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)

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 19, Number 2

[ Page 5877 ]

THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2010

The House met at 1:35 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Hon. J. Yap: I have two sets of introductions to make. First of all, visiting from White Rock and still very active in the Richmond community, longtime residents of Richmond, dear old friends Wally and Kay Philips.

Wally is well known in Richmond for his volunteer work previously, as president of the chamber of commerce, president of Rotary Club and active with Gideons International as well as other great causes. Would the House please join me in welcoming Wally and Kay Philips.

I also would like to introduce 35 students who are grade 11 students from my favourite school, Robert A. McMath Secondary School, the school which my two children graduated from recently. They're here today, these grade 11 students and five adults, with teacher Angela Sommerfeld to observe firsthand how Westminster-style parliamentary democracy works and to be here for question period. So would the House please offer another warm welcome to these great students.

L. Popham: When I'm out meeting new people and telling them a little bit about myself, I often mention that I have a still in my back yard, and more times than you would guess, people lower their voices, and they say: "Oh, I know. So do I."

But I'd like to introduce Bryan Murray, the owner of Victoria Spirits, a company that makes its home in my back yard. Victoria Spirits is renowned for its sophisticated products, including the much-sought-after Victoria Gin, a gin that has been referenced as a scotch-lover's gin because you can enjoy it neat.

Speaking of scotch, Bryan Murray has a few kegs of whiskey on the go and has also recently introduced the new hemp vodka into the mix. But Bryan Murray and Victoria Spirits have another product in their lineup that I think the members on the other side of the House will appreciate. Victoria Spirits is also making bitters.

Hon. G. Campbell: Now let me tell you about Diet Coke. [Laughter.]

I am very pleased today that we have, joining us in the House, members of the Four Host Nations and the Four Host Nations executive for the Four Host Nations group that actually did such an exceptional job of hosting the 2010 Winter Olympic Games here. For the first time in Olympic history, an aboriginal nation was part of hosting an Olympics.

Tewanee Joseph, the chief executive officer of the Four Host Nations; his wife, Rianne Joseph; Squamish Nation Chief and exceptional leader Gibby Jacob; Squamish Nation Chief Ian Campbell; Squamish Nation Chief Bill Williams; Squamish Nation Coun. Julie Baker; and Bruce Dumont, the president of the Métis Nation of British Columbia join us today.

I know that Chief Leonard Andrew of the Lil'wat was not able to attend, Justin George was not able to attend from the Tsleil-Waututh, and Ernie Campbell was not able to attend from the Musqueam.

Hon. Speaker, I hope we will make all of these exceptional aboriginal leaders welcome to the Legislature and the House with a big thank-you for all they did for the province of British Columbia and Canada.

S. Fraser: Joining us in the gallery today is Paul Griffiths. Paul is a cave and karst scientist and resource management specialist of many years with extensive worldwide experience. Paul started documenting caves and cave systems in B.C. back in the '60s. He also served as president of the B.C. Speleological Federation and its predecessor group from 1970 to 1998, nearly three decades underground. Paul is here to witness and put his support to a private member's bill I'll be introducing today. Would you please all make him feel very, very welcome.

D. McRae: I have three guests in the Legislature today. I have James Youngren, Jim Malick and Brian McMahon visiting us today. Would the House please make them welcome.

K. Corrigan: I see that we have in the gallery today a good friend of mine, Temmo Sokinan. He and his wife Cathy Sainty are over. Cathy is working for a few days, and Temmo is enjoying himself. I hope the House will make him feel very welcome.

[1340]

L. Reid: In concert with my dear colleagues from Richmond Centre and Richmond-Steveston, we are hosting today the trustees of the board of education of Richmond. We have Linda McPhail as the board chair, Debbie Tablotney, Carol Day and Donna Sargent. I would ask the House to please make them all welcome.

S. Simpson: Please make welcome today in the gallery a local community activist here in the Victoria area and a cancer survivor, Val John. Val grew up on Saltspring Island, where she learned the values that she's now teaching to her eight-year-old son. Val stays very active in the community and is currently living in the constituency of Oak Bay–Gordon Head, where she's working hard on the HST initiative. Please make her welcome.
[ Page 5878 ]

M. Dalton: In the gallery today we have Fraser and Lynn Cocks. They're good friends of mine from Maple Ridge. They're attending the CRAC conference in Victoria. That's an interesting acronym for the Crane Rental Association of Canada. Fraser has spearheaded the apprenticeship and credentialing program for British Columbia's 15,000 crane operators with the B.C. Association for Crane Safety and WorkSafe B.C. He's worked tirelessly on this program. Would the Legislature please make them feel welcome.

J. Brar: I am pleased to welcome Sharon Sall. She's a school counsellor. She has a master's in leadership and clinical counselling. She has been in the education system for 12 years teaching ESL and learning assistance and, for the last four years, has been counselling in a secondary school. Sharon has two young elementary school children. She is here today to meet with the MLAs. I request the members from both sides to please make her welcome.

S. Cadieux: The cameras in Chilliwack will being flashing brightly this weekend. I'd like to announce the arrival of a new constituent for the Minister of Environment. Gabrielle Hope Kehler has arrived, my new niece.

B. Ralston: I'd like the House to welcome Ren Morley. He's worked as a teacher in both the secondary system and the elementary system since 1982, 16 years as a classroom teacher, and for the last 11 years has worked as a counsellor in Surrey for children in kindergarten to grade 7. He completed a master's degree in counselling psychology at UBC in 1998. He's here to talk to members of the Legislature about the importance of counselling at the elementary school and secondary school level.

Hon. M. de Jong: The office of the Sergeant-at-Arms does many things beyond simply guarding the mace. One of those individuals, the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, Insp. Randy Ennis, has quite a storied past. He was a member of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, which of course meant he voluntarily jumped out of airplanes that were in good working order.

He's a former military policeman, a Canadian peacekeeper. He saw duty in Bosnia, Cyprus and Haiti. He is the recipient of the Order of Military Merit.

He is licking his wounds this week after seeing the departure of his beloved Montreal Canadiens from the playoffs, but these days he primarily devotes himself to ensuring the security of these precincts and those who work and occupy them.

Most importantly, today he reaches a half-century on this planet. He is 50 years of age, and we all want to wish Insp. Randy Ennis a happy 50th birthday.

D. Donaldson: Joining us today in the gallery as an official guest are legislative intern Lindsay Walton and her partner Pete Crockford. I wanted to say thank you to Lindsay for coming to Stikine as part of her constituency experience. I hope she had a good time, and I'd like the House to welcome them to the gallery today.

[1345]

D. Hayer: I am pleased to introduce four very special guests and friends who are in the House today, actually right now: my constituents Gary Brar, a student from Simon Fraser University; his sister Sunny Brar, a student from Fraser Heights Secondary School; and their mom Khushwinder Kaur Brar, who is the wife of my good friend Surjit Jim Brar.

They are joined by very a special guest from India, Mrs. Daljit Kaur Sidhu, who is the wife of Ruby Sidhu, DSP, deputy superintendent of Punjab police in India. Would the House please make them very welcome.

H. Bains: I have a couple of introductions today. First, part of the delegation that my colleague from Surrey-Whalley and Fleetwood introduced earlier. Judy Jardine is a school counsellor in the elementary schools in Surrey school district 36. She has also worked as a high school teacher, a family therapist with ACT II and is a private therapist as an associate with a local psychologist. They are here to educate us about the need for the counsellors, the cutbacks in that area in the school district and the effect on our children. Please help me welcome Judy here.

I also realize, and I was advised last night, that the member for Fraser-Nicola is the longest-serving Indo-Canadian member in this House as of today. He just passed, by one day, the previous record held by our beloved Moe Sihota. I personally think it is a good thing, but every member can make their own judgment about this one.

J. Horgan: If there's one person with a larger smile on their face than the member for Fraser-Nicola these days, it's our own Legislative Assembly training officer, Noel Stone, who has the good fortune to be here in the Legislature today with his son Adam, who just recently returned from Kandahar where he was, at 19 years of age, the youngest serving member of the Canadian Scottish Regiment reservists. His family are delighted that he's back. I would welcome the members of the Legislature to welcome Adam Stone back from Afghanistan safe and sound.

Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

Bill M206 — Cave Protection act, 2010

S. Fraser presented a bill intituled Cave Protection Act, 2010.
[ Page 5879 ]

S. Fraser: I move introduction of the Cave Protection Act for first reading.

Motion approved.

S. Fraser: British Columbia is one of the most ecologically diverse regions of Canada. An important contributor to this diversity is its well over 1,000 documented caves. The caves of B.C. have been recognized worldwide for their pristine character and wealth of natural and cultural resource values. There are probably more caves documented in British Columbia than in any other Canadian province or territory, and many more will likely be documented in the coming years.

Caves are universally recognized as being amongst the most fragile and vulnerable of our ecosystems. They can be subject to human-caused disturbances occurring directly above them or sometimes taking place a considerable distance away from them. Numerous caves in B.C. have already been damaged through ill-planned land use and resource development. Because they often lack the types of natural restorative processes that occur on the surface, cave environments can easily be overwhelmed by human-caused disturbances.

Given B.C.'s rich and valuable cave heritage, one might expect that B.C. would protect caves at all levels of government. The truth is that except for caves in parks and ecological reserves and in a few other specifically designated land areas, B.C. has no real means to protect caves on Crown lands or private property.

B.C. currently offers far less comprehensive protection than is available for caves in many other jurisdictions. It is time for British Columbia to follow international example, and this bill is being introduced as a non-partisan means to do just that.

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

[1350]

Bill M206, Cave Protection Act, 2010, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

SHADES OF FUN DAY AND
EYE HEALTH AWARENESS

D. Black: I rise today to remind the members in this House and British Columbians that today has been designated the first ever Shades of Fun Day by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. The purpose of Shades of Fun Day is to remind everyone to wear sunglasses and to take a vision risk assessment test.

We may not think of wearing sunglasses given the dreary weather we're currently experiencing, but it's important to remember year-round that UV rays from the sun can harm our eyes. Sun damage is a proven risk factor for cataracts and for age-related macular degeneration, which is the leading cause of vision loss in Canada. Over one million people in Canada are currently diagnosed with AMD.

Wearing sunglasses with UV protection can significantly reduce the risk of cataracts and of age-related macular degeneration. May is Vision Health Month, and the CNIB has been working hard to educate Canadians on how to look after our eyes. The statistics are quite frightening. Every 12 minutes someone in Canada begins to lose their vision — news that not only turns their life upside down but also affects their family and their friends.

More than 110,000 people in British Columbia live with significant vision loss. That figure is expected to double in the next 20 years. I hope everyone in this House will assist the CNIB by spreading their important message and by urging their constituents to have regular, thorough eye examinations.

So let's all slip on our shades. We'll not only look cool, but we'll be helping to protect our precious eyesight.

RIVERSIDE COLLEGE IN MISSION

M. Dalton: The member for Abbotsford-Mission and I recently had the pleasure of attending the grand opening of the Riverside College's new campus in Mission. The college provides alternative programs for students in grades 10 to 12 and is also a site for adult graduation. Many at-risk students have been afforded a way for educational success in a school that is flexible, individualized and structured to give students skills that can lead directly to employment.

Some $7.2 million was put towards this college that can serve up to 350 students. The school provides a combination of entry-level trades or technical training specific to students' interests. Typically, most of the training costs are covered by the Ministry of Education in order that students can avoid the expenses associated with post-secondary training.

Community support worker, professional cook, automotive technician, warehouse person, business support specialist and plumber are just a few of the programs offered at Riverside College. Mike Pesek and Dave McDonald head up a project-based program called Eco Crew. This is where high school subjects are integrated, and the students get involved in fieldwork such as bridge-building, riparian planting and minnow-trapping. The goal is to give exposure to every resource industry, including forestry, agriculture and fishing.

Peter Neufeld and Brian Phillips are a couple of other dedicated teachers. Brian told me that they try to ensure
[ Page 5880 ]
that students get what they need in a way they can handle and still meet curriculum requirements. Riverside College is another demonstration of successful educational innovations coming out of school district 75, Mission, the district where StrongStart began.

Congratulations to school board superintendent Frank Dunham, principal Sharon Kindree and all the teachers and students at this great new college.

ROLE OF HONEYBEES IN AGRICULTURE

L. Popham: May 29 has been proclaimed the Day of the Honeybee in British Columbia. Honeybees are a big part of our pollinator population and play a critical role in the production of many B.C. crops. In fact, much of B.C.'s agricultural production is dependent on honeybee pollination. Without them our food systems will fail.

Our proclamation was signed recently, and within our proclamation, the virtues of B.C. bees as well as the threats they face were brought to light:

[1355]

"Whereas the honeybee has, through its role as pollinator, been an important part of agricultural efforts since ancient times; and whereas the honeybee plays an essential role in the success of agricultural enterprises in British Columbia; and whereas the honeybee has been under serious threat due to disease and environmental conditions that ultimately threaten the future of agriculture in our province; and whereas the government of British Columbia has worked with the agriculture industry to improve production and stabilize the industry; and whereas it is in the interest of furthering that goal to raise awareness of the role of the honeybee and the plight it faces…."

In early May a 22-year-old policy restricting the importation of bees to Vancouver Island was lifted. This significant decision is of grave concern to the Vancouver Island beekeeping sector. Beekeepers are especially concerned because last winter on Vancouver Island almost 90 percent of honeybees died, largely because of the varroa mite which was introduced to Island hives when an individual contravened our Island quarantine.

I am wondering, given recent decisions, if the Day of the Honeybee will become a day of memorial for honeybees on Vancouver Island in our near future.

INDO-CANADIAN BUSINESS ASSOCIATION
STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

D. Hayer: I rise today to recognize all members of the Indo-Canadian Business Association. Along with Jolly Dhaliwal, David and Avtar Johl, Paul Lail, Rajinder Duhra, Avtar Badesha, M.S. Dhaliwal and others, I was a founding member of this organization in 1992. In 1996 the organization began recognizing our future generations by beginning the annual student achievement awards. I had the honour of attending the 14th annual 2010 award evening, in which 15 very commendable grade 12 students from high schools across Surrey were recognized for their achievements.

Today's Indo-Canadian Business Association is led by president Jolly Dhaliwal, VP Jas Janda-Wiseman, VP and past president Sonia Virk, secretary Lucky Toor, treasurer and chair of achievement awards Hardeep Gill, past president and director Terry Johal, and other directors: Harp Dhillon, Kan Sandhu, Kamini Prasad, Don Dhanoa, Rick Dhaliwal and Peter Bola.

It was an impressive evening. I know, as a former member and a former vice-chairman, that all the Indo-Canadian Business Association directors would like to thank all the award night sponsors: TD Bank Canada Trust, Royal Properties Ltd., A-Class Auto Body and Paint, Advanced Pallet and Crate, Allied Insurance, Made in India, Bride and Groom Shop, Columbia Collision Repairs, Fruiticana, G&F Financial Group, Indo-Canadian Times newspaper, Mainland Developments Ltd., World Financial Group, TD Canada Trust mobile mortgage specialists, and T&L Group Chartered Accountants LLP.

I ask all the members of the House to join me in congratulating all the student achievement award–winning youth; all the volunteers, members and directors of the Indo-Canadian Business Association; and all the sponsors for all the hard work they do to make sure our community is safe and secure and to foster and promote business progress and the economy in the province of British Columbia.

ROLE OF FOREST INDUSTRY IN
FRASER-NICOLA AREA

Mr. Speaker: Member for Fraser-Nicola.

[Applause.]

H. Lali: Thank you. I hope the clock is starting right now, not 15 seconds ago.

Interjections.

H. Lali: Okay, okay. Enough.

Forestry is very important to British Columbia, to Fraser-Nicola and to my….

Interjections.

H. Lali: Okay, let me start all over again.

Mr. Speaker: About half your time is gone, Member. [Laughter.]

H. Lali: Okay, the media party is over. Let's try this again, a third time.

Forestry is very important to British Columbia, to Fraser-Nicola, and to my hometown of Merritt. I came from a family, a town and a constituency all of whom are
[ Page 5881 ]
very proud of forestry heritage. I worked 11 summers in sawmills and in plywood plants and on weekends during high school to finance my education.

Every male on my side of the family and also every male on my wife's side of the family for four generations have all, at one time or another, worked in or are still working in a sawmill, planer mill, plywood plant, pulp and paper mill or out in the bush.

[1400]

My father first started working in the forest industry in Kamloops in 1957 when he first came to Canada, and then in Merritt in 1958. My dad and his brothers, their sons and my son, all my cousins' sons and all the male members on my wife's side — including her great-uncle, a relative of former NDP cabinet minister Moe Sihota — and my father and I all worked in B.C.'s forest industry.

Like dozens of other forestry workers, my brothers display signs in their front windows stating: "This family proudly supported by timber dollars." Be it a bucker, a faller, a forklift driver, a chipper man, an edger man, a planer man, a charge hand, a green-chain puller or a night watchman looking out for fires and prowlers, we've all been there and proudly done that.

The Lalis and my in-laws, the Sihotas, are all very proud of our little forestry town of Merritt and of our roots in our forest industry, for it is forestry dollars that fed us, clothed us, housed us, educated us and sent us off on the odd vacation or two. Merritt, Princeton, Nicola, Lytton, Lillooet, Ashcroft, Boston Bar, Hope and Yale are or have been at one time or another dependent on forestry jobs for their very existence.

The last ten years have not been very kind to the forestry workers in B.C., including those in Fraser-Nicola where several sawmills have closed.

In closing, I ask all members of this House to support our number one industry, forestry, and also forestry workers and forestry communities.

TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY IN
OKANAGAN AREA

N. Letnick: It's indeed an honour to follow someone who has such a long service to this province. Anybody who has served, I think, 15 years in this Legislature or more, I find great respect for, on either side of the House. Congratulations to the member.

I'd like to take this time today to share with you the exciting, expanding horizons of the Okanagan technology industry. The central Okanagan is the third-largest technology zone in British Columbia after Vancouver and Victoria. Now more than ever, tech-savvy companies are calling the Okanagan home. I am proud to live in what is becoming our very own silicon vineyard that draws outstanding talent from our major education facilities, like UBC Okanagan and Okanagan College.

Because of the renewed investment and support, businesses have a chance to grow with an open access to skilled labour, capital and countless other resources, not to mention the allure of the Okanagan's attractive climate and lifestyle.

I'm sure many people here have heard about RF Find and Club Penguin. Another less known example is Kronos Systems, Inc. It is one of the largest providers of scheduling time and attendant solutions in health care across America. Their new location is a vital part of their company and employs 35 individuals in my constituency of Kelowna–Lake Country.

In 2005 Kronos acquired a Kelowna-based software company originally established for developing Canadian health care workforce management solutions. Now Kronos Canada is leveraging this expertise by establishing the Kelowna office as a centre of excellence for Canadian health care. Every day 70,000 nurses and health care workers in B.C. are scheduled using Kronos workforce management solutions.

It's companies like Kronos who continue to invest in our beautiful part of British Columbia because of the exciting and welcoming opportunities of growth, expansion, and success. These businesses grow because of the expertise they can find in our own back yard. The horizons are bright, and I look forward to the impressive future of the Okanagan technology industry here for today and tomorrow.

Oral Questions

HARMONIZED SALES TAX
AND INITIATIVE PETITION

B. Ralston: As public opposition mounts, the B.C. Liberals become more and more desperate to find a way out of the HST mess that they've created, and it appears they think that they've found one. "The committee could look at that initiative and say that it's invalid." Those are the words of the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, the prospective Chair of the committee that would consider the HST petition if it passed.

My question is to the Premier. Is this the B.C. Liberal strategy to try and make their HST betrayal disappear?

[1405]

Hon. G. Campbell: I am pleased to respond to the member's question. I think I tried to be very clear at the beginning of this week, and I will be clear again. The law is explicit, and it is clear. The committee has two options. The select standing committee of the Legislature has two options. One is to submit a bill to the Legislature, and the other is to refer the matter to the Chief Electoral Officer to proceed to a referendum.

Those are the two options that the select standing committee has. It is an all-party committee. They will
[ Page 5882 ]
make their recommendation. We will follow the law, as I'm sure everyone in this Legislature will follow the law.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

B. Ralston: Well, that is the Premier's view here, but that's clearly not the view of the prospective Chair of the committee. Will the Premier assure the public that the law in this case will be followed and that the member for Kamloops–North Thompson will follow the law, as well as the Premier?

Hon. G. Campbell: I can't be more explicit, and I know the member for Kamloops–North Thompson or the member for Surrey-Whalley or the member for any other constituency in this House would have no other position than that they will follow the law.

I will follow the law. The government will follow the law. I expect the House to follow the law, and certainly I would expect and the public would expect the select standing committee to follow the law.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a further supplemental.

B. Ralston: Clearly, the statement of the member for Kamloops–North Thompson speaks volumes, if not now that it's been repudiated, about the sentiment of the B.C. Liberal caucus. They want to frustrate the will of the public.

Why doesn't the Premier simply recognize the will of the public that's been expressed in the petition and scrap the HST right now?

Hon. G. Campbell: Let me just reiterate that the select standing committee will receive the initiative petition, should it be successful, after review by the Chief Electoral Officer. The select standing committee will follow the law, and I can guarantee the member opposite — he may not be able to say that for his caucus; I can say it for mine — we follow the law.

D. Black: Well, the quote is: "I'm not a big fan of direct democracy." These are troubling words from the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, and he's also the prospective Chair of the committee charged with deciding the fate of the HST initiative.

I want to ask the Premier: does he agree with the member and his comments, or is he prepared to actually honour the citizens' initiative, if passed, and put the issue to a vote either here in this House or by referendum?

Hon. G. Campbell: I want to be clear for the member opposite. This is challenging, I know, but she should read the bill. The bill is very straightforward. "The select standing committee must…(a) table a report recommending that the draft Bill be introduced at the earliest practicable opportunity, or (b) refer the initiative petition and draft Bill to the chief electoral officer."

There are two choices. The committee must make their own decisions and deliberations should the initiative be successful. Again, let me reiterate: this government will follow the law.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The member has a supplemental.

D. Black: In spite of the patronizing comments by the Premier, the remarks that were made by the member for Kamloops–North Thompson show just how far this government intends to go or thinks it can go to try to contain the mess they created for themselves with the HST. But the public has spoken. They don't want the HST, and they expect this government to honour that and to honour the signatures that have been made to that petition.

So will the Premier commit today to honour the will of the people and, if this initiative passes, put a question to a vote either in the House or by referendum?

[1410]

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, there is a select standing committee of this Legislature which will review the initiative, should it be successful. The members of the select standing committee of the Legislature include the convener, the member for Kamloops–North Thompson. It includes the House Leader for the opposition, and it includes two other MLAs from the opposition.

They obviously don't agree with the position that the government has taken to strengthen the economy, to encourage literally tens of thousands of jobs, to encourage billions of dollars of investment. That's their choice. But it's part of an all-party committee. It's part of a legislative committee. They have responsibilities. I expect the legislative committee to meet their responsibilities and follow the law. I can guarantee the members opposite that government will follow the law.

IMPACT OF HARMONIZED SALES TAX
ON SMOKING CESSATION PRODUCTS

J. Brar: According to the B.C. Cancer Society, British Columbia will not follow the lead of other provinces by subsidizing nicotine replacement products to help people quit smoking.

Even worse, here in B.C. nicotine replacement products are about to become more expensive on July 1 when
[ Page 5883 ]
B.C. Liberals impose the HST. So my question is to the Minister of Healthy Living and Sport. Why is her government making it harder for British Columbians to stop smoking by adding the HST onto nicotine replacement products?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think it's, first of all, important to point out that in British Columbia, we have the best cancer outcomes of just about anywhere in North America. But we've made it quite clear that on July 1 when we get rid of the PST and we adopt the harmonized sales tax, it is going to be a change. I can assure the member that all of the basic health care needs of British Columbia are exempt from the GST today, and they will be exempt from the HST after July 1.

There are some things that British Columbians use in terms of vitamins and other supplements that may be affected. That's exactly why we've put in place two measures — an HST credit for 1.1 million British Columbians to get a cheque in the mail to offset some of those increased costs. The other thing we've done is put in place an increase in the basic personal exemption so that it means that all British Columbians who pay provincial income tax will have more money in their pockets that will help to offset some of those increased costs.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

J. Brar: This is about helping the people of British Columbia to quit smoking and making B.C. more healthy. Nearly 9,500 British Columbians will die from cancer this year, lung cancer being the biggest cancer killer. My question is again to the Minister of Healthy Living and Sport. Will she intervene and tell the Minister of Finance to scrap the HST because the HST is bad for B.C.'s health?

Hon. C. Hansen: Actually, the opposite is true. I can tell the member that the adoption of the harmonized sales tax is going to be very good for B.C.'s economic health going forward.

The B.C. Cancer Society reported just last week that B.C. has the best cancer outcomes in all of Canada. One of the things that the B.C. Cancer Society has said to me is that the price of cigarettes….

[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Minister, take your seat for a second.

Continue, Minister.

[1415]

Hon. C. Hansen: The price of cigarettes is one of the most important things in driving down the usage. One of the reasons why British Columbia has the lowest use of tobacco of any province in Canada and the best health outcomes is because we have made sure that the pricing is important. As a result of the imposition of the harmonized sales tax, I can tell the member that the price of cigarettes is going up by 7 percent on July 1.

A. Dix: This represents a shameful flip-flop on the part of the government. This was exempted. Nicotine replacement products were exempted from the PST. That was a direct policy of government, one of a series of measures that's helped make us the jurisdiction with the lowest rates of smoking in the country.

The minister's new policy…. The old policy was zero; the new policy is 12. That's not acceptable.

Will the minister…? We've had the GST on it, but he's exempted the PST in the past. Now we have a 12 percent tax on nicotine replacement products. Why is he making it harder for people in British Columbia to quit smoking?

Hon. C. Hansen: First of all, the member is wrong. When he says it's currently zero and it will be 12, that is factually incorrect. It is currently 5 because the 5 percent GST applies to it. The tax on those products, as of July 1, will be increased by 7 percent, which is the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax. I think that it is….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Continue, Minister.

Hon. C. Hansen: I think what is important is: what are the results that we are achieving in British Columbia? The data shows that the results of the pricing of cigarettes, as a result of the cessation programs that we've had in place in British Columbia and — probably most importantly — because of the social pressures that exist, particularly on young people, not to smoke cigarettes, we've had tremendous success at driving down usage in British Columbia. We will continue to do that.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

A. Dix: The reason why we had a zero percent PST on these products is that we wanted people who smoked to use them and to get off tobacco. That's the reason. We wanted to make that easier.

What the minister has done by introducing the HST is made it harder. We can all agree with that. He's made it harder.

Will he reconsider this ill-thought-out venture, this ill-thought-out scheme which is by their own acknowledgment damaging the health care of British Columbians, and ensure that people don't have to pay an extra 7 percent for their smoking cessation products?
[ Page 5884 ]

Hon. C. Hansen: I can tell you that all British Columbians actually have more money in their pockets today because of the tax changes this government has brought in. That means that those individuals in British Columbia who want to kick the habit of smoking are in a better position to afford those products today than they would have been ten years ago, given the income tax rates they would have been paying under an NDP government.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Minister, don't comment with people's names in the House, please.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO OIL LEAK
AT CHEVRON REFINERY IN BURNABY

R. Fleming: This morning it was revealed that the Chevron oil refinery in Burnaby has been leaking oil into Burrard Inlet for more than a month.

My question is to the Premier. Chevron alerted his government immediately after the leak was detected on April 21. Now, more than a month later, Chevron has failed to identify the source of the leak, failed to quantify the amount of oil leaked, failed to stop the leak, and now the oil is on the beach in Burrard Inlet.

To the Premier: why did his government never tell the public about this ongoing incident?

[1420]

Hon. M. de Jong: The Environment Minister is not here today, but I'll share with the House what we do know about the issue that the member has raised here today.

It was on April 21 during a routine inspection that Chevron detected what they described as an indeterminate amount of liquid hydrocarbon material somewhere beyond the refinery — a combination of gas, diesel and some crude oil.

The magnitude is important, and I hope all members will appreciate this. The best information we have at this point is that it represents something less than half a barrel. Not insignificant, but I do think it's important to recognize the magnitude.

The source of…. I'm not sure we can use the word "leak" because the evidence seems to suggest that it may be the result of seepage. But the company did notify the federal government and the provincial government; they notified the community advisory committee. Officials are on site attempting to both contain and ascertain the specific cause of what's taking place.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

R. Fleming: I don't know what the point is of the Solicitor General starting to take a question on notice and then putting an incorrect fact out there…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

R. Fleming: …speculating that half a barrel of oil, perhaps, is all that is involved in this incident. Even Chevron hasn't said that. They've been very careful to say they don't know how much has been spilled. They don't know what the source of the oil is, and that's what the concern is, because it is ongoing.

There's a sheen on the water today. It is on the beach. There are hydrocarbons all over the site at the refinery. The minister knew this. This minister knew this — the Solicitor General — or he ought to have known it. The provincial emergency preparedness program was also alerted, besides the Ministry of Environment.

The question to him again is: why did he never share this information with the public? Why did they have to learn about it through the media today? When is he going to tell the public the truth about this incident and get staff on the ground to contain it?

Hon. M. de Jong: I actually thought it was appropriate for the member to ask the question. I'm sorry he was offended that I tried to convey some information to him. I can assure the member and all members of the House that the government and the officials take the situation very seriously.

It is incorrect to suggest that people haven't been made aware. In fact, I think the note that the member is probably referring to is one that was sent to the community advisory panel, a group of citizens that was made aware of what was taking place. Officials are trying to ascertain the cause. The member says the day. It was May 18.

I mean, it's a serious matter. Keeping a sense of what the magnitude is, officials are trying to ascertain the cause and, obviously, contain it. There was a sheen on the water, something akin to what you might see at a marina.

I can assure the members of the House and British Columbians that everything will be done to both contain and ascertain the cause of what has taken place.

S. Simpson: This incident was discovered by Chevron on the 21st of April. On May 18 they informed the advisory panel. But as they note here, they informed the provincial government through the Ministry of Environment and through the provincial emergency program in the Solicitor General's office immediately after they discovered this on the 21st of April.

The issue here is both dealing with the incident…. But we also know that when you talk about dealing with
[ Page 5885 ]
these kinds of issues, the public wants to know. They expect transparency; they expect information.

[1425]

The question to the Solicitor General is: why is it that the government chose not to inform British Columbians when they found out after April 21, and we had to wait until now before this information was released?

Hon. M. de Jong: One of the reasons, I'm going to suggest to the hon. member and other members of the House, that you appoint a community-based advisory group is so that you have an ability to convey relevant information to the people who will be most concerned about it.

That is what has taken place. Officials from within the Ministry of Environment — within, initially at least, the provincial emergency program — have been involved and have been working to ascertain the cause — whether it's seepage or a specific leak. The amount, while not insignificant, is important to note.

Again, I can assure the member that everything that can be done, in concert with both the company and the officials within the departments of government, will be done to ensure that the damage is contained and limited and that the cause is appropriately identified.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

S. Simpson: The public found out from a community advisory panel because the government didn't do its job and tell British Columbians about this problem.

The question is this. The ministry found out, the Solicitor General found out and the Minister of Environment found out sometime shortly after April 21. So when did they tell the Premier, and more importantly, why didn't they tell the public right away when they found out?

Hon. M. de Jong: I probably need to remind the member that one of the reasons protocols are established is so that in a case where something like this happens, officials know precisely what to do. They begin the process of investigating. They begin the process of containment. They begin the process of working with all of the involved parties. All of the information I have today, which I have endeavoured to share as openly as I can with members of the House, is that all of those protocols have been followed.

The work continues. Everyone is working in the best interests of preserving the environment and the interests of British Columbians, and that will continue to occur.

IMPORTATION OF BEES AND BEEKEEPING
EQUIPMENT TO VANCOUVER ISLAND

L. Popham: Beekeepers on Vancouver Island are reeling from a recent decision to change the policy around the import of bees to Vancouver Island from the mainland, a policy that has been in place for 22 years. This was done without consultation, and the results may be devastating to our bee industry. The test results, which were the basis for the government to lift the quarantine, are not being made public.

Will the Minister of Agriculture commit today to listen to all Island beekeepers and ensure that there will be no honeycomb and no used equipment brought onto the Island from the Lower Mainland?

Hon. S. Thomson: The member opposite is aware that we've equalized the restriction for imported bees onto Vancouver Island with federal standards. Vancouver Island beekeepers were able to import bees from Australia and from Chile before. We've equalized those standards with federal standards so that they can import bees from the Lower Mainland, providing those opportunities for the Vancouver Island bee producers.

I'm fully aware of the concerns of Vancouver Island. The member opposite knows that I've met with the presidents of the associations. For bees to come onto Vancouver Island, they require inspection. They require a permit. We've committed to continue to work with the associations to make sure that the inspection protocols are in place so that we can protect the health of the Vancouver Island bee population.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

L. Popham: I understand that the minister has met with the local Island bee clubs, and so have I. It's not the bees that are a problem and that they're worried about. They're worried about the honeycomb and the used equipment.

The minister has been claiming that there is science to back up the decision that was made. If he believes this is true, then there should be nothing to hide. Will he commit today to release the provincial test results to the Island beekeepers?

[1430]

Hon. S. Thomson: I have met with the presidents of the associations, and I've committed to continue to meet with them. As I said, it requires inspection. It requires permit for bees to come onto Vancouver Island. We're going to continue to work with the associations around the inspection protocols to make sure that we protect the health of the Vancouver Island bee population.

Coming from the agriculture industry, I understand the importance of the bee industry to both the agriculture industry and to value-added production for small-scale farms on Vancouver Island and in British Columbia. We'll continue to work with the association to make sure that those inspection protocols and those permits are in place to protect the health of the Vancouver Island bee population.
[ Page 5886 ]

GOVERNMENT ACTION ON
FOREST FIRE PREPAREDNESS

N. Macdonald: The threat of another devastating wildfire season sits ahead of us. After the 2003 wildfire season a report was compiled by former Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon. Among the recommendations that this government accepted was that communities threatened by wildfires develop community wildfire plans and do fuel management work.

It is now seven years later, and we're headed into another fire season with only 5 percent of the area identified actually treated. That is 5 percent that was identified by the Forest Practices Board. The province was supposed to take the lead to make sure that this work was done. The question for the minister is: why has it not been done?

Hon. P. Bell: The member opposite knows that this government committed in excess of $37 million through the Union of B.C. Municipalities for specific treatment plans. In addition, there have been significant funds expended through the job opportunities program to protect communities. In fact, this last fall we designated 16 full-time staff to go around and work with individual communities to make sure they have fire preparedness plans in place.

But I think, really, all one has to do is look at the results. In 2009, one of the toughest fire seasons we've ever experienced — the driest conditions, most challenging times — we lost a total of seven structures across the province. In 2003 that number was 350 structures. The Filmon report has been a useful tool, and we continue to implement it.

FOREST FIRE PLANNING FOR
FIRST NATIONS COMMUNITIES

B. Simpson: The Minister of Forests has repeatedly admitted that we are going to face more aggressive fire seasons. Yet this government has actually abandoned the most vulnerable communities in the fire interface, and that's First Nations communities. There are 203 First Nations communities in the province. Of that number, 103 are within the mountain pine beetle epidemic zone — the most vulnerable. Of the entire 203, only 39 communities have even a wildfire plan.

The First Nations leadership, the First Nations Forestry Council have been calling on the government repeatedly to fund interface fire work within First Nations communities, and the main funding source for that has now been cut off. The First Nations council has indicated that all work is now stalled.

My question to the Minister of Forests is simple and straightforward. Will the minister commit today to make sure that every First Nations community has a wildfire plan as fast as possible and has adequate resources to do the work they need to do to protect their communities from this and other fire seasons?

Hon. P. Bell: I'd be awfully tempted to start reading out each and every one of the 178 communities across this province that has wildfire plans in place, but that would clearly take the rest of the day.

The member opposite should be ashamed of that question. The record speaks for itself. This government has been committed to ongoing work on the Filmon report. We've delivered. There have been literally tens of millions of dollars expended on preparing community wildfire plans, on protecting communities, and the results speak for themselves. For the toughest wildfire season ever, we lost a total of seven structures; in 2003, 350. I'll compare my results to theirs any day of the week.

[1435]

[End of question period.]

Tabling Documents

Hon. B. Bennett: I have the honour to present the 2009 annual service plan report for B.C. Assessment. After today it will be available on their website.

Motions Without Notice

POWERS AND ROLE OF FINANCE
AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES COMMITTEE

Hon. M. de Jong: With leave, I move the motion that creates and empowers the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to conduct their budget consultations.

I'm going to ask the Opposition House Leader…. I believe he has reviewed a copy of the motion. It's the one that we table each year. I believe it's in order, and with leave, I would move the House adopt it.

[That the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services be empowered:

1. To examine, inquire into and make recommendations with respect to the budget consultation paper prepared by the Minister of Finance in accordance with section 2 of the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act and, in particular, to:

a. Conduct public consultations across British Columbia on proposals and recommendations regarding the provincial budget and fiscal policy for the coming fiscal year by any means the committee considers appropriate, including but not limited to public meetings, telephone and electronic means;

b. Prepare a report no later than November 15, 2010 on the results of those consultations; and

2. a. To consider and make recommendations on the annual reports, rolling three-year service plans and budgets of the following statutory officers:

i. Auditor General

ii. Chief Electoral Officer
[ Page 5887 ]

iii. Conflict of Interest Commissioner

iv. Information and Privacy Commissioner

v. Merit Commissioner

vi. Ombudsperson

vii. Police Complaint Commissioner

viii. Representative for Children and Youth; and,

b. To examine, inquire into and make recommendations with respect to other matters brought to the Committee's attention by any of the Officers listed in 2(a) above.

3. The Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services shall be the committee referred to in sections 19, 20, 21 and 23 of the Auditor General Act and that the performance report in section 22 of the Auditor General Act be referred to the committee.

In addition to the powers previously conferred upon the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, the committee shall 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.]

Leave granted.

Motion approved.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: In Committee A, Committee of Supply — for the information of members, the continuing estimates of the Ministry of Health — and, in this chamber, second reading debate on Bill 20.

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 20 — Miscellaneous Statutes
Amendment Act (No. 3), 2010

(continued)

Hon. M. de Jong: I want to thank…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. M. de Jong: …all of the members who participated in the debate around Bill 20. I'm obliged to them for their thoughts with respect to various sections. I know that we'll have a more detailed examination.

There was one part of the bill that didn't attract attention from everyone, but it drew attention from enough members that I just thought I'd take a moment to make this observation. It's the one that the member for Nanaimo focused in on with respect to sections 42, 43, 44, around schools and the possibility of surveillance cameras being placed there.

The only point I would make to the House is this, and I know it will be explored further. I get the argument and the need to ensure that there is a balance between an overly invasive state and the right we all have, including students, to privacy and to be free from that type of interventionist activity.

But the sections are permissive to this extent. It is parents who will ultimately provide the means by which this happens. So it is incorrect, in my respectful submission, to have this characterized as a desire or a purposeful move by the provincial government to install surveillance cameras in schools across the province.

What we did hear from parents is that they would like the option, if they believe that in their schools it would add to the safety of their children. I know that will be explored further at the committee stage, but I did want, in thanking members for their participation in the debate, to make that point. I won't go through the section in detail. What I will do is move second reading.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 20, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 3), 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: I call continued second reading debate on Bill 17.

Bill 17 — Clean Energy Act

(continued)

Hon. J. Yap: It's an honour and my pleasure to resume my place in second reading debate on this most historic and important piece of legislation: Bill 17, the Clean Energy Act.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

For the benefit of those who are watching on Hansard television and our guests in the public gallery — including students, who I'm sure are following with great interest the way that legislation is prepared — second reading is the time when members of the Legislature
[ Page 5888 ]
have an opportunity to debate the principles surrounding legislation.

[1440]

This piece of legislation, if I may say so, is probably one of the most historic pieces of legislation that our Legislature, that members, will have the opportunity to deal with in this session and perhaps for many sessions to come.

I mentioned in my earlier remarks yesterday, before we adjourned, that British Columbia is blessed with many natural resources. One of them is the geography, the topography, the hydrology to create clean, renewable energy, and that is one of the keys to our economic progress, our prosperity over these last several generations.

Many years before the students in the gallery were even contemplated to be brought into this world, perhaps even before their parents were contemplated to be brought into this world, in the 1950s and '60s previous governments, the visionary government of then Premier W.A.C. Bennett, launched B.C. on a path to clean, renewable energy — the hydroelectric power that has provided a base for our industry and for our economy to grow, to have grown these last several generations.

This piece of legislation is no less visionary. In fact, this will set British Columbia on course into the future for the next several generations. This piece of legislation, the Clean Energy Act, will help us achieve, help British Columbians achieve, our goals in dealing with climate change. This is a key part of our climate action plan: the opportunity to develop our clean, renewable energy resources to build on an industry that is already quite possibly the third-largest cluster of clean technology industry participants anywhere in the world.

Here in British Columbia we already have a clean technology industry that is vibrant, that is creating investment, that is creating jobs. With this clean energy bill and the vision to bring to British Columbia even more of an economic opportunity to position British Columbia to become a clean energy powerhouse…. I'm delighted to speak in favour of the clean energy bill, No. 17.

I talked yesterday about the heritage assets and the opportunity to build one more large-scale hydroelectric dam and power generation in the Peace River region. With this bill, Site C, which will provide us with that opportunity, will go into the next phase of development and will allow us to add to our heritage assets. These are the reliable forms of renewable energy — the large-scale hydroelectric power.

Madam Speaker, I refer to this as large-scale, but thanks to technology, thanks to construction improvements and better understanding of how to build efficient and highly effective generation assets, this Site C, which is part of this bill, will in fact be very efficient.

Site C will generate 30 percent of the electricity produced in the existing W.A.C. Bennett dam with only 5 percent of the reservoir area. I'll repeat that: 30 percent of the electricity that is already produced by our largest hydroelectric generating asset, the W.A.C. Bennett dam, with only 5 percent of the reservoir area.

It's important to keep that in mind, because I know that we will hear from our critics, including members of the NDP opposition, that this is just not on. We're going to be flooding a huge, huge amount of land, and yes, there will be some impact on the Peace River.

But this is an opportunity for British Columbians, for our generation and the ones to come, to build on our heritage assets. This project alone will provide enough power — 900 megawatts capacity of power generation, or 4,600 gigawatt hours of electricity each year — to power over 400,000 homes every year with clean, renewable energy.

[1445]

With this investment in Site C, we also will be seeing the generation of economic activity, investment and jobs. Site C will provide over 7,500 direct construction jobs over the next number of years and up to 35,000 direct and indirect jobs through all stages of the project. This will be a great addition to our power generation capacity, as will the other projects in heritage asset additions: the investment in Waneta, the investment in Mica and the investment in the Revelstoke dam.

I would just like to share with members of the House. I had the opportunity as Minister of State for Climate Action to visit the Peace region, and I was struck by the resilience of the people who are there, who care about the Peace River region, who are very proud of their contribution to the development, the economy of British Columbia. I had the opportunity to visit the W.A.C. Bennett dam.

I would like to go on the record as saying that every British Columbian at one time in their life should try to visit the Peace River region. It is quite simply magnificent. The whole region is magnificent, a magnificent part of our great province. When you see the assets there that are driving, that are providing the strong basis for our economy — clean, renewable energy — it really makes you proud to be a British Columbian.

I had the opportunity to visit the Gordon Shrum generating station, which is about 100 metres below the dam surface. It's quite awesome to see the generation of hydroelectric power, the scale of it. With this bill, with the Site C project, we will add to our capacity as a province to create clean, renewable hydroelectric power.

I mentioned the clean tech sector; the clean, renewable energy; the low-carbon economy that we're in now and that we're moving ever forward to develop in British Columbia and around the world.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the GLOBE 2010 conference. This is a conference that happens every two years, held right in Vancouver, and is the largest single gathering of clean technology–green economy
[ Page 5889 ]
businesses and governments and business associations, who come to Vancouver every two years. This was the most successful gathering of GLOBE 2010.

I had the opportunity to meet with business leaders, investors and participants, people working on projects from all around the world in the clean tech sector. GLOBE 2010 really opened my eyes to the fact that this clean energy, green economy that we hear about, that we talk about, is not only here but is happening robustly all around the world.

We have the great opportunity here in British Columbia to build on our strong presence, to be not only a participant but a leader in the low-carbon, green economy that the world is increasingly turning to.

I don't have to state the obvious. That is that with the events happening in the Gulf of Mexico — with that terrible tragedy, loss of life and also the environmental disaster going on with the oil that is being spewed into the Gulf — it has really turned a lot of minds to wanting to look at alternate forms of energy, to look at renewable sources of energy. I know that British Columbia has the people, the resources and the opportunity to develop further our green economy.

I am enthusiastically in favour of the Clean Energy Act and all of the promise that it holds for British Columbians. I know that what will come from this bill will be the opportunity for British Columbians to see a couple of things.

[1450]

One is to maintain our strategic advantage, our competitive advantage, by having among the lowest electricity rates in the continent for British Columbians. That will be maintained with the Clean Energy Act. We will also have the opportunity to not only become self-sufficient as a province but also to export our electricity. Right now, for the information of our guests in the gallery, British Columbia is a net importer of electricity. We import electricity from other jurisdictions, where the power generation may not be clean and renewable.

What we want to achieve is to have a framework so that we can encourage the development — through the large projects, through clean, renewable independent power production — of electricity that has a lower carbon footprint, that is clean and renewable and that would allow us to become self-sufficient. We have a goal to be self-sufficient by 2016 and, as well, to develop the opportunity for export of energy to other jurisdictions, perhaps to customers south of us and also east of us here in Canada.

I hear members of the opposition chirping there. I understand that it's a sensitive issue, because yesterday the member for Juan de Fuca, the Energy critic, cast aspersions on the hard-working men and women who work in the independent power, clean energy, renewable energy sector, calling it junk — calling the sector junk, calling what they do junk.

I find that very interesting, because we hear the NDP talk a lot about caring about the economy and wanting more opportunity. The Leader of the Opposition recently held a conference with business leaders. We look forward to some real ideas from the other side coming out of that conference, because we haven't heard what came out of that conference.

Here's what the member for Juan de Fuca was saying. He cast aspersions on the clean, renewable energy sector.

Here's what that sector is worth. Maybe the economic brain trust of the opposition have other ways of generating this kind of economic wealth, but here's what PricewaterhouseCoopers reported in February of this year. They reported that based on their analysis, the independent power sector could grow B.C.'s economy — get this — by as much as $9 billion by 2020.

Construction of all of these projects proposed by this sector — 87,000 person-years of employment for British Columbians over the next decade and more than 9,000 full-time jobs for operations and maintenance throughout the province. If I may say so, many of these will be in communities that desperately need some economic opportunity and hope to develop their communities and their economy — First Nations communities, for example, who have embraced partnership with the independent power producers.

I'll just state, with the last couple of minutes I have, because it's very important to delineate the difference, that this side of the House is in favour of jobs and investment and a great clean energy, low-carbon future for British Columbia. The Clean Energy Act, Bill 17, will allow us to do that.

That side of the House is not interested. They're only interested in no change and no investment in the kinds of clean energy development that will power British Columbia into the future as the clean energy capital of North America, if not the world.

With that, I enthusiastically support Bill 17 and urge all members, as well, to come on board and support Bill 17.

N. Macdonald: The minister knows the tremendous respect that I have for him and for the work he does, but there will be really very few areas here where we agree in terms of this bill. The energy bill is one that I think, when we look at these….

There's one thing I guess I would agree with the previous speaker on. This is a bill that will have profound impacts. Where we would categorically disagree is on the nature of those impacts.

[1455]

To me, when we look at a bill like this, we have to look at it through a lens. The three things that I'll be using in the 30 minutes I have…. The lens that I will look at this through is around these issues — around the idea of
[ Page 5890 ]
democracy and due process. Does this bill meet a standard of democracy and due process that is supportable? I would say that it's not the case.

We need to look at whether this bill helps us build a society that's truly equitable and whether it provides those opportunities, and third, does it meet the test in terms of the responsibility that we have here as legislators to protect the commons? In that term, I would include B.C. Hydro, which is commonly held, when it was nationalized by W.A.C. Bennett and those assets were put together and brought collectively under the control of the public.

Does it protect the commonly held land that we have, which represents, uniquely amongst jurisdictions in the world…? Ninety-five percent of the land is public. Incredibly precious, as well, is the protection of our rivers and our streams. When we look at this bill, we have to use those measures to see whether it's a supportable bill.

Now, there will be many speakers, but I would say there are a few areas where people in the province are uniquely suited to understanding the issues of energy that we're talking about. Certainly, the minister represents one of those communities.

People in his community will be very knowledgable not only about hydro but about fossil fuels and about wind power. The minister himself will be very knowledgable. But the other part of the province where there is tremendous expertise and tremendous understanding of power is the area that I represent, Columbia River–Revelstoke.

We have in that one constituency the facilities that produce enough power for two million households every day and an incredible amount of wealth for British Columbians. The facilities that are there are significant.

Aberfeldie, which is receiving upgrades in recent years. We have another small facility at Spillimacheen. But we have two massive facilities — one at Mica, which creates a reservoir that is huge, and also Revelstoke dam. Revelstoke is also impacted not only by having a massive dam above it, but people work and recreate beside the Arrow reservoirs.

So there are few areas that have a better understanding of power development, the impact of hydro on the community. Few understand better than this area. They know there are jobs. They know that if you have good public policy, there can be some benefits.

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

One of the good public policy pieces that I hope the minister will be able to take the opportunity to replicate is the Columbia Basin Trust. The Columbia Basin Trust did provide some benefits for the community that have allowed literacy programs, child care programs, building of housing. There have been benefits that people in the area know and understand. But people also understand the fact that there are tremendous challenges to the regions of the province where we build these facilities.

There are challenges related to living by reservoirs. There are economic opportunities that are taken away. They impact on forestry. They impact on a whole range of opportunities that people in the area would have had but no longer have.

It's one thing when a community is consulted. It's one thing when the sacrifices for a region of the province are for the benefit of the wider public. But it is a completely different thing when the people impacted are not consulted in a meaningful way, and it's a completely different thing when the benefits go to private individuals.

[1500]

With this bill…. Let's be clear. It is the continuation of a policy that takes public wealth and transfers it into private hands. In my area the river diversion projects are up to 23. There are 23 proposed river diversion projects.

Now, the member who spoke before me, glowingly, of these projects represents Richmond. How many are going to be in the area that he represents? Is the Fraser ever going to be dammed or impacted? Absolutely not.

We are talking about only select parts of the province that are going to be impacted by developments, and when you are talking about developments — as you are here, where, essentially, it is going to be private developments — and diversions of rivers for private wealth with no public gain, well, that's a problem. That's a serious problem. On top of that, you have a deliberate attempt to consistently remove the ability of people that live in those areas, who fully understand what's going on, to have any say.

It happened first with Bill 30. It continues with this bill. Not only do locals not have any say, people who understand what's going on and understand the balancing act that needs to take place here…. Not only is that removed, but now with this bill, the independence of the B.C. Utilities Commission is removed as well.

So you have all of the decision-making put into the secrecy of cabinet, and the opportunity for exploiting that secrecy is huge. It is poor public policy, and they do it without a mandate. The last election was one in which the people in my area spent a great deal of that election period talking about river diversion projects, talking about the principles around how B.C. Hydro is going to be run and who benefits from the resources that are there on Crown land.

What the majority of people understood and would very clearly tell those that don't live in the area is that you have an energy plan put forward by the B.C. Liberals that continues that transfer of vast amounts of public funds to private hands. In my area, as I say, there are 23 rivers and streams that are going to be impacted, including….
[ Page 5891 ]

People have rights on rivers as iconic as the Kicking Horse, as the Illecillewaet, rivers that go straight through the larger communities, and a whole host of rivers up and down the valleys of the Columbia River system — a massive impact if they were to go ahead. And the economics of what is going on, as people in my area understand, make no sense.

So let's break this into a few areas. First, there is the democracy piece. Why are people that are going to be impacted purposefully removed from any decision-making on whether these projects make sense or not?

Secondly, there is the environmental impact, which will be profound. If the minister that spoke before me does not understand that, he does not understand the magnitude of what is being talked about with some of these projects.

And third, there's the economics of this. Earlier on I said that this was a transfer of public wealth into private hands, and it works very much like this. In very simple terms, you have had sites that were identified with public money. They were taken at a time when the wider public did not know that rivers were up for grabs.

It would be a surprise to most people that live in my area that there was an opportunity, for between $5,000 and $10,000, to grab sites on these rivers. They didn't know, but certain people did, and people did grab them. So publicly identified sites by B.C. Hydro grabbed at $5,000 to $10,000 — not put up for auction for the highest bidder, not even that. And that would have been questionable. They were grabbed for as little as $5,000 to $10,000.

[1505]

Then you have the public lands that are given for roads, for transmission lines. And then you have B.C. Hydro, through all of the policy pieces that you see again in this legislation, forcing B.C. Hydro into agreements that make absolutely no economic sense. The energy purchase agreements that B.C. Hydro is forced by government policy to enter into are so lucrative that ratepayers are basically paying the capital costs of these new power projects.

Let's just recap. We give away a river for a pittance. We give our land for transmission lines and for roads. We then essentially pay the cost for these private river diversions to take place, and we pay that over a 40-year period. You wonder: what's the purpose? What's the public good? It's almost impossible to identify it. No assets at the end for us and, also, no guarantees that the energy won't be exported. In fact, despite what the government said during the election about this not being for export and….

In fact, you had the government propaganda service at full bore. Whenever this was discussed in local newspapers in Golden or Revelstoke or in Invermere, we would get a letter from a minister or get a letter from the supposedly…. What do they call themselves? The citizens for green power. It is a group that is financed by the private river diversion group. They would write and talk about this all being for domestic use. "Believe us, believe us, believe us."

Well, the fact of the matter is that it was never intended for us in British Columbia. It's intended for export. At the end of the 40 years we pay for these projects. We give them our rivers, we give them our land, and a private individual walks away with that. If that was all, they'd be doing incredibly well. But beyond that, they own the asset, and we have no ability to pull that power back if we were to need it.

Now, in Revelstoke, in Golden, in Invermere, in Kimberley, communities where people understand electricity and understand the balance between using a resource and the need to properly look after it, people rejected that plan comprehensively.

Deliberately, what this government did was try to make sure that those people that understand what's going on are removed from the process that would allow them to say yes or no. If people who understand what's going on here had that right, they would say no.

Continuing with this piece of legislation, now that group of experts, the B.C. Utilities Commission…. Even though they have been put on the board by this government, there's an expertise there, because they will say no, and they have said no, to a plan that doesn't make sense. Now they're removed from the process, and it sits entirely in this tight little group that is the B.C. Liberal cabinet.

They are free to pass out benefits to private individuals as freely as they like, and I ask you: is that not a system designed for abuse? It is exactly designed for abuse. Is it not a system that is deliberately set up to compromise the public interest? It is designed, with Bill 17, to compromise the public interest.

What was said again and again by people in my communities…. We made the invitation ourselves. We said that if this makes sense, if any of these projects made sense, then come to communities where people understand this issue and make the case. If you cannot come into Revelstoke or Golden or Invermere or Kimberley and make the case in front of a group of citizens there that this is in the public interest, then you do not deserve to proceed with it.

But what this government decides instead to do is to hide from any sort of discussion like that and change the rules here so that nobody in those communities has any say on what happens in their back yard, and there's something fundamentally wrong with that.

[1510]

Last election there was an invitation. In fact, the candidate I was running against stood up and quite naively thought that a B.C. Liberal minister would actually come in and have that discussion. He stood up and promised. He said: "You'll get the Minister of Environment. You'll
[ Page 5892 ]
get the Minister of Energy coming here. We'll have that discussion." It never happened. They would not come close to that place because they could not win the argument around policy like this with people who know and understand what's going on.

You have questions that citizens have raised around things that they feel strongly about — not only the land, not only the idea of owning and controlling a public asset. You have concerns about what the government is saying are the benefits of these private power diversion projects, these private energy companies.

You know, people get it. The government will stand up and say that the advantage of privatization is that the risk is taken by private individuals. Yet they see what happens.

We have an example where a private company, I believe in the minister's own riding, entered into an energy purchase agreement. It looked like they'd miscalculated and weren't going to make money. Did they take on that risk? Was part of the risk: oh well, then you'll lose money? No, the government just bailed them out. They went back, renegotiated and got a deal that worked. So the idea that these take on any risk is ridiculous.

There are, I think, legitimate concerns about the loss of sovereignty over our public power utility. You have NAFTA. You have provisions in there that guarantee the other members of NAFTA certain rights to power. As we enter into these programs, they're going to be very difficult for us to reverse when we need power.

Now, the points that the government members make are so predictable. They have been laid out very deliberately by the government propaganda service again and again, and yet there are inaccuracies in what they are saying.

Members know very well and certainly the minister knows that there is trading that goes on with electricity. The previous minister, the minister for climate change, again stood up and talked about a deficiency in power. We have power needs that we need to understand, but to suggest that we are in a power crisis is inaccurate. We trade power.

In Revelstoke, if you're there at a certain time of day — Revelstoke sits directly beneath Revelstoke dam — or if you are there at maybe 11 o'clock at night, late in the evening, or maybe a better description would be five in the morning, the Columbia River runs very lightly. There is very little coming out of Revelstoke dam into the Arrow Lakes reservoirs below.

It's at that time that B.C. Hydro takes advantage of the opportunities given to us by our dams to go and buy power that is available in Alberta or at certain times of the year available in Washington — power that's very, very cheap.

If you were in Revelstoke at around four or five in the afternoon when it is prime time for electricity and the price of that electricity is high, then that river is flowing. It's flowing significantly higher than any other time of the day because we are producing power at that time to take advantage of the markets that are available at that time.

I went with the member for Juan de Fuca to tour through Revelstoke, and he's been there many times. You go through, and there on the grid, in the dam itself, they have the prices. They will go by the minute changing the flow to get the best price possible. Regardless of what this government says about self-sufficiency, that is a trade that is worth millions and millions of dollars, and it's going to continue.

[1515]

To suggest that we would not trade and take in power in the way that we do now just makes absolutely no economic sense. So it will continue.

You have with this plan only certain individuals that are going to be impacted negatively. As always with this government, you're going to have rural B.C. hit hard. We are the ones who are going to pay the price on this. We are the ones that are going to have the places that we hunt and fish in, the rivers that we go to camp near — the rivers that might provide opportunities for other economic activities — compromised.

That is going to happen in rural B.C. It's not going to happen in Richmond; it's not going to happen in Maple Ridge; it's not going to happen in downtown Vancouver. But time and time again, rural British Columbia is going to be impacted negatively by this government.

Secondly, you are going to have ordinary ratepayers impacted tremendously. We already have raises of — what? — 29 percent over the past number of years. It's far more than that. Who's protected from that? Well, big industry is protected each and every time from those raises. You have special deals for companies like Rio Tinto. There are special deals to make sure they're not going to complain.

Then you have the heritage rates. I'm not sure if the ministers or the members are completely familiar. Certainly, the Minister of Energy is completely familiar with the 1821 rate. That is a rate for about one-third of the electricity, and it means that very little is paid by major users. Like I say, it's about one-third of the energy we produce, and it's for mines and for pulp and paper.

Originally, to make sure that they wouldn't complain, they were given ten years of these heritage rates. It was promised to them so that big industry wouldn't complain about what was going to happen to B.C. Hydro. Ratepayers aren't protected, and we will pay more, but big industry was protected. In 2007 that was extended indefinitely, so they will always be protected from the rate increases that are absolutely inevitable with this plan.

In my area we have areas that people feel passionately about. The minister will know, and certainly the Minister of the Environment will know, the strong reaction of the
[ Page 5893 ]
community to certain projects. In particular, we had the Glacier-Howser project. If people were familiar with the area and the project that was proposed, this was a project that did not make sense, clearly. From the size of the project to the transmission line configuration, it did not make sense.

In the end, the federal environmental standards put a halt at least temporarily, and I hope permanently, to that project. If it had been a proper process and people in the area had been consulted, they would have said that it made no sense and it shouldn't go ahead.

There's a project proposed for up near Wood River. It's on a historical site. It's a magnificent area. It's an area that the forest company in Revelstoke has agreed not to go and log in. The snowmobile clubs in our areas agree not to go up there. Heli-ski companies don't go in that area. There are caribou issues. It's historical. It's an area we can all agree, if you live in the area and understand it…. It's a place; let's leave it alone.

If we're going to do industrial activity, let's do it in some other place. Yet people who know the area best have no ability or opportunity to fully participate in whether that project makes sense or not. We know it doesn't make sense from an environmental point of view. We know it doesn't make sense from an economic point of view. But there's still a chance that it could be rammed through and that we would be left out of that decision. The people that I represent would be left out.

There's something fundamentally wrong about that. As you go through project after project, people in the area that I represent understand the trade-offs. They ask: "What's the advantage? What's the public good? What are the other things that need to be considered?" Now, does that stop every single project? No. Projects continue.

[1520]

At this time, are there projects going on in the area I represent that the public supports? Well, Aberfeldie has been approved. We are getting additional power turbines at Revelstoke. We're getting them at Mica.

Are there things that need to be talked about and thought about with the community in terms of housing issues and all of those other issues? Yes, there does have to be that public consultation. Will there be public support if the project makes sense? Yes, there will be.

Are there existing IPPs near Revelstoke? There are, but they went through a process of discussion with the community, and the balance was figured out by the community.

But what you see with this bill and what you see with bills that preceded this is consistently that the ability of the public to have a say on what is good public policy is being removed. In this case, we've already lost our ability — taken away from us by the B.C. Liberals — to have a say as a community in what goes on, what's best. Now the B.C. Utilities Commission is being removed.

Fundamentally, the philosophical difference that members often talk about is really…. I see it differently. I think that what this government represents — and, certainly, the group that controls this government — is an elite that's distant from the vast majority of British Columbians. What has confirmed that is the HST.

Those that are sitting with people and believe that the people can understand issues around taxation and around power have confidence that the wisdom sits within our communities. I know that's what I believe, and when I sit and talk to my colleagues over here, I know that's what they believe — that you have to have confidence in people and communities to understand issues, understand what is in the community interest and allow them to have their ideas flow up and become public policy.

Those seem to me to be the fundamentals of democracy, yet with this bill, those principles are being thrown aside. Instead, power is being centralized — as it has with bill after bill, with initiative after initiative — into the hands of a small group that the wider public seems to have no ability to change.

Are we going to know what goes on in cabinet? Well, maybe Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond has the ability to put up a good fight and get in there and get a bit of information. And bless her, by the way. I didn't have a chance to say that, but "Well done" — to somebody who gets in there and scraps. But the vast majority of British Columbians aren't.

What this bill means is that you are going to see people in my area do what they always do. They are going to fight this. For people who would rather meet in a community hall and have a discussion about what is right for the area that they feel proudly and strongly about, you're going to force them onto the roads. You're going to force them into blockades. You're going to force them into direct action against projects that make no sense.

That is, in essence, what the government is doing. When they take a system that should work in a democratic way and they take away people's rights, they certainly cannot expect people in the Kootenay to simply sit down and accept that. We never have; we never will. We know what's right. We understand power better than other parts of this province because we have lived it. When people tell me about what is right or wrong in power issues, I know that they speak from experience and they speak with passion.

This is a bill that needs to be withdrawn. It needs to be defeated, and I certainly look forward to doing everything that I can to make sure that this bill is defeated and stops here.

Hon. R. Hawes: I rise today to support this bill, obviously. I have a few brief comments, but I want to start first, before I make any…. I want to make some comments on mining.

[1525]
[ Page 5894 ]

Before I go there, I just want to remark on today's headlines, I think, in the Vancouver Sun. It does say that by the year 2036 — I think it's 2036 — they expect that seven million people will reside in British Columbia. That is a huge, huge population growth.

I guess, from what I'm hearing from the members opposite, that the 3½ million or close to three million new people that will come to British Columbia won't be using power. You know, first and foremost, if we have…. And we have imported power, by the way, most years over the last decade. But as we move forward with population growth, new power sources don't just arrive like that. They take a long time and lots of planning.

The people won't just suddenly arrive in 2036. That growth will be fairly steady throughout the next 25 years, and so our need for more power will continue to increase in British Columbia.

This bill does ensure…. We have said for quite some time that our aim is to be energy self-sufficient by 2016. We continue to work at that regardless of the fact that the members opposite seem to think that we're there now, that we don't need to do anything more; we don't need any more power. I really don't ever want to see us getting into the rolling brownouts that California has, but that's what would happen, given the choices of those members opposite, from what I'm hearing.

Now, before I speak about what I really want to speak about…. I've heard now two members on the opposite side speak, and I want to go back to what the Energy critic, the member for Juan de Fuca, said yesterday — just a few of his comments.

First and foremost, one of the things that guided this piece of legislation was the work done by the Green Energy Task Force. That was a task force made up of quite a number of fairly prominent people in British Columbia from every spectrum politically — from the environmental community, from the business community — I think quite a collection of well-respected people.

Yesterday the Energy critic said that the act was guided by the work of the Green Energy Task Force: "Now, this…group of mostly friends of the government, but some thoughtful people as well…."

I just wanted to talk about that. That's one piece that he said. Now, I can't think of anything much more insulting than that, and I think that he owes all of the members of the Green Energy Task Force an apology. I think that that's a terrible thing to be saying — to start saying that those who are friends of the Liberal government aren't thoughtful people. But I suppose the ones that are friends of the opposition are thoughtful people.

That was the inference, and I just think that that's sort of shameful. This is a group of people who worked hard on a project, who volunteered to work on a project, and I think that we owe some respect to those who do that kind of work for government.

He spoke quite a bit — and I've heard from both members so far on the opposite side that spoke — about BCUC, the B.C. Utilities Commission, and the fact that some of the oversight of the BCUC is now being removed, and they are going to be looking at and continuing to look at all rates for domestic consumption of electricity, just as I think it was intended to be.

However, I note, you know, just the hypocrisy of all the things that are being said. In the 1990s, when the NDP were in power, the BCUC was disbanded, and there was no use of them. Rates were set in the Premier's office. In fact, a rate freeze was put in place that lasted for a number of years that caused Hydro to not be able to have the funds to do the maintenance work on things like its transmission lines, which fell way behind, and there's a huge amount of catch-up to be done.

I've talked to a number of people who work at Hydro, from different levels of employment in Hydro, who complained bitterly about what was going on through the 1990s and the way that the operation of B.C. Hydro was totally politicized.

Yet the member opposite, the critic, says the "rate freeze was a darn good idea." Well, you know, as time goes on and costs rise and as things like maintenance need to happen, you have to have rate increases in anything that you look at. You just can't freeze rates, but it was done to try to winnow up some votes.

[1530]

I notice that the member, I think, also mentioned in his comments, for some reason, ICBC. You know, I notice that there was a rate freeze also in the '90s. The political interference continued there, as well, where there were cheques sent out before an election — $100 cheques sent out to every insurance payer in British Columbia, which was meant to winnow up some votes. It was just totally politicized.

Now they talk about BCUC as somehow being politicized, gutted of its responsibility, etc. Nothing of the sort is happening. Domestic rates will continue to be reviewed by BCUC. If there is any rate increase sought by Hydro on the domestic side, they have to go in front of the BCUC and make their full justification. It's a fully public process, and unlike the NDP of the 1990s, this is not going to move to the Premier's office to have a political setting of rates for British Columbians.

You know, I think it's kind of shameful. It's highly hypocritical of the NDP to talk about the way that rates now should be totally controlled under the BCUC, the very body that they scoffed at and abandoned in the 1990s. Funny how things change, isn't it?

The member opposite, the critic, was on the radio today, and I just noticed a couple of things that he said there. He talked about the decision made last year by the BCUC, when the BCUC did not want to see some private power, IPP production or contracts signed.
[ Page 5895 ]

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Hon. R. Hawes: They had said we didn't need the contracts. One of the things that they stated, as stated by the member here, was the underemphasized use of Burrard Thermal.

I live in the Fraser Valley, the most challenged airshed in British Columbia. I can tell you that we in the Fraser Valley do not want Burrard Thermal burning. We have never wanted it burning.

In fact, in the 1990s when Burrard Thermal was reconstructed with the provincial government bypassing the environmental review process under Mr. Sihota….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Hon. R. Hawes: When Moe Sihota was the Environment Minister…. The current ….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Minister, one moment.

Members, you either have had the opportunity to take part in this debate or will have the opportunity to take part in the debate. Please allow the minister to continue.

Hon. R. Hawes: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

In the '90s when Moe Sihota bypassed the environmental review process to rebuild Burrard Thermal against the wishes of all the cities in the Fraser Valley, who objected strenuously to that, the NDP just went ahead, totally disregarding what the local community said. And now we'll get a lecture from the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke about what communities want.

What about in the 1990s when the NDP couldn't care less about what communities said, when the NDP stripped communities of the grants that they had enjoyed for a long time? What happened when the Premier of the day said that this is the last cut to grants — "I promise we will never see another cut" — and the next year they were totally taken away? What about those promises? But we don't want to talk about that era, do we?

We don't want to talk about the disregard for the wishes of communities that happened in the 1990s. We don't want to talk about how communities don't want Burrard Thermal, an antiquated plant that had a minor rebuild. Someone in Hydro described it to me like putting a catalytic converter on a 1956 Cadillac, and that's about what it is. We don't want Burrard Thermal burning.

In order to make sure it doesn't burn, it's being phased out. As a phase-out of Burrard Thermal, it will be used only if there's a complete emergency.

But for BCUC to have said that it could produce — and I can't remember how many megawatts of power they had talked about — 6,000 megawatts or something is completely ridiculous and not possible. However, I noticed the member mentioned that today.

Then he talked a little bit about Highway 37 and the electrification of Highway 37, which is one of the places that I really want to talk about. Why are we talking about electrifying Highway 37?

[1535]

One of the things I really want to do is mention a former member of this House, Dennis MacKay, who some years ago — I remember, about 2002 — had everyone wearing badges saying "Electrify 37." He fought so hard to make that happen because Dennis MacKay understood the value to the economy and to the people of the northwest portion of our province. He understood the value of electrifying Highway 37. The critic for Energy, the member for Juan de Fuca, says: "Well, why are we doing this?"

One of the reasons, of course — and this is to quote him from Hansard yesterday — is "to encourage mining developments in the region, and there are many proposals — the Red Chris proposal near Iskut." Great proposal. Great mine, going to employ a lot of people. The Galore Creek proposal is another one. Shaft Creek. "There are half a dozen copper, gold and other metal mines that are on the verge of going forward providing they get access to clean — not necessarily clean, but electricity."

Well, I'll tell you what. Right now in that portion of the province any mining activity would run on diesel. In fact, people are powering their houses with diesel. So of course it's clean power by comparison to what's there. I can't think of anything that is more clean and green than running electricity up Highway 37.

But the member opposite partly got it when he started to talk about the number of prospective mines. Now, I don't know why the critic for Energy and Mines wouldn't understand the value of opening big mines, the kinds of revenues that come into the province from royalties and taxes, plus the employment. The average wage in mining today in British Columbia is $112,000 a year. That's the highest-paid of all of the heavy industries.

Can you tell me, Madam Speaker, in a time when we've got parts of the province devastated by the pine beetle, when we've got people who are unemployed in British Columbia, how many of them would like a job in a mine earning $112,000 a year? I suspect there's a lineup, and should be.

What I'm hearing from that member is that it's not about those jobs, because he says there aren't enough people who live in that part of the province. He spoke about: "There are 2,500 people living along Highway 37.
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Why would we run a $400 million power line for 2,500 people? You could find other ways to provide electricity to those people." Maybe he was talking about an IPP. I'm not sure.

The bottom line, as he says, is: "Who is going to pay for that? The man on the moon? The kids from Brennan Creek Elementary will be paying for it. Their parents will be paying for it. Electricity users, ratepayers, B.C. Hydro customers will be paying for that."

Well, I'll tell you who is going to pay for it. The mines that are opening on Highway 37 and the development that's going to take place along Highway 37 are going to pay such huge dividends to British Columbia that it will be paid for over and over, many times over.

It is exactly the right thing to do, and I was just absolutely dumbfounded when that member seemed to pooh-pooh the thought of putting electrification up Highway 37. Nobody in their right mind could look at that proposal and say that it's a bad deal for British Columbia.

We're talking here about mines like Red Chris, one of the biggest copper finds in the province. It's going to employ probably 700 or 800 people through construction. It's going to be about a billion dollars to build that mine. It will employ people for years and years.

In their initial exploration they found enough of a deposit to justify opening a mine like that, but while they were waiting for the very extensive environmental review process that all mines in British Columbia that have any significance go through…. While they were waiting for that to happen, they did further exploration, and in fact, they have a much bigger deposit than they originally thought. So this mine alone is going to repay the cost of that power line over time.

It's a great investment, and that's what we're talking about here. I think, after listening to the two members on the NDP side that have talked on this bill so far, that investment isn't something they seem to understand. They seem to talk in terms of: what about next year? They don't talk in terms of five years, ten years or 20 years out. They talk in terms of next year.

[1540]

As I say, seven million people in British Columbia by the mid-2030s. Maybe we should start planning some stuff today. "But that's 25 years out. Who cares about that?" According to what I've heard from the members on that side, we don't have to care about what's going to happen in the future. Let's just care about what's going to happen in 2013 in an election. Let's go out and make up a whole lot of stuff — right? — to try to winnow up some support.

I know that most of the members on the opposite side look at the HST, and they secretly admire that tax. I know that's true. Anyone who has…. Well, I shouldn't say that. Anyone with any business sense understands what the impact of the HST is going to be. The HST is going to have such a positive impact on the economy that…. Well, let's go to the other side. If we don't have the HST, we are looking at big problems with the loss of competition.

Now, the mining industry is a highly risky industry. When you're beginning to put a mine together, when you're talking about trying to raise investment capital of $500 million, $600 million, $800 million and more and you're not really sure whether or not that mine is going to pay off — you're taking a chance on the market, on prices for the minerals that you're developing from the mine — it's highly risky. Every bit of risk that can be taken off the mine is more certainty that the mine is going to continue with the investment.

I wonder if the members opposite think that we should be engaged in mining in British Columbia. Perhaps they think that we should turn the whole province into a park. That would be perhaps what their thinking is. I don't hear support on that side for mining. What I hear on that side is a lot of rhetoric about big corporations.

Well, I have to think that mines, the bigger mines, would be fitting the definition they have for big corporations. When you have a billion-dollar investment or you have companies that would have passed the threshold for the corporate capital tax the NDP put in place, taxing assets of corporations — regardless of whether they were making money, just tax their assets….

I know what's coming should, God forbid, the people of this province ever make a horrible mistake and let those folks back into power. If that ever happened, we know what's coming by listening to the rhetoric. You can read between the lines here.

Big corporations. I don't know what the definition of a big corporation is. Perhaps my friends down here or over here know what a big corporation is, or perhaps the members opposite, who won't define what that is. Perhaps they'd like to tell us what a big corporation is. Has it got 20 employees, 40 employees? Is it a company that you don't want to invest in British Columbia? You speak of companies that employ people, lots of people, as though they're somehow the enemy. There's something bad and sinister about a company that makes profit and employs a lot of people.

Well, along Highway 37, as it electrifies, I would expect that there will be four, five or six mines open. I would expect that they will all be big corporations. They will employ hundreds and hundreds of people at very high wages. They will support families marvellously, but somehow the members opposite think there's something wrong with that.

I'm having a little difficulty understanding how, particularly from the critic, the member for Juan de Fuca could speak against mining. Here's a man who has tried to approach the mining industry, who tries to pretend he understands the needs and the wants and is sympa-
[ Page 5897 ]
thetic. Yet he stands in this House and speaks against things like the electrification of Highway 37. He has said in this House that there should never be more than two mines, in his opinion, along that corridor. I have some difficulty with that as well.

Now, I have talked to the Chief of the Tahltan. I know what their concerns are up there in that section of the province. They are very concerned that there would be a number of mines and that there would not be enough people to staff those mines, so there would be transient workers.

[1545]

For me the solution to that — because those mines won't open tomorrow — is that we work with the Tahltan today, and we start building community there so that at least there's a place for families there.

The northwest is going to open up with the electrification of Highway 37. That means there will be infrastructure in place. There will be new housing. There will be places to go shopping. There will be whatever people want. But we need to work today, I think, with the Tahltan to plan out how to build community in that area. I think we can do that.

But I do know that the revenues that will come back to government from the electrification of Highway 37 are far more than the $400 million investment that would be required to put that in place.

I listened to the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke and his…. I can only call it a diatribe. My goodness, he even brought up the old bogeyman, NAFTA. Wow. I thought the discussion about NAFTA and the great socialist fear of NAFTA had disappeared years ago, but there it was again — NAFTA. I'm surprised he didn't bring up TILMA and every other objection to trade that the NDP always seems to put forward.

The NDP seem to be very afraid of anything that would open up this province. I think there's an inferiority complex. The NDP seem to think that British Columbians can't compete with the outside world, so we should build a big fence around British Columbia and not allow anyone to come in here that might want to compete with the rest of our businesses here. We should just look after everything here ourselves.

Nothing could be worse for our economy. We need to open ourselves up to the world. We are opening up to Asia. We're building a great relationship now with China and with Japan, and we are the Pacific gateway. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, that things like the electrification of Highway 37 will bring investment, will spur more development in the Port of Prince Rupert, in the Port of Stewart. They're both going to expand.

They're going to need to expand, because this province…. I know the CEO of MABC, the Mining Association of British Columbia, Pierre Gratton, has described it as a renaissance in British Columbia in mining. I believe we are in a renaissance in British Columbia in mining. We are going to see many new mines open in this province, and they need electricity.

When we talk about green and the greening of mining, I can tell you there's nothing green about diesel power when you're running a mine. You need to have electricity to run the big shovels. When you electrify a mine, the carbon footprint decreases dramatically. So putting electricity up Highway 37, contrary to what the critic for Energy says when he said there was nothing green…. "Nothing green about the Highway 37 electrification," he said. I don't understand why he would say that. I don't know where he would get that idea. It just seems so counterintuitive.

The other one that I want to mention about the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke, too, is that he talked about how this bill takes public wealth and transfers it to private hands. Well, I'm not sure which public wealth he's talking about. We happen to believe that the IPPs in this province actually are an asset to British Columbia. The investment that the independent power producers have made in British Columbia has created jobs — lots of investment in our province — and has assisted us in ensuring that we meet our 2016 target of energy self-sufficiency.

However, as I say, with the latest statistics, the seven-million-person projection from Stats Canada — a population of seven million — clearly we need a lot more power. That to me says that we need to be looking at things like Site C. That's what we're doing.

Now, Site C is not an approved project, and I heard the member opposite talk about the letter from the aboriginal community — the 47 signatures in the letter, etc. — and I think there's a big misunderstanding here. The big misunderstanding here, we have said from the start — and someone isn't hearing this — is that this project goes ahead if it goes through the full environmental review process, which I should remind members opposite is first and foremost an independent process. The environmental review process in British Columbia is fully independent, and the members opposite should probably, if they don't think that's true….

[1550]

I would really recommend that they all gather together and get their party president in, Moe Sihota, who less than a month ago publicly said that we should all trust the B.C. environmental review process. He is a supporter of that. He understands how it works, and he knows it's fully independent. It's highly comprehensive, and it's the most robust environmental review process probably in North America. So we've said that Site C will have to go through that process, the full aboriginal consultation and accommodation process.

There's no skirting around the aboriginal consultation or responsibility. In fact, we are the government who has said we recognize that for 200 years, the aboriginal community has not benefited from things like new mines or
[ Page 5898 ]
from many of the developments that have taken place across British Columbia. The aboriginal community, shamefully, has been left behind. We recognize that, and we are working hard to assist the aboriginal community to catch up and assume their rightful place and their rightful share in the bounty that this great province offers.

That's why we've entered into revenue-sharing on new mines, which is another reason why we should be looking at electrifying Highway 37. It brings wealth to the aboriginal communities — who, by the way, don't share for the most part any of the opposition's viewpoint on independent power production. Many of the independent power projects in British Columbia are joint ventures with the aboriginal community, and they bring wealth to the aboriginal communities that they haven't enjoyed before.

So shame on members opposite who would pooh-pooh the thought of providing that kind of financial assistance, that kind of partnership opportunity to the aboriginal communities of British Columbia.

I didn't want to go into a lot more here other than to make sure that, first, it's understood that when you have an IPP, an independent power production project that's put forward, it does go through an environmental review process. There is public consultation and public input on those projects. So to say that these are all secret and done in a back room somewhere is absolute poppycock. That's false.

Independent power production — the projects are subject to full public scrutiny. They are subject to the full environmental review process. They are a maximum 40-year lease. At the end of 40 years the leases are renewable at the option of the government, not the proponent or the operator of the system. At that point, actually, the Crown would become the owner of the system at the end of 40 years if the lease isn't renewed. To say that this is somehow some giveaway is absolute nonsense.

I support this bill. I support the production of independent power in this province. I support moving on Site C to take a really good look. Hopefully, if it passes all of the hurdles, it will provide the kind of power that we are going to need into the future.

I really don't understand, given the history of building dams in this province, why the members opposite would have any problem at all saying: "Look, we need to take a farsighted look at this."

Let's look at Site C now so that if it goes ahead, it's ready for the generations that are going to follow us, the seven million people who will live in British Columbia by the mid-2030s.

M. Karagianis: I'm happy to stand and take my place in this debate on the green energy act. I have to first say that I'm very disappointed that government members who are getting up to speak to this are, in fact, not defending the bill. The argument once again seems to have degenerated to a lot of insults being swapped back and forth on previous members' criticisms of this bill. The reality is that this should be about cogent debate and cogent criticism of this act and of this bill.

[1555]

It's unfortunate that I have had no confidence whatsoever listening to the members' remarks to this point. I've heard myths. I've heard all kinds of rhetoric that's couched in being not rhetoric. I'm just disappointed generally in the level of debate.

I listened with great interest to all of the remarks made by the minister responsible when the bill was introduced, and I read through these to see exactly what it was that the government is saying here. I'd like to base my remarks on what I see as the details within the bill and try to step away from this need to somehow attack personal members on the remarks that they have said as a way of debating here.

But I will say that I don't have a lot of confidence in this bill, because I think there are far too many contradictions in it. I think there have been a number of public criticisms levied at this act, and I've heard no defence of them yet that in any way supports the government's position and claims on this bill. I do not feel that this presents a fiscally sound opportunity for British Columbians because there are far too many, I think, specious arguments being put forward here.

I noted with great interest that the introductory comments here relied very heavily on the traditional and historic position around B.C. Hydro's contribution to the economy of British Columbia, and I think that is a really good place to start.

I was very fascinated, though, by the fact that as much as the government relies very strongly on the history of having produced clean, reliable energy here in the province at very low rates that have benefited the economy of British Columbia and made it very possible for us to keep good hydro rates that have allowed business to thrive over many, many years….

The government has certainly based this bill on that historic backbone. The government talks about how the energy from British Columbia, from the Peace and the Columbia rivers, has helped our province and helped B.C. families. Again, it seems to be such a contradiction in terms that, in fact, this bill is about to rip apart that very successful system. So the backbone on which the government has built this Clean Energy Act seems to in fact be the very thing that they are going to undermine and take apart piece by piece in enacting this bill.

I would say that we've recently seen a very interesting trend by this government of having to go back and reverse some of the actions that took place under the same government only a few years ago. I refer very specifically to B.C. Ferries. You know, it was only a few years ago that this government put forward an argument that B.C.
[ Page 5899 ]
Ferries had to be quasi-privatized. They laid out a whole series of issues that they had with the way B.C. Ferries was operated and all the reasons why it had to be run as an arm's-length organization. It became a huge political debate that in fact changed the course of political history here in the province of British Columbia.

Yet here we are in the year 2010, and the government is having to go back and audit and revisit all of its very own decisions. All of the decisions that it made in quasi-privatizing B.C. Ferries are now being revisited and audited. The government has now embarked on a debate with the CEO that they put in place and instructed on the running of B.C. Ferries, and yet we see this huge clash. We see a CEO running out of control and now fighting with the minister. Today we have this clash arriving on the front pages of the newspaper.

I am very concerned that the government has shown itself to have had to reverse some of the major decisions it's made in the past on resources and assets here in the province of British Columbia. Are we embarking once again, in this Clean Energy Act, on doing something very similar and perhaps much more damaging? In some ways, some of the decisions that are being made here will be irreversible.

[1600]

I would say, as well, that in reading through the Clean Energy Act and the remarks put forward by the minister in introducing this, some of the very clear consultation process that British Columbians deserve when any tampering is being done with public assets that have belonged to the people of British Columbia for the history of this province…. When those kinds of significant and unalterable changes occur, I believe there should be consultation with British Columbians on that, and I see that the government has, in fact, failed to do that.

First Nations communities are speaking out right now around their concerns for this. I'm surprised that the government is prepared to continue to steamroll ahead on this, given the fact that so many First Nations organizations and leaders are calling on the province to delay the bill and to go into a consultation process with them.

It would seem to me that if the government is going to continue to erode all of their new relationship potential…. Since the declaration of a new relationship here, they have consistently on every single front failed to deliver to First Nations communities many of the promises that were made and that kept First Nations hopeful about real and sincere engagement with the government.

Yet here we are. Within just the last number of days, First Nations communities have come out strongly against this bill and this act. I've heard no defence whatsoever from the government side on why they are not prepared to listen to First Nations communities, to in fact halt this process and to do what is right and honourable, which is to move into a consultation process with those communities.

I think that is very disturbing, and again, it undermines not only the confidence that I have but certainly the confidence that British Columbians would have in the government.

The government is currently in a very precarious position. I do not believe for one moment that it's prudent to move ahead with this bill in its current iteration, because I think British Columbians already have lost faith in the government. This only further undermines that for all those individuals who pay attention to the erosion of the public assets of this province, the giveaway under this government that has been consistent since this government first came into power.

Yet again, we see it continuing here. In fact, we see it embedded in a piece of legislation that, even by the admission of some members here, is long into the future — 30, 40, 50 years from now. So I am very concerned. I am very concerned because I don't think it's in the best interest of British Columbians, and I believe that the government has, in fact, taken on a process of squandering our resources irresponsibly.

In looking through the language of the introduction of this bill, it is so evident to me that the contradictions just continue from one section of the bill to the next. You know, the government talks about ensuring that B.C. ratepayers continue to benefit from heritage assets. Yet we've already seen in a very short time that there are huge increases in the cost of hydro rates to people in this province.

We've already begun to see the erosion of that very affordable hydroelectricity that has helped build this province — 29 percent increases in the rates for families right now, at a time when there is more hardship across this province than ever in the history of British Columbia.

We can see already that the government is cavalier about the repercussions of decisions long before we get into the Clean Energy Act and move into this process of embarking on a giveaway of public assets, a privatization of public assets and removing any kind of open public accountability for the public. We've already seen the impacts of government decisions.

I know that the government has had a huge reliance here in this act on smart meters as a way of putting in place conservation. I know my very able colleague from Juan de Fuca has put forward a very cogent debate and evidence on the fact that the verdict is really out on these, on whether or not this is a good plan for British Columbia.

[1605]

I've certainly heard debate and argument on both sides — that it could be good; it could be bad. But certainly, it would seem that that's the only piece of conservation initiative anywhere in this act and that conservation is being relegated to that one action only.

This bill is really about enlarging dramatically the hydroelectric infrastructure here in this province far be-
[ Page 5900 ]
yond our needs, far beyond self-sustaining infrastructure, and is therefore, I think, highly suspicious and open to the criticism that we've heard around much of this expansion being for export rather than for sustainability.

I note in the opening remarks of the government that the government talks about how Site C and expansion of Revelstoke and Mica dams would, in fact, meet our needs for a hundred years. It would seem to me that the business case on that hasn't been presented here where we can see exactly what that business case is, what needs for a hundred years.

The bill goes on to talk about…. In the opening remarks, the minister went on to talk about all kinds of other expansion that's required here. So if our needs are being met for a hundred years, on what basis? What needs are being met? Where is the room in there for expansion around more sustainable options like wind and wave and some of the other technological opportunities of the future? I don't know. I don't know what it means when this expansion is supposed to meet our needs for a hundred years.

When we then move into, I think, the crux here of the bill, which is around the diminished role of the B.C. Utilities Commission, that's where the confidence for me really bottoms out — and, I think, for many British Columbians and for all of those who are watching and concerned about privatization of our public assets, whether it's water or whether it is hydroelectric expansion. Here is where I think we hit the pay dirt in this bill and my concerns.

I think that the government very clearly has indicated to us exactly what we can expect in the future. To ensure that these critical projects proceed and are not "subject to unnecessary lengthy and costly processes before the B.C. Utilities Commission," the Clean Energy Act exempts projects, these massive expansion projects, from the B.C. Utilities Commission review. So almost $10 billion in expansion projects, and at the heart of this bill, these will be exempt from oversight by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

For me, that is one of the most highly suspicious parts of this government endeavour: the fact that oversight is being removed completely from all of this large expansion. What would be the point and purpose of that? Why would these projects be exempt from oversight by the B.C. Utilities Commission?

Certainly, I think that this speaks very strongly to the concerns that the public has about the lack of consultation, the lack of openness, the lack of transparency. Certainly, First Nations communities are very concerned. What this says is that many of these decisions will be made outside of public oversight. They will be made someplace else.

Billions of taxpayers' dollars will be spent on huge, massive expansion that is exempt from oversight by the B.C. Utilities Commission. That in itself is very disturbing. That undermines the confidence the public would have in this act, this bill that's before us here right now. Because of that lack of oversight, I think it calls into question every other aspect of this bill and makes you question every other declaration that the government has made.

[1610]

The government goes on to claim that low rates that British Columbians have benefited from in the past will still flow to British Columbians. Well, I'm not sure why anyone would dream that that could be true. If so much of the expansion is going to be removed from oversight of the BCUC and from the public scrutiny, how in the world would we ever know that there would be a guarantee of low rates far into the future?

It would seem to me that the contradictions here around the government's then continued discussion around new independent power projects and more expansion here are in sharp contradiction to their claims that they're going to build for at least the next hundred years. Our needs will be covered for a hundred years by expanding several dams and building Site C. How in the world can we have any faith in what that actually means?

Given this government's continued involvement in privatizing projects up and down the rivers of British Columbia, projects that are very, very strongly linked to the export of power into California, the language, again, is so contradictory in here that it defies support, certainly.

The Clean Energy Act "will expedite B.C. Hydro's electricity purchase agreements with clean and renewable energy producers." Expedite. So again, here's another word: "expedite."

We have projects that are exempted from oversight, and then we have projects that will be expedited. So we have things that will move fast. We have things that will happen very much behind closed doors and in secret without oversight. We have lack of consultation with many of the communities that will be directly affected.

The government has not put forward, for me, any kind of argument here that gives me confidence in their ability to manage the affairs of British Columbians and to manage them in a fiscally sound and open and responsible way.

It says here that "these specific clean power procurement processes that provide the power to achieve self-sufficiency will not be put at risk or delayed." Obviously, the interests of these large expansion projects will be put before the public interest.

"They will be exempt from…costly and time-consuming reviews under the Utilities Commission Act." So not only are they exempted from some oversight; they're going to be expedited, and they are very specifically going to be exempt from costly and time-consuming reviews.
[ Page 5901 ]

Given the fact that private interests are so interwoven — private, for-profit interests are so closely intertwined with the expansion of hydroelectric resources here in the province — the fact that they are going to be exempted from oversight, expedited in any way gives me great, great concern. When we get to the next page, the next piece of sort of pay dirt that we hit is the claim that cabinet will approve or reject the integrated resource plan rather than the Utilities Commission.

I think we have very clearly laid out the case for what is really happening here in this energy act. This isn't about better resources and more fiscal responsibilities for British Columbians. This is about expediting massive projects. This is about exempting them from oversight by the Utilities Commission, and this is about allowing cabinet to approve or reject these projects.

We've just been through an exercise here in the province where we can see that cabinet secrecy has stalled — the B.C. Rail corruption trial. We see that cabinet secrecy got in the way of allowing the children's representative to do her job until she took the government to court. Now we have them actually embedding in this legislation the very cabinet secrecy that has been so very suspect in many instances here.

There is some small sop given to the fact that the Utilities Commission will continue to regulate domestic supply and rates. Well, I guess that, again, is dependent on whether or not they're overruled by cabinet. Given the fact that we're currently seeing a 29 percent increase in rates, we can only imagine what the B.C. Utilities Commission will be expected or directed to approve in the future.

[1615]

It would seem to me that we continue to see the government again, even within this bill, doing some reverse action, some damage control on decisions that they made earlier. I talked about the quasi privatization of B.C. Ferries and the lack of oversight and political interference, which is now, of course, being reversed very dramatically, as the government has to wade in and sort out issues with B.C. Ferries.

Again, we saw this B.C. Liberal government go through a huge exercise of splitting apart B.C. Hydro into three components. There were at the time all kinds of declarations and rhetoric about why this was necessary. In fact, now, here we are a few years later — same pattern as with B.C. Ferries. British Columbians will benefit from a unified publicly owned entity, so now we're going to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

It would seem to me that everything the government said a few years ago now turns out to be wrong, because all the reasons that were so imperative for splitting B.C. Hydro up a number of years ago are now being reversed in this. We are now putting this together because it's imperative for this company to be one unified company in order to carry out this next phase of its expansion.

I am very disturbed that I have yet to hear from any government members a cogent or defensive explanation about why all of these stages of action are taking place. We're putting B.C. Hydro back together again because, apparently, the government's idea of taking it apart a couple of years ago now turns out to be wrong.

We are building into the system a lack of oversight. Large projects, almost ten billion of taxpayer dollars are now going to be exempt from BCUC oversight. We are going to expedite projects, and cabinet will have the authority to take care of those actions. They're the ones that are going to be entrusted with determining what gets expedited, by whom and for how long.

When we talk about contracts, and this government has been very guilty of putting in place contracts now that last 30, 40, 50, 60 years into the future…. I've heard the Premier talk about how we don't want to burden future generations with debt and responsibilities for actions of this day. Well, 30-, 40-, 50-year contracts certainly are exactly that.

They are venturing into an unknown future where British Columbian assets that should be here for future British Columbians, always, intact, to benefit British Columbians, are now being contracted out under exemptions of oversight, expedition — that's clearly spelled out in the language of the government — that the cabinet has ultimate and secretive authority over.

That, in itself, says to me that all members of this House should stand up and say: "This is not right. This is not acceptable. This needs to be rethought, rewritten." Certainly, British Columbians should have a share of the decision-making here.

Consultation with British Columbians, I think, at this point is imperative. If we are about to remove from oversight, from any kind of public and transparent oversight, all future expansion, or a massive amount of future expansion, of our public asset, of the B.C. Hydro infrastructure, if we are about to couch that in language that I think is provocative around exempting, expediting and turning over to cabinet secrecy, then I think British Columbians should have an opportunity to comment on that.

I go back to the request here by First Nations communities, because I think they should lead the charge in this. Many of their communities will certainly be affected.

Because the government has shown repeatedly, over and over again, its inability to get it right the first time, they've had to revisit several major decisions, several key decisions that the B.C. Liberal government made, around B.C. Ferries and how it would be run, around the splitting up of B.C. Hydro and how they expected it to perform and operate in the future. That was only a few years ago, and we're revisiting that already, in less than a decade.

[1620]
[ Page 5902 ]

It would seem to me that the prudent thing to do at this point for the government is to halt the process and listen to the cautions of First Nations communities and other critics of this legislation.

I have great respect for the concerns of First Nations communities around this, and I would hope that the government, in the true sense of the new relationship, will listen to that. I know that some of this language has come after the legislation had been tabled here in the House. So it's not too late for the government at this point to change their mind about this bill and to take the very, I think, responsible and honourable steps of listening to First Nations communities and pulling the bill and going into a consultation process with that.

I, of course, don't have any faith that the government will do that. It seems to me that they are on a number of endeavours right now that seem fairly provocative and fairly senseless to the public, but perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps government members…. And I'd be very happy to have government members stand up and say: "Yeah, we did hear First Nations. We do believe that the First Nations are right. Their request is appropriate. We are going to honour that. We think that a rethink of this is a good idea."

I'd be very happy to hear government members stand up and defend the bill, because at the end of the day it would seem to me that the list of people and organizations that support this bill are far less compelling to me than the number of organizations and stakeholders who do not support this bill. The media even gets it. The media commentary on this has, I think, been, again, very sharp. I think they have understood very fundamentally what's at stake here.

I think that British Columbians are smart on this topic. I know how British Columbians feel about protecting their assets. We have embarked in many battles here just in the local region around protecting public assets for the future of British Columbians long into the future and making sure we try and defend those and not let them be given away or sold away. This is a much bigger example of that, and it concerns me greatly that we would continue to push forward with this.

I don't have confidence in this bill. I don't have confidence in the government's ability to manage this. I don't like the provocative language in it. I think it sends a message that should alarm British Columbians and should alarm all members of this House.

I hope that government members will perhaps heed some of the words and debate and cogent criticism that have been put forward by members of this House, especially our Energy critic. I know the government likes to chide him, but he's very knowledgable. He knows whereof he speaks, and I think that he imparted a lot of very strong information that the government should listen to. I hope they will.

I am confident that they will at least respond to the First Nations communities here in this province in the sentiment of the new relationship and will, in fact, consult with them before we take one step further on this bill.

Hon. P. Bell: It's a real pleasure for me to stand in this House and support Bill 17.

Bill 17, I believe, lays the foundation for a future industry in British Columbia that will build clean and green energy sources, that will ensure we have the sort of strength of economy that we've seen over the past four or five decades as a result of investments that were made in the '60s and the '70s and that will really create the type of opportunities for our children and grandchildren that I think all members of this House are looking to achieve, regardless of what we've been hearing on the other side of the House.

[1625]

All of that begins with a very simple premise, and that is that this province needs to be self-sufficient in energy, although I know that members opposite disagree with that position. The NDP, although they've not been known to take many positions, have clearly taken the position that self-sufficiency is not something that they support. They believe in purchasing power from other sources, and as we all know, more often than not those other sources tend to be coal-fired power plants in the province of Alberta or in the United States.

This side of the House believes that we need to create our own clean and green energy systems and that carbon dioxide, whether it's released in the province of British Columbia, in the province of Alberta or in the United States, impacts our environment in the same way.

So although we see that issue differently than the members on the opposite side of the House, clearly the position of our government is that we do need to be self-sufficient. That has not been the case, particularly over the last ten or 12 years, as we've seen a clear increase in power consumption and a lack of investment in the energy systems in British Columbia. That has left us in a place that we need to start building capacity internally within the province.

It's very interesting to me that the new modes of transportation, the new model going forward for an economy will likely depend on clean, green energy systems. That's why I believe that it is as important now as perhaps it has ever been that we have self-sufficiency and that we have clean, green energy systems. Although I am tempted to spend some time talking about the opportunities of export…. I will do that, but I will do it later on in my remarks.

This government is one that supports initiatives like hybrid vehicles but also zero-emission vehicles, which we believe will become more and more popular.

I have a constituent in my riding of Prince George–Mackenzie who has developed her own 100 percent electric vehicle. Although it is challenging in a place like
[ Page 5903 ]
Prince George that sees minus 30 and minus 35 weather to get battery systems that will operate that vehicle, I give Lara Beckett a lot of credit for the work that she's done. She has traditionally been a strong supporter of the Green Party, but she has taken her time and her energy and her effort into creating a zero-emissions vehicle that you see around Prince George.

It's a little pickup truck that's fired by a 100 percent electric motor that she charges at home. I think that there are many more people that will follow Lara's lead, that will look at what Lara has done and look to new commercial vehicles, new vehicles that are being produced now around the world, that are zero-emission vehicles that will require clean, green electricity.

After all, if we listened to the opposition and we followed their advice, which is to not move to self-sufficiency, then we would be plugging Lara's vehicle — that clean, green, zero-emission vehicle that she has built herself — into an outlet that is powered from coal-fired electricity. What sense does that make, Madam Speaker?

I can't imagine that that makes any sense at all, and I'd be interested to hear arguments from the opposition on why it would make sense to ask people to plug their zero-emission vehicles, which are intended to reduce the impact on the environment, into an outlet that's receiving electrons from a coal-fired electrical plant.

That really is the advice we're receiving from members opposite. Clearly, if they believe that we shouldn't be self-sufficient in the province of British Columbia and do support the import of electricity, we all know where that electricity is going to come from, and we all know what the potential impacts are.

A second key area — and I have about a half a dozen areas that I want to talk about in my time to speak to the Clean Energy Act — is the opportunities associated with IPPs. I know this is another area that the opposition oppose, and that's okay. I think it's good to have a position, as rarely as they choose to take one. We know that they clearly have taken a position against the notion of independent power projects. This is something that I am very supportive of. That needs to be clear — that I do support the notion of developing independent power across this province.

I was very interested to note PricewaterhouseCoopers's report on the IPP industry that indicated that in the next ten years there is the potential for $9 billion of investment and 87,000 person-years of employment during that period of time.

[1630]

It was very interesting to me, because I went and visited a power plant — an IPP, actually — early on, shortly after I was elected in 2001, in the Robson Valley on Ptarmigan Creek. And that particular project is a four-megawatt project. It is a typical run-of-the-river project, where you divert a portion of the river into a pipe. The pipe goes into the powerhouse, turns the generators and produces electricity that then goes into the grid.

When I looked at that project I couldn't imagine how one could complain about the environmental impact of that project. Although there was a diversion of water away from the natural waterfall in through a pipe and into a turbine, the water was returned to the original creek at the same temperature. There was extensive habitat mitigation. There was clearly no way that a fish could go up that waterfall or, for that matter, survive falling down that waterfall.

I looked at that project, and I just thought: "What tremendous potential British Columbia has, when you look at the wonderful water resource and mountains around this province and how we could adapt and build power systems. What tremendous vision it would be to build independent power systems across the province." What I found really interesting, probably more than anything else, is that the party that opposes that particular type of power actually approved this project. This project was actually built under the NDP government of the 1990s, yet today they stand in opposition to these very clean, very green projects.

I have trouble balancing out and weighing these conflicts, and in fact, I know that the Leader of the Opposition during the election just over a year ago decided to take some media on a bit of a flight, an overflight of some IPP projects in the province. I know that she perhaps picked a bad day to go flying. I think it was Earth Day, and there was an attempt to demonstrate that she was trying to reduce her emissions, but she was renting float planes and flying all over the place.

I understand the weather was a bit bumpy, and some of the members of the media, perhaps, had a little bit of an upset stomach through the process, and I know that's very unfortunate. But what I found fascinating was the fact that the Leader of the Opposition flew the members of the media, opposing and saying that these IPPs were a terrible thing, yet the majority of the projects she flew over were approved under the NDP of the 1990s.

I guess it always pays off to do a little bit of homework before you take the media out to show them what you're opposing, when they find out that it was actually you that built them. I think that would be one of those…. As my colleague the Minister of Health would say: "A very inconvenient NDP fact." I know that's a very challenging one, but anyways, I think that that is something that's very important for people to recognize.

You have two clear choices here. You have a very clear choice. The NDP opposes the notion of IPPs, of run of river, of wind projects — of all those types of projects. Our government supports them, and I think that's a good thing, because there is a clear point of difference, and everyone has the opportunity to decide where they sit on projects of this nature.
[ Page 5904 ]

I do want to move on to a project that is extremely important, in my view, and that is part of the Clean Energy Act, and that's the northwest transmission line. I'm having a bit of trouble with this one, because I thought that at one point, I was hearing support from the opposition for the northwest transmission line. More recently I'm hearing that they oppose this particular project, which I find interesting because I know that the people of the northwest virtually unanimously support the northwest transmission line.

This opens up a large area of the northwest to potential mining projects. In one of my previous roles as the first Minister of State for Mining under our government, I had the opportunity to go up and look at some of the areas in the northwest and the potential for projects, and it truly is a spectacular area. The opportunities around building this new power line — a 287-kilovolt power line that runs about 335 kilometres — really does open up a dynamic economic opportunity for this province.

We've seen the growth in Asia around wood exports. They're very, very keen on our mineral exports, as well, in Asia and particularly China. From my perspective, I think there is a significant opportunity for us to rebuild that economy in northwestern British Columbia. I know we have…. There are two members of the opposition — three, I suppose, perhaps, if you include the member for Stikine — that represent that area, and I know that their constituents would love to see projects like Galore Creek go ahead.

[1635]

Galore Creek is a great project. It has the support and endorsement of the Tahltan First Nation. It is a project that will employ literally thousands of people through the construction process, and the northwest transmission line is key to the Galore Creek project.

The Red Chris project is another one that I had the opportunity to visit when I was Minister of State for Mining. Again, this is just a tremendous asset to the province of British Columbia, a tremendous wealth-generating opportunity, something that, really, we need to push hard on in order to see the benefits. It could rival the Highland Valley copper region of the province, which employs literally thousands of people and has had a long, long life of mining.

This project is bringing $130 million of federal money into the province, matched up with the province, to build the project. It's about $410 million or $415 million, and will electrify that whole corridor, additionally bringing power to the village of Iskut and other communities in the northwest. But this is the type of project that the members opposite, when they speak against this bill, when they oppose this bill….

I haven't actually heard any of them, in fact…. I think I heard the Energy critic actually oppose the northwest transmission line, which I find quite shocking. I would suggest that he should speak to the MLA for Skeena, the MLA for North Coast and the MLA for Stikine and get their views on that project.

If they in fact are opposing the project — which would shock me — I know their constituents will want to know that. I'm certain that some of our caucus communication folks will be glad to share that information with their constituents, if they choose to stand and oppose the northwest transmission line.

This is a project that the effort has been there for a number of years to develop. Although we've been focusing primarily on the opportunities associated with mining as a result of the northwest transmission line, I think it's quite likely that we'll see many, many independent power projects — run-of-river projects, potentially wind projects — develop in the northwest portion of British Columbia as a result of this power line as well. It is dramatic. The region has huge potential for run-of-river projects and for wind projects, and it is something that we are all looking forward to seeing go forward.

Now, one of the key elements of this particular bill, the Clean Energy Act, is the Site C project. Again, I think this is a very good example of the difference between our government and the NDP. We are 100 percent supportive of the Site C project. I personally am 100 percent supportive of the Site C project.

I think all of the decisions that have been made up until now…. And now moving it into the environmental assessment process — it's the right decision. This is the type of project that literally creates upwards of 35,000 jobs. This secures the long-term future of clean, green energy in the province of British Columbia, and what most people don't know is, really, the impact of this on the environment.

I was listening — believe it or not, as hard as it was at times — to the Energy critic, and he was making it sound like there was going to be this huge lake that was going to be created out of the Peace River as a result of the Site C dam. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the river will be somewhere between 2½ and three times as wide as it is today. That is not this huge, massive lake.

While technically it will be just over 80 kilometres long — about 83 kilometres, the reservoir — you're talking about a widening of the river. It's not a creation of a new Williston Lake or something like that. The reason why it is so efficient is because it is the third dam in a river system. It really is a very large run-of-river project. That's what it really comes down to. It utilizes that power for a third time.

When you need to generate power, and you open up the dam at the W.A.C. Bennett dam to generate the power through the Shrum station, then through the second dam and now the third dam at Site C, you're utilizing that water three times.

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[ Page 5905 ]

I can't imagine. I guess, clearly, there are people that oppose this. I understand that. I don't understand why. Why wouldn't you want to use that water a third time and generate power with it? Substantial power. This isn't a small amount of power. This is enough power to power over 400,000 homes.

What it really does too — and this is what makes it unique — is create the opportunity to utilize other IPPs. It creates opportunities to take run-of-river projects and lever up that asset, because you can turn the dam up or down as needed to generate the amount of power necessary to balance out the loading from sources that are not secure — sources like wind power that come and go over time depending on whether it's windy or not, sources like run-of-river projects that generate more or less power, depending on whether you're in the spring freshet or not.

That is absolutely what makes it valuable. It is 5 percent of the environmental impact and 30 percent of the power generation of the W.A.C. Bennett dam at Williston Lake and the Gordon Shrum station. Again, this is something, in my view, that is a valuable asset. I would be happy to leave this as a heritage to future generations.

I was just barely old enough to remember the discussion in the 1960s around the building of the two-river system: the Columbia system and the Peace system. So I wasn't all that politically aware, but I do remember that the debates at the time were ferocious. They were similar to the debates that we've heard, perhaps even more ferocious than the ones we're hearing today.

Although today we look back at W.A.C. Bennett and see him as a visionary, as do I — at the time I did, as well — someone who built just tremendous wealth in this province and tremendous assets in this province, that was not exactly the way it was being seen by some folks in the 1960s and very early 1970s. In fact, it may have led to his defeat — I'm not sure whether it did or not — in 1972.

Again, I think that oftentimes the real judgment on a government's decisions, on their legacy, is not at the time immediately after key decisions are made, but the real judgment on the legacy is made 30, 40 and 50 years from now.

I think that when people look back at the Site C decision and some of the decisions that we're making around self-sufficiency — on clean, green energy; on wind power; on run-of-river projects; on bioenergy — people will see this as a very strategic time in the development of British Columbia's wealth and our ability to provide public services like health care and education, which clearly consume the vast majority of the dollars that we generate.

I know I have been clear on my support of Site C. I think it's a great project, and I look forward to seeing it move forward. I can tell the members opposite that if I retain the portfolio as Minister of Forests and Range, we are already considering our options for the harvesting of about 1.6 million cubic metres of timber that would lie under the reservoir.

We've already done much of the work necessary and are confident that we won't see a repeat of what the member for Juan de Fuca was talking about with the W.A.C. Bennett dam at Williston Lake, which was not something that I think any of us look back upon as being a success — the harvesting activity that should have gone on in that different point in time. We're already working to make sure we can do that work in a way that makes sense.

When I look beyond things like Site C — things like self-sufficiency; clean, green energy; those sorts of things in this particular bill — one element of the bill that I look at…. Again, I'm shocked that the members opposite are opposing this. I mean, I can understand that maybe some people don't…. You know, Site C — there are maybe some elements of individuals that wouldn't support that.

Self-sufficiency. I struggle with why anyone wouldn't support self-sufficiency, but apparently the opposition doesn't. One of the ones that the opposition is not supporting, which I find incredibly interesting, is the notion of smart meters and smart grids. To me, this just is unbelievable.

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You look at countries like Asia. Asia can operate some of their newer components of society in China with smart meters, and they understand the importance of managing their power consumption in an intelligent way and using their grid in an intelligent way.

Why would you want to be wasteful? That's what I don't understand. I come from an industrial community, but people there don't want to be wasteful. People like Lara Beckett, who has created her own zero-emission vehicle, want to be energy-efficient, want to have the ability to have a smart meter. All of the best science and economic advice that we have says that smart meters pay for themselves in a very short period of time. It allows you to manage your electricity consumption.

I know the members opposite think that we're wrong, and we've heard that. I understand that. When they say that B.C. is making a mistake, they're also saying that there are 150 different jurisdictions around the world that are also wrong. There are 150 jurisdictions that either have smart meters in place or are putting them in place. There are 116 utilities in North America moving ahead on putting in smart meters. I mean, again, listening to the members of the opposition, I really struggle with the notion of why they would oppose smart meters and a smart grid system.

This is just about good business. It's about not being wasteful. It's about having the information necessary to make your purchasing decisions in a way that is efficient. It is just a fundamental smart principle to move forward
[ Page 5906 ]
on, and the beauty of it is that it pays for itself. So why wouldn't you make that decision?

That one — probably enough said. Certainly when you look at the 150 different jurisdictions around the world that are moving this way, the 116 utilities in the United States moving this way, it's pretty obvious to me that this is the right thing to do.

Another area where the opposition sees this differently than we do or than I do is the opportunities around export. Not only do we believe that we should be self-sufficient, but we also think there's an opportunity for us to provide clean and green energy to other parts of North America.

Again, I understand that members opposite oppose that, and I'm prepared to accept that. I think in some ways it's a good thing because it clearly articulates the difference. People have that opportunity to make decisions during an election cycle, where they can choose whether they want to support the policies put forward. I think to have different policies is a positive thing. It's part of the democratic process.

But the opportunities around clean, green energy and export into the United States are enormous, and those opportunities we can either take advantage of or we can miss. Someone will take advantage of those opportunities over the next few years, perhaps decade, decade and a half or so, while economies like California, Washington and Oregon clearly have signalled their desire to move to clean, green energy.

Within this act we've created a model that ensures that there's no exposure to British Columbia ratepayers from an export-based industry that may end up costing more for export power than our domestic power. In fact, it most certainly will be more expensive than the domestic power.

So it protects our domestic consumers, the industry, the individuals that rely on inexpensive power, which has been provided to us as a result of the investments of the W.A.C. Bennett era. But it also opens that door to an export opportunity to work with the states to the south of us or perhaps Alberta, if they are interested in moving to clean, green energy systems. Again, that's something that is a clear point of differentiation — something that this side of the House supports and that the opposition clearly is not.

I want to wrap up my comments by focusing on bioenergy for a few minutes, because I think this is an enormous opportunity for us that only comes along perhaps once, maybe twice in a lifetime, where there is a new business that comes forward, a new model.

When I look back at the forest industry of the last 50 or 60 years, it has evolved tremendously. A big part of that evolution occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s as a result of a new pulp industry that was created, particularly in the interior of British Columbia.

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The pulp industry generated tremendous wealth for this province, and it was based on the fundamental principle of using the part of the log that was only seen as a waste material at that point in time. At that point in time, typically, fairly small sawmills would saw up their lumber. They would take the slabs off the side of the log, throw them into piles, and then every couple of weeks they'd sprinkle a little diesel fuel on them, throw a match in and burn those piles up to get rid of them.

There was a visionary gentleman by the name of Ray Williston who came along and looked at that and thought: "There's got to be a better way of dealing with this. That's a tremendously valuable material. We should be able to utilize that." He had, really, the vision to create a new form of licence, a way of backstopping pulp mills and giving them a security of tenure to make the substantial investments that are required in order to build the pulping industry that we have seen in British Columbia.

It has been a tremendous success, and I think we are at exactly the same place with bioenergy right now. While Ray Williston looked at the large slab piles and said, "There's an opportunity for us to utilize this material for a new product, a new opportunity," today we're looking at the slash piles in our forests and saying: "There's an opportunity to turn that into clean and green renewable energy.

We've seen good success over the past couple of years in generating a new pellet industry. We now have nine pellet plants across the province generating about a million tonnes of pellets per year that are typically used in the European electrical generation industry. But also, my colleague the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and I have been working on a strategy for implementing clean, green renewable electricity from biomass, from bioenergy, here in British Columbia.

In the next short period of time we're expecting the second call for bioenergy to go out from B.C. Hydro, and I think that will really be an interesting opportunity. The potential for us to see certainly hundreds if not thousands of jobs directly as a result of bioenergy — of clean, green energy — is very real. I've spoken extensively about this in the House before, and I am very, very excited.

To summarize my comments, Madam Speaker, I talked about six key areas where we differ from the opposition. First is the notion of being self-sufficient in energy. We support that; the opposition clearly does not support that.

The second: certainly, we want to see an independent power industry develop, thrive, with the tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars worth of investment. We've heard clearly from the opposition that they opposed that.

The third: the northwest transmission line is again something that we're supportive of. I believe that the
[ Page 5907 ]
opportunities both around new independent power projects and mines are very real, and we need to maximize that opportunity. The Site C project, again fully supportive; opposition are opposing. Smart meters, smart grids: our position supports that. The opposition does not. Finally, the export opportunities into the California, Washington and Oregon marketplace.

This bill really is, I suppose, one where there are two views. Clearly, I know where I stand on this bill. I think it's the right time and the right place, and it is something that I will probably be standing in favour of when it's time to vote.

G. Gentner: I rise to speak on Bill 17. The government refers to it on the order paper as the Clean Energy Act, but frankly it's anything but. We should call it the privatization energy act. This is where we're heading in British Columbia. There's no question.

It's a really dirty energy act. It's not clean at all. When you start taking away the layers, what's underneath, how the deals are being done and who's scratching whose back, this has nothing to do with being clean.

I have to say that this is really quite a repugnant act. It's probably one of the most repugnant, abhorrent acts since I've been in the House. Let me explain to you why, hon. Speaker.

It's interesting that I was at a PNWER conference last summer. B.C.'s delegation was there, and they were talking about alternate types of energy, and B.C.'s projection, if you will, presentation was done by Plutonic energy. Everything else had been done by wind power enthusiasts, tidal power enthusiasts, but British Columbia's presentation was about run of the river.

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I was sitting with a group of Republican senators listening to this presentation, and they were shaking their heads in disbelief. They were putting windmills in Oregon, windmills in Montana. They're looking at meaningful ways to find new energy, and they were in disbelief at the direction this province is going.

I have to also share with you a recent event. I went to an incineration meeting last week that the GVRD or Metro was presenting. Now, I'm not an enthusiast of incineration, not by a long shot. Really, to me it's quite gross, the type of position that in some ways the region feels it's got to go because of how the province has dropped the ball on the landfill issue, but they're going that way nevertheless.

Here they are. They've been spending all this money thinking this is the way to go, and now suddenly, with Bill 17, there's complete uncertainty because the whole process has been thrown out the window. The process is now in the hands of cabinet and their friends. We know that their friends are not going to be supporters of public energy, whether it be waste-to-energy incineration….

My heart goes out to all the municipal people who are trying to find a way, but I don't think it's necessarily the right one. Unfortunately, the process in this instance is going to be skewed.

I want to begin and talk a little bit about what is happening here. In England and Wales years ago we had something that was introduced called enclosure. It was a process that was used in traditional rights, rights such as mowing meadows for hay, grazing livestock on land. Enclosure was the beginning to the free market — that of putting up fences and saying: "This is mine."

What we're seeing today…. With this bill, enclosure means the ownership of a watershed. This is not a matter of putting up a dam. It's taking complete control of our resources, of our environment, of watersheds, of microclimates. The IPPs are now the rich landholders that are…. Now it's their control of the provincial processes, and that's what this bill is all about.

We can talk about the energy advisers, and I will go there too — appropriate public land for their private benefit. I have to tell you, it's really quite a sham, and that's what this bill is. The common rights to the land are gone in this bill. They're gone. It's given away. It's robbery of the commons. It's robbery of our resources. It's stealing our assets, our water. It's sold. It's gone, thank you very much. That is what Bill 17 is all about.

You know, the process of enclosure sometimes has been accompanied by force, resistance and bloodshed, and it still remains one of the most controversial areas of history. The rich landowners used their control of state processes to appropriate public land for their private benefit. It's a complete sellout. It's dreadful and completely detestable.

The commons was traditionally defined as the elements of the environment — the forests, the atmosphere, the rivers, the fisheries, the grazing land we all would share. It's all sold. My grandfather said to me, when I was very young: "You know, it takes a very wise person to try and save some money, but just takes a fool to spend it." Well, this government has sold your assets. It's gone. Talk about foolishness.

Now, the commons, as the social and political space where things get done, where people have a sense of belonging and have an element of control over their lives, providing substance, security and independence…. Well, we're losing that.

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For the commons to thrive, we must work to protect and enhance our natural environment and promote aspects of our cultural heritage. The important aspect of this is the sharing — the sharing of our education systems, information and resources for the wider public. It's really a shame where we're taking the notion of private property to the complete nth degree.

Actually, the commons started, believe it or not, well long ago. The Romans had a long heritage. The Romans
[ Page 5908 ]
distinguished between the different categories of property. These were, firstly, res privata, which consisted of things being possessed by an individual or family, which we have today. The second was res publica, which consisted of things built and set aside for the public use by the state, such as public buildings and roads. The third was res communes, which consisted of natural things used by all, such as the air, water and wild animals.

The commons, or res communes, has had an important social function. In the Roman society and in our society it provided a shared space, a resource that is shared within a community, a network of ideas and concepts that are non-owned. But that's all gone. The Romans seem to have had it right, but in British Columbia we're punting it out.

Ever since the rise of free enterprise, people have been putting up fences around the commons and saying: "This is mine." But we know where the fences are going now. They're taking our watersheds, and they're taken by a very small group, an elite group, a cadre that is now in control of the corporatist agenda of the B.C. Liberal government.

Again, this is called the Clean Energy Act. It's really the privatization act of our resources, of our energy. The politics around it are very messy indeed. I mean, the Liberals thought they were going to introduce a comprehensive strategy to put B.C. into some sort of new plan of energy, but it's really the forefront of privatization of energy development.

They started the energy plan way back in 2002. I don't know if you remember that, hon. Speaker, but it was the idea that they were going to split up B.C. Hydro into the B.C. Transmission Corporation…. Can you imagine that? There was going to be this new idea that they can sell energy through the BCTC. Now, all of a sudden, they're bringing it back together, and why? Because the B.C. Transmission Corporation is bankrupt. You should see some of the infrastructure that's deteriorated, the insulators that need repair. It's unbelievable.

We can talk about what happened in Delta South relative to transmission lines, and the fact remains there that we know what happened. B.C. Hydro was the one that had to sell it because the Transmission Corporation didn't have the ability to do so.

Then before 2006, of course, they had their so-called sustainable energy vision and an updated energy plan in 2007. But before that — let me remind the House — the B.C. Liberal government decided to do something on the beginning of the road map towards privatization. They decided to sell off bits and pieces of Hydro.

It was called Accenture. They invited Accenture. Remember what Accenture was? It was a P3 company. It came out of Bermuda. They could hide their taxes in Bermuda. Boy, that was the start towards the road of privatization, and now there's going to be a need to try and claw it back.

But you know what happened in the beginning of this cycle of privatization? We had these so-called…. We had call centres. Hydro had call centres in Kelowna, in Prince George, in Nanaimo, and they gutted it. They kicked it out — gone, jobs gone. They don't care about jobs for British Columbians. It wasn't part of the corporate agenda, not at all.

They signed this deal with Accenture. You can go through the deal. It's quite substantive. The amount of lawyer hours that went into that…. We're looking at six-inch-thick contracts that… To this day they still don't know how it's going to work. In fact, it's falling apart.

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They had to introduce codes of conduct. It didn't make sense. Outside businesses' directors weren't supposed to get involved, but they were getting involved. I can go on about how there was not supposed to be inside trading, but I quote right from the contract: "No partners…shareholders, members, directors, managers…shall be…restricted…from engaging in other activities…including activities and business ventures in direct competition with the partnership."

Deputy Speaker: Member, might I remind you we're speaking to Bill 17 at the moment.

G. Gentner: Absolutely, hon. Speaker.

Then, of course, they came out later with the need towards B.C.-supplied renewable energy, and here we are today.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Relative to Bill 17, the privatization and energy act, the government had to put the nuts and bolts together for it first, and they did so by creating something called the Green Energy Task Force. The task force recommendations were never made public, but it certainly appeared that the Liberal government contemplated rapid, non-gradual change to the sector.

What's interesting with this, shall we say, beginning of the whole development of Bill 17 and the advisers…. It came from, basically…. The view is that they had the members that were there. We saw what we've seen ever since — the allegations of privatization, P3s, the idea or the allegations of corruption.

But what we're seeing here with this bill is something that I believe is called rent seeking, which takes place when an entity seeks to extract uncompensated value from others by manipulating the economic environment, often including regulations of other government decisions, which has been going on. It's happening with Bill 17.

The moral hazard of rent seeking can be considerable. If a corporation can calculate the cost of lobbying or otherwise causing government to enact a favourable
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regulation, which it has — it has through the Green Energy Task Force; they're getting their way — then it can compare this cost with that needed to accomplish a similar benefit within the market.

We can talk about the campaign contribution, the soft money. It is relative to Bill 17, because we know that those who were involved and the engineers of Bill 17, the advisers through the Green Energy Task Force, were definitely into soft money, or campaign contributions.

We can look at how, of the 29 members who gave the advice relative to the development of Bill 17, 12 can be linked to major campaign contributions recorded by Elections B.C.

Cheryl Slusarchuk, chair of the advisory task force, made a contribution — coffers totalling $9,350 between 2005 and '09. In addition, $5,000 is listed as a single 2009 donation, and her law firm itself donated over $28,000. We can look at other partners. Duncan McCallum….

Deputy Speaker: Member, you have received a cautionary note earlier in this debate with respect to Bill 17, the Clean Energy Act. I would ask you to address your remarks to Bill 17.

G. Gentner: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I will continue to talk about the Green Energy Task Force, which made the advisement to the government relative to this bill we have here today, because it sort of gives you what's under the surface of what's driving this agenda, who's involved and who's been there from the beginning, for the exception.

The list goes on and on, and it's quite remarkable. They're all members…

Deputy Speaker: Member.

G. Gentner: …frankly, of the independent power producers.

Deputy Speaker: Are you not taking the direction of the Chair?

G. Gentner: I certainly am, Your Worship.

Hon. Speaker, I want to talk about Bill 17. I want to ask the question relative to its drive for privatization of energy. Has this drive, as seen in Bill 17…? Will the quality of services improve in energy with this bill? The answer is no.

In the previous journey towards here has privatization of energy altered incentives in such a way as to improve efficiency or cost-effectiveness? No, it hasn't. According to what we see in this bill, will privatization lead to increasing investments in infrastructure? The answer is no.

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We can ask of the B.C. Transmission Corporation and why it's now being dismantled through this bill, Bill 17. The point being, of course, that the B.C. Transmission Corporation couldn't deliver, and therefore, it's now being incorporated. It's being incorporated back because of the misdirection of the government.

Will privatization, deregulation, generate higher rates for the ratepayers under this bill? It certainly will. The answer is yes. Will privatization and deregulation affect the supply of public goods, such as the fulfilment of basic human needs or the protection of the province's life support systems? No, there's no aspect to this bill that supports that.

Will privatization and deregulation affect our environment? It certainly will. There's no protection of the environment in Bill 17.

How has the process of privatization been organized — the bidding systems, the contracting, the monitoring? Has proper regulation been installed through Bill 17? The answer is no.

The goalposts seem to have moved, and they seem to have moved once again. What business really wants is an even playing field. They want a fair playing field. But this is a government that changes the rules in mid-step.

Will privatization of energy affect the role of democratic controls and democratic participation? Yes, it has. It has because this Bill 17 removes the quasi-judicial presence we see in the B.C. Utilities Commission. With the stroke of a pen, it's taken away that authority.

Again, we've seen an example, of course, under the transmission dispute in Tsawwassen. The outcomes weren't necessarily favoured by most, but there was at least a public hearing system to the BCUC. They were quite long — some of the presentations — but at least people had their way. They had their ability to say.

The B.C. Utilities Commission made its decisions based in part on that type of process, that consultation process, and this bill is scrapping that. It's now giving full and direct power to the cabinet, which can in stealth go ahead and make decisions without that type of consultation. That's what Bill 17 does.

Now, will the privatization affect the role of democratic controls and democratic participation? Yes, it will. Has privatization exposed — or will it? — small business to international markets? It won't. We've seen that. It's being run by large corporations, large consortiums, large P3s.

We were of the opinion that Plutonic, for example, was going to be a sort of mom-and-pop, little 50-megawatt-or-less run-of-the-river project. What we've seen instead is, of course, General Electric coming in. We're well up to close to a billion dollars now. This is not a small business, and this bill is not going to allow small business to flourish.

Has privatization increased a type of culture of corruption in the public domain or private sector? I think it has. We'll have to wait and see that outcome relative to the results of the B.C. Rail trial, because that was probably one of the first examples of the privatization of our assets.
[ Page 5910 ]

Has the local economy been included in the process? Have local firms profited from technological transfer and capacity, and will they under Bill 17? The answer is no.

Jim Quail, who is with the Business Council of B.C., is on record saying that he believes in the goal of leveraging energy resources to stimulate jobs and create wealth and economic development. But he says that the risk of those efforts should not be shared by the public.

"There are risks involved in building the generation and transmission infrastructure to serve future U.S. exports at a cost that makes sense for B.C." That's what Business Council Vice-President Jock Finlayson said in an e-mail. "These risks need to be identified and carefully managed to protect the interests of B.C. taxpayers and ratepayers." There's a caution, even by business itself.

Now, the BCUC cannot comment on the projects anymore, and BCUC can no longer oversee the rates that are being proposed.

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I think that really is appalling. I think, quite frankly, that that's nauseating — to think that we will have a system where the ratepayers will not have a fair exchange, a fair say on how these decisions are going to be made.

Section 7 removes major projects and other issues from review by the BCUC. We know that Site C is now part of this need to find a surplus amount of energy. Energy, a surplus, or looking for self-sufficiency? Self-sufficiency, of course, is based solely on the need to export, on the need for people to make money for private corporations.

I know my time is coming soon, and there are others who wish to speak. But I want to end with the notion that the reason the government decided to rescind the Klinaklini run proposal, which was a huge-capacity proposal of 600 megawatts…. We thought it would be a really good deal, and we thought the government was going in the right direction. But unfortunately, now, with Bill 17, it's all up in the air again. It's all up in the air. There won't be that process anymore.

It will now be…. Decisions will be made primarily by cabinet and the influence of friends and insiders — insiders that I certainly could, if the Chair was willing to listen to who they all are, who are part of the Green Energy Task Force…. I have to respect the Chair's position that the Speaker doesn't want me to name and develop who those people are and how much contributions they made.

I understand that part, but the list is very, very long, hon. Speaker, and they're the ones now that have control of the direction of where we're going to be going relative to our energy needs, as seen in Bill 17. I think that really is quite low, base and somewhat vile.

With that, I will take my place in the seat, but at the same time, I have to enlarge upon the view that I will be voting against Bill 17.

J. Rustad: It's my pleasure today to rise to respond to the Clean Energy Act, Bill 17. If you think about our province…. When anybody from outside of B.C. hears "B.C.," they think about the beauty, the spectacularness, but they also think about our energy, about our dams and about our powerhouse in terms of economic potential.

What Bill 17 does is try to build upon that. Not only does it look at what we have as heritage assets, but it looks at what we can do in the future, where we can go as a province, what we can try to achieve together. I think Bill 17 takes a great step in that direction.

One of the things that, in particular, I'm impressed with in terms of that is the introduction of certain assets into our heritage assets. In particular, I think about the Highway 37 electrification. The opportunity for development along Highway 37 is phenomenal. There is close to $15 billion of investment, tens of thousands of jobs — potential that can come from an investment in a transmission line up Highway 37.

It will transform the northwest. It will drive enormous amounts of investment dollars but, more importantly, government revenues for the services that we need, and it will revitalize a region of the province that has waited a long time for some very good news.

This is a key piece, in my mind, in terms of what we need to do in the future, because when you think about that opportunity, you also have to think about the fact that that requires a lot of power, a lot of electricity. As we electrify that highway, we are going to need to bring on significant amounts of new energy. We want that to be clean energy. We want that to be renewable energy, because that's the right thing to do in this province.

Along with that, of course, and part of one of the goals of meeting that, is Site C. Site C is an opportunity to produce about 8 percent of B.C.'s power needs today. It's over, I think, about a $6 billion investment. It will drive up to 35,000 direct and indirect jobs. It will become part of an engine that is really going to help drive this province forward.

[1720]

That's a heritage asset that we can be proud of. It's something that we can stand up and say: "We put this in place not just for this generation but for future generations." The Clean Energy Act lays out the needs for doing that and the step and the process and the fact that that'll be coming in as part of our heritage assets. Similarly, we're going to be expanding some of our other existing heritage assets in the southeast part of our province to help bring on that power that is going to be needed and is going to fuel the economic opportunities in the future.
[ Page 5911 ]

One of the things that I think has been somewhat controversial in the act, which I've heard some of the opposition members talk about, is opportunities to export power. Madam Speaker, when you think about resources — whether you're talking about a metal from the ground; grapes from the Okanagan; cattle, wood or any of the things that we think of in this province as resources — energy, electricity, can also be thought about as a resource.

There's an opportunity for us to link a demand with a supply, and that's what this act lays out — how we're going to go about linking that demand; going out and finding a market; finding an opportunity that wants a clean, renewable energy in this province and linking it with an opportunity in the province to produce it.

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it in terms of the other types of things that we do in this province around resources. So I'm very pleased with the way the act lays that out — that we'll go out and identify that market, and then we'll come and put a call out. We'll find power that fits within that price range, that fits within our goals in terms of being green. B.C. Hydro will be used as an asset to be able to help facilitate that and perhaps be able to firm and shape that power.

That could generate literally billions and billions of dollars of investment — an investment in areas like my riding in terms of clean power, in terms of the types of jobs that can be created and also encompassing some of the goals that my First Nations have. I've talked with many of the First Nations in my riding that would like to explore opportunities to be able to create green power. It makes sense to them. It's something that they can do.

It works within the forest industry. They're excited about those opportunities, and this act will set up a fund to be able to help with doing that. It also recognizes that we want to be able to partner with various groups — not just with industry but with various groups in this province — to be able to achieve some of these goals.

One of the big challenges I see that we are going to face, though, in the future is certainly going to be around that demand for power. If you think about it, in our province today, without population growth or even with population growth, the amount of power that's needed is increasing by a certain percentage every year. We have way more gadgets, whether it's plasma TVs, whether it's BlackBerrys, whether it's iPods.

Think back just 20 years ago, because this act looks out 20 years in terms of what our needs are in the future and how to meet that. Think back 20 years ago. Twenty years ago the Internet was only something that was at universities. Twenty years ago there were no BlackBerrys or iPhones or other types of gadgets that today are commonplace.

Thirty years ago PCs were only just being introduced. Households didn't even have PCs. There weren't any ATM machines, no cell phones. Calculators were just becoming mainstream, and I can remember the controversy in school when I got my first calculator. You weren't allowed to bring it into the classroom because that was considered cheating. Today if you don't have a calculator, you can't even get through courses. It's how technology has been adapted into our society and how we use it.

Then tomorrow, when you look at where we're going to be going, clearly the trend is going to continue towards more gadgets, more devices, more opportunities. Quite frankly, that takes more power.

I think about my cell phone use driving down the road. You know, we now need to have an earpiece so that it can be remote, so that you don't have a cell phone in your hand. That's another device that needs to be powered. It's a good thing, quite frankly. It's the right thing to do.

But the point is that as our society develops, we're going to continue to find new and interesting things to do and new and interesting things that are going to be able to help our society and that potentially could draw an incremental demand in power.

[1725]

Think about electricity and electric cars. There's a huge opportunity there for electric cars in this province because our rates are so low for power.

There may also be an interesting opportunity to be able to put some of that power back onto the grid. That's a little bit about what using smart meters and smart grids can do in terms of how that can fit in and be a piece of that.

So over this next 20 years we are going to see a phenomenal amount, I think, of power demand. B.C. Hydro is estimating that that's going to be between 20 and 40 percent. That's a huge amount of power. If we don't embrace the idea of clean energy and if we don't look at things like Site C, it's going to be very, very difficult for us to be able to meet those demands, let alone the fact that we are net importers of power today.

I have a question around that in terms of the power and in terms of where this goes. I think this lays the right framework in terms of where we need to go for power.

I was reading an interesting article today in the Vancouver Sun by a fellow named Chad Skelton. He quoted some Statistics Canada stats saying that our population over the next 25 years could grow to seven million people. We're about 4.5 million people in the province today. That's a 56 percent growth, and he says that the low estimates for the province would end up being about a 30 percent growth in population.

That's pretty significant when you think about what that will do for power consumption. Even if that was just on a one-to-one level across the grid in power, you're talking about somewhere between 30 and 56 percent more power that's going to be needed. Add on gadgets and the other incremental power that we tend to have
[ Page 5912 ]
done as consumers, and you could be looking at somewhere between 40 and 80 percent power needs in the future. That's going to be an incredible challenge for our province.

It's going to be something that we as legislators have to lay the framework for today, but we also have to think about where we need to be tomorrow and what we need to do to be able to meet those commitments.

There are a couple of sections in this act that I would be looking forward, perhaps at the committee stage of the bill, to talk about but that I want to be able to raise today because I have a couple of concerns.

In particular, one section in the act, which is section 10, talks about the two-river system development. The two-river system development that we've done in this province has really enabled this province to grow. It was visionary. We put some dams on these rivers. They became heritage assets. It helped to build the engine of our province and helped to build our future with clean energy. It was visionary.

Site C falls along the lines of doing that. But the one thing that I question in the act — actually, I think perhaps it should be thought about in terms of a sunset clause — is the fact that we're saying that we won't want to build any new dams in the province.

I'm not saying that we need to build a new dam today or even tomorrow, but a future generation facing that population growth, facing that power need that we are going to be looking at in the future is going to have to make some tough choices — just as we do today, just as they did in the past, in terms of how we can meet those power needs.

I understand, in terms of today, that we're not going to be building any more dams. We say we're going to build Site C because it's the right thing to do, but I think we should be able to allow a future generation to make the same types of decisions if that's right for them at that day. The way the act is written right now is that it suggests that there will be no opportunity in the future. There will be no new dams after Site C. I think, for our children's sake and for their children, we should be able to leave that door open.

The other one that I think about in terms of meeting future power needs is that maybe a future generation doesn't want to build a new dam, and that's fine. It's understandable that those are political choices that people may need to make. But around the world, because of concern around the environment, people are more and more looking at nuclear power as an opportunity or, quite frankly, as an option.

Now, I don't think we'll ever be in a position in B.C. where we're going to need nuclear power. We have quite a plethora of opportunities now to be able to meet our energy needs, both for today and tomorrow, through clean energy.

[1730]

But you never know what a future generation may do. So in section 2, under our goals, under (o), it says that we will meet our power needs "without the use of nuclear power." I think that's fine to be able to do that today. I think that's the right thing, but once again, perhaps put a sunset clause on that. Because in the future…. We don't know what that future will be. We don't know how things will go.

Quite frankly, I'm anticipating in this province that we are going to see an enormous amount of economic opportunity, particularly in the north. The amount of development that could come from new mines, the opportunities that we're going to see in the forest industry, the opportunities that we are going to be driving with what we are trying to do with our agenda in this province are, quite frankly, I think, unparalleled in our history.

We are going to need to build a power that…. I'm concerned that we may actually be putting a harness on a future generation in terms of what they may or may not decide to do. Now, it's certainly right for us today, but I'm just not sure if it's right for tomorrow.

One of the other things that I think about in terms of meeting targets and going forward with greenhouse gas emissions is that it's important that we set goals. It's clear that in this province we have a huge advantage over many other jurisdictions because of our clean power, and we're going to continue to expand on that.

We want to be energy self-sufficient by 2016. We want to be able to expand beyond that, and we want to do that with clean power. We've set reduction targets through other legislation. We've set reduction targets in this, and it's the right thing to do — to be able to set those reduction targets.

I have to think, though — 2050. That is 40 years from now. That's a long, long time from now. If you look at the population growth by 2035, which if it's at the high end is around seven million people and extend that out by another 15 years, who knows where that potential growth could be? We could very easily be over ten million people by that time in this province, and I sometimes wonder….

It will be kind of interesting to see how we'd be able to meet 80 percent of 2007 levels. I think today, if you think about 80 percent of 2007 levels in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, that would take us probably back to maybe a hundred years ago or thereabouts.

I think about that, and I think, "Well, you know, it's good to have targets," but I kind of wonder just how realistic it is to be able to actually achieve those kinds of targets with the potential population growth we have in this province and that we hope to see in terms of building the future. Having said that, like I say, it's good to have targets. It's good to have goals. We'll move towards that and see where it goes.

I want to close my comments simply by saying that if you want to build a prosperous society, if you want to
[ Page 5913 ]
be able to create the opportunities for people to have a future to build their families, if you want to be able to create opportunities in communities, particularly rural communities, you need to think about the ingredients that go into it. Power is a huge component of that — our electrical needs — and I think that this Clean Energy Act goes a long way towards identifying that, towards opening up those opportunities, towards us as a province being able to develop an enormous future, an enormous potential.

I'm pleased that we are moving in this direction, and I'm quite surprised to hear that the opposition seems to not care about rural B.C., not care about First Nations and the opportunities that can be created there through something like this by simply opposing it.

Madam Speaker, I will be voting in favour of this act. There are several sections that I've identified that I do not support, which I think would be better off with some changes. But overall I do believe this is the right thing for our province, because it will help to build a prosperous future.

D. Donaldson: I rise to speak to Bill 17, the Clean Energy Act. I acknowledge the importance of the subject matter that it addresses, and I don't doubt the minister when he says he feels proud when he introduces this bill. But unfortunately, the bill misses the mark on a number of fundamental issues.

It's flawed, and my recommendation to the minister is to take it back, do some more work on it, bring it forward so we can all experience the feeling of pride that he describes. I'll take a moment to describe the areas that I feel have some fundamental flaws.

[1735]

The first is under the Green Energy Advisory Task Force report, which was used to create certain sections of this act. In fact, it was held up as a way that this act would be heavily influenced. Unfortunately, one of the recommendations under the community engagement and First Nations partnerships was ignored in this bill, and it is a fundamental flaw.

What's happened and the criticisms I've heard about energy in this province, especially in the north and the northwest, is that it's a Wild West approach. It's a gold rush approach. I know people who work in the integrated land management bureau who are responsible for water licences around IPPs, for example. They've been overwhelmed by the number of applications. They don't have the resources to deal with them. First Nations are feeling overwhelmed with all the potential development on their territories.

What this calls for is an actual plan. The Green Energy Task Force recommendation actually was that this act should include: "Develop a renewable energy zoning map for the province that identifies where development of renewable energy and transmission is appropriate and inappropriate. This task force supports the recommendation." They also said that it should establish a clean energy regional planning process — for example, the Taku watershed. Unfortunately, this is not addressed in the act.

To give positive solutions, positive recommendations is something that I think is important, and this is one recommendation that I would say to the minister to take back and have a look at and incorporate. Again, he appointed the Green Energy Task Force, and I think it's important he listens to them.

The second area that I believe needs quite a bit more work is on First Nations. I'm happy that my colleague from Nechako Lakes mentioned First Nations, although I believe he was off the mark on their reaction to this Clean Energy Act.

For example, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs says that…. Well, they call upon the government to delay this bill until adequate consultation and accommodation with First Nations has occurred. This wasn't signed just by the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs but the First Nations Summit and the B.C. Assembly of First Nations.

Again, it's something that the task force was supposed to address and, in fact, tried to address, but it wasn't included in the act. Now we see that First Nations in B.C., three organizations that are representing all First Nations in B.C., have said that it's time to take this act off the table, take it back, have a better look at it and come up with some different recommendations.

One of the interesting things in the recommendations from the Green Energy Task Force was under "Economic Opportunities and Benefits Sharing," with First Nations. They write: "Priority consideration could include the transferring of land tenures to First Nations, either through treaty or an incremental agreement, to enable the First Nation to become the fee simple landholder and charge rents to industry."

First Nations obviously see this as an economic development opportunity and put that in as a recommendation to the minister. Unfortunately, that was not reflected in the Clean Energy Act. This could be a way for First Nations in the area I represent to pull themselves out of dependency on both levels of government for funding and to actually reap the benefits off the traditional territories as a fee simple land holder.

That's a suggestion that came forward. Again, it was not unanimously endorsed in the Green Energy Task Force, but it's something that the minister could have given consideration to and included in the act. It would go a long ways to freeing people from dependency and also, you know, along the lines of the courts to look at aboriginal title with an energy perspective. That wasn't addressed, and it's unfortunate.

The last issue that I'd like to talk about under this bill has to do with the comments of the minister around hoping that this Bill 17 would reduce unnecessary,
[ Page 5914 ]
lengthy and costly processes when it comes to implementing new energy projects in B.C.

One thing that the bill does that he thinks will achieve this goal is to exempt certain projects from B.C. Utilities Commission review. He also discusses the idea of reducing delay by ensuring Crown obligations to First Nations are met. This is what he says the bill will do.

[1740]

Well, in fact, what the bill actually does and what the government intent on this seems to be, if what I understand the minister is saying is correct, is they're cutting corners, they're taking shortcuts, and that will definitely lead to unnecessary delays. So they're saying one thing, but by putting the exemptions in the act and other parts of the act, it will actually lead to unnecessary delays, counter to what the objective the minister says is intended with this bill.

The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs in their proclamation that they issued May 19, their joint statement that they issued regarding the B.C. Clean Energy Act, actually referred to the exemption from oversight by the B.C. Utilities Commission as a problem. That's why they called for the B.C. government to delay the bill until adequate consultation and accommodation with First Nations had taken place. Again, these are three organizations representing almost every First Nation in B.C. They asked for a meeting before the minister tabled this bill and entered second reading, and they didn't get it.

Along those lines, the Gitanyow First Nation is in Stikine. They are actually located along the route that the proposed northern transmission line will cover. The northern transmission line is one of the projects listed in Bill 17.

I've discussed this with the Minister of Aboriginal Relations. They've written a letter regarding their wishes to enter into a recognition and reconciliation protocol with the government. They were led to believe that the Minister of Aboriginal Relations had given a mandate to his negotiators to undertake that back in December. What they're hearing now from the provincial negotiators is that they don't have a mandate to enter into a recognition and reconciliation protocol, so they've written to the minister, just last week, again to outline this.

The reason I bring this letter up is that they write: "At our meeting you" — meaning the minister — "committed to engage with the Gitanyow to develop a reconciliation protocol agreement and indicated that you understood the time pressures arising from the proposed northwest transmission line."

Again, exempting and not responding to First Nations regarding energy production on the traditional territories or transmission lines on the traditional territories will cause delays. Obviously, with First Nations, with the Gitanyow on the northern transmission line and with the exemption from the B.C. Utilities Commission for ratepayers, there are going to be concerns.

I've stated on the record and I've stated in the media that the northwest transmission line could be good for the people of the northwest and the people of Stikine if this Liberal government got their ducks in a row, if they got their act together on First Nations consultation, especially with an environmental assessment. But they haven't with this bill.

We see the Gitanyow writing letters to one minister and another minister. Perhaps they're not communicating at the cabinet table, the other minister drafting a bill that doesn't address those concerns. And we have the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs pointing out that the exemption from B.C. Utilities Commission raises concerns.

What I say is the northern transmission line, which could be very important for the people of Stikine, needs to be able to free itself from these controversies in order to stand on its own. By including it in an exemption clause under this bill, the minister is just setting the stage for further unnecessary delays around getting on with a proposed northwest transmission line.

Even the Mining Association of B.C. — I've spoken to them, and they're very concerned about the exemption clause from the B.C. Utilities Commission for some of these major projects. They've got concerns that they voiced to me about those exemptions, and I believe it has to do with their concerns about oversight around rates.

[1745]

By exempting this project, the northern transmission line especially, what the minister is doing is exactly opposite of what he says are his intentions with the northern transmission line. He's introducing uncertainty and the possibility of further delays.

By not doing the background work that's necessary, or perhaps by simply ignoring the work that was done by the Green Energy Advisory Task Force — and maybe they're doing that based on ideology — what this Liberal government is doing and what the speaker is doing with this bill is a disservice to the constituents of Stikine. It's adding more uncertainty to the future not just of the constituents I represent but of the province in general.

With that, and noting the time, I'll continue my comments a little further, because I see we have a few more minutes to speak on this issue. I'll go back to the issue of some of the recommendations by the Green Energy Task Force that I was hoping to address today. Now I'm lucky that I get to, because we do have a bit more time than anticipated.

One of the other comments by the Green Energy Task Force was around the establishment of a clean energy regional planning process, and the bill does not reference a clean energy regional planning process. This would be very valuable to the area I represent, where many of the so-called clean energy projects are planned. Many of the IPPs that this government supports are planned in my area. If there was a regional planning process, then
[ Page 5915 ]
people would at least have a better idea of how the government intends to see these projects unfold, how they fit into a bigger picture in the province, and this is something that's not in the act that we could see.

As well, what we see in this act is a reference to the environmental assessment process, once again including the cumulative impacts. This is something that this government took out of the environmental assessment process. They always like to say they have the most rigorous process going, yet they gutted certain elements of the process a number of years ago, including cumulative impacts, the ability to consider more than one project.

Obviously, when you're working in a watershed and you have a number of different projects, the ecosystem doesn't respect boundaries of a project. It respects watershed boundaries. When you have a number of projects going and you don't consider all of them at once or the potential implications, then you've got problems.

So despite the fact that this government thinks it has a rigorous environmental assessment process, they're actually admitting they don't, because they're putting back in a condition that they removed a number of years ago, and that condition is to consider cumulative impacts under the Clean Energy Act.

Of course it doesn't consider what the cumulative impacts of other developments might be. So we'll wait and see and hope to get more details from this minister at the committee stage on what the amendments will actually be to the Environmental Assessment Act, because it's important to have not just cumulative impacts considered under the Clean Energy Act but also for other developments as well.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The Green Energy Task Force spoke about this, and they spoke about improved monitoring and compliance when it comes to environmental assessment. Of course, we know the record with this Liberal government has been to really cut and slash and gut the Ministry of Environment when it comes to monitoring and compliance functions. In fact, monitoring and compliance functions on all the ground ministries have been cut back, and that's something that's necessary. In fact, the compliance and monitoring function in the Ministry of Forests has been cut back.

It's something that the Green Energy Task Force called for, and it would be very good to see that included in the minister's thoughts around this bill as well, because we don't see that. As far as the First Nations considerations, there have been some other recommendations that have been ignored by this ministry, including an equity fund.

[1750]

Well, I'm not sure. We'll find out at committee stage whether the $5 million is considered an equity fund that's included in this bill for First Nations, but we know that that's not enough money for First Nations to fully participate in capitalizing projects on their territories if they so wished to do that.

I think what we need to look at, and this is what the Green Energy Task Force addressed, is that the courts are looking at traditional territories around aboriginal title. What we need to see in this act around clean energy is that the companies be coming to the First Nations around joint partnerships where the First Nations are in control.

What I see in my area is that actually First Nations are being offered, you know, minority positions in a company on their own traditional territories, which is somewhat absurd. I'm sure the courts will be very interested in that in the future.

Again, just to sum up, if we are looking at reducing unnecessary delay, which is an objective that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources has voiced…. He has voiced his opinion that he thinks Bill 17 will reduce unnecessary delay, yet we see First Nations and others, especially around the northern transmission line, having some strong reservations around this act — strong reservations that could result in delays.

What I encourage the minister to do, as I said at the outset, is to take this bill back, as recommended by the First Nations, by the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, by others. Take this bill back. Retool it; revamp it. Take some more of the input that he asked for from the Green Energy Task Force. Make it better so it can actually do the job that is intended.

Look at the exemption clause that really muddies the waters. The exemption clause, by including the northern transmission line in with a list of many other projects, really introduces uncertainty into that project that could be very important for the people of Stikine.

Look at the exemption from the B.C. Utilities Commission. That really could be construed as an abuse of power by the cabinet, because then those decisions reside solely with the minister and with the cabinet and not with an independent body called the B.C. Utilities Commission. So it muddies the water. It's going to raise a lot of concerns around the province. These projects could have stood on their own and would have had a better chance of not being delayed, especially the northern transmission line.

With that, hon. Speaker, I conclude my comments, and I've noted the time. I'm very happy to have had the chance to speak to Bill 17 today.

D. Donaldson moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Committee of Supply (Section A), having reported resolution, was granted leave to sit again.
[ Page 5916 ]

Hon. G. Abbott moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned till Monday morning at 10 a.m.

The House adjourned at 5:54 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH SERVICES

(continued)

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

The committee met at 2:43 p.m.

On Vote 37: ministry operations, $14,612,943,000 (continued).

The Chair: Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Douglas Fir Room. We're doing the budget estimates on the Ministry of Health Services.

A. Dix: Just to the minister. I asked the minister before the break — we were just making a bit of a transition there — about the progress of the electronic medical records program and the issue of federal ISO certification requirements. I'll just give the minister an opportunity to answer.

[1445]

Hon. K. Falcon: A couple of parts to the member's question. The first is the PITO program, which is the physician technology program, an office program that we have to convert physicians' offices from paper-based systems to an electronic system. I am advised by staff that there has been a high level of interest from the physician community in the PITO program.

There are currently 2,539 physicians registered in the program. That includes both GPs and specialists from around the province. As of March 31, 1,009 have completed their EMR implementation process, and another 1,065 are actively in the process of implementing their EMR.

The member then asked, I think, what the cost of the PITO program was. As of March 31, $54.376 million has transferred to PITO through the BCMA. As the member may recall, the way the program works is that we transfer money to the BCMA, and the BCMA is responsible for directing it through to the physicians' offices.

The final part of the member's question. This one I'm a little less certain about, but I'll give it a stab. The member was asking about federal ISO certification requirements. In discussing this with staff, we are assuming that the member is probably talking with respect to ISO 13485, which Health Canada recently announced would apply to patient management software.

The ISO 13485 is supposed to facilitate standardization of medical devices from a quality management perspective, which includes organizational structures, procedures, processes, etc. Staff advise me that they're working with Health Canada through a consultation process to better understand what this regulation change means to the vendor community, if at all, and what they will have to do to comply, if that is required, and if it is required, what the timelines are.

A. Dix: Just a short follow-up. The $54 million is roughly half of the budgeted program — just slightly more. The 369 makes it slightly more. Has the $54 million been spent on the 1,009 completions? Does that include the cost of some of the registrations as well?

[1450]

Hon. K. Falcon: I'm advised that the $54 million spent was a mix of both those that have completed the process and those that are underway in the process. Essentially, it represents two forms of costs. One is the one-time cost of the capital — so the new computers and the infrastructure itself — and then, of course, the ongoing costs.

A. Dix: Can the minister just remind me what the target is — the number of offices the government seeks to bring into the system here? I mean, we're talking about half of the money being expensed. It's a straight subsidy to a selected group of businesses. It's a subsidy program, you know.

I won't go on. We had a debate about anticompetitive practices the last time we talked about this, so I won't go on about this, but it's a straight subsidy to these businesses. Does that mean we're halfway to the target?

Hon. K. Falcon: First of all, the target is to establish the electronic medical program in 4,500 physician offices. The total budget put aside for that, as the member would recall, is $108 million.

In terms of the member's suggestion that it's a subsidy for businesses, well, I suppose, yes, it is true that doctors generally operate their practices as small businesses. But I think it's important to remind ourselves that this was part of a negotiated agreement with the B.C. Medical Association, with which I am proud to say we have a very good relationship.
[ Page 5917 ]

It sometimes can have difficulties. Whenever you are responsible for payments to a large group of professionals, there will be disagreements sometimes, but we have a very good relationship. This was part of an agreement that we had. I would not look at it in terms of a subsidy, because what we get out of it as a benefit is improved patient outcomes, better tracking of patients, better tracking of patient illnesses. We actually think that is a substantial benefit to the health care system, and we are very appreciative of the BCMA for the work they've done with us and the physicians that have enrolled thus far in the project, which now sees us about halfway through. The member is correct.

A. Dix: We've completed 1,009 of the 4,500, and we're halfway through the money, I guess is what I meant. In any event, let me just move on, because we've got a number of issues to deal with this afternoon.

I wanted to talk to the minister about an issue that he's heard a lot about and I've heard a lot about. I met with a bunch of groups of patients who suffer from multiple sclerosis. As the minister will know, we're in fact recognizing those groups and those issues this week.

Multiple sclerosis, as the minister knows, is an extraordinarily debilitating disease of the central nervous system. We don't really have terrific means to treat it. Our options include options that have been out there for a while, things such as Betaferon and so on, which have very significant costs and only assist in a relatively small percentage of cases. Tysabri, which is a drug I'm familiar with through casework, is another drug which has enormous annual costs of $35,000 to $40,000 and brings with it serious side effects, as all these drugs do.

[1455]

We haven't solved this terrible mystery, and we haven't produced outcomes — by "we" I mean the medical system — that are very good for MS patients, who are accustomed, as the minister would understand, to weighing the risks and benefits of treatments. Clearly, the list of choices is a list that isn't very favourable.

The minister will know — has been contacted and has heard — about a new treatment which, for at least some of the side effects of multiple sclerosis, has been started by the work of Dr. Paolo Zamboni and his colleagues. It deals with the issue and the link between CCSVI and MS. The minister will know what that stands for.

The process is really used to describe a situation in which the venous system is not able to efficiently remove blood from the central nervous system. It's stated that it's related to narrowing of small venous structures in the neck, chest and spine. What's suggested here is that CCSVI can be treated and, particularly in the case of patients with multiple sclerosis, give them better health outcomes.

Now, we know that this is new work or relatively new work. The original studies were published in late 2009, and these are always challenges for the health care system because the need is great. I know the minister knows this because he may well have met people or talked to people or received correspondence from people with multiple sclerosis who wish to seek this treatment in British Columbia.

The point that has been made to me many times, and we've had this discussion about other diseases, is that in the case of multiple sclerosis, often the condition can deteriorate — six months, 12 months or 18 months into the future — considerably, and a person is in a very different health position in that time.

So this is a group of people that, when they hear about studies and tests, say to themselves: "Well, I don't have that much time." They understand that the government has the time, and we have the time, and we have a role and responsibility to play, but they frequently don't have the time.

I wanted to ask the minister, first of all, just to go over…. I know that the government has taken some steps to address this question along with other governments in Canada and the federal government. Maybe the minister can outline what steps have been taken to date, and then we can have a bit of a discussion as to where patients should go from here.

Hon. K. Falcon: I thank the critic for the question. This is possibly one of the most difficult challenges imaginable for those that are currently suffering the affliction of multiple sclerosis.

One can only imagine, when you're afflicted with a disease like MS — you know that it is, in virtually all cases, only going to get worse — that when you have or hear of a procedure, as they have and as we all have with Dr. Zamboni who pioneered his procedure called liberation procedure that appeared to provide some hope for patients…. You can well imagine and understand how important that would be to those patients.

I know what every patient must be thinking. I know, because I've been through this situation personally. My father had a degenerative illness. It was a form of Parkinson's disease that's actually worse. It's called Shy-Drager. At that time they thought it was Parkinson's disease, and there was an experimental procedure taking place at the time at UBC that involved a surgical procedure where you went into the patient's brain — I'm going to use layperson's language — and by fiddling around, the hope was that you might actually achieve some better outcomes.

I remember very well my father being in the position, because he was steadily deteriorating, of lobbying very hard to have that procedure, regardless of the risk. Literally, he didn't care about the risks. Actually, we all agreed with him and lobbied hard through his doctor to get him into the program at UBC so he could undertake the experimental procedure, which he did.

[1500]
[ Page 5918 ]

Sadly, in my dad's case it worked out badly. In fact, he came out of it much worse than he went into it.

That is the risk, of course, in an experimental situation. It was largely as a result of the fact that he came out much worse that they did further investigation and discovered that, in fact, his disease was not just Parkinson's but something called Shy-Drager, which is actually worse.

I say that only to really put on the record and emphasize just how much I understand that for patients suffering from a degenerative illness, how important any prospect of hope is to those patients. I say that so that MS sufferers understand that you have a Minister of Health who really, truly appreciates that where there is some hope, we must ensure that we can provide an opportunity for folks to make sure they have access to that hope. But we also must ensure that we do at least the minimum level of research necessary to ensure that we are not unnecessarily harming people or putting folks at risk.

I think it is important to recognize that even Dr. Zamboni himself, the Italian physician who pioneered the treatment, emphasized that those with multiple sclerosis should not rush to seek the surgical procedure outside of the proper clinical studies.

We do know that a number of studies are underway around the world. We have been in close contact with the MS Society. In fact, I met with them just a number of days ago — first of all, to officially celebrate and recognize MS month, which is currently taking place, but also to speak to them about this issue. It is certainly a challenge for the society too. Naturally, all their members, in seeing this ray of light, are pushing very hard to ensure that they have the opportunity to avail themselves of the procedure.

We've also been in touch with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Of course, the physicians and surgeons have also been very, very clear that this must be undertaken with great caution and care and that we should not be undertaking surgical procedures without the proper clinical setting and without some appropriate safety measures put in place.

So that is perhaps not the answer that many sufferers will want to hear, and I certainly appreciate that. But I do know there is a lot of research going on. The good news is that research is going on around the world as a result of the initial suggestion by Dr. Zamboni that this may have a positive effect for those that are suffering from MS. I can assure you that in British Columbia and in every province, Health ministers are looking very carefully at the research that is being undertaken.

I do think this is an excellent opportunity for some national, cohesive response to this. I do think there is a role that the federal government can play in ensuring that perhaps there's a national research effort undertaken specific to this case, such that you don't have every province trying on their own to figure out whether the Zamboni treatment, in fact, has the medical efficacy that one would expect.

I do recognize the challenge, and I want to offer, first of all, the deepest sympathy to all the MS sufferers out there and let them know that this is something we're working on very closely with the MS Society and the College of Physicians and Surgeons and that we are going to monitor the research that is underway very, very carefully.

A. Dix: I just want to express my sympathy to the minister for what he went through with his father. He therefore knows, I think, a lot about the circumstances that people and families are going through in this case.

I guess one of the things I wanted to ask him about next is…. There have been some hearings in the House of Commons on this question, as I understand it. So what steps are being taken? The minister talked about a national response.

[1505]

There are two things that I would say about the speed of this. One is that this is a degenerative disease, and lots of people don't have a lot of time. They see this as a possibility, an opportunity. If it is, we obviously want to move absolutely as quickly as possible.

Secondly, I think that would argue for Health ministers who are probably across the country all hearing the same thing that the minister is — to move quickly as well. I think that Dr. Zamboni indicated that while he agreed that people shouldn't be going outside of clinical trials, he also said he thought that while the process was being tested and reviewed, people in fact should get access to the treatment. That was his view, and maybe that's not surprising.

I want to ask the minister what specifically has happened with the other governments so that we can move ahead more quickly on this question. The potential good news for government is that all of the other options are in this case very debilitating and expensive. This option provides some hope, and it's in some respects less expensive than some of the existing treatments. That's the first question.

I guess the second question I have for the minister is…. I think one of the frustrations that people with MS have, in this case, that they've expressed to me is that they feel, in the absence of proof that this is a cure for MS, it may not get funded and supported.

They feel the evidence is — and there are at least some studies to indicate this; addressing these questions, essentially, of flow to the brain — that this technique will improve their quality of life. There's some evidence of that. Even if it doesn't address the underlying problem, it will make their quality of life better — just as many other procedures which don't necessarily cure underlying issues but provide relief to patients are, of course, in the system.
[ Page 5919 ]

I want to ask the minister, specifically, what steps he can take immediately, including bringing together by conference call, or whatever is required, deputy ministers, ministers, assistant deputy ministers, medical officers of health, provincial medical associations, so that the joint national strategy he talked about, hoped for, could actually be a fact. Could he, in fact — and I think that's what people who are suffering from MS in B.C. are asking — be a national leader on this question and push this issue, as soon as possible, with governments across the country and initiate something with governments across the country as soon as this month?

Hon. K. Falcon: I thank the member for the question. So the short answer is yes. We've been in discussion with other governments and funders about possible support for research that could accelerate the accumulation of research evidence worldwide. I think it's really important to recognize that we want to have some research done. We don't necessarily want to copy and duplicate research that may be already underway at other institutions.

My staff advised me that the staff at the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research are in touch with potential researchers and are in direct contact with the federal funder of such kinds of research — that being the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. I do think that the Michael Smith Foundation, of course, is eminently qualified to do that kind of diligence.

We are trying to stay right on top of and very current with any research that is underway with respect to this issue and ensure that any decision that we ultimately make of course has to be in the interest of patients.

You know, I've seen firsthand…. I was watching CBC — I believe it was last week. The National had a story, I believe it was, with respect to someone that had a good experience as a result of going and receiving this treatment. There have been other sort of anecdotal stories like that that I've read. I am advised by staff, however, that we have to be cautionary about that, because there have also been other cases of adverse reactions and adverse events with respect to those that have undergone some of these experimental treatments.

So that's why I do believe that it is so very important to, first of all, recognize that it offers a ray of hope, to initiate the discussions as we have — both directly with other governments, but also through the Michael Smith Foundation — to try and pull together a sort of national effort with the potential of funding through the Canadian Institutes for Health Research to have Canada do its part with a national effort to stay right on top of this thing and try and get answers as quickly as we can on a clinical basis to determine whether or not we can move forward in a much more aggressive manner for those individuals that are really looking to government for leadership with respect to this issue.

[1510]

I have to say that there is no more challenging issue when you are in a position of government leadership like this. What you really want to do is just instinctively do it, just to provide people with hope. But as the member well knows, should you lunge forward into something and start undergoing a series of procedures without having that homework done and in direct contradiction of organizations like the College of Physicians and Surgeons, you can well imagine what will happen if you do start having adverse events or, god forbid, even deaths resulting.

It would not be a position that any Minister of Health in any government would want to find themselves in. We have to balance the understandable sense of urgency that we feel, on behalf of the patients that are dealing with MS, with the requirement — indeed the responsibility — to ensure that before we undertake experimental procedures on real people, we do it on the foundation of some clinical evidence and support. That's what we are working to try and gather.

A. Dix: Thank you to the minister for the answer. The minister will know, of course, that up to this point the focus of MS research has been primarily drug research and that, in fact, drugs such as Tysabri were fast-tracked in the health care system and do contain with them some risks, as does all treatment for MS.

I guess the question early on would be to establish the downside risks, which are the risks of having procedures, and all procedures have risks.

I guess what I wanted to ask the minister is if he would consider convening a teleconference with the federal Minister of Health, and asking the federal Minister of Health to take some leadership here. I think he is right to this extent, that having the Minister of Health of Prince Edward Island, the Minister of Health of Quebec, the Minister of Health of Ontario and himself working on parallel tracks is not the best approach.

I think that given the minister's personal experience, he could have enormous influence in pushing this issue forward if he chose to take it forward to the federal Minister of Health. None of that would take away the cautions that he's expressed with respect to the potential risks of going ahead with the treatment. It would give some assurance that there was some direct movement and that the government was showing leadership on a very difficult issue.

Hon. K. Falcon: The approach we're taking, Member…. I've had the benefit, I suppose, of having some pretty extensive involvement in dealing with federal governments.

One of the reasons why we think it's so important to have the Michael Smith Foundation lead that sort of
[ Page 5920 ]
cross-country review into the possible researchers and how this could be coordinated as a national effort is that we want to ensure, before we raise it to the level where I'm phoning up and having a discussion with the federal Minister of Health, that a lot of the groundwork and foundational pieces have been put in place so that we can truly go and say to the federal government: "There has been work undertaken by people with significant knowledge in this area, led by some of the great researchers we have at the Michael Smith Foundation, and that has resulted in a proposal. That proposal is supported with provincial support in every province across the country, and now is the time for the federal government to move forward and make a decision so that we can initiate this situation."

I think it's really just a method of making sure we do our homework first, so that I can point to work that's been done and then call for the federal involvement that will really help bring to life the groundwork that's being done to bring all the provinces together as part of a national effort.

A. Dix: I guess the only difference…. I'd ask the minister — I wouldn't expect him necessarily to do it today — to consider moving that forward. I would assume that there'd be more than one conversation, and that there would be an opportunity to say that this is our plan. We give it real priority, and we expect the federal government to play a role.

[1515]

I mean, the urgency here is not just the urgency that the minister talks about. It's really practical. We have constituents — I think, hon. Chair, that I met a constituent from your constituency, and many others came and saw me, who asked me to raise this issue — who are planning to travel to Poland in that case, who have travelled to Mexico to get the MRIs, who are travelling around the world. They're already dealing with very serious health conditions. Of course, there's a great variety.

The evidence so far, as I understand it, in the most severe cases of multiple sclerosis is that this has not been seen as a solution. In many cases, people were relapsing who were being admitted with multiple sclerosis. In other cases it is. Regardless of that, we know people, and the minister has received letters from people, who are leaving the country. It's a significant percentage of the people — because in absolute numbers, there are not a lot of people who have multiple sclerosis in the country — who are planning to leave the country or are saving money to leave the country.

That puts, I think, additional pressure and responsibility…. Of course, people are free to do that, but they're also our neighbours and our friends, and we want to provide the maximum level of support. I guess, really, my request to the minister is that, in addition to that work that has been initiated, an extra effort be made here, that extra pressure be put on the federal government to take action and that extra pressure be made — including convening, at least at the officials level, conference calls with all the provinces — so that we can demonstrate the commitment of all of the provinces of Canada and the federal government to getting at this problem with speed, not a delayed process that will leave people wondering and raising money to leave the country for health care.

Hon. K. Falcon: All the medical experts, all the medical professionals, are advising governments — not just this government, but other governments — to really caution individuals and those that are suffering with MS not to go and engage in an experimental procedure that has significant risks. As I mentioned, though, I understand why people would do that. That's why I gave the example of my own father. I understand how people can feel that any hope is better than what they believe is no hope.

But, you know, as a Health Minister and as governments we do have a responsibility to ensure, before we are sending in people to have procedures, that there is some foundational basis for which to have those procedures undertaken, in a manner that is not going to unnecessarily put their lives, potentially, at risk.

I cannot be critical of people that are making those decisions. Even though all the medical experts and the letters I've received tell me all the reasons why people shouldn't be doing that and how dangerous it is and that we ought to be doing something to stop people from doing that, I guess I just, as a human being, can understand why people do that. So I won't criticize it; in fact, I understand it.

Again to the member's point, I really do feel that there is an opportunity here for national leadership. But I think, in fairness to the federal government, that what we want to do is to have all the provinces — as quickly as we responsibly can, through the Michael Smith Foundation — identify the researchers and those that could put together something that would be a supportable national effort that could be potentially funded, as I mentioned, through the federal government, through an existing agency that funds this kind of clinical trials and support.

[1520]

We believe that's the right way to go, and we're going to move as quickly and expeditiously as we can to make that happen.

A. Dix: I just want to ask the minister…. It's my understanding that a procedure was done at Royal Jubilee Hospital. I may be wrong in that. Can the minister just confirm that and explain both what happened and what the government's response to that procedure was?
[ Page 5921 ]

Hon. K. Falcon: The member is correct that apparently in April there were two cases of individuals that received a treatment at Victoria General Hospital utilizing this procedure. Apparently these two procedures were performed by an interventional radiologist at VGH.

The matter was referred to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, of course. The reason it was referred to them is because procedures such as the Zamboni procedure for MS are, of course, experimental and should only be carried out, if carried out at all, under the direction of the appropriate ethics review board.

Because that was not done, the physician was referred to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, who undertook an investigation. I believe that Physicians and Surgeons made it clear that there should be no procedures undertaken in this regard unless under the direction of the appropriate ethics review board.

A. Dix: Was the procedure that took place at Royal Jubilee Hospital paid for by the public system, or was it paid for privately?

Hon. K. Falcon: I am advised by staff that it actually took place at Victoria General Hospital, and I understand that it was paid for through the public system. It was only discovered after the fact that the procedure that was undertaken was actually done sort of along the lines of the Zamboni procedure. I understand from staff that that was not something that anyone was aware of except, presumably, the interventional radiologist.

A. Dix: I wanted to ask some questions that came to me. The minister will know that representatives of the ALS Society of B.C. were here in the Legislature a number of weeks ago. They met with a number of MLAs.

[1525]

I don't believe they met with the minister, although I think they met with the Minister of Healthy Living, if I'm not mistaken.

ALS, of course, is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It's sometimes known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Just to put it in context, and I know that the minister knows this: the average cost in B.C. just for equipment for an ALS patient exceeds $137,000 a year, which is just an extraordinary thing.

There are 266 patients registered with the ALS Society of B.C. and 249 registered at Vancouver Coastal Health's ALS Centre at G.F. Strong. Members of the society raised an issue about what they call a serious situation, a crisis situation, at the ALS Centre. The centre's registered nurse — it was a full-time position — is leaving for maternity leave in June.

According to the ALS Society, due to a cut in funding, the position has been advertised as part-time. So they've gone from one nurse to 0.5 nurses. As a result of it being 0.5, there has been some difficulty getting a qualified replacement. Obviously, this is very significant but very challenging work, and the lack of a full-time position for the nurse means there are delays in providing care to ALS patients.

I know that the ALS Society has requested a meeting with the minister. I understand how busy it is. I know that lots of people request meetings, but I wanted to ask the minister because I think the issues facing people who deal with ALS are unbelievably difficult. Many of the people who access the services of the centre are feeling a great deal of stress about what they perceive to be a budget cut.

I wanted to ask the minister to review that, to see if he had an answer to that, and if he is not able to meet with the society, if he could designate someone to meet, perhaps, on his behalf to deal with what is about to become an urgent situation at the ALS Centre.

Hon. K. Falcon: I understand and recognize why the members would raise that with the opposition critic, so that he could raise it with the minister. You've now done that. I appreciate that. I would encourage the society to continue their discussions with the health authority regarding issues around whether an individual should be 0.5 or one FTE. Those are issues that are better negotiated and discussed with the health authority, but I thank the member for bringing it to my attention.

A. Dix: Well, I guess that my question to the minister…. It's been raised with a number of his colleagues and him that the circumstances are very significant. I guess what I'm asking the minister to do is to at least raise the issue with the health authority. Presumably, one of the advantages, I guess, of estimates is that in a way we are raising it with the health authority when we raise it here.

I'm asking the minister to get involved on this point because the circumstances are, I think, severe, and the stress is considerable for those patients. So far, in any event, they haven't received satisfaction in their work with the health authority. I think if they had, they wouldn't be raising it with me or the Minister of Healthy Living and Sport or the minister.

I wanted to raise…. I'm just going to refer it to the minister. It was brought to my attention today by a woman from Osoyoos. I just want to make mention of the case. The woman's name is Joan Wilson. She's raising the issue of a gentleman named Les Hart from Osoyoos, who has ALS. He has spent virtually all the money that he has on his care. In January he was admitted to Surrey Memorial Hospital, but he needs constant assistance, and he's having difficulty getting funding.

[1530]

I'm not asking the minister today. I'm just going to leave this with him. This issue was brought to my atten-
[ Page 5922 ]
tion and was actually covered in the Osoyoos Times. It's a very difficult case. I think the whole community of Osoyoos has become interested in the case. I'd ask the minister to consider asking some questions in this specific case, and I'll just forward that to her.

I should just say that Miss Wilson asked me to do that. She wanted to make me understand, and the minister understand, that it's not political. "It's a story that could be, if we had been the unfortunate ones chosen, describing our lives. As a society, we're allowing some of the population to fall through the cracks, not just Les." She wants someone to pay attention to this very serious matter, so I'm just going to leave the minister with that and ask him to consider investigating or asking his staff to get in touch with Miss Wilson and take a look at what's a very difficult case.

I wanted to ask the minister a little bit about a program that has been worked on over the last little while by the Alzheimer Society. It's been an extremely successful program on Vancouver Island in terms of assisting families and people living with dementia. The Alzheimer Society of B.C. has proposed a partnership with the ministry to implement what's called the First Link program in at least one community within each health authority in the coming year.

[J. McIntyre in the chair.]

The Rising Tide study, which I know the minister has referred to and is aware of, has shown the urgency of starting to deal with these matters now, especially at the community level, in order to improve our abilities to address and support both people dealing with Alzheimer's and dementia, and their families. I wanted to ask the minister if he's heard of the First Link program and whether he thinks that this program — especially given the amount of money being spent on some of the other programs related to Alzheimer's, the research study and so on — is a really valuable program.

I know many MLAs have been contacted by the society and are working on…. This really valuable program would be funded through the health authorities. I think the business case — and I would share the business case, but I think the minister has it; it's been shared with members on both sides of the House — shows the economic value to the health care system, and the enormous value to families and sufferers of Alzheimer's, of proceeding with this model. I think that case has been presented.

I remember when I first met with the Alzheimer's Society about the First Link program. I said to them that I thought the path to having the program supported was to put forward a business case, to lay out that business case in detail. Other members of the Legislature, I think, advised them to do the same thing. They've done that. They've put forward, I think, an outstanding, comprehensive business case.

I wanted to advocate to the minister that he pursue that and ask the minister his point of view on First Link. It has been mostly a Vancouver Island program, or a Victoria program, but we'd like to see it expanded to the whole province.

[1535]

Hon. K. Falcon: I thank the member for his patience as I gather the information from staff. This First Link initiative that the member referenced was the result of a $1 million grant that we provided in 2006 to fund some pilot projects designed to address some of the critical gaps of care that were identified in the provincial dementia service framework. Seven projects, I understand, were funded, including the First Link initiative that the member talks about.

The idea of the test pilot was that after someone is diagnosed, they would get referred early on into a program like First Link that could provide some supports for not only the individuals that are exhibiting early signs of dementia but also their family members.

I am advised that my deputy just met recently with the Alzheimer Society with respect to the First Link program and received a briefing on my behalf with respect to their views on the promising nature of the test pilot. As a result of that meeting, my deputy is arranging to have members of the society and the deputy meet with the CEOs from all the health authorities to also hear directly of the success of the First Link program and to share some of the information that was gathered as a result of the test pilot.

I think that's certainly a positive development. Again, one of the reasons why we fund some of these test pilots is to determine whether we can learn how we can try and do things differently and provide services that can, potentially, increasingly meet the needs of patient populations.

A. Dix: Just for the minister's staff, to let them know that in a few minutes the member for New Westminster will have a few questions, and the member for Delta South will come in at four o'clock. Then we'll finish with some questions on one of the minister's favourite topics and mine, optometrists — as the minister takes his glasses off; very wise, I think — and issues such as medical tourism and the Ambulance Service and some questions on spiritual care. That's how the rest of the day will go.

[1540]

I want to ask the minister a quick question. We could have a long debate on medical tourism, and we've kind of had one, but I want to ask the minister, because he's proceeding with this initiative, where that initiative stands. The minister talked a month or so ago about ongoing work, so can he tell us where his plan to attract medical tourists, principally from the United States, sits right now?
[ Page 5923 ]

Hon. K. Falcon: Well, certainly. Thank you, Member, for the question. First of all, I appreciate that the member likes to give me credit for all the ideas that I come up with, but actually, this has been a suggestion that's been made to myself from a number of surgeons in practice in British Columbia.

Essentially, what the message is that I've received is that government should not just look at health care as a cost, that there is a potential for revenue to be generated in the health care system, and that was the principle that was enunciated to me.

What I have said publicly — and the NDP, I know, have become very terrified when I suggest that we should even have a discussion about ideas that are brought to the minister. I don't sense that or share that sense of terror. I actually am quite open to people bringing forward innovative ideas. Medical tourism is one of the ideas. The principle of the idea, as enunciated to me, was that….

In our post-secondary education system, we have this rather novel idea that if you are a foreign student attending a post-secondary education in British Columbia, we charge you four times what we charge a British Columbian to receive the education. The result is that additional dollars are generated in the education system that are utilized by our post-secondary institutions to expand seats for British Columbians, to hire new professors, to make whatever additional investments are necessary to help provide a better quality of education for British Columbians.

The idea that was presented to me by a number of individuals, doctors and surgeons was: why couldn't we take the same approach in health care — i.e., if there are, as we know there are, something in the range of 700,000 to 800,000 Americans every year, mostly middle- and lower-income Americans, that fly out of the United States every year to receive health care around the world — in an effort to save costs? They go to places like England. They go to Europe. They go to Singapore, Asia, India to receive care.

The argument that was made to the Minister of Health is: "Look, we have some of the best facilities and some of the best surgeons in the world." We've got capacity within the system that you could, on weekends or off-peak periods, offer — at least this is the idea — to have that surgical time available.

You could charge these individuals enough that you could not only cover the costs of the operation or whatever the elective surgical procedure may be, but you could also have enough in terms of over and above what the cost is to plow back into the system to provide quicker and better access for British Columbians that may be on elective waiting lists.

What I said, and what I have always said, is that if people have ideas along those lines, they bring them forward. We will take a look at it. Tell us what the issue is for government. Show me how it will benefit British Columbians. If you can show me that this can have a net positive benefit for British Columbians that will allow us to deal with British Columbians that may be on an elective surgical waiting list, then I'm all ears. I want to hear about it. So that's where I left it.

Member, it's actually not me trying to design a program. It's me saying to those that have ideas: "If you wish to bring forward those ideas, I'm entirely open to that."

The idea itself received some initial impetus, if I may, actually from an idea that came about here in Canada when the Premier of Saskatchewan approached our Premier with, apparently, some substantial wait-lists that they were also facing. In the discussion, one of the ideas that was suggested was that British Columbia has made significant investments in dealing with the issues of hip and knee elective surgical wait-lists. In fact, we lead the country.

One of the obvious examples is the UBC Centre for Surgical Innovation, where we invested $25 million into facilities. We took the wait-list from an average of one year down to now where British Columbia is, in hips and knees, of course, leading the country in terms of meeting or exceeding the wait-time targets that were set, which is 90 percent of patients receiving their surgical procedure within 26 weeks.

[1545]

Because of those successes and the investments we've made, Saskatchewan had approached us with the idea that, maybe, they could have some of their patients come and receive the surgical procedure in British Columbia. British Columbia would take care of those patients and be able to charge an additional premium for the work that was done such that it would still be good value for Saskatchewan, because they wouldn't have to make the kind of investments that we have made in both the specialists and the surgical theatres themselves, and this could potentially be a way of dealing with that.

Of course that, as the member opposite would well know, became public in a pretty significant way in Saskatchewan, because the NDP opposition there, I understand, much like our opposition here, at the moment of any kind of innovation or change, get close to hysterical, and they created quite a fuss about that. I quite enjoyed the fuss. I think it's always fascinating, to myself, that you can't apparently even have discussions about how you might do things differently in the health care system without the status quo folks, which is generally the NDP and some of their public sector union backers, going absolutely hysterical.

I do think that it is important, if we are serious about trying to be innovative within the health care system and if we are serious about, first of all, actually being honest with the public and saying, "You know, even though health care budgets in British Columbia have grown since 2001 by over 90 percent — even with those
[ Page 5924 ]
massive increases — we still hear the status quo folks opposite saying: 'Oh, we must pour even more money into the system; that's not enough....'" It's always about what we are putting into the system. It's never about measuring what we get out of the system.

One of the things that I do think is very, very important is we measure what we get out of the system. It is convenient, actually, that in the last few weeks there have been some very fundamental, significant measurements of how British Columbia is doing in the health care system compared to other provinces, and I'll mention three of them briefly.

The first is the CIHI, or Canadian Institute for Health Information, which came out just a few weeks ago, that showed that British Columbia is number one.

Interjection.

Hon. K. Falcon: Well, excuse me; I'm sorry. I heard the Health critic saying this is tedious and repetitious. No, actually what it is, Health critic, is good news.

The Chair: Member.

Hon. K. Falcon: It is, I know, difficult for the Health critic and the members opposite to hear good news about outcomes that are independently measured on how British Columbia's health care system is doing, but I actually think it's important to get it on the record.

So within the last few weeks we've had the Canadian Institute for Health Information come out and say that British Columbia was number one in wait times for the list of procedures that the first ministers and the federal government agreed are the ones that should be measured — that is, hip surgeries, knee surgeries, cataracts, cardiac, etc. British Columbia, number one.

Then we have the Wait Time Alliance that came out and also confirmed and gave British Columbia an A in every category.

Then last week we had the Canadian Cancer Society come out. What did the Canadian Cancer Society say? They said that across Canada British Columbia is number one in terms of cancer outcomes. We have the lowest rates of mortality for both men and women in British Columbia.

Then just today, we have another report coming out that shows that British Columbia is number one in terms of the lowest rate per capita of heart attacks in the country. That is also another positive report from CIHI — again, a highly respected organization — demonstrating that British Columbia is leading.

Those to me are important outcomes. At some point we have to say, in our health care system, when massive increases like 90 percent in funding to the health care system still have people like the Health critic and others saying, "No, it's not enough; we must put in even more," and still arguing against any change that is even considered in the system, and won't even allow a discussion to take place about whether we cannot have a health care system generate revenues for the benefit of British Columbians — not even a discussion about it…. I do think that, frankly, is an approach that I don't think serves the public well.

So this minister has said from the beginning that we will be innovating as British Columbians. We are going to do what we can to push down that cost curve. And we are going to ensure that we focus on results and measurables and outcomes to ensure that British Columbia continues to lead the country in health outcomes.

D. Black: Well, it's a long response, but I didn't actually hear a real answer to my colleague from Vancouver-Kingsway's question on medical tourism in all of that lengthy response.

[1550]

Anyway, I'd like to talk about the issue in my community of New Westminster, where we're served by Royal Columbian Hospital. It is more than a community hospital for New Westminster. New Westminster lost their community hospital a number of years ago when this government shut down St. Mary's. So Royal Columbian serves as not only our community hospital but as the major trauma centre for the Fraser Valley and all the areas around New Westminster and up into the valley. It's a very, very busy hospital.

Just earlier this month the problems in the emergency ward were highlighted in the press and by the doctors in the emergency ward in Royal Columbian. The hospital is really suffering from severe overcrowding in the emergency ward, in the waiting rooms and all through the system there.

The situation became so critical and dire earlier this month that a severely ill elderly man had to be resuscitated in an ambulance bay after he arrived by ambulance, because there were no beds available in the rooms or in the hallways or anywhere there to treat this man. So he was treated initially and resuscitated within the ambulance.

I know that emergency doctors across the province, and emergency doctors at Royal Columbian in particular, have said that they are severely short-staffed. There are, I think, currently 30 emergency ward doctors in the Royal Columbian Hospital, and there is a need for 37. So I want to ask the Minister of Health: what are his plans to increase the number of emergency ward doctors at the Royal Columbian Hospital, and what's the timeline for increasing those numbers?

Hon. K. Falcon: I thank the member for the question. I've actually had the opportunity now to tour through Royal Columbian on several occasions, and again, I am struck by the calibre of professionals that work at Royal
[ Page 5925 ]
Columbian and the incredible work they do. It is indeed an amazing trauma facility, and I think the work they do doesn't get nearly the attention and the aplomb that it deserves. It is remarkable.

With respect to emergency departments, emergency department congestion must be the bane of governments everywhere. The good news is we have made tremendous progress in that regard. I recall even in our term early on how there used to be it seemed like nightly stories about overcrowded emergency departments.

[1555]

We began a very considered and focused investment of $460 million to upgrade and improve emergency departments right across the province. Over 30 emergency departments received significant investments to enlarge the size of their emergency departments and improve delivery of services.

Now, under our agreement with the BCMA through the physician master agreement, we do have a protocol for 19 specific hospital emergency departments that operate under a contract. One of them is the Royal Columbian. That contract is the subject of discussions right now. The last time, in 2007, when we engaged in these discussions over additional resourcing for the emergency departments, we added 16 FTEs to the 19 contracted emergency departments.

Now that discussion is underway, again, for what additional resources should be added. Not surprisingly, we have seen in the…. I guess it was probably about a week and a half ago or so that we had, over the course of three or four nights, a new emergency department come out and talk about the challenges they face. All of them were part of the 19 that are currently under negotiation.

That is not to diminish the fact that some of them don't have challenges, as some of them do, and we are working to deal with that. But the issue is that what we have seen is…. Emergency department volume since 2005 has increased, on average, by about 2 percent per year. So there has been some increase in volume at the emergency departments. That is an average, of course. The average could be different at Royal Columbian than other hospitals.

What I can tell the member is that those discussions are very actively underway right now. What will happen in those discussions is that a joint committee made up of ministry staff and members of the BCMA, including emergency department physicians, will negotiate how much additional resources will be added and then where those resources will go — which emergency departments those resources will go to.

This is always a difficult thing, as you can imagine, because every emergency department says they should come to our department. Obviously, you try to make it based on evidence, actual volumes, what the actual increases in volumes are, etc. There is a very vigorous debate that goes on around this, and that debate and discussion is underway right now. I am hopeful, Member, that we are going to be able to resolve that in the very near future.

D. Black: Well, it's an interesting response, and it certainly sounds like negotiations are underway for, hopefully, increasing the number of ER doctors.

I want to, again, specifically talk about Royal Columbian, because the minister said he's been there and toured. I don't know if he's toured the ER ward there. They've made some rather innovative changes within the confined space they have to work with there in terms of their efforts to provide a facility where diseases don't spread. They do different kinds of exhaust systems that have been really just kind of taped together, in many respects, because the space there doesn't provide them with a number of isolation beds that they need at Royal Columbian.

What I'm told by the ER docs there is that they've experienced at Royal Columbian a 20 percent increase in patients into the ER in the last three or four years, which is a lot more than what the Health Minister is indicating at 2 percent a year average across the province.

The other question that I have for the minister is the issue of MRI wait times in New Westminster. We've had cutbacks in the number of MRIs available to people who are served by Royal Columbian. I know the minister would understand that for many medical procedures that have to be done today, an MRI is a prerequisite before you can have your surgery. Now the wait times are over 18 months.

I have people calling into my constituency office regularly, very concerned about the wait times for MRIs. I would like to ask the minister if he has any plans in place to increase and bring back the level of MRIs that were available at Royal Columbian before the cuts were made.

Hon. K. Falcon: First of all, to the member's first point…. Actually, I'll go with the last point first.

[1600]

First of all, I can certainly assure the member that there have been no cuts in MRIs. There has actually been nothing but massive increases. The issue is that even with the 528 percent increase in the number of scans that we have undertaken in Fraser Health, there is still enormous demand.

We are taking a hard look at that. I had the opportunity to canvass this issue quite extensively with the Health critic earlier on. So I won't repeat everything we said, because it is available in Hansard. But what I can tell the member is that we are going to take a hard look at the issue of MRIs and wait-lists. We are in this remarkable situation that in spite of the fact that we've gone from nine scanners in 2001 to 24 today, it is currently going to increase even more in spite of the fact that overall,
[ Page 5926 ]
across the province, the number of scans is up by 170 percent. As I mentioned, over five times that in Fraser Health. There is still this enormous demand.

So we're going to look at appropriateness. We have to work, certainly, with the medical community to make sure that the referrals themselves are medically appropriate and consistent with best practices. We are also going to look…. And that's one of the reasons why we undertook test pilots through the Lower Mainland innovation project and the Lower Mainland Innovation Fund that funded additional procedures, which I think is probably where the member is confusing this whole issue of a cut when in fact they were additional procedures undertaken as a result of a pilot project to determine whether or not we could deliver MRI procedures with higher levels of productivity and try and learn some lessons from doing things differently — like centralized booking, as they did in Vancouver Coastal, for example.

Once the pilot project was completed…. We've taken that information back, and ministry staff are working with health authorities to take some of those lessons and see how they can be incorporated into driving higher productivity and more MRI scans being undertaken with the already massive dollars that have been invested.

With respect to the Royal Columbian Hospital emergency department, yes, I can assure the member that I had the opportunity to tour through the emergency department, and it is a very cramped emergency department. In fact, well, really it is…. I guess at the time the hospital was built, a long time ago…. The member would know better than I. I know it was in the 1800s that it originally located at that site, at Sapperton. I don't recall when the actual structure of the emergency department was built, was actually constructed, but it was a long time ago. I imagine at the time they probably thought: "Wow, what a wonderful, spacious facility." But that clearly is not the case today.

One of the things that I know the Fraser Health is working on is a capital review of the capital needs at Royal Columbian Hospital, and we will certainly be working with Fraser Health as they start to do and put together some of the vision as to what a rehabilitated Royal Columbian might look like.

That work has just begun. It's very much in the early stages, but I certainly was convinced by the tour that I took of the emergency department that: (1) we have exceptional people working there, they do exceptional work, and there is no question about that; and (2) we really have to look at, as we have with emergency departments right across the province, what additional investments can be made to help them deal and to be able to work in an environment that allows them more latitude.

V. Huntington: I would like to address the minister about the emergency physician situation at Delta Hospital. He will recall that last fall in estimates I asked a question about the discussions that were ongoing pursuant to an agreement between the ministry and, I believe, BCMA and the physicians for reallocation discussions should the need warrant among different hospitals. I believe that there were 19 participating hospitals.

The minister at that time said that the process was in place, discussions were ongoing and that he felt it would be appropriate to abide by the decision. As the minister knows, a decision was made.

The reallocation was agreed to by the different hospitals and physicians, but his ministry vetoed the decision. I now understand that there have been negotiations going on with regard to increasing the numbers, the funding for ER doctors, within those hospitals.

[1605]

I'm wondering if the minister can advise me. I have heard that there may be hope on the horizon — that increased funding might be coming forward. But I'm wondering if the minister can advise me of what the progress of those discussions are presently.

Hon. K. Falcon: I thank the member from Delta House — sorry, Delta South. It must be getting late in the day. I was probably thinking about the new Delta hospice that we invested in and opened in Delta South. Maybe that's….

Interjection.

Hon. K. Falcon: Yes, I thought that there was a contribution by the province — was there not?

V. Huntington: There was, to a limited extent.

The Chair: Through the Chair, please.

Interjection.

Hon. K. Falcon: Oh yes. Well, sadly, I wish I could be in a world where we only provided capital and had someone else do the operational funding, but sadly, I'm not in that world. The operational funding is the most expensive part of the health care system, I can assure the member. But anyway, I was just making a crack there about the tiredness.

I do want to thank the member for the question. The member is absolutely correct. Here I find myself, after having this discussion with the member in the fall, saying almost the exact same thing, in that the discussions are still ongoing.

They have been difficult discussions in some way, because this isn't easy. It's not easy for all the participants, including the BCMA and the emergency physicians that are represented on the committee that helps negotiate this.
[ Page 5927 ]

What I can say to the member, though, in absolute candour is that I am encouraged by the recent developments in the discussions that have taken place, and I do feel confident in saying that I think that some real progress is being made.

I can tell the member that I had the opportunity, along with my deputy, to meet recently with the president of the BCMA. We had a very good discussion about this issue, about how to kind of break the logjam that seemed to be holding up an agreement being done. We were both trying to understand what exactly the basis of the logjam was.

I think the discussion was very fruitful, and I am hopeful. I think the member characterized it correctly — that we are very close. I hope that we will have some good news in that regard very shortly for the members that were asking about the emergency department funding for those 19 contracted emergency departments, including Delta South.

V. Huntington: I wait with bated breath to see whether Delta receives what it needs. It's all well and fine, sir, to suggest that there is a 2 percent average across the province in lack of….

Or patient? Did you say "increased patient numbers in the ERs"? In certain hospitals, Royal Columbian and Delta…. Delta is up to close to a 25 percent increase, and we need two full FTEs in order to bring the patient-doctor ratio back under control. I really do hope that, whatever success in those negotiations is forthcoming, it alleviates the pressure at Delta Hospital.

Another….

The Chair: Member, have you finished your question?

V. Huntington: I was wondering whether the minister was going to add anything. Otherwise, I'll continue, Madam Chair.

Hon. K. Falcon: Thank you for the question. Member, one of the issues that has been identified as one of the logjams is that you, I guess, inevitably in this business get into a little bit of a battle over what those numbers are. The emergency department physicians will have one set of numbers that they believe are the case. Then the ministry might have another, and everyone gets into a bit of a tussle.

There has been some significant progress made on agreeing what the appropriate measurement is to use when determining whether those numbers are 2 percent, 26 percent — whatever the case may be. I think that has unblocked some of the challenge that we're facing.

[1610]

What I can assure the member is that the moment that agreement is made, part of that agreement, which is made by the committee, will say that if there are to be additional resources, they will go to where the numbers lead them. If, indeed, that is Delta Hospital, then Delta Hospital will receive additional resources, obviously contingent on the agreement being finalized.

V. Huntington: As I say, I wait with bated breath for the announcements of those additional resources and how much of it does come to Delta.

Last February the ministry issued a request for proposals for due-diligence services on the Lower Mainland consolidation project. I think that the RFP issue closed on February 23, and the work was supposed to commence on or about March 1. Was that the case? Was a contractor chosen? Has the work commenced, and has the first two-month phase of his four-month reporting come to the ministry as yet?

Hon. K. Falcon: The contractor that was selected was Accenture. The work is underway, and we are awaiting their report.

V. Huntington: I notice that the minister used the words "working toward measurables within the department." Much of the purpose for this report was to define a mechanism for monitoring and evaluating project progress. I noted that this request for proposals for due-diligence services came out at about the same time as the Auditor General tabled his reports on the electronic records and on PARIS.

Some of the recommendations within those reports — were they part of the encouragement for issuing this? I would have thought that much of this work would have been ongoing within the ministerial management structure, given the size of the consolidation project.

Hon. K. Falcon: No, there was no connection whatsoever. What I can tell the member is that one of the reasons we're going through the consolidation process is to consolidate back-office functions amongst all the different health authorities. One of the messages that you will hear loud and clear from members of the public is that they don't want to see unnecessary administration duplication within the health care system.

We have seen, through the shared services organization which undertakes joint procurement on behalf of all the health authorities, a change that we initiated here in British Columbia. We are leading the country in that regard, where thus far we have saved over $115 million — dollars that can be then redirected into direct front-line health care. That is exactly what I think the public would expect.

In this case, after six months of working through back-office consolidation, what we did was engage Accenture to bring in a look, to make sure about how it's proceeding, where we can do better and just to ensure that the process that is underway is meeting with the best practices.
[ Page 5928 ]

Accenture has experience, as the member would know, from around the world. They brought some of their best expertise from around the world to look at and compare how we were doing with our back-office consolidation compared to other jurisdictions in which they've been involved with similar-type work. So we do await their report with some eagerness.

V. Huntington: Is that report to be made public?

Hon. K. Falcon: I would have no hesitation in making that report public once I receive it.

[1615]

V. Huntington: I have one other question in this regard. One of the guiding principles for the Lower Mainland consolidation project included: "Comprehensive business cases will not be required for each project initiative; the pace and magnitude of savings will drive flexibility in the business models." Could you explain why there would be no necessity for a business case model and why you would drive a project by the pace and flexibility in the business model?

Hon. K. Falcon: The rationale is that we wanted to achieve the organizational consolidation as early as possible, so that in each area, whether it was communications, accounting, payroll or parking, there would be a health authority lead that would be responsible for leading that consolidation in their area of responsibility.

Then, once we did that, we could look at what gains we can receive beyond the initial administrative benefits, obviously, of going from four different structures of payroll, four different structures of communication and four different structures of accounting, parking and all the rest of it. Once you bring that into one, you obviously get some immediate savings on the administrative side, but then we wanted to move forward to see how, perhaps through additional investments or other ways, we could generate increased productivity and how we could generate further benefits.

V. Huntington: I'll accept that. I'm not sure how you can progress on a consolidation of this magnitude without a comprehensive business case to begin with.

However, could I ask — and I must say that I think looking at consolidation in this way is very worthwhile: how long do you think it will take to evaluate the success or not? When would you anticipate moving to consolidate the Northern Health, Interior Health and Vancouver Island health authorities as it's noted in the principles?

[1620]

Hon. K. Falcon: I thank the member for the question. The reason why we proceeded in the way we did, in terms of initially involving really just the entities in the Lower Mainland, was to ensure that we got it right in an area where you've got a pretty easy geographical area, where everyone can work together.

All the partners at Vancouver Coastal and Fraser and PHSA and Providence all work within a pretty defined area, and we felt that that it would be a really good and it should be a fairly straightforward way to engage in that consolidation and learn whatever lessons we need to learn from that consolidation.

Once we have all of that information, then we have the opportunity to begin engagement with the other health authorities to allow them to on-board and to become part of the consolidation lessons that we realized as a result of working initially in the Lower Mainland.

V. Huntington: Yes, I understand that's the process and why you would have done it that way. I was just asking how long you think the evaluation process is going to take.

You might consider at the same time, Minister…. I understand that the governing structure is such that one area of consolidation, for instance, will lie within different authorities. I'm wondering how that governing structure would work when you're consolidating on a provincewide basis. How would you anticipate the different authorities handling the consolidation of services from long, long distances away?

Hon. K. Falcon: I guess in terms of the member's first point — and I apologize for forgetting to answer it in my first answer — about at what point you will be able to evaluate. I guess by way of example, I mentioned earlier the success we've had with the shared services organization, which, again, is undertaking a consolidation of joint purchasing.

In that case, it's been three years since we first initiated the implementation of the shared services, and we started to really see the benefits after two years. Now, of course, we are up to $115 million in cumulative savings thus far through the shared services organization. I don't know if that's an exact sort of time frame, but it's probably not unrealistic. It will take some time, once you put the changes into place, to start to see the benefits.

In terms of when and how it might allow other health authorities like Interior Health or Northern Health to become part of the consolidation project, I think the member is absolutely right to point out that….

[1625]

One of the reasons why we didn't start out trying to do it with everyone was that, first of all, we wanted to do it in a confined geographical area, which we felt would be much easier to work with and, again, try to learn whatever lessons we might learn as we went through the process so that we didn't try to do too much all at once and end up somehow messing it up.
[ Page 5929 ]

But what I can tell the member is that those discussions will begin, but one of the things we'll be looking at is only consolidating where it makes sense. So it may not, actually, to the member's point, quite correctly…. The distance issue alone for Northern Health could very well mean that consolidation doesn't make any sense. Where that is identified, that will certainly not be something that will happen.

Actually, I think a really good example of a recent case that I witnessed that I don't think has gone particularly well was in Alberta, where Alberta decided to say: "Well, we're just going to consolidate into one big, super health region and, by goodness, by demonstrating we're doing this, this is going to really show everyone how serious we are about reforming health care."

The problem is that it did nothing of the sort. They are, you know, having huge challenges in managing their system. Their health care expenditures went up this year by something in the range of — if you add in the old deficit they had to pay off — 17-plus percent, and they are having real difficulty on meeting some of the nationally set targets and standards and outcomes for wait-lists, for example. They're at seven or eight.

So we are trying to be as methodical and careful about this as we responsibly can, but also we're trying to move the process along reasonably quickly but, again, not doing it or trying to do too much all at once so that we could risk stumbling as we go through the process.

N. Macdonald: I just want to ask the minister one question. It's on behalf of a young constituent of mine, Tonie Minhas. Tonie is a grade 12 student at David Thompson Secondary School in Invermere, and she's an active member of the school's Youth Action Team, which they call YAT. YAT is a group of students from grades 8 to 12, and they promote safe choices. They spread awareness about drug abuse, impaired driving and other social pressures.

The concern that they have, and that Tonie in particular has, is that Shelley Chaney, the youth drug and alcohol prevention worker at David Thompson — that's the adult supervisor for YAT, amongst other things — is having her position terminated because of a decision by Interior Health. Just to give you Tonie's words: "Shelley has acted as our adviser, our leader, our friend, and the students' opinion is that the position at the school is vital to the continuation of this important group."

She goes on to say, and I'll just put it on the record…. These are Tonie's words: "Due to the loss of Shelley's position, David Thompson Secondary School will lose one of its greatest strengths. Shelley's position is vital to the health of youth in this community. It's an absolute shame that her position will not exist next year."

So the question that Tonie Minhas asked me to pass along to the minister is on behalf of her group and students at David Thompson Secondary School. They want to know why such a valuable program would be cut when it is so clear that students are benefiting from having Miss Chaney there doing the work that she's doing.

[1630]

Hon. K. Falcon: First of all, let me commend Tonie Minhas and the work that they are doing as youngsters that are trying to promote and support issues around safe choices. I totally commend them on that and their involvement. I think it's outstanding when I hear about young people engaged in trying to encourage healthy choices amongst young people. I want to, first of all, commend Tonie Minhas and the others that are involved in that.

What I can tell the member is that the school-based prevention programs, one of which the member is referring to, were created in the 1990s and funded by the Ministry of Health, and the focus was on substance abuse. But what has happened now is that there's been a change in approach to how we should be dealing with these kinds of issues as a result of the 2007 report on prevention by the provincial health officer.

What has happened as a result of that report in 2007 is Interior Health held a nine-month consultative process with 16 school districts, independent schools, aboriginal schools, Ministry of Children and Family Development, mental health and addictions, public health, staff, students, parents and others to gather input on how Interior Health could improve the kind of services they were providing in the schools — to move away from the narrow definition of having people in there dealing with just substance abuse to a more comprehensive approach on dealing with the wider range of issues that young people now have to deal with.

The results are obtained in the Healthier Schools, Healthier Students Project: Interior Health Roles in the School Setting, recommendations for change. What is happening is that the public health prevention services are terminating the existing school-based prevention contracts with the intention to essentially provide a new and different service across the 16 public school districts, independent schools and aboriginal schools to support the implementation of a comprehensive school health model that will try and create a healthier school environment.

It is based upon the Healthier Schools, Healthier Students approach. That's the new approach that they are referring to. So yes, it is a change. I certainly understand how the students probably recognize the great work that Miss Chaney has undertaken in their school in the substance abuse programs, but it is a change that I understand is predicated and founded on a best-practices model.

In fact, I will say that one of the things that we are discovering in the Ministry of Health…. We funded, as the member may know, the addictions research centre at the
[ Page 5930 ]
University of Victoria, and one of the things that we are now discovering is that there is a multitude of different programs by different ministries in the schools trying to deliver a multitude of different messages. What has clearly come out of a lot of the review that's undertaken is that there needs to be, as Interior Health is trying to move forward, a more comprehensive prevention agenda that includes substance abuse prevention messages but also much more broadly incorporates some of the other prevention issues that are important for young people.

A. Dix: A question to the minister.

The minister's requesting a five-minute recess? We should have a five-minute recess. That's okay. No problem.

The Chair: I'm happy to recess the committee for five minutes.

The committee recessed from 4:35 p.m. to 4:44 p.m.

[J. McIntyre in the chair.]

A. Dix: A question to the minister about the issues and changes he's recently made to the regulations around eye care.

The minister will know that in the fall of 2009 there was a B.C. Court of Appeal case that ordered a company named Coastal Contacts to change its business model or seek legislative change. Rather than ask Coastal Contacts to change its business model and to be able to receive a prescription, which seems eminently possible, the government and the minister decided to change the business model of optometrists in general.

[1645]

He will know that just about every major group involved in eye care — the CNIB, the optometrist groups, the ophthalmologist groups, experts from universities — all have said that this represents a lowering of standards. I could read the minister many letters. He has, in fact, received many letters, I would suggest; I would suspect. I'll read one from Dr. Robert Schertzer.

"As a glaucoma subspecialized ophthalmologist, I see the devastating loss of vision that can result from inadequate screening eye examinations. Glaucoma is asymptomatic until half the optic nerve is destroyed, and the irreversible process is well underway. By no longer requiring an eye exam by an optometrist or ophthalmologist for a prescription, there will be more patients not presenting with glaucoma until they become symptomatic, which means not until they're already partially blind."

That's one of many cases. The evidence is all on one side in this case, notwithstanding the minister's referrals to claim that this is a research-based decision. It was clearly not a research-based decision; it was a business-based decision for this one company.

It seems to me that it doesn't make sense without consultation on this question. There have, in fairness to the minister, been consultations on some of the other changes that the minister has made to the regulation. But on this one there wasn't really consultation with optometrists. The minister proceeded. He has changed the way the industry is, he has lowered standards, and he's done it for one company.

My question to the minister is pretty simple. Why not ask Coastal Contacts to comply with the law and simply have them process the prescription if they're going to sell contact lenses over the Internet?

Hon. K. Falcon: Part of me is a little bit surprised in an issue like this that allows greater choice for the public. It particularly allows low-income folks to have opportunities to purchase required eyewear at a much lower cost through increased opportunities and market competition that the member appears to come out solidly against.

But the member was right when he talked about changing a business model. That is true. We have changed a business model. When you change a business model, there are people that are going to be happy, and there will be people that will be unhappy.

First of all, let me go into a little bit of history for the member. Actually, this issue has a lot of history and a lot of discussion, so let me take the member back six years, to 2004. So what happened in 2004?

Actually, I'll go back even further for the member. I'll go back to the late '90s. In the late '90s a new technology was introduced in British Columbia and increasingly across the country under the then NDP government. This new technology was called a vision-testing machine. What this vision-testing machine did was allow people to get their refractory score, as a result of utilizing the sight-testing machine, to determine what their prescription level would be for their glasses or contacts.

Now, this introduction of a technology and a change that was utilized by opticians created quite a hue and cry within the community of optometrists. Perhaps even…. I don't recall the ophthalmologists' position on it, but I think they probably seconded the position of the optometrists. So what happened? These sight-testing machines continued to expand in British Columbia. Then in 2004 our government said: "Well, wait a minute."

We now had a situation where we were having all these groups coming and complaining. The optometrists were complaining that the opticians were providing sight-testing services, and people were suggesting that this wasn't right. But we also recognized that the sight-testing technology did provide a service and that it was something that government should take a look at.

As a result of the introduction of that new technology, government proposed some changes to eyewear regulations that would allow sight-testing machines to be utilized under certain circumstances that would ensure that the public's health was protected. At the same time
[ Page 5931 ]
it would allow the public to have some choices in terms of being able to get their eyes tested.

So there was a large hue and cry at that time, and candidly, we all received a flood of letters, just as we did this time. At the time government said: "Okay, fine, we'll go back and give this some additional thought."

[1650]

We left the issue alone up until, as the member talks about correctly, 2009. We now have another technology. By the way, before I get into the other technology, I should say that there are sight-testing machines today in British Columbia in over 100 opticians' offices. What happens, in accordance to the regulation as it is written…. These are decades-old regulations. They are required to have a prescription before they can use the results of the sight test to allow someone to get some glasses or contacts.

So what they have been doing, and this was part of the debate that took place in 2004, is faxing the results to ophthalmologists in other provinces, including Alberta, and the ophthalmologists would fax back and say: "Fine." They would have their prescription.

Of course, the optometrists were upset that was taking place — all the usual hue and cry. But I point that out because that has been the case since 1998 in British Columbia. There's no examination that's taken place of all those individuals. I have seen no evidence that there have been outbreaks of blindness and people being traumatically affected or impacted by the fact that they were receiving no eye exam as a result of the sight-testing they received through opticians' offices in over 100 offices across the province.

Nevertheless, that was sort of the state of the nation as it was in 2004, and that continued right up to 2009. What happened in 2009? The member is quite correct. There is now a new technology — again. It's called the Internet. The Internet is resulting in people having the option and the ability now to purchase glasses and contact lenses on line.

We have a company Coastal Contacts that operates in British Columbia. It's actually a big, successful B.C. story in the sense that they do over $100 million a year in business. They have 120 employees. What happened was the opticians this time were upset because now you had on-line sales taking place, and that was affecting the opticians' business model.

The opticians took Clearly Contacts to court and said: "Actually, the regulation says that you must have a physical copy of a prescription before you can provide the contacts or the glasses to individuals."

The judge, in making his decision — interestingly, recognizing that the decision he was about to make could potentially devastate a business that he recognized, I'm sure, was a growing, successful business in an age of real change with the use of the Internet — said: "Well, yes, technically it is against the regulation that is on the books that does require a physical copy. So, government, I am going to defer the implementation of my decision for six months to allow government to take a look at this and decide whether they want to deal with this issue before the judgment comes into effect."

So once again the issue of changes in technology and eyewear regulations was back to government. We decided at this time we were going to take a very hard look at this whole issue — recognizing that it was fraught with all kinds of issues from groups that have business models that are built around the way things operate as they are today. I can tell the member that at the time…. Just to give the member a sense of how this works, and this is very common in health care, people do, understandably, really jealously guard their economic area and are very resistant to any changes that may impact that.

When we provided additional scope of practice for the optometrists, we heard from the ophthalmologists that were not happy we provided the optometrists additional scope of practice. When the opticians were allowed to utilize sight-testing under very careful considerations that we put into place as a result of the new eyewear regulations, we heard from the optometrists. When the on-line retailers, being Clearly Contacts, were now able to dispense the eyeglasses or contacts without having a physical presentation of the prescription, we heard from the opticians.

[1655]

Not surprisingly — I think the critic nailed it in terms of the business model — any time you affect a business model, you are going to incite a reaction. The issue for us is…. We hear there are claims of lots of people being put at risk. That is something, obviously, we have to look at very, very carefully, and we did. We looked at the medical evidence very, very carefully to try and determine: what does the evidence tell us in terms of government's responsibility for protecting the public with respect to eye care?

One thing it told us is that this should only apply to those adults between the ages of 19 and 65. Why is that? Because we know most eye problems develop either in early years — up to age 19 — or after age 65. That is when the vast majority of problems will present. Does that mean all of the problems present during those age categories? Of course not. Some may present during that 19 to 65.

The changes actually incorporate, we believe, the appropriate level of safety that allows members of the public to be treated as responsible adults and to make responsible decisions with respect to their own health. For example, the regulation goes on in some detail about if a member of the public chooses to receive a prescription as a result either of their optometrist or through sight-testing.

If they are going to go through the sight-testing model, they are, first of all, restricted between the ages of 19 and
[ Page 5932 ]
65. There are requirements imposed on the opticians, who are governed by a professional college, that are very clear and that state that the optician is required to ask and inquire of an individual wishing to receive a sight test. It can't be the first test. If they've never had glasses or contacts, they have to go through an optometrist or be fitted by an optometrist, not an optician.

If they wish to have a renewal of their contacts and they come into an optician's office to have an independent automated refraction or sight-testing done, the optician is required to ask that client whether they have a history of any of the following…. It's an extensive list, but for the member's benefit…. It's in the regulation, but it essentially covers glaucoma, retinal detachment, macular degeneration, diplopia or if there's a refractive error beyond what is considered a healthy range in either eye. That automatically must refer them to an optometrist.

If they have any underlying conditions, like diabetes or hypertension…. For example, the member opposite, the critic, has indicated that he is a diabetic. He would have to be referred to an optometrist. If there's been any recent head trauma, if there's been any pain or incidents occurring in either eye within the last few months or any other symptoms — headaches, seeing stars, any of those kinds of symptoms — they are required to refer them to an optometrist. We tried to build in the appropriate protections.

Member, I apologize. That is a long answer, but this is a very complex issue. One of the things that I've discovered in debating this issue…. I've met personally with the president of the Association of Optometrists, Antoinette Dumalo. We had a very good, candid discussion about this issue.

At the end of the day, I am not compelled, as the Health Minister, that the government should force adult members of the public that are asymptomatic in terms of eye problems to be required to go have an eye health exam just to renew their glasses or their contact lenses if they are healthy adults between the ages of 19 and 65.

I hear the arguments. The argument essentially comes down to: "Yes, but potentially someone could have a diagnosis that is missed." That is true. It is also true today that we do not require healthy members of the public to go have annual physicals with their medical doctor, even though we know it is likely that some people out there may have some underlying condition that they are not aware of.

The issue in the health care system and when you're Health Minister is: when is it appropriate to make that a requirement? It is our considered view — after scouring the medical evidence, after listening to all the arguments, after reading all the letters — that we do not believe it is the role of government to have to enforce annual eye health exams on healthy individuals between the ages of 19 and 65.

[1700]

A. Dix: Hon. Chair, I'll just remind you of the question because the minister didn't answer it. He gave a long speech about the issue, and fair enough. It's a chance to put into the record his position on a whole bunch of issues I didn't ask him about.

What all the groups who have a medical opinion about this have said is that the minister is wrong. That's what they've said. They've said that the new regulations will result in eye disease going undetected.

And by the way, 55,000 referrals in 2005 — unless that was an unusually bad year for referrals — for people between 19 and 65, the people the minister's talking about. So 55,000 referrals from optometrists and ophthalmologists — not insignificant, because everybody knows, especially in eye health, that early detection is critical. Those of us who have, as the minister noted, underlying health conditions know that especially.

The question I have is this, I guess. If Coastal Contacts has a client they're selling to in another jurisdiction…. I just have this question. It just occurred to me now. But if they're selling to someone in another jurisdiction, where a prescription is required — say Washington State, Alberta or every other jurisdiction in the country, except, now, British Columbia — would Coastal Contacts require a prescription?

Hon. K. Falcon: I'm sorry the member doesn't like informed answers that try to address a very complex issue. The member likes to simplify these kinds of issues. I understand why he tries to do that, but I do think it is an important issue. It is important that we be informed by the evidence. I've spent a lot of time on this issue, as have my staff.

What I can tell the member is that Clearly Contacts would be required to adhere to whatever the law of those states would be, and they are required to adhere to whatever provincial laws are. What I think the member might find interesting is that no other province requires them to receive a physical copy of their prescription either.

Why is that? Why is British Columbia unique? Because we had a court case that compelled British Columbia that we had to deal with this issue.

We looked, as I say, at all the evidence. We built what we believe are the appropriate protections, recognizing that we can treat responsible members of the public as adults, recognizing that if you build in the appropriate protections, as we believe we have, that we can actually have a situation where people in British Columbia — adults, healthy adults — can go and determine whether or not they wish to receive a full eye health exam, which they are free to do, or whether they wish to receive their prescription through sight testing at an optician's office — and whether they wish to then purchase their glasses either at an optometrist or at an optician or, indeed, on line.
[ Page 5933 ]

[D. Hayer in the chair.]

That was a decision that we made as a result of the court case that challenged British Columbia to deal with this issue.

I don't mind telling the member that we are leading the way, as we have in so many other areas, but I do think that the member should also take a close look at what the evidence says in terms of how often an individual should receive eye health examinations. There is a wide variation in opinion on this subject. Not surprisingly, there's a wide variation of opinion because there is no consensus on what the appropriate requirement should be in terms of receiving eye health exams.

Now, we know the optometrists' association believes that should happen every couple of years. The Canadian Ophthalmologist Society has a different opinion. They suggest that between the ages of 19 and 40, you should have an eye health exam once every ten years; between 41 and 55, you should have an exam once every five years; and between 56 and 65, once every three years.

[1705]

In other words, there's some variation. The Mayo Clinic, which I think the member opposite would agree is a very reputable health care organization, has a different opinion. The Mayo Clinic suggests that asymptomatic individuals, because that's what we're talking about — healthy individuals between the ages of 19 and 65 who are asymptomatic — should have their eye health examined once in their 20s and twice in their 30s. Between the ages of 40 and 65, individuals should have their eye health examined every two to four years.

The reason why I read that into the record is that I want the member to understand that there is no specific standard. What we are requiring opticians to do and to have clients sign off on is an acknowledgment to the client….

First of all, a series of questions. As I mentioned to the member: do you have any underlying health conditions? Do you have high blood pressure? Are you a diabetic? Have you had any symptoms? Have you ever had glaucoma? Have you ever had this other range of symptoms that they are required to verbally walk through with the asymptomatic, healthy adult between the ages of 19 and 65? Then have the client sign off, acknowledging that they are not receiving an eye health exam; they are receiving a sight test.

Now, the question, then, really comes down to this. Can we trust adult British Columbians to be able to make health decisions with regards to their own health as informed members of the public? That's really the issue.

Can we rely on people having had a health professional, an optician, walk through all the things that emphasize that it's not an eye health exam they're receiving, that it is a refractory that will provide them what their prescription should be, that asks them all that series of questions, that has them sign off on the document and who then — and only then — will provide them with a prescription which will give them the freedom to decide where they wish to purchase their eyeglasses or contacts, whether it's on line, whether it's at that optician shop or whether it's through an optometrist?

We believe that adult British Columbians, informed British Columbians, are capable of making that choice. I must say that when I met with the president of the association, that was the point where we fundamentally disagreed. Ms. Dumalo's opinion was that no, she did not believe that informed British Columbians should be able to have that right to make that decision. We just fundamentally disagree on that point.

A. Dix: Specifically on the Mayo Clinic, the minister maybe can answer this. Does anyone at the Mayo Clinic…? He has referred in response to questions about the question of providing contact lenses and glasses without a prescription…. The minister has stated, has used the Mayo Clinic in support of his position a number of times.

Has anyone at the Mayo Clinic ever suggested that that was a good idea? Has anyone suggested that that's a good idea at the Mayo Clinic? I suspect that the answer to that question is no.

Who are the independent groups who are looking at that? The minister talks about business models, financial interests, the optometrists and everything. The Canadian National Institute for the Blind — they're against the minister. The Canadian Diabetes Association — they're against the minister. They don't have any interest. The Canadian Ophthalmologist Society, since the minister is talking about and referring to them and their interests — they disagree with the minister's position. In fact, every reputable group, whether they have a business interest or not, is against it.

Part of the reason why, and the minister is right on this…. What the minister has done…. The minister makes it sound like the court case came out of the ether, that it happened out there somewhere and had nothing to do with him. The court case reflected the law, and the law said that you needed a prescription. That's what happened. The court said: "The law says you need a prescription."

So either you've got to change your business model, or the government has to change the law. The government decided, because there was one company — one — in support of this, to favour that company over all these other people that have an interest in the question. That's what happened.

I guess the question that I have to the minister is: doesn't he think that allowing the on-line sale without verifying a prescription shifts the responsibility away from the seller? Don't you think that the seller should
[ Page 5934 ]
have some sort of responsibility in that regard? While he's at it, can he tell us whether anybody at the Mayo Clinic has endorsed this idea of providing these contact lenses or glasses without a prescription?

I will say to the minister, because I never want to be disrespectful to the minister…. I may have to take some of his answer in Hansard. My colleague from Nelson-Creston will continue with this in a moment, but I will be reading his answer anxiously in Hansard.

Hon. K. Falcon: As I said to the member, the member should look at what the Mayo Clinic says.

[1710]

What we are talking about here, Member, critic, is government requiring people to have an eye health exam so that they can get their prescription to renew and purchase new glasses or renewed contacts. It is apparently the position of the member opposite and the Health critic that the government's role is to force healthy, otherwise asymptomatic adults between the ages of 19 and 65 to go and have that test. That is an interesting position, but it isn't supported by the medical evidence.

That's the point of the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic isn't…. Of course, we haven't asked the Mayo Clinic what they think about how we're responding to a court decision that is asking the government to review a decades-old regulation that we had in place. But it is so typical of the NDP to always take the position that nothing should ever change, regardless of what's happening in the real world. Technologies are driving huge changes. You know, I find it interesting that it's the position of the Health critic that we just should ignore all that change taking place.

I'll give you an example. But first of all, let me say this: we support people having regular eye health exams. We have absolutely no hesitation in saying that. In fact, one of the things that we make clear in the regulation is that the optician who is providing the sight testing for individuals that are otherwise asymptomatic – healthy individuals between the ages of 19 and 65 — is required to point out the desirability of periodic eye health examinations, recommending that the client have an eye health examination in addition to the sight testing that they will receive.

It is not forcing them to do it, but it is saying: "By the way, we recommend eye health examinations as something that should be done on a regular basis." It is the apparently the position of the NDP now that, no, government must go farther and require that.

Now let me give the member…. The member is always talking about his concern for the lower-income folks. I had a young woman approach me a number of weeks back, who was 20 years old, who has been wearing contact lenses for many years and who wished to renew the contact lenses. This is an unemployed 20-year-old that is required to go and pay $150 that she doesn't have to have a full eye health exam so that she can get a prescription to allow her to renew her contact lenses.

It is the position of the NDP that the government must require that, but I think that is absolutely wrong. I don't think that young woman should be forced to have that eye health exam, particularly when we have the Mayo Clinic saying that someone in their 20s should maybe have their eye health examined once in their entire decade of their 20s and twice in their 30s.

Remember, otherwise healthy, asymptomatic individuals…. Even the Canadian Ophthalmological Society says that if you're between 19 and 40 you should have it once every ten years. These are just recommendations — okay? These are recommendations, and they differ because there is no consensus on when it is appropriate to have, and the frequency of having, eye health exams.

One thing we do know is that generally, if you're older than 65, then you should have them more frequently, for sure, and that's why we excluded age 65 and over. We also know that for young people, when often you first exhibit eye vision problems, you should also have those tests undertaken under age 19. In fact, that's why the province continues to fund and partially subsidize those eye health exams for those that are 19 and under or 65 and over.

You know, the fact of the matter is, Member, that that law is decades old. I know the member says that we should never change anything, regardless of changes in technology and the world changing all around us. I just fundamentally disagree with that position.

M. Mungall: My question pertains to the Avastin injections for people who need them for their eye care. It has come to my attention that B.C. Health will be renegotiating the Avastin funding program at the end of this month, and local ophthalmologists in my constituency are hoping that I could bring to the attention of the minister some of the issues that we're facing in my local region.

[1715]

What it is, is that it's $300 to get an ophthalmologist to do the injection, or they can get it for free at a clinic. That is done by subspecialists. Because there are no retinal subspecialists anywhere in the Kootenays….

There's an itinerant retinal subspecialist that travels at intervals and goes to Cranbrook and Kelowna. That means, say, that if you live in Meadow Creek, for instance, which is at the north end of my constituency, you have to travel — goodness — about four hours to get to Cranbrook, often spending the night. It costs you $300 just to do the travel, if you were going to get the injection for no cost, or you could get an ophthalmologist in Nelson to do it — that's only an hour and a half's travel — but then still pay that $300.

Either way, rural residents are having to pay out of their own pockets to get this injection, which is free to anybody who lives in larger urban centres. Our concern is that here we have, essentially, a two-tiered system
[ Page 5935 ]
based on whether you live in an urban or a rural centre.

What we're hoping to see in my area is that as this program is being renegotiated this month, we'll see some service delivery more regularly throughout the Kootenays and in a way that is accessible and not at extra cost to rural residents.

Hon. K. Falcon: I thank the member for the question.

Member, it may take some minutes, because we had actually canvassed this issue earlier, so the staff and some of the information are not directly with me, but we'll try and gather that for the member.

What I can say is that we are certainly very proud of the age-related macular degeneration program we have in British Columbia, which we initiated it as government, that provides options for three types of drugs: Visudyne, Avastin and Lucentis. We have made the decision that we are ensuring that retinal specialists, who are the most highly trained specialists in ophthalmology, are the ones that are going to be available to provide these injections for those that are dealing with issues around age-related macular degeneration.

We have, as the member correctly points out, a program that will see these retinal specialists go to different parts of the province to make it easier for those that wish to or need to receive these injections to have that opportunity. I recognize that all of the ophthalmologists would like to be able to provide that funded service, but it is the decision of the health professionals within the ministry that that is something that should be provided by retinal specialists.

I am hopeful that we can gather some additional information for the member that staff would be trying to bring to our attention.

S. Fraser: I want to go back to discussing the significant changes being made. Coastal Contacts, a single company, has been catered to here to make significant changes that seem to be contradicted by the advice of the optometrists, ophthalmologists, Diabetes Association and Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

Now, the critic pointed out just a few minutes ago that there were 55,000 referrals from optometrists in 2005. Hopefully, this will be quantified. How many of these referrals would not have happened, then, because of the changes, and how many patients would then be threatened with reduced eyesight, loss of eyesight or some level of blindness?

[1720]

Hon. K. Falcon: First of all, Member, in practice, nothing has changed. We've actually just regularized what has been happening in B.C. for ten years. As I mentioned, the introduction of sight-testing machines started coming on the scene in opticians' offices in the late 1990s.

We estimate that in the last decade there have been over 100,000 sight tests undertaken in British Columbia, with no eye health examinations resulting from that. What has been happening is…. Again, in an effort to get around outdated regulations, what the opticians are doing is faxing the results of the sight testing to ophthalmologists in other provinces. The ophthalmologist faxes back the prescription, never having seen the patient. The patient then has their prescription, and off they go to purchase the glasses or contacts, typically, from the opticians themselves.

This has gone on…. The member talks about: how many people have gone blind? Well, over 100,000 are estimated to have received sight testing with no health exam being provided over the last decade, and I'm not aware of a dramatic spike in people going blind in British Columbia or that people have had dramatic sight impacts as a result of a procedure and something that has taken place for over ten years in the province of British Columbia.

All the Coastal Contacts issue lawsuit did was, actually, once again, bring to government's attention that we have decades-old regulations that aren't meeting the current times. The sight-testing machine was sort of number one. That's the first time that this whole issue came to the fore in terms of one group complaining about another group.

Now what's happened is that another group has come about. They are utilizing the Internet and have built, apparently, a very successful model selling their contacts and glasses through the Internet. That has now upset another group, who took them to court. The court pointed out: "You've got a decades-old regulation here, government. I am going to withhold the imposition of judgment to give government time to look at this and decide whether they wish this judgment to take effect or whether they wish to actually change the regulation."

We made the decision — and granted, our hand was forced a little bit — that we are not going to leave the existing structure in place. We are not going to allow a very successful business model that is actually a B.C. success story to be devastated as a result of government allowing a decades-old regulation — that is, in our considered view, not supported by medical evidence — to be enforced. So we did make this change.

I get that the change causes an upset to the business model of many folks that are in the business, but my interest, again, is what is in the best interests of the purchasing public.

A. Dix: Of course, the purchasing public includes the CNIB, the Canadian Diabetes Association and all the groups that have passed judgment on the minister's proposal. I dare say that there is one group that supports the minister's proposal in this specific case, and that's Coastal Contacts, an organization that could have, in fact, complied with the existing regulation.
[ Page 5936 ]

The minister talks about having a prescription — giving someone dispensing contact lenses, for example, the obligation of getting a prescription — as being a decades-old regulation, as if it came from some other place and time. It doesn't come from some other place and time. It's in part for the protection of the consumer, of the patient, and it ensures that the patient's eye health, in the long run, is protected. That's the purpose of health regulation.

The fact that the minister decided to make this change without talking to any of those groups…. On this point, I agree with the minister. There was very significant consultation, as there has been…. I mean, even I, as opposition critic, dare say that I've had significant consultation on some of the issues — as between, say, optometrists and opticians over the years.

I just want to ask the minister…. You know, it's always a risk, but I'll ask the minister a final question about this. We created boards in 2008 to review just these kinds of scope-of-practice issues independently — right? In fact, at that time, in 2008, we had a good discussion in the House — myself and the former minister. I think he's still in cabinet — the member for Shuswap. He and I had a discussion about why we were bringing in independent boards to review these issues.

[1725]

What did the member for Shuswap say? I was hoping to get his exact quote, but the minister will have to take my word for it. What the minister said was that this was an ideal subject for a review by just such a board. In fact, he suggested that that was going to happen.

I'm curious to know why it is that the changes that were brought forward, the creation of health profession review boards to review just those issues of scope of practice, weren't used in this case years ago to address some of these questions. We created that. The Legislature voted. We voted unanimously to create it. The minister at the time said that he was going to address some of these issues between optometrists and opticians and that this was the ideal mechanism to do it.

Setting aside the issue of Coastal Contacts, on which we apparently disagree and on which he didn't bother consulting in any event, why did the minister, on the other questions, avoid the health professions review board process, which seems set up for that purpose? Again, because you know that I always give credit where credit is due, Minister, it was an initiative by the government that was supported by the opposition.

Hon. K. Falcon: Yes, it is true, Member, that government does have the option of appointing advisory panels. I think that the member is construing the former minister's comments not quite correctly. He did not commit to doing that. What he did use was this issue as an example of how those advisory panels could be used.

The reason why it wasn't utilized, though, was…. Believe me, we are well aware of what everyone's opinions are. We went through a major discussion about this six years ago, and no one's position has changed. Everyone still says the same thing.

I will say to the member, because he quotes from letters from the Diabetes Association, etc., that one of the common themes I've discovered in virtually all the letters I've had a chance to look at is that they are not in accordance with what we are actually doing. For example, the Diabetes Association doesn't appear to be aware that if you have diabetes, you will not be a candidate for sight testing. That is something that is written in the regulation very clearly.

In fact, it is an obligation of the opticians, which are governed by a professional association, the College of Opticians, who regulates the practice of opticians. They are required to follow the regulation, and the requirement is very clear about the fact that if you have any underlying health conditions — and they go through a very detailed description of what those underlying conditions might be — then you are not eligible to utilize sight testing in order to renew your prescription.

I think that is important to recognize, Member. I'll give an example. I was on CBC radio, and I was having a debate, I guess you could say — well, a discussion — with the folks from the radio. The day before they had had on an optometrist, and the optometrist had on a patient. They were giving an example of this patient being an example of how this regulation could be harmful to patients in the province.

The patient, whose name I do not recall, essentially said: "You know, I was having blinding headaches. I was seeing stars. It felt like my brain was melting. I went to my optometrist, and they discovered I had a number of health issues associated with an eye problem."

Well, that is my point. That's why the optician is required by regulation to actually ask an individual: "By the way, have you been seeing stars?" If your brain feels like it is melting or you have severe headaches or you have any of the kind of conditions that any reasonable person, particularly an optician, would recognize as a symptom that would suggest that you are not asymptomatic, then they are automatically referred to either their family doctor or an ophthalmologist or an optometrist. That is entirely appropriate.

What I would say to the critic is that the vast majority of the letters, if not completely wrong in what they were asserting the government was doing…. In fact, I even took the president of the optometrists association to task because the optometrists association president had said in the media that this would mean that nobody in British Columbia would be required to have an eye health exam from cradle to grave. That is just a completely false statement.

[1730]

When I met with Ms. Dumalo, the first thing I pointed out was that I understand how these issues can
[ Page 5937 ]
elicit some disagreement, and I understand that there are business issues associated with this. But I do think it is important that we have a debate based upon facts. It is not helpful when people are putting information out there that is simply not the case.

Again, it is the position of this minister and this government that informed members of the public, healthy adults that are asymptomatic between the ages of 19 and 65, are capable of determining, upon extensive advice being provided by an optician, that if they are having a sight test, it is not an eye health exam.

They painstakingly go through that fact. They point out that, if they have any symptoms whatsoever or any underlying health conditions — which are explained in detail, in excruciating detail within the regulation — they are required to refer them to an ophthalmologist or an optometrist.

We believe with those proper safeguards in place that informed members of the public, adults in British Columbia, are capable of making a choice with regard to their own eye health, just as they do every day with regard to other aspects of their overall health and their body.

A. Dix: Of course, it's a recurring theme that those…. I mean, it's a surprising, even an astonishing, position. I mean, the minister's position, as I understand it, as to why he didn't use the health professions boards was that he didn't need to hear any more evidence because he knew best.

His position on the criticisms that have come from every major group involved in eye health, those that have a business interest and those that don't have a business interest, is that the ones that have a business interest, well, they don't count. They've got a business interest — except for Coastal Contacts, on the one hand — and the rest of them don't know what they're talking about.

Well, this is clearly not the case. The minister is in a minority of one on this question, and everyone else has taken a different view. For the minister to say….

Hon. K. Falcon: That's not true.

A. Dix: Well, there's been an interesting debate. The minister says it's not true. I mean, it's on the issue of not having a prescription. You look at people across the country, across the United States, who have written us, people who have an interest and people who haven't had an interest. I haven't received on that issue, other than the intervention from Coastal Contacts — and fair enough, they're in business; I'm not being critical of them…. They're seeking regulatory and legislative change, just like people do all the time. I don't have an issue with Coastal Contacts asking for legislative change.

I mean, of course, they would rather do that than adjust their business model to the law. They would rather adjust the law to their business model, and I understand. But other people who have an interest, who have expressed a view on this, I think have been very thoughtful in their concerns. They deserve more than the contempt they get from the minister, who just dismisses their concerns as either being concerns of ignorance, which is not true — people who work in eye health know eye health; they know it better than the minister, and they know it better than me — or secondly, to suggest that they're just self-interested in some way.

I think that both of those things are entirely wrong, and they're disrespectful suggestions. Apparently, the minister disagrees. I understand that he disagrees. He hasn't been convinced. But that doesn't mean that the people involved don't take their position seriously. Many, many of the people…. Thousands of the people who are referred from optometrists and ophthalmologists every year — and the minister knows this because he has the evidence — were asymptomatic before they had the exam done.

I know the government is considering cutting off the evidence-based programs that assist children in kindergarten — that review the eye health of people in kindergarten. They're considering doing that and everything else. I know they're not big supporters of eye health because they think it's too expensive or something. Nonetheless, what we all know is that strong regulations, high standards with respect to eye health, are good for the public health system, because everything gets more expensive — particularly in something as important as eye health — when you don't make prevention the number one priority.

The minister has lowered standards. According to everybody who's written us, he has lowered standards to the lowest in the country in this regard. Naturally, people who care about those things, not just because they have a business interest in those things, but people who care about those things because they actually meet with people every day and they've made it their life's work, deserve more than the kind of disrespect we've just heard about their position.

[1735]

In any event, I think that we have fully canvassed that issue. I wanted to ask the minister in the short period of time remaining to us — which is really a short period of time when you think about it, Minister…. That's only half of one of your average answers.

I wanted to ask the minister one final question, with the small possibility, the miniscule possibility, that I won't be able to ask another question after the minister responds. I wanted to ask the minister a question about a subject I asked him about in the debate on the legislation on Bill 11.

I asked him about the critical care teams in Trail. At that time, the minister…. Again, I want to quote him: "In terms of the critical care team in Trail, again, I don't
[ Page 5938 ]
personally have a huge amount of extensive knowledge of that, but I am led to understand from staff that that is a pilot, and the goal is to continue with that pilot project."

Indeed, the critical care team — it was initially established in 2005 as a pilot project. It replaced a previous approach, which had nurses and physicians together, with an approach that paired critical care nurses and paramedics. It was established in 2005. The member for Shuswap, the former Minister of Health, has repeatedly acknowledged the value of the program.

I wanted to ask the minister exactly what the status of the critical care team in Trail is today. There has been a change in the personnel of those teams. I'd like to ask him why that occurred. I wanted to ask him why you would remove paramedics from that team and replace them with more expensive physicians who are needed in the community.

So I ask the minister those questions. Then, as I say, there's a small possibility that this will be my last question. The minister's responses tend to be long.

I just wanted to express my appreciation to the legislative intern Angie Riano, who did excellent work for me on these estimates. I wanted to express appreciation to Tracey Janes. The minister will be impressed by this. Tracey is not only a researcher for health, but she actually has several other ministries, which I think shows a remarkable level of skill and knowledge in a whole bunch of different areas. I want to express appreciation to Jasmyn Singh, who works on communications issues for me and who provided lots of assistance with these estimates.

I wanted to express my appreciation, as always, to the deputy minister, Mr. Dyble. If I may address Mr. Dyble through you, hon. Chair, just to ask him to pass on from me my appreciation for the ongoing work of the staff of the Ministry of Health. These are some of the most important issues we deal with in British Columbia.

While the minister and I may disagree on some of them from time to time, I think we appreciate, not just in the Ministry of Health but in the health authorities, the extraordinary work that goes on every day to help people get healthy, to help people stay healthy.

If you would pass that on, I would appreciate that, Mr. Dyble — my appreciation to you and your entire staff for all the work that you do.

With that, I'll leave the minister with the question about critical care teams.

Hon. K. Falcon: Before I get to the critical care transport, just a final comment on what the member said, because I want to correct the record. The member said very wrongly that we are eliminating the vision testing program that we have in elementary schools. Actually, our government brought that in. That program did not exist in the entire decade of the 1990s under the NDP. We're proud of that program, and that program is not going to change. I want to just put that on the record.

I know in rhetorical flourishes that sometimes we can start to ignore the facts, apparently. But I did want to correct that for the record.

With respect to the issue of critical care transport in Trail, my understanding is that that was an innovative program that was introduced — he's right — by the prior Minister of Health and was recently reviewed to see if it was meeting the expectations that were set out some five years ago. I think, to a large degree, there is a sense that it really hasn't fully met expectations in terms of the number of calls that require two specially trained specialists to attend, as well as the secondary role that team members were supposed to spend providing patient care and other support to the hospital where the team was based.

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One of the challenges may have been related to the sort of dual-employer, dual-professional model of paramedics and nurses. It's one of the reasons why we have recently announced that the paramedic union is going to be merged into part of the health care union sector. We think that that is a step in the right direction in terms of how it may be able to better deal with integration that was hoped to be achieved in this particular case.

I am advised that the B.C. Ambulance Service and Interior Health are still in discussions and no decision has yet been made, but I did want to try and point out for the record that I think that in some ways it has fallen short of some of the initial expectations.

I do want to thank the member. I understand that the member made some generous remarks at the end there, and I do want to thank the critic for the always capable job that the critic does in holding government and this minister to account in terms of the Health Ministry.

I also do want to take a moment to thank and recognize the staff — not only the staff that have been with me in the course of our estimates debate, through the entire course, but also the staff that do the work within the ministry, that provide the support documents and the details. Many of them are probably watching now, and I do want to take a moment to thank all of them for the great work they've done.

If I may, in my concluding remarks…. I do think that it's important to recognize that in British Columbia — as is the case right throughout the country and, indeed, around the world — we are facing some pretty exceptional challenges. I think that most members of the public recognize that.

It's the challenge of an aging demographic. It is the challenge of increased utilization of health care services. It is the challenge of new technologies that drive new use of services. It is the challenge of trying to figure out how we can start to measure on health outcomes and not just measure on how much we're putting into the
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system. And as I've said earlier, certainly if we wanted to measure the system based on how much we're putting into it, then I think that British Columbia can stand proud, perhaps proudest, of the fact that a 90 percent increase in the health care budget since 2001 is obviously a substantial increase.

I do want to say this. Over the last year that I have been Health Minister, we have undergone some significant changes to try and deal with the challenges of increased cost pressures rising in the health care system. In spite of enormous increases in operational budgets and in capital budgets — record levels — there are still challenges. The changes we have made thus far could not have happened without the support of the staff in the Ministry of Health and also without the leadership and the support of staff within the health authorities and the PHSA.

I do want to state for the record, and I hope that those members of the health professions, both at the administrative level and the front-line workers…. Whether they're care aides, LPNs, nurse practitioners, RNs, medical physicians, specialists, whatever the case may be, the work that they do every day on behalf of British Columbians needs to be recognized and applauded. I know that the critic would join me in saying that.

Our challenge as we go forward, and it will be an ongoing challenge, is to try to ensure that we meet the needs of British Columbians in delivering the high-quality health care that British Columbians would demand and expect, and continue to receive some of the best outcomes in the country — as we have had the opportunity to share with the members of this gallery — as we go forward.

I want to thank the Speaker and the Chair and the Clerk for the great work they do in keeping two members of this Legislature who are infamous for their vigorous cross-battle repartee….

A. Dix: I'm just famous.

Hon. K. Falcon: That's right. The critic is just famous. I am probably infamous. But nevertheless, we do enjoy this process. It is vigorous, and the critic does it with aplomb, as do members of the opposition, and I thank all of them for their questions.

Vote 37: ministry operations, $14,612,943,000 — approved.

Hon. K. Falcon: I move that the committee rise, report resolution and completion of the Ministry of Health Services and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:45 p.m.

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