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, November 4, 2009

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 7, Number 3

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2009

The House met at 1:34 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Introductions by Members

R. Cantelon: It is indeed my pleasure and privilege to introduce over 80 guests joining us in the gallery today. They are the constituency assistants for the Liberal caucus. They're a group of hard-working, dedicated people who are committed to providing service to the constituencies in which they live.

They've been here for a day and a half to compare notes and commiserate and learn better how to address the many varied needs — and they are varied — over a wide range of queries that they get in their offices, to learn better how to support and serve the constituents. Let's give them all a very, very warm welcome.

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J. Horgan: I have a number of introductions to make as well today. Joining us in the gallery is a friend of mine, Ann Noble, who is participating in the parliamentary procedure workshop here in the Legislature, where public servants are learning about the legislative process — how cabinet works, Treasury Board, and so on.

Also joining us today to observe the debate on Bill 21 are two paramedics from my constituency, Nora Lowden and Tanya Bellagente.

Would the House please make all three of these women welcome.

Hon. M. Polak: Today in the gallery I am joined by my brother, Carl Inkman, and his son, my nephew, Elijah Needham. Would the House please make them welcome.

K. Conroy: Today it gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce Leo Gerard, the international president of the United Steelworkers. Leo has been a friend of ours for over 20 years and a great supporter of both my husband Ed's and my political career.

I think this last year Leo lived every political junkie and sports fan's dream. He was very involved in the election of Barack Obama and continues to be one of the few Canadians who is consulted by the president's office.

Living in Pittsburgh, he has been involved in charity work with the Pittsburgh Steelers and was very happy to celebrate with the team as they won the Super Bowl. But every Canadian hockey fan's dream would be when he celebrated with Mario and the Pittsburgh Penguins and their win of the coveted Stanley Cup.

As a Canadian son of a union miner, who calls Sudbury home when he isn't in Pittsburgh, Leo is recognized internationally for his work in many different areas, including social justice, the environment and, of course, issues that affect working people.

His passion about the environment and his commitment to ensure a better world for his kids, and now grandkids, has led to an unusual but very successful alliance with the environmental and union movements in both the U.S. and Canada.

As international president, Leo has championed alliances with unions throughout the world, including Germany, Austria, Brazil and Mexico. His international work has culminated in the creation of the first global union, Workers Uniting, with Unite the Union, the United Kingdom's largest labour organization.

This year he was recognized for his contributions to social justice and was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of Guelph.

Would the House please join me in welcoming Dr. Leo Gerard.

D. Hayer: It gives me great pleasure to introduce 66 grade 5 students visiting from one of the best schools in Canada, Surrey Christian middle school, which is in my riding of Surrey-Tynehead. Joining them are four teachers — Erica Fernhout, Grace Entenule, Kelly Blackmore and Jackie Hofstede — as well as 15 very hard-working parents and volunteers who have taken time out of their busy schedule to accompany the students here, who are learning how the government works, because one day they will be leaders of this province, and they might be Premier or Prime Minister or MLAs or MPs. Would the House please make them very welcome.

G. Coons: I'd like to welcome and introduce two constituents and friends of mine. Tiffany Fulmer was born and raised in Prince Rupert. She just graduated from UBC with a bachelor of arts and is planning to return to UBC next year, in the education faculty.

With her is her father, Michael Fulmer, who recently retired. He's in Victoria to receive his 35-year service award from the province of British Columbia. He became a lawyer in Prince Rupert in 1971 and is the serious-crime prosecutor for the north. He's been involved in more than 40 murder trials, the last major trial being a first-degree murder with no body, with a conviction that was upheld in the Supreme Court of Canada — a major accomplishment.

The assistant commissioner of National Security Criminal Investigations, Bob Paulson, sums it up: "Michael has a distinguished career. I have learned a lot from Michael not just about the law and the rules of evidence but about courage, professionalism, duty, tenacity and, most importantly, right and wrong."
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Please make Tiffany and her father, Michael, welcome.

L. Reid: Mr. Speaker, on your behalf I would like to take this opportunity to welcome a group of public servants seated in the gallery. They are participating in a full-day parliamentary procedure workshop offered by the Legislative Assembly. The workshop provides a firsthand opportunity for the public service to gain a greater understanding of the relationship between the work of their ministries and how that work affects this Legislature. Would the House please make them very welcome.

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B. Routley: It is indeed a delight to welcome to this House Debra Toporowski, my constituency assistant, and her mom and family: Ethel Jack, Linda Wong and Cassandra Joe.

Ethel Jack is a member of Cowichan Tribes, and she's here to measure up some people for Cowichan sweaters. Being an equal opportunity employer, I'm happy to invite anyone that's interested to drop by if you'd like to be measured up for a beautiful Cowichan sweater.

G. Hogg: We are joined in the House today by four athletically challenged individuals who are here to talk to us about KidSport. They are compassionate, caring individuals who understand the opportunities that are provided to youth through sport. Would the House please welcome Paul Varian, the CEO of Sport B.C.; Rick Christiaanse, the vice-president of Sport B.C.; Bart Given, the director of marketing and communication; and Pete Quevillon, the director of KidSport and the gentleman who has perhaps the worst jumpshot of all of them.

Would the House please make them welcome.

R. Cantelon: I wanted to pass on a message from the Minister of Education. I spoke with her yesterday. She's recovering well at home. She sounded bright and cheerful and wishes to return soon to work and appreciates all the messages of support and encouragement that she's received from members of the House.

Hon. S. Thomson: In the gallery today are 11 leaders and members of the South Malahat 4-H District Council, led by their president Erin Campbell. I'm very pleased to have them in the gallery today for a proclamation proclaiming today as 4-H Day in British Columbia. I'd just like to read the proclamation.

WHEREAS agriculture producers and land are vital to the health and well-being of British Columbians; and WHEREAS the sustainability and viability of the industry is paramount to its success and ability to feed future generations; and WHEREAS a key concern across the sector is succession planning and ensuring new entrants; and WHEREAS British Columbia 4-H groups work to engage more than 2,300 youth across the province in agricultural practices and education; and WHEREAS 4-H programs and volunteers create awareness of the importance of agriculture to all British Columbians; and WHEREAS 4-H programs help to develop community awareness, leadership abilities and new skills through 24 projects for youth ages 6-21; and WHEREAS 4-H has demonstrated an ability to engage British Columbia youth in agriculture for over 95 years; and WHEREAS Our Lieutenant Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Executive Council, has been pleased to enact Order in Council 903 on October 11, 2002; NOW KNOW YE THAT We do by these presents proclaim and declare that November 4th, 2009, shall be known as "B.C. 4-H Day"

I'd like the members to make all the representatives from the 4-H program welcome in the House today.

Hon. K. Falcon: Today is the 15th annual national Take Our Kids to Work Day. Although I don't have any kids to take to work today, I am working on that, as you know, Mr. Speaker.

Fortunately, some good friends of mine, John and Lesley Vickerstaff, have loaned me their daughter Kennedy Vickerstaff, who is like a daughter to me too. She's a wonderful young lady. She's here today in the gallery, and I would like the House to please make her welcome.

Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

BILL M204 — STREAM DIVERSION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2009

M. Sather presented a bill intituled Stream Diversion Amendment Act, 2009.

M. Sather: I move that a bill intituled Stream Diversion Amendment Act, 2009, be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

M. Sather: This bill amends the Water Act to ensure that a water licence granted to divert water from a stream for agricultural purposes will maintain the minimum flow of water required to protect fish or wildlife. Farmers must have water to grow their crops. However, we must ensure that fish and wildlife are given adequate protection in the process.

We are all aware of the recent tragedy of diminished salmon stocks. This bill will assist in continuing legitimate agricultural production while protecting fish and wildlife.

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

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Bill M204, Stream Diversion Amendment Act, 2009, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
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Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

OLYMPIC SPIRIT IN COMOX VALLEY

D. McRae: Today is an exceptionally special day here in British Columbia. Today we count down 100 days until the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Last Monday the Comox Valley hosted the 2010 Torch Relay. It was so inspiring to see members of my community join together in celebration and support of our torchbearers and athletes. At first sight of the torchbearers, you couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of pride and honour to be Canadian. I want to say thank-you to the Comox Valley spirit committee and the hard work they have done to help our region realize the sport, social and economic potential the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games bring to British Columbia.

I want to say thank you to Susan Kelsey, who chairs the Comox Valley spirit committee. As a former Olympian and medal winner, she has the experience, the energy and the passion to help the community realize the potential the games could offer.

I want to say thank you to Mount Washington. They were quick to realize that their facility has similar elevation, temperature and snow conditions as the venues in Whistler. They worked hard with non-profit groups such as the Comox Valley Economic Development Society to attract public and private investment to the ski hill. They saw that the Olympics could be a catalyst to bring teams to train here and build a national and international awareness of what the hill offers for both downhill and Nordic activities.

The Comox Valley sent community, business and political leaders both to Torino and Beijing to build relationships. I'm pleased to say that for their hard work, it has paid off. At least 12 teams, over 400 athletes, their coaches and the attached media are coming to the Comox Valley prior to the Olympic Games. Their teams and their nations' media will raise national and international awareness of British Columbia and the Comox Valley to heights never before felt possible.

Our local spirit committee has done so much. We are now in the final push to take advantage of the greatest marketing and inspirational vehicle in the history of humankind. I ask the House to join me in thanking the Comox Valley spirit committee for what they have accomplished in the past six years, for what they have done is a truly lasting legacy.

REMEMBRANCE DAY AND WAR VETERANS

B. Simpson: In 1974, I was leading a group of young soldiers when one of my squad tripped a wire, causing a gas canister to explode. As we all scrambled to get our gas masks on, we came under attack from sniper fire, and I yelled at everyone to get into the ditch at the side of the road.

I vaguely recall diving through the air while trying to get my gas mask on and my rifle up to the ready position. My more vivid memories are of being shaken awake by one of my squad members and severely reprimanded by my training officer because I had banged my head on a log and knocked myself unconscious during the action, leaving my squad leaderless.

Every Remembrance Day I reflect on this event in my brief time in the Canadian navy. I think about the thousands of veterans for whom such an event was not an exercise. The gas was not white smoke but a deadly and debilitating toxin, and the bullets were not made of rubber and shot over their heads. They were projectiles aimed to maim and kill.

For too many young men and women, their first experience of combat was their last. The survivors lost friends, lost their leaders and forever lost their innocence as they put their lives on the line for the values we hold dear and, unfortunately, we now too often take for granted.

Next week on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month we will once again remember the dead and honour our living veterans and the men and women who are still in harm's way on foreign soils. As MLAs we will have opportunities to help our constituents reflect on the role our military played and continues to play in protecting democratic rights and freedoms. We will also have opportunities to deglorify war and violence in the minds of our young people who see war through the lens of a video game.

But every member of this House can best show respect for our veterans by ensuring we jealously guard and protect the freedoms and rights they fought for. In their honour, we must be forever vigilant in this House and fight against anything that would undermine our democratic institutions.

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KIDSPORT B.C. PROGRAM

G. Hogg: An 11-year-old boy wrote this letter:

Dear KidSport:

Thank you very much, KidSport, for supplying me with hockey gear. I love the game of hockey, and I think it is an awesome program. I have two older brothers in hockey, and we all play around. My mom has two jobs so that we can stay in hockey. She works really hard, so this is a good thing for her and for us.

P.S. I made the peewee rep team.

Sincerely, Trevor

The KidSport motto is: "So all kids can play." Since 1993 it has been providing support to financially disadvantaged
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kids so that they can do just that. From its inspired and humble beginnings right here in B.C., it has grown to 177 chapters across Canada. This year KidSport will assist over 6,000 kids to get into the game.

Those who dream of scoring a goal, hitting a home run, taking one for the team or just making new friends will be given that opportunity through KidSport.

Benefits such as setting goals, working hard, learning from others, sharing and staying positive despite adversity — these are just some of the skills learned every day in sports venues across our province through the process of sports.

The lessons enable us to make healthy lifestyle choices, to meet challenges and to work together. Sport skills are life skills, and KidSport is leaving a human legacy of community chapter volunteers in 40 B.C. communities, chapters that will support many kids who will be inspired by the Olympics.

I ask this Legislature to congratulate and thank KidSport, its volunteers and its sponsors and to encourage all communities to become KidSport communities so that all kids can play.

J. Horgan: I rise to join with my colleague from Surrey–White Rock to endorse and speak in favour of KidSport B.C. I do it for Peter, who is in the crowd, the executive director. For the record, I don't think the member for Surrey–White Rock could get his jumpshot over top of me even if he had a stair to stand on. But I'll leave that.

As we prepare for the Olympic Games 100 days from now with the coming together of elite athletes from around the world, it is very important that we remember there are children in the communities right across B.C. who don't have the resources to play every day. I was one of those kids. As a young child I wasn't able to play hockey or lacrosse until later in life. I played games that you had shoes for, like basketball or soccer, where you had a pair of boots. That was the extent of the expenditure that we could make in our house.

In 2005 the Victoria Foundation established that one in five children in the greater Victoria area live below the poverty line. That's why it's so important that in 1993, in that decade of a previous government, B.C. Sport established KidSport so that all kids could play, so that those less fortunate could have access to team sports, so that they could learn the benefits of cooperation, determination, personal sacrifice and taking one for the team.

I know I join with my colleague from Surrey–White Rock again in urging all members of this place to go back to their home communities, look up the local chapter of KidSport, see what they can do to promote and advertise this great program that provides every kid in the community an opportunity to enjoy the benefit and value of sport.

A hundred days away from the Olympics, a real legacy for the kids of British Columbia living below the poverty line would be massive investment in KidSport. I encourage all members to follow my lead and the lead of my colleague from Surrey–White Rock and do just that.

ACTIVITIES OF 4-h IN b.c.

D. Barnett: Today, as the minister has said, we celebrate 4-H Day in British Columbia. Since 1914, 4-H has been about young people, parents and other interested adults working together for the benefit of youth, family and community. Some 2,350 youth across B.C. are developing leadership abilities, new skills and learning something about themselves.

The 4-H has some 24 different projects and four age groups: Cloverbuds, six- to eight-year-olds; junior members, nine- to 12-year-olds; senior members, 13- to 19-year-olds; and special projects for 20- to 21-year-olds. Fourteen 4-H members from British Columbia have been awarded 4-H scholarships totalling over $24,000 to assist in their post-secondary education.

In the Cariboo-Chilcotin we are proud of our 4-H organizations — Williams Lake, Lone Butte and the Canim Lake band to mention a few. Parents, 4-H leaders and community members have come together to assist our young people in their endeavours.

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From raising a steer — a sale in Williams Lake brings a great price — to pride and the opportunity to learn about their animals, to respect and social development and marketing skills. To those 4-H'ers who take public speaking, grow vegetables, knit or do one of the many opportunities for 4-H youths, you are all achievers. To the volunteers, leaders and sponsors of 4-H, you are to be congratulated.

I will leave you with a 4-H pledge that I took from a 4-H website. It says: "My head to clear thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service and my health to better living for my club, my community and my country."

EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAMS
IN REVELSTOKE

N. Macdonald: Revelstoke has much to be proud of, but recently an exceptional accomplishment made news across British Columbia. Using the measurement called the early learning development instrument, Revelstoke was recognized as doing the best job in the province in preparing children for kindergarten.

Revelstoke is a community with a population of 9,000 and is situated 200 kilometres from a major centre. It is a community whose citizens rely on each other to make things happen. This top-place ranking is a true indication of the strength of this community.

Tracy Spannier is the director of the Revelstoke Early Childhood Development Committee, which consists of 22 community partners. The committee meets regularly to coordinate early childhood programs and talk through the best ways to overcome challenges.
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This coordinated effort begins at birth, when the public health nurse delivers to new parents a package which contains a list of services and information, a children's calendar and a directory of child care options. Child development in Revelstoke continues with a full range of preschool services including resource libraries, parenting workshops, play groups and an amazing CCRR office.

Providing this level of support for young children takes time and resources and a strong commitment from people who are passionate about early learning. It recognizes Revelstoke's strong belief that investing in children is the wisest investment we can make.

Tracy Spannier sums it up very nicely when she said: "You don't get a result like this without having families that are really involved with their children and being able to access programs and services. Revelstoke is a great place to raise kids."

I ask the House to join me in congratulating Revelstoke's accomplishment and to recognize all partners in the Early Childhood Development Committee in Revelstoke.

Oral Questions

ACCESS TO INFLUENZA VACCINES
FOR PARAMEDICS

S. Simpson: Mr. Speaker, the Health Minister has been telling us that the reason he's used Bill 21 to try to force a contract on paramedics is to deal with the H1N1 pandemic. However, we now know that the government doesn't have a coherent plan at this time for those front-line paramedics to get vaccinations themselves.

Elizabeth Grant is one of 22 child and maternal critical care paramedics who work every day with late-trimester pregnant women, premature babies and children with serious health conditions. Yet there is no coherent plan for her to get vaccinated. While she's at Children's and Women's Hospital every day, they wouldn't vaccinate her because she's not a direct hospital employee. Meanwhile, the Ambulance Service runs some limited clinics that don't work for many paramedics' schedules.

My question to the minister is: how can British Columbians have confidence in his ability to manage H1N1 when he can't get together a plan to vaccinate critical health personnel like Ms. Grant?

Hon. K. Falcon: The member should know that the decisions made, in terms of who are the priorities in terms of the health sector for receiving vaccinations, thankfully, are not decisions made by politicians but are in fact decisions made by health professionals under the leadership of our chief provincial health officer.

You know, Mr. Speaker, the paramedics provide very important services. We know that. So do firefighters. So do police officers. So do a whole range of folks right across the public safety system and the health system.

But it is the medical health officers that are determining what the level of priority should be for those in the health profession. At this point they are looking at those that work in intensive care units, emergency departments, and those that are dealing with mothers and prenatal care. I have to continue to be guided and will be guided by the direction of those very experienced medical health officers in British Columbia.

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Mr. Speaker: Member has a supplemental.

S. Simpson: The minister's trying to tell us here that people like Ms. Grant, who deal with critical health care issues every day — with pregnant women, with babies, with children — are not essential health care workers. Is that what the minister wants us to believe?

Meanwhile, in the Comox Valley, Bill Coltart along with other part-time paramedics have been told that they're not considered emergency health care workers either, and they're not eligible for any priority vaccination. Does this minister have any explanation for the inept manner in which so many paramedics aren't getting access to vaccinations when they are the front-line health workers who should be?

Hon. K. Falcon: Yesterday it was the NDP member for Surrey-Fleetwood determining what the priorities of H1N1 vaccinations should be. Today, apparently, the member for Vancouver-Hastings has picked up the mantle and decided that he knows a lot more than the medical health professionals in this province about how to undertake a mass immunization program.

We have always been very clear. This is the largest vaccination program in the history of the province. By the end of this week fully 20 percent of the population will have been vaccinated. They are the most at-risk populations that are most at risk of severe health or possibly even death. They are also making decisions about which health professionals and which order in which those health professionals will receive vaccinations.

I appreciate that the member for Vancouver-Hastings wants to take it upon himself to become the expert in making those decisions. I disagree with that. It is the chief provincial health officer and medical health officers across the province appropriately making those decisions, and I will continue to back them as they make those decisions.

Mr. Speaker: Member has a further supplemental.

S. Simpson: What I would like is for the Health Minister to show one shred of leadership when it comes to this issue. Critical health care workers — no support for them at all, no support at all.

These workers provide essential services.
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Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

S. Simpson: These workers provide essential services. This government, this minister have a responsibility to show some leadership, but there are no plans for Ms. Grant, no plans for Mr. Coltart or many of their colleagues to get the vaccinations they need to be able to do the job on behalf of British Columbians.

How is it that front-line ambulance paramedics have become an afterthought for this government when it comes to H1N1?

Hon. K. Falcon: There could not be a starker contrast between the NDP opposition and this government in terms of how to handle this. There could not be a starker contrast, because if you listen to that member, what that member is saying is that politicians should insert themselves and interfere with the appropriate oversight of a national pandemic.

Interjections.

Hon. K. Falcon: Well, the members are getting excitable again.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. K. Falcon: They call this leadership. I call it interference. It's inappropriate. We are going to allow the proper medical professionals to lead and oversee this vaccination program. That's what they're doing.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

J. Brar: My message to this minister is very simple. Stop hiding behind the provincial health officer. Stop hiding. The people of British Columbia are looking for leadership.

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Again to the minister: can the minister explain why this government does not have a coherent strategy to vaccinate paramedics and other health care workers against the H1N1 flu virus?

Hon. K. Falcon: I'd be interested in hearing what medical school the member opposite went to that apparently informs him to such an extent that he wishes the government to actually overrule decisions made by medical health professionals. I would be interested in hearing that.

What I can tell you is that it is the medical health professionals that are looking at the fact that we don't, at this point, have unlimited supplies of vaccine. What they are doing with the supplies of vaccine that have been made available through the federal government and their manufacturer is making sure that those are distributed in priority. Priority means that not everybody gets it at once. That means that even in the health care sector, they will prioritize based on those they believe need to get the vaccinations first and then move along the chain of health care professionals.

That does not mean that the paramedics are not important, that firefighters or police officers are not important. They're all very important. But the important issue here is that we stand beside and behind our medical health professionals as they make those decisions in the best interests of public health.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The member has a supplemental.

J. Brar: My other message to this minister is this. Queue jumping is not acceptable to the people of British Columbia. That's what we are asking. Hockey players are being given priority over groups like paramedics and other health care workers who are designated to be at higher risk for H1N1. We hear that a minor professional hockey team has got drive-through access to the H1N1 vaccine, and this government is not ruling out NHL players receiving it before designated high-risk groups.

This does not follow national guidelines of who should be receiving the vaccine at this stage. So again to the minister: can the minister tell this House why British Columbia is not following the agreed upon national protocols for the H1N1 vaccine?

Hon. K. Falcon: I, too, saw that media report. I'm very concerned whenever I hear there's any example or case of a group that is not taking their time and waiting in line, as other healthy British Columbians are, while those with chronic health conditions are being dealt with.

I spoke to the chief provincial officer about that situation that the member mentions — a professional minor hockey team. He will be speaking directly to the physician and trying to understand what the medical rationale was for providing vaccinations to a sports team before those that are at risk, and we'll wait to get that information before we can comment fully on it.
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A. Dix: The issue with Elizabeth Grant is that she is eligible to get the vaccine, but the B.C. Ambulance Service isn't properly organized to get her the vaccine. That's the issue with Elizabeth Grant.

The issue with the hockey team is…. Last night the minister responsible, the Minister for Healthy Living, was asked directly: "Should hockey players go to the front of the queue?" The answer to that question, by the way, is no. But what was her answer? "I believe that what is important is that those who need access to this vaccine to mitigate the possible spread will be looked at by our health experts." In other words, an incoherent response.

Clearly, from what Dr. Kendall says…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

A. Dix: …professional hockey players are not at the front of the list. Now, the Alberta government dealt with the situation with an investigation, and it's already taken action with respect to the vaccination of the Calgary Flames.

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Will the Minister of Health launch an investigation today to restore confidence that those who should be getting the vaccine first get the vaccine first?

Hon. K. Falcon: The member might be surprised to find that we're in agreement on the issue and the principle that of course professional sports teams should not be getting vaccinations before those that are at risk. But one of the things I said to the member opposite is that it is important we make sure we have all the facts before we jump to a conclusion.

I have spoken to the chief provincial health officer, who will be speaking directly to the physician that made that decision to make sure that that physician has a medical rationale for making a decision like that.

But let's be clear. The member for Surrey-Fleetwood talked about standards. There are not only national standards; there are B.C. guidelines that are also in place that state very clearly that at-risk populations are to be vaccinated first. It does not include, generally speaking, professional sports teams unless there's a medical rationale, and at this point, I don't know that. When I get that, I'll share that with the member.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

A. Dix: Now we're making progress. We've moved from the position of the Minister of Healthy Living last night to the position of the Minister of Health today. So we're making progress on that line so that we can be clear about this.

The question is very straightforward with respect to the Ambulance Service. In this case Elizabeth Grant is waiting to get that vaccine. I think the minister and I probably would agree that she should get that vaccine. I think, clearly, she meets the criteria set out by Dr. Kendall and the other medical health officers. I think that's pretty clear.

Will the Minister of Health investigate today why the B.C. Ambulance Service is not ensuring that Elizabeth and other ambulance paramedics like her get the vaccine?

Hon. K. Falcon: I've already answered this question on a number of occasions. I'll answer it for the member again.

These decisions and how the vaccinations are being rolled out and undertaken, including with health professionals, are being undertaken under the direction of a nationally and internationally recognized individual. That's Dr. Perry Kendall.

Now, I recognize that the members opposite want to be wannabe physicians for a day. But the reality is that these decisions are best overseen by medical professionals. That's exactly what's happening. I support them as they do that.

It does not mean that the individual that you cited, or paramedics generally, are not important. It just means that in an era of limited vaccines, they're trying to do it in a manner that is rolled out thoughtfully, safely and appropriately, and I back them up on that.

ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF OLYMPIC GAMES

J. Kwan: Just last week the Minister of Small Business backed off of the government's previous claims around the economic benefits of the games. He lopped $6 billion off what the Finance Minister was telling British Columbians they could expect to see as the economic spinoff before the election.

My question is to the Minister of Finance. Why the change?

Hon. C. Hansen: I was listening intently to the member's question, but I didn't quite get the point of the question. Perhaps she could restate it for me.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

J. Kwan: Well, Mr. Speaker, I'm restating my first question for the minister, and then I have a supplemental. Let me just repeat for the minister.

Just last week the Minister of Small Business backed off of the government's previous claims around the economic benefits of the games. He lopped $6 billion off of what the Minister of Finance was telling British Columbians they could expect to see in economic spinoff before the election. The question to the Minister of Finance: why the change?
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Hon. C. Hansen: We know that the Olympic Games are going to be a huge economic stimulus for British Columbia. We know that already it has resulted in the creation of thousands of jobs in British Columbia. We're going to see thousands more jobs created as we count down the next 100 days to the games.

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We will see tens and tens of thousands of jobs in British Columbia that will be created because of the profile that we get as a result of hosting the games in February-March of next year.

There have been several economic analyses done. Some of them look at the direct benefits of the games. Some look at the more broad benefits of the games, including indirect spinoffs, and they are literally in the billions and billions of dollars.

Mr. Speaker: Based on the fact you did repeat the first question, I will allow the member a supplemental.

J. Kwan: Well, British Columbians want the games to be successful, and on this side of the House…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Member, just take your seat for a second.

Continue, Member.

J. Kwan: …the meaning of success includes the concept of honesty, transparency and accountability. Last February the public affairs bureau started to back off from the $10 billion figure for economic impacts of the games, yet the Finance Minister continued to use that figure. He even used it in his pre-election budget speech.

All British Columbians deserve to know the truth. Whether it's the government's plan to distribute Olympic tickets, the actual cost of the Olympic Games or the calculations of the impacts of the games, this government is quick to hide the truth.

Why did the minister give British Columbians one set of numbers before the election and another set of numbers after the election?

Hon. C. Hansen: The fact of the matter is that the Olympics are going to generate billions and billions of dollars of economic activity for the province of British Columbia. Now, I know that there is some frustration on the part of the official opposition that the Olympics are the making of a huge success story for British Columbia.

We know that the Olympics are going to launch British Columbia into the next decade by putting this province on the world stage and by attracting the world's interest in terms of a tourism destination, in terms of an investment destination, in terms of a place where people and skilled workers from around the world are going to want to come and live and raise their families in the decades to come.

The Olympics are going to produce billions and billions of dollars of economic benefit for this province. On this side of the House we support that, we're proud of it, and we're going to make it the biggest success ever.

B. Ralston: The Minister of Finance speaks about billions and billions of dollars, but my question demands a little bit more precise answer from a finance minister. In his budget speech on February 17 he spoke of a $10 billion economic impact of the games. Last week the Minister of Small Business spoke of a $4 billion economic impact of the games. Now, simple math — that's a $6 billion downgrade.

Can the minister explain that difference? I think that's the question that British Columbians are asking.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. We're not going to start until….

Hon. C. Hansen: As I mentioned earlier, there are several studies that have been done that look at the games from different perspectives. But if you look at just the spending budget of VANOC itself — about $1.7 billion — the vast, vast majority of that is coming from non-taxpayer sources. Just that infusion of $1.7 billion of money into the B.C. economy is a big chunk of the direct benefit.

[1420]

Now, you can add to that the amount of money that the various corporate sponsors are going to be spending in this province.

What they have paid into VANOC as their sponsorship rights is just basically the cost of admission. You'll find that most of those corporate sponsors have significant budgets that they're going to be spending in the province of British Columbia during that period of time.

You could look at it from another perspective, in terms of all the spinoff benefits, in terms of the economic activity that's going to be generated through our restaurants, our hotel industries, our hospitality sector and our taxicabs which are all going to be reaping the benefit of the 250,000 visitors that will be coming to this province.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

B. Ralston: Last week the Minister of Small Business said the games would have a $4 billion economic impact. The minister's own public affairs bureau — he's the minister responsible for it — told their officials to use the figure of $4 billion.
[ Page 2023 ]

The minister seems to be dancing all over the place in terms of coming up with a figure. How does he explain the difference between the $10 billion economic impact he spoke of in the budget in February, the single most important economic document the government lays before the public, and what the minister said last week of $4 billion — a $6 billion difference?

Hon. C. Hansen: First of all, I'm surprised that as the opposition critic for the Ministry of Finance, he's not aware of the responsibilities of the Minister of Finance, which does not include the public affairs bureau.

Secondly, if you look at all of the reports that are coming out by the leading Canadian economists, they were actually forecasting that in 2010 British Columbia is going to be in either first or second place in terms of economic growth in Canada.

When you read the various analyses that those economists have put forward, they flag the fact that we are hosting the Olympics next year as one of the reasons why British Columbia is going to lead Canada in terms of economic growth.

When you actually reflect on the fact that just today Moody's Investors Service came out with a report reconfirming British Columbia's triple-A credit rating…. In Moody's statement today they said this: "The province's track record in managing fiscal pressures and the significant debt reduction achieved in recent years has put British Columbia in a strong position to face current fiscal challenges."

The addition of the Olympics will help that.

COMPTROLLER GENERAL REPORT
ON TRANSLINK AND B.C. FERRIES

H. Bains: That's not the only information this government is hiding from the taxpayers. The Minister of Transportation has had the comptroller general's report into TransLink and B.C. Ferries since October 30 but is still sitting on the report. This report is not the personal property of this minister or of this government.

My question is to the minister. Will the minister commit to releasing the comptroller's report into TransLink and B.C. Ferries today?

Hon. S. Bond: This government is very proud of its record on transportation and infrastructure in British Columbia, and we're happy to talk about it any single day.

The member opposite is correct. The comptroller general has finished her work. She has done an exceptional job. We've committed to make it public, and I can assure the member opposite that, in fact, the release of that report is imminent.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

[1425]

H. Bains: The minister commissioned this report back in July. She has had the final report for over a week now. If she won't table the report today, I ask the minister again: what does she have to hide? Why can't she release the report when the House reconvenes after next week?

Hon. S. Bond: We are very pleased with the work that the comptroller general has done. We made a commitment to release the report publicly, and I can assure the member opposite that we have had…. Actually, I think it was last Thursday that we received the report from the comptroller general. We look forward to releasing it in the very near future.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

M. Farnworth: The minister looks forward to releasing the report imminently. Will she confirm that she will at least release the report before this House rises on the 26th of November?

Hon. S. Bond: Absolutely, yes.

GRIZZLY BEAR POPULATION
ON NORTH COAST

G. Coons: The grizzly bear is perhaps the greatest symbol of the wilderness. Its survival will be the greatest testimony to our environmental commitment. That's the rhetoric we get from this government. But biologists are sounding the alarm about steep declines in the number of grizzly bears in the Great Bear rain forest. Even ministry staff, like Tom Ethier, call the trend "worrying."

The situation is serious. A survey of the Kimsquit drainage of the Great Bear rain forest saw nearly 55 percent fewer bears than average and 65 percent fewer cubs.

My question is to the Minister of Environment. What is his ministry doing to protect grizzly bears in the Great Bear rain forest in light of worrying declines in the number of mother bears with cubs?

Hon. B. Penner: Yes, at my direction the ministry did conduct an aerial survey to evaluate the bear populations on the north coast. It did find that compared to the historical average, the numbers are lower this year, although they're the same as they were last year.

If you look back historically, going back ten or 20 years of those surveys, there are periods where the bear population decreases, and then it increases. There are natural variations over the years in the bear populations on the north coast.

I can say this. This side of the House, this government, has done more to protect grizzly bear
[ Page 2024 ]
populations than any other government in B.C. history, including just a few months ago closing another 470,000 hectares on the midcoast and north coast to grizzly bear hunting. That's a record that our government is proud of.

[End of question period.]

Point of Order

J. Rustad: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan was using a prop that is offensive to the members of this side of the House, and I ask that the member apologize for his actions.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Member, I'll take it under advisement and investigate the matter.

D. Black: I seek leave to present a petition.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Petitions

D. Black: I present the House with a petition signed by several hundred people in New Westminster opposing the HST.

J. Brar: I seek leave to present a petition as well.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

J. Brar: I present the House with a petition signed by 553 people opposing the HST.

D. McRae: I seek leave to present a petition from the Comox Valley.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

D. McRae: I have a petition from the residents of the Comox Valley asking that the Vancouver Island Health Authority please reconsider the decision to cut funding to all crisis lines on Vancouver Island.

[1430]

L. Krog: I seek leave to present a petition.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

L. Krog: I present a petition signed by hundreds of people opposing the HST.

A. Dix: I'd like to present a petition that hundreds of people have signed in the last two days in support of ambulance paramedics in British Columbia.

R. Chouhan: I seek leave to present a petition.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

R. Chouhan: I have hundreds of people signing this petition from the Kamloops area concerned about the availability and level of ambulance services in their community.

Orders of the Day

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

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 21 — Ambulance Services
Collective Agreement Act

(continued)

C. Trevena: I would like to speak on Bill 21, the legislation in front of the House, second reading. I would like to add my voice to it. During the election campaign and beyond the election campaign, I talked to many paramedics and said that I would speak about their concerns that I think are the concerns of many people.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

My colleagues on this side of the House have talked about the various aspects of this bill: the impact on free collective bargaining — rights which are hard fought for and should be protected — and whether or not this is a move to change the format of the Ambulance Service and, in effect, to privatize the Ambulance Service.

I would actually like to just talk about what it's like to be a paramedic in a rural community. I was speaking earlier today with Keli Doak, who is a paramedic from Port Hardy. She's in the middle of a 62-hour shift. How this happens — a 62-hour shift — is that she picked up her pager on Sunday evening, and she did ten hours on a pager Sunday evening. Then it's 14 hours in the station and then ten hours on the pager and 14 hours back in the station. So she is effectively running 62 hours on call, ready to go and work in her community.

She loves being a paramedic. She wants to work in a community. She wants to be able to carry on working in a community. She has two other jobs to make it possible to work in her community. Her average pay last
[ Page 2025 ]
year, she worked out, with the on-call pay and other pay, was $4 an hour. That's why she has to work in other jobs to maintain what she really wants to do.

Keli has spent $14,000 this year to upgrade her skills to work as a paramedic, and she wants to be able to commit that she can carry on. It's been $14,000 of her own money. I know that in various professions, people are expected to pay for their education. But when the recompense is so slight, it is particularly onerous for paramedics.

Keli is at home at the moment on her pager, which she says is fine. It's something that she accepts because she wants to be a paramedic and wants to carry on. But as she says, she can't do her gardening and can't get very dirty because she might be out on call. She couldn't start doing any painting because, again, of what's going to happen if she's on call. She can't put a roast in the oven or start any baking because she's on call. She's willing to accept this because of being a paramedic.

[1435]

Keli is not alone. There are many other people in rural communities who are living this sort of lifestyle, who are trying to make a career of it.

The other concern that Keli has and that I think many other paramedics have is that as an EMR she is able to do only a certain amount of work and only certain levels of care in an emergency situation. Many other people, particularly in rural areas, aren't emergency care. They are just drivers. Often you have somebody coming to pick you up who is only qualified to deal with certain levels of care. You have an EMR and a driver working together.

It's somebody coming in to pick you up. They don't know what the level of need is. As it has been described to me, if you have an EMR and a driver or two EMR people working together and picking somebody up who's had an allergic reaction, there is a really good chance that they're not going to survive. This is not for want of trying.

This is really the issue of recruitment and retention — recruitment and getting people more qualified, and being able to retain them in the service, retain them in rural areas, keep them working.

This is just one example. This is just one person. I was talking to many people and continue to talk to many paramedics around my communities across the constituency. Whether it's in Alert Bay, where we're talking about an island…. We're talking about having to pick people up, get them on the ferry and across if they need to leave the island.

Similarly on Malcolm Island, Cortes and Quadra or in Zeballos where you've got a 43-kilometre logging road or out in Port Alice where you've got a very winding former logging road, now paved. It's a community that gets fogged in. Tahsis — 63 kilometres just to Gold River and then beyond.

All these communities expect care and have paramedics who want to provide care, who want to make a career of it and want to contribute to their communities. A number of them said: "I'm so lucky I'm a paramedic. I love going to work. I love getting up in the morning to go to work."

But they're paramedics who are getting burnt out, can't continue and can't continue at the level of pay and who are, frankly, very, very concerned about Bill 21 and about what it means — what it means in the long term. As I think everybody is aware, Bill 21 is only taking us through until the end of March, so they are uncertain what is going to happen in April.

As I said, I wanted to tell the House the story of Keli as an example of other paramedics across rural communities and say that it's because of people like Keli and many other paramedics who we meet many times and on whom we rely and who, if we are in need in an emergency, we hope would come to us. We can't take our paramedics for granted and should really treat them with the respect and support that people who are putting such an amount of time and such an amount of commitment into our communities deserve.

With that, I'll take my seat.

D. Thorne: I rise today to make a few comments on Bill 21, the so-called Ambulance Services Collective Agreement Act. I wish I could say that I was pleased to rise today to speak to this, but that would be untrue. I am not pleased at all to have to rise because I'm not pleased at all with this legislation.

This government, by forcing back-to-work legislation on striking paramedics who are currently working under essential services order, is undermining the first principle of collective bargaining, which is respect and trust between the two parties. By taking this unprecedented and heavy-handed approach, this government is not only undermining the right of paramedics to collective bargaining; they are detrimentally impacting on future collective bargaining overall in this province.

Bill 21 calls for a retroactive one-year deal with a 3 percent wage hike. This legislated collective agreement will expire on March 31, 2010. This bill is unprecedented in how it is interrupting the collective bargaining process.

[1440]

The membership of CUPE 873 is currently voting by mail-in ballot on the government's September 28 offer, with results expected this Friday, November 6, 2009. These paramedics have been on strike since April 1 for better staffing levels, wages and an independent industrial inquiry commission to address the critical condition of ambulance services in British Columbia.

This move is unprecedented because it marks the first time in Canadian labour history that a government has forced public employees to accept a collective agreement while the union is in the middle of voting on an offer from that same government. With public sector bargaining
[ Page 2026 ]
coming up in 2010, this heavy-handed move by the government has damaged the possibility of any meaningful collective bargaining process for the rest of the public sector.

I wonder if pressure from VANOC has encouraged this legislation. The Ambulance Service apparently was canvassing other Canadian EMS agencies, looking for volunteers for the Olympics, but the message that was delivered to those out-of-province paramedics from these paramedics was to decline invitations to participate to prevent them crossing a picket line.

This message is clear. The B.C. government could have appointed an independent arbitrator and settled the paramedic strike months ago. Instead, they chose to drag their feet and are now imposing a settlement even as ambulance paramedics are voting on that same offer. The essential services order has protected the public from withdrawal of ambulance services, so that really was not at issue.

All this bill will do, as I have said, is inflame the labour relations climate just months before public sector negotiations and will further damage a health care system that is already reeling from many, many cuts by this government. The government will have to go back to the table with the paramedics on April 1, but with this heavy-handed approach, they're setting these negotiations up for failure.

Just a little bit of background on how we got to this terrible position that we are in today. In December 2008 the CUPE Local 873 entered into bargaining with their employer in advance of their collective agreement expiring on March 31, 2009. In March 2009 the union requested a mediator from the Labour Relations Board. This appointed mediator determined at that time that the parties were too far apart to be assisted by mediation.

In mid-March another independent mediator met with the parties, and on March 25 the employer tabled a proposal for a one-year contract. At this point bargaining ceased. The union went on strike on April 1.

Since the strike began, paramedics have been subject to essential services orders that have required them to provide 100 percent of pre-hospital care, which compels them to work overtime in excess of what their collective agreement requires. These orders have had the effect of severely limiting any pressure that could be brought to bear by the union.

This has continued. I'm not going to read out all these facts. I think we're all after…. My colleagues have spoken on this many times. We know that the employer has rejected every offer at the bargaining table and that meetings between the parties in June failed to resolve the dispute, and we have ended up where we are today.

The B.C. Ambulance Service provides public ambulance service in B.C. under the authority of the Emergency and Health Services Commission of the provincial Ministry of Health. In 1974 government legislation was enacted to create the first ambulance service. It was formed in response to the growing concerns about the conditions that were then present in the ambulance industry of the day.

Emergency pre-hospital medical services were then supplied by a mixture of commercial operators. Some operated from funeral homes, some were partially subsidized by many municipalities, some were based with volunteer fire departments, and some existed on paid subscriptions from the public.

The competition between ambulance companies was intense. Standards were not uniformly observed, and effective patient care was often an afterthought. Today the Ambulance Service employs approximately 1,100 full-time paramedic and dispatch personnel, 2,200 part-time staff and around 100 provincial support personnel. The provincial call volume is around 5,300 calls annually, ranking the B.C. Ambulance Service as one of the largest ambulance services in North America.

[1445]

The Ambulance Service leases dedicated air-ambulance aircraft from provincial carriers, with around 880 air evacuations annually. There are about 144,000 to 150,000 patient transfers between medical facilities by ground ambulances. The Ambulance Service is intended to bridge the major regional disparities in both geography and population densities across this province.

One challenge that faces the Ambulance Service is a structural change caused by decisions made by this government. By closing hospitals, the distances that ambulances had to travel throughout the province were lengthened. By reducing the numbers of acute care beds in hospitals as well as not providing the 5,000 long-term care beds that were promised for seniors care, the number of acute care beds that were available in the hospitals decreased. Now we have ambulances turning up at emergency wards and backing up because there is no place to discharge patients into the hospital system.

Therefore, with the ambulance system being responsible for that patient until they are turned over to the hospital, we end up with backlogs of the ambulance system waiting to discharge patients while they cannot return and do their major function, which is one of initial response as well as transporting the patient to where more extensive care can be provided.

Another challenge is one of the disparity between the urban and rural geographies. That raises the issue of training and the retention of licensed paramedics across the province of British Columbia. There are three categories that exist among stations — remote, rural and urban designations. In a remote designated station, the paramedic is paid a $2-per-hour pager call-out until his or her service is activated, and then he goes on full-scale payout.

When one looks at the literally thousands of dollars that a paramedic invests in order to get their training, to remain on the job when you're receiving a $2-per-hour
[ Page 2027 ]
pager call simply does not work. Therefore, the paramedic leaves the rural area and goes to where they can get more full employment within the system, or they simply leave and go to the public system industry or what have you, where they will receive a much more stable and larger remuneration.

For example, there are three remote designated stations in the Cariboo — in Clinton, Alexis Creek and Anahim Lake — and there are three rural designated stations — in Ashcroft, 100 Mile House and Williams Lake. These paramedics stationed at the rural designation station receive a $10-per-hour call-out, and upon receiving a call, they go to full scale. Remote stations are often out of service or have reduced service because the paramedics do not stay in those areas for obvious reasons.

There are not enough to operate them seven-24. For example, in August 2007 the Alexis Creek station was completely out of service for an entire month. That, in essence, left an entire corridor between Williams Lake and Bella Coola out of service and on reduced service, as well, for extended periods of time.

It's equally important to be aware that with rural settings at the stations that require a call from outside of their areas, it often adds an additional one hour of travel time before they even begin travelling. There are cases in which ambulances from 100 Mile House have been required to go into the Chilcotin to respond. This has put an additional two hours of call-response time to get to the area where the ambulance is required. This issue of training and retention is a challenge that exists, and it exists and is felt primarily in the rural parts of the province of British Columbia.

Another challenge is the fact that the communications system is often unreliable. Presently, communications are provided through dispatch centres in Vancouver, Victoria and Kamloops. The Kamloops dispatch station in 2005 was identified by the Ambulance Service as requiring significant upgrades, and the entire system required communication upgrades in order to integrate the communication between these three dispatch centres.

[1450]

In 2007 the same Kamloops station suffered a malfunction and was taken out of service for a period of time. With it being out of service, it has now been relocated to a temporary location. It's time for the province to address communication, and this is part of the package that needs to be addressed when we talk about the problems in the ambulance system.

There's another challenge that I'd like to draw attention to. It is around the Lower Mainland ambulance stations, which are often in poor condition and with staffing that is not always adequate.

I'd like to just read one story here from the wife of a paramedic. They were living in Prince Rupert, but they ended up moving to Coquitlam for the following reasons. Actually, they were living…. He was hired in September 2002 — Mr. Schwenning — to work part-time in a small Vancouver Island community about a two-hour drive from their hometown.

Because of the two-hour pager wage, he did not make enough money to quit his full-time job. So he worked Monday to Friday at a sawmill and then drove the two hours to the BCAS station to put in his Saturday and Sunday shifts. On weekends when he did not receive a call, he would end up making $48 for the whole weekend. Subtract his gas and his food costs, and he would come home Sunday night in the red.

After two years and additional training, he was able to transfer to the station in his own hometown. Although he still only made $2 an hour on pager, he was at least able to be at home with his family. He was able to quit his job at the sawmill because shifts became busier, but he had to work 29 shifts a month with the BCAS in order to make ends meet.

It was not until March of 2007 that he had enough seniority to get a full-time position on the Lower Mainland, which meant being paid a regular wage for his whole shift and benefits. Part-time paramedics do not get benefits before they have served for six years, Madam Speaker.

The Lower Mainland job meant commuting from the Island until the family decided to move to Coquitlam, my own hometown. But the Ambulance Service in Coquitlam was so understaffed that Kristy's husband usually came home at the end of 12 hours without having even had a meal break. He invested 18 months and thousands of dollars to further his paramedic career.

His wife's comment to me was: "I wonder why he would stay working for an employer who just doesn't seem to care about him. The answer never changes," said Kristy. "He loves his job and he is good at it too."

Looking at these statistics and looking at all of the different issues, I looked up some of the comments that have been made in Hansard by some of the members on the opposite side, and I'd just like to read those out.

The member from Mission a couple of years ago had this to say about paramedics:

"I want to talk about the individual members, the individual paramedics, that are out there working in British Columbia. I want to speak just for a moment about the leadership that John Strohmaier, the head of the paramedics union, has shown, in advancing what I consider to be a really important program that the paramedics of British Columbia are doing on a volunteer basis, and that is running CPR training in high schools throughout British Columbia."

I'm just reading little excerpts. The member carried on, saying: "I know that some time ago I worked with…John to set up a program…and it seemed to me that it would be a wise thing for us to be able to say" that we have this training for people in case they have a heart attack while they're visiting British Columbia, because we have the most people trained in CPR. "I think that's a…laudable goal, and it's one that I know the paramedics are working to try and accomplish."
[ Page 2028 ]

I also think that I would agree with the member that that was and probably still is a very laudable goal, but volunteer work and paid work — your job — are two very distinct things. Even though paramedics are known for the volunteer work that they do, we shouldn't be expecting them to be working in a job that has a call-out and wages that make the job. When you look at some of the facts and figures that I've read into the record here today, it makes it seem like they're doing volunteer work a lot of the time, when actually it's a paid job.

I'd like to just read comments that the member for Nechako Lakes made a year or so ago in the House.

[1455]

"There was no question that the Ambulance Service in this province is critical. It's critical to the health care system, but more importantly, it's critical to anyone who needs the service.

"My family had an issue this summer and had to call 911 and had to have an ambulance…. I can tell you.… When you're waiting a minute, it seems like an hour. But…within five minutes…the ambulance was at the door…. I have to tell you, Madam Speaker, that the professionalism" that they have shown and they continue to show "is second to none. It is absolutely phenomenal."

"When we talk about ambulance services and paramedics and the services they do provide…. "

One of the things is that paramedics provide an unbelievable service in there as well.

"One of the previous speakers talked about seeing ambulance parked at hospitals. It just so happens that we actually have paramedics now in hospitals, helping to provide treatment directly in the service."

I think that it goes without saying that both sides of the House consider paramedics to be one of the most important services and one of the best-delivered services in British Columbia at this time and absolutely essential to all of us. I think the difference probably comes down to the way that we look at providing the service, how the service gets provided, as opposed to some of the members on the other side.

I am going to close today by just quoting some facts and figures here about response times and how we need to work on trying to meet the benchmark, where 90 percent of critical calls are covered within nine minutes — critical calls which would include chest pain, cardiac arrest, shortness of breath and other life-threatening emergencies.

In 2007 and 2008 this benchmark was only reached 52 percent of the time and only in urban and metropolitan areas. In remote and urban areas this benchmark of nine minutes is almost never met.

Just looking through this list here, some of the longest response times were up to 24 or almost 25 minutes in Agassiz, 14 minutes in Alert Bay, 32 minutes in Alexis Creek, 30 minutes in Anahim Lake, 12 minutes in Barriere, almost 39 minutes in Bella Bella, 27 minutes in Big White.

I could go on and on. Boston Bar, 20 minutes; Bowen Island, almost 19 minutes; North Burnaby, 11 minutes; Chase, ten minutes; Castlegar, 11 and almost 12 minutes. The numbers are staggering in Clearwater and Clinton — almost 25 minutes and 20 minutes.

It is obvious that we're understaffed in the Ambulance Service. It is obvious that the system is certainly in crisis, if not in chaos, and this latest move by the government to impose this and to not deal with the members, the paramedics of British Columbia, in a decent way and impose a settlement like this in the middle of a vote that is unprecedented across the country is rather horrifying to me.

I don't have a huge labour relations or union background myself, but let me tell you that what I have learned since I have come to this House has not been happy for me. It's not been good news. I don't think we treat working people in this province very well in a lot of instances, and I have no doubt that this is one of them.

D. Donaldson: I rise today to speak against Bill 21. I oftentimes try to keep a positive attitude in this Legislature, and I have risen before to speak in favour of bills and parts of bills that this government has introduced in this sitting.

[1500]

I try to keep my words moderate at all times and try to work on a collaborative basis. But the only way I can typify this bill is to say that it's a vile bill. The reason it's vile to me and to people I know who are paramedics and to people who need these kinds of services in the north and in the remote rural regions that I represent is that it shows no respect for democratic processes like collective bargaining, and it shows no respect to paramedics, especially those servicing the rural areas that I represent.

I want to talk a little about the challenges that are faced by the paramedics in my constituency, in the rural areas. I have five or six communities that have on-call volunteer paramedic ambulance services, and we're talking over a huge geographic area. Highway 16 alone is at least 150 kilometres that these paramedics cover, and then there's Highway 37, all the way up to the Yukon border. So the distances are enormous that they're expected to cover, and the situations that they encounter can be horrific.

These are isolated areas, highways, where once the paramedics arrive, if there's a terrible accident or situation, they're faced with stabilizing and dealing with the patient but then also spending perhaps a couple of hours transporting them to the closest hospital. You can only imagine the kind of stress that they're under in dealing with a critically ill patient for over a couple of hours — perhaps even more, if the road conditions are as bad as they can be this time of year and at other times of the year.

Those are the kinds of situations that they're faced with up where I live. Compared to other areas of the province, I have to say that in the rural areas we see the paramedics and the Ambulance Service as a really critical part of our health care system, as our response system to health emergencies. That's because there are only two hospitals in that
[ Page 2029 ]
entire area that I mentioned, so the options of going for care in other areas — transporting yourself on your own to hospital, for instance, or accessing other areas of the health service system — just aren't there.

In fact, we have no acute care facilities in our hospitals in my constituency. What happens is that the paramedics end up working very closely with the doctors in those hospitals and clinics in trying to stabilize the patients, and they often get flown out to other areas of the province that have more in-depth services around acute care.

Then the paramedics are faced with not only dropping off the patient and getting the patient stabilized in a clinic or hospital but waiting and picking up that patient to drive them again to another hospital, where they get further stabilized, and then they get flown out, perhaps, or transferred to another hospital. Conceivably, the paramedic could be dealing with the same patient over and over. It creates even further stress on an already stressed system.

I talked about the horrific situations. Also, the reality in small communities — and some of the members on the other side will know this because they come from smaller communities — is that we often know the paramedics, and the paramedics often know the people in the community. So it's not just that they're picking up an anonymous patient; they could be picking up a friend, a relative, a friend of a friend.

Those extended family and extended friendship situations aren't recognized under this bill or in how we're dealing with the rural situation, because that's an even more stressful situation.

What happens is that the paramedic then goes home. It can't just easily be dismissed, and it causes stress throughout their lives and other aspects as well. I'm just trying to paint the situation that we face in rural situations.

In fact, I've used and have been the recipient of the paramedic and ambulance services on a couple of occasions — not in a serious situation, I hasten to add, but in playing hockey. I had the unfortunate experience of dislocating a kneecap in playing hockey in a recreational league. I don't know if any of the members have had a dislocation of a joint, but it's not a fun experience.

[1505]

I wouldn't know, but I've been told…. I don't know, but I suppose if a woman has experienced that…. Some liken it to the pain of going through childbirth. I don't know, obviously, what that pain might be like, but I know what it feels like to have a dislocated kneecap, and there's not the same joy at the end of the process as there is in childbirth. That's for sure.

I've had the experience of the paramedic service where I live in Hazelton pick me up and attend to me in that situation. They were extremely professional — incredible service. Unfortunately, I went back to playing hockey within a year and dislocated the other kneecap, so I don't play hockey anymore. I just wanted to let the House know that and let the paramedics in my area know that.

They had to come and pick me up on the second occasion. On that occasion I wasn't even in as good a mood as I was on the first. In a state of pain, you often say things that you aren't too proud of later on. So I took some gifts the next day to the Ambulance Service station in my area and just said: "I'm sorry." But this is the kind of thing that they face — people they know that they don't expect to get that kind of reaction from, because in small communities we all know each other.

I wanted to continue on that theme of respect or lack of it. We've had a number of letters come in on this bill from paramedics. Here's one paramedic who writes…. They were watching the Hansard TV channel a couple of days ago or perhaps yesterday. Their comment was:

"Why didn't a single Liberal MLA, particularly those representing rural areas, stand up to speak for their constituents? How shameful it is that they ducked their heads between their legs when the issue was spoken of."

This paramedic goes on to say:

"I moved to B.C. in 2007, and I have already started applying for paramedic positions in other provinces. B.C. is the most expensive province to live in, yet it has the lowest minimum wage and the lowest regard for their paramedics. I invite my paramedic brothers and sisters to do the same thing. The Liberals have made B.C. a sinking ship, and I have no intention of sacrificing my family's future."

This just demonstrates what one paramedic feels is the lack of respect that this bill introduces.

It's not just one paramedic. We're hearing this over and over again. He alludes in this letter to leaving the province. We've had young paramedics where I live go through the training at their own expense, pay for it, in trying to make this a profession. Then they find that because of the situation in rural areas, they're unable to even pay for that training — they take out loans to go for that training — or to make a livelihood once they get that training.

They end up moving to bigger centres where there are more calls. We end up losing the younger people especially from our area, who are getting trained up. They're using it as an experience, a training ground, and then moving to other centres.

As my colleagues and as the paramedics point out, training and retention are significant factors in this bargaining session they're having, or they were trying to have, with the government. To have the Minister of Health, when he introduced this bill, say that he was going to look into the special situation in rural areas just isn't good enough.

It has to be laid out more, and that's not in this bill. It's not good enough for the Minister of Health to skip on that in this bill. It doesn't address many of the issues that we're hearing from paramedics.

I wanted to also read, on the theme of respect…. This is from a paramedic that I know — completely unsolicited, I might add — a letter that he wrote. I think it goes a
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long way to explain the kind of horrific situations that paramedics face, in my constituency anyway.

[1510]

"Just a quick note to let you know that as a paramedic, I feel that the province is really letting us down with Bill 21. For the most part, I just don't think that people know what we really have to do in our job — stuff like picking up dead bodies, young and old; continuous risk of injury, disease; and cleaning up behind people's health mishaps. In my three and a half years of being a paramedic, I have seen things that I would not wish on anyone. We do the job and work hard at it.

"Then the government slaps us in the face by telling us that we should feel happy to work for $2 per hour and is interested in forcing us to do so. Who works for $20 to $24 per day in Canada? Why does this government treat the people responsible for saving lives of our fellow British Columbians this way? Has any one of the people in the Legislature given CPR to a dying baby? Do they know what the job entails? It would be a good idea to educate themselves before treating us so poorly.

"Say no to Bill 21 this week."

I think that letter outlines just some of the horrific conditions that are faced by our rural paramedics and also alludes to and describes well the on-call wage of $2 an hour that paramedics in my constituency have. We still don't know what the minister has in this bill around that $2-an-hour on-call wage. I'm not sure if the 3 percent applies to that, which would mean they would be making $2.06 an hour. I think that would not add to the retention of paramedics or the recruitment of new paramedics, in my area especially.

Many of the paramedics in my area…. It's a rural area, so not everybody lives in town. In fact, the town that I live in is only 350 people. Many of the paramedics come from further distances away, 30 kilometres or more, to come to the station. It means, oftentimes, that when they're on call, they want to be closer, so they spend time away from their families at the stations. And they're compensated for that by being paid $2 an hour.

I want to talk a bit more about the democratic institution of collective bargaining. If this is a situation that the government felt was so dire, as dire as it is, then an independent arbitrator could have been appointed long ago and helped to settle this action. That would have been a fair thing to do, especially considering how these jobs are typified as emergency services. Introducing this bill is going to inflame — it can't do anything but inflame — the labour relations climate just months before we go into public sector negotiations and further damage the health care system that's already reeling from the cuts that we've seen.

I have another letter from another paramedic I know. I saw this fellow just recently when I was back in my constituency. We were at the video store, and I bumped into him. I asked him how it was going. He let me know a few things. Then I was happy to see that this week he's written me a letter. I think the letter also addresses the whole issue of respect for the democratic process of collective bargaining. He writes:

"I've never written to my MLA before, but I'm moved to do so now to express my thanks for your and the NDP's support of the B.C. paramedics and for your opposition to Bill 21.

"I spent the afternoon at the ambulance station watching the Legislature debate this bill and had to fight down my growing sense of outrage over what the Premier and the Minister of Health and the Liberals are doing. We have been simply fighting for recognition, respect, our own dignity, and now to have this government turn to such a draconian tactic is demoralizing and disgusting.

"That they would stoop to such a level is not surprising, as for months now the Liberal government has treated us vindictively, ignoring any opportunity to add something positive or constructive into the negotiating process and ignoring the public support that the vast majority of British Columbians have been expressing for us and our cause. I fear that this bill will not end this dispute but rather inflame it to a point that there could be dire consequences as a result.

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"How can it be that paramedics can, on the one hand, be labelled essential by the government while, on the other, be treated like something to be scraped off the bottom of a shoe? The hypocrisy of this bill is sickening.

"Once again, my sincere thanks to you and those in the Legislature who are voicing their opposition to this irresponsible and hateful legislation."

He signs it "Sincerely," then his name and then: "A paramedic looking for another line of work."

Again, it's the respect that's not being shown or felt, not just for the paramedics but the democratic institution that's involved in this, called collective bargaining, which is a democratic right that we've had our veterans, our relatives and people we know fight for in the world, to retain that kind of right. We reflect on that as we approach Remembrance Day. They oftentimes sacrificed in the largest way possible — giving up their lives — to ensure that we have something called collective bargaining and the democratic right to that.

I would like to wrap up just by reiterating that I have the utmost contempt for this vile bill. It shows no respect to the paramedics and to the democratic institution of collective bargaining. It doesn't lay out the situation faced by our rural paramedics, doesn't talk about what we can do to resolve that situation, and therefore, I speak in opposition to it.

J. Kwan: I rise to speak to Bill 21, what I would call the back-to-work legislation for the paramedics in British Columbia. I have to say, Madam Speaker, I've been around the Legislature for quite some time now, and every time the government wields its legislative hammer to order the workers back to work, it still does shock me.

Let us just review the situation here with respect to the paramedics and what's happened to date. I went back to look at the Hansard Blues on November 3, 2009, where second reading began on this bill — Bill 21, the Ambulance Services Collective Agreement Act, so the government calls it. The Minister of Health did not once mention the VANOC request — a letter which the minister received, information that the minister received — and that it was at VANOC'S request that the strike end before the 2010 Olympics, therefore letting VANOC be
[ Page 2031 ]
the organization to decide how collective bargaining should take place in British Columbia.

In his guise, what the Minister of Health did was to instead blame the crisis of the health care system on H1N1. It was only after the minister was exposed, caught red-handed, that he finally admitted that one of the reasons why we're in this Legislature today debating Bill 21 is because the government wanted to grant VANOC'S wish. I guess the government wanted to showcase to the rest of the world, when they come for 2010, that British Columbia is unblemished.

If the government wants to showcase that, they could actually have done that in a number of ways. They could have actually shown goodwill in the collective bargaining process. The government could have acted to try to end the impasse.

What is causing the impasse? Let's be clear about that and put that on the record. In June of 2008, a committee of paramedics and managers recommended that staffing levels be increased by 96 hours per day in the Lower Mainland and an additional 24-hour ambulance in each of the four different areas. This was to address the current shortage.

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There is a tremendous shortage of ambulance services all across the province of British Columbia. Instead of actually dealing with that critical issue, what did the government do? The government added 20 full-time paramedic positions, enough for one 24-hour ambulance service and two additional 11-hour shifts per day. That's 46 hours in total.

Imagine that, for a moment. At a time when we have a critical shortage of ambulance services, the government does not have the wherewithal to ensure that we have appropriate services across the province of British Columbia. It does not have the conviction to ensure there are enough resources in the system to support the health care needs of British Columbians.

I've heard it so many times now from the Minister of Health in this very House. He got up and waxed eloquent and made false promises to British Columbians by saying that health care will be delivered to you where you need it and when you need it. Well, if that's the case, why wouldn't the government meet the Ambulance Service's request, the paramedics' request of ensuring that there be appropriate staffing levels — staffing levels that are required for all the stations across British Columbia so that British Columbians, when they're in a health care crisis and have to call 911, actually get the service that they need?

That is the critical issue we face with this government in our health care delivery. And guess what. They turn a blind eye. They couldn't give a hoot about what the real issues are. Instead, they try to cast false images of the issues at hand. They try to erase it. They try to hide behind some other issue.

In this instance, the Minister of Health is on the record suggesting that the whole problem we face with this piece of legislation — why we're here today — is because of the H1N1. And get this: we just heard in question period today on the H1N1 situation that the government has done nothing to ensure that the paramedics themselves actually get the immunization shots.

These are front-line workers who are going out there to deal with the sick and the people who are in health traumas and health crisis. They travel from one end of the city to the other end of the city, and they face these situations. They're exposed to all sorts of illnesses and disease along the way, yet the government does not see fit to ensure that paramedics get the immunization shots for H1N1.

Then the government goes on to blame…. "Oh, but we have a crisis here because there's H1N1." The Minister of Health goes on to say: "And paramedics are calling in sick."

Oh, really? You think? These are the very people who are exposed to disease — front-line people. You would think that they'd be one of the first sets of people to go and get the shots. When we as citizens in our community fall ill, are in a crisis situation and have to phone 911, those workers are first protected so they can do their job to provide the assistance to those who are in need.

Why wouldn't the government act on that? It is mystifying to me. It defies logic. It makes no common sense.

The Ambulance Service is running limited clinics that don't work for the paramedic schedules. How difficult would it be to sort that out, for the government to say: "Wait a minute. We need to sort that out to make sure that paramedics get to the clinics to get their shots"?

But no, not this minister. He says that's not a priority for him — couldn't interfere. That would be political interference. Well, I would say that ensuring that the paramedics and the front-line health care workers get their shots so that they can do their jobs is absolutely essential for a health care service in British Columbia.

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I live in Vancouver. I represent a riding called Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. I have the fortune, of course, of having very good services from the paramedics in my community, and so do my constituents. But let me just say: let us not be under any illusion that they are not under stress each and every single day.

Imagine if you were a paramedic and when you get called to show up somewhere…. You're not being invited to go to a party; you're not being invited to go to a happy situation. Each and every single call that comes through for a paramedic, all throughout the province of British Columbia, means that a paramedic would be faced with a trauma situation. Somebody is in critical distress. A family is in critical distress. Somebody has experienced a car accident. Who knows? They may face death on the other end — right there, staring them in the face — and they have to act.
[ Page 2032 ]

Imagine the test of that each and every single day. That is your job, every moment, and you never know what's coming on the other line each time the phone rings. You just don't know. When you get into your ambulance car and you're on the dispatch and driving fast and furious trying to get to the destination to see how you can help, you just don't know if it's a case where it's a domestic violence situation and somebody has been critically injured. It could be a stabbing wound or any such thing.

You don't know if it's a woman or a child or a baby. You don't know if it's a senior who's worked all their lives to support their family and in their golden years, all of a sudden, has suffered some ill health — cardiac arrest, any number of those things.

Imagine the stress of that on paramedics. Thank goodness for them doing their job because they do it well and do it with passion. They do it because they believe in it. Shouldn't we as legislators come together and say: "Thank you for the work that you do because without you, we cannot as a community survive; without you, we as individuals cannot survive and we as families cannot survive"?

In my riding — let me just give this piece of information for members of this House — it is absolutely shocking the amount of work that they do. Between 2008 and 2009 the paramedics in Vancouver Cordova station, which is in my riding, answered 25,306 calls. That's 25,306 people in distress with a major health crisis on their hands, and they showed up each and every time to assist.

As I said, you never know what you would face on the other side. You never know. It could be an overdose in my riding, someone who literally is on the cusp of dying. It could be a major wound from some sort of dispute. It could be from natural causes, some sort of heart attack, some sort of illness. You just don't know, and they show up at the scene to see what they could do.

I have to say a big thank-you to the paramedics because I believe they saved the life of my husband, who works in the Downtown Eastside. Last summer my husband had the unfortunate experience of having…. At the time we didn't know, but it was that his heart suffered a viral attack. It might have been there for some time, and it didn't act up. But he was at work one day, and all of a sudden, he collapsed.

Thank goodness the paramedics were called. They attended to him. They revived him, and I believe they saved his life. I really believe that. It was shocking. He was a healthy man. He is a healthy man — still with us, thank goodness. They acted, and they acted fast. They made the interventions.

The nurses there at the time, as well, responded by saying that had there not been this immediate intervention, they didn't know if he would have made it. It was a very strange experience. We didn't know what caused it, and for a long time the doctors were befuddled. But I have to say it was good fortune for me and my family because at that time I was pregnant with our second child. By good fortune, the paramedics arrived in time for him and for my family.

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They make a heck of a difference. They make a difference for all of us, and we feel it each and every day. I have to say I feel it each and every day, and I thank the spirits above for watching over and for the good work that they do.

Here we are today fighting for the dignity of paramedics, for the good work that they do. Why do we have to do that? Why do we have to stoop to this level, where we strip paramedics of their dignity, of the government forcing them back to work, where they don't have the right to collectively bargain?

It's something that all workers should have the right to do, something that the UN holds up as one of the principles of a democratic society that we should honour. But in this province, in British Columbia, under this government's leadership, time and time again the government breached that principle and ripped the workers of those rights.

It is shameful, each and every time I have to get up in this House and respond to the government's back-to-work legislation, because they know that they have the power to wield the legislative hammer on the heads of workers. That's what the government is doing. There is no reason why we're here today. If the government was genuine in the belief in wanting to settle the agreement, the bargaining process, the government could have ensured that they put the mechanisms in place.

They could have addressed the very issue that concerns paramedics, and that is their workload. They could address the very issue. Yes, it is about pay, about recognizing their work and the value of that work and what it means to British Columbians.

Let us remember that the paramedics actually did not get a raise when this government got into office back in 2001 in that round of bargaining, because that government at that time claimed that they couldn't afford it. They couldn't afford it. They went and actually threw a bunch of money out the window with tax breaks for big corporations, but they could not give a raise to paramedics, and they froze their wages. That's the truth of it.

I have to say that I find it astounding that we're here in this debate. And guess what's going on: the middle of a vote for the paramedics themselves. The government put an offer on the table. The vote is taking place right now, folks, and we don't even know what the outcome of that vote is going to be.

Then the government goes: "Oh well, who cares? I'm going to bring forward back-to-work legislation, and I'm going to wield the legislative hammer anyway. Who cares if you accept the offer or not? Who cares if you reject the offer? That's totally irrelevant."
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There's sincerity for you — eh? Do you think that's a real, sincere approach, when the government puts an offer on the table, and the people who have to review that offer and then vote on it — the membership themselves, who make the determination on whether or not they're going to accept that offer…? The government doesn't even give them time to do that.

They say: "Oh well, we're just going to bring in legislation anyway. It doesn't matter what you really think." That's really the mentality of this government all along, isn't it? That's just a false game of pretence from this government all along. They have no intention of bargaining earnestly at the table. They have no intention of being honourable in this process, because why on earth would you bring forward legislation before the membership even gets to vote on it?

It is absolutely the worst display and the most disgraceful display of the government wielding their legislative hammer. This is the first time in the history of British Columbia where the government brought forward back-to-work legislation at the time when a vote is actually taking place. It is unprecedented.

I wish that I was standing here talking about something happy that's unprecedented that this government is doing. For example, when Dave Barrett, the former Premier of the province of British Columbia — an NDP Premier, I'm proud to say — brought forward the whole notion of paramedics for the province of British Columbia.

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Instead of celebrating the work of paramedics, instead of thanking them for their work each and every day, instead of recognizing the risk that they take and sometimes the high-risk situations that they put themselves in, the mental stamina that they must endure, the challenges that they face on the road each and every day, we are here from the government side wanting to hammer these workers on their heads and to say no to them with their collective bargaining rights.

I am just absolutely shocked that the members from the government side are silent, and they're not standing up for their paramedics in their own community. I just received a letter — November 4. So it's a very recent letter. It was addressed to the member for North Vancouver–Seymour. It was copied to me and copied to the Premier.

I suspect that the member for North Vancouver–Seymour would not put this letter on the record. So let me just take that opportunity to do that and challenge her to rise up to represent the paramedics in her own community and challenge every single member from the government side to rise up to represent their paramedics in their own community and get up to thank them for their work and say to this government that it is unacceptable how this government's treating them.

This letter reads:

I received a letter explaining to some degree just what is taking place in B.C. with our Ambulance Service. I've been trying to grasp just what is going on here and have come to the conclusion that the democratic process is at stake here. I do believe that our paramedics are worth every penny — firemen, policemen, etc. They expose themselves and their families to all sorts of different germs and diseases as well as being placed in personal harm when encountering individuals with drug and mental health problems. They have to use diplomatic skills, as they don't have Tasers.

I could really get going on this topic. Drug and mental health problems — our government closes facilities and expects these unfortunate individuals to care for themselves somehow. Now, with the 2010 Olympic Games around the corner, they want to hide what a mess they have created. Please let our government understand that Canadians like myself feel "collective bargaining" is a Canadian right, that it must not be taken away.

Thank you,

C. Ferguson

This is the individual's point of view, not from my riding, and I put this letter on the record because I want to challenge the government MLAs to do the right thing.

It is not that difficult to reflect on the work of the paramedics and what it means. It's not that difficult to see the history of where they've been in the collective bargaining process and what this government has done. It's not that difficult to see through the thin veil of pretence and insincerity of the approach which this government put forward, the pretence that they want to say that they want to treat paramedics fairly, the pretence of saying that they respect the work of paramedics, the pretence of saying that they want to ensure that health care is delivered when British Columbians need it and where they need it.

If the government really stands by those words, then they would withdraw this bill today. If the government truly honoured the work of paramedics, they would withdraw this bill. They would get back to the bargaining table. They would ensure that there are meaningful discussions at the table. They would ensure that there are resources at the table to ease the workload.

They would ensure the paramedics and understand that they would get sick. Yes, they do. Like all humans, they're not super-humans, but they're pretty close to that definition in my account, I must say. But they're not immune from diseases and exposure to diseases. They get sick, and they should be treated as such, as priority cases in getting the H1N1 when we have a pandemic going on in British Columbia, so that they can do the work and treat all of us who might be in distress.

I am just absolutely stunned that we're here today in which the government has caused the chaos and the situation in the paramedic situation.

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Now, the government wants to put forward a good face to world visitors for 2010. I understand that VANOC and all their folks were kind of shocked when the IOC
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came and saw: "Oh, dear. The ambulances all have On Strike in big red letters on them." Oh, that is not very good when the world comes to visit.

Well, there's a fix for that, actually, for the government, and a lesson for the government to learn. They could actually negotiate with the paramedics to end the strike, listen to the paramedics — to what they have to say.

I wonder how many of the government MLAs have actually gone out to visit a paramedic station or have sat down to talk to one of the paramedics and asked them their point of view — what it is that they're going through, what their challenges are and how it is that the government can end this impasse.

I wonder why the government, on the one hand, says…. "Oh," the Minister of Health says, "I've asked the Minister of Labour to get on with it, to fix the structural problems." Why did the government wait until now to fix the structural problems? Why didn't the government act one month, two months, three months, four months, a year, two years ago?

Did they not know that there was a crisis in the paramedic situation? Did they not know there was a major shortage in terms of workers in the area, that they needed more workers? Did they not know that? Did they not know that in some communities people rely only on volunteer paramedics?

Imagine if you lived in the community and you relied on a volunteer paramedic and that volunteer responds to your call when you need it and the government doesn't see fit to say: "Hey, wait a minute, we have some challenges here. In some areas of our community, they're not getting the services that they need, and there are some structural issues here that we need to address." Why wouldn't the government…?

If the government had foresight, they would have acted on these issues and challenges beforehand, not wait and wait and hope for the problem to go away — and not use the legislative power, the big legislative hammer, that they know they can wield at any point, and not just depend on that. That does not bode well for labour relations for British Columbia.

The government may actually think that you can settle this situation at this moment in time, but think about the damage that is done for future years. Think about what kind of message you're sending to the workers of British Columbia. The government could have chosen a different path. They could have chosen a different course, and they refused to do that.

The government says they don't have the money to do that, but they have the money for a half-billion-dollar retractable roof. It is about priorities — isn't it? It is about what we deem to be essential and absolutely important for us to put taxpayers' hard-earned money toward.

The government speaks loud and clear with each of their choices each and every day. They can buy Olympic tickets with a distribution plan for these Olympic tickets that nobody will see. They will spend money on that, and they won't tell you what the plan is. But they won't put resources into the health care system to alleviate the stresses in the health care system. They won't put resources into the paramedic system to ensure that health care is, indeed, delivered where you need it and where they need it — the words of the Health Minister even during this session of the Legislature.

I have to say that the paramedics have faced in my community a 30.05 percent increase in volume between 2002 and 2009. I'm sad to say that I expect the volume of calls in my community will continue to go up. Why do I say that? Why do I make that prediction? Because under this government, we've had the worst child poverty rate for five years in a row. We continue to have the worst child poverty rate across the country.

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In my riding I happen to represent one of the poorest neighbourhoods in all of Canada. People are living in poverty. People are living in trying circumstances. People are just struggling day by day to survive — people who suffer tremendous traumas — and the paramedics attend to their calls no matter what.

With the calls and the increase likely to continue to demand services from the paramedics, it is high time for the government to do the honourable thing: negotiate with them, solve the structural problems. The government can act today. They could actually take this legislation off the table, get back to the bargaining table and make sure that we have a healthy relationship with paramedics so that health care could be delivered to all British Columbians.

S. Simpson: I'm glad that I have the opportunity to stand and to add my voice to the debate over Bill 21. It saddens me that we have to do this. It saddens me that the government made this decision to bring this legislation in at this time. But so be it. We will move on and make our voices heard on this side of the House regarding Bill 21, the Ambulance Services Collective Agreement Act.

What we know, of course, is what this bill does. It's back-to-work legislation that essentially forces a contract…. Well, maybe back-to-work isn't the proper term, since the paramedics are under essential services and are essentially operating at about 100 percent full service as it is.

But what this does is it imposes a contract on the paramedics at a time when what the government should have been doing was finding a way to find a fair resolution to this dispute. Instead, they've taken the heavy-handed approach of imposing this collective agreement at this time, and this doesn't resolve the question. We know that, because this will be back before British Columbians again in a few short months once the Olympics are out of the way.

Sadly, of course, we do know that the real purpose behind this was to deal with the question of the Olympics
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and to get those On Strike signs off ambulances before the world arrives in February.

I believe that the Health Minister, who introduced this legislation, believed that they'd found a quick fix to get them through their problem of the next few months, clearly without much thought or thoughtfulness about what the implications of this are long term — to impose Bill 21 at this time. What those are….

It's a situation where you're taking one of the most valued and critical essential services that we deliver in this province, the B.C. Ambulance Service and the paramedics who deliver that service across British Columbia, and you're saying to them that we don't have respect — that the government side of this House doesn't have respect and value for what they do, that the government side of this House doesn't have value for a collective bargaining process and doesn't respect it, that the government side of this House is prepared to use a legislative hammer to deal with a matter that should be seen as being more delicate than that and should be seen as trying to find ways to rebuild the Ambulance Service rather than to drive it further into despair. That is exactly what Bill 21 will do.

We all know that paramedics perform a remarkable service in this province. They are the people that you call when somebody has a heart attack. They are the people that you call when somebody has a stroke. They are the people you call when the question of saving a life is at hand. They are the people who come. They come in sometimes very challenging situations.

The member for Mount Pleasant spoke about her constituency, and I've certainly spoken to a number of paramedics who work the Downtown Eastside and who work my area in East Hastings. I know the challenges that they face in order to accomplish and to do their job. But the government, clearly, doesn't find that important, because the government will turn its back on that and turn its back on the people who deliver those services.

[1550]

Part of the challenge here is that the government has chosen not to listen to those voices, to not listen to the people who deliver those services — the paramedics. Part of our challenge here, as members of the opposition, is to provide those voices and to more clearly make sure that those voices are heard.

What I want to do at this point, because it is important that those voices be heard, is…. I've received — as have many members; I'm sure all members have — correspondence, e-mails, letters and such from paramedics since the introduction of Bill 21, raising their concern. I want to read a letter into the record from one of those paramedics, who is a constituent of mine and who wrote me this letter yesterday.

"I am one of your constituents and also an advanced life-support flight paramedic with the B.C. Ambulance Service. I am writing to express my grave concern for the future of paramedics in this province. I have worked for the B.C. Ambulance Service for 14 years, first as a part-time paramedic in rural areas of the Okanagan and then for the last 12 years as a full-time paramedic based in the Lower Mainland.

"The absolute contempt with which the B.C. government has treated paramedics has reached new heights with the introduction of Bill 21. The morale of paramedics is at an all-time low, and this bill will do even more irreversible damage to our once proud service.

"Paramedics have continued to provide dedicated, life-saving services to the citizens of B.C. throughout this dispute and have simply asked for a fair process through arbitration. We have been denied the right to strike by the Labour Relations Board, and no alternative, independent process has been offered to resolve this dispute.

"The B.C. Ambulance Service is held together by its paramedics, but it is in dire straits. As an advanced life-support paramedic, I am deployed by both ground and air to some of the sickest patients in the province. There are currently just over 200 advanced life-support paramedics in B.C. to serve a population of approximately four million citizens. At night we currently have just one dedicated adult critical care evac crew for the entire province.

"We respond 365 days a year, through all types of weather, via air, land and sea. At times, multiple critical calls for service must be held, sometimes for hours, waiting for the only team to become available.

"In terms of the risks we face as paramedics, we have had multiple line-of-duty deaths, including an air-evac crash that killed the entire crew, as well as the more recent Sullivan mine tragedy.

"Last year I discovered firsthand the inherent risks of this job. I was in the back of an ambulance attending to a critical trauma patient with communicable diseases. Our ambulance was T-boned at approximately 70 kilometres an hour by a driver who failed to yield the right of way for us as we proceeded with lights and sirens through an intersection.

"I was thrown across the ambulance with an open needle in my hand. I was off work for six months with several ruptured discs in my spine and had to undergo a series of spinal injections and rigorous rehab. I am 33 years old and will feel the effects of this accident for the rest of my life.

"The B.C. government has systemically allowed the B.C. Ambulance Service to deteriorate. Stations are in disrepair or simply nonexistent. Some stations are now motels, care homes, trailers, bus garages — or, in one case in North Vancouver, a former crack house.

"Paid training has been cut. To become an advanced life-support paramedic, candidates must accrue five to ten years of experience at the primary care level, then take an unpaid leave of one and a half to two years to complete the training. On top of that, the course itself costs approximately $15,000. The total cost to a paramedic, including unpaid leave, is about $150,000.

"I fear that Bill 21 is the death-knell of the B.C. Ambulance Service. This was once the world-famous B.C. Ambulance Service. Other systems from around the world used to model their system after ours. No more. Paramedics have attempted to hold the system together for years, but without government support there is only so much we can do.

"We have held out in good faith for the past four years after extending our last collective agreement in the hopes of fixing the Ambulance Service. The B.C. government has ignored us during good economic times and bad, breaking promises to consult with the front-line workers to find solutions to the challenges we face.

"I invite any member of the House to spend a night shift or two riding along with myself or my colleagues and to see firsthand the job we do.

[1555]

"How any member claiming to represent the interests of British Columbians could vote in favour of this bill is simply beyond
[ Page 2036 ]
comprehension. It is the ultimate slap in the face to paramedics and will do nothing to solve the dispute, as the minister has stated. In fact, all it will do is further inflame tensions, permanently damage the B.C. Ambulance Service and demoralize our members, causing many of our bright up-and-coming paramedics to leave this profession."

That voice of a long-time paramedic I think speaks for what I have heard from paramedics across this province. It speaks to the disappointment that they have in their elected representatives on the government side who have turned their backs on them. It speaks to the concern they have for the jobs they do and the demise of this service, a service that is built on the quality and commitment of the paramedics, a service that clearly does not have the respect of the other side if they're prepared to introduce this form of legislation.

The other thing that I've heard from members of the public and from paramedics who have been watching this debate as it's unfolded…. I've had a number of people say to me: "How come no members from the government side get up to defend this legislation? How come no members of the government side have the courage of their conviction to stand up and say why they're going to support Bill 21?" Instead, they sit silent.

It doesn't matter who it is, whether it be the ministers…. Why hasn't the Minister of Labour stood up and spoken to this legislation? Why haven't members? Why hasn't the Premier spoken to this legislation in the House? They haven't spoken to it because, in my view, they know it's indefensible. They haven't spoken to it because they know that no fair-minded legislator could support this. Nobody who believed in balance, nobody who believed in our paramedics and respected the work they do could support this. That's the reality, and that's why the silence on the government side is deafening. That's why it's deafening.

There is a solution here. We know that the members of the paramedic service have asked for binding arbitration. The reality is that when you provide an essential service, which this service clearly is…. When you provide that kind of service, when you put it in place, when it is an essential service where quite rightly you do not allow people to withdraw those services, then you have an obligation. You have an obligation as government to put in place the processes to ensure fairness.

That process in this kind of a situation, after a significant period of negotiations, where no resolve could be found, is to have a form of binding arbitration from an independent third party that brings a resolution, a resolution that's fair. But this government — and through this government using their agents, the B.C. Ambulance Service — rejected the notion of third-party binding arbitration. They have rejected the idea that a thoughtful, informed third party should make the decision about these critical questions of this collective agreement.

I suspect the reason is because they know full well — again, whether it's the Premier or the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Health or any of their colleagues on that side — that paying somebody $2 an hour to sit on a pager wouldn't stand up to that third-party arbitration. There would be a resolution that would treat those people more fairly. That resolution would be found. An independent arbitrator would find that solution and put it in place, and the government isn't prepared to do that.

The government is perfectly happy to continue to exploit those workers with the $2-an-hour pay rate. They're perfectly happy to do that, and that's indefensible, which is one of the reasons why we'll get none of those members getting to their feet — to this point in time anyway — to defend this piece of legislation.

[1600]

We need very much to find a solution here that is fair. The government has chosen not to do that. We need to have a solution that looks to build the Ambulance Service, not diminish it. This legislation diminishes the Ambulance Service. This legislation diminishes the view of paramedics. Certainly, from the government side, it does that. That's not acceptable.

We can talk to people across this province. I read into the record a letter from a longtime paramedic who is one of my constituents, but it's certainly not just the paramedics. That's for sure. I have a letter from another of my constituents, who is not a paramedic. She says:

"As one of your constituents, I would like to thank you for the NDP's support for the B.C. paramedics and their bargaining process. I know a number of paramedics and know they work extremely hard and care deeply about their work.

"They are indeed providers of an essential service but, as such, should be treated with respect and dignity. This proposed act does just the opposite. Any short-term gain achieved by this legislation will be far outweighed by the long-term costs. Treating paramedics this poorly will encourage them to seek employment elsewhere or in a different field or, at the very least, increase their already high rate of burnout.

"It frightens me that there may not be enough paramedics in the future to help me or my family when we need it most. Please do all you can to fight this bill so that does not happen."

Those letters have come in volumes. I know I have received more letters and phone calls in my office on this issue from people who are supportive of the paramedics than I have for a long, long time, for years, on any given issue.

When people find out that the government chose to introduce this legislation in the middle of a vote…. Regardless of what the government may think about what the results of that vote would have been, to have shown so little respect for the collective bargaining process as to introduce the legislation in the middle of the vote, where people are getting to the point where they're making a choice about an offer, is just to say: "We don't care. It's not important to us. We can ram this down your throat because we are the government."

That has been the approach that the government has taken. That has been the way that the government has chosen to engage this exercise.
[ Page 2037 ]

We need better solutions. We need to have approaches that work better for us. We need to have approaches that work better for our paramedics. We need to provide supports that improve the quality of the workplace for our paramedics, that deal with the questions of dismal stations in many areas, that deal with the challenges and the unfairness that our part-time paramedics live with day in and day out, that deal with the workload issues that are putting greater pressures all the time on paramedics and certainly greater pressures all the time on some of our specialist paramedics in particular.

This bill does nothing to achieve any of those things. It does nothing to deal with any of those matters.

As previous speakers have said, if the government had chosen months and months ago to try to sit down with the paramedics, with the service, and find some meaningful solutions to a number of these areas and had sat down and said: "We have great challenges with this service, and it's time for us to work together — paramedics, government, management — and find some solutions that make the service better, that once again would restore the Ambulance Service to the world-class service that it used to be but that, sadly, it's not anymore.

But the government didn't choose to do that. The government chose instead to use the heavy hand of legislation to put this bill on the table, and we all fear that the government will use that heavy hand of legislation to try to ram this bill through in short order.

[1605]

We will deal with that as best we can on this side. We will continue to speak strongly and forcefully for the paramedics and for the thousands and thousands of British Columbians who know that the government is treating the paramedics in an unjust fashion, that the government is not being fair with these health care professionals, who know the commitment and dedication that paramedics bring to their work each and every day, and who know that it's just incomprehensible and it is reprehensible that this government would ignore that in the fashion that they have with Bill 21.

We have some very difficult time in front of us as this debate continues, I suspect, as we finish through this stage, through second reading. We will go through committee stage and to end. This legislation will ultimately pass, if the government maintains its position.

But be clear, as British Columbians are clear, that this legislation does not have the support of the people of British Columbia. This legislation does not have the support of paramedics. This legislation does not have the support of the thousands and thousands of people who may have made that 911 call and seen the paramedics arrive to save their lives or the lives of their loved ones.

They don't support this legislation. They know this legislation isn't fair. They know this legislation does nothing to address the problems of the Ambulance Service. They know this legislation does nothing to address the challenges of the paramedics today in British Columbia.

They know, and anybody who looks at this legislation will know, that all this legislation does is provide the government a stopgap measure to get through the Olympics, and then we'll be back and the problem will be just as great as it was, except the anger and the bitterness of people who have been treated so badly, the disappointment of paramedics who have been treated so badly, will be that much higher. The cynicism of people about their ability to get fair treatment will be that much higher.

That's the reality that we're going to see come March or April of next year when it's back to the bargaining table. It will make it that much more difficult for any solution to be found. The government has done absolutely nothing to help to solve the real problems — the fundamental and core problems.

We do need to move forward on this. We do need to find a better way, and I would invite the government to put some speakers up to this and talk, not to us, but to the paramedics of British Columbia. Talk to the people of British Columbia. Explain your position on this, if you really think that you can defend this position.

That's what you need to do, but I'm not sure that we're going to see that. I'm not sure we're going to see any of that from the other side of the House. So what needs to occur here is a change of — maybe, for lack of a better term — the environment around how the Ambulance Service works. We need a change of the environment as to how, in fact, we will proceed with the solutions that we require from this.

What we should be doing here is setting this legislation aside, bringing in that third-party arbitrator to settle this dispute at this time, bringing in a review of the service that includes, clearly, members of the service along with management and others, people from other parts of the health care field, identifying very clearly those real gaps in terms of the service we provide, in terms of how the ambulance service is provided, and begin to look for the solutions that are required to fix those things.

[1610]

I go back to the letter that I read earlier, when we talk about ambulance stations across this province being stuck in motels or care homes or trailers or garages rather than full-blown ambulance services and ambulance stations, when we talk about the need for more advanced-life-support paramedics. Yet you see here that for somebody, in the commitment of an individual, to be able to move forward with this requires them to pay for all their training and to take the better part of two years off work to do this. That's the commitment. Yet we know people make that commitment. They're making that commitment every single day. People make that commitment as paramedics.
[ Page 2038 ]

Yet we see nothing from the government to support those folks as they move forward. We see nothing from the government to support them in how we will in fact be able to make this service a stronger service.

I do hope that the government will rethink this. I do hope the government will understand that they're creating a much, much worse situation in terms of our service and in terms of our paramedics and in terms of the future of this service.

The other thing we hear time and again from people, from paramedics, is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to get young people to come into this profession. When they see this kind of conduct from the government, when they begin to learn about the life of a paramedic and the expectations of paramedics and what that includes, and see the challenges of being able to have a positive career, many of those people are saying: "I'll go look elsewhere. I'll do something else because, as committed as I would be and much as I would love to do this job, I don't hear or see the government standing up to make this job as inviting as it should be. I don't hear or see the government standing up to encourage me, as a young person who is considering a career as a paramedic…. I don't see the government being inviting to me to come forward and do that work."

We know that burnout is an issue in the paramedic service. This is a very trying job. It's a very difficult job for people to do. It's a job that is physically demanding, emotionally demanding. I've talked to paramedics who talk about the experience they have when they deal with real tragedies, when they deal with situations of accidents and deaths, when they deal with people who don't survive or who face horrible deaths, and how traumatic that is for them because of their commitment to life and their commitment to life-saving. So it becomes very tough.

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

When we have people in our society who perform those jobs, as difficult and challenging as those jobs are — whether it's paramedics, firefighters, police or others — what we know is that we need to support them. We need to support and encourage them. We need to be able to move forward on this. We're not doing that, and we're clearly not doing it with Bill 21.

I see, hon. Speaker, that I just have a minute or two left here before we move on to other speakers. In closing, it's the one last ask. My ask is for the government to have its change of heart and show paramedics the respect they deserve. It's for the government to bring in an independent third party and settle this agreement in a fair manner with an independent third party, as the paramedics have asked for. It's to begin to find the solution we need to build this service back to the world-class service that it used to be until it got run down by this government's neglect.

If we can begin to achieve those things, if we can move forward on those things, we can once again have an ambulance service that we're all proud of. We can once again have an ambulance service that paramedics will feel good about when they go to work every day.

[1615]

But sadly, the government is going in exactly the opposite direction with Bill 21. This will provide a short-term fix for the government around its Olympic problems. It will provide a long-term headache for all British Columbians around having an ambulance service that really is the best it can be, where the people feel good about their jobs and proud about the work they do, and where they feel valued by the people who they think are supposed to represent them in this Legislature.

With that, thank you, hon. Speaker. I look forward to the rest of the debate.

S. Herbert: I rise today to speak in opposition to Bill 21. It should not come as a surprise to this House that I believe in fair and free collective bargaining. This bill strips away that right from the paramedics of this province. It makes it so that the government, which seems to believe they are supreme in their wisdom, has taken away the right of two parties to negotiate fairly and freely.

One of those parties, the paramedics, have been calling for months — for months — for an independent third-party arbitrator to get involved and help sort out the deal between the two parties so that they could make their vote, make their decision and have the binding arbitration come through, so that they could settle this once and for all so that the paramedics could be fully back to work.

I know that the minister and this government talk about this as putting people back to work, getting them back on the job. But these paramedics have essential services legislation, so the vast majority of them have been on the job working day in, day out for our communities — and then some.

Certainly, my constituents in the west end of Vancouver see the results of their work every day. From my constituency office we will often see the Ambulance Service, the paramedics, out dealing with calls. It's a very dense constituency, a very dense neighbourhood, so you see a lot of action from the service and see a lot of good results for my constituents.

From my apartment I've got a wider view of the West End. Sometimes I get woken up at night by the paramedics getting to their jobs, but I feel good about that in a way. Although I'd like more sleep, I feel good about it because I know they're going to help the people of my constituency. They're there because they care.

They go into troubling situations. I talk to the paramedics, and they share with me very, very difficult stories
[ Page 2039 ]
which haunt them for years, stories they can never quite put away. Did they make the right decision? Could they have done something more? Why did this situation have to happen? How can we live in such a difficult and dangerous world, a world that sometimes seems very uncaring?

They see that in their calls day in, day out across the province. They work very long hours at a very hard job that I don't believe I could do. It's not a job that would be suited to my skills, but it's a job that's suited to really hardy people, who will take that time out because they have such care and such desire to work with people and their direct health needs on the front line. Incredibly stressful work.

For constituents of mine who I talk to, who have an emergency, the paramedics will come right away. They'll take them up to St. Paul's Hospital or any of the other hospitals they might need to go to. It's ideally St. Paul's, which we will continue to stand for in this community, the community of Vancouver–West End. A revitalized hospital would be nice, but we're here today to talk about Bill 21 and the work of the paramedics.

I've been thinking about this a lot — thinking about how, when you have two parties that are fighting and trying to come to some agreement…. They started out here, and they made their way in closer together to find a way to work together, find a way to get an agreement. It has taken some time. They've been calling for a third-party arbitrator, but even with all the challenges they've had, they came together for a vote.

The vote is supposed to be going on right now for a couple of days to get all the paramedics from across the province to come together and make their decision. Do they support the agreement that came together or not? Were they able to make that choice to support the vote or not? They have their democratic right to say if this is a contract that they can live with.

[1620]

Just like everybody in this House had to make a decision: did they want to run for government? They got to make that choice. Did they want to seek nomination to become an MLA? They made a choice.

Now, maybe there would be a few here who might jokingly say that they were forced into this career, or this job, because of a family member who pushed them to do it, or something like that, but nobody here in this House would stand for it if all of a sudden they were told: "You must do this job. This is the contract you must accept. This is the only way it is."

Well, I guess we can think of one instance where this happened, where that side of the House, the government side of the House, said: "This is the contract. This is your new wage — for MLAs. We're jacking up our own pay, as ministers and as the Premier and…"

Deputy Speaker: Member, please be careful of your language.

S. Herbert: Sure. I will withdraw that phrase. "We are increasing our own wages to a very high level. Hey, opposition, you better agree with us, because we're going to do it anyway, and we want the money." That was something where that happened. We had a disagreement on that at the time, but they put that forward.

Now, if they were to do that to the paramedics and say, "Hey, Paramedics, we're going to raise your wages at the same rate we raised our own," maybe the paramedics would have immediately jumped on that contract. But no. Instead, what do we hear? A 3 percent wage increase — on, for some of them, $2? That's crazy-making. That's bizarre. That's something that….

It's incomprehensible to me how a government that raised its own wages such a large amount would feel that it was okay for them to then slam a contract down on the paramedics when they were already voting on a contract. It just doesn't make sense, and it doesn't make sense in terms of labour relations.

How do we think people are going to be feeling when, after the Olympics, all the other public service union contracts come up? Do they think they will have that trust? Does the government think there will be a sense of trust in open, fair, free bargaining? "Oh, we'll talk it out. We'll find some sort of solution." Or do they see the government wielding its legislative hammer, as it did to the HEU with Bill 29, when it stripped their contract and privatized a huge swath of services, destroyed families and tore up people's jobs — people who had been doing the jobs for many years?

I talked to constituents whose lives were up-ended, whose family ties were torn apart, because their jobs were taken away from them by this government. This Bill 21 reminds me of Bill 29 and what they did to the HEU.

It's unprecedented for a government to slam the legislative hammer down when they're already voting on a deal. They're already voting to see: do they accept this or not? The government slams it down on them and says: "Well, tough. You are, and it's not even the deal that you were discussing." In fact, I've been told that it's worse.

This will lead to labour strife in our province. It didn't need to be that way. The paramedics themselves said: "Binding third-party arbitrator. Take it out of our hands. Put it over to the arbitrator. They will look at the two positions. They will make a decision. Okay, we can live with that." The government, the B.C. Liberals: "Oh, no. That doesn't make sense. We want to slam you." That's what it looks like to me.

I can't understand how B.C. Liberal MLAs would accept this, and I certainly haven't seen them speak to share with us why they would accept this on behalf of their constituents. Certainly, I'm getting letters from their constituents saying: "Well, I'm writing to you because my MLA isn't standing up for me." Now, that's very disturbing.
[ Page 2040 ]

Certainly, for some of the new MLAs, I would appeal to their consciences — to vote against this bill, to defeat this bill. It wouldn't take many. It wouldn't take many at all, if they stood up for free, fair, collective bargaining and for the right of people to have their voice heard in such a way. Taking away a person's right to agree on a contract — it just galls me in that sense.

Now, I'd like to speak a little bit about some of what I've heard from my constituents in the west end of Vancouver. A woman named Marilyn wrote me. She said that she wanted to thank me for supporting our province's ambulance workers.

[1625]

She says: "Please continue to do so by doing what you can to prevent Bill 21 being passed. The paramedics deserve to have their voices heard. They are having a working strike as it is. How insulting to them and our governmental system would it be to order them back to work this late in the game? There's nothing for the government to gain from passing Bill 21, aside from a poor public image."

I agree with Marilyn. There is nothing to gain except inflaming labour relations and taking away people's rights to agree on their contract. That's not a gain. That's a huge setback.

I think of a constituent named Thane. Thane wrote to me to thank me for my support against Bill 21 and my support for paramedics across the province. Thane cc'd me on a letter to the Premier. He wrote to the Premier because he hoped the Premier might just see that the health minister's actions were irresponsible. He says this to the Premier:

I am disappointed at your efforts to legislate the paramedics back to work. I had hoped that agreement could be reached without such draconian measures. Such heavy-handed action is inappropriate while the union is considering the tabled offer. I am concerned that this objectionable legislation and its subsequent trouncing of workers' rights is as much intended to placate the requirements of VANOC as it is needed to meet the onslaught of H1N1.

The truth behind such underlying necessity demands to have been acknowledged as such in the introduction of Bill 21. Clearly we find ourselves in this predicament after years of under-resourcing and overtaxing an essential service. It has been totally foreseeable that both the Olympics and H1N1 would have required that this labour dispute should have been resolved in short order. We've been poorly served by continuing to ignore these real issues for the past seven months.

I see it most disappointing that the same restraint that is being forced on the paramedics union — in the words of the minister, 'they need to be reasonable and respectful of the economic climate' — did not apply in this last session's decision to increase the pay for the legislative members.

We, your constituents, care about these professionals. Please do the right thing and back off on Bill 21. You see, Mr. Premier, from my perspective, seeing the ambulance paramedics, British Columbia members, receive a fair and negotiated settlement is far easier to accept than seeing members of the Legislature give themselves a big fat disproportionate pay raise.

Sincerely, Thane

Thane lays it out pretty clearly. Thane and so many others understand that the disagreement has been ongoing for far too long. In fact, I think back to the election, when I spoke with paramedics, and they said to me: "You know, we just want a third-party arbitrator to sort this out, work it through. That would be acceptable."

I think about after the election, when I happened into a local coffee shop where a number of the paramedics were sitting having coffee, waiting to get into bargaining. And they said to me again: "You know, we go to the bargaining table, and we get nothing. The government is not interested in free and fair bargaining. They're putting this up as a sham."

At the time, some of them raised with me their concern that the government would then wield its legislative hammer, as it's done in so many labour disputes before, and slam the workers, slam them when they could have had a deal had they appointed a third-party arbitrator. Those workers were right. They could see the writing on the wall. They know this government never listens to workers. They know this government rarely, from what I can see, actually decides to have a fair and reasonable dialogue with workers.

They know that because it's the same kind of system that this government uses with the general public. It's the same kind of lack of trust they have in this government that the general public has when the general public sees the government introduce things like the HST or things like its recent budget, when it claims to protect health care and education but is slamming them.

That's what the public sees. That's what the paramedics see. That's what my constituents see. And that's why Bill 21 must be put aside. Let that independent third-party arbitrator bring the parties together to have their discussion, to make an agreement, to do what they need to do.

I know the minister has said that this legislation…. He's trying to make it as light a touch as possible, is what he says. As light a touch as possible. Taking people's rights away to be able to vote on a contract — as light a touch as possible.

[1630]

I'd hate to see what a heavy touch was. Well, yes, I do actually remember what a heavy touch was. That was Bill 29, where they stripped the HEU of its rights, privatized mass sections of the health care system and threw many, many people out of work. Then we see that the government didn't actually save any money in the long run, which they claimed they were going to do, because the courts ruled that they had got into the free and fair collective bargaining process and interfered.

I think back to the minister's comments earlier today and some of the discussion around question period and the H1N1. He was talking about interference, and he was accusing the opposition of interfering in the health care system — just galling coming from the minister
[ Page 2041 ]
here, who has decided to interfere in one of the most direct ways possible by stripping people of their rights to vote on a contract.

Thane had touched on the Olympics. He spoke about the Olympics as something that had come up. Well, we all knew the Olympics were coming. Everybody knew that. We've known that for many, many years. The government knew that when this dispute started. They knew that during the election. They knew that after the election. Yet they continued to drag their feet and do absolutely nothing to work with the paramedics to come to some sort of resolution.

Maybe it's because they knew that down the road they would wait to the last minute and then slam them with such a piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that really should not be on the books today because it is so abhorrent to the purposes and the beliefs in free and fair collective bargaining that we have in Canada today.

It's not something that is useful. It's not something that's good, because they had an alternative. That was to appoint a third-party independent arbitrator. Pull the parties together, and make it work. They could have done that months ago and saved all these people pain and hardship.

Now we get many letters, and I have many conversations with people who tell me: "You know, I was hoping that we could make this work. I was hoping that we could find a way to make this work and that government would recognize the difficult job that we have, would recognize how hard it is to be a paramedic in B.C. today and would recognize that you need to treat people with respect."

They haven't seen that. What they tell me is that they're leaving the paramedic service. They're leaving their jobs. They're moving to some other province where they get respect, where people understand the value of the work they do.

In a time when retention of health care professionals is so challenging, at a time when we need to be doing more to recruit people into the health care field with an aging population and with a huge gap in the coming years, we as government need to be doing everything we can to ensure the people who are working in the field stay in the field, to ensure the people working in the field can upgrade their skills, can do what they need to do so that they can serve us all for many years to come.

It's not like a lot of the people I've talked to do it for the money. They do it because they care. They do it because they want to help. They want to help their fellow British Columbians.

Now, I don't know how many of the members in this House have had to call 911, have had to talk with paramedics because of a situation, but unfortunately, it's something that I've had to do fairly frequently.

Whether or not it's somebody who is choking; whether or not it's somebody who has been bashed over the head with a bottle, as I've seen; whether or not it's somebody who is unresponsive; whether or not it's somebody who cannot move and is in searing pain, when the paramedics come to the call, they act professionally, they act immediately, and they work to lessen the pain of the person. They work to make the situation safe.

I've done some first-aid training. I probably need to get it upgraded again, and I should, I know. St. John Ambulance does such a good job in all that training. That's something we all should do for our constituents, but that does not replace the vital professional role that paramedics play.

[1635]

I know that some of them really are volunteers. They've done the skills training, they've done the work, and they're basically volunteers. I talked to some people who sit waiting for a call. They can't be out at the movies having a good time, out at parties. No, they're sitting, waiting for a call, getting paid $2 an hour to get pulled out to do the work — to get called into dangerous situations, to do the work for their community.

They do it because they love their communities. That's something I know each and every member of this House will say they do too. They will say they love their communities. If we all love our communities, we need to be respecting the people who keep our constituents safe. We need to be respecting the people who deal with life-threatening emergencies, who deal with the situations where they have to clean up after situations which went wrong, where they have to clean up situations which are distressing and horrible.

I note that the members on the other side of the House…. I hope, anyway, that they read these e-mails that they get, because some of the stories that we hear are terrifying and are ones that we get secondhand as MLAs. These are people who have to live with them every day of their lives.

Here's another e-mail from Todd, a constituent of mine. He says: "Please do anything you can do to defeat this legislation. Our paramedics are critical in our society, and their wages need to reflect this. As a taxpayer, I feel very embarrassed and angry by the way the government has handled this, especially since deciding to use H1N1 as an excuse to be even more unfair to B.C. paramedics."

Now, Todd gets it, because from what we can tell, this legislation may only put 16 more paramedics back to work. It's not like it's hundreds and thousands of people sitting on strike, and: "Oh, nobody's going to get help if you call 911." No, they're out there right now. They're working for each and every one of us right now. Right now, while this debate is going on, they're out there serving our communities — while this debate's going on about a bill that strips them of their right to agree to a contract.

Right now they're out working, while they were supposed to have a vote over this next period of time to
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decide: do they agree on this contract? But no, the B.C. Liberals decide they don't have that right, that that right should not belong to them — that these people who do their best for us, who protect our health, who take care of us don't deserve that right. That's shameful and does not deserve to stand.

I've heard from many other constituents. I think of Laurie, I think of Miles, I think of Jenny, I think of Todd, I think of Bob, and I think of Brent. You know, the list goes on and on of constituents.

They will say: "You know, normally…." This is what I heard from Brent. He said: "Normally, I'm not a union guy. I don't get into this union–big boss fight. I'm a middle-of-the-road guy, but in this case it's very clear." He said it was very clear to him that government was slamming people who were doing the people's work, that government was stepping in and doing dirty work, which it should not be allowed to do. Government was stripping people of their right to vote on a fair contract.

Now, Brent is a boss of a small company, and he said to me that he would never and could never see himself doing that. He says: "Sure, third-party arbitrator." It's maybe not something that he would always want, but if he could not come to an agreement with his employees…. If he could not do that, he would go that route because he respects his employees' rights. He respects their rights to a fair and free collective bargaining process and their rights to ask for what they want and what they need in order to do their jobs.

Myself, my background is in the arts — producing festivals, producing theatre, producing dance performances, organizing tours, that kind of thing. In that field of work there are emergencies.

I think of a situation when I was on Denman Island, working with a group of fire performers. At the time I was a pyrotechnician. I was the guy who lit the torches, who put the gas on the various performing apparatuses. This was some years ago. It was an incredible performance, a beautiful performance.

[1640]

We had told people: "These people are professionals, so don't try this at home." But some people did. Some of the audience decided that they could just make up their own torches, that they could do their own thing. So they started playing around, I guess, after the show, and it turns out one of them burnt themselves very badly. They needed an ambulance. They needed to get off that island, get to a hospital, and the ambulance came for them.

This ambulance driver was an on-call driver, sitting there waiting, waiting to serve her community. I learn now that she was probably waiting there on $2 an hour — not at the fire performance, not with the rest of her community celebrating. She was waiting to serve her community in case anyone on that island had an emergency. She came, and she did her job well.

I've heard from people on Denman Island, although far from my constituency, who've told me that they're not sure that they can continue in the paramedic field.

I'm from one of the most urban ridings, probably the most urban riding in the province, but I know how important it is for rural British Columbia to have stable, supported ambulance service, not the kind of slapdash effort this government has pulled off — where you see people having to sit in ambulances, where the sheds for the ambulance are not safe or where black mould grows in the places where they have to work and in situations where they can't find the workers they need because of the way this government has treated the service.

Now, does this government think that through slamming the Ambulance Service in the way they have, they're going to get more workers, that people are going to be clambering on the door to say: "Hey, we really want to be ambulance workers because you don't respect us"? No, I don't think so. I'm sure the members on that side of the House know the same.

It surprises me that none of them will speak to this. Maybe that's why — because they're ashamed of this legislation. Maybe tomorrow we'll see a whole bunch of them get up and start talking about how they like stripping people of their collective rights to free and fair bargaining, how they think that's the good thing to do. Maybe they'll speak about how they should get rid of unions and that those kinds of things shouldn't exist.

But maybe they're not like that. Maybe that's not what they think, and if that's not what they think, I urge them to speak out against this bill, to speak out against this kind of legislation, to speak for an independent third-party arbitrator who will pull the parties together and make the decision.

That's the right thing to do. That's the fair thing to do. I'm sure that's what the constituents of the members opposite would urge them to do, because I'm getting letters from those constituents urging me to urge their members of the Legislature to do the right thing for their communities and for the paramedics in their constituencies. They're disappointed.

I think of one of the e-mails that I received where somebody said: "I voted for the Liberal in my constituency because they seemed to be a fair and decent person. They seemed to care for the community. They seemed to care, and they were not a far-right-winger who hated unions, but they seemed to be a middle-of-the-road kind of person who could do what they needed to do for the community."

How disappointed that person was, they told me, when they saw this government bring in such legislation. It's not middle of the road. It's not doing the people's work. It's using a legislative hammer to slam people and strip away their rights. That's not fair for this person. They don't see that as fair. They don't see that as reasonable. They don't see that as within the Canadian tradition, because it's not.
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It's not what we stand here as legislators to do, I believe. We should be doing things that bring our communities together. We should be doing things that unite our province, that excite our province in a good way, not excite our province with anger, not inflame a situation where there's already tension.

We need to dampen things down, bring people together. A third-party arbitrator could do that, just as the paramedics have been calling for, for so long. It's not unreasonable. It happens all the time, and it's a fair thing to do.

I'm hoping that members on that side of the House will speak to this bill. I've said this before, because I believe that they have a duty to explain to their constituents either (a) why they're supporting this legislation or (b) why they're opposed to it.

[1645]

It's a pretty fundamental issue here. It's a pretty fundamental issue in terms of what you believe a government should do. Do you believe government should rule by fiat, that government should rule and just be able to do whatever the heck it wants? Or do you believe that a government needs to work with its constituents, speak for its constituents, work things out and develop a plan that works for everybody? Is that what you think should be? That's what I believe. I believe that's how government should work.

Now, there may be disagreements. Sure, disagreements happen all the time. People have different visions on how things go, but….

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

M. Mungall: I rise today to state my complete and unequivocal opposition to this bill.

I find it abhorrent that this is where the Liberals have led negotiations with our valued paramedics. Rather than wait for the results of the paramedics' vote on the most recent offer, just tabled September 28, the Liberals are circumventing the collective bargaining process now because they handled it so poorly in the last year. Now it may negatively impact the Olympics, another process that this government has handled so poorly and mismanaged and hid from the public.

This circumvention of the collective bargaining process is unprecedented. It is unprecedented. Members are still mailing in their ballots. CUPE 873 — they are still mailing in their ballots, and those ballots are to be counted two days from now — Friday, just two days away. This government couldn't wait. Before the last ballot is counted, this government wants to ram through back-to-work legislation.

This move is unprecedented, but it's unprecedented for a reason. That reason, I'm sure — and what everybody in British Columbia is quite certain about, and I bet their guess is right — is about the Olympics, something that they've already mismanaged so poorly.

It is unprecedented. This type of move is unprecedented in Canada, because it is dishonest. It is disrespectful, it is arrogant, and it is clearly bullying. It is bullying people of this province, workers of this province. This type of move is unprecedented because it is a bully tactic. Make no mistake. That's exactly what this government is doing to our valued paramedics in this province. It is bullying them back to work.

Frankly, the government has no reason to have negotiated in such bad faith. It has no reason to mistrust the collective bargaining process, to step outside of it in an unprecedented move and force workers back to work right when they're in the middle of a vote. They have no reason to do this, because workers in this province have not entered the collective bargaining process in bad faith at all.

In fact, the only people who should lack trust in B.C.'s collective bargaining after the last eight years of broken contracts and backhanded negotiations are the workers themselves, but they don't. They keep coming to the table with hope, with reasonable requests to improve B.C.'s services and make sure that British Columbians receive the care to which they are entitled.

That is what the unions of this province do day in and day out. They ensure that British Columbians receive the services to which they are entitled. They keep trying to work with the government, this Liberal government. They keep trying to work with them — after eight years of contract tearing. Tearing up contracts, this government does, yet workers keep coming back to the table to negotiate in good faith.

[1650]

Almost a year ago the paramedics entered into negotiations for their collective agreement, expiring March 31 of this year. By March CUPE 873 was already asking for a mediator because they were getting nowhere with the previous Health Minister. But not even a mediator could move the government, so another mediator came in, and finally something came from the government. Something was offered by them.

But you know what, hon. Speaker? It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to make sure that British Columbians received the services that they were entitled to. It wasn't enough, like I said, not just for CUPE 873 but for British Columbians. It was not enough for British Columbians in every corner of this province, because we British Columbians deserve better.

I am grateful that the paramedics didn't take that offer, because it was a compromise of the care to which I am entitled, to which my family is entitled — my friends, my neighbours and every single person in this province. They drew a line in the sand. The paramedics drew a line in the sand and said that they deserve better and that British Columbians deserve better. I am with them in drawing that line in the sand.

Since April the paramedics have been on strike, but they are still working, looking after the long-term interests of
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British Columbians. Under the essential services orders, in fact, they are working more. The essential services orders compel paramedics to work overtime in excess of what the collective agreement requires.

I want people at home, the British Columbians who want to see their paramedics back to work, the people across the way…. I want everybody to rest assured that the paramedics are not taking this strike lightly. They're not even tapped out more because of this strike, because they are working in excess of what their collective agreement requires. They are holding that line in the sand because they know that British Columbians deserve the best possible emergency care. They are going to hold that line in the sand to make darn sure that we get it.

Over the summer and into the fall CUPE 873 has been working on finding an agreement with this government. Again, there's that hope. There's that hope coming from our workers, from the unions of this province going to the table, trying to get an agreement — that hope that if they just keep going to the table, the government will eventually work with them.

When the paramedics make an offer, unfortunately, the government rejects it. When the government makes an offer, CUPE members vote on it. That's what they're doing this week. But here, with this legislation, the paramedics have gotten nothing but a slap in the face — an offer, only to be followed by back-to-work legislation before they do their democratic due diligence of voting amongst their members.

It's an unprecedented move — an unprecedented move. Yeah. Yes, it is. But an unlikely move by this Liberal government? No, it's not.

[1655]

What will this mean for future negotiations, not just for the paramedics but for negotiations for all unions, for all of our collective bargaining workers? What this will mean for future negotiations, not just when the paramedics are to renegotiate in March 2010, after the Olympics, but for any other collective bargaining?

This back-to-work legislation — make no mistake — is a whole new low for this Liberal government. Like I said, it's not unlikely, something that maybe we should have expected. Maybe we shouldn't have had so much hope in this province for good-faith negotiations. The last eight years should have taught us that — that perhaps we shouldn't have been so hopeful that this strike would come to a peaceful end.

But while this low may not be unlikely, it by no means is acceptable. Just because we maybe should have expected this back-to-work legislation, this incredible low from this Liberal government, it doesn't mean that we as a province have to accept it.

The likelihood of respectful, meaningful collective bargaining comes this spring? Well, after this — after thinking that maybe I shouldn't have been so hopeful, after my constituents telling me that maybe they shouldn't have been so hopeful for some positive resolution with our paramedics — I'm wondering if maybe I shouldn't be so hopeful for anything positive to come out of all the collective bargaining this spring. Maybe this is not just a new low for this government. Perhaps it's a new standard, and that is deplorable. That is frightening, and that contravenes any idea of rights that people have in this province.

I recall, a few days ago or last week, when we were discussing another bill, the member for Peace River North mentioned that we don't need the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in this country. We don't need it in this province. Everything is just dandy. Everything is just dandy. We don't need to have legislation or constitutions that outline our basic human rights and freedoms in this country.

This is an exact point, this back-to-work legislation, on the types of things that come from this government. It shows that that member was absolutely wrong — not to mention the international agreements, of course, that Canada is party to. Of course, the standard of any democracy acknowledging human rights and freedoms….

But here we have a situation, and I'm worried that this new low is the new standard. It completely ignores the rights of people in this province, and that to me is absolutely deplorable. I find it shameful and embarrassing and only hope that the members across the way appreciate that and also share that shame and get this bill right off the table.

Although I don't have much hope, as I said — and I know that British Columbians across this province are losing hope in this government with their new low, possibly a new standard — for the sake of every British Columbian, I know that myself and my colleagues will continue to beg and continue to plead with this government for that little bit of hope that one day they will treat the dedicated workers of this province with respect and acknowledge their rights.

We will continue to beg and plead and beg and plead right until 2013, when hopefully we'll be on that side of the House and won't need to beg and plead anymore. Rather, we can just honour people's rights and ensure that workers are treated with the respect they deserve in this province.

Time and time again paramedics have sought solutions to better emergency services for British Columbians, and time and time again the Liberal government has offered little, but not enough, to get the job done. That's unacceptable too. We expect them to offer little. It doesn't mean we have to accept it.

[1700]

For example, if the Liberal government, again offering little rather than what British Columbians deserve…. We go to June 2002, when a committee of paramedics and managers recommended that staffing levels be increased by 96 hours per day in the Lower Mainland,
[ Page 2045 ]
an additional 24-hour ambulance in each of four different areas.

That's what this province needed. That's what the people living in the Lower Mainland needed to make sure that they got the best possible emergency care services they deserved. Make no mistake. They deserve that kind of care.

It was to address the current shortage. There was a shortage, and that's why they deserved improved care — because it is the best possible care. Who fought for them? Our paramedics.

Instead, the government added 20 full-time paramedic positions, enough for one 24-hour ambulance and two additional 11-hour shifts per day — 46 hours total, 50 hours short of what we needed.

I know that this government has difficulty with adding and subtracting. They're always looking at that bottom line rather than at what people deserve and what people need. But the paramedics went to bat for British Columbians, and the government gave them a little, but not enough to get the job done.

The working conditions for our valued paramedics in this province are also unacceptable. Just like this new low — an unprecedented back-to-work legislation in the middle of a collective bargaining process, which is unacceptable — the working conditions for our paramedics are absolutely unacceptable.

Perhaps I have a different perspective than some of the urban members from across the way, but I really do hope that the rural members from the opposite side of the House get it and get what these working conditions are going to mean for rural areas.

Already recruitment is a problem. A $2-an-hour wage for on call forces paramedics to pay for their own educational upgrades, which are mandatory — mandatory to keep their skills updated and mandatory to keep their licensing. Forcing them to pay for that has left few applying for rural areas.

We have the story of Chemainus and Port Renfrew where a paramedic on call 70 hours a week only gets paid for 30. Very few occupations offer such terrible working conditions and have such high expectations and such high demands on their employees, but here we are — paramedics in rural areas with just that situation.

During the election I talked to a paramedic in my area whose name is Mike. He teaches by day and goes on call by night, goes on call for the paramedics, for the B.C. Ambulance Service. That's what he does at night. He cannot afford to be a full-time paramedic with the $2-an-hour on-call wage in a rural area, in the rural community of Salmo. It's a thousand people, but far enough away from a major hospital that they need and deserve paramedic care.

He cannot afford to pay for the mandatory education to keep his skills current. While he has good wages as a teacher, he also has children he needs to look after. He is a parent, a single parent, and he can't afford to do the mandatory training to keep his skills and his licence current.

[1705]

He told me, as we stood on his driveway talking in the cool April air — it does get cool in the Kootenays in April — that he just really can't afford to stay on as one of our valued paramedics in our region. He can't afford it. He can't afford to do this most valued work, this work that saves lives.

Well, here's the scary truth. Not only will Mike not get to do a job that he truly loves doing, that is incredibly rewarding for him, but we in Salmo and in the Kootenays can't afford to lose him because no one else wants the job. We are threatened in rural areas with the loss of paramedics. We are not going to get the care and the coverage that we deserve and that we need.

This legislation makes it that much worse. Who's going to want to be a paramedic now when they see how poorly this government treats them? What a great recruitment strategy, and I say that with the utmost sarcasm I can possibly say in my voice. This is the worst recruitment strategy for rural paramedics that I have ever seen. Nobody is going to want to be a paramedic in rural B.C. now, because this government so clearly has an incredible amount of disdain for the very people that the rest of British Columbia so very much value.

In our rural areas we need those paramedics desperately. In my area, Nelson-Creston, we're well known for our extreme sports. In fact, we market our extreme sports all over the world: snowboarding, mountain biking — our wonderful, beautiful hill, Whitewater. If you're a beginner, you're welcome, but you're going to have trouble finding a run that suits you because we're known for the best tree skiing, best access to back country anywhere in North America.

Doesn't it sound absolutely wonderful? I'm sure there are members across the way right now who are thinking about getting their skis out and heading over to Nelson as soon as the snow falls so they can get some of that fresh powder and just absolutely enjoy the best powder and tree skiing that North America has to offer.

Don't come is what I have to say to them. Don't come — not because Nelson isn't fantastic and you wouldn't have a ball. You would have a wonderful time. The rest of my community might offer that same warning, because we might not have the paramedics if you get yourself hurt, and it happens all the time.

People leave the ski hill in an ambulance on a regular basis, because we do it in the extreme way. We do skiing as an extreme sport — lots of back country, lots of powder, lots of trees, lots of tree wells. I can start telling you about the friends that I've lost to avalanches, the friends that I've lost up at the hill — fairly easy access.

But I can also tell you about all the friends I have who have had their lives saved by paramedics. I really
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hope that continues to happen so that instead of saying, "Don't come because I'm worried about your own safety and your own access to paramedic care," I can say: "Come and join us. Have a ball, and if something bad happens — god forbid that something bad happens, but if it does — you'll be cared for."

It's not just my friends, actually; it's my own situation. One day I was at Whitewater skiing in the back country — actually snowboarding. I'm a boarder. Going through the back country, I went to duck under a tree, and the tree branch caught my head, sliced it open and sent me flying down the mountain.

[1710]

Luckily, I didn't hit any other trees or rocks down the way. But if it wasn't for paramedics taking me down the hill and to the emergency room, I would have lost much more blood, and who knows where I would have been.

Moving from skiing in the winter to mountain biking in the summertime, I have two friends who are now quadriplegic from mountain-biking accidents, and if it wasn't for the wonderful paramedics in my area, they may not have lived. Paramedics are part of the life-saving team for people in my area, and we are incredibly, incredibly grateful to have them.

We would be at such a loss to lose them. And here we are, faced with the worst recruitment strategy for rural paramedics in the history of this province — faced with a new low. We only hope that it's not the new standard for collective bargaining in this province.

Paramedics are a part of our lives, and they save our lives every day. We need to treat them with respect. We need to negotiate with them meaningfully and in good faith. We need to make sure that we work with them to get the best possible services for British Columbians.

We need to work with them to ensure that somebody, no matter where they are in this province — whether they're in Kitsilano, Vancouver, downtown Victoria, Kelowna, Prince Rupert, Port Renfrew, Chemainus, Salmo, Nelson, Creston, Revelstoke, Invermere or Peace River — have access to the paramedics that they need so that their lives can be saved.

That's what this is really about. This side of the House values saving lives in British Columbia; that side of the House values the almighty dollar and the bottom line. That is shameful. That is shameful for the people of this province, and it's at our loss.

We're going to keep talking. We're going to keep talking about the need for meaningful, respectful, good-faith negotiations in the collective bargaining process. We're going to keep talking and saying that this new low, possibly a new standard of collective bargaining from this government…. While perhaps something we should have expected, it's nonetheless unacceptable, and we're not going to stand for it. And British Columbians aren't going to stand for it.

Let me say…. When this government says, "Oh, trust us. Don't worry. Everything will be fine in March 2010, when we go back to negotiation," there's not a British Columbian outside of this House that believes that kind of mantra anymore.

It's been one story after another from this government, starting with the HST and then the deficit and the Olympics tickets and so on and so forth. It's a long list. After eight years of another entire list….

I'm just talking about this summer, but if we went back eight years and went through that list — B.C. Rail, the protection of health care, the protection of education — the stories go on. "We won't tear up contracts," they said. Oh, then they did. It just keeps going. They wouldn't privatize B.C. Hydro; then they did.

[1715]

My colleagues next to me are giving me all kinds of lists. British Columbians in every corner of this province have lists, and because they have those lists, they don't believe this government anymore. They also will say that this new low is unacceptable, that this new low better not be a new standard and that they are not going to take it anymore. We are with the paramedics 110 percent, and we will not stand for back-to-work legislation.

D. Black: Obviously, members on this side of the House are opposing this Bill 21, as I am. I'm pleased to have an opportunity to stand up in the Legislature and say why I'm opposing this piece of legislation.

First, I want to pay tribute to the incredible dedication of the women and men who work as paramedics for the B.C. Ambulance Service and who, in fact, work for all of us in British Columbia. They face people in real crisis. They face the sick, the injured and the dying. They care for children and women who've been abused. They attend horrific scenes after motor vehicle accidents, and they do all of this with dedication.

They should be honoured and respected for the work that they do. They should be respected by all of us in British Columbia, but especially by those of us who have the privilege of sitting in this place as Members of the Legislative Assembly.

Actually, the B.C. Ambulance Service was founded by one of my predecessors as MLA. It was Dennis Cocke, who was the MLA for New Westminster and the Minister of Health in the first NDP government in this province, who founded the B.C. Ambulance Service.

Sadly, Dennis Cocke died last year. At his memorial service there were dozens of paramedics in attendance. They attended Mr. Cocke's memorial service as a mark of respect for the work that Dennis did in this place in bringing a much-needed public ambulance service to the people of British Columbia. They attended his memorial service as a mark of respect for all the work that Dennis Cocke did, innovative work as the Minister of Health in British Columbia in the '70s.
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It's sad to see these same paramedics and all paramedics treated with such disrespect by this government. Paramedics are working under essential services right now, and they have been for seven months. The public has continued to receive the critical services during this period that the B.C. Ambulance Service provides.

The government is undermining collective bargaining. They're using a very heavy-handed hammer, when they could have appointed an independent arbitrator. This strike could, really, have been settled months ago.

I, like most members in this Legislature, have been receiving passionate and caring calls, letters and e-mails from many paramedics and people who understand the work that paramedics do for all of us in B.C. I want to read a few of them into the record, as other people have done, because each of them gives a human face to the work that paramedics do. Their family members understand how they perform for all of us. They paint a picture of the dedication and the commitment that paramedics perform for all of us in British Columbia.

The first letter that I received…. It's kind of ironic, because I received this e-mail on August 20, before the Legislature convened. The person who wrote to me says:

"On August 25 you will be returning to the Legislature. B.C. ambulance paramedics will have been on strike" — at that point — "for almost five months by then. During that time management has been refusing to negotiate with CUPE 873 and refusing to appoint an independent arbitrator-negotiator.

"This leads me to conclude that when the Legislature resumes" — this is really someone who was thinking ahead — "you will be asked to impose a legislative contract onto B.C. paramedics. The reason that will be given for this extraordinary breach of our democratic rights will be the large number of ambulances that have been out of service due to lack of staff since the start of the strike.

"While it's true that there have been a number of ambulances down since the start of the strike, there are three very important facts that I do not believe management will share with you. First, there were ambulances down before the strike, often a lot of them, due to chronic understaffing. Second, the calls are still getting done. Patients are still being cared for in the most timely way possible. Third, and I believe most importantly, a legislative settlement will not address the very real crisis looming for B.C. Ambulance Service.

[1720]

"The simple and crucial fact is that 65 percent of paramedics in this province are eligible to retire in the next two to 2½ years. That's a little over 2,200 out of 3,500 paramedics. The current total is the same as it was in 1986, but as you well know, our population has grown, and they have aged, meaning more demand on an already overtaxed system.

"B.C. Ambulance Service has been running on overtime for decades. It's cheaper to pay me overtime at time-and-a-quarter than it is to hire another person and pay their benefits. For years, because of low wages and an unwillingness to put the public at risk, we have been doing the overtime. However, I cannot do at 44 what I could do at 24, and I am among the younger paramedics in this service. Most of our membership is over 55, and their bodies are wearing out from putting in 12-hour days, seven days a week for years.

"With a decent negotiated contract, many of those who are eligible to retire may stay on. We will be able to attract qualified people from other provinces, and we will be able to recruit people from within this province. As our wages are now, none of these things will happen. Why would you come from Alberta where you make $27 an hour using state-of-the-art equipment to work here for $21 an hour using antiquated and derelict equipment?

"If you're a British Columbian who wants to become a paramedic, it costs you $10,000. When you had your licence, you would spend two to three years working somewhere like Boston Bar, Keremeos or Chetwynd for $2-an-hour pager pay. If — capitalized and bold — you get a call, then you would get your $21 an hour for four hours. Many of these stations don't have the call volume, and our paramedics are living below the poverty line or taking second jobs to feed themselves.

"Many of them quit before their first year is up, meaning they won't be able to replace those 2,200 paramedics that are retiring. Who's going to subject themselves to HIV, hep C, TB, bloody motor vehicle accidents and injured or dead babies for that?

"There are many other problems for the B.C. Ambulance Service, and I would love to get into any or all of them with you, but I urge you to talk to the paramedics at your local station."

And I would urge the members on the other side to do that.

"My greatest concern at this point is in making sure that the Legislature has all the facts before they consider the extraordinary measure of legislating a settlement onto the paramedics of this province, because the bottom line, all rhetoric aside, is if our recruitment and retention issues aren't addressed, someone will die.

"Our dispatchers are already prioritizing calls due to lack of ambulances. How are we going to respond to the increasing number of calls with 2,200 less paramedics? Eventually, I will be out doing a call for abdominal pain or an MVA when someone calls with chest pain, and there won't be an ambulance to respond. That person, maybe a constituent's loved one, maybe yours, will die.

"You have the power to keep that from happening. When the question comes up in the Legislative Assembly, remember these facts and vote against a legislated contract."

As I said earlier, that letter came to me on August 20 — obviously someone who was well aware of the way that this government acts in terms of their strategies for labour negotiations. August 20, months ago, they could see that this would be the direction that the Liberal government would take.

The second one I want to read is from a woman whose husband is a paramedic, and she wrote this on September 1, also a while ago. She said:

"Years ago my husband decided that it was time for him to try a different career. He was looking for something that would offer excitement and a lot more interaction with people than what he was getting from his previous job. He was also looking for a more fulfilling kind of work.

"After a lot of research and consideration, he decided that he would like to become a paramedic in B.C. It wasn't an easy decision. He would have to go back to school, which would bring a lot of financial stress to our home, but he was adamant that becoming a paramedic was not only a great career but the right one for him. So he quit his job and started taking all the mandatory courses to become eligible to apply for paramedic school with the Justice Institute.

[1725]

"For about one year our family not only did not have his income coming in, we had big expenses with his courses and course materials. But well, that was what he wanted. We sacrificed, keeping our goal in check.

"As the days went by, his passion grew. He had this thing in his eyes that I had never seen before. It was like he had been born to be a paramedic. He loved it. Every time his phone rang calling
[ Page 2048 ]
him to work, he would have this big smile on his face, and in no time he would be ready and out the door.

"During the course of his career as a part-time paramedic, he was faced many times with difficult and traumatic calls, some of them involving children. In spite of being shaken up, sometimes for days, he never thought about giving up on his chosen career.

"Time went by fast. Our family grew bigger and so did our expenses — but not my husband's salary. Soon we realized that his paramedic career was something like a hobby — something you do for passion with no real financial gain. So no longer being able to afford being a paramedic, my husband had to do something else.

"He no longer gets to treat people in the back of his ambulance. He no longer gets to practice his medical skills. He no longer has that light on his face on his way to work. His passion dies a little bit every day.

"Why is he no longer working as a paramedic? Good question. We could no longer afford to have him as a part-time paramedic earning $5 an hour while on call and having to pay for his trip, mileage and ferry when designated to go to places like Boston Bar and Bowen Island. If he happened to be lucky, he would be called to work somewhere in the Lower Mainland, but that was like winning the lottery. Still, the wages would be around $19 an hour. To make things worse, he would have to work five years under these conditions to one day be able to hold a regular full-time position.

"So now let's stop and think for a moment. People like my husband are the people you are counting on when you call 911 requesting an ambulance. These are well-trained, dedicated people whose passion for their work is, little by little, stolen from them. In my opinion, our provincial government has shown very little interest in providing decent wages and decent and fully staffed workstations for such an important service.

"When you call 911 for an ambulance, how fast do you want the paramedics to arrive? How passionate would you like them to be when delivering services to your loved ones? I guess it's time we voice our concerns, and if you care, take time to get involved and get informed."

So another very compelling letter from a woman whose husband had to leave his career of choice and something that he felt very dedicated to because the wages and the support from government just weren't enough to sustain their family.

There is another story that I wanted to read. This was printed in the local paper in my community, in New Westminster, in the Record. It was published again, in August, quite a while ago. It says:

"My husband is a paramedic. Let me tell you our story. In September 2002 he was hired part-time by B.C. Ambulance to a small community about a two-hour drive from our hometown on Vancouver Island. Because part-time paramedics only make $2 an hour on a pager while waiting for a call, he didn't make enough money to quit his full-time job, so he worked Monday to Friday at a sawmill and then drove two hours to the station on Friday evening to put in his Saturday and Sunday shifts.

"Because the station is in a small community, it's not a very busy station, and there would often be weekends where he would go without a call — for which he would have received four hours' pay — and would end up making a whopping $48 for the whole weekend. Subtract gas and food costs while he was away, and he would often come home on Sunday in the red.

[H. Bloy in the chair.]

"After two years, and some additional training, he was able to transfer to the station in our hometown. He still made only $2 an hour while on a pager, but at least he was able to be home with his family. Because he was at a busier station, there were fewer shifts without calls, which meant that he was able to quit his job at the mill and concentrate on the Ambulance Service.

"Still, in order to make ends meet, he worked an average 29 shifts a month. That was our life for 2½ years while I was in school full-time finishing my degree. Our first child was born in 2006, and in 2007 my husband finally had enough seniority to get a full-time position on the mainland, which meant he would be paid his regular wage for the whole shift, and he would get benefits, because part-time paramedics don’t get benefits until after six years' service.

[1730]

"It also meant that he would be commuting again — four days on, four days off — and living in a friend's basement. Thank goodness for them, as we could not have been able to afford an apartment for him four days a week. After a year of commuting, we realized that the family sacrifice we were making was too great, so we sold our four-bedroom home on the Island and moved into a more expensive two-bedroom condo in Coquitlam. We also left all our family and friends behind.

"Although it's nice to have a predictable paycheque and benefits, being full-time has not come without a cost. The Ambulance Service is so understaffed that my husband comes home at the end of almost every 12-hour shift without having had a proper meal break. It's called stuff your face while you drive with lights and sirens to the next call.

"He has now invested 18 months and thousands of dollars to further his paramedic career by taking the advanced care paramedic program, but because of the strike, this has been put on hold, and we now have no idea when he may finish his training.

"Our story is not new. Paramedics have been working under these conditions for years. I often wonder why he stays working for an employer who just doesn't seem to care about him. The answer never changes. He loves his job. He's good at it. The B.C. Ambulance Service is lucky to have him and the roughly 3,500 other men and women who show up day and night to save lives in the communities they serve, regardless of their horrendous working conditions.

"Anyone who thinks that paramedics don't deserve a fair contract should try to picture themselves working day and night in one of the most heart-wrenching, traumatic, unpredictable jobs imaginable. Try working in a job where you never know what kind of call is coming next — maybe a cardiac arrest, a sick or injured child, a car accident, a suicide or a drug overdose — and being faced with dangerous situations on a daily basis, whether it be violence, exposure to any number of infections or diseases, or even trying to navigate your way through rush-hour traffic so oblivious to your lights and sirens that no one even pulls over.

"These men and women need your support. I want to say thank you to those of you who have already shown your support in various ways…and by writing letters to your MLAs or stopping by to drop off coffee and goodies to those spending their days at the information lines.

"To those of you who do not support the strike, I encourage you to visit www.saveourparamedics and get educated on the facts. Heaven forbid you ever need to call for an ambulance, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if you ever did, you're going to want someone to show up. When our government is giving themselves 40 percent wage increases, running a half-billion dollars over budget on the new convention centre and talking about implementing a new tax on the already stretched to the max working public, don't tell me there's no money to fairly pay the members of our essential emergency services.

"Appoint an impartial third-party mediator, and get to the bargaining table."

That is a letter from a woman whose husband is a paramedic, and I think she tells it much more strongly than any of us could.

I've also got a letter here that was sent to me on September 10 from a retired paramedic. He says:
[ Page 2049 ]

"I'm a retired paramedic after 40 years of ambulance service. When I started, we were a scoop-and-run service. In 1974 the NDP took over all ambulance services in the province. They put them all under one umbrella called the Emergency Health Services Commission.

"They improved the training of all paramedics to the point that we were recognized as one of the best services in North America. We have the trophies to prove this fact. We competed with paramedics all over the world and placed first three or four times.

"This is no longer true. The present government has let the service slide to the point where we have degraded to one of the poorest services in North America.

"As you are aware, the paramedics are on strike for better wages and an increase in more paramedics, as the call volume has increased twofold since I left. The paramedics have been ordered an essential service and must keep working.

"In the high call volume areas the paramedics work their four 12-hour shifts and then are called back on their days off to work mandatory 12-hour shifts on two to three days of their supposed-to-be days off. They're burning out.

[1735]

"All that CUPE Local 873 wants at this time is a mediator, and the government is refusing. They say that both parties are too far apart. This is not true. CUPE Local 873 has supported the NDP in every election. I do not know if you can help these paramedics, but if you can, I know it will be greatly appreciated."

That's from a retired paramedic who'd been on the job as a paramedic for 40 years in British Columbia.

One I received today…. They're coming very fast, faster than I can print them off, and I know that members on the other side of the House are getting the same e-mails and the same calls, because they cc everybody that they send them to. This one says:

"I'm writing in regards to Bill 21" — so this one was written today — "the Ambulance Services Collective Agreement Act. I'm a paramedic in British Columbia. With this letter, my intent is not to criticize or inflame but rather to inform.

"You might think that being a paramedic in this province is like many other jobs. You go to school for an education, then get a job that provides a living. Sadly, it doesn't work that way for B.C.'s paramedics. The only way to convey the reality of our situation, which most British Columbians don't understand, is to explain the employment circumstances that I personally endured, which is a reflection of the conditions that virtually all of B.C.'s paramedics must endure. I hope this will shed light on your understanding of the plight of B.C.'s paramedics.

"Permit me to tell you about my experiences as an 18-year veteran of the B.C. Ambulance Service and how for the first years of my career I earned less than someone living on welfare. This is a brutal process of working part-time in small towns that almost every British Columbia paramedic must endure for years — ten in my case — because there are so few salaried full-time positions in the province.

"I'll start back in '92, when I was keen and excited about becoming a paramedic. My first position was in Logan Lake. I worked there for 3½ years, then worked for the B.C. Ambulance Service in a variety of small towns such as Merritt and Boston Bar for many years after that. All the while I lived in Vancouver, so I commuted three to four hours, entirely at my own expense, several times a month. I spent days at a time at the station, which in some cases consisted of a storage room, where we slept on a concrete floor, and an office. Many of the province's stations are in a similar sorry state or worse.

"I did this for zero dollars per hour. That's not a typo. I was only paid if someone called an ambulance. Assigned to a station with 300 calls per year, it was rare to even get one call each day, and if I did, I received four hours' pay at approximately $12 an hour. I wasn't eligible for benefits for the first six years, either. Quite literally, I could have made a better living on welfare. Most of the time it cost me more money to go to work than I made back in wages.

"This has to be the only job on this planet where you, as the employee, potentially have to pay more out of your own pocket to be employed than what you get back in compensation. When paramedics refer to the broken Ambulance Service, this aspect is just one of the problems to which we're referring.

"Let's be clear here. Many of my part-time colleagues — thousands of us — endured similar circumstances. This experience was not unique to me. If you want to be a paramedic in this province, this is your rite of passage, and you have little choice but to endure these Third World working conditions for years on end.

"Fast forward to 2009. Now I'm a full-time salaried paramedic in Burnaby, where we have only two ambulances after midnight for a population in excess of 225,000 people — the same as Sechelt, with a population of less than 10,000. Refer to the broken Ambulance Service again. I earn less than $60,000 per year after 18 years. By contrast, a four-year salaried firefighter or police officer earns as much as 30 percent more, and unlike paramedics, they can obtain full-time employment right after they finish their education.

"And for all this, according to WorkSafe B.C., I have one of the most dangerous jobs in the province. Eleven of my colleagues have died directly while on duty since 1988. Despite what people might think, this job is very hazardous due to the extremely high risks from disease, illness, accidents and violence.

"Many of my part-time colleagues continue to receive poverty-level earnings today. When financial times were good in the mid-2000s, we endured years of wage freezes. In 2009 the Liberal government disrespected us again by failing to negotiate in good faith and offered us more years of wage freezes.

[1740]

"This latest insult is Bill 21, a legislated contract imposed while we are conducting a completely legal strike and continuing to work as per the terms set out in the labour relations board's essential services order, the nature of which is questionable when you examine the fact that the director was previously the Deputy Minister of Labour.

"This bill is being introduced under the guise of the H1N1 pandemic, while simultaneously, paramedics themselves can't even access immunization for this same virus that they're supposed to face day in and day out, then potentially take home to their families.

"With working conditions such as I described above, how many new paramedics do you think will join this system when even a job at Starbucks can literally provide a better and safer standard of living? How many of us do you think will continue to work for an employer that so blatantly disregards the rights of its workers?

"If you think our strike is just about wages, think again. It's about response times, which I haven't even discussed but which are terrifyingly unacceptable. It's about recruitment and retention. It's about public safety. Most importantly, it's about respect for the people of British Columbia who count on us and our families for the valuable service we provide in incredibly adverse conditions.

"I'll leave you with one question. Would you accept this legislation if you had endured similar working circumstances such as I described? If the answer is no, I implore you to do the right thing and voice your opposition to Bill 21. The damage that this bill will cause will not be undone for decades or more to come."

That's a letter from a working paramedic. You can hear the passion in his voice, and you can also hear the anger and the disappointment in his voice at what this government is doing.

You know, it's incredible that the government puts forward this piece of legislation and then doesn't speak to it. It's very difficult to understand that.
[ Page 2050 ]

We understand that in the parliamentary system the government and the opposition may have different points of view on many issues that come before us as legislators. But not to even get up and defend the legislation you're proposing, not to even stand up — not one of them, not the even the Minister of Health — and defend the legislation that they're imposing on paramedics across this province is outrageous.

There's a vote taking place right now. The paramedics are voting on an agreement right now, and it's appalling that back-to-work legislation, something that's never been introduced anywhere in Canada during a voting process, is being introduced by this government.

B.C. Ambulance Service currently meets its response-time goal of arriving at an emergency in under nine minutes only 52 percent of the time, but in 1985 paramedics arrived that quickly 85 percent of the time. Why are B.C.'s accident and illness victims waiting longer than ever when every second counts in an emergency?

If we want better response times, we need fully staffed stations throughout B.C. and fair wages and working conditions for B.C.'s ambulance paramedics. Bill 21 does nothing to achieve these goals. As a matter of fact, Bill 21 will take us back in time and make it much more difficult in the future to have meaningful labour negotiations with the paramedics.

I want to urge this government to withdraw this draconian legislation. They should allow the collective bargaining process to proceed. As we said earlier, the paramedics are still working under essential services legislation. The public is still being served in emergency cases. So it's ridiculous that this government would use such a heavy hammer to force paramedics back to work and to disrespect them.

I started out my comments today talking about respect and the respect that was shown to a previous Minister of Health at his funeral last year when literally dozens of paramedics showed up at his memorial service. I implore this government to give the respect that should be due to B.C. paramedics and to their families. Show them the kind of respect they deserve from their government and from all British Columbians. That is the least they could do. They should withdraw Bill 21.

[1745]

J. Horgan: It is indeed very much an honour for me to stand in my place today on behalf of paramedics and the people of my constituency of Juan de Fuca to speak against Bill 21, the Ambulance Services Collective Agreement Act — again, another misnomer from the government on the other side.

This is the second piece of back-to-work legislation that I've had the discomfort of standing and speaking to since I was elected in 2005. In fact, one of the very first acts as Education critic in 2005 was to stand and oppose the ordering back to work of teachers and the B.C. Teachers Federation. It's a sad day to be here after months and months of inaction by this government, to be in this place now with some very, very, very sketchy rationale for back-to-work legislation.

I want to take you back, if I may, to the 2009 election campaign. It was there that I met many ambulance paramedics — the leadership of the organization here on the south Island — as well as door to door, meeting many men and women who work full-time and part-time to protect the lives, the health and the security of people here on southern Vancouver Island.

In my constituency, we have three B.C. Ambulance Service stations, the West Shore division, Sooke and in Port Renfrew. I want to talk a bit right now off the top about Port Renfrew, because it's at the end of Highway 14. It's a long way from here; it's a long way from health care. In fact, the paramedics that staff the ambulance hall and drive the truck from Port Renfrew are the only health care for people on the west coast of Vancouver Island out along Highway 14, and you can do a lot of dying along that highway on a cold November night when the rain starts to fall and the wind starts to howl.

The men and women of the B.C. Ambulance Service, CUPE members who have — day after day, night after night, week after week, month after month — taken up their positions at the detachment in Port Renfrew for $2 an hour on call — $2 an hour — are doing a tremendous service for the people of my community, and it is recognized and acknowledged right across the piece by people who are predisposed to be Liberal, people who are predisposed to be Conservative, New Democrat or Green.

They all recognize the important and valuable work that paramedics do in our communities right across this province, but nowhere do you see it more than you do in my community of Juan de Fuca, where the Juan de Fuca area is protected and served by full-time and part-time ambulance attendants in Port Renfrew, in Sooke and in the West Shore.

My colleague from New Westminster mentioned that her predecessor established the B.C. Ambulance Service in a B.C. NDP government in the 1970s, again a groundbreaking initiative by the Barrett government, bringing B.C. kicking and screaming into the 20th century at that time. Here we are with a B.C. Liberal government trying to take us back to the Stone Age, trying to take away the rights that have been hard fought for.

This month of November, as we stare down Remembrance Day, it is particularly galling to be in a Legislature — a democratic place, where we're supposed to be protecting the rights of our citizens — and the Minister of Health, in a very cavalier fashion, introduces a bill to take those rights away from people who put their lives at risk each and every day to protect the citizens of this province. It's absolutely appalling.

I cannot believe that we're standing here today in November 2009 and ordering back to work people who
[ Page 2051 ]
have been at their posts, meeting essential service levels, doing their work as they have done tirelessly year after year — as we've heard from many in letters. I have some correspondence that I'm going to be reading into the record as well. It's appalling. It's absolutely appalling.

I was ill this week, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity. I've left my H1 bed; I don't think I have the N1, but I've had a fever. I'd love to come over and hug some of the Liberals on the other side.

Oh, look — a warm embrace from the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam. That would be wonderful. Of all the people to embrace, he would be the last one I'd do it to. I do see a number over there that I'd love to give a big hug to right now, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to speak against this legislation.

I've been receiving e-mails. I know many on this side and, I'm assuming…. of course you never hear a word from government members, so it's difficult to gauge what type of interaction they have with their constituents. It's very difficult to gauge what their principles and values are, because they never stand and articulate them, hon. Speaker.

[1750]

The advantage, I suppose, of being in opposition is that we're entitled and obliged to stand in this place and speak about the values that we represent, about the values that sent us to this place: decency, tolerance, the right to free and unfettered collective bargaining, for example — just a minor issue. I know it's an irritant to the Minister of Health. "Pish posh, get these cretins out of the way. Let's move on. Let's move forward." If I hear that one more time, I think I'm going to gag.

We need to move forward. Where the heck are we going? Where are we going as a society if our democratic institutions are assembled to take rights away from individuals? That's exactly what we're doing with this bill. Let's not make any doubt about it. Ordering people to accept a collective agreement against their will has nothing to do with democracy, has nothing to do with fundamental rights. It has everything to do with the status quo and the way that that side operates time after time.

As I say, it's the second time in my brief stint as a legislator that I've had to stand in this place and not hear a word from the government side. All I have to go by is the explanatory note: "This Bill settles the labour dispute between the Emergency and Health Services Commission and its ambulance paramedics and dispatchers, and provides for the constitution of a collective agreement between the parties." That's what we've got to work with. Those are the values and principles espoused by the government of British Columbia under the leadership of the member for Vancouver–Point Grey. That's all we've got.

At some point at the end of second reading we may hear from the Minister of Health. He may deign to stand in this place and say, "It's the H1N1 pandemic that's forcing me to put these people back to work, forcing me to jam a collective agreement down their throats. I don't want to do it," I'm sure the Health Minister will say. "It's about public safety. I don't want to do it. It's about public safety."

They didn't want to give bonuses to Olympic executives before they even finished their jobs. They didn't want to do that. That was about delivering the games on time. They didn't want to give themselves…. I'm sure the Premier didn't want a 54 percent pay increase, while paramedics in my community are getting $2 an hour to be on call to save the lives of people in my community. I'm sure they didn't want to do it.

We'll never know, because none of them on that side of the House are going to stand and say just what it is they do stand for.

Try to keep the yawns to a minimum, Member. I'm trying to be entertaining. I know it's difficult. I know it's difficult to listen to we on this side of the House standing here and representing the people who elected us. It's a challenge. Try and stay with us. Maybe a cup of coffee. Take a break.

This bill is to settle the labour dispute. Well, there are many ways to settle a labour dispute.

M. Mungall: Negotiation.

J. Horgan: Negotiation, my colleague from Nelson-Creston advises. What a novel idea.

I've got an idea. There's an impasse. The two parties can't come to an agreement. What do we do in this place often? Well, the Minister of Labour, who could very easily appoint an independent arbitrator to sit down with the two parties and come up with an agreement…. We could have done that in April. We could have done it in May, June, July, August, September, October. But no, no, we can't do that. We have to now impose a collective agreement on paramedics and ambulance workers in this province. It's appalling.

I can't tell you, hon. Speaker, how much I wanted to come here today and see if there would be a murmur from the other side, one individual standing up and saying: "You know, I've been getting a couple of e-mails myself."

I'd like one member on that side of the House to say that they have been flooded by constituents — their neighbours, Liberals, people who voted for them — saying: "You've got to come down hard on these ambulance drivers. You've got to come down hard on these paramedics. Drains on society — that's what they are, out there saving people's lives each and every day. It's offensive. I think we need to impose a collective agreement." I'm sure that's the e-mail they're getting on that side of the House.

Sadly, on this side of the House we're hearing from paramedics right across the piece. I don't have to go too
[ Page 2052 ]
far. I have one brother who was a firefighter for 35 years with the Victoria fire department. I have another brother who established the ambulance hall in Mill Bay in my former constituency, in the constituency of the member for Cowichan Valley. And he didn't get paid anything to do that.

[1755]

He did it because he saw that there was a vacancy. There was a void in the community. He helped get it started in the 1980s. It's running today. It's one of the best crews you've got in the Cowichan Valley, and I know my colleague from Cowichan Valley will be speaking about that when he starts.

I know of what I speak, hon. Speaker. In fact, during the election campaign I had leaders in the paramedic community from the union come to my constituency office and ask me what my views were. When Shane Edwards came into my office, he said: "Are you Pat Horgan?"

I can say Pat Horgan. I can say my brother's name. He's much older than me. I want that on the record for sure — my much older brother, Pat Horgan.

He said: "You're his little brother." I said: "Yes, I am." He said: "Well, I guess I don't have to ask you where you stand with respect to our rights and the important work that we do in the community." I said: "I'm with you, brother — whatever you need, wherever you need it."

I walked the line. I wrote letters. I assisted in any way I could. Then I came to this place, and we waited. We waited, those on this side of the House, with the direction of our colleague the Labour critic. Listening to both sides, we let the free and unfettered collective bargaining process unfold, hopeful all the while that the two sides would come to a mutually beneficial agreement in the interests of taxpayers and in the interests of the people that they serve.

That didn't happen, although the opportunity was there for the government to use a number of tools available to them. The Minister of Labour would have been able to brief the Minister of Health on these issues, but he was concerned about the pandemic. We need to force these paramedics back to work so that they can drive around without immunization, so that they can be front-line health care workers without access to H1N1 vaccine.

Talk about adding insult to injury, hon. Speaker. "Here's your porridge. Eat your porridge. This is the contract; take it or leave it. By the way, we want you back in the breach, and we don't have enough of the H1N1 to give you the inoculation and the vaccine that you need to do your job safely." It's quite something.

I made reference earlier in my remarks to the bonuses for Olympic executives. Again, I'm sure the government didn't want to do that. "Difficult to retain people" was the argument. Difficult to retain these people. I mean, after all, we've got the Terminal City Club. We've only got it for two weeks. The party is only going on for two weeks. We've got only so many tickets to go around. We have to bump up the exorbitant salaries to keep them around until the end of the games in March.

I have in my hands a memo that was sent from Michael Wilkinson, director of medical services for VANOC. He sent this to my good friend Lee Doney, who never met a union he didn't want to bust, the former Labour deputy minister for the B.C. Liberal government.

How are you doing, Lee? I hope the cheques are still coming thick and fast for you.

Anyway, this memo says the following:

"VANOC Medical Services requires definite confirmation by October 1, 2009, that all required ambulance services will be provided as planned. These services include the ability to engage the VPCs" — which are the Vancouver paramedic crews — "and BCAS" — which is the B.C. Ambulance Service — "members in full venue planning as soon as possible. This confirmation must also include a guarantee that no services during the games will be disrupted or reduced from what has been planned."

I don't know about you, hon. Speaker, and smoking guns, but it strikes me that that memorandum from VANOC to the guy at the negotiating table on behalf of the B.C. Liberal government, saying that we really need to get this pesky issue resolved before we can start planning for health services at venues across the Lower Mainland…. We really need to get this resolved.

Then not weeks after that memo crossed the desk of Mr. Doney, we have in this place back-to-work legislation. I always go to incompetence before I go to conspiracy. I think that's an important rule of thumb. I like to think that governments screw up rather than plan to screw the public, but in this instance, I think they've managed to do both. I think they've managed to do both.

I was out at a public meeting in Port Renfrew, talking about the lack of services at the end of Highway 14. People live in Port Renfrew. I see my friend from Chilliwack. He knows Port Renfrew. He's been out to the logjam. We had a modest disagreement on that issue, but it was only a modest one. He's been to the community. He knows it's at the end of the road.

[1800]

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

I was at a meeting out there, and the crew chief said: "Hey, Member, if you're going to go off the road, be sure you do it before you get to Loss Creek so we can get the call. I said: "Thanks a lot. I appreciate that." He said: "Oh, it's nothing personal, but after Loss Creek it's a Sooke call. I'm sitting here doing nothing. I'll probably have to come and get you anyway, but it's outside of our area."

It's little things like that in rural communities. I know that members, when they think of me, don't always think of rural. I know my friend from Columbia River–Revelstoke does. I represent an interface area. My friend from Oak Bay understands that. There's a suburban component to my constituency, and there is quite a rural component.
[ Page 2053 ]

It's 2½ to three hours from here, this place, to Port Renfrew. The ambulance attendants there have to deal with some of the most difficult situations you could imagine. The suicide rate in the Port Renfrew area is quite staggering. It was newsworthy for some of the larger metropolitan news outlets some time ago.

I don't want to get into that. The people in that community don't want to dwell on those issues. But when someone does take their life in Port Renfrew, the person that has to respond is the ambulance attendant. It's the paramedic. And that's just in one small area of my community.

When we move into Sooke, because of the absence of certainty with respect to full-time, part-time crews, you quite often have an incident in the capital region that will require that the car from Langford be brought into the city. When one of the two cars from Langford goes into the city, then one of cars in Sooke has to be moved to the Metchosin border.

Now, these are basic chess moves on a board for those in the capital regional district trying to manage the health needs and the emergency health needs of people right across the community, but when that happens, there are times when there is no service available to people in my community. As my colleague from New Westminster mentioned, the ambulance is down. Quite often happens in Port Renfrew; quite often happens in Sooke, because the crews have been dispatched to another point on the chessboard so they can meet the needs of people right across the capital regional district.

Ambulance attendants and paramedics do this happily. They do it because they have a passion for the work. They're not drains on the health budget, as we're led to believe by the Minister of Health. They're not drains. They are the health care system in Port Renfrew. They are, to a large extent, after five o'clock the health care system in the district of Sooke.

This is an important function. It's vital. It's indispensable in rural areas, and my colleagues from the Kootenays, from Nelson-Creston and from Columbia River–Revelstoke have touched upon that. This is a non-trivial issue. This is a big deal.

But for the Minister of Health, apparently, we have to manage the H1N1 pandemic by ordering people back to work. Maybe he should spend more time worrying about how we're going to get vaccine to people and less time worrying about ordering people back to work. I suggest that it is a little mix of incompetence and conspiracy with respect to the Olympic edict that came from the Health Services member there, but we'll just leave that for time to unfold.

We've had a couple of issues today. For those who are watching in the gallery and on the television, there's a little bit of repetition in what we're doing here, because we have, on this side of the House, 35 members that are standing proudly in support of paramedics right across B.C. We have 40-odd members on the government side who have nothing to say. It's all contained in their three-page bill, which, as I said, settles the labour dispute.

Interjection.

J. Horgan: This is the challenge.

We've been getting letters in our offices since we were re-elected in May, since beforehand — paramedics, family members of paramedics, people who know paramedics, just people — saying: "When will the government…?"

You know, the downside of being an opposition member of the Legislature is quite often that the public thinks it's my fault. I'm somehow responsible for the bad decisions being made by the Minister of Health. Those bad decisions are all his, with the direction of the member for Vancouver–Point Grey, the nominal figurehead for the B.C. Liberal government at this point in history.

[1805]

That's their deal, not mine. I wanted to stand in this place on the day after the election and say, "What are you doing? Let's get with it," but the decision was made: "Well, let's let this unfold. Let's let the government, the B.C. Ambulance Service negotiate with its employees freely, unfettered, and they'll come up with a collective agreement. That's the way it works." Fair enough.

Well, months went by — months and months — and then our good friend the new doctor, the House doctor for the B.C. Liberal Party — the member from somewhere in Surrey — introduced the bill we have before us today, Bill 21 — back-to-work legislation for that drain on society.

Just $2 an hour — that's how much they get paid for being on call. That's outrageous. What are they thinking?

M. Mungall: How much do they get paid for being on call?

J. Horgan: How much do they get paid for being on call? Well, if you're the Premier, you get $54,000 more now than you did before. But he didn't want to do it. I'm confident of that. I'm confident he didn't want to take the money. He had to do it in the interests of stability in the system. Similarly, we have to order people back to work.

I want to read a couple of letters into the record, because we have been inundated with them. I'm going to try and leave names out of this, but I think it is important. Again, I assume…. When I look at the distribution list, I see members of the government are on this distribution list, so this won't be news for the mutes on the other side. I don't know if they read them or not, but I'm going to give them the opportunity to hear about it right now — at least those in attendance, those that are not plugged up right now.

Deputy Speaker: Member, remember that we don't comment on who is here and who isn't here.
[ Page 2054 ]

J. Horgan: I didn't comment on who is here. I said: "Those who are here."

Interjection.

J. Horgan: I'm not arguing with the Chair. Of all the people. Mr. Decorum over there. I'm going to take advice from you? My goodness.

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member.

Interjections.

J. Horgan: Oh, we're going to hear from the minister.

Deputy Speaker: Member, please take your seat.

Point of Order

Hon. K. Falcon: A point of order, Madam Chair. I realize the member often speaks without thinking, but he is referring to members that are in the House, including myself. He knows that that's wrong, and I would ask the member to follow the rules of the House, which have been in place for many, many decades.

Deputy Speaker: Member, I reminded you before that we don't comment on the presence or absence of any member in the House. Please continue with your speech.

Debate Continued

J. Horgan: I will certainly abide by your ruling, but I will take no advice — zero advice — from the Minister of Health. Not one scintilla. Not one.

I'm going to read from correspondence that was sent to the Minister of Health, and some of the words have more than three or four letters in them. I'm sure it will be difficult for him, so I'll read them slowly.

"I'm having a great difficulty understanding how I and all other paramedics deserve the level of outright disrespect shown to us by our provincial government. I have been a paramedic for almost 30 years. I have an impeccable record, as do most other paramedics.

"The only thing we have ever asked for was the respect of our employer and to be treated in the fashion of the other emergency professions. If any one of our politicians or their family members was ever in need of our services, we would be there for them, as we would be for anyone else who called 911.

"We have never withheld emergency services, and we never would. We have consciences, and we understand the role required of us. Why is it that this government feels the need to disrespect us by initiating legislation contrary to any established legal and moral practices? It makes no sense whatsoever.

"Yes, I have provided emergency service to many people over the years that have spit on me, tried to harm me with weapons, cursed, scratched, punched and multiple other attempts to harm me, but those people were sick or injured. They have an excuse. This government does not.

"At the end of the day, this legislation will go to the Supreme Court and be found to be illegal. This will take a number of years and cost the taxpayers of this province millions of dollars. This government has done the same thing to other labour groups in the past. They know full well that eventually they will lose in the court of law, but in the meantime, they will have fulfilled their obligation for the secure pension and will no longer be accountable.

[1810]

"If my job description is to serve the people of this province in their time of need and I fulfil that obligation, why am I treated with such disrespect for doing that job? The government's obligation is to serve the people of this province, and yet they hold themselves above the law and do what they please with impunity. I don't understand.

"The people of this province should be outraged and ashamed to have put persons such as this in a position to abuse those of us who care for and treat the sick and injured."

I don't think anyone could have said it better than that.

We have dozens and dozens of testimonials from B.C. Ambulance Service employees, from their family members, from people around the corner — you name it. The public is standing foursquare in favour of the paramedics in this province. They stand against this legislation at a time when we should be coming together, should be healing, should be building the dynamic and prosperous community that we all want.

A key component of that is being disrespected and abused, and for what? For the Olympics? Is that the intent of the memorandum from VANOC to the government's chief negotiator on this file? Is it all about making sure that the venues are secured? I am absolutely certain that paramedics with the B.C. Ambulance Service would do their duty, go beyond their duty, in the interests of a successful Olympic Games.

That's not the issue. This is a bully tactic by a bully government. On the thin pretext of protecting the public, they're forcing those that spend their entire lives protecting the public…. They're abusing their rights, they're abusing the privilege of being in government, and I just don't understand why. The people that are corresponding with us don't understand why, and they are saying it over and over and over again.

I want to talk just briefly about the importance of recruitment and retention. One of the things we've heard from the government, as they've announced massive increases for senior public servants, is the need to recruit and retain capable and competent people. Paramedics are prepared to work for nothing. They're prepared to train themselves. They're prepared to drive across different regional districts to show up for work, for $2 an hour, and they get this sort of respect from the government of British Columbia.

Their employer says to them, in essence: "Here's your porridge. Eat it. This is the bill. We're going to pass it. We want you back to work, and we'll talk to you next year. Then it'll be free and fair collective bargaining — honest. You can count on us." That's the message from the employer to this group in our community, a group that has universal support.
[ Page 2055 ]

I've said — when we passed presumptive cancer legislation here in this place, to support and protect firefighters; it was one of those rare opportunities when both sides of the House stood together to do the right thing — it's pretty easy for politicians to stand beside firefighters, because when you are on the lowest rung, as we are as elected representatives…. As regrettable as it is that I admit to that, poll after poll shows that our neighbours don't think terribly highly of us. They think very highly of firefighters. They think very highly of paramedics.

If the government, in its wisdom, can understand basking in the reflective glory of firefighters, why in the world would they treat paramedics the way they're treating these people today? It makes no sense to me. It makes no sense to my colleagues. I will be voting against Bill 21, and I will do so proudly for the people in my community and for the people right across British Columbia.

S. Hammell: I rise in the House to take my place in the debate and to oppose Bill 21, the Ambulance Services Collective Agreement Act. This bill, as has been stated before me, formalizes the September offer by the government to the paramedics — the last offer — and it's the offer that the ambulance drivers and paramedics are voting on, by mail, as we are debating. This bill forces the paramedics back to work. It settles a labour dispute temporarily, at least until after the Olympics. It imposes a collective agreement.

[1815]

The vote, which is being taken as we speak, was to be counted on November 6 — this Friday. So why would the government disrupt due process and drop into this Legislature, through a bill, a forced settlement? Why would the government choose, at this moment, to introduce this legislation, considering it is the first time in Canada that government has acted to intervene in a collective bargaining process while a vote is being taken?

That's actually quite shocking. You have due process moving on. You have the regular to and fro of a settlement or a dispute working its way out. You have a vote in process, and you drop in legislation to force a settlement.

None of the reasons stated for this legislation support the vote of sending the paramedics back to work. This Legislature has a month before it adjourns. There's lots of time in our calendar to deal with the results of the vote. There's lots of time in the calendar for the government to go back and to move forward with negotiations with the paramedics.

I'm amazed that this government would bring this legislation into this House, especially legislation of this nature, given the consequences of past behaviour. It is always better to come to a negotiated settlement than being heavy-handed or using the weight of this chamber, which can result in dire consequences.

We need only to return to the year 2002 when the Liberal government chose to stomp all over the rights of HEU workers by ripping up, through the power of this chamber, a legal contract bargained through due process by workers of this province. The power of this chamber ripped up that contract and imposed a different set of contract on the workers of this province.

Now, the union fought that action all the way to the Supreme Court. They won, and rightfully, they should have won. They won in court, but they also won their dignity and won for other workers in this country. The whole sordid affair of 2002 literally turned the heads of the courts as a new precedent was set as the court supported the judgment that no government had the right to tromp, without consequences, on the rights of its citizens.

Up to that moment the momentum of the courts was in the direction that would have supported the action of government. I can imagine the advice given to the cabinet, based on the past decisions of the Supreme Court, that their direction was fairly secure and that they had the authority or would have the support of the courts for the tearing up of the contracts. But that action, that draconian action, did not receive the support of the courts and was thrown out.

We have that context in which this debate cannot escape. In this country even our governments must obey the law. Their power is curtailed through the court system, and the court was clear. Due process must be observed between combatants. There are rules because we live in a civilized society. Everyone has value, and just because you are government does not mean you can and should run roughshod over the people in your community.

We now move forward to this evening and this debate. Again we have a situation where this chamber is being used to force a settlement onto people, a settlement onto workers.

[1820]

Why, given that context, and why, given the reputation of the government around workers, would the government, when it looked into its tool box of options, pull out the heaviest hammer it can find and slam it on to the desks in this chamber? Why would they use the draconian action of forcing a settlement on to workers?

The irony is that the settlement is only being forced until March 31. All that creates is a poisoned atmosphere. It does not create an atmosphere of respect, where people can argue through their differences.

One would have guessed that the members of the House would, in unison…. Maybe, perhaps, the members from the other side would not support this draconian action. I mean, I would think, given the record and the record of the members on Hansard, that they would refuse to go along with forcing the paramedics back to work.

I want to spend just a moment down memory lane, because I want to go back to November 24, 2008, when this issue was raised in this House through the then-member
[ Page 2056 ]
for Cariboo South. He brought in a motion that said: "Be it resolved that this House recognize the value of the ambulance service provided by the province of B.C. and the importance of continued improvement to this service."

That was supporting the paramedics who actually provided the service. In that speech, he harked back to 1974, when the province created the paramedic service, the Ambulance Service. I'll quote him:

"In 1974 government legislation was enacted to create the Ambulance Service. It was formed in response to the growing concerns about the conditions present in the ambulance industry of the day. Emergency pre-hospital medical services were supplied by a mixture of commercial operators: some operated from funeral homes, some partially subsidized by municipalities, some based with volunteer fire departments and some that existed on paid subscriptions from the public.

The competition between those companies was intense. Standards were not uniformly observed and effective patient care was…an afterthought."

The government of the day brought in this service that has been supported by governments since the year 1974. Again, as I've said before in the House, governments often stand on the shoulders of governments that have gone before them, and all of us have valued and speak to the value of the Ambulance Service.

I'd like to just quote one of the members of the House, and I'm actually quite astonished that this member has not taken his place in the debate. I would think that the member for Abbotsford-Mission would be here, because he would want to speak about the leadership.

Deputy Speaker: Member, we don't comment on who is in the Legislature.

S. Hammell: I accept that. My apologies.

I'll just quote the member, for he says that he just wanted to speak for a moment about the leadership of John Strohmaier, the head of the paramedics union, and the leadership he had shown in advancing what he considered to be a really important program that the paramedics of British Columbia were doing on a volunteer basis.

Again, when we go back to the paramedics, volunteerism is a constant theme with the paramedics, because not only do they volunteer in their community, part of their work around being paramedics is on a volunteer base.

[1825]

The volunteer program that they were developing was to run CPR training schools in high schools throughout British Columbia. The member said: "When I talk to paramedics they tell me that if someone goes down with a heart attack and they get CPR immediately, the chances of them surviving are increased exponentially."

Unfortunately, within our population, not enough people are trained in CPR, so the paramedics decided to embark on a program where they go into the high schools on volunteer time and teach high school kids CPR.

That has to be, as the member for Abbotsford-Mission mentioned, a fabulous program, and I think it's important. Obviously, the member for Abbotsford-Mission does value and respect the members of the paramedics union, and I'm surprised that he has yet to stand up in this House to honour those members.

There's another member that I wanted to quote because he also said in this House…. That's John Nuraney, the member who is now…

Deputy Speaker: Please, no names.

S. Hammell: …the former member — the former member of this House.

Deputy Speaker: Oh, I apologize.

S. Hammell: He said in this House: "I'm very happy to say that in spite of the challenges that we have in various sectors of health care" — and he did identify many challenges — "our Ambulance Service is doing very well. I want to pay special tribute to the paramedics, who are doing an excellent job." Again, a member not here this time, but a member from the other side who had so much respect for the paramedics and ambulance drivers.

Member, I would just like to finish up with another member's quote. The member for Burnaby-Lougheed said: "I would like to see this" — motion — "move forward to support the paramedics. I support the great job they do. They have such a diverse area, as British Columbia is so big — trying to reach into the urban areas where the member who brought this forward is, to be able to provide services for all the citizens."

Obviously, there is support on the other side for the members of the Ambulance Service, and it is astonishing to see that they have not risen to speak on behalf of the paramedics in this House.

All of us know that the paramedics are critical to the health service that we find in British Columbia. For all of us it doesn't take very long to think through the reasons why. I mean, the paramedics are here for us when we need them.

There has been much spoken and talked about in terms of the toll it takes on them because they are the front-line workers. They deal with horrific car accidents. They deal with horrific scenes of violence. They help the injured and the dying. All of us, if we have not personally been in an accident ourselves, have witnessed the aftermath of an accident.

Not too long ago I was coming in from the Pat Bay Highway on a rainy, cold, dark night past a three-car accident that was really quite horrific. It was the kind of accident you could see from miles away because the lights of the people — the police and the paramedics and the fire trucks that had got to the scene — could be seen from a distance. All the flares had gone up on the highway.
[ Page 2057 ]

There was this long stream of lights that were coming, as people were coming into Victoria from the ferry. They all slowed down and got in single file as they slowly drove by what was a horrific scene.

On that scene were the paramedics, and they were there on the front line, dealing with the accident and dealing with the conditions that neither I nor you would want to do in a daily way.

[1830]

There is a terrific toll on these paramedics. I don't know if that has been spoken a lot of in this House, but when you go back to the conditions that they see regularly, you have to go back in your mind to the stresses that were seen in World War I and World War II. Those conditions were described as shell shock. People, having witnessed horrible scenes of violence, horrible accidents, the results being unbelievable, came after a while to lose their sense of.… They were haunted by these images, and what was called shell shock in times past is now called post-traumatic stress disorder.

This is an acknowledged fact. It's an acknowledged condition that happens to people when they are continually confronted by scenes that are indescribable. The psychological difficulty of seeing trauma and scenes of violence, either accidental or deliberate, does take a toll. The reliving of nightmares cannot be minimized and hidden under the cloak of secrecy.

The RCMP, which had originally just a few people off on leave due to post-traumatic stress disorder, now has a large number of people off because of that disorder. These are the things that the paramedics deal with regularly. They are out there dealing with accidents. They are dealing with sicknesses in our homes. They are there at the other end of a phone, and we need them. They are part of the emergency system that we count on to feel safe and secure in our community.

Now, in Surrey we know how important our paramedics are to our community. We are a fast-growing community that is always at the tail end of stretching its services. The emergency ward at Surrey Memorial is often the destination place of the Ambulance Service. The congestion and physical limitations of the ward test all of us, and this is where the paramedics often comfort and assist those who are feeling terrified by their own human frailty or of a place that is unfamiliar and confusing.

I have a letter from a paramedic from Surrey. I would just like to take a moment to read it into the record. He says:

"I have been a paramedic in B.C. for almost 15 years now, and I'm one of the few advanced life support paramedics stationed in the Fraser Valley. My partner and I have worked out of our station close to Surrey Memorial for four years as the ALS — advanced life support — paramedics. For this reason we are targeted to specific calls — industrial, people experiencing chest pain or shortness of breath, major trauma, be it from a motor vehicle accident or an industrial accident, stabbing or shooting or life-threatening pediatric calls.

"Currently, the area we cover with our one ambulance includes all of Surrey, North Delta, parts of Langley and occasionally parts of Maple Ridge, New Westminster and Coquitlam — by my estimation, close to 400,000 people. Try to imagine having your job being to see the worst of the worst that happens to 400,000 people.

"The other day my partner and I were driving in the ambulance, and we started to point out where, when we drove past a house or an area, we had attended to a patient that had died. While it seems a bit of a macabre game, it struck me later what we had been doing. We gave up and during the day lost our count, because recalling each specific death is harder than you think.

[1835]

"To be told my worth, or apparent lack of it, by the government through Bill 21 is extremely disappointing. I've worked hard to obtain my current qualifications and to become what I hope is considered proficient by my friends and colleagues. To be told that my job is not valuable is harmful."

He goes on to say:

"Thank you for your time, and I hope the opposition continues to stand up for the workers in B.C. by supporting the paramedics."

Every single one of the opposition members will be standing up and opposing this bill, because they do support the work that the ambulance workers do. All of us have an undying and unwavering respect for the sacrifice and commitment of ambulance paramedics. We need this respect mirrored by this Liberal government, which up to now has dragged its feet for months without addressing the issue of the ambulance paramedics.

The Minister of Health is claiming that this legislation is about protecting health services in B.C., and that it is "as light a touch as possible" because it is only for one year. It seems that it's really only till after the Olympics. I think the Olympics have much more to do with this legislation than meets the eye.

Sometimes I just think that it would be better off for everyone if the government just came clean and said, "Look. We've got a problem. We can't solve it in any other way, and this is what we're doing. Live with it," instead of going on with reasons that nobody buys.

Especially, they don't buy it because at the end of the day, the forced settlement is to March 31. That means if you're going to start bargaining, as soon as this is passed you take a break and you're back into bargaining. Now you're back into a poisoned, untrustworthy kind of place to try to then come up with a settlement.

The government claims that the legislation is necessary in light of the H1N1 crisis. But why was there no urgency up to now? If they wanted to protect the public, they could have settled the dispute and got down to working on improving ambulance conditions months ago. I think that this is a lot more about VANOC and about the Olympics.

I think we've had this letter quoted into the record a number of times, but I will do it one more time, because it's absolutely critical to understanding what the end-game is. I remember a friend of mine always said: "You always look at behaviour and then you look at the behaviour behind it." You try to figure out what's the behaviour behind, what's the behaviour behind, much like peeling
[ Page 2058 ]
off the outside of an onion skin, because you have to get down to what is really going on, rather than what is being said is going on.

It's clear in all the kinds of pieces that have been placed in front of us that the major force driving this legislation is the Olympics. I was struck by the fact that this quote says…. It was a memorandum sent from Dr. Mike Wilkinson — he's the director of medical services for VANOC — to Stephen Brown, Lee Doney and other government officials.

If I remember correctly, the member prior to me also quoted this, where it says:

"VANOC Medical Services…requires definitive confirmation by October 1, 2009, that all required ambulance services will be provided as planned. These services include the ability to engage the VPCs and BCAS members in full venue planning as soon as possible.

[1840]

"This confirmation must also include a guarantee that no services during the games will be disrupted or reduced from what has been planned.

"If we are unable to obtain the guarantee…then VANOC will be required to initiate alternative contingency plans to avoid cancellation of the games."

To me, that seems there's a clear link between this legislation and the 2010 games, the Olympic Games. Now, hon. Speaker, so be it. If there's a link, and if it's absolutely critical that you force people back to work to support the Olympic Games, just do it, and be upfront about it.

You don't have to hide around a number of different screens because, as I've said before in this House, it's not often very wise to snow your friends. If you're trying to snow the public and tell them that you're doing one thing when you're really doing it for another reason…. They're not stupid. They're not stupid for one minute. They will see the consequences, that there is an end-game and that they are part of it.

I know I have just a few minutes to close, so I would like to put forward just a few options that the Liberal government could have followed and perhaps found a different route than the one we're facing.

Every one of us knows deep down in our hearts that to force a settlement on workers is the last and most uncomfortable position that anybody can take. It is not productive. In the long run it just fosters bad blood. The Liberals could have appointed an independent arbitrator and settled the paramedics strike months ago.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I know that the paramedics are incredibly hard workers. They go through a huge, long period of time where they are in process or they are learning the skills of their trade. They are often paid very poorly and do not reap the rewards of a reasonable salary until much further into their period of employment.

It would be wonderful to see the Liberals remove this legislation, go back to the bargaining table, assign an arbitrator, begin anew and support these people who provide such an essential service to us and our community.

R. Austin: It is with a sense of sadness, although also a sense of pride, that I get up to take my place in this important debate on Bill 21, the Ambulance Services Collective Agreement Act. The sense of sadness comes from this being a bill that attempts to take away people's rights — people who provide such a valuable service to all of us here in British Columbia. For someone such as myself who represents a northern, rural community where it is so difficult to even attract paramedics to come and work, this indeed is a very sad day.

I'd like to begin my comments by reading into the record a letter that I received from a paramedic from my home community of Terrace, because I think that he indicates in many ways the important work that is done and many of the issues that we are here debating in Bill 21.

"As you know, I've been a working paramedic for 24 years now, having worked in many small communities in the Lower Mainland and now in northern British Columbia. I have watched with shame the gradual deterioration of the Ambulance Service as a result of cuts and the failure of the government to keep up with the needs of our growing populations.

[1845]

"When I started as a part-time paramedic, I understood that my career goals of becoming a full-time paramedic would involve much training, including waiting for the eight years of seniority that was then required. But at least my training was paid for, and at least I was making around $12 to $15 an hour in the form of four-hour call-outs, which was competitive and adequate for the cost of living at that time.

"Now, a paramedic must pay literally thousands of dollars to receive the same education and licensing, and work for six years at $2 per hour and at a regular wage which has failed to keep up with the cost of living — never mind parity with other emergency service workers. No wonder we have such huge recruitment and retention issues."

He goes on to say:

"Personally, I have worked 14 years as a part-timer and ten years as a full-timer, with the eventual hope of returning to my home community, where I first began. But this is still not possible, and I've had to satisfy myself and my wife with finding a small community to settle into, hundreds of miles from where my family lives. This is a constant and perpetual problem with any paramedic who joins the B.C. Ambulance Service — that given the system we work in, it could take many, many years, if ever, to return to their home town."

So he goes on to say:

"Why do I do this work? What motivates me? Well, like so many others, the love of the job. The desire to help others has forced me to work within constraints which are deteriorating and even causing many of us to quit.

"I ask that you convey my urgent message to this Legislature. Please do the right thing and ask the government to change their mind on this matter."

This comes from Andre Ledoux, somebody who I have known for several years now, someone who moved to Terrace specifically because he had to find a small community where he could get full-time work. That's the reason why he came to northern British Columbia. You know what? He loves living in northern B.C. He loves
[ Page 2059 ]
living in a small town. He likes that he has made this change. He is an exception, because it is very hard for us to attract paramedics to move from the larger centres to come to small communities like Terrace to do this very difficult and challenging work.

Let me give you just a little insight into how challenging it is. As we all know, the Ambulance Service in British Columbia attempts to reach the patient or the person who needs care within nine minutes. I represent a part of the province, the Nass Valley, that doesn't have an ambulance service there. The road, the Nisga'a Highway, 113, takes approximately an hour and 15 minutes from the ambulance station in Terrace to reach New Aiyansh in the Nass Valley. There are four communities stretched across the Nass Valley, from Kincolith to Aiyansh.

So think of this. Somebody has a critical situation in the Nass Valley. Either they're in an accident or there's a heart attack, a stroke — something that needs immediate attention. These folks in Terrace, in the middle of winter, have to drive up a highway that takes us an hour and 15 minutes in the summertime to get there to attend to the victims.

Think of the difficult challenges that paramedics have. They see some of the most horrendous sights, the kinds of things that if any one of us in this chamber had to go and address, we'd probably have sleepless nights.

They go to accidents on highways where they see mutilated bodies. They attend house parties that have gotten out of control — often without police. They have to see things that scar them. Yet as Andre Ledoux says: "We do this because we believe this is important work. We believe that we are helping people."

Surely they're not doing this for the money. They are doing this because they believe it is important work.

[1850]

In this House I've heard many members get up and speak about our other important emergency service workers — firemen. The firemen come here every year, another group of individuals who do work that not many of us would ever want to do — to go into a burning building, to breathe fumes, to have toxic chemicals put on their bodies. We acknowledge the work they do. We pay them appropriately, so much so that people are attracted to join the fire service.

The same can be said of police. Police also do work which many of us in this chamber would not want to do — put our lives at risk, go on calls where we don't know what is on the other side of that door. Yet police take that role very seriously. They do it every day, and we thank them for it.

Social workers have to take jobs that most of us in this House would not want to do. Could you imagine going to a small community in the middle of the night on a phone call and arriving to see a child that has been either abused or neglected and then having to go through and witness the trauma of taking a child out of a home, finding a placement in the middle of the night? That is a very traumatic experience, and I think that's acknowledged by everybody in this House.

When I hear people talk about social workers, they acknowledge the importance of this work, the challenge of this work, how difficult it is to do. And we pay them appropriately.

Here we have paramedics, people who I think members on both the sides of this House would acknowledge do extremely challenging work, yet for seven long months the government sits around and doesn't come to an agreement with this important part of the medical system.

You know, we often hear that there are challenges throughout the medical system. In northern British Columbia we have the challenge of attracting all kinds of professionals to come and do important jobs in our medical system. We have the challenge of attracting family doctors to come to the north and to live in small communities because, as I'm sure the hon. Speaker well knows, the doctors want to live in larger centres.

A few years back the government recognized that and put in bonuses, changed the pay scales, put in incentives to try and get doctors to come to smaller communities to do this important work. Compare that with the way the government has treated the paramedics over the last seven months. It's absolutely shameful, absolutely shameful.

Can you imagine a job where you go to do difficult, challenging work and you have to pay for your own training? That's the reason why we don't have paramedics and an ambulance station in the Nass Valley. There are plenty of people who volunteer and would love to become paramedics, but by the time they fork out the several thousands of dollars and go down south to get the training and then have to come back to work for $2 an hour on a pager, it's just not worth it.

None of us here would come to work if we had to pay to come here. None of us would do that, yet that's what we expect of people who want to enter….

Interjection.

R. Austin: Maybe my colleague from Malahat–Juan de Fuca — he's not Malahat–Juan de Fuca anymore — would come here because he's an upstanding citizen. He'd come here without pay, but generally speaking, most people would not want to come and do that. So why do we expect it of our paramedics? Yet that is what we do.

I'd like to just talk for a couple of minutes about this whole call-out situation. As we know, paramedics are paid $2 an hour to be on a pager at home when they're starting out and they don't have seniority. Others are paid when they go…. They stay in the station, and they're paid $10 an hour. Then they get paid a more appropriate wage if they actually go on a call-out.
[ Page 2060 ]

Can you imagine if you were raising a family? You have a mortgage. You have car payments — the same kinds of expenses that every citizen in this province has. You do several shifts, and it just so happens that it's been quiet that week. You live in a small town, not in a large urban centre where there are far more call-outs. Can you imagine what it's like not knowing what your wage is going to be from month to month?

One month you might make $3,000. The next month you might only make $1,000. You can't go back to your bank and say, "I'm sorry. I can't pay my mortgage this month because there weren't enough call-outs. There weren't enough tragedies in my neck of the woods, so I couldn't go and make a living wage when I've got years and years of training behind me to do this important work" — important work that actually saves people's lives.

Think of that. This is how we are treating a group of people who save lives every single day. We honour doctors. We honour nurses. We honour all the other professionals who work in the medical system, but the people who actually save a life and get them to the hospital in time so the doctors can do their good work and the nurses can do their work — they are just treated like, well, trash. It's not right. It is fundamentally wrong.

[1855]

Noting the time, hon. Speaker, I reserve my right to continue my remarks tomorrow and would ask that we adjourn debate.

R. Austin moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

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

Speaker's Statement

USE OF EXHIBITS IN DEBATES

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, earlier today the member for Nechako Lakes raised a point of order relating to an exhibit being displayed by another member during the course of debate.

Members will be well aware that the use of exhibits in the course of debate is expressly prohibited. Therefore, I caution all members that when and if such an exhibit is produced, the member will be found out of order. Please observe parliamentary rule in order to avoid any penalties.

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
CHILDREN AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

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

The committee met at 2:38 p.m.

On Vote 19: ministry operations, $1,394,139,000.

The Chair: Minister, if you'd like to make opening remarks.

Hon. M. Polak: First of all, I want to begin by introducing staff who are with me here today. I have my deputy minister, Lesley de Toit. I have Mark Sieben, my associate deputy minister and chief operating officer. Also, seated behind me, I have Sarf Ahmed, assistant deputy minister and executive financial officer of corporate management. There will, of course, be other staff coming and going throughout the time that we spend here.

I did want to just talk briefly about the scope that the ministry has within its operations, because very often, of course, the focus is primarily on actions surrounding child protection. Really, it's important for everyone to know just how comprehensive the work of the ministry is in supporting children and families across this province.

Of course, there is the role of child protection and family development. We also work in the area of adoption, foster care, early childhood development and child care, child and youth mental health, youth justice, youth services, special needs children and youth, and adult community living services.

But more important than all the responsibilities that we have as a ministry is the very nature of the work we undertake — and that is, to be the kind of support that children and families need across this province. That means that we focus on the safety and well-being of children, youth and adults. It means that we work to advance early childhood development through very strategic investments and initiatives, and it also means that we advance and support a community-based system of family services that promotes innovation, equity and accountability.

[1440]
[ Page 2061 ]

Primary to this and leading us through the last number of years and the years ahead has been a guide called Strong, Safe and Supported. It's our operational plan for the ministry. We continue to make real progress through this in enhancing and improving services to children, youth and families to support healthy developmental outcomes. Despite the current fiscal climate, our commitment to the goal set forth in the plan under the five foundation pillars — prevention, early intervention, intervention and support, the aboriginal approach and quality assurance — has not wavered.

The coming months will see a concentrated focus on practice change, with the development of a new practice framework to help ensure a consistent, strengths-based, developmental and, above all, child-centred approach to assessment, planning and working with B.C.'s children, youth and families.

Before I take questions from the member opposite, I would like to offer not only my special thanks for those who work with me day to day here in my office — those who are with me around the table today — but a very special thank-you and deep regard to all of those who are working in the system.

I have had the privilege of visiting with front-line workers now in the north, the Interior and the Vancouver coastal region, and we are soon to be visiting those in the Fraser Valley and then on the Island as well. I am just so impressed with the work that they do every day, and I am very impressed with the commitment they have with respect to our future goals and in turning this ministry into the very first place that a family would think to call if they were in need of support or help.

With that, I'm happy to take questions.

M. Karagianis: I would say thank you to the minister for the introduction of staff and for this opportunity to ask some questions on the Children and Families Ministry budget.

I would like to just maybe explore a little bit the budget as a whole. I have before me here a number of documents that start with the service plan of 2008-09 and go right through until today — the budget that the minister has just tabled. There's considerable shift in the documents from the 2008-09 service plan. There are, in fact, a number of contradictory documents that I would like to ask some questions about.

I have before me here, as I mentioned, the 2008-09 annual service plan report, and the budget estimated at that time for the total ministry was $1.987 billion — which, of course, is considerably greater than the amount that the minister has tabled today.

That document then was restated in the 2009-10, 2010-11 service plan after that, where, again, the numbers were restated downwards considerably to $1.388 billion for the 2008-09 budget and then, I believe, restated once more in the pre-election budget. Actually, they held in the pre-election budget. That was the $1.388 billion number. So the drop was from the '08 budget service plan — $1.987 billion — to the pre-election budget, which was $1.388 billion. Then, of course, to today's number: in the current '09-10 service plan, it states the '08-09 number at $1.382 billion.

Perhaps the minister could first just clarify for me…. These are considerably shifting numbers — three documents all alluding to the '08-09. I'd just like to explore that number first. Perhaps the minister could talk about the severe drop in the '08-09 budget.

[1445]

Hon. M. Polak: I'm happy to provide the information to the member. The number that's quoted from the '08-09 service plan budget includes services provided by CLCB to adult clients. The second number, the $1.388 billion, is a number reflecting the budget excluding those services.

Then when we moved to our current number that we're dealing with, the change reflects, first of all, a transfer which has happened across government with respect to human resources — so that's not a loss to our budget; it simply means that the responsibility is taken on centrally — and also a transfer of freedom of information to central.

M. Karagianis: So if I understand it correctly, the initial budget that was tabled, '08-09, that talks about $1.987 billion…. The $600 million there is CLBC responsibilities. Then we move into the pre-election numbers, the pre-election budget, where we have the decrease to $1.388 billion.

Now, I see that in the '09 budget, then, of that year…. I don't have the '09 projections for the first service plan here, but I do for the second pre-election service plan. This was from February '09. I see here that the '09-10 estimates at that point were for $1.402 billion, to increase in the years out from that to $1.414 billion and actually to stabilize at that.

But now we have the budget that the minister has tabled today, which is $1.394 billion. That's a considerable drop, from the February budget of $1.402 billion to today's budget of $1.394 billion. Could the minister talk about where those reductions are?

Hon. M. Polak: I'll just take two steps back, because in answering the first question, I think I probably confused what I was describing to you.

The $1.388 billion would be the same as the '08-09 service plan budget that you were speaking of, only it would be excluding the CLBC. Then you speak of the projections that you had for a budget. If you take the transfer of FOI and the transfer of HR away from that, you will arrive at pretty close to what our budget is now with the exception of the initial February update, which had us with a $14 million increase. The current one has us with a $12 million increase.
[ Page 2062 ]

M. Karagianis: I am trying to follow the dollars through. The '09-10 budget that was tabled in February has the budget for the ministry at $1.402 billion. It then moves up to $1.414 billion for the '10 budget. And we have before us now a budget that states that the current '09-10 year is a budget of $1.394 billion. Of course, that flatlines out in 2010. It does not increase.

[1450]

So the minister is saying to me — and I really just want to be very clear here — that the difference between the original budget, those tabled in '08-09…. So $600 million went to Community Living, over to the Community Living file. Then we were dealing with straight up MCFD budget in February that talked about a $1.402 billion budget, increasing to a $1.414 billion budget. Now we have before us a budget that says we are tabling a $1.394 billion budget that has no increase in 2010. Am I correct?

Hon. M. Polak: Indeed, the February update had us pegged at $1.402 billion, and we then arrive at a budget today of $1.394 billion. It represents about an $8.5 million decrease in the number. That is taken up largely by the human resource transfer to be centrally managed. The rest, which is little more than $1½ million, is represented by a $12 million increase to our budget this year rather than what was projected initially as a $14 million one.

M. Karagianis: Okay, so we have a considerable $8.5 million transferred to a new HR function that's no longer within the ministry's area of responsibility. Could the minister just elaborate on what that is and why that was done?

Hon. M. Polak: It was a government reorganization, taking in all ministries.

M. Karagianis: Is that the explanation, then, for why there are no FTE numbers included in this new September budget? I know that in the pre-election February budget there was, laid out very clearly here, the number of FTEs, full-time-equivalent employees, and what was expected to be the staffing levels out to 2011-12. Where is that information to be found now?

Hon. M. Polak: Yes, that is the reason. Those will now be reported out by the Public Service Agency.

M. Karagianis: Where would I go to find that? Where would I look for that information? What minister do I question on that? Or where would that information be available to me?

Hon. M. Polak: My understanding is that that will be reported out with the public accounts at the end of the fiscal year.

[1455]

M. Karagianis: Can the minister explain to me why that is being done? I think it's fairly important here and very evident that in the documents up to this point in time part of the estimates debate had included questions on full-time employees — certainly the projections of increase or decrease leading out into the future — so why now has this information disappeared?

I mean, I know in past estimates and historically here that has been one of the most compelling parts of discussions — understanding the number of employees within a ministry, what was the expected projection out in the future in retention and, perhaps, dramatic changes. That's been a really compelling part of the estimates.

I'm actually mystified why that information is now no longer available for examination under estimates and why, in fact, now we would have to wait for months and months to make that connection with the budget that's being spent here and the number of employees within the ministry.

Hon. M. Polak: It was a decision made corporately by government with respect to the better management of full-time-equivalent positions. That can be canvassed through the Minister of Citizens' Services, who has responsibility for the PSA.

M. Karagianis: Did the ministry have any say in this transfer of responsibility and, obviously, significant information out of their hands and into a different ministry? What, in fact, are the implications of that? What does that mean for management of these individuals?

Hon. M. Polak: The way it functions is this. First of all, workforce planning within the Ministry of Children and Family Development is still our responsibility, but the day-to-day operations associated with managing human resources are the responsibility of the Public Service Agency. As to the decision to go there, it wouldn't be appropriate to comment on the decisions of government cross-ministry, with respect to how those decisions are reached.

[1500]

M. Karagianis: If I were to ask, then, about the February service plan, where…. It is laid out here very clearly that in the '08-09 estimates there was an expectation of 4,542 FTEs. In '09-10 that dropped to 4,437. That stayed the same till '10 and dropped again in 2011 to 4,339 employees. Would you still have that information, and are those numbers still accurate?

Hon. M. Polak: As of July we were at around 4,200 full-time-equivalent positions, and we now have experienced the addition of those who are coming over from Community Living B.C. That amounts to about 167 full-time-equivalents, so roughly about the same as the February numbers.
[ Page 2063 ]

M. Karagianis: However, the February numbers, of course, didn't anticipate the Community Living employees, so that's actually a significant drop — is it not? If July figures were at 4,200 FTEs — and, in fact, it says here that there should have been 4,437 — even if we take into consideration 167 coming over, which would have not been in this document, the February document, that is a considerable drop in FTEs within the ministry — is it not?

Hon. M. Polak: In fact, the decision to reorganize the human resources functions was taken in June of '08. Therefore, the February update did in fact consider the loss of the FTEs associated with that, and it also did project the associated increase that we would experience from bringing in the CLBC transferring employees.

M. Karagianis: Okay, that makes some sense, then. I really want to go back a little bit to this budget.

The February budget anticipated that from 2008 to 2009 there would be a $14 million lift. We have 2008-09 numbers which we've verified at $1.388 billion, and '09-10 was planned to be $1.402 billion, so that's about a $14 million lift. Then we have, again, in this budget projected for 2010-11 an additional $14 million lift.

We really have anticipated from the '08 budget through to the '10 budget that there would have been a $28 million lift. I know that the minister has talked about the fact that in reality it turned out to be a $12 million lift, so in fact it fell short significantly from the expectation in the February budget to the September budget.

[1505]

Hon. M. Polak: Yes, I would have loved to have a $14 billion increase. It would have been great.

In fact, the projection, when one takes into account the change with the human resources going to a central government function…. We were projected to have a $14 million increase this year, and instead, that has become a $12 million increase.

M. Karagianis: I'm still trying to just add up this math in my head. This is the February budget I'm looking at because, obviously, this is a new budget before us. I'll ask some questions directly about that, but I want to ask about this February budget.

We do have, from the '08-09 period to '09-10, a promise of a $14 million lift. From '09-10 to '10-11 it's another $14 million lift, which is $28 million. Even if I take into consideration the $8½ million, which I believe that the minister said was transferred out for the HR component, that still would say that the previous budget promised a $20 million lift in the budget, and we're only getting $12 million. That's the way I read it. Is that not correct?

Hon. M. Polak: It's true that the February budget update contained projections, as budgets always do. We are here to canvass the budget for this year, so I will repeat that we had projected for this year to receive a $14 million increase, and we instead received a $12 million one.

M. Karagianis: The minister doesn't want to talk about the discrepancy in that, which is fine. I accept that the government would like to stick with the story here, that we've had a $12 million lift, and ignore the fact that there was considerably more promised in the February budget, and that has been downgraded significantly.

Let me ask you, then…. The minister has talked about the number of FTEs moving back into the ministry from Community Living — $660 million that was transferred out in '08. Has that come back in, and where does that appear in the budget?

Hon. M. Polak: The $600 million represented all of CLBC, including adults. The portion that is returning to the Ministry of Children and Family Development is only those representing the under-19s.

M. Karagianis: How much is that precisely?

[1510]

Hon. M. Polak: The total amount that has been transferred is $89 million. Now, $62 million of that came over just recently, and $27 million of that, thereabouts, was already within the ministry. The total for staff and contracts coming from CLBC was $89 million.

M. Karagianis: The $62 million that came recently — where is that reflected in this budget that's being tabled today, and when did the previous $27 million come over?

Hon. M. Polak: When CLBC was established in July of '05, that $27 million never left the Ministry of Children and Family Development, so it wasn't a recent transfer over.

The $62 million. When it comes to taking a look at where to find it, we restated our '08-09 service plan to include the figures that would be moving around from CLBC. So you'll note that in the February 2008 budget you'd see a $1.326 billion, and the $62 million accounts for the change to $1.388 billion.

M. Karagianis: I'm just going to try and follow the money here. In the 2008 service plan the $660 million that was transferred to CLBC didn't include $27 million that was left here for MCFD purposes. Of that money, now that the responsibilities for children under the age of 19….

I know that the minister alluded in her opening remarks to adult community living services, and I will have a bunch of questions on that at a later time.
[ Page 2064 ]

Of the $660 million that left, $62 million was returned to the ministry very recently and is reflected in the February budget under the '08-09 restated estimates of $1.388 billion. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Polak: The member is correct. The $27 million wouldn't have been a part of that.

[1515]

M. Karagianis: However, I see in the September budget — the one that the minister is tabling right now — in the line item 2008-09 restated estimates, it has a total of $1.382 billion. That's actually a drop from the $1.388 billion. Why is that?

Hon. M. Polak: That represents the restatement as a result of the government reorganization around human resources.

M. Karagianis: But that actually doesn't represent…. It was $8½ million, I think, that the minister said had gone over to the human resources. That doesn't reflect that. That doesn't add up. From $1.388 billion to $1.382 billion is not $8½ million.

Hon. M. Polak: The human resources part itself is about $6 million. The other changes are reflected in what then resulted in the change to this budget from the previous projections.

M. Karagianis: I'm sorry. I didn't understand that last explanation at all. I understand that the minister is now saying that only $6 million went to human resources, so there is $2½ million that has been unaccounted for here. Could the minister please explain that?

Hon. M. Polak: Unless I misspoke earlier, it's still the same $8½ million, and it's made up of government reorganization, which took in…. The largest part of that was the human resources transfer, but there were other smaller items — such as the envelopment of the Minister of State for Childcare position within the ministry, the freedom-of-information one that I mentioned. As I also mentioned, there was then the additional reduction in what increase we were going to receive.

Altogether, it's about $6 million or $6½ million in government reorganization, if you take in all the components, and then about $2 million less than what we had expected or anticipated to receive when the $14 million was presented. It still comes out to $8½ million.

M. Karagianis: Thank you very much. Again, some confusion here.

The minister talks about when the Minister of State for Childcare was absorbed back into the ministry. That should have been dollars in, not dollars out, shouldn't it?

Hon. M. Polak: Actually, that ends up being dollars out, because what happens is that we take over the workings of the child care portfolio. That is, rather than having what would have been an additional budget allocation, that would have been under the Minister of Children and Family Development previously as part of the minister of state.

M. Karagianis: I'm sorry. That didn't make sense to me. Let me just restate it this way. I know that one of my colleagues is going to be concentrating specifically on child care, and that will be tomorrow. But in looking at the movement of money here from each of these budgets, it's not clear to me that all the dollars have been accounted for.

There presumably is a budget for child care, and that would have been the responsibility of the ministry. If that has not changed, I'm not entirely sure…. We're missing about $2 million here, and I don't follow it. I don't understand where the minister has said it's gone.

[1520]

Hon. M. Polak: With respect to the minister of state, it's because we're talking here not about revenue; we're talking about an expense. So the Ministry of Children and Family Development did not retain that expense of running an office for the minister of state and the positions involved. It's an expense, not a revenue. Therefore, it is money out when we eliminate the minister of state position.

M. Karagianis: I'm going to just try, for my own purposes, to understand exactly, to follow the money, which I think is the best course of action here.

In the February budget we had a starting point of an '08-09 budget of $1.388 billion. That was then projected to have a lift of $14 million in '09-10 and another $14 million in '10-11.

We then moved to the current budget, which has a significant drop in it. First, the '08-09 has been restated to $1.382 billion. That is because $8½ million has gone to HR; to FOI and to the dissolution of the ministry — of the secretariat or whatever it was called — for child care.

That leaves us with a budget of $1.382 billion in '08-09 and the projected increase of $14 billion for the two coming years of '09-10 that was promised in February and then disappeared and became a simple $12 million lift for '09, with nothing in '10 and beyond that.

That's the way I read it. Hopefully, that's clear. Can the minister verify if I have made the right connections now in the budget?

Hon. M. Polak: I'll go through what we have in terms of each of the components that represented the government reorganization. The minister of state — the reduction represented there was $337,000.
[ Page 2065 ]

The human resources transfer to the Public Service Agency was $2.584 million. There was also a chargeback to PSA, which was also another part of that, which was $2.972 million. Then there was the reduction in the freedom-of-information chargeback, which was 312.

The rest is made up by a decrease of $14 million in the projected or anticipated increase that we were hoping for in our budget, which now is at $12 million for us.

M. Karagianis: Could I have the minister restate, please, the transfer to HR? I heard that as being considerably less than $6 million.

Hon. M. Polak: Yeah, it's pretty close to $6 million. You've got $2.584 million in terms of the transfer. Then the chargeback, which is another component of that, is $2.972 million.

M. Karagianis: Okay, thank you. I think I followed that.

Let's talk now about the budget that has been tabled today. This is the '09-10 budget, and the budget year runs from March of 2009 to the end of April 2010. Am I correct?

Hon. M. Polak: Just reverse the months. It runs from April to March.

M. Karagianis: In fact, the minister is tabling a budget today for a budgetary period that we are already — what are we? — 8⁄10 or 8⁄12 of the way through or something. At this point it is November, and this is a budget that encompasses the time from April 2009 forward to today and projects through into March 2010, which is five months away. So we are 7⁄12 of the way through this year.

Hon. M. Polak: That is correct. We had a budget update in September as a result of an election in May.

M. Karagianis: Perhaps the minister, then, could talk a little bit about what the ramifications have been for the ministry on a budget that was tabled in February, which would have projected the budget for the ministry at $1.402 billion.

[1525]

We're now 7⁄12 of the way through, so we would have been operating up until this point on a budget of $1.402 billion, which has now been reduced to $1.394 million.

Could the minister talk about what that has meant, in operational terms, for 7⁄12 of the year at this point?

[J. McIntyre in the chair.]

Hon. M. Polak: The impact with respect to the change from February to now is about $2 million, and that represents less than 0.001 percent of our overall budget.

M. Karagianis: What the minister is saying is that in fact we're a great percentage, almost the majority, of the way through the year, yet a significant change in budget has meant very little? The $2 million that the minister is referring to…. I'm not sure I understand what she's saying. If the ministry, in February of 2009, went in expecting a budget of $1.402 billion….

There was obviously reorganization going on where there were dollars going over into this new HR. That has had significant impact on the government, on the running of the ministry, if in fact we're now tabling a budget that is $1.394 billion. That's considerably lower. How has the ministry been operating for the last seven months?

Hon. M. Polak: I have to admit that I added a zero into my percents there. I was overexuberant with my percents. I should have said 0.01 percent.

The fact remains that in February we tabled a budget with a $14 million increase. As a result of the September budget, we tabled a budget with a $12 million increase. That represents a difference of $2 million, which is less than 0.01 percent of our budget.

M. Karagianis: Has the transfer, then, of the $8½ million to HR and FOI and the various things that the minister has outlined had any implications whatsoever? In reality, now the ministry is operating with a much smaller budget than what was anticipated in February. What are the implications of that? Has that made any change whatsoever in the operating funding?

Hon. M. Polak: Just to clarify, the $8½ million is complete with the government reorganization and the reduction of the $2 million. The reduction with respect to the government reorganization….

All those services are now being provided by other ministries and agencies of government. They are not being provided by the Ministry of Children and Family Development. Therefore, the transfer of those funds in support of what are no longer direct ministry employees has no impact on us.

[1530]

M. Karagianis: I'd like to talk a little bit about the FTEs. Again, because some of this is no longer as easy to follow and as transparent as it was in the past, I would have to ask what in fact has been gained by moving all of these HR resources to a different government responsibility. What has been gained by MCFD in moving the transparency around FTEs out of this ministry and into another body that reports out in a completely different stream than these estimates?
[ Page 2066 ]

Hon. M. Polak: In terms of the overall benefits of the government reorganization, that would be something to canvass with the minister responsible for the Public Service Agency.

M. Karagianis: But I am actually canvassing with the Minister of Children and Family Development what the implications are of having all of the HR dealt with someplace else, where there is no reporting out. What does that mean in terms of the day-to-day operations? How does the ministry stay in touch with what is happening with those HR functions?

Hon. M. Polak: In terms of the function of the relationship, workforce planning still remains our responsibility as a ministry. Budgeting for the workforce planning still remains our responsibility. In essence, the Public Service Agency provides a service to the ministry by managing the day-to-day operations associated with managing our human resources — hiring, firing, etc.

M. Karagianis: Then how does the minister track things like retention of employees?

Hon. M. Polak: There is a common human resource system, and all ministries have access to their data.

M. Karagianis: This seems to me to be a bit disconnected from the day-to-day operations. If in fact you're budgeting, paying for the staff, but they're being managed someplace else outside of the view and oversight of your ministry, how is that connection made between staff and responsibilities within the ministry, all of the accountability within the ministry?

Certainly, as we get into more depth here about activities of the ministry…. How do you provide that oversight if you're not technically responsible for any of your own staff?

Hon. M. Polak: The employees are still employees of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and as such, there is the same oversight and the same management of those employees as there always has been.

The difference is that the Public Service Agency provides a service to us in managing the day-to-day human resource functions that are associated with the actions of hiring someone or managing any other level of different human resource aspect. In terms of the jobs they provide, they are still Ministry of Children and Family Development employees.

M. Karagianis: Can the minister please explain to me what the benefit of this new system is to you? What is the actual front-line, on-the-ground benefit of this system?

[1535]

Hon. M. Polak: The impact on our ministry is neutral. The impact with respect to the ease with which central government is able to manage full-time employees through the public service is something to be canvassed with the minister responsible for the Public Service Agency.

M. Karagianis: I would have to say that right there is, for me, one of the huge disconnects here. When I'm asking questions about FTEs within this ministry, the minister says: "I can't answer these questions because that's the responsibility of the new HR component of the government reorganization here."

The day-to-day responsibility for what we assume at this point…. I believe that the minister said that we're somewhere around 4,300 FTEs. Is that true? I mean, whatever the number of FTEs is, why is that not stated here?

If, in fact, this is simply a matter of an HR system that takes care of the day-to-day management…. One would assume that would be the benefits, the tracking of hours — I mean, I'm not entirely sure, exactly — and all of the basic HR tasks of any HR department. But why would this not be reported out within the ministry, then, as being FTEs within this ministry?

You can't have it both ways. You can't say: "We're paying for the staff and FTEs, but we're not responsible for them. They're someplace else. We don't have to report them out. We don't…."

I don't understand, particularly, why they're being exempted from reporting out in the current service plan. There'd be no reason. If this is simply an arm's-length HR function that deals with minutiae, then I don't understand why it's not being clearly reported out that these FTEs are based within this ministry and are definitely connected to the budget of this ministry.

I just do not see what the advantage is in any way. I don't understand the minister's explanation as to why they're no longer included here, and it's vague. It's difficult to find. I have to wait until Public Accounts reports out before we can ask simple questions about the number of FTEs within this ministry. I simply do not make the connection here at all. I don't understand why they wouldn't be reported out if it's such a simple HR function that's being performed elsewhere.

Hon. M. Polak: I want to remind the member that earlier on she did ask a question specific to the number of FTEs that we had within the ministry and the number coming from CLBC. We provided that information. We're happy to provide information with respect to FTEs in different areas.

When it comes to the management function, again I want to stress that these are still Ministry of Children and Family Development employees. The workforce planning responsibility remains with us. The planning
[ Page 2067 ]
for budget remains with us. The difference is that we are paying for a service.

We're receiving a service, if you will, from PSA, much as you would, in a business, hire a company to manage your human resources functions. You would still, as that company, retain supervisory and management authority over those employees. You would still know what they were doing day to day, but you would still, if you had a sizable enough business, perhaps decide to purchase services from a human resources company that could provide that service to you.

The same thing is happening here with respect to the impact on the Ministry of Children and Family Development. I've said earlier that the impact is neutral. With respect to any potential benefits for government as a whole, that would be the responsibility of the minister that is responsible for the Public Service Agency to respond.

M. Karagianis: I understand, certainly, the function of the HR component of this. However, the February budget very clearly states the number of FTEs and the expected change in that number going out years ahead, which dropped about a hundred FTEs for each of the years going out forward from 2008-09 to '09-10 and '10-11. There was a considerable drop.

I understand that the minister has now talked about a number of employees who are moving over from CLBC to be added to this, but all of that information is missing from the current September budget. I'm unclear why that would need to be missing.

[1540]

If, in fact, you are simply obtaining a service — and that makes perfect sense — why are those numbers not stated clearly here? Why do those FTEs not remain as part of the reporting-out of the service plan of this ministry?

Hon. M. Polak: As I've stated before, a corporate decision was made to pull all of that from individual service plans of ministries to be within the Public Service Agency, to be reported out with the public accounts. It's not only the Ministry of Children and Family Development. It's all ministries across government, and all of those numbers will be freely available at that time.

M. Karagianis: So a corporate decision — that's a completely different twist on why we're doing this. The corporate decision has been made across government not to report out on FTEs. Then, certainly, I think that will be an explanation we'll be pursuing in a number of ways.

But is it fair to say that, based on the last information we had here, we won't get a reporting-out from PSA for some time? It's not like I could have that to compare it here.

The last projection we had from the ministry in February was that there was going to be a significant drop in the number of FTEs, excluding this movement of CLBC employees across, because it would have been the same regardless of whether they came in '08-09, '10-11 — whenever they came over, those 167 employees. It looks like there's going to be a considerable expectation of a reduction in numbers of FTEs over the coming years. Is that still the case?

Hon. M. Polak: My reference to a corporate decision is no different than saying that there was a government decision. That's what that means. It was a corporate decision. It's no different than the answers I've been giving throughout this afternoon around the FTEs. So I'm not sure what the member intended by that statement.

When it comes to the projected drop in the number of FTEs, that was related to the decision around government reorganization and the loss of full-time-equivalents and also to attrition. In fact, our FTE numbers are fairly stable, and this year — unlike many other ministries — we didn't have to issue a single layoff notice.

We are certainly in good shape for this budget year in terms of our FTEs, albeit facing the same challenges as every other ministry. Nevertheless, we're managing to what our budget has. At this stage, our numbers in terms of FTEs are fairly stable, as I've canvassed earlier.

M. Karagianis: So the minister is saying that the expected drop in at least a hundred FTEs each year projected out from '08 is, in fact, not occurring?

Hon. M. Polak: The member is talking about projections that have been made in the past. I can speak about this budget year, and I can tell you that our numbers are stable, that we have not had to issue a single layoff notice. We certainly, as the years go forward, will have to be managing our budget. We will be able to canvass that when the time comes in the coming years.

[1545]

M. Karagianis: Under the new HR structure at PSA, when government decides to reduce costs or find savings or repurpose or all the other clever terms that you're using these days for cutting, what happens, then, if all of the employees…? If government decides to and has been….

I think we'll document a little bit of information here about expectations of reductions. So PSA is given a directive to reduce staff by 20 percent. What say do you have over how that affects your own employees?

Hon. M. Polak: Again, the Ministry of Children and Family Development maintains its responsibility for workforce planning and its responsibility for the budget to support that and managing that budget. Those decisions are
[ Page 2068 ]
not made by the Public Service Agency. Those decisions are made by the ministry.

M. Karagianis: In the case of…. We know that there have been some vacancies and there has been some attrition within the ministry, retirements. How are those being treated? Are you filling those positions as they come available, or are you holding the line with attritions and retirements?

Hon. M. Polak: We handle retirements and we handle vacancies in a way that allows us to best handle supporting front-line positions. In fact, our public position — it's well known — is that we are actively recruiting for those to fill vacancies that we have in front-line positions. We will continue to be doing that aggressively.

When it comes to those retirements and open positions that would be represented in the administrative and management area, what we try to do, as we approach different vacant positions, is to take a look at them from the perspective of whether or not we can provide better value so that we can then direct more resources to the front line.

A good example of that is the work that we've been doing with the Ministry of Housing and Social Development. We have combined our legislative and legal services teams, so no one lost their job through attrition. We were able to then create one unit, thereby saving administrative and management functions for both ministries and, at the same time, not having to see a loss in staff outside of what would be natural.

M. Karagianis: I'm not sure I got a really straightforward answer there about whether or not you're filling retirements or whether or not you're simply allowing those positions to go vacant.

Hon. M. Polak: When it comes to front-line positions, we are actively recruiting, and we will continue to do that. When it comes to those positions that are not front-line, direct services, we consider always whether or not we need to fill those positions as they come open or if there is a better, more efficient way of doing business, as in the case I cited where we're working with Housing and Social Development.

M. Karagianis: Now, a letter that was sent out this summer from the head of the B.C. Public Service had very clear directives to all government employees. I'll read from that letter.

[1550]

This is from Jessica McDonald, and this states: "Significant work has been underway for some time across ministries to reduce operating costs, rethink program delivery and produce new solutions for managing within limited budgets. Ministries have also been working diligently to map their current workforce to their salary budgets." Then she goes on to talk about a number of steps here.

I would like to know, in light of this directive, exactly what steps the ministry has taken to follow the directions that have been given to them by Ms. McDonald.

Hon. M. Polak: Actually, the example I just gave is a pretty good one to reference the kind of work that goes on in response to that. It is, in fact, the work that we've done to map what we provide for employees, or what we provide as numbers of employees to what we have for a salary budget.

It's that that has resulted in our prioritizing front-line services and deciding that while we will actively recruit in that area, when it comes to management functions, administrative functions, we will be looking for every opportunity to provide services in different ways that can be more effective, more efficient, and thus allow us to provide greater funding to front-line services. So that example with respect to the legislative and legal services functions of Housing and Social Development and MCFD working together as a team is a very good example of responding to that type of direction.

M. Karagianis: This directive goes on to say: "Wherever possible, we have avoided filling vacancies created from retirements and resignations…and have reassigned staff to fill vacant positions…. Restrictions have been placed on…external hires."

Now, I know that the minister alluded earlier to recruiting for the front line, and I'd like to know where that matches up with this directive to restrict external hires. How can you be recruiting at the front lines and then be expected not to have any external hires?

Hon. M. Polak: The letter to which the member is referring describes an overall hiring freeze on those coming from outside, and that did apply for the month of September.

Subsequent to that, there were restrictions lifted for ministries who were providing front-line, direct services, such as the Ministry of Children and Family Development, which has therefore enabled us to continue with our active recruitment in the area of front-line services.

[1555]

M. Karagianis: The letter does go on to say that "821 employees signed up for…voluntary reduced workweek." Can the minister tell me how many within MCFD have signed up for that reduced workweek and whether or not there are expectations of more of those kinds of voluntary sign-ups?

Hon. M. Polak: I am told that it's a very small number. We don't have that precisely with us, but we can provide that to you tomorrow.
[ Page 2069 ]

M. Karagianis: That would be very helpful.

Two other things particularly caught my attention in this letter from Ms. McDonald. The reference here to "the opportunities and skills database was created as a new tool to ensure that…openings across ministries are first considered for internal placement…." I expect that as the writer of the letter is the head of the public service, this has been created as part of the HR function. Has the ministry been expected to dedicate any dollars towards that database?

Hon. M. Polak: No.

M. Karagianis: Then, in the second-to-last item out of this particular letter. Ms. McDonald says that "the public service transformation fund was established to support strategic investments in key job opportunities and redesigning processes that help us to deliver services with fewer staff. These projections provide an opportunity for additional staff placements, which will also be offered this week."

This is in August. I know that the minister alluded to the fact that restrictions were lifted for MCFD in September. What does this mean, and what does it mean to the minister and to the ministry itself — this public service transformation fund and the strategic investments and key job opportunities and redesigning processes? What is that?

Hon. M. Polak: That fund is managed through the Ministry of Citizens' Services, and that should be canvassed with that ministry.

M. Karagianis: Great. One more question that came out of the directive that came from Ms. McDonald. She has reiterated in here that the government has "no plans to offer voluntary departure or early retirement programs." Is that the case for the ministry — that there will be no offer of voluntary departure?

Hon. M. Polak: When it comes to decisions of that nature, government has one public service. So that would be consistent for MCFD, as it would be for any other ministry.

M. Karagianis: So when the restrictions were lifted with regard to front-line hiring, it didn't apply to any of the other expectations that there would be no voluntary early retirement or other such programs to help reduce costs or find budget efficiencies?

Hon. M. Polak: The response that I have provided with respect to restrictions being lifted was specifically regarding the ability of the ministry to make outside hires. The fact is that that was then recognized as something that needed to be handled differently for ministries such as my ministry, which has direct front-line services and managed caseloads, but the response was specific to that issue that was canvassed by the member around our ability to hire externally.

M. Karagianis: I would like to ask a question with regard to the division for quality assurance. It's my understanding that there are perhaps up to 60 staff in that quality assurance division.

[1600]

Could the minister please give me a bit more enlightenment on what this division is doing — the staffing there and their progress?

Hon. M. Polak: Before I provide the answer for that question, we do have the number with respect to the staff who participated in the voluntary workweek reduction, and it's 23.

With respect to the current question, I just need some clarification from the member. Was she requesting information about our provincial quality assurance office or about the quality assurance functions that are represented regionally?

M. Karagianis: I specifically just want to ask about the division of quality assurance that was created within the ministry and just ask for some explanation about it — its current function, status and number of staff, please.

Hon. M. Polak: The FTE count in that department is about 50. It's important to note, though, that we didn't establish a new team in the sense that we suddenly created a group that were doing this. We did put in place an ADM, Sandra Griffin, and she then pulled together existing staff and existing work that was going on into an integrated quality assurance team.

[1605]

They do work in the areas of evaluation and outcome-related data — those kinds of initiatives that would support that. They also, on individual case bases, would be looking at reportable circumstances for both children in care and children who are known to the ministry. They also manage adoption for our provincial office.

Then with respect to their relationship to the regions, they basically provide a data-management type of function or, as I've been told, a knowledge mobility function. I thought that's a very descriptive term that probably best encapsulates what it is that they do for the regions and the ministry. We have them to thank for the high quality of the estimates binder that we have before us today.

M. Karagianis: Is there a reporting process here for this group, and how and when do they report?

Hon. M. Polak: The integrated quality assurance team reports to the leadership team of the ministry and
[ Page 2070 ]
through that to the deputy minister. They don't produce an individual report of their own work. They are, in fact, the team that provides the information that allows the ministry, both provincially and regionally, to construct its reports.

M. Karagianis: This is an internal organization of 50 FTEs that report internally. I'm going to go back to what the minister called knowledge mobility. I know she sounded very excited about that, but it didn't necessarily resonate for me in the same way. I'm not sure I understood exactly what it meant.

But this is strictly an internal organization that reports within the ministry to senior management. What kind of resources, financially…? How much of this budget goes towards this department?

[1610]

Hon. M. Polak: To be clear, this is not an internal organization that is any different from a department in any ministry. What happened in the formation of this integrated quality assurance team is that at a time in the past one would have found small groups of people within each department who would have had responsibility for quality assurance in their area.

What the ministry did was bring those existing people together into one functioning team that was integrated. We then had a focus, through our ADM, on quality assurance across the piece and a more direct relationship to quality assurance between the team, who then report, through their ADM, to the leadership team. That, of course, is a group that reports to the deputy minister. So this is an important department within our ministry.

In terms of the budget, we are simply locating the number for that team specifically, and I'll provide that as soon as we pull that out of the materials.

Knowledge mobility was simply…. I'm sorry if it was a clumsy attempt to try and give an illustration to what happens in our ministry every day. As you well know, we have a tremendous amount of data that flows across all departments in our ministry. The ability for us to be able to take from that data, knowledge that can then be passed onto those who are on the front line so that it affects their practice is really key to everything that we do.

I do have a number now. The number for that department is $6.4 million.

M. Karagianis: I'll see if I can reiterate what I have heard from the minister on this.

The quality assurance function is something that was done by a few people within departments across the ministry and has now been consolidated into 50 FTEs that have a function of accumulating information and disseminating it back to the front lines, I think — this knowledge mobility. That's what I interpreted the minister's comments to mean. They report internally through the ADMs to the leadership team, who reports to the deputy minister.

Who exactly is the leadership team in this? If it's not your ADMs and it's not your DM — it's somebody in between — who is it, please?

Hon. M. Polak: The leadership team is made up of the assistant deputy ministers and the deputy minister.

M. Karagianis: I think when the minister said that the quality assurance, the 50 FTEs, report out to the ADMs…

Hon. M. Polak: Through their ADM.

M. Karagianis: …through their ADM to the leadership team, which is the ADMs — a group, theirs and others, I would assume. It's a bit confusing.

How many people sit on the leadership team? How many ADMs? They wouldn't necessarily report to the DM, if the deputy minister is part of the leadership team, unless we're talking about numerous ADMs that are not sitting on this team. Perhaps the minister could just explain a little more clearly the hierarchy of this system of quality assurance.

[1615]

Hon. M. Polak: We currently have seven assistant deputy ministers and one associate deputy minister. They participate on the leadership team, as is the case in every ministry. They have an executive of their ministry, and this is ours.

M. Karagianis: Seven ADMs, one associate deputy minister and then the deputy minister. Are all of those…? The minister talked about the budget for this quality assurance process — this department of 50 people and this leadership team, $6.4 million. Now, is this part of the transformative change that the ministry has been undergoing for quite a number of years?

Hon. M. Polak: Just to clarify around the $6.4 million. That, first of all, is the funding that represents the provincial office. It does not take into account the quality assurance functions that take place in the different regions. What the $6.4 million would cover would be funding for our interface unit — that's the unit that works to provide information that is requested from outside sources — the research analysis and evaluations, the adoptions unit and also accreditation.

That is not a budget representative of anything beyond that integrated quality assurance team. With respect to transformation, this is pillar 5 of Strong, Safe and Supported. Quality assurance is an integral part of the transformation agenda and of what we seek to achieve as a ministry.
[ Page 2071 ]

M. Karagianis: How long has this particular team been in place then, this quality assurance team of 50 people? This is not something that's been around for a very long time. When was it put in place? And perhaps the minister could just refresh my mind on when the transformative change started and when we expect it to end.

[1620]

Hon. M. Polak: In terms of the integrated quality assurance team, that was brought together in approximately the spring of '08. It's important again to emphasize that these were not new hires or new FTEs. In fact, they weren't even new functions. These were people already working within the ministry who were then brought together into one focused team under one ADM.

With respect to transformation: that began in 2006. In 2008 we saw the release of the ministry's operational plan, Strong, Safe and Supported, which takes us out to 2012. And in 2011-12 we will at that stage be reviewing our progress to determine whether or not there are further steps that need to be taken around transformation. But you'll find that the bulk of the process is outlined in Strong, Safe and Supported.

M. Karagianis: My particular question is around the quality assurance team that started in '08. I know the minister has talked about how some of those functions were being done elsewhere, but bringing them together and giving them a dedicated budget of $6.4 million certainly elevates it above a number of staff scattered throughout the ministry that might have been doing quality assurance or research or data processing or data delivery and that kind of thing.

Is the budget for this team a part of your budget going forward out to, say, 2011-12, when you expect the transformative change to have been complete?

[1625]

Hon. M. Polak: With respect to coming years, if I'm fortunate enough to remain the Minister of Children and Family Development, I would be happy to canvass that at that time. But it's important to note that this $6.4 million was not new money. The functions were, by and large, already there. So simply put, this was a matter of taking the budget support from those areas and putting them together, combining them.

Certainly, though, the action of forming that group is a part of trying to be more effective, and certainly, integration and integrated service is a hugely significant part of our transformation agenda in the ministry.

M. Karagianis: It was my understanding, actually, when the minister first talked about this quality assurance team…. Putting a very specific individual in charge of the team, putting together 50 FTEs under this quality assurance division — those are clear moves to create a body.

Although, certainly, the minister rightly cannot guarantee what's going to happen in the future with this ministry, what I was looking for was to establish whether or not this quality assurance team is a temporary entity or whether this is now an embedded part of the ministry under the transformative change — if this is an embedded division and if it will continue to have these dedicated resources given to it.

Hon. M. Polak: These functions have always had dedicated resources. They will continue to have dedicated resources, dependent on…. The amount would depend on the budget for each year, as has always been the case. But again, these are functions that were already in place, so they have always had dedicated resources.

M. Karagianis: So these 50 individuals were already working within the ministry somewhere, doing these exact jobs in isolation. Is that what the minister is saying? I mean, what were these 50 people doing before they were brought together under this division and given the task here of interface unit — research, accreditation and the other things that the minister has listed?

Hon. M. Polak: The member is correct. Essentially, for the most part these were people who were doing the same job in different areas of the ministry in different parts of the ministry. Over time there are some exceptions with respect to people who've been added, but not in any substantial way. So the member is correct.

M. Karagianis: I'm going to ask some questions about accreditation in a minute. But I would like to know, then, this team…. Can the minister just elaborate a little bit more, or reiterate what she said, about what they are actually delivering in the way of tangible services to front-line workers?

[1630]

Hon. M. Polak: When it comes to front-line workers, the value that they provide is, I would think, almost immeasurable, really, because it is this group that puts together the information such as the Trends and Indicators report — so taking a look at all the different necessary pieces of data that we use to track and make decisions that we then work out to the regions.

It's extremely important that this unit is there to support what happens for the regions because, of course, that's where the management of our front-line workers comes into play. But there is a tremendous amount of research, analysis and evaluation. They, of course, manage through the accreditation process, but all of the masses of data and information that flow through the ministry are managed by this unit.
[ Page 2072 ]

They certainly provide support when it comes to adoptions and when it comes to the interface unit. But then, too, consider the supporting role that they play when it comes to dealing with case management issues and issues around critical incidents, etc.

These are the folks who provide us with the information that we need and that regions need in order to give the best support we can to front-line workers.

M. Karagianis: In fact, what the minister is saying is that this quality assurance team delivers information to the front lines, which is invaluable in helping front-line workers. Maybe the minister could clarify that a little bit.

Certainly, in processing data and information to help the ministry make decisions on all kinds of things…. I can understand that. I'm sure that the quality assurance people…. Their research probably is very informative and has a great deal of influence on decisions that the ministry makes.

[J. Thornthwaite in the chair.]

Is the minister saying, then, that this team has information that flows up to government and down to front-line workers? Maybe just clarify a little bit on exactly how this is a tangible resource for front-line workers. How does it improve front-line delivery of services? So far it seems like there's a lot of internal organizational things going on, but I'm not sure I see how it translates to anything on the front lines that has changed.

I know from front-line workers and from communities and things that are happening out there on the front lines that all of this huge body of internal information and processing…. How is it translating out on to the front lines? I'd like the minister to explain that, because I don't hear that tangibly from front-line workers.

Somewhere here in this great body of work that's being done — years of work, a great deal of money and a lot of manpower going towards this…. I'd like to have a clearer picture of how this in some way is helping kids out there in care or needing care or families needing care.

Hon. M. Polak: It's important to note that the work that front-line workers do every day and that happens through our regions doesn't take place in a vacuum. We don't collect data and analyze it for the sake of it.

We conduct the research. We collect the data. We analyze it. That information is a two-way street. There's a reciprocity there. We have information that comes from the regions. We then have analysis and data that assists in policy-making and informs practice through the regions and, therefore, out to the front-line workers.

I want to say that one of the things I have been most impressed with in the last number of months as I have been meeting directly with front-line workers in the north, in the Interior and in Vancouver Coastal is the attention that they do pay to research and evidence and the importance they place on incorporating that into their practice.

There is a very direct relationship between the work that the quality assurance team does to collect, interpret and analyze information and to ensure that that dialogue continues between the provincial office and the regional offices.

[1635]

M. Karagianis: The minister did mention that one of the responsibilities of this quality assurance team is accreditation. One of the questions I have is the cost to date for accreditation and perhaps a status update from the minister on the process.

Hon. M. Polak: The budget is $1 million, and we currently have 263 agencies that are either accredited or in process.

M. Karagianis: As far as the number of agencies that represents, is that all or half or 90 percent or 20 percent? Perhaps the minister could clarify that.

Hon. M. Polak: Accreditation is required only for those agencies that would be in receipt of $500,000 or more in contracted services. All of those agencies have been accredited. Then would follow those who could choose, if they wished, to undergo an accreditation process.

With respect to MCFD, there are 48 that have chosen to do that. The rest would have no requirement to be accredited through that process.

M. Karagianis: I would like to talk a little bit about some of the recent changes that have been announced, but first, I would like to ask the minister about the expectation that over the next three years there will be a reduction in the number of children in care by significant numbers. Perhaps the minister could explain how that will be achieved.

[1640]

Hon. M. Polak: It's important to note that when we report on our children-in-care caseload, we make forecasts. We certainly don't set targets for budget. These are forecasts of what we anticipate, based on trends that we've seen in the past.

When it comes to the number of children in care, there has been a steady decline since 2000. In the fiscal year 2000-2001 the number of children in care was 10,474. As of September 30 of this year the number is 8,677. The numbers across that piece, from 2000 to present, have dropped consistently every single year.
[ Page 2073 ]

M. Karagianis: Do those numbers include children in the home of a relative?

Hon. M. Polak: No, and they never have.

M. Karagianis: But we do know that children in the home of a relative are now somewhere in the range of about 5,000 children. Have the numbers that have been reduced off of this caseload been accounted for anywhere else in other versions of care?

Children in the home of a relative, as we have canvassed numerous times in estimates and other legislative processes, have been the responsibility of the Minister of Housing and Social Development. As a consequence, they have not been included, but often they have moved through the ministry into the home of a relative.

As a consequence, I think it's semantics about whether or not they're included as part of the children-in-care caseload, because they very likely have at some point been part of the ministry's responsibility and could be again in the future.

In the case of these projections, exactly what is the minister's explanation for where these children are going?

Hon. M. Polak: In terms of the number of children in the home of a relative, that has remained stable over the last three or four years — currently at 4,422. That's as at August of this year.

This is really a good-news story. We have been working very hard over the last number of years in the ministry to increase our use of out-of-care options. We know that children fare far better when they are provided with out-of-care options such as kith-and-kin agreements. This is a good-news story, and we can only hope to achieve the same kind of good news in the aboriginal community.

M. Karagianis: The minister brought up one other group of children, the kith-and-kin. Does the number 8,677 reflect the number of children in kith-and-kin agreements?

Hon. M. Polak: Those in kith-and-kin agreements are not children in the care of the ministry, so no, that number would not reflect that.

Again, this is a good-news story, because one of the challenges faced by the ministry over many, many years — I'd say decades — was the tendency to err on the side of drawing a child into the care of the government. Instead, what we've seen increasing over the last number of years is the ability of those on the front lines to find alternative arrangements that provide a safe and caring environment for that child without having them taken into government care.

M. Karagianis: The number of adoptions, which is a significant new factor of the ministry responsibility — and the minister has alluded to it several times here…. What are the numbers of children that have been adopted, and how does that affect the reduction in the number of children in care?

[1645]

Certainly, if they're in care and then adopted, either by foster parents or elsewhere, they no longer appear as caseloads within the ministry. It would be great to know exactly how many children are moving out of care and into adoption.

Hon. M. Polak: The number of adoptions hasn't played a significant role in the change in numbers. The number of adoptions has been very consistent over the last ten years or so. It hovers in and around 300. The number of placements, for example, for '07-08 was 319, and the number of placements for '08-09 was 301. We don't anticipate a significant change this year either.

M. Karagianis: I would like to talk a little bit now about the new reorganizational practice framework changes within the ministry. I did request a briefing sometime prior to the estimates, which was not given to me. I did have one of your staff members very courteously approach me late yesterday to offer a briefing on this. It unfortunately didn't in any way help to educate me before this estimates debate, so you'll forgive me if I am not particularly knowledgable about this process. But I know that there have been some activities around this.

First, I would like to ask the minister about a survey that has been sent out to agencies providing services to children and youth with special needs. This survey has been sent out very specifically. It says here that the project is part of the scope of the new framework, I believe, and that the goal is to get some of the information here from agencies that serve children and youth with special needs.

I'm curious as to why this wasn't done well in advance of the framework. I've seen some diagrams and information here, and I know there have been announcements of changes within the ministry. Why was the survey not done well in advance of the new reorganizational change and this new framework?

Hon. M. Polak: I'm not sure what survey the member is referring to. Perhaps if we could understand where it's coming from, we'd be able to respond.

M. Karagianis: This is a survey for agencies providing services to children and youth with special needs. This has been sent out through the B.C. Association of Child Development and Intervention. It very clearly talks about the need for this information to be gathered for the framework for action.

Now, this may be a different practice framework. Maybe the word's being used in several instances that
[ Page 2074 ]
are serving several different functions to the ministry. I'd appreciate hearing, in fact, if I misunderstand what is being asked for here.

Hon. M. Polak: This is a survey that is a part of the CYSN, children and youth with special needs, cross-ministry framework. While everything that we do as a ministry is, arguably, somehow related to transformation that will, of course, affect our whole ministry, this development of the framework has been occurring for quite some time, separate and apart from the work of transformation.

[1650]

In fact, the work with respect to this began in April of '08. It's part of the mapping that we've asked BCACDI to conduct, and we've provided them some funding to do that. In fact, I believe there was an initial phase that's already been completed, and this is yet another phase of that.

This is work that is ongoing with organizations like BCACDI. While it is a part of what the ministry's work is in respect of the cross-ministry framework, it is not directly related to the new practice framework or the transformation agenda.

M. Karagianis: Then let's talk a little bit about the new framework. I accept that the children-with-special-needs framework is something separate from the new practice framework. I know that there has been significant anticipation about changes in roles and functions within senior staffing. Could the minister perhaps just start to talk about the new practice framework — what the changes will be, in general terms, from the staffing level down to the front lines?

I would hope that the new framework must be something that could be explained succinctly, or perhaps not. I know that I was unable to make headway through some of the diagrams and things that I received. I am really looking to the minister to give me a bit more robust explanation of the new framework.

Hon. M. Polak: First of all, I do want to apologize in terms of the timing of the briefing that we had attempted to put together. In part, it was simply a misjudgment on my part as to when we would be up in estimates. I apologize for that and still look forward to having a more fulsome discussion than we'll be able to have here.

With respect to practice change, it really is not related to staffing. It is related to conducting the ordinary work of those on the front lines in a different manner using best practice, using models that are going to achieve the best results for children and for youth. It isn't a reorganization. It is literally new practice that is being developed using the expertise of those who work in that field.

M. Karagianis: Perhaps the minister could give me an example of what new practice would be versus current practice.

Hon. M. Polak: Probably the best example and the most significant change that we are undertaking is that of the manner in which children are assessed. What we are moving toward is an assessment model that would see us assessing for the individual needs of that child and to do that in a much more holistic way so that we are taking into account all the very many factors that come into play in that child's life.

M. Karagianis: How is that different from the way children are assessed right now within the ministry?

[1655]

Hon. M. Polak: If you were to try and draw a difference, currently the type of assessment that is conducted for any child really depends on which door they are entering the ministry through, whether that be child protection, youth justice. There are any number of ways in which a child or youth could come into contact with the ministry. The assessment at this stage is really dependent on what that entry point might be and on what legal mandate would be associated with that.

Notwithstanding the fact that we need to respect the legal mandate to provide services, what we are working towards is a common entry point to the ministry that would then allow us to utilize an assessment that is based on the overall need of that child — so looking at everything that is in play in that child's life, not just those things that would be related to the narrow mandate of the point at which they entered the system.

I will say, as well, that I'm happy to canvass issues around the transformation or around the practice framework. Nevertheless, given that they are practice items, I think those are probably more usefully canvassed in the form of a briefing, which we are happy to provide. I think that with respect to this, while we're pleased to discuss what it is that we do in the ministry, we do have budget-related issues that are more germane to what we are dealing with now.

M. Karagianis: Well, I was actually going to get to budget-related issues out of this. I'm trying to really just understand where this new practice framework was going, because there has been a significant shift in even your senior staff. I note that a number of ADMs have moved into new positions. Some have left. What the implications of that are, are really at the heart of my discussion around the budget.

Certainly, the esoteric discussion or more detailed discussion on what this new practice framework really means to front-line children and how it will work on the ground and all of that — you're right — needs to
[ Page 2075 ]
be explored in a briefing session. But I do see that there will be significant impacts here, that ADMs are being moved.

I would like to ask the minister: in that case, what exactly is the purpose of changing all of the ADMs' roles, and why have members left in this process?

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Hon. M. Polak: Well, the reason is actually quite simple. We've made the changes because we believe that this structure better supports the work of the regions and the services that we provide through the regions.

[1700]

M. Karagianis: Why are a number of your senior staff leaving, then?

Hon. M. Polak: I'm not going to comment on the individual decisions of staff people as to their positions within the ministry. I am happy to respond to questions with respect to the positions and the roles within the ministry and as they relate to our budget.

M. Karagianis: Well, could the minister tell me whether or not individuals who've left have been given severance packages and how that impacts your budget?

Hon. M. Polak: The handling of severance packages is such that they are governed by provincial guidelines that every ministry must abide by, and the same would be true for us. I can tell the member that there certainly hasn't been any significant impact on the ministry budget as a result.

M. Karagianis: I would like to ask the minister, then…. We will not canvas in much depth here the new practice framework as much as I'd like to. I am conscious of the time and the great number of other questions that I have here on issues.

I would like to know whether or not the decisions that the ministry has made around program cuts to very specific areas like autism and others that we'll explore here in a little more depth…. How much of this is being influenced in any way by the quality assurance team that we've investigated in depth here?

Have these recommendations for some program cuts come out of the quality assurance information–processing that the minister talked about? In the new practice framework how do these cuts and reductions in services to many front-line programs fit into that? What effect have either of those or both…?

[1705]

Quality assurance is part of the transformation, and all of this new reorganizational framework is apparently part of this. How has that informed the decision around program cuts generally, if not specifically, at this point? I will get into specifics, but how has your quality assurance team and this new practice framework influenced the decision to begin cutting programs to children and families and vulnerable members of the community?

Hon. M. Polak: It would be helpful if the member could identify to which program she is referring.

M. Karagianis: Well, let's talk about particularly the EIBI program, because of course, that's been one of the most controversial ones. I'm sure that the minister continues to hear from the community about how they feel about that. But I'll talk a little bit more about many of the programs that have been cut or altered or diminished.

Your quality assurance team, if, in fact, quality assurance is the title as indicated…. The purpose of that team is to, as you've said, evaluate information from the front lines and help to inform decision-making at the executive level. How does that team view — or what kind of influence did they have on — the minister's decision to cut the EIBI program?

Hon. M. Polak: First and foremost, I want to place on the record the fact that the changes to our autism funding program did not result in any reductions of funding for our autism programming. That budget, in fact, has increased this year.

When it comes to the decision around the EIBI program, that decision was not based on the quality of the program. That decision was based on providing greater equity, better access and increased funding to hundreds of families who now have autistic children six and under.

M. Karagianis: In fact, the minister didn't answer my question about the quality assurance team. This division has 50 employees whose task is to process information, collect data, take information from the front lines that help upstream to inform decisions made by the minister and senior management and, conversely, takes information from the minister and senior staff out to the front lines.

How are cuts like the EIBI program or many of the others that we may explore here…? How does the quality assurance team evaluate that information as a whole? I'm not even talking about, necessarily, whether you redistributed those dollars or not. We'll explore those in a moment. But where does your quality assurance process fit into this very contentious move by the ministry?

Frankly, I sat in on the initial press release, where I do believe that there is evidence that the first comments about the EIBI program were that it was being cut because there was no data to prove the outcomes of that. I did listen with great intent to the questions being
[ Page 2076 ]
asked at that press conference. That subsequently was no longer used within a few days as being the prime motive for that. It became strictly financial.

I want to know your quality assurance team. If they're about providing quality assurance, and if all of the transformative change that has cost thousands of dollars and many man-hours and years of process, at the end of it how does this square the circle with cancelling programs at the front line that have been very effective for the more vulnerable members of the community and under the ministry's care and responsibility in some ways? Whether they're providing programs or actually full on care for these, how does your quality assurance initiative fit with that?

[1710]

Hon. M. Polak: In fact, getting to that level of operation for the quality assurance team is precisely where we would like to see that team get to. We certainly are not there yet. Nevertheless, we are attempting to change from the previous model of quality assurance where, as we've described earlier, the focus was really on individual program areas rather than on being able to look at the overall impacts of various decisions of the ministry and how they would be received or felt or what kind of impact they would have throughout the system in other areas. So that is where we are hoping to get to.

With respect to the autism funding program, it is important to note that the government deals with autism in a different way than virtually any other special need, and that is that we do not provide a program. What we provide is financial support. Government's philosophy from the outset has been to provide financial support to every child with an autism diagnosis, and that funding is being made available immediately upon their diagnosis.

But it is important to be clear that government's role in supporting parents who are raising children with autism is not one of providing a program. It is of providing financial support.

I do want to briefly, though, comment on the member's recollection with respect to the technical briefing. I would draw her attention to the fact that nowhere in any of the documentation that we provided to the media and to anybody else at that briefing, be it the press release or backgrounder, did we in any way raise the issue of research around the program.

That, in fact, was raised by a member of the media who asked if we had any research, at which point we provided that information. But you will not find any mention of quality of the program in any of the announcement documentation that we provided. That was raised by the media. In fact, contrary to some comments that I have heard, we continue to stand by the research results, only that certainly wasn't a force behind the decision around the program.

M. Karagianis: When we look at things like the EIBI program…. Let's talk about that very specifically — the financial implications, which the minister has said is really the sole issue here around why this program was cut. Why did the government not make an attempt to sit down with program providers and families and try and find a way to provide what is very admittedly an exceptional program with exceptional outcomes to more families, rather than saying, "Because we can only reach 70 families at a time, we're cutting the whole program," and rather than actually finding a way to make that very effective program available to, perhaps, more people?

I've talked to program providers, and at no time did the government sit down with any of the program providers and say that "$70,000 per child" — if that is, in fact, the real number — "is not acceptable, and can we find a way to provide this program more cost-effectively?" No program provider was ever approached.

In fact, the government, by their own documentation, has said that because only 70 families at a time were able to take advantage of that program, we're doing away with it completely. The substitute for that, for all families now, is perhaps another hour a week in the kinds of therapies that $20,000 and $22,000 will buy. I'm sure that the minister and the government generally are getting the kind of enormous pressure from families that is very evident to members of the opposition.

[1715]

I have attended numerous rallies. I have got truckloads of e-mail, as I'm sure has the minister. I have been cc'd on all of the correspondence that has gone to the government on this.

In the case where the outcome for children is so markedly improved and the support systems going forward for children into the future are so much more cost-effective by providing this kind of early and intensive behavioural intervention, why has the government not chosen a path of trying to reach the best possible outcomes, best practice — if we can use those terms?

I know the ministry talks about best practice in everything they do. Yet when I look at this, and many other cuts, it would seem to me that we've gone from best practice to lowest common denominator. Perhaps the minister could just say whether, in the business sense of taking the outcome for these children forward for the rest of their lives where they're not dependent on government funding or support or teaching assistance or anything else as an outcome of this….

It would seem to me that the savings are millions of dollars in the lifetime of a child versus a fairly modest investment at the front end. Why has that not been the criteria? Or would the government consider making that the next step — to try and find a way to work with families and service providers to take advantage of what is a very effective program? To see this thing disappear
[ Page 2077 ]
altogether — except for the wealthy, who might be able to afford it — seems a tragic decision to make and certainly not a good business decision for the ministry to make.

Hon. M. Polak: In fact, that is exactly what we are doing. It is incorrect to say that we are eliminating the EIBI program. We are eliminating the $70,000-per-child support. We are continuing to work with the providers. I think all but one of those service providers are working with us so we can ensure their continued viability so that they can continue to provide the EIBI-type of therapy service to those families.

In fact, our budget for autism this year is $46 million. That kind of growth — from $4.1 million in 2001 — tells a bit of the story with respect to the increases in numbers of children. We're seeing, I'm told, an average of about 75 children a month who are being added new to our rolls. Of course there are some who age out and leave, but nevertheless, it's a growing area of service.

We now, between all age groups being served through our autism funding unit, serve 6,000 families.

When it comes to the economic argument, it is very true that early intervention is of critical importance to children with autism. But that is true for the hundreds of families around the province, and we have a responsibility to ensure the continued viability of this program so that we always are able to provide the most funding to the largest number of families that we can in every region around the province.

M. Karagianis: Is it not fair to say, though, that when you strip away the funding, the opportunities for those programs are diminished? I mean, I know from meeting with service providers in the centres where the program has existed that in the interim, while the ministry explores other options for providing this kind of behavioural intervention, staff are laid off and changes are made that strip away the very infrastructure for providing those programs.

[1720]

So if the minister is, in fact, making some demonstrable steps towards trying to ensure that the early intervention program is available and that there's a review of the current steps that could see this program disappear in many communities entirely, then I think that it's fair for her to say that to families. If government is prepared to re-evaluate this in any way, perhaps families could take some confidence from that, because at this time we have families that are feeling distressed, emotional, disappointed, in crisis. Extreme strain on families.

I think if the government is going to review how they are approaching assistance with making sure this program, this early intervention program…. As the minister said, they're exploring ways to make it more available and perhaps more affordable — then that's a good move on government's part.

Perhaps letting that be known to families might certainly give some of them some comfort out there, because families are feeling extremely neglected and betrayed at this point by government. They've been very vocal in that.

I know that they'll be watching very carefully the discussion that takes place here in estimates and taking heart by every word that the minister says that is encouraging in any way about the possibility of that program being available for those children who have just started the program and are losing their funding or those children on wait-lists who are not going to have an opportunity because the program is no longer funded.

I think it's important. I think that this, along with several other of the funding cuts that government has made, is seen as being the hardest, the harshest, the most difficult and hurting the most vulnerable.

If the minister can be, perhaps, a bit more reassuring about what kind of options might be available to parents with your discussions with program providers, I think that that would be a huge step forward. I know families would take a great deal of comfort from that. So I'll ask the minister if she could perhaps be a bit more definitive.

Hon. M. Polak: There's no change in what I'm saying now from what there was the day of the announcement. At that time we announced that we would be working with those service providers and with those families leading up to January 31 to ensure that there was the least disruption possible for those families.

The fact is we have continued to do that with some very good success. All but one of the agencies has agreed to work with us to hopefully establish their continued viability. We feel quite confident that we're close to that with all but one of the agencies.

If they continue to be viable, they will continue to be able to provide the same type of service, albeit they will not be receiving service levels up to that of the $70,000 because we are no longer providing the $70,000. Nevertheless, this is no change from what we said we were going to do at the outset.

We are encouraged by the work that these agencies are doing with us. We recognize that many of them have deadlines for staffing decisions that are coming upon us soon, and so we are working hard to give them some certainty prior to that, but there is no difference here.

I have to say that as I've been meeting with parents who have been involved in the EIBI program, certainly we recognize that any change can really throw panic into the world of a parent who is dealing with a special needs child. We've tried very hard to put out accurate information, to be able to say to parents that this is a process that
[ Page 2078 ]
we are working through and are going to work through with them and with the agencies.

It certainly is not helpful when there are those out there who are providing misinformation. That's been a discouragement to me, that there are very many families who are upset, and then when I dialogue with them it is apparent that they've been given information that is absolutely incorrect.

[1725]

M. Karagianis: Well, for a moment there I actually thought there was going to be a bit more of an olive branch extended there, but I'll accept what the minister says — that some reconsideration and discussion with agencies is going on. But it would seem to me that the government is not necessarily prepared to support the EIBI program. Something like it, I guess, whatever it is.

I would like to ask about the other two fairly significant program cuts that have garnered a lot of attention, and those are the infant development program coordinators and the supported child development coordinators. I know that the minister, when we canvassed this in the House, said that these tasks are now being absorbed into the ministry.

Could the minister please be a bit more forthcoming on exactly how it's being absorbed, who has those responsibilities and exactly what kind of increase to staff duties it would make? We have talked here extensively about the budget, about staffing, about some of the other very significant things that are going on here. What are the implications here of taking over the IDP and SCD tasks?

Hon. M. Polak: The member is correct. The services that are currently provided by those offices will be taken on by our provincial and regional staffs. Certainly, the policy and standards role can be adequately provided from the ministry's provincial office. With respect to coordinating, referral, consultation types of roles, those roles can quite adequately be fulfilled by our regional staff.

One must remember that we are also in the midst of having the "children and youth with special needs" component of CLBC being transferred into our ministry, so it's important that we take a very holistic approach to how we deal with all of those things. This decision certainly supports that type of model of operation.

With respect to specific staffing, that will be the decision for each of the regions to make with respect to what their own needs for service provision might be. We can canvass that at the time.

M. Karagianis: Well, certainly, the tasks that are being performed by these coordinators are significant, so I don't think in any way we can belittle the implications for this.

I have here an outline of the work right now that has been undertaken by one of the current providers. This individual says: "As the provincial adviser to supported child development, the SCD, I am supporting 48 SCD and 37 aboriginal SCD programs throughout the province. Within these programs there are approximately 297 staff delivering services to children with developmental disabilities." This goes on to talk about the various tasks.

So that's a significant workload. If you're going to cancel out these SCD coordinators, this is not a minor addition to a workload of someone within your ministry. This is very significant.

I have a letter here from the department of pediatrics at Children's Hospital. This is from Dr. Michael Whitfield, who talks about the vast amount of work that these coordinators undertake. This letter was sent to you and I've been cc'd, so I know that the minister is aware of it. It really outlines what these infant development program coordinators do. These are not insignificant amounts of work.

This should have dramatic implications to your workload if, in fact, you are taking on these tasks within an existing staffing model that is not being increased in any way. In fact, we've seen it being decreased slightly. Exactly how are these tasks being taken on, and who will be doing the body of work here?

[1730]

Hon. M. Polak: Firstly, I just want to advise the member that we do currently have staff who are working with the existing provincial advisers to ensure a smooth transition plan, but let me attempt to describe a little bit of how we see this working.

First of all, the budget for IDP and the budget for SCD. Neither one has been cut. In fact, both have been increased this year, so it's incorrect to say that this is a cut. What is happening is that we have two positions that will be gone, two provincial adviser positions.

When it comes to the coordinator positions for those, with respect to IDP, when they're attached to an agency, they will be remaining. The IDP, the infant development program, is founded basically in community agencies. It's not something that we run out of our offices, so there isn't an impact with respect to that.

When it comes to the workload issues or the service provision that we would be taking up in the regions, there are staff who are coming to us from the "children and youth with special needs" sector of Community Living B.C. Part of their responsibilities will be around integrating what we do in supported child development and infant development because those are integral parts of providing service to those children.

So this, again, is not a cut or an elimination of a program. This is taking a look at what we are doing in the current context and recognizing that we are going to do
[ Page 2079 ]
a better job when we're fully integrated and when we have people working together to do that.

I want to, though, say a few words about the advisers, because they've been incredibly valuable over the years. When we talk about the provincial adviser for infant development, one could, I think, easily argue that our provincial adviser was really the founder of that program and saw it through to become the very well-coordinated and well-established program that it is today.

This is not in any way a reflection on the work of those advisers. It's been extremely valuable to us, but when it comes down to the decision to make this change, it supports what we are doing with children and youth who have special needs and how we will be supporting them through our regions.

In terms of the policy and standard aspect of that, that will be managed through our provincial office, again, allowing us to better integrate and work together rather than having independent offices that are siloed.

M. Karagianis: So all of the concerns that have been voiced by some of these experts in the region are misfounded, misplaced?

[1735]

Hon. M. Polak: I think the expression of concern such that it is…. Maybe I'll back up a little bit. I understand that what they've heard with respect to the ending of these positions would cause them to express concerns around the very important nature of many of these services.

I would say that their expression of concern around what is actually happening in the ministry is incorrect. The letters that I have read, unfortunately, show a great misunderstanding with respect to what it is that we are undertaking in the ministry. Hopefully, that is something that over time they will begin to understand better.

M. Karagianis: I alluded earlier to the survey that the BCACDI has been asked to undertake. I would expect, because that will be very specifically around the special needs community and the kinds of resources that are provided to them…. Certainly, the kinds of questions that are being asked very specifically will talk about how to improve, build a better framework for delivering services to the special needs community.

If it is obvious there that the changes that the ministry is making right now around IDPs and SCD are not favoured by that community…. If the survey comes back and says that a vast majority of people support the IDP and SCD advisers' positions right now, will the ministry revisit that?

Hon. M. Polak: In fact, it is probably better to describe this as a mapping project. In the partnership we have we BCACDI, that's how it's been described. The mapping project takes into account services provided by the Ministry of Health Services, Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

It's an attempt to determine what services are being provided by each ministry — in other words, who's doing what where. It's not a program evaluation. We will be using that information to then continue the dialogue around the cross-ministry framework for children and youth with special needs so that we are better able to integrate what we do across those three ministries.

Certainly, that's been an ongoing theme. It's been a big part of our work with BCACDI, and we're very pleased with the work they've done with us to date.

M. Karagianis: I think the minister missed my question. If this framework, this map, comes back from the BCACDI and says that it was a tragic mistake to cancel the EIBI program or to do away with these very specific infant development and supported child development positions, what will the ministry do then? If this is yet one more piece of information that comes back into your quality assurance ministry that says, "Tragic mistake. These are vital services in our map of the special needs world," what are you prepared to do?

[1740]

Hon. M. Polak: I was not trying to avoid the question. The answer is: it is not that type of a survey, and it would not return that type of an answer. It isn't a program evaluation. It's a mapping of who does what and where they do it.

M. Karagianis: Presumably, it would also identify where there are gaping holes in who's doing what out there in the world for special needs. If there's a gaping hole left by the non-funding of EIBI, or the repercussions of these other programs for special needs babies and children, what does the ministry do then?

Hon. M. Polak: Again, this is a service-mapping project. It is not a program evaluation.

In fact, services to those receiving IDP services or SCD services will continue uninterrupted. There will be no change in those, and we have already canvassed our position with respect to the autism funding program.

M. Karagianis: I'm just looking here at the survey for agencies and looking at the kinds of questions that would be asked here. In the introduction of this it says:

"The B.C. Association of Child Development and Intervention, with the help of a provincial multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral steering committee, has been charged with leading a project whose aim is to identify and map services and service providers for children and youth with special needs in B.C."

It seems pretty straightforward there.

"This project is part of the scope of the framework for action for children and youth with special needs initiative developed and
[ Page 2080 ]
signed off by the ministries of Health, Education and Child and Family Development.

"The goal of the mapping and modelling of the service providers project is to produce a comprehensive description of the services and service providers for children and youth with special needs in the province. This is a groundbreaking effort to document these services in Canada and represents an important opportunity to help improve service planning and delivery for children and youth with special needs and their families in B.C."

I thought it was pretty clear that this is, in fact, a fairly in-depth and groundbreaking survey that will identify opportunities to improve services. We're talking about services that are being cut right now, that admittedly…. The minister herself has even admitted that the EIBI program has had significant and terrific outcomes for children.

If this survey comes back as part of this mapping, unless the ministry is prepared to simply not allow that information to come back…. If you have a survey that's seeking to find ways to improve the service plan for children with special needs, it would seem to me that you're going to, inevitably, run up against the issue of the EIBI funding cuts and the infant development program changes and the supported child development changes, especially for aboriginal families with special needs.

I'm not sure how you can not get that information out of a survey by agencies that specifically deal with special needs children. You cannot talk to these individuals without the EIBI funding changes coming up instantly in the conversation. So I would suspect that when they're going to do an in-depth survey, you've got to have this kind of feedback. Is the ministry prepared, then, to simply ignore that?

Hon. M. Polak: This is our survey. We've asked them to do it. We've asked them to map this. We want to know where the money is going, from each of these different ministries, to provide services out in the field.

[1745]

We want to know that because we then want to be able to examine what it is that each of our ministries is doing. Are there any areas of duplication? Are there places where we could do things better together? It's about integrating our services to special needs children and youth across our three ministries.

But it is a mapping project. It is simply, as the letter states, to take a look at what's out there and describe what it is so that we can then take that information and be aware, on one document, of what is happening not just in our ministry but in the other two as well.

As I'm sure that the member is aware, integration is always a huge challenge across ministries. It doesn't matter what area of service you want to look at. This is our work, together with the BCACDI, funded by us because we want this information to map what services exist. It has nothing to do with the questions around EIBI or the questions around IDP or SCD.

All this does is map what it is that is being provided by different agencies, funded through which ministries, so that we have that information in one place, which is a form of integration that we will continue.

M. Karagianis: Well, I certainly look forward to seeing what kind of response comes from the BCACDI, because I suspect that one of the things it will identify is that there was a very superior early intervention program for autistic children that is no longer available and a vital piece of special needs resources in the province.

However, because time is slipping by and I do want to get into some other questions here today if I can, I actually want to just ask one more question about a program cut. Then I want to talk a little bit about the presentation that the B.C. Association of Social Workers made to the Finance Committee.

Can the minister give me the latest update on the Roots of Empathy program and its status?

Hon. M. Polak: Unfortunately, we will not provide funding for Roots of Empathy programs from the ministry this year. We did make the decision to retain 14 aboriginal Seeds of Empathy programs, which the member will likely know are operated through Roots of Empathy.

M. Karagianis: Can the minister please explain the rationale for the cut to the funding for these programs?

Hon. M. Polak: Certainly. As a result of budget pressures in the Ministry of Education, they were unable to provide their support. That certainly is the lion's share of the funding that is provided for Roots of Empathy.

From the Ministry of Children and Family Development, as well, we had to make decisions around how we would prioritize these services. With limited funds, we decided that the highest priority should be placed on the absolutely most vulnerable. Those are our very youngest aboriginal children, who we feel could benefit the most.

M. Karagianis: Just to be clear, there are currently 640 of these programs in British Columbia, and only 14 are going to be left operational?

Hon. M. Polak: I don't have the exact figure in front of me, but that's more or less correct, yes.

M. Karagianis: Because I can see that the time's going to get away from us here — we've probably only got about another hour before the end of this day — I would like to ask the minister some questions.

I'm sure she is aware of the presentation that the B.C. Association of Social Workers made to the Finance Committee. These are the front-line workers of the ministry. I would expect that the minister is probably very concerned by the presentation. Certainly, there have been a number of very clear recommendations
[ Page 2081 ]
made here, so I would like to talk a little bit about these.

[1750]

The B.C. Association of Social Workers has more than 1,200 social workers employed throughout the province. They look after child welfare as well as many other aspects of social work. They say in their introduction here that they:

"…have witnessed the rapid erosion and dismantling of the child welfare and the child and family–serving systems and its toll on our most vulnerable people in B.C. These circumstances are preventable and can be remediated by the province.

"Improving investment in our social infrastructure through sound economic and public policy decision-making — made in consideration of proven best practices in child welfare, anti-poverty strategies and economic development — have all yielded measurable results and improvements in other jurisdictions.

"We believe that B.C. can and must do better for our current and future generations of citizens. Our very health, well-being and the future of the province depend on it."

Pretty strong comments.

Can the minister respond as to whether or not she's read this document?

Hon. M. Polak: We have an ongoing working relationship with the B.C. Association of Social Workers. I've met with their representatives as a new minister some time ago, and we continue to work collaboratively with them when it comes to things like new initiatives around family group conferencing, around mediation. We've been invited to present to one of their upcoming conferences, so that work is ongoing.

When it comes to the statements around their view with respect to child protection in the province, it will come as no surprise to the member that I disagree. More importantly, that isn't what I'm hearing when I talk to front-line social workers around the province.

While they have very difficult jobs and ones that I would encourage the Finance Committee to support, nevertheless, they are excited by the prospect of the changes that are coming, and they are very committed to the innovative kinds of tools that we are currently putting into place in regions, such as family group conferencing, mediation and things along those lines. So we would continue to work with the B.C. Association of Social Workers.

With respect to the report, I have not read it. I have received a summary from staff. I'll be interested to see the consideration that is given to it by the Finance Committee, which is where the report has been presented.

M. Karagianis: In particular, I read with great interest the evaluation of the association on services and particularly their recommendations. I would like to talk a little bit about those, because the recommendations here, I think, would be far and away more interesting to the ministry than they would be even to the Finance Committee, although some of these certainly have huge implications.

I would think that in particular…. These are front-line workers. This is their organization and, one would assume, had the approval of their membership in order to submit what is very strong language here.

[1755]

We've been canvassing here some of the program cuts that government has made. They canvass at great lengths here in their report, their submission to the Finance Committee. Cuts to services for children with special needs is one main focus they have, and they talk about the various cuts:

"Cuts to early intervention intensive autism services for young children.

"Community support service agencies around B.C. were directed by MCFD to find $3.6 million in cuts and had funds earmarked for programming, to be clawed back by the ministry.

"MCFD has eliminated valuable clinical specialists in supervisory positions in supported child care and infant development programs" — which we've talked about.

"Child and youth mental health, and addiction services are inadequate for the numbers of young children who require assessment and treatment…. Children who have been sexually abused and those who experience mental health crises have had to wait for months."

I know that I do have a newspaper clipping here of an agency that was affected here in the south Island that provides services and has had their funding cut.

"Funding has been cut to the Special Olympics and a program that sought to reduce the number of children born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

"Children, youth and adults in need of services and supports through Community Living B.C. number in the thousands. We do not know the full scope of the wait-lists, because CLBC and MCFD are not adequately tracking the numbers of individuals on wait-lists, or analyzing service gaps, barriers to receiving their services…."

I would like to ask the minister about a couple of these, because they're very pertinent to the budget and the function of the ministry over the next fiscal year. We've canvassed the autism service cuts. We have not touched on the fact that there's been a directive to MCFD to find $3.6 million in savings.

Could the minister perhaps talk about that — about where that is, what the status of those savings are right now and what the implications are for perhaps further cuts as a result of a $3.6 million savings that's been required to be found.

Hon. M. Polak: As a way of context, the total funding for our contracted agencies amounts to a little more than $700 million annually. Of that, we worked with the federation of community social service agencies to locate $3.6 million in savings in administration, not programming. In the end, most of that was recovered through unearned revenue.

[1800]

M. Karagianis: Then the point here on child and youth mental health, and addiction services and, particularly,
[ Page 2082 ]
sexual abuse services. I know that the local agency here has been affected and had to lay off a number of therapists and, in fact, may be forced to shut down entirely. What does the minister have to say in the way of a response to this issue of these programs or these services being reduced or inadequate at this point?

Hon. M. Polak: In fact, specific to the sexual abuse intervention program, SAIP, the funding has actually been increased to them over the last couple of years. In our ministry the funding for children and youth mental health services has more than doubled since 2003. Right now it sits at more than $85 million.

M. Karagianis: I would like to call the minister's attention to this: "Island's Only Child Abuse Unit Closes." This was reported out in the Times Colonist some time ago. This is specifically around children who have been sexually abused.

Does the minister feel that there are adequate services now for wait-lists for these kinds of services? Children with mental health issues or sexually abused certainly often are the most hard to care for. What step is the ministry taking in this regard?

Hon. M. Polak: If the member could clarify, is that the HARC program? Is that the one to which she's referring?

M. Karagianis: I believe it is.

Well, there's actually the suspected child abuse and neglect program through the Queen Alexandra.

Hon. M. Polak: If that's the one to which we're referring, in fact the issue for them was not budget-related. The health authority was having difficulty locating the appropriate medical personnel in order to provide the service. My understanding is that that has since been resolved, but we can certainly check on that for the member.

M. Karagianis: I know that in my own community the Pacific Centre Family Services, which works with sexually abused children, has also voiced their concerns about inadequate resources, wait-lists and the expectation that government has put on them to find incredible savings when they are already working on threadbare budgets.

[H. Bloy in the chair.]

I think that at this point it's imperative that many of these agencies, specifically around sexual abuse treatment programs, not be cut in any way and not feel that they have to find incredible savings when they have huge wait-lists.

Does the ministry look at these programs and determine what kinds of wait-lists are there and what kind of implications there are to these programs when any kinds of cuts are made to their funding or to the security of their funding in outgoing years?

[1805]

Hon. M. Polak: I want to reiterate that when it comes to SAIP, we've actually increased the budget over the last three or four years, and in fact, we've continued to increase our budget for children and youth with mental health issues. It's more than doubled since 2003.

When it comes to the suggestion that we're asking these organizations to find large sums of money, again, I want to draw the member's attention to the proportionality here. The total budget for our contracted services is over $700 million. The amount that we sought to find in administrative savings from these agencies was only $3.6 million, and most of that was recovered in unearned revenue. None of it was addressed at program changes. Certainly, the impact on any of these agencies would have been extremely minimal.

M. Karagianis: Can the minister tell me whether or not there are wait-lists for any of these programs and how long the wait-lists are for mental health services?

Hon. M. Polak: Provincially, we try not to manage a traditional wait-list when it comes to these types of services. What we ask our local agencies to do and our regions to do is to prioritize service based on the need of the child, and so those are always shifting with respect to those who we intake. We work with service providers and with physicians to ensure that if we don't have one type of service available for a child who is in need, we are able to redirect them to another type.

So we don't actually maintain traditional wait-lists because we are constantly adjusting, based on the priority needs of the children who come into our sphere.

M. Karagianis: One more question here with regard to the views of the B.C. Association of Social Workers. There is generally non-support at this point for the regionalization process. I'd like to ask the minister: when we talked about the new framework and some of the other initiatives that are included in that, has there been consultation with the B.C. Association of Social Workers on this? What are their views on this? They will be certainly expected to participate in this, but what has been the consultation with them?

[1810]

Hon. M. Polak: First and foremost, I think it's important to recognize that the B.C. Association of Social Workers represents only some of the social workers who are employed by our ministry.
[ Page 2083 ]

Secondly, with respect to their concerns around regionalization as described in their report to the Finance Committee, what they are describing is a process that the ministry has halted. Instead, what we've been undertaking for the last number of years is empowering service in our regions such that that can be driven from a community level. It's very different from the kind of regionalization that they are describing in their presentation and that they appear to be opposed to.

M. Karagianis: I have several members here that would also like to ask some questions, so I just have a couple of other issues I want to touch on. Foster care is a significant part of the child care picture, and I would like to canvass a few questions on that.

There have been a number of issues with retention of foster parents. The number of foster parents has declined dramatically in the province over the last number of years. Can the minister tell us what the current status is of the number of foster parents and foster families that are available?

Hon. M. Polak: First, I do want to acknowledge that it is becoming an increasing challenge for us to recruit and retain foster families. That is something that's being experienced pretty much North America–wide, near as we can tell. We continue to work to encourage fostering as a very rewarding experience for families, and we work hard to try to recruit new individuals to that.

Nevertheless, we are confronting the same forces as other jurisdictions are with respect to the overall age of our population and also with respect to other opportunities for families to engage in the care of children, so we are competing, if you will, with other opportunities.

The numbers, though, have not dropped dramatically. In '06 we had 2,985. In '07 we had 2,988. In '08 we had 2,946, and this year we have 2,835. So while those numbers have dropped, they have not dropped nearly as much as the number of children in care.

M. Karagianis: I do have one other issue that kind of comes out of the foster care question, and this has been posed to me by several care workers and a foster mom.

[1815]

The government had initiated a program that social workers and child care workers have been calling on for a very long time, which was financial assistance to former wards of the government or foster children or children in care for their educational courses. This was implemented just over a year ago, but this has now been cut.

I have several care workers who are approaching me about the fact that these educational courses and living allowances for individuals who are aging out of care need to go on to post-secondary education. In the case of this one, it's a child who has FASD. There are not enough support systems to allow these children to leave care, pursue a post-secondary education or a trade and have adequate money to live on.

This has become a growing crisis for these children and for the children who have youth agreements as well. As they age out of their youth agreement, there are concerns about their ability to pay for shelter and food while they go to school. For some of these individuals who, of course, have been very challenged….

Those children who have grown up in the system, so to speak, have great challenges in trying to make sure that they get an education. Where they're pursuing that, it seems to me that any barriers that government puts up to them doing that fails these children the second they leave care.

Youth agreements are the same way. I've had the same comments from individuals who have been on youth agreements, and once they reach an age, so many of the resources that would help them finish their education are removed. Can the minister comment on this?

Hon. M. Polak: With respect to the youth educational assistance fund — that's a fund managed by the Victoria Foundation — we're not aware of any cuts to it. They ended the quarter of March 31, 2009, with a balance of $2,929,520. Those are handled as bursaries to those young people, and the Victoria Foundation manages those.

With respect to agreements with young adults, that program was reinstated in 2008-2009. The expenditure for that year was $1,742,229. Our budget for this year is actually $3,288,200 — so again, no reductions there either.

M. Karagianis: So there are supportive programs for those children who are in youth agreements and pursue further education. What happens to them when they're 19, though? Does the ministry continue to give them that care until they finish their post-secondary education course? What happens with their living allowance and other things? They obviously receive that kind of protection and care when they're on a youth agreement. What happens once they're 19?

[1820]

I mean, just providing them with tuition is not adequate because many of them have no capacity to support themselves once they reach the age of 19.

Hon. M. Polak: It's the youth educational assistance fund that would provide for tuition and books. When it comes to the other support, the agreements with young adults program functions such that between the age group of 19 to 24, a young person who has been in care can enter the program and can receive financial assistance for 24 months.
[ Page 2084 ]

M. Karagianis: I have several of my colleagues that would like to ask some questions. I'd like to give them a chance to do that, and then I'd like to ask another question that harks a little bit back to the autism program. This is around how the funding is paid to families. I will cede the floor to my colleagues.

S. Herbert: Thank you to the minister and her staff. I know one of the goals of the ministry in the service plan is preventing vulnerability in children and youth by providing strong supports.

The suicide rate amongst gay, lesbian, bi and transgendered youth is incredibly high. Some surveys say six times and some say four times the average for youth in B.C. My question is: what is the Ministry of Children and Family Development doing specifically to help queer youth and kids in their care?

[1825]

Hon. M. Polak: I thank the member for the question. Certainly, it's always tragic when a youth commits suicide. But we recognize that there are specific groups where the prevalence rate is much higher — in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community; in the aboriginal community.

As such, because of the doubling of the funding for our child and youth mental health services, one of the things that that has allowed us to do is to increase the number of clinicians and others who are involved in intake when youth are brought to our attention. So we not only work with those assessments, such that if it's determined that that is a component of what is presenting as the cause for that young person, but we then work with agencies who are connected with the local gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered community.

As you can imagine, it differs, depending on the region, the amount of community support there is or what agencies we can connect them with. But we certainly do everything we can to address the specific needs of that individual. Where those involve issues around sexual orientation, we certainly make every attempt to connect them with local resources in their area connected with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered community.

Also, we work closely with the Youth in Care Network, who are exactly what it sounds like — a group of youth who are in care, have been in care. They are invaluable in providing us with, really, more up-to-date information with respect to what's going on with young people in their everyday lives out in the community. That also is a tremendous help to us as we try to ensure that all of our staff are made well aware of the challenges out there for those young folks.

S. Herbert: I appreciate the answer about what happens if somebody did go to the lengths of suicide or a suicide attempt. But the question that I've got is: what about the before — the prevention? How is the ministry working to ensure that the youth that are in its care know that it's okay for them to be who they are?

Hon. M. Polak: Globally, in terms of prevention, we've recognized for quite some time the need to really get down to the younger grades in terms of dealing with mental health issues, with anxiety and, in particular, getting at suicide prevention.

One of the ways in which we've done that through our ministry is in implementing the Friends program in grades 4 and 5. That's something that's funded through MCFD. It's provided as a school-based program, and it's the first of its kind in Canada.

[1830]

Working with that age group, we've seen what we believe is some very big success in terms of preventing the kind of anxiety and mental health issues that can eventually lead to suicide.

When it comes to those youth in care who may be struggling with their sexual identity, this is one of the benefits of an integrated model in that when it comes to those who might be presenting with…. They are already down the road, so we're past prevention. They’re already there, and they're presenting with a challenge. This is something where, as I've said, we would be wanting to connect them with those within the community in their area.

But when it comes to those for whom care is being provided, and they're growing up in our care with foster parents, we are certainly pleased to be highlighting in our ministry the U.N. convention on the rights of the child for foster parents who have kids in care. They are certainly aware of the rights of a young person who's living with them.

When I say that, it sounds almost cold to talk about it in terms of rights, but the U.N. convention is so much more than that. It really asks us to consider the whole youth and everything about them. So that's one of the reasons why we're moving to our new assessment model, which does take into account all aspects of what's going on in a young person's life when we're taking them into care.

Certainly, as we work with our foster parents and other care providers, when there are challenges around adjusting to a person's sexual identity and struggling through that, that's another area where we certainly work with youth, just as we would with any other challenge they're facing in their life.

S. Herbert: So I'm just trying to understand. The first part of the minister's answer was about the Friends program and about children from grade 4 and grade 5, people dealing with mental health issues — and I'm sure the minister didn't mean to infer that it was children with sexual orientation that I was meaning — anxiety.
[ Page 2085 ]
I'm guessing that the anxiety would be because of discrimination or something like that. The minister nods her head, and I'm glad to hear that. So that's at the elementary school level.

Now, oftentimes people will discover their sexual orientation later in life. It could be as a teenager or something like that. I'm curious if there are any resources focused specifically on ensuring that either foster parents or the youth themselves get those resources so that they know before they might go to something — the level of suicide — that they are okay to be who they are and if they have questions, who to talk to.

Once we finish this question, I've got some about sexual health and those kinds of questions, but we'll finish with this one.

Hon. M. Polak: We don't have specific programs that deal with that. When we're talking about youth in care, we're talking about children who are being cared for by a foster family.

It's our expectation amongst foster families that when the young person in their care is experiencing difficulties in any area — if in fact, it happens to be struggling with their sexual identity or figuring out whether they want to come out or not — whatever those questions might be, our expectation would be that that foster family, as any loving family would, would seek out the kinds of supports that that young person would need, whether those be in school or in the community.

We would certainly, as an organization, be assisting foster parents in that work if they needed assistance in identifying what organizations might be out there or what supports there might be in the community or in the school. We would certainly be encouraging and supporting that with the foster family, just as we would with any other aspect of growing up in care.

[1835]

S. Herbert: One more question, just quickly. If there was an instance of a foster family who very specifically did not want to foster children who were gay, lesbian, bi or questioning, what would the ministry do in such an instance?

Hon. M. Polak: Just so I know what I'm answering, are you speaking to how we would review someone to become a foster parent in the first place, or are you referring to how we would match kids in care with a foster family?

S. Herbert: Well, it's kind of a multipart question in that sense, and maybe the minister can try and figure that one out. Basically, either becoming a foster parent — what's the consideration there; but also, if the person is a foster parent and the youth that they're working with did come out and then the foster parent decided they weren't comfortable with that, would that foster parent stay in the system?

Hon. M. Polak: In terms of how we place children in foster families, we have a wide array of foster families from all different walks of life, and we have foster families who provide service, in some cases, in some very specialized cases. For example, we have foster families who specialize in looking after young infants, and that's their focus. That's what they do. Some specialize in certain special needs. We have foster families who are same-sex families. So we have all manner.

What we try to do is match those families with those children as best we can. Of course, that becomes an even more significant issue when you are talking about older children.

We wouldn't engage in a blanket policy around that. I must say that we would expect that to be a rarity in that, for the most part, our foster families are accepting of the fact that they are standing in place of existing parents. I would expect that to be the rare occurrence.

Certainly, if something like that were to occur, we would want to be looking very carefully at what the circumstances are to try to determine just exactly what's causing this kind of a difficulty between the foster parents and the young person.

S. Herbert: Just to wrap up, I thank the minister for her time and the staff for their time.

It's interesting — the blanket policy, not having a blanket policy, I guess. The question I had asked earlier is: what would happen if somebody went into becoming a foster parent but was not comfortable with having a gay, lesbian, bi, trans youth in their care — say, if they were looking after youth? Would they still be allowed to become a foster parent?

The second question that I had was: if they were a foster parent existing and the youth they were looking after came out — maybe they didn't know, and then they realized who they were — what would happen in those cases? Would that person continue on in the system as a foster parent if they absolutely did not appreciate people being who they were?

[1840]

Hon. M. Polak: There are a few different levels of this at which this might occur. I want to deal with one, which is the case of, say, a family seeking to be foster parents who we find to be acting in an extremely prejudicial manner. Certainly, when it comes to what we seek out in a foster family, we're looking to people who are open, who are loving, who are supportive. So I would hope that that would be something that we would screen out in the initial process — if somebody was acting on the basis of prejudice.

I think there's another aspect to this, though, and that is getting back to the fact that foster families are the
[ Page 2086 ]
same as any other family. For any family, issues around sexual identity can be very challenging for them. Much of that — the actions we would take subsequent to an issue like this arising — would depend on the family and the relationship with the young person.

For example, if the young person had grown up in that family for quite a number of years, then there would be a likelihood that the action we would take would be to work together with the foster family and the young person so that they can remain in relationship, because that's an important relationship. So that's one example.

But our primary task there is to take a look at what is that circumstance — right? Is this a case where the best thing for this young person is for us to work with that family and resolve it? Or is the best thing to have this young person move on to someone else? Maybe, in our evaluation, we've thought: "No, maybe these foster parents aren't appropriate anymore." But it's very important that we take a look at their particular foster family circumstance and determine what action is the best that we take.

That's why I would say that we wouldn't have a blanket policy. More often than not, especially now that we're moving toward a greater use of family group conferencing and mediation, what we're trying to do is work through challenges like that that families face, rather than trying to just draw a line in the sand. Because oftentimes that doesn't end up being good for the young person either.

If we can help support that family and that young person so that they can maintain that relationship and if they're able to support that young person in discovering their identity and being able to express that, then that obviously would be the ideal outcome for our circumstance too.

The Chair: Member, noting the hour.

S. Herbert: All right. Well, I guess I can't ask any more questions because it's 6:45. I've got a bunch of them. Hopefully, the minister and I can talk about some of these later on, whether it's about sexual education for kids in government care or foster families and those kinds of situations, whether or not it's around how we can be even more proactive in ensuring that our youth and our kids are able to express the full diversity of who they are and that their families are supported in that.

I'm just reflecting on the minister's comments about blanket policies. I would assume, though, that there is a blanket policy at the start — that when somebody is going to become a foster family, no discrimination of that sort would be accepted and that they certainly would be asked about that in the screening process.

We will continue this discussion over time.

Hon. M. Polak: I just want to thank the member for his questions and for his line of questioning. I think that it gets us back to what is primary for us — that is, thinking about the child at the centre and recognizing that that really is all about what we do.

With that, Mr. Chair, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:45 p.m.

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