2010 Legislative Session: Second 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, March 10, 2010

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 11, Number 5

[ Page 3335 ]

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2010

The House met at 1:35 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Introductions by Members

Hon. M. de Jong: He possesses far more information about most of us than we would care to acknowledge. He has served the public of British Columbia in a variety of capacities with great distinction. He has been, is and will always remain a great friend of the people who occupy this chamber. I hope all members will welcome Mr. H.A.D. Oliver.

Hon. M. Polak: In British Columbia we're very proud of the fact that we have the longest life expectancy for men in the entire world. Today I want to honour….

Interjection.

Hon. M. Polak: Yes, that's good news.

Today I want to honour someone who is contributing to that statistic, a man that is a hero of mine. Today my father Peter Inkman turns 81, and I wanted to say: "Happy birthday, Dad."

Hon. I. Black: I ask the House to please join me in welcoming Somenath — or Shom, as he's known — Sen, our new assistant deputy minister of the Asia-Pacific investment and trade division in Vancouver. He has enormous international experience that is going to serve the people of British Columbia really, really well.

Most recently, he was with Kraft Foods as vice-president of strategy and business development in the Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore since 2005. While with Kraft, Shom led strategy and business development efforts in Asia for the world's second-largest food company.

He's got extensive experience on a global basis in a variety of businesses. He holds a master's degree from Harvard University, and he started right here in British Columbia, getting his bachelor of commerce degree from the University of B.C. in 1984.

Please join me in welcoming Shom to the House and welcoming him back home.

S. Fraser: A good friend is visiting in the gallery today from Errington, British Columbia, in my constituency. Would the House please make Leanne Salter feel very, very welcome.

Hon. B. Bennett: There are four senior members of the Union of B.C. Municipalities here in the precincts today for meetings. I'd like to introduce them. Mary Sjostrom is the mayor of Quesnel. Barb Steele is a councillor in Surrey. Harry Nyce is the president of UBCM, and Robert Hobson is the past president of UBCM. Please help me make them welcome.

Hon. I. Chong: I would like to ask the House to help welcome a constituent of mine, Brian DeClare, who is proudly celebrating his Canadian citizenship today as well. Joining Brian in the galleries are his parents, Peter and Anita Elphick; friends Anthony Abbott, Garrett Lambert, Steve Baillie and Gregory Nuke. Would the House please make them all very welcome.

Hon. S. Thomson: Today in the gallery are five representatives from the B.C. Fruit Growers Association: Joe Sardinha, their president; Mr. Kirpal Boparai, their vice-president; Fred Steele, a member of their executive; Peter Simonsen, a member of their executive; and Glen Lucas, their general manager.

I'd like the House to make them welcome. They represent the growers that produce the great apples, cherries and soft fruits from the Okanagan, and they're here today to meet with me and other members to talk about the current challenges facing the tree fruit industry.

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D. Hayer: I also want to welcome Barb Steele, councillor of the city of Surrey. She's actually a constituent of mine. She works very hard at always giving us good advice, and she's helping all the constituents out in Surrey and the Surrey residents. Please would the House make her very welcome.

H. Bloy: I'd like to introduce the future of British Columbia today. There's a young student from my riding, Keats Morton, who's in the House, and we had lunch today. I think our future is very bright. He's accompanied by his mom, Bridgette O'Sullivan, and would the House please make them welcome.

J. Horgan: Joining us later in the precincts is the chief of the Pacheedaht First Nation from Port Renfrew, Chief Marvin McClurg. I'm hopeful that the minister and others in the House will make him very, very welcome.

Mr. Speaker: Minister of Health.

Hon. K. Falcon: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not used to you favouring me before all others. I appreciate that indeed.

Today in the gallery we are joined by a student, Poonam Sethi. Poonam is a University of Washington
[ Page 3336 ]
student who is doing her four-week rotation in pharmacy here in British Columbia as part of the many foreign students that are attracted to British Columbia and, in this case, the health system, to learn about our pharmaceutical services division and the work that we do. I would like the House to please welcome Poonam.

L. Reid: Mr. Speaker, on your behalf I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the 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 their work affects this Legislature. Would the House please make them welcome.

In addition, I have some guests in the gallery today. I have Mairi and John MacDonald visiting from Saltspring Island and their children Iain and Alison, and friends of mine visiting from Lake Country, British Columbia, Grace MacIver and her daughter Cate. I would ask the House to please make them welcome.

Statements

rattenbury rally

K. Conroy: I would like to take the opportunity to thank the member for Surrey-Panorama for organizing the Rattenbury Rally this afternoon and thank the Speaker for his assistance in presiding over the rally. Also, I'd like to thank the member, because she gave us a real opportunity to see what it's like to experience negotiating through the chamber and through these halls in a wheelchair. It was a daunting experience, and it also gave us a good understanding of what the Paralympics participants are going through. So it was great.

I'd like to congratulate the members of the silver-winning team, and they would be the members for Surrey–White Rock, Kamloops–North Thompson and the Cariboo-Chilcotin. The members of the opposition take great pride in being the gold medal–winning team. That would be my colleagues from Cowichan Valley and Alberni–Pacific Rim. I think we only won because I was able to point out that there are two accessible washrooms for females in this building.

Mr. Speaker: Does the member for Surrey–White Rock wish to respond?

G. Hogg: Reluctant as I am to respond, I understand there is some testing that will take place subsequent to this, just to make sure. However, they've also had…. I've talked to a couple of timekeepers, and there is some debate as to who in fact did win. I understand that our first-place finisher was some five and a half minutes ahead of any of theirs. So I'm not sure how that occurred, but it was certainly, as has been pointed out, a very educational process wheeling our way through.

As I came down the hallway in the main portion of the building, somebody walked out of a doorway and walked right into me and wasn't aware and was very apologetic at that point, obviously. But being aware of that and being able to negotiate and see that a very small incline is actually very difficult and challenging to work with….

[1345]

It was very kind of the judges to give the opposition the opportunity to claim that they won a gold…. I want to thank the judges for doing that, because we are a very altruistic group and want to extend to them the chance to have some victories, and we appreciate that. But most importantly, I think, was the collegiality and that we all had a chance to learn and understand a little bit about what it was like to be in a wheelchair. Thank you very much for that opportunity.

Mr. Speaker: You have something else to say too?

G. Hogg: Well, thank you, hon. Speaker. As you pointed out to me, and as so many did point out, the media was also invited to this event. But apparently they had a very difficult time finding the front of the building and the way to get there and the accesses that were there for it.

We hope that we can actually allow this to be an educative process for the members of the media, as well, to be involved in and understand some of the challenges faced by those people who travel in wheelchairs and, hopefully, that they can also portray some of those challenges to the public at large as we do host the most accessible Paralympics in the history of the Paralympics here in British Columbia, something we should be very proud of and something they should be conveying to the people of this province.

Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

CANADIAN AGRICULTURAL SAFETY WEEK

J. Slater: I am pleased to announce that March 14 marks the launch of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Week. The week-long campaign encourages safe farm practices and runs from March 14 to March 20.

Thanks to the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and the federal government, Canadians will be made aware of the importance of safe farm practices.
[ Page 3337 ]

I'd like to also recognize the Farm and Ranch Safety and Health Association for the important work they do here in B.C. to develop and provide health and safety services for the agriculture industry. The FARSHA team includes members who are fluent in languages such as Punjabi, Spanish and Vietnamese to enhance the effectiveness of training and compliance.

Agriculture is so important in the Boundary-Similkameen area. Most farms are family-owned, and when an injury occurs to the operator, it can be devastating for the workers and the families who rely on farming for their entire income, as well as personal challenges that arise.

This marks the year of the Canadian agriculture safety campaign with a theme of "Plan, farm and safety." Each year in Canada an average of 115 people are killed, while at least 1,500 people are hospitalized from farm-related incidents, according to the Canadian agriculture injury program. The province recognizes that B.C. farmworkers, like all workers, make a difference in our communities, and they deserve safe work practices.

Whether or not you are working in the agriculture industry, our lives are enriched by the hard work and the efforts of farmers who have enabled us to have a wealth of food choices that exist for British Columbians. The province has improved on a number of farm safety policies in recent years to ensure worker safety and protection of employment standards.

Next week let's continue in this positive direction and bring awareness to the Canadian agriculture safety campaign.

PAPER SALMON ART PROJECT
IN SKEENA RIVER AREA

D. Donaldson: There's an incredible phenomenon happening in the northwest right now, a positive story that I'm sure the members would like to hear about. There's a type of salmon in the Skeena River returning at unheard-of levels. Almost every fish that left the Hazeltons is coming back.

What makes it even more special is that these are paper salmon decorated by students in the K-to-12 system from the headwaters of the Skeena to its mouth near Prince Rupert. It's part of a project by the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition and the Misty Rivers Arts Council. They distributed 10,000 paper salmon cutouts to pretty well every student in the Nass, Stikine and Skeena watersheds. Students decorated them, and Ali Howard — the courageous woman who swam the length of the Skeena this past summer, raising awareness about threats to the watershed — has been collecting them as she tours the schools.

So far, more than 6,000 colourful paper salmon have returned, with more arriving every day. They will be built into a large papier-mâché salmon — a number of them. You can even watch these being built at the Misty Rivers Arts Council gallery in Hazelton, says volunteer Rene Chandler, or you can even lend a hand.

[1350]

These salmon will be presented en masse in a grand opening event in June. Each of the larger salmon will be offered to communities in the area for a permanent installation. Skeena Watershed executive director Shannon McPhail is visiting municipal councils to partner on this great project.

It's about tourism possibilities, it's about a community art project that connects people in the watersheds, but mostly it's about conservation of our wild salmon in the Skeena, Nass and Stikine — raising awareness around threats, like about proposed coalbed methane drilling in the sacred headwaters or the potential spills associated with oil supertanker traffic as part of the Enbridge pipeline project. It's about people taking control over what is happening in their own back yard, and I commend them for it.

ART EVENTS IN BURNABY-LOUGHEED AREA

H. Bloy: Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending two art events in my community of Burnaby-Lougheed. As government liaison to the Korean community, I had the opportunity to meet Tristin Lee, an up-and-coming lawyer in Vancouver, and her mother, Theresa Nam Ye Lee, an incredible painter.

Theresa's life story is a special one, as she's been able to live her dream of becoming a successful artist. Raised and educated in Korea, she moved with her husband and three young children to Canada. She worked in the family business, raised her children, attended Capilano College and Emily Carr to pursue her passion for the arts. Theresa Lee loves her new home in British Columbia and is thankful for the opportunities it has provided her and her family. Last Friday she had another great art showing of her semi-abstract style that she has become so well known for.

Last Saturday I attended the first-ever L'Arche art show and fundraiser. L'Arche is an organization that assists adults with developmental disabilities with a variety of programs that support people in realizing their full potential. The fundraiser was extremely successful, with hundreds of people attending.

I wanted to thank the executive director, Denise Haskett; Sig Stark, director of the fund development; and Deidre Lane, president of L'Arche Foundation of Greater Vancouver; plus all the volunteers who worked so hard to make it a success. I met Jose Suganob, an artist with disabilities, and was pleased to purchase a painting of his, helping to support the worthy cause of L'Arche.

It was an encouraging weekend to hear so many wonderful stories from our local artists and to have the ability to enjoy their artwork.
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LITERACY INITIATIVES
IN CAMPBELL RIVER

C. Trevena: The world is full of words. It's something most of us don't even notice — words on billboards, on benches, on packages, on papers, even in the most picture-oriented magazines. Most of us don't think about the barrage of words which surround our daily lives, and some of us revel in them.

I've got to say I'm one of the revelling sort. If somebody shakes a Scrabble bag in my direction, I'm there for a game. I was eager to participate ten or so days ago in what's now becoming an annual event in Campbell River, the Scrabble for Literacy Tournament, organized by the Campbell River Community Literacy Association.

Beginners through to expert players had the joy of spending much of the day at Timberline High School playing scrabble. We played three games in all. In fact, it was a double fundraiser, with the Grandmothers to Grandmothers, who raise funds for the Stephen Lewis Foundation also participating by providing fabulous homemade soups and sandwiches as fine brain food at lunch time.

It was over lunch that some of the reality of literacy problems in Campbell River were explained for those participating in the day, the difficulty that people have in navigating the world of words — people who miss school because they were on the fishboats, people whose family life never involved the written word, people who slipped through the cracks at school.

The world demands that we be literate using bank machines and taking medication, and using computers, phones, and other devices to access the Internet. I applaud Campbell River for the work it's doing to improve literacy from everyone, from Family Literacy Day through to supports of students and on to adult assistance. And while not everyone will become an omnivorous reader or an eight-letter Scrabbler, everyone in our society should have access to literacy.

PARALYMPIC GAMES TORCHBEARERS
IN COMOX VALLEY

D. McRae: I'd like to speak about two individuals from the Comox Valley who have been chosen to carry the 2010 Paralympic torch.

[1355]

Jim Milina was the B.C. freestyle skiing champion in 1981, at the age of 17. His goal was to compete for Canada in the 1988 Olympics, but he was injured during a demonstration of his sport, which left him a quadriplegic and confined him to a wheelchair.

Jim was fortunate enough to meet Rick Hansen at the G.F. Strong Rehab Centre and was inspired by him. In 2002 he became the first quadriplegic to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, and he used this experience to inspire others. He is the chairperson of the Comox Valley Rick Hansen Wheels in Motion event and a national ambassador for the organization.

He has worked hard to further spinal cord research and improve the quality of life for people who suffer from this injury. I am sure Jim's wife, Corrine, and his son and daughter are proud of Jim's efforts to make a difference in the lives of people with spinal cord injuries. I know the Comox Valley is.

The second torchbearer is Tim Krutzmann. Tim has been a high school teacher at G.P. Vanier since 1992. In 1999 he helped organize a leadership conference and invited Betty Fox to be the keynote speaker. She agreed to come if the school would organize a Terry Fox Run. Of course they did.

The first run was a great success, and it has become an annual September tradition at Vanier. For the past 11 years Tim Krutzmann and his leadership 11-12 class have organized one of the largest school Terry Fox runs in the province. Over 11,000 students have run over the years, and the school has raised over $55,000 for the Terry Fox Foundation.

Tim has done more to raise both awareness and money for cancer research than anyone I know. I am sure his wife, Heidi, and his daughters, Kailena and Thea, agree that he deserves to carry the Paralympic torch. The students he has touched would agree with this too.

I ask this assembly to recognize these two Paralympic torchbearers from the Comox Valley.

CRD PURCHASE OF SOUTHERN
VANCOUVER ISLAND LANDS

J. Horgan: I rise today to pay tribute to the people of the capital regional district who for the past three years have been working to raise awareness about the importance of former forest lands west of Sooke in my constituency of Juan de Fuca.

For over a thousand days individuals like free radicals Vicky Husband and Terry Alcock and organizations like the Jordan River Steering Committee, the Dogwood Initiative, the Sea to Sea Greenbelt and the Surfrider Foundation have worked tirelessly to protect the most important lands in the region from development.

Visionary leaders like Chief Gordon Planes of the T'Sou-ke Nation have advocated to have some of these lands put aside for treaty settlements with the three local First Nations.

Week after week, month after month, year after year, diverse groups of individuals and organizations worked relentlessly to pursue a common purpose, protecting some very special places. Last week, as these lands were about to go on the open market, the capital regional district made a bold and decisive move and offered to purchase 2,300 hectares of land from Western Forest Products.
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The property includes the Jordan River surf beach and four kilometres of waterfront from the mouth of the river to Sandcut Creek as well as parcels around the world-famous Sooke Potholes. I want to thank the CRD for making these lands available to the public to enjoy for generations.

While many have worked behind the scenes on this file, I would like to acknowledge three people without whose support this would not have been possible: Oak Bay Mayor Chris Causton, the chair of the CRD parks committee; Victoria councillor Geoff Young, the CRD chair; and lastly and absolutely most importantly, my friend Mike Hicks, the electoral representative for the Juan de Fuca area.

I said to Mike this morning that he's taken on rock star proportions in our region, and that's well deserved. His commitment and candour and his dedication to the people that we both have the honour to represent is heartening to watch.

While I'm delighted by this positive turn of events, there's much more work to do, starting with First Nations land settlements. As for the money, the Land Conservancy is assisting the CRD in deferring costs. I encourage the public and all members of this House to find some money to donate to the TLC. Once we secure this land, there's going to be one heck of a beach party. If the Minister of Finance ponies up, he's welcome to come.

Oral Questions

AIR QUALITY TESTS IN PRINCE GEORGE

C. James: The people of Prince George want to know why they were kept in the dark about toxic levels of formaldehyde in their air, 20 times above the provincial standard. At every level the people of Prince George were failed. A ministry official has now confirmed that the findings were not retested because of budget cost pressures.

My question is to the Minister of Environment. Why did the B.C. Liberals put the people of Prince George at risk?

Hon. B. Penner: It's unfortunate that the opposition continues to mislead British Columbians about what took place in Prince George. It is absolutely untrue and unfair for the opposition leader to accuse Ministry of Environment staff of withholding information when it was publicly distributed to the media a year ago.

[1400]

Now, maybe I need to buy a new edition of Oxford's dictionary, because to me, secrecy does not include distributing that information publicly, particularly to members of the public and the local city council during last year's provincial election campaign. That's what took place at a regular meeting of the PGAIR round table on April 28, 2009.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The Leader of the Opposition has a supplemental.

C. James: I would like to remind the minister that the ministry staff aren't the problem. The B.C. Liberals are the problem when it comes to keeping quiet.

The original air quality tests were taken in playgrounds and parks. They found dangerous levels of a toxic chemical in the air. They should have triggered immediate action when they got that information, but instead, the B.C. Liberals kept quiet for almost two years.

The people of Prince George — in fact, the people of British Columbia — need to know that their government will take these issues seriously, that they'll take action to protect the health of the people of this province.

My question again is to the Minister of the Environment. Why did the B.C. Liberals fail to do that?

Hon. B. Penner: It's apparent that the opposition leader can't move off her written script when confronted with the facts. The truth of the situation is that this information was made publicly available if you include reading the local newspaper — like in May of 2009 the Prince George Free Press reported on elevated levels of formaldehyde in preliminary results. The Ministry of Environment went back, reanalyzed that information and presented a final report in December 2009 to the P.G. round table.

We have the funding. I have asked my staff, and they're preparing to do additional testing. But just yesterday on CBC radio, the medical health officer for Northern Health Authority, when asked point blank, "Do you have concerns about people's health as a result of these tests?" his answer was: "No." That's from the chief medical health officer for the Northern Health Authority.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The Leader of the Opposition has a further supplemental.

C. James: The minister said it all: "We're thinking of doing tests." Two years too late for the people of Prince George, who wanted the testing done right away. They're finally having a public meeting in Prince George to get the information on the tests. Well, I lived in Prince George, and I know how seriously the people of that community take their air quality.

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control says that Prince George has one of B.C.'s worst-polluted airsheds. If
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there's any community in B.C. that deserves the best air quality monitoring and reporting practices available, it's Prince George.

Again, my question is to the minister on behalf of the people of Prince George and the people of British Columbia. His own officials have said that they didn't retest because of budget pressures. How does he explain that neglect to the people of Prince George?

Hon. B. Penner: The B.C. government is concerned about air quality in Prince George. That's why since 2001 our government has added three air-monitoring stations to the Prince George Airport. The local MLAs for that area have been effective in bringing their message forward to government, and that's why in the last five years our government has spent an extra $550,000 on improved and increased air monitoring and air planning for the Prince George airshed.

[1405]

While clearly we want to do more work, and we are doing more work, air quality has generally been improving in the Prince George area since 1998. That's borne out by the regular testing that the Ministry of Environment has been conducting for more than a decade.

R. Fleming: The people of Prince George didn't know about this incident. The two Prince George MLAs admitted that they didn't know about this incident until last week. The fact of the matter is that the people of Prince George are never going to know how long and what level their exposure to formaldehyde was in this case.

Right now we need to know how decisions were made in Prince George — decisions to not retest the results, decisions to withhold these results from the public, decisions not to issue an air advisory of any kind.

We don't have those answers right now. The question for the minister here today is: will he order an independent investigation to determine how this was allowed to happen and if it's happening still, and make recommendations to ensure that it never happens again?

Hon. B. Penner: As you heard, the member started his question based on a fundamentally flawed premise because he can't move off his prepared, written script. The fact of the matter is that this information was made public last year.

Now, the NDP opposition didn't pay attention, but it was in the Prince George Free Press in May of 2009. How did it get in there? There was a media release put out by the PGAIR round table, on which the Ministry of Environment has two seats. So does the city of Prince George, and so does the people's action committee for clean air in Prince George, represented by Dave Fuller.

They were presented with that information on a preliminary basis in April of 2009. But even earlier, in the fall of 2008, the Ministry of Environment shared the raw data from those analyses and those tests with people of the PGAIR board in the fall of 2008. So it's pretty clear that if there's somebody who isn't paying attention here, it's the members of the opposition.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

R. Fleming: My question to the minister has to do with this. When ministry officials were first questioned as to why there was no retesting done until he ordered it last week when he was in damage control, why there was no retesting done for 18 months, the ministry officials told the public that there was no money in the budget to do that.

Those are the kinds of risks that have been taken. Since 2008 the B.C. Liberals have slashed the Ministry of Environment's air quality budget by 30 percent, and the budget tabled last week does it again.

Given what's happened in Prince George, what assurances can this minister give this House, give the people of British Columbia, that budget cuts won't put other communities' airshed monitoring programs at risk?

Hon. B. Penner: Once again, the member starts his question with a fundamentally flawed basis and presumption. In fact, in 2001 when our government took office, there were 65 air monitoring stations around British Columbia. Today there are 75. Of those ten additional air monitoring stations around the province of British Columbia, three were put in Prince George, three additional.

We have spent an extra $550,000 just in the Prince George airshed alone in the last five years, on air quality monitoring and planning. Air quality is gradually improving in Prince George, and we're committed to do more.

[1410]

GASIFICATION PLANT PROPOSAL
AND AIR QUALITY IN KAMLOOPS

S. Simpson: The question in Prince George is why the minister did absolutely nothing for 18 months after he learned of this problem and ignored it until he got embarrassed into doing something a week ago.

The people of Prince George aren't alone in their concerns about the performance of this minister. A gasification plant that will burn over 2½ million creosote railway ties over the next decade is planned and moving ahead in Kamloops. This is regardless of a unanimous opposition by the mayor and council and more than 800 people rallying at the office of the MLA for Kamloops–North Thompson.

What has the minister done about this? The minister has ignored the people of Kamloops and has ignored
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their concerns for over a year. This is a controversial issue. There's been no leadership from this minister to try to bring a resolution. Instead, the minister issues a permit without an environmental assessment and calls the people of Kamloops emotional because they're concerned about air quality.

Tomorrow night the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce is holding a forum on this issue of this plant. Will the minister finally talk to the people of Kamloops? Will he go to Kamloops tomorrow, and will he talk to the people at this forum?

Hon. B. Penner: Interesting questions, coming from a party that didn't lift a finger to fight the SE2 power plant proposal.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Continue, Minister.

Hon. B. Penner: When myself, the Attorney General and the member for Abbotsford South were down in Washington State fighting that proposal which would have amounted to 330,000 cars' worth of pollution for Fraser Valley residents, the NDP was nowhere to be seen.

Now, the member who just asked the question betrayed a certain amount of ignorance — at which I'm surprised, after the number of years he was the opposition critic for Environment — when he said the minister issued an air emissions permit. If he had been paying attention in the four years that he was the Environment critic, he would know that those decisions are made by professional public servants that work for the Ministry of Environment.

In the case of Kamloops, those people that made the decision actually live in Kamloops, their children live in Kamloops, and their children breathe the air. Why would they make that decision? Well, because they're trained professionals. One is a chemical engineer with 14 years' experience. Another is an air quality meteorologist. They looked at the data and concluded that with respect to the proposal for Kamloops, the emissions would amount to that of a single wood-burning stove.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

S. Simpson: If the minister believes any of the stuff the public affairs bureau has written for him, does he have the courage to go to Kamloops tomorrow night and talk to the people of Kamloops about this?

For 18 months in Prince George, 20 times the allowable formaldehyde levels were ignored by this minister, when he should have taken action. For almost a year in Kamloops the city council and citizens were stonewalled by this minister on their concerns about air quality. Sadly, the Liberal MLAs from Prince George and Kamloops did nothing to stand up for their communities.

We know there's a lack of courage. The question now is: is there negligence, and is there incompetence? Will the minister stand up for these communities and stand up for air quality once?

Hon. B. Penner: Over the last number of years our government spent more than $20 million on air quality improvements, and that's a record that our government is proud of.

[1415]

Now, as the former Environment critic hyperventilates and flusters, he betrays his ignorance and lack of understanding when he suggests politicians should be the ones issuing technical permits.

In my case, I just have a bachelor of arts degree in economics and political science and a law degree. But I would rather put the trust of these decisions in the hands of people who are chemical engineers, air quality meteorologists, master's degrees in meteorology and a bachelor of science in chemistry with 25 years of experience.

Those are the people in the Ministry of Environment who made the decision for the air emissions permit in Kamloops. Would you rather put your judgment in place of theirs?

N. Macdonald: The minister is a politician — it's true — and he has a clear responsibility to do his job as minister. The people of Kamloops are meeting. They're going to be talking on this issue. Does the minister have the guts to go to Kamloops and speak to the people directly? That's his job. Is he going to do it?

Hon. B. Penner: I think it's appropriate that the people who make these decisions engage with the community and explain them, and that's what our staff in Kamloops have done. They are professional public servants. They have tremendous expertise. They live there. Their children live there. They breathe the air there, and they made the decision to issue the permit.

For the benefit of the members who perhaps don't understand the law in British Columbia, it is the law that decisions about air emission permits are not made by the 79 or 85 people sitting in this chamber but by professional public servants. That is the law of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker: Member has a supplemental.

N. Macdonald: The minister is publicly responsible for his ministry. This is a minister who stands in Victoria and calls the people of Kamloops emotional. My question: is the minister going to go to that meeting, that chamber of commerce meeting in Kamloops, and explain to them why he describes them as emotional? Or
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is he going to go and do his job and explain to the people of Kamloops why he is pushing this through the way he is? Does he have the guts to go to Kamloops…

Mr. Speaker: Member.

N. Macdonald:…meet with the people of Kamloops and explain his decision?

Mr. Speaker: Member.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Member, I allowed it the first time, but be very careful with your language, please.

Hon. B. Penner: I'm having a hard time giving a basic law 101 class to the opposition, but I'll try again.

Under the Environmental Management Act, decisions about air emissions permitting are left to the regional managers of the Ministry of the Environment.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Sit down, please.

Continue, Minister.

Hon. B. Penner: I'm trying to clear the air about how the law works in British Columbia.

Our government can't take credit for the fact that regional managers are entrusted to make these decisions. In fact, it's been the law in British Columbia for decades that decisions around air emissions permitting are made by professional public servants. Kudos to previous governments that put that into legislation. We've kept that in legislation. It's in the Environmental Management Act.

Again, I would rather trust professional public servants who have chemical engineering degrees or professional meteorologists who work in the field than any one of the 85 elected people here.

[1420]

I think we just heard a new NDP policy announcement, which is a rare thing, though we had one yesterday. The NDP has just announced that from hither forth it will be members of this Legislature, if they were to form government, who would issue air emissions permits. That's what I think I'm hearing. That's wrong-headed public policy.

Let's trust professional public servants to make the right decisions — who have the degrees to back it up.

FUNDING FOR
TERRACE ANTI-POVERTY GROUP SOCIETY

R. Austin: For 15 years the Terrace Anti-Poverty Society has delivered services to children, low-income families and disabled residents in my home community. The letter cancelling this organization's gaming grant says: "Priorities for 2009-10 grants will be: programs that support low-income and disabled British Columbians; programs that provide food, shelter and support to at-risk individuals; programs that support community health services." These are all services provided by the Terrace Anti-Poverty Society.

My question is to the Minister of Housing and Social Development. Will he immediately restore funding to the Terrace Anti-Poverty Society?

Hon. R. Coleman: In 2010-11 the grant process…. I would invite the Terrace organization to apply for it under the category "Human and social services" under the particular quarter they're supposed to apply in.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

R. Austin: Poverty has risen substantially in my home community. That's the record of the B.C. Liberals, and yet they treat this with such contempt.

This organization gives free food, clothing and vitamins to children. They are the main rental and tenancy advocates to keep people off the streets, and every Christmas they deliver donated presents to needy children. Yet if this government doesn't reverse their grinch-like policies, the Terrace Anti-Poverty Society may not be around to deliver presents to kids next Christmas.

Again, to the Minister of Housing and Social Development: will he show some heart and restore Terrace Anti-Poverty's gaming grant?

Hon. R. Coleman: I will tell the member that I will look into that particular organization's application for last year.

There are a number of reasons why an organization may or may not qualify for a grant. It could be that their board of directors or their organization haven't met the conditions under the Society Act. It could be that they have money left over from a previous year and haven't used it, and therefore, there are issues in and around that. These things are all actually reviewed by the people with regards to the criteria established.

I'm happy to tell the member that I will look at it immediately after question period and check into that particular organization for you.

FUNDING FOR
SALMO COMMUNITY RESOURCE SOCIETY

M. Mungall: Well, the Salmo Community Resource Society received word this week that their B.C. gaming grant will be cut. This government is saying that their budget supports human and social services, meaning that it supports children and families.
[ Page 3343 ]

That being the case, can the minister explain how cutting funding to the Salmo Community Resource Society's child care program is supportive of families?

Hon. R. Coleman: By the way, you can contact the gaming branch at any given time and ask the status of a grant and what the status is of what the numbers were to determine the amount of money that was given to any organization in British Columbia at any given time. I would invite you to do that.

Quite oftentimes you will find that there's a very good explanation why a number is different from one year to the next, given on what the services or the programs an organization is delivering. They can go, or they can call my office, and my people will be glad to look into any one of the grants.

But I can tell you…. You should understand that these are annual grants. They're given on an annual basis, based on the criteria, based on priorities and based on whether they're actually delivering the services that they say they are — based on the fact that they have the financial reporting to tell us the services that they delivered in the previous year. If they haven't, that can affect their eligibility. There are rigours and standards in place for grant application and approval, and we'll continue to follow those.

[1425]

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

M. Mungall: Well, the minister is responsible for this ministry, and so that's exactly why the question is going to him. He's absolutely right. There are criteria for B.C. gaming grants. Right here in a letter I have from his ministry — community education programs such as day cares and preschools are that criteria.

If that's the case, why is Salmo's day care program not being funded? Can the minister explain why Salmo's day care program — it's meeting the criteria — is not receiving its B.C. gaming grant? That's the question.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm very clear that there's about 50 percent of the funding normally available for those particular types of establishments across B.C. under Gaming this year. That was what we told you last summer. We also told you that we're facing a $1.7 billion deficit, and that's why we've restructured the program in order to actually deliver on behalf of British Columbians.

I'm happy to look into any grant the members want to bring to my attention, but I can tell you this. There is no yearly guarantee on a grant. You meet certain criteria. You compete against other organizations. There are 6,500 grants a year and over 8,000-9,000 people that applied. The reality is that not everybody qualifies on a year-to-year basis because it depends on the program, their reporting, the availability of funds and whether they're meeting the criteria we've set out for their approval.

FUNDING FOR VICTIM STATEMENT
TRANSLATION SERVICES

L. Krog: The presiding judge called it a tragedy. A suspect charged with 13 offences, including assault, threatening assault with a weapon, sexual assault of a young person and incest was allowed to walk free, all because police officials couldn't get the funding they asked for to translate the two victims' statements into English for the Crown. The judge in her ruling said this: "It is very disturbing that the value of the complainants' sexual, physical and emotional integrity is less than the cost of translation and transcription."

My question is to the minister responsible. Why were police denied funding for transcription and translation services to pursue evidence in such an obviously serious case?

Hon. K. Heed: I'll take that question on notice and get back to the member.

Mr. Speaker: Member for Fraser-Nicola.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Continue, Member.

EMERGENCY SERVICES IN LYTTON

H. Lali: Will the Minister of Health please explain why the B.C. Ambulance Service and also the Interior Health Authority, both of which actually report to him, failed to report to the people of Lytton and area that they would be completely cut off from emergency medical services last week?

Hon. K. Falcon: I assume the member is referring to an incident in which the doctor…. There's one doctor there that works out of St. Bartholomew's clinic, a new clinic we opened a couple of years ago, and they've had difficulty. In fact, for a year and a half they've been trying to recruit to have a second doctor. When that doctor went on their vacation, they were only able to cover three of the four weeks with locum coverage. So there was a week there, admittedly, where there was not locum coverage for the doctor.

Now, with respect to the paramedics…. I think if I understand where the member is going with this question, I would agree that, particularly in the case of rural
[ Page 3344 ]
paramedics, we have a real challenge in our system. It's one of the reasons why I agree with the ambulance paramedics that say the system is broken. We've got to deal with that. We've got to make sure we have a better deal for rural paramedics. That's exactly what we intend to do.

[End of question period.]

S. Fraser: I seek leave to present a petition.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Petitions

S. Fraser: I have a petition presented by the Corcan-Meadowood Residents Association. They're calling for the essential and direct access for their community to Highway 19. It's a bustling and growing community, and I'm pleased to present the petition.

[1430]

G. Gentner: I seek leave to present a petition.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

G. Gentner: I present a petition signed by residents of North Delta who are against the implementation of the HST — hundreds of signatures.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: I call the budget debate.

For the information of members, it's anticipated that the vote on the budget will take place tomorrow in the afternoon. The Opposition House Leader and I are still in discussions as to the time of that vote.

Budget Debate

(continued)

N. Simons: In conclusion, as I like to start. Yesterday I started with my response to the budget, and today I have the opportunity to continue for a few minutes.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

The concerns that I started to outline yesterday with respect to Budget 2010, the no-name budget…. There are a number of other concerns that I have yet to raise. I think that, obviously, the people of British Columbia see the most egregious ingredient of this budget to be the harmonized sales tax and the implications that that has on families' bottom lines, especially middle-income families who are facing, at the same time, massive increases to a number of fixed costs that they need to try to meet every month.

We've seen a massive increase in medical services plans for average families. The cost they have to bear has gone up approximately…. Well, it's large percentage points. The gas prices, hydro rates — it's quite shocking, actually, when you add up the increased costs that individuals in my community have to pay, including another 7 percent increase in their basic transportation costs because ferry fares have increased over 46 percent in the last four years.

This is just another example that residents in my constituency can point to, to provide evidence that this government doesn't understand the challenges being faced by middle-income and low-income families in this province. My fundamental concern with that is that it's their responsibility to be cognizant of those challenges and those pressures.

In the midst of an economic recession, after the government fails to put anything away for the difficult times, after they soar on benefits from a worldwide economic boom, we find ourselves, within a year of those economic boom times ending, to be without anything left in the cupboard.

Nothing is left in the cupboard for people on disabilities who require extra nutritional support. This government announced, after the budget was announced, that people on disability assistance were no longer going to be eligible for nutritional supplements unless they had two symptoms to qualify.

[1435]

I should point out that those symptoms include rapid weight loss, loss of muscle mass, loss of the function of a vital organ, severe malnutrition. Unless the person has at least two of those symptoms, they will not be eligible for funding to pay for vitamins, to pay for additional fresh fruit and vegetables and other nutritional assistance.

The constituent who contacted me, whose bowel had to be removed due to cancer, was one of those who said that luckily, his doctor was able to identify two — lucky; imagine that — in order to maintain his access to healthy food. Luckily, his doctor told him that he didn't just have the loss of a vital organ, but he had another symptom.

What about all of those individuals in this province who this government has forsaken? What about those individuals whose health will decline, whose use of the acute care hospital system will increase? If this government were to recognize the importance of prevention, they would not cancel nutritional supplements for people with disabilities. I don't know if there's a more obvious example of a government being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Similarly, in the Ministry of Children and Family Development when a social worker knocks on a door to determine the safety and well-being of a child, they have certain tools available for them to assist the family. Those may be counselling for children who witness violence, counselling to repair a parent-and-teen conflict.
[ Page 3345 ]
It may be to assist a parent in accessing tools to manage their anger. But the social worker goes into a house now with fewer of those tools available, and the ramification of this — and I speak as a social worker — is that you have nothing to offer them.

You have nothing to offer them. You don't even bother to open a file. A few weeks later you'll get another call, and things have gone awry. The violence may have escalated a little more. The child may be suffering a little more in school. It's yet another example of how, in order to maintain healthy families…. The result of maintaining and promoting the strength of families is less reliance — in this case, not on the health care system but on the criminal justice system — on all the various systems that are in place that catch people when it's too late.

I have been told by social workers in this province that the result of cuts to programs, front-line programs…. We cannot separate the front-line community service programs from the work of the front-line social worker. The front-line social worker, without any tools on their belt, can do little more than counsel the family to call again when things get worse. Now, any social worker in this province — every social worker in this province — wishes that they had the tools necessary to assist families rather than only one tool available when things have gone too bad, and that being removal.

The most expensive element of the child welfare system is the foster parenting system. Yet if we rely more heavily on that, we take valuable resources away from the preventative side. I say this as a criticism, as a member of the opposition, but I also say it as a suggestion that government really pay more attention to the obvious, clear benefits of preventative programs, whether that be programs that are in school that have been cut, programs in the community that have been cut, services from within government that have been cut.

[1440]

It's not a good idea to wait until situations get so bad that the most expensive opportunity to get involved is all that's left. Unfortunately, in this economic time we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of people on welfare. Now, instead of addressing that issue, government has just said: "There's not enough money to address that increase, so we'll just cut from everyone else." As I mentioned earlier, cuts to nutrition programs are just one of those cuts.

Now, I understand that there's no bottomless pit of money and that money doesn't grow on trees. But as I mentioned once before, if it's not the moral imperative of government to assist families, individuals with disabilities or vulnerable children through difficult times, there is an economic benefit that you can hang your hat on.

You can make the case for effective preventative programs in social services and in health. We see the benefits with reduced reliance on the courts, on the lawyers and on the judges. We see benefits from decreased reliance on the police, on the ambulance services, on the critical outreach. We see social workers being provided the tools necessary to maintain and improve the conditions of the families who they visit.

It is a question of priorities. My sincere hope is that careful consideration will be paid to the vulnerable in this community, in our communities across the province, if not for the benefit of the people and because of the ethical correctness of doing that, then for the economic reasons. We have more for services when we're wise with the money that we have.

I see in the Ministry of Children and Families now a continued transformative change process that not everyone has figured out yet but which has been described as a complete change to the way the ministry conducts its business. Now, even in the best of times constant change…. Justice Hughes referred to the buffeting change. It's not a question about whether it's good change or bad change. Change without resources leaves elements of programs to suffer.

We've had investigations. Justice Gove looked at the child welfare system when I was a child welfare worker. Justice Hughes looked at the child welfare system after the child from Port Alberni died when placed in her uncle's home. Both judges talked about the need for social workers to have adequate resources. Both judges talked about the need for continuity within the ministry. They both talked about the need to ensure that any change comes with adequate resources to implement those changes.

I've spoken to social workers across this province, my former colleagues, for whom I have great respect. They are worried about the state of affairs in the ministry. They're worried about the burnout factor, which is accelerated when job satisfaction is such that you go home at night and you just worry that the decisions you made may not be supported, may turn out to be not perfect.

We rely on the judgment of individuals going into homes that has potentially serious ramifications on that family. That social worker needs to be in a space where they can make objective, rational, good decisions supported by their employer, supported by the resources available to them.

[1445]

Now they go in with feelings of dread, because regardless of the situation you're going to find, you will have very few options of programs and services that might be able to assist them. My concern about Budget 2010 is that the choices this government has made do not reflect this and are not in the best interests of the public of this province. Whether it be the cuts to the social programs that exist or the cuts to the resource industry programs, perhaps my constituents are right that this budget has essentially ignored rural British Columbia.

I represent a riding, Powell River–Sunshine Coast, which is a bit of a hybrid between rural and urban. We have Gibsons and Sechelt and Powell River, and we
[ Page 3346 ]
have vast amounts of wilderness up to the Bute Inlet. Compliance and enforcement of environmental regulations in my constituency are not currently meeting the test of the people. I am pleased that I'll have an opportunity to raise this with the Minister of Environment.

There are serious concerns with the construction work that was completed for the Toba Montrose private power company. Citizens are working hard to ensure that their access to the Crown lands that they've enjoyed for generations will be maintained. They're currently under threat. This is something that would be directly impacted by more cuts to the Ministry of Environment. The assessment process needs to be looked at to examine why the public was left in the dark about the closure of their recreational values and access to the recreation.

In short, to conclude, Budget 2010 was either underwhelming or disappointing, depending on your perspective. On behalf of the children and families that need help, I hope that some improvements can be made.

Hon. M. Polak: It is indeed an honour to stand in support of Budget 2010. Also, I hope that I will have the opportunity to break down some of the myths that seem to keep cropping up from the opposition side of the House.

It never ceases to amaze me that when we come to budget debate, all the opposition can do is point fingers at where they don't think the current government budget meets the test that they would put forward. Nevertheless, they had ten years in government, and the record is clear. After ten years in government there were still more kids in care, more kids living on welfare and more kids living in poverty than there are today. In ten years they could not get those numbers down.

Certainly, we've all felt the impacts of the current economic climate. It's in our work every day in our ridings. It's in our work in our ministries. We are challenged every day in our communities to try and help those communities through these times so that they can come out the other side more positive and with more opportunities in front of them. Because of that, we've made some important decisions to protect those priority items that we know are going to benefit children, benefit families, benefit the economy of British Columbia.

Let's talk about one of the first myths that we keep hearing in this Legislature. We hear the myth about cuts to health care. Outrageous — $2 billion going to health care. I'll tell you right now that if $2 billion was put into my bank account, I wouldn't think that was a cut. Yes, there are challenges facing our health care system, as there are with any health care system in the western world. But $2 billion in no way amounts to a cut.

[1450]

What it reflects, though, is again a harkening back to that record of ten years in government where there was no discipline in spending. Of course, there wouldn't be discipline in spending if you really thought that $2 billion of an increase was a cut. Gives us a bit of an insight.

We can talk about sports and arts. This year we're going to invest another $60 million in sports and arts. I'm told by members of the arts community that the time that this B.C. Liberal government has been in place has been one in which they have seen unprecedented investment in their sector.

Certainly, challenges in the current time, but we'd put our record on spending in the arts and culture and on sports up against theirs any day of the week. Again, another myth, because when you look at the facts and you look at the numbers, it is our story on the budget that bears out. Theirs doesn't get supported by the numbers.

Let's take a look at child care. We've heard today that there are cuts to child care, that there are cuts to supports for parents who need child care. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only do we continue to support the child care operating fund at the same rate in spite of our financial challenges this year, but in fact, we're going to add an additional $26 million over three years to child care subsidies. Again, the opposition calls that a cut. Well, a $26 million increase is not a cut.

We're going to see investments in innovative clean energy. We're going to see investments in projects that will advance us as a green energy powerhouse. We're protecting education in a way that has never happened before, and I say that with some experience. I was a school trustee for almost ten years.

This is another area of myth that I think is important to address, and to do so I want to go back with another little bit of history, because I think it is important to compare when we talk about records. If the opposition wants to cast aspersions on our budget, then I think it behooves us to tell the public a little bit about what it was like under an NDP government to serve as a school trustee.

Let's talk about the first myth. The first myth that comes out in question period on an almost daily basis and that we've heard here in this budget response is that funding to education has been cut. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. When we take a look at education, per-pupil funding for students is going to rise to $8,301. That's the highest ever. There is $280 million over three years that's been set aside for full-day kindergarten for five-year-olds and also $22 million in funding to help support the full funding of that. We have seen increases in the education budget every year.

Let's compare that. Well, first of all, the NDP government were the only government that I'm aware of in the history of B.C. who actually cut the education budget in the middle of a year after school boards had been given their grants. It was a 1.5 percent reduction that was announced suddenly in the middle of a year. It was a clawback of money. They said: "We want it back." You
[ Page 3347 ]
know what they called it? They called it an efficiency reduction. My first term on a school board was when we were trying to manage that.

So if you want to talk about cuts to education budgets, there's one that was extremely painful and difficult for boards to manage. Not only that, but in those days you couldn't even count on your budget announcement coming on time. In the entire ten years that the NDP was in government, they didn't once provide the funding announcement for school boards by the statutory date on which they were required to — not once.

We could talk about what happened when they looked at contracts. They like to talk about the importance of contracts, but they only see the importance of contracts from the perspective of their friends in big labour. When it comes to those who actually manage the system, they have no consideration.

They enacted what they called a mid-contract modification. There was no negotiation. There was no public consultation. In fact, there was no publicity around it at all until they announced it and said: "By the way, in spite of the fact that it's the middle of the year, we are now going to change the staffing ratios for specialized classes, and that means you're going to have to hire additional specialist teachers, and gosh, we're sorry it's in the middle of the year, but you're just going to have to swallow that cost." In Surrey that was $1.8 million in the middle of a year.

[1455]

Let's talk about class sizes, because what people need to understand is that under the NDP, class sizes were negotiated. They became a bargaining chip too. What happened was they traded rigidity in a K-to-3 class size in a collective agreement that meant that if one new student came to a school in May, instead of adjusting for the benefit of the child and having that student enter the class perhaps with extra supports — no. The collective agreement they unilaterally signed with the BCTF required that the entire school be reorganized in order to meet their rigid class-size regulations. That is not putting children at the centre.

Finally, I want to address their record in terms of capital construction, because as I'm about to lay out for you, we've seen unprecedented investment by this government in capital construction in schools.

During the tenure of the NDP they enacted what they called a capital freeze — a capital freeze that resulted not just in new projects not going forward. In the case of schools, there were projects where diggers were in the ground, where construction was beginning, and construction was halted. Queen Elizabeth Secondary — prime example. In the middle of constructing their addition to their building, the capital freeze came in place. Construction was halted. At the time Surrey was left with enough students in portables to form the tenth-largest school district in the province. It was shameful.

When they finally decided to end the capital freeze, do you think….

Interjections.

Hon. M. Polak: It's still miles less than when you guys were in. No question.

When they finally decided to lift the capital freeze, do you think they listened to districts about where schools ought to be built? Do you think they listened to what the districts had planned for their capital program? No. The very first announcement was a list of schools that were entirely in NDP ridings, and they were in places where districts didn't even want schools built.

Take a look. It's in the record. You can take a look at the background. It's all there in black and white. It's part of the history that the NDP wants to run away from, because if you listen to the budget debate, you're not going to hear new ideas. You're not going to hear solutions.

You simply are going to hear them build up a smokescreen through which they hope to convince the public that somehow they would be able to manage the kind of economic downturn that we have faced and come out of it with a strong economy. There is no question that their record shows that they are completely incapable of doing it.

I want to talk a little bit about the Ministry of Children and Family Development, because this is another area where the opposition members want to construct a myth. They want to construct a myth that services are being reduced for children and families in this province, and it's absolutely not the case.

Let's look at what's happened over the last number of years. For programs like supported child development, since 2005 alone that budget has gone up by 52 percent. [Applause.] Yeah, it's worth applauding.

Another significant increase: since 2001 this government has more than doubled the funding that we're providing to children and youth with special needs. Across this government this year we will spend about a billion dollars on child care, early childhood development and children and youth with special needs — an unprecedented investment by this government to show where our priorities are. That didn't happen when the NDP were in government.

We've not only seen a refocus in our attention to supporting families with out-of-care options, but we've tripled the number of aboriginal children being served through aboriginal agencies. We've increased the number of child protection social workers, and we've doubled the number of front-line mental health workers. That's action that is there to support families when they are most in need.

Why is it that we've been able to maintain those investments at a time when our revenues are plummeting, when governments around the world are having huge
[ Page 3348 ]
challenges in supporting their social infrastructure? It's because we've started out with a plan, and despite the economic climate, we've been able to remain committed to that plan.

It takes us back to another myth. The NDP would like us to believe that somehow not only do they have a plan, but they'd actually be able to stick to it. The evidence is quite to the contrary. The entire time that they were in government, they missed every economic target, every budget target that they themselves set in front of them, and that's why we lost our credit rating.

[1500]

In contrast, even after putting forward a difficult budget with a $1.7 billion deficit, nevertheless our credit rating remains intact. It's because those outside agencies know that we can meet our targets, we have met our targets, and we will continue to focus on our plan.

We've worked very hard to create jobs and opportunities for families and individuals. We've cut taxes. We've provided more supports for children so they can be healthier, stronger, safer, better prepared for school. We've invested heavily in building a solid foundation, a solid infrastructure, and that includes hospitals, social housing and transportation.

Together, these investments in people, in key and core services and infrastructure have created stronger, more vital, more caring communities, communities that are resilient and can weather an economic storm such as the one that we're experiencing.

I want to talk a little bit about what's happened in Langley, because Langley is a community that is growing. It is a community that sees contrasts between Langley city, where there is quite a high number of seniors who are residing in that community, and the township, where we're seeing increasing numbers of young families move into the neighbourhood.

What it's meant for us is lots of benefits that go along with growth but also lots of challenges. We've seen the investments to support our community so that we can continue to move forward.

We built and opened a new 20-bed, state-of-the-art pediatric surgical unit at Langley Memorial Hospital, an investment of almost $5 million. We're building the new ten-lane Port Mann bridge. We're upgrading the Highway 1, and that is something that has a profound positive impact on ridings such as mine.

Right now there is no way that you can take transit across that No. 1 corridor because the congestion on the Port Mann Bridge and in the corridor is so severe that we have not had transit across that corridor for the last 20 years. The fact is that when this bridge is built, when that highway is widened, we're now going to give the people of Langley and the rest of the valley the opportunity to be able to participate in public transit, the opportunity to truly have quality of life instead of spending, on average, four hours a day travelling in and out of Vancouver to work. That's an investment that is key to supporting the growth in my community.

In Langley, as I mentioned, we also have a large number of young families who've been moving in, and we have some inner-city schools that are very challenged in terms of children with respect to their readiness to enter kindergarten.

As a result, we've opened a whole list of StrongStart B.C. centres in Langley and in Aldergrove: Nicomekl Elementary, Parkside Elementary, West Langley Elementary, Simonds Elementary, Douglas Park Community School, Langley Meadows Elementary, North Otter Elementary, Wix-Brown Elementary, James Hill Elementary.

This is an accomplishment that just would not have been seen under the previous government, even in a time when they weren't faced with the seismic shift in the economy that we have been.

We've completed seismic upgrades to Peterson Road Elementary, Belmont Elementary, Langley Fine Arts School, Fort Langley Elementary, and we built and opened the new R.C. Garnett Elementary School, which right now is already overflowing with kids.

We've got new neighbourhoods that we're supporting with new investments, and we're going to continue to do that.

I want to speak a little bit about the support that we're providing for seniors in Langley, because in Langley we saw a prime example of how government is able to work together in ways that were never before seen under the opposition government.

We have Langley Lodge in our community. It's a seniors residence, long-term care facility that was looking to expand, looking to renovate their existing tower and build a second tower. In the middle of that process, things got bogged down. There were some bureaucratic misunderstandings. There were some issues that they weren't able to resolve.

As a result of being able to bring together the mayor of the community, B.C. Housing, the Ministry of Health, the Fraser Health Authority, we were able to sit down and work that out together. As a result, they are close to opening this redevelopment, which involves 139 units and amenities. It's a $28 million amount from us in mortgage financing that will be completed very soon, and that was due to the collaborative kind of atmosphere we've been able to build so that we can see projects go forward in difficult economic times.

[1505]

All of these things support my community in a way that never happened under the NDP. It just never happened. If anyone believes that it would somehow magically happen again if they were to take hold of government, that is perhaps the largest myth that is circling out there right now.

I am truly honoured to have the portfolio of Minister of Children and Family Development and Minister
[ Page 3349 ]
Responsible for Child Care. I've said this before, but to clear up any skepticism, I want to reiterate that this is a portfolio that I truly wanted to be a part of and to lead. Eight months later, I can honestly say without hesitation that that decision, that request of mine, was one that I still feel was the right one because this is such an incredible ministry to be a part of.

There is an incredible amount of very positive work within this ministry, and the level of dedication, commitment and professionalism on the part of staff in all parts of the province is, I believe, quite unparalleled. I've had the distinct pleasure, as part of my duties in this ministry, to travel around the province to visit MCFD employees and contracted agency workers who are working with us in the Ministry of Children and Family Development. I am humbled every time I meet them and talk with them. I am amazed at the work that they do.

But I want to address something that the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast talked about with respect to constant change and transformation. One of the most common things that I heard directly from social workers when I travelled the province and when I asked them to tell me what they were concerned about was concern that we would stop with the transformation that we began about two and a half or three years ago.

Their great fear was that…. As we had begun this grass-roots work to develop practice change in a way that meets international research, meets the guidelines and standards that we know are there to provide the best outcomes for children, they were concerned that as a new minister I might back off on that, that I might say: "No, we're going to go in a new direction."

I want to assure everyone out there who works for our ministry, everyone who has been wondering if there's going to be a change in direction…. I will tell them what I told those social workers: there will not be. We are determined to do what we know is best for children, and we are going to move ahead with the training, the support and with the advancement we need to make in order to ensure that not only are we providing the best opportunity for social workers to engage in their efforts but that that is going to result in the best possible outcomes for children and families. No, Madam Speaker, we are not changing direction.

Our ministry is probably best known for our role in child protection, and that's unfortunate, because we all know that whether it comes to health, to education or to social services or the Ministry of Children and Family Development, the best investment that we can make is in prevention and early intervention.

Our ministry represents the whole spectrum of that intervention and prevention effort — from early childhood and infant development programs to child care, fostering, adoption and supports for youth who are transitioning out of care, support for children and youth with special needs or those with mental health challenges, programs aimed at strengthening families, and so much more.

The services the ministry provides really speak increasingly to a holistic relationship that we want to share with those we serve. As opposed to making unilateral decisions which impact children, youth and families, and even service providers, our process is increasingly one of engagement.

As opposed to seeing only the challenges, the deficits in the vulnerable children and families that we serve, we are instead focusing on building their strengths and helping to create independence and resilience.

As opposed to trying to fit aboriginal children, youth and families into the existing child welfare programs and services, we are instead supporting them in creating services of their own design which reflect their culture, traditions, values and practices, and probably most important of all, allow us to recognize the jurisdiction that they rightly hold over their own children.

[1510]

That might not sound like a big deal to us, but if you are in a position where you are a member of an aboriginal community and you hear someone from the non-aboriginal community asking: "Well, are you sure they can look after their own children…?" Madam Speaker, we are sure. We are sure that they can look after their children.

We're sure that their children do better when they look after them, and we are continuing to make the transition for aboriginal children to be served by aboriginal communities and agencies. We are going to continue to support that. We know it's what is best for aboriginal children, and we will continue to make that a top ministry priority.

In spite of a budget that is basically straight-lined, we are certainly experiencing challenges. We've had to make some difficult choices, but our priority, as always, has been to protect critical front-line services. Our budget will see a slight increase this year of about $9.5 million. It amounts to about 0.07 percent, but our budget pressures continue.

Most of the increase that we're seeing is due to funding of about $8.6 million that's going to help us to meet additional demand for child care services, mostly the subsidy for lower- to middle-income children and families. But our budget will remain fairly stable, we're projecting, over the next three years. That means that there is change that we've had to make in how we approach our budget if we are truly going to focus on the priorities that we have in front of us.

We will see, in the area of child and family development, an increase of over half a million dollars to maintain services. In the field of early childhood development, child care and children and youth with special needs, we'll also see an increase of about $10½ million as a result of new funding for child care and additional funding for medical benefits and autism programs.
[ Page 3350 ]

We will see a decrease in executive and support services. Our staff have worked long and hard to find the kinds of efficiencies we need to find in order to redirect those precious resources to those areas that support children and families directly.

In the area of our contracted services, we've seen an upward trend for the last number of years. In 2001 the budget for contracted services was $645 million. I am proud to say that in '09-10 that budget was $831½ million, with more than $100 million of that funding invested in just the past five years. This year we will see that number decline slightly, by a little less than 2 percent, but it still represents a 30 percent increase since 2001 and an 18 percent increase in just the last five years.

We know that there will be funding challenges presented because of this reduction, but this goes back to my earlier statement that we're going about things in a different way. As you can see from the list that I've just read out, we've focused our attention on increasing supports for those services that directly impact children and families.

We're reducing the spending in areas where we can manage to find administrative efficiencies and are able to look at how we can align programs better, perhaps using them together, perhaps looking at programs where there's low enrolment, but clearly focusing our attention on direct front-line services for vulnerable children and youth.

One of the reasons we're able to do that is because the Federation of Community Social Services Society of B.C. has worked together closely with us in a time when we were coming to them and telling them that we were going to have to make reductions in the budgets to contracted services. They didn't shy away from that. They sat at the table with us. They helped us develop the principles that we put in place to make those decisions in the region.

I can't say enough about the professionalism that they brought to this role and about the collaborative success that we've had as we've tried to minimize the impacts on any individual agencies. It's been a tremendous growth for all of us to work together in this way, and I am so thankful for their continued work with us.

This year those reductions will be managed through a consultation process with those contracted service providers, and it won't be an across-the-board cut as has happened in the past. Instead, they will be the ones advising us as to the best way to make those decisions.

There's no question that these are difficult times. A $1.7 billion deficit rolls easily off our tongue, and it's simple for us to forget that that is a debt that accrues to the detriment of our children and our grandchildren. It is one that eventually will have to be paid. Now more than ever, we have to make the tough decisions, we have to show strong leadership, and we have to continue to move forward along a path that we know is right.

[1515]

To manage our budget effectively and to continue as much as possible to protect key critical front-line services to vulnerable children, youth and families throughout the province, our ministry provides more than $1 billion annually to programs and services in our communities. Many of those are targeted toward prevention and intervention, toward making children healthier and providing the support necessary to keep families strong and safe.

In fact, 96 percent of our budget goes to those kinds of direct services. Madam Speaker, it is our intention as government to continue to focus on those important areas, and you will see that the changes that we make will back up our commitment to those critical front-line services.

One of our key priorities as a government and as a ministry continues to be our work to support aboriginal people in designing and delivering services that meet the unique needs of aboriginal children, youth and families. We need to build equity in the services.

Increasing aboriginal service design and delivery is a clear priority that was called for by Ted Hughes, by the children's representative and by both provincial and federal Auditors General. It's something that we as a ministry have been working toward for a number of years. It's a process that we know is right and that we are deeply committed to.

This year aboriginal children and families will receive services in excess of $390 million from MCFD — in the '10-11 budget year. That's up about $93 million from 2003. Funding for aboriginal delegated agencies has more than tripled since 2001 to $65 million, as has the number of children and youth cared for by delegated agencies.

As I mentioned, it's widely recognized that we need to build equity in supports for aboriginal children and families, in terms both of their availability of culturally appropriate services and of how they're delivered. Addressing those gaps, placing the delivery of aboriginal children and family services in the hands of aboriginal agencies, is one of our top priorities. It's a cornerstone of our work in the ministry and the basis of our aboriginal approach in Strong, Safe and Supported, our ministry action plan.

Let's not make any mistake about it. We have a long way to go. I still have people who come to me as minister and ask: "Why is it that you're focusing so much attention on such a small group of people? Shouldn't we be paying attention to the mainstream non-aboriginal population?" Madam Speaker, I am sad to remind them that even with all the work that has been done over the years, nevertheless, still 53 percent of the children in care in this province are aboriginal. We believe that's unacceptable.

We've made funding and support for the transfer of aboriginal services a priority for us, and that means you
[ Page 3351 ]
will see movement and reallocation of funding away from mainstream areas that don't have the kinds of pressures that those aboriginal agencies do, but it's the right thing to do.

R. Austin: It's a privilege to rise once again in the House to speak to Budget 2010 of last week. It's an honour as always, and I thank the people of Skeena for giving me that privilege.

Before starting my remarks, I'd also like to acknowledge the work of the people who support me back home. We spend a lot of time away from our constituencies, and we rely a lot on those who work in our offices. So in that regard I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Denis Gagné and Arjunna Miyagawa in my Terrace office for the work they do, and Roberta Walker in Kitimat.

I should mention that in the last few months in Kitimat it has been an incredible challenge in my office as the people of that community start to take into account the shutdown of Eurocan and what that means to the families and to the community of Kitimat.

I'd like to begin by just talking for a few minutes to give a context about the economy in northwest B.C. I think it's important, when you look at the budget, to see what changes the government is proposing and how they will affect, for the better or for the worse, my region. I don't think it's any secret in this House, even to those members on the other side of the House, that the northwest economy is one that has been struggling for a number of years.

[1520]

In fact, it's very clear that even when the rest of the British Columbia economy was doing very well prior to the recession that's taken over around the world, the northwest economy was in a downturn, principally because we have delinked a lot of our resources from the job creation that traditionally fed the northwest economy and supported all of the towns, whether it be Terrace, Kitimat, Prince Rupert or Smithers. A lot of these towns actually came into existence as a result of taking advantage of large public resources that were surrounding them.

We have had presentations recently from the northern development initiative, which came and spoke to members both on the governing side and those of us on the opposition side, showing very clearly that the economy of Skeena and the northwest in general is in very, very tough shape.

That was backed up by a presentation made by Helmut Pastrick, who is a well-known economist. I think it's true to say he's an economist who specializes in analyzing British Columbia's economy, as opposed to many economists who look at Canada as a whole. He did a study that showed that over the last 35 years, in fact, the northwest's economy has been in a slow decline. It has been exacerbated in the last ten years, but certainly it has been one that's been in trouble. I mention that because we need to look at the budget in its context and realize what it does for an economy that's already very shaky.

As I've mentioned, in forestry we have seen in the last nine years every manufacturing facility in my riding shut down. At least, that's the case now with Eurocan going. It's hard to get up here and speak without some recognition of what Eurocan has meant in terms of our local economy. We have seen the mills over the last few years shut down in Terrace, and we've had to make adjustments. But at least there was one big forestry-tied manufacturing facility, and that was Eurocan.

It was a shock to everybody in the riding when West Fraser made that decision to shut it down, because they hadn't even informed the people of Kitimat that it was even on the block. In fact, they had come and had meetings with the district of Kitimat. They were having some disputes around local taxation.

At that time, when they came to speak with the mayor and council, they never even let them know that within a couple of weeks they were coming up with a decision to actually shut down Eurocan, and with it, take away probably at least a thousand jobs that are either directly affected in Eurocan or tied to it. So it's very, very difficult.

I really want to speak for a second around the tie-in between the trees and our manufacturing in Skeena. We know that in 2001 the B.C. Liberals removed appurtenancy. The difficulty around that is that there wasn't really anything that they replaced it with.

So the challenge is…. "Okay," you say to companies, "you have access to these logs. You have access to the forests, which is a public resource. We're no longer going to commit to have manufacturing facilities in the area. Either you can take those logs and manufacture them in another part of British Columbia, or you can take them out of the province and have them used abroad as raw log exports."

But we are still surrounded by trees in Skeena, and by cutting that and not giving access to wood to other forms of manufacturing to replace the mills, we've seen nothing but a massive shutdown. I think that we need to look at changes in forestry that will enable us, once again, to figure out ways in which we can use the resource and find some kind of creative ways to create jobs.

I'll mention one. There's a person in my riding who makes and sells guitar tops and bottoms. This is obviously a very specialized niche market. He sells these guitar tops and bottoms all over the world via the Internet. Now, that's a high-end, value-added business, but even he has trouble getting access to wood. So obviously we have a serious problem within our forestry sector when we live in a town that's surrounded by trees and people who want to start new businesses cannot have that opportunity to do that.
[ Page 3352 ]

It's not just trees that are being delinked from our economy. Let's look at water and the ability for water to generate electricity. I represent, of course, Kitimat, which has the Alcan smelting facility. What we've seen in the last few years is that Alcan made a promise that if they were given a union contract, if they were given the right to do whatever they wanted with that water or that electricity and if they passed an environmental assessment, they would build a new smelter.

People in my district said: "Wait a second here. If we give you all these things, shouldn't we have some kind of commitment in writing that you would actually build a new facility?" The government of the day said: "No, no, no. Don't worry about it. Once they have these things in place, they'll go ahead and build this smelter." Now we see, two years later, after having all these things in place, we don't have any new smelter yet.

[1525]

It's really sad, because Alcan is still building new smelter capacity in other parts of the world, and yet with the cheapest electricity anywhere in the world right there in Kitimat, they have not taken that plunge to actually reinvest and build a new smelter. I'm hoping that in the near future we will see that.

Finally, let me talk about mining. We have seen in the last eight years very, very high commodity prices, and yet not a single new metal mine has opened in British Columbia — not a single new metal mine has opened in British Columbia over the last ten years.

In the 1990s, when copper was 46 cents a pound, we were able to save the Highland copper mine in Logan Lake — when it was 46 cents a pound. Yet now, when copper is at an all-time high, we can't get a new copper mine going.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members.

R. Austin: Obviously, people are a little bit sensitive on the other side, because in spite of high commodity prices, we have not seen this boom in mining that we should have seen.

I'd like to speak about what this does for the people of my riding. This budget mostly is about the HST. It'll be known in the future as the HST budget, because this is a tax shift that will forever change the landscape of British Columbia.

Frankly, a tax shift moving away taxes that have been paid by large corporations and putting them onto consumers is definitely going to hurt the people of my riding because, as I've just mentioned, we don't have a lot of large companies that would take benefit of the savings that they're going to make from the HST.

Instead, what I have in my riding is a bunch of people, most of whom are struggling financially and are now going to be left….

Oh, thank you, hon. Chair. It's nice to see somebody else coming to the front there, but you're going to miss the rest of my speech. I'll send you a copy.

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

This is going to hurt the people of Skeena, the HST. It's also going to hurt all the small businesses in my riding who will now have to find extra money that will be tacked on, especially in the restaurant sector in both my communities. So the HST is definitely not a good thing for the people of Skeena.

But worse than that, the HST, quite aside from the debate about whether it's good or bad or whether it's going to create jobs or lose jobs…. What is so devastating about the HST is that during the election the government of the day actually said they weren't going to bring it in.

If there is ever a time when you want to be open with the people about a major shift in policy, surely it's during that 28-day period when we are having an election and people are actually paying attention to politics and the political issues. That is the time when any government that proposes a huge shift should come forward and say, "This is what we think we're going to do. What do you think about it?" and then have the mandate to actually make that change.

This government did not mention it during the election, and therefore, they have no mandate to actually bring it in.

Interjection.

R. Austin: The Health Minister says that's nonsense. Well, I think actually there are enough people in this province who understand that this HST is being brought in through deception — pure deception.

Interjection.

R. Austin: Oh, it's the best thing. But for the previous eight years….

Hon. Chair, a member from the other side says that this is the best thing that they could do for the economy. I sat on the Finance Committee with that member when other people came and made presentations to the Finance Committee suggesting that this government move the HST, and it was the government members who said, "No, this isn't a good thing for consumers," and didn't do it.

Now we have an HST being brought in even though in eight years they thought it was a bad idea, and I agree. It was a bad idea. It still is a bad idea, and it will hurt consumers.

There are other huge tax increases being brought in here, but of course they're not called tax increases in this
[ Page 3353 ]
budget. What they are, are increases on people who have cars, through ICBC, huge tax increases being brought in that are called hydro rate increases. So everyone here who is on the grid, which of course is the vast majority of British Columbians, is going to see huge increases in their hydro bills year after year after year.

[1530]

How is that fair, and why are we having huge hydro increases? Well, the reason is that we are privatizing our generation system. We are not using our public corporation, B.C. Hydro, to generate new electricity when we should be. Instead, we're giving it to private interests. That's why we're going to be paying so much higher hydro rates.

Now the Olympics are over, and that has been the mainstay of this government's economic policy. That's where we've diverted huge amounts of money for the last few years to build all the facilities, but the Olympics are now over. So now we will see whether there will be an economic recovery and whether it will play out. Quite frankly, I think the budget shows that we're going to have a mostly jobless recovery, which makes the notion of increased revenue as growth returns somewhat dubious.

I'd like to speak for a second about what some economists have said about the economy currently. They say:

"The downside risks of the B.C. economy are serious. The U.S. economy remains very weak, as does central Canada's. The Winter Games are over, and the Olympics in the past have been accompanied by a drop in economic activity. Even though many feel we are in a recovery territory, rising GDP coming out of a recession is typically accompanied by rising unemployment for at least another year. There doesn't seem to be a clear economic development plan to provide jobs for those who lost theirs during the global recession."

I can't agree more. There doesn't seem to be a plan — certainly not in my neck of the woods — to try and create jobs. In fact, as Eurocan shuts down, we're going to see, over the next few months, an actual shift again of people leaving northwest B.C., as they have done for the last ten years.

I'd like to take a moment to talk about aboriginal relations. These are very important in my riding. I have a large number of First Nations bands and, of course, the Nisga'a Nation itself, who have signed a treaty. I want to speak for a second about the new relationship. When I first got elected in 2005, I'm happy to say that the government changed its tune and decided that it would embrace aboriginal leadership and try and form a new relationship.

What we have seen in the last four years, unfortunately, is that that new relationship has kind of gone off the rails. It was a lot of talk, a lot of good intentions, but the reality on the ground is that there hasn't been a lot of movement in terms of fostering better relationships. Most of the leaders that I speak to complain now that they don't really see a lot of action. They only hear nice words.

If you look at the budget for aboriginal relations, you'll see that there is actually going to be a downturn, which suggests that we're going to still be mired in this uncertainty by not having treaties signed. We've seen from the success of the Nisga'a treaty that it is important to actually get ahead and sign these treaties.

I want to speak for a second on this topic from a report that the Auditor General made around aboriginal relations. In his report he states that one of the biggest problems with the new relationship is that it's not defined. This lack of clarity or focus has led to much uncertainty. What we've seen is that as a result of it not being defined, it's been hard to actually do the work to make it a practical piece of policy. He also says that the breakthrough strategy — where the negotiators concentrate on a few tables at the expense of all others — takes away from the negotiation process.

What we're seeing is that there's a lot of frustration on both sides — both the government side and First Nations. So what's happening now is that one-off deals are being made which have a short-term benefit, hopefully, to the aboriginal community and to British Columbians at large. But that short-term benefit takes away the incentive for the actual First Nations band to come together and to actually sign a long-term treaty.

The Auditor General says that while he sees there being some benefit to this policy, it does have a long-term negative impact because we are not going and actually signing full treaties. I would hope that we will see, in the near future, the government actually trying to renegotiate the new relationship and make it a reality.

[1535]

I'd like to also, for a moment, speak about post-secondary funding. I have both Northwest Community College and UNBC in my riding. Both have been very positive additions to my community. Of course, Northwest Community College has been there for over 25 years and UNBC for a much shorter period of time — about nine. These are economic drivers.

When UNBC first came to the city of Prince George…. I travel quite a bit to Prince George as part of my critic portfolio. They recognize in Prince George that UNBC is one of the biggest economic drivers to have come to Prince George in the last 15 years. It is the same, so one would hope, in Terrace, where they have a campus.

What are we seeing in this budget? We're seeing that funding is, for the most part, frozen in the ministry of post-secondary education. But here's the significant thing. There is a 27 percent cut to student aid and a 50 percent cut from the budget that was presented prior to the election.

What does that say about this government's priorities — when you are cutting the ability for people to access post-secondary education? How is that going to help our economy? How is that going to help those students who wish to access the knowledge economy?
[ Page 3354 ]

We're constantly told by this government: "You know what? The economy is changing. We need to educate our people to a higher level because now it's a knowledge economy." Yet we're seeing cut after cut in the ability of people to access post-secondary education. That's not good for the individual students. That's not good for families.

It's certainly not good for the economy of Terrace, where we should be trying to access more people into post-secondary education. As I've mentioned, we have higher levels of unemployment, so if people are unemployed, that's a great opportunity for them to go back to school and get those skills.

I'd like to take a minute to talk, also, about the rural secretariat. The rural secretariat falls within the Ministry of Community and Development. What it is, is an agency within the ministry that tries to help small communities all over rural B.C. to get economic development going.

We've come into contact with them a great deal recently. With Eurocan shutting down in Kitimat, the rural secretariat has been heavily involved with the district of Kitimat and with the city of Terrace council to try and come up with some solutions as to what to do with this mill.

We are seeing their budget going down from $36 million to $3.3 million two years hence. What does that tell you about the priorities of this government when it comes to rural B.C.? There are eight full-time positions funded for people who live all over the province to try and help communities to get economic development going in rural B.C.

We know that there is a great divide in this province between the Lower Mainland, the capital region and rural B.C. We have seen people flocking to the Lower Mainland because there are not enough jobs in rural B.C. So the job of the rural secretariat is to try and address this imbalance and try and get economic development going and help communities who are struggling.

We have one of those positions. Someone works out of Prince Rupert. Will he have his position in the future? Not likely, if the budget is going from $36 million down to $3.3 million.

I'd also like to just mention, going back to the Eurocan shutdown, how disappointed I was that this government put forward $40,000 towards a feasibility study that the district of Kitimat and the workers at Eurocan felt was necessary in order to try and move forward on the Eurocan decision. Fort St. John and MacKenzie got $2 million each when those towns went into crisis. Eurocan represents 40 percent of the industrial workers in the district of Kitimat — 40 percent. Can you imagine a community that loses 40 percent of its industrial tax base overnight?

Yet what did this government give — $40,000? It's a very sad state of affairs when that's all they felt the district of Kitimat was worth, and it sends a signal that they are not willing to help those of us who live in northwest B.C., a part of the province which the other side and this side recognize is a part of the province that has the most dire economy.

Next, I want to spend some considerable time speaking about education. I listened to the words that came out from the Minister of Children and Family Development — who, of course, was a trustee.

[1540]

She actually had the gall to talk about a time in the '90s when money was taken away in the middle of the year from the school districts of British Columbia. This is from a government that actually removed the annual facilities grant one week before children went back to school last year — $110 million that was pulled one week before children went back to school, after most of the money, by the way, had been spent during the summer in fixing up schools. Think of the chaos that caused in the school system last year — absolute chaos.

Also, I want to address this debate that goes back and forth around educational funding. Yes, the government is correct by saying that per-pupil student funding goes up. They're perfectly correct in saying that. But here's the real story. The government changed the funding formula in education when it came to power. We had large envelopes of funding that took care of various aspects of the school system, and we also had per-pupil student funding.

What they did was they made those envelopes smaller and moved the model of school funding almost exclusively — not entirely but almost exclusively — towards per-pupil student funding. What this did was it made it very, very difficult for the school system to have the adequate increases in per-pupil student funding to make up for all the costs that were being put into the system that were previously there. Let me explain for a second.

In Victoria here, the taxes are collected and money is sent directly to the school districts all around the province. School districts don't get to raise their own money or their own taxation. They are entirely reliant upon money that comes from Victoria. The negotiations for teachers' salaries, for CUPE salaries, for whether there's an MSP increase, for hydro rates — those aren't decisions that are made by the school districts around our province. Those decisions are made centrally, either here by the cabinet or they're made by central agencies such as B.C. Hydro.

So what we have seen in the last few years is that the increases to per-pupil student funding, which the government constantly crows on about, have not been great enough to pay for all these increases and these costs that have downloaded to the system. That is why you have school district after school district coming to us, coming to the government and saying: "There is not enough money in this system to actually do the task that you are giving us." We have not a deficit but a shortfall between
[ Page 3355 ]
the funding envelope given to school districts and the task at hand. You know what, hon. Speaker? This isn't a partisan issue.

I have spent so much time in the last few months meeting with school trustees all over this province, trustees who vote for the Liberals, trustees who vote for the NDP, and they have one thing in common. They got in as trustees because they have a passion and an interest in public education. Those trustees are saying uniformly, irrespective of their political beliefs, with one strong voice that there is not enough money in the system. This budget, which brings in an increase of $112 million, does not pay for the deficit or this shortfall in the system.

Where do I get those facts from? Well, the secretary-treasurers association. These are the professional people that actually handle the money of school districts. These are professional civil servants within the school system. They do not get political, obviously, because they work for a government agency that gets all of its money from taxes. Therefore, they can't be political. They usually stay in the background. They usually actually keep their mouths shut. That's what they normally do.

Even they have done an analysis that proves that prior to this budget there was a funding shortfall in excess of $260 million. So the $112 million that comes in operational funding as an increase this year still leaves school districts with a huge deficit.

We are going to see this continue. This debate is going to continue, and more and more school districts are going to be coming forward still having to make cuts in spite of the fact that there is an increase in per-pupil student funding. That is the situation.

I'd also like to mention the annual facilities grant. Okay, it was taken away last September, leaving school districts scrambling all around the province. Now I've been reading in the papers some erroneous reports that it is coming back. It is only partially coming back. It is $110 million that was removed, and $50 million is coming back in this fiscal year, and $60 million is coming in the year out, 2010-2011.

[1545]

School districts that are still struggling to do the maintenance that's required in their school system will be taking operational funds — they have no other choice — out of their school budgets in order to do regular maintenance that's necessary. It hasn't come back; it has only partially come back. We are going to continue to have lots and lots of challenges in our public education system.

I'd like to take a minute just to talk about the Ministry of Energy and Mines, because there is one big project in my area that has been talked about, and that is the northwest transmission line. Last year, when the federal government announced it was going to be giving this province $130 million towards that transmission line, the Finance Minister at the time said: "We have a private partner in place." Our understanding was, okay, the feds are putting in $130 million, there's a private partner in place, and then the province would obviously pay the difference for this.

Now I read in this budget that they're still negotiating to find a private partner. We had one, of course. Before Galore Creek went off the table for a short while, NovaGold was willing to put $158 million towards this power line. But then when Galore Creek had difficulties and economic challenges, they obviously took their $158 million off the table. So the government said: "We're going to find another private partner. But don't worry; it's in hand."

In this budget what we see is there being a verbal commitment to build this line but no money in this year's budget and no money in next year's budget actually assigned to this. My question that I will be asking to this government is if northwest B.C. just needs one big project to get going…. We need one big project to get going. They've had several months since the federal government gave them $130 million.

By the way, that $130 million is contingent upon the provincial government finding that private partner and coming up with a difference. It's not like they forwarded the money, and work can start right away. Work cannot start right away, because that money is contingent.

I'm hoping that by the time this year is over, we will see this government actually find a private partner, announce that publicly and, hopefully, come up with its commitment that it needs, because we need jobs in northwest B.C. We haven't seen one thing to replace all the manufacturing plants that have been shut down under this government.

I will have far more to say when we speak about the HST in the bill that comes forward, but for now I will cede my place.

R. Cantelon: It's a pleasure to represent the Island, and not only because it is indeed one of the most beautiful places in this beautiful province. It's inhabited by a wonderful group of people.

I think people who live on an island — and I know, Madam Speaker, that you, too, live on an island — are a special breed of people. They cherish a little sense of isolation, yet they're welcoming and warming to other people. It gives them a sort of resilience and an optimistic attitude that they can do it on their own if they have to. I think that's what living on the Island breeds in people.

I think the spirit of optimism was never expressed greater, on a broad scale, than in the Olympics we just saw. It was an outpouring of optimism and joy, really, that we saw.

I travelled to the Island to attend tourism events and forestry events to support those industries on the
[ Page 3356 ]
Island, and it was really amazing as hundreds of people walked onto the ferries not just to see the Olympic events or venues but to walk among their fellow British Columbians and share the experience. It was truly an outstanding experience of not the jingoistic nationalism but pride and high fives and enjoying the moment.

One moment that I wasn't there for but it was told to me was an exceptional moment was as the ferry wheeled into the Departure Bay and the big ferry doors swung open and the cold air embraced everybody. They didn't shudder. They stood up and sang O Canada.

I grew up in a much different climate, far, far away on the other side of the mountains. I tell you, the cherry blossoms are a long way from being in bloom back there, but they are here.

[1550]

The people in British Columbia have an optimistic spirit, an optimistic attitude, a positive attitude, and I think they're drawn to the beauty of the country and feel that we can make anything out of this. And they're right. They can. They're very resilient. They're very determined. I think what they expect from us, what we've delivered to them over the past years and what we deliver in this budget meets their expectations.

Their expectations are a stable government, a government that moves ahead with sound fiscal management policies that provide them with the confidence that, yes indeed, this is the place to make a long-term investment. This is the place to raise my family. This is the place to build my future. This budget delivers that. I'll speak further about it, but moves like the HST solidify this as the best place to invest, move to and live in Canada.

We've heard, and we will hear on both sides of this House, broad statements. I won't call them misstatements or otherwise. I'll be careful about the language. But when I hear the member for Surrey-Whalley characterize the health care budget as being slashed again and, of course, the actual fact is that over the next three fiscal years, we're adding $2 billion to the health care budget…. That doesn't mean, with the silver tsunami as it has been called and identified, that it doesn't present us great challenges in facing health care expenses over the next few years.

But up and down the Island…. I mentioned resilience as being one of the characteristics. If it's not working, let's do something different. I think it's evident in what's happened on the Island and the approach they've taken to embrace the opportunities the Olympics have presented to them.

I've been working and have worked for several years with the owner-operators of the Harmac, which unfortunately went bankrupt. But out of bankruptcy is opportunity. Out of this kind of crisis situation, opportunity presents itself. They seized that opportunity. They bought the pulp mill when others said: "Don't go near it. It's a piece of junk. Sell it. Give it away." I was kind of surprised in a way that, although this involved many union people, I was the person in the courthouse three or four times — that there were no members of the opposition there to support their workers. But nevertheless, you can make what comments you wish of that.

And now they've persevered, and they're succeeding. The pulp prices are rising. Their production is at virtually record capacity despite the fact that they're operating at about half the workforce. They're working extremely efficiently, working as a team. They've seized that opportunity, and there's continuing opportunity.

I think this is a bright light, a sign of hope for the forest industry. We need to develop new models and new approaches. We need to make new investments in the forest industry. We need to have newer mills and new approaches to make that investment to make the sawmills hum again — well, to make new sawmills hum again.

I'll comment briefly. This is where the HST is going to be of great significance. At the Nanaimo Forest Products mill, as it's now called, they're going to greatly benefit from the new HST. Many of the inputs that they pay for as inputs to cost of production of pulp currently have PST on them. Under the harmonized sales tax, they'll be able to recoup all of that.

When they sell pulp on the open market, they have to compete internationally with firms from Denmark, Sweden and around the world that have value-added taxes. There are 130 countries that have value-added taxes, and we were at an unfair advantage — not a level playing field — because we had to embed all our costs, from the purchase of tools to supplies. All those incremental costs built up to inflate the costs as they produced pulp. Those will now be wiped clean, and it will make their cost opportunity much better, their profit opportunity much brighter. They'll make more money, employ more people and expand their jobs.

They are also a beneficiary of the climate action initiatives that we're doing. They look to modernize the mill and convert some of the hog fuel into energy and distribute it into Nanaimo. Madam Speaker, as you may know, that's an urgent need on Vancouver Island, where we produce only about one-third of our hydroelectric power. So these cogeneration opportunities are very important to British Columbia and to Vancouver Island particularly.

But that's only one move. As we move further north on Vancouver Island, they're ready to welcome the world with a new expanded runway at Nanaimo Airport. They've reduced the ceiling, if you want, from, I think 600 feet down to 300 feet that they can guide planes to before they land on an expanded runway.

[1555]

They're building a new terminal with new terminal facilities. The new pressures to open the skies up, open up airline connections to different parts of the world, will
[ Page 3357 ]
greatly impact the opportunities, not just for tourism but for business in central Vancouver Island.

It won't benefit just the city of Nanaimo. It will benefit the entire Cowichan Valley, and it will affect Qualicum-Parksville — all of these businesses that need international connections to prosper and to expand their businesses. And there's a wide variety of businesses.

Digital Resources, in Parksville-Qualicum, designs buildings for around the world. It's a little known business, a modest location on a second floor, but if you go into the business, you're immediately lifted by the spirit and youth there. I don't think there's anybody over 40 in the entire building, and they're all busily away at their computers. They design buildings such as the seal structure for — yes — the Superdome and for the new New York Mets stadium in New York. And around the world they basically do the detailed design for all of these buildings. It's an amazing group.

Now, of course, they do nothing but work on computers and buy programs and buy supplies. At the rate they use computers, they go through them. They have to have only the most modern, the strongest, most powerful computers that are made, and they have to buy a lot of them. Here again the HST tax input credit will enable them to buy those computers and make their business more efficient and more profitable.

More profitable means to them that they'll be able to expand their business, hire more people, hire more employees in the city of Parksville and keep these highly trained, highly skilled, educated people in Canada. It will be of great benefit to them.

Further downtown the cruise ship terminal is underway and going to be expanded. I think they're going to be one of the great benefits of this explosion of tourism or awareness of how beautiful British Columbia is.

I have to say that when I came to British Columbia many, many years ago…. I comment that I should have paid more attention to my grade 10 geography. I left Winnipeg, where I was — it was a blowing snowstorm in 30 below — and I landed here. The grass was green, and everybody apologized for how crisp it was, but the grass was green.

I think people will certainly realize their impression of British Columbia, of anything north of the United States, is that it's a snowbound place. Happily, during the Olympics we saw both the sun and a little bit of snow on the mountains. We certainly promoted to the world broadly how wonderful and beautiful this is a place to live, and more business will come.

So building the cruise ship terminal, which will accommodate some of the largest cruise ships in the world, will be of great benefit to the central Vancouver Island area, and not just to Nanaimo. It will be of great benefit to Nanaimo, but these people will come and do day trips, again, down to Chemainus and look at the beautiful murals. They'll head over to Cathedral Grove and perhaps to the west coast, to Tofino, on day trips and experience how beautiful and wonderful British Columbia is.

It's just giving an opportunity for the central Island area. When people come, they don't just look around. They do buy things, of course, but they say to themselves: "Why shouldn't I invest? Why shouldn't I move my business here to British Columbia?" We're trying to give them lots of reasons to do that.

What we've done here is to create the lowest tax regime in Canada, both personal and corporate tax. We want to make it easy. We want to make it attractive for people to come here, hire employees and expand their businesses. That's why we reduced and are reducing the small business tax, if you're a smaller business, to zero within two years. That's why the corporate tax has come down from 16½ percent to 10 percent and the small business, 4½ to 5 percent. And of course personal income taxes are the lowest in Canada.

So not only will they see a great opportunity in this beautiful country to live in, to have a lifestyle where you can fish, golf and ski perhaps all in the same day, if you're a very busy person — that you can enjoy all these wonderful things in a beautiful setting — you have the lowest taxes. You can make the most money locating here.

The member opposite mentioned that we're tied to the U.S. economy and that's a hindrance to our recovery. There's some truth in that, but now 30 percent of our export business goes to the Asia market. We are so well located to take advantage of that, and we're prepared now with the taxation base. The HST now gives us the leverage and the encouragement to invest in new plants and new equipment — from a corporate and a personal tax — that certainly they'll be attracted to come here.

Good business is good for everybody. If you have a thriving economy, yes, they spend money, and they spend money, indeed, in restaurants too. There's nothing stronger or better than money in people's pockets and a good optimistic outlook on the future and a good economy to drive all businesses.

[1600]

Actually speaking, there are many other things. Health care, of course, is a major concern with us, an important concern where I live in Parksville-Qualicum. That's why it's so critical that we've managed the economy to reduce expenditures in administration and overhead, if you want, in government, as many businesses have had to cut their costs too.

We've reflected that careful, prudent management of the public service to reduce…. We've done it in a way that's been least painful to individual members of the public service, to minimize layoffs through attrition, by not filling vacant positions and by moving people from one position to the other. We've done that so that we're in a position to put more money into health care.
[ Page 3358 ]

The citizens of Parksville…. I've been working with the federation of community groups to work towards putting in a health centre — a health centre that would divert probably anywhere from 5,600 to 8,000 visits to emergency. And beautiful as it is, we all well know that in the dark days of winter it can be pretty rainy. If you're a senior, taking someone who is in medical stress from Qualicum Beach or somewhere up there in that area down to Nanaimo, it can be a very stressful drive.

We can reduce probably up to 8,000 of those trips to Nanaimo Regional Hospital by treating them locally in a health centre. It will be much more than a health centre. It's going to be an innovation centre because we'll do, yes, urgent care, and many things, even up to strokes and heart attacks, can be treated and sent home, perhaps for further treatment and diagnostic tests at NRGH or in Victoria. More than that, it's going to deliver health care according to the needs of the patient in the community.

One of the things that's been started and is going to be expanded with a $260 million initiative is an innovation program that uses a multidisciplinary approach to health care. I think this is extremely important to seniors, because seniors are more vulnerable to chronic conditions that need constant attention and treatment, often through diet — that would be extremely important — exercise, medication and counselling.

We'll use this kind of multidisciplinary approach in this kind of setting to deal with specific patient needs and to keep them healthy, to keep them happy and to keep them in their homes as long as possible. But when the time comes, we have now in the last five years added 545 beds that are paid for by the government. Believe me, these residential care homes and extended care beds are fabulous facilities. The quality is really, really 100 percent over what it was.

Unfortunately, during previous administrations they used to basically — tragically, really — virtually warehouse people with four beds per ward. It was really…. It gave no privacy. It gave no dignity. It gave no sense of space that's yours, that you can put your own pictures up and that you can say: "This is where I live."

Now these facilities are wonderfully run, very efficiently operated by private operators, but under strict conditions and strict supervision by VIHA, and prepare excellent meals. This is an important addition — a health centre that will provide and support and work together with the community to support seniors as they live in our area.

Parksville-Qualicum has the highest per-capita population of seniors in Canada, and it's no wonder. It's a beautiful place to live. It rains less in Parksville than virtually any place in British Columbia. It's sunnier, it's warmer, and it's really a treat to be there. I enjoy it, and it's an honour to represent the citizens there.

These are some of the things that are moving forward. Also in Nanaimo, we have a new convention centre, which again is designed and will be complemented by both a cruise ship terminal and the airport to bring people in for conferences and experience the central Island lifestyle.

Again, it will occur to them. They'll probably look at it and say: "Golly, we've got the best taxation, best corporate tax, best small business tax and best personal tax in Canada. Why am I operating out of Alberta? Why am I operating out of any other province, for example?"

[1605]

If their employees were to look at it…. For example, if you took a moderate income, the provincial sales tax payable on a $40,000 net income, if you were in Alberta, would be $2,000 compared to $1,500 here — $500 less. Every employee would be attracted to that, I'm sure.

If you go farther east, of course, it gets pretty startling. It's $2,600 in Saskatchewan — $2,200 versus $1,500 in British Columbia for provincial sales tax on an income of $40,000.

If you're talking some moderate executives, middle management, maybe upper management in British Columbia, the B.C. tax in 2009 is $3,800 on that. If you were in Alberta it's over $5,000, over $6,000 in Manitoba and over $7,000 in Saskatchewan. So certainly we offer the most attractive tax regime in Canada, and we intend to keep it that way.

Part of the philosophy, if you want, that we have, that we direct, is that people know how to spend their money better than we know how to spend it. It's not for us to spend it for them and give them programs that….

H. Lali: That's for sure.

R. Cantelon: That's right. That is for sure. That's why we have the lowest tax. My member opposite agrees with me that lower taxes are good. For that reason, I'm sure he likes the lower taxation regime. It's a good thing.

As we move forward, there are many other concerns. These are important concerns, and as people move forward, they're looking for some return of some of the benefits that we gave them. I'm very encouraged by some of the programs that we're reintroducing.

These have been difficult times. The deficit has been as high as $2.7 billion. Through prudent fiscal management we've redirected a lot of the savings that we have in administrative procedures back into health care, back into education.

We see businesses recovering with our opportunities in the Asia-Pacific market. The deficit will decline over the next two years, and in three years it will come back to zero. I think it's absolutely critical and absolutely important, though, that we don't burden the future generations — my children, our grandchildren — with debt. You have to pay the bills.

I think common sense tells you that you have to pay the bills. You can't have expenses greater than your abil-
[ Page 3359 ]
ity to pay for them from revenue, and that's what we're doing. It wasn't a pretty situation we faced under the opposition government, but we're heading back towards a balanced budget, and that's what people expect.

That's what builds confidence. That's why the real estate market is recovering. That's why we're seeing that market come up, because they understand that this government is doing what is necessary, taking prudent fiscal managements internally, being careful with how they spend their money, so that in the future they can expect it will be back at a balanced budget, that there will be a stable government, that there will be a stable economy that they can build on and expect to prosper.

Some of the things that we've been asked about…. There's more to life, of course, than dollars and cents. But we're seeing an expansion now of $60 million, opportunities in sports, arts and culture. One of the programs, I think, that has really caught on and has been big in Nanaimo — I had the opportunity to meet with some of the individuals involved — is the KidSport program. One of my priorities now that we're seeing new opportunities to….

Basically, let me talk a bit about KidSport. It basically reduces the barriers for young people, children who can't afford to go into athletics because the fees are too high. We fund this in a way so that the fees can be paid. It levers the money very, very well with non-profit organizations that support it. There are many, and they've been very, very generous in doing that. I look forward, when I get back in the constituency, to seeing this develop in Qualicum Beach and in Parksville as well, because I know there's a need for it. I know there's great community support for all sorts of endeavours like this. It will be very good.

We're establishing sport on the move to help school teams, particularly those in remote areas that have to travel to sports. So there are going to be some opportunities to encourage children to do that.

School program funding for coach development. I think coaches are the unsung heroes of youth sports, and we're going to support them and help them. So there are many things that we're adding back to the budget as we can start to see as we move forward.

[1610]

Educational sports academies are another thing that will be supported by the renewed emphasis on sports and the arts.

In the arts we'll look at supporting…. There's a $60 million fund. That's $30 million for sports and $30 million for arts and culture. So $30 million will be used in the ways I've just mentioned in sports, and $30 million will be used in culture to do such things as regional events that reflect the diversity of communities and that include multidisciplinary presentations. We're looking at using high-tech and new experiences with video and digital media to encourage youth to become involved and to use some of their technical expertise in presentations of artistic and cultural events.

Certainly I know in my area…. I've been involved previously with the Port Theatre. There's a high degree of artistic energy and creativity in our area, and it's an interesting thing that there's a great correlation between cultural activity and business success.

What it is, I think, is that people with imagination and creativity share the same aspirations, the same goals, not only expressing themselves culturally and artistically but expressing them in business ventures to experience new ways to venture companies, to start companies and try different things out from a business perspective. The two tie together, so I'm very encouraged that it's very prominent in the entire area.

In fact, the Canada culture grants on a per-capita basis in the Nanaimo region are the highest in Canada. It speaks well for the opportunity not only to enjoy cultural events but also to enjoy or to anticipate the business expansion in the community, because the two go hand in hand.

We're doing other things. I spoke briefly about some of the things that we've had to do internally.

I think one of the major investments we're making is a $180 million investment into integrated case management, which basically means that we need to provide our civil service with the best means of monitoring and managing caseloads in our various ministries, particularly MCFD and Community Development. I think we need to move forward and to modernize technology so that we're better able to respond to the many needs of our citizens, that we have the paperwork eliminated.

Instead of paperwork, we now have computer systems that are amenable to the systems they deliver. It's very important that the front-line workers — the social workers, the caseworkers — be able to access information instantly and immediately, be able to keep track of it and keep track of it in a multidisciplinary way so that it can be shared with other people working with the same individual.

It's going to be an expensive proposition, but I know that the minister of the civil service's public service will be up to the task and that we can look forward to seeing that evolving and see many efficiencies in how we deliver services to individuals.

Education has been spoken of here, and it's always a challenge. This is one area that I'm particularly proud of where I represent, Qualicum Beach and Parksville. They have been certainly the most innovative, entrepreneurial people in the education field. Debbie Robinson has done a wonderful job in stimulating and engaging the community with early learning. I think I first became aware of the need for it…. It's fairly recognized by people like Clyde Hertzman that early learning is absolutely critical.

I became aware early in my political career that approximately 25 percent of the people entering kin-
[ Page 3360 ]
dergarten were not ready. We can't blame the children, obviously. We can't blame the parents, but we weren't giving the support necessary to prepare children to enter our educational system, a fine education system that it is. Of course, that same cohort tends to be the bulk of the 20 percent that don't graduate on the other end of the scale. That's why I think that programs that we've started, like StrongStart and our commitment to full-day kindergarten by 2011, are extremely important.

[1615]

By 2011 all five-year-olds will have the ability to enter, and we're funding that. By 2012 we'll have fully funded $129 million to make this possible throughout the province. This is absolutely critical. I want to tell you that the Building Learning Together has been such a successful program. They've engaged more than 200 seniors in a thing they call the WOW Bus, which is Words on Wheels.

They, too, understand that the most important thing you can do for a young person is introduce them to reading and to read with them to get them to feel and appreciate the magic of books and the written word. It's one of the most important things that we can do.

This bus actually goes out to the rural communities, in Coombs, Errington, and engages the children. But most importantly, it has engaged the community in supporting it. They're part of the whole process. I know they'll warmly welcome the full-day kindergarten, which will make a tremendous difference in the long-term outcomes.

One of the other major things where we've made an investment in the community — and it's being built, in case the members opposite think it's a mere promise — is a $5 million commitment to build family place. Now, family place is going to be built in Parksville. It's a collaboration between MCFD, the Ministry of Children and Families; VIHA, representing Health; the school districts; and the city.

Basically, it's going to be where families…. As we all know — and goodness, I know better than many — you don't get manuals when children arrive. I have five of them, and I'm getting better at it, but it's far from a perfect science by any means. So this will be a major support centre for families to come and get resources to help them raise children.

It'll give them the opportunity or the resources to ask questions about health. VIHA will be there with that, to deal with issues that might be involving chronic health.

There may be social issues as well. That's where Ministry of Children and Families are there to support. It may be with single mothers or people who need financial help, who need support or who are on their own, so to speak. All of those things can be got in one place.

It's going to be integrated with Building Learning Together, and it's going to be very energetic…. I know from the energy that was put into Building Learning Together, it's going to be a very vibrant and very active place for raising children, to bring children to help raise them. I think when we look at everything that's been put forward….

Finally, I would like to close with how important HST is. HST, and it was said by a previous speaker, "will forever change the landscape of British Columbia." That was made by a member opposite. Well, I fervently hope, and I'm certain, that this will be the case: this will forever change the economic landscape of the province for the better.

So thank you, and I heartily support the budget.

R. Chouhan: It's a great honour to stand and have the opportunity to talk about my community, Burnaby-Edmonds, and to speak on this budget tabled last week. Before I do that, I would like to recognize some hard-working people in my life. Some of them are really working seven days a week. My constituency assistants — Laarni de los Reyes, Cherene Groundwater and Cate Jones — all work hard every day, day in and day out, to serve the needs of our constituents.

As all members will agree with me, MLAs cannot always be present in the constituency office. It is the CAs who meet and deal with the members and take care of their issues in our community on a daily basis.

I also want to thank my family — my wife, Inder Chouhan; my daughter Amrita Chouhan-Sanford; my son-in-law Jamie Sanford; my granddaughter Chloe, who is going to be turning two next week; and my younger daughter Anu Chouhan — for their understanding why I'm not spending much time at home, working hard on behalf of the constituents in Burnaby-Edmonds.

It's a great privilege to represent and serve Burnaby-Edmonds, my constituents. It's a very diverse community.

[1620]

We have in the Burnaby-Edmonds area almost 100 different languages spoken. We have people who are rich and poor who live in Burnaby-Edmonds. We have businesses small and large.

But you know, if you do the comparison of all the people who live in Burnaby, you will find that a large number of people in Burnaby-Edmonds are struggling. They are new Canadians. There's a great number of people who are sponsored by the Canadian government as government-sponsored refugees. One-third of all the refugees who come and live in Burnaby live in Burnaby-Edmonds. They have huge challenges, and I'll be talking about that later on in my speech.

I'm very proud of Burnaby volunteers who participated in the Olympic events. For example, 160 children from Marlborough Elementary School came out in pouring rain and sang a song at the torch event when we had that in Burnaby, just the day before the Olympics started.
[ Page 3361 ]

Although many enjoyed the Olympics, there are many who did not, especially in my area in Burnaby-Edmonds. Only a few benefit economically from the Olympics — corporations and those who could afford expensive tickets. As I mentioned earlier, many of these people who live there are really having a hard time to just make ends meet. They could not afford to go to the Olympics. They wanted to, but they could not do it.

Interjection.

R. Chouhan: Yeah, I know. I hoped the B.C. Liberal government had looked after the needs of all British Columbians, not the privileged few.

In the meantime, the majority of ordinary British Columbians — average, hard-working families — continue to struggle to make ends meet. The challenges that my constituents are facing because of the budget cutbacks, the hardships that they are experiencing…. We are very fortunate that we have many community organizations who are working hard to make sure that the needs of these people are taken care of.

One of them is the Burnaby Fire Fighters Charitable Society. They have been active for the last many years in the Burnaby area, providing food to all the children who go to school hungry. Five years ago, in Edmonds school, they found out that challenges facing the community and its children, hunger in particular, take place year-round. It's not only just summertime, springtime or winter, but year-round.

Many of these children from these families in Burnaby-Edmonds go to school hungry, so the Burnaby firefighters go out, raise funds, buy food and deliver it to the school so that children have some food in their stomach so they can focus on their studies.

That alone costs the Burnaby firefighters close to $15,000 a year. I urge all those who are listening, people in Burnaby, if they really can spare a dime, please contact the Burnaby Fire Fighters Charitable Society. They can be contacted at phone number 604-434-1717.

We have many other organizations like that that are working equally hard, that are just doing their best.

[1625]

The high immigrant population in Burnaby-Edmonds…. They're having a hard time to find work. Many of those people who come to Canada have wonderful backgrounds, like doctors, engineers, scientists. But when they come here, their credentials are not recognized, so they end up doing work which was not their field, but they're still working hard.

We have, also, people with mental health issues. The homelessness is quite high. It's increasing in Burnaby. We were hoping that this budget would provide some relief to those people, those families, who are hoping that they will get some kind of program, some funding, that will help to meet their needs. But in one word, I would say that this budget was very disappointing. There are no new ideas, no post-Olympics plan to get us out of this recession. It's a tired government. It's so obvious now. You know, they're just totally out of steam.

My colleague the member for Skeena spoke very eloquently about the education issues. I won't go into details, but I'll talk about just a few issues directly related to the Burnaby-Edmonds area.

Now, the Burnaby school board is struggling. They are facing a shortfall of up to $9 million this year. Despite being very efficient, they have been struggling to find money to make sure that some of the programs in schools continue.

We — I, my colleague from Burnaby–Deer Lake — met with the Minister of Education and hand-delivered a letter to her, inviting her to come to Burnaby to see the conditions in those schools and the kind of programs that we run there to help those students. So far, we haven't heard from the minister's office if they have accepted our invitation, if she would come to Burnaby. I hope she will do that soon.

You know, schools such as Edmonds Community School, Stride Avenue School, Twelfth Avenue Elementary School, Second Street School — all of them are not in a rich area. The parent advisory councils are working hard to raise funds to make sure that kids have certain resources, the essentials, to make sure they have their education.

But 17 schools in Burnaby have more than ten-year-old playgrounds. They will need to be replaced soon, but the parent advisory councils don't have that capacity to raise funds to replace them. They could cost anywhere from $70,000 to $100,000 for each school.

Government's decision not to fund the playground replacements is totally a wrong-headed, wrong decision. I hope they will revisit that and change that so that people, the young students in those schools, can have a safe playground.

Speaking of children, child poverty in Burnaby is the highest. You know, we have been talking here about child poverty in….

[H. Bloy in the chair.]

Welcome, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about Burnaby. Glad to see you in the chair.

Child poverty in British Columbia — we have raised this in the House, and we have talked about it — is the highest in the whole country. But if you talk about Burnaby-Edmonds, it's the highest not only in Burnaby but probably in all of British Columbia.

A few weeks ago I received letters from a grade 10 class — students from Byrne Creek Secondary School. They were participating on the Internet with the UN conference on child poverty. They sent me those letters asking what steps the government has taken or will be taking to reduce or eliminate child poverty.
[ Page 3362 ]

I called them back, and I said: "Instead of writing you letters, how about if we meet?" Myself and other students that I took with me from two other schools went and had a meeting. It was supposed to be about a 20-minute- or half-hour-long discussion with the students. I ended up staying there for over an hour.

[1630]

All those grade 10 students from Byrne Creek Secondary School were so concerned about the situation the students in Burnaby were facing. They know. They have realized that students who go to school are hungry. Their families don't have money to buy school supplies. It was very depressing and sad to talk with those students, but it was very encouraging that they were well informed. They were committed and passionate to do something about it.

Similarly, I'm going to another secondary school next week, talking about the same issue, because when students found out from different schools that we are doing it, they were very much interested to participate and have their say. Hopefully, their ideas will be listened to by the government and they will act upon them.

In Burnaby-Edmonds over 50 percent of the low-income, new immigrant families in Edmonds are not kindergarten-ready. What we have seen….

I'll talk about that more in a couple of minutes, but let me talk about the lack of funding for children with mental and physical disabilities. The example that I have used many times before is that one of my constituent's children has been diagnosed with a developmental coordination disability. She needs support in school or she will fall behind. But her condition is not considered extreme, so the parents have to pay for private therapy.

It's just so sad when you have those families and they are struggling. They have been trying to contact government agencies, the ministers' offices, and they're not getting anywhere. Then they have to go out and talk to their friends and relatives to raise money to pay for those therapies.

At the same time, cuts to home support have also hurt so many seniors. For example, I received a letter and a phone call from two of my constituents who are blind and who have no support with cleaning or grocery shopping. When you have a situation like that, it's important….

I hope one day the Minister of Health will also visit Burnaby-Edmonds so we can arrange a meeting for him to listen firsthand to those constituents who are really going through this hardship. I'll read this letter, which was sent to me by one of my constituents. It's addressed to me.

"I'm writing to you about my good friend Robert Ponto, who is a constituent of yours. Robert has been blind from the age of four. Up until last fall Robert had a homemaker who would come in at least once a week and clean his apartment for him. The Fraser Health Authority has told him that he no longer meets the criteria for having a homemaker.

"Robert is on a disability benefit and has to fork out the money to have a homemaker. This costs him roughly $120 per month. Robert is extremely fortunate that he is able to hire my wife to help him, as the commercial for-profit outfits charge extremely high rates.

"I have had the pleasure of knowing Robert for 24 years, as we both volunteer at the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities. He's our courier who does an excellent job.

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"Robert has a hard time asserting himself and he asked me to contact you. I have never seen any government act so cruelly as this one. They are treating Robert and many others who experience the same situation in Fraser Health without any respect and compassion."

That was just one letter from one of my constituents, who is really pleading to get some help from this government.

Then another blind senior called to say that she's no longer getting support with grocery shopping and banking. Because she lives alone and has no family, she's concerned that she will get sick and end up being a burden on the health system if she doesn't get the support to get her out of the house. Her quality of life will also deteriorate.

These are just two examples of people who are going through that hardship. I hope this government pays attention and provides some meaningful help to these individuals.

Then we saw last year an increase in the residential rates. I have received several phone calls about the fee increase that we saw in the September budget of $54 million imposed on seniors, charging more for residential care.

It does not fit British Columbians' definition of fair and equitable. How does it do that? Rather than revisiting a decision to impose the fee increase of $54 million on the frail elderly in residential care, the Health Minister sent seniors and their families, as we all remember, a misleading letter describing these dramatic fee increases as fair and reasonable. I don't know how anybody can call it fair and reasonable.

You know, the minister's letter that was mailed out to seniors and their families, in a bid to sell his fee increase plan, did not disclose to most seniors the real cost of the increase: its impact on their quality of life. It amounts to little more than misleading propaganda and an attempt to cover up how the government is targeting seniors with limited incomes for a massive revenue grab.

In the current budget, again, we see no relief for the elderly in residential care. This government says it is making things more equal by cutting health care and increasing costs for 75 percent of frail seniors with limited incomes. That's how they make it equal? I don't understand how they can justify that.

According to the Minister of Health, seniors whose before-tax income is $22,000 qualify as rich and can afford to pay $1,900 more per year in residential care. That's how they define being rich. An increase of close to 10 percent of gross income is hardly fair and reasonable.
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At the same time as the rate increases, seniors' access to health care is declining. Not only is residential care now more expensive; it is less available. The B.C. Liberals have limited long-term care to seniors with the most complex needs, have not built much-needed new spaces and are closing spaces, actually. Residential care beds are being closed in Fraser Health, the fastest-growing health region in B.C. The increased costs that we have seen in health care will reduce B.C. seniors' quality of life.

When you're talking about this increased cost, it also includes an 18 percent increase in MSP premiums over the next three years, so it's not just a one-time increase. It's going to be ongoing.

We will also see the closure of more residential care beds, cancellation of surgeries and MRIs. If that's not enough, then imposition of the HST will cost long-term care homes an estimated $40 million over the term of the government and will further reduce B.C.'s care standards, already the lowest in western Canada.

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We need more resources to deal with the mental health and addiction services. You know, it's very sad and discouraging to see…. If somebody has the time and opportunity to come and visit Burnaby and Burnaby-Edmonds near Highgate area, if you walk around there, you will see there are many people who are on the street suffering from mental health issues and addiction issues, and they need help.

Despite all the claims made by the B.C. Liberals about more money being spent on health care, the wait-list for surgeries of all kinds is growing longer and longer. Any patient who goes to an emergency department at any hospital will be lucky if they can be attended to before six hours, minimum. They have to wait.

The B.C. Liberals are busy making all kinds of statements that more money is being provided for the health care in B.C., but none of these statements can be justified. There are many examples of how, under the Liberal government, the public health care has suffered in B.C.

Let me cite a couple of examples from my constituency. We have a program called Burnaby Partners in Seniors Wellness. It's a very cost-effective, preventative program. It's a partnership between seniors, the city of Burnaby and Fraser Health. They're retired health professionals, such as doctors, nurses and massage therapists. They provide volunteer services.

The Fraser Health used to give them about $35,000 per year. Then it was cut to $30,000. Then they were told that that funding would be gone altogether. All of us — the four MLAs in Burnaby-Edmonds, including yourself, Mr. Speaker, and the member for Burnaby North — wrote letters to support that program, but they are still fighting to maintain that funding. All they're asking for is ongoing, sustainable funding of only $40,000 per year.

At the current funding level, the cost to the Fraser Health Authority of per-client services is $2.37. That has helped many of these seniors from ending up in hospital, because they were checked by professionals like these, so they could go see their doctor and get the help they needed before they go to a hospital. It's sad that the government is not paying attention to those kinds of preventative programs — very progressive programs in the community — and leaving the seniors in a very vulnerable situation.

Now, in another instance, the government has completely failed to understand the community's needs. They preferred to save a few dollars over the benefits of this program. What I'm talking about is the Chimo Achievement Centre. Recently I received a letter from Angela, whose mother, Claudette, is a resident of Liberty Place, a facility for adults with disabilities, in my constituency.

Claudette is a brain injury survivor who has been attending the Chimo Achievement Centre for 14 years. The centre's programs have been extremely beneficial and have improved her quality of life. The Fraser Health Authority has cancelled the funding for this very innovative centre. This decision will have a devastating impact upon the persons with disabilities who utilize this centre.

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This situation is yet another example of how our most vulnerable citizens are bearing the brunt of the measures that are being taken to deal with this government's fiscal challenges. I have written to the Minister of Health and also to the Fraser Health Authority to find ways to retain important facilities such as the Chimo Achievement Centre.

So far, no help has been received. I guess it's because the government has wrong priorities. They don't care. They're not concerned about people's needs, but they have no problem finding money to help their corporate friends. I guess the rest of British Columbians don't matter.

The increasing homeless population, as well as the housing challenges facing our immigrants and refugee families in Burnaby-Edmonds, is no secret. Everybody knows that people who are living in that area have applied to B.C. Housing for housing units. Larger families who come there — single mothers with four, five, six kids — are only living in one- or two-bedroom units, maximum, which is impossible to raise a family.

We have been writing letters to B.C. Housing almost every week, and the wait-list is so long. They have to wait for years. It's not a wait-list at all. I don't know when this government will wake up and start paying attention to those individuals who really are desperate. You know, they're just suffering.

I'll give you one example. In a situation like that, one of my constituents, she came and saw me. We met with
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her. She is a single mother with six children. A teenage daughter and four other boys are sleeping in the same room. The daughter has no privacy at all. Twice she's tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrist. Yet there's no help. That's the kind of desperate situation that we have in Burnaby-Edmonds.

The families who make a modest income, who have been recently evicted and can't find or afford current market rental rates…. They apply for B.C. Housing. As I mentioned, there's no help coming from B.C. Housing either. They are waiting for over five years. Still no help.

D. Hayer: You know, the last few weeks in February were one of the greatest times in British Columbia and Canada when the whole world was here. When I saw the people — over 250,000 visitors were visiting here from all parts of the world — they were so excited. There were over 3.5 billion people who watched it on television — the Olympic Games here, the Vancouver Olympic Games.

They were so happy, the ones who visited here, that when they saw it, they said: "British Columbia is the best place to work, to do business in, to move here. The beauty and the scenery and the people are great." I think the Olympics are going to be tremendous for us. It's going to long term give us a lot of boosts in economic growth. It's going to create a lot of investments here. It's going to create a lot of jobs here.

When people saw what British Columbia is like, when they compared it to other parts of the world with the economy and the recession going around, they said that this is one of the best places where people are doing really well compared to other parts of the world, considering what the world has gone through — the financial crisis, one of the worst ones probably in the last 50, 60 years.

When we look at it, members of the opposition probably have a different vision of the Olympics. When I saw it, I talked to thousands of people there, many other business people looking forward to investing here, looking forward to moving here, people looking forward to making sure they can work here and get their credentials recognized, because the government had made a lot of changes. They'd be able to work in all types of jobs.

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As our population ages, there are going to be a lot of jobs available, opening up, and they'll be able to succeed with them and the growth we will have because of the strong economy. They will come and invest or move in here or work in a different profession or just retire here or just immigrate here to raise their family because they think this is one of the best places in the world to be.

After all the 2010 Winter Olympic excitement of the last few weeks is over, now it comes to sobering reality, as we heard in last Tuesday's budget from our Finance Minister the reality of British Columbia's economic climate. It is, however, important to know that our government has a plan and a budget that will drive our economy back to number one in Canada again, if not in the world.

The worldwide economic downturn is not over. Our revenues are still down. Our growth is coming, but it's not there yet. The Finance Minister made it clear that we can recover from our economic challenges, and the budget he presented clearly defines a path we must take and the benchmarks that we will continue for all British Columbians despite the decline in provincial revenues.

We all heard him say in a very detailed plan in the budget that all the revenues from the HST will be used to support our health care system. That is good news for everyone. In fact, another $2 billion has been committed in supporting health care throughout the province, which means that almost half of our provincial budget will be spent on providing health care to our residents, a total of almost $52 billion over the next three years. That's a lot of money.

This budget also contains some very good health care news for Surrey, with a $6.2 billion capital spending program in health care. Some $600 million will go toward the critical care tower and expansion at the Surrey Memorial Hospital, which is included in the budget. The construction is on its way. We are now building a fantastic addition to the Surrey Memorial Hospital, the Surrey Memorial Hospital critical care tower.

Sometimes the opposition don't want to hear that, but let me tell you…. The largest expenditure in the history of Fraser Health, the largest expenditure in the history of Surrey, over half a billion dollars, will be spent to build this new critical care tower at the Surrey Memorial Hospital. This project alone will create over its construction phase thousands of direct and indirect jobs.

This new tower at the Surrey Memorial Hospital will add 151 in-patient beds and will expand many services, including 48 neonatal intensive care beds, specialized mental health units and geriatric units. The new tower is projected to cost approximately $600 million and will include a new emergency department.

That emergency department will be five times larger than the existing emergency department at the Surrey Memorial Hospital. It will include a separate children's emergency department and enhanced minor treatment units, specialized units for mental health and a maternity department that will have 13 new birthing beds, private rooms for the moms and their family and, in addition, academic space for new doctors and health care professionals in partnership with UBC medical school, SFU and Fraser Health. The new tower will also have a new helicopter pad.

This is just one more investment we are making in our health care throughout Surrey. In addition, it will create more than 3,760 jobs. That is prudent.

All this comes on the heels of 73 in-patient beds that we opened at Surrey Memorial Hospital in August
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of 2008, as well as a $10 million expansion of Surrey Memorial Hospital's kidney dialysis unit, increasing that section from 18 to 30.

This is all part of a $30 million upgrade initiative at Surrey Memorial that began in 2005 to build capacity, expand services and ease congestion at the Surrey Memorial Hospital. These additional beds represent a 26 percent increase in in-patient beds in Surrey. That is 491 of them since Fraser Health was created by our government.

For cancer services, this government has spent $12.5 million on renovation to the B.C. Cancer centre in Surrey, vastly improving services to the cancer patients in our community.

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The $239 million tower, the $239 million construction project of the Surrey outpatient hospital will be completed next year. That tower already has three floors completed in place on Fraser Highway and 140th Street. This tremendous new facility will be 188,000 square feet, worth $239 million and is creating 1,500 construction jobs. This new hospital will feature expanded day surgeries and diagnostic services, including four operating rooms and ten procedure rooms.

It will also include primary care for seniors, for people living with chronic diseases or HIV/AIDS. This facility will decrease waiting lists, it will make day surgeries more accessible, and it will greatly ease patient load on Surrey Memorial Hospital.

Let's be clear. Budget 2010 maintains the government's priority to protect core services in health. As I mentioned, we are committing every dollar raised through the HST, harmonized sales tax, along with four other revenue streams to be used for health care funding when the HST comes into effect on July 1, 2010.

British Columbia needs to understand that we need to implement HST to protect jobs and investment in our province. If we do not implement it, a great many jobs and considerable investment will be lost to the province of Ontario, because the HST creates a great stimulus for business, which means more jobs, more family security and a strong economy.

We don't want to see jobs going to Ontario, investment going to Ontario. We want to make sure British Columbia prospers so that people have jobs here and the jobs that are here are kept here and the new jobs come in through new investment.

A recent report from respected economist and tax expert Jack Mintz confirmed the HST and corporate tax cuts will increase capital investment in B.C. by $14.4 billion, resulting in a net increase of 141,000 new jobs in British Columbia by the end of the decade. He also stated that this will make British Columbia's tax system the most competitive in the western world. That means we will have more jobs. That means we will have more investment. That will be good for all British Columbians.

By lowering the tax on investment, the HST will encourage new capital investment, make B.C.'s economy more tax competitive and create new jobs and opportunities across British Columbia. With the economy around the world crashing, we do need to have more jobs in British Columbia.

The report further confirms that while some businesses may not benefit directly from the sales tax reform, the significant increase in business activity resulting from the sales tax reform will help all sectors in the economy. So HST will help all businesses directly or indirectly. That will mean it will keep jobs that are existing here and create more jobs.

British Columbia needs to keep investment in our province, needs to retain and save jobs to keep our economy growing. Our government will continue to fight to keep jobs in B.C., and HST will help keep jobs in British Columbia.

Budget 2010 provides new funding for health care of over $447 million. That is a total increase of $2 billion since the budget of 2009-2010. This represents the largest share for all the funding pieces approved in Budget 2010. Health care funding increases are focused on sustaining front-line services delivery, including $1.3 billion for the regional health sector to fund acute care, community assisted living and other health services.

Our government is also fulfilling its commitment to education at all levels, from kindergarten to post-secondary. We will provide parents with the option of full-day kindergarten for five-year-olds, and we're providing a $54 million commitment for that in this budget, so that is fully funded. The program is being phased in starting this September 2010.

It is fully funded through the Ministry of Education, and it will become fully operational with annual funding that will rise to $129 million by 2012. Every school will have this program available to them for five-year-olds for the full-day kindergarten program.

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We're also looking in the long term to see if three-year- and four-year-olds can attend preschool. As I was visiting India and England in the last little while, in January, I saw that they are already doing that there. I think our government is starting to show leadership in Canada to see if three-year- and four-year-olds can also attend preschool.

The 2010 budget provides an additional $150 million over the three years to fully fund teachers' wages and benefits and offset other cost pressures. We have not put education funding on freeze, as was done in the 1990s. We actually keep on committing more money into education.

We are also providing $110 million to school districts between now and March 2011 for the annual facilities grants. Per-pupil funding will increase to $8,301 this year, the highest ever in British Columbia's history. This
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is nearly $2,000 more than 2000-2001, an increase of 34 percent since we were first elected.

The education budget is now a record high — that is, $5.165 billion. Funding to the school districts has increased by more than $1.3 billion since the 2001 election. We are committed to our children's education, and we are putting more funding into education and to health care and social programs.

This is further demonstrated through the 87 percent increase we're making rebate for the provincial portion of the HST to eligible school boards. That means that, on average, schools will pay no more tax when the HST is implemented on July 1, 2010, so it will not cost them any extra money with HST. We are also reimbursing boards of education, school boards for the cost of carbon tax.

In Surrey since 2001 our government has invested over $200 million for 39 school capital and seismic projects. We will continue to build new schools and renovate schools, and we will continue to provide more funding for education in Surrey.

For post-secondary education, Surrey students have seen a vast amount of government investment. At Kwantlen Polytechnic University $102 million has been invested since 2001, and the student spaces increased by 13 percent over the past six years, to 9,077. Some of that investment at Kwantlen University includes more than $25 million for building expansion at the Newton campus and other campuses, and also $40 million for the world-class trade and technology centre we built in Cloverdale.

For the fabulous Surrey centre for Simon Fraser University, our government provided $70 million for the acquisition and space for the Central City campus of SFU. An additional $5.3 million for the expansion of the SFU Podium space was just announced recently.

This budget also details the many benefits for families over the coming year and over the next three years. Significant among these benefits, of course — and what we've said since we first were elected in 2001 — are the tax breaks we have given. That is, we have increased more money in people's pockets by cutting taxes.

Since 2001 there is another tax break we gave in this budget in there. That tax break will provide people, the taxpayers, with another $80 in their pocket. For the taxpayers claiming a spouse or equivalent to spouse, up to $160,000 — thanks to this budget — as the income tax drops due to the personal exemption being increased from $1,627 to $11,000. That is good news, because $80 every year might not sound like much to some people, but it is still a significant amount of money for many people. Every little bit helps.

On top of all that, we have already done a lot in income tax cuts since we were first elected in 2001. As a result, individual persons earning less than $118,000 in British Columbia will pay the lowest provincial income taxes in Canada.

For a majority of taxpayers, provincial income taxes have been reduced by at least 37 percent since 2001. Because of our tax reductions, an additional 325,000 British Columbians will no longer pay any B.C. income tax at all. That means anybody earning less than approximately $19,000 per year will pay no provincial income tax at all.

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There's also other great news. There has been a general corporate income tax reduction by our government. That's starting from 16.5 percent to…. It was brought from 16.5 percent to 13.5 percent, effective January 1, 2002; 13.5 percent to 12 percent, effective July 1, 2005; from 12 percent to 11 percent, effective July 1, 2008; to 10.5 percent, effective January 1, 2010; and to 10 percent, effective January 1, 2011. That means a corporate income tax reduction of more than 39 percent since 2001, when we were elected.

As well, small business has also seen great benefit from this government's actions on the tax front. The small business corporate income tax rate was reduced from 4.5 percent to 3.5 percent, effective July 1, 2008, and down to 2.5 percent, effective December 1, 2008. It will be zero by April 1, 2012. That means more investment, more jobs and a strong economy.

To bring home those points, since 2001 small businesses in British Columbia have created 172,000 new jobs, almost 11,000 new jobs in 2000 alone. Small business accounts for 34 percent of B.C.'s GDP, the highest of all provinces in Canada.

We are also making life better in B.C. for families, with more jobs, more affordable housing, more support for children, and stronger and more vibrant, more livable communities in British Columbia. We have invested in and developed an unprecedented amount of money and supports for seniors in Surrey and throughout British Columbia. We have also provided an unprecedented number of social housing units since first elected. In fact, this government's budget for housing this year is $562 million. That is four times more than it was in 2001, before we were elected.

We also have the seniors rental housing initiative, which is part of the Canada-B.C. affordable housing initiative agreement that provides $123 million in new funding, shared jointly by the province of British Columbia and the government of Canada. This funding will be delivered through an amendment to the agreement signed on April 8, 2009. We are matching the federal government's contribution of $61.79 million to develop up to 1,000 new affordable housing units in B.C. for seniors and persons with disabilities, and creating close to 800 new jobs.

We have expanded the rental-assistance SAFER program for seniors and families and provided new facilities for alcohol, drug and addiction services. During the past few years we have purchased many hotels and other fa-
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cilities, renovated them and developed hundreds of new, safe homes for the homeless. This is all great news for the people on low income and the people who are homeless. We're providing more new facilities for them, with more spaces available so that they can be looked after.

The homeless in Surrey are now part of the Olympic legacy, as they will benefit from an understanding between our province and VANOC to provide up to 52 new units of affordable housing for people who are either homeless or at risk of being homeless. The Surrey project of 52 units is currently at tender. The bids are due back in the next few weeks. It is destined for a site which is owned by the city of Surrey, and the zoning for this exceptional project is already in place.

Surrey's project is also part of a 156-unit program of new supportive housing in six communities across the province of British Columbia. This is part of the Olympic legacy affordable housing program, and the proposal is to configure 325 temporary modular housing units from the Olympic and Paralympic village in Whistler to create 156 affordable supported-housing units, each with kitchen and bathroom. As a supportive housing, the building will include amenity space for on-site support services.

This budget is also designed with new investment by our government to help young people excel in sports and to increase participation by all British Columbians in the arts and sports. We are allocating $60 million over three years for the 2010 sports and arts legacy. Half of the money will be used to enhance opportunities among all British Columbians in the arts — such as visual art, music, theatre and dance — and $30 million will be used to increase participation in youth sports, including approved athlete and coach development.

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This budget also benefits families, particularly young ones just starting out, with a new property tax deferral program for homeowners with children under the age of 18. Eligible homeowners will have the option of deferring their provincial and local property taxes in recognition of the high costs of raising a family. This program will come into effect this year for the 2010 property tax year.

An additional $26 million in funding over three years has been set aside to support a child care program to assist low- and moderate-income families with the cost of child care through direct assistance to families for the child care.

The economy, however, is a driver of all that government provides, of all that government does to make life better for our citizens, our businesses and our future, so we must have a strong economy to achieve all these goals. Without a strong economy, a vibrant and powerful economy, and without strong exports, revenues just do not materialize to the degree to which government needs to support the many services that we all have come to expect.

To that end of making investment in our province more attractive, our government has decided to adopt and introduce HST, the harmonized sales tax, which will take effect on July 1, 2010, as I stated earlier. People should be aware that at 12 percent HST, it will be the lowest in Canada. They should also be aware that the HST is widely regarded as the single most important step the government can take to strengthen our economy, to protect jobs and to protect investments in B.C.

HST will lower tax on new investment by 40 percent. It will remove $2 billion in costs that are hampering growth in small business, in forestry, construction, mining, transportation, manufacturing, and oil and gas. The new HST exempts business imports by reducing costs, and having the tax reduction allows the business to invest more money.

This is great news that will create more jobs, and that means more British Columbians will be working. This improves incentives for investments and leaves a business with more money to reinvest to create more jobs. More jobs are what British Columbians are looking for as the economy around the world has crashed in the last two years. In short, the HST will help to create jobs and new opportunities in every region of the province, giving new opportunities in our resource industries as well.

Another interesting fact bolstering the implementation of HST in B.C. is that when the Atlantic provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland implemented HST in 1997, they created an increase in capital investment by business, and the consumer prices fell by more than 1 percent in the first year alone.

Those drops continued, and it was due to the HST. Atlantic Canada, which previously used to be called the have-not provinces, had fallen behind other provinces in terms of investment per dollar of economic activity. It only took a few years after HST for them to catch up to the rest of the provinces in Canada.

Eliminating embedded PST reduces costs to business, and the savings that are created by the HST will allow businesses to reinvest in their own operations, hire more employees and pay more wages to the employees they have.

Government is also creating a secure future for families while undertaking hundreds of accelerated infrastructure projects that are now underway across British Columbia. In fact, $5.3 billion has been committed to over 850 accelerated capital projects to generate and protect approximately 34,000 construction jobs over the lifetime of those projects.

On top of those, of course, are all the projects that are currently underway in my riding of Surrey-Tynehead, including the widening of a freeway by two more lanes each way on the Trans-Canada freeway from Vancouver all the way to Langley.

Of course, there is the new ten-lane Port Mann bridge, which is under construction right now. That will serve
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the residents of Surrey, all British Columbians and, as a matter of fact, all Canadians for decades to come, which is great news for British Columbians, especially in Surrey. They love the bridge. Even though the opposition was against the bridge in the beginning, now I think they're supporting it.

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This new bridge will not only improve the air quality for Surrey residents; it will get business moving faster. It will get the people going to their work and their jobs and back home and to their families much quicker and sooner. This new Port Mann bridge will also have a dedicated transit lane and bicycle lanes, and it is being built with a future capacity for a large mass transit system.

We are also seeing in Surrey an accelerated capital program to get the South Fraser perimeter road underway to link the Surrey-Tynehead area of the Trans-Canada Highway and 176th Street interchange and link it to the Golden Ears Bridge. This is the South Fraser perimeter road that was requested by Surrey for a long time. Business supported it, but it took a long time to come. But it's under construction now. It's a billion-dollar project.

This will not only move commercial traffic seamlessly from Deltaport to the main east-west connector freeway; it will provide direct links to the rest of British Columbia, the rest of Canada, to the United States — as a matter of fact, to the rest of North America, which is consuming the goods that come to us from our Asia-Pacific trading partners.

Surrey residents are already seeing the benefits of the government's foresight about the four-laning of the Fraser Highway, four-laning of 176th Street, the Pacific Highway from the U.S. border to Highway 1, the four-laning of Highway 10, which will provide rapid access to British Columbia's excellent ferry program.

We will be expanding the SkyTrain to Guildford all the way to Fraser Highway and 168th Street and to other parts of Surrey and Langley, and we plan to add even more buses to get people out of their cars and onto the transit system. This will make life much easier for families, for students, for individuals, for shoppers and, as a matter of fact, for all the commuters.

We have built the new award-winning underpass on Highway 1 and 156th Street, which will give better access to Fraser Heights residents and the rest of Surrey.

We also are building an overpass that will connect over Highway 1 to Tynehead Regional Park. Tynehead Regional Park is one of the largest parks in Surrey, in British Columbia. It's a little smaller than Stanley Park, which is considered to be one of the largest urban parks in the world, if I understand properly. This overpass at 168th will connect the Fraser Heights area to Guildford as well as the Port Kells area and Fleetwood area. This is good news for everybody.

As I said, all these projects, in addition to the other projects I said, will improve the quality of life, and it will be better for the health system by reducing the emissions we put in the air.

I support this budget fully. This is a good project. As my other colleagues talk about this budget, they will detail how more than $100 million is being spent for the climate action and the clean energy initiative. They will also talk about how we are putting $35 million in the successful LiveSmart program, which was a very popular efficiency incentive program. They will also talk about all the other things that we're putting in.

I support this budget. I support our Premier. I support our Minister of Finance. I think this is good for British Columbia, and this is good for all residents of Surrey and all British Columbians.

M. Farnworth: The member, I see, from Prince George asked me not to be a spoilsport, and I won't be a spoilsport. I know the member for Surrey-Tynehead went on a little bit into the red light because I know he was really trying to get me to vote in favour of the budget.

I came in here specifically.… [Applause.]

I see applause down at the far end. I came in here with an open mind, prepared to hear the arguments of the government, because I am not one of those who believes that governments and opposition have a monopoly on what's right and what's wrong. I believe that there's merit in listening to all sides of the debate and then making up one's mind and voting accordingly.

I came in here, as my colleague from Vancouver-Kingsway says, exactly…. That's what the constituents of Port Coquitlam sent me here to do — to stand up and speak for them, but to consider the arguments put forward by the other side and to weigh the relative merits of those arguments and the debate and then to vote accordingly.

[1720]

So I listened intently to the member for Surrey-Tynehead, as I have listened to other members of this House, and I note with some interest how…. Clearly, parts of his speech, he felt, needed to be emphasized enough to me that he was willing to repeat them twice and go through the argument twice.

The one that comes to mind right away is the argument around the HST — how important the HST is and how thoroughly and totally committed to implementing the HST he is to the province of British Columbia, even though 88 percent of the people of this province have said they don't like the HST. I would expect that includes the overwhelming majority of his constituents.

I do take the point that he spent considerable time on it — not once, but twice — to make sure that I understood why he supports the HST and also why his government supports the HST. The problem, and this is where I'm wrestling with it, is that I'm being asked to take the logic and the rationale of the government on the HST as opposed to the common sense and the ex-
[ Page 3369 ]
perience of everyday British Columbians, such as those whom I represent in my constituency and those whom I know the member for Surrey-Tynehead represents in his neck of the woods and that other members of this assembly represent.

So I have to balance what the government says in this budget about the HST with what the reality is for my constituents, what they're seeing on the ground and what they're saying to me. You know, one thing that would make this, I think, easier for many people is if there had been some consistency on the side of the governments. Unfortunately, I haven't seen that consistency in the argument for supporting the HST.

I think what I want to do is to step back a number of months to when this idea first floated, at a time when the economy was going into the tank, despite this being a government that says: "We know how to manage the economy. We can manage things. Don't worry about this global economic meltdown." As the former Minister of Revenue, the current Minister of Tourism said: "The ship of state of British Columbia is riding the waves of this global economic downturn quite smoothly."

Well, it's been anything but. Shortly after those comments were made, the Premier, as we all know, took to the airwaves to assure British Columbia that he and his government had things well in hand. As we all know, he gave us, one evening, the ten-point plan. In that ten-point plan were all those things that he said were needed to get the economy of British Columbia on track to survive the global turmoil.

What were some of those points? Well, let's freeze assessments. Hmm. All that did was create confusion for people. It didn't have much of an impact on the economy. Oh, and the other thing that we need to do to stabilize and make sure that British Columbia weathers the economic storm is we'll have a two-month reduction in ferry fares.

A. Dix: He's a deep thinker.

M. Farnworth: Well, "a deep thinker," my colleague from Vancouver-Kingsway says. Absolutely. In fact, he was thinking so deeply that he forgot four points. Literally a few days after he'd come down from the mountain with the ten points he added an additional four points, so we have a 14-point plan of how we are going to cope with the economic crisis facing us.

Nowhere in either the original, first ten-point plan or the subsequently amended 14-point plan with the four additional points was there any mention of a harmonized sales tax. In fact, previous Finance Ministers, who presided over an era of prosperity due to a resource boom in this province, said: "Oh, we would never bring in an HST. That's not on our agenda. That's not on our books."

[1725]

So the initial message from this government: there is no HST. Then the government presented a budget last February in the run-up to an election, and again there was no mention of an HST there. In fact, we got some pretty definitive budget numbers — $495 million, not a penny more. Not one penny more.

It's really puzzling. It is puzzling that in all the comments that I've heard from the speeches I've heard from the other side, not one talks about that. Not one likes to remind people about that definitive number heading into the election — not a single one. Nor do they want to mention that during the election campaign they said they wouldn't bring in an HST, that that wasn't something that they were going to do. They don't want to talk about that either. I find that puzzling, really puzzling.

I wonder: was it something that they didn't…? As my colleague says, the Premier is a deep thinker. Was it something that they just didn't want to tell the public in the run-up to the election — in the same way that $495 million was an unrealistic figure: "We really do want to bring in an HST. That's something we want to do"?

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Anyway, as you know — and nice to see you in the chair, Madam Speaker — after the election, all of a sudden we get a new economic plan and a new economic update. And what do we see in this economic update but vastly inflated deficit numbers — from $495 million to $2-point-whatever billion in the space of a few months. Of course, people ask questions that…. "Well, you know, things happen so fast that we can't…. We just don't have any control over things." This from a government who spent eight years saying: "We control. We manage the economy. The things that we're doing ought to keep things going straight."

It's nice to see my colleague the member for Kamloops–North Thompson here. I always enjoy his presence during these debates, and his contributions. I know I've got to respond to some comments that he made during his budget speech. But the point of the matter is, and I'll come back to where we are, which is….

We are after the election. There's a new budget, and all of a sudden we find out that the provincial finances have changed significantly. Now we have to do an HST. We have to bring in an HST because that's the best thing that we can do for the economy of British Columbia, even though it wasn't there, like, three months before.

It was: "We will never bring one in." It was "We won't bring one in" during the election campaign. As I like to remind the member from Kamloops, when the ten- and then the 14-point plan came down from the Premier, it wasn't mentioned anywhere in that either.

But they now say that the last budget after the election…. "Well, we need the HST." Why do we need the HST? Because it's about the economy.
[ Page 3370 ]

Hon. K. Krueger: The world changed.

M. Farnworth: The member for Kamloops says the world changed. Well, you know what? It changed for thousands of British Columbians in this province who believed that they had voted for a party that said they wouldn't bring in an HST, and instead they found out they'd voted for a party that is going to bring in an HST. That's how the world changed in this province. That's how the world changed.

Interjections.

M. Farnworth: I heard the word "deceit." That, in many ways, characterizes the decade under this government. It has been a decade of deceit when it comes to the budgets that have been hoisted, foisted on the people of this province.

[1730]

I mean, we could go back and review the children's budget that was anything but, the green budget that was anything but, the seniors budget that was anything but, but those are in the past, and I am here to focus on the present and the future.

As I said, they introduced the HST, and they said that that was about the economy. Well, did they talk to…? Did they do any studies prior to this? Not a single one. Not one study was done. There wasn't a single study done in the Ministry of Tourism on the impact of the HST on one of the biggest industries in our province — not one single study. No analysis, no studies — nothing. In fact, you had the Minister of Small Business say: "Oh no, we wouldn't bring in an HST without consultation." Well, no sooner than he said that, like four or five days later, up comes the HST. So much for any commitment to consultation.

We've got the member for Surrey-Tynehead trying to convince me on why I should vote for this budget, why the HST is good. Yet we have a government who brings it in, and when you ask questions like: okay, what…? You know, show us the analysis you've done. Show us how it impacts, for example, on the tourism sector, on the restaurant sector. Not only is there no analysis; they just kind of gloss over that. They just gloss over that when you want to talk about it. These were some of their best friends before the election. Talk about a lover spurned.

Anyway, after the budget — which at that time, I think, had been dubbed the worst budget in 140 years — we now come to this budget, which is the worst budget since the last budget and possibly the worst budget since the decimalization budget of 1865, but definitely the worst budget since the last one. It will impose…. The government is bent — I'm watching my language — on introducing the HST, even though they know that over 88 percent of the public of British Columbia is opposed to it.

Interestingly enough, as a sidebar, because they always point to Ontario…. I know the minister from Kamloops has made comments, and I know the member for Surrey-Tynehead, in particular, made some comments about Ontario. It's fascinating to note that the wife of the federal Finance Minister is opposed to the HST as well. Imagine that. The wife of the federal Finance Minister is opposed to the HST.

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: Well, you know…. I see the member for Langley making a comment. Member, had you been listening, I just said it's an interesting sidebar — that's all — in the HST debate.

This government is bent on introducing a tax which the overwhelming majority of the people of this province are opposed to, a tax that they said they would not do, prior to the last election, a tax for which they could not provide any analysis, once they said they were going to do it, on how it would impact on individual ministries and individual sectors of the economy.

An Hon. Member: No mandate.

M. Farnworth: And as my colleague says, no mandate.

Finally, they trot out a study that says it will create 113,000 jobs. Not, as has been pointed out in the media, 115,000, not 112,000, but 113,000 very precisely. The Finance Minister stood in this House and trumpeted that, and then the next day we're told: "Oh, it's only an estimate."

[1735]

They don't even have the courage of their convictions to stand by the report they paid for one day, and then the next day, "Oh, it's an estimate," after standing up in this House and saying: "Well, no, it will be 113,000." And they don't even have the courage of their convictions of saying, "Oh, this is about the economy," when on the day of the budget….

"Courage of convictions," hon. Member, is parliamentary language to avoid…. There are other terms I could use, but some people might object. They don't have the courage of their convictions to even stick by that argument.

When the budget was tabled in this House, it was about: "Well, no, it's about health care. We're doing HST for health care." Where did that come from? I mean, first, we're not going to do it. Then we're going to do it for the economy, but then it's like: "Oh no, that's not why we're doing it. Now we're doing it because it's for health care." Even though, with the calculations that have been done…. And they say: "Oh, it'll be roughly equal, and that is what will actually bring in less revenue." How on earth is that going to bring increased funding to health care? It's not.
[ Page 3371 ]

What it will do is transfer $1.9 billion onto the backs of consumers — onto the backs of my constituents, onto the backs of the constituents of the member for Surrey-Tynehead, onto the backs of the constituents of the member from Kamloops, onto the backs of the constituents of the member for Langley, onto the backs of the constituents from Surrey–Green Timbers. The people of British Columbia are the ones who are going to be paying. That's what's taking place. The public understands that, and they're not buying what this government is trying to sell.

So it's with great reluctance that I have to tell my colleague from Surrey-Tynehead that, unfortunately, that's a really big strike against me supporting this budget. He had me on a couple of points, but when I started to dig deeper, I suddenly realized, you know, this ain't working and that I'm going to be…. It doesn't look good for me supporting this budget.

Hon. B. Lekstrom: There's still a chance.

M. Farnworth: My colleague the Minister of Energy says that there's still a chance. That's why I needed to look at some other parts of this budget.

There's an issue that's near and dear to the people of Port Coquitlam — two issues, actually. I'd like to explore them both a bit because, again, they weigh pretty heavily on this budget and how it impacts them.

One is rapid transit — the Evergreen line. It's a sad thing. We're one of the fastest-growing areas of British Columbia and scheduled and expecting to take the bulk of the population growth, along with Surrey and Langley, over the next two decades of growth in the Lower Mainland. Yet the area that is supposed to have been the highest priority for transit keeps getting subverted by this government.

I look back, and I think about my time in government.

An Hon. Member: That would be the dismal decade.

M. Farnworth: Thank you, hon. Member. I'd like to take this opportunity to answer the hon. member's comments and thank him for the opening, an opportunity to remind him of some of the wonderful projects that took place during that time.

An Hon. Member: It won't take long.

M. Farnworth: Unfortunately, hon. Member, as a matter of fact, I think it's time to prove you wrong. I note I have a fair amount of time left.

[1740]

Before we get to talking about rapid transit, I'd like to pick up on some comments the member for Langley made earlier on. She listed off a number of schools, as did the member for Surrey-Cloverdale the other day, who was going on about 16 schools that have been built in Surrey.

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: I'd also like to take this opportunity to remind that particular member, because he's such a stickler for rules, that if he wants to heckle, he really should do it from his own seat. But that member is a stickler for the rules.

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: And the member from Prince George is heckling from his seat, and I think that's just grand.

Anyway, just to remind the members opposite, the Minister of Health was bragging about how the government has built 16 schools in Surrey. Then the member for Langley was listing off a number of schools that had been built in her riding, and she said she couldn't imagine that having taken place in the '90s under the NDP.

I'd like to take this opportunity just to set the record straight. Do you know, hon. Speaker, that from 1992 to 2001, in one riding alone — not a school district, but in one riding alone — there were more than 21 schools built?

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: The member says: "Whose riding was that?" Well, I'm happy to tell that member that it was the riding of Port Coquitlam. Why was that? Well, because when I got elected in 1991, there were 52,000 people in my riding. Come 1996, five years later, there were 85,000 people. That's how much growth had taken place during that time. That's how much things were happening during that time. We built 21 schools in one riding alone.

Here we have today the Minister of Health saying: "Oh, we built 16 schools in Surrey." That shows you just how this government has fallen down on capital construction when it comes to schools, and it shows in this budget.

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: And as my colleague from Vancouver-Kingsway says, it shows what a good MLA will do too, and I don't mind standing up and saying that.

Interjections.

M. Farnworth: Well, I can start with Kwayhquitlum Middle School, Eagle Ridge, Terry Fox Secondary, Douglas College, and the list goes on and on.
[ Page 3372 ]

I want to talk about the particular issue that got us started on this conversation, and that was the issue of transit and transportation.

Interjections.

M. Farnworth: I seem to have touched a nerve. The truth hurts.

I guess just like the one that if they compare 2001 to 2009, they'll see that economic growth year over year, our GDP, has been less under their term than it was in the '90s. I guess they don't want to hear about that.

The part of the budget I was referring to…. I love it when they get riled up, because it means that they're paying attention, even if they don't like the truth.

So we come to the issue of, as I said, transit and how important that was and how it was this government that subverted what was the number one priority that TransLink and the Lower Mainland have been agreeing to, which was to bring rapid transit out to the Tri-Cities. That was subverted so that it could go to Richmond, which was not the number one choice.

Now, I know that you, hon. Speaker, are quite happy with it being in Richmond, and I don't begrudge you that one bit. But the people out my way don't understand for one minute this government's reluctance to follow in what is the number one transit priority in the Lower Mainland, and that is to bring the Evergreen line out to the Tri-Cities.

They've been in power for nine years and have failed miserably. They said in the budget that they are going to move aggressively on the Evergreen line.

[1745]

They've had nine years to do that, and what have we got to show for it? Announcements after announcements, but still no track in the ground — still no cement being poured, absolutely nothing other than a very fancy-looking shack with a tin roof saying: "Oh, the Evergreen line is coming."

I get constituents all the time who go: "What is that thing for?" Well, their view is that other than to boost the government during the election campaign, nothing. Because there's still no resolution to how TransLink is going to operate the Evergreen line. There's still no firm commitment how to make up the funding shortfall in terms of the capital. The province has said they have committed X number of dollars, the feds have said they'd put capital money on the table, but TransLink is still having problems where it's going to come up with the operating funds. Yet this government says it's moving aggressively.

Well, if that's their idea of aggressive, I'm sure glad they weren't on the Olympic hockey team, because we sure as heck wouldn't have won a medal, let alone even got into the medal round. The inaction of this government has been absolutely astounding when it comes to bringing the Evergreen line out to the Tri-Cities other than to do photo op after photo op after photo op and say it's coming.

Well, it's still not there. There's still nothing in the ground, and people are looking at this as just another broken promise.

Contrast that with one of the most successful transit projects that was done. I remember, because I was there at the time, both at council and then when we were governments. I know my colleague from Vancouver-Kingsway was very supportive and involved in it. That was the West Coast Express.

An Hon. Member: They were against it.

M. Farnworth: Exactly. They were against it. I know the member for Abbotsford-Mission sees the wisdom.

An Hon. Member: He's busy.

M. Farnworth: The member says he's busy. He is busy. He's busy reflecting on just how visionary it was that that government actually moved forward on the West Coast Express and brought it to fruition.

Over the objections of his party, we brought in the West Coast Express. And you know, it has been a roaring success since day one — a roaring success since day one. It's facilitated growth, it's facilitated the movement of people, and it's provided a service that people use. It's good for the environment, and it is a legacy that will work well into the future.

We saw it work during the Olympics. Were people able to take the Evergreen line to the Olympics? No. Could people going to the Olympics see work on the Evergreen line? No. Could people going to the Olympics have some assurance that the next time we may bid on the Olympics in 40 years that the Evergreen line will be there? No, hon. Speaker, and that's why I'm voting against the budget.

Hon. B. Bennett: I don't think I'm going to try and convince the member for Port Coquitlam to support this budget. I just have an intuition. Something is telling me just in the pit of my stomach that he can't be convinced. I'm going to speak to the budget, and perhaps I'll be a little more serious than the member for Port Coquitlam. I'll use notes, because he's better at this than I am.

This is an important budget. It's a serious budget. The world is coming out of a global recession, and it's obvious, as we come out of it, that we're not going to find the same circumstances that we had when we went into it. We're not going back to the status quo.

With the growth of Asian economies and the major changes to the economy in the U.S., the world that we're going into now as we come out of this recession is going
[ Page 3373 ]
to be a much more competitive place to do business in than it was before.

[1750]

We're going to have to, in this province, embrace global trade. I've heard members on the other side talk about globalism and how it's a bad thing. Our only chance of having a high standard of living in this province and a strong economy is actually to embrace global trade.

We're also going to have to continue to force the opening of provincial economies. One of the ironies of this country is, of course, that we have more trade barriers between provinces than we do with other countries. Like other jurisdictions, we've got our work cut out for us.

Every year in this place, around this time, we all stand up here, as we are this afternoon, and we debate whether or not the just-announced budget is a good thing or a bad thing. I'll participate in that partisan activity and get my licks in right away. I think this is the right budget for B.C. at this time. It strikes the right balance between continuing our commitment to increase spending for health services and education while controlling other government spending, and it sends the right messages to those who make investment decisions.

The Finance Minister is not in the House right now. Some days I feel sorry for the Finance Minister. He's got a tough job. Budgeting is no easy task. Winston Churchill said about the budgeting process: "In budgeting, everything that is agreeable is unsound, and everything that is sound is disagreeable." Finance ministers learn that difficult truth firsthand. As they make these difficult decisions, they choose often what is disagreeable in the knowledge that sometimes it takes particularly foul medicine to bring the patient back to health.

Hon. Speaker, I give you the HST. The harmonized sales tax is the Buckley's cold medicine of public policy. In my younger days — I'm a little older than some of the members on both sides of the House — I remember it was cod liver oil. I don't think the Clerk would remember that. She's too young. It was cod liver oil, and it tasted terrible. I really hated to ingest it, but ultimately, it did make me feel better. That's the nature of the harmonized sales tax for most British Columbians. But of course, not everyone thinks it tastes so bad.

Most economists; the chartered accountants; the CGAs; the chamber of commerce; the forest industry; the mining, oil and gas industries; the manufacturing industries; the transportation industry; the construction industry — they all like the taste. The Retail Council of Canada, representing thousands of B.C. small businesses — they like it too, because it's going to save them about $150 million in compliance costs.

The major employers in British Columbia — the forest industry, the mining industry, the transportation industry, the construction industry — are all saying, for those who have ears to hear, that this value-added tax will save jobs and will create thousands of new jobs.

I live in Cranbrook, as you know, hon. Speaker — the most beautiful place on the face of the earth, as far as I'm concerned and my constituents are concerned. We're fortunate there that we have an economy that's somewhat diversified. We have forestry. We've got mining. We've got tourism and the service sector. But forestry is still a key employer where I come from. When forestry is not firing on all cylinders, our communities feel it.

Tembec Forest Products is the largest player in our regional forest industry. So I ask the question: if government could adopt a tax policy that would assist Tembec in making the difficult decision that they have had to make over the past couple of years whether or not to keep their doors open and their workers working, wouldn't it make sense for us to do that?

Now, of course, the opposition is ideologically inclined to say that anything that's good for business must be a bad thing. I think one of the defining differences between the free enterprise approach and the NDP approach is that we on this side of the House recognize the benefits of strengthening B.C.'s major employers. While the opposition stands for additional taxation of our major employers, we stand for the reduction of the tax burden on major employers in the belief that if these companies are healthy, they will invest, and they will create more jobs.

The record of this government on supporting employers and encouraging them to invest and create more jobs is clear. HST obviously is not agreeable to everyone, and the opposition will make the most of that. Tax on machinery and equipment was cut. The corporate capital tax was eliminated a few years ago.

[1755]

If you ever wanted to understand how the NDP thinks and how they think specifically about the economy, all you have to do is take a look at the corporate capital tax. That was a tax not on income. It wasn't even a tax on consumption. It was a tax on investment. So if a forest company wanted to go buy some equipment and add to the capital value of their enterprise by $10 million or $15 million or $20 million, they would actually pay a tax on that. The NDP thought that was good economic policy. We got rid of that.

Lower personal income taxes. Now we have the lowest income taxes in the country. Lower corporate and small business taxes. We've also reduced the school taxes paid by the forest industry and large industry by 75 percent. Now, that record can be contrasted with what the hon. members over there did when they had ten years to take action.

They could only come up with a Forest Practices Code that my recollection indicates was about seven-feet thick, the jobs and timber accord that created exactly zero jobs and, of course, the higher taxation on the major employers in the province to the extent that many businesses and many people fled British Columbia, only to return after 2001.
[ Page 3374 ]

I like to bring up their record. They don't like it when we bring up their record, but what better way for the public to judge what the NDP would do if ever they were to get in government again than to go back and evaluate what they did when they had their opportunity? So that's what we do. We bring it up because we want the public to actually look at what they did — not what they say in opposition, but what they actually did — when they were in government. So 52 percent in my riding.

One budget doesn't create an economy. Annual budgets should be fashioned and must be fashioned on the basis of a coherent, long-term vision for the economy. Government must set goals, and through specific strategies, including an annual budget, government must do its best to realize those goals.

The 2010-11 budget is part of a long-term plan for British Columbia. It actually has its roots in our initial budget in 2001. Our goal in 2001 was really the same goal as it is today: to create a strong, growing economy that will support investments in vital public services. That's how you get to add to the health care budget every single year for nine years in a row — by having a strong economy. And to invest in infrastructure and also to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Without a strong economy, you just can't do that.

A strong economy is one that is creating high-paying jobs and one that is growing. While it's true that a provincial government in a country the size of Canada cannot influence a worldwide recession, we can ensure that British Columbia is poised to rebound as the world moves out of recession. So we're using public policy, some of it not very popular right now, to encourage investment and job creation.

You know, given the choice of doing the right thing in the face of voter consternation and noise from the other side of the House or subscribing to policies that will lead to failure or more debt for our children, we on this side of the House are willing to do the right thing over the politically expedient thing.

I recall my first term as an MLA for Kootenay East. The hospitals in Kimberley and Sparwood were closed as part of a comprehensive plan to finally create a true regional system of acute care for the people in my region. I'll tell you, in those days, nine years ago, I thought the NDP was going to swallow its tongue with all of its gyrations and negativity and pessimism — and I would never get elected again. I was done. I was finished. But, you know, a funny thing happened. I got re-elected in 2005. It's hard to….

[1800]

Interjections.

Hon. B. Bennett: A few years down the line it became obvious that, although they were very, very difficult decisions — and I think I was the only one in Kootenay East that supported them other than the IHA at the time…. But a few years down the line they proved that they were, in fact, the right decisions to make. I think there's a lesson in that experience, and it's a lesson that perhaps members of the opposition could avail themselves of, but I doubt that they will.

They continue to espouse their tired, clichéd policies of higher taxes, bigger government, suspicion of the private sector and disregard for the value of hard-earned tax dollars sent to government by British Columbians.

You see, we believed in 2001, as we do today, that we could make B.C. a more attractive place to invest and to create jobs by providing tax relief to those who invest and create those jobs. We started off in 2001 with a 25 percent personal income tax reduction. Of course, the opposition said: "That doesn't work. That's going to be a bad thing." Today B.C. has the lowest personal income tax rates in Canada. People have flocked back to British Columbia, in fact, over the past nine years, after leaving during the 1990s.

After over 100 measures of tax relief in nine years, B.C. is one of the most attractive places in the world to invest and create jobs. Our corporate tax rates are down. Our small business tax rate is down. Of course, the corporate capital tax, as I said a minute ago, is gone. Yes, we've spent some time in a worldwide recession, and yes, there are areas of the province that are coming back faster than others. Where I come from our economy is coming back nicely. It's not perfect. We wish it was faster, but it's also not bad.

Economists expect that the B.C. economy is going to grow over the next several years and that thousands of jobs will be created. They say — in terms of the Conference Board of Canada, anyway — that's partly because of the Olympics. Other economists have said that because of HST all these jobs will be created.

We do continue to believe that our vision for a strong, growing economy is the correct vision. Of course, three successive electoral successes would indicate that the people of B.C. agree with more investment and more jobs. They seem to like more investment, more jobs.

On the other hand, those on the other side of the House don't seem to share our view that encouraging investment and job creation is the way to go. I've heard members from the opposition and their union allies more and more brazenly promoting the idea of higher taxes. Higher taxes are the way to go. Mr. Sinclair was in my riding just a week ago, and what did he say? He said: "What we need in British Columbia is higher taxes." Boy, hard to believe.

I've heard over the past few weeks several of the opposition members say that tax relief is a bad thing, and it doesn't work. They're on the record there now. Increasing taxes is the way to go, according to Mr. Sinclair and according to the NDP. Now, that higher-tax approach
[ Page 3375 ]
didn't work so well for the opposition when they were in government in the 1990s.

You know what I think is most important to most people in terms of the economy? I think what's most important is what sort of dollars and cents you are left with in your jeans, what your take-home pay is after taxes. I think that's what's most important to most people in the province.

So how's it been over the past nine years? Well, actually, the take-home pay has gone up every year under the B.C. Liberal government. How was it in the 1990s? Went down. Real disposable income every year under the NDP government went down. So I don't know about the policies that they're espousing now. If I was a voter, I'd be very suspicious.

You know, the overall tax cost in B.C. — and this is bad news for the opposition; they don't like to hear this — is the second lowest in Canada. That's going to be true after July 1. We'll have the second-lowest overall tax burden in the country.

The economy is not that much different than health care. It's results. It's results that people really care about. So if you've got more money in your jeans, I think you're happier than you would be if you had less.

Thousands of high-paying jobs have been created by the investors that have come to B.C. from around the world since this government has reduced personal and business taxes. So here we are, anyway, in early 2010. We're coming out of this global recession. There are signs of recovery. The fundamentals that have been established over the past nine years of budgets and economic policy will carry us out of this recession.

[1805]

As I said earlier, I think we struck the right balance, though as Mr. Churchill stated, the correct choices are often the ones that are least popular. On the one hand, we continue to invest in critical public services and a cleaner environment, and $2 billion — the opposition makes light of this — more over three years for health care, more money for education, more for child care subsidies, $100 million for clean energy, more money for arts and culture and youth sport, $35 million for LiveSmart.

On the other hand, ministries like mine, frankly, are going to have to make do with a little less, and I have news for members of the opposition who encourage us every single day in question period to spend more of the public's money. There is no avoiding making difficult decisions when expenses exceed income. You see, that's pretty simple stuff, and most families in the province understand that.

Most households understand that when you've got less income, then you're probably going to have to curb your expenses. That's what government has to do. Most people can understand that.

Interjections.

Hon. B. Bennett: Just once, it would be refreshing to hear the opposition bring forward some options for making these difficult choices that have to be made rather than simply repeating their mantra "More money, more money, more money."

What would they not do? We know what they would do. We know all the money they would spend. They've got ideas for spending public money that are just coming out their ears. They're full of ideas on how to spend money.

What would they not do? What are their ideas? Do they have any ideas? I think they have ideas. Is it really the case that the NDP party in this province still subscribes to the belief that the taxpayers' capacity to pay is unlimited? I don't know.

Before I conclude and lose the attention of all the hon. members in the House, I want to make just a few remarks about the ministry that I'm proud to lead, the Ministry of Community and Rural Development. I am very proud to be with this group.

Over the past ten months I've had the pleasure of getting to know a first-rate group of public servants led by Deputy Minister Wall. What a great group. Nine years ago I used to think that if you worked for the government, you probably didn't work very hard. Not true. People who work for the government work really hard.

I think we all know that. Both sides of the House know that. So good on them. They're a great group of people to work with. I've enjoyed it, and I hope I get to work with them a while longer.

The ministry is busy with the Local Government Elections Task Force. We had a meeting that lasted five hours today. We've already spent hours and hours with our friends from UBCM discussing how we can improve what's already, I think, a fairly good process for electing men and women to local government. By the end of May the task force that I co-chair with UBCM president Harry Nyce…. Harry is a Nisga'a chief, a great guy. Harry and I will report out with some recommendations for improvement to that process by the end of May.

We're also wrestling with this whole industrial taxation question. We're not going to do the top-down, government-knows-best approach that we've been encouraged to do by some parties. We really want local government to work with the private sector and to work with government to come up with an approach on industrial taxation that's balanced and that will allow communities to continue to provide the essential services that they provide. But at the same time, a lot of those companies, to continue to exist and to prosper and to employ people in their communities, which I think is what all of us want….

Our budget in this ministry, actually from a net perspective, went up, given the millions that we'll be
[ Page 3376 ]
paying out this year for community infrastructure projects. With our federal partners, we're funding the development of drinking water infrastructure, sewage infrastructure in communities as diverse as Vavenby, Vancouver, Cranbrook and Kelowna. In total, this government will be spending $5.3 billion for 850 accelerated capital projects across the province, and that will generate approximately 34,000 construction jobs over the life of these projects.

I think it's instructive to break down the capital investment in these projects. The cost-share breakdown of this accelerated infrastructure is $2.6 billion from the province — that's 49 percent of the total — $1.4 billion from the federal government and $1.3 billion from the municipal sector.

[1810]

I know it's important to make that point, because I do hear from time to time members of the opposition saying that we don't pay our share. Again, we're paying 49 percent of that huge, accelerated capital infrastructure investment.

Now, it's been a real honour for me to get to know the mayors and the councillors and the regional district leaders who do work so hard for our communities — people like electoral area director Mike Hicks, that my colleague from across the floor mentioned today in his two-minute statement. I plan to get out of Victoria after we're out of here in the spring and visit as many of these communities as I can.

We are also responsible for the Rural Secretariat, and I want to just say a couple of words about the Rural Secretariat. I've heard at least two members not disparage the Rural Secretariat, what they do, but indicate that they're under the mistaken belief that the budget for the Rural Secretariat has been reduced. Funding for the Rural Secretariat is not down. It will be exactly what it was last year.

What the members are looking at is the community development trust, the job opportunities program, the transition program and the training program, the federal money and provincial money that was put together for a three-year program. The actual funding for the Rural Secretariat will, in fact, be the same this year as it was last year.

I'm guided again by Winston Churchill, who said: "Large views always triumph over small ideas." The NDP, of course, tried countless small ideas over their ten miserable years in government. It ended badly for them, with the weakest economy in Canada, high taxes, lost jobs, families fleeing to Alberta and Ontario. Again, results — that's really what people are interested in is results.

We've proven our commitment to a large view over the past almost nine years, and we continue to be committed to our vision for a healthy economy, good jobs for British Columbia and the tax revenues for government to supply the important public services that we all expect.

We believe that if we get out of the way of individual British Columbians, if we leave them with more money in their pockets, if we make it simpler to invest, to build, to create jobs, if we attract investment to B.C. from around the world, individual British Columbians will respond by being more confident, by reinvesting in their small businesses, by generating new jobs.

We will continue to do what we believe are the right things for the future of British Columbia. Just like the Olympics, just like health care in Kootenay East, the results of this budget and our economic policies will show the people of B.C. that we did the right things, the things that needed to be done, however difficult they might have been.

S. Hammell: It always amazes me that there is no sort of self-examination or reflection and that the presentation from the other side is so completely and utterly sanctimonious. It is unbelievable. You would think they were some kind of born-again brilliant fiscal managers of some bizarre kind. All you have to do is read the information that is presented, and you will understand that you're not quite as good as you think you are.

On January 6…. We'll go over a few things. The cover story of the Vancouver Sun had an article by Craig McInnes which showed that according to Campbell's own Progress Board, B.C. has not done…. Sorry, under the Premier's….

Deputy Speaker: Member. I caution the member, thank you.

S. Hammell: Thank you. I stand corrected.

B.C. hasn't done a whole lot better economically under this government than it did the previous government. Now, that must be absolutely shocking to the people on the other side. In 2008, B.C. was the fourth in employment, third in personal income tax, ninth in economic growth, sixth in productivity and fourth in business investment. In 2001, B.C. was sixth in employment, third in personal income, ninth in economic growth, fifth in productivity and fifth in business investment.

[1815]

Additionally, StatsCan shows that under the NDP, March 1992 to 2001, the average employment growth was 1.16 percent. Under the B.C. Liberals, from June 2001 to December 2009, the average annual employment growth was just 1.76. You're not quite as good as somehow you've puffed yourself up to be.

Looking at the average economic growth, the average annual real GDP growth under the NDP was 2.7 percent. Under the Liberals, it was 2.35 percent. Hey, I'm not making it up. In fact, it's your own Progress Board that is doing the comparison. You stand there, and you
[ Page 3377 ]
get up with this inevitable, sanctimonious attitude that just doesn't fit the reality of the moment.

Let's just go back and do a little bit of a walk through history. For the 2010 and 2011 budget, it's sometimes helpful to go back into a larger context to then understand it. I'll go back initially to October of 2008, when the Premier declared a crisis in the land and launched a ten-point economic plan, which included calling the Legislature back into session.

So really, it was a nine-point plan, with us being called back to implement some of the actions. We sat for five days to pass a plan for a crisis that was not occurring six months later, according to the February election budget of 2009-2010. Funny how that happens. Different time, different needs.

In fact, the member for Surrey-Whalley commented in the fall that storm clouds were gathering, and he remembers the members opposite heckling him when he suggested that the economic crisis was not over and that there were certainly many indications of a weakening American housing market, and the sub-prime mortgage problem was still rampant.

Of course, the collapse of some of the major banks in America might have been an indication that there were problems. So the Premier — somewhat reluctantly, I think — felt obliged to demonstrate some form of action. Thus, we saw what the Premier called the ten-point plan.

When you review that plan, you have to say to yourself: "What was the Premier thinking?" Because the ten-point plan that was translated into legislation didn't really have much weight or substance at all. It was weak, and it felt like it had been cobbled together quickly and did not feel thought out or effective.

Let me give you some examples. There was unlimited deposit insurance for deposits to credit unions immediately. Now, none of us had noticed the imminent collapse of any of our credit unions. That policy hardly deserved a number in a plan rushed into the Legislature.

Then there was point 2. "A new pension opportunity: the province will create a new private sector pension opportunity for British Columbians who currently have no access to pension." Well, how's that going? Was that a reason to rush back into the Legislature and launch into some ten-point plan?

Then there was moved forward by six months the personal income tax cut, the school property tax rebate for industry and a small tax cut for small business.

But then there was double commission paid to business for PST and HST collection. "The province will double the commission it pays business for collecting the provincial sales tax and the hotel room tax. That will provide 100,000 businesses with approximately $60 million over three years and add up to $1,200 to a business's bottom line." So how's that going? I assume that's gone with the PST.

[1820]

Accelerated infrastructure, point 7: "The province will accelerate public investments in capital infrastructure projects." The facts of the matter were delay, delay, delay. Finally, at the end of it all, $165 million in security for the Olympic Games was robbed from this pot.

Point 8 — a 33 percent reduction in ferry fares for December and January: "The province will fund a 33 percent reduction of ferry fares on all routes for December and January." After that, of course, they pop up to their original cost. But the ferry rates since 2001 have gone up 40 percent on the main routes and 60 percent on the minor routes, and they're going up at least 7 percent on some of the routes, again, at this point in time. So it's hardly an economic generator that's going on through the reduction in ferry routes.

Of course, we have the old rubric: they're going to rein in avoidable government spending. Now, that does not include advertising. It did not include advertising and still does not include advertising. One of the budget items that has had a huge increase this year is advertising. I'm sure that is absolutely unavoidable, especially when you have to deal with the reaction to something called the HST.

The tenth point was to call us back, hardly a point that you would call an economic stimulus. None of these measures was in any way capable of significantly managing an economic crisis, and some were clearly space holders.

What was the Premier thinking? This was hardly a robust economic plan that was out to slay the dragons of the economic crisis. I would think — I could be wrong; I've been wrong many, many times before — that they were thinking big-time about two by-elections. Is that a possibility? At this time, when this ten-point economic plan sprang onto the scene, there were two by-elections going on. They were in play. They were going on in Vancouver — Vancouver-Burrard and Vancouver-Fairview.

Both constituencies were considered swing seats, and either would have been sweet to win by the sitting Liberal government. Were they thinking about these elections when they, with great fanfare, called the Legislature back to signal to the electorate that they were on top of the economic situation?

Could the proof be in the campaign literature of the member from Fairview who campaigned with a flyer that said on Wednesday, October 22: "The provincial government released a ten-point plan to improve the province's economic competitiveness and reduced costs for family and business in the wake of an economic slowdown? For a strong economy, vote B.C. Liberal this Wednesday, October 29."

To quote a political pundit, it didn't take long for the B.C. Liberal candidate "to turn that plan — which was announced on taxpayer-funded television — into a political selling point." The plan was announced on the 22nd and the by-election on the 29th.
[ Page 3378 ]

But some of you…. I'm sure you're thinking that I'm much too cynical, too jaundiced, too jaded. So let's flash-forward to the election budget of 2009. Despite falling revenues being noted in the fall of 2008 of $800 million in the second quarter, from $1.77 billion to $950 million, this government brought in a budget in February that said that despite the falling government revenues, they would only create a $495 million deficit.

What were they thinking? I mean, really, what were they thinking? I don't know. I should think of suggesting that another election was top of mind, to be called in a month.

[1825]

The budget deficit is broken promise No. 1. But as one wise woman once told me: "Don't listen to what I say, watch what I do." Before the election the government promised that the budget deficit for the year 2009 would not exceed $495 million. They promised during the election, with their election platform, that they would protect health care and education.

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

They held on to their story prior to the election in the face of contrary predictions from many leading economists. They ridiculed anyone who questioned their wisdom and would not consider revisions to their forecast, despite the economic chaos around them.

They then delivered a budget in September of the year after the election that had a deficit of $2.7 billion, seven times the amount they had promised in the election — seven times the amount — and yet they can sit there and be sanctimonious and suggest that they are so much better than anybody else that walked in this place.

This is now the second budget since the public was misled and a budget with a further $1.7 billion deficit, where services are being cut further and new taxes being imposed. The government sits in this House without a mandate to govern. The increase in the deficit was, again, seven times the prediction last year, and it is another $1.7 billion this year.

During the election the government promised to protect education and health care. With the second budget after the election, we are learning the depth and breadth of the cuts and how deeply the citizens of this province have been deceived.

The government hid the truth about the size of its deficit, and British Columbians are being forced to pay the price with higher taxes and deeper cuts to public services.

The actual amazing part of the story around deficits is that this government, when it is finished its story, will have had more deficits than they will have had balanced budgets. In fact, they will hold the record for more times with the highest deficit ever seen in this province — ever seen. And they sit there sanctimoniously thinking they are so much better than anybody else who has walked in these halls. They had the highest deficits twice in a row ever seen, the highest debt.

Interjections.

S. Hammell: You can bray over there all you want, but the record holds. The government hid the truth about the size of its deficit to the people of B.C., and there will be a price to pay for that. Seven times you came in this House and said there was a budget of $495 million, and you came back with a $2.7 billion budget followed by $1.7 billion budget deficit this year.

You've cut health services, cancelled surgeries, cuts to residential care, reduction of MRIs, and the budget of today continues more of the same.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member.

S. Hammell: When you download costs on a system and then only partially fund the new costs that you have applied, it's a cut. It doesn't matter how much money you've added, if you've cost the system more, it's a cut. It's a cut when you have added more expenses than you have provided the funds for. You haven't added enough money to cover the costs that you have imposed.

The government promised to protect education, and again….

[1830]

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member.

Could I ask all members, please, to respect the speaker who has the floor at the moment. Every member has an opportunity to respond to the budget at their own time. So would all members please respect the speaker.

S. Hammell: When you download costs onto a system and then only partially fund those new costs, it's a cut, despite the fact that you have added more money. You haven't added enough to cover the costs that you have imposed. The government promised in the last election — you promised — to protect education. Again, when increased costs are taken into account, in this budget there are cuts to funding education.

We met with our school board and heard directly from them the devastation the cuts will have on the Surrey school district. There are trustees on that board who support the parties, both parties, in this House. Each one of them is distressed about the lack of funding for our children's education.

One of the trustees commented that they did not run to dismantle the education system, and another com-
[ Page 3379 ]
mented that the district this coming September will not resemble the district we see now — frightening comments in light of a government that promised to protect education.

Surrey is quite unique, actually. It is one of the few growing districts in the province, and amazingly enough, they have not seen any capital for new buildings in Surrey since 2006 — not a penny for capital for new buildings. All those kids that have come into Surrey since 2006, the kids, the numbers, end up in portables.

During the '90s, which the government holds with such high regard, there was a concerted effort to bring down the number of portables in Surrey, and the lowest number they got to was 165 portables. That number has crawled right up again to 2,066, with 80 more portables expected next year. We are right back to where we were.

What the government can't seem to balance…. There is a manageable system for school districts that are in decline, but a school district that is not in decline has to be treated differently. You have to respond to their needs in a different way, and the government can't manage those two things. They can't manage to meet the needs of a growing district while meeting the needs also of those districts that are not growing.

We have an education system in Surrey that prides itself on doing the very best job it can with the money it has, to meet the needs of the children they have. But they have a rapid enrolment increase. They have a huge diversity in the student population and a disproportionate increase in the percentage of kids with special needs.

On top of that, they have additional services needed to reach and to meet the needs of newcomers in our community, and those newcomers come from all cultures, all languages and locations on the globe. Fifty percent of the refugees that come to British Columbia come to Surrey. Sorry, I'm going to redo those numbers. Seventy percent go to the Fraser region, and 50 percent of those are shared between Burnaby and Surrey. We have a huge refugee population that comes to Surrey because they can find affordable housing.

We have a growing district with very, very unique needs, and it is up to the provincial government to understand and recognize those needs as they fund education into the future.

[1835]

Hon. Speaker, it would be absolutely remiss of me if I didn't mention the unbelievable, unfair funding of the LINK program as it relates to the Surrey school district. I know this has been canvassed at estimates, but it's just a marker that we will be raising this issue. It is one that we take very, very seriously. Surrey, with the largest school district in the province, receives almost the least funding of the LINK program yet has many, many students with extremely high needs.

In closing the issue around the schools and the broken promise that this government would fund or protect education, I'm just going to reiterate some of the numbers that we received from the school district. They were facing somewhere between an $18 million and a $19 million cut to the education that would derive directly into the classrooms.

That has been somewhat mitigated by the budget, but certainly not to any extent that meets the needs of that growing district. There's $3.6 million for teacher pension contribution plans and a million dollars for carbon action initiative. The carbon action initiative comes from this government.

You cannot reduce your carbon emissions if you're constantly adding portables to your district. Every single one of the costs of those portables comes out of operating dollars. So that, again, is out of the pockets of the kids in the classroom.

There's half a million dollars for MSP and WCB increases and $4 million for current year expenditures that were supported by the 2008-2009 surplus. Surrey believes that if they were to keep the level of service to special needs kids, they will need at least $3 million to $4 million extra in this coming budget year. The money is just not there.

I need to say clearly that I think one of the biggest broken promises that this government has to live with is their broken promise that they will protect education. They have not protected education in the district of Surrey. But this government has a history of talking out of one side of their mouth while acting in another way entirely.

We have heard in the past of children's budgets, green budgets, seniors budgets and housing budgets. None of these sort of budgets of the year has been sustained over the long time. Green budgets last brief moments. Child poverty in B.C. continues to be the highest in the entire country. That is accompanied by the lowest minimum wage in the country.

Now, my gosh, is there any connection between the pride these people have where: "We have the lowest minimum wage in all of the country. We are lower than Alberta. We are lower than Nova Scotia. We are lower than Newfoundland. We are the lowest minimum wage in the whole country." And with that accompanies the highest child poverty in the country — surprise, surprise. The number of homeless on the streets persists, and seniors have fewer services and more costs.

But the biggest broken promise is the HST. The Minister of Finance has such a twisted explanation that it defies credibility, and most people just roll their eyes in disbelief. He ran into the federal Minister of Finance at a coffee machine. They had a conversation and had an agreement where they agreed to agree. Two weeks later the deal was consummated. Not bad. What process. Not bad at all.

[1840]
[ Page 3380 ]

No one believes that the signing bonus of $1.6 billion is not blood money. What a price to pay. What were the Minister of Finance and the Premier thinking? They said one thing during the election, and now they are doing another. I just don't think that's smart.

They are shifting $1.9 billion of tax revenue from big business to the backs of ordinary people, and that will cause considerable grief in my constituency and, I assume, in constituencies around this province. Maybe that has a direct relationship to the fact that in January, 72 percent of the people in British Columbia opposed the HST with 57 percent strongly opposing, and 14 percent were supportive with only 4 percent being strongly supportive.

Come September 2009, 82 percent of British Columbians were opposed to the HST, with 71 percent of those people strongly opposed, and 87 percent of the people believed that the HST will cost them money. Now, it's not surprising, because it is estimated that the new tax will cost the average person $430 a year.

I just don't think that's smart. I don't think that it's smart to take money and put it on the backs of ordinary people. This is not a win-win, not even a win-lose. It's a lose-lose. According to the government they lose $100 million in tax revenue, and when all is taken out in the wash, that means cuts to services. So the average B.C. citizen not only gets 230 bucks put on their back, but they then get cuts to the services, because in fact it's not neutral. It's costing.

On January 1, 2009, France reduced the value-added tax, VAT, from 18 percent to 5 percent on restaurant meals. They did that because they accepted the evidence that tax on restaurant meals kills jobs. They expect 40,000 jobs to be created as a result of cutting the tax. What are we doing? We're just slapping that tax on restaurant meals, and the restaurant industry be darned.

I had a discussion with Molly Maid, and they believe that their industry is finished in British Columbia, that any official or residential cleaning that is done by a registered company will be gone. It's gone in Nova Scotia, and they believe that it'll be gone in British Columbia shortly.

Hon. Speaker, I do see that the red button has gone on and that it is time to close my remarks. I thank you for allowing me to share with you my thoughts on this budget.

J. McIntyre: I rise to speak in support of Budget 2010, and I have to say, actually, it's kind of despite some of the sarcastic pleadings of the member for Port Coquitlam, who spent his allocated time this evening basically mocking the government's legitimate attempts to steer the economy through what I think are very difficult times.

Why do I support it, Madam Speaker, you might ask? It's because this budget supports British Columbians, especially the generations following us, and most importantly, I think it's appropriate for these economic times.

It sets a foundation for renewed economic growth and prosperity. It builds on the 2010 games momentum and the investments in B.C. infrastructure. It builds on the business and consumer optimism and confidence that have been rising recently. It builds on the strong foundation that our government developed during the past decade with a triple-A credit rating that we don't want to jeopardize.

[1845]

We don't want to waste valuable dollars and resources on ballooning interest payments that could be much better spent on social programs. There's a very fine line between spending beyond our means, burdening our children and grandchildren in the process, and investing in programs and capital projects that we can afford as our economy expands — a very fine line.

I think the experts clearly continue to predict that Canada is one of the strongest countries to endure this economic recession and that B.C. is well placed to come out ahead of the pack, especially when you actually look at our trade. We see that our trade is very diversified amongst all of the provinces. We have 30 percent of our trade with Asia now — a significant improvement.

Also, compare our situation to places like Alberta, our neighbour, that is looking at a $5 billion or $6 billion deficit and Ontario that's looking at a whopping almost $25 billion deficit. Yes, here in British Columbia we're adding to the debt, as are other jurisdictions, but we're struggling to recover from an economic situation that's beyond our control.

Certainly the measure of our debt-to-GDP, while rising in the short term, will decline again as the economy improves and, of course, as we move to a balanced budget by 2013-2014. Even the 17 percent that taxpayer debt is in relationship to GDP is nowhere near the 20 percent to 21 percent that we experienced at the beginning of this decade when we tackled the economy that we inherited from our opposition NDP, who never successfully met a budget target.

There are some budget highlights that I want to speak about this evening. They jumped out certainly from my perspective — representing the Sea to Sky corridor. There are four areas that I think are particularly impressive. One is the continuing substantial increases for health care. It's going to be over $2 billion since 2009-10, almost reaching $18 billion over the next three years.

We've added support for children and families which, of course, is important to me personally as a mother and in my role as the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. We've added new legacies for arts and sports, which I think are very, very important, to build on the momentum from this fabulous success we've had in hosting the 2010 games. We have renewed leadership in clean technology, and we will be implementing this as we carry our economic agenda forward.
[ Page 3381 ]

I want to talk about these four features in some depth, but I'm also very mindful of the time here.

A. Dix: Ten minutes — you've got ten minutes.

J. McIntyre: I also would like to find a logical break in my comments, so I will continue if I'm being urged to do that.

Interjections.

J. McIntyre: Well, thank you very much, members opposite.

I see the Speaker is taking his place.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Well, I'm a big believer in productivity. However, there also is logic to my remarks here. I will speak about one, then, because the member opposite who is the Health critic may be interested in my comments on health. Then I will take my place.

Interjection.

J. McIntyre: Yes. Yes, there are some very wonderful things happening in the Sea to Sky corridor.

Anyway, I would like to talk about health overall. There's new funding in this budget of $447 million — we're talking nearly half a billion dollars — that, as I said, will bring this to over $2 billion since '09-10 alone. It's going to be divided as follows: $1.3 billion — and that is a huge amount of money — for front-line services to the health authorities, acute care, community care, assisted living and others; $145 million for Pharmacare; $52 million for improvements to ambulance and telehealth services; and $514 million to MSP for physician and lab services.

As we approach almost 50 cents on the dollar for health care spending, I think we absolutely need to find more cost-efficient ways to deliver public health in this province, not to mention for the country. Since the Conversation on Health we've been piloting different approaches, moving from block funding to rewarding efficiencies and improved performances, possibly systems where money follows the patients.

There are positive lessons from these pilots and from other jurisdictions that we need to put in place as the silver tsunami fast approaches. We need public support for innovation and change before health care spending crowds out all the other things that we try to do as government. I believe that the time for study and talk is over — over for sure.

I just wanted to read one comment into the record, actually, that was in the Vancouver Sun on March 3 under the headline "We Must Make Health Care Sustainable." It's a quote from Dr. Brian Brodie, president of the B.C. Medical Association, who said:

[1850]

"The doctors of B.C. are pleased that government has no plans to cut health care funding and is in fact continuing its original funding commitment for this fiscal year. We're also pleased that government is making progressive moves towards improving mental health and addictions care, as well as prevention services. These are important if we want to prevent additional health care costs in the future and improve patients' quality of life.

I'd like to talk about one local example on the North Shore, where Lions Gate Hospital is very anxious to build infrastructure to support innovation in delivering in- and out-patient mental health and addictions services from a new centre. It's part of a new integrated provincial system that will likely capitalize on some of the progress in the well-regarded child and youth mental health plan that was implemented by the Ministry of Children and Family Development, which emphasizes prevention and early intervention.

Mindful of the time, I'd like to reserve my right to continue my remarks at the next sitting and move that we adjourn debate.

J. McIntyre moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. B. Penner moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:51 p.m.

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