoke, simply rejected the idea that you should be making those changes and impacting seniors in the way that they have been impacted. I think it's significant to know that that was not what people had voted for in 2001. There was a pretty clear promise — again, speaking to the emptiness of words; in fact, it was there in the New Era document — about providing additional units.
[ Page 1696 ]

I think the promise in the 2001 document from the B.C. Liberals was that there would be 5,000 residential care beds by 2006. Well, there weren't. There still aren't. There has been a net loss in residential care beds. Now the government mixes up all sorts of different things that they've built and tries to say that in some way they've met that commitment, but they haven't. There is the lowest number of residential beds per capita in the country here in British Columbia.

Certainly, the experience in the area that I represent is that the residential beds that are there simply are not adequate. Facilities that were built by not-for-profit and then by the government were closed. If they were to be replaced, they tended to be replaced by privately run facilities. That's something that runs contrary to any suggestion that seniors' interests are being seriously looked after.

So you had and you continue to have — but especially in that first number of years — a reorganization of seniors care that was high-handed, and it was sloppy, and it caused real hardship. The stories are well known by people in this House and by people in the province. It caused real hardship for seniors. Clearly, that's something that has been spoken of many, many times here.

Between 2002 and 2004 there were 26 residential facilities that were closed, which is 15 percent of the beds. What it created, of course, is not only real problems for seniors but a political embarrassment for this government and a weakness for them that continues.

Now we have this act, which is a number of statements that talk about how seniors should be treated. In fact, if you're going to find solutions, then you have to put the resources where they are needed.

In 2009, again, you had promises by the B.C. Liberals, by this government, around health care. I guess, to put it in context, essentially — just to go back to this most recent election — you did have four main commitments.

[1530]

The first one was that the deficit would be kept to $495 million. Well, it wasn't. It's up to $3.5 billion, if you don't include the HST payoff from the federal government. I think a second point that was made in the election was around having no HST. That's what the B.C. Liberals said. The opposite is happening. You had commitments around education that weren't kept, and you have commitments around health care that haven't been kept.

Again, you have seniors that I represent that are being impacted by the fact that those commitments are not kept. None of the problems that they have are going to be solved by this piece of legislation or the statements of intent that are included in it. The improvements will only come when the resources that are needed are going to be put there.

One of the key difficulties that seniors and seniors' families talk to me about is the fact that they feel there is a lack of staffing at many of these facilities. The hours per day that are available to people in residential care are simply inadequate, and that is something that is said to me again and again.

It's something that we have pushed the government on. If you're serious about improving seniors care in residences, then you have to deal with that issue. The standard for hours per day looking after particular patients is the lowest, in British Columbia, of any jurisdiction in Canada.

What that causes is real problems. You have staff who are expected to dress people. You have staff who are expected to help with toileting, to help with feeding, to do changing, to look after medication. You have staff who have to look after wounds, very often.

You would hope that there would be time, as well, for some personal interaction for people in care. That can only happen if there is adequate staffing, and you only will get adequate staffing if you have in place rules around the amount of time that each patient gets. I think that in B.C. it's something close to 3.4 hours. If it's not 3.4, it's close to that, certainly. What people will tell me again and again is that it's simply not enough time to do the job properly.

It's all well and good to come up with a piece of legislation that talks about an environment that promotes the individual's health, safety and dignity, but if you put no money towards the problem that everyone knows is there, if you're not going to deal with that issue seriously, then they are empty words from a government that has a long history of empty words without the substance to actually solve the problem.

You have, for many, many people, standards that include one bath a week. What you hear again and again are the complexities if somebody misses the bath, having to go for a period of time…. Again, that comes down to standards that aren't high enough and to a lack of staffing, to the fact that you don't have enough people there to provide the care that is needed.

I don't want to give the impression that the challenges for providing all of these services is anything more than a real challenge, but it is a challenge that British Columbians say that they want their government to meet. They want to make sure that seniors are looked after in the way that they need to be.

What we have seen and many in British Columbia have seen is that the public and non-profit care homes that we built in our communities are the homes that the government has tried to close. They instead try to replace them with private, for-profit facilities. Obviously, in certain situations — I would argue that education is one of them and certainly health care is the other — the profit motive is one that can distort how the service is provided, and that's a problem.

[1535]

I think that with seniors care, the care home has to be focused entirely on the service that they are providing to the senior. That has to be the focus, and I just can't see
[ Page 1697 ]
how the profit motive would work in that circumstance. Certainly, it can't work unless you have strict enforcement, and we shouldn't be fooled in any way that this so-called bill of rights for adults in care provides that.

First, as I have said before, it comes with modifiers — like that you can have your safety and dignity looked after if it's practical — and with explicitly no ability to have any right of action. So we shouldn't fool ourselves that this provides any protection as we increasingly get private facilities.

I think we also have to recognize the fact that we have forced many seniors into facilities by cuts to home support. Since 2001 we've seen a 24 percent drop in the number of people that actually receive support, and we've seen a 12 percent cut in the overall hours available to them. That's where the population that…. The government recognizes a population of seniors that is growing.

What seniors are telling me is that they simply don't have access to the support that they used to have and that they need. Therefore, people are forced into facilities in a time before they would choose because they don't get the home support that they've been looking for.

Again, it's an example of where the government is saying one thing….If you look at what they said during the 2001 election and during the 2005 election, the B.C. Liberals talked about trying to keep people in their homes with more home support, but when the time came for them to actually make that happen, the exact opposite happened. You see home supports that had existed removed.

It's always framed — and we see it here in question period — as a change or an improvement or administrative cuts. However it's framed, the fact is that for the person who is actually impacted, it's a cut. It makes their life more difficult, and very often it will force people into facilities before they would choose to go. So that's a problem.

As I said, it's well and good to have statements of sentiment, but statements of sentiment really don't provide any answer for people that's meaningful. You need to have something that's actually going to change somebody's life.

As I said, we were promised just as recently as last May in Columbia River–Revelstoke that we would have no cuts to our health care if the B.C. Liberals returned to government. But what we have now seen is that having returned to government, there's about, in Interior Health alone, $30 million to $40 million worth of cuts coming per year.

Where services were there, where there had been promises that they would continue, those services are being taken away, and they impact people that are in residential care. They are people who had a service, need a service, and it's being removed. So at the same time that you have a government bringing forward a piece of legislation that talks about things that are going to give an individual a healthy outcome, you have the actual service removed.

The example that we talked about recently in the House was the removal of a speech pathologist for Invermere and for Golden, a part-time position — a position that, if you were to believe what the B.C. Liberals said during the election, would be retained. They promised that there would be no health cuts. But immediately after the election Interior Health said: "Well, we have to cut $30 million to $40 million." The government said, "Go ahead and cut," and this is one of the positions that has been cut.

[1540]

The government will frame it as being some sort of an improvement, but the fact of the matter is that instead of having a speech pathologist working with individuals in Columbia House or in Durand Manor in Golden, you're going to have a video linkup where, presumably, somebody looks on TV and somehow the work is done with that sort of a setup.

For seniors or for those that are living in the residential care facility, the impacts are real. The speech pathologist not only deals with trying to help people relearn or maintain their ability to speak, but they also will look at things like swallowing. They will feel, as individuals try to swallow…. For those that have had strokes or those that are suffering from Alzheimer's, what people here will know is that very often one of the real complications that will be there is around swallowing.

What this gentleman did, this Mr. Coe, is he would go…. One of the assessments he would do is around the patient's ability to swallow. Then with his assessments, there would be modifications in the types of foods and the consistency of the liquids that were fed to the people in the residential facilities that I mentioned.

Those are real tangible things. Those are things that if you get rid of that service, you make somebody's life worse. If you retain them, you make somebody's life better. What we have with this legislation will make no difference to anybody's life. It is essentially just there as a communication plan. That's the frustrating part about this legislation — that it won't actually make a difference to anybody's life, and despite promises that there would not be cuts that would impact seniors, there have been cuts again.

Yesterday in the House we talked about a gentleman who is going to be in Columbia House. At the age of 39 he had a stroke. The stroke has been devastating, of course. He had a child on the way. He had family to look after, and now he is going to spend an extended period of time, likely, in Columbia House.

There was hope with a speech pathologist that he would be able to say his children's names. He had made progress. When he had to go to Calgary for more treatment and for a number of weeks didn't have the help from the speech pathologist, he regressed.

Now he has come back and found that the speech pathologist that he needs has been removed. So there
[ Page 1698 ]
are issues for him around the ability to speak, which is hugely important, and there are issues around his ability to swallow and make progress learning how to swallow again.

So you have real problems that aren't addressed. Instead, we get a piece of legislation which essentially lays out sentiment, and we shouldn't confuse the two. The only way that we're going to make progress is if we deal with real issues. Yet again and again, this government goes to expressions of sentiment because they don't want to deal with the real issues.

I made a list of seven things that, if you go to community meetings, seniors talk about. These are the things that seniors who speak to me, that their families who speak to me, feel are important things to do.

The first one would be to cancel the increase in residential care rates. It's unbelievable to me that we have sentiments expressed in this bill about keeping people healthy, and then you try to raise an additional $56 million from seniors by raising their rates. To me, that seems just absolutely incredible. It seems absolutely incredible at the same time that you're cutting taxes for banks $100 million. I think to most British Columbians, that contrast is just unbelievable.

I'll just quickly go through the list, because I see I'm going to run out of time here. The other thing that seniors and their families talk about is improving the ratio, as I've said, of caregivers to residents in residential care. That comes up again and again as an issue that this government has not addressed. As I say, it's one of a long list of areas where this government leads the country in failure.

[1545]

The third is: increase the number of residential care beds. That was a promise in 2001, a promise that wasn't kept. There have been cuts, closures — all the exact opposite of what was promised. And still you have wait-lists. You don't have enough space for people that need it.

The fourth thing is the improved access to respite care. You have families that need this if they're going to retain their own health. They need a place to get a break, and so that's an area that needs improvement.

As I've said, you have to increase the levels of home care services.

A sixth issue is that you have to increase access and improve access to palliative care. We had beds that were there that were closed, and there was something profoundly wrong with that.

The seventh thing is — and I know I'm going to run out of time before I have too much to say about it — that there is a lot of support for the idea of an independent representative for seniors, an officer of this Legislature that is going to do good work fighting for seniors. That is an idea that makes complete sense.

With that, I thank you for the opportunity to speak on seniors issues. It's something that I feel is profoundly important.

G. Coons: I rise to speak to Bill 17, the Health Statutes (Residents' Bill of Rights) Amendment Act. I notice that the minister, in her opening remarks, talked about their commitment to quality care, their impressive investments and their commitment to 5,000 beds. So in my comments about Bill 17 — about the acute care impacts on seniors, the home care, home support, residential care — I'd like to sort of look at some of the so-called commitments that we've seen over the last seven or eight years.

You know, the purpose of this bill, as the minister said in her remarks, is to give a bill of rights to adults living in care. This looks at seniors and other residents in care, including long-term mental health substitutes, community living, hospice, acquired-injury facilities. The main purpose, as I see it, is having a bill of rights and having a list of these rights for the adults posted on a wall when they move into the residential facility care.

The rights that we see under Bill 17 are basic rights that we would expect to be available without having to go through legislation. Residents in care already have the majority of the rights listed in this bill.

If we look at some of the rights…. It's the right to a care plan developed specifically for them; to be treated in a manner and to live in an environment that promotes their health, safety and dignity; to be protected from abuse and neglect; to have their lifestyle choices respected and supported and their personal privacy respected; to receive visitors and communicate with visitors in private; to keep and display personal possessions, pictures and furnishings in their own room. They're just things that I would think most British Columbians and seniors would expect to have available to them without having to go through this piece of legislation.

I hope this is a sincere effort to improve the care of residents, and with that comprehension, I will support this bill.

Again, I believe we have to look at and analyze how we got to this position with the government presenting this bill and, again, how much consultation happened in this. We haven't heard from any members on the other side, except the minister's opening remarks. How much consultation was done? Who was consulted on this bill? Who are the stakeholders that were brought into the picture? We don't know, and we don't know if anybody was consulted. We don't know whether or not their input has been taken into the components of the bill.

[1550]

I look back to a couple of bills that the opposition put forward a couple of years ago. The Representative for Seniors Act, 2007. Again, I see this bill echoing what the opposition put forward when we tried to improve systems of care and support for seniors and their families and the monitoring of programs and service.

This bill of rights that will be posted at care homes, a set of rules that people need to abide by — who's going
[ Page 1699 ]
to be monitoring it? Who's going to ensure that the impact on seniors is taken into account?

Bill 17 reminds me of the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act, 2007, that this side of the House put forward a couple of years ago and that looks at an accountability framework to protect seniors. The bill that we put forward mandated random manual inspection reports and ensured that the reports are public.

The list of rights for safety, health, and dignity is comprehensive. It's very clear. But I believe they're the kinds of statements that we would expect to be in place already wherever somebody is living and whatever care they're currently experiencing.

When we look at seniors care throughout the province…. We went through the Conversation on Health. The closest, as I've mentioned before in this House, in our region was in Smithers, so I embarked on my own discussion on health. I travelled to the communities in the Nass Valley and to Stewart and Prince Rupert, and along Haida Gwaii and the central coast. Person after person, senior after senior, elder after elder, expressed concerns about the impacts of government policy on their care.

What came out of some of these discussions is that a major concern is that seniors and elders are being looked at as forgotten souls. Long-term facilities and especially home support must be a priority. Having an eye for prevention and proactive care will save the system money. Increasing home support hours, including light housekeeping, will keep our valued seniors in their homes longer and out of expensive hospital beds.

Again, the seniors and the people I met with throughout the north coast seemed to look at the policies that this government has put in about seniors care to be a real detriment to seniors. The North Central Municipal Association, before it changed its name…. One of their top five goals was seniors care and services and having long-term beds required in order to free up acute care beds. So it's been a major concern on the north coast.

This act, this Bill 17, is a small step, mind you, but there's got to be the funding to go along with it. If we look at report after report, whether it's from the B.C. Medical Association or other organizations, they've chronicled how over the last eight years there's been a crisis in seniors care.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a report, An Uncertain Future for Seniors. They're restructuring home and community care. They talk about how this government…. The minister mentioned their 5,000-bed commitment in her opening remarks, but this report back in 2008 looked at how between 2001 and 2005 this government repeated their pledge to build 5,000 new long-term-care beds, a promise that they did not fulfil and that they continue to break.

The report actually says and uncovers that there are actually 800 fewer beds available now than in 2001 for a growing number of seniors who require residential care in communities all across our province. In the report, the government was criticized for inaccurately reporting statistics on seniors care, including inflated bed numbers and bed-count numbers.

You know, this government, over the last seven years, has ignored calls from seniors, from families, from advocates, including the B.C. Medical Association, to follow through on expanding long-term care. Bill 17 looks at the bill of rights for residents, but again, I believe it's just smoke and mirrors as far as the direction this government needs to take.

[1555]

The B.C. Medical Association says that this government changed the terms of their original commitment and promise, to create the appearance that they did deliver. The Medical Association in July 2007 said: "Since 2001 this government has focused on increasing the number of assisted-living units. However, residential care beds and assisted-living units are not interchangeable, because the care needs between residential and assisted-living patients are different."

So it's recognized by the Medical Association, and this government still puts forth the premise that they've created and kept their promise for long-term-care beds, and that's not the facts.

This government has reduced home support, which allows seniors to live independently at home, cutting the number of seniors receiving the services by 17 percent.

In Prince Rupert we've just had Acropolis Manor built. The old one, to the chagrin of many in our community, was torn down for a parking lot, and it could have been used for other things, whether it's drug and treatment centres or for child care or other initiatives. What's happening in the new Acropolis…. There's residential care happening in there. Again, it just opened in the last couple of months, but there are some dilemmas going on. We see throughout the north the concern from seniors about residential care, about acute care and their home care and home support.

The B.C. Ombudsman launched a provincewide investigation due to what's happening to seniors in this province. Again, reversing the damage done by this government is a priority not only for this side of the House but for the many advocates and seniors who have witnessed and encountered a decade of broken promises.

A care plan, a real care plan, a real bill of rights for seniors, needs to include setting provincial minimum standards for direct care for residents at all facilities — three or 3.2 hours — and building the 3,000 long-term-care beds that this government said they would and has failed to create. A real bill of rights would look at expanding home care and appointing an independent seniors representative to oversee seniors care.

This bill, Bill 17, proposing a bill of rights, comes after mounting controversy over the state of the province's long-term-care facilities. Again, we saw it last year in a series of articles in the Vancouver Sun. Chad Skelton
[ Page 1700 ]
found that nearly one in nine long-term-care facilities in the Lower Mainland had been classified as high risk by government inspectors. Again, high-risk facilities are those considered by health authorities most likely to violate government health and safety regulations and are subject to frequent inspections.

So we start seeing where this bill might be coming from. It might be trying to cover up on the actions of this government over the last seven or eight years. Art Kube, president of the National Pensioners and Senior Citizens association said that this proposed bill of rights, in his mind, is largely a media relations exercise. This bill of rights is hard to oppose, but we have to look at the premise for this government putting it on the floor.

Kube adds, "They are flouting the law before they pass it," saying that "the province is underfunding residential care facilities and in some cases forcing seniors to move from one facility to another." He continues: "I'm not saying that beds shouldn't be closed if the facility is outdated, but the trauma of moving old people is so great, it shouldn't be done. The beds should only be closed through attrition when people pass away."

The rights mentioned in this bill, in section 3, are pretty obvious. I went through a couple of them. We look at "Rights to participation and freedom of expression." You know, an adult person in care has "the right to participate in his or her own care" and to freely express their views, to "participate in the development and implementation" of their own care plan and "participate in a resident or family council" and to have their family representative participating. "Rights to transparency and accountability." "(a) to have ready access to copies of all laws, rules and policies affecting the service provided…" to them.

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Now, you would think that this would be available to anybody. We don't need a bill of rights. This is common sense and a no-brainer. So when we look at this Bill 17, the residents bill of rights, it's pretty common sense.

H. Bains: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

H. Bains: In the House we have some very distinguished community leaders: Dr. Hakim Bhullar; Dr. Dalbir Singh Bhaniwal; Jaswinder Singh Parmar and his father, visiting them from India, Mr. Surindar Singh Parmar; Gagandeep Gill — they also call him "Dimple." Please help me welcome them to this House.

Debate Continued

G. Coons: Again, I have to go back to the minister and her opening remarks, when she looks at how this bill is just going to strengthen their commitment to quality care in British Columbia for seniors. But, you know, we've seen how this government has failed seniors. B.C. is in seventh place in Canada in per-capita health care funding — a drop from second place in 2002. We've gone from second to seventh place. Code oranges and code purples are signalling that hospitals are so severely overcrowded that they can't admit patients across B.C.

They broke their promise to build 5,000 residential care beds, and they continue to shut down seniors care homes across the province, in spite of the commitment or the statements by the minister in her opening remarks.

While shutting down seniors care homes, the government also cut support to help seniors stay in their homes longer. In Prince Rupert we've seen it over the last four or five years — a decimation of the home support program and cutting the hours. It got to a point where management were getting bonuses for reducing the number of hours that seniors had in the region. The number of seniors receiving home support has dropped 24 percent since 2001.

If we look at the BCMA again, the medical association, in their report of September 2008, Improving Access to Acute Care Services, they look at how a lack of community care has resulted in seniors receiving an inappropriate level of care in a hospital instead of the community. They say it's estimated that at least 10 percent of acute care capacity, and a rate as high as 20 percent in some hospitals, is being used by people requiring an alternate level of care.

So again we're seeing access to acute care being decimated over the last six or seven years. The provincewide acute care capacity has decreased by 15 percent, the BCMA says.

The Fraser Health Authority in their service plan has a bed-to-patient ratio of 1.8 acute beds for every thousand people, less than the Canadian average of three. If we look at section 3 in Bill 17, it deals with the rights of those in care. But if we look at residential care, Stats Canada in their report that they did in 2007 said that in 2005-06 B.C. spent the least nationally on residential care on a per-capita basis for those aged 65 and over and had the lowest number of residential care beds per capita.

This government goes on a premise, a false premise, of a commitment to quality care for seniors, and they put forth Bill 17, a list of rights that should be found in any care facility — putting it through in legislation without the backgrounder or funding necessary.

[1605]

If we look at the B.C. Medical Association in their Re-Building B.C.'s Home and Community Care System, called Bridging the Islands, they look at the number of residential beds between 2001 and 2007 decreasing by 553, from 25,420 to 24,867 — below the over 30,000 beds that should have been in place in 2006, had this government kept their promise of a 5,000-bed commitment.

Now also, if we look at long-term care facilities — and we talked about the high-risk violations that we saw in 2008 — in British Columbia as a whole, there continues
[ Page 1701 ]
to be a lack of residential care space. Alternate-level-of-care rates in B.C. are staggering and outrageous. In Northern Health, there's a shortage. The rate in Northern Health is 18.6. In Vancouver Island Health Authority, the rate is 16 percent. In Interior Health Authority, it was 13.4 percent.

When we have a commitment by this government, it seems that over the last seven or eight years it's just been broken promises.

The Auditor General has gotten into the picture, when they looked at it in a report in 2008, Home and Community Care Services: Meeting Needs and Preparing for the Future. The Auditor specifically examined the Ministry of Health's role in providing stewardship for the system, and they were very critical of this government's lack of stewardship, poor planning, no up-to-date capacity plan, a lack of accountability and transparency.

The minister in her opening comments talks about how the bill of rights will improve transparency and accountability in care facilities. I don't understand how a piece of paper on a wall listing the rights of the patients is going to increase this government's transparency and accountability where it's lacking in just about everything that they do.

Some of the Auditor General's lowlights include that in 2005, the five regional health authorities agreed to transition from their existing management information system to establish their own client information systems to meet more comprehensive reporting requirements. However, only one of the health authorities has done so. So the ministry's access to information on home and community care is at risk. It does not have the information it needs to plan and monitor the system effectively.

We have the Auditor General, we have the B.C. Medical Association, we have seniors throughout the province, and we have report after report indicating that this government has failed to meet what we have to do for our seniors.

Again, I go back to the consultation for Bill 17. We on this side of the House don't hear or see any members on the other side standing up and reading their briefing notes or talking about this bill. You know, who is consultated? Who did you consultate with?

Interjection.

G. Coons: Consult with. Thank you, Bill. I'll e-mail you that.

When we look at this, it was the B.C. Medical Association, where seniors groups…. We haven't heard. The audit conclusion for the Auditor General: "The Ministry of Health is not adequately fulfilling its stewardship role in ensuring that the home and community care system has the capacity to meet the needs of the population."

We have this bill before us, Bill 17, the residents' bill of rights — you know, just a government band-aid, a diversion from what this government has been doing across the province to seniors for the last seven or eight years.

If we look at home health care, the B.C. Medical Association has comments on that in their Bridging the Islands report of May 2008. They indicate that B.C. is one of two provinces where the number of home care users has decreased, despite an aging population, while home care spending went up. They say this suggests that "access to home care services has been increasingly restricted for only patients with higher medical needs."

Instead of looking after seniors in their home environment, this government, under their policies, are forcing them to go into hospital situations or care facilities.

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They look at the number of people receiving home support in B.C. It's dropped 24 percent between 2001 and 2005, and the home support hours dropped by 12 percent. What we've seen in our communities is that support services such as grooming, housekeeping, meal preparation services have been eliminated, putting more pressure, more stress on our seniors and not giving them the support they need at home.

What we've seen recently from this government is home care costing more. The fee increase that this government put in of $54 million for residential care is bad public policy. Not only are seniors seeing residential care now more expensive; the access to it is limited.

Under this government, we've seen MSP premiums, Medical Services Plan premiums, increase by 50 percent. At the same time that these premiums were increased, they cut services covered by MSP. They cut eye examinations, physiotherapy, chiropractic care, massage therapy, visits to naturopaths.

Again, the B.C. Medical Association…. I keep going back to the B.C. Medical Association because they've had lots to say over the last couple of years about how government policy is impacting health care and seniors in this province.

A few of the key quotes from the May 2008 report from the B.C. Medical Association. One of them is, "British Columbia's home and community care service is in a state of decline. While the reduction in residential care beds would not necessarily have been wrong if accompanied by an increase in community-based care…data show that there's a simultaneous decrease in home care and home support" — the very services that are suggested as most effective in promoting healthy living at home for seniors.

You look at this bill before us, and you wonder why it's on the floor — whether it was pressure from groups; whether it was a symbol, that they realized they had to do something, a band-aid approach. Again, was the B.C. Medical Association consulted in this? I would hope so.

The BCMA says: "In 2001 this…government committed to create 5,000 new…beds by 2006, but in fact, the number
[ Page 1702 ]
decreased by 1,464." Now, I'm not too sure who people want to believe out there — the government spin or the B.C. Medical Association, which is saying that beds were not created.

Interjection.

G. Coons: It is a tough choice.

The B.C. Medical Association says the number of residential care beds decreased by over 1,400. They say that the government "must honour its original promise" and that these beds must be "(a) a net increase in actual beds relative to the number of beds available in 2001 and (b) above and beyond any increases to the number of assisted-living units or other types of home and community care services."

When we look at the minister, in her opening remarks, saying that the government's over-5,000-bed commitment for seniors across the province…. We have the B.C. Medical Association contradicting that. They also go on to say: "The findings suggest a system in decline, largely because of deteriorating access to services."

Again, both physician and case manager surveys consistently stated that things had become worse. We look at the number of beds in residential care facilities. As they decline, access to them also has become more limited.

The physicians survey, which was a part of the Medical Association report…. I wonder if the physicians were consulted also — or other health stakeholders, or seniors, for that matter. When asked to select the top three challenges in home and community care, the most common response and the one cited by the majority of respondents was the insufficient number of long-term care beds.

[1615]

Sixty-three percent of the physicians that were consulted in the survey said that that was a concern — insufficient number of long-term care beds. This was followed by impeded patient flow from the hospital to the community and inadequate resources to home support.

We look at this Bill 17. It's supportable, but we on this side of the House wonder why it's before us when there are just commonsense actions that should be taken.

Just about concluding here. The B.C. Health Coalition launched a campaign, and they called for immediate government action on seniors care. This was last January — 2009. They launched their campaign: "Broken Promises, a provincewide seniors health…campaign that is calling on the provincial government to provide quality, accessible health care and improve necessary services such as home support and long-term residential care."

They met with seniors over the last year, they say, across the province. There's a crisis in seniors health care, and they want immediate action from this government. They don't want a band-aid approach — a bill of rights that has no meat to it, no substance. They are looking for a commitment from this government and all governments to have acute care, home care, home support and residential care that meet the needs of all British Columbians.

With that, thank you, hon. Chair, for the opportunity to discuss Bill 17.

K. Corrigan: Well, I am certainly supportive of the rights that are set out in Bill 17, but I do reflect that this certainly came after a great deal of pressure. I recall seeing that pressure over the last several years from many organizations. Nevertheless, I think it is a small step in the right direction.

I don't think anybody can disagree that it is important to have rights for seniors in care. They should have the right to have a care plan developed specifically for them. They should have the right to health, safety and dignity — to be treated in a manner and to live in an environment that promotes their health, safety and dignity; to be protected from abuse and neglect; to have their lifestyles and choices respected, personal privacy respected; to be able to have visitors and display possessions, and so on — and the right to participate in their own care.

All the rights are admirable rights, and I think it is a positive thing that the rights also have to be posted in all care facilities. I do recall organizations pressuring for those rights, as well as the ability of residents and their families to be fully aware of what the rights are.

But when you look through this list of rights, which are admirable, it's clear that, with the possible exception of complaints submitted under the Patient Care Quality Review Board Act, there is no cost to the provincial government of listing these rights and enacting these rights. It doesn't cost the provincial government any money at all.

Unfortunately, though, having these rights available, listed, posted…. They're empty rights if they are not accompanied by the appropriate resources to monitor and enforce the rights and, in fact, if they're not accompanied by the ability of seniors or other people in care to have access to the type of care that they need. You have to be able to get into the appropriate type of placement and the appropriate type of care in the first place for these rights to mean anything.

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I'm very concerned because I believe access to home and community health care services in B.C. has declined significantly since 2001 and that many, many seniors are not able to get the kind of care that they need to when they need it.

I have closely read a report, which I think is an excellent piece of work by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives as part of their economic security project, called An Uncertain Future for Seniors: B.C.'s Restructuring of Home and Community Health Care, 2001-2008.
[ Page 1703 ]

I would say about the CCPA that I have read their work and followed that organization for years. One thing about their work is that in all the years that they have been producing their reports and doing their analysis, I have never heard their credibility in any way undermined. Every report that I've ever seen…. I've never seen anybody saying that their analysis is not valid. So yes, they are a progressive organization, but their research is sound and unassailable.

The CCPA is not the only one that has raised concerns about home and community care. Organizations like the B.C. Medical Association, which has been mentioned earlier, the B.C. Auditor General's office, the Ombudsman's office, the B.C. Care Providers Association and the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at UBC have all raised significant concerns about home and community care.

Certainly, it's not just those high-profile organizations. As well, it's health organizations like the B.C. Health Coalition, which was mentioned earlier, that stand up for seniors in this province. It's seniors' family members and friends.

When I was working at the Hospital Employees Union as a researcher, we certainly had dozens and dozens of families that came to us and dozens of families that went to the B.C. Health Coalition, hundreds of them that were concerned about the care that their senior relatives were receiving in facilities across this province.

One of the problems is that home and community care isn't covered by the Canada Health Act, so there are no national standards, no minimum service levels, no minimum staffing levels. So there is no right…. There are the other rights under the Canada Health Act. There are no rights to community health care. In addition, we've heard lots of references to the fees being charged for these services, and sometimes they are out of range for seniors.

During the 2001 election the government — the B.C. Liberals, then prior to becoming government — made a promise that they were going to build 5,000 new non-profit residential care beds by 2006. But today there are actually far fewer residential care beds. According to CCPA's report, there are 804 fewer residential care beds. In their place there are 4,393 new assisted-living units that have been added since 2001, although there are lower staffing levels and support levels.

So instead of the 5,000 new residential care beds that were promised, there are only about 3,500 net new assisted-living units that have been added to the public system.

The difference between assisted-living beds and residential care beds is very significant. Assisted-living beds are for people who have low or moderate levels of disability. They require some daily personal assistance to live independently, but they can live somewhat independently as long as they get help with some things like medications, perhaps, or bathing or some other care.

[1625]

That's to be contrasted with residential care. Residential care is a far different thing. It's more expensive, and it's more intensive in terms of the care that's provided to the residents. With residential care there is 24-hour nursing supervision and care for people with very complex needs. I've heard some of the fellow members describing some of those needs. It can include bathing. It can include eating. It can be for people who cannot even turn over in their beds without help. So we're talking two completely different groups of people.

In 2006 the government acknowledged that it had not met its target and then changed the goalpost to 2008, but the target remained 5,000 beds.

As mentioned earlier, even considering assisted-living units as beds, they didn't reach that target, but that also doesn't reflect the fact that the number of beds should have been adjusted to reflect the growth in the elderly population. If you just look at the population growth alone for seniors 75 and older, that 5,000-bed target should have increased to close to 7,000 beds by 2008 and a projected almost 10,000 beds by 2010 and should continue to be increased as long as the population continues to age.

I also want to talk specifically about what the impact of the closing of beds and the change in the nature of beds has meant for my community of Burnaby, which has been one of the hardest hit places — and I think, actually, is the hardest hit community in this province in terms of bed numbers for residential care.

Burnaby in 2001 had 1,676 residential care beds. Those are the beds for people who need a far greater level of assistance in looking after their daily care. In 2008 my community had only 1,403 residential care beds. So in my community 273 residential care beds were lost in that time period from 2001 to 2008.

Assisted-living beds. There were no assisted-living beds, publicly paid beds, in 2001. In 2008 there were 187.

So we lost 273 residential care beds or long-term care beds while only gaining 187 assisted-living beds, lower levels of care. Overall, even if you just look at bed numbers and ignore the fact that you're comparing apples and oranges, in Burnaby there are 86 fewer beds in 2008 than there was in 2001. That's my community.

Another change has been that in 2002 B.C.'s long-term care act restricted access to residential care to those with complex care needs — severe cognitive impairment, dementia, multiple disabilities and complex medical problems. Again, I thank the CCPA for the great and in-depth information on this.

This policy was based on the view that the people that had less complex needs could be more ably supported with home services. Unfortunately, though, the idea that we're going to have all this great home service has not come to fruition, and the access to home health services has also decreased.

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I just want to talk for a second about the regional differences in residential care. Not only has access to
[ Page 1704 ]
regional care decreased, but it's decreased unevenly over the province. When I talk about access, I mean the change in number of residential care beds per thousand seniors, aged 75 and over, between 2001 and 2008. If you take into account the fact that the population has increased and the number of beds there are per thousand seniors age 75 and older…. This is for residential care beds, for those that have higher needs.

The Northern Health Authority has seen that the change in access to residential care since 2001 is a 35.1 percent decline. The change in access to residential care beds since 2001 in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is a loss of 27.2 percent. The change in access to residential care since 2001 in the Interior Health Authority is a loss of 20.6 percent. In the Vancouver Island Health Authority there has been an 11.8 percent decline in access to residential care since 2001. In the Fraser Health Authority there has been an 18.2 percent loss in access to residential care since 2001.

That's an appalling record. It's reflected in the terrible problems that communities are having, community hospitals are having in being unable to find residential care for people that are in hospitals and ready to be discharged to residential care. It creates another huge and expensive problem, in that we then have bed-blockers in the hospital who have no place to go and end up staying in hospital for longer than they should.

I want to talk for a second about how B.C. compares to other provinces in residential care. In 2001 B.C. was just above average compared to other provinces in terms of access to residential care for people 75 and over. By 2008 this province had the second-lowest rate of access after New Brunswick. Along with Alberta, B.C. had the greatest decline in access to residential care between 2001 and 2008.

As I said earlier, the promise was that much of the pressure on long-term-care beds and even assisted-living beds would be mitigated, would be lessened, because we were going to provide home health services, which is an admirable aim. But again, if you don't provide the resources and you don't actually fund the programs, then you're not going to be able to provide the services that are needed in order to take the pressure off the long-term-care facilities.

In the mid-1990s B.C. was a leader in the provision of home health services, which included home nursing and rehabilitation. However, by 2003 B.C. had fallen well below the national average in terms of per-capita spending on these services.

The promised increase in home support has not materialized. On the contrary, according to the CCPA study, between 2001 and 2007 there was a 30 percent decrease in access to home support services for seniors over 75. There is also an 11 percent decrease in access to home nursing, which is a key service for those with significant health concerns who want to remain in their own homes.

[1635]

B.C. Care Providers Association, which is comprised of both non-profit and for-profit care providers, has stated that staffing levels and training in residential care facilities have not kept pace with the higher needs of residents. In addition, they are very concerned — and this report was a while ago, but I know this concern continues — that some facilities are running deficits, as the government funding doesn't even cover the cost of the various negotiated wage and benefit costs.

I want to talk for a second about the shift to for-profit delivery. I'm very concerned about the fact that there has been a huge shift in ownership from not-for-profit facilities to for-profit facilities. That's directly as a result of the policies of this government. Most of the closures that have happened in long-term care facilities have been at not-for-profit sites, and most of the openings have occurred at for-profit sites.

I recall receiving many e-mails from organizations that were bidding on contracts, wanted to have not-for-profit contracts, were not-for-profit organizations, and they were simply being, from their perspective, shut out of the process. Between 2000 and 2008 capacity in for-profit facilities increased by over 20 percent, while capacity in not-for-profit facilities declined by over 10 percent.

In addition to the ownership issues, where capital funding grants for residential care facilities have favoured private facilities, in either for-profit or not-for-profit there is contracting out in many, many facilities in this province. It's occurring primarily, although not exclusively, in the for-profit facilities.

Today the hands-on care of residents is contracted out in 39 facilities, or 14 percent of all residential care facilities. In addition, 107 facilities, or 30 percent, have contracted out support services like dietary, laundry and cleaning services. The legislation that allowed that not only provides employers with the ability to enter into commercial contracts with third-party providers who pay wages and benefits below industry standards, but it also allows them to re-tender contracts with 60 days' notice and hire replacement contractors, often with an entirely new workforce.

When I was at the HEU, I saw repeated examples of this flipping of contracts, and this is not good for our seniors. When they get used to the care by one group whose work is tenuous, who work for a certain amount of time…. If they are organized, if they end up getting a union contract, the contractor simply walks away from the contract or it is flipped to another care provider. This is certainly not good for patient care.

I want to say, as well, that it is very difficult when you have this kind of situation in our long-term-care field, particularly with residential care, where the residents are, in many cases, very unable to look after themselves. When you have flipping of contracts and you have the privatization of care, then the monitoring and inspection
[ Page 1705 ]
becomes absolutely critical. This is another area where this government has entirely failed.

I remember talking to a licensing officer a couple of years ago who was working on Vancouver Island. That licensing officer told me that she was responsible for inspections of long-term-care facilities and all community care facilities essentially on her own, working with one other person, for the whole top half of Vancouver Island.

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I asked her about whether or not, because she had this great area of responsibility, she was able to do the regular inspections, unannounced inspections, that she was supposed to be doing, that were her responsibility under the act. She said: "There's not a chance in the world that the regular inspections are happening, because I am so overworked and so under-resourced that all I can do is try to respond to complaints that are made."

Instead of having a good system of monitoring and overseeing the system upfront, she was responding to complaints and problems and was unable to get in there and see places before the problems happened. To me, that's an unacceptable way to run the system and, again, points back to the fact that if you don't resource the system appropriately, if you don't put the resources in to protect our seniors, then the rights that are being listed in Bill 17 are empty rights.

I want to spend a few minutes talking about some of the things that I think you do have to do if you want to improve our long-term-care facilities and put the resources in that I have been talking about and that are necessary in order to make these rights that are mentioned have some relevance to what is actually happening. First of all, I think it's absolutely crucial that we have adequate staffing and adequate quality of care in long-term facilities.

I know that many of the staff at some of the long-term-care facilities have noticed the impact of low staffing levels. Care aides were reporting that they often had no time to turn residents, so that more were ending up with bed sores. Others were noting that they didn't have enough time to properly feed residents who required extra assistance and encouragement with their meals and fluids. Still others talked about there not being enough activities and no rehab staff to mobilize and work with residents who had just come back from acute care after having a stroke or a fall.

If you don't adequately staff and adequately resource long-term-care facilities, then you have a downward spiral for the residents.

In addition, you certainly need to have a good work environment that will contribute to the quality of care. You need to have teams. You need to include all the health workers in planning and supporting care.

Some care aides said that they were not consulted on resident care plans. Who knows better than the people who are working in facilities about what the residents' needs are? Who knows better than the people who work there about what is needed by the residents?

Research shows that if direct-care staff are encouraged to provide input and are supported to provide quality care, they'll be more successful in providing residents with the individualized care that they require. In addition, we need to make sure that we have the educational standards and continuing professional development needed for quality care. As the frailty of residents of long-term-care facilities increases, we need to make sure that the people working with them are qualified to look after them.

I mentioned earlier my concern about the shift to for-profit delivery. I think that the people who work in long-term-care facilities have directly experienced the impact of contracting-out on quality of care. That experience is echoed in the research on privatization and the change in quality when ownership shifts to private, for-profit facilities.

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Privatization and contracting-out has been repeatedly linked to poor resident health outcomes. Again, the flipping of contracts in our facilities is contributing to the lack of continuity of care and decline in quality of health care.

We need to increase the access to not-for-profit residential care. The substitution of not-for-profit, long-term-care beds to assisted living — it has not been effective. There's certainly a benefit of assisted living for some people, but what is lacking is the adequate number of publicly funded residential care beds.

Again, I return to the real concern that so many people are staying in acute care beds for too long a period of time before they're being placed in a residential care bed. I note that very recently, partly as part of the cost-cutting by the Fraser Health Authority, dozens of beds in my community hospital, Burnaby Hospital, have now been converted from acute care beds to long-term-care beds because of this huge pressure and the lack of long-term-care beds.

A. Dix: It's an honour to rise in this House and speak to Bill 17, which is the health statutes amendment act, which contains what has been described as the residents bill of rights, which is described in the legislation.

The legislation attempts, in effect, to establish rights to health, safety and dignity in residential care facilities across British Columbia. Obviously, this affects, in terms of the population of people in residential care, a large number of seniors in British Columbia. It also, of course, affects others who require residential care and stay in residential care facilities.

The bill also suggests…. These are important questions, because really, the important element of health care in this regard and the important element of any bill that purports to expand the rights of individuals is the capacity of individuals to express those rights — to have the right to get the care that is laid out or suggested by the existence of the rights.
[ Page 1706 ]

The bill also talks about the rights to participation and freedom of expression. These issues — as you know, hon. Speaker, because these are all rights that we would hope that anyone in our society, but particularly people who might be vulnerable, who are staying in care homes and who are in many ways dependent on others…. These are rights that we would naturally expect all individuals to have, regardless of the existence of a bill designed to protect them. Nonetheless, in recent times there has been an increasing, I think, need to address serious issues and shortcomings in seniors care in British Columbia.

Indeed, the government has, in this regard, done a unique thing, bringing together groups who might not ordinarily agree on some of the detailed issues involved in residential care — groups such as the representatives of workers, be it the Hospital Employees Union or the BCNU; groups representing the care homes themselves, including the B.C. Care Providers Association; groups representing professional organizations, like the BCMA. They have all, in recent times, brought forward reports and recommendations highly critical of the status of residential care today.

In addition to this, as we know, there have been a series of incidents and problems at care homes across the province that have highlighted, I think, the need to protect residents and to protect and, indeed, to improve dramatically the quality of residential care in British Columbia.

I think, for example, of my colleague from Cariboo North, who knows this. This is a critical issue in terms of not just the notional existence of rights in theory but of rights in practice.

[1650]

In the case of one of the communities he represents, Williams Lake, really there's only one option in residential care. In that case, clearly, the idea that people can exercise their rights is dramatically affected by the fact that if you lose the opportunity or leave that care home or there's a problem in that care home, in a sense you are often forced or have the anticipation of leaving town, even, because of that. That's the circumstance there.

We've had, of course, the very serious incidents at Beacon Hill Villa in this community of Victoria — the repeated violation of government standards that led to investigations, led to the takeover of the home and certainly led to the compromising of the very rights that we are talking about in this legislation, rights that those residents, by the way, had prior to the existence of this legislation, rights that ought to have been respected at the time.

Of course it's not just myself that says all this. The B.C. Care Providers Association has been very clear that while they're sympathetic to the notion of a bill of rights, they would have liked, for example, in their case, to have been consulted. Similarly, those groups representing workers would like to have been consulted by the government prior to the rushing forward of this legislation in anticipation of the Ombudsman report.

The B.C. Care Providers Association expressed, I think, strong concern about issues with regard to staffing levels — both the nature and inconsistency of those staffing levels and, in fact, the funding levels for staffing that exist in the province of British Columbia and the lack of information available to groups and to care homes, both the public, non-profit and the private care homes, about funding levels from the provincial government. They've expressed those views, and other groups have expressed those views.

Most notably, of course, the dramatic failings of the residential care system have been put into context — and it's really very much the context for Bill 17 and maybe the reason why it's before the House now — by the ombudsperson launching an investigation. We've changed legislation, as you know, recently in this House to change the name of the Ombudsman to the ombudsperson.

The ombudsperson launched that investigation as a result of the dramatic failings of the system — in fact, the lack of respect for the existing rights that all residents of residential care homes should have in British Columbia. The ombudsperson launched an investigation in August 2008.

What is interesting about that recommendation, contrary to what is suggested in terms of the government's introduction of this bill…. The government suggested, when it introduced this bill, that things were going well in care homes and that this would be a document that would assist in that. The ombudsperson, in her recent report — she has yet to release, of course, the final report — said that the investigation of seniors care that was launched in August 2008 received an unprecedented public response.

Unprecedented public response. Why is that? That is because, unfortunately, the aspirations, as indicated by this bill — and the aspirations, hopefully, we all have for seniors living in residential care and non-seniors living in residential care — have been let down, particularly in recent years.

What does the ombudsperson say about her review? Well, amongst other things, she suggests…. This is the largest response, and it's specifically related to the issues in this bill. The ombudsperson said in her report that the concerns expressed included serious concerns with respect to food quality, inadequate personal care, facility closure processes, access to services, funding, complaints processes, standards of care, monitoring and enforcement of standards and facility closures, and how information about seniors care is provided to the public.

Those are the serious issues that the ombudsperson is grappling with. And she's not grappling with those issues because the government actually achieved its level, its 2001 campaign promise of 5,000 net new long-term-care beds, and not because they achieved their 2005 promise of 5,000 net new long-term-care beds and not because they achieved their promises with respect to care levels
[ Page 1707 ]
but, quite on the contrary, because they have not done that.

In fact, the failure to keep that campaign promise has been reported by every independent group that has reported on the question. Those groups have included, of course, the CCPA, which the government doesn't like; the BCMA, which they must not like even more; and the B.C. Care Providers Association.

[1655]

Now, this is why these serious issues that have been raised in long-term care and in residential care have been brought forward. This bill of rights is in some ways in anticipation, I assume, of the very critical report that will be forthcoming from the ombudsperson.

That is sort of the context, and there's another context here. You know, since my grandfather was born, we've seen the most dramatic increase in life expectancy of all time. People are living dramatically longer. I'll give myself as an example, because I have type 1 diabetes. Had I been born at the time of my grandfather, I would very likely have died. Of course, at the time when he was born and was growing up, Banting and Best had not discovered insulin for human use, which, if not a cure for diabetes, at least allowed people to live full lives with diabetes.

We've had all of these medical developments. We have a generation of people who are largely in long-term-care homes today, who are 75 years and older and have contributed enormously to the development of our society.

I'm kind of at the tail end of the baby boom generation. I was born in 1964, but my generation has benefited enormously because it was that generation of seniors who defended our country in war. Their fathers and mothers did. It was that generation of seniors that has led to the building of many of the institutions that make our province such an extraordinary place to be and our country one of the most affluent countries in the world.

Things like public health care, like access to post-secondary education. It was that generation of seniors. They built those institutions that the baby boom generation as young people benefited from. They did it through contributions to the system. They paid taxes, and they always paid their taxes. As a generation they paid taxes that built what we would broadly call the welfare state. We have all benefited from that in this province and in this country, in a public education system that struggles at times and is struggling now but delivers public education to us and access to post-secondary education.

What have we seen in recent times? We've seen, in fact, a shift from people at the high income levels, who benefited as children from access to post-secondary education and access to education and quality education and all of those elements of the social system that were built and paid for by the generation of people who are now seniors and in care homes. We benefited from it.

At the high-income years what has been going on now for that generation of people has been an effort, I think, to in fact take away the underpinnings of that system. So we benefited as young people. As a generation we have received more education than the previous generations. Now, at our high earning levels, instead of maintaining an outstanding social safety net for seniors who have gone before us and contributed to our lives and the young people who are following behind us….

This goes directly to these issues of rights for people in residential care. Unfortunately, we've seen a desire to shift by the cutting of marginal tax rates and the imposition of costs and the removal of supports for seniors.

How does that manifest itself in reality and in the reality faced by anyone faced with this bill of rights trying to work their way through the system of seniors care? Well, on the day before this bill was introduced in this Legislature, Statistics Canada…. Again, Statistics Canada, presumably — I think we can all agree — doesn't have in its presentation of statistics, whether they be statistics showing that we have the highest child poverty rate in Canada or other things…. Statistics Canada is neutral. It's just taking the evidence it has received and putting forward that evidence.

What does Statistics Canada say about care levels in residential care in British Columbia? Well, what they said was, I think, dramatically negative. It goes directly to concerns around the rights in this bill.

It's one thing to state that one has rights. For example, if we had a Charter of Rights in Canada but no access and no recourse to the courts, we would have a nice Charter of Rights. But if people didn't have access to the courts — that's why legal aid is so important — then that Charter of Rights would not have meaning for a lot of people.

[1700]

Indeed, for some people today, it does not have meaning because they do not have that access to the court.

Equally, a bill of rights such as this only has real meaning if care standards are maintained at a high level, if these rights actually have — shall we say? — expression in a long-term care home.

What does the Statistics Canada data tell us about this critical question central to our understanding of this legislation? What it tells us is that British Columbia has the lowest care standards in the country. That's what it says. It says that the care standards in British Columbia…. Again, I refer people to the Statistics Canada website. It is very, very, I think, interesting to see a non-partisan body lay out the facts in this way. It says that care standards in British Columbia are 25 percent — that's 25 percent — below the average care standard in western Canada. That's what Statistics Canada says.

When it talks about the rights to health and safety and dignity in a care home, where you are extraordinarily dependent on the staff serving you, 25 percent less…. I hear it often. When the government addresses issues of seniors care, we hear it often. "Oh well, it's a tsunami."
[ Page 1708 ]
It's a view that seniors are somehow the problem, that they are to blame for their circumstances. But when you consider, just consider, 25 percent below the average of comparable jurisdictions in western Canada — Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta — 25 percent lower…. The care standards in British Columbia — 12.5 percent lower than the national average, 12.5 percent lower.

Now, one has to reflect on that. There may be explanations within the statistics, and there'll be a discussion about that. But I think at the heart of it, it's a question of priorities. Because while it is true that these are difficult economic times and it is true that we have to find the most efficient solutions always, the suggestion that is implied by the government — a government that has done nothing about the issue of care standards and, in fact, has led us to drop to tenth place in the country in terms of care standards since they've come to office….

The idea that this issue central to this bill of care standards — that British Columbia has less capacity as an economy to provide an adequate level of care standards in our residential care homes, less of a capacity than, say — oh, I don't know — New Brunswick, for example, less of a capacity than Ontario, than P.E. I. or Manitoba, when we know that, in terms of resources, British Columbia is one of the richest provinces in the entire country….

It is not an excuse to say: "Oh, we've got a problem with seniors" and "It's too expensive" and "We just had to do it. We just can't afford to ensure that standards in British Columbia are equivalent to the national average." That may be their position, but it has no justification if one reviews the size of the B.C. economy or the wealth of its population.

These are a matter of choices, and the choices that have been made, alas, are not the best choices. This is reflected, I think, in just that small review by Statistics Canada. What it reflects, it seems to me, is an issue that goes to the heart of any piece of legislation reflecting and talking about bills of rights and care standards.

Are we prepared on the ground to ensure that those rights are respected? Yes or no? Are we prepared to ensure on the ground high care standards? Yes or no?

It's not just whether you post your theses on the wall. It's not just a question of posting a bill of rights on the wall, although that has value. That has value to do that. It's not just a question of knowing what those rights are; it's not just a question of having them stated. It's a question of having them have real effect in practice, and that is not where we're at.

We've had this situation in time. As I say, Statistics Canada — very clearly the lowest care standards in the country. All of the main independent agencies that have reviewed the long-term care bed question say that the government has broken its promises, including during the election campaign — the former Minister of Health, who finally acknowledged that in kind of a dramatic way.

[1705]

Then we have this avalanche of interest and concern expressed by the Ombudsman and the people of British Columbia, when the Ombudsman went forward with her review of care standards in British Columbia and, indeed, of residential care in general in the province.

What are the other elements of the problem, I think, that we can reflect on here? Not only is it an issue of care standards. Again, I remind you, hon. Speaker, of the fact that in British Columbia we have the lowest care standards in the country, according to Statistics Canada. It's also a qualitative question, because what we've seen in recent times are two sets of things happen that I think have been, in consecutive terms, disturbing to both those who work in the care sector and those who are responsible for running care homes.

We've had, in fact, an effort to shift the cost burden on to both of those groups, in effect. So we have the situation. My colleague the member for Nanaimo, who spoke so eloquently on this bill earlier, knows about the situation at the Nanaimo seniors centre in his constituency of Nanaimo. The circumstances that have occurred there are very much relevant to this issue of rights to health and safety and, most importantly, dignity in residential care in British Columbia.

What happened at Nanaimo seniors centre? I know that the member for Surrey-Newton is well aware of this issue because similar things have occurred in his constituency of Surrey, in constituencies in Abbotsford, in Kamloops, in constituencies across the province. At that care centre…. I'm referring specifically to the provisions of the bill here that talk about the dignity of individuals — very specifically those provisions.

In that care home, and this is a very important context for the bill, we had a group of workers who supported the seniors at that home in their exercise of their rights to health and safety and participation and dignity. Again and again and again, once laid off, twice laid off, three times laid off, four times laid off — the same workers. The impact that had….

One of the interesting things is…. These issues and these efforts, in fact, to both drive down wages in that sector and also to drive down the rights of workers in that sector…. The government would say: "That's what we have to do. You know, those workers had too many rights." But the consequences of that for those trying to exercise these rights that we're talking about today were significant.

The impact on the quality of care, on their dignity — to use the expression used in the legislation — was profound. You only had to talk to those individuals, as I did when I visited Nanaimo, and see the impact it had, the uncertainty, the instability, the effect on health outcomes, the effect on the quality of life — all the things reflected in this legislation — to know that that was the wrong path. In fact, the instability and consistent instability caused by those actions in terms of labour relations has
[ Page 1709 ]
profoundly affected the very rights that this bill purports to extend to seniors. So that's one set of things.

On the other set of things, if you review…. I know that the Minister of Healthy Living and the Minister of Health occasionally meet with the B.C. Care Providers Association. Their response to the legislation, and their concern in terms of issues of transparency that they have, principally issues of transparency about differential subsidies that are granted…. You have these dramatically different levels of funding by a care home.

What's happened in the care sector, because we've had this breaking of the promise in the building of long-term care beds, is a dramatic increase in the seriousness of the physical conditions faced by people living in care homes. Care homes that were closer to intermediate care homes are now dealing with a high acuity level amongst their resident population such that the dramatic differences in funding levels by a care home that you would see, for example, in the Fraser Health Authority, dramatically affect the level of care.

So legitimately…. This is an issue, naturally, that we'll be exploring with the government at committee stage, because it is an issue that very eloquently, I think, has been brought forward by not just the B.C. Care Providers Association but by seniors groups such as COSCO and, in fact, labour groups — all of the sort of participants in the field — is to get more access to the information.

[1710]

It's very difficult to know, by a care home, what a particular subsidy level is in one care home, per-diem level in a care home, versus another and, of course, very difficult in terms of public care homes as well.

So what the Care Providers Association…. On the one hand you have this organized instability in terms of those providing the care — which profoundly affects, I would argue, the level of care and is a direct result of one set of government policies — and on the other hand, consistent challenges to the level of care, which I would argue is central to this legislation in terms of inconsistent and opaque practices to manage per-diem rates by the government.

You have these two elements that have caused profound concerns and, alas, will be, I'm sure, part of the Ombudsman's review but are in no way reflected in this legislation. There's no effort in this legislation to say that we need certain minimum care standards. There's no effort to move towards care standards, no effort — in a bill that talks about a bill of rights for residents — to promote better care, to in fact address the issue of the fact that those care standards are lower here than in any other jurisdiction in the country.

There's no effort in that regard. That is a very serious issue for the Care Providers Association, an issue complicated — it goes directly to this issue of right to dignity — by recent financial changes put forward by the government.

As you know, hon. Speaker, without dwelling on this, because we're going to have, I'm sure, plenty of opportunity in this Legislature — I hope we do; I hope closure won't be used — to talk about the HST, the reality is that on care levels there will be a dramatic effect on the very rights we're talking about in this legislation, by the HST.

What will happen is that that tax will take — according to the B.C. Care Providers Association — $42 million out of the sector, which will affect the ability to, in fact, deliver on the rights that we're passing in this legislation. There are no changes to per-diem rates — none — in order to make up the difference. The only way that will come out, the only way that those care homes, particularly the private care homes funded largely by the government, will be able to manage that question….

There will be two ways. One, there would be shifts in profit levels that they might make. Let's assume a flat profit level coming out of the care home. The only place that those costs will be borne is on care levels. As we are here debating a bill of rights for residents to promote better care, on the one hand — and we already have the lowest care standards in the country according to Statistics Canada and the independent reviews — we have a drive, an institutional drive, to lower those care standards.

This is, I think, the central question in the debate that we're having here today and why it's so important for members of this Legislature to speak out in this debate, to speak out and say that this idea, this notion that seniors — and seniors in care, in particular — should just be viewed in the negative…. They are cost drivers. They're part of, to quote the Premier, "a silver tsunami."

But to view this thing instead as our obligation, our responsibility to improve, to make this in fact — which should be our goal — the best time ever in the history of British Columbia to be a senior…. It's the time when life expectancy is the longest, the time when seniors have the longest period — if they've retired at 65 — in human history to enjoy their life after retirement and to continue to contribute to society.

To have this period be the period when we said that care standards in British Columbia should not be the lowest but should, at the very least, meet the national average. Shouldn't that be our goal? Shouldn't it be our goal?

Shouldn't it be our goal to give real meaning to the rights stated in this legislation by building the long-term care beds so long promised by the government, which every independent report has said that they haven't built and that the former Minister of Health confirmed in the election campaign that they haven't built. Shouldn't this be the time to meet that test?

[1715]

Shouldn't this be the time — because we are talking here, of course, about people who are in residential care — when we give every opportunity not just to those in residential care but the rights of those who don't want to go into residential care, who want to stay at home, to have
[ Page 1710 ]
programs in their community that have meaning, that give their lives meaning and hope and a community to live in?

Instead, we have a process where those programs were funded by the health system for decades and then cut at 30 days' notice.

Shouldn't this be the best time, when we build and work with seniors to have communities that work, where we, in fact, encourage the volunteering spirit that is so much a part of seniors in our community, where we encourage it, not discourage it, where we say that's fundamental to what the health care system is and not external to what the health care system is, which is the new position of the government after 17 years with respect to those kinds of programs?

This should be the time when we give meaning to a bill of rights. This is what it's about. Every member of this Legislature, if they rise to support these rights today, should also take a vow that it is unacceptable in 2009 in British Columbia that we have the lowest care standards in the country.

Everyone should take a vow on that — that this should be the time in British Columbia when seniors should have access to the appropriate level of care. This should be the time when there's transparency in our system as to the funding arrangements for care homes. This should be the time when we don't punish care homes that are providing needed health care to our community with new taxes like the HST.

This should be the time. It should be our vow to not just vote for this bill and move on to the next bill but to have a real commitment to seniors in British Columbia, a commitment that means that we provide resources behind this bill, a commitment that we show respect for seniors, that we value their role in our communities.

When members get up and vote for this bill, let us hope that, in their hearts, they want to make real improvements in the lives of British Columbians — not just pass a bill in anticipation of a report that is going to blast the government's horrendous record but a commitment to improving standards for seniors in British Columbia.

G. Gentner: I rise to address the Health Statutes (Residents' Bill of Rights) Amendment Act, known here today as Bill 17. To begin, it's quite interesting — the discourse and discussion here. Yesterday there was I won't say an attempt but a tenor whereby discussing the HST — how it affects seniors and how it's related to this act — was pretty much discarded by the Speaker.

I have to bring it to your attention, because the member for Surrey-Tynehead was called on it many times. I thought maybe he was thinking about health seniors treatment, HST. But the point of the matter is that it shows very much the difference on this side versus the other side relative to the in-play of the economy and the in-play of income and what it really means when you're talking about human rights.

You know, on this side we believe that seniors, in particular, deserve the greatest respect and dignity we can afford. Society must place greater care in prevention measures so that seniors can live healthier lives. That prevention is part of the rights we should be giving them.

We talk about rights. Well, you know, I think that as a society, we think the right to safety and security of the person…. I think that should be a given right. I don't know if we have to legislate it, but we all certainly support this and look for amendments. But when we have to try and ensure it, when we think it should be a right invested within our bill of rights, it's also….

We believe in the rights to equality, and that's something I want to talk about here when I have an opportunity. The right to citizenship, the right to freedom of conscience and expression — I think those are given, and those seem to be given, my understanding is, within the constitution we already hold dear.

However, for whatever reason, we're reintroducing this concept in a bill. And it should be reinvested. It should be talked about over and over. Maybe, if it means we have to reiterate it many times in order to drive it home, it is important.

[1720]

Many, many years ago I remember in the House during an NDP government in the 1970s, there was a Premier, and his name was Dave Barrett. He said that civilization can be measured by its treatment of seniors. In the '70s that was interesting.

We took it for granted, I suppose, that seniors would be looked upon as an elder that's on a high pedestal. But to try and enshrine it in our constitution and bill of rights is something that…. For many times we would expect that it was part of the social contract. It was obvious from the beginning of societies that it was a given. The elderly, who'd put their worth and their time, their efforts, their jobs…. They wore the uniform. They died. Many had friends that died on the front. They gave everything they could to build this nation and this province.

It was a given. Of course they would have rights. Of course they'd be looked after. But you know, human rights really rest on human dignity, and I don't know if that's something you can legislate. I believe we can talk about dignity. It's a word, but I think it's a societal expectation. It is a measure of the community, the neighbourhood and the society you live in.

Nevertheless, that's what we're going to do. It's something that I want to talk about, the difference between — at least what I think — this notion of liberty and equality versus that of equity. You can't take one away from the other.

Rights and your ability to have dignity are premised on many things. Obviously, your health, your safety. Obviously, it has something to do with your income, your ability to pay and your housing. They're all interrelated.

So when we come forward and say that we're going to legislate dignity with this bill of human rights, we have a
[ Page 1711 ]
lot of questions to ask ourselves. How effective is it really going to be?

You know, seniors do not want to be coddled. They want self-respect and the ability to maintain their dignity. Dignity has a lot to do with their own autonomy. Their ability to stay at home, their ability to manage their affairs, the ability to still — even though the body is breaking down…. I can tell you that once you get to 50, you start realizing that we are mortal beings. I know many of us, back in our rock-and-roll days, adolescence, thought we were going to go on forever. Nevertheless, when things start breaking down, you realize how vulnerable we are.

It's important to understand that seniors want their self-respect. The way to do it is for human society, for our society, to at least understand the importance of human dignity.

I think in many ways, as a society and as a province, we patronize seniors. But it's important that we encourage…. What's important, I think, is they want to embrace their own independence. We can talk about independence versus dependency. Their rights and their dignity, I think, are based as much on their independence.

Once they go into a long-term care home, the question is: well, how much independence are they going to forgo? How much are they going to lose?

On top of that, you have to weigh that with prevention versus chronic illness. Once you are chronic, you start losing your ability to make decisions. You are in a position where you're no longer as independent. You are now relying on us, and your rights are based primarily on the help of others.

You know, we deal with the chronic cases in the homes that seem to gain immediate impact, but very little is there to explain how the senior got there in the first place. And we are going to talk about seniors rights? We have to talk about the prevention, the lack of income, the inability to buy the proper medication, the loss of Pharmacare, the loss of fairness, the inability to get proper treatments that may have prevented them and kept them independent in their home.

That's a breakdown of our society and a breakdown of our values. It's a breakdown of our ability to come forward with budgets that will assist seniors. To me, that is a fundamental difference, I believe, with the government and this side.

[1725]

I don't think you can equate rights separately without fully understanding the equity issue, and I guess maybe that makes me a little more red than the others. Maybe I really believe that there is needed funding. The old Liberal view is that we're all equal before God, and somehow we get to the pearly gates, and we'll be treated the same. But you know, on planet Earth, it doesn't quite work that way.

We talk about housing and how, without proper equity, we will find that seniors are put in a predicament where we see…. Probably the greatest number of incidences or illnesses or disease or costs from seniors is that of falling down. We have not put money in prevention on that statistic. Of course, once you break your hip, you're done, for many seniors. So the question there is that we can talk about Bill 17, seniors rights, but what money did we put into prevention?

Some seniors may have more rights than others. Some may have the resources available and the support systems to assist them getting on a handyDART, but others, of course, don't have that privilege.

The independence versus dependence criteria, I think, can be provided. It's a provision of the housing. Of course, it's on the health care we provide, and it's also relative to income. I think the dubious threshold is the transition from assisted living to long-term care, where seniors are pushed out because of costs, in many cases, to the private provider.

As we begin to privatize our long-term care facilities and as government moves away from it, the government, of course, is looking more and more at the need to create a bill of rights in order to ensure that they will be protected — which, of course, begs the question, as we move into this aspect: are we going to provide the proper legal support systems for those seniors who are unable to fight for their rights?

I don't think this government will. We on this side, in the fall of 2007, came forward with the Representatives for Seniors Act to establish a seniors advocate in British Columbia. When it comes down to it, you can legislate, you can put the bill in place, but if you don't have that oversight, if you're unwilling to go that extra step, if you are now suggesting that rights that we assumed were never really there in the first place…. How we are going to create that oversight, I think, is a fundamental issue that this government is not looking at through this act.

Now, the government disregarded our position. We believe that first and foremost a seniors advocate would ensure that seniors in community care and assisted living would have access to fair complaint processes and the supports necessary to navigate the complaint process. There is a set of a mini bill of rights built right in, whereby you have an advocate that would be there for you. This bill, unless we see what the amendments are, I think without the proper funding will prove to be inadequate.

As it is now, the complaint process is blocked by the provider. We've seen it many times when there is an incident in a particular home. We try to get the information, and it's protected under the Privacy Act. We know now with the P3 world that we have a problem of getting that access to information, because they're there to protect the interests of the private provider as opposed to protecting the interests of the senior.

Will this bill of rights ensure that it will be transparent? If you want to get down to the nub and find out
[ Page 1712 ]
what's gone wrong with mom or dad in the home and you file the FOI to find out what your real rights are, will you not be prevented in the interests of the private provider, who doesn't want that information to be let out, because that group or agency is in competition with another company? This is the conundrum I think we're going to be in.

[1730]

I'm worried that this is just another example of the would act — woulda, coulda — where it's there for show. It's there for some type of facade, saying we believe in the rights of seniors. But again, if you do not put the proper funding in place, if you not have an advocate who will stand up for seniors, who will police the situation, I think we're going to be in no better place than we are today.

We had a problem, of course, in Victoria with Retirement Concepts — the Beacon Hill issue. We asked to go before the Ombudsman, but the government, working with Retirement Concepts, came up with their own ombudsman. Many residents or family members reported to the opposition that they felt intimidated by having to speak up. The question is — again, in the interest of protecting the private interests: will they still have that ability under this act?

[L. Reid in the chair.]

I think not. I think we're still going to be in a mess. The complaint process works for the company, not to victimize the neglected resident. I guess history will show us. Hopefully, it will change. With this new act, this is all going to change. This is all going to be very different. Again, this government believes that you can legislate dignity, but you don't necessarily have to put the money in it in order to provide proper health care.

The seniors advocate would monitor the performance of various programs and services for seniors to ensure services are integrated, coordinated, non-discriminatory and accountable. That was our position, but with this act I don't know how accountable it will be. I don't know how accountable or non-discriminatory the performance in some of the homes will be. There's nothing in this act that guarantees that.

I was seniors critic for a number of years, and what got me most upset is when…. You could see the dignity when you look in their eyes, and you can also see vacuous eyes — those who were empty, who didn't have family there anymore, did not have any support systems and seemed to be walking aimlessly and unsure. They felt as though they'd lost their rights.

I think the B.C. Liberal government has ignored the growing concerns for seniors, their families and the health care professionals, about the state of care in many facilities across our province. The B.C. Liberal record on health care for seniors is one, I think, of broken promises. They claimed they were going to produce 5,000 beds. We know that's not the case. That was called Liberal math.

It didn't happen. It didn't happen because they changed the goalposts. What became long-term care facilities also included home care facilities. They bumped the numbers in order to produce, I would suggest, something that was very untruthful.

The B.C. record on health care for seniors is one of broken promises on long-term care beds. It has separated couples. What are we going to do with this one? You know, we've seen it with the Albos up in the Kootenays. The situation there was disheartening, disgraceful. How was it that loved ones who were together for years were separated because the system could not provide the care for that couple? They had to split them up. Within months, if not weeks, both unfortunately perished in dismay.

I bring this to attention because I don't know if this human rights bill will ensure that if you want to stay in a home and you like that home, you'll be able to stay there. Is that going to be your right, or will the ministry still have its ability to say: "I'm sorry. We think your condition is such whereby there's other help elsewhere for less dollars"?

That's what we're seeing primarily…. I've seen it many times, where seniors are being moved around as though they're some kind of commodity that can be shifted. That's a matter of losing their dignity. When you lose your dignity, I believe you're losing your rights.

So with this bill, I'm assuming that this government is going to promise us that seniors aren't going to be bumped around in transport ambulances across this province at the convenience of a health authority.

[1735]

Each health authority has different standards. The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority or — or their expectations on health care in long-term care facilities — than let us say the Fraser Health Authority. They're two different systems, two different budgets.

If you're going to have rights, it's got to be ubiquitous across the plain. It's got to be the same. It's got to be universal. In fact, isn't that what universally accessible, portable health care is all about? But there's no provision in this bill that will show that each health authority will treat their seniors the same. It certainly isn't here, and that is a major concern.

Again, they've ignored the serious incidents dating back to 2002. There's been no public reporting and no accountability. We've seen over and over again the type of oversight being conducted within. The question is: will there be money provided for…? When, of course, there is a complaint lodged, will it go to the health authority? Will they do the risk assessment?

I mean, we've gone through a lot of questions on the risk assessment in this House. Again, the health authorities each do their own hazardous risk assessment of
[ Page 1713 ]
each home, and they're different criteria. If you have a worker investigating a home, let's say, in Vancouver, it's all subjective. That subjectivity or assessment of the lack of provision of health care in one home may be very different than the subjectivity of the rights that are being violated in a home in Prince George. I think that's a major flaw. I think it's a very major flaw.

We need a representative that can see and indeed feel the despair of many who are aging and have no voice. You have rights, but who's going to hear you? Who's going to stand up for you?

We look at the United States of America. They enshrine their bill of rights. By golly, they wave it up. But you can look around at their health care system, which doesn't give them one iota of support. You can look at the poverty in the United States, this wonderful liberal egalitarian system, but there's no insurance that all children will get a fair and equal try at university, let alone education in grade school.

We need a seniors advocate that can speak for them in conjunction with a bill like this, an independent ombudsperson. I was going to say ombudsman, but we'll call this person ombudsperson. For seniors that can ascertain beyond the whimsical knee-jerk stupor or careless politics…. How we care for our elderly defines ourselves, our society and how we live.

We need a legislative representative for seniors to improve systems of care and support for seniors and their families in British Columbia. Families get involved. They belong to the different councils and different long-term care facilities. There's this iron curtain for them to get the proper information they need to help their loved ones, and they can't get it.

What are the rights provided here for the family members? That's a question we're going to find out. Those are some of the questions I would hope that during committee stage we'll be able to get to the nub of and find out exactly whether families will get that kind of support system. I think the family support system is also based on counsel, and it's also based on proper funding.

We need a representative for seniors who will monitor the performance of various programs and services for seniors to ensure that services are integrated, coordinated and accountable. We can talk about proper programs and programs that aren't being offered. Recreational therapy is one example. Some health authorities will embrace it and do embrace it. Others do not think for one moment that spending extra money, particularly for a health care provider, or that we should spend money on recreational therapy for seniors….

[1740]

Recreational therapy for one long-term-care facility is a television. Maybe once a week they'll play a little bingo and call that recreational therapy. Another long-term care facility will actually get seniors into a swimming pool, get them moving, get some cardiovascular.

How do you weigh that in light that everyone is going to be equal? There is no substantial standard in place throughout this province to ensure some basic needs. How do you ensure that one program will not be delivered over another one? I don't see that in this bill.

I support, of course, the need for a seniors advocate in order to ensure that those rights and interests of seniors are provided, that their families are guaranteed the decency of where those services are provided in order to protect seniors, and that their views are heard and considered.

I support the need for a representative for seniors in order to ensure that seniors have access to a fair, responsive and appropriate complaint and review process at all stages in the provision of designated services, by way of an advocate that can speak for them.

Again, who will speak? You may have rights, according to this bill. But when you're down and out, is there going to be the money provided to have somebody sitting there to help you? I mean, is this bill going to be all fluff? Is it in name only? Are we really going to address the problem at hand?

Health is besieged by complaints regarding senior care in this province, and we have to assist the government. I believe that the ombudsperson for seniors would be the answer.

We know that demographics are changing every day, where British Columbia's population is aging. With such an advocate, we recognize the growing trend and the need to plan our communities in order to address this growing phenomenon, the need to recognize that British Columbia's delivery of services and health care to seniors needs to be transparent and open in this oversight.

That to me is really a major issue. If you don't have that oversight, if you have that inability to investigate further and make improvements, will it be hidden? That is a question. I don't think it will be totally transparent.

You know, if we were to support such a motion, we would be providing not only short-term solutions based on urgencies but a long-term approach with a responsive public body that can monitor, review and conduct research for a responsible government. We don't have that. We need that independent voice.

The Leader of the Opposition stood up in these chambers and delivered that bill, and this government did not deliver. They did not listen, and here we are today. By not listening, by not putting our collective ears to the ground, by not providing a medium in order to assist seniors and consequently assist all of us, we are showing, I think, contempt for the reality of what we are becoming in society. We are putting out this facade that with this bill, we are all going to make it better. But I don't think that's the case. I don't see it at all.

You know, we talk about these needs. We can talk about the needs in the homes, the need for companionship. Companionship is part of a right — to be able to talk, to
[ Page 1714 ]
meet people. How do you monitor that one in this bill? You're talking about dignity. Dignity is companionship. Are we going to ensure…?

Is it not your right to have a good hot meal every day? Is that not a right? How are you going to legislate? How are you going to make sure that is going to comply? I can tell you that in our health care system, there's a lot of slop that's been served up for a long time. You can talk to people in the hospitals, and you can talk about what's happening with privatization. Is that not a right — to have a proper meal?

Another one that comes to mind is: should it not be your dignity and right to have a bath once a day? One bath a day? The standard today is one a week, I think — one a week.

[1745]

I asked the former Minister of Health about that during estimates. I asked the minister, and maybe if the minister was here, I'd ask the question again: how many baths do you have a week? He wouldn't answer the question.

Interjection.

G. Gentner: Oh well, the hon. member across from me says he didn't know. I think he had a bath at least once a week. I can tell you this. Most politicians, I'm sorry to say, are a little oilier than the rest. They're a little unctuous, and they need their baths. But to suggest for a second that seniors should only have one bath a week is ludicrous.

That's the standard. You're talking about rights. You're talking about dignity. How are we going to ensure the dignity to have seniors feeling good about themselves? You've got to look at the equity questions and the budgets that ensure there's proper health care in order to ensure that they feel good about themselves.

Volunteers. How do we ensure the volunteers are being properly funded? We can talk about Meals on Wheels. That's collapsed. Without Meals on Wheels…. We are trying to encourage this independence in the home. Well, that's gone by the dodo bird running this regime. We're losing money. We're losing those programs.

As I come to a close, there are so many issues here relative to the seniors on the risk-takes and who's going to continue to look after it. The waiting lists themselves are part of an issue relative to your rights. Do you have to get in the queue, and how long do you wait? Do you have to wait six months longer because you don't have the funding? Do you get less care if you don't have the money? What about your rights?

With that, hon. Speaker, I close, and I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak.

C. Trevena: I recognize the number of people that have spoken about this bill today. I think it indicates how seriously we take the issue of the care of seniors. I think everybody on both sides of the House is very well aware of the need to ensure that our seniors are able to live in dignity, with respect and with the adequate level of care.

I think it's quite clear that nobody can really object to the fact that there is a bill of rights. We're talking about how we ensure that rights become a reality for our seniors. This bill of rights includes the commitment to care; rights to health, safety and dignity; rights to participation and freedom of expression; rights to transparency and accountability. These are detailed.

As I say, I don't think there's one person who could really question the fact that we have to have rights and that seniors have every right to have the rights and that wherever they are living, they should be respected.

I asked some people in my community: if they were doing a bill of rights for seniors, what would they do? I asked one of the operators of one of the care homes, New Horizons. I asked some workers who work at Yucalta Lodge, which is a publicly funded care operation. I talked to some families. What would they like to see if they were drawing up a bill of rights?

They all applauded what was going to be here in this bill of rights. They all said: "This is very good. We've got to have it." Some of the care homes said: "Well, we're already doing this." But what I heard from all of them was the same thing, which was access — that it's really important that there is access.

The operator of New Horizons said that he very much wanted to see a bill of rights — they have their own bill of rights themselves — but the concern is that it isn't too generic, that it isn't just fluff, that there is a reality of implementation there.

He said very clearly that one of the things essential to a bill of rights is the access to care. What he was talking about was the amount of time that the care workers spend with seniors and others who are in care and what other care there is.

He was talking about the extra services, the social services, the physiotherapists, even the physicians coming in. Access to this has to be included in a bill of rights because of the way the funding formula operates.

[1750]

The home is funded for certain number of hours of care, and that is taken up largely by the RNs or LPNs or RCAs who are doing the care, leaving very little time for the other care. So he says that we really have to have access to that — also the access that my colleague from Delta North was talking about, the access to social engagement, the access to be able to interact.

What we have to recognize when we're talking about care and care facilities is it's not just seniors. It's not the silver tsunami. The number of people who often have debilitating illnesses in care, people who are quite young who are in care homes, have different needs, different
[ Page 1715 ]
requirements and different expectations. They still want to live a full life. They may want to listen to different music and so on and have a different social life. I think that is something that has to be recognized — the different needs and different access. We have to be aware of that.

Similarly, when I was talking to staff at the public facility in Campbell River, at Yucalta Lodge, again acknowledging that there are some very complex patients…. When we're talking about what they'd like to see in a bill of rights, they also said access, but it was a slightly different sort of access. It was also access to more facilities, but it was access to definitely more staff, more staff time.

What they recognized is how needs have changed in the last few years. They would like to see that there is more time given to people who are in care — for literally the dignity of getting dressed, getting up in the morning, getting to breakfast — so that they don't feel pressured and the staff members don't feel pressured, so that there is the ability to have that enshrined in the way people live.

The other issue of access for the staff there was very much the access to some of the equipment needed — access to the wash basins, access to shower seats, access to lifts to be able to move the patients and to move the residents. We've also heard many times that there are very sad cases of access to bars, access to showers — access to those things that people can take for granted unless they are relying on someone else for their care.

That's another area where we have to look at how we can really ensure and enshrine a bill of rights by making the things that we would take for granted, if we were living in our homes, accessible. When you're talking to families, they're also talking about access, and their access is slightly different. Yes, they reiterate some of the concerns that come from either the operators of the homes or the staff at the homes — they want to make sure their loved ones are well cared for — but there is also at times another level of access.

One, particularly for Campbell River, is the access to care facilities in Campbell River. There are huge wait-lists. I have one constituent whose mother has slight dementia and is living in care in Comox. She's actually with Alzheimer's patients, and the mother knows that she's in the wrong facility. The family is trying to get her back into Campbell River, but really, again, it's an issue of access — access to wait-lists, access to the facilities, access to space.

Looking at a bill of rights as enshrining access to actual care, access to space, I think, would really put in a very progressive form.

The other issue, again, in access to care and access to facilities is the whole issue of the amount of time it takes to get into care. As I say, in Campbell River in 2008-2009 the average wait time is 122 days. It was slightly better just for the first couple of months of this year. It's been an average wait time of 120 days, which is a huge length of time for people to wait to get into care.

I think the final part of access for space, because there is such a huge pressure for space for long-term care in my constituency, is the…. If there was a guarantee in this bill of rights that when a resident had to go to hospital, had to transfer to hospital from the care facility, they could have the right enshrined that their bed — their home in the facility — would remain open. A number of us hear in our constituency offices of cases where people have gone to hospital and then find that they can't get back into care.

[1755]

When we're talking particularly about seniors, who may be starting towards dementia and are not quite as capable as they were, I think it's very sad, because they've already had to move possibly into assisted living and then into a long-term care facility. This is their home, and then to lose their home…. I think if we could be looking at that sort of access, too, in a bill of rights….

Madam Speaker, I know that time is pressing on, and a number of people still want to speak about this. When looking at this bill of rights — one cannot criticize having a bill of rights — I think we have to look at the effect of it, the implementation of it and take into account what other people are saying, who are living with the system, who work in the system, who are running the system and using the system.

What I'm hearing from residents and constituents in the North Island is that there is an issue of access to make sure that this, as one person says, doesn't end up just being fluff, just generic, but is a real bill of rights that has teeth.

N. Letnick: I'm heartened to hear the comments on both sides of the House regarding this bill and that it looks like it's going to be supported as we move forward. I think the members on both sides of the House would not be where they are today if they didn't care about seniors and about those in our society who are less fortunate. It's nice to see we're going to be doing that.

As I was looking for this bill, as I flipped through the binder of bills, I just noticed that we have bills on the budget, bills on the supply act, the Wills, Estates and Succession Act, and insurance amendments. A lot of these bills have to do with seniors and the ability of our province to support and sustain a healthy and viable seniors population as they get older in our communities.

The Strata Property Amendment Act — again, seniors are involved with stratas. Protected areas. The Labour Mobility Act, which gives us the ability of making sure that we're competitive and have the people here in the province of British Columbia to provide services to seniors and so on.

When I finally got to the bill that we're debating today, I was very heartened to hear that the bill is actually
[ Page 1716 ]
called the residents bill of rights. Just to focus on the bill itself, if I may, what I'd like to do is read out a few parts of the bill.

"Rights to health, safety and dignity." Everyone is:

"(a) to be treated in a manner, and to live in an environment, that promotes his or her health, safety and dignity; (b) to be protected from abuse and neglect; (c) to have his or her lifestyle and choices respected and supported, and to pursue social, cultural, religious, spiritual and other interests; (d) to have his or her personal privacy respected, including in relation to his or her records, bedroom, belongings and storage spaces; (e) to receive visitors and to communicate with visitors in private; (f) to keep and display personal possessions, pictures and furnishings in his or her own bedroom."

These rights go on to include freedom of expression, rights to transparency and accountability, and that the rights should not be violated.

The reason why I bring this up is that in my particular case, my father, who just passed away not too long ago, was in a care facility in Surrey. It was kind of funny. As a veteran in the Second World War, when I went to his place to visit him, I would see outside his room all the mementos that he would have from his time in the navy, of course, and also his family pictures. When I was looking at the bill of rights, it reminded me how well my father passed away. He passed away in the comfort of his mementos, passed away in the comfort of his loved ones.

Here is a bill of rights that would enshrine some of those things in law. What I heard from others was that not all of those mementos were allowed to stay in cases of other people. I'm glad to see that people have those rights enshrined.

I also remember when I was chairman of a hospital board in Banff. I would have the opportunity to visit the auxiliary care ward where there were people with dementia, in some cases. I would sit and talk with them and visit, kind of walk the halls. Again, it was a right that I had as a volunteer in the hospital — to meet with these people and learn so much from them and just spend time with them. I think, once again, what's being proposed here is doing exactly that.

[1800]

It's allowing people to have freedom of expression to even turn on music in their own rooms, as long as the music doesn't keep their neighbours awake. Of course, there's always that.

The opposition talk about the bill of rights. They say that it's a good thing, and they want to make sure that the money follows the intentions. I hear what they're saying, but I guess I must ask why they even bother to mention it. When I look at all the things that this government has done over the years to support seniors — things like building over 13,000 new or replacement beds for residential care, supportive housing and assisted living since 2001; and this number includes over 6,000 net new beds — I guess I don't understand why they continue to attack the government on these issues.

My father, for example — to bring him again into the picture…. He only had to wait a few months to get that unit that we were talking about. Today we're talking an average wait time of 15 to 90 days. So what I can see here is that access to residential care has decreased a lot — from one year down to 15 to 90 days.

Another point: 62 percent of residential care clients pay the lowest daily rate for residential care. That's $30.90 a day, one of the lowest rates in all the country. Again, money is following the intention.

The number of publicly subsidized hospice beds in B.C. has more than quadrupled, from 57 in 2001 to 275 today. Right in my own area in Kelowna, thanks to a lot of volunteer help and, of course, IHA and the province of British Columbia and taxpayers, we now have a permanent hospice home that we can be very proud of. Actually, I visited it a few weeks ago. A good friend of mine was in hospice to give his wife some respite care. It's an amazing facility — again, funded by taxpayers of British Columbia.

Another point is that we've doubled the SAFER rent subsidy program for seniors, up to $1,800. Again, we're walking the talk.

The bill is good. The money, like wood I guess, is good as well. The Minister of Forests will have to give me something later for that little plug. Again, I just wanted to say that this government is following the intent of the bill. So the sanctimonious comments I heard before by the member for…. Well, I'll just leave it there.

I wish to also talk about other policies in here which will give us the flexibility as a province — as a lot of us are baby boomers — to help our parents through their old age.

I want to talk about things like the Wood First Act. The ability for us to generate more sales in wood, more jobs in the wood industry, will provide the treasury with more money which we can then put towards more care for seniors.

The HST. I heard, actually, on the other side….

You're shaking your head.

I heard, on the other side, complaints about the HST, but I actually think the HST will be of benefit to seniors. The reason why I do is that by allowing us to be competitive with our tax structure, we'll have more jobs created in British Columbia. We won't lose the investment to other provinces. We already heard from Bell Canada that they were investing over a billion and a half dollars in Ontario, and one of their biggest claims for that was because they were moving towards the HST.

When the….

Deputy Speaker: I would ask the member to bring his comments back to the consideration of the bill.

N. Letnick: Yes, I will, Madam Speaker.
[ Page 1717 ]

We are talking about other measures that we can use to really allow government to provide the funds necessary to support seniors — things like P3s, competitive tax structures. This will maximize the options for government so that they can put the money towards long-term care for seniors.

Health care, as we know, is going up 18 percent over the next three years. Health care is consuming anywhere from 40 percent to 45 percent of our budget. A lot of that is being used by seniors. So it's important that we articulate that not only are we providing people in residential care facilities the rights enshrined in law, but also we're providing the money necessary to ensure that we give them excellent service in this province.

[1805]

The last thing I would like to say is that by 2023 we're going to have over a million seniors in this province, over a million seniors in this province who will benefit at some point. I hope that they will live long and healthy lives but at some point will be in residential care.

It's important that we move forward with passing legislation which sets us up so that when the boomers finally hit that senior age and are taking advantage of all the wonderful health care that we offer and all the residential care that we offer as well, we will have all the systems in place to take care of them as far as financial means.

For me, what that means is providing governments with options. To do that, we really have to work on making sure that our tax system is competitive and that our health care system is second to none, as the Conference Board of Canada says, in this country, and that we continue to look for opportunities to pass more bills like this that not only enshrine the rights of seniors in our community, that show respect for them, but also allow us to move forward with a sustainable health care system, a sustainable support for seniors in this province.

I thank you for the time and the latitude that you've provided me during this debate, Madam Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: I thank the member for his remarks and call upon the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows.

M. Sather: It's my pleasure to rise to speak to Bill 17, Health Statutes (Residents' Bill of Rights) Amendment Act, 2009, which gives a few residents rights here, such as the right to a care plan; the right to health, safety and dignity; the right to participate in his or her own care and to freely express his or her own view; right to transparency and accountability. They can submit a complaint under the Patient Care Quality Review Board Act, but they can't sue.

It's a bill, obviously, that has a general inclusion of rights for seniors, and in that regard, it's supportable. It is kind of reminiscent, as the member for Delta North said the other day, of the wood-first bill, the wood is good bill, which the member opposite just mentioned as well — which is, in fact, a feel-good bill with not a lot of substance in it.

Just as the previous bill was an attempt by this government to cover up the catastrophe that has happened in the forest industry, this one is similarly a weak attempt, albeit, to cover up the catastrophe in seniors care that has struck seniors since this government was elected in 2001. They know that.

One would think that we could — and that the government could, since they're the ones that bring legislation forth — focus on some really essential rights for seniors, such as the right to a residential care bed in the first place. That right has been denied for many seniors in British Columbia. It has been delayed for huge numbers of seniors in British Columbia. The promise that this government made — we all know the promise; 5,000 long-term care beds — has never been fulfilled, but nonetheless has been….

The government has tried to finesse the numbers, as we know, over these many years and, for example, have included in their, I would have to say, rash assertion that they've met their targets, assisted-living beds which are nothing like residential care.

Residential care is where you have complex health care needs. You need 24-7 care. Assisted living is where people live independently. They get a couple of meals a day and a very minimum amount of assistance.

They're entirely different things, but the government has mixed them up in order to make it appear that the seniors of British Columbia are getting better access to health care and better access to care beds in long-term care facilities, which they know they're not. In fact, the B.C. Medical Association said that between 2001 and 2007 we had actually declined by 553 beds. Their doctors go into those facilities on a regular basis. I think they're pretty well-qualified to comment on that.

[1810]

Another twist that the government has brought in that just makes you want to tear your hair out, it's so far out, is that they've been saying: "Oh, we don't have wait-lists anymore." You ask how long a wait-list is to get into a residential care facility, they say: "We don't have wait-lists." They just magically disappeared somehow.

I guess there's nobody out there that even needs care, one would think, if there's no wait-list, or there's a very minimal wait-list.

You have to have a need to be in a complex care facility within 90 days. So you can't even get on a wait-list. If you're trying to care for your loved ones, you want to get on a wait-list far enough in advance so that you can prepare and they can prepare for that very difficult move sometimes. But that's not provided for by this government, and it's caused a great deal of concern.
[ Page 1718 ]

You know, I again was shocked — shocked but not surprised — to hear the member for Kelowna–Lake Country say…. I'm not sure whether he said 15 to 90 or 50 to 90, but either way, he's saying that's the average wait-time to get into a long-term care facility.

I'll tell you, that is not the case in Maple Ridge. I'm sure it's not the case in many, if not all, parts of British Columbia.

I asked our local hospital, where seniors are waiting for up to a year in the hospital to get to a long-term care facility, or they may be transferred to Riverview and be stuck there for months and months — who knows how long? — until they get into a long-term care facility.

Well, I got an answer back, and it was around that kind of number. I said: "That's not credible." It's not a credible number. We know our seniors are waiting for up to a year in that hospital. I said: "So tell me this. What are your minimum times that seniors have to wait to get into a long-term care facility, and what are your maximum times?" The answer was: "Well, we can't say because there's so much variability."

Now, come on. Elementary mathematical ability tells you that you can't have an average without knowing all of your figures, without having a minimum and a maximum. But you can't get that. I couldn't get that information from my health care facility. But I know, from talking to seniors and their families, it's much, much longer.

That would have been a great thing to have in this bill of rights — the right to a long-term care facility for seniors who need it, and there are lots that need it. The number that are actually in care in B.C. is dropping — which is very surprising, given that our population is aging, and aging fairly rapidly — but it's not dropping in other provinces.

This government does have a tremendous amount to answer for, to the seniors of this province, because they're not hoodwinked. They're not fooled. They're not deceived. They're not stupid. They know exactly what's going on, and they don't like it one little bit.

The latest injury to seniors is the notice that's gone out: "Well, guess what. Your rates are going up to pay for your loved ones in long-term care." Not just a little bit; we're talking about an 80 percent increase in long-term care facility costs. That for many, many seniors — for any of us — would amount to a huge hit on one's ability to maintain an apartment, if there's one member of the couple still living, such as the senior that phoned me a couple days ago.

He's 80-some-years old. His wife has been in a long-term care facility in Maple Ridge for about a year now. They have a combined after-tax income of $42,000 a year. Now that sounds like, well, it's not too, too bad. But when you look at how that breaks down in face of what they're facing, it goes something like this. That works out to $3,500 a month, and right now the cost for her care is $1,350 a month, leaving the senior, the husband, still in the home with $2,200.

But when you break it down, they're going to be going from $42,000 a year, which is, as I said, $3,500 a month….

[1815]

The way that the notice reads — and I'm wanting to get clarification from the ministry and from the minister on this — he'll be paying out or they will be paying $2,800 a month for her care. Now he goes down to 700 bucks a month. That doesn't cover very much, including rent, facility fees, maintenance fees — all the things that we have to pay to live.

So that would be another thing that I would sure like to have seen in this bill of rights — the right for seniors to have care at a reasonable rate. Having your rate increase by 80 percent is not reasonable. It's not reasonable at all, and one can understand clearly why so many seniors are upset with this government and getting more and more upset as the days go on.

Well, there have been cuts, as we know, and I could go on about those and about other issues. But I understand there are a number of folks that still want to speak, and we have not that much time left. So thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to address this bill.

V. Huntington: As I read through the rights enshrined in this statute, they are on the surface a good list — a list of rights that are, generally speaking, common sense and a given in our society. On the surface, it appears to be a fine step for the government to take. I applaud the attempt, but I worry about the reality.

One of the most important of the rights listed is in subsection 3, the rights to participation and freedom of expression. That is the right to know how to make a complaint to an outside authority. But therein lies a perfect example of the flaw I believe is in the legislation.

The flaw is an absence of standards and guidelines that will give life to the rights listed in the schedule. When we look at section 5 of the schedule, the section that defines the scope of the enshrined rights, we can see the clouds on the horizon. Without standards and guidelines, one can imagine the defences available to facility operators under the phrase "what is reasonably practical."

The member for North Delta brought up one of the issues that could arise in that situation. Is "reasonably practical" one bath a week, one bath every two weeks, access to a lift once a week or every month? That single phrase can stop all serious complaints in their tracks, without a lawyer and without costly legal fees.

That isn't protecting a right. It is creating a potential burden on a complainant. While each right is subject to what at first glance are the reasonable limits of section 5, in reality the pursuit of a serious complaint would be
[ Page 1719 ]
unaffordable to all but the most wealthy of individuals in residential care. I would therefore strongly recommend and hope that the minister would work with her experts in an effort to develop regulations that will ensure these rights are fully protected.

As a final comment, I would like to pursue a point made by the member for North Island: the right to access, especially the right to access a publicly funded facility.

In Delta South we have a truly wonderful extended care facility, Mountain View. Mountain View is attached to the extraordinary Delta Hospital. Recently, Fraser Health announced that it was bringing the caregiver-patient ratio into balance. How exciting. We all were excited — more beds, just like the government keeps promising.

But when I really looked at what was happening, I couldn't believe it. Fraser Health wasn't increasing the number of caregivers. They were reducing the number of beds. That is how they balanced the caregiver-patient ratio. Fraser Health and the government didn't look to better patient care. They looked to reduction of beds.

I don't know where all these extra beds are going, but what I do know is that the existing publicly delivered extended care facilities are losing beds and that the beds in privately owned, government-subsidized institutions are growing by leaps and bounds.

[1820]

What right does that promise for adults who desperately need good care in a public facility? The right to access a public facility? No. The right to the expectation that one's entire remaining livelihood won't be exhausted in a private facility? No. The right to expect a bed at a fair price in a decent facility? No.

Families today are being forced to put loved ones in expensive private facilities. Why? Because despite all the protestations, no beds are available in public facilities.

There is more work to be done. Bill 17 is a first step, but I urge the government to examine the advisability of developing a set of regulations that will go hand in hand with the rights iterated in the minister's health statutes amendment act.

H. Lali: I rise to take my place on Bill 17, intituled the Health Statutes (Residents' Bill of Rights) Amendment Act, 2009, presented by the hon. Minister of Healthy Living and Sport.

This talks about a bill of rights for seniors in care, and I want to talk about our seniors for a couple of minutes. Seniors, when they were younger, spent all their lives working very hard and contributing towards society, contributing their taxes that supported not only children but also youth, supported health and education, and supported all those services that were provided for society by government — people of all different ages including seniors and people who are middle-aged.

They worked very hard in decent family-supporting jobs throughout their lives to actually pay into the system in the hope that when they are older and needed care, the care would be there. That's what seniors have done. All of our elders in our society, in British Columbia, spent their lives paying into the system.

My mom is 90 years old. Actually, she's a little over 90 now, and she's still at home and able to look after herself and hasn't had to use the health care system in a way that a lot of folks did. She's been fortunate and also fortunate enough to have six children, who are all grown up now, who are able to help her out.

But the vast majority of seniors are not in that kind of situation, so my heart really goes out to seniors when they can't get a bed in this province. When seniors get separated, as was the case in the Kootenays with the Albos…. Within a few days of each other, they both died — died of broken hearts — because of what has happened in this province in the last eight years.

Government ought to be there. Seniors have contributed to the government coffers all their lives, so when they need care in their elderly years, government ought to be there to provide that care for them, which hasn't been available — and the promise. Obviously, with the loss of care, there's also the loss of dignity that follows for seniors. I know the government is introducing this residents bill of rights, but it's not a right if there is no funding that goes along with it to actually have a right to a bed for a senior in their elder years when they need it.

It's not a right. It's just words. Basically, like anything else this government has done over the last eight years, when it comes to doing something for those people in our society that need it the most, it's just words. This is just words without the funding. Obviously, it impacts on the dignity of seniors as they venture out, after having worked all their lives, looking for care in their senior years.

I just want to tell you about some facts. I know I'm only going to speak for a few minutes, as time is a factor. Some of the newly released Stats Canada figures showed that B.C. provided the lowest number of paid care hours in residential facilities of any Canadian province in 2007-2008. This revelation comes as many seniors remain in hospital actually waiting for a bed in a residential care home setting, as the Liberal government continues to impose a fee increase on residential care and as health authorities cut many programs in place of support for seniors health.

[1825]

The Liberals promised one thing and have done exactly the opposite in terms of what they've offered seniors. Seniors really have suffered under this regime, under this government. There continues to be a lack of residential care spaces in B.C.

Interjection.
[ Page 1720 ]

H. Lali: My colleague to my right says big time, a big time lack.

Alternate level of care, ALC, rates in B.C. are staggering. In the Vancouver Island Health Authority the rate is 16 percent so far this fiscal year, in Northern Health it is 18.6 percent and in the Interior Health Authority it was 13.4 percent in 2008-09.

Recent health authority budget cuts have resulted in cuts to seniors care across the province, specifically in the Fraser Health Authority, where the FHA announced a 25 percent reduction in day programs for seniors and also ended the contract with community agencies that provided outreach to isolated seniors.

Vancouver Island Health Authority is phasing out the geriatric assessment unit at Victoria General Hospital, ending funding for volunteer programs for seven seniors support programs in Victoria and also closing the Craigdarroch Care Home, Oak Bay Lodge and Mount Tolmie.

In the IHA, my region, 30 community health workers providing support to seniors in Kelowna have been laid off by this government, and similar cuts are actually pending throughout the region. Talarico Place, which provides residential care for 60 residents, has lost its only recreational therapist. I could go on, but it's just one after the other, and there are so many examples.

The Liberals promised to build 5,000 long-term care beds, but according to the BCMA, there was actually a net decline of 553 beds between '01 and '07. They promised to improve home care, but they broke their promise to improve home care support. Instead the number of people receiving home support dropped by 24 percent, and overall hours of support dropped by 12 percent. The Liberals promised one thing, but the government actually closed residential care beds while at the same time cutting home care and home support services for seniors.

Again, I could go on. The opposition have been calling for a seniors advocate who can fight for the rights of seniors to make sure that they have a bed, but the government refuses to do that repeatedly.

Hon. Speaker, election after election the government has promised a whole lot of things to seniors, but they never delivered. In 2009 they made a series of promises. They never delivered. The 2005 election platform — same thing. The Liberals never delivered. Same thing in 2001. It's just, say one thing during the election and do completely the opposite after the election.

What's the government saying? I've got two minutes, and in two minutes I'm going to conclude, hon. Speaker.

You know, the government currently claims that it has opened 5,896 "net new beds and units," as they say it, since 2001. Well, they actually refused to provide a breakdown of the beds in the units, instead preferring to mix them together in order to provide the appearance of meeting their initial promise. They may also be counting renovated beds as new beds. When you look at it, in reality the assisted living is not a substitute for residential care.

The government has actually mixed residential care and assisted living together, but they're entirely different. One provides care, and one provides accommodation with some support services. Residential care is provided in what is commonly referred to as nursing homes, where seniors receive direct 24-hour care, including nursing care. Assisted living, however, is independent housing for seniors where they get two meals a day provided and two care services a week, such as assistance with bathing or grooming. Regulations governing the two different types of care are vastly different, in recognition of the fact that one is care and one is housing with some support.

I think it's time that the government stops misleading the public and comes to the realization that their promise of 5,000 beds has not come to fruition, because they closed, actually, almost 2,000 beds between '01 and '07.

[1830]

I know a number of my colleagues are going to speak, so I'll have more to say in the throne speech in terms of what the government is saying. But in any case, hon. Speaker, in order to make it a right for seniors, they have to have a right to a bed for residential care for seniors and not just empty words, as this government always continues to do.

B. Routley: It is indeed a privilege to rise and talk about seniors care. People in the Cowichan Valley know a lot about seniors care. We suffered the indignity in 2008 of this government's VIHA coming into Cowichan Valley in the summer — on June 20. If you can imagine, my friend Don Gordon and his father were sitting watching TV, and that's how they learned that his mother in the Cowichan Lodge was going to be evicted in 30 days.

Now, that's a lack of dignity and respect for seniors. That's what this government was up to just in the summer of 2008, when they announced that. With public protest, they extended it to 60 days. Then, when there were threats of legal action, suddenly it got extended to a whole year. But I'll tell you, if there was ever a need for a real bill of rights for seniors, today is the day.

Unfortunately, I'm here to tell you that while this is a baby step — and I might add, a real small baby step — in the right direction, it is not the kind of real bill of rights that seniors ought to have in the province of British Columbia.

Let me read from the bill a few of the words here. In the first section 7 that's repealed, it says that it's going to be "in a manner that will promote…." Words matter, and
[ Page 1721 ]
this is really a promotional bill. When you camp there for a minute, this is all about promoting that there's going to be a real bill of rights. In fact, it's a pretty thin deal indeed for seniors. I sure wouldn't want to take this kind of thing to the bank, and let me tell you why.

It says under the "Scope of rights": "The rights…are subject to (a) what is reasonably practical given the physical, mental and emotional circumstances…." It's pretty thin rights indeed when it really is up to the caregiver or somebody in government to interpret that — whether or not you have any physical, mental or emotional circumstances that might deny you the rights that are in this act.

Finally, I want to make the point that in this act, on page 4, under the heading "No right to sue," they make it real clear that there's really no right to sue. It says: "No right of action lies, and no right of compensation exists, by reason only of a violation of a right set out in this Schedule."

Well, there you go. It's a lot of good words, and we support it because it's a baby step in the right direction. But I've got to tell you, for the people in the Cowichan Valley, we're absolutely frustrated beyond belief at the lack of action by this government in putting in place a real bill of rights and not only that but putting people in the kind of care homes that they need.

You know, in the Cowichan Valley, we had this beautiful lodge supported by literally thousands of people that lived in the Cowichan Valley, and it had this beautiful garden. Today, no seniors from the Cowichan Valley can wander through that beautiful garden. Nobody can go through there and have a look at what used to exist, because the place is locked down.

It's closed with no consultation, against the wishes of literally thousands of people that signed, pleading for the government to take action to put that lodge back in place. Obviously, what's happened is that those pleas for help and those petitions fell on deaf ears.

[1835]

The reality is that we have a lack of the kind of care facilities that seniors throughout British Columbia know. That's a fact. We need more facilities to give the dignity and respect that our seniors deserve.

We're going to have more and more seniors in British Columbia, and we need a government that's going to restore seniors rights in the future in British Columbia. I fear that only the government that will soon come in three and a half years, if we have our way on this side of the House, will bring back true dignity and rights to seniors in British Columbia.

D. Routley: We will be supporting this bill. As the previous member said, it is only baby steps towards the giant strides that are needed to meet the true dignity and respect that is deserving for our seniors in this province.

This is a hypocritical government that treated the people of this province with disdain, disrespect and deceit. In the Cowichan Valley we were deceived by this government. The local surgeon who used to head up surgery resigned from his position because of the number of alternate-level-care patients who were clogging the beds of his hospitals so that surgeries couldn't proceed. He resigned because of it.

Dr. Otte, from Nanaimo, earlier this month wrote a letter to the Times Colonist and said she's ashamed to participate in a system that so lets down those people who are the foundation of our province.

These are the people who built our province, who handed us this place and these mechanisms we need to defend their democratic rights. This government is a little bit like the one who comes to us and says: "I put eight rocks in your shoes. I'm here to take out three. Aren't I your best friend?"

Well, no. It's not good enough. We have seen a decline in seniors care. We have seen a net decline of 553 beds in this province. At the same time, they boast about increases. That might work for them and get them through the duration of their speeches in this House, but the people of this province know a very different truth.

They know the truth of their parents, their relatives and the community members who they respect waiting and waiting and going without respect.

This bill of rights fails to defend the resident's right to be informed of the facility's services and charges. It fails to defend the right of a person to be informed about their medical condition. It fails to defend a person's right to participate in their care plan. It fails to protect a person's right to select their own caregiver and to have their own caregiver visit them in a facility.

These are just some of the rights that are guaranteed in every U.S. state with their bill of rights. These are just some of the rights that every senior in British Columbia should expect.

It's a shame that what happened in Cowichan Valley could ever happen, that a government could come in and dislocate people. This government promised the people of the Cowichan Valley — to the Duncan council when they accepted the privatized care facility that was built in Duncan — that it would not result in the closure of public beds. Every time there was a problem in Cowichan District Hospital, they pointed to the new private facility and said: "When we have those extra beds, there won't be any more problems."

Within two days of the postings closing at the private facility, VIHA, this government's agent, announced the closure of Cowichan Lodge, without consultation, meaning that the workers could not even move with the residents.

Study after study shows us that dislocating seniors without proper consideration can result in 10 to 15 percent
[ Page 1722 ]
of those people dying almost immediately. That's what we saw in Duncan. That's what we saw in Cowichan. That's what this government is responsible for. And now we should cheerlead them for this?

It's a bit like robbing the bank and then making bank robbery illegal the day later. They've already moved the people. They've already closed the facilities.

The treatment of seniors has been atrocious. There's no guarantee in this bill of a senior receiving baths on a regular schedule. We had a man named Bill Cross in Chemainus who went 109 days without a bath in one of their assisted-living complexes. This bill does nothing to stop that from happening again.

[1840]

This bill is offered by a government that has disrespected the pioneers and founders of our province. This bill breaks a basic principle. This bill fails to defend the rights of people, yet it still purports to do that.

But how could we vote against even the baby step that this bill takes? We'll support it, and I'm sure we'll offer amendments that will seek to improve its scope and improve its ability to adequately defend the rights of seniors and adequately provide for dignity for our seniors.

It's atrocious that the members who sit on that side of the House support a government that took the steps it did in Cowichan Lodge and in Zion Park that dislocated people without consideration, that broke its own act by reducing the notice time. This is a sad commentary on where we've come in this province. Everyone in this province expects more.

When you look into the eyes of seniors and the frustrated faces of their families as they come through the doors of our constituency offices, often in tears — not able to find a place for their seniors, not able to find adequate care for their seniors — and then hear this government boast the way it does, it's appalling.

Even when you consider the care that has been offered in the privatized model and the inadequacy of it…. I'll just offer you one commentary. This is commentary on the financial difficulties of the Lodge on 4th in Ladysmith. This is one of the staff members, who says she's aware of the difficulties the lodge was having financially. "Those difficulties have actually reflected on the care of residents. We can't do it all. There have been lots of mistakes already."

She said that residents are found soiled and wet in the morning. She says: "It's heartbreaking for us." I spoke to their family members, who have to sleep by their beds in order to guarantee that they have care.

This government is in denial, but the people of British Columbia know the truth. Those of us who face those people, who face this reality presented by this government's treatment of seniors, know the truth, and we aren't about to forget it.

H. Bains: I'm also, actually, honoured to stand here and speak on Bill 17, (Residents' Bill of Rights) Amendment Act, 2009.

I would be standing here and applauding the government for bringing in this kind of bill if I knew that they were serious — if they were serious about what they were putting on paper. But their record, if you look at their track record, is completely opposite of what they say. Then they go out and quietly do different. I think that's their record, and that's why I'm really, really skeptical.

I'm skeptical that the language that is used here and the nice, catchy phrases that are there…. If they really, actually mean to do exactly what is needed under this bill, I think anybody would stand up and applaud them. If they were serious, they wouldn't be going to the Newton Regency and telling those residents, who are actually happy to be where they are…. Their family members are happy with where they are.

Before the election they were promised that they could stay there as long as they wanted, as long as they wished, and nobody would be forced out of their beds. But after the election all of that changed again. That's why I'm skeptical.

If they were really serious about doing what they say in this bill that they will be doing, then the Come Share program wouldn't be cut. It's only about $161,000 that they took away from that society, which was needed, which actually works day in and day out to help the seniors who cannot help themselves. Many, many vital services are provided by the Come Share program. But no, this government has to go out and cut $160,000. That's why I say that they are not very serious.

[1845]

If they were serious about doing what they are saying in this bill, they would not say no to the seniors advocate that we have put forward. That person would be an independent officer who actually would be promoting the causes, who actually would be standing on the side of the seniors, promoting the needs of the seniors in this province without the fear of getting the funding cut, without the fear that there's some political pressure on that. That's what is needed. If they were serious, they would not say no to the seniors advocate.

If they were serious — they have been in power for eight years now — our seniors care standard wouldn't be 25 percent lower than the national average. You know, if they are serious even today, I would stand up and support them. But I know, judging by their track record, that it's more of a political expediency rather than actually doing the right thing. That's exactly the track record of this government.

Having said all of that, I must say that the language in this bill…. Even as small baby steps as they are, as my colleagues have said before, they are necessary. They are necessary, even as small as they are. So we would be supporting that. I would be supporting that, because
[ Page 1723 ]
any help over and above what is available to the seniors today is a good thing.

This bill doesn't go far enough. Certainly, we will be watching how they implement this, how the seniors out there in the seniors care homes actually will be benefiting from it. That's what we will be watching, but we don't trust that. The public doesn't trust them, and the seniors and their families don't trust this government — that it is actually serious about helping the seniors in this province.

Madam Speaker, I know the time is running very fast. There's a lot to talk about.

I can tell you that I want to talk about people who built this province. They made us proud all across the world. We stand up proudly to say that we live in the best country in the world. That's because of those seniors. Those are the people that gave us health care. Those are the people that actually built our education system and all the other infrastructure, but today they feel ignored. They feel neglected by this Liberal government.

Having said that, I will sit down and take my place, and we will be talking about it in the next stages.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

D. Hayer: I support Bill 17, the bill of rights for residents care that promotes better care. When I talk to my constituents, actually, they're really happy about this bill. They say this was needed.

They tell me that many times they hear members from the opposition, from the NDP, complain about it, but when they were in power for ten years, they never did anything. They always wonder: "Why is it they always complain now? When they were in power, why wouldn't they have introduced a bill like this?"

I'd like to tell them that their job is to oppose and complain, so they just do their job because that is what is required. But on the other side, we try to do the right things that are needed for our seniors.

Seniors are who built this province, built this country, built this best place on earth to live in, as we say. When I talk to seniors, they are so happy to see that there are so many new facilities for seniors in Surrey. I can tell you that in the last eight years we have built new facilities in Surrey, and these facilities are like five-star hotels.

I was looking at some of the stats since 2001. We have built more than 1,300 new and replaced beds for residential care, supportive care and assisted-living care. We have built more than 6,000 net new beds and units. When the NDP was in power, you had to wait for almost one year to get a bed in a seniors facility. Nowadays it only takes, on average, about 15 to 90 days. That's a big change.

When you take a look at the increase in funding, we have increased the funding by $280 million for home support care and home care, bringing it to $684 million. That's a 69 percent increase since 2001.

When you take a look at the health care budget, it went from a little bit more than $8 billion to over $15 billion. That's almost double the budget. But when you talk to the opposition, they always complain about the cutbacks and the decrease in the budget.

People always wonder: "How can they add when you have a 100 percent increase, and that's a cutback?" They say: "That only happens only in the NDP world, not in the real world."

This is a bill that is really needed. When I talk to seniors, they say this is good for them. This is going to give them a lot more power, a lot more influence. This is a bill that's going to have their rights.

[1850]

This bill will be posted right in the facility. It will allow them to have more support for the social, cultural, religious, spiritual and other rights that they have. This is a bill that is going to make sure that people actually look at their rights and that they are respected.

This is the first time in the history of British Columbia that seniors will have these rights. When I talk to them, they say: "These rights are needed." They told me: "You should tell your Premier." They really appreciate the input into the throne speech that they were going to do this. They always tell me, "Can you make sure you tell your minister who brought this bill?" because this is a bill that was really needed.

In closing, on behalf of Surrey-Tynehead, on behalf of the Surrey residents who have received so many new seniors facilities, like five-star hotels…. They say, "I wish these types of facilities were there in the 1990s," when many of the facilities were not looked after. You know, you could not even get the wheelchairs through. Sometimes they sort of felt ashamed that their parents and their grandparents were living there. But they're really happy that we have very nice facilities, and they really appreciate that Bill 17 looks after the rights of the seniors in the facilities so they're protected.

In closing, I want to say thank you very much to this House. I want to say thank you very much to the members in opposition for saying their comments, even though they might not be true.

Mr. Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the Minister of Healthy Living and Sport closes debate.

Hon. I. Chong: I do want to take the opportunity to thank all members on both sides of the House who have participated in second reading debate, although I want to acknowledge as well that many of the speakers on the other side of the House did manage to divert their remarks into other areas — which is to be expected, I suppose.

One area I did hear many of the speakers refer to, and I do have to correct it for the record. I heard many references to residential care beds. I just want to, for the
[ Page 1724 ]
record, say that unfortunately — and I know they won't believe this — the NDP are wrong, as usual.

In 2001 — yes, in 2001 — we did commit to establishing 5,000 net new long-term and intermediate care beds. But since that time to now, we have built over 6,000 net new residential care beds and assisted-living and supportive housing units. They made references to reports, but I note that the report they were using was about a year out of date. I can appreciate the fact that they haven't got all of their information up to date, but it's available to them, and I would ask that they have a look at that.

Our original commitment in 2001 was to have that fulfilled by 2006. Yes, as a result of having to refurbish a number of old units and ensure that they were up to standards, it delayed our opportunity to have our commitment met by 2006. But we were able, by the end of 2008, to reach that commitment. Since then we have built more, which is why our net new beds are beyond the 5,000.

I just also want to make reference to issues that were raised regarding wait times to get into these residential care homes. When I was first elected in 1996 as an opposition member and until 2001, I had family member after family member who used to come into my office and also say the wait times were a year. Just as they thought their mother or father was going to be placed, they were told: "No, you've been bumped yet again."

The average wait time is between 15 and 90 days. One year — 15 to 90 days. I think that's a marked improvement over what the NDP were able to do. We've had over 6,000 net new beds in eight years. The NDP built 1,400 net new beds in ten years. So I think the record is pretty clear on that.

However, I do want to thank everyone for their comments. This bill is about ensuring a bill of rights that will apply to all adult residents in care facilities. The key reason for creating this bill of rights for persons in residential care facilities is that, unlike those acute care facilities, the residential care facility is someone's primary home. Residents are therefore entitled to have this consideration respected.

I've heard members say that they were supportive of the bill, so on that note, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

[1855]

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

Bill 17, Health Statutes (Residents' Bill of Rights) Amendment Act, 2009, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

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

Hon. I. Chong moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 6:56 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
HOUSING AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); H. Bloy in the chair.

The committee met at 2:35 p.m.

On Vote 36: ministry operations, $2,714,603,000 (continued).

S. Simpson: It's good to be back for another afternoon of Housing and Social Development. We're going to start with some questions related to liquor. We'll go through those and then some questions that relate to poverty issues, and then we'll spend the remainder of our time, the bulk of our time, on housing-related matters.

Regarding liquor, could the minister tell us what the status is…? The minister will recall that there was some concern about what was happening around Olympic wines and the whole issue about which wines would be forward and how that would all be dealt with in terms of labelling what was cellared here versus actual B.C. wines and their use in the Olympics.

Could the minister give us an update as to what the status of that is, as to how wines will be used for official functions and such?

Hon. R. Coleman: There is no Olympic wine. There's no wine that's for the Olympics or that's been made for the Olympics. Basically, the issue was that for a long time, in generations going back, frankly, over two decades, wineries in B.C. have been allowed to import what is fermented juice, to cellar it and make it in British Columbia into the final product of wine. That was done 20 years ago plus, back in I think it was the 1980s and
[ Page 1725 ]
through the 1990s, to be able to create a cash flow basis for wines in B.C.

At that time we didn't have the amount of grapes that were necessary to supply domestic demands, and we don't today, quite frankly. These were allowed to be brought in, put in and labelled as a product of Canada — basically, cellared in the particular jurisdiction they were in. That labelling issue is not a provincial issue; it's actually a federal issue. They're the ones to decide what will take place on the labelling of wine.

This became an issue on the placement of some wines from Vincor within some of our liquor stores, because Vincor is the wine sponsor that has bought the rights to the Olympics. Vincor is part of a company called, I think, Constellation. Constellation is one of the three largest wine companies in the world. They are allowed to put that logo on any wine, anywhere in the world, whether it be British Columbian, Canadian or whatever the case may be.

As we went through that issue, we met with the industry — with Peller Estates and other companies, including Vincor — across the country with regards to their labelling and how these would be placed. We are changing the placement of how the wine will be placed in the B.C. Liquor Stores. They are not labelling it with the logo that would bring in the questions with regards to it anymore for the stuff that will come in.

All wines that will be used at all venues at the Olympics will be VQA wines produced by Vincor in British Columbia or in Canada. There will be 100 percent VQA wines, of 100 percent B.C. grapes, made in B.C. That's the wine that will be served at all the venues that they will host at the Olympics.

S. Simpson: The minister has said there would be changes made in terms of how the wine is displayed in liquor stores and the prominence of those wines. Could the minister tell us when that's expected to occur?

Hon. R. Coleman: Yesterday I asked the member whether it would be liquor distribution or licensing. I understood licensing would be the discussion on liquor. Jay Chambers, who is the general manager of the liquor distribution branch…. We let him go home yesterday for that reason.

My understanding is that once the inventory is used up, they're already doing the new signage. They've already come to an agreement of what the statement will be. I think that it's going to say something…. I should be careful. I know that it's not going to say that it's a B.C. wine. It will be moved out of the B.C. wine section. It will be a product that will have a name like "cellared in Canada" or something that's acceptable to the jurisdictions across Canada, and we will change their location in the liquor stores.

S. Simpson: I agree with the minister that we had agreed that one of his officials would be going home. I think the minister, at that time, had said that if there were questions, I'd put them on the record, and if he wasn't able to answer them at this time because he didn't have officials, answers would be provided in writing. That's fine by me.

[1440]

The minister said that all the wines would be VQA. The wines used at the Olympics and served at the Olympics as part of official functions would be B.C. VQA wines. Could the minister tell us, or could he get the information to us, as to how the selection of those wines will be made, since we have…. Obviously, Vincor is the sponsor for this, but there are a large number of wineries and the smaller estate wineries and that in British Columbia. Are others going to have the opportunity to have their wines available as well?

Hon. R. Coleman: Let's be clear. The sponsored wines, which are Vincor, have bought the sponsorship to the Olympics, so official Olympic events during the Olympics will only be serving Vincor wine that is VQA. They bought those rights.

Now, if there's another bar, hotel, venue that's having a bit of a celebration around the Olympics that's not an officially sponsored venue, they can buy their wines from whomever they want. They're not tied to the Olympic sponsorship.

In the case of, let's say, an event at GM Place, where there's an official function of the Olympics, it will be Vincor wine, because Vincor and Constellation have bought their rights. It's the same as we will have with regards to Molson's products at those same things because they bought the Olympic rights, and they've paid millions of dollars for those rights. We don't have a problem with that.

Any other wine that wants to…. If there's a B.C. night of celebration, we won't be restricting, because that's not an official site, that sort of thing. Those will all be worked out. But when it comes to official Olympic events with the International Olympic Committee and VANOC, those people have bought the sponsorship. It's no different than Coca-Cola. They've bought their sponsorship, and McDonalds have a sponsorship. They have their rights to those events because they paid for the right to do that.

S. Simpson: Having said that, I appreciate there are formal events that are held where there are limits on the suppliers to those events based on who paid at that time. The minister spoke of other opportunities or celebrations or events that will evolve around the Olympics that the government may play a role in but that won't be "official" events of the Olympics, where there would
[ Page 1726 ]
be opportunities for other B.C. producers of wines or maybe some of the craft producers of beer.

Some of the specialty beers and things that are produced in British Columbia would have an opportunity to have their products there as B.C. products, as part of that celebration. I would think, for example, maybe some of those events at the Terminal City Club would be a good place for some of that to occur.

Could the minister tell us: what is the expectation about how invitations will go to those other participants — not at the formal events, the "official" events, but those other events — so that there is opportunity for other producers or vintners and that who aren't part of Vincor or other craft beer makers to be part of this celebration? How will that occur? How will they get invited to participate?

Hon. R. Coleman: The B.C. Wine Institute is already working with the B.C. games secretariat and with Robson Square to profile B.C. wines at a number of events that they will be sponsoring through the period of time of the Olympics.

Other than that, we don't actually tell restaurants what to buy, or whatever. That's the competitive environment of wines, and the restaurants will be able to buy from the liquor distribution whatever product they wish. Those people who are out there promoting and selling or whatever would continue their normal vein of business. We don't do that now with regards to the commercial activities in and around liquor, and we wouldn't be stepping in today and doing that either.

S. Simpson: Maybe this is about clarification to some degree. Now, I understand the official events are hosted by VANOC. They are the host party, not the government of British Columbia directly. VANOC is the host party. At all the VANOC events it will be their sponsor groups. It will be, then, Vincor. It will be Molson's. It will be those people who VANOC has agreements with, and I understand that.

The government of British Columbia will be hosting events itself that are complementary to that but are not necessarily under the VANOC umbrella, I'm assuming. Will this broader range of B.C. products be available at those events that are hosted by British Columbia outside the VANOC umbrella?

[1445]

Hon. R. Coleman: I don't have all the events for the member. I'll see if I can get you the information, but the B.C. Wine Institute, which is the organization that basically represents VQA wines in B.C., is planning on a number of receptions that they would feature B.C. wines at during the Olympics.

As I said, at any official function with regards to the Olympics Vincor has the sponsorship, just like Molson has the beer and Coke has the rest of it. That's pretty much an international standard for Olympics. Then there are other opportunities for countries that will come in and have other relationships with regards to liquor, like Heineken House, for instance, for the Dutch and that sort of thing, because those things will take place.

What I will do for the member is endeavour to get you an outline of what the BCWI is planning and who they're working with from the secretariat. I don't have it at my fingertips.

S. Simpson: Thanks to the minister for offering to provide that list. Just one more question in relation to this, because I'm not sure that I fully understand.

Is the minister saying that government of British Columbia events that are outside the VANOC umbrella and the VANOC sponsorship but events hosted by the government…. We've heard a lot of talk in the House and elsewhere about the government taking advantage of this opportunity for economic development and other opportunities here to be able to host events that will further those things, and I appreciate that. That's outside of VANOC running the Olympics.

For those events, is the minister saying the Wine Institute is taking responsibility for deciding how wines are provided at those events? Or does the government have somebody through this ministry or some other body, maybe the secretariat, who will take responsibility for deciding which vintners or brewers are invited to bring product there — or other food and beverage products that are British Columbia that might not have sponsorship?

I'm just trying to determine that here. I understand that the Wine Institute is going to do their job, and I think that's great. I just want to know how that relates to what British Columbia does in terms of making sure it maximizes exposure for British Columbia companies and businesses.

Hon. R. Coleman: My understanding is that the B.C. Wine Institute is working on special events in different venues around Vancouver with regards to promoting B.C. wines and what have you. I don't know. I know that this ministry has nothing to do with that piece. I mean, we just did the licensing piece and what have you. Who's running what and doing what where is not our responsibility, and it's not in my purview to give an answer to that question otherwise.

We as a government, when we're hosting an official Olympic event, will have to live by the same arrangements as VANOC has with regards to the sponsorships, which would be…. But if it's something that is broader, like if it's something we do with the B.C. Wine Institute, then we will be able to do more with B.C. wines or whatever product.
[ Page 1727 ]

I'll get some information from the secretariat for the member with regards to that. I don't know if you've done that ministry in estimates yet. If you haven't, you might ask them. I'll find out what ministry it is too. I would think that it would be the Olympic secretariat.

Interjection.

Hon. R. Coleman: It probably is, and I don't know if we've done her estimates. Is she done? Okay, so I'll get some information for the member.

[1450]

S. Simpson: Thanks to the minister for that offer.

Really, I fully understand and respect the role of sponsorship and the need to protect the interests of sponsors when they purchase those interests. I agree with that.

But it would be great, where there are opportunities, whether government-hosted events or other events, to take advantage of those opportunities for British Columbia companies, especially with some of the wonderful vintners and craft beer people and other folks. We have to take advantage of that, if we can, without breaching those agreements, obviously, through other events.

A couple of other questions related to liquor matters. Again, I respect that these may be questions that other officials would answer. I'd be happy to get those answers in writing, if that is the case.

Currently in British Columbia how many public liquor stores are there, and how many private liquor stores are there?

Hon. R. Coleman: While we're getting that data for you, cellared wines will be displayed in a new way within our liquor stores within the next month.

There are presently 197 government liquor stores. There are 679 licensed retail stores, which would be the private liquor stores. There are 223 rural agency stores. There are 220 on-site industry stores, which would be, I would suspect…. That would be the breweries.

S. Simpson: Like the Granville Island brew pub.

Hon. R. Coleman: Yeah, that sort of thing. There would be 12 independent wine stores, 34 off-site industry stores and 11 duty-free stores. The on-site industry stores I would suspect include wineries, breweries, distilleries and retail shops.

S. Simpson: I'm getting to a question here about my own constituency at some point, but I'm just trying to understand some things as I get there.

My understanding, and I'd be happy to be corrected if I haven't gotten this right, is that there is currently no general expansion of private liquor stores in the province, but if there are government stores…. Let me get this correct. If a government store closes, a private operator could buy out the lease and essentially take that store over and run it. Those are the places where you do closures and takeovers. That's what occurs. Is that what happens?

Hon. R. Coleman: Right now there's a moratorium on additional private liquor stores. I think I know what the member's question is, so I'm going to try and deal with it this way.

Any private store can move within a community to a different location within it today. One city has a different rule, and that's the city of Vancouver. In the city of Vancouver if a government liquor store closes, in that location that it closed from — in spite of the fact that we may be opening another liquor store a few blocks away — the city allows somebody to move another, like a beer-and-wine-store type of operation, in there to have a liquor store. They're the only city that does that, because they do not allow spirits in their beer and wine stores in the city of Vancouver.

[1455]

When the private liquor store model came along, all the other communities, basically, in B.C. embraced that and allowed them to separate and move to better locations within their communities. Vancouver said no, and then…. They've had a morphing of liquor rules in Vancouver which allows for what I've just described.

The one that would be the best example in Vancouver is a government liquor store on Hastings. Somebody bought the property and the lease. They did not renew the lease with the Liquor Distribution Branch — had another licence to move in there and were allowed by Vancouver to move a liquor store into there. The Liquor Distribution Branch found another location and opened another store, because that was allowed under Vancouver's rules.

S. Simpson: I appreciate that. That is the issue that I'm talking about — the East Hastings store.

The only correction I think I'd make at this point is that all of that has occurred, except there hasn't been a government liquor store opened. What we have is…. We've had the store closed.

I've spoken to people in the branch at the time that it was closing. I was informed by them that it was not their choice to close the store but, as the minister says, the lease had expired. The owner of the lease chose not to renew it, owns a few other facilities, stores and private operations, and was putting a private operation in, and that's how that occurred.

I was told at that time that there would be efforts to…. They would be opening a new store. I think it was that they were going to be opening it…. It was some number
[ Page 1728 ]
of months ago that the expectation was it would be open. I understand that there may be some issues, challenges, around how that gets opened.

My question, then, to the minister, since he certainly seems to have knowledge of this specific issue: is it the intention of the LDB to open another store in that proximity? I was told that it was a pretty good location for revenue. To open in that location — is that the intention? If so, does the minister have any idea when that might occur?

Hon. R. Coleman: The last time I had the discussion, they thought they had a location, and I didn't know whether they had got to the point of opening or not. They were negotiating leases and that sort of thing to see if there was something…. There was some new construction, I believe, taking place somewhere on Hastings Street that they thought they had the opportunity.

The store was an average performer. It wasn't a high performer, but certainly they felt they still wanted to stay within that market and wanted to achieve bringing a store back to that neighbourhood. But it's all a matter of when they build, what lease you can get. Also, they're not going to be held to ransom for rent, so they'll be as competitive as possible. So however long it takes for them to do that in a way that meets their business case, that's what I would expect from them.

S. Simpson: There's a fair amount of new construction along Hastings there because of zoning changes that have opened up a lot of new retail storefront. There's a lot more vacant than has people in it at this point, so I think prices wouldn't be too bad for lease agreements at the moment in some of that new housing.

I would note that there was a great amount of concern. I heard from an awful lot of people in the community when that store switched over to a private store, because it was done fairly quietly. Nobody was really aware of it until it was almost upon them. One day it was a government store. Then the weekend passed, and all of a sudden it was a private store, and people didn't even notice. The signs didn't change, other than it said "Hastings Liquor Store" instead of "Government of B.C. Liquor Store."

People were concerned about that because it was their preference to do business with the government store. I know they're all anxious to see whether this government store actually opens and they're able to go back and patronize there.

One of the issues that were raised around that…. It was the local business improvement association that raised this issue with me around the private store. They were concerned about the private store and supported a government store staying there. Part of that revolved around the practices of the store.

These operators, to the best of my knowledge, are fine operators, and they do everything by the book. But for example, there's a big question in that community because of the challenges some of the people meet around things like the sale of singles — single beers, things like that. A big issue.

You get the folks…. They're out in front. They're panhandling. They're doing this and that. They're going in. They buy a couple of singles. They come out, sit there, drink the beers and panhandle the next few singles or whatever comes with that. Or they wander up and down the street with their beer in their hand, and that raises a concern.

I know that when the business improvement association, based on its members, brought that to the government store, they recognized that, and they ended the practice of selling singles in that store. They realized that it was a community concern, a legitimate one, and to the best of my knowledge, they said, "We will not sell singles," and that ended.

[1500]

They went to the private store after it opened, and the private store said: "Singles are one of our biggest sellers. We do well out of selling singles. We appreciate your problem, but no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to change our practice."

Is the government looking at those kinds of issues in communities like mine in Hastings, where there are some challenges and some people that have difficult issues around alcohol and other things, and starting to try to manage some of that — even if it's in some of the private stores — around how they sell? Is there any work being done around that?

Hon. R. Coleman: The regulatory environment allows for the sale of singles, whether it be a government liquor store or not, and it's up to the operator. You're right that in some liquor stores that were government-operated, sometimes we have actually stopped doing that practice because of a concern of the community.

This is not something that I would anticipate we would go change a bunch of regulations around, but I will undertake on behalf of the member to have a conversation with the owners of that particular store and ask them what it is, rather than have what they said and whether they say it's a big piece of their business or whatever. I think I'll go find out and then have a conversation with them.

S. Simpson: I'd appreciate that. I have had the conversation with the owners of the store, but the concern was raised to me by the business improvement association and their leadership who went and made that request of the store. Then they spoke to me later when we were talking about that — when I was asking their advice about the possibility of a second store in the community,
[ Page 1729 ]
a government store and a private store, and what occurs there. That's when that came out in that conversation from the business improvement association.

Certainly, the manager of the private store acknowledged to me that that conversation had been had and that their business practice was to sell singles. So I'm happy that the minister will inquire about that.

At this point in time I just have one more question, a two-part question in regard to liquor matters, and then we'll move on to another matter. Are there any plans around either further closures or openings of government stores in the province at this time?

Hon. R. Coleman: The branch has basically been asked to run their business, and they do that as a commercial Crown. There are a couple constraints in and around how they do their business today.

One is that we have a collective agreement with the B.C. Government Employees Union, and we can only close five stores over the period of the collective agreement. I think it is five stores in total; I don't think it's five a year. That is good on one side and positive and negative on the other. We actually have great success by creating what we call signature stores where we bundle a number of stores together into a larger store, and we end up with more employees than in the other three stores that were operating. Our returns are better, but that piece restricts those stores.

Yet today those are our most popular brand out there in the public. They really like those stores because they have the selection, the different types of premium wines and selections, the educated staff and all that stuff in those larger stores. We can't do any more of those by bundling unless we have an agreement with the union. There's a lot of work that has to get done there.

At this time, other than upgrading some stores when leases come up, which has happened in a couple places…. We had one closure on Main Street in Vancouver because they're doing construction, so we've had to move the store while the property is redeveloped. We would probably negotiate to go back into it — that sort of thing. That was a short-term closure.

We will go through the next number of months. We have negotiations probably coming up, but it really is about…. The number of stores on the government side is restricted by that agreement. We have to keep them at a certain number, and that's what we do because of the collective agreement. We leave it like that. There's no anticipation of closing a bunch of stores or anything like that.

[1505]

S. Simpson: Yeah, my understanding of that was pretty much the same. If the government opens a signature store, then it could close two smaller stores as part of the deal. I thought that that was the agreement, but the minister can correct that.

The question I have is…. I know this discussion has been had before. It's the question of government stores offering chilled products — beer, white wines — putting coolers on site, maybe, in some of the newer signature stores or whatever. It's the ability to do that.

I know that the government has chosen not to do that. I know that the private operators wouldn't be very happy about that because that is part of their piece of the market that's good for them — where they have 100 percent of the market there, essentially.

Has the government given any consideration to putting coolers on site in some of the signature stores at this time?

Hon. R. Coleman: I think that in a few select stores we do have some cooled product. It's actually not our marketplace. Our marketplace is a larger store in a market, more like a larger grocery store versus a 7-Eleven convenience where you come in and buy a cold product.

The cold product…. Installation of that in the stores is pretty expensive. We do look at it from time to time in select locations to see if we think that would drive additional business outcomes. But there's no movement to go in and revamp all our stores today with regards to adding cold product, because if there are renovations, there's the cost of refrigeration.

Then the discussion is: what's your return on making that investment? There hasn't been a strong enough business case made to me as the minister to show that that would be worthwhile.

The member is also right. When we did the whole change in liquor and when private liquor stores were allowed to have spirits and then move so that they would have decent locations and stuff, they were going to be more the convenience store of the business, and we were going to be more the upper-scale superstore, for lack of a better description, of the business.

That's why I think the signature stores are successful. Our customers come there to those stores — and they're high-volume stores — because they're coming for the selection and the service and what have you. It's not about convenience for them as much as it is about what the experience of the shopping is and that they know they can get the product, whereas the other side of the business is more of a convenience-store model.

In some cases there's probably a piece in between there we could deal with. But as we go through into the next level of discussions with the stores, as we do every year going into every budget cycle, that always comes up, and we have a discussion around it. We'll look at the numbers again.

S. Simpson: One last question on that, and then we'll move over to other matters and off of liquor. The minister spoke earlier about how the LDB and the liquor are
[ Page 1730 ]
kind of an independent entity. It does its business and, you know, follows the rules that are set. But it's up to the LDB as a business to do what's best for its business, have the best return on investment while having a responsible operation.

Those decisions, like…. If the decision, for example, is to go to chilled products in some or all stores, but the decision generally…. Is that a decision that's the LDB's decision? Is that a decision that would have to come back and get the approval of the minister, or is that kind of for the LDB as an independent entity to do on its own?

Hon. R. Coleman: The minister sets the policy under the Liquor Distribution Act. They are governed by the policy that's established by government with regards to their operation. So those types of things would come through the ministry, probably to Finance and Treasury Board, for a proper decision before they would be allowed to make those types of major changes.

S. Simpson: I was going to move now to some poverty reduction issues. What I'd like to speak about for a bit of time now is the question of poverty reduction in more general and more comprehensive terms.

[1510]

The minister will know that there are a number of provinces — Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland are three that come to mind immediately — that have, through either legislation or regulation, put in place poverty reduction strategies that have benchmarks and timelines to look at how they deal with poverty issues within their jurisdictions, and they measure and report out. Some of them have had some success, I believe. Quebec reported out a reasonable amount of success over the last six or seven years on bringing down poverty to some degree, and they measure against government objectives.

My question to the minister is: has the government of British Columbia considered poverty reduction as an initiative in a way comparable to some of those other provinces?

Hon. R. Coleman: On the question as a whole, the answer is no. We actually measure a number of things, however, across ministries within government with regards to poverty reduction, and I will give the member some examples of that. For instance, we actually measure low-income trends and whether they're improving. We measure social assistance rates and how we're doing and those types of things.

For instance, the percentage of the population with incomes below the low-income cutoff — which is a measurement in Canada called LICO — in 2007 was 11.1 percent of the population. That's the lowest it's been since 1990. In 2001 the rate was 14.1 percent. The percentage of children living in low-income households declined by 29,000 children, which was a 21 percent reduction between 2006 and 2007. The incidence of children living on low incomes declined 13 percent in 2007. It's the lowest rate since 1991.

B.C. has accounted for 20 percent of the national decline in child poverty since 2001. The proportion of families living in poverty is decreasing, and family incomes are increasing. The percentage of families with after-tax real income below $10,000 reached 2.8 percent of British Columbians by 1990. Then since 1999 it's fallen to 1.9 percent in 2006 — a 32 percent decline. At the same time, the percentage of families with after-tax real income between $10,000 and $20,000 fell from 6.5 percent in 1998 to 3.8 percent in 2006, which is a 42 percent decline.

Today we have the lowest provincial income tax rates for low-income earners — an $11,000 personal income tax credit and no provincial taxes for those with incomes below $18,000. We have the child tax benefit, which is the B.C. Family Bonus; the National Child Benefit; and the universal child care subsidy up to $385 a month. There's the provincial child care subsidy of up to $550 a month.

We have new investments in forms of housing, as well as the rental assistance program and a number of other things that I could list off.

The statistical side, which we measure across ministries — the first ones I described. We recognize that a number of other provinces have adopted official anti-poverty strategies with multi-year reduction targets.

[1515]

The current economic recession provides a good example of how the labour market and budgetary plans and priorities of the province can change unexpectedly, making specific targets not necessarily feasible.

We're confident that pursuing a cross-ministry approach to poverty reduction — together with the Ministry of Children and Family Development, Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, Advanced Education and Labour Market Development, Finance, Health Services and others — allows us to meet this challenge the most effectively. We think our statistics start to bear that out.

S. Simpson: Those numbers…. Could the minister tell us the low-income cutoff after taxes, which is Stats Canada's key measurement that they use to measure poverty? How does British Columbia do on that measurement in relation to other provinces? Where do we stand?

Hon. R. Coleman: This is, if anything, a complex issue to debate. What I will tell the member is that British Columbia has ranked as one of the lowest in the country since about 1998. It has ranked the same since 1999 until 2007, which — based on this one measure,
[ Page 1731 ]
which is this low-income cutoff — would be sufficient to say that we're the worst in the country.

However, even the reports that I've read always caution to not use this as the only measure, because these are just statistical and are not a measure of other aspects with regards to jurisdictions.

One of the measurements that goes into this calculation is the cost of housing and the cost of living, which are higher in our jurisdiction than they are in, let's say, P.E.I., where they have lower-cost housing and a lower cost of living. So they move up the list in a different way.

The low-income cutoff is an indicator of low income, which is often interpreted as a poverty line. However, poverty is more complex than just family income. For instance, this calculation does not take into account 8,000 rent supplements for families in B.C. This would be the equivalent of having 8,000 units of social housing subsidized, which other jurisdictions don't have. Because they don't calculate that in there, it doesn't come in as one of the calculations.

Just so the member is understanding…. Our low-income rate, basically, in 1999, for instance, was 16.4 percent, and we were still ranked the worst in the country on that LICO.

[1520]

By 2007 that had dropped to 11.1 percent, and we were still ranked worst in the country by that single statistical model. Yet if you look at the fact that today there are something like 30,000 additional folks that are no longer in that cutoff, that's a good-news story.

The challenge is that there's a differential cost of living, and there's a differential…. That's why we measure these particular statistics that I read into the record before for the member: to try and measure what the real rate is with regards to this stuff.

When you drop by a huge percentage of 21 percent of people from 2006 to 2007…. Then the incidence of children living in low income declined by 13 percent in 2007 to the lowest rate since 1991. A lot of the things successive governments have done on this file have always been an argument on behalf of British Columbia, no matter who's been in government.

I remember this discussion back in opposition. It was always around…. Somebody would take one statistical model, use it as a public statement and not recognize what successive governments were doing to reduce the rate.

If you look at the statistics, you will understand that when you have a 20 percent decline in the…. When one province, since 2001, has accounted for 20 percent of the national decline in child poverty — that being British Columbia — we're doing something right.

S. Simpson: As the minister said, if you use the low-income cutoff we rank as the worst. It's the same as if you look at child poverty in terms of those issues. We also have a very poor performance.

Part of the issue here…. I guess this brings me back to the question of a poverty reduction strategy and why I'm of the belief that putting in place such a strategy that has clear benchmarks and timelines makes some good sense. I don't want to get into a political debate about that, but I do want to talk a little bit about some of the aspects of that.

One of the challenges, and I'll acknowledge this with the minister…. The minister talks about how there are certain aspects of what British Columbia does that are making positive steps in terms of dealing with some of these issues, and other areas where maybe there's not quite as much being done. Part of the thinking around a poverty reduction strategy that is in place through regulation or legislation is that almost always there is transparency and that there's some reporting around that.

Usually, these strategies talk about housing, about child care and about training and a number of aspects that are in most of these plans in some way, shape or form. It allows the government, quite frankly, to talk about how, in those key components, progress is being made to address the problem.

None of these are short-term problems. They're very long-term. The cycle of poverty is very tough to break. So it's a big challenge there.

I understand that the minister has said that the government has made the choice not to put a formal plan in place, as some other jurisdictions have. So my question to the minister is: how can the government best report out the components and the pieces in some way where they are connected so that an observer of it — people who are concerned about this issue — can see how those pieces fit together if the government has initiatives to reduce poverty? I don't see that currently in how things get reported.

How does that happen, or is that important for the government to be able to report that?

[1525]

Hon. R. Coleman: I apologize to any member of my family who is watching this on TV, which is probably slim to none, that they see their father actually wearing glasses to stand up and do this. Usually it's just to read very small print, but I think that my eyes are a little more tired today.

Anyway, one thing we did in government — we brought this ministry together. This ministry was brought together about 18 months ago to consolidate a number of issues in and around housing, social development, social services and what have you — to coordinate across government and integrate services with regards to all these issues.

There is some work being done to come up with a report with regards to this, which we would make public
[ Page 1732 ]
when it is completed. We will check, because I think that, actually, these are statistics that would not hurt to be published.

I don't think I'm afraid that anybody would see them, actually. I would just as soon people did know, for instance, that the findings for our province…. The proportion of British Columbians living in low income as defined by the MBM fell from 16.3 percent in 2006 to 13.4 percent in 2007, continuing a downward trend from 22.6 percent in the year 2000. I mean, that's a drop of over 9 percent — almost a 10 percent drop in that period of time.

All age groups and family types experienced a decline in incidence of low income during that period of time. Children under the age of 18 experienced a 17 percent decline in low income from 2006 to 2007, going from 22 percent to 18.4 percent, which is down from 26.1 percent in the year 2000. Seniors over the age of 65 experienced the largest decline in low income. Their low-income incidence fell from 6.1 percent in 2006 to 3.8 percent in 2007 and has dropped by 70 percent since the year 2000, when it was sitting at 12.8 percent.

These are consistent with the changes in the after-tax LICO over the same period. Low income measured by MBM is higher than measured by LICO for all people, children in most age groups and families. The overall rate of low income for B.C. in 2007 was higher because of different things that are put into that formula versus a LICO formula.

There is a plethora of these types of statistics. I agree with the member that we will find a venue to post all that information, if it's not posted now, which we could point him to. If it isn't posted, we're going to find a venue, because these things should be out there. This is actually pretty good statistical information for people to see, when they ask questions in and around the questions that the member is asking.

S. Simpson: I think it would be a good thing to put that information out.

I know that the minister, when the creation of Housing and Social Development was done…. I've read the service plans and heard the minister's comments that part of this initiative…. I suspect that this minister was one of the people who motivated the creation of the ministry, this bringing together of these pieces to create Housing and Social Development. I suspect that you might have suggested it somewhere. Regardless of that, if you didn't, you probably should have.

One of the things the minister talks about with the establishment of the ministry is that part of the reason for doing that was to bring these pieces together to be able to break down some of the silos that come together around addressing issues like poverty and concerns of our most vulnerable citizens and to be able to create some continuums of service that were integrated and thoughtful and linked together. I think that's a good thing, and I know it's not an easy thing to do. I think if that's the ministry's objective, that's a good objective. That's certainly what I read it to be.

The minister and the ministry have taken that approach and saw fit to do that and to look at doing that, which brings me back to the question that I think is the key one around poverty reduction — whether you call it a single plan or whatever you call it. The minister read out a number of statistics where he sees the government making improvements in a number of areas and will report that out.

Has the ministry or the government got any intentions, as it does in other areas, to say that our objective is to take…? I believe it's 13 percent. So 13 percent was the poverty rate, the current rate, I believe. It might have been less, but it had gone down from 22 to 13 or something to that effect. If I misquote the number, my apologies.

[1530]

Does the government have a strategy here to say: "Our intention is to bring that number down a further 2 percent or 3 percent or 4 percent by a given time — three, four, five years out or whatever that time period is — and we can make further progress because we're doing things on housing, child care, income and job creation, etc."?

Is that the intention of government — to put some targets out there that allow people to say: "Okay, let's see whether they can meet those targets"?

Hon. R. Coleman: I guess that it's a question of how we go about doing things in deference to each other's opinion about it.

[J. Thornthwaite in the chair.]

For instance, as a minister I prefer to take a specific issue and say that we're going to put targets around this piece, this piece and this piece versus saying we're going to have another study done that everybody can read and say: "Well, gee, that was nice we had a study, but what are you going to do about the study?" I actually like to see results, so when I've talked to our folks in the ministry and folks out there, I say: "What do we do for low-income families, and what can we improve?"

For instance, we most recently raised the threshold for tax exemption for families in B.C. for each spouse — which amounts to about $1,600-some-odd a year for low-income families. That's the type of discussion you take to the table and try and improve things. I think those are the types of things that bring us down to 11.1 percent as the lowest since 1990 on the LICO measurement and 13-point-something on the other measurement, because there are different factors in both measurements. But
[ Page 1733 ]
both actually show the same trend, and that is a declining number.

One of the challenges when you deal with this file or any other file, when you try and set hard-and-fast rules, is that there are a couple of things you can't control. For instance, we're in a significant recession right now. As the member knows, our welfare rolls, as we discussed yesterday, are going up.

There would be nothing you could have done in a hard target to change that dynamic because of the recession, the loss of jobs and people coming off unemployment insurance and onto the welfare rolls and collecting social assistance. That's why a global measurement, that type of thing, has always concerned me on these particular things versus trying to find and measure real progress.

I have to admit that when I went over these numbers, even though I thought we were doing pretty well, I was even more pleasantly surprised. As we looked at year over year, there are pretty dramatic number drops in some of these areas. When you take one year from 2006 to 2007, and you have 29,000 fewer children in a low-income situation, which is a 21 percent decline in a 12-month period, that's pretty good.

As you measure it, though, you always have to realize that there could be additional stresses if the economy changed. So the one good thing for British Columbia…. I'm not going to take any credit for any particular time of life here, but I think it's a credit to our province as a whole that over the last number of years since 1998, we successfully brought this number down, this percentage down, year after year after year.

We do that because we come up with programs, no matter what the government is, to encourage certain things to happen within this particular aspect or bring additional supports into certain areas. I actually do believe that one of the significant things that we've done for families, for instance, is the rent assistance program.

The reason I say that is not because we did it, but because I know that if you had tried in 2006, when you put it in place, to build 8,000 units of housing for low-income families, it would have cost you somewhere around $2.1 billion or $2.4 billion to start with, if you were lucky to find the land at a value you could afford to do it at. It would have taken you more than probably five or seven years to do it. In the meantime 8,000 families today are getting some help.

[1535]

I think that changes the dynamic because it also takes the pressure off the wait-lists in another piece of government like B.C. Housing, which dropped by 50 percent in their wait-list as a result of those type of programs.

I don't even know if the member and I are agreeing or disagreeing here. I think we both recognize that we're doing statistical stuff here and how we measure it. I do think, though — I agree with the member — that to compile it in one place and say this is where we are year over year and to put that information out there would be valuable for everyone to see. If it's not up, we're going to find a way to do that.

S. Simpson: I appreciate that the minister is going to make that happen if it hasn't happened, and I think it is a good thing for people to be able to get those numbers in one place. I think the minister is correct that in certain areas, progress is being made to bring the percentages down.

I guess those who might be critical of the government in some way would say that Canada is an affluent place, and we all do well. Let's look at how we're doing in what has been one of the most prosperous provinces, second only to Alberta and often not second to Alberta in terms of the prosperity of the province.

Should we be in the place relative to other provinces that we are in terms of how we rank? That's another debate. We both know we can use statistics and numbers in a whole bunch of different ways, depending on what we want to achieve out of them.

In answer to a previous question, the minister talked about a report being done that he said would be released when it was completed. It was in relation to some of these matters related to poverty. It was a bit of a preamble to the answer to one of the questions. If he recalls that answer, I wonder if the minister, without breaching any confidentiality, could tell us a little more about the purpose of that report he was speaking about. It sounded interesting.

Hon. R. Coleman: It's in the early stages of development of what the terms of reference are. It's basically to look at all the things that we're discussing and put them into a report to show how they're measured with regards to other measurements across the country.

One of the challenges we've always had…. If you get the StatsCan report, it says X province is number two worst in the country or number one worst in the country. Down at the bottom there's a proviso that says don't use these statistics to actually basically — if I had the quote…. I have it, but it basically says that these statistics are not to be relied on as a total measurement of X.

I've had some conversations, and I've given some direction with regards to having a look at that. We're just working through the terms of reference now. The work would get done, and then it would get published. It is early, and I probably shouldn't disclose yet what that is, but it certainly is something that I think is a worthwhile project that's going to get done. Then we'll be able to take the statistical-type things we're talking about and actually be fair to ourselves in British Columbia as to what the measurements are.
[ Page 1734 ]

If you look at some of the ways they do some of these things…. Well, one of the factors is the cost of housing. Everybody knows the cost of housing in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and Victoria is pretty high. If you put that in as a piece of the calculation on a LICO measurement before everything else that's done that's good on the ground is measured as to what a jurisdiction is doing for poverty, it is basically already skewed by the price of some things that are put into the formula at the front end.

Can you get to where you can look at what you're doing and what your outcomes are — like the outcomes I've quoted here — and say these are coming as a result? And if you add in this, this is why now, on a national basis, the comparison is either fair or unfair. That's what I'd like to get to with that little body of work.

S. Simpson: I would agree that there are lots of different ways to measure. I believe the minister talked about housing, and I know that's why there's some debate about the different models around poverty reduction. Quebec has one approach. Newfoundland has another approach.

[1540]

Quebec has identified some significant success in the last short while, and there's some suggestion that applies to things they were able to do. I believe the area of housing is where their success was found because, as the minister would note, housing costs are a significant part of the cost to people who have marginal incomes.

There are a number of pieces to deal with this, whether it's education, child care, other pieces — pieces that are outside the purview of this minister and his portfolio. I think I've heard the minister speak about this before — about again trying to break down some of the silos inherent in government. It's difficult for any government at the senior levels, I think, to get through those silos and create the kind of cooperation or integration in government that's necessary.

Could the minister tell us: how do those discussions go on around all of these issues related to poverty within government, and is his ministry the lead ministry on this? Is it the one that drives those discussions when deputies or ADMs or whoever are having that discussion? And is there a conscious strategy that crosses over ministries — Education, MCFD, Aboriginal Relations? Or has that discussion happened?

Hon. R. Coleman: I don't know that you'd describe it as the lead ministry. This ministry does a lot of integration with other ministries on all kinds of things.

Our social services side, for instance, works very closely with Children and Families with regards to youth — whether it's issues in and around the child in the home of a relative, which we transferred back over to them and worked with them on that, and how that would work in a combination of the transition of youth through different ages of their life.

When they come on social services…. To make sure it's integrated between the two ministries, we've had a very good collaborative relationship with regards to that. Both ministers and ministries and their deputies are pretty alive to it.

When it comes to things like first nations and aboriginal stuff, we do a lot of off-reserve housing in coordination with Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation. We also do a lot of work with them on an integrated basis because of the large percentage of first nations that are actually in our social housing network of housing, particularly in Vancouver and Prince George where we have a large portion of those folks.

But I don't think we have decided there's a lead ministry. What we do is agree within ministries on certain initiatives that one ministry is going to take the lead on versus the other. When that happens, it becomes an integrated relationship. We have some good examples that we'll probably talk about in housing about that integration and taking that lead and saying, "This is who's in charge of this body of work," and all other ministers work into it — make things successful on individual things.

[1545]

It's like the transition that's presently taking place on developmental disabilities. We could have all said, "Well, we have a silo here with regards to what the recommendation was," which was to take developmentally disabled children back into Children and Families, because we had the CLBC, and they were contracting over there. It was determined that there would be better service. Instead of all sort of fighting over the thing, we said: "Right. Let's make this happen."

It's about the individual, and I think that in all the social services ministries, if you're going to have success, you have to step away every time out of a silo. You have to take the step back and say: "It's not about that building. It's not about your policy shop. It's not about your team. It's about that person who we're trying to help." And if you integrate in government on that basis all your policy, your direction, your regulatory, your management and everything else, you will actually get success.

The minute you step back and say, "This is my territory; I'm in charge," or whatever, I think you fail because you fail the individual who needs the multiple services. For instance, with a child in Children and Families who's in foster care, there's a relationship back from them maybe to us in some social services help, but we want that to be seamless. If a child is moving from youth to adult, we want a seamless relationship for developmental disabilities.

I think a developmentally disabled person is a classic example of this type of thing. At 16, we will know when somebody is going to need our services as an adult. At
[ Page 1735 ]
17½, we will go to the individual's family and say: "In six months you're entitled to social services for persons with disabilities." We will take the application in the home rather than make them go to the office so that their life isn't disrupted as they come through that system of integration with the ministries. Then at 19, there's a seamless handoff, because we already know the services that individual is going to need at 19. So CLBC is ready for the intake to deliver the services.

It's the same thing with this sort of thing. You look at your statistics and say: "How many children in care is a measurement with regards to the success of how many families are being helped to stay together?" As each piece of the puzzle comes together, it still comes down to being about the individual person. If we keep that focus in the social ministries, I think we're successful. If we slide away from that into another model, I think we fail. I think we've been very good in the last number of years at building that integrated relationship across government.

S. Simpson: The last little bit in this portion is where we get to policy-wonk a little bit here before we'll get back to other things.

I'm going to bring the discussion now to East Vancouver and the Downtown Eastside, which obviously the minister knows very well. He has done a lot of work around the Downtown Eastside and has focused a fair amount of his efforts into that area. But what I want to talk about here are some of the broad things. We'll get into some of the very specifics in housing, around homelessness and around some of the specific projects, and we will go through that in some detail in the housing piece.

I don't think it was necessarily initiated by the provincial government, but there certainly was the discussion about the czar of services in the Downtown Eastside and who would do that and who wouldn't. Thankfully, I think, in large part, nobody got that job, because I don't think it's a doable job. I don't think it works.

However, having said that, it appears — and the minister can correct me — that the minister certainly is the lead on how the provincial government responds to the wide array of initiatives and issues in the Downtown Eastside and seems to have that file pretty well in hand — not exclusively, but pretty well in hand — and is the lead on that.

Maybe the first question is: would it be correct that this minister is the lead when it comes to how the government deals with the very complicated issues around the Downtown Eastside and the folks who are living there?

[1550]

Hon. R. Coleman: The ministry was put together to bring together a number of aspects of government, to take the lead, to be the integrating force with issues in and around homelessness, mental health, addiction, social services — all the issues the ministry deals with — and to be the coordinating body on a number of initiatives taking place that we'll probably get into during the housing piece.

When we announced that we were going to do the integration project, which is a very, very successful project…. When we get into that, the member will be amazed at its success, I think, because it is absolutely one of those phenomenal success stories for people in B.C.

When that happened, this ministry was given the mandate by government to be the lead and have, for lack of a better description, the responsibility to coordinate government. It was, for lack of a better description, given the mandate to say to other ministries, in an area where services were being delivered in five cities across B.C., that if they were in a duplication of services, the ministry could say: "No, you're not doing it that way anymore. You're amalgamating or integrating this with this with better results. And by the way, the money comes with it."

That is probably the key piece of an intervention strategy. It would be easy to go in and say: "Okay, you guys need to shut down your ACT teams, and we'll have our outreach teams." Well, they'll shut them down in a second if they can take the dollars back into that particular ministry.

But if you can say, "We'll shut down this and do this, but the dollars, the global dollars, either stay in that portion of the operation or else go into additional supports" — into housing or shelters or whatever the case may be — that's when you get the real power of the integration and when all people start to understand that there is sort of that momentum of a ministry that has the mandate to get on board and make it happen.

The mandate for this ministry on that particular piece is precisely that. I have to say to the member opposite that I am more than pleased with the cooperation on that entire initiative — integration — from all of the ministries related to it.

In the time I've been in government, to see that work come together in an integrated fashion — when people put aside their egos and their territories and their silos for the benefit of the people we're trying to help — is one of the remarkable stories. When I look back, whenever I am not in this business anymore, it will be one of the highlights of the time that I've been in this House, because I've seen people decide what's important.

What's important is the people we want to help, and if that's important, then we're all putting aside our differences or our territories or our silos, and we're making that happen. I think it's the right move to do that.

Unfortunately, because what I described happened, somebody in the media decided they had to call somebody
[ Page 1736 ]
a czar. The reality is that we didn't appoint a czar because the Premier actually answered the question one day and said: "The minister is the czar because he's in charge of this ministry as the minister." We didn't appoint a person and say: "That's the czar."

But I can tell you why. We have a person in charge of the housing intervention project on this whole integration plan, who is phenomenal at what she does and is doing a terrific job on behalf of British Columbians. Because of her leadership, we're having great success.

S. Simpson: I appreciate the minister's comments. When I look at the Downtown Eastside and look at that community — that's where I was born; I grew up there in the Downtown Eastside — it's interesting.

One of the things I see when I talk to organizations and groups down there — who will acknowledge, certainly, the work that the government has done in terms of buying the SROs, supporting Insite and a number of things, other programs or initiatives that have gone on down there — the challenge seems to be this. And I'd be interested in the minister's comments on this.

What we're seeing is that we have a real community here. When you take away some of the predator drug dealers and some of the bad actors down there, you have a lot of people who've lived in that community a long time. They have issues and challenges, but it truly is their community, and they have a lot of complexity that they have to deal with.

[1555]

Many of those issues are issues that fall into the minister's purview, that he and his officials are working on. But this is a community, and it's a community that we now see, of course, has got greater pressures around gentrification.

The opening of Woodward's is an outstanding thing — that Woodward's has been developed. But as we all know, the development of Woodward's is going to trigger a whole lot of other development that won't necessarily be done with the same levels of social responsibility that Woodward's was developed with in terms of the balance of social housing units, the balance of public entities, those things.

The folks across on the other side of Hastings Street are waiting for Woodward's to open for them to develop, and I think there's a lot of concern that it's going to be gentrification — not what I think Woodward's has intended to do, which was to bring upgrades to the community, but also to incorporate some stability for the people who make that community up.

That comes back to the comment the minister made earlier about how he views services being delivered. He talks about viewing the individual and that it's important that you look aside and you look at what you're doing for that individual who requires help. You deliver that, and you measure by whether you've delivered the kinds of services that are making a meaningful difference for that individual's life. I think that's a good thing.

But the other approach, and they're not exclusive by any means, is the community development approach that says you develop a community around that, in addition to the individuals.

The question I have for the minister is: how does the minister see the role of Housing and Social Development to support that community development model that tries to build or strengthen those folks who want to remain in that community and not pressure them out — not through a conscious or malicious way, but just through the nature of that downtown developing the way it's developing?

How do you sustain a community of people who want to remain there but may not be able to for a whole array of reasons that aren't because anybody did anything bad but because that's how life goes when you gentrify?

I'd be interested to know: does the minister think it's a problem or an issue? If not, then that's fine. But if he does, then how does the government support those organizations in the community who are trying to sustain the development of their community in a way that's inclusive for all those people as well as the new people who are obviously coming?

Hon. R. Coleman: I think, quite frankly, one of the exciting things that's happening in the Downtown Eastside is a bit of gentrification in combination with an investment made by government in 23 single-room-occupancy hotels that have been changed for betterment from the standpoint of what were real cesspools into livable housing with supports for people who have mental health and addiction issues down there.

I think that the service groups that are actually wanting to service the Downtown Eastside would tell you that they have a great relationship with government and a great relationship with the city and the community trying to build a model around it.

There are people in Vancouver on the Downtown Eastside, organizations and societies, that don't want change. They actually are folks that will oppose or criticize most things. They'll do that because they're afraid of the fact that this neighbourhood may change for the better. They're afraid of the fact that an integration of this neighbourhood might be good for everybody.

The one thing I would hesitate anybody to say is: don't allow some gentrification in this neighbourhood because we want to keep doing things exactly the same way as we did for the last 25 years and got the same results.

Woodward's is a good example, as the member said. Woodward's was a long-time project. It took a very long time to do.

It took significant risk on behalf of government on two pieces of Woodward's to actually make the project go — one being the faculty of performing arts that
[ Page 1737 ]
Simon Fraser is putting into one corner of the building, which was a tens-of-millions-dollar investment by government to make that thing a reality. That allowed for the anchor tenants which would come in there — which were London Drugs and Save-On-Foods and that sort of commercial activity on the bottom floor — and then an investment of a couple of hundred units, which is 75 units for low-income families and 125 units of supportive housing.

[1600]

It gives us the opportunity, like in a couple of other projects, to show that we can actually integrate this neighbourhood — that people who, in most people's minds, would say: "I don't want them living in my neighbourhood…." That's what we get when we get public hearings on any type of supportive housing in places all over British Columbia. They'll have every excuse as to why they don't want them in their neighbourhood, but that's the reality. They'll say it's going to be traffic, crime, noise or whatever.

This opportunity with Woodward's is to show: "Wow. We've got two spectacular towers here of retail housing integrated with 125 units of supportive housing, 75 units of low-income family housing. It's all on one single site and integrated."

I've always believed that that integration is the best thing for everybody. I've always believed that to take people and say, or massive projects that were done…. If you look at major cities all over North America, they're bulldozing what they used to call their projects, because the social experiments of housing all people of one socioeconomic level in one place and not supporting them became an abject failure.

So what you need to do is shift. The shift that we made in 2005-2006…. It actually all started in 2004 with the Premier's Task Force on Homelessness, Mental Illness and Addictions. The mayors came into — and I wasn't the minister then — meetings with the minister at the time and the Premier and talked about how their cities should look different with regards to the relationship of social housing, mental health, addiction, homelessness. They said they were prepared to try something different.

That led to the next phase of this thing, which was a challenge to municipalities to say: "Okay, if you want us to invest capital and what have you in buildings, first we have to understand that you're prepared to cooperate. Development cost charges. Do you have land? Can you speed up rezoning processes — those sort of things — if you're actually serious to accomplish this within your communities?"

That led to the starting of the development of Housing Matters B.C., which is B.C.'s housing strategy today. If you look at it, it's really about a continuum for people. It's not about bricks and mortar and how many units; it's actually about how we can help an individual person.

My favourite place to go on the Internet is to go to the B.C. Housing websiteonce in a while and remind myself why we're doing this. I would invite the members opposite to do the same. Go there, and go find the vignettes about people whose lives have changed because of something simple changing their life.

Even though they may be integrated into a neighbourhood, into a single-room-occupancy hotel, and there could be something next door that is completely different, it doesn’t matter. Because what it is here is that there has to be a vision for a neighbourhood that, as the member says, provides services and compassion and that has a non-profit….

I believe that without the non-profit sector, by the way, no government can be successful — on the Downtown Eastside or any area around B.C. — with regards to housing for people that are in a situation in which they need supports.

I'll give you just one example. There's a vignette. I'll probably get the numbers wrong, but I'll give the member, sort of, the feel of the story. We bought an SRO in Vancouver. We had a young lady who went into the SRO a year before the vignette was done — actually, almost two years.

The vignette is this. It's the mother sitting there and saying: "I have two daughters, a middle-class family. One went one way; one went the other. One went on and got an education and has a family. They both had a normal childhood. The other one got into drugs and into prostitution."

Last year, the year before she moved into this place…. It was a single-room-occupancy room — right? It wasn't a palace. It wasn't a mansion. It was a room. It was the building that counted with the people inside it. She goes into this building, and there are supports for meals, and there is support for her mental health issues and her addiction issues. They walk her through a program, and they turn her life around.

The telling thing is this. The year before she went into that particular unit, she had been in hospital over 100 times. She had been in police custody a number of times. She was disruptive. She had problems with social agencies — all kinds of problems. The year after, she was in hospital three times.

[1605]

What you have to be careful about when you're building a neighbourhood of caring is that you remember, still again, that it's about the people. I believe the integration that is taking place with those types of services and the fact that we've made this significant investment in those buildings, which are not in the control of some private developer, is actually a good thing because it will allow us to continue that caring model of building on that for the services for people in those facilities and in additional facilities that we're building today.

I remember when we bought the first ten SROs. There was concern out there, including from the member for
[ Page 1738 ]
Vancouver–Mount Pleasant — who at that time didn't know what we were doing, so it was a legitimate concern. The concern was that a big developer was buying up all the SROs in Vancouver and that they were going to develop all these buildings and destroy the stock. Now, when it came out that we had bought the ten buildings, the opposite reaction was there: "Well, that's good." And that was fair.

I think the model we have is that if we continue to build a basis of support, we continue to let people transition — not just on the Downtown Eastside but in places like the Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addictions. We identify their issues, and we can transition them into significantly supportive housing. Some of those folks, with their mental health and addictions issues, particularly the mental health issue, will have difficulty even functioning in supportive housing. We have a place for them, and we do have two projects on the go for that — one in Mission and one at Riverview.

This whole pattern of the continuum package for housing and care will change the neighbourhood and will change the outcomes. I go down there regularly, and I'm sure that the member opposite does too.

I talk to people I know who have businesses down there, and every time I get, when I go down there: "It's way better down here." I don't think it's because people left the neighbourhood. I think it's because people in the neighbourhood have a safe place to go. They can get some of the supports to actually control their lives better and some of the medical supports to deal with mental illness. They have a much better quality of life, and that changes the neighbourhoods.

I believe that this is a continuum, an integrated package. I passionately believe in the model we're trying to build with all the folks that we have as partners — whether it be the Portland Hotel Society, Atira, Lookout, Salvation Army or Union Gospel Mission, different partners that bring different things to the table — and that we're going to be successful because we're all concentrating on the right thing.

S. Simpson: I don't think anybody would disagree that the purchase of the SROs was a good idea, that the redevelopment of those SROs into what they're becoming today was a positive and that it does provide a bit of an anchor to ensure the protection of that particular form of housing stock in the community. It is a good thing.

I know that there are some questions — we'll talk about this a little bit later on — about, you know, the operating supports in the buildings. I know there are some challenges around that, from some of the organizations that have spoken to me — the buildings themselves.

Part of the challenge there, of course — and setting aside for a moment what's being developed at Woodward's — is the question about the development of new stock, additional units. We'll talk through the developments in Vancouver in a short while. Part of this concern…. The minister speaks about the housing stock down there, and I concur with much of that.

You know, I grew up in that area. I grew up in the Raymur housing project with my mother and my sister on a very limited income. We ended up there for a whole bunch of circumstances, and I know I spent all of my teenage years there. My ability to find some success in my life certainly started with the fact that the housing problem was addressed for my mother, because she had a place that was safe, secure and affordable and where she could raise her kids. That, for us, created the foundation that allowed both my sister and me to have some success in our lives.

We'll get to talk about this, because part of the piece, if there's a piece to what the minister talks about where I think there's more work to be done, certainly, through B.C. Housing, it is around the question of affordable family housing and how we get at that.

[1610]

Often those challenges around families can lead to some of those problems that the minister talked about and that put individuals into those problems, depending on how kids are raised and brought up there. I think that there's a fair amount of challenge there.

I do think that in regard to the Downtown Eastside and to the east side communities…. I think I have the largest urban aboriginal population in raw numbers of any constituency in the province, because most of the aboriginal housing is in my constituency. I know how important that is for the people who are resident there and for the community there, so I'm pretty keen about that.

I think what I'm going to do, now that I see that Mr. Ramsay has joined us is…. This is an ideal time to move and talk about a couple of smaller items related to housing, and then we'll have a little…. I think there was talk about maybe a break in 15 minutes or so, and then we'll come back and get to the bulk of housing discussion post-that.

But moving on a little bit, the first question is around the Homeowner Protection Office. As I'm aware, the government has ended the leaky-condo program, the loans program for leaky condos. That program was funded through the $750-per-unit fee on new construction.

Could the minister tell us: is that fee still being collected?

Hon. R. Coleman: Yes, it is. There's still a significant outstanding liability to loans with regards to what those funds are supposed to pay for and the government is carrying with regards to the portfolio of loans, because government has put up way more than the $750 it brought in to date.
[ Page 1739 ]

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us: what's the long-term plan as those loans start to get paid down? What's the long-term plan for this $750 fee on new construction?

Hon. R. Coleman: That fee will continue, because there's still interest on outstanding loans to be repaid. When they are done, then the fee would be extinguished. The process of the future design of this going forward is being done now, over the next number of months into the spring, with regards to how the Homeowner Protection Office, which is now housed with B.C. Housing's responsibility, will look going forward. The loan piece will go through, obviously, a discussion with Finance and Treasury Board, but at this point in time, the intent today is that the $750 will continue until the liability of the interest on the loans is extinguished.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us: what is the outstanding liability now, assuming there are no new projects coming on board? That's ended, so what is the outstanding liability that that money is being used to offset?

[1615]

Hon. R. Coleman: There are still about 4,200 loans outstanding. Since the program's inception in 1998 the Homeowner Protection Office has approved more than 16,000 reconstruction projects — 14,244-plus for strata owners, valued at $550 million; and 2,045 housing cooperative units, valued at $149 million — totalling $700 million in reconstruction loans. The total loans still outstanding today would be around $268 million.

S. Simpson: So as I can be clear, the moneys being used, because these are interest-free loans…. The purpose of the $750 is to pay the spread between the interest charges that are being paid and the interest-free loan that's being taken up by the condominium owner. It pays the spread between whatever the lender is putting out and that. I believe that would be the amount of money. So how much money is in that pot? That's what I would believe is being paid by the $750, not the total loan piece.

Hon. R. Coleman: We'll see if we can find you the number in the discussion here.

The $750 — the member is pretty much correct — pays for the administration of the loan program, and it pays for the difference of the interest-free loan. In some cases there were other loans given out because people had other issues with banking or financial over the years.

There are still some projects in the stream that had been approved coming up to the end of August and that will require additional financing through the next 12 months or so as they go into their reconstruction and remediation. That piece will still have an effect on this. It's still a moving target, for lack of a better description, as to the loan amounts that we're going to.

Now that we've extinguished this, we will come up with a business plan for the future of that loan portfolio. Then we'll have another future for the Homeowner Protection Office. It will still exist for the reasons, basically, of the licensing of the residential builder, which then allows people to get insurance. It will still be involved with the building standards branch with regards to some policy development and that sort of thing. So that piece will remain. The loan program, as it extinguishes, will extinguish over time and then disappear.

S. Simpson: I appreciate that the minister will come up with a number in a bit about how much the value of that interest is that the government of British Columbia is paying. It would be good to have that number and some sense of if there's been some projection about how long it will take to pay that off so that the government no longer has that obligation. Presumably, the $750 then gets extinguished, or the largest portion of it gets extinguished. If the minister could provide that information, it would be helpful.

Just in relation to that, has the government done any assessment, through B.C. Housing or elsewhere, of people who would have taken advantage of this program when it was in place, who for any number of reasons….? Large numbers of people can afford to do those loans themselves with private lenders and invest whatever the requirement is around a condominium when they put a fee on or put a levy on in order to pay for improvements to leaky condos. Lots of people, obviously, can afford to do that themselves.

There is a group of people where that is a challenge. Has the government looked at that question of people who are legitimately challenged by the ability to get those loans without the kind of support that this program provided? How is the government looking to support those people, other than, obviously, through…? There's the program that is now defunct.

[1620]

Hon. R. Coleman: We're not seeing that today. The number of calls is basically less than ten a week that we're getting in regards to inquiries on leaky buildings.

The reason we made this decision, quite frankly, was that first of all, the program originally was set up for a ten-year period. The rain screening has been in place in British Columbia for about 12 years. That ten-year period.... The program was supposed to be about a $250 million program, with an estimate to handle, I think, about 7,000 to 8,000, maybe 9,000 units.

So the program is a $700 million program that handled 16,000 units. What we saw in our applications piece
[ Page 1740 ]
coming in, particularly in the last year, were buildings that would not have qualified under the original mandate of the Homeowner Protection Office and the reason that this was set up.

So what we were finding is that we were getting buildings…. Some of them were very old co-ops where people were having some building envelope failures due to lack of maintenance or deterioration of product, but not because of what was the leaky-condo issue of the late 1990s. It was always a belief that over a ten-year period you could move this thing to where you would extinguish the loan program and move on.

The other thing that happened over this same period of time was that when folks were dealing with this in 1998 through to about the mid-2000s, interest rates were substantially higher. The affordability of money was one of the biggest issues on being able to finance your way out of this for those folks.

Other forms of lending have changed, so for instance, somebody with 100 percent equity can now get a reverse mortgage if they're a senior, even if they're over the age of 80. What we found was that the model had changed and that this was no longer the effective way to do this because we didn't have the client that fit the envelope to justify continuing to give out loans on projects that really were not the fault of construction.

You get a project that hasn't cleaned its gutters for ten years, a project that hasn't fixed its sidewalks or one hasn't taken care of the edge of their building with regards to how they maintain it or whether they maintain decks. They start to slip, and then they plug up, and they drain back into the building. Those are not the reasons we had this particular program established in 1998.

The reason we had it was because we had a construction issue, probably largely around, as much as anything, overhangs and things like acrylic stucco and certain types of materials that were used on buildings. Across the industry, from the designer to the planner to the municipality to people wanting to have the California look and then the building code not adapting.... All those things affected a generation of housing.

But the generation of housing didn't go back 25, 30 years, and that's what we were seeing — 25- and 30-year-old projects that didn't fit the envelope. When we looked at our applications and looked at what we had, it was very clear that it was time to extinguish the program.

S. Simpson: I certainly appreciate if there are people coming and making applications to the program to get work done that was never intended to be done. That's a matter that has to be dealt with. I also think that what is clear, obviously, is that the original projection on how widespread this problem was, was not accurate. The problem ended up being much broader than officials thought it was when they put the program in place, clearly, because the demand has been much greater over the years than was originally anticipated.

[1625]

I understand, and I'm recalling here. I don't have any documents in front of me. I am recalling that there was some research done on behalf of B.C. Housing or the HPO that showed that there probably was a relatively significant number of buildings that may still be outstanding in terms of requiring the work that the office, the program, was established for. But there was a fairly significant amount still potentially outstanding.

Has there been more recent or current assessments done saying here's the number of buildings that we think might still be out there which still face the problems that the program was set up for and intended to address?

Hon. R. Coleman: I don't know if it's the report that I read that the member is referring to, but that was a percentage statistical analysis. It basically said that this many units were built, this percentage leaked, and this is the number of units — right?

What I think it forgets is that we may have had outstanding loans on 16,000 units. I won't get into the percentage of it, but that doesn't mean…. We might have gone into a building of 50 units and done three loans — right? And the other 47 units may have decided to finance them themselves, so all of the units get fixed.

That's the challenge with that type of report, and how far it goes back to decide when the problem was created. There is no question, if you've ever owned a home or even rented, that if maintenance isn't done, down the road over a number of years you're going to create a problem for yourself, and you're going to have to spend. It's just like maintaining a car — whatever the case may be.

We felt very strongly, after looking at the applications — what was being approved and what should have been approved.... We looked at this thing and said: "You know, we're not getting the application anymore that fits the description of what this loan program is." Whether there's a statistical thing or not, the reality is that that is what we weren't getting.

So you say: "Well, then we have to stop doing the loan program, and besides which it has gone more years than it was intended to go, and it has done more than it was intended to do." There always should be a period of time where you sunset something like this and say that we have done what we needed to do on this, so let's move on. That's what we've done.

Are we taking a break?

S. Simpson: I just have one more question, and then we'll take the break here. I'm up for the break here pretty quick.

I don't disagree with the minister's comments and the decision, but when the decision was made, obviously,
[ Page 1741 ]
the other option choice would have been to say: "We're going to be much firmer in where these loans are going in terms of being very clear about what the loans are for, and we're not going to lend you money to do things that are outside what we saw as the mandate or the criteria of this program. We're not going to start lending money because you didn't do maintenance on your building for ten years. You created a problem because of your lack of maintenance, and we're not paying for that. We are paying for problems that relate to what leaky condos are and are supposed to be."

The government chose to bring the program to a close, and fair enough. When that was done and the decision was made to do that, setting aside the statistical report that said 40 percent, or something, of units had not yet been addressed that needed to be addressed…. I'm not sure what the number was.

[1630]

Could the minister tell us: was there any risk assessment done, not in terms of risk for the government but risk assessment in terms of the numbers of units that might be projected or numbered out there that would still require work under what is the leaky-condo program that were not going to get addressed because the program was being wrapped up, knowing that this is what's still out there that we have to deal with? Was there any of that work done, any assessment of that number?

[J. McIntyre in the chair.]

Hon. R. Coleman: We didn't do a huge statistical analysis, to be honest with the member opposite. We had a program that was supposed to go ten years that had gone 12, had gone from $250 million intentionally to $700 million. We knew that if a building was going to leak, it was going to leak within the first five to eight years of its life.

When we put this in place in 1999, we changed the rain screening, so all new buildings were being built differently. If somebody knew they had a leaking building and ignored it — which, in some cases, people did, or strata councils did — to their own extra cost because they didn't want to have to go fix it when it was cheaper to do…. We felt this is the time to extinguish it because we have reached the level where the applications weren't matching up.

There's been no fiscal benefit to government here. It was just to deal with this program and say: "That's the end of it. We will take it to its end."

As a minister, I looked at it with the parties involved and said, "You know, this is the time for us to stop doing this particular piece of the Homeowner Protection Office's business," and we stopped the program. That was basically it.

So, Madam Chair, we're going to take a recess, if you don't mind.

The Chair: Yes, I'm very happy to recess for a very brief break.

The committee recessed from 4:32 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.

[J. McIntyre in the chair.]

Hon. R. Coleman: Before we move on, I just thought I'd read into the record some of the issues in and around the interest, for the member's information. This is actually in the '09-10 interest subsidies in the Homeowner Protection Office's business plan — some of it, anyway.

Interest to be paid to financial institutions is $1.722 million. CMHC is $3.411 million. Financial institutions — the present value of the interest on those and then the long-term liability, I guess is what you'd call it, on the financial institution side is $15.115 million; CMHC-issued, $20.01 million; and CMHC-approved but not issued, $18.858 million.

S. Simpson: I wasn't writing those down. Can you tell me what the total for that was — the total that's outstanding there?

Hon. R. Coleman: The loans held by financial institutions, $15.115 million in 2009; housing cooperative repair loans issued, $20.01 million; housing cooperative repair loans approved but not issued, $18.858 million — for a total of $53.983 million.

S. Simpson: I'm going to move on now to another aspect of housing: the residential assistance program, the rent assistance program. Could the minister tell us what the total value, the total projected investment in that program was and what the takeup has been this year?

Hon. R. Coleman: We spend about $40 million a year on the program. Today we have about 7,740 low-income working families on it. Since its inception we've had 10,400 different families on it at different times. Some come in, and then they find other accommodation that doesn't require subsidy and that sort of thing over time. Our projected numbers would be higher for next year by a thousand or two, depending on intake.

S. Simpson: I appreciate those numbers. They're not…. Maybe I wasn't clear with the minister about what I was looking for. When the program was established, there was an amount of money set. The program was set and said: "Here's how many people we anticipate being able to support with this pot of money."

[1650]

The takeup, I know, on the program has been less than 100 percent. Could the minister tell us: what has
[ Page 1742 ]
the takeup been at the program in terms of the dollars that were set aside and the projections versus the people who have actually taken advantage of the program?

Hon. R. Coleman: When we put the program together back three years ago…. It was actually put into inception in 2006. I think it was in action in the fall, so it's actually just about three years old. We weren't sure, but we used the StatsCan numbers, so we thought the uptake might be as high as 15,000 families. The program has actually helped 10,000 families over that period of time.

When we started the program, our level of spending was going to get to about $40 million a year, which is where it's at now. In addition to that, because we weren't getting the intakes we adjusted the program in years 2 and 3. We adjusted the income thresholds up.

If you recall…. Well, you may not, because you may not have been aware of the program when it started. The income threshold was $21,000 a year. Then it was raised to $28,000 a year and subsequently to $35,000 a year.

The program now will look at whether any of those statistical numbers — including percentage of income and stuff and how rents are — on an annual basis as to whether they need to be adjusted up and down in the future. Those things change, basically, on about a six-month average, so at least once a year we look at it and say what has to be adjusted up and down with regards to maximizing the program.

S. Simpson: The minister is saying that in the first year the projection was about 15,000 families or people to be helped. That's what I heard. We're in the second, third year of this now. In this most recent year, was there a projection on the number of folks that would be helped?

Hon. R. Coleman: The 15,000 was…. When the program was conceived, we felt that might be the maximum we might get to, all things being equal and if we had the intake. Because it had never been tried before, we just used the Stats Canada number to start that.

As we came into the program, we felt, looking at our first year and our second year, that we would probably be at about 8,000 households by the end of the third year. That is about where we are now.

In order to achieve that, we actually had to change the income threshold to make more people eligible because we weren't getting the uptake on the program that we thought initially we were going to get. There are probably a number of factors with regards to that, which are all relative to the marketplace that we don't have any control over. So now we manage the program at around 7,000 to 8,000, and we feel we can grow it over time to a bit higher than that.

We're also seeing people move off the program once they get stabilized with their rents and stuff and their jobs. The personal stories as a result of this program are quite extraordinary. People say that their incomes go up and then, therefore, they take less subsidy. Then eventually they move out, and they don't have any subsidy at all, which was all the intent of the program.

I think the number that strikes out at me is that there are 10,000-plus families that have actually received rent assistance in the last three years, which would mean that about 2,000-plus have now moved back into the market as a result of being able to stabilize their lives and find other accommodation that they don't have to require subsidy for anymore.

[1655]

S. Simpson: Can the minister tell us: with the number of people who are on the program and with the funding that has been made available to the program, how much room is available today for people to take advantage of the program within the budget it has that has not been taken up?

Hon. R. Coleman: We're comfortable with our present budget to handle the intake we're expecting to have through the balance of this fiscal year, and then we'll do our projections going into the next fiscal year.

S. Simpson: I appreciate that, but it wasn't exactly the question. The question was: how much capacity is left there, within the room in the budget available today, that's not being taken up by people who are using the program?

Hon. R. Coleman: In our budget and our service plan this year we have the budget for 9,140 families. Now, having said that, people come in and come out through the year. Some people come on, and some will move on, so those numbers are pretty much in flux throughout the year, but that's what we have within our budget to handle it.

To say how much we have for how many people today is virtually impossible, because I could get 500 people on the program tomorrow that are above the average that we would spend for an individual family, which would skew the numbers. We do our projections based on our growth and what have you, but we do have the budget, in our minds, all things being equal, for 9,140 families on the program — if they apply, if they qualify. So by the end of the fiscal year that's what we think we could be at.

S. Simpson: I appreciate that. I assume, then — and not wanting to project out to the future, we'll head to the past — enough budget for the year to support 9,140 families, presumably, if they were supported for the whole year. The minister can correct me if that's a wrong assumption.
[ Page 1743 ]

I assume that this gets tracked on some monthly basis as to what the takeup on the program is. There's some statistical basis on a monthly basis. Could the minister tell us: of that budget that was able to afford 9,140 families on a regular basis, what's the percentage or the takeup that we had as of last month, just to pick a month, or the month before, if it's a quarterly assessment — whatever the assessment is that presumably B.C. Housing or the ministry does?

As to the last assessment, how much, what percentage, how many people, how many families were taking advantage of this program at that time, knowing that your capacity was 9,140?

Hon. R. Coleman: The 9,140 is by the end of the year. What you try and do with this is base it on historical numbers for the previous year. Then, when you do this year's budget, you say: "We think we'll have this growth." So by the end of this fiscal year, if we get to a maximum number, it would be 9,140. You present that along with your budget as you come through.

We do track it month to month. I don't have the monthly trackings here. I'm told that given our present monthly trackings, we think we'll reach that 9,140 people on the system by the end of March.

S. Simpson: If it's possible, it would be good to get those numbers, the tracking numbers for the last few months, to understand how that program is being accessed.

[1700]

A related question to that program. I've had a number of groups, and I know that there are certain…. The eligibility requirements for the program are such that the non-profit sector and the co-op sector housing are not eligible housing for the purposes of this program.

Could the minister tell us why that housing isn't eligible? Because we certainly know…. I've talked to folks in the non-profit sector and the co-op sector, and both would clearly be interested in being eligible housing for the purposes of this program. Could the minister tell us why they've been excluded?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, co-ops are a form of subsidized ownership in most cases, so that subsidy already exists. In social housing, people that live there pay 30 percent of their income. They are already subsidized. We're subsidizing the mortgage, the maintenance, the operations, and frankly, we probably financed 100 percent of the front end. So we have an ownership, long-term lease relationship on some and different forms of ownership on others. But the fact of the matter is that they're already subsidized, so we're not giving a second subsidy to social housing.

S. Simpson: Just talking for a moment about the co-op sector, the minister will probably know that the co-op program has evolved a number of times over the last number of years, and it's now a program that is pretty close to a market housing program, with some folks being able to get some levels of subsidy.

The vast majority of units now in co-ops are at the low end of market. They are not subsidized units for all intents and purposes in the same fashion that they would have been in the days of the old co-op programs, when I would have agreed with the minister that the subsidies were significant.

Part of the challenge that we have — and this is a challenge that's acknowledged, particularly in urban areas, but I'm sure it's a challenge in all areas — is around the issue of affordable rental for families. I probably get more people who come into my office at Nanaimo and Hastings in regard to this issue than in regard to the issue of homelessness. I certainly have my share of folks who suffer from homelessness, or they couch surf, or they certainly don't have any stable shelter.

I get a large number of people who are families on modest or marginal incomes — and we certainly provide them with information about this program — who come in saying: "First of all, I can't find appropriate housing for my family in the city." They're city people, and they want to stay in the city if it's at all possible, or in Burnaby or whatever. They can't find appropriate housing for a young family, and when they do find it, they can't afford it.

We certainly let them know about this program, but many of them would fall within — maybe even some of them just outside — the $35,000. Not much, but just outside or right on that border. Affordable rental for families is a big challenge.

I appreciate that the government is not engaged in the building of that housing at this point, and presumably, this program is the primary strategy that the government has at the moment. We'll talk a little bit about the task force that was announced, I believe, in the throne speech. But this is the primary strategy that the government has to deal with that area — those folks who have a challenge here.

They're not finding those units. We know that the private sector is not building those units now. The vast majority of construction, as I'm told by the Urban Development Institute and others, is mostly condominiums. It's one or two bedrooms and a den. That kind of housing stock is what still continues to be built — not necessarily appropriate for families.

[1705]

There is some available housing stock there in terms of the co-op sector — and the non-profit sector, potentially, but the co-op sector in particular — so that with some support, they could afford to bring some people in and still make the payments work for people who are now excluded from being able to be there because of the limits on subsidy that they have, which is pretty limited today.
[ Page 1744 ]

The minister talked earlier about the need to look at the individuals and how the individuals get helped. If people can't find that housing today, why would the minister not look, at least in some fashion, at making some available to the co-op sector to be able to fill some of those low-end market units that they're going to get that price for anyways — they're going to have to, or they don't make their economics work for their mortgage — and make that available so that we can get some of those people, young families that need it, into housing?

Hon. R. Coleman: Let me be clear. We're not doing co-ops. I mean, we're just not changing that policy. The co-ops are actually funded through a federally supported program. They have subsidies there. It's up to CMHC if they want to increase those subsidies. We're not going into the co-op side.

We have done, frankly, way more than our share for the co-ops in B.C. We have done $150 million in HPO loans on leaky co-ops across B.C., which have cost us, today, $40 million. That's our outstanding interest liability on those. We did those without any support from CMHC, which actually holds co-ops in Canada.

It is not our policy. It is not the intention of this ministry to go into the co-op side of this business.

We do rent assistance for families in the market. Somebody comes into your office and says they can't find…. They can go on the rental assistance program and find a subsidy and find a home wherever they want in the community that meets that criterion with their income.

The beauty of that is that they're integrated into the community. Somebody is not saying: "Go live in this social housing project or that social housing project. That's your only choice, because there's no other program for you."

Then we have the social housing structure and family units and seniors in the thousands of units that we subsidize across B.C. We're not going to put a second subsidy into those. There's no interest from this end in going back into anything to do with co-ops, because it really isn't a piece of our core business and our housing strategy.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us how many people are on the B.C. Housing waiting list today.

Hon. R. Coleman: Across the province today there are about 9,000 applicants on the active files list of the housing registry. We have about 7,000 units for families in our portfolio, but that 9,000 also includes seniors and people who are looking for disabled housing as well, so it's a mix.

That is actually down by almost 7,000 from where it was in 2006, when we brought in the rental assistance program. In actual fact, we've reduced the list by almost…. Well, not quite, but we've had a substantial drop in the active files and wait-lists on that registry over the last three years.

S. Simpson: The minister said 9,000-and-something on the active list. Is there an inactive list, and what's the difference in terms of how you get from one list to the other?

Hon. R. Coleman: There's only one. It's active applications.

[1710]

S. Simpson: The minister talked about 7,000, 7,200 — whatever that number is — B.C. Housing units that are held today. Of those, how many units are family units versus other forms of housing?

Hon. R. Coleman: It's pretty tough to break down, because it's only part of a major portfolio. Let me break this down for the member.

In total in British Columbia there are about 80,000 units of housing that receive subsidy in some form or another. Some of those are in the emergency shelter and housing for homelessness, which includes the people with supportive housing. That's about 8,370 units.

There's transitional supportive housing, which is 6,180 people with special needs; 11,790 frail seniors; and 780 spaces to service women and children fleeing violence. Then there are 41,330 other units that would basically include 17,060 low-income family units, 3,660 aboriginal family and individual units and 20,610 low-income seniors units. In addition to that, there are 24,980 units that receive a form of rent assistance, which includes both the SAFER, which is for seniors, and the rental assistance program.

S. Simpson: I believe that the minister said that B.C. Housing has about 7,000, 7,200 units — something to that effect — which are under its jurisdiction directly, which it directly manages. Those units that the minister talked about are units managed by a whole array of organizations — and I appreciate that — including all the units managed by the B.C. non-profits and others. We're very thankful that those organizations and those community groups had the wherewithal to create those units.

The question I have for the minister is: of the units that B.C. Housing has, the 7,000-plus units, how many of those units are family housing?

Hon. R. Coleman: Let's be clear. The 7,800 units that we're talking about are self-owned by B.C. Housing through the Provincial Rental Housing Corporation.
[ Page 1745 ]
In addition to that, there are another 28,000-plus units that are in the hands of non-profits. That could be a Kinsmen family housing project in Aldergrove. It could be a Kiwanis project in Penticton, or whatever the case may be. We would be involved in that project, in some cases, on a 60-year lease.

Where the society has a 60-year lease and an operating agreement with us, we hold the title. We've paid for the project, we subsidize it, and we subsidize the tenants to 30 percent of their net income to what we call the economic rent.

I can explain that, if the member wants to understand how each model works. There are about, I would be guessing, ten to 15 to 20 different hybrid models of different forms of housing that have evolved in B.C. over the last 50 years, as to different forms of subsidy and ownership and mortgages and what have you.

To the member's question: we don't have that, but we're going to get it for you. We will e-mail over and see if we can get the breakdown for you before the end of estimates. If not, we'll get it to you, because that package has some seniors in it and some families in it.

S. Simpson: I do appreciate and would appreciate the specific numbers. Could the minister, maybe through his officials, just give me a rough idea? Is it half the 7,800 units? Is it three-quarters of the units? I understand that it won't be a specific number, but what percentage, roughly, of that is family housing versus seniors or other forms of housing?

[1715]

Hon. R. Coleman: This is an estimates debate, and we would be guessing at around 40 percent, so it would be unfair to make that a definitive answer. We'll get you the definitive answer, but it's probably somewhere in there. It could be 35 percent; it could be 41 percent. But it'll be in that range of percentage that we have, and then we have different ranges and mixes depending on the category of housing that we have.

S. Simpson: So 3,000 or 3,500 — whatever. I appreciate that the minister will get a more direct, specific answer for that.

The minister talked about the waiting list — the 9,000 or so folks who are on the active list. I appreciate that it's quite likely that B.C. Housing would refer people from that list to other alternatives if they were available — non-profits or things, possibly. But is it correct that that list pertains to the housing that's provided by B.C. Housing — the 7,800 units? That waiting list is related to those units, and that's not to suggest for a minute that there wouldn't be references of people to other options.

Hon. R. Coleman: No, it's not exclusive for B.C. Housing's units. What happens is that B.C. Housing maintains a housing registry and provides a centralized database of applicants for subsidized housing that member housing providers can access when units in their developments become available.

Applicants can submit a single application form to be considered for available units for all housing providers belonging to the registry — which does not include, by the way, all non-profit housing in B.C.

However, there are 69 members that do belong to the housing register at B.C. Housing. Over 20,000 units are in the registry, about 7,800 of which would be B.C. Housing units. The other 12,137 units would be the other non-profits that participate in the registry. It covers units in 29 municipalities across B.C.

S. Simpson: I often get people who come into my office, and we are continually writing letters to B.C. Housing out of my office — as other members are, I'm sure — making the case for individuals who come in as to why they should be given consideration. Some of them are letters that we write because we're asked to write them, and some of them are cases where we specifically asked for some special consideration because they have unique circumstances.

We're told on a fairly regular basis that the wait-lists are substantial. The periods of time that you're going to wait are substantial. We continue, of course, to tell people who come in, who want to get into B.C. Housing because they feel a security being in government housing….

That's where they want to be — in B.C. Housing. Some of them get in, and some of them don't. They have substantial wait-lists, we're told. So for the 7,800 units…. More importantly, for the family units that are directly administered by B.C. Housing and part of their portfolio, what is the average wait time to get a unit?

Hon. R. Coleman: If we're going to get into a debate on the number of people on the waiting list, we might want to go back and look at the 1990s waiting list, which was even higher. But I can tell you that we've taken this down by about 7,000 people in the last three years alone.

Now, when the member opposite…. You preambled the question with some people with significant issues, etc., that you need to make aware because they come through your constituency and you call B.C. Housing. Sometimes some of your members actually call the minister's office and say, "We have an individual, specific case that's pretty important. We have someone that's disabled. They have a child that has autism. They have this," etc., and they're on the list, or they've just applied.

[1720]

There's a whole point-score system here. So let's be clear about that. Somebody that goes on this list makes an application. If their only barrier to housing
[ Page 1746 ]
is affordability and they're making $2,000 a month, it would be, first of all, suggested that they might want to look at the rent assistance program, but they will say they still want to stay on the list. That's what happens. People want to stay on the list because they're hoping that someday something will come up. They might wait a few years, but they're already getting rent assistance somewhere else.

From that standpoint, what happens is that the person's wait time is actually based on their need. Even back when I used to tenant-up with some non-profits on some of these projects way back when, there would be folks that would really want a unit, but you'd have somebody that had a lower income. Basically, one of the things that increased the points was if you were living….

I remember one person in particular who jumped up in points because they lived in a trailer in someone's back yard with three children. Sure they were a late applicant, and there were a whole bunch of people on the list, but when you point-scored them, you said: "Actually, this person deserves housing."

If you had an empirical wait time and you said, "X number of months or X number of years for everybody on the list to be into housing," you would actually not do what this housing is supposed to accomplish. What this housing is supposed to accomplish is that it is supposed to be for those who need it the most, based on need. So some people will be on a list a lot longer than others just because they do not have the same level of need.

S. Simpson: I've been here long enough to know that I can ask this question a number of times, and I'm not going to find out what that number on that wait-list is. So we'll accept that and move to the next part of the question.

Could the minister tell us how many units of affordable family rental housing — not assisted housing, not SROs, not any of those categories that I know the government has talked about and invested in a lot…? Has the government invested any supports for either supporting non-profits or, directly through B.C. Housing, to build family housing?

Hon. R. Coleman: We're not building, today, family social housing in B.C. We made a fundamental shift, when we brought in the rental assistance program, that we wouldn't do that. The reason we did is because we said that we'd subsidize people in the marketplace, so 8,000 families actually get helped in the marketplace today.

Now, there's a fundamental philosophical difference with some members opposite. I don't know if this member has the same one, but I did some debates over the last number of years with others who felt that government should build, own and operate all rental housing in B.C. Actually, that was one of the former critics, or questioners, from the opposite side who told us that we shouldn't do any rental assistance program.

We felt that if we really wanted to deliver housing affordability, we would go to a rental assistance program. I could pick almost any community in British Columbia and tell the member that the equivalent of the one or two projects that would have cost millions of dollars actually exists in that community today, in the marketplace, because of rental assistance. Let's just pick one as an example.

First of all, let's try and put into context why we made this shift. During the 1990s the former government managed to build about 500 to 600 units of housing a year. Some of it was family. Some of it was seniors. That's what their program was — to build about 500 units. That was after the matching program with the federal government ran out in about 1993. So they made the decision that they would build 500 to 600 units. Let's assume that over the next seven or eight years — let's be generous — that they did 800 a year or even 1,000 a year over that period. No, let's say 800, because that's probably more like it — so six years, seven years, maybe 4,200 units.

In the same period of time, wait-lists are growing, and they're not coming down. The projects take about 18 to 24 months to build, and that's if you can get the zoning and be in the ground with the building permit.

[1725]

The shift we made was that we thought we could do better with less money and a better performance. We took two programs, because there are two. We have to remember that there's a second program, SAFER, which has also been expanded in B.C. since 2005. That's Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters, which is also a subsidy program for those folks in the marketplace.

But let's take the 8,000. First of all, we made the decision we weren't building, and I'll get to why not in a second. We're not going to build social housing for families. We're going to have a rent assistance program for families. Instead of maybe being able to build 1,000 a year in three years, we have 8,000 families today getting assistance — 8,000 families in communities across B.C.

One project of 50 units would normally take about 18 to 24 months to build. In today's market for families it would probably cost between $300,000 and $400,000 per unit. So let's go to the low side. That would be $300,000. We have a $15 million capital commitment that would then also have a mortgage payment, maintenance and costs and a subsidy on top of that to the persons who live there of 30 percent of their income. So they paid 30 percent of their income, and we would pay the difference.

If you look at what we would call the economic rent of that project — what does it cost every month to run a
[ Page 1747 ]
unit? — it would probably be up around $2,000 a month. So you could say: "Let's spend $2,000 a month for 50 units. We'll build it and eventually get people in there." In the meantime all those families are sitting somewhere else in substandard housing and getting no help.

Or you could say to yourself: "What if we could give $300 a month to each of six families?" Instead of 50 we would now do 300 families. They would be subsidized in the marketplace. They could pick the neighbourhood. They could pick the unit, and they could move as their children and their family units changed. They wouldn't be tied into a certain type of housing where it says that if one of your children moves out and you've got one left at home, now you've got to move down to a two-bedroom because that's the rule in social housing. Then when the last adult child leaves, you have to move out because you no longer can stay there — those sorts of things.

We decided we wanted a more flexible model for families. The reason we did that is because we felt that if we could do that and start to show some success on that piece to bring down our waiting lists, which are down by 6,000 or 7,000 families, we could then say to government: "Let's target our investment in bricks and mortar to the vulnerable part of our society that we can't house in the marketplace. Let's take care of the homeless, the mentally ill and the addicted in supportive housing, whether it be buying and improving SROs or building new product."

We chose to concentrate on that piece. That was the fundamental shift that we made. We could have a discussion about whether that shift is right or wrong in the other members' opinion, but that's how our strategy is going forward with the rental assistance versus building social housing for families.

S. Simpson: This is a place where we do have a fundamental disagreement, because what the minister is essentially saying is that families on marginal incomes are people at risk that this government doesn't pay attention to, and the rent subsidy program doesn't cut it there. It isn't achieving that objective would be my view.

The problem we have with this is that, of course, we're not seeing that affordable housing built. The government talks about the cost of building affordable family housing. The minister may know — or if he doesn't, Mr. Ramsay may know — and I'd be interested to know whether further work has been done.

In 1997 Ekos research did work for B.C. Housing. At that time they did a study, and the study looked at the costs long term of supporting non-profit family housing, putting it in place — the long-term costs and savings — versus rental assistance programs. They found that the savings were greater by building the stock and moving people in. The reasons for that were largely around the fact that non-profit housing charge costs would go down as mortgages went down and were paid down, while market costs for rents continued to go up.

That's the reality of the market, and the minister certainly knows that. So in the long term you end up owning an asset. You end up with secure housing. You end up housing people in ways that make sense, and that's what family housing does.

[1730]

The minister nods his head. Well, Minister, I'll tell you that I grew up in that housing, B.C. Housing. I know what it did for me. I know what it did for thousands of people who found that safe, secure housing. I don't think the minister should diminish the value of that housing stock, even though he refuses to build any more of it.

The reality is that we do need to build that housing. Does that mean rent supplements don't make sense? No, it doesn't mean that at all. Does it mean that we need to maybe have targeted places for rent supplements? Absolutely, there are. But when you start looking at demand and start looking at very low vacancy rates, there are numbers of different strategies. There's a whole bunch of ways to approach this.

What I'm afraid has happened is that the minister has closed the door on probably one of the most critical ones, which is building affordable family rental. That's a government choice, and as he says, that's their choice. Our choice would be different. We would build that housing. That's something that people decide. That's up for the voters and the electorate to decide what they think about that.

The question I have is leading to the existing stock. We're not going to agree on this, so there's no need to spend a lot more time on it, from this point of view. Of the existing stock that B.C. Housing has, a fair amount of that is older stock, quite a bit older — built in the '70s and the '80s. A lot of it was built at that time.

What is the assessment in terms of value? We know that Little Mountain has been torn down. There are other developments. There's Raymur, MacLean Park, Skeena Terrace, and there are a number of other developments. Does the government have a plan for how it's going to deal with that public housing stock, now that we've seen how they've dealt with Little Mountain?

Hon. R. Coleman: Well, first of all, before we go on, you're wrong. You're flat-out wrong. The reason you're flat-out wrong…. Actually, a member from Surrey is sitting to your left, and I'll give you an example in Surrey.

Communities can actually figure out ways…. Vancouver is about to do this, frankly, with their back-alley initiative, with additional housing in Vancouver. A single two-bedroom basement suite was renting in the Langley–Clayton Heights area just two years ago at $1,200 a month — 1,200 bucks a month. You know what Surrey did and what Langley did? They allowed coach
[ Page 1748 ]
houses and basement suites in that area of the community. Today the unit is $875.

You can't just say: "You've just got to build it because it's not out there." You'd better start thinking about the fact of densification and initiatives at local government levels as well as how we tax, on a federal level, the rental stock that we have. To encourage people to invest in rental stock, all of those things need to change. It's not some panacea.

The other thing that the member is wrong about is this. I'm going to use two examples, real-life examples. They've told me I can use this publicly anytime I want, and I've got tons of these. The first one is a letter from a lady who is a single mom. She writes me. Now you could wait and spend $3 billion or $4 billion over ten years to try to build 8,000 units of housing for families, or you could immediately make available the subsidy in the market to help that family today.

By the way, on the study that the member referred to, in 1996, I actually did some debates about that stuff. I can tell you what it didn't talk about. It didn't talk about the families that had to wait while their kids didn't get the same outcomes, whether it be for nutrition or the opportunities in the community because of affordability. They were going to wait five or ten years for that housing stock to come, and their kids would be grown by then.

This one mother has a 12-year-old son. She comes into the rent assistance program, and what does she write the minister? "Dear Minister, you have changed my life. You have changed my son's life, because we can now afford to rent a place in a neighbourhood that's great for where the school is for my son. We don't have to sit on some waiting list for the next four or five years. You've actually changed the opportunity for me to have a better outcome for my child."

I told that story at a barbecue. A lady walks up to me and says: "I've got six kids." Six children. She said: "I was going to go live in our station wagon because I couldn't afford to rent a place in this community." Six children, hon. Member. She says: "But you came up with that rent assistance program. I heard about it on the radio. We're housed today."

[1735]

She didn't have to wait three years, four years, 24 months or whatever it takes to build a unit, then sit on some list and go through some process to decide whether she could get into that particular project when hundreds of other people are applying at the same time. She could actually get a house.

Today she's fully employed. Her income is up. She'll tell you that the nutritional and educational outcomes of her kids are up, and she didn't have to sit on some sideline and wait.

So we do have a philosophical difference here, and I accept that. You want to build it. You want to own it. You want to build it all. You want to own it all. I know there's always this sort of sideline comment that comes from your side of the House. You can maybe understand that I'm a little passionate about this, because I actually believe this stuff. I've seen the lives and talked to the people whose lives are changed, and they don't need to live in a social housing project to have their lives changed. It's all about affordability.

If you give them the opportunity now today, rather than waiting for years for something to be built, their lives will change. I am passionate about this, and I do believe strongly that this is the right choice.

If you decided over three years to build 500 units a year for social housing, which was what you were building in the 1990s, there would be 1,500 units still not finished today. But there are 8,000 families every single month quietly getting a cheque anywhere in B.C.

Just one quick example. I'll pick one community randomly off my sheet. Let's go to the middle of the sheet — Burnaby. In the city of Burnaby today there are 618 families on rent assistance. That's ten projects of 60 units. I don't know if you've tried to do rezoning or building in Burnaby recently, but if I had land today, it would take me, from the time of zoning to time of completion of construction, about three years.

One project is 60 units, but there are 618 families today in Burnaby that receive a cheque every month to subsidize where they live. Even more importantly, nobody knows who they are. They're integrated into the community. Not even their landlord knows who they are, so they maintain a level of self-respect that's phenomenal, because it works for people.

I know the members opposite are opposed to that, but I can tell you that I've seen what it takes to do in housing. I've seen the difference this makes, and I know this.

Because we made that choice, today there are 7,000 people that were homeless in the last three years, who have been connected to housing and supports through our outreach teams. And 80 percent of those are still housed today because we went out and invested the money for the people that were hard to house so those folks could come off our streets and get the support they need and the assistance with their mental health and addiction issues.

I know there's a discrepancy in philosophy, but I honestly believe, hon. Member…. On this piece of this file, I will say — and you'll say I'm wrong, which you've already said — you're wrong. I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

S. Simpson: We do have to disagree on this, and I appreciate that we have that disagreement. The minister kind of wants to have it both ways. On one hand he talks about building carriage houses in Vancouver and then talks about the private sector building those and then talks about the length of time it takes to build housing.
[ Page 1749 ]
Well, those will, hopefully, get built in Vancouver, but they're going to take a long time to build too.

The other thing we know about what gets built…. You talk to those folks who build strata. You talk to those folks. You talk to people who are building condominiums today. I don't have a problem with the changes in the Strata Act to create rental housing, but that's not rental housing for families. It isn't appropriate housing, and it's not housing that meets their needs. We know that we need to build a different kind of housing.

The minister talks about those units. The reality is this. I can give him at least as many letters from people saying: "I don't have an adequate place for me and my family to live. I'm looking for a place. I'm looking to get into B.C. Housing. I'm looking to get into a non-profit. I'm looking for that approach."

Frankly, my preference would be that most of that go to non-profits. However, I understand that now it's B.C. Housing's policy that when they're engaged in the development of these developments, they don't turn those projects over to non-profits anymore. They hold them now, and the non-profits essentially play the role of manager of those facilities. B.C. Housing is not even doing that. If you don't want the government to hold them, turn them over to non-profits. They do a good job. That's what they do. That's what they're good at, and that's where they should be supported.

[1740]

The reality is this. The area that this government has failed is around affordable family housing, and it's the area in housing that this government has failed dismally. That is my view.

You have 9,000 on this list. I would argue that we have in this province, based on the minister's numbers, 11 percent or 12 percent running under the low-income cut-off rate for poverty. We have poverty in this province in the hundreds of thousands of people based on the population of the province.

If that's the case, you've got how many thousands and thousands still homeless. The government is doing work on that, absolutely, but there are still thousands and thousands of homeless and tens of thousands of people struggling, mostly families.

We have the highest levels of child poverty in the country six years running. Those kids didn't get poor by themselves. They are part of poor families, and those families have fallen through the cracks because the government simply hasn't met its obligation to them.

We will disagree on this, and we will build that housing if we get the opportunity to do it in the future. That's when the minister can critique it, hopefully from the opposition benches sometime in the future. But that has nothing to do with estimates.

I will go back to the question that I'd asked. We kind of got off on this bit of a tangent here. I had asked the question in regard to B.C. Housing. Most of the units that B.C. Housing has in its stock, the 7,800 units, have been built — not all but a significant portion of them, particularly family housing — in the '70s and '80s. Skeena Terrace; Raymur — I guess it's Stamp's Place now; Maclean Park — these developments.

We know that the government made the decision, with Little Mountain, to demolish it and then to package up a combination of replacement units plus private development. Does the government have any plans in relation to those other older developments?

[H. Bloy in the chair.]

Hon. R. Coleman: I get that you want to leave 8,000 people sitting in substandard housing with no subsidy because you don't care about them. You'd rather just build, own and cut ribbons. That's your choice. We chose to help people. That's our choice.

Our legacy will be the families and children whose lives have changed, like the two people I've referred to already whose kids will come through a school system and a health care system in much better shape than they did because somebody actually figured out a program that could help more people without having to go out and cut ribbons every week.

You know, just an email I got — this is something that's pretty cool.

"I want to express my gratitude for the B.C. Housing rental assistance program. It was an extraordinary help during the most difficult time, when we were down in Vancouver with a low income. Last year our family earning had improved to the point of the income allowed for the program. Therefore, we're not applying, because we don't need it. Thanks again, and continue with the great work you are doing for families."

The member went off on a rant. He said that we didn't do a very good job on a bunch of things there — you know, homelessness — and we weren't doing this and all that stuff. So I should read into the record some statistical information.

First of all, let me tell the member that the highest level of child poverty that ever existed in the province of British Columbia by percentage of population existed in the 1990s under the NDP. The budget for housing in 2001 in this province was $139 million when we took government. Today it's $450 million, and that doesn't count the capital investment.

We shifted. We said we wanted to help people, so we did something that no other government had done in this province, and we actually started a trend across the country. We started to put outreach workers out to connect with people who had mental health and addictions and were homeless on the streets of British Columbia. We have outreach teams in 41 communities today.

What's the outcome? It's 7,000 people who have been connected to housing and supports in the last three years, and 80 percent of them are still housed in 49 communities, including aboriginal outreach.

[1745]
[ Page 1750 ]

We've already talked about the people on rental assistance and SAFER, but housing with supports in this province…. In 2001 there were 1,300 units in total. Today, in 2009-10, there are over 5,000 units of housing with supports and another 1,000 under construction.

On the shelter side, there were only 750 approximate beds of emergency shelter in British Columbia. Today there are over 1,500 plus — plus expanded capacity for extreme weather and extremely extreme weather when it's very severe. On top of that, the shelters that existed when we inherited them in 2001 were only open so many hours a day. We pay for 24-7, and 365 days a year, with meals, in any shelter that is in our permanent housing shelter and that wants it.

In his rant there he basically said that we'd let people down on that particular file, but I'll tell you what, Member. I think that the people who are out there working their cans off in communities across B.C. have done a phenomenal job for people in British Columbia. They're going to continue to be supported by this government, in spite of the criticism that you want to give those good folks.

Now, the member asked about our older stock. Our oldest social housing project in British Columbia is Little Mountain. We've decided it needs, in its location, to be redeveloped to replace the exact same number of units that are in it, plus gain a value out of it so that we can invest that capital in another 1,200 to 1,500 units of housing in Vancouver and other units across British Columbia for people who need it that are homeless with mental health addictions, and those types of folks who need supportive housing.

On October 14, I know that the member actually criticized this announcement. Reading his comments in the media…. The member was saying, "Well, that's just renovations. Why would they do renovations? They should be building," and he just asked me a question about what we're going to do about our older stock.

We've got some old stock out there that only needs to be upgraded over time. It doesn't need to be redeveloped. It actually is in pretty decent shape, but we have to put on new roofs or some new windows for energy — whatever the case may be.

So we got offered an opportunity to match up money with the federal government. On October 14, 2009, the housing renovation partnership funds for 101 renovations and retrofit projects over the next two years, totalling $177 million, will be cost-shared with the federal government. We're paying half; they're paying half.

We're putting the renovation money in, and the majority of the funding is going toward repairs in 81 social housing projects. So let me say that — 81 social housing projects. Plus, they're allowing us to allocate renovations that were underway in a provincially owned single-room-occupancy hotel for an additional $13 million. What that does, by the way, is allow us to find another SRO or invest additional renovation money in another building, because that helps us offset some of our costs.

Basically, the breakdown is this. We actually look at the housing stock in British Columbia in partnership with our non-profit partners. So 52 of the public housing stock projects that are owned by the province of British Columbia…. We'll spend $140 million on those, and that will be upgrades, retrofits, carpeting — whatever it takes, depending on the individual project.

I attended one that is actually under renovation when we did this announcement in Vancouver. I guess the area would be called Kitsilano or Kerrisdale. To the credit of the mayor, way back when, in Vancouver…. I think it was Art Phillips at that time who made the decision on some city-owned land that they would develop a project for affordable housing for seniors that was put in the middle of what would be called a very expensive neighbourhood. He felt that there were affordability issues in every area of the city, so he actually made the choice to have that project built. Today, 30-some years later, it's getting an entire facelift.

So we will spend $140 million on 52 housing projects, another $24 million on 29 non-profit units, and we'll spend $13 million on a number of SROs that we're allowed to match up with.

[1750]

So to the member's question, we are investing in the renovation and in the upgrade. We are investing in housing for people who need it through supportive housing, and we have some other investments taking place that I'd be glad to discuss with the member.

S. Simpson: The minister talks about me having a rant. The minister would understand what rants are all about. He absolutely would.

The question I have for the minister is: does that mean that the decision on how the government proceeded with Little Mountain….? It does not have intentions to proceed with any of the other projects — current older-stock projects — that are around but rather to use these dollars for upgrades or improvements or renovations. I understand there could be some change. But those developments will remain essentially as they are?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, for the member, I'm just going to give you an update on some numbers from earlier, because we have them now. The direct management portfolio of 7,800 units — 45 percent of them are family, and 55 percent are seniors. So 3,500 units would be family, and 4,300 would be seniors and special needs.

Within B.C. Housing we have what we call a comprehensive asset management strategy. Basically, we have a number of strategies. To be fair, today there's one project being redeveloped. In the past there have been others, but the only one that's in any phase of redevelopment today is Little Mountain.
[ Page 1751 ]

None of the other projects are in a phase for redevelopment in any comprehensive way. They get assessed. We look at their age and stuff over the years and see what the opportunities are in any of the individual communities. A lot of our stock is in communities where density value wouldn't be there to redevelop and those sorts of things. They could be in smaller communities across B.C. — that sort of thing.

The money being spent on the 140 projects for the renovation side. That's because we've determined that those projects renovated have an additional life span of whatever many years. We plan that based on the age of the building and the return on time and that sort of thing.

Those projects are getting renovated because they're staying in their present form. That doesn't mean the possibility doesn't exist on the same sites. In some cases we have sites where we can actually rehabilitate some buildings, but we might have an extra-large parking lot or too much open space where we might be able, in the future, to put in a building that might be a four-storey or something for seniors or whatever the case may be.

We are always mindful of that. If we can in the future or if the opportunity exists to be able to densify something — to do that or do a comprehensive development like we're doing at Little Mountain…. We have to keep all of that in mind because we're managing a pretty extensive portfolio of housing.

We also, quite frankly, do other investments with regards to that. For instance, we've recently made a $600,000 investment with Dominion Command of the Royal Canadian Legion. The reason for that is to give them some predevelopment money so they can look at some of their sites that they have across B.C.

They have a number of really old social housing sites with a very low density, but they also have some properties that they think may be able to be redeveloped, or a piece of them may be able to have housing added to them in the future. They're doing that work, and they could come back for partnerships with regards to seniors housing or other forms of housing in the future.

We knew we wanted to rehabilitate some stock. This allows us to accelerate that because we're working with 50-cent dollars versus 100-cent dollars. That makes it easier in our capital plan.

S. Simpson: I understand that you may make changes around existing buildings where you find some space, where you can do some infill — those kinds of things. Is it clear that at this point the government has no plans or intentions to do a redevelopment of the scale of Little Mountain on any other projects, where it levels the project and does a complete rebuild rather than building some infill into existing developments when renovations are going on?

[1755]

I understand that. The question is: are there any plans for any other developments, to do a full redevelopment of the scope of Little Mountain?

Hon. R. Coleman: I think that it's safe to say that no matter what, Little Mountain is probably the biggest, because of the size of the land. In the middle of a major city you have 16 acres.

For instance, we have one that is underway right now at 950 Humboldt in Victoria. It was well under 20 units of housing — pretty old. Today there are 43 new units of housing being built on this site. That was the opportunity. Because the product was pretty old and decrepit, the decision was made that that one should be changed to add more units on that particular site.

There's nothing in front of me today that says this particular site is up for redevelopment. So that's what I can base the answer on. We have an asset management strategy, of course. I continually challenge B.C. Housing and any agency of government to look at what their business is — if there's an opportunity there. I don't know of one off the top of my head, of all the properties I look at, that I'd say is one that we should go and redevelop the whole site today — and I know a lot of our properties.

Actually, in small communities across B.C. there are some pretty neat opportunities on some things we're doing with seniors housing today. We have some societies that have excess land that we're able to add eight or ten or 12 units to for seniors rental housing in some communities, for people to age in place and that sort of thing.

We work on all that all the time, but there is no major project in front of me, other than Little Mountain, that is presently up for discussion.

S. Simpson: I've had a number of people — it's anecdotal, largely — tell me about vacant units in B.C. Housing developments. I have no idea of the scope of that.

My question would be this. How many of the 7,800 units that B.C. Housing directly administers, in the list that was given — even not if it's specific but a rough term — have been vacant for more than three months?

Hon. R. Coleman: Normal turnover is about 2 to 3 percent. We run at a very high occupancy level. That's actually above the market average. The turnover of units is that a unit becomes vacant, and you usually have to do something to it — paint it or whatever — and then turn it over.

We do have some units that some people look at and say: "That unit has been vacant for a month. Why haven't they tenanted it after they fixed it up?" That's actually a fair question, but usually what that is that we have someone of very high need that can't actually make
[ Page 1752 ]
their move for a three- or four-week period, but because we know they're in such extreme high need, we hold the unit for them so that they'll have a place to move into. We're trying to deal with the high-need side.

In some of our newer — and I'm talking late 1980s, early 1990s — housing stock that was done for non-profits for family housing, which was done under both the former Socred government and some under the former NDP government, we do run into some challenges. The challenges are that in that era we built a form of housing — for instance, townhouses with two and three and four bedrooms.

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The rule in that housing is that you have to have a child that matches up to the number of bedrooms, unless they're under a certain age. So you could have a two-bedroom with a single mom with one child and a three-bedroom with two children under the age of six and another child over the age of six; and you could have a four-bedroom with three children, or whatever the case may be.

The family mix, and this is one of the reasons…. A danger of just building and owning and operating but not being flexible in the marketplace is that the family units actually changed over the last 15 to 20 years. We have less and less people who would match up to, let's say, the four-bedroom unit.

Oftentimes where they're located…. Somebody will say, "I've got somebody in Burnaby that wants one," and we'll say that we actually have a four-bedroom in Aldergrove. They'll say, "Well, I don't want to go to Aldergrove," and yet you could have a four-bedroom unit.

Those tend to be allowed to be, for a period of time, vacant to see if you can find the family mix. At that point in time, the society will say to B.C. Housing: "Because we're subsidizing the unit, can we underhouse somebody in this place — in other words, give them a four bedroom with two children because there's no family that meets the family mix?"

The other ones that are a challenge are…. In the same era, there were some units that were built for disabled housing. We've changed that now, but there was a period of time where we had to change some of the approaches. What happened…. There was actually some wheelchair-accessible disabled housing built with three bedrooms.

Of course, the person in the wheelchair with three children was not a normal family mix that we were finding, so we're having difficulty filling those. So today we allow those to go with an individual in a wheelchair that's disabled, because that's what they're designed for, with a care worker — especially if they're a ventilated quadriplegic or a severe quad that can only do certain things. So now we've adapted their use, so we changed that particular approach to it.

But if you had a rental portfolio today in the private marketplace and you could achieve about a 2 percent turnover, you'd be pretty happy with that on the business side.

S. Simpson: Is the minister telling us, so we can be clear on the number, that at any given time there are 150 to 200 vacancies — something in that range — among the 7,800 units? There are just 150 to 200 vacant units; that's 2 percent to 3 percent of that stock. Would that be it, or is the number different?

Hon. R. Coleman: That's the turnover. This month four people in this project and five people in this project, and there are 7,800 units in total. Some moved out last month, and the painting has to be done. That's just the normal churn. They're not vacant. They actually have tenants waiting for them. It's just that they're getting ready for the next tenant.

A person moves out at the end of the month, and oftentimes there are a few days of vacancy. Sometimes there needs to be a lot more work, depending on how they're leaving the suite and what shape they're leaving it in when they move.

The other challenge we face in that turnover side…. I'll give the member one example. Back in the '50s, '60s and '70s some of the seniors projects were built as small as 250-square-foot studio units. Today we're actually moving some of those around and looking at them more for uses like mental health, addictions and homelessness, because the senior that could go into them can't actually function in a 250-square-foot unit unless we do different adaptations to them.

So sometimes it's because we're adapting units, but it really is that there's a normal churn. When I was in the rental business, if I had a 2 percent turnover in a month with both my clients and the units that I actually owned at the time back then, I would have been ecstatic, to be honest with you. The turnover was usually somewhere closer to 10 percent.

S. Simpson: Well, I still don't have the answer to the question, but I'm not going to ask it again because there's way too much information that comes back that I haven't asked for.

At this point what I'd like to do is…. I believe that my colleague the member for Vancouver–West End has some questions around residential tenancy.

S. Herbert: The first question I have…. This isn't exactly on residential tenancy, but it's related.

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A number of seniors in my constituency have asked about the SAFER program and their challenges with it. They've been lifelong members of people who live in the west end of Vancouver, and they're finding that, with how rents are climbing so drastically, they're having challenges being able
[ Page 1753 ]
to stay in their homes because SAFER is not increasing at the same rate as the rent increases that they face.

So my question to the minister: is there any thought about looking at more specific geographic areas that SAFER could be adjusted on, based on cost of living in more localized settings?

Hon. R. Coleman: Thanks, hon. Member, for your comments with regards to SAFER. I'll just give you a bit of a background from our perspective.

The Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters, which is the SAFER program, was expanded in 2005 with a $16.6 million annual funding increase. That was the first increase in the program since 1990. So there was a 15-year period where there were no changes. We're the ones that have been adjusting the rent ceilings.

We basically try and do it on an annual basis. We do an average assessment across particular areas. SAFER rent ceilings have been increased in the Metro Vancouver area a couple of times, including the establishment of separate rent ceilings for Metro Vancouver, and to reflect the local market conditions. Going into this fiscal year we'll do another assessment of Metro Vancouver and the rent ceilings.

We can look into it, whether we could isolate it further, because we actually have to rely on statistics from somebody else usually. We're probably using statistics that are compiled by someone like CMHC in regional areas that they will actually do rent statistical information and studies on. That's what we probably rely on. I don't know whether we could get it down to finite….

For instance, in the West End or something like that. The next question would be: "Well, why can't you do Yaletown the same as the West End?" And then: "Why don't you do Kitsilano the same as these guys?"

We try and be fair, but we have been fairly good about adjusting and reviewing the rent ceilings since we topped up the program and almost doubled this funding back in 2005.

S. Herbert: Thank you to the minister for that question. I guess I appreciate that the minister said that he would look into if it's possible to do more localized. I know CMHC will do what is the average rent for an apartment in the West End. We've seen that data before, so it does exist.

I asked because I think of a constituent who has lived in the neighbourhood her whole life and is finding it increasingly difficult to stay there. SAFER she appreciates, but it's not enough, as the rents have increased so much higher there in comparison to another area in Metro Vancouver where they may not have increased as much.

Would it be fair to say that the minister will look into seeing if it's possible to do more localized variations in SAFER for long-term residents? I understand that you would want to ensure that long-term residents can stay in their homes, and that would be my hope. Would that be fair to say?

Hon. R. Coleman: Partly, it's fair to say. The part about picking one person over another because of how long they lived there would probably lead us to all kinds of discriminatory discussions.

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Our challenge would be twofold, so I can't guarantee the member whether we could do something different or not or whether it would make any sense for us. The more areas you have to have information on, the more areas you have to administer. The more areas you have to define people within, the more your costs go up. Then my concern is that we'd be spending too much administration costs for a program that we just wanted to deliver the cheques to every month to get people the help they need.

I do think that it all depends on room within our own program and whether we could get that finite. It's not a bad suggestion that we shouldn't look at, so we'll probably have a look at it.

S. Herbert: When the minister and his staff get a chance to look at that, if he's able to share it with me in the next couple months, I'd really appreciate it. I know that my constituents would as well. I look forward to reading that.

Back in February, I believe it was, the minister and I got a chance to sit down together and talk about the Residential Tenancy Act. At the time and continuing, there are still big concerns in my constituency and also, I know, in Victoria. I've also heard stories from up in Comox, Kamloops — a range of places across B.C. — on issues of what have been termed "renovictions," or evictions by renovation.

At the time I took a note down, based on our meeting, and the minister had said to me that he would look into if there was a way to tighten up the clause around evictions in the Residential Tenancy Act, to stop people evicting for false renovations and to look at how they would do that. I'm wondering where the ministry is at with that.

Hon. R. Coleman: We did look at this and came to a couple of conclusions. First of all, the actual law is probably sufficient for the issue. The challenge that we found as we looked at it is that we have people that really need some more…. We felt that we needed to do more public education on what people's rights were in and around this issue.

It was surprising how many people had no idea that they could actually appeal that type of rent increase or that type of an eviction based on that, so we've done more public education. We added two more outreach
[ Page 1754 ]
offices — one at the Marble Arch on Richards Street and the other one in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver — subsequent to those discussions.

The member is right. The challenge is: what is an eviction for renovation? It could be legitimate in an older building, where somebody says: "I have to do an upgrade sufficient that I can't let you live here." It could be tearing out entire kitchens and bathrooms and putting in sprinkler systems and all that stuff. Oftentimes when a renovation gets triggered on a major renovation, local government puts up a whole bunch of additional new challenges against those.

I actually ran into that with a building I renovated years ago, when somebody decided that after the building was good enough for 30 years that it should get a sprinkler system, which added a cost of about — I think it was, in those days — $6,000 a unit or something like that. Of course, as we started to do that, we found out that that meant we had to change all kinds of different walls and things. It became a much bigger renovation at the time.

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I think that we're trying to do the education piece, added to the fact that we've sort of streamlined our processes for people to make those complaints. Our call levels are way down in minutes and time as far as people being able to access us over the phone — dramatically over the last year. And we added the outreach offices.

The challenge is that there's actually a whole bunch of very good landlords and tenants and very good relationships across B.C. There's about a half a million tenancies in B.C. Virtually, out of those half a million, if you took the number of complaints we get, there's a whole bunch of people actually in a pretty good relationship with whatever kind of landlord they have.

Then you get a piece where you get some of these guys that, frankly, just operate wrong, and those are the folks we try and watch and track. We get a complaint about them. We try and make sure our folks are aware of it, because it doesn't take very long.

The member could probably write down on a piece of paper two or three owners of buildings in his area of the province, in Vancouver, and I could write down two or three names on a piece of paper. We could switch pieces of paper, and we'd probably have the same names on the pieces of paper.

We're very aware of those folks. I have actually had one-on-ones with some of them and said: "You know, I'm disappointed in how you actually do your business with regards to these renovations." If it's legitimate, nobody is going to argue about it. But if it's not legitimate, I'm sorry.

You get no sympathy from me, or anybody else shouldn't give them sympathy, if they have to go through the process and they feel like they're having to go through arbitrations and stuff. Too bad. That's what the law is there for. It's there to have a balance in a relationship that is between a landlord and a tenant in a business relationship. For the most part, it works pretty well.

But then, as the member knows…. We both know of a company — we won't say the company — that has given us some challenges, not just in his riding but in other ridings. Slowly but surely we'll change behaviour.

The Chair: Member, and if I could remind all members: the questions should be directed towards the budget estimates for 2009-10. Legislation or future legislation isn't included in the discussion.

S. Herbert: Thank you, hon. Chair, for that reminder.

And thank you to the minister. The minister will know that I don't agree that the law is sufficient. I've got some challenges with the law as it stands today, and I know that Ontario is an example where they put in the right of first refusal.

There are some challenges there, and I have certainly talked to people in the development industry and people in the Apartment Owners Association who have some challenges with that law, but I think there might be a way that things could be tweaked to ensure that we can actually keep more people in their homes and stop them from having to go through these really troubling times.

Many times, the minister will know, in some cases when these renovictions happen, people will just give up. They may not know the law, or even if they do know the law, they're not able to spend the amount of time required to stand up for themselves and fight for themselves. So they do give up or maybe, in some cases….

I know of a couple of elderly folks in my constituency who just don't have the ability to go through the process, and so they end up out of the constituency a lot of the time and out of their neighbourhood.

My question is, and this relates to the budget…. The minister mentioned that there was more public education being provided for people to understand their rights in the law. Can the minister explain where that funding is coming from and how that is being played out across the province?

Hon. R. Coleman: In addition to the offices that we opened that the member is aware of, we have now funded positions within the residential tenancy branch for public education and outreach. What they do is they work with two sets of groups. There are two landlord groups: the B.C. Apartment Owners Association, and there's one on Vancouver Island as well.

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[ Page 1755 ]

There's also the Tenants Right Action — it used to be called a coalition, and I think that it has a different acronym now — to deliver those programs and education stuff to tenants. Those are the advocacy groups.

We've also added…. If you run into one of these situations with a senior, there are advocates at both those organizations that you can contact. You could contact our branch, too, with regards to some advocacy people for people like seniors who might be intimidated by the process. We'd be pleased to give you direction to find that.

S. Herbert: Thank you to the minister for that.

The question is…. Back in February we also talked about the geographic-area increase clause, and the minister said he would look into that clause, as a number of my constituents are facing that challenge or have faced that challenge, I understand. Are there any resources being used in this budget to look at closing up that loophole which has allowed people to apply for rent increases up to 73 percent?

Hon. R. Coleman: What we found with this when we went and looked at it after our meeting is that the geographic location thing…. We were finding that the applications were coming in for a rent increase, but they weren't very often being actually given, so what often happened was that sometimes they're awarded a percentage and sometimes they're awarded zero.

In some cases, when they are offered a percentage, they were also put into a phase-in for their tenants. Although, the story usually is that somebody asked for 73 percent, we went and looked at the outcomes on the other end and found that the system is actually moderating that piece of the business. So they have to be pretty good at convincing the branch that they actually are entitled to it, and oftentimes they're not successful with the level they think they should be.

S. Herbert: I guess from that answer, I'm understanding that there's no further work being done, looking at the geographic-area increase. In the 73 percent increase example that I mentioned, I believe the final number that was come to was a 41 percent rent increase, which, for the residents there, is just untenable.

Anyways, the minister and I can continue to have this debate about the geographic-area increase clause off line from this. I thank the minister and the Chair for this opportunity to ask questions on the Residential Tenancy Act on behalf of my constituents.

Hon. R. Coleman: I remember that when we had this discussion, I encouraged the member, every time they saw a federal MP, to mention to them that we could use some incentives on the tax side with regards to residential tenancy in the future.

I remember doing a debate in this House in '96 or '97 with the member for Port Coquitlam now, who was a minister at the time, and saying to him: "You know, we have some things that we don't have under our control in B.C., and we're actually headed to a rental crisis in our province."

It wasn't that I was Nostradamus, or anything like that. It was just obvious that the last time we really had a large increase in the building of rental housing in our jurisdiction was when the MURBs existed in the late 1980s to incent people to invest in that. Today the structure of the taxation, the recoup on capital gains, actually pushes people in older buildings to say: "I'd rather tear it down and redevelop it into condos than actually keep the product in the marketplace, because that's the only way I can get out of certain tax implications."

I think it's important. I know that the member probably has mentioned it to any MP he's seen. I'd just encourage him to do the same, to continue to do that. I keep doing it. I'm meeting with the federal minister on Friday, and that will be on the table again like a broken record until such time as we get some assistance.

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If we're actually going to achieve affordability in rental in B.C., over time we need to incent the market, whether it was what I discussed with the member earlier, by adding coach houses or basement suites or densifying neighbourhoods.

But the other piece is really going to come down to the day we can actually incent the marketplace to start building purpose-built rental housing again. It's all supply and demand — right? So if you don't build any more supply, the demand pressures continue, and we end up with the type of things we've discussed.

S. Simpson: Just a couple of asks of the minister, since we're going to try to wrap up this vote in the next 15 minutes or so.

I have a list, which we're obviously not going to get through today, of 31 — I believe it is — developments in the partnership, the municipal-provincial partnership, around housing and different municipalities around the province. I'll provide a the list of written questions and ask whether I could get some information on the status of those developments in terms of where they are in their status — ask the minister whether he could provide that if I provide the written request?

Hon. R. Coleman: Yeah, that's no problem. But I'll just caution the member that there are projects being built now — projects subject to capital, projects subject to revenues coming out of something like Little Mountain, because that's where capital is coming for a bunch of other projects — and we have to basically negotiate each year with the finance side of things.
[ Page 1756 ]

There are projects in different stages of development, so we'll try and get you a summary that would encapsulate that for you. In some cases, it could be something that we've given predevelopment money to that we think is really needed in two years, and they're wanting to go now. But the capital priority might be a project, let's say, in Vancouver, that's ready to go because we have a higher need, or something like that.

That's the only caution that I'll give you. But if you give us the documentation, we'll be happy to provide that.

S. Simpson: Thanks to the minister. Yeah, I'm just looking for — there are 31 projects — some status report about where they are, from idea to unlocking the door for people.

I have one question related to residential tenancy, and it relates to a challenge. I have had discussions — and I'm sure that the minister has met with Al Kemp, as well, and some of the people, the landlords and that — and we were talking about exactly the issue that the minister was talking to the member for Vancouver–West End about, which is that we know that 97 percent of landlords do a pretty decent job. There are a small amount of bad actors, and the minister and I have discussed those previously.

The question I have is…. When we talked about those with Mr. Kemp, we talked about the changes to the Residential Tenancy Act and about the administrative penalties and the inclusion of those as a tool to be able to get at some of this. The concern he raised, which was very insightful to me, is that he said he doesn't believe…. While it's a good idea, the challenge is finding tenants who are prepared to make the charge in numbers that, in fact, allow an investigation to go forward.

These are people, especially with some of those landlords, who are rightly concerned that they're going to get evicted; they're going to be out. They just, for a whole variety of reasons, feel an intimidation to move forward and make that charge.

I'm wondering whether the minister has seen some of that with that small group. I think one of the things Mr. Kemp talked about is…. He talked about knowing, in some apartment buildings, the old "time to change the doors." In the middle of winter you pop the front and back door off the apartment building for a couple of days to let your tenants know that they shouldn't get out of hand. He said that he knows people who do that, and they're bad actors, and he doesn't like them because they're not good for his industry. But how do we deal with that question?

Has the minister thought about how we make sure that we're not facing a situation where we can't get the tenants to make the assertions because they feel scared or intimidated that they're going to lose their housing?

Hon. R. Coleman: We haven't actually had an application proceed yet, and usually it's because of a lack of evidence. It's not because of other things. Or it's less serious than the penalties actually warrant.

[1830]

But the member is right. We do know of a couple of cases where some advocates are working on behalf of some folks that are coming to us. We think that's what will probably happen on the operational side of this in the future, because the advocate will be able to help the uninformed to basically build the package they have to bring to us to have the right evidence to be able to proceed, and we'll monitor that.

You know, it was an interesting thing. The actual change was asked for by both sides. We made the change to do the administrative penalties because they felt that the procedure to the courts was too onerous for people, and therefore, they weren't using that.

We actually tried to get a more streamlined process, and today we haven't had one proceed. But if we get a little bit of uptake on it with a couple — or the one or two that may be out there that could be coming to us — we think that with the proper backup of an advocacy group and if we get one success, that'll change the approach to this.

S. Simpson: I think that, you know, the minister is correct. I think that it was a change that the proponents for landlords and the proponents for tenants both agreed has potential to keep things out of the courts and still put some penalties in place. I would agree that what we need to do is actually have one move forward that is legitimate and deserves to have a penalty put to it and see whether that wakes up some of those few people who are on that list of three or four that we could exchange.

Coming back to a question that relates to part of the government's fight against homelessness here…. It relates to the 23 SROs that the government has purchased and is now opening in mostly the Downtown Eastside, but opening generally in communities.

One of the issues that has been brought to me, which have been talked about, are challenges related to issues like how tenant selection, particularly in the hard-to-house buildings, occurs. Could the minister tell me: what is the plan here? Is tenant selection a process that the non-profit who's contracted to manage the building…? Do they have control over the tenant selection process? Or is it a B.C. Housing process?

Some of these, as the minister will well know, are very complex in terms of the people — the population that's being dealt with. I get told stories like: "We get people in there. We know that some of them are hoarders, and every six months we want to move them to another unit so that we can go in and clean out the unit, because that's what happens." "We sometimes have people who get together in side-by-side units, and we want to be able to maybe separate them at some point, because it's
[ Page 1757 ]
not good for them to be living beside each other because of their particular behaviours."

There are a lot of these challenges that they know well, because they manage these buildings in that community. So what is the status around how tenant selection works and around the scope of management authority that those groups will have?

Hon. R. Coleman: The member has described a significant challenge that we have with this form of supportive housing where we need to actually be flexible for people's needs over time with regards to all the buildings that we have.

Basically, what we have is…. We set up the supportive housing registration service. It was created by a collaboration with B.C. Housing, our non-profit housing providers, the city of Vancouver, Vancouver Coastal Health and the Minister of Housing and Social Development.

That service manages the allocation of supportive housing units in the acquired SROs in cooperation with the non-profit operators and other supportive housing sites that are also owned by other groups, like the city of Vancouver and what have you, that work with us through the provincial housing programs, such as the provincial homeless initiative — PHI — and the local governing initiative. I will, before I conclude this, say a few things about that intervention project at the end of this.

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Basically, they actually have the benefit, from both the outreach worker and the applicant and the assertive teams, to be able to have one place that they can go and apply once for vacancies in supportive housing as they need it. That is located at the Marble Arch, which is one of the buildings we use, so it's close to the need.

There's been no question that there have been some bumps in the road as we worked it through with our non-profit partners, but because they're all collaborative and they're all pushing in the same direction, we work through each one of those bumps as we try and improve the service.

S. Simpson: I know. I've talked to some of those partners, and they agree that they're moving forward. They're not totally satisfied with some of the resolve, and some of those bumps, as the minister calls them, are what are occurring, I think. Hopefully, they will get sorted out in a way that's satisfactory to everybody.

One of the other issues that relates to this…. I know that finances are tight. There's some question about the level of services in those buildings because they are 24-7. These are buildings that need more than just a caretaker, obviously. They need other kinds of services.

I know that the ministry and the government are providing resources to make those services available. There are issues about numbers of people and that, and levels of budgets. The question, I guess, is a general one to the minister. How are those negotiations occurring, and how are decisions being made about resolving the questions about the level of budgets that the organizations are requesting and what the ministry is prepared to provide?

I understand that sometimes there's some discrepancy in those and that the spread is fairly big — 50 percent in some cases. Maybe the minister could just comment about how we deal with those matters in terms of making sure that what the ministry wants to accomplish gets accomplished, because the resources are there.

Hon. R. Coleman: What we provide is two staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week, plus support services to the buildings. Some societies chose not to participate, for whatever reason. They may have a higher volunteer component, or they wanted something different. That's something we allow them to decide on — only to a point, mind you. If the services to our clients aren't being met and we have funding on the table, we would expect that they would use them. So we do have that relationship.

I should say, having said that, that we've got some unbelievable organizations down there doing some unbelievable work. You know, this whole shift that took place starting in 2006 was new to everybody — to actually go in and say, "We'll take this piece of awful housing. We'll buy it. We'll renovate it. We're not just going to put people in it to house them. We're actually going to put some security on the door and 24-hour staff, two people a day, and start adding some support services like meals and stuff like that," whether it be the Dunsmuir hotel or the Backpackers Inn or whatever the case may be.

The evolution of this is that our societies have also started to learn different levels of what would be best practices on some of these things. We sit down, negotiate and work with these guys all the time. Again, as I said earlier, we're pushing in the same direction.

Our integration project, which I'll probably end up closing with because we've only got a few minutes, has actually started to bring some of the other services from other agencies of government so that we can continue to up the funding on different services that some organizations feel that they'd like to add into the buildings.

S. Simpson: I think, actually, probably the last question, because I know that we're getting close. The clock is ticking out here. I think it's the last question. I'm never sure about that. I shouldn't make those assertions — that it's the last question.

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I'm looking for the minister to probably talk about his homeless integration plan. The SROs are purchased. There's some assisted living. There are the 31 projects that I have on this list that are moving forward in some
[ Page 1758 ]
way in different places around the province. That provides, I think, about 1,800 to 1,900 units roughly — I'm not sure how many units it is — in that project, plus the SROs.

We know that we have a significant homeless population on top of that that's still a challenge that has to be met. Could the minister tell us what initiatives he views going forward to begin to get at that issue?

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm happy to, and I think that we can actually close on this because it does cover it. There are initiatives in place in addition to what we're doing. As we've learned, this file in British Columbia…. And probably other jurisdictions, but I would actually dare to say that we're doing this better than anybody else in Canada today, because I've talked to my colleagues across the country, who say: "How are you pulling this off?"

But when we start to change the model to supportive housing for somebody, saying we're dealing with the person rather than just getting him off the street and into a home, it changes the whole dynamic.

As you change that dynamic, you find people that can be housed in the normal marketplace that don't have to be in supportive housing. You find people who say: "If you could just let me go back to whatever community I came from. I have family there, but I can't get back there. I'm ready to make a change in my life." We can do that.

But we have a number of other initiatives, as we've identified the cohort, with regards to the severely mentally ill and homeless and addicted person on our streets. That's not a big number of people, but it's certainly a number that police almost see regularly and our health care system sees pretty regularly.

In Vancouver, for instance, we're going to do something at the St. Helen's, I think it is, to try and have a short-term urgent care centre so that police would have a place to take somebody where there's clinical help, etc., rather than taking them to the emergency room under the Mental Health Act. They could do this under the Mental Health Act because we'd have people there for them.

That would be so we could stabilize them so that they could then go to a place like the Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addictions where they could get some help over a longer period of time and identify their needs and then house them in such a way that would meet their needs long term.

We tend to think and talk Vancouver when we talk about homelessness, because we bought 23 SROs, and we're building about a thousand units there — plus, actually. It's closer to 2,000, probably, in the pipeline, and we've opened a bunch. We've opened one on Hastings recently, which is 100 units, and then the Woodward's thing is coming on. All these things are starting to come on stream.

But we also have to remember that we've actually bought 45 properties in total across the province. We've bought buildings in Victoria and in Prince George and in the Okanagan and places like that, so we could go into even small communities.

For instance, in Quesnel we bought the Wheel Inn. They had a homeless issue. We took the Wheel Inn, which is a little old motel, renovated it, and now that's taking care of their problem for them in their mind. So we have to look at it globally, even though oftentimes it's always the media focus being the Lower Mainland.

I'll take a couple of minutes here, Mr. Chair. I know you would like me to note the time.

In addition to all the things we've done with the outreach workers — connecting and housing 7,000 people in over 40 communities — and the housing that we're doing and the stuff we bought, earlier this year we said: "Let's go one step further." That's when we talked earlier about the czar thing and about the leadership of the ministry and what have you and who is in charge and what the mandate was for us.

We put that mandate together, and we put a team together, and we call it the homelessness intervention project. We selected five cities — Victoria, Vancouver, Surrey, Kelowna and Prince George. We put this team in place, and their objective — over and above all else that we were doing — is that they would find, identify and move 100 chronically homeless people a month from street to home through a system of supports over the next 18 months.

That actually started about five and a half months ago. I'm very proud of this initiative. I'm so proud of my colleagues in other ministries across government who took down the barriers and silos and made this happen so that we that could do this. Remembering, again, that we said 1,800 people chronically homeless, by this one intervention project, over 18 months. As of today, that number is actually 1,693 in less than six months.

[1845]

I think that it's a remarkable story, because not only did they do this, but they've also connected them to housing. Because it's an integrated thing with Health and other ministries across government, Aboriginal Relations and all that, we're actually getting this cooperative relationship with everybody on the ground. That is a huge breakthrough on any file, particularly when you can do it like this.

I wanted to bring that up only because I'm so proud of the people doing this job and the work that they're doing and the leadership of Allison Bond on this file. I am very pleased that those chronically homeless people are being placed and put into available situations where we can help them, because we've had this whole buy-in from communities.

I'm very proud of that, and I wanted to sort of close on that because I wouldn't want to do estimates and
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not mention that project. I think that they deserve a little additional kudos. I mean, the guys at B.C. Housing…. Actually, I think this whole ministry, by the way, is phenomenal in the way they handle the social services side, people with disabilities, developmentally disabled, the issues in and around the larger Crown corporations they have.

The whole package is a very well-coordinated, integrated group of people focused in a direction who have actually shown — frankly, in my opinion — the rest of government how to integrate and how to do things in certain ways to get success. There can always be arguments about whether you're getting all the success you can get and whether it's perfect, but when I look at these people, they do, I think, a pretty phenomenal job.

Vote 36: ministry operations, $2,714,603,000 — approved.

Hon. R. Coleman: I move that we rise, report the estimates of the Ministry of Housing and Social Development complete and seek leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:47 p.m.

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