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 24, 2010

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 12, Number 3

[ Page 3601 ]

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2010

The House met at 1:37 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Introductions by Members

R. Lee: It's with great pleasure that I introduce to the House today the winning students of the Democracy on Location contest, sponsored by the Speaker of the House and the Chief Electoral Officer.

Sophia Chen, Aleem Dhanji, Kate Gao and Javed Siddoo submitted the winning YouTube video, entitled Why Should Youth Care About Democracy? Their video promoted a youthful perspective on the importance of democracy in our society in celebration of the United Nations' annual International Day of Democracy.

They are grade 10 students from Burnaby North Secondary School in my riding. They are accompanied today by their social studies teacher, Mr. Dale Lintott, as well as Harry Neufeld, the Chief Electoral Officer. Will the House please make them feel very welcome.

M. Karagianis: Today we are joined in the gallery by a number of representatives from the community social services. They are the front-line workers and have been here talking about the impacts of funding cuts to their communities. I'd like to introduce them, please.

They do take up a good part of the gallery here: James Cavalluzzo, Stephanie Seaman, Cameron Gerard, Chelsea Vaneck, Cherie Dobbie, Chris Mikulasik, Demian Young, Dianne Black, Dorothy Bartsoff, Gale Engstrom, Joanne Dyck, Karen Wickham, Kiran Kang, Loanne Pickard, Pamela Pye, Pamela Schneider, Patsy Harmston, Roy Scafe, Vicky Dalton, Andrea Duncan, Melody Carleton, Donna Wright and Wesley Guiboche.

I'm sure members here may be familiar with them from their community. Please give them a good welcome.

Hon. I. Black: I have the honour of representing four municipalities in my riding, and the mayor of one of them joins us today. Joe Trasolini, the mayor of Port Moody, City of the Arts, joins us today, and I'd ask the House to join me in making him feel most welcome.

N. Simons: It gives me pleasure to welcome to the House today David and Mary-Lou Moore from Powell River, the Pearl of the Sunshine Coast.

[1340]

Hon. N. Yamamoto: In my riding I have the pleasure of having one of Canada's leading boarding schools, and this is Bodwell High School. They have grades 8 to 12 and university preparation there. Today we have 70 grade 11 students, accompanied by five adults. Because the group is so large, there's one-half watching us now, and the other half will come in later. Would the House please make them feel welcome.

D. Thorne: I, too, would like to welcome the mayor of Port Moody, Joe Trasolini, to the House. I had the honour of taking him for lunch today. We've been friends for a long time. He's here doing some Metro Vancouver business with the Municipal Finance Authority and some other assorted business. I think that because he's such a great mayor, we could welcome him a second time.

D. Horne: It's with pleasure today that a group of students from Scott Creek Middle School, a school in my riding — a grade 6 class led by Dave Devaney — is joining us here in the gallery. It doesn't appear that they're here yet, but when they do arrive, I hope the House will make them truly welcome.

M. Dalton: In the gallery we have Bill Brooks. Bill is with the Tim Horton Children's Foundation, and we had lunch together today. Tim Hortons is looking into starting up a camp in the north end of my riding, in the Mission area, for children from disadvantaged homes. This is something we're quite excited about. Tim Hortons is working together with government and First Nations and other partners to, hopefully, see this progress through.

L. Reid: We are joined today by my niece Michelle Ramsell and her husband, David. David has been recently posted to Esquimalt in Her Majesty's loyal service, and I would ask the House to please make them welcome.

Hon. J. Yap: Visiting from my riding today is Glen Arnsdorf and his family. Would the House please help me welcome Glen, Kathy, Alicia and Sarah to the Legislative Assembly public gallery for their visit to our House and to watch question period.

Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IN DEMOCRACY

L. Reid: In the words of the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Harry Neufeld, "free and fair elections and an active civil society are critical measures of the strength and durability of British Columbia's democracy."
[ Page 3602 ]

Civic engagement involves more than citizens marking ballots every few years. Working to help a candidate get elected, volunteering for a political party, working at a voting place, being a political journalist, studying political science, expressing your views on public policy in various forums — all of these activities contribute to a healthy democracy.

Encouraging and educating today's youth about the value of civic engagement or the principles of democracy builds a stronger foundation for tomorrow. And this is fascinating, hon. Members. Voting in provincial elections of 18- to 24-year-olds has seen a dramatic decline over the past 30 years.

Not so long ago 75 percent of youth were voting in elections. However, in last year's provincial and general elections only 26 percent of eligible voters in that age group actually cast a ballot.

Studies across western democracies indicate that a non-voting generation of youth tends to be followed by another non-voting generation. Studies also indicate that voters who miss out as participants in their first three available elections will likely never vote in an election during their entire lives.

As fewer and fewer citizens engage and participate in civic life and the overall democratic process, concerns for the long-term legitimacy of governing institutions will grow. The end result of less civic engagement is less debate, the fibre that holds our democracy together.

Democracy doesn't take place just in this House but in every house, every classroom, every workplace, every day. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees us democratic rights that facilitate this freedom, choice, equality, fairness and empowerment.

So hon. Members, every time you have an opportunity to encourage an 18-year-old to vote, I suggest that that is the price of freedom, and all of us have a responsibility to participate.

[1345]

PARALYMPIC TORCH RELAY
IN MAPLE RIDGE–PITT MEADOWS

M. Sather: It is my pleasure to rise in the House today to commend my constituency of Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows for its enthusiastic display of Paralympic spirit.

On March 10 the Paralympic Torch Relay passed through Maple Ridge, with the main event being held in Memorial Peace Park. Ceremonies opened with the Kwantlen First Nation bringing the flame to light the torch and then performing a traditional song. Afterwards the 5,000 local residents who attended watched as the 32 torchbearers, like local Paralympian Jennifer McKenzie, carried the torch around the park in a celebration that featured live entertainment and that was aided by cooperative weather.

The enthusiasm of the crowd was palpable, with many cheers as the torchbearers proudly paraded by. That the community showed such spirit is not surprising. In fact, it is in keeping with Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows' character of inclusion and acceptance.

There are several Paralympians who call Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows home, and this past summer the community had the honour of hosting the 2009 B.C. Disability Games. With the community's full support, the games were a complete success. I was privileged to hang medals around the necks of winners at the award ceremonies. The spirit I saw there was much like what I had witnessed at the torch relay, leaving no wonder as to why Maple Ridge was designated an official celebration community.

I would like to extend kudos to the torchbearers, volunteers and citizens of Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows for making such a memorable torch relay possible. Events like this show our Paralympians that their games matter just as much as the Olympics and serve to affirm our support of all athletes.

WINTER LIGHTS CELEBRATION AWARD
FOR KAMLOOPS

T. Lake: Canada's tournament capital has found yet another reason to retain its bragging rights. Kamloops is not only the reigning Communities in Bloom national champion, but a few weeks ago it was awarded first place in the Canada-wide Winter Lights Celebration. Kamloops was entered in the over-50,000 category, beating out cities like Brampton, Barrie, Kingston and, dare I say, Prince George.

It didn't matter that this was the first year that our glowing community entered the competition. The city, its residents and community groups have been welcoming tourists and visitors to Kamloops for generations.

During the months of November and December trained volunteer judges evaluated all of the participating communities on the program's five criteria: visual presentation, festive season celebrations, winter pleasures, goodwill programs, and tourism and promotion.

The judges were impressed by what Kamloops has to offer, as they visited spectacular Sun Peaks Resort, took part in the light-up ceremonies at the Spirit Square on the North Shore and St. Andrews on the Square downtown, were taken on the seniors' twinkle tour and saw the historic 2141 steam train in all its seasonal glory.

With so many attractions in any season, Kamloops and the surrounding area are truly a year-round destination. Stops were also made at Memorial Arena, Christmas Amalgamated, Kamloops Food Bank, McArthur Island Sports Centre and the Tournament Capital Centre.

I want to thank Gay Pooler and Glenn Grant for co-chairing the Kamloops WinterLights Committee and presenting the city of Kamloops so well to the rest of the country.
[ Page 3603 ]

NOWRUZ CELEBRATION AND
CULTURAL HOUSE OF MAWLANA

M. Elmore: I rise today to recognize Persian New Year, or Nowruz in Persian. Nowruz translates as "new day" and is celebrated on March 21 by more than 300 million people worldwide. It marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the new year.

UNESCO recognizes March 21 as the International Day of Nowruz, a spring festival of Persian origin, and it's been celebrated for over 3,000 years in Iran, Iraq, India, Afghanistan and central Asia.

Last week I was fortunate to be able to celebrate Nowruz with friends from the Iranian, Asian and Afghan community at the Cultural House of Mawlana. The theme was to celebrate the start of the Persian New Year with friends, to come together as a multicultural community and celebrate our shared humanity. They also marked International Women's Day with very moving poetry and speeches.

We enjoyed traditional foods such as haftmeewa and jelabee, as well as poetry readings and performances on traditional instruments like the rabob, tabla and harmonium.

The Cultural House of Mawlana is run by members of the Afghan community in the Lower Mainland, and it's named after Mawlana, more often known as Maulana Muhammad Jalaluddin Rumi, or Rumi. Rumi is known in the west as one of the most prolific poets of all time. His poetry promotes the understanding of spiritual unity underlying all religious truths, and he happens to be one of my favourite poets.

The culture house is a very welcoming and hospitable place, and everyone there is working hard to promote Afghan culture in the Lower Mainland. They offer music lessons for youth on the traditional instruments. They teach history lessons about the rich cultural heritage of the region, calligraphy and also poetry lessons. They have a youth group as well as a website and a biweekly newsletter.

[1350]

The House of Mawlana is a gathering place for Afghan culture and the Afghan community, but it's also much more. It's a place for all communities and cultures to come together. On their behalf, I'd like to extend an invitation to all of you and British Columbians to pay a visit. Drop in on any Saturday for poetry readings and musical performances.

On behalf of my friends at the Cultural House of Mawlana, I'd like to wish everyone a very peaceful and prosperous Persian New Year. Happy Nowruz.

B.C. VOLUNTEERS

H. Bloy: Over the years we have recognized and awarded many exceptionally great people in our province. Without these great individuals and thousands and thousands of volunteers who make our communities the best place on earth to live, work and play….

So many of them are making their mark on our province and even the world, people like Peter Legge, 2008 recipient of the Order of British Columbia for his work of over 25 years with Variety Club for children; Senator Yonah Martin, a teacher for over 20 years before her appointment to the Senate of Canada. Senator Martin was honoured with the order of Korea for her work in British Columbia.

We can also thank people like Cy Saimoto, who was recent awarded the Order of Japan for his work in Canada. Cy has been a leader within the Japanese-Canadian community and is a longtime supporter of the Vancouver Japanese Language School.

Even our own member for Surrey-Tynehead has been awarded the order of India for his work that he has done here in Canada.

Now we have two Burnaby firefighters who will be awarded with the B.C. Community Achievement Award. Firefighters Jeff Clark and Miles Ritchie were the ones who brought the 2009 World Police and Fire Games to the Lower Mainland, but it wasn't only their work with the World Police and Fire Games. It's all the community work they do, from charitable fundraising to coaching amateur sports teams, which makes them very deserving of this award.

As an MLA, I'm really lucky as I get to say thank you to so many people who give so much to our communities around the province. I thank these individuals, and I want to thank the thousands and thousands of volunteers who make our communities the best place on earth.

HARI SHARMA

R. Chouhan: Today I rise to pay tribute to my dear friend Dr. Hari Sharma. After a long and courageous fight against cancer, he passed away on March 16, 2010.

Dr. Sharma was born on November 9, 1934, in India. He moved to the U.S. in 1963 and got his PhD in sociology from Cornell University. He taught briefly at UCLA before accepting a position at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, where he stayed until he retired in 1999.

Hari, like many enlightened academics of the 1960s, was involved in the anti–Vietnam War movement in the U.S. and Canada. As a member of the faculty of Simon Fraser University, he became a champion of the academic rights of colleagues who were faced with the threat of dismissal for the support of the student-led movement at the university.

Hari was a founding member of the Georgia Straight collective, which publishes a weekly paper, the Georgia Straight.

I met Hari in 1975, when he recruited me and others to form the Indian People's Association in North America.
[ Page 3604 ]
Hari was the primary force in the formation of the British Columbia Organization to Fight Racism. He also played a leading role in the formation of the Canadian Farmworkers Union. He was involved in and supported many progressive causes in many countries.

Besides being an able political organizer and a gifted writer of short stories, Hari was also a great photographer. His photographs have been displayed in many exhibitions. He also proved himself to be an excellent director of political drama.

He is an inspiration to engagement in the struggle for a better world, a world without exploitation, without religious, caste, ethnic or gender oppression. I'm so grateful that I was able to hold his hand when he took his last breath.

Thank you, Hari, for everything you did for me and others.

Oral Questions

HOME CARE FEES

C. James: On February 1 the government implemented a new regulation that capped the monthly cost of home care for seniors at $300 per month. But then we learned that seniors like Guy Aubin are being forced to pay more.

[1355]

The 85-year-old pensioner from Lantzville is speaking out about his situation. He's being asked to pay $550 a month for his home care, a 26 percent increase, effective February 1. Can the Minister of Health explain: if he passed the regulation, if he made the change, why are seniors like Guy paying more for home care?

Hon. K. Falcon: Well, I don't have the information. I'd be happy to address that if the member could share it with me. What I can tell the member, generally speaking, is that 70 percent of home care is delivered at no cost to individuals. There is a cost associated with your income level. I would need to know what the individual's income level is before determining whether or not the amount being charged is appropriate or not.

Mr. Speaker: Leader of the Opposition has a supplemental.

C. James: I'd like to inform the minister that this was a regulation change in the minister's ministry that capped home care support at $300 a month for clients. It's $26,000 a year — what Guy is earning as a senior with old age pension. The regulation is very clear. As of February 1 seniors will only pay $300 a month as a cap for home care support.

My question again is to the minister. Can he explain why seniors — Guy is one example, but perhaps the minister could let us know if there are other examples — are being charged more than the regulation that has been passed by this government?

Hon. K. Falcon: I understand that Mr. Aubin is concerned because his contribution is increasing. I understand the contribution is increasing by about $4 per day, on average. I am led to understand from staff that Mr. Aubin's home support rate is increasing because his income has been increasing.

I should also recognize that we have dramatically increased the level of home supports. It might be interesting for the Leader of the Opposition to know that, actually, during the 1990s, sadly, we saw a cut in the number of home support clients, by 31 percent during 1994 and 2001.

Mr. Speaker: Leader of the Opposition has a further supplemental.

C. James: How many months has this minister been the Minister of Health? How long is it going to take this minister to get on top of his health care file?

This was a regulation passed by cabinet, and I'm guessing that the Minister of Health should have been paying attention, since it was coming from his ministry. This was a regulation change that took effect February 1 and that says very clearly that seniors will not be paying more than $300 a month for home care support.

Mr. Aubin is paying $550 — clearly a violation of the regulation. I'd like to ask the minister again: when is he going to get on top of this file, and when is he going to explain why the government passed a law that isn't being followed out there in health care?

Hon. K. Falcon: This year health authorities will spend $682 million on home support services. That is a 70 percent increase from 2001.

We hear the Leader of the Opposition loves to talk, loves to pretend that they had such a great record. Their great record was that they cut 31 percent of the people off of home support between 1994 and 2001.

That was your record in government. I will gladly put our record up against the record of the NDP, dismal and terrible as it was, any day of the week.

Interjections.

[1400]

Mr. Speaker: Just take your seat, Member.

The member for Surrey–Green Timbers.

S. Hammell: In response to Mr. Aubin's concerns about the rising cost of home care, the ministry suggested Mr. Aubin get on the wait-list for long-term care — a ludicrous and expensive suggestion, one that would
[ Page 3605 ]
cost our health care system even more and damage Mr. Aubin's quality of life.

Does the Minister of Health think that this is a solution to a problem that he has created?

Hon. K. Falcon: I'm going to address that in a moment. But you know, I think it is interesting. Actually, Mr. Speaker, in fairness, I thought that what they were going to be standing up and asking me is why the latest CIHI, Canadian Institute for Health Information, numbers show that B.C. has been rated number one in the country for reducing wait times for medical surgeries.

That's what I thought I was going to hear, because every day in this House we listen to the members opposite talk about just how terrible it is in British Columbia, how bad the situation is for elective surgical procedures, yet a report comes out and says that B.C. is number one. Nothing. Not a sound from the members opposite. I find that quite interesting.

With respect to Mr. Aubin, the situation is actually pretty straightforward. I'm happy to brief the member after if she'd like. The fact of the matter is it is income-tested. His income has gone up, and therefore, he does pay more. I acknowledge that.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

S. Hammell: We know that it is far less expensive when people who are able to live at home continue to live at home. But despite that fact, this government continues to erode home care support programs. Per-capita funding has fallen well below the national average since 2001, and the number of British Columbians receiving home care support has declined by nearly 25 percent.

Why would this government force seniors out of their homes into residential care when the less expensive alternative, home care, is a preferred option?

Hon. K. Falcon: This is an individual who had a front-row seat while they cut home care spaces by 31 percent. Front-row seat. It is incredible to me that if they are going to pick an individual to ask a question about this issue, they would pick a former cabinet minister that had a front-row seat while they cut spaces 31 percent.

We have increased funding by 70 percent — $682 million. We are housing and supporting more home support seniors than we ever have in the history of the province of British Columbia. That's our record.

K. Corrigan: This is very straightforward, and we're still waiting for an answer to the basic question. This minister and this government passed a regulation capping home care at $300 per month. Guy Aubin is being charged $550 a month. Why is this government violating its own regulation?

Hon. K. Falcon: Well, the members are mixing up two different issues. Mr. Aubin's income has increased. That's why his contribution is increasing.

[1405]

There was a mistake in the regulation. The word "qualified" was used inappropriately. That is being amended. I acknowledged that, and an individual did point that out to the ministry, but those are two separate issues.

It doesn't get away from the fact that when you were in government, you ranked ten out of all of the provinces in home care support, and today we are among the leading in the country in home care support.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

ROYAL INLAND HOSPITAL
STERILIZATION UNIT

A. Dix: It only took six questions for the minister to admit that he failed. He made a mistake, and Mr. Aubin is paying the price for it. So let's try and find an area of health care that maybe the minister knows something about, that he might have heard about — not regulations that he brought the cabinet, nothing like that.

As the minister will know, for the last six weeks at Royal Inland Hospital there have been cancelled and delayed surgeries as a result of problems with sterilization — serious concerns about sterilization. Two years ago the CEO of the Interior Health Authority acknowledged, admitted, that the sterilization unit was inadequate and needed retrofitting. In spite of this warning, he and his predecessor failed to act.

Two years later nothing has changed, circumstances are worse, and patients were put at risk. Can the minister explain? I know it's hard. It's a big ministry. Can the minister explain why no action was taken to ensure patient safety for two years before there was system collapse?

Hon. K. Falcon: The common theme that you hear in questions from the opposition is trying to find ways, scanning the entire system that serves over two million visits a year in our emergency departments, that in a population of just over four million serves tens of thousands of people in our acute care hospitals every single day…. What does the NDP do? They will try to find any situation to try and run down the system.

They always ignore independent reviews that suggest that we have the best system in the country. That's what the Conference Board of Canada said. The Canadian Institute for Health Information said that we had the number one results for reductions in wait times and surgical procedures. You never hear that from the NDP. All you'll hear from the NDP is trying to run down the system and the professionals in the system.
[ Page 3606 ]

The fact of the matter is that Royal Inland Hospital acted entirely appropriately by immediately halting elective procedures the moment they became aware that there were some problems with surgical instruments not meeting the standard of cleanliness. They've done an external review. The external review will make recommendations. They'll follow the recommendations. I have every confidence in the professionals at Royal Inland Hospital.

Mr. Speaker: Member has a supplemental.

A. Dix: I can't believe that a Minister of Health thinks that unclean surgical equipment is a minor issue and thinks a two-year warning isn't enough. It is completely unacceptable. How can he talk about wait times to the people of Kamloops when more than 1,000 patients, more than one in four patients, have waited more than a year for surgery in Kamloops?

He's talking to them in answer to this question about wait times? Why did they do nothing? Why did the empty-suit Minister of Health replaced by the other empty-suit Minister of Health do nothing while patients in Kamloops were put at risk?

Hon. K. Falcon: I appreciate the comments about my abilities and the former minister's abilities. I'll tell you this. I certainly don't want to have to get into discussing that member's record as the chief of staff to the NDP government in the late '90s. I'm happy to if the member would like, because I will put my record and the former minister's record up against his record any day of the week.

[1410]

Now, I understand that he has a problem with dates. I understand that the critic has a problem with dates.

Two years ago a health audit was undertaken with respect to surgical cleaning. That's what we do in our system, Mr. Health Critic. We actually do regular audits. It made recommendations. Those recommendations were implemented. When they identified a problem, they immediately acted on it, and they acted absolutely appropriately. There's an external review underway. When that review makes recommendations, they will be implemented.

I'm proud of the workers at Royal Inland and how they've managed this file. They have done a very good job on behalf of British Columbians.

SUCCESS BY 6 PROGRAM

M. Karagianis: Success By 6 was a creation of this government in 2003. Now not only is their funding being cut in half this year; the entire program is being cancelled in March 2011. The coordinators of this program have worked tirelessly for six years to build relationships across government — with business, with First Nations and the non-profit sector.

The cancellation of this program will have a devastating effect on organizations already stripped to the bone by this government's cuts. How can the Minister of Children and Families justify eliminating funding to an organization that supports so many front-line services to families?

Hon. M. Polak: Success By 6 has been a tremendous partnership with the government of British Columbia, with credit unions, and we're proud that since 2003 we have invested $27 million in Success By 6. In addition to the $2½ million that Success By 6 will receive in a grant this year, we'll also be, across government, spending almost a billion dollars in early childhood development, child care services, children and youth with special needs.

We will continue to work with Success By 6 as we look for opportunities to help them transition some of their programs in these difficult times. But there's no question that this is an area that we deem a priority, and we certainly invest more than the opposition ever did.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

M. Karagianis: So this minister admits that they're proud to have cut this program by 50 percent and that they are doing away with it by 2011? That's the kind of support that this minister offers to communities? The early childhood development provincial partnership has said that without the three partners in place — the United Way, the credit unions and, most importantly, the province of British Columbia — they will not be able to carry on, and Success By 6 will be dissolved along with 400 programs across this province that it serves.

After six years the program is strong. It is delivering innovative programs to communities, and now the B.C. Liberals will cancel it outright. It does not make any sense. This is another bad decision by a government that proves over and over again that it does not care about supporting families and communities.

I would ask the minister: will she stand today and reverse the decision and reinstate the funding for Success By 6?

Hon. M. Polak: Year upon year since 2003 this government has responded by supporting Success By 6 with grants. Year upon year upon year, grants that the opposition voted against every single time.

We will continue to be working with Success By 6 as they work with the $2.5 million grant we will provide this year in order to ensure that we help them to transition their programs and to look for opportunities to enhance community capacity-building across the province.

[1415]
[ Page 3607 ]

G. Coons: The minister's comments ring hollow, especially to the children that need the emotional, social, cognitive and physical skills that they need to enter school. The previous minister basically said that they want to build programming that's durable, to ensure they have the tools in the toolbox. But we know what this minister has taken out of the toolbox. She's taken out the screwdriver.

The cancellation of Success By 6 is a lot more than just one program. More than 400 programs are supported. This means no more literacy programs, no more books, no more support for first languages projects. The list goes on and on.

This cut is contrary to everything this government claims they stand for. Will the minister admit that this was a mistake and restore full funding for Success By 6 and the hundreds of programs it supports?

Hon. M. Polak: Really, the question about support for early childhood development and early childhood education is: when on earth is the opposition going to get on board and support programs like full-day kindergarten for five-year-olds? When are they going to support the $1.75 billion across government that we are going to spend and invest on literacy this year? When are they going to support programs like aboriginal Seeds of Empathy, Children First, Building Blocks, family resource programs, young parent and at-home visiting programs?

Consistently we bring forward strategies and investments that'll support our kids, support our families, and every time that opposition votes against it.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The member has a supplemental.

G. Coons: You know, the minister keeps tightening the Phillips on this one to the most vulnerable. Success By 6 has made connections and built capacity in communities around the province and has become an indispensable resource for families in rural and, especially, aboriginal communities. On the central coast Success By 6 is the only organization providing early literacy program, because they don't have access to Children First or other early-years programs.

Will the minister admit this was a bad decision, reverse the cut and make sure those communities are not left out of front-line family services?

Hon. M. Polak: Since 2003 a $27 million investment in Success By 6. This year alone we'll spend across government a billion dollars in early childhood development, child care, and services for children and youth with special needs. Across government this year we'll spend $1.75 billion on literacy programs. The question is: why can this opposition never vote in favour of those investments?

N. Macdonald: Let's be clear. For six years this province has had the highest rate of child poverty in all of Canada. That is something that is completely shameful. So the record of this government on child poverty…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

N. Macdonald: …on child support — working with children in any way — is a complete failure. But there are a few initiatives that you could point to that would work, and Success By 6 is one.

This is a program, and I'll quote from the manager of Children First, Cranbrook — Gail Brown. This is what she says about Success By 6: "The benefits of this program on the health and development of young children in rural regions has been enormous." But she goes on to say that "the loss of funding from the government puts childhood programs back to being beggars" — and these are her words — "rather than bona fide partners."

The cuts are a mistake. Will the Minister of Children and Families admit the mistake and put back in place the funding that serves 240 communities in rural British Columbia? Will she do that today?

Hon. M. Polak: The programs around this province are numerous. Aboriginal Seeds of Empathy; Children First; Building Blocks; family resource programs; young parent and at-home visiting programs; parent-child Mother Goose programs; fetal alcohol syndrome programs; Ready, Set, Learn programs; and over 40 aboriginal early childhood development programs to boot.

[1420]

The record that this has produced is one that we can be proud of. Fewer children in care. We've tripled the number of aboriginal children being served in delegated agencies. We've increased the number of child protection social workers, and we've doubled the number of front-line mental health workers — unprecedented support for children and families, which that opposition consistently votes against.

Mr. Speaker: Member has a supplemental.

N. Macdonald: There's a mindlessness to this cut in particular, like many of the cuts that we've seen since this budget — a mindlessness to it.

In 2003 this is what the government said about the program: "For every dollar invested in early support services for children and their families, at least $2 is saved in later social costs. For children living in high-risk situations, this early intervention can result in far greater savings."
[ Page 3608 ]

It's not very often that PAB will produce something that I'll agree with, but there's a truth to that. By the government's own admission, this cut is shortsighted. It is going to cost the province in the long run.

Again to the minister: will she re-evaluate this far-reaching, shortsighted decision, recognize the value in the strong community partnerships formed with credit unions of B.C. and the United Way and give our communities back successful programs?

Hon. M. Polak: It would be easier to believe the member's concern for early childhood development if the member were supportive of a program like full-day kindergarten. It would be easier to believe the member's concern if the member was in support of a program like StrongStart B.C., which they voted against.

The fact of the matter is that as a result of our investment in children and families since 2001, there are fewer children in care, there are fewer children on welfare, and there are fewer children living in poverty than when that member opposite was in government.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

DENTAL PROGRAM FOR
LOW-INCOME CHILDREN

N. Simons: My question is to the minister responsible for the Healthy Kids dental program, which in the last budget was cut in half for children's visits to the dentist. Now, everybody in this room understands the importance of preventative care for children, except perhaps the members on the other side of this House. How can the minister justify cutting access to preventative dental care for the low-income children of this province?

Hon. R. Coleman: The member has it completely wrong, as usual. In cooperation with the B.C. Dental Association, we did a review of the programs relative to dentistry in B.C. A number of things became apparent that they asked us to look at.

One is that we had a program where we said we'd only spend $700 a year maximum for dental work for any person that was on social assistance in B.C. They asked if we would change that to $1,400 over two years so that if they had more procedures and need, they would be able to do it, and families would not avoid bringing in their children for the care they needed. We've done that.

They also asked us if we would increase, which we did…. We increased the amount of money for procedures that would be medically necessary procedures from $500 to $1,000, which is a substantial increase with regards to that. We talked to them about what the annual checkup for children would be, which they agreed would work at one year given the fact that it would be the same as other procedures and other jurisdictions across the country for people on social assistance.

Mr. Speaker: Member has a supplemental.

[1425]

N. Simons: Going from two visits to the dentist to one is a cut. Mr. Speaker, $3.1 million cut from the program is a cut. I challenge the minister to find any dentist who thinks it's a good idea that children in low-income families don't have access to preventative dental care.

I would further ask the minister: how is it possible that we as elective members here, as MLAs — our program allows our children to have two visits to a dentist every year, but children in low-income families don't have that same access? How can the minister justify that discrepancy?

Hon. R. Coleman: Let's be clear to the member. He mentioned low-income families. Low-income families in this province in many cases don't have any dental plan at all. People on social assistance do, plus they have a number of…. But during the time of the NDP….

Interjections.

Hon. R. Coleman: Relax. Relax. I think you've got to get your language straight over there before you ask a question. I'm happy to train you after question period on how to do that if you wish.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Continue, Minister. Continue.

Hon. R. Coleman: You know, under the NDP, there wasn't universal screening on 16 different things for children at birth. There are under the B.C. Liberals because we believe in universal screening at birth.

We've improved the program so we can be there for the serious procedures that are available for children. We're going to manage it in conjunction with the relationship we have with the B.C. Dental Association.

[End of question period.]

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

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Introductions by Members

K. Corrigan: I'm very pleased to see that we have in the gallery this afternoon a good friend and a former colleague of mine in the research department at CUPE,
[ Page 3609 ]
a brilliant researcher — Mr. Keith Reynolds. I hope you'll make him welcome.

Motions Without Notice

REFERRAL OF REPORTS TO COMMITTEES
AND POWERS OF
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

Hon. M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I have provided my friend, the Opposition House Leader, with a copy of a motion which, by leave, I move.

[1. That the reports of the Auditor General of British Columbia deposited with the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly during the second session of the thirty-ninth parliament be deemed referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts, with the exception of the report referred to in section 22 of the Auditor General Act which is referred to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services; and in addition that the following reports of the Auditor General of British Columbia be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts:

Report No. 5, 2008/09: Removing Private Land from Tree Farm Licences 6, 19 & 25: Protecting the Public Interest?

Report No. 7, 2008/09: Home and Community Care Services: Meeting Needs and Preparing for the Future

Report No. 10, 2008/09: A Major Renovation: Trades Training in British Columbia

Report No. 12, 2008/09: Planning for School Seismic Safety

Report No. 13, 2008/09: Public Sector Governance and How Are We Doing?

Report No. 14, 2008/09: Grant Administration of the BC Arts Council; 2010 Olympics and Paralympic Games

Report No. 15, 2008/09: Wireless Networking Security in Victoria Government Offices: Gaps in the Defensive Line

Report No. 16, 2008/09: Homelessness: Clear Focus Needed

Report No. 4, 2009/10: British Columbia Crown Corporations Executive Compensation Arrangements: A Work in Progress

Report No. 6, 2009/10: Making the Right Decisions: Information use by the boards of public sector organizations

2. That the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts be the committee referred to in sections 2, 6, 7, 10, 13 and 14 of the Auditor General Act.

In addition to the powers previously conferred upon the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts, the Committee be empowered:

(a) to appoint of their number, one or more subcommittees and to refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee;

(b) to sit during a period in which the House is adjourned, during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session and during any sitting of the House;

(c) to adjourn from place to place as may be convenient; and

(d) to retain personnel as required to assist the Committee,

and shall report to the House as soon as possible, or following any adjournment, or at the next following Session, as the case may be; to deposit the original of its reports with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly during a period of adjournment and upon resumption of the sittings of the House, the Chair shall present all reports to the Legislative Assembly.]

This is the motion that charges the Public Accounts Committee to conduct its work. It refers the reports of the Auditor General deposited with the Speaker during the second session of the 39th parliament to be deemed referred. It then lists a series of additional reports referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts and provides that committee with the ordinary and usual sets of powers to conduct the usual and ordinary work.

I, by leave, move that motion.

Leave granted.

Motion approved.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. For the information of members, the estimates of the Ministry of Labour will be discussed. In this chamber, continued committee stage debate on Bill 2.

[1430]

Committee of the Whole House

BIll 2 — BUDGET MEASURES
IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2010

(continued)

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 2; L. Reid in the chair.

The committee met at 2:31 p.m.

On section 59.

B. Ralston: Perhaps I'll afford the minister an opportunity to introduce the staff that have joined him. Or perhaps he can wait until he begins his first answer.

Section 59 proposes an amendment to the Assessment Act which deals with port lands. The minister will know that certainly the issue of the taxation of port lands is an issue of some considerable financial interest for those affected municipalities.

The Metro Vancouver organization has a port cities committee. They recently — that's last year — struck a commission to examine fairness of port-related property taxes. For example, the mayor of North Vancouver — this a common theme — is expressing concern about the declining revenue that the municipalities receive from port-related property in their municipality.

This amendment appears to attempt to coordinate two separate acts, the Assessment Act and the Ports Property Tax Act. I'm wondering if the minister can explain the purpose of this amendment.

It does seem that by allowing a designation under this act as late as December 31 of a calendar year, this may
[ Page 3610 ]
have an impact upon the budgeting process for municipalities, because if the assessment of a property has changed that late in the calendar year, the budget cycle has already begun, usually, for the municipalities. It may, then, have an impact on their prospective revenue and, as a result, on the budget as a whole. For some cities this is a considerable source of revenue, and they've expressed that concern.

Can the minister, then, address the purpose of the amendment and its likely impact upon municipalities?

Hon. C. Hansen: The member asked if I would introduce the staff that are joining me, and I'm pleased to do that. Paul Flanagan is to my right, and to his right is Jeffrey Krasnick, and to my left is Chris Dawkins — all from the Ministry of Finance.

This section 59 is really a technical amendment. Its intention is to make sure that we have a similar approach in both the property tax act and the Assessment Act. It is meant to simplify and clarify the specification of actual value for port lands and to ensure that there is consistency between the two acts.

B. Ralston: Can the minister explain the process by which port land will be designated in a manner that's consistent with the Ports Property Tax Act under this proposed amendment of the Assessment Act?

[1435]

Hon. C. Hansen: Now, I'm not entirely sure I got the member's question clear, but let me respond in this way and see if it addresses where he's coming from on this. In the case of both acts, this is done by regulation. It is done prior to December 31 in the year preceding. That brings the consistency for both of these statutes.

B. Ralston: I understand that previously the designation would be done by October 31. This enables this designation to be done as late as December 31. I'm wondering if the minister could address the potential impact upon revenue forecasting and planning at the municipal level, given that for some municipalities port-related revenue, taxation revenue, is a significant part of their budget.

Hon. C. Hansen: It is currently the practice for all other sectors — whether it be a large industrial property or a mall in a community, a commercial retail mall — that the assessment roll is closed by December 31. That is to allow for a cutoff by which those valuations would be established for the following year.

What this does is ensure for the port facilities that it is the same deadline as other sectors for the time at which the assessment roll would be closed off. This means, basically, that the port properties would be treated exactly the same as all other commercial, industrial and personal and private properties in a particular municipality.

B. Ralston: My note here of the amendment is that the section that's being removed from the current section 20.3 of the Assessment Act is subsection (5), which refers to: "Subject to subsection (6), in order to be effective for a taxation year, a regulation under subsection (3) (a) must be in force on or before October 31 in the preceding year."

That's the change that I'm addressing. The designation prior to October 31 is being changed to December 31, and the questions of timing and planning on behalf of municipalities arise out of that change — at least as I understand it. I stand to be corrected in this very technical area, if the minister could explain that.

Hon. C. Hansen: The original provision to establish this on October 31 was really in recognition that if a port was designated under these provisions, then it allowed for that period between the end of October 31 to December 31 for the assessment authority to go in and do their valuations in time for the assessment rolls to be closed.

[1440]

The assessment authority is now of the opinion that that time is no longer required as the transition has been completed. Therefore, it is appropriate for us to harmonize these two legislations with the same date for the assessment rolls to be changed.

B. Ralston: Once the word "harmonized" starts to be used, I begin to become concerned, I suppose. I meant that only as, perhaps, a weak attempt at humour in this context.

Can the minister, then, explain the assessment process more broadly for port land, because essentially, this does not follow the normal process of market-based assessment that the B.C. Assessment Authority engages. Most people will be familiar with assessment of residential property where the assessment is based on sales in the immediate area.

Would the minister confirm that assessment of port property is simply a designated assessment? In other words, the value is assigned by statute and by regulation, and the taxes that are paid to municipalities are taxes paid in lieu rather than taxes directly raised by the municipality on the designated port land.

Hon. C. Hansen: The member is correct. Ports are evaluated in a different manner than other properties. Essentially, this is a rather simplistic way to describe it. I gather it is a lot more technical than this, but it is essentially established on an area basis — although I must confess that I would have to refer the member to the B.C. Assessment Authority if he wanted to get a more
[ Page 3611 ]
detailed description of exactly how that assessment process is done or the evaluation process is done.

Once that valuation has been established by the B.C. Assessment Authority, then it would increase by inflation in the years that followed.

B. Ralston: Can the minister confirm that by coordinating — if I can use that verb — the two processes under the two separate acts, the value will be the same? There will be no discrepancy between the two assigned values. Is that essentially the purpose, to ensure that there's one assigned or designated value for any individual property? Would that be the correct interpretation?

Hon. C. Hansen: These amendments that are before us do not change the valuation. There is only one valuation that is done, and that is according to the Assessment Act, and what the ports act does is the designation of a property as a port. So in no way do the provisions of the ports act change what would be determined to be the valuation under the Assessment Act.

B. Ralston: The amendment also uses two terms. One is "designated," which the minister has just used, and the other is "eligible." I understand that eligible port land can then be designated under the act, and the value, for the purposes of taxation, can then be paid.

[1445]

Can the minister confirm that that is the distinction between the two terms? If that is explained, then can the minister advise if, indeed….? For example, in Metro Vancouver is there any port land that is not already designated?

Hon. C. Hansen: The distinction would be that eligible port land would be properties that could be considered to be designated as port lands. Once they are designated, they go from being eligible to in fact being a designated port land.

B. Ralston: Just to get a better sense of the issue and what the change may mean. For example, in Metro Vancouver is…? I understand there was a study — I believe it was completed several years ago — about the impact of industrial taxation on port land. The government made a policy decision, essentially, through this mechanism to cap taxation on port land, and the municipalities have had to bear the revenue consequences.

Can the minister advise if there's a pool of what is eligible port land that could be designated and therefore have an impact upon future municipal revenue?

Hon. C. Hansen: Just, I think, as a point of clarification for the benefit of the member. When he talks about the municipal cap, that municipal cap is provided for under the Ports Property Tax Act. The municipal cap is not contemplated in the Assessment Act itself. This amendment that we have before us is simply with regard to the Assessment Act, not the Ports Property Tax Act.

B. Ralston: Then given this amendment…? Is there contemplated as a result of this amendment that there will be further designations? What's the administrative action that's likely to flow should this amendment be passed?

Hon. C. Hansen: This amendment does not change in any way what may or may not be eligible port lands, and it also does not in any way change the designated port lands that currently exist.

[1450]

Section 59 approved.

On section 60.

B. Ralston: This section repeals certain sections and the schedule to the Budget Measures Implementation Act of 2008. At that time it was certainly the express view of the minister that this was necessary to implement an alternate minimum tax for financial institutions.

This amendment amends the budget implementation act of 2008 and does away with all those sections. Can the minister explain why, after all the statements of his predecessor and some of the ballyhoo surrounding that, this decision has been made to eliminate those sections?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think there are really two reasons behind it. First of all, the federal government has a minimum corporate income tax act that is applicable to large financial institutions. The province benefits from that as our proportional share of corporate taxes that may be collected. So in fact, to have a provision on the provincial books would be a duplication of that.

Also, given the structure of the minimum capital tax provisions that we had in our Budget Measures Implementation Act, it was…. Because of the structure of the federal act, it would not trigger the provincial measures. Therefore, the bottom line is that the provincial measures were redundant, given the federal provisions, and we're removing it from the books.

B. Ralston: Perhaps the minister can then advise whether those provisions that he refers to as making these sections redundant were in force in 2008. It's my understanding that they were, but I stand to be corrected.

Certainly that was not the public position taken by the minister and the ministry. I'm quoting from a news release of the Ministry of Finance on February 19: "Tax measures include replacing the financial institutions capital tax with a minimum tax."
[ Page 3612 ]

There was certainly no qualification at that time. There was no reference to any federal legislation. There was no suggestion this was unnecessary or redundant. This was a news release issued on or shortly after the budget, and as the minister knows, news releases concerning tax measures are carefully scrutinized all the way up to the deputy minister level in order to give certainty to the public and those who might rely upon the representations of the minister.

Can the minister explain why that was the case in 2008 and now appears to be something that can be brushed aside as being unnecessary?

Hon. C. Hansen: Subsequent to 2008 there has been more work done in terms of what would trigger tax under the minimum tax act. Upon further examination of how the federal minimum tax act works and the implications of it, it is not necessarily that that minimum tax winds up getting triggered.

What does happen is that financial institutions ensure that they are structured in a way that avoids that tax from being triggered. By avoiding the federal minimum tax from being triggered, the same is true for the provincial one. Therefore, the provincial one would seem to be redundant, and therefore, we are repealing it.

L. Krog: I wonder if I might have leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

L. Krog: Joining us in the gallery today I notice my old friend Coun. Sue Powell from the city of Parksville. I'd ask the House to make her welcome.

[1455]

Debate Continued

B. Ralston: Of course I accept what the minister says about more work being done since 2008, but I suppose it is regrettable indeed, because the public pronouncements of the minister on this question…. The minister will know that this is a question that does attract some political interest across the spectrum, and public opinion is sometimes, frequently, engaged when it comes to the taxation of financial institutions.

That was certainly part of the rationale for the transition from the previous provisions of the Corporation Capital Tax Act as it applied to financial institutions — that an alternate minimum would be in place. I believe a figure of $100 million a year was given as an example of what might be raised by an alternate minimum.

It does seem, and I think the minister is indirectly conceding this, that perhaps a wrong impression was left with the public about (1) the effect of those changes and (2) the revenue that the suggested alternate minimum tax might raise. I'm wondering if the minister might comment on that.

Hon. C. Hansen: I think that both the minimum tax that we put in place provincially and the minimum tax that is in place federally are structured in a way to encourage financial institutions to undertake their business in a way that makes them taxable. They avoid the minimum tax by structuring their revenues in such a way that they will be taxable above what that minimum level will be.

The fact that there is that provision in place means that that is being accomplished. If you talk about how much tax would be collected or how much tax was intended to be collected by this minimum tax in place, the answer is zero, because it was recognizing that institutions would structure their behaviour to avoid that minimum tax being triggered.

That is true today. It will still be true after the passage of this legislation, because of the way the federal minimum tax is structured.

B. Ralston: Well, I don't want to belabour this point, but certainly, I was a direct participant in the debate and debated the proposed amendment sections here in the Legislature. The impression that the minister left was rather different from what the minister is stating more baldly today.

I don't expect the minister to apologize on behalf of his predecessor, but I think it's noteworthy for the record that any suggestion that the alternate minimum had any real effect on financial institutions and the tax that they might pay here in the province was completely academic and purely theoretical.

Perhaps it was designed as a political distraction from the real business, which was relieving financial institutions of the obligation to pay a corporate capital tax, a tax which had been in place for at least 35 years and not tampered with by the Social Credit government, by Premier Bill Bennett or any of the other predecessors to this government.

I appreciate that it may be asking too much for the minister to make that concession, but perhaps he'd be willing to consider it.

Hon. C. Hansen: I'd love to engage with the member on a debate as to whether the elimination of the corporate capital tax was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do. It ensures that British Columbia can still be competitive. But that's not the subject of the amendment that's here before us, so we would probably have to find another forum for that debate.

Section 60 approved.
[ Page 3613 ]

On section 61.

B. Ralston: This is an amendment proposed to the Carbon Tax Act. It appears to impact the sale of propane. Can the minister explain the purpose of the amendment?

[1500]

Hon. C. Hansen: The vendors of natural gas and propane are excluded from this requirement because natural gas and propane are outside the security scheme, and the tax is collected and remitted to government by retail dealers. That is what currently is the case.

What this does is actually simplify the administration of this tax by transferring the point of collection of the tax to the security scheme that is in place for other fuels. So this is going to be far simpler. It's going to save administration costs.

B. Ralston: Can the minister briefly explain the term of art that he used, "security scheme"?

Hon. C. Hansen: When a company either imports fuel into British Columbia or manufactures fuel in British Columbia, then under the security scheme what they will do is pay to the province the value of the taxes that would be required. They then distribute that fuel, and it is eventually sold at the retail level where they then collect from the customer the value of that tax to reimburse what they had transferred to government at the time of importation or manufacturing. So it's simply just a different stage in the chain where government actually collects those taxes.

Sections 61 to 63 inclusive approved.

On section 64.

B. Ralston: This rewrites the definition of natural gas. Can the minister explain the purpose of the amendment?

Hon. C. Hansen: The intent of this amendment is to clarify the definition of natural gas as it pertains to acid gas and waste gas. We are aware that there are more implications on this change and more information that we're gathering. Therefore, there is also an amendment that I'm going to be tabling, when we get to the implementation date, to alter the implementation date of this particular section. But the intent is to clarify the definition of natural gas.

B. Ralston: My understanding of this may be imperfect. These would appear to be what are sometimes called processing emissions, I believe. As the minister will know, that is sometimes, again, the issue of debate and concern among members of the public about process emissions.

So is the purpose of the amendment, broadly speaking, to apply the tax to process emissions? The definition is being broadened to include acid gas and waste gas, which is not currently captured by the definition and therefore would not be subject to the tax. Is that a fair summary of what's taking place, or at least the beginning of an understanding of the change?

[1505]

Hon. C. Hansen: The intent of the amendment as drafted was not to expand into processed gas. That is obviously something that governments, in cooperation with our other partners and neighbours in the Western Climate Initiative, are working on.

In terms of the implications of this amendment, it does have ramifications in terms of how processed gas would be treated. That is the reason why, while we are implementing this section, we are also going to delay the implementation date of it.

B. Ralston: The minister has mentioned now several times that he has an amendment about delay. I take it, then, that the purpose of the amendment, delaying implementation, would be a consultation of some type.

Can he explain — briefly, of course — who the consultation would be with, and would members of the public, for example, be involved in this process? I'm sure that while it wouldn't be a broad concern, there are certainly some public interest groups that might have an interest in the issue as it relates to natural gas emissions.

Hon. C. Hansen: The consultations, I think, have been quite extensive over the last number of years with regard to the climate change agenda and how various fossil fuels should be treated, including issues around the carbon tax and its implementation as well as cap-and-trade. Those consultations have been, to date, very extensive, and they will continue to be extensive.

B. Ralston: Just to go back to the definition that's being proposed. The definition is being, as I understand it, altered to include the words "natural gas…includes acid gas and waste gas that, as a part of processing, have been removed from other components of natural gas, but does not include refinery gas."

The words suggest that those components have been removed from one body of natural gas and are somehow distinct. Can the minister then explain why those terms were chosen and what's the meaning — or a brief description — of both acid gas and waste gas which appear to result, in the wording of the amendment, from processing?

Hon. C. Hansen: As I understand it, acid gas and waste gas are terms that are often used interchangeably
[ Page 3614 ]
for the same thing, but essentially they are hydrogen sulphate.

B. Ralston: Well, my knowledge of chemistry is probably weak. But is this another term that is sometimes used to describe sour gas? Certainly, if that's the case, then I'd ask the minister to confirm that because, as the minister will know, there's considerable public interest from time to time about sour gas emissions.

Hon. C. Hansen: I have to plead the same lack of skills on chemistry. It was a long time ago that I was in grade 10 chemistry class. To correct what I said earlier, it should be hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide — what constitutes acid gas and waste gas. It is not the same thing as sour gas.

[1510]

B. Ralston: Is it intended that sour gas would be captured by any of these definitions, or is that something completely different?

Hon. C. Hansen: Again, I will apologize to the member. I got that last answer 180 degrees wrong. It is sour gas. So these are the terms that are also used for sour gas. Hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide is what that would constitute.

B. Ralston: Then given that it's sour gas, I think that obviously brings about a new level, at least for me, of public awareness of this issue. So is the intention of this amendment, when it comes into effect, to apply the tax to sour gas if it's possible to record or track those emissions?

Hon. C. Hansen: We do not intend to expand the tax base with these amendments.

B. Ralston: Then perhaps the minister can explain the purpose of the amendment. It's broadening the definition. It is in the Carbon Tax Act. Can the minister then explain the purpose of the amendment, if it's not intended to make the subject of the broader definition subject to the tax?

Hon. C. Hansen: The intention of the amendment is to ensure that we properly capture a definition for natural gas that constitutes what is intended to be taxed under the Carbon Tax Act. We recognize that we do have some more work to do in this particular area in working with the industry to fully understand exactly the implications of this, and that is why we are also going to delay the implementation of it — so that work can be done.

B. Ralston: Well, I thank the minister for that explanation. Can the minister then, given the necessity for the delay of implementation for further discussion with the industry, give at least a sense of the industry's concern about the effect of this amendment?

I'm wondering particularly what the revenue implications might be. Obviously, my sense would be that the industry would want to avoid further taxation if at all possible, and the government might wish to collect more tax, both in pursuit of its economic objectives and in pursuit of the climate change objectives that it professes from time to time.

Can the minister give a bit of a sense of the points of difference or at least, perhaps, the points that need to be clarified and that will be achieved by this delay of implementation?

Hon. C. Hansen: The intent of the Carbon Tax Act is to ensure that the carbon tax is properly applied to the burning of fossil fuels in British Columbia. It is not the intention of the Carbon Tax Act to tax process emissions. We are working on other initiatives, including cap-and-trade, to look at how we can best address the issues with regard to process emissions.

What the industry has expressed to us is that because of the wording of this amendment, it may in fact result in taxation on process emissions, which is not the intention. Therefore, that is why we will be delaying the implementation — so that we can properly work with the industry to ensure that the definition we use for natural gas is in fact what is intended, and that is to apply the tax to the burning of natural gas in British Columbia.

B. Ralston: Then the obvious question arises: if there's such uncertainty and the amendment appears to conflict with the government's legislative objectives, why introduce the amendment at all, I suppose?

Hon. C. Hansen: The amendment was tabled. I think that is when some of the new information came forward subsequent to the tabling of this legislation. Therefore, it was determined that the best way to deal with the uncertainties around it and the need for more information was to delay implementation so that additional work can be done.

[1515]

Section 64 approved.

On section 65.

B. Ralston: This changes the tax rate for kerosene so that it has the same tax rate as jet fuel. The note in the budget on page 85 says: "The change removes a costly compliance burden." So could the minister explain what's meant by that?

Hon. C. Hansen: This change is simply to simplify and streamline the administration side of how this tax
[ Page 3615 ]
is applied. The tax rate for kerosene and the tax rate for jet fuel were very similar. For efficiency, it is standard practice for fuel manufacturers to produce jet fuel as a primary fuel and sell a small portion of it as kerosene for heating or lighting purposes.

This change actually impacts provincial revenue by less than $1,000 a year. But for that very small change of less than $1,000 a year, we result in considerable administrative simplification.

Section 65 approved.

On section 66.

B. Ralston: This amendment refers back to the debate we had on section 60, referring to the changes to the 2008 Budget Measures Implementation Act and the alternate minimum on financial institutions. I just wanted to confirm that this is related to the debate that we had in section 60.

Hon. C. Hansen: Yes, it is a consequential amendment.

Section 66 approved on division.

On section 67.

B. Ralston: These series of amendments initiate some changes in the Home Owner Grant Act, which make reference to northern and rural area homeowners and an additional financial benefit that they would be eligible to receive. At least I'm advised….

There may be rural members of my caucus who wish to enter the debate at this point. I'm not sure if we'll hear from them, but I've certainly given them that notice now.

There appears to be some lack of clarity as to the definition. I don't know whether that's a consequence of broadcast or reporting of these proposed amendments, but in order to minimize misunderstanding, perhaps the minister could just explain the purpose of this amendment and those areas of the province which homeowners who fall within those areas would be eligible for this benefit.

Hon. C. Hansen: I think the amendment, the new definition that's being proposed, is very clear. It is very explicit that it includes the areas of the province outside the boundaries of the greater Vancouver regional district, the capital regional district and the Fraser Valley regional district. Those are well-defined boundaries. What we are defining as a northern and rural area are those areas of the province outside of those boundaries.

B. Ralston: So can the minister then explain what a qualifying homeowner will be entitled to receive and why the government has chosen to take this step at this time?

Hon. C. Hansen: This is part of the revenue-neutral carbon tax initiatives, where all of the dollars that we collect under the carbon tax are returned through tax reductions or other measures to British Columbia families.

[1520]

The argument was made that the ability of some residents of the province to minimize their carbon footprint was less if they lived outside of the urban areas. This initiative, I think, is in recognition of the differences, generally speaking, that homeowners in these parts of the province face. The provision allows for an increase in the homeowner grant of up to $200 a year for eligible homeowners.

B. Ralston: With the Chair's indulgence, perhaps I can ask this question now. I think it technically arises in one of the series of amendments that relate to this section.

It appears that the intention is that properties that have taxes of less than $920 a year — or $945, I believe, in certain cases — would not be eligible for this grant. These would obviously tend to be ones that were occupied by those who earn less, and obviously, taxes would be lower on apartments and on condominiums.

Can the minister explain why that choice has been made?

Hon. C. Hansen: Currently under the homeowner grant provisions for seniors, there is a minimum property tax payable of $100. For other homeowners, there is a minimum property tax payable of $350. This increase in the homeowner benefit in those parts of the province…. Regardless of whether they're seniors or otherwise, those minimums do not change.

B. Ralston: Can the minister explain the rationale for that? This change really has no impact on those who are paying the least. Can the minister explain the policy reason for that?

Hon. C. Hansen: It is a benefit that actually flows, obviously, not to all residents of the province. It requires that it is somebody that owns their own home.

The member is correct. If the property is valued such that the taxes would be so low that they would be maxing out their benefit under the current provisions, then this increased benefit would not necessarily benefit them specifically.

But I think if the member looks at the other provisions that we have for the offsets for the revenue-neutral carbon tax, there is certainly something for everybody in British Columbia. They would benefit one way or another from that revenue neutrality. Even if they don't
[ Page 3616 ]
benefit from this particular provision, there are certainly other provisions in the carbon-neutral initiatives that would be of benefit for everyone.

B. Ralston: Obviously, in modelling and deriving an estimate of the cost of this particular change, the ministry will have calculated the number of properties that would benefit and similarly, or conversely, the number of properties that fall below the threshold. I'm wondering if the minister could, if it's available through the staff that are there, give some rough numbers of properties that might benefit and properties that would fall below the threshold and therefore not be eligible.

[1525]

Hon. C. Hansen: It is estimated that about 400,000 would benefit from this particular program. I don't have the exact number of how many would have property taxes low enough that they would not. I've got the number of how many would be eligible. I don't have a number available to me as to how many living in those areas would not be eligible because their property taxes were already quite low.

B. Ralston: I thank the minister for that answer. Could the minister then undertake to provide that at a later date? If staff can research that, if that could be provided in a written form, that would be helpful. I'd appreciate that. I don't know if it's possible to get an answer from someone who's watching these proceedings in one of the relevant offices. Perhaps that could be sent in as a note a bit later this afternoon.

Hon. C. Hansen: We will endeavour to see if that information is available.

B. Ralston: The minister referred to other benefits that would flow from compensation, if I can put it that way, or for the impact of the carbon tax, particularly in northern and rural communities.

I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly — and the minister can correct me if I'm wrong — that he's referring to the low-income carbon tax credit. If that's what he's referring to, then please confirm that. If there's anything other than that that he's referring to, perhaps he could specifically provide that as well.

Hon. C. Hansen: I'd be pleased to provide it now. If you look at the low-income climate action tax credit that is in place, the reduction of 5 percent for the first two personal income tax rates, the provision of the northern and rural homeowner benefit, the reduction in the small business corporate tax rate are all examples of initiatives that are funded out of the carbon tax revenue.

Sections 67 to 74 inclusive approved.

On section 75.

B. Ralston: We've now moved to a new series of amendments. These are revisions or amendments that are proposed to the Income Tax Act. Section 75 extends the flow-through mining share tax credit.

Can the minister briefly describe the likely financial impact in terms of revenue forgone, if I can put it that way, on the provincial budget?

[1530]

Hon. C. Hansen: The forgone tax revenue to the province under this measure is estimated to be about $7 million a year.

B. Ralston: Can the minister give the composition of that $7 million in the sense of how many individuals it's estimated will be benefiting from that particular share tax credit?

Hon. C. Hansen: For the most recent tax year that we have information on — which, of course, is the 2008 tax year — the number of claims that were received as of January 31 of 2010 was 5,720.

B. Ralston: I'm aware that this is something that the mineral exploration association and the mining association advocate. Indeed, those of us on this side of the House have supported this measure as well.

It does seem to be a relatively small amount and a relatively small number of individuals. Is there any particular reason why that is the case? Is it that the takeup of the program is not that great, or are there other limitations that flow from this kind of a program that are maybe not apparent at first blush?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think, as the member knows, the exploration history in British Columbia over the last nine years has been a phenomenal success story. At one point I think we had seen the annual amount of money being spent on exploration up 13 times what we had seen as of about 2001. That may be off a little bit in the last year because of the economic climate. We know there is still tremendous interest in mineral exploration in British Columbia today.

The vast majority of the funding, most of the funding, for exploration is coming from corporations. This is a program that actually encourages individual investors to come forward and, quite frankly, take some very big risks in terms of whether or not they will ever see a return on their investment.

I think the fact that there are just short of 6,000 individuals preparing to put up their investment dollars for the risks associated with mineral exploration…. The fact that there are that many is, I think, impressive, and I think it is a very important part of raising the capital
[ Page 3617 ]
necessary for the huge success we've had on the exploration side of mining in British Columbia.

B. Ralston: I have to quarrel a bit with the minister's characterization of the expenditure and exploration. Certainly there was a significant decline last year, but that's obviously a result, to some extent at least, of the global financial climate.

Can the minister, then, explain the mechanism by which this works for an individual? Is the full amount of an individual's investment deducted from their taxable income, or is it only some portion of the investment that's made that's deducted from their taxable income?

[1535]

Hon. C. Hansen: The British Columbia mining flow-through share tax credit allows individuals who invest in flow-through shares to claim a non-refundable tax credit equal to 20 percent of their British Columbia flow-through mining expenditures. Any unused credit at the end of the tax year may be carried back three years or forward ten years.

The British Columbia flow-through mining expenditures are specific exploration expenses incurred after July 30, 2001, and renounced by the corporation issuing the flow-through shares in order to avoid it being double-counted.

B. Ralston: This section extends this program to 2014, and indeed, that's the specific amendment in section 1.1. There have been representations made by the Association for Mineral Exploration that this program be made permanent. The government has chosen to extend the program to 2014. Is there any particular reason why that course has been chosen — yet another extension rather than making the program permanent?

Hon. C. Hansen: It's my understanding — and perhaps the member knows this more firsthand than I do because he was a member of the Finance Committee with the prebudget consultations — that this three-year extension, rather than the annual extensions that have been previously done, was a measure that was specifically recommended to the Finance Committee by the mining association.

B. Ralston: The minister may have the better of me in terms of recollection, but my recollection was that was certainly a position advanced, but I think the preferred position was that the program be made permanent.

I appreciate that it's no longer an annual event, but can the minister explain: is there consideration being given to making the program permanent, and if not, why not?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think we do have some tax credit programs that are in fact permanent. We have others that are time-limited. I think it allows us to review these on an ongoing basis to determine whether, in fact, they're still working. Are they still generating the economic activity and the results that we want?

I think by establishing a three-year term, it does give the industry more certainty. It allows them to plan with more certainty over that time frame. It's certainly, from the industry's perspective, a significant improvement over the annual extensions that we were doing previously.

B. Ralston: The minister refers to the opportunity to review the program. Can the minister advise if there's been a recent…? That is, within the last, say, previous two fiscal years of the program. If so, what were the results of that review, and is the minister prepared to share that review publicly?

Hon. C. Hansen: It's not a formal review in the sense that there is a report that has been prepared each year on this. This is a subject that would come forward to the Minister of Finance in discussions with tax policy officials in the ministry, and that annual discussion would take place and the determination made as to whether or not the program should be extended for a further year.

This year we determined, given its success in past years, that we would extend it for the three years.

Section 75 approved.

On section 76.

B. Ralston: This is a consequential amendment that flows from the previous amendment. It refers to the mining exploration tax credit. Can the minister explain the distinction between the mining flow-through share tax credit and the mining exploration tax credit?

[1540]

This amendment makes it clear that both credits can't be claimed for the same expenditure, but perhaps an explanation of the distinction between those two credits might be helpful.

Hon. C. Hansen: The mining exploration tax credit is a credit that can be claimed by the individual or the company that is actually undertaking the exploration activity. So the purpose of this amendment is simply to make it clear that the same expenditure cannot be claimed for a tax credit under both programs.

Section 76 approved.

On section 77.
[ Page 3618 ]

B. Ralston: This section begins a series of amendments to the film and television tax credit. Can the minister explain the amendments that have been proposed in section 77?

Hon. C. Hansen: Currently the tax credit is limited to 48 percent of the total production costs. The federal program that is in place actually allows a tax credit for qualified labour to be up to 60 percent of the total production costs. We have made this change from 48 percent to 60 percent to ensure that, first of all, our program is consistent with the federal program and also to ensure that those productions that have a higher labour component of it can in fact reflect the benefit accordingly.

B. Ralston: One of the considerations — and I'm wondering if the minister will confirm this — is that the province of Ontario has recently changed its tax credits in the same industry. Can the minister advise whether this change is comparable to what's taking place in Ontario? And if it's not, why is it being advanced at this level?

Hon. C. Hansen: In terms of this ceiling on the percentage of production costs that could be claimed for qualified labour expenditures, Ontario did not make any changes with regard to their domestic productions. This applies to domestic productions. It's our understanding that Ontario currently has a ceiling that's at least 60 percent, if not higher.

B. Ralston: Is the minister, then, saying that this new position is directly comparable to Ontario — or that Ontario's is more advantageous to the industry, if I can put it that way?

Hon. C. Hansen: I can't say that it's exactly the same as what Ontario has, because I'm not exactly certain what their ceiling would be for the labour component. As I say, Ontario made some big changes to their tax credit structure earlier this year, but they did not make any changes to the tax credit structure for domestic productions.

B. Ralston: Well, my advice, and this may stand subject to correction by the minister's officials, is that Ontario increased their basic film and tax credit up to 40 percent of the first $240,000 of qualifying labour expenditure for first-time producers. So there was an incentive to new entrants on the domestic side in that form.

[1545]

In these amendments, is there anything comparable to that proposed change that Ontario has advanced?

Hon. C. Hansen: I should point out that our intention was not to match Ontario. Our intention was to find a film tax structure that worked for the industry in British Columbia, that actually encouraged the convergence.

As I said at the time we made the announcement, this was not about funding the film industry in British Columbia as we have known it. It's about supporting the film industry as it is becoming. We certainly looked carefully at the changes that Ontario had made on the foreign film side. We wanted to make sure that we picked a program that worked for British Columbia. It wasn't our intention that we were going to go out and match what Ontario did.

B. Ralston: I can well appreciate the caution that the minister is exercising in terms of automatically wishing to match the credits and the tax structure of a competing jurisdiction. Certainly, overall within Confederation, within the economic relations between provinces, that can be very destructive in the long run for the tax base of all the provinces.

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

But in this particular industry, given that the tax credit has really guided, in many ways, production decisions that are made, is the minister concerned by the position that he's taken — that this will lead to further erosion of the advantage of British Columbia and the flight of productions from British Columbia to Ontario, based on a more, or at least perceived more, favourable tax environment for these kinds of film productions?

Hon. C. Hansen: The decisions that are made as to where film production is done — digital effects, animation — are not made just because of tax credits. I think I'm correct in saying this, but not 100 percent certain, that the province in Canada that has had for a number of years the most generous tax credits for film production is Manitoba. So if it was all about tax credits, you would assume that's where all the film production has gone, and it has not.

I think that British Columbia can be proud of its film industry, its digital media industry. We have a very strong infrastructure here. We have incredibly talented crews and workers that work in this sector that I think are second to none. So I think when companies are looking for places to do their production, British Columbia ranks very, very high, regardless of the tax credit structure that's in place.

We believe that the tax credit structure that we have now adopted is one that supports the industry. It allows them to compete, to continue to have a competitive edge, and that competitive edge is made up of a whole bunch of factors, of which tax credits are only one.

B. Ralston: Well, I don't disagree with the minister in characterizing the B.C. industry. Certainly the labour
[ Page 3619 ]
tax credit, which is one of the principles of this form of tax credit, which requires the company that's seeking eligibility for this to actually hire people within the province, has led to the creation of a very vibrant industry here in British Columbia — very highly skilled crews and a close cooperation between the industry side and those who work in it.

I'm not suggesting, and I mean no disrespect to the Manitoba government or its citizens…. But the more direct competitive comparison is between British Columbia and Ontario, given the substantially existing base for the film industry there already. I suppose….

[1550]

Is the minister not concerned? I appreciate all the cautions about duelling reductions in tax revenue and implications for government revenue broadly, but nonetheless, is the minister not concerned that the position that B.C. is now taking might jeopardize the future of this industry here in British Columbia?

Hon. C. Hansen: The short answer is no. I think we have a very strong industry and will continue to have a very strong industry. The measures that Ontario adopted on their film tax credit program, I think, are beyond what is in the public interest. I will say that on the record.

I think that the magnitude of the film tax credits that Ontario is offering to the industry is extreme. They are exorbitant, and they will not produce, in my view, the economic benefit to justify them. I think that we want to encourage the industry, but it's not a case of saying that we are going to do that with taxpayers' money at all costs.

I think there are lots of industries in British Columbia that we would like to encourage, and quite frankly, there are lots of industries that would be creating many, many thousands of jobs if they had the kind of tax credit structure that we are offering to the film industry in this province today.

The bottom line is we have a strong industry. We've got good infrastructure. Even since we announced the changes that we did — and did not match Ontario — there is new investment that is being announced to be built in British Columbia. We've got new productions that are being announced for British Columbia. Clearly, these are companies that are looking for quality crews and quality infrastructure.

The tax credits help. But as I say, that is only one of the factors that make their determination as to where they want to film their films and do their digital and special effects work — and now integrate into the film industry the digital media industry, as well, which is becoming a big part of what the future of the film industry is all about.

B. Ralston: I appreciate the frank remarks of the Minister of Finance.

I suppose a member of the public might ask if there is a mechanism, either through dialogue or discussion at the interprovincial level, where these kinds of views are communicated? Not to suggest a combine to arbitrarily set tax rates across the country, but certainly, given the strength of the minister's views, I'm wondering if he's communicated those to his provincial colleague in Ontario, the Minister of Finance there, and had that discussion.

Hon. C. Hansen: Yes.

B. Ralston: I appreciate that the minister may not be in a position where he can share what might be a confidential conversation. I gather from the tone of the minister's remarks that the exchange might have been very blunt, but can the minister express the reaction of the Minister of Finance of Ontario to the position that he's taken here publicly today?

Hon. C. Hansen: First of all, I have a very, very good and cordial relationship with my colleagues, the other Ministers of Finance from across Canada, including the province of Ontario. We did have a very good and a frank discussion about film tax credits.

I think there is a recognition that we need to work together more so as provinces. Just as an example, when we finalized our decisions around the changes that we announced at the beginning of February, we ensured that we gave a heads-up to Ontario to make sure that they knew what we were doing and why we were doing it.

We certainly didn't want them to interpret our move as somehow ratcheting the levels up even further, that what we did was…. Ours are structured quite differently because ours are aimed specifically at qualified labour expenditures. Ontario has done a different tax credit rate, but it's based on all production costs.

[1555]

We wanted to make sure that they knew that we were not upping the ante on this race to who could have the most generous tax credits. Ontario can probably claim that today, and we're quite prepared to allow them to continue to claim that position, because we think we have lots of other strengths in British Columbia.

B. Ralston: I thank the minister for that answer.

As a question of, I suppose, national tax policy between provinces, is there a mechanism or an envisaged mechanism, beyond the regular meetings of Ministers of Finance at the provincial level nationally, to engage in these kinds of discussions in a way that might lead to the result that the minister suggests would be more desirable?

Hon. C. Hansen: It is an area that there's probably room for improvement on. Discussions around tax in-
[ Page 3620 ]
itiatives are by their very nature held within a very close circle. Even as we get down to budget time, initiatives and discussions and things that we're considering as tax measures are not discussed other than in a very tight circle of decision-makers. So it's very difficult for provinces to start to share that information across provincial boundaries with other jurisdictions.

But I think if we look at some of the initiatives going back to the early 1990s that led to the agreement on internal trade — where provinces agreed to not undermine each other's interests with things like subsidies and incentives to poach jobs from one province to the other, for example — there is certainly room for more discussion among Finance Ministers nationally to ensure that we build the Canadian economy and we do it in a way that ensures that the entire country is stronger as a result of tax measures and changes that we undertake.

B. Ralston: The minister has mentioned the avenue that the Ontario government took, which was a tax credit on the total cost of film production, as opposed to the B.C. approach, which is a labour tax credit which had its origin, dare I say it, in the 1990s. Can the minister explain why the government has chosen to follow the labour tax credit model, or continue to follow the labour tax credit model, as opposed to credits for the entire cost of film production?

Hon. C. Hansen: There are a couple of reasons. I guess what I cannot explain for the member is why Ontario chose to go away from a tax credit based on labour.

The tax credit on qualified labour expenditures is, first of all, consistent with how the federal government structures theirs. It also ensures that there is actually a much more direct benefit to the B.C. economy per se. If you look at total production cost, there's a lot of leakage in terms of where that benefit actually comes from. It could also include things like equipment purchases for a film that still have a residual value.

By focusing in on the labour tax credit, it's very definable, it's easy to administer, and it's consistent with the federal approach.

Section 77 approved.

On section 78.

B. Ralston: This section provides for an additional tax credit on digital animation and visual effects. Obviously, this is where increasingly the action is in this industry and where the growth is. Can the minister explain why this tax credit of 2.5 percent, as I understand it, was chosen?

Hon. C. Hansen: The rate that has been in effect now for a number of years is the 15 percent tax credit rate for digital animation and visual effects — DAVE credits, as it's referred to in the industry. I think that that tax credit program has been very successful in ensuring that we can retain and build a very dynamic digital animation and visual effects industry in British Columbia.

[1600]

This increase is modest, but I think it also reflects the fact that we wanted to take a measure that would allow us to continue to ensure that we're competitive with other jurisdictions. It doesn't match what Ontario does, but it does allow us to continue to support the industry in British Columbia.

Section 78 approved.

On section 79.

B. Ralston: This section provides for an additional 8 percent to the production services tax credit. Can the minister explain the rationale behind this proposed amendment?

Hon. C. Hansen: Yes. Actually, the explanation is the same as with regard to the previous section. It is recognizing that, yes, Ontario did increase their tax credits. We wanted to ensure that in the balance of all the benefits for British Columbia production, we didn't need to match Ontario in order to stay competitive. But we did need to make some movement in that tax credit. Hence, we increased it from 25 percent to 33 percent, which applies only to the qualified labour portion, as we mentioned earlier.

The Ontario tax credit, I believe, is at 30 percent, but it applies to all production costs. This was actually the one measure where we wanted to be clear when Ontario heard the move we were doing — that we were going to 33 percent — that it was still only on the qualified labour expenditures and not on total production cost, as was the change that was done in Ontario.

Sections 79 and 80 approved.

On section 81.

B. Ralston: Can the minister explain the distinction between this section and the previous section 78, which both appear to be directed to digital animation and visual effects?

Hon. C. Hansen: There are two sections in the act. One applies to foreign productions, and the other applies to domestic productions. By amending both sections, we make sure that this modest increase in the credit applies to both domestic and foreign.

Section 81 approved.
[ Page 3621 ]

On section 82.

B. Ralston: This section initiates a series of amendments to the Land Tax Deferment Act. It broadens the eligibility for the possibility of deferring property tax. I'm wondering if the minister can explain what the program entails and why he's chosen to include it in the budget.

Hon. C. Hansen: We have had, for a number of years now, a property tax deferral program for seniors. Recently — I think as of just a couple of years ago — the age eligibility was reduced to 55 years. That program, I think, has been a very valuable option for some seniors. Not all who would qualify for it, needless to say, have exercised that option, but it is clearly an important option for some seniors.

We recognize that as families in British Columbia go through their challenges of raising families, there are cases from time to time where they're facing financial challenges. It may be, for example, that one of the breadwinners is between employment or perhaps in layoff for a period of time. The challenge there is that while they may need some financial relief, it's not like they can go to the bank and take out a second mortgage on their house, even if they have the equity in their house, because they may not have the income stream necessary to support a second mortgage in order to qualify for that second mortgage.

This is a mechanism that provides an option to those families so that if they face challenges like that, they could have the option of deferring their property tax for a few years in order to get through those challenging times. Again, as I say, it's just one additional option that families have at their disposal to meet their financial challenges.

B. Ralston: The minister will confirm that this has no impact on the tax revenue to municipalities, since the provincial government will provide the taxes that would be deferred.

[1605]

This measure has been criticized, as I'm sure the minister is aware, as simply encouraging families who may be in a precarious financial situation to take on more debt. This is not a program that contemplates forgiveness of the tax obligation. It merely defers it. It remains on the title of the property, and it has to be paid at some point, presumably at either a future sale or death of the property owner.

Is the minister not concerned that this may send a signal of encouraging those in a precarious financial situation to take on more debt and ultimately worsen their financial situation in the long run rather than dealing with financial problems, such as they can, at the time they arise?

Hon. C. Hansen: Actually, I think the opposite is true. If you find a family that is going through a challenging stretch…. If they own their own home and have equity in their home and yet can't afford to pay their property taxes or perhaps meet other household expenditures, the choice that they would have is to not go to the bank and take out a second mortgage, as I say. But their choice would be to sell their house.

In fact, a number of years ago I met with a constituent who was in exactly that position — between jobs — and their only opportunity was to sell their house and move into some less expensive accommodation. This is a measure that gives them a bit of breathing room in a circumstance like that, so I think it's actually one that supports families.

It is not something that I think would be utilized by a family year in and year out for 18 years. Obviously if they did that, they would erode their equity. But I think every young homeowner, every young family that I know…. If I take myself back 30 years, I could probably put myself in the same boat. Home ownership is something to aspire to.

I think that once you have that first home, the goal is to make sure you get it paid off. Sometimes that takes many decades. This is actually something that allows for a bit of a safety valve if they wind up in temporary difficulty. They get that little bit of additional support that may help tide them over until they're perhaps re-employed or their job is reinstated — they're back off layoff or whatever it may be — and then they can once again get back at paying down the mortgage on their home.

B. Ralston: Can the minister then advise how many years an eligible property owner would be permitted to defer property taxes?

Hon. C. Hansen: We have not at this point put a limit on that. As I said, when we announced this measure, I was quite explicit in indicating that we will look at that issue over time to determine whether or not we should in fact put a time limitation on it.

The limitations that are in place and will be there from the beginning are that the property owner must have a minimum of 15 percent equity in their home, and they would have to have children under the age of 18 that they would be responsible for.

It is an annual application, so every year that homeowner would have to reapply for another year of tax deferment, and they would have to meet those two requirements in order to qualify.

B. Ralston: What is the mechanism that the minister is thinking of to limit the number of years that the tax could be deferred? It would seem that now would be the time to perhaps consider that. Is the minister envisaging
[ Page 3622 ]
that this might be dealt with through regulation at some later stage, or is there some other avenue that's being sought?

Hon. C. Hansen: It's my understanding that if we were to put a time limitation on that, it would have to come back to the House.

[1610]

B. Ralston: Is there any study or, I suppose, sense of how big the takeup of this program might be? And is the minister waiting to get a sense of the takeup of the program before making a decision about placing a limit, if any, on the number of years it can be deferred?

Hon. C. Hansen: For the seniors program that's been around for some time, there are about 26,000 homeowners who are deferring property taxes. That's about 6 percent of the number that could be eligible if they choose to pursue this program. I didn't mention this earlier, but there are about 400,000 homeowner families that could be eligible for this new program.

We don't know the uptake rate, but if the same uptake rate was in place as is there for seniors, it would be about 24,000. There is not a similar program that we can look to, to give any certainty around that estimate. It is just that. It's an estimate at this point.

B. Ralston: The legislation or the amendments that are proposed will set an interest rate that the deferred taxes will attract. Can the minister advise the House what the proposed interest rate would be?

Hon. C. Hansen: The interest that would be applied would be prime. That is calculated semi-annually. Sorry, it is determined. Prime is set semi-annually based on what prime is at that time. I think the other thing that's important is that this interest is simple interest, not compounded interest that is applied. The current rate that would be applied if this program were in place would be 2.25 percent.

Sections 82 to 89 inclusive approved.

On section 90.

B. Ralston: This is an amendment to the Ports Property Tax Act. That's a statute we discussed earlier, and I just wanted to confirm that section 90 and section 91 are consequential amendments related to section 59 that we dealt with earlier.

Hon. C. Hansen: I would not characterize these as consequential, but there are, of course, consequential amendments we'll get to in this bill. I'll read the proposed amendment or the description of the amendment.

It's to require the designation of port property to be made on or before December 31 of the year preceding the taxation year for which the designation is to take effect. It specifies that if land in a municipality ceases to be occupied by a port and becomes occupied by the Crown and ceases to be designated, the rescission of the designation is effective as of the date the land ceased to be occupied by the port. So it is following up on the same amendments we had earlier.

Sections 90 and 91 approved.

On section 92.

[1615]

B. Ralston: Sections 92 through 96 deal with forgoing property transfer tax for the amendment of a strata plan in certain circumstances. Can the minister briefly describe what the purpose of this group of amendments, 92 through 96, is for?

Hon. C. Hansen: These sections actually provide for two changes. The first is to allow for an exemption to the property transfer tax to correct conveyancing errors. The example that was given to me is if you were buying a strata unit and in the conveyancing you were actually given the wrong unit, we could allow for the property tax to be exempted while that gets corrected.

The other change is with regard to the Strata Property Act. Under the old Condominium Act there was a provision whereby if the strata council were to amend the strata plan in a way that the end result was that everyone had the same properties at the start of the amendment to the plan, that would not trigger a property transfer tax. What this amendment does is ensure that those same provisions that were in the condo act continue under the Strata Property Act.

Sections 92 to 96 inclusive approved.

On section 97.

B. Ralston: This next group of proposed amendments, section 97 through section 101, deals with proposed amendments to the School Act as it applies to provincial industrial property tax owners. It proposes some revisions to that tax credit. Can the minister explain the changes proposed by these amendments and the rationale for making them at this time?

Hon. C. Hansen: This is part of the carbon tax recycling initiative to ensure that all of the dollars collected under the carbon tax are returned to individuals and corporations in the province. So it's a recognition that, yes, the carbon tax actually has an impact on some of our industrial property users in the province.
[ Page 3623 ]

But to ensure that there are still the incentives that the carbon tax is intended to drive, the carbon tax stays in place in its application as set out. Some of the revenues it collected can go back to the benefit of those organizations, but not by reducing the incentive for them to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels.

This is one way of ensuring that there is tax recycling, and it reduces the school tax in the case of industrial and light industrial property classes. That benefit was originally established at 50 percent of the tax payable. These amendments increase it to 60 percent, and it also introduces for the first time a property tax credit for school taxes for farmland equal to 50 percent of the tax responsibility.

[1620]

B. Ralston: My advice is that this increase from 50 percent to 60 percent will cost approximately $10 million. I'm wondering if the minister could explain how that's related to the carbon tax cost of these affected property owners. It would seem difficult to achieve that with any accuracy, but I'm wondering: what was the intellectual process or reasoning process that led to this figure?

Hon. C. Hansen: As we've indicated, the carbon tax is revenue-neutral. That does not mean it's revenue-neutral to every payer, whether that payer is a corporate payer or a private individual. If you want the carbon tax to motivate the changes that we expect to see, then you in fact don't want to have a one-for-one reimbursement of carbon tax.

This initiative is one that we feel helps to support our industrial and light industrial companies around the province. It's particularly of benefit in rural communities where many of the industrial firms have been going through some challenging times. This is one way to support them that in a way continues to ensure the change in behaviour that the carbon tax would incent is still in place.

B. Ralston: Well, I wasn't suggesting there needed to be a one-to-one ratio, but I was wondering whether there was any connection whatsoever other than, I suppose, a notional connection. Perhaps the minister can answer that.

As the minister will know, his colleague the Minister of Community and Rural Development has initiated a review of industrial property tax. There are a number of people appointed to that, and that particularly focuses on classes 4 and 5 of the assessment classifications.

Is the minister making a commitment or undertaking the prospect of reviewing this credit depending on what the results of that study may be in terms of its recommendations?

Hon. C. Hansen: The committee is looking specifically at municipal property taxes, and to the best of my knowledge, the scope of their review would not include school property taxes.

B. Ralston: Well, this tax is obviously one that affects industrial property owners. Essentially, the same properties would be paying those two taxes. Was there any particular reason for excluding it from the review?

Hon. C. Hansen: This is not excluded from the review. The review that was set up was for a totally different focus, and that was to focus on municipal property taxes. I'm not privy to their deliberations, but I'm sure that's what they're focusing in on.

B. Ralston: Well, what's called the school tax — I'm sure the minister will agree — is effectively a provincial tax on industrial property classes 4 and 5. Municipalities have authority to collect taxes from the same property. So it's coming from the same pocket and, I suppose, adds up to one payment from the affected property owner.

I appreciate that the minister may not have made this decision. But would he not agree that it would appear more logical and more thorough to look at both of those taxes at the same time?

[1625]

Hon. C. Hansen: In discussions that we have had with companies and industry organizations around the province over the years, the concern that has been raised has not been around the school tax on property. The concern has been around the municipal tax on property, and that is what the review committee is addressing.

Sections 97 to 101 inclusive approved.

On section 102.

B. Ralston: This next series of proposed amendments, sections 102 through 106, deal with amendments to the Tobacco Tax Act. They appear to be relatively minor and technical, but perhaps the minister could briefly explain what the purpose of these amendments is.

Hon. C. Hansen: This first one, section 102, is simply to clarify the obligation with regard to the wholesaler of cigars and how they need to calculate the tax that they need to remit to the province.

B. Ralston: Then equally, just for clarification and greater certainty, sections 103 to 104 appear to also make reference to the taxation of cigars — not something that…. Well, I know there are cigar fanciers, but it doesn't appear to have broad revenue implications. Would that be correct?
[ Page 3624 ]

Hon. C. Hansen: I think, as the member indicated at the outset, these are relatively minor and relatively technical. The primary purpose of these amendments is to first of all ensure that there is a definition of what a cigar is. There have certainly been variations on products that have come onto the market in recent years, and we want to make sure that the definition properly captures some of those new products but also to ensure that the taxable price is properly defined so that there is certainty and that the province is collecting the full amount of the tax that is applicable.

Sections 102 to 106 inclusive approved.

On section 107.

B. Ralston: The end appears to be in sight here. This amendment proposes amendments to the Tourist Accommodation (Assessment Relief) Act. It appears to have impact on what are referred to as short-term overnight commercial accommodation properties. Can the minister explain the purpose of this amendment?

Hon. C. Hansen: This amendment in 107 is for clarification of definitions of terms. What it accomplishes is ensuring that the legislation in fact reflects what has been the longstanding administrative practice.

[1630]

Sections 107 to 118 inclusive approved.

On section 119.

Hon. C. Hansen: I move an amendment to section 119, which is on the order paper in my name.

The Chair: The amendment reads:

[SECTION 119, by deleting item 12 and substituting the following as indicated:

On the amendment.

B. Ralston: Perhaps I can just clarify, then. I think I understand what these are about. These are the proposed delay in implementation of the measures that the minister and I spoke of earlier, particularly relating to the definition of natural gas. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Hansen: That is correct.

Amendment approved.

Section 119 as amended approved.

Title approved.

Hon. C. Hansen: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendment.

Motion approved on division.

The committee rose at 4:32 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Reporting of Bills

Bill 2 — budget measures
implementation act, 2010

Bill 2, Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2010, reported complete with amendment.

Mr. Speaker: When shall the bill be considered as reported?

Hon. C. Hansen: With leave, now.

Leave granted.

Third Reading of Bills

Bill 2 — budget measures
implementation act, 2010

Bill 2, Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2010, read a third time and passed on division.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call second reading of Bill 4, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2010.

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 4 — miscellaneous statutes
amendment act, 2010

Hon. M. de Jong: I move that Bill 4 be now read for a second time.

The bill amends a number of statutes, and as is the practice in this House, I'll briefly summarize what those amendments are, the majority of those substantive amendments.

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

Changes to the Coroners Act will give the chief coroner the discretion to forgo an inquest into a police in-custody death if that death is due to natural causes
[ Page 3625 ]
and could not be prevented, is not connected to the care or supervision of the police, or is the subject of a public inquiry. All in-custody deaths will be investigated by the coroner, and decisions not to hold an inquest will be made by the coroner on a case-by-case basis.

The chief coroner must report that decision to the Solicitor General, who could then still order an inquest if, in his or her opinion, the public interest has not been satisfied. That report must be made public.

[1635]

Amendments to the Child, Family and Community Service Act clarify that where parents have the financial ability, they remain responsible for contributing to the maintenance of their children when one of their children is cared for by a relative or someone with an established relationship to the child under the extended family program. A similar arrangement currently applies to children in other out-of-care placements and children in care.

Amendments to the Employment Standards Act transfer authority for third-party searches of employment standards branch records to the Employment Standards Act from the Financial Administration Act. The $35 fee that has been in place since 2003 remains the same for those searches.

Amendments to the Engineers and Geoscientists Act authorize the council of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia to set annual fees for members in a manner consistent with other professional governing bodies. The ability to set member fees at adequate levels will sustain the association's operations, strengthen fiscal reserves and allow it to carry out its mandate to protect the public interest.

The Health Authorities Act is amended to allow a regional health authority to locate a facility or deliver health services within the boundaries of another health authority upon approval by the Minister of Health Services on a case-by-case basis. Currently the act only allows a health authority to deliver services within its own geographic region.

Updates to the Hospital District Act confirm that the B.C. Assessment Authority rather than the Minister of Health Services has responsibility for providing annual tax information to hospital district boards.

Amendments to the Music Teachers (Registered) Act will streamline administration by enabling the B.C. Registered Music Teachers Association to manage its own affairs. Members will be able to ratify bylaws, eliminating the need for provincial cabinet to approve changes.

Amendments to the Teaching Profession Act enable the council of the B.C. College of Teachers to delegate its authority regarding the determinations of penalty, publication and notification against former members to the discipline committee, again, streamlining the hearing process. The amendment also clarifies that discipline of former members must be publicly reported and reflected on the teacher registry.

Lastly, changes to the Water Act focus on streamlining and housekeeping amendments to provide for more reliable analysis of groundwater quality.

Together these amendments provide efficiencies and improve effectiveness and, we believe, enhance client service. I know that there will be interest in a number of these provisions and perhaps a couple that I haven't mentioned.

I know that, again, as is the practice in this chamber, there will be an opportunity for all members to pose specific questions relative to the various sections as we move through the committee stage debate. I expect there will be some general observations of the bill offered in this second reading debate and welcome those remarks.

L. Krog: As I indicated to the Attorney General when he introduced this bill, I was expecting something a little thicker. Nevertheless, the opposition is always happy to chew on whatever the government may throw out.

The contents of the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act are, as I say, a bit thin. There are some sections, however, that do raise interest in the opposition, and I'm going to go through it in a very general way.

The amendments to the Engineers and Geoscientists Act and, on the face of it, the Music Teachers Act and School Act appear to be nothing short of extremely pedestrian. I will just give the Attorney General fair notice that I'll simply ask him to explain the importance of those sections when we get to committee stage.

Where there is some concern is not with Child, Family and Community Service Act amendments. Those appear to be extremely straightforward and have simply added, in my reading of it, a couple of sections that are of no consequence.

[1640]

However, when we come to the amendments to the Water Act, particularly striking is section 14, which provides that section 8(1) is to be amended by striking out "If diversion or use of water is required for a term not exceeding 12 months, the comptroller or a regional water manager may, without issuing a licence," and substituting "If diversion or use of water is required for a term not exceeding 24 months, the comptroller or a regional water manager may, on application, without issuing a licence."

What this does is take, with great respect, out of public review a fairly substantive change. A 12-month to a 24-month increase is of some concern. I look forward to the explanation of the government as to why this is particularly necessary in the circumstances. Public review around water, public concern around water in British Columbia is growing, as we face what apparently, according to meteorologists, is going to be another long,
[ Page 3626 ]
hot, dry summer. Anything to do with water is of interest to British Columbians and to the opposition.

The other change that stands out is the reduction from 20 to six the number of parcels about which notice must be given of proposed cancellation of a water licence. That appears to be a regressive change, subject to what the Attorney General may respond during the course of debate.

With respect to the time for prosecuting under the act, I note that the government seems to be catching up with a provision that now moves it from a date that requires the laying of the charge from two years up to three years from the date that the information is provided. That, I believe, brings it into a fairly consistent pattern with general things.

With respect to the health services amendment act, I suppose it begs the question: if a health authority has to provide a service in another health authority, perhaps we shouldn't have two health authorities in the first place. Perhaps they should be consolidated if, in fact, those kinds of facilities are required to be operated outside the geographic jurisdiction. I think it raises an interesting point around that issue.

The changes to the Employment Standards Act are pretty straightforward. The final section of changes in the bill relating to the Coroners Act, though, on the face of it, arguably, is pretty straightforward. Essentially, what we are doing, it would appear, is changing the legislation so that now it's a requirement that there be an inquest into a situation where there is a death occurring while a person is in custody of a peace officer.

However, this is adding a qualification, if you will, that says that rather than that inquest being mandatory, if "the chief coroner is satisfied that (i) the deceased person's death was due to natural causes and was not preventable, or (ii) there was no meaningful connection between the deceased person's death and the nature of the care or supervision received by the person while detained or in custody," then it's not necessary to do so.

When you're considering legislation, one of the things you consider is whether or not it's necessary to have a legislative remedy for a problem. It strikes me that the legislative change being proposed here must be designed to address a problem where we're having too many coroners' inquests when, in fact, they're not necessary because it's just so obvious that a coroner's inquest shouldn't be required simply because a person died in custody.

With greatest respect to the government's position on this, which provides for a qualification and which will be the subject of a fair bit of questioning during the course of committee stage, given what's happened in this country — and I point to the horrible death of Mr. Dziekanski at Vancouver airport and the various inquests that have been held into the deaths of persons in custody — unless the government can demonstrate that this has become a significant problem of requiring inquests that aren't seen as necessary by anyone, then one has to question why we would have this saving provision.

[1645]

I'm not suggesting for a moment the chief coroner isn't able to, perhaps, come to these conclusions, but in terms of enhancing public trust in our police forces in the province when people die in custody, I'm not sure that this provision is either necessary to deal with a problem that may or may not exist…. I look forward to hearing the explanation and statistics from government that will tell me why there is a problem. I'm just not convinced that it is necessary.

The coroner's office, as I've said before in this House around debate on changes to the Coroners Act, is one of the ancient offices of our parliamentary political history, if you will. The independence of the coroner, the right of the public to know the cause of death of any individual, has always been seen as extremely important.

When a death occurs while that individual is in the custody of a peace officer, public concern is always raised, and public concern should be raised. So I'm looking forward to the explanation as to why such a change is really necessary and why the government would indeed propose the change, in light of the circumstances of the two cases that I've just mentioned around Mr. Dziekanski and the other inquiries into deaths of individuals in custody, some of which have been the source of a great deal of litigation that's ongoing.

Even if it were appropriate based on statistics — and I don't think there are those statistics — surely this is not the time, when public confidence has been so shattered in our police forces, to consider this kind of provision. I leave it to the government to provide some explanation to this side of the House as to why it's important.

I would suggest that in terms of the public interest, there are many organizations in this province that will be extremely concerned by this provision, even though, on the face of it, one can argue that it's extremely logical. It says if the coroner is satisfied that the death was due to natural causes, was not preventable….

The cost of an inquest is not that substantial. The cost of an inquest and the time involved, if it is clearly a death due to natural causes, is not so substantive, surely, that this provision is really necessary. In determining whether there is "no meaningful connection between the deceased person's death and the nature of the care or supervision received by the person," how does the chief coroner satisfy him- or herself that that is, in fact, the case without indeed conducting some sort of inquiry that's tantamount to an inquest in any event?

Surely, to come to that conclusion and, therefore, rely on this saving provision, if you will, requires an inquest-like inquiry in the best of circumstances. I'm just not convinced by the mere wording of the amendments that this is, in fact, an appropriate thing to do. I do look for-
[ Page 3627 ]
ward to the debate on this issue. I do look forward to the committee stage and hearing answers, if any are forthcoming from the government.

I know that other members of the opposition are anxious to speak to this matter today, and I'll take my place.

M. Sather: It's my pleasure to join the debate on Bill 4, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2010. I'm going to confine my comments to amendments to the Water Act.

Citizens in my constituency of Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows have had their concerns about water heightened by an incident that took place late in May last year, when a large land owner, the Aquilini Investment Group, had taken water from the North Alouette River in a large pipe that actually diverted the river itself within the banks.

There are dikes on each side of the river. Within the dikes, they had diverted a part of the river to make it easier for them to take water from the river. They put a large pipe, I think 40 centimetres, over the top of the dike and down into their cranberry fields. This was discovered by residents who walk the dikes. I have to say, of course, that they did not have a licence to do so.

[1650]

It has raised a great deal of concern, and it continues to be in the local press. Today there was another article.

Stewardship groups and others have banded together to try to get a response from the government, and they're very keen to see positive changes to the Water Act that would address situations like occurred in Pitt Meadows. They've been waiting a long time, and they're losing patience, understandably, with the lack of response.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The case was investigated eventually after considerable pressure by local groups. It was investigated slightly by DFO but more so by the Ministry of Environment. Recommendations have been forwarded now to Crown counsel with regard to this case as to whether charges should be laid. There is a fine of up to $250,000 for such an offence.

But there it rests, and we haven't heard anything further. We don't know whether the Crown will make their determination public or not. I certainly hope so, given that there is a strong public interest in my community to hear the outcome of this case.

Now, as I say, the groups in my community have done some proactive work. They are also, of course, angry and upset and have talked to various government officials about it. But they also have some suggestions — good suggestions, I think — as to what they would like to see in terms of changes to the Water Act.

They're saying, specifically, that water taken out of a public body of water should be metered and monitored by government and non-governmental organizations. As it stands now, when water is taken out of a public river, there's no metering. So there's no real way of knowing how much water has been taken, although there is a broad amount that is approved in a licence or approved by the comptroller without a licence. That can also take place, but neither of those has taken place. So that's one recommendation that they have.

Secondly, they want to see water licences contain language that will protect the river system and no longer allow water to be withdrawn, regardless of river conditions. These rivers are subject of course, like most rivers in the province, to low levels of flow at different times of the year. Oftentimes that's in the summer, and those are times too when farmers need water, understandably, for their crops. So they're concerned that there is no system in place under the Water Act to provide for the protection of fish and for a minimum flow of water in the stream.

They have five recommendations. Thirdly, they say that water should be paid for by the licensee and the proceeds used for river ecosystem enhancement. Right now there's a licence fee, as I understand it, but no additional fees — so it's pretty much free water, if you will.

Fourthly, there should be penalties for non-compliance, and they should be swift, automatic and expensive. As I say, they've been waiting a long time to see what, if anything, is going to happen with regard to this particular case.

I think it's well known that the Aquilini Investment Group have contributed significantly to the B.C. Liberal Party. The party has their big fundraiser there at the Golden Eagle golf course every summer. The community is aware of that, and I know that's something else they're looking to see — that this government is going to take action notwithstanding that and enforce the law, such as it is.

[1655]

Lastly, and I think this is a particularly good one, they want a water management plan that must be in place before any licences are issued. They have also suggested some ideas of how, with new technology, you can monitor not only the flow in the river but the water withdrawals. That can save a lot of time — people having to go out and check manually and the like.

When we look at this bill, we don't see any of those changes that they're suggesting, and I know they're going to be very, very disappointed in this bill. In fact, as my colleague pointed out, one of the things that it does have, under section 14, is: "If diversion or use of water is required for a term not exceeding 12 months, the comptroller or a regional water manager may, without issuing a licence…." That's now being extended to two years, so it goes from one to two years.

So instead of one year without having to get a licence, you can get authority — which, I repeat, in this case, the authority was not obtained…. It now goes to two years
[ Page 3628 ]
that you can be given authority to proceed with a water withdrawal, which can have considerable impacts on a community and on wildlife, without a licence. That's indeed a great concern of theirs and of mine.

I know that there's a Water Act modernization process that the government is undergoing at the current time, as we understand it. But one has to think: how long is it going to take for that process to take place? I would assume, certainly, that there isn't going to be any additional legislation in this spring session, because why would they have put these amendments in this miscellaneous act if they were going to do a larger amendment to the Water Act?

If the pattern repeats itself, as it did in 2005, where we didn't have a fall session, then we're looking at another year, at least, before any meaningful legislation that will address the real problems that are out there with regard to the sharing of water between communities, wildlife and, in this case, the agricultural community. They have legitimate needs for the water, but there has to be some meaningful legislation to guide the process and to protect all concerns.

I look forward to hearing comments further from the minister during the committee stage that will, I hope, give some assurance to my community that their real concerns are going to be addressed by this government quickly.

Mr. Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, Attorney General closes debate.

Hon. M. de Jong: I won't take long. I am, as always, obliged to members who have participated in the debate, particularly on a bill such as this where it is actually helpful to learn where the areas of interest lie. It is clear from the comments that we've heard in the chamber today that the member for Nanaimo has some questions and concerns as relates to the proposed changes to the Coroners Act.

I can't promise that the member will be convinced by the rationale or the explanations offered by the government. I can assure the House that there are very sound reasons, in my view, for why the proposals are being offered, but I think there will be a good discussion about why those particular proposed amendments exist, and that can take place during the course of the debate at committee stage.

The hon. member who has just spoken has outlined some issues that, it seems to me, refer more to what is not in the bill as opposed to what is in the bill, but I suppose those are also…. Second reading is an opportunity for the member to place those views on the record, as well, and I am grateful to him for having done so.

With that I move second reading of the bill.

Motion approved.

[1700]

Hon. M. de Jong: I move the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 4, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2010, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 5, Zero Net Deforestation Act.

Bill 5 — Zero Net Deforestation Act

Hon. P. Bell: I move Bill 5 be read a second time.

I am pleased to speak to this bill. It is a cornerstone of our province's commitment to ensuring that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions significantly going forward and achieve our targeted goals for both 2020 and 2050.

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

This particular area of carbon emissions accounts for about 4 percent of the total emissions in the province. In an average year there are about 6,000 hectares of forest that are deforested in our province, about 2,000 hectares that are afforested in our province, for a net loss of about 4,000 hectares. This is a historical number that goes back to about the 1970s. At that point it was, historically, a larger number, about 30,000 hectares.

If you go through the different sectors which contribute to deforestation every year, I can tell you that transportation only accounts for about 2 percent of the total deforestation. Recreation is another 2 percent. Industry is about 3 percent. Mining is about 10 percent. Forestry-based activities are about 13 percent. That's roadbuilding and that sort of thing, where those areas are not necessarily reforested. Oil and gas is at 18 percent, settlement at 23 percent and agriculture at 29 percent.

The model that we are proposing here is really an incentives-based model. So rather than having a restricting activity, particularly in areas like agriculture and other forms of development, what we're going to do is encourage people to afforest areas that are currently deforested in the province.

We have about 750,000 hectares that have been identified around the province as areas that have been deforested, either on Crown or private land, primarily Crown land, and we intend to implement a strategy of net zero deforestation by having different sorts of tax-based incentives and other incentives to encourage people to afforest those zones.

I had a very interesting example of that just last week when I was in Prince George. The Minister of Housing
[ Page 3629 ]
and Social Development and I were at the release from a private company in the Prince George area, Pacific Western Brewery, which has committed to planting 150,000 trees over the next three years.

That's an example of a company that is making an aggressive move to help support afforestation in this province. Their willingness and desire to do that as a Good Samaritan company, a company that intends to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, I think, is a good example of what can be achieved.

Our interest, our intent, is to either increase or decrease the incentives, depending on how we are tracking towards our goal of net zero deforestation. We will measure every two years the amount of land that is deforested in the province — again, with a goal by 2015 of achieving the net zero deforestation.

That information will be reported out in this House. So starting in 2012, the minister must publicly report the progress towards the goal of achieving that net zero deforestation, the actions that government has taken to achieve that progress and the plans of government to continue that progress. It will be a very open and transparent mechanism, a mechanism that, again, is based on incentives, encouraging people to participate in incremental afforestation activity. All of this is consistent with the reporting timelines, as well, under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Target Act.

By utilizing an incentives-based model that encourages people to go out and work with us on planting trees, on afforesting areas, we think it provides a good solid balance and can achieve the target of reducing this important segment of our greenhouse gas emissions by that 4 percent that we'd identified earlier on in my comments.

[1705]

Now, this in no way changes the obligation that licensees have that anyone that is in the log-harvesting industry has to go back in and plant the areas that they have harvested. This strictly pertains to areas where the current regulations do not require reforestation because of a conversion of land use.

If land is going to be used, as an example, for agriculture, clearly that's an industry we want to continue to encourage. We don't want to penalize that segment, so they would continue to be allowed to clear land and put it in for agricultural use. The afforestation that offsets that on a hectare-by-hectare basis would ensure that we are at a net zero deforestation, and that is the approach.

Conversely, though, as I said, in the course of normal forestry operations the silviculture regime that has been in place for quite some time continues to obligate licensees to afforest the zones — or to replant the zones…. I shouldn't say that. It's not afforestation if they haven't been deforested for some length of time. But it requires them to continue to plant those zones.

In addition, the province has its forests for tomorrow program. We are anticipating that this year we'll be planting 18 million trees through the forests for tomorrow program. That's targeted at reforesting areas that have been lost to wildfire, areas that have been lost to mountain pine beetle and not harvested in the normal course of business activity or other forest health reasons. So it is a dual-track strategy.

We will continue the silviculture principles and activities that we have historically participated in, and we're confident that that will continue to meet the needs of our ecosystems and our environment. But this new strategy in terms of a net zero deforestation policy applies, as I said, to areas where they have not had traditional silviculture responsibilities.

I am hopeful that the opposition will support this act. I think it is a good, solid, principled piece of work. It is largely a reporting act so the public has confidence and understands exactly what is going on in the province around deforestation. We thought that was the appropriate principle to bring forward here to move us forward towards the achievement of that goal by 2015.

It is something that I think is supportable by all sides of the House, by all individuals in this House. I can't imagine that anyone in this House would not support the notion of achieving zero net deforestation. It is a principled approach.

Madam Speaker, I'm looking forward to the opposition's comments in this area. I think we have a very solid forest industry. We want to continue to build on that. We want to continue to support the afforestation of areas that are currently deforested, and we want to allow for that to be done in a way that certainly complements any deforestation that takes place through the course of activities like agriculture, transportation and so on. With that, I look forward to comments by the opposition.

N. Macdonald: Always a privilege to stand up. A rather lukewarm response to a bill that's pretty thin here. The minister has talked about a number of areas over the past six minutes that he's taken to explain this bill that really aren't touched in the legislation. Essentially, this is an enabling piece of legislation and pretty thin on detail. Certainly during the opportunities that we have in third reading to ask specific questions, we'll be doing that.

I think the context for this legislation…. People have to understand we have been in the House since early February, February 9. This is really only the second piece of new legislation that we're dealing with here in the middle of March. Pretty sparse stuff from a government. Pretty sparse stuff, and this bill fits with that. Pretty thin.

Now, the actual statement of principle, which is essentially just a feel-good statement, is around the idea of zero net deforestation. You can't argue with those sentiments, but clearly for the forest industry to recover….

The minister said something about the strength of the industry. I mean, let's be clear here. We are in the midst
[ Page 3630 ]
of unprecedented challenges for forest workers, unprecedented challenges for forest communities and for forestry executives who are trying to find ways to have their companies be successful. It is a crisis that we have not seen in this province for decades and decades in this industry.

[1710]

There are also unprecedented challenges in terms of forest health. The minister knows that as well as I think any British Columbian who is from rural B.C., certainly from the Interior.

The forest health issues that we need to get our heads around, understand and deal with are incredibly challenging. British Columbia has been almost uniquely blessed with the amount of public lands that we have available to us. Much of the wealth that this province has been able to use for our health care systems, for our education system, has come from that public land, forestry being a continuous supplier of billions of dollars traditionally.

The minister has said that the industry is strong now, but that's not the case. For the first time ever, last year the Ministry of Forests spent more than the industry, than forestry generated. Traditionally, there have been billions available to public funds. That is not the case. That was not the case last year. That will not be the case this year.

That's the context that we need to see this in. Managed properly, forestry should in a sustainable way provide social benefits. There should be environmental benefits, and there should be economic benefits. But for that to happen, the government needs to manage properly.

The difficulty with this bill is that by putting out a sentiment that people are going to think is…. Well, who could disagree with the idea of zero net deforestation? By putting out that sentiment, it indicates that that is essentially what the government is going to do. With all of the challenges in front of people in forestry communities and in front of the province, that all we get are bills that are expressions of sentiment is deeply, deeply disappointing.

You just have to look at this bill. It is problematic because it's more of a political device than it is actually a piece of sound public policy. We have seen so many of these pieces of legislation that, after five years here, you see them, you recognize them, and you know that it is the government putting the piece of legislation in front of this House, in front of the public, hoping that they are not going to really delve into the detail or check carefully into where this leads.

It is a two-page piece of legislation. The whole first page is six definitions, and even the definitions are not at all clear. You would think that a term like "deforestation" would be a fairly clear term and that it would be written in a clear way. But it is yet to be defined by regulation, and regulation…. For those who aren't familiar with the terminology, if it says in the bill here that it is going to be determined by regulation, it means that later on the minister, through cabinet, will define exactly what the term means.

So in the legislation that we have in front of us here, of the six definitions, deforestation isn't defined completely. Then you go on to zero net deforestation, which is actually the name of the bill. If deforestation isn't defined, neither is that. In each of the definitions that make up one half of this bill, there is a lack of clarity about what even the definitions mean. So that's not there. That's problematic, because deforestation is a huge problem.

This bill does not address, as the minister recognized, deforestation for most commercial operations. It does not address the pine beetle–impacted areas or the wildfire-impacted areas. There are 725,000 hectares of not sufficiently restocked land in B.C. today. That is a huge number.

[1715]

On slide 20 of the forest practices branch from September of 2009…. There was a PowerPoint, and it was on key silviculture statistics. On that page — and people can go, I believe, on the Internet and find it if they're interested — there were silviculture statistics and a chart that shows government data on reforestation shortfalls. Within that chart, there are the legal obligations for the major licensees. There are the legal obligations for B.C. Timber Sales. Those are marked on the chart.

But what is disturbing is the forecast for the not sufficiently restocked areas that are due to problems created by the mountain pine beetle, just one of many, many pests and diseases in our forest. As well, you have a massive area that is NSR, or not sufficiently restocked, because of the small-scale salvage that hasn't been managed. These are massive gaps in terms of replanting, and nothing in this bill addresses it.

In fact, at the very time when investments need to be made, this government is scaling back on those investments. To cover that, I would say to the minister, they put forward a bill like this, which will provide a very good talking point — "Hey, we put in legislation; we're going to reforest" — when the opposite action is taking place. They're cutting budgets that are needed to deal with that very serious shortfall in silviculture.

We are going backwards. If you look at this graph, we are going backwards to areas that, in terms of areas that need work on the public land…. We are going back to levels that we haven't seen since the 1980s. In the 1980s the federal and provincial governments started to invest heavily to deal with that shortfall. We made progress, but that progress has been lost.

What that means is that if we don't deal with the issue successfully, we are taking away opportunities for the future. Like I say, this is one of the few things we can do on the land that, done properly, not only enriches us now, as it has in the past, but has the potential to deal fairly with
[ Page 3631 ]
the future generations that are coming. Yet this government is consistently failing the people of this province in not dealing properly with the forest health issue.

The other difficulty with the bill…. Right here — and the minister alluded to it — at the bottom of the first page, just in one line it says that the government "must achieve the goal of zero net deforestation within British Columbia by December 31, 2015." That sounds very reasonable. But it has to be seen in the context of what you see in this House again and again, which is that these promises that are made for the future never actually pan out. For those people who don't follow forestry carefully….

But you will remember this. In 2001 there was a promise by government that there would be 5,000 new seniors residential care beds by 2005 and that they would be non-profit. It's just one of a series of promises that are made, just like this one in this bill — exactly like this one made in this bill.

But how does it pan out? When you go back and look, does it actually lead to action? The fact is — what everyone knows — that that promise, like so many others made by this government, which was specific and clear…. In the end, when you look at it, it doesn't pan out. In fact, by 2005 they closed 2,529 beds. They cut. And then they tried to twist it, changing the date when it would be done, changing the definition of what a seniors home would be. They did all of these things. They played around with it, trying to make people forget or confuse people about the reality.

So now they come here, and they say that by 2015 they are somehow going to achieve something that is nebulous and poorly defined. They expect people to take it seriously. This is something that is actually likely to happen. I think most people, if they look at it carefully, will realize that that's not going to be the case.

Another example would be education. This was going to be the most literate jurisdiction in the world or in North America or something by 2010. Then they changed the date to 2015, and now, presumably, they've given up on it.

[1720]

So it is a tired old trick that we see in this piece of legislation, something that can be thrown out there, used in speeches, and by 2015 — after the next election, by the way — whatever happens will happen.

The judgment from the B.C. Liberals is that people will have forgotten all about this promise, and it will be just like so many others of these empty promises that lead to absolutely nothing at a time when we need real leadership, when we need the government to recognize that if we want forestry to rebound, if we want something to happen in the future, there have to be investments, there has to be leadership.

We cannot continue along the same path that we have for the past eight years, where you have almost a complete lack of interest in terms of what's going on, on the land base, and an unprecedented record of failure. There needs to be energy. There needs to be new ideas. And in this legislation there certainly are none of those things.

Even within forestry…. I'll just draw the public's attention to something specifically within forestry that gives an idea of why I would look at this and be so reticent in supporting the idea that anything good is going to come out of it.

If you go to reports that were supposed to come yearly on the state of the forests…. In 2004 this government promised that it would put together a reporting system for the state of the forests. I think this is something that was the chief forester's responsibility. So as they dismantled, in 2003, all of the protections that were there, the environmental protections, they said: "No, don't worry. The B.C. Liberal government will produce a report on the state of forests in 2004."

That first report, when it was put together…. They said: "Well, we only have six of the 24 indicators that we want to use ready, but here's the report, and the next one you can expect next year." Well, 2005 came and went, and there was no report, even though it was promised, just as this one is promised.

In 2006 there was a report. In 2006 they had made it up to 12 of the 24 indicators, so they were a year late and half done. Then they said: "Don't worry. Next year, 2007 — it's coming." Well, it's been 2007. It's been 2008. It's been 2009. It's into 2010, and if you go on the website now, it's somehow being prepared. "It's coming. Don't worry."

So then for the government to come in and tell us in this two-page act that somehow we should depend upon them following through on a promise to report something in 2015…. I would say most think that that's pretty unlikely. Pretty unlikely.

Then you get to the second part of the legislation, this second page. This is why it takes only six minutes for a minister to describe it. The second page is basically the power to make regulations. Essentially, all that it says is: "We are going to make the rules up later in cabinet."

So you come here to the Legislature. You put a piece of legislation that gives cabinet the ability to go by regulation and do whatever they want without the scrutiny of the Legislature. The minister talked about some of the things he intended to do. He didn't put it in the legislation. He didn't put it in the bill.

Now, we will, during the committee stage, try to understand the details of what the minister's talking about, but let's not underestimate the complexity of what he's talking about here. There are a series of questions, and during that time we'll see if this is in any way thought through.

The reporting on net deforestation, by the way, begins in 2012, in that year. I presume it would be reported out in 2013. Maybe it will be from the previous year and
[ Page 3632 ]
reported out in 2012, or maybe it's something slightly different than that. That puts it right around the time of the election. Pretty hard to hold them accountable on anything done, and anyway, that's just going to be a base. The idea is that between 2012 and 2015 there is somehow going to be this zero net deforestation that is yet ill-defined.

[1725]

All of that comes at a time when you have this incredible need for leadership and for a government that is actually going to take the industry seriously, take our public land seriously and do something. Instead what we get is this piece that I can almost guarantee people will lead nowhere. It will lead nowhere. The reports that somehow were supposed to be produced will just not be produced. Like so many of these other promises from the B.C. Liberals, they just will not happen.

You ask yourself: what's the purpose? Why would they put this piece of legislation out there? It's to confuse people, for the minister and others to stand up and say: "Oh well, we've got this in legislation. We're going to have zero net reforestation."

If you tie it back, it ties back to something that the Premier said, and the Premier will find it useful in speeches to talk about it. Like so many of the initiatives that have flowed from this government, it leads to nothing, or worse, it leads to complete collapse.

It's useful when we look at this, as well, to just go back to what the government was talking about when they took on responsibility for the public lands. There was a time when the B.C. Liberals, I think even themselves, thought they had all the answers. They thought they knew. They had a bag of tricks they were going to try, and they laid out their vision in 2003. They called it the forest revitalization plan.

For rural communities, it had a massive impact that's felt just recently in Kamloops with what happened with the transfer of title there. It wouldn't have happened before this act, but it happened, as it has in many parts of the province since. The impacts were dramatic. The social contract that had been there since the time of W.A.C. Bennett was removed. What the people in rural B.C. would recognize…. Appurtenance where the wood that was in an area would be milled in an area — that was removed.

Environmental standards were degraded. Environmental protections. You had companies that were allowed to leave waste, and they did — in their interests perhaps, certainly not in the public interest. With the revitalization plans, there were promises — just as the minister is going to stand up and talk about what this is going to do. The fact is that the promises all too often lead absolutely nowhere.

So let's look at some of the rhetoric that was around the forest revitalization plan from 2003. There was a promise to revitalize the economy of forest communities. Well, since that was said, there have been 71 mills shut — and all the ripples of damage that it does in a community. That's the statement from the government, and the record is there for everyone to see.

They said that it would generate jobs. The B.C. Liberals, when they put forward the forest revitalization plan, like so many other initiatives that they have…. They say: "It's going to generate jobs." So that's the statement, but the reality is — what? — 31,000 good, family-supporting forestry jobs are gone, a portion of the jobs that were there before they took over. The rhetoric does not match what happens on the ground.

They talked, with the revitalization plan, of spinoff benefits for communities. Well, communities have been left high and dry, and that's the reality. Whether it's Mackenzie or Kitimat or Kamloops or Campbell River, communities have been abandoned. The programs that used to be there to support communities in transition, and should be there, were removed.

The money that did come in — and there has been some — has been largely federal money, $129 million in federal money. I think if you look at what that federal money accomplished, it accomplished quite a bit and should be a model for what you can do if you actually decide that you're going to help communities. But it's a decision that this government has chosen not to make. They are not going to help communities in transition.

[1730]

So you have a promise. You have commitments that are made, and they are not followed through on. Instead, you have an unprecedented collapse. Again, with this legislation, Bill 5, there will be some promises and fancy words about zero net deforestation, but the practical result will be absolutely underwhelming, and that's a problem, because it is a time when we need things to work better than that.

There have been other policy decisions, other things that have been tried by the government around taxation. You had, very early on, the reduction of the PST — no study as to the impact of that by the government. You'd think that that would be something that the government would do.

There's been a reduction in the school tax — again, no study. There have been the heritage rates in power — again, no study of whether that was beneficial or not in terms of jobs. You had corporate tax cuts, which continue and still no study as to whether it works or not. Then in the future this government is proposing the HST — again, no studies, nothing to say whether the approach will work or not.

You have this vacuum of leadership that this bill does nothing to fill. You also have giveaways like with the TFLs, those sweetheart deals like around Jordan River. That was presented as something that was going to create jobs, be beneficial in some way. As everyone knows…. I mean, the Auditor General was clear. The public good wasn't served by those decisions.
[ Page 3633 ]

So a record leading up to Bill 5 of failure after failure after failure. What I would say to this government and what I would say to the minister is that there are challenges that are real. I don't think anyone could reach any conclusion other than the fact that the government does not have all of the answers. For me, they don't seem to have any of the answers. To be fair, the reality is that I don't think anyone out there does have all the answers.

The minister will stand up and quite correctly point to the challenges that we have with markets, that we have with the dollar, that we have with climate change, and what I would say to the minister is this. This Bill 5, I will characterize as essentially a stunt. We can pass it. It will sit on a shelf somewhere — likely do no harm; likely do no good. But we need to get to a place where we work seriously on the issues that confront rural British Columbia, and the way forward on that is for the Premier to decide that it's time to work together in the way that this Legislature should work.

Since 2005 the predecessor's critic for forestry has called for an all-party committee on forestry. What I can tell you is that I know, from people that are within this Legislature on both sides, there is keen interest in addressing the problems that I will say very clearly are complex and difficult.

I do not doubt the sincerity of the minister in trying to grapple with these issues. I've seen it myself. Much of what the public sees is this debate, which is set up to be confrontational, and rightly so. There's a purpose that's served in that. But we also as legislators do often meet and try to solve problems, because in the end, we want things to work. It is incredibly important, for the people that I represent, that forestry works, that there is success.

We have this government for the next three years. It is absolutely crucial that they not continue with the failures that they've had. It has to be something different, for the benefit of not only the people that I represent but for others in this House that represent rural B.C., and there is a way to move forward.

[1735]

There is that opportunity to have legislators work together and do real work, because the answers are out there. The answers are out there in the communities with the people that are on the land and that deal with these issues all the time. There is opportunity to work with forestry, to work with forest health based upon a set of principles that British Columbians will embrace and understand.

These are public lands. The sentiment in rural British Columbia is strong that people in rural British Columbia should be re-engaged in making decisions on the land that surrounds them. There is a strong sense that this government has given away far too much control to corporations and that rural British Columbians have been left out of decision-making not only in forestry but in the public land in general.

Around that principle, you could have discussions and find solutions and engage in real grass-roots decision-making, because the actual wisdom of British Columbians sits within our communities and sits with people who have done this work their whole life.

I know that the communities I represent…. There is tremendous expertise there, and there is a tremendous ability to solve problems if we empower them. That's part of what we should be doing — taking that wisdom and putting it into place as public policy. But too often, instead, what we get is political stunts like this, which will lead nowhere.

The solutions are there if we allow them to come forward. We could again focus on the principles of ecosystem protection, the principles of making sure that forest health is the focus of the Forest Service, not what we see it headed towards — being a facilitator for industry getting as much out as quickly as it can. The Forest Service needs to be, again, the body that looks after forest health for the people of British Columbia.

There needs to be a recognition of the importance of biodiversity and the resilience that that puts into our forests and into our communities. If the government gets and if we here get the forest health piece right and support the innovations that we clearly need, we can make progress.

There are lots of ideas around biomass that are out there. People talk about these ideas. They talk about other initiatives, but it needs leadership. Bill 5 is not part of that leadership. It is not the leadership that British Columbians are looking for. There are real and complex issues that need to be worked through. Bill 5, in my view, is a way of avoiding that necessary work. That is my concern, and it is a problem.

What I would invite this government to do is think again about putting together a forestry committee and allowing legislators that are here to do the work that they want to do and allow the wisdom that is there in our communities to come forward to get this industry on its feet again.

Hon. J. Yap: It's an honour and a privilege for me to take my place and participate in second reading debate on Bill 5, Zero Net Deforestation Act, which the Minister of Forests has introduced. I appreciate my colleague the Minister of Forests bringing in this important piece of legislation.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

I'm actually glad that I'm following the speaker from the opposition who just spoke, the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke, who not surprisingly took a very negative stance on this important piece of legislation — a negative stance that was filled, sadly, with…. Some facts were missing. Because we're in debate here,
[ Page 3634 ]
I'd like, for the record, to set a few of the facts straight before I get to the substance of my remarks.

First of all, I heard the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke make mention about…. He went a few years back to the commitment of our government to build 5,000 seniors beds. To set the record straight, the record is that over 7,000 beds were achieved.

[1740]

The member also talked about the fact that our government is somehow not living up to the commitment towards literacy and education. I just want to set the record straight because British Columbians need to know the facts. The fact is that the investment in education has never been higher. We're spending record amounts on education towards literacy in British Columbia. So that's another fact.

Getting back to forests, let's focus on one of the comments made by the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke — that there have been a number of forestry job losses in the last few years. That's very difficult. We know that communities have had a challenging time. Forestry jobs, we know, have not been at the levels that we would like to see them. Historically we've had stronger employment in the forests.

But the member neglects to state that the reason that the forestry industry is not seeing the better, stronger days is because our largest market for forest products, the U.S. housing market, is roughly 20 to 23 percent of what it was before the deepest recession in a generation hit. So I just want to put that out there for some balance.

The previous speaker, the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke, did talk about leadership. I want to start out by being very clear. No province in Canada has shown more leadership, has taken more action in the area of climate change than this government under this Premier. In fact, we have received international recognition for our climate action, our proactive approach in dealing with climate change — perhaps the challenge of our generation, as has been said by many.

In fact, one of the member's colleagues personally attended the climate change summit in Copenhagen in December last year and should know. I think all the colleagues should know, because this was quite a wonderful event. The province of British Columbia — our Premier — was recognized in Copenhagen for the leadership this government has shown in taking action on climate change. British Columbia is taking proactive action in dealing with climate change.

This bill that my colleague the Minister of Forests has introduced is one of the tools towards ensuring that we continue to take positive action in dealing with the effects of climate change.

Now, the member talked about leadership. Well, where was the leadership in the 1990s, when his colleagues were in government, when the signs of climate change were evident, when we saw the destruction of our forests from the pine beetle infestation? Did they do anything? Well, the record shows that they knew it was a problem, but they kept waiting. Instead of taking action, no leadership.

It's ironic that the member talks about leadership, when his own party, when they were in government in the 1990s — another example — just didn't take the kind of action needed to deal with climate change inasmuch as the forests and pine beetle infestation are concerned.

This bill will set British Columbia on a course to ensure that our forests will continue to be a great resource for generations. We are blessed. On this point, I agree with the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke that we are blessed in British Columbia in having a rich forest resource. We have millions and millions of hectares of forests that can provide, through this great asset on the land base, opportunities for communities right around the province — for economic opportunities, for communities to sustain communities — and also, importantly, can help deal with climate change.

[1745]

As has been stated, about 6,000 hectares of forest in British Columbia are deforested each year, and roughly 40 percent of this happens on private lands. This is a fact. It's important that we support afforestation, the replacement of trees, and this bill sets a commitment that we will achieve net zero deforestation by 2015.

We understand that the members on the other side are perhaps feeling that this is a government that's showing leadership in dealing with climate action. We know from the record that members of the opposition like to talk about being in favour of climate action, but the record shows that at every opportunity to join us in showing leadership, they have failed.

For example, the revenue-neutral carbon tax that our government introduced, for which we have received recognition around the world — the NDP voted against it. Yes, I remember well that the NDP campaigned against the carbon tax, and now, apparently, they're in favour of the carbon tax.

Cap-and-trade legislation. It's important that we move to recognize the pricing of carbon pollution for large emitters through the cap-and-trade system. We've introduced legislation on cap-and-trade. This opposition voted against it.

They voted against our transit plan, which will provide transit throughout major centres around British Columbia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. This opposition voted against it.

They voted against initiatives that will lead to clean energy development. For example, the innovative clean energy fund — this opposition voted against it.

It's clear, when the members opposite talk about leadership, it is this government, this side of the House, that is showing leadership in climate action, in taking
[ Page 3635 ]
positive action on climate change, and this bill is part of our action plan.

Deforestation has been described by the National Geographic Magazine as a modern-day plague. If I may, I'd like to quote from a recent article in the National Geographic. "Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world's land area, but swaths the size of Panama are lost each and every year. The world's rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation."

This government is taking action to ensure that we preserve our forests, that afforestation is encouraged and that we achieve our goal of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. It's very important that our forests contribute to our climate action plan.

As we all know, forests are tremendous assets in collecting and concentrating carbon. They are not only the lungs of our province, but they are a great storer of carbon. It's important that we, through this legislation, encourage the afforestation that's needed to get us there so that we preserve our forests, so that we are at a net afforestation. This legislation will help us get there.

We have support for this legislation. A number of people have spoken up in favour of the legislation that has been introduced.

[1750]

An environmental group, the ForestEthics group. I would like to quote Valerie Langer, speaking on behalf of ForestEthics, a respected environmental non-government organization. "It's good to have a zero net deforestation act."

Another quote from a third party. Michael Rosen, president of Tree Canada, says this: "The province of British Columbia is to be commended for its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by implementing a zero net deforestation policy."

There's support for this legislation, in spite of what the members of the opposition say. As the Minister of Forests has outlined, we have legislation that will use tax incentives to encourage businesses — through business expenses, tax incentives — to encourage afforestation. Charitable donations are another mechanism through the tax system — and fees and property tax incentives — to provide the framework for us to achieve zero net deforestation — and, of course, carbon offsets.

Carbon offsets are an important way that we will be able to deal with greenhouse gas emissions — to reduce our emissions through credible carbon offsets, which our forests provide. This will be another opportunity for us in terms of taking action on climate change.

I'm very proud to support this legislation. It's important legislation as part of our climate action plan. It's part of our plan to support communities that are forestry-related and -dependent. This will continue to set us on the course for a future where we have a lower-carbon economy, and British Columbians will participate in the low-carbon economy that is the future for all of us.

This government is showing leadership with this piece of legislation. I support this piece of legislation and encourage all members of the House — including members of the opposition, who can see that it's important to take action on climate change — to support Bill 5, the Zero Net Deforestation Act.

With that, I look forward to hearing some of the comments from my colleagues in the House.

B. Routley: Interesting. The member from Richmond has quoted a few experts, and he had the idea that he could correct my friend. He was on the wrong beds. Unfortunately, he was talking about beds that are mostly assisted living, not the long-term beds that my friend was talking about.

Let's talk about the zero act. Let's just shorten it up and call it what is it really is, a zero act. I remember the old…. I think there's a Three Dog Night song that says, "Nothing from nothing is still nothing," and that's what we've got here — a nothing act from a nothing government with no plan.

You know, this bill completely ignores the most important forest health issue in the province of British Columbia. It ignores the major deforestation that's happening right as we speak throughout the province of British Columbia. This government, when it first came to power….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Member, please take your seat.

Members on both sides, I am now having difficulty hearing the speaker.

Please proceed.

B. Routley: This government has, since it first came to power, systematically gutted the laws that provide any real forest stewardship in the province of British Columbia.

[1755]

Instead of any kind of real plan to do anything about the sad state, unfortunately, of our B.C. forests, we get this feeble attempt to try to appear to be doing something. It's really just more window dressing — no real action in this bill at all.

I will go through the bill systematically to explain why that's the case, but first, I want to take this opportunity to show how this bill is building on their legacy. Just last session we had what I would call the "We can't agree to use B.C. wood" act. That's what it should have been called. At the end of the day, they called it the Wood First Act.
[ Page 3636 ]

Our opposition party talked about a fair-minded and simple fix to the legislation. At the end of the day, our fix was going to have B.C. communities and B.C. forest workers put first. But no, this government…. How did they vote on B.C.? This government, shamefully, had to vote against their own province. It's unbelievable.

Our position was that the bill should just include B.C. Like, let's use B.C. wood. But no, this government screwed up the courage and came en masse to vote against the province of British Columbia. It's shameful that this government can't even agree to use B.C. wood products and to make some certainty so that B.C. woodworkers and their families and communities would have some opportunities. They actually voted against a commitment to use B.C. wood in their Wood First Act.

I'm glad that the minister is here. Maybe he can share with us at some point an update on how we're doing with the six-storey wood public buildings. Do we have any yet? I suspect that that was, again, more window dressing as a result of the follow-up on that act. There are no six-storey wood buildings being built in the province of British Columbia.

It's interesting that this government just has more zeroes in front of its plan. This bill is so feeble. It's the equivalent of trying to wallpaper over a clearcut that is so large that it can be seen out in outer space. The fact is that this government is trying to put little trees on wallpaper and wallpaper over a problem with this feeble attempt of a bill, which really, by its own admission, is talking about some 750,000 hectares instead of a real plan to do something about forest health issues in the province of British Columbia.

Not only the people of British Columbia but people throughout the world have travelled to British Columbia, and this government isn't hiding a thing. Anyone that flies over B.C. on a clear day can see the problem: serious forest health issues.

This government is still studying the problem. This government has no plan for forest health, so what we get is this papering over of the real problems with the transparently flimsy attempt to look like they're doing something about B.C. forest health issues.

Now, let's examine some of the problems that we have in forest health. I want to talk for a minute about what the association of B.C. professional registered foresters has to say about one of the key problems that we face in British Columbia. I had a discussion with some of them, and they made the point that without sound inventory information, we can't plan now or in the future. We can't address carbon issues in any real way if we don't have good inventory data, the baseline information that we require to plan not only now but in the future and as we move forward.

The foresters say they produced a report entitled Assessment of the Status of Forest Inventories in British Columbia, which made it clear that there were not enough inventories going on, and they offered 19 recommendations. It was softly worded but very highly critical.

[1800]

"The keys to solving these issues are establishing clear baselines of responsibility for forest inventory, supplying sufficient baseline funding to implement the inventory, appropriately managing data and producing inventory products."

Sadly, this government has failed to move forward with an adequate plan to deal with the inventory issues that are sadly lacking in the province of British Columbia — baseline information that we simply must have in order to deal with our forests going forward. Even the harvesting plans in our forest. How can we be harvesting? With all this dead and dying pine forest and other health issues, we're still cutting. A lot of the cutting that's going on is based on forests that just simply don't exist. They're dead and dying.

The minister talks about dead and dying forests. He made the bold claim a little while ago. I remember reading in the news that he was saying that the beetles got all the pine. Well, I'm not sure that that's true. I think there's still the odd pine that they're after. I know the beetle has breached the Rockies. I was up in Dawson Creek a little while ago, and I saw pockets of dead pine in very scattered areas. It's really sad to see, but there's no plan to deal with it.

I want to talk for a minute about what the silviculture contractors' association has to say. I looked at John Betts' statements in the WSCA website. This was in 2009. He says: "There's little doubt what the future holds. We can be certain of at least three years of extremely depressed demand for tree planting" — wait a minute; what's that? — "for seedling production, for site preparation, for stand tending, for prescribed burning and fuel management, if we stay on the present course."

He says: "We are in the worst decline in silviculture we have ever seen." Shame. Again, we get this so-called Zero Net Deforestation Act, and the real professionals, the people that actually go out and plant the trees, are the ones that we need to look at to see what's really going on in this province. They report a very sad tale indeed.

They go on — their association. Mr. Betts says: "The biggest issue for silviculture contractors right now is the future of their industry and how it's going to be affected by the current crisis in the forest sector." This bill does nothing to deal with these problems.

Forest health. They go on: "The Campbell government is spending less on forest health as a proportion of overall spending than ever before at a time when our forests need it the most." This isn't me, the member from Cowichan, talking this way. This is the silviculture association here in British Columbia that does tree planting all over B.C.

They talk about the vast impact of the mountain pine beetle epidemic — more than 14.5 million hectares affected and counting. I know it's even greater than that
[ Page 3637 ]
number now. The uplift in the provincial allowable cut is not reflected in the numbers for reforestation.

Where does that leave us today? He says: "It's darn hard to make sense of current events by simple arithmetic. We are harvesting at a rate that should see reforestation at five times" — five times, hon. Speaker — "the present level. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been talked about and promised to mitigate the mountain pine beetle, but astonishing little is reaching the ground and the contracting crews." My, my.

A big part of the problem in ensuring the short- and long-term viability and sustainability of our forest resources is a current lack of accurate data for the forest land base.

[1805]

So now we have the registered professional foresters and the Western Silviculture Contractors' Association laying it out — the bare facts. There it is. It's a naked truth, absolutely. There we are with the lack of accurate data, conflicting data sets from the ministry, and the seed-planting and revenue divisions tell different stories in terms of what is being planted.

They go on. "In the case of the mountain pine beetle plague, the Forests for Tomorrow program will only address a minor increment of the 15 million hectares, and that's over the next 20 years."

They're doing such a mediocre job. "With the area of mountain pine beetle that is not recovering through natural regeneration estimated in some cases to be as high as 40 percent of the attack, the Ministry of Forests has yet to come up with a strategy to address this extensive degradation in the forest abundance and diversity."

These are shocking reports. These are not my words. These are the reports of professionals out in the field that are doing the work day in and day out.

Here we have yet another one. This is December 15 of '09 — so very, very recent. They say:

"The current B.C. forest management model may not be suitable any longer to properly support forest ecosystems, communities or the economies to properly support forest ecosystems. The beetle plague, wildfires and the pending falldown of timber supply, the inability to capitalize on the biomass windfall, along with the collapsing timber product sales are, in part, symptoms of how we manage the forest resources."

What an indictment. This is from yet another group that is out there looking at what's going on within the Ministry of Forests and the forest policies and saying that it is an absolute failure. We're not dealing with the forest health issues in the province of British Columbia.

They talk about how the general public thinks that the silviculture industry must be very busy these days dealing with the forest health problems, but they report that they are not busy at all. "In fact, it's just the opposite. Silviculture contractors, nurseries and forest consultants all face bleak prospects."

How can that be? That flies in the face…. It totally contradicts everything that we have heard. Here is a government presenting a plan — Zero Net Deforestation Act. Again, it sounds like an act….

We're going to try and help them out. They obviously needed help last time, and they wouldn't take our advice. I doubt they'll take our advice again, but we've got some ideas on how we can improve this bill and this act. We're going to introduce them at the appropriate stages. But will they listen? I doubt it.

Anyway, they go on to say that there's a sentiment that the silviculture industry has become a stale sector and that there is "little actual substance in the province's promises and the headlines regarding climate change and a green economy."

That's interesting, following up on the speaker from the other side, from Richmond, who claims their government is doing all kinds of wonderful things about climate change. Yet here are groups outside of this Legislature who are the real validators of what's going on, that are out in the field planting trees all over British Columbia. They say that it's just smoke and mirrors, that it's not really happening and that there's a real crisis coming when it comes to dealing with the issues.

[1810]

Finally, in December they said, "The number of seedlings planted…will soon be only half what they were a few years ago" — half. Again, those are the facts as presented by the silviculture association, and I have no reason to doubt the integrity of the material that they put on their website — none whatsoever. I believe that they are presenting what they see are the real issues here in the province of British Columbia.

You know, this is just another example of this government's continuing jiggery-pokery. I couldn't resist, hon. Speaker. I just had to get it in yet again. This bill certainly gets a zero for effort, more of the kind of smoke and mirrors.

Let's go through the bill point by point. Basically….

Interjection.

B. Routley: Well, we're going to try to amend it, but anyway….

The government vulnerabilities…. Let's look at this as a zero net deforestation. It only means selective kinds of deforestation, and get this: they delay doing anything. They delay doing anything until 2012-2015. My, my.

It doesn't include deforestation from pine beetle or from wildfires. Too much is left up to regulation. Oh, and I've got to read my favourite regulation in here. This is kind of the Liberal philosophy in a nutshell. This would be their philosophy in a nutshell.

It says under item 4, power to make regulations: "In making a regulation under this Act, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may do one or more of the following." And this is my all-time favourite. In (c) it says:
[ Page 3638 ]
"make different regulations for different persons, places, things or transactions."

My, my, isn't that wonderful. We can kind of make it up as we go along and make whatever regulations they feel like making, and they can make them different for different persons, places, things or transactions. It is simply incredible and meaningless.

The analysis of the definitions, when you look at it…. Deforestation — again, it doesn't include pine beetle or other pathogens and diseases, and it doesn't include forest fires. It could be argued, I would suggest, that it fails to adequately predict, prevent and manage forest fires, or you could argue they're Liberal-induced problems in the forests.

Why do I say that? Because of lack of action. When you don't take preventative actions and deal with forest health issues head-on, you're going to have the kind of crisis we've got that's going to be reported on by silviculture contractors and forest professionals all over the province.

So much is left up to regulations. For example, in the area afforested, when it comes to forest land again as defined in the regulations, also deforestation "does not include the removal of trees from any area of forest land that is excluded from this definition by regulation." My goodness.

The goal regarding net zero deforestation. It simply states that the government must achieve this goal by December 31, 2015. And get this: they don't even have to take any action. Here they are today, in March 2010, introducing a bill that they want, in point 3, to start by beginning with a report on net deforestation within British Columbia for the 2012 calendar year. That means we're not even thinking about getting a report done before the next election. That's how laughable this is.

This government comes in with a shell of a bill with a bunch of jiggery-pokery and tries to present the notion that they're actually doing something, when yet again — and it's clear from the way this has been drafted — they have no intention of doing anything about deforestation. So net zero, while it's something that obviously is a laudable goal, at the end of the day is a toothless tiger because they put it off. It's not even on the radar, as they like to say, yet again.

[1815]

When we continue with the analysis here, this does not mean that the plan is to have zero net deforestation for British Columbia. This talks about net deforestation between 2012 and 2015. So I ask: what about the net deforestation that has happened all over B.C. in the last nine years and will continue to happen throughout 2010 and 2011? What about that? How much net deforestation has there been? How much not sufficiently restocked land?

Let's talk about not sufficiently restocked land. It's a growing number, and this minister, I'm sure, is aware of that crisis, and yet more of the same.

Let's look at some of the other promises this government has made regarding forest policy and then reneged on over the years. In 2003 in the B.C. heartlands strategy on forests they said, and I want to quote right from their statements: "An improved Forest Practices Code…." Their idea of an improvement, by the way, was to totally dismantle the regulations and make it a basically "we hope you'll get along with this" kind of approach to their corporate pals.

The answer was to totally deregulate the Forest Practices Code to the point where they claimed, and these are their words, not mine…. This is the Liberal plan. It says that an improved Forest Practices Code will provide environmental protection backed up by tough penalties. We're going to have tough penalties for non-compliance, including fines of up to $1 million, or there was going to jail time. Oh, I like that one. That was just to add a little drama to the whole thing.

The government said: "Boy, we're serious. We'll show you how serious we are. Million-dollar fines and a little jail time if you're not complying with what goes on here." Clearly, the move to a less prescriptive Forest Practices Code required, by the Liberals' own admission, the need for tough penalties and enforcement and, presumably, enough staff on the ground to notice anything was amiss.

Not only would these companies be required to outline how they would meet the new standards, but the Liberals claimed that a team of specialized staff in the Ministry of Forests will conduct — listen to this — thousands…. "We're going to have thousands of inspections every year."

Now let's talk about what's really going on. I have in front of me what's happened since the time that they started their legislative change. They had more inspections and more tickets, and currently they have far fewer inspections and many have no ticket violations at all. The ministry stopped reporting the number of violations that small-scale producers had. I don't know. Our researchers can't find any reports at all after 2007-2008.

I think this ministry has gutted, so badly gutted, the compliance and the enforcement group that were supposed to be out there doing thousands of all these compliance…. They were going to be doing a flood of reports, and we were going to have first-class forestry in British Columbia. They were going to make sure, because they were going to have tough enforcement penalties and maybe even jail. Well, nobody has been put in jail — not a single person.

You know, they've even cut the amount that they're penalizing people. They have been going backwards.

[1820]

In 2002-2003 there were eight tickets between $10,000 and $20,000. There were four tickets above $20,000, and one ticket was at least $50,000 minimum, between $50,000 and $100,000. That was the snapshot when
[ Page 3639 ]
things were about to get tougher. They were going to get a whole lot tougher. But let's talk about what's actually happened on the ground.

We're heading back to the days where the rules in B.C. have become so relaxed that we're at risk of becoming another poster child for mismanaged forests — with the lack of action and credibility, with cutting out enforcement activities. By 2007-2008 — and this is the last date that we were able to find records for — there was only one ticket, one that was between $10,000 and $20,000, and none, zero, nothing above $19,999. Guess what. That's where the new level is. It didn't go to a million dollars.

The facts are that they've got a non-enforcement strategy. There is a non-compliance strategy, and this government's attitude is to gut the people that are supposed to be there being responsible to look after protecting these forests. When I look at what's happened….

In 2003 — I've got with me a report — 700 forest ministry staff get chopped back then. It was reported that the bulk of the layoffs came from the closure of 20 regional forest offices by March 2003. Heyman has estimated that 70 to 80 percent of those workers laid off would involve field work, monitoring, environmental practices and supervising the volume and quality of the timber. My, my, and here we go again. We've got a government that has chopped — and yet again in this budget.

What are they chopping? They are cutting the budgets for compliance and enforcement officers in British Columbia. We are going to get to the bottom of that, or try to, at the estimates process, to try and ask some thoughtful questions about this. Our interest is only in protecting and taking action to protect the forests, not only for today but for the future of British Columbia. If we're going to do something that's real, that's not just some fairy tale dreamed up by a government that has no plan, we need to act, and we need to act soon.

Hon. K. Krueger: I'm pleased to be able to stand up and speak in favour of Bill 5, the Zero Net Deforestation Act. In spite of all the bombast we were just hearing, this fulfils a throne speech commitment from 2008. And a quote from that throne speech:

"Each year new developments, urbanization, agriculture conversions, new power lines and other utility corridors contribute to deforestation. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and removes millions of trees that are absorbing and storing carbon.

"To reverse this problem your government will pursue a goal of zero net deforestation. It will work with First Nations, industry and communities to put that goal into law by 2010 and establish a viable strategy for realizing that vision by 2015."

The goal date — 2015. Obviously, if listeners or people reading Hansard would care to look at the previous member's remarks, they'll realize just from that quote from the throne speech what bombast they were hearing.

British Columbia is one of the first jurisdictions in the world to implement a zero net deforestation goal enshrined in legislation. B.C. is in a position to provide global leadership on this issue.

Interjection.

Hon. K. Krueger: Who but the NDP would disapprove of that? Who but the NDP would speak against it?

The member who just spoke probably has never looked at the NDP record, probably has never been near a logging show in his life, probably doesn't have a clue what the NDP did to the forest industry.

[1825]

And the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke — I'm always disappointed when I hear the things he says in this House. He spoke about an unprecedented record of failure, and that's the NDP record.

I was in opposition to the NDP government when they brought tremendous expense and financial ruin upon B.C.'s forest industry. Today they're not ashamed of that record. Most of them don't even know about it. They just get up in this House and talk.

When I ran in 1996 and I was elected to opposition, I defeated an NDP incumbent. He was a nice fellow, a very honest fellow. I remember one of our all-candidates forums. It was in Barriere, B.C. There are probably still people who would remember it very clearly, because someone asked him in the Q and A: "Mr. MLA" — which is what he had been up until then — "what is FRBC?" He looked at them for a moment and then, in his honest way, said, "It's a way to spend money," and the crowd burst out laughing, because that's what everybody thought, and he was so honest that he said so.

The NDP were making it out to be something positive. But it was a way to draw money out of the forest industry, billions of dollars in super-stumpage, and squander it.

He said: "It's a way to spend money." When the crowd laughed, he looked really surprised. Because he was an honest fellow, he thought he'd spoken frankly and couldn't understand why people would laugh, and he said: "No, really, that's what it is. It's a way to spend money." They all fell down laughing again, because that was the truth of the matter, and here they had a fellow who would actually say so, representing the NDP.

He was defeated, and of course, in the following election, so was the NDP — almost annihilated, a Corvette party, a two-seater, after that election.

Well, one day during that first sad term that I had as opposition to a government that was destroying the economy of British Columbia, we came across a list of what they'd spent the money on from FRBC. I'll always remember that one of the expenditures was funding a study in Saskatchewan on bat stratification in caves.

Imagine that — taking money away from British Columbia forest licensees, people who were employing
[ Page 3640 ]
honest British Columbians working in the forest, and spending it studying what bats leave behind in caves.

Then there was the jobs and timber accord. Premier Glen Clark hauled a bunch of unhappy forest licensee CEOs up on the stage — and I can see the House Leader opposite remembering this sad day — obliging them to stand there with him while he announced the jobs and timber accord and how it was going to create tens of thousands of jobs.

How many did it ever create? It created one job, and that was the commissioner that the NDP appointed to administer the jobs and timber accord. I believe that was the only job ever created. We had a Forests Minister in that day who proudly said that government can do anything it wants, and that's what that government did — anything it wanted. Much of it was ruination for that industry, the once proud B.C. forest industry, and for the economy in general.

Super-stumpage, they called it. They jacked up the stumpage so that they'd have money to spend, and they spent it so profligately that Premier Glen Clark referred to what he was doing as "shovelling money off the back of trucks." I would have thought the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke would have heard that word before.

Interjection.

Hon. K. Krueger: He says he heard it in 1997, and that's certainly when his party was in power, shovelling money off the back of trucks. That's what Premier Glen Clark characterized it as.

Then there was the Forest Practices Code, a code so process-based, so onerous and so ridiculous that if you stacked up all the documents of the Forest Practices Code, it was around two metres high. Forest companies had to employ an army of people to interpret it, and so did government.

At the time there were a thousand registered professional foresters working for the government, for the Ministry of Forests — working and living here in Victoria, British Columbia, where I've never seen any logging in the 14 years that I've been here. But they had a thousand RPFs to work on interpreting their code, and thousands more across British Columbia. That was a terrible draw on forest companies, and it set them on a road that they've never really recovered from.

[1830]

Finally, one day the NDP Forests Minister of the day decided to cut back some of the red tape, some that have overregulation. He proudly said in this House that his actions were going to save the forest industry a billion dollars, inadvertently admitting at the time that he knew that his government, the NDP government of the day, had wasted a billion dollars of the licensees' money — probably every year.

I remember members standing up in this House and pleading with the NDP government about that overregulation. Winter logging shows that were never going to see any running water, going to be working on the frost, required to put culverts under roads when everybody knew….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members.

Hon. K. Krueger: Required to put culverts in roads that were only going to be used for the winter and decommissioned before the spring, so there would never be any water in those culverts. The only H2O they'd ever see would be if a worker threw a snowball in one because it was a winter road alone.

I remember a logging contractor on one of our tours, opposition tours, talking to us about how desperately the NDP was forcing him to waste money. He said he'd come to a snag in working through the area that he was permitted to log, and he'd had to stop work. He said to his workers: "Look at this. There's an eagle's nest in that snag. If I cut it down, the Ministry of Environment will fine me, and if I don't cut it down, the Workers Compensation Board will fine me. There's no way I can avoid a fine."

He actually worked out which fine would be smaller, and that's the action he took. Sure enough, he was fined, because he just couldn't win in the forest industry with the NDP. Except for Carrier Lumber — they lost for a long time, but they won in the end.

Probably the members opposite know that sad story, because they're getting kind of quiet. The NDP took away the cutting rights of Carrier Lumber, a family-built company from Prince George with a new technology. They could go out in the bush with portable sawmills, set them up, cut the wood and dry it. They're still cutting wood out in the Chilcotin Plateau because the wood has stayed dry long enough.

Those people had a great technology. They had a forest licence. It was taken away from them. So they sued, of course — could have bankrupted their company. On the eve of trial, the NDP miraculously produced 47 boxes of missing evidence, and then the trial folded because obviously Carrier Lumber was going to win. That's what happened — again, at huge taxpayers' expense.

There's been a really sad history of the NDP and management — the NDP working with the forest industry or the forest industry actually not being able to work because of the NDP. So how can these members get up in this House and say anything negative about this piece of legislation? Absolutely shameful.

The NDP did tremendous harm to the forests and to the forest industry in British Columbia. I remember being on an opposition tour in Vanderhoof and the people of Vanderhoof telling a group of B.C. Liberal opposition members about the spread of the mountain pine beetle
[ Page 3641 ]
kill — coming out of Tweedsmuir Park forest and the government of the day not doing anything about it.

A Socred government — that's what we were told. Certainly it came out of the park, and it continued to come. In the Socred days the mountain pine beetle had made a run. The Socreds logged ahead of it, cleared off the land and managed to suppress it. But the logging contractor said, "This government's not doing anything about it," and now we all see the terrible devastation that has flowed.

I'll tell you what people said to me about our forest practices, not long after we were elected government. I went on a road tour with Chief Nathan Matthew of the North Thompson Indian band, now known as the Simpcw people. He said to me: "The forests are so well managed now, there will be forests forever." He didn't foresee the advent of the mountain pine beetle which was, by then, well on its way across the Cariboo, throughout the Chilcotin and now has swept through most of the southern Interior.

Fortunately, to make this legislation work, we don't need the support of the NDP. We've never had the support of the NDP on anything. I think my colleague's right — that probably, having heard all this bombast, having suffered through another day of NDP rhetoric, we're going to see them all stand up and vote because they would be embarrassed not to.

[1835]

But there are initiatives currently underway that complement zero net deforestation. Local governments, for example, have signed en masse on to the climate action charter with the province and are participating in a whole variety of programs, increasing the amount of forest cover in communities. How about that? We have partners in local government. We've certainly never had any assistance in all our worthy objectives from the opposition opposite.

About 6,200 hectares of forest in B.C. are deforested each year, and about 40 percent of that deforestation in 2007 was on private lands. Well, we're out to do something about that. We're out to reduce the production of greenhouse gases and to sequester carbon dioxide. This is a noble purpose. It's a noble piece of legislation, but all we hear from the other side is lampooning.

There will be job creation. An average hectare of afforestation creates three days of silviculture employment. I hear the members opposite talking about the reduction in silviculture. What do they think is happening when people aren't logging? The world is in an economic recession, and logging companies have not been cutting the forests they would have in good times.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Minister.

Hon. K. Krueger: But once again….

Deputy Speaker: Minister, please take your seat.

Minister, please continue.

Hon. K. Krueger: The member from Cowichan, my colleague, just explained to me, said that there were no buildings under construction in British Columbia that will be six-storey wood buildings.

You might want to make a trip to Richmond. One is under construction there. We thought we'd like to put that on the record.

There will be many incentives to private individuals as a result of this legislation. There will be tax incentives for charitable donations by individuals and corporations, who will get tax credits for tree planting. For example, donations to Tree Canada, a registered charitable organization, can be used to fund tree planting in B.C.

There will be fees and property tax incentives to avoid, minimize or mitigate deforestation. Local permit fees and property tax could be reduced, for example, by reclassification to private-managed forest land. Communities that have signed the climate action charter will have the incentive to exercise many potential options. And of course, there will be carbon offsets. Afforestation projects will be able to generate offset credits in voluntary and regulated offset markets including the Pacific Carbon Trust.

It's good legislation. We've heard a lot of negative talk about it. We always do. We don't hear much positive from the other side of the House ever, except on those occasions, as with the Olympics, when they realize they're so embarrassed by their negativity, so embarrassed by their incessant opposition, that suddenly they get up and praise everybody involved except the government that worked to make it happen.

I expect we'll see them stand up and vote for this legislation. They'd look awfully silly if they didn't. I'm going to take my place, because I'm looking forward to seeing that. We'll see if their next speaker has anything more positive to say.

M. Sather: It's my pleasure to join the debate on Bill 5, the Zero Net Deforestation Act. Zero net deforestation means simply that as much forest as you remove, you're afforesting, or planting, so it equals out.

When the government introduced this bill earlier this week, I was impressed. I thought: "Wow. That's going to be really something to get zero net deforestation, considering where we're at now in terms of deforestation." It's a pretty sad situation. Sadly, however, I was a little disappointed, to put it mildly, when I had a look at this voluminous piece of legislation.

It bears a little discussion. What we've actually got before us…. The definitions for this bill are certainly of interest. "Deforestation" is defined as meaning "human-
[ Page 3642 ]
induced removal of trees" — so cutting trees and the like — "from an area of forest land to such an extent that the area is no longer forest land…." Okay. That's part of, at least, the definition of deforestation.

[1840]

In the news release that the Ministry of Forests and Range put out with the release of this bill, it says that the "Zero Net Deforestation Act defines 'deforestation' as the 'permanent loss of trees from an area.' Timber harvesting in B.C. is sustainably managed and not considered to be deforestation." Whoa.

The timber harvesting lands of this province are not considered to be deforestation. They're not encapsulated or covered by this bill, not covered by….

Interjection.

M. Sather: That's what it says in the press release, Member. I'm reading it from the Ministry of Forests and Range press release, and if they've said it wrong, then perhaps they will want to correct it. But that's what the press release says.

When you hear the glowing reports from the government side about what this bill is supposed to accomplish…. The minister called it a cornerstone of the government's climate action plan, and there were other glowing comments from the Minister of State for Climate Action about this being one of the tools in the toolbox, etc., to fight climate change. Yet the forest land base from which we harvest our forests is not included under this bill.

So we must search further to try to understand what in fact this bill is all about. If you look at the Ministry of Forests and Range material that they put out, it says that there are 90 million hectares of Crown land in B.C. Of those 90 million hectares, 49 million are forested lands — 49 million hectares of forested lands.

Of course there are a lot of mountains in British Columbia, a lot of grasslands. We've got cities and the like, so that makes up a large part, and industrial development makes up a large part, of the difference between the 90 million of Crown land…. Then, of course, there's private land as well.

Of these 49 million hectares of forested land, about 25 million hectares of that is managed for timber production. So 25 million hectares of land is managed for timber production, and that's not covered by this bill. It's worth noting, though, that about six million hectares, or a quarter of that 25 million hectares, are managed for other values such as maintaining old-growth ecosystems, visual features and managing riparian areas.

Even though they are not actively being harvested, presumably — in most cases, at least — they too are caught under lands that are managed for timber production, and they won't be covered by this bill either. That's a pretty significant wash so far on what, in fact, this magnificent bill is not only going to do for the forests of British Columbia — and the forests were mentioned already a number of times by speakers from the government side — but what it's going to do or not going to do for fighting climate change.

You know, we've got a few high-elevation trees and so on. The sparse forests up near the mountains are not likely going to be harvested anyway, and furthermore, according to Natural Resources Canada, they don't constitute a forest. So there are more and more parts of this province that are not included. Presumably, this bill doesn't cover private forested lands either, but I do wait for further discussion from the government with regard to that. But if you look at the definitions of what this covers, it doesn't seem that it possibly would.

[1845]

Then what in fact does the bill cover? Going back to the news release from the Ministry of Forests and Range, it says: "The three keys to achieving zero net deforestation are to avoid, minimize and mitigate deforestation. Sometimes the loss of forest lands to other purposes, such as housing or highway development, is necessary. In these cases, the preferred option is to minimize the footprint and mitigate the impacts by creating new forests on previously non-forested land."

Well, where are these non-forested lands? I mean, obviously when housing comes in, you're not going to be putting forests there. Highway developments, similarly.

Some of the other things that were mentioned by previous speakers…. I think it was the Minister of Mines who talked about power lines. Well, you don't plant trees under power lines. They poison them.

Agricultural development has been mentioned, and here's a really mixed message from the government side. The Minister of Mines said that agricultural development would be encapsulated by this bill presumably, but the Minister of Forests said: "Oh no, don't worry about that. We're not going to be going out and planting forests on agricultural land." So that's not captured by this bill either.

Then the Minister of Mines also mentioned urban development. Well, I mean, when the houses are built in the city, I don't think we're going to be planting trees there. Or maybe it's between the houses we're going to be planting the trees. I'm not sure exactly where this afforestation, as it's called, is going to take place.

One of the members opposite — it was the Minister of State for Climate Change — mentioned Mr. Rosen. He mentioned Tree Canada, which is a non-profit organization out of Ottawa that is trying to preserve trees — a very noble goal. I hope they come to Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, because we could use some help with that. It was suggested by Michael Rosen from Tree Canada…. He's quoted as saying: "It's to do with urbanization and restricting urbanization and that sort of stuff."

So I'm trying to figure out, looking at my community, what lands would be encapsulated and be covered by this bill. I heard one example from Prince George from
[ Page 3643 ]
the minister. He mentioned a brewery. I guess they must have some fields or whatever, or maybe they have some lands additional to the….

Interjection.

M. Sather: I could do it. I mean, I know it's a good deal to plant trees wherever you can, but a major cornerstone in the government's plan to fight climate change? Whoa. I'll tell you, we've got a lot of worries if this is what the government is depending upon to fight climate change.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I'll tell you one thing that does worry me, though. I've heard a couple of the government members talk about carbon offsets. I see what they're doing with so-called carbon offsets and carbon trading, which is somewhat different but related.

In Maple Ridge and throughout the province — I mentioned this before — they are planting trees. There's a company that goes around planting trees in forests that are already intact forests. Not only do they plant trees there, but they cut down mature trees and plant seedlings, and then they say they're going to get a credit for this.

If this is what the government has in mind for afforestation, then we're really in big trouble — big-time trouble. We've got to hear a lot of detail that I can't imagine is going to be there, from what I've seen so far. We have to hear some meat in this bill when we get to the committee stage in order to have any confidence.

I mean, it's one of these feel-good kinds of things. You say zero net deforestation. Well, who wouldn't want to have that? But then you look at what the bill is actually saying, and to say it falls far short of the mark is far too complimentary.

But noting the hour, Mr. Speaker, I would like to reserve my place to resume the debate, and at this time I'll move adjournment of the debate.

M. Sather moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

[1850]

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

Hon. I Chong moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:51 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF LABOUR

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

The committee met at 2:33 p.m.

The Chair: Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Douglas Fir Room. We're doing the committee estimates for the Ministry of Labour.

I wanted to remind all members in the gallery that there's no audio use of electronic devices. In the audience you may use your BlackBerrys, and the members may use BlackBerrys, but not while they're standing.

On Vote 40: ministry operations, $16,460,000.

Hon. M. Coell: I'm honoured to rise in the House today on the traditional territory of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations to debate the 2010-2011 estimates for the Ministry of Labour.

I'm accompanied by Rob Lapper, my deputy minister; Barbara Walman, assistant deputy minister responsible for labour programs; John Blakely, executive director of the ministry's policy and legislative division; Trevor Hughes, chief industrial relations officer; Deborah Fayad, assistant deputy minister and executive financial officer; Pat Cullinane, executive director of the employment standards branch; and from WorkSafe B.C., Donna Freeman and Roberta Ellis, senior vice-president of corporate affairs.

My ministry is committed to providing British Columbians with a stable and safe workforce and a safe and stable labour environment to help maintain our economy, keep our families working and support families as we move through this global economic shift.

[1435]

My ministry sets the framework for healthy labour and employment relationships to flourish. Through the Labour Relations Code, we guarantee and uphold collective bargaining rights. The code provides for fair and balanced bargaining that benefits both employer and employee.

It's administered through the Labour Relations Board. Based on data reported by the board since 2001, we have had 897 applications for assistance from the mediation division in a collective bargaining dispute, and 80 percent of those applications resulted in a settlement with the assistance of the LRB. Since 2008 that number has been over 90 percent.
[ Page 3644 ]

Further, mediators have helped to achieve settlements in first collective agreement negotiations almost 70 percent of the time. By providing employment standards legislation that is fair and balanced, we give employers and employees the flexibility they need to compete and to prosper while ensuring that minimum standards are maintained in the workplace.

The employment standards branch of my ministry is responsible for administrating that act. It is vital that where the ministry is called upon to exercise its legal authority in the workplace, it operates with integrity. Equally important, we deliver programs and services that are accessible and provide timely solutions of disputes while fostering positive workplace relationships.

We continue to educate workers and employers about their rights and responsibilities under the Employment Standards Act. For example, in 2008-2009 we completed 194 public education seminars and eight guest appearances on ethnic radio in British Columbia.

We also strive to help create a work environment that balances the interests of the employer and employee. In 2008-2009 the employment standards branch received 7,100 complaints and closed 6,772 of those complaints. More than 86 percent of those were resolved without the need of a formal decision. In 2008-2009 our 1-800 line handled almost 96,000 calls. Approximately 100,000 calls are projected for 2009-2010.

To help meet our goals the ministry also oversees two very important appeal bodies, the Employment Standards Tribunal and the Workers Compensation Appeal Tribunal. We're committed to maintaining safe and healthy workplaces through WorkSafe B.C., which continues to work with industries and partners to promote safety because everyone deserves to arrive home safely to their families after a day's work.

WorkSafe promotes workplace health and safety throughout B.C.'s workplaces with some impressive results. For example, the provincial injury rate decreased from 3.87 per hundred person-years of employment in the year 2000 to 2.96 in 2008. In 2009 it was 2.37, the lowest number ever and a 39 percent increase in a decade.

Safety in the workplace is a united effort, and thanks must go to WorkSafe B.C., its partners, the B.C. employers, B.C. workers, its unions and employer associations. But while we can be proud of our progress to date, we must continue to diligently work on safe workplaces because B.C.'s workers have a right to this.

When lost-time injuries happen, we have income support and rehabilitation systems that are among the best in North America. My ministry fosters some harmonious and productive workplaces to support the prosperity of B.C. families through the work that they do every day. My ministry is committed to continuously improve, through regular review of our legal and policy framework, to ensure that the work we do continues to meet the demands and services and requirements of British Columbians.

My ministry and its agencies employ a unique group of professionals, and I am grateful for the dedication and professionalism they demonstrate every day. Mr. Chair, with that, I'd be glad to answer any questions with respect to the budget estimates of the Ministry of Labour.

R. Chouhan: I want to say thank you to the minister and ministry staff for joining us and answering our questions. As you know, we got the shortest notice to start these estimates yesterday.

[1440]

With that, we were planning to start it next Monday, so I hoped that I would have everything in order. Given that we had the shortest notice, I'll try my best, Minister, to ask questions in that order, but I don't know. I don't guarantee. I hope you'll bear with me.

The order that I plan to ask questions in today would be the ministry budget, employment standards, the Labour Relations Board, WorkSafe B.C. health and safety. There may be some miscellaneous questions after that.

Over the past nine years, funding for labour continues to gradually decrease while the cost of living in B.C. has risen substantially. The minimum wage in B.C. remains amongst the lowest in Canada. The Liberal government continues to ignore B.C. workers.

In 2001 the Liberal government introduced an $8-an-hour minimum wage and a first-job, entry-level wage policy of $6 per hour for new employees with less than 500 total hours of previous work experience. The minimum wage has not been increased since that time. The Liberal government continues to engage in union-busting activities, breaking contracts and platform promises while increasing contracting out to the private sector.

With an unemployment rate of more than 8 percent and youth unemployment double that, this budget provides no support for B.C. workers impacted by the economic downturn. This budget provides no new provincial money to create new jobs in B.C. Although B.C. is the most expensive place to live in Canada, the Liberal government continues to support the lowest minimum wage in the country.

It would be nice to know if the minister or the ministry staff has ever done anything for labour. The Ministry of Labour, as the name suggests, should be an advocate for labour. Instead it has become a tool for the Liberal government to punish workers.

Today when we go through the budget, you will see that there is no new funding for labour programs. In fact, the funding has been reduced. I think that instead of calling it the Ministry of Labour, the government should rename it and call it the ministry against labour. That, at least, will be an honest reflection of its true intent.

You know, the minister read the mission statement. It's on page 149. I'll repeat it. "The mission of the Ministry of Labour is to ensure that employers, workers and unions understand and apply B.C. labour laws and to promote
[ Page 3645 ]
labour stability and protect workers by balancing the interests of employers and workers."

My first question of the day today to the minister is: what steps has this ministry taken to promote labour stability and to protect workers? Where is that balance?

Hon. M. Coell: I would take issue with some of the comments that the member has made. I think that one of the issues we have tried to do as a government over the last ten years is to create opportunity for employees and employers, whether unionized or non-unionized, in this province and to try and create an atmosphere where companies will invest in British Columbia and where people will take an opportunity to create jobs — good-paying jobs — in this province.

A good example of that would be our investment in the Olympics. We as a province and the taxpayers literally invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the Olympics, which created jobs from the building of the venues to the construction of Canada Line and the Sea to Sky Highway — all in conjunction with making our province a good place for people to have employment. I think that on a larger scale, that's what we've tried to do as a government.

[1445]

On a scale of this ministry, I think that what I've seen over the last…. I've only been the minister for eight months now, but I think that what we've tried to do is create a fair and open environment so people feel there's an open door in this ministry — whether they be an employee or an employer, whether they be union or non-union — where they can come and they know they get a fair hearing from our staff, whether it be at the LRB or whether it be labour standards or whether it be with the policy division in the ministry.

We're always in the community asking how we can do things better. As I mentioned in the last part of my opening remarks, we always are reviewing and looking at opportunities that can make the job that we do better and more advantageous to both employees and employers.

The Chair: The member should direct his questions towards Vote 40. Thank you.

R. Chouhan: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Now, the minister has made a comment, and I'm responding to that. One comment that I just heard is that the government is doing its best to create good-paying jobs. Let's look at the record. Now, let's talk about the B.C. Place roof.

On October 28, 2009, it was announced that over 100 million steel fabrication components of the B.C. Place roof would take place in shops in Washington State, Quebec and other non-B.C. locations. We are talking about 150 direct and 100 more indirect jobs to be lost while the government continues to say that it is creating good-paying jobs.

I ask the minister: if that's the case…? From what we are seeing here, the government has failed, completely failed, to create more good-paying jobs in B.C. Could the minister answer, then: why did the B.C. Liberals ignore the opportunity to invest in our province and provide jobs for the B.C. workers here instead of sending jobs to Washington and Quebec and outside of B.C.?

Hon. M. Coell: That's an interesting question, and I'll do my best to explain. We're a government that believes in finding the best price for the taxpayers' dollar. We just hosted the Olympics, which every province across Canada was part of. We believe in trading across Canada and that when we have jobs, they should be tendered and openly tendered across Canada.

I can tell you that that investment in that roof will create jobs, long-lasting jobs, because we have people like the Whitecaps who will then be able to have their team there. It will bring tourists to Victoria, which will create the opportunities to have hotels built. We'll have long-term jobs out of a very short-term project that needed doing.

So I think that, in simplest terms, we believe that we should trade with our fellow provinces across Canada. We should compete with our fellow provinces across Canada. If someone can do something better than us and at a lower price, we'll take it.

We have our British Columbia companies competing all across Canada for jobs in Toronto and Quebec and Nova Scotia. We're a country. We have to be able to say that we'll have open tenders in Canada and get the best dollar for British Columbians.

In this instance, the building of this facility and the changing of the inside for the Olympics and the new roof give another two or three decades of a generator for Vancouver and British Columbia that we wouldn't have if we just let it fall into disrepair.

R. Chouhan: Well, I think the minister has just admitted that because of the bad policies of this government, we have lost 150 direct jobs and hundreds of indirect jobs to other states and to the United States. Now, if that's the case, if you're talking about global competition, then we should stop claiming responsibility…. The government is so good at claiming that we are creating jobs.

The government has not created any good-paying jobs. In fact, we have lost thousands and thousands of jobs in the forest industry, in the construction industry and now the B.C. Place roof. That was a good example where we could have created some good-paying jobs, and we lost that opportunity as well.

My question again to the minister is: what sort of action is this ministry taking to support B.C. jobs and B.C. workers? I'm talking about B.C. workers and B.C. jobs.
[ Page 3646 ]
Is there any concrete step, any plan? Anything that the minister can share with us would be greatly appreciated.

Hon. M. Coell: I think one of the hallmarks of our government has been the creation of an environment where people are willing to invest. I think it's fine to say, for the member, that the NDP would not allow contracts within the provinces in Canada. I think that's not in the best interest of British Columbia taxpayers. But I think worse than that is that…. We have to develop an area in British Columbia where you have low taxes, where you have low regulations, where you have investment opportunities that create jobs.

[1450]

Governments don't create jobs. Governments create an environment where jobs can be created. I think that that's where our two parties have quite a bit of difference, and I think that we can discuss that at greater length. But what we need to look at, too, is how this ministry, the Ministry of Labour, helps to create that environment, helps to create the opportunity for people to feel that they can come to British Columbia, whether they're an employer or an employee, and get a fair and open treatment by government and by this ministry. I believe that's what we do.

R. Chouhan: Just from those comments, again…. Then let's talk about what kind of environment the ministry has created to welcome people to come here. One example is the provincial nominee program, which the government supports in order for employers to get people through the immigration process in a speedy way to come to B.C.

My question to that is: if you're talking about an environment of fairness for everybody, what are the requirements of the employer to the newly immigrated employee under that program here?

Hon. M. Coell: A number of years ago I was involved with the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services. The provincial nominee program came under that program. It started with very humble beginnings of about 300 people a year, who mostly were engineers. We lacked engineers in this country, and there were many good engineers in Asia and India who were able to come and take those jobs and fill those vacancies.

It has now been very consistent that in the areas where we don't have enough people, industries can ask to be brought into that program. I think that will continue. As the member knows, we've got an aging population, and we have people retiring. We're going to need to fill those positions from outside as well as inside.

As the member knows, we've spent a lot of taxpayer dollars on education and training programs in the province. That in itself probably won't meet the demands that we need. The provincial nominee program, a partnership between the federal government and provincial government, provides that option for employees from around the world to come and work with companies in British Columbia under the guidance of both the federal and provincial governments.

R. Chouhan: When those workers arrive here through that program, are there any written guidelines for workers about their rights?

Hon. M. Coell: They are provided the same rights and privileges that people who live and work in British Columbia have today.

R. Chouhan: Is that information available in different languages?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm actually not responsible for that program. I believe that it is in different languages, and I will get that information for the member.

R. Chouhan: But when these workers — even though it's a different ministry; I understand that — come and work for an employer, their rights, if they are violated…. They have the right, I understand, to go to the employment standards branch? Or where would they go if they seek any resolution to their dispute, if they have it?

If they go to the employment standards branch, what kind of support do they get? Could they have someone talk to them in their own language? Is there literature available in different languages at the employment standards branch?

Hon. M. Coell: The member is correct. They would be able to come to the branch and also have someone either speak in their language or provide materials in their language.

R. Chouhan: Before we move directly to the budget, we asked some questions in the last budget estimates last year. The minister promised to provide answers. Some of them were supposed to come after the estimates were over. So I'm going to go through those quickly and see if he can get them on the side, and then we'll move on to the real business.

We asked questions last year about the possible impact of the HST on the branches of the ministry, like the employment standards branch. Was any calculation done on if there was any HST impact because service providers may have different costs added to that?

[1455]

Hon. M. Coell: My understanding of the question is: how does it affect this ministry? It would have very little effect on this ministry as the vast majority of our budget is salaries.
[ Page 3647 ]

R. Chouhan: Also, I had a question I wanted to ask about trucking safety. The question was: what exactly has the minister or WorkSafe done to develop a strategic plan to actually address trucking safety in the province of British Columbia?

The minister's answer was that there are two serious reviews of part 26 of the occupational health and safety regulation. The other is the Auditor General's review. "We are hoping that there will be some recommendation that will be helpful. I share your concerns. I'm told that we will be looking at those recommendations this fall with the idea of making some changes within the next six months or so."

That was the question asked last year by my colleague sitting with me. Any comments about that?

Hon. M. Coell: I do remember the question from last year. I checked with WorkSafe B.C. and the research paper with regard to the…. I think we were talking about the impact of fatigue on workplace health and safety. It's going to their board of directors in July of 2010.

R. Chouhan: In September 2009 the B.C. Liberal government projected a $20.9 million budget for this fiscal year for the Ministry of Labour, and now it's down to $15.6 million, I believe. Could you please give me the exact figure? What's the exact number for the budget for the Ministry of Labour?

Hon. M. Coell: The budget, as I mentioned earlier, is $16.46 million this year. It was $21.631 million last year. It was restated, and $5.171 million went to the new shared services model, so that money has moved elsewhere in government.

R. Chouhan: The question to the minister is: how much has the budget for labour programs gone down this year?

Hon. M. Coell: It has basically been reduced by $892,000.

R. Chouhan: So it sounds like that would be roughly about 19 percent from the budget last year. The overall budget looks like it has decreased by 25 percent from last year. My concern is that with that much decrease in the funding, what kind of programs are going to be either eliminated or reduced or services cut? What is the real impact on all these programs by having this much of a reduction in the budget?

Hon. M. Coell: As I said, a part of the budget was restated and went to a shared services model for all of government. You'll find that with every ministry, there's a reduction for that amount. The budget savings by attrition was about $520,000. There have been no services eliminated through this budget. Basically, any changes that we've had have been through either retirement or attrition.

[1500]

D. Routley: Exactly what services were transferred to Shared Services B.C., and were the budget numbers that went with those services the same numbers that were stated in the previous budget?

Hon. M. Coell: The member is correct. The number is the same, as I mentioned in the restatement. It's your rent, your hard services, your computer, your overhead. Those are all being held in one ministry now, and so those numbers are transferred from each ministry.

R. Chouhan: Can the minister also advise me how much the industrial relations funding is down this year?

Hon. M. Coell: I need a clarification. Is the member inquiring about the industrial relations board or just the office of the chief industrial relations commissioner?

R. Chouhan: I was asking — well, hoping that I would get answers for both areas.

Hon. M. Coell: There's been no reduction for the chief industrial relations officer. There's a $250,000 reduction in the entire board.

R. Chouhan: With some programs being shifted to other ministries, it seems like the overall budget remains the same. There's no reduction. Is that what I'm getting from the minister?

Hon. M. Coell: There have been no program changes within the ministry. The idea of moving to Shared Services is trying to amalgamate many of the services that every ministry uses under one ministry to look for savings in that new ministry.

R. Chouhan: Reducing the budget from almost $21 million to $16 million — you know, the reduction of $5 million. What kind of impact would that have? Is there any plan to mitigate that loss? That is a huge amount of money, given that it's such a small ministry.

Hon. M. Coell: I appreciate the question. With the Shared Services money going, we don't see any change to that within the ministry on the ground. The changes that we have seen are a reduction in some employment FTEs. We've accomplished that through retirements and attrition, so there haven't been any changes in any of the programs or any elimination of any programs.
[ Page 3648 ]

R. Chouhan: I was reading this Statistics Canada release which shows what we have now — indicating that B.C. lost 4,200 full-time jobs in January alone. Out of those, 233 were public service employees. This is a shrinking of the workforce by 13 percent. My question to the minister is: how long does the government project the government hiring freeze will last?

Hon. M. Coell: In essence, there isn't a hiring freeze. We are still hiring but in targeted areas. What we've tried to do is make the reductions when people retire. If someone retires in the ministry we don't necessarily fill that position, unless it's one that's deemed essential.

[1505]

What government has done across ministries is help people to be reassigned to other ministries if they're not needed in the ministry that they're in, but we've largely, in pretty well all cases, been able to do that through retirement and attrition.

R. Chouhan: How many FTEs do we have now in the employment standards branch?

Hon. M. Coell: It's 108.

R. Chouhan: Is this number of 108 the same as it was last year, or is there a reduction?

Hon. M. Coell: It's down by two.

R. Chouhan: Now, the budget for the employment standards branch from last year — maybe I'm wrong; maybe the minister can help me to understand — says $10.2 million, and it's down to $8.5 million this year. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Coell: The restated budget after the shared services were removed would be $8.9 million, so that would be a reduction of $375,000. That would be the reduction of FTEs.

R. Chouhan: With that $375,000 less money available for the employment standards branch, what kind of impact would that have on the services provided by the employment standards branch?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm informed that there would be no impact to services.

R. Chouhan: Maybe, then, the minister can explain: are there any branches that have been shut down?

Hon. M. Coell: No, there haven't.

R. Chouhan: My understanding is that the Burnaby location is shutting down and that people are asked to go to Richmond now if they have a complaint. How is that explained? Maybe you can provide some answer to that.

Hon. M. Coell: It hasn't been shut down. It's been amalgamated with the Richmond branch, so there's just the one office now.

R. Chouhan: The Burnaby location is closed — I take it that way — so you can call it amalgamated or you can call it closed, but the office in Burnaby, I take it, is no longer available to people if they need any help in that area.

Hon. M. Coell: The office was moved to Richmond. It was a better rental space and a better space for employees.

R. Chouhan: Well, the people who go to the employment standards branch have very limited income. For them to go to Burnaby from that area was very convenient. Now they have to go to Richmond. They have to spend more money on transit, if they can afford it.

It was supposed to be more accessible to workers when these services were available. How you can justify closing this location just to save a few dollars in Richmond on this new location? What about employees? What about those workers who may need help and who can't travel that far?

Hon. M. Coell: As I said, we still have the office. It's open and staffed. We do have a lot of people who do either phone or get services on line, so that's even more convenient.

[1510]

R. Chouhan: We'll come to that on-line help — that so-called on-line help that's available — in a minute. I also would like to know from the minister: are there any mechanisms that the branch uses to ensure that the staff is adhering to the standards of the branch, like the accountability that I'm talking about?

Hon. M. Coell: It's important to know that everyone is covered by standards of conduct within the public service.

R. Chouhan: From the information and the calls that I receive as the Labour critic from people who try to seek help from the employment standards branch, they have lots of complaints. We will deal with some of them later on, some concrete examples.

My question is this. When a staff person or somebody at the branch in the senior staff is not doing the job they're supposed to do, is there any mechanism? Is there any accountability? Do they have a checklist that they
[ Page 3649 ]
have to follow? How would the ministry's office know that the workers, the staff, are doing the job they're supposed to be doing and helping people when they need help?

Hon. M. Coell: I'd be interested in hearing some examples of that. I believe we have a very dedicated staff. We have yearly performance appraisals that are done on all people in the public service. Again, the comments I get from people are very different than what the member is suggesting. I get very positive responses from people who deal with the branch, and I think that it's important to know, too, that we have had very few complaints about the change.

R. Chouhan: Are there any spot checks about the work done by the ministry office in these branches?

Hon. M. Coell: In terms of the public service, there isn't that ability, I don't believe, in contracts to do that.

R. Chouhan: Last year we discussed the accessibility of information of employees' rights with language barriers. Are there any new provisions this year requiring employers to post notices of employees' rights in different languages at the workplace?

Hon. M. Coell: I remember the conversation in the fall. I think that was the poster that we had talked about that was available in our offices or, actually, could be downloaded. There was a whole kit of information that came with that, and that's still available.

R. Chouhan: There are a number of employees who don't have access to the Internet. What about those employees? What kind of help can they get? They still have a language barrier and employers are not required to post those notices in their language, so what kind of help is available for those employees?

Hon. M. Coell: All of the worksheets and guides that we were talking about are translated into numerous languages, and I'd be more than willing to get a list of those languages for the member.

[1515]

R. Chouhan: I have received various war stories, actually, from these employees that had to deal with the employment standards branch. All these stories have a common theme that seems to imply that the employment standards branch is wilfully — that is how those complaints came to me — ignoring its statutory mandate to ensure that employees receive the basic standards of employment to which they're entitled. Instead of enforcing the standards, the branch now acts as a mediator or arbitrator of wage disputes, for example.

One employee who had a dispute about wage laws with his employer went to the branch and said that he was owed that amount of money. Somebody at the branch, instead of taking up the case, told him: "Look, I know you're saying that the employer owes you some $5,600. The best thing would be to go and negotiate with that employer. You may not get $5,600 — what he owes you — but you may get a few thousand dollars. So go negotiate."

Instead of helping that individual, they were just simply telling them to go on their own. There was no help provided to that individual at the branch level.

Hon. M. Coell: I think that the member is responding to what's called the self-help kit. That is a kit that can be given to an employer or an employee to help resolve a dispute. I think that's one of the ways that we've seen many, many thousands of disputes settled in the province.

But if the member has examples, I would be willing to look into it for him.

R. Chouhan: Well, let's talk about the self-help kit. Indifference towards, if not outright hostility against, workers starts with the so-called self-help kit, which in reality is absolutely no help. With the expectation that workers now have access to the Internet, access to photocopiers, the ability to learn their entitlements from the fact sheets and the ability to gather evidence to prove their claim, all of that is putting workers in a very weak and very vulnerable situation.

The self-help kit was introduced and, we heard from the ministry, as a result the number of complaints has fallen. It has decreased. The reason for the decrease in those complaints was because people are so frustrated now. They are not getting any help; they can't get anywhere, so obviously they give up. That's how the number of complaints has gone down with this so-called self-help kit.

My question to the minister is: is there any survey that is being done or was done to find out the satisfaction level of these employees who come to the branch? Is there any survey, any data collected from these employees?

Hon. M. Coell: Actually, the feedback that we've been getting from the vast number of people has been positive. I think that if people are able to use the self-help kit, even once, it may help them in many other employment areas over their lifetime.

Again, vulnerable people or those with language barriers are exempt from use of this kit, and they would get direct assistance. The categories of employees who have automatically been exempted are children, agricultural workers, domestic workers, garment and textile workers, people with language barriers. Where there are issues that this wouldn't be a good opportunity for an
[ Page 3650 ]
employee and employer to solve a difference, there are many people who are exempt from it and get help directly. The request for assistance is quite consistent.

R. Chouhan: Now, let me read this to you, what's happening, what we have heard from employees at the branch. Workers, having satisfied the branch that they tried to resolve their wage claim without branch assistance, now have to beat back branch-brokered settlement agreements. Here the branch again takes a no-help approach.

Workers are not informed by the branch of their entitlements. They did not get that information at all. If the workers claim for overtime, the branch does tell them: "Well, let's make a deal." That's the approach they have, based on the combination of what the worker is entitled to and what the boss is prepared to pay.

[1520]

Then they ask them to fill in a form advising satisfaction, even if they did not get help. The branch person, the staff, asks them to fill out that form on how satisfied they were. They're forcing the employee to take that stand, basically saying: "I was happy to get the service from the individual." In fact, they did not get that help.

Then, to induce compliance with settlement, the branch misinforms workers about the time it takes to convert a wage claim to a determination, saying that it takes months, when in fact this can be done in a few hours. We have heard stories that the branch staff exaggerate the nature and duration of going to the Employment Standards Tribunal. They try to intimidate people to go to the tribunal.

So my concern is that when that person ever even goes to the tribunal, who assists that individual? There's nobody. The boss, the employer, can go to the tribunal and have their legal adviser, whoever it may be, but the employee can't afford that. So is there any assistance available from the branch, to go with the employee to assist them at the tribunal?

Hon. M. Coell: I think it would be worthwhile for me…. I think I understand where the member is coming from. It's just to review the responsibilities of the employment standards branch which sets out minimum standards for wage payments, overtime, vacation, statutory holidays, leaves, compensation for length of service and hours of work for employees not covered by union agreements, the employment of children and the licensing of employers and employees in specific sectors.

They are there to answer employee and employer inquiries and educate employers and employees about rights and responsibilities, receiving and investigating or mediating and adjudicating complaints of contraventions, and ordering appropriate remedies. On behalf of the Labour Relations Board, they undertake and supervise votes for the application of certification and decertification and other matters under the Labour Relations Code.

So my experience is quite different from the member's. I'd be interested in hearing a more precise description of some of the issues that he's outlining, but my experience is quite different.

R. Chouhan: Well, we understand, Minister, what the branch is supposed to do. Everybody knows that. What we're talking about is the process. When somebody goes to the branch, the experience of the worker, which we have…. People who have contacted us have told us that the branch finds every opportunity to close their file.

They say: "Failure to reply to the branch letter within two weeks of the date of the letter" — not the date of receipt, the date of the letter — "triggers closure on the grounds of abandonment." So is that fair? What if somebody is out of town and cannot see or get the mail on time? What kinds of steps are there to help those people in that situation?

Hon. M. Coell: I can try and explain it. Once someone has used the self-help kit, and they find it hasn't worked, they would then be coming back to the branch. Our branch would be there to act as a neutral, not to advocate for one side or the other but to try and find a solution. I think that's probably where the member is getting that someone has gone there thinking that they're an advocate. What they are is a body where an open mind and a neutral approach can be taken to try to find a solution.

[1525]

R. Chouhan: No, I'm not talking about that. What I'm saying is that when people go to the branch and start off meeting with a so-called neutral person, they meet with somebody who does everything to discourage them from continuing with their complaint.

Another barrier that they face when they go there is that the branch officer or the staff asks them to provide evidence. How can they provide evidence of a violation of their rights when the employer is the one who has the control of all the records?

My question again is: is there any mechanism at the branch level or any officer who can assist the employee to get copies of the records so that there can be a fair hearing about their dispute?

Hon. M. Coell: As I said, I would be more than willing…. If the member has individual cases that are unsolved, I would be more than happy to set up a time for him to sit down with our staff to go through those cases. But it's hard for me to respond to an accusation of something when that's not the experience I have.

R. Chouhan: You know, we are talking in general terms. It's not just one case that I'm talking about. We
[ Page 3651 ]
have hundreds, literally — believe me. It's people who are totally, completely dissatisfied.

Now, another policy issue that you can answer is that when a person goes to the branch, if the officer calls the parties to a hearing or to a meeting and the worker fails to show up, that's the end of the story — file closed — because the employee supposedly abandoned their file. But if the boss fails to attend that hearing, they then just simply turn that into an interview of the workers to satisfy the branch that there was a case.

Now, when bosses are contacted, they get the employee's case, but the employee is never told by the branch officer what the boss's position was, what the boss's case was. So where is the fairness in this whole process? We're talking in general terms about the process which is there — supposed to be there — to help people.

Hon. M. Coell: The member says he has hundreds of cases. I'd be more than willing to review each one of them.

The Chair: Member. Through the Chair, please.

R. Chouhan: The ministry has just lost $5 million. The minister doesn't have the resources to deal with the number of cases that they have now — hundreds of cases. If they come to the minister's door, nobody will get any answer. We know that's how it works, so let's not try to shove it away by saying that they will be helped.

Can the minister please explain to me: what are the key performance indicators, which you mentioned earlier, used at the branch? Are they set, based on the satisfaction of the employer or the employees?

Hon. M. Coell: I was being quite sincere. If the member does have hundreds of cases that he can let me have, I will go through them with staff and try and resolve them.

The timelines or the issue that he asked at the end there…. What we look at is the timeline for decisions, the timeline for appeals and the number of appeals overturned. If you can have a number of appeals that are satisfactory and don't need to go to appeal and aren't overturned, that is something that we look for as a positive outcome.

R. Chouhan: Mr. Chair, I never doubted the minister's sincerity. I know that he's a good man. I have worked with him, and I'm sure that he would love to help others. My concern is that the ministry doesn't have enough resources to help people.

[1530]

So will the minister agree that the branch should be primarily ensuring that employers comply with employment standards, getting the branch to focus on compliance and not on closing files within an artificial time period? Would you agree with me?

Hon. M. Coell: As I read out the responsibilities for the branch, I think it's very important that this branch continue to operate as it does. It has a very high regard in our British Columbian society as a place that both employees and employers can approach with an open mind.

I think one of the things, as I said earlier on, that we try and do is to always improve. What we are doing is a client satisfaction survey, or a measure that is under development now, just to see how we're doing, and we'll have that later this year.

R. Chouhan: Will the minister also agree with me that the branch should use the statutory tools to pursue bosses who hide behind shell companies and other means to reduce their exposure to judgements?

Hon. M. Coell: I would say that my experience with this branch over the last eight months is that it's very vigilant in following up with employers who in any way fall short of their obligations to their employees.

R. Chouhan: Will the minister conduct an inquiry into how the branch does business by inviting workers and their advocates to share their experiences?

Hon. M. Coell: That's exactly what we're doing with the new client satisfaction measure that's under development.

R. Chouhan: That new program that the minister just mentioned — is that widely publicized? Everybody knows about it? I've just heard for the first time myself.

Hon. M. Coell: It's under development. It's in our service plan, and we hope to have it in use later this year.

R. Chouhan: I have one more question, and then my colleague has a couple of questions. Just going back to the PNP that we talked about earlier. If the employee coming to B.C. under that program has a labour dispute with their employer, when they go to the employment standards branch, would their information be kept confidential? Or would that be shared with their employer?

Hon. M. Coell: Just to reassure the member, a person can file a confidential complaint.

R. Chouhan: As the minister I'm sure knows, and the staff knows, there's a lot of intimidation factor there. In some cases, their passports are held by the employer and they are threatened with being sent back to their country where they were brought from. What kind of mechanism is available for them to deal with their issues when they face that situation?
[ Page 3652 ]

Hon. M. Coell: That's a good question. I think one of the keys to that is the education of someone on the rights they have and to make sure, if there's a language barrier, that you have education or someone who can speak to them in the language that they use.

[1535]

M. Elmore: Thank you to the minister and staff. I have a concern — following along the line of questioning of my colleague — about the process for filing complaints to the employment standards branch and the issue of…. It's been raised with me that this process is fraught with problems. It ranges from workers having to go on line to file complaints to wading through filling out the forms and paperwork, gathering the evidence and, also, that once complaints are filled out, the employer also receives them.

The difficulty I have and what's been raised with me is that there's a lack of an investigative officer that's able to look into and investigate the matter on these issues. So my question to the minister is…. It's been recognized that a number of groups — youth, children, domestic workers, textile workers, workers with a language issue — number one, receive support in terms of filling out a complaint.

I think it's also telling that there's a need for assistance for all workers across the scope — needing support and filling that out — and then, also, the issue of an investigative officer to look into a complaint and enforce remedies for employment standards.

Hon. M. Coell: I'll do the best I can to answer that in a very full manner.

If someone were to come in and were identified as one of the groups that we talked about earlier that were exempt, they would get immediate assistance in filling out any forms that they needed to.

What we would try to do is have a negotiated settlement. We would try and work with both parties. If that wasn't an issue, and it was obvious, then you would go to your industrial relations officers, who would do a much more in-depth probe of the situation to try and find out more of the background on the complaint. So there's sort of a graduating experience for someone.

I think one of the things that I have found is that today we apply on line or we apply by phone for a lot of things that we didn't a decade or so ago, so people are using the system more and more. There are literally tens of thousands that were downloaded and used. But I do recognize, and I think it's an appropriate question, that there are people who can't.

What we've tried to do is to list those people who we think. But if someone shows up and says, "I can't," and they don't fit into those groups, they get help too. They get the assistance, and it would go through that graduated process, where you'd get in an industrial relations officer to do the investigation.

One of the things…. Possibly next year we can talk about the new client satisfaction measure, because I think that will have an effect as to: how far down the system did you get? How satisfied were you with it? That will help us improve as well.

M. Elmore: My next question is…. I understand the survey will be underway. Do you have a mechanism that will be able to try and determine what the deterrence is or actually those workers who haven't been able to access the system? Because I know the number of complaints has dropped in terms of trying to quantify workers who, for one reason or another, haven't been able to successfully access the system because of the lack of ability to process through.

[1540]

Hon. M. Coell: Again, that's a good question. Two things. One, we haven't actually seen a reduction in complaints. One of the things we've done over the last couple of years is to get out and educate more people. Farmworkers would be a good example. We've got literally thousands of more opportunities for a face-to-face with farmworkers, but that's gone through the construction industry and forestry and that as well.

What we've tried to do is get out there and educate. We've done a number of radio commercials and a number of on-line commentaries, as well, with radio and the like. I think the more we educate, you're probably going to get more complaints. The complaints actually haven't gone down. They've been fairly consistent. It wouldn't be a bad thing if they actually went up. That means that more people have information in their hands as to their rights.

I think that what we'll see with the new…. It will be on line, as well, so someone can go on line and talk about it.

But I think that's a good point. We'll take that under advisement and consideration as: what about the people who don't show up but who have a complaint, and how do you know whether they're going to be satisfied with the information they get? I think that's a good point.

R. Chouhan: Just a question arising from the answer the minister just provided. Is there any data available for the last three years of the number of complaints filed in each year, the number of complaints resolved and the number of complaints that remain unresolved?

Hon. M. Coell: I know that last year the member asked for something similar, and I did provide it to him.

Why don't I just provide you with the employment standards branch statistical summary of activities, and then you would be able to go through them and see where child employment permit applications were, complaints received, where the penalties were determined and imposed, the self-help kits — how many were used
[ Page 3653 ]
— and those sorts of things? If that's helpful to the member, I'd be more than willing to make that available.

R. Chouhan: Speaking of the penalties imposed, is there information also in that chart on how many of those penalties and how much was collected?

Hon. M. Coell: I can give you an example of penalties issued on corporate determinations. The dollar value was $373,500, and the penalty collected was $231,047.

R. Chouhan: What happened to the rest of the amount?

Hon. M. Coell: There would be two reasons for that. One would be that it would be money still owed to government, but if it was a business closure, those moneys would go to wages before it came back to government.

R. Chouhan: Speaking of wages, let's talk about minimum wage before we move on to a different topic. As we know, for the last many years, as I mentioned in my opening comments, the minimum wage in B.C. is the lowest in Canada, and the living expenses are the highest. Is there any plan in the near future to increase the hourly minimum wage in British Columbia?

Hon. M. Coell: I'll take a minute to talk about minimum wage, because I think it's an important subject. We have no plans of changing the basic minimum wage at this time. What we have tried to do is to create a climate where good-paying jobs materialize in a lot of areas. What we've seen now is….

[1545]

The average wage in British Columbia is up to almost $23 an hour. About 2.3 percent of the population work for minimum wage, that being $8 an hour. What we've tried to do, when you think of the 2.3 percent of the population that are working for minimum wage, is make sure they're paying no provincial tax at all.

We've removed provincial tax from those making $18,000 a year or less. We've also removed the cost of MSP payments for that group of people. So in essence, that gives them a significant raise for paying taxes or for paying health care benefits.

I think that what we want to do is continue to have the economy grow and produce those good-paying jobs, and I realize — we'll probably talk about that too — we're in a recession. That puts a hardship on both employees and employers.

The other area that I think is worth mentioning is youth employment. When we instituted the training wage, youth employment was very high. It went down, and it's gone back up again, I think, mostly because of the recession. But I think when we look at the youth average wage, it's $14 an hour. It's below the $23 an hour that 24-year-olds and over would make, but it is significant that we have such a high average wage and a high youth wage at this time.

R. Chouhan: It's frustrating to hear these numbers thrown at the public by the government — that there are $23-an-hour jobs and $14-per-hour jobs. In fact, they are not available. Is there any registry the government keeps where these jobs are available so we can send people there so that they can get those jobs?

Hon. M. Coell: It's the annual Stats Canada monthly labour force review that I'm referring to.

R. Chouhan: You know, I may not have the right figure, but more than 120,000 people in British Columbia work at jobs paying less than $10 an hour. Where do they fit into those number games that we are playing here? We are talking about a province which has failed to address the workers' needs, and we're talking about poverty. Child poverty is highest in British Columbia when we talk about the whole country. Still the government has refused to increase the minimum wage. Is there any justification not to look at that and increase the minimum wage now?

Hon. M. Coell: The number of people earning minimum wage is about 2.3 percent. I think what we've tried to do is make sure that the majority of people are earning more than that and are given opportunities for more than that.

If I could take just a moment to look back in the last few years, what we've tried to do is put a number of programs and training programs and college programs and university programs in place that will allow people who might be working for minimum wage to actually upgrade their skills and their talents to move into jobs that will pay the $20-to-$23-an-hour wages. I think that's important to do. It's part of the process.

We've lowered taxes. We've lowered the cost of MSP premiums. We've put literally hundreds of millions of dollars into training programs so that someone who is working for minimum wage can actually get into a training program, either part-time or full-time, whenever they can and upgrade their skills. I think that's an important part of how you deal with the issue of minimum wage. What have we put in place to allow people to move forward and move their skills in a different direction? And that being up, for the most part.

I think it's not just "raise the minimum wage." It's what you are doing as government to increase people's opportunity to raise their own standard of living through their own wages.

R. Chouhan: The minister and the government love to talk about good-paying jobs. Let's talk about good-
[ Page 3654 ]
paying jobs for a moment. During the Olympics there was a company retained to hire bus drivers. Those bus drivers, many of them, were hired from the United States and some from Canada. When the Paralympics started, many of the Canadian drivers were let go, but the American drivers were still employed.

[1550]

Is there any investigation that was done into that, or are there any steps taken by the Ministry of Labour to help these drivers from British Columbia?

Hon. M. Coell: I do remember the story. I'm not 100 percent on all of the facts, but I think one fact is that there were a lot more people required for the Olympics than there were for the Paralympics in the number of drivers needed and the number of routes that were being used.

So there was a desire to have people come in for the Olympics and a little bit prior to the Olympics, I understand, but after that there would be a reduction in the workforce. That reduction would have been up to the employer and the employees.

R. Chouhan: In that situation the people who were kept on job were Americans, not British Columbians. That's what my concern was. Anyhow, we'll pursue that matter at a different time. Let's move to the Labour Relations Board.

Could the minister explain how many applications were received by the Labour Relations Board in the last year? Is there any change going up or down? Is there any different trend?

Hon. M. Coell: I know the member is going to have a number of questions in this area, but in general the trend has been down in the last few years.

R. Chouhan: What type of applications are being received at the board?

Hon. M. Coell: There are a number of different areas under the code that could be a part of that. Let me just touch on a few of them. One would be unfair labour practice complaints where a dismissed employee is involved. There could be complaints regarding the duty of fair representation, certification applications, certification cancellations, declaration of a successor employer, a common employer, review of an arbitration award or interpretation of the legislation as it applies to the collective bargaining relationship or reconsideration of a decision.

Those would probably be the highlights, but there could be anything under the code that the board would deal with.

R. Chouhan: In the past, when I was on the board, we used to have a registry of all these different applications under different categories. Is that still available?

Hon. M. Coell: Yes, the member will be pleased to know that it is still available. It is available on their website, and it's also available as part of the annual report.

R. Chouhan: Last year when we were debating the estimates, I asked a question under section 110 of the Labour Code about the appointment of the members to the panels. The minister answered and made a commitment to ensure that there is fairness on the Labour Relations Board "through the appointment process, so that both labour and the employers have confidence in that board, and we'll endeavour to do that with appointments in the future."

So what steps have been taken to correct that?

[1555]

Hon. M. Coell: The member and I have had a number of conversations over this issue, and I appreciate his thoughts. I asked my deputy to look into this with the LRB, and I've spoken a number of times with staff on that. They're still consulting and looking at that particular issue.

It was more — and the member can correct me if I'm wrong — on appeals, to have members listen to appeals to give more of a policy background from both the employee and employer perspective. So there's no decision that's been made, but we're still looking seriously at it.

R. Chouhan: Is there any timeline when this process will be completed?

Hon. M. Coell: We're looking, as I said, at the consultation process right now. It would be later this year that a decision one way or the other would be made.

R. Chouhan: What's the budget for the LRB this year in comparison to last year?

Hon. M. Coell: There's a net change, after looking at the two years and then the shared services moving, of about a $264,000 reduction.

R. Chouhan: That's my concern. With a budget reduction of $264,000, how is this process of bringing fairness to the Labour Relations Board by having members appointed…? Where would the money come from?

Hon. M. Coell: I appreciate the question. A number of issues there. We're continuing to streamline and look for savings that can be used in other areas in the ministry. We've had a reduction of two vice-chairs this year, as the member knows, and the demand is a little less. It's not a lot less, but it's trending downwards. So there are a number of areas that cost savings could be found.

R. Chouhan: With the reduction of two vice-chairs, what would the workload…? How will that assist the
[ Page 3655 ]
labour relations community to get fairness and their decision in a timely manner?

Hon. M. Coell: The chair of the board monitors that regularly. He believes that with the reduction in the demand and the reduction of two vice-chairs, they still can meet their demands.

R. Chouhan: I don't think he has any other choice, you know. He has to deal with whatever is available to him. So could the minister tell us how many vice-chairs are at the board now?

Hon. M. Coell: You have the chair, Brent Mullin, and then vice-chairs. At the beginning of June this year there will be seven, including the chair.

R. Chouhan: How many vice-chairs were there in 2001 at the board?

[1600]

Hon. M. Coell: There were more than that. I don't have that number, but I will get it for him.

R. Chouhan: Could the minister also advise us: when was the decision made not to use the panel members sitting on any application hearings?

Hon. M. Coell: The terms of the members expired at 2006, so there were no further appointments after 2006.

R. Chouhan: Are there any cases at all that are reviewed by a full panel, a three-member panel, these days?

Hon. M. Coell: In cases of reconsideration, a three-panel board, including the chair, would be appointed.

R. Chouhan: That would be the recon — including two vice-chairs and the chair, not wingers, not the members sitting on it. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Coell: That's correct.

R. Chouhan: How many cases are reviewed by a single panel these days at the board?

Hon. M. Coell: As far as reconsideration goes, there were 48 reconsideration panels.

R. Chouhan: Now let's talk about timeliness. Last year when we were debating this budget I was told that the government was concerned about delivering these decisions on time. There was a concern expressed by the community, and the ministry was looking into it. The minister actually said: "We're actually out talking to stakeholders now, exploring some options as to what a development of timelines for decisions could be. I'd think we'll be doing this in the fall and possibly into the spring."

Now almost a year after, can the minister please inform me if there has been an introduction of timeline guidelines to government decision-making at the Labour Relations Board?

Hon. M. Coell: There hasn't been a regulation passed yet. It's something that we're still continuing to want to move ahead with. There are still some consultations going on, but it would be…. It was last fall that we had this discussion, and it feels like a year ago to me too.

R. Chouhan: I thought it was two years ago. That consultation process — can we expect that this summer it will be complete and that we will hear something concrete?

Hon. M. Coell: Absolutely.

R. Chouhan: Also last year, I would say — I won't say a year ago — when we were debating, I talked about the uniqueness of the construction industry being accepted by the government of Ontario. I asked if there were any efforts or plans to consider that, to make the same measures under our Labour Code to recognize the importance of the construction industry in B.C.

[1605]

Hon. M. Coell: I think the member is talking about the section 24 process, which is in abeyance and will resume after the 2010 collective bargaining year.

R. Chouhan: When we raised that issue last year, actually, the minister said that a letter was referred — that he would refer that letter to staff for some recommendations and some analysis. I haven't gotten that back. I think that was in the middle of July that I met with those, and I haven't gotten any recommendations back from staff at this date.

That was in September last year, when the minister talked about his meeting with the staff to get some recommendations. Can the minister please share with me any recommendations made by the staff to address this issue?

Hon. M. Coell: If I'm not correct, Member, I'd welcome another question. The section 41 process in construction. The LRB delayed its initial proceedings pending the B.C. Supreme Court decision on the petition filed by the plumbers and pipefitters union, which challenged the section 41 referral to the LRB.

R. Chouhan: I think that's a different issue that we were talking about. Anyway, I won't go into it. Mr. Chair, maybe this is our time to have a break now.
[ Page 3656 ]

The Chair: Committee A will recess for five minutes.

The committee recessed from 4:07 p.m. to 4:14 p.m.

[H. Bloy in the chair.]

R. Chouhan: We will now start with the Workers Compensation Board. My question is: when will the Workers Compensation Board annual report be tabled this year?

Hon. M. Coell: I should have it within two days.

R. Chouhan: That's very encouraging. I thought he would say two years.

How much did the WCB or WorkSafe B.C. fine in penalties this year?

[1615]

Hon. M. Coell: WorkSafe imposed 211 penalties in 2009 against 189 employers for non-compliance with the health and safety laws and regulations. The amount of the penalties was a record total of $4,465,313.40. The individual payments ranged from $1,000 to $250,000. I think that's probably answered your question.

R. Chouhan: We'll continue. I'm sure I'll get more details.

Now, of that over $4 million in penalties that were levied, how much in total was collected?

Hon. M. Coell: Generally, we would collect about two-thirds of the amount of the penalties. Then the rest would go under review. We talked earlier about a company that would go into bankruptcy and wouldn't be able to pay, and there are always the considerations for employees, as well, at that time.

R. Chouhan: Is there an exact amount, a figure, available of the money that was collected?

Hon. M. Coell: I would have to get that from staff. We will provide that by tomorrow.

R. Chouhan: What we have seen in the last month or so…. WorkSafe B.C. issued a press release talking about the number of penalties, the amount of money levied against those 189 companies, but there was no information about how much was collected. Why was that information not published and available to the public directly?

Hon. M. Coell: The amount was published, and it's on the website. The reason that the quantums aren't there is that some of them are a work-in-progress, where they're still looking to get payment from the employer or the company in that particular year. They might not get it till the following year.

R. Chouhan: Would the names of those companies that either go under or are not paying also be available on the website?

Hon. M. Coell: The name of the company or individual would be published, but whether they were in bankruptcy or receivership wouldn't be on the website.

R. Chouhan: The two-thirds amount of that money, of those penalties collected — how is that money reinvested to benefit B.C. workers?

Hon. M. Coell: Any of the penalties that are collected goes into the accident fund.

R. Chouhan: That accident fund — could the minister explain how that works? I don't understand that.

Hon. M. Coell: That fund is created through the penalties, through interest, through premiums paid, so there are a number of areas where that fund gets topped up.

[1620]

R. Chouhan: Before we talk about the CMS and all those other areas, I want to just deal with one issue which the minister and I have dealt with for the last few weeks: the farmworkers.

Last year when we were debating this issue, the minister said, when we were talking about those 29 recommendations from B.C. Federation of Labour, that some of them were implemented and some of them were under review. The minister said that they were seriously considering and reviewing all those recommendations and that they were talking to various different agencies about the conditions of farmworkers.

After that we had the coroner's inquest last year in December. The coroner made 16 recommendations directing the government to take certain actions. The minister and I met with the families about a couple of weeks ago. My question is to the minister. Is there any decision made to implement those recommendations from the coroner's inquest now?

Hon. M. Coell: I appreciate the question. I also appreciate that the member and I met with the families of the farmworkers who lost lives in the van accident. Just recently, as you would know, Mr. Chair, the coroner has made some recommendations to government — actually, to a number of different areas in government — to the Solicitor General; to WorkSafe B.C.; to the superintendent of motor vehicles; to the department of transportation; to the intergovernmental agency on
[ Page 3657 ]
agricultural compliance, the committee; to my ministry, the Ministry of Labour; and to the Attorney General.

My ministry has been designated as the ministry that will coordinate government's response to that inquest. So when we met with the families — the member and I and Jim Sinclair from the B.C. Fed — we made a promise to them that it would be coming soon and that they would be, basically, the first to have a copy of that letter to the chief coroner. It would be made public after that — I'm hoping within the next few weeks, within the next couple of weeks.

R. Chouhan: Well, you know, at the meeting we were saying maybe three weeks at the most. It's the second week already. I hope it won't take too long, because these families have waited long enough to get an answer. Making them wait further is not fair for them or for anybody else.

My question is now on the company — the labour contractor who was driving. Although you will be looking into the part of the recommendations, or the review of the coroner's recommendations…. They closed the company, and they just simply disappeared.

The Workers Compensation Board levied about $70,000 against that company, and now they have said that they can't find them. In the future is there any review of the WCB regulations or any steps that can be taken?

Also, when the police recommended 33 criminal charges against that individual or those individuals, they were not followed. Is there any serious action or plan by WorkSafe B.C. to punish these kinds of rogue employers who simply just do it and disappear? You know, they say: "Nobody cares."

Hon. M. Coell: I appreciate that question, because I think it's an important one. The federal bankruptcy laws don't allow us to follow a trail once a company has declared bankruptcy. We levy the penalties and do our best to collect them from companies or individuals. I think that the federal laws are somewhat limiting on what we can do in this instance. I know that the member knows this.

The company tried to reappear, and they were uncovered by WorkSafe, who shut them down immediately, but that doesn't solve the problem. So I appreciate the suggestions from the member.

[1625]

R. Chouhan: We also had that accident at the mushroom farm, you know, almost two years ago now. WorkSafe B.C. still hasn't issued a report into the investigation of that incident. Is there any timeline on when that report will be released?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm informed late April. There's still some translation into Vietnamese and Cantonese that has to be done on the final report.

R. Chouhan: Also, WorkSafe B.C levied, if you remember, the highest fine it ever imposed against Weyerhaeuser Canada over an accident in 2004, that sawmill death of an employee, and the levied amount was $297,000.

The RCMP, again, recommended criminal charges against the employer, and the recommendation was ignored. My question is: did the ministry ever talk about that with the Ministry of Attorney General to find out as to why those recommendations of the RCMP were ignored?

Hon. M. Coell: I can inform the member that WorkSafe did collect the penalty.

I would like to comment on the Attorney General and the Crown counsel office. The RCMP quite often makes recommendations on a variety of issues to Crown counsel. They have a number of tests that they go through before they will proceed with charges. That's something that politicians don't have the ability to influence, and it's probably a good thing in the scheme of things.

It's quite common for the RCMP or police departments to recommend charges, but when the Crown counsel's office, being an independent body, look at them, they have a test and a number of tests that they make before they proceed.

R. Chouhan: What was the budget contribution by the Ministry of Labour to WorkSafe B.C. this year?

Hon. M. Coell: The ministry doesn't make a contribution to WorkSafe. It is totally autonomous.

R. Chouhan: Well then, on page 150 could the minister explain in this book of estimates what this one million is for?

Hon. M. Coell: It's a $1,000 vote, and it's just to show that it's in the ministry.

R. Chouhan: Okay. I won't pursue it further.

Now let's talk about the compensation management services at the board, CMS. Last year we pursued it quite in detail, and we thought we would get some answers by now.

It seems like the mess that we had before continues. The money invested to improve the system — which is, I believe, hundreds of millions of dollars — hasn't improved it. In fact, the number of days which it took before to complete a file has gone up. Could the minister share with us how many days it used to take before the CMS was introduced and how many days it takes now?

[1630]

Hon. M. Coell: I remember the discussion in the fall with the member over this issue. It was the CMS system, and it was a major change for WorkSafe B.C. It took one
[ Page 3658 ]
new system to replace 20 computer systems that were up to 25 years old.

There were definitely some transition challenges, and the service was impacted. I can tell you that it's working well now. The satisfaction surveys that we do put the satisfaction back up to about 88 percent, which is extremely good. An all-time high in 2008 was only 89 percent, so the system is working. We're still continuing to fine-tune. Some are very complicated cases. But the system took…. It was the better part of six months before it was, to our opinion, functioning properly.

R. Chouhan: The satisfaction levels that I think they're talking about are because the WCB has now set lower targets. Is that how it is? Because before the target, or the bar, was much higher. Now they have seen the system is not working, is not functioning the way it was supposed to be. Now they have set a new target. So they then use the new target, the new bar, then it looks like it's working. But in fact it's not working. What's the answer to that?

Hon. M. Coell: We would acknowledge that the short-term duration and the short-term disability payments were affected, but the survey is the same survey. It's not that we've set different targets for satisfaction. It should be the same as it was before.

R. Chouhan: My understanding is that KPI standards have been lowered now — the key performance indicators. The target used to be 48.5 days. Now the target is 53 days — a 9.3 increase in the target. Why was that done?

Hon. M. Coell: As I said, the targets and the results weren't as good as we'd hoped in 2009. The survey is actually the first month of 2010, which shows the satisfaction results back up into the late 88 percent.

[J. McIntyre in the chair.]

R. Chouhan: Madam Chair, it's good to see you in the chair.

Now in the past the target used to conclude the file or what is called duration — I think that's the word they used at the board — was 17 days. Now the target has been changed to 22 days. When did that happen?

Hon. M. Coell: I do understand the question now. If you look back at 2009, the target was 17.5 days. The reality in 2009 was 26.6 days, so there was an increase. The target for 2010 is 22 days. Then in 2011 the target is back down to 17 days.

Definitely, it's a big change, as the member said. It was an $80 million upgrade of 20 systems that were 25 years old. It should function very well for, hopefully, a couple of decades. But it's definitely taken, by the time we're finished, the better part of a year to install and to have all the staff up and running at the old targets.

[1635]

R. Chouhan: As I mentioned, the target used to be 17 days. Actually, prior to when CMS was introduced, both had achieved to reduce it to 15 days. That's the understanding that I have. Now it's to 22 days. When you have a wage-loss file delayed by one day, what is the total cost to the board?

Hon. M. Coell: I understand the question. There would be no effect on the worker. In some cases we have a special team that would focus in on one of the more problematic areas and deal specifically with that team to bring the time down, but the dollar figure would not change for the worker.

R. Chouhan: Isn't it true that there are approximately 50,000 short-term disability claims at the board now?

Hon. M. Coell: On an average year, about 60,000 short-term claims would be entered and 60,000 more wage-loss claims as well. So with the shorter ones, the time frame has come up. It's the more complex ones, and that's where we've introduced a team that will go in and assist where there's going to be a longer length of time to assist the workers.

R. Chouhan: Well, let's use the 60,000 figure, then, from the board. Each day, if that file is not dealt with, the approximate cost to that file is about a hundred dollars. So if you multiply 60,000 by one day by a hundred dollars, that's about $6 million per day. So how is that justified?

Hon. M. Coell: I understand where the member is coming from, and I would agree that there has been an increase in costs because of that. But can you imagine, if we hadn't replaced that system, how much it would have cost if it had broken or just started to degrade as it was projected to by the experts?

R. Chouhan: Well, I can certainly imagine what was there before and what's there now. I don't think the chaos it has created is helping anybody. Even the staff is complaining about increased workload.

The complaints that we have heard are saying that "increased administrative tasks keep me from doing my job" and "no time for face-to-face meetings." Is that true? Could the minister confirm that staff who used to have face-to-face meetings, the staff meetings before, no longer have the time to do it?

Hon. M. Coell: I would say that the staff have done an excellent job. There's no doubt that this was trying on staff
[ Page 3659 ]
and workers. I think that we had to make a decision to replace 20 systems that were all in the range of 25 years old for the better service of the people in the next 20 years. So if it takes a year of challenge, I think it was worth it.

R. Chouhan: Well, no doubt the workers and staff are doing a commendable job under the circumstances. I appreciate and admire that many of them are still there trying to help the injured workers.

[1640]

Now, initially my understanding was that when this system was introduced, the whole system was to be complete within six months. Why has it taken so long now?

Hon. M. Coell: I think, simply put, we had planned that it would be up and running in six months. It simply wasn't. It's taken another four months to get to the position where we think it's functioning and the satisfaction rates have bounced back. But I don't want to hide from the fact that it took longer and was more complicated than we had anticipated.

R. Chouhan: So 11 months, I guess, to be precise, since it was introduced post-implementation, and this trend still continues. How long will it take to get those desired numbers where everybody will be happy and satisfied?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm informed that by the end of 2010 we're hoping that all systems will be up and functioning.

R. Chouhan: Well, there is some comfort there. So they have to wait for another nine months left in this year. That's not much help.

Now my question to the minister is: what was the capital cost of the CMS?

Hon. M. Coell: If you take into consideration all of the costs associated with it, it would be close to $90 million.

R. Chouhan: Has that number changed from the previous budget estimate that it was, when they were thinking to change it, or does the number remain the same?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm informed that we're well within the budgeted amount, contingency incorporated.

R. Chouhan: What's the operational cost of the CMS?

Hon. M. Coell: We don't have the actual operating costs of the system, but we'll get that for the member.

R. Chouhan: Is there any part of that operating cost that is provided by the company which owns or designed the CMS program?

Hon. M. Coell: I wonder if the member could be a little bit more specific. I'm not quite sure of the question.

R. Chouhan: Sometimes when you buy a software program from certain companies, they take it upon themselves to assist with the implementation of the program and they share costs with the company that buys that program. Is there any cost-sharing with the company which designed this?

Hon. M. Coell: Not to my knowledge.

R. Chouhan: We have seen now 11 months go by, and the minister is saying that maybe by the end of this year there will be some changes to satisfy everybody. Shouldn't someone be pressing the board of directors to have an independent audit of what's happening, with the users of the system being interviewed?

[1645]

Hon. M. Coell: The board, when they initiated this project, did hire an independent auditor who has been doing the audits all along. We had talked just briefly before. About 80 percent of the claims are of a short term and a wage loss. The more complicated ones are the ones that we've been trying to get the teams involved with to make sure we can address some of those problems so there aren't the longer wait-lists.

There are independent audits. There's a team that goes in to try and assist when there are problem areas, but as I said, by the end of the year we would hope to see that the system is up and running.

I'm most interested in the satisfaction rates. When I look at the first month of 2010 and the satisfaction rate of the users of the system is back up to where it was 18 months ago, I'm pleased.

R. Chouhan: Is that ongoing audit the minister has talked about available for public review?

Hon. M. Coell: I will ask the board of directors of WorkSafe B.C. whether they would share the audits with both the minister and the member.

R. Chouhan: The workers who are now struggling to work with this new system…. And they're really doing their best — no doubt about it. Is there any support mechanism for them, to assist them? Has the board hired more staff? What's happening? Because they are going through lots of frustration, I imagine.

Hon. M. Coell: Just a number of comments. WorkSafe did negotiate job security with workers. They did hire some temporary employees to come in during the initial development and implementation of the system and did extra training as well for staff. So
[ Page 3660 ]
there was a multi-pronged approach to deal with this implementation.

R. Chouhan: My understanding is now that some of those old files are now manually transferred to the new system. The new system is not accepting them. So when the manual transfer is done, some of the wage-loss calculations are actually not matching. Either they're higher or lower. What happens? You know, like if…. When that calculation that is done…. Which calculation is believed as it goes higher or it goes down? Who pays for it?

Hon. M. Coell: If I can explain it this way, the system actually works flawlessly for new claims. Where we needed to do some work was the older claims — some of them that are 15 and 20 years old. If there is a discrepancy, we bring in an adjudicator who works with the employer or the employee or the worker to look at that. We haven't seen problems that haven't been able to be resolved.

R. Chouhan: When that process is done and outside adjudicators brought in, does that involve the worker as well, or is it done by the board staff and then the worker is informed how it works?

[1650]

Hon. M. Coell: That's correct. In some cases it has been the worker whose claim isn't what he or she thinks it is, so they will bring it to our attention. If need be, it would be an adjudicator from within WorkSafe working with them. Some people do bring an advocate with them, and that would be perfectly acceptable.

R. Chouhan: As a result of that manual transfer of those old cases to the new system, how many cases were there that needed to be transferred manually?

Hon. M. Coell: I don't have that information with me, but I will get it for the member as well. I think that one of the things, if I could just touch briefly on it…. This is not something that's new to WorkSafe B.C. Pretty much all across government, all across our country, we're all dealing with 25-year-old systems. Whether it be welfare or immigration, we're all dealing with the older systems and how to replace them.

I would actually commend WorkSafe on undertaking this major, major change to their system in the past, really, 50 years. As I say, it's been challenging, not without problems for employees and employers, and we'll get through it. As I say, it's working flawlessly for new claims at this point. It's just sort of backing up the older claims and the older systems that have to be manually put into the system.

R. Chouhan: My concern is about the calculation of entitlement that the worker would have. Under the old system, say, for example, WorkSafe B.C. decided that he or she was entitled to a certain amount of money. The new system, when it converts, shows that he or she was supposed to get actually a higher amount of money. Have there been any steps taken to crack that, and was anybody reimbursed?

Hon. M. Coell: I share your concern. I think that one of the really positive parts of WorkSafe is that all of their decisions are reviewable and appealable. I just asked, and we haven't had any complaints that haven't been able to be resolved.

R. Chouhan: How would we get complaints if workers were not informed of that recalculation? Is there any mechanism to inform them in writing or by some way so that they know exactly what happened?

Hon. M. Coell: I think what's probably happened — and I don't have an example for the member…. If the rate had changed, usually the worker would call WorkSafe B.C., and then we would go through the review process or the adjudication process. As I say, I'm not aware of any that haven't been resolved.

R. Chouhan: My question was that a worker can only complain if the worker knows about it — that there was a change in the rate. If there was a rate changed, how…? Is there any mechanism to inform those workers that they were entitled to higher amount of money, and has anybody done that?

Hon. M. Coell: The procedure is that if a rate is changed, if it's to the benefit of a worker, they would get a phone call explaining the change. If there was a reduction, it would be in letter form. If someone got a reduction and they didn't agree with it, they would phone — or by letter, I guess. That would be reviewed to see whether there had been a problem. I think that's probably why we haven't had a flood of complaints.

R. Chouhan: Is there any number of those cases? Has the board kept a record of it? Can they share with us?

[1655]

Hon. M. Coell: Of about 120,000 claims per year, about 10 percent of that is reviewed, and that's fairly steady over the last couple of decades.

R. Chouhan: My colleague has a few questions, and then we'll continue on this.

K. Corrigan: I wanted to ask a few questions about the Olympics and any costs that maybe have been associated with this ministry with the Olympics.

Just to start off, the Minister of State for the Olympics, Mary McNeil, stated during estimates last year that
[ Page 3661 ]
VANOC was looking for paid employees on loan for the games. I think they called it the employee loan program. She did say that it would be possible to track the number of employees that were going to be part of the program, but we haven't received any data on that.

I wanted to ask some questions specifically about this ministry. I'm wondering: how many paid employees were loaned to VANOC and the Olympic Games as part of this loan employee program?

Hon. M. Coell: Welcome to the member.

There were eight members of the ministry who participated for varying amounts of time. There were six volunteers, one secondment and one from the executive branch, and they ranged from being fully paid to using half vacation time, as was the option.

K. Corrigan: Of those eight people, the six volunteers can…. I guess I'll just go through it, then. The six volunteers were partially volunteered and then partially paid. Is that correct? And I'm wondering if, in addition, the minister could then tell me what the costs associated — not that there were extra costs necessarily — with that would be if you costed out the cost of that.

Hon. M. Coell: Yeah, I can give a couple of examples. A staff member who would go for two weeks during the games used half vacation time and then was paid $913 from the ministry. Another one who would go for two weeks full-time was fully paid, and that would be $2,354. They'd all be in that range. In total — and the member may have another question — it was less than $20,000 for the ministry.

K. Corrigan: Okay. Just to be clear, it was a total of $20,000 for the ministry for all of those eight members, including the secondment, somebody from the executive branch and the volunteers. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Coell: Yes, and actually there were two secondments. Sorry about that.

K. Corrigan: The minister was just saying that it was less than $20,000. It sounds like this has been costed out, and I'm wondering if it's possible for the minister to give me what the exact number was.

Hon. M. Coell: Yes. It would be $18,264, fully costed for the eight people.

K. Corrigan: Thanks to the minister for that. Does that include a costing of the benefits as well?

Hon. M. Coell: That would be salary.

[1700]

K. Corrigan: I'm wondering if it's possible either to get an estimate now of the benefits that would be associated with that, the cost of that, or if I could get that information at a later date.

Hon. M. Coell: I'd be pleased to provide that at a later date. I just have salary.

K. Corrigan: Just to make sure that I'm clear on the totals here, I'm wondering: would that be all of the Olympic-related costs that were undertaken by this ministry in terms of staff? We know that there were a lot of public safety officials, police officers, medical staff and so on that were seconded, but this would be all the staff from this ministry that were working on the Olympics.

Hon. M. Coell: That would just include ministry staff.

K. Corrigan: I am wondering about how…. Who would have paid? I'm assuming that it would have been the ministry that continued to pay, but I just wanted to be sure, just to be clear about who was paying the salaries of those people during the time that they were working at the Olympics.

Hon. M. Coell: Government employees would continue to be paid as government employees.

K. Corrigan: I'm wondering if the minister could tell me from what areas of the ministry the employees have been loaned.

Hon. M. Coell: They were all from the employment standards branch and one from the executive.

K. Corrigan: I also had some questions about other Olympics costs. I just wanted to find out whether there were any other Olympic costs that this ministry might have incurred other than the staff that you're talking about, either through hosting or any other costs that were incurred by this ministry related to the Olympics.

Hon. M. Coell: I'm not aware of any.

K. Corrigan: Can I take the answer that the minister is not aware as to say that there were no other costs?

Hon. M. Coell: I don't believe that there were any other costs.

K. Corrigan: I wanted to ask a few questions about staff and receiving any Olympic tickets. I'm wondering if the minister or any of the staff in this ministry received Olympic tickets or Paralympic tickets.
[ Page 3662 ]

Hon. M. Coell: I'm not aware. I believe that the ministry staff did not have any tickets, and I did not have any tickets. I believe that the minister responsible for the Olympics is doing a full accounting of all tickets.

K. Corrigan: I just wanted to ask…. In the $18,000 plus that this ministry had costed, of employees either being loaned or volunteered, I am wondering whether it is the understanding of this ministry whether or not that is considered to be part of the $765 million — that envelope that the government said that it was going to spend on the Olympics.

[1705]

Hon. M. Coell: If I can make one correction, the $18,260 did include benefits of $3,553. I apologize for that.

The answer to the other question would be something that the ministry responsible for the Olympics or the Minister of Finance would have an answer to.

K. Corrigan: Just one final question. I just wanted to make sure that there were no other costs at all that this ministry expended that were related to either the Olympics or the Paralympics. Also following on that, I'm assuming that when you're talking about the $18,264 it would include anything that went to the Paralympics as well as to the Olympics.

Hon. M. Coell: That's correct.

R. Chouhan: We're going back to the CMS program, as we started earlier. The question that I had earlier was about any support for the workers, for the staff, to deal with increased workload. Is there any increase in the overall number of FTEs as a result of this new CMS program?

Hon. M. Coell: WorkSafe did hire some temporary staff to assist the permanent staff. They will go once the system is up and running. The number of staff is consistent this year. I think one of the changes we're going to see is that over a period of time, through attrition, we'll see a reduction in staff needed to run the system. The other thing that I think is important is that we have had a decline in the number of rates in the last year, and we haven't reduced staff at this point.

R. Chouhan: So the additional staff was brought in to assist the officers who were dealing with these claims. Were there any layoffs at all at the board, anywhere, in any department?

Hon. M. Coell: There were no layoffs, but there were reductions through attrition.

R. Chouhan: What was the number of staff reduced through attrition?

Hon. M. Coell: Just to put it in context, WorkSafe has approximately 2,800 employees. Over attrition and retirement, mostly, there was a reduction of 113 FTEs over 2008-2009.

R. Chouhan: Were any of those positions replaced?

Hon. M. Coell: There were a number of different venues. Some retired; some, naturally, may have gone to other jobs. Some of the people whose jobs were made somewhat redundant by the system were offered other employment or other packages as well.

[1710]

R. Chouhan: Now, just one more question about complaints that the board would have received through the frustration that they have experienced because of this new system. When those disgruntled workers call and make a complaint, sometimes, I know, they could be very difficult to deal with. Then the claims officer deals with it. How do they deal with it? Is there any senior staff assigned to talk to those individual workers who are not happy?

Hon. M. Coell: What WorkSafe did was to pull together a group of people from within — their legal counsel, their adjudicators and a number of experts — who helped train some of the staff and helped to do some of those harder cases. I know exactly what the member is saying. There are people who get very frustrated, agitated and desperate, and so we tried to deal with those people first and to make sure that those claims were adjudicated and there was a successful outcome.

R. Chouhan: Did any employee or senior management employee receive a bonus in addition to their wages or salaries?

Hon. M. Coell: The member may know that WorkSafe has had a bonus system for its management for a number of years. It ranges in about the 7 percent range.

R. Chouhan: Well, how can a bonus system be justified for excluded workers when the KPIs have not been met?

Hon. M. Coell: Traditionally, the bonuses for WorkSafe have been in the 10 percent range. In this instance, looking at all of the work that the management at WorkSafe does, it was the board's decision that 7 percent would be the bonus for this year.

R. Chouhan: Will there be any bonuses for the claims officers or the staff who are dealing with this additional workload?
[ Page 3663 ]

Hon. M. Coell: All of those people have union contracts, and I can say that many, many people did elect to work overtime as part of the collective agreement.

R. Chouhan: How much overtime was incurred since this new system has been introduced?

Hon. M. Coell: I'd have to get that information for the member.

R. Chouhan: Would it be correct that the overtime payments probably would be in the area of in excess of $8.5 million? Is that number correct?

Hon. M. Coell: I'll have to confirm that for the member.

R. Chouhan: Now, the number of claims. Have they gone down in the last year, or are they steady?

Hon. M. Coell: The injury rate has gone down, so the number of claims has actually gone down as well.

R. Chouhan: My question that arises from that is: when the claims are down, the injuries are down, why is the duration and timeliness climbing?

Hon. M. Coell: The rates that the member mentions are a direct response to the introduction of the system.

[1715]

R. Chouhan: Isn't this also that the number of claims from the forestry industry is lower as a result of a number of mills being shut down in B.C.?

Hon. M. Coell: I think it's safe to say that the claims being down in the forestry sector would have affected that, but in some instances claims are up in other sectors. So what they try and do is to look across all the sectors. Some are up, and some are down.

R. Chouhan: The minister, to the previous question, said: "The claims are down because of the new system." Can you repeat that answer? Because I thought you were claiming that the system has helped to bring the numbers down.

Hon. M. Coell: No. I'll try and explain myself. The number of injuries across all sectors is down — I think down in forestry, as the member suggests, probably significantly over the last five years. But the number of claims in total is down, and that is a good thing. With the introduction of the system, the time frame was still affected by that. I suppose you could say that if the claims had been higher, possibly the timelines would have been greater.

R. Chouhan: Can the minister explain…? This new system, which was introduced 11 months ago, was supposed to not only help the staff to streamline and to make it more efficient but also help the workers, injured workers, to get their money on time, their claims resolved on time. And none of that has happened. We are now hearing that it may take another nine months before it's done. So is there any thought or any review by WorkSafe B.C. that maybe this whole system is flawed, that we have to relook at it?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm informed that the independent audit is supportive of the system, positive of the system. What I would like to say…. We're looking at a very short period of time, compared to the time that the system will be in place. I look at the literally, probably, millions of workers who will get the benefit of using a new and improved system over the next ten or 20 years.

I am fully in agreement with the member that it's been unfortunate that this last year has been with some increased wait times, but I think you have to look at the big picture, which is the 20-year span of a new system that is running flawlessly for new claims. I think that the benefit to workers in the future needs to be considered as well.

R. Chouhan: Was there any discussion amongst the Ministry of Labour and WorkSafe B.C. before this new system was implemented, to take care of the transitional pains? Was there any plan in place to deal with that?

Hon. M. Coell: It was a decision that the board of WorkSafe B.C. made on their own. There wasn't, to my knowledge, a discussion with the ministry. They decided that they had 20 old systems that were 25 years old and needed to replace them and endeavoured to do that. And as I said, from my perspective it's sort of like: what do you see in the next 20 years? And if the system's working flawlessly, you've got a lot of very content and satisfied injured workers in the decades to come.

R. Chouhan: My question was: were there any plans, any consultation, any discussion to deal with those transitional issues that we are now experiencing?

[1720]

Hon. M. Coell: Just to confirm that there weren't any discussions directly between WorkSafe B.C. and the ministry on how to plan for the implementation.

R. Chouhan: How about WorkSafe B.C. itself? Were there any discussions, debates or plans about how to deal with this situation?

Hon. M. Coell: I can assure the member that within WorkSafe they did discuss with management, with the
[ Page 3664 ]
union, with their stakeholders the development of a new system.

R. Chouhan: Now, last year we heard some difficulties that the service providers were experiencing as a result of implementation of this new system. One instance I think that we heard was that one service provider who sent an invoice for a few hundred dollars was actually sent a cheque of $1 million. Was that particular situation corrected? How it was done, and what were other similar complaints?

Hon. M. Coell: Actually, that same team of people that were put together to deal with some of the more difficult individual cases were also dealing with the cases where people were underpaid or overpaid. I believe that has been corrected.

R. Chouhan: My information is that the situation has not been corrected, and I will give you one example. There's one physiotherapist in Vancouver where people go and take his services. That physiotherapist now tells his clients that he's not getting reimbursed by WorkSafe B.C. Therefore, he's now charging those individuals $50 upfront. What steps has WCB taken to correct that situation?

Hon. M. Coell: I seem to remember reading that case in the media as well. If you have any information that I don't, I'd appreciate it, and we'll look into it.

R. Chouhan: There are quite a number of cases like that. It's actually funny that with such a big organization like WorkSafe B.C., with that big budget they can't correct those kinds of issues. I think that's reflective of an ongoing problem that that system has created. I think the minister will agree that we should have a public inquiry into this.

Hon. M. Coell: I would disagree. I think that the system is…. Any time that an organization the size of WorkSafe has 25-year-old systems and they go to a new one, you're going to have some issues that you have to deal with. I think they've dealt with it in a very effective way.

R. Chouhan: Obviously not, so I think that we'll agree to disagree.

Now, what's the policy of the board of WorkSafe B.C. to deal with a situation like that?

Hon. M. Coell: Well, I think that the member and I both know that WorkSafe has a long history of dealing with employees and employers in a fair and just way. I think that their board — and I have full confidence in their board — can make decisions to improve the systems that need improving. They've done that in this case.

They ran into some problems. They put teams of people in place to do that, and they worked with their staff to make sure that those problems are solved. As I said, it's going to take a number of more months before I'm satisfied with it and, I'm sure, the member is satisfied with it, but I believe that they're working to solve all those problems.

R. Chouhan: One more question before we move on to a new subject. Just going back to the bonuses. The minister has said that excluded staff get in the range of 7 percent bonuses — that they do it. What are the criteria for getting the bonus for excluded employees?

[1725]

Hon. M. Coell: They're not too dissimilar to other parts of government where you have a bunch of performance indicators that they have to meet in order to get a bonus. It's very similar to the rest of government.

R. Chouhan: What are those performance indicators that the minister has talked about? What are they?

Hon. M. Coell: These are public documents. There are 11 key performance targets that are met. I think what I'll do is just share those targets with the member.

R. Chouhan: Now, when you look at KPIs — all of these set out by the board — by any fair review of that, none of those standards were met by these managerial staff. So where is the justification to continue to provide them this bonus?

Hon. M. Coell: Basically, of the 11 performance indicators — and this would be an average — there were three that weren't met and eight that were.

R. Chouhan: Could the minister please tell us which were not met?

Hon. M. Coell: I'll provide you with a copy of this, because it's on our website. We talked about them earlier, and the member had some questions.

"To reduce the…short-term claim duration" — that was clearly not met. "To improve timeliness of initial short-term disability payments" — that was not met. "To improve workers' rating of overall experience" was not as high as we wanted it to be. Those were the three that were not met.

As I say, it's on our website. I'll get you a copy right away. I've scribbled all over this one.

R. Chouhan: It seems like those were very important key areas, and they were not met. Is there any decision
[ Page 3665 ]
now to reduce the bonus, or will it still be the same 7 percent?

Hon. M. Coell: It was reduced. The year before they got 9 percent.

R. Chouhan: So a 7 percent bonus means, for example…. How many excluded employees are there at WorkSafe B.C.?

Hon. M. Coell: Chair, I apologize. I just don't have that information, but it would be a few hundred.

[1730]

R. Chouhan: A few hundred with a 7 percent bonus. Are we talking about millions of dollars, or what are we talking about here?

Hon. M. Coell: I don't have that information at my fingertips, but I will get it to the member.

R. Chouhan: So this high dollar figure as a result of providing bonuses to these excluded employees — what is the impact on the injured workers? You know, for them, when they file a claim, they have to wait for months. Many times they're denied, they're not satisfied, and KPI standards are not met. Excluded employees are getting bonuses, and employees, workers, who are injured, are shafted.

So where is the justification? Is there any review about that to help those injured workers? Because I understand that the overall mission of WorkSafe B.C., or the Workers Compensation Board, is to assist the injured workers. It seems like now we have created an institution which is really now bloated with so many excluded employees who are paid hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of dollars and here, on top of that, a 7 percent bonus.

Hon. M. Coell: I want to take some time to answer this question, because I disagree quite strongly with the member. One of the things that we've done as government is try to put targets in place for managers to meet and to reward them for meeting those targets and, if they don't meet those targets, to make sure that they are not rewarded.

In this case there are 11 criteria for WorkSafe management and excluded to meet. If they meet them, they could, in some instances, have a 10 percent increase. If they don't, they would get less than that. I think that that is something we've put in place for a number of years across government. It's to try and encourage people to do more and to do a better job of what they're doing, and it has worked. If you look at the three-year rolling plans of government, you've seen where government has met the targets that they've set for themselves in areas.

I think that it goes a long way for WorkSafe B.C. to have 11 targets that they have to meet. If they don't meet them all, they start to see reductions in the benefits that they could receive. So I think that it's a matter of philosophy. We want to have a system where our managers work to a higher standard than they might have if they didn't have these indicators and performance indicators in place.

[H. Bloy in the chair.]

I think that it's not fair to say that it's a bloated bureaucracy. It's not. It's a very good bureaucracy, and it's a very good organization that I think has the respect of British Columbians. In many respects, I disagree with the way that the member is going. He has his right to have his opinions, but there is another side to this story — that you have a positive, functioning system that helps about 120,000 people a year, some with very major problems and others with just minor problems.

We have to continually improve the system. We talked earlier about improvement surveys that we're going to be doing to give the board and the staff more direction for creating a more satisfactory WorkSafe system. So I think that you have to put everything in perspective when you're looking at WorkSafe. I think that it's a very, very fine system — one of the best in North America.

As a matter of fact, when you look at some of the fundamentals of WorkSafe, you've got a system that has a better balance sheet than most in any part of Canada and North America. You have an employee ratio that is low compared to the number of people they serve and a management system that is low compared to the number of employees and people they serve. So there are really great things about this organization that I don't think should be denigrated.

R. Chouhan: Mr. Chair, it's good to see you back.

I was not trying to denigrate anybody. I was talking about the fairness in the system. When we are talking about a fair and balanced system, we must not forget the workers — the injured workers who this institution is set for. That's an important part of it.

Now, in the appeals division, how many appeals were filed in the last one year?

[1735]

Hon. M. Coell: We touched on this earlier, but I think that the question is a little bit more in-depth. Of the 120,000 people that walk through the front door, let's say, about 12,000 of them are reviewed, and about 5,000 of those end up at WCAT.

R. Chouhan: Now, are the workers' advisers funded by WorkSafe B.C.?
[ Page 3666 ]

Hon. M. Coell: WorkSafe provides funding for employers and workers.

R. Chouhan: Has that funding gone down, or is it the same?

Hon. M. Coell: Over the last couple of years it's stayed the same.

R. Chouhan: Could the minister also tell us what the amount, the figure, is please?

Hon. M. Coell: The workers' adviser is just over $5 million, and the employers' is $4 million.

R. Chouhan: Also I understand that WorkSafe B.C. provides funding for FARSHA. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Coell: WorkSafe provides about half a million dollars to the association.

R. Chouhan: Let me talk about a few other issues. I may have a couple of issues about the WCB directly later on.

Earlier we were talking about the construction industry. Remember I was talking about that meeting that they had with the minister. That was not section 24. It was actually…. On July 13 the B.C. building trades met with the minister and made a submission. They were asking the minister to establish advocacy centres for migrant workers similar to Alberta advisory centres for temporary foreign workers in Edmonton and Calgary.

The minister was to look into it. Was any progress made?

Hon. M. Coell: I apologize for this, but I'm not sure. I know when we discussed this earlier, I think we were talking about two different issues. I wonder if the member could give me an idea…. It was temporary foreign workers in the construction industry? Could he outline what the issue was?

R. Chouhan: It was the temporary foreign migrant workers that they were concerned about.

Hon. M. Coell: I'll try this. We had looked at the submission that they had made and reviewed what services we were providing, and we were satisfied that we were providing the right level of service. I think that the other issue that we didn't discuss — and probably neither one of us has as much information as we need to discuss that — is Service Canada and how it affects the workers who are coming from other countries.

R. Chouhan: Mr. Chair, can we have a five-minute break, please?

The Chair: The committee will recess for five minutes.

The committee recessed from 5:40 p.m. to 5:43 p.m.

[H. Bloy in the chair.]

R. Chouhan: Last year there was a work-related accident at the Port Mann bridge. The crane boom collapsed. My question is to the minister: was there any investigation done into that incident, and was there any report? If there's a report, could I see it, or could we have it?

Hon. M. Coell: I apologize for this. There was an investigation, but I don't have the results of that investigation with me. I will make it available through WorkSafe to the member.

R. Chouhan: Could the minister also make sure that I get information on if there were any injuries, if there was any time loss or how many days the work was stopped as a result of that accident, and all of that?

Hon. M. Coell: Yes, I certainly will.

R. Chouhan: Now, last year we asked questions about asbestos during the budget estimates. The minister was saying: "I have spoken to the board as well. As the member knows, the board is independent and can make some of those decisions itself. If the decisions required a legislative change, they would be making that recommendation to us. But at this point, I don't have a time frame."

[1745]

So can the minister now inform us if there's any update on this?

Hon. M. Coell: I apologize again. Could the member expand on the issue just a bit for me, so I can get staff to answer?

R. Chouhan: There are a number of places where buildings still have asbestos. When they're either demolished or some workers work inside, they face that danger, which causes cancer. It could cause cancer, and we have a number of incidents of that nature.

Now, the minister at that time said that it will be taken up with WorkSafe B.C. My question is: is there any update on this matter? Has the minister raised this issue with WorkSafe B.C.?

Hon. M. Coell: I appreciate it, because I remember the discussion last fall. We did bring the suggestions up to the board of WorkSafe B.C. They're considering some of the options to implementing a policy. There are significant changes that require amendment, I'm told, to
[ Page 3667 ]
the WCA. The ministry is also undertaking a strategic review of labour policy and the legislation that would be needed.

R. Chouhan: When would that review be done?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm advised later this year.

R. Chouhan: Is there also any consideration to have a registry, to have all these places available where asbestos still exists? Is there any way of finding out?

Hon. M. Coell: WorkSafe is very aggressive in the detection of asbestos, whether it be through contractors or workers or municipalities. I'm not aware of anywhere in this ministry where there's a record of buildings or that. It would probably be WorkSafe that would be the lead on the asbestos issue as it relates to workers, as it relates to municipalities and buildings.

In most cases you'd come across them through demolition, and then WorkSafe would be involved at that point to try and educate, as well — what is to be expected during the demolition; how it could affect workers.

R. Chouhan: Is there any requirement by WorkSafe B.C. that the contractor must disclose in advance to the employees who may be involved in their demolition or something, working in the building, that that building contains asbestos?

Hon. M. Coell: That's, I think, a very important question. If there is detection by a contractor or municipality that there is asbestos in a building that's going to be demolished, the workers — it's quite a strict regulation — must be removed until remediation is done, and any remediation must affect the masks and those articles of protection that a worker would wear.

[1750]

R. Chouhan: In 2002 the Workers Compensation Board made a change. A change was made so that it became impossible for people that had asbestosis that were diagnosed with mesothelioma…. After they had retired, they could no longer be compensated. I hope that the minister, the government and WorkSafe B.C. take this issue very seriously. If they are, are there any steps or any hope for those individuals who were diagnosed with this? Can they get some compensation after they retire?

Hon. M. Coell: The member and I have had a discussion of this issue before, and I think that we're in agreement. If someone is retiring or gets to the age of 65 when they would retire and would have naturally worked further than that, they can work with WorkSafe to keep those benefits until they would have retired. That's being done, not a lot, but it's a door that's open.

I think that the other issue that the member and I have discussed is the catastrophic injuries where the support can disappear at age 65. We're reviewing that, or I'd say that WorkSafe is reviewing that with my definite approval and, I know, the approval of the member for Burnaby-Edmonds as well. That is being looked at as to what support in the future can be given and what financial support can be given as well, so I appreciate the question.

R. Chouhan: Now, that leads to another question. When somebody is injured and is compensated and that compensation continues until the age they retire — let's say 65 — but the injury that they suffer from doesn't disappear at age 65, their means of income was reduced as a result of that injury. The board and the government made a decision to cut off that pension beyond age 65. The review that the minister is talking about…. Will that be part of that as well?

Hon. M. Coell: The review is specifically on the catastrophic injury — again, the one that we've discussed in the past. We're looking at what can be done in support of policy as well, not just changes to legislation or what we can do to see that…. I agree with the member that at age 65 that catastrophic injury doesn't go away for them or their families, so it's something that we're reviewing at the ministry as well as WorkSafe B.C.

R. Chouhan: Could I get any indication of when that review will be done?

Hon. M. Coell: It's the intention that some recommended policies would go to the board later this year.

R. Chouhan: We talked about farmworkers earlier, but there was one question that I forgot to ask. In that accident on March 7, 2007, some of the workers who either were killed or were injured were on their first day of work.

In that situation, what is the board's policy? How would you calculate their disability pension or the other benefits that the family may get? Is there any policy or any formula to assist those workers in that kind of situation?

Hon. M. Coell: I appreciate that question, because if someone has only worked for a few days and is injured or is a fatality on the job, what is traditional with WorkSafe B.C. is that they would look for a projected average income from what that individual had been earning for that day or that week that they were involved in.

I know, in this instance, that WorkSafe did everything they could to try and find ways to mitigate the suffering of the families.

[1755]
[ Page 3668 ]

R. Chouhan: I appreciate that answer, Mr. Minister.

Now, I also have a couple of questions about migrant workers — basically who we are talking about. It's under different circumstances now. These migrant workers, when they come to B.C. and work for an employer, are not paid sometimes. Like we were saying, they can go to the employment standards branch. They could ask for assistance.

I don't know if the minister had seen this. A couple of days ago there was a rally in downtown Vancouver. These migrant workers were owed $60,000 for the work that they did with the Bastion Development Corporation on a condo development. They were not paid. They tried everything, according to this article. So what kind of help is there for them?

Hon. M. Coell: The branch is involved in an investigation of that incident at this time, and if they find that wages are owed, they will collect it.

R. Chouhan: Many of those workers came from Mexico. Even at the rally they were afraid to show their faces for fear of repercussion from their employer. What steps has the branch taken to assist them to overcome that fear and still help them to get their wages that they're owed?

Hon. M. Coell: In an instance like this, in order to protect the workers, we would audit the payroll to make sure that those individuals who have identified themselves to us are being paid or the payment that they're due is paid.

R. Chouhan: Then, whose payroll will be audited? The contractor or the subcontractor or the main employer? Whose payroll is being audited here?

Hon. M. Coell: What we would do is go and employ their direct employer's payroll to look at what they had said they should be paid as compared to what they had been paid, and if there's a difference after a review, we would go after to collect that money for those workers.

B. Ralston: I want to ask a question about the policy of WorkSafe B.C. on paying interest on retroactive benefit payments. As the minister may recall, or he will be advised, this was a subject of a successful court challenge which was later overturned on appeal, which claimed that the new interest policy passed by WCB was so patently unreasonable that it was not capable of being supported by the act.

Clearly, the effect of this failure to pay interest on delayed claims means there's no economic incentive whatsoever for the board to make an ultimate payment of a claim. So can the minister explain why this policy is in existence and why the government is apparently not prepared to change it?

[1800]

Hon. M. Coell: WorkSafe B.C. is still awaiting guidance from the Court of Appeal, and when those judgments come down, they will change the policies accordingly.

B. Ralston: Well, it's certainly open to the minister to take independent action separate from the court decision if he so chooses, or to put amendments of the act before the House.

Surely the minister agrees that the basic principle…. Ordinarily, in court decisions, there's a rate of interest that accrues if a sum of money is not paid. The view of people who work in this field is that it delays the payment, unfairly, of awards, because there's no economic disincentive to do anything other than delay. There's no cost, there's no interest charged, and it leads to a serious unfairness in the operation of the system.

Surely the minister can do more than simply wait for a decision by the Court of Appeal. He could act now and move to change that. Why isn't he prepared to do that?

Hon. M. Coell: It's a difficult question, when something has gone to the extent that it's before the court, for us to intervene. I think it's best to let the court take its due process and make the recommendations back to WorkSafe.

B. Ralston: Well, I'm disappointed that the minister is not prepared to act on something that's easily understood and patently unfair.

What's the minister's commitment should the Court of Appeal come forward with an opinion that requires interest to be paid? Is he going to then promulgate new regulations that forbid that and continue with the old, unfair policy? Or is he going to end that unfairness and begin the payment of interest on awards?

Hon. M. Coell: Again, I do understand the member's question. The ministry would have to see what the recommendations of the court are and then discuss those with the board of directors.

B. Ralston: In 2002 changes were made to the statute excluding some psychological conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder where it arose from cumulative traumas rather than from a single incident. That's enshrined — I believe it's in section 5.1 — in the Workers Compensation Act.

Is the minister prepared…? Obviously, this works a great hardship in cases where a post-traumatic stress disorder arises, not as the result of a single incident but as the result of cumulative mental stress, resulting in psychological disability. The compensation board of Ontario, I understand, is considering changes. Certainly, there's substantial medical evidence to support this genesis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
[ Page 3669 ]

Is the minister prepared to end this unfairness in the operation of the act and compensate those people who become ill with traumatic stress disorder through no fault of their own and as a result of cumulative incidences rather than a single incident?

Hon. M. Coell: That's a very interesting question. I've got a few things I'd like to comment on. The Ministers of Labour from across Canada and the federal minister met a month or so ago to discuss a number of issues. One of them was trying to coordinate some of the pre-emptions that sometimes happen and some of the issues, like this one, that are different across the country, to try to coordinate that better for workers.

I think the member is commenting on the police association's number one issue, and that was the traumatic stress that could be accumulated in the performance of police duties.

[1805]

I met with them — as, I know, members of the opposition did — this week and have offered to work through that issue with them and to work with WorkSafe on that issue. I think there's some validity to the fact that post-traumatic stress maybe doesn't come from one issue; it may come from a variety of issues over years, depending on your occupation.

There are a number of issues here, and I do appreciate the question and the comments — one that I'm going to be working with the police association on, and the other one being that the federal and provincial ministers are looking at trying to somehow coordinate requests like this so that there's some consistency across the country.

B. Ralston: Well, with respect to the minister, the minister is describing a policy change that was made deliberately by the government in 2002 with the express purpose of saving the Compensation Board money. It was a policy decision made to save money, not to do justice to those people who might suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

On this issue I'm not referring specifically to the brief of the police. This is an issue that strikes other members of the workforce. One can give the example, for example, of a bank teller who may be subjected over a number of years, say, as a person who's been held up in bank robberies and may, as a result of that, acquire a valid diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. That would be a cumulative effect and therefore, excluded by the current section 5.1 and with no remedy available from the Workers Compensation scheme.

The minister talks about the changes in 2001 as though they just happened. That was a deliberate policy choice of this government to exclude that category of workers from compensation, specifically for the reason of saving money to employers. I think the minister should have the guts to acknowledge that is what was taking place — it didn't just happen — and secondly, acknowledge that for a broad category of workers this is a real issue and that justice is not being done to them.

Hon. M. Coell: I can confirm to the member that the ministry is monitoring that decision, the impact of the 2000 amendments to the Workers Compensation Act regarding mental stress. And as I said, I've met with the police association, which highlighted the issue to me, and I've offered to work with them through this issue.

B. Ralston: I want to be respectful, but I do wish to record a certain impatience. These changes came about in 2002. That's now some eight years ago. Surely the minister is not saying that he's just beginning to study the effect of these changes. They're well documented. There are cases that have come before the board. Indeed, the court action that he refers to was also accompanied by a class action of a whole group of people who felt affected by these changes.

Surely the board, with its budget and its staff of analysts and the ability of the minister to call on the board to account to him, can do better than saying, "Well, we're just studying it. It's only been eight years." Will the minister not agree that that's a totally unsatisfactory answer?

Hon. M. Coell: I think it's safe to say that all jurisdictions are struggling with this issue. The courts have obviously shown through their decisions that they're struggling with this particular issue. I think it needs to be said that WorkSafe B.C. does accept post-traumatic stress syndromes where the applicant can provide the necessary background that would allow that. I think that there are a number of things that we're trying to do. As I said, we are monitoring this issue, and the issue had been brought to my attention in the last couple of days.

[1810]

B. Ralston: Well, with respect, I beg to differ with the minister's offer or suggestion that these incidents can be compensated. The 2002 amendment was very restrictive because it applied to very restricted situations where a single event which caused them was sudden, unexpected and traumatic.

There are many categories of workers, which it is not difficult to imagine, who acquire or are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of a series of incidents that take place over a period of time. Their suffering from that syndrome is no less real than someone who acquires it in the very restricted circumstances that the amendment set out. So for the minister to say, "Well, yeah, actually you can be compensated for that," is simply not accurate.

Won't the minister acknowledge the very restrictive effects of those 2002 amendments? At least that's…. I
[ Page 3670 ]
mean, I'm not saying anything that really involves opinion here. I'm just simply reading from the amendment as it was drafted, as it's in effect and as it's applied by the board. Surely the minister can do better than that.

Hon. M. Coell: I may not be able to satisfy the member with my answers, but it is a very complicated issue. It's one that we're not the only jurisdiction struggling with. I think the fact is that we're looking at an issue that can be compensated, but as the member has said, it needs an issue that triggers that mental stress to the level that compensation would be approved.

I understand where he's coming from. I understand the question. I want to reiterate that it's a very complicated issue and one that we're monitoring.

B. Ralston: Well, can the minister confirm or deny that the Ontario definition of cumulative stress is one that is very different from the B.C. definition and is one that the board is prepared to consider?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm not aware of what the Ontario definition is, but I will look it up.

B. Ralston: Well, the minister is not alone in his enterprise. He has very capable and experienced senior staff seated on either side of him. Can he give me an answer now?

He said that provincial Ministers of Labour are studying this. Surely he has available to him the resources to answer that question now, rather than pushing me off for another year in estimates.

Hon. M. Coell: The ministers had an initial meeting a few weeks ago and agreed to consult one another on issues like this, and we're going to do that.

B. Ralston: Well, I'm sure that's very cold comfort for those who are afflicted with this and can't get compensation, to suggest that. I'm suggesting to the minister that there is a definition available in Ontario that is a very different one from British Columbia and is probably a fairer one.

Will the minister commit…? Maybe I can try it this way. Rather than just a very blanket suggestion that he's going to study it, will the minister commit to examining the Ontario definition of cumulative stress and reporting back in writing to myself or the Labour critic, the member for Burnaby-Edmonds, within 30 days?

Hon. M. Coell: I will commit to reviewing that, the Ontario issue, and I will get back to the members.

B. Ralston: Well, with respect to the minister, the reason I put a time limit on it is because an open-ended commitment often results in no answer ever being given, because there's no obligation to do so. I'm asking whether the minister will commit to review that definition and come up with a response within 30 days of today's date.

Hon. M. Coell: I've committed to review that. I don't know what the other provinces are doing, so I can't put a time frame on it.

B. Ralston: Let's try this again. Will the minister commit to do it within six months from today's date?

Hon. M. Coell: I can't make a commitment on the other provinces. I've told the member I will review it, and I will do that.

The Chair: The member will direct his questions directly towards the budget estimate, Vote 40.

[1815]

B. Ralston: I think I'm well within the rules of order, thank you, Mr. Chair, but I accept your admonition if you feel that I'm straying beyond this. This is administrative action taken by the department in pursuit of its spending power, so in my view, subject to your direction, I'm well within the ambit of debate for estimates. But of course I accept your direction.

I want to ask the minister to address the issue of chronic pain. WorkSafe B.C. has restricted workers' pension entitlement for permanent chronic pain conditions to a maximum of 2.5 percent as a percentage of total disability and has passed a policy to this effect. It's certainly the view of many who have examined this issue that this artificial threshold, set unduly low, works a great unfairness for those workers who find themselves suffering with work-related or work-caused chronic pain.

Will the minister agree to a review of that definition of chronic pain and the artificial threshold that's been set at 2.5 percent of total disability?

Hon. M. Coell: I can assure the member that the issue has been brought to the board of directors of WorkSafe B.C., and they're considering their options.

R. Chouhan: I want to start where I left off about a migrant workers issue. The minister was saying that audits will be done. My question is: actually, who is responsible for it?

If you audit and go after the employer, the employer will say: "Sorry, it's not my problem. I had a contractor." The contractor will say: "Sorry, it's not my problem. It's the subcontractor."

At the end of the day somebody should be responsible, as we have been asking. I have asked the minister many times before. So would the ministry make the employer — the original employer, the main employer — respon-
[ Page 3671 ]
sible for all the wages owed to workers when they are in that situation?

Hon. M. Coell: A couple of issues there, because I know we've touched base on this issue earlier. The temporary foreign workers. Of course, it's a federal…. It's between countries. Let's use Mexico as an example. Mexico and Canada have agreement on the temporary foreign workers. When they get to Canada, they fall under our rules in British Columbia.

The member asked earlier what we had done and if we had received any complaints. We've been quite active on the initiatives with employment standards and the foreign workers, and we've actually upgraded our complaint form and computer system to enable us to attract complaints by those foreign workers. Hopefully, with this, we'll be able to target better education for them and also enforcement activities.

I think there are a number of things that we've done. I regret that I didn't bring this up earlier when the member had asked me. I think we've also created a new fact sheet outlining some of the key issues that relate to foreign workers and what they've got to watch out for, for their rights as well, and a number of websites or phone numbers where they can get hold of our staff as well as some of the other groups that help with immigrant workers and the foreign worker program.

R. Chouhan: Well, that's fine. The minister is saying that those steps over there are taken, but my question remains. When the audit is done, when the review is done and the branch finds out that the immediate employer was responsible and then that subcontractor disappears and workers are still owed an amount of money, isn't this the responsibility of the employer who has retained either a contractor or a subcontractor in the first place?

[1820]

Hon. M. Coell: I'll try and answer that. The employer is the one who is legally responsible for wages. We had talked about contractors. Contractors need to be registered with WorkSafe. What our branch would do is identify who the employer was, and then if there was a discrepancy with wages, they would go after that employer, who is legally responsible.

H. Bains: Minister, I also have some issues with the WCB. When I say this, I think it's something that is so grave. Some of the most frustrated people who walk through our offices — I'm sure the minister's office also has experienced some of those, and many other MLAs have seen them — are the people who have to deal with WCB.

As my history tells me that, WCB was created to help workers who are injured at the workplace. They give up their right to sue the employer. In return, they will be treated in a timely fashion. Their paycheque will continue until they're recovered.

Seems to me now, starting with their application for WCB — form 7A, I believe it's still called — then the employer's form 7 that's supposed to go to the WCB, then the adjudicators looking at the case itself…. There are times when employers take weeks — not days, weeks — to report the injury, although the employee has completed their part of the responsibility. As a result of that, they're waiting to be paid or the case to be adjudicated — no fault of the worker.

It seems to me that there isn't any mechanism available to the WCB, or they fail to apply or enforce the mechanism that they may have, to force the employer to make those applications or reports in a timely fashion.

They could go on without delay…. I mean, there are some time limits that they are required to report. I understand that. But if they go over, there's no penalty to the employer imposed, or hardly any. So there's no incentive for the employer to report in a timely fashion. Many of them don't do that. Then we go on to the weeks and weeks for the employee, the injured worker, to wait for their benefits.

Then there is the adjudication process. There are many adjudicators. You know, I have a lot of respect for them. They have no history or experience in many of the industries where the workers and those reports come from.

I can give you some examples, personally, where an adjudicator phoned to find out how much a 2-by-4 weighed to determine whether this person could be injured as he was pulling off a greenchain. It's not the weight of the 2-by-4. It's where the 2-by-4 was being pulled from and what was happening at that particular time.

Then from the employee making a statement on form 7A…. Many of them are new employees. They have never had any experience in workplaces. If they say, "When I was pulling off the chain, my back or my neck got injured, and therefore I can no longer work," that statement on its own will disqualify that worker. They will say that it does not arise during the course of employment, because he failed to mention that "I slipped when I was pulling" or that "the 2-by-4 was stuck when I was pulling." Then that first statement that is made on form 7A carries on, and that's the one that is used against the worker.

I'm talking about new workers, who have no legal background on how to put real information on the form, to those who have language issues. It's so frustrating. That's just the beginning.

[1825]

Then we talk about those who have permanent disabilities. I think the member touched on it a little bit. There used to be a wage-loss pension. There used to be a partial permanent disability pension. You could be making $20 an hour as a result of your permanent in-
[ Page 3672 ]
jury, and now you're able to make only $10 an hour. The difference used to be the pension, because as a result of that injury, you were no longer to earn what you used to in the pre-injury employment.

I understand that there are still some, but I will be asking some specific questions on that. How many actually do qualify under the current rules? First of all, let me ask you some other questions related to this. The workers compensation claims history — what can and cannot an employer use this for?

Hon. M. Coell: I think that the crux of some of the statement that the member made was looking for how many claims are rejected for starters, and it's as low as 7 percent. So of the hundred people who come through the door with a claim, only 7 percent are actually rejected at the end of the day. The other 93 percent actually work their way through the system and have a positive result, which is important.

I understand that when workers gave up their right to sue the employer, there was a system set up, and that system basically is owned by workers and employers in a fashion that tries to make safe workplaces. If there's an accident in the workplace, then you have the ability to be compensated for that. I think that's what the member was saying.

The other one is that we're now producing and distributing help in 170 languages, and that didn't happen a dozen or 20 years ago.

The other one that's new is the teleclaim, where someone can actually phone in their claim and start the process right there. That wasn't there a couple of decades ago.

I'm hearing some frustration, and I have people who come into my office too, and they're having difficulty getting their claim heard or getting a time frame where they're happy. But the vast majority don't experience that, and I think what WorkSafe is trying to do — and we talked about it earlier — find mechanisms to actually increase the quality of their service. They're going to be doing that through some satisfaction surveys that will be on the Web and that people will be able to use.

I think those are the things that they can do. We never want to say that we have a perfect service. The service is always going to be evolving and changing to meet the needs of workers and employers in British Columbia. The bottom line for me is: how does WorkSafe help the safety on the worksite?

They're actually doing a lot of that, and we might want to talk about that a bit. They're doing that and expanding that through crane safety, through forestry safety, through individual programs, eye safety. There's a lot that they're doing, and I think we just need to continue to say that we knew and know that the quality needs to continue to improve. We'll work with WorkSafe — and I'm sure the members of the opposition will too — to improve the quality of service.

H. Bains: My specific question was…. If you go into any employer's operation today, the employment applications, in addition to all of the information that they need — names, addresses and all that stuff…. There also always is a question — your WCB history. Have you ever had a WCB claim? And if the employee said yes, and then they find out what the issues are, they don't get hired. If they refuse to answer that, they don't get hired.

[1830]

So my question to the minister is this. Should it be allowed under the act that the employer is asking a potential employee a question about their WCB history? My understanding is that WCB claim history should not be used to deny you employment or continue to have the employment. So why are those questions allowed on those applications?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm not aware of any part of my ministry that would find that acceptable. That may be a human rights issue. It may be an individual employer, but it's certainly not something that WorkSafe would condone. I think that would be something that would be under human rights or possibly the Attorney General's ministry.

H. Bains: Wouldn't the WCB then have — because it is pertaining to WCB claims and they have an act prohibiting the use of a WCB claim for any other purpose — a senate directive that no employer should even ask that question?

Hon. M. Coell: I appreciate the point. I'll take that up with the board of WorkSafe B.C. and see what the answer to that is.

H. Bains: On the other front, Minister, to what extent is the Ministry of Labour involved in determining the construction rates as far as the blue book rates are concerned? Is the ministry involved in that, in terms of working with the construction industry?

Hon. M. Coell: The ministry isn't involved in that. We're just provided those rates once they're determined by WCB.

R. Chouhan: I have a couple of questions about the forest industry. The Auditor General, in his report of 2008 titled Preventing Fatalities and Serious Injuries in B.C. Forests…. There was a recommendation, a number of recommendations. No. 3 recommendation said: "We recommend that the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services bring self-employed forest workers under the province's occupational health and safety regulations."

Has anything been done to correct that situation since this recommendation was made?
[ Page 3673 ]

Hon. M. Coell: A couple of comments. The injury rate in the forest industry is down, but I think we all know that is down because there are a lot less people working in the industry than there were a decade or so ago.

The issue that the member brings is an amendment to the Workers' Compensation Act, and it is under consideration — to address the accountability and protection of self-employed forest workers. I think there is an issue there.

I know that we're getting short of time, and I don't want to take up your time. But in the past, some of the larger companies had safety committees and a whole range of things. You now have contractors that are maybe a one- or two-person operation. It's how to keep them safe and how to make sure they're still doing safety reporting. That was the issue that was brought forward to us and the one that is under consideration.

R. Chouhan: It's being considered now, so when would that be complete? Can we expect any report, any directive on that fairly soon?

Hon. M. Coell: That, again, is part of our strategic review for this year, and so it's something that would be reviewed this year for action in the coming years.

[1835]

R. Chouhan: You know, there are so many people that have identified this seriousness, this issue in the forest industry. I think the time has come for the ministry and WorkSafe B.C. to get tough with the health and safety issue in the forest industry. Many people have lost their lives, and many have been injured, and we need to stop that.

In the same report of 2008, the Auditor General, in recommendation 13, says: "We recommend that the Minister of Labour and Citizens' Services identify, through credible third-party research, safe work hour limits for high-risk forestry occupations and then regulate and enforce those limits accordingly. These limits should be made applicable to self-employed forest workers as well as those employed in the industry."

WorkSafe B.C. included a discussion paper…. Anyway, that's the recommendation they made, No. 13. What steps have the government and WorkSafe B.C. taken to comply with that recommendation?

Hon. M. Coell: A number of issues arise out of that. The part 26 amendment requiring operators to keep logbooks will be part of the development of a discussion paper, as well, that will be completed this year as part of WorkSafe's program.

I think what we're trying to do is look at that industry. As I said, there are smaller and smaller groups, even one-person operators, that we want to make sure there are safety programs in place for and that they adhere to them. The discussion paper is to be complete in the spring of 2010, which is this year, and then we'll continue to monitor part 26, the amendment for log transporters as well.

R. Chouhan: I'm going to move on to a different subject now, about child labour, the youth workers. Since the changes were made — I think it was under Bill 37 — in 2003, the age for young workers was lowered to 12 years. The injury rate has been increased tenfold since that change was brought in by the government.

You will know that the International Labour Organization and everybody else have been asking for this — that that age should be increased to 15, as it was before. Are any steps being taken by this government, or will they be taken, to protect these workers under the age of 15?

Hon. M. Coell: I can offer this to the member. The number of young workers under the age of 15 who are injured has gone down to 19 this year. I think that what government tried to do with the changes they made was make parents or guardians responsible for the young people.

I think the other thing that has been noticeable is the lack of young people under 12 who are in the movie industry and those sorts of things, who are actually involved with the ministry. That has gone down.

I think that First Call did a report that we're working through now — that was last fall, I believe — making some recommendations regarding the young, 12 to 15, in the workforce, and we're looking at some of those recommendations.

[1840]

R. Chouhan: On this, I have just one question. Also, that change in law shifted the responsibility from the employer to the parents about protecting workers. I would ask the minister to also look at that, review it. It's not workable. It's not working. It has not worked since then. We need to have those protections in place, as we had before.

My colleague would have one question after that.

D. Routley: With the Chair's indulgence, I actually have two questions. First would be: has the ministry examined what the impact to its operations will be of the implementation of the HST?

Hon. M. Coell: Yes, we have, and I can give the member some information. We touched on this issue. I think it was pretty close to the beginning of our discussion. The ministry will be able to recover any costs that it has. The other thing with this particular ministry is that almost 95 percent of our costs are salary, so the HST doesn't apply to them.
[ Page 3674 ]

D. Routley: The government has made claims since the election of the promise of the creation of many jobs through the implementation of the HST. In the interest of time and decorum, I won't enter into what was said before the election. But since the election a lot of claims have been made about the job creation potential of the HST.

What studies has the Ministry of Labour done, in terms of sectoral breakdowns, of how the HST will affect employment in different sectors? What inquiries have been made to employer organizations, and what studies have been engaged to examine those effects?

Hon. M. Coell: I don't want to disappoint the member, but the lead for that is the Minister of Finance. He hasn't started his estimates yet, so I would suggest to the member to get in there early and probably do a more in-depth review of some of those studies. That would be the appropriate place.

Vote 40: ministry operations, $16,460,000 — approved.

Hon. M. Coell: I would move that the committee rise, report resolution and completion of the Ministry of Labour and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:43 p.m.

[ Return to: Legislative Assembly Home Page ]

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

TV channel guide • Broadcast schedule

Copyright © 2010: British Columbia Hansard Services, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

ISSN 1499-2175