2011 Legislative Session: Third 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)


Monday, May 16, 2011


Morning Sitting


Volume 22, Number 1

[ Page 6995 ]

MONDAY, MAY 16, 2011


The House met at 10:02 a.m.


[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]


Prayers.


Tabling Documents


Hon. B. Penner: I'm not rising to present a bill but just to table a document that I attempted to table late last Thursday: B.C. regulation 258/87. It's also publicly available on the Legislative Assembly website.


Leave granted.


B. Simpson: I rise on a point of order.


Mr. Speaker: Proceed.


Point of Order


B. Simpson: Monday mornings are supposed to be for private members' business. This is a specific time set aside for MLAs who are not in cabinet to act as free agents on issues of concern to them.


According to Standing Order 25A, the selection of private members' statements is supposed to be chosen by lot by the Speaker, not by agreement of the House Leaders and Whips, as is the practice.


Allowing House Leaders and Whips to determine which MLAs get to make statements defeats the purpose of private members' time and completely undermines its spirit and intent. Also, allowing Whips to submit preapproved lists of responses to statements and motions similarly undermines the intent of private members' time.


I ask the Speaker to rule in this chamber on three aspects of private members' time. What is the spirit and intent of this time? What process is to be used to determine which MLAs get time? And are speaker lists necessary for respondents, or do those lists undermine the spirit and intent of private members' time?


I seek leave to table a longer submission to the Speaker.


Leave granted.


Mr. Speaker: Member, I'll take that under advisement and report back.


Orders of the Day


Hon. B. Penner: I call private members' statements.


[1005]

Private Members' Statements


EARLY LEARNING


M. Elmore: I'm pleased to be speaking today on the topic of early learning, which includes early care and learning. The value of investing in early years has been widely proven and established by international research and also upheld by the universally recognized research of the human early learning partnership. It is during this period of early years from zero to six where the development of young children is formative, and investment and public spending on the early years is a wise social and economic investment.


[D. Black in the chair.]


The issue is also that quality child care is early learning. In addressing the current crises in child care in British Columbia, there's an urgent need to adopt an early care and learning plan.


Three areas, Madam Speaker. Particularly, families are facing a crisis in being able to access quality, affordable child care in terms of spaces. Fees are too high, and it's the second-highest expense after housing. Additionally, wait-lists are too long, and we currently have regulated spaces for only 20 percent of B.C. children. In addition to that, another aspect of quality early care and learning for children is the issue of college-trained early childhood educators. Their wages are too low, which forces many to leave the field to earn a living wage.


To respond to this crisis that we have currently in British Columbia, based on the evidence, corporate big-box child care is not the answer. We need to look to public systems that work well, systems that integrate child care and education under one lead ministry, particularly Education.


We're seeing that that is the trend internationally in the provision of affordable, accessible, quality child care — being able to more efficiently combine programs, have it more effectively delivered and ensure that there is the universal access afforded under the Ministry of Education. The benefits to families, children and long-term economic success in creating jobs has been proven, and it's certainly necessary at this time here in B.C.


I want to speak, as well, of the benefits to the economy. It's been proven, not having to state it, that it's important to support families and children for their development. Also, there's a big boost to the economy. An early care and learning system creates jobs. It also supports families and allows parents, particularly mothers, to reintegrate back into the workforce. There's also a return on increased taxes from working parents back into the economy.


It's also supported by business, which has recognized the value of implementing universal early care and learning. It's supported by the B.C. Chamber of Commerce and
[ Page 6996 ]
also by the Conference Board of Canada. In addition, the Burnaby Chamber of Commerce recognizes and is in support of the province developing a provincial early childhood development program, particularly to improve long-term productivity of Canada, which will result in a better-educated, more highly skilled workforce, resulting in superior economic performance.


We're seeing that the reality in B.C. currently is that there is a grave crisis in terms of lack of parents' being able to find affordable child care, very long wait-lists of families not being able to find adequate spaces close to their neighbourhoods, and also the shortfall in support, the recognition of the value of early childhood educators and their low wages in the sector.


[1010]

The implementation of an integrated early care and learning plan to meet the needs not only of supporting the development of young children and families, of supporting parents' being able to access and re-enter the workforce but also supporting the development of our economy — to which investment in child care and early learning is a big boost; it's been proven that a dollar invested in child care generates $2 in the economy directly — and also addressing the long-term benefits to our economic development, not only directly through parents being able to enter the workforce in a more long-term perspective of providing stronger citizens who have a higher ability to enter the workforce, but also that support through the early years allows the ability of children to have higher and better success, better outcomes throughout their education and also to pursue post-secondary education and continue to develop their skills and participate more fully in our economy.


We are seeing that the issue of having a universally implemented and supported early care and learning plan is crucial to British Columbia and that there is a need to implement it where we see that British Columbia and Canada falls short in terms of international standards. We fall far behind in terms of our investment in an early care and learning plan. There is a need to address this crisis for children, for parents, for business and for our economy here in British Columbia.


So I will conclude my remarks and thank you very much.


M. MacDiarmid: The member opposite has spoken about a matter that is close to all of our hearts. The critical importance and value of early learning and care is absolutely clear to all of us. Our government believes in providing free, innovative early learning options for children because, as we can all agree, early learning is critical to the success of our children. This is why our government is committed to supporting a continuum of services from before birth right up to a child's sixth year, to assist families and communities in providing children with the best possible start in life.


Annually, government is providing $1 billion for early learning and childhood development initiatives, services and supports. For example, StrongStart B.C. benefits both children and parents. Children are able to access high-quality learning environments and develop social skills, while parents are able to learn ways to support their child's learning at home, and everybody has fun.


Hon. Speaker, I want to note that the opposition voted against the budget and the legislation for this valuable early learning program.


In addition, our government supports Ready, Set, Learn, a kindergarten readiness program now in its seventh year. The program promotes school readiness through events for three-year-olds and their families.


LEAP, the literacy education activity plan, provides resources to encourage literacy, physical activity and healthy eating in preschool-aged children.


Supporting families, our government introduced full-day kindergarten this past September for more than half of all of British Columbia's kindergarten-aged children. By September of this year, full-day kindergarten will be available for every child in British Columbia.


In total, we've committed $365 million over three years to this initiative, and it does amaze me to hear the opposition member expressing her support for early learning when her party not only voted against funding all-day kindergarten; its 2009 platform contained no money for this important initiative. Let's be clear. With an NDP government, we would not have full-day kindergarten today in B.C. Imagine the negative impact this would have for children and their families around this province. But thankfully, we do have this program.


This year the Ministry of Children and Family Development is investing approximately $22 million to provide a range of quality early childhood development programs and initiatives. As a result of this investment, early childhood development initiatives will receive $12.3 million to holistically support healthy early childhood development.


[1015]

These programs include things like Children First, Building Blocks, family resources programs, the evaluations project, B.C. Council for Families, shaken baby syndrome prevention program, Seeds of Empathy and Success By 6. All of these programs promote healthy development for B.C. children.


Our government is investing $7.4 million into the aboriginal early development initiative, which focuses on providing comprehensive, targeted and culturally sustainable, community-based programs in aboriginal communities throughout British Columbia.


To create a strong foundation for early childhood development, our government has made child care a priority. We are committed to this area. We have made substantial investments, but we're not satisfied with what we've done so far. We are continuing to find ways
[ Page 6997 ]
that we can revise our policies, review them and look forward to even more ways that we can invest in child care and services.


There is a book called The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk. It is a great read, and I recommend it to everyone in the House. It talks about the tremendous potential in each and every person. There truly is genius in each of us. Anyone who has spent time with a baby or toddler has seen their drive to learn, the incredible desire to explore and discover. We've heard them say, "Why?" over and over and over. We've seen children learn and absorb knowledge at a truly stunning rate. What we want is to take the spark inside every baby, every young learner, and have it burst into flame.


We want every child to love learning and to reach their full potential. That's why we're working across ministries; we're working with our colleagues; we're working together in every way that we can. We're committed to early learning and to continuing our investments in our youngest citizens.


M. Elmore: Currently in British Columbia we have a number of programs that deliver services for early learning and child care, but the problem is that we don't have an integrated plan. We have a patchwork of services, and we have a lot of…. Because we don't have a provincially integrated plan, there are grave shortages in terms of lack of spaces, the issue of affordability and quality — the provision and support for quality child care.


I just wanted to raise a point, to really focus on this issue. There is a closure of Creekview Tiny Tots, which is a toddler centre on Granville Island. The parents — 20 spaces there — are scrambling to find spaces for their children. They've been told not to even bother with wait-lists, over 300 spaces, not to even bother trying to get on other lists. This really highlights the crisis that families are seeing in a lack of spaces and lack of affordability in British Columbia.


There is a need to provide an integrated plan that also reflects a priority on supporting families — a plan that has targets, that has timelines, that is accountable and that has objective measures to identify that objectives are being met.


The priority in terms of developing an early care and learning plan in British Columbia needs to happen right across the system in terms of bringing together the programs that are currently delivered under early learning and child care and to ensure that spaces are created, that parent fees are capped, that support for early childhood educators are provided so they are able to make a living wage. Also, to transition and support the development of a bachelor program for early childhood educators to provide the important service of looking after and providing for the development of children….


The wait-lists, the high costs and also the crisis in the delivery of these patchwork services lead to a need to bring forward and implement a coordinated plan of early learning and child care in British Columbia.


[1020]

clean coal in b.c.


B. Bennett: Every once in a while we get inspired in here by things that happen externally to this place and occasionally by things that are said in this House. We do have a tendency to inspire one another across the floor, and I was inspired — so to speak, anyway — exactly a week ago by the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows when he made what I considered to be a derogatory comment about the coal industry. Of course, the coal industry is a big employer in my riding, so I was inspired to respond to that comment today and then allow the opposition to perhaps clarify its position.


I will start off by quoting the member from a week ago. He said: "The coal industry, dirtiest of all…. The government's saying: 'Great we are. We're not going to have any power plants driven by coal.' But at the same time, we're shipping tonnes and tonnes and megatonnes of coal to China, and we've got to think about that."


Madam Speaker, when he said that we've got to think about that, I've actually heard that comment in here before. You know, I would be guessing, and I am going to guess a little bit, in terms of what he meant by that. I think what he meant was that we've got to think about whether we really should be doing that. Maybe we shouldn't be shipping all those tonnes and tonnes and megatonnes of coal to China.


I want to say that I like the member lots, and this is not personal. I'm just concerned, because I've heard this kind of toss-off comment made that sounds really suspiciously almost like a threat to the coal industry. It's an industry that's over a hundred years old in the province, and it's an industry that, frankly, has built many a hospital, many a school in this province.


Every day of the week, seven days a week, the East Kootenays ship six trains — big long trains with CP Rail — full of coal to the west coast. Every one of those trains represents thousands of high-paying jobs, not to mention all the things that the tax revenues that come from that can buy, like heart bypass surgeries and other kinds of surgeries and so forth.


Towns like Golden, where the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke is from, are sustained by CP Rail. It's a railway town, and it's built on the coal industry. The port jobs, some of the highest-paying jobs in British Columbia, are at the Westshore terminal.


When I hear a member of the opposition just kind of casually throwing out a comment about that maybe we should think about having a coal-mining industry in this province, I really have to come to the conclusion that the NDP is attacking the livelihood of my constituents and that they're prepared to sacrifice the families of mineworkers
[ Page 6998 ]
and the thousands of other B.C. families who depend on the coal-mining industry.


My statement is quite simple. I'm first of all going to say that the NDP apparently doesn't have a clue about what benefits the coal industry brings to B.C. I'm going to say secondly that the NDP must be ignorant of how strict our environmental rules are for the coal industry. Third, I'm going to have to say that the NDP must be illiterate when it comes to mining. They seem to be suffering under the illusion that these huge quantities of coal that we're shipping to China and other Asian nations are being used for power production.


Let me play teacher just for a couple of minutes. The tonnes and tonnes and megatonnes of coal that are being shipped to China, which was referred to by the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, are not being used to generate electricity, as his uninformed comment would suggest.


The coal mined in B.C. is primarily metallurgical as opposed to thermal. The vast, vast majority of our coal in this province — it's well over 90 percent, probably over 95 percent of our coal — is not used to generate electricity. Thermal coal is used to generate electricity for economies in places like China, India, Korea, Alberta, Ontario, most of the U.S. states.


The U.S. generates about 60 percent of its electricity from coal, and that includes our clean, green friends in California. A lot of their electricity is generated by thermal coal as well.


[1025]

Metallurgical coal, on the other hand, is an essential component of steelmaking. It takes several tonnes of metallurgical coal from the mines in my riding to make one wind tower. Your hybrid car that we're all proud to drive is made out of steel. That also can't happen without metallurgical coal. Now, that's not to mention…. We're talking about coal mining, but if I was talking about metal mining, you could talk about the nickel that's in those superbatteries in a hybrid car. Can't happen without nickel. Can't happen without mining.


Your laptop, all the laptops in the House here this morning that are being used wouldn't be here without metallurgical coal, not to mention all the other minerals. The zipper in your trousers, the clasp in a bra — they're all things that cannot be made without metallurgical coal.


The saws that mill the wood in this place, everything that you see — even the clothes on our back. In fact, if members would just take a minute and think about what we would look like, where we would be here this morning, if you took metallurgical coal away from this equation…. I can tell you where we would be. We'd be sitting outside under the trees, naked as jaybirds. But apparently members of the opposition just haven't got around to thinking about that.


Don't have much time to talk about the environmental standards, the environmental record, of the coal industry. I guess to summarize what the coal industry in B.C. does in terms of reclamation by telling members that if they would come up to my riding, I would be happy to take them on a tour of any one of the five coal mining operations. When we do that, I will show you Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, I'll show you moose, I'll show you two kinds of deer, I'll show you black bears, and I'll show you grizzly bears — lots of them — because there's lots of food around those reclaimed mines.


In my opinion, it's sheer ideologically driven lunacy to suggest that the province of British Columbia would be better off without coal mining.


D. Donaldson: I'd like to respond to the MLA for Kootenay East. The former Energy and Mines Minister has coal mines in his constituency, so obviously he has knowledge of the industry.


It was curious though to me that he didn't mention coal ash in his talk and what the sector is trying to do with coal ash, especially in regards to mixing it with cement. The member had some comments about cement when he said just recently that being a candidate in an election under the B.C. Liberal brand is like running a race with a bag of cement tied around one's waist. I was inspired by those comments and wanted to bring them forth to the Legislature today.


Now, the MLA for Kootenay East also makes some comments about the environmental assessment process. We on this side of the House care about health. That's why we are very concerned about the robustness of the current EA process. I know that much depends in this province on the mining sector, much depends on the health of our communities around the mining sector, and that is why we need a very robust environmental assessment process.


I wanted to point out that this government, the government that this member's a member of, gutted the environmental assessment process in 2002. Before, the environmental assessment process brought under our government had the promotion of sustainability as one of the objectives, to provide for the participation of First Nations as one of the objectives, to ensure an open and accountable and neutrally administered process as one of the objectives.


The amendments brought in by this government in 2002 deleted all these objectives, so for the public to have confidence in the robustness of the process needs for those amendments to be stricken and those objectives to be put back into the act.


Again, the act, when it was introduced by our government, had a project committee that established review procedures and provided ministers with advice. Again, results of the 2002 amendments by this government eliminated the project committee.


[1030]

Now there's only an EAO project director, environmental assessment office project director, that determines
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the process, not a committee. Again, the robustness of the process is damaged by this.


Another example, in relation to the environmental assessment process, was that when it was originally brought in by our government, there was a list of specifications that the project report had to have in it — effects on aboriginal rights, cumulative effects, plans for proponents' consultations with affected First Nations, evaluating adequacy of mitigation plans. These had to be in the project report as specified under the original act.


In 2002 the amendments brought in by this government were silent on the project report content. It's up to the discretion of the project director to determine content.


Again, what an EA has to do is have credibility for the people of the province. It has to be free from political interference, and it has to have an important role for those affected by the project in communities. By eliminating these sections of the act, this government has destroyed the credibility and robustness of the EA process, and that doesn't do people living in rural communities, living in remote areas, any good.


What we need is a robust process, a credible process in the EA that people can count on so that they know their health and the health of their communities and the health of their families is protected by the act.


The final part I'd like to talk to in response to the member is in regards to credibility. Again, credibility under the EA and credibility for the future of mines is very important and falls, in a large part, on the shoulders of those in front-line ministries who have to carry out the evaluation, carry out the monitoring, carry out the project permitting when it comes to mining and coal mining as well.


I'd like to quote from the member for Kootenay East, who was a former Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources under this government. He had good advice for this government when he was the minister. He said: "The fundamental problem facing the natural resource ministries is they're underfunded." "Underfunded" was the quote from the then minister and now the member for Kootenay East, and underfunded to develop policy and other things like that.


I would like just to sum up by saying it's a credibility factor. We know that coal mining is important and has played an important role.


B. Bennett: Well, I'm once again inspired by the member's remarks. I appreciate them very, very much. I think only the NDP would suggest that you can get better decisions by forming a committee. They've always really liked the use of committees.


In fact, I would submit in this House…. I've travelled across Canada. I've had four different portfolios, and I've talked to federal ministers, and I've talked to ministers and industry people from across the country. I think British Columbia has the best environmental assessment process in the country. Most people across Canada believe that as well.


The member talked about credibility. Great. Let's talk about credibility. When the member's party was in government, it took them about five years to destroy the mining industry. We lost half the mining jobs in this province when the member's party was in government. So I don't want to take any lectures or hear any lectures about credibility.


The NDP had an absolutely shameful record in terms of what they did with mining. The mining industry, frankly, is petrified that this side of the House would ever have another opportunity to make policies around mining.


I did want to mention the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, who once again is a good guy, and I like him personally. His riding apparently received about $21 million recently, not for a new school but a school that was renovated, made larger. I just wanted to say, to that member and to his colleagues on the opposition side, that $21 million that went into the new school or the refurbished, enlarged school in Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows came from my riding. It came from the coal industry. So when the member suggests that, "You know, maybe we better think about this coal industry, maybe we don't need it anymore" — we need it.


[1035]

In fact, if we want to think about the coal-mining industry, let's think about nurturing it. Let's think about making it bigger. Let's think about creating more jobs in the coal-mining industry, not fewer jobs.


healthy economy


B. Ralston: There are many ways to measure the health of an economy. There are those more conventional measures that are adopted by academic economists and business economists working for some of the major chartered banks. We're familiar with their reports that come out very regularly, whether it's the growth or decline of gross domestic product, growth in per-capita income, or growth or decline in jobs and the type and permanence of those jobs. Indeed, Statistics Canada and its sister agency here in the province of British Columbia, B.C. Stats, also report regularly on those kinds of indices.


But the perspective might be different if you're a laid-off forest worker, a student looking for a summer job or someone who, through unfortunate family circumstance, finds themselves out of work and forced to receive social assistance or even attend the food bank, as some in my community do.


Just last week the Surrey Food Bank had a major breakfast — over 650 people there — to support what is, unfortunately, a growing part of our community: people who resort to and are forced to resort to the food bank.


There was an interesting story there told by a woman who was married with four children. Her marriage fell
[ Page 7000 ]
apart. She found, through no fault of her own, that her obligation in order to feed her family took her to the food bank. Through support of the community and through some strong personal initiative, she was able to get retrained and re-enter the labour force, but that meant three or four very tough years for her in a personal way. So the economy — the face of the economy and the health of the economy — means different things for different people.


Certainly, some conventional economic measures are not suited to measure other economic factors such as environmental well-being. Dr. Marilyn Waring, who recently spoke at the University of Victoria, cautioned about the inability of some conventional measures to account for the health and quality of life of communities and individual environments.


Indeed, in the republic of France the president commissioned two world-renowned economists, Professor Stiglitz and Professor Sen, to comment upon non-economic measures of well-being. They issued a very lengthy report, which in the confines of this brief statement I don't really have time to address.


However, for most people, conventional measures do require some understanding. Also, people make their judgments about the economy, and to some extent, those measures reflect the real experience of many people here in British Columbia. For example, over the last ten years the average annual growth in jobs between 2001 and 2010 was just 1.8 percent, compared to an average of 2.2 percent in the previous decade.


Another measure of economic health is wage rates. Between 2001 and 2009 British Columbia had the lowest growth in average hourly wages and the second-lowest growth in weekly wages in Canada. Between 2001 and 2011 B.C. fell behind the Canadian average for weekly wages of our workers. These figures can't be attributed solely to the economic recession. The entire country experienced that recession, and B.C. wasn't hit as hard as a province like Ontario with its manufacturing sector.


Another measure of economic health is how the lowest-paid workers in the economy are treated. Although there have finally, after ten years, been some steps by this government to raise the minimum wage, when it was raised to $8.75 on May 1 of this year, it still remains as the lowest minimum wage in the country.


[1040]

Others look to, and particularly in rural British Columbia, whether measurement of job loss is another way in which one might assess the health of the economy. In the last decade B.C. lost approximately 50,000 family-supporting jobs in natural resource, forest and manufacturing industries, and dozens of forest operations have been closed, a particularly drastic blow to many rural communities.


Understandably, again, when one comes to consider the health of the economy, B.C. workers, according to a 2010 Royal Bank of Canada consumer survey, are the most worried of any workers in any province in Canada about losing their job, perhaps a reflection of the past decade.


Another more conventional measure — this is a measure, roughly, of economic equality — is the income gap between those earning the most and those earning the least. Despite the economic boom, in 2006, B.C. had the second-highest income gap in Canada. The top 10 percent of B.C. families earned 9.6 times the average income of the bottom 10 percent.


If one looks to dig into that a little bit further, we see that for the most part, by a measure of a 2008 Statistics Canada survey, almost the entire growth in average wages in British Columbia between 1997 and 2007 can be explained by the increase in the earnings of managers, who saw a 15 percent pay increase compared to virtually zero earnings growth for most other employees. It also found that between 1997 and 2007 average wages increased only by 2.9 percent — and B.C. the lowest in all of Canada.


These statistics may not accord with the real, lived experience of everyone, but certainly in my own community the people I talk to and some of the people who are forced to resort to the food bank that I was talking about earlier have that sense of a growing gap and increased economic inequality, with everything that it implies for all citizens of British Columbia. Noting the time, I'll conclude.


J. Les: I'm pleased to respond to the remarks from the member for Surrey-Whalley, the opposition Finance critic. Indeed, he is right. There are numerous ways in which one can compare the health of the economy from time to time, and he brought forward a number of those indices this morning. There are a couple of others that I think are valid in that context — other indicators that we can use to determine the health of the economy in the '90s, for example, versus the most recent decade.


There are a couple that I have referred to in the past, one being that we found that as the 1990s wore on, people increasingly were leaving British Columbia to find economic opportunities. They were leaving in record numbers comparatively. People were, in fact, voting with their feet. They were saying: "We're outta here. There are no jobs in B.C." There were no economic opportunities in B.C., and they were gone.


We also watched in the 1990s as British Columbia's credit rating was degraded numerous times. When the NDP opposition last had their hands on the economic tiller of this province, our credit rating dwindled. That wasn't our political party or anyone else in the province commenting on our economic health. It was the credit-rating agency saying that our economic situation in B.C. was deteriorating.


There are numerous ways in which we can determine these things. For example, as the 1990s wore on, the
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mining industry was almost completely driven right out of this province, so that by the year 2000 only about $29 million was spent on mineral exploration in the province of British Columbia versus $300 to $400 million in ensuing years when we became government.


[1045]

What is the response to the current opposition to how the economy of this province should be managed? Well, the newly installed leader of the New Democratic Party has made it abundantly clear that should he ever again get his hands on the economic tiller of this province, the first thing he would do is increase taxes. He's made no bones about that. Increased taxes — with the resulting increased spending, of course — are right at the top of his economic agenda.


We know, for example, that he is committed to raising corporate taxes by 20 percent. He wants to reinstate the corporate capital tax, which Mike Harcourt said he would never do and then promptly did. Then he wants to raise small business taxes by 80 percent. If you don't think that that represents the beginning of the end of the economy in British Columbia, that is indeed what would ensue should the New Democratic Party ever again become government in the province of British Columbia.


We know the current Leader of the Opposition was the architect of many of those economic policies in his role as chief of staff at the time. It would again jeopardize jobs. It would again have British Columbia enjoy have-not status. Members will recall that in the 1990s, for the first time in the history of this province, we became a so-called have-not province — something that we are now out of, thankfully. But it was an NDP government that drove this government into have-not status. It was an embarrassment to all British Columbians.


That was, I think, another indicator that would indicate the competence, or not, of the members opposite to handle the economy. There are numerous external indicators that would indicate that they do not have any concept of what a healthy economy is all about. Given the recent statements of the opposition Finance critic and the opposition leader, their views have not changed.


Should they ever again form government in British Columbia, our economy would again deteriorate. People would again have to look outside the province for jobs and economic opportunity, and we would again become a have-not province in Canada.


I'm delighted to have had the opportunity, but I think British Columbians know that the tax-and-spend policies that are being espoused by the new Leader of the Opposition, the former architect of B.C.'s economy in the 1990s, would deliver the same results that we unfortunately experienced during the 1990s.


B. Ralston: Well, the tendency — how shall I put it? — to mythmake appears to be unabated on the opposite side of the House.


Just dealing first with a couple of the points that were raised: fewer people coming to British Columbia. In fact, fewer people have come to British Columbia in this decade than they did in the last decade. Between 2001 and 2010 an average net of 6,700 people per year moved to B.C. from other provinces, and an average net of 13,000 between 1999 and 2001. That's something that they've repeated but just isn't factual.


Also, you have to look at the distribution of the population of British Columbia. Rural towns and villages in our province since 2001 have suffered lots of population decline, whether it's in the Nechako, the Cariboo, the central coast, Fraser–Fort George, Kitimat-Stikine, Skeena or Haida Gwaii.


The member mentions the mining industry. I know the members are very hostile to the London Metal Exchange because they blame it for setting the price of commodities. When the price of commodities goes down, sometimes mining operations are no longer economic.


When the price of copper was 65 cents in the mid-90s as opposed to $3.45 a pound now, obviously that makes a difference to the economic margin of mining companies. So, yes, attack the London mining exchange, but the argument that's made in an attempt to divert attention from the price of commodities is not one that's supported either.


In terms of exports, another very conventional measure of the strength of an economy and the health of the economy…. Mr. Finlayson at the B.C. Business Council has repeatedly expressed this in presentations that I've heard from him personally. B.C. was, in 2009, ninth of ten provinces in terms of the value of our exports in goods and services per capita.


[1050]

This is a troubling long-term trend, which has got worse under the B.C. Liberals. When you export commodities…. There are some jobs attached to that, of course, but Mr. Finlayson is expressing the long-term implication of that strategy, and that's confirmed by the Progress Board as well. B.C.'s export strength is just 23rd out of the 34 international OECD jurisdictions to which they compare.


Between 2001 and 2009 B.C. was the only province in western Canada to have negative growth in exports. This has historically been the economic strength of this province — exports. By any of the measures of the B.C. Liberals' own Progress Board, they've been a failure there as well.


Deputy Speaker: I'll ask all members to remember the spirit of private members' business, please.


RURAL OPPORTUNITIES


D. Barnett: We have much to be proud of in the north and across rural British Columbia. Despite having some
[ Page 7002 ]
of the farthest-removed cities in British Columbia from our capital here in Victoria, the voice of these residents is not lost.


Not only did our system of selecting the Premier of British Columbia include a system that gave rural B.C. as much of a say as the people living in Victoria and Vancouver, but our newly elected Premier from the Vancouver–Point Grey riding held the first-ever open town hall meeting in the rural community of Fort St. John.


Our caucus and cabinet on this side of the House ponder policy and weigh decisions with a rural consideration and make sure that there is fair representation across this province. Because of this mindset over the past decade, we have increased the opportunities for people, business and families in rural British Columbia. Unlike the decade of decline that turned B.C. into a have-not province and drove families out of British Columbia, we have expanded everything from programs to support for funding for rural British Columbians.


One of these programs that we started is the job opportunities program. We supported workers and communities through the $129 million community development trust. Since the program's launch in 2008, over 9,700 forest workers and their families have been helped. In the summer of 2009 the federal government and the province each committed an additional $30 million to the trust's job opportunities program.


Here are just a few ways these programs are helping rural British Columbia families. Transitional funding of $85.5 million assisted over 2,400 forest workers in B.C. transitioning to retirement. More than 4,000 workers have been approved for funding as of March 31, 2010, at a projected cost of approximately $19 million.


The community development trust initiatives have developed or maintained 504 recreation sites, created or upgraded 4,716 kilometres of trails, made ten parks safer and more accessible, treated 2,572 hectares of forest for fuel management, provided 15,200 hectares of silviculture treatments, and felled and burned 8,363 beetle-killed trees. And 400 hectares of invasive plants were treated, with inventories conducted on a further 14,000 hectares.


Another large industry in northern and rural British Columbia, in my particular riding of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, is ranching. I have worked hard with the B.C. Cattlemen's Association and local ranchers to ensure that they are given the resources they need to succeed, to keep our northern economies strong and keep food on all our tables.


We have good relationships with the federal government. That is allowing us to work with the federal government, ranchers and their families and provide the support they need. From 2001 to 2010 we provided nearly $215 million to cattle ranchers through provincial and federal programs. We provided $113 million to cattle ranchers through business risk management programs.


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Of the remaining funds, we provided over $63 million to cattle ranchers through programs, including $28 million for the BSE recovery programs from 2003 through 2005; $19 million in payments to B.C. beef producers, resulting from changes to federally administered business risk management programs — for example, the net income stabilization account, the whole-farm insurance program and the Canadian agriculture income stabilization program; $3 million for the cattle age verification program in 2008; $7.8 million for drought assistance in 2007; $186,000 for quarantined cattle costs after a bovine TB outbreak in 2008; $5 million in provincial-federal funding to develop market opportunities and invest in research in 2010; and recently, $200,000 for predator control.


Now, the members across the aisle seem to have this misguided notion on another topic — that by stopping raw log exports, we will somehow help our rural communities. We prefer to produce all our logs here in British Columbia and make products to send out with our raw logs, but unfortunately, from time to time we have to export raw logs. Those are jobs. Those are real jobs in our rural communities, and without that happening, these people would not be working.


I know families in my riding and across the north that depend on the forest industry for their livelihood, and we have looked at the potential market of China and their population of two billion people and said, "Yes, we want to explore how we can keep our forest jobs and expand trade," and that is what we have done.


We keep our pulp mills running around the clock by expanding and opening our markets to China and other areas, and we will continue to move forward to find innovative ways to support the rural families of British Columbia.


The province is working in partnership with First Nations to improve local economies and increase aboriginal participation in land use planning, resource benefit-sharing and economic opportunities.


Since 2002 we have signed forestry agreements with 172 First Nations, providing more than $243 million in revenue-sharing and access to over 55.6 million cubic metres of timber; provided $5 million over five years, starting in 2007, to support aboriginal tourism; and held the second annual B.C. Aboriginal Business Awards to honour and celebrate aboriginal business in the province.


L. Krog: I'm delighted to rise to the member's comments this morning about rural opportunities.


I do note, however, that usually when you're watching television, you're forced to listen to no more than 30 seconds of one commercial at a time as opposed to a full member's statement here this morning about the glories
[ Page 7003 ]
of the B.C. Liberals and how everything is so grand and wonderful in the province of British Columbia and couldn't possibly get better.


Of course, you always learn in politics that when people start talking about themselves and praising themselves, you know they're really saying: "We're in trouble, and we don't know what to do."


[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]


I am sure that rural British Columbians would have loved it if this government hadn't closed all their courthouses. They would have been thrilled if their legal aid offices hadn't been shut down on them. They would have been thrilled if they weren't spending $600 million of taxpayers' money to put a roof on a stadium in downtown Vancouver.


They could have spread some of that money around the province of British Columbia to all those rural areas that produce the resources, that mine the mines, that work in the forest industry. That would have been a real thrill for them, and it would have been far more effective in terms of economics.


We know that Vancouver is prosperous. We know it by unemployment rates. My community…. The unemployment rate in Nanaimo right now is 16 percent — 16 percent.


I want to say to the member opposite that that was a wonderful recitation of where the Liberals have sprinkled a little money here and there around the province of British Columbia, but it obviously hasn't helped Nanaimo very much.


The member focused, towards the end of her statement, I think quite appropriately, on expanding markets with China. I want to remind this House that it was Premier Dave Barrett who led the first mission to China back in 1972 or '73, as I recall — a very long time ago.


[1100]

It was another NDP Premier in his capacity as the mayor of Vancouver, Mike Harcourt, who started to establish real trade relations with China generally and recognized the importance of that for B.C.'s economic future.


I want to emphasize that those were not B.C. Liberals. Those were not Socreds. Those were New Democrats who understood the importance and the value of promoting trade across the Pacific, who had an eye to the future.


I want to say to the member that I heard a recitation of things that have been done supposedly for the benefit of rural British Columbia. Even W.A.C. Bennett understood the importance of maintaining the presence of government in small communities. W.A.C. Bennett understood that. So whether it was a B.C. Access office or the government agent office as they used to be known, whether it was the courthouse or the legal aid office, whether it was a Ministry of Forests office or Ministry of Environment office, public servants were actually out in the communities working for their various ministries, being there on the land, working with the people, understanding what was happening on the ground. That was a good deployment of economic resources. Those core government jobs provided some security and stability for small businesses in rural communities.


What we've seen under this government is continued centralization, continued emphasis on the Lower Mainland and in Vancouver, which may be a great economic driver for the people who live in those regions. But the people in rural British Columbia feel abandoned. They know they feel abandoned.


The fact that the member got up here this morning and spoke so long with so many statistics…. I don't think I have to repeat what Churchill said about statistics, of course. There were three kinds, and I can't use that language in the chamber, but I think the member has my point. We all end up with statistics. Not very helpful, hon. Speaker.


The fact is this member rose up this morning to defend an abysmal record of this government on rural issues in the province. The urban-rural divide is as bad as it's ever been in this province.


If this government really wants to do something about it, then maybe they should consider some real projects in rural British Columbia. Give some benefit to those people out there who need assistance now instead of giving us a long list — what will amount to a ten-minute infomercial about a government that is in trouble, that nearly lost the by-election in Point Grey, that has a Premier who can't settle on what the HST is going to look like and who can't give us certainty around the economy of British Columbia.


That's what rural British Columbians want. They want some certainty on the economic front, and they're not getting it from this government.


Interjections.


Mr. Speaker: Members.


L. Krog: They're not getting it from this government, because this government has ultimately lost its way. It's put itself in a mess with the HST. It's harming small businesses in rural British Columbia. It's harming small businesses in every corner of this province.


This government needs to figure out how to get out of this mess. They put us in it, and now they're fiddling around with it more.


D. Barnett: Regardless of what the NDP have to say, we are focusing on families on this side of the House. We are listening to British Columbians. They have the ear of this government.


You know, we have many problems in rural British Columbia. They're not just about courts, and they're not
[ Page 7004 ]
just about public servants. They're about other issues that are very important to the rural economy.


One of the problems in my riding, which probably the member across doesn't know, is the loss of livestock due to predators. This government is the first government that is standing up and recognizing the importance of this industry. We are helping our ranchers. This kind of support is what rural British Columbia needs.


We've contributed up to $4 million annually to match federal funds of $6 million a year to implement the wildlife damage compensation program, compensating cattle producers for loss of forage crops damaged by wildlife and losses due to wild predators. These are facts, real facts.


Another problem facing the north and other rural areas of B.C., believe it or not, is the B.C. mountain pine beetle. And is it a B.C. beetle? Who knows, but I can tell you that the government on this side of the House has stood with the communities that have put together programs — not government putting together programs; communities putting together programs and supported by this government. That is something that I am very proud to be a part of.


[1105]

Recently I just announced $3 million in contributions to these communities to help their respective mountain pine beetle coalitions. The members across the way should go and talk to these coalitions and see what they've done and seen the support they have — that they are caring for families with the help of this government.


We have new bioenergy plants like the one at the University of Northern British Columbia. That is an example of how B.C. is leading the way, and it is in rural British Columbia. Every day new research is discovered to convert our pine beetle into jobs for people in northern British Columbia. These are just a few examples of how this government is continuing along a path of innovation when it comes to our resource industries.


I am a true rural British Columbian, as I call myself. I've been there for over 40 years and worked with communities. I have worked with every government that has been in British Columbia as a community member, a business person and a community leader, and I am proud to say that this government on this side of the House understands business, understands communities, understands people and understands problems.


So I am proud to stand here today to give the facts, the true facts, to this House on rural British Columbia.


Mr. Speaker: I just want to remind members that the spirit of private members' statements is to be non-partisan. Good debate, but I noticed this morning that we have certainly strayed from what the intent of private members' statements is all about. So I would remind members for — it won't be next Monday because it's the long weekend — the following Monday that members take heed of the note that private members' statements are meant for good debate but not personal attacks on each other.


Hon. B. Penner: I call Motion 4 on the order paper.


Mr. Speaker: The unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 4 without disturbing the priorities of motions preceding it on the order paper.


Leave granted.


Mr. Speaker: Just before we get started, I notice that there are approximately 11 speakers who want to speak this morning. So we're going to try to confine it to roughly about four minutes per speaker. We'll time it from here, so if members could heed to around four minutes per speaker.


The member for Victoria–Swan Lake will start.


Private Members' Motions


MOTION 4 — OIL TANKER
BAN ON NORTH COAST


R. Fleming: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


[Be it resolved that this House urges the Government of Canada to immediately propose legislation suggested by the House of Commons to ban bulk oil tanker traffic in the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound.]


I'm pleased to be having this debate this morning.


In 1972 the Trudeau government created an agreement to restrict crude oil tankers plying British Columbia's north coastal waters to protect the area from an oil spill. For four decades Canada and British Columbia have banned bulk oil tankers that deliver Alaska's crude oil to the southern 48 United States. They must and do route their deliveries away from the inner coast of northern British Columbia.


[L. Reid in the chair.]


So for four decades, provincial and federal governments of all stripes have honoured this agreement and renewed this agreement — seven Premiers, eight Prime Ministers. All of them honoured this agreement until now.


Today we have a Prime Minister and a Premier that would put our entire coastline and the marine ecosystems there at risk of a catastrophic oil spill by opening up the Douglas Channel to supertanker traffic, to transport each day some 525,000 barrels of tar sands crude from Kitimat — some of the most carbon-intense oil supply on the planet.


They do this, the Premier and Prime Minister, not with the advice of the government's own experts. Quite the contrary. All of the government's studies back the
[ Page 7005 ]
prevailing precaution that has formed our national public policy. A review by the Royal Society of Canada, which was completed only in 2004, again gave a thumbs-down to the risks of bulk oil tanker traffic. In fact, all of the studies — the Brooks report, the Priddle panel and the RSC report — have concluded that oil tanker traffic in this part of our northern coastal waters, which puts risk of tanker spills in play, is too high.


Environment Canada has categorized Dixon strait, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound as some of the most dangerous navigable waters in the world. That's what we're talking about this morning.


[1110]

I wish our Premier would understand it. She's said very little on Enbridge, but what she has said isn't particularly helpful. She's on record saying, "Why not the north coast?" and has said it was akin to the St. Lawrence Seaway, for heaven's sake.


Now, on a clear day I can go down to Dallas Road in front of my house, and I can see the United States. But I can't, for the life of me, understand the point that our Premier was trying to make in contrasting an engineered seaway — which Prime Minister St. Laurent opened with President Eisenhower after spending billions of dollars to re-engineer — to the north coast waters. I cannot understand that comment, but I look forward to her explaining it in future detail.


The fact of the matter is this. The introduction of large, oil-carrying vessels known as very large crude carriers, which are up to 350 metres long and 60 metres wide, creates a very high likelihood of a catastrophic oil spill — even if the vessels are new and double-hulled.


Now, if she was willing to listen, I'm sure Douglas Channel mariners would be pleased to sit down with the Premier and explain the extreme seas, the unpredictable weather changes, the deadly reefs and the rocks in the area where a spill would be most likely to occur and most devastating.


I'm sure she is aware that we're talking about an area very close to where B.C. Ferries' own Queen of the North went down in Hartley Bay. But perhaps she's not aware that a large freighter ran aground only 18 months ago on the north coast when it lost control of its steering equipment.


Extreme weather, rough seas — those can never be managed by an Enbridge escort tug. Human error and acts of God, like 100-knot storms, are things that no oil executive can explain away or give assurances about, and that is why this debate is so critical. That is why this government should have the courage to introduce legislation for full debate in this chamber and why we should maintain the 40-year moratorium.


R. Howard: I'd like to thank the member for Victoria–Swan Lake for bringing this forward. This is a valuable opportunity to debate this important issue in this House and, just as importantly, to talk about principles.


I'd like to talk about the principles of the process. I'd like to talk about the principles of sustainability, and close just with some personal observations and experiences.


The discussion on principles will demonstrate clearly the differences between the NDP and the B.C. Liberals because the NDP, once again, wants to politicize, wants to take arguments to an emotional response. They want to politicize this process, the environmental assessment process, which is precisely why it was set up the way it's set up. It's set up as arm's length and set up as a rigorous process.


As a matter of fact, they supported that. I'll quote from a Vancouver Sun article of April 20, 2010. The NDP's president: "We should trust the environmental assessment process. I helped craft the environmental assessment legislation. I think you have to give the system some credit for the way it has worked in the past."


What's changed? This is a rigorous process. I think it needs to be able to do its job free of political interference, as it was designed to do.


I would also like to remind the member that when we talk about sustainability, there are, in fact, three columns to the foundation of sustainability — the social, the environment and the economy. We just can't keep throwing the economy under the bus. The members from the opposite side of the House did that in the '90s. That had devastating impacts on our economy and had people leaving this province to look for work elsewhere.


They're actually continuing to advocate now for a return to the provincial sales tax, which would have further detrimental impacts on the economy. They continually want to take us back. We just don't want to go back. I had my share of that in the '90s. They've got to understand that jobs are important to the families of British Columbia.


[1115]

I would like to just close with some of my personal thoughts. I grew up in Richmond. We're surrounded by water, obviously — river and ocean. My first trip up the Fraser River was in a basket in the bow of a 12-foot homemade plywood boat, and I grew up vacationing anywhere from Desolation Sound to Victoria.


I feel very passionate about the west coast waters and very protective. But my care comes from a sustainable care, not a politicized, opportunist care. Many of my associates on this side of the House who also grew up in this province have a real passion, especially for coastal waters. I think that we need to look at the full range of impacts of this discussion, especially how it can impact our economy and jobs.


We need to be alive to the impacts that are possible consequences to the environment, but it has to be done in a balanced and thoughtful way. We have to let the process run its course.


Deputy Speaker: Member for North Island seeks leave to make an introduction.

[ Page 7006 ]

Leave granted.


Introductions by Members


C. Trevena: I hope the House will make welcome three guests of mine in the gallery. In the gallery this morning are Judy Leicester of the Quadra Island chapter of Sierra Club B.C.; Lannie Keller, who is here with Friends of Bute Inlet and is also the owner-operator of Coast Mountain Expeditions, one of the first kayak companies on the coast; and Arthur Caldicott.


They have been meeting with the Ministry of Environment this morning and now are very pleased to be able to watch this debate and find out what people on both sides of the House have to say about tanker traffic. I hope the House will make all three of them very welcome.


Debate Continued


M. Sather: The Enbridge pipeline proposal would bring crude oil from the Alberta tar sands to the port of Kitimat. It would introduce supertankers for the first time to the waters off the Great Bear rain forest, the largest intact temperate rain forest in the world and one of the planet's rarest forest ecosystems.


Temperate rain forests cover less than 0.2 percent of Earth's land surface. The Great Bear rain forest is home to grizzly bear, wolves, the rare white spirit bear, sea otters, eagles and many sea birds, including murrelets that nest in the forest.


The waters off coastal British Columbia, its famous Inside Passage, are home to large populations of salmon, halibut, cod, rockfish and shellfish that the bears, wolves and birds depend on. The waters off the Great Bear rain forest are also home to orcas, humpback whales and fin whales.


These mammals would be put at risk by supertankers, not only from the loss of their food source when a spill happens but by the fact that these supertankers are the largest source of underwater noise. This noise disrupts the ability of whales to communicate. Whales are also at risk of being struck by these supertankers.


The waters of the Inside Passage that the supertankers would traverse are much more dangerous to navigate than are the waters where the Exxon Valdez disastrously ran aground in Alaska. This wild coast is known for its hurricane-force winds, and First Nations report stronger storms out of the southeast than they've ever witnessed before.


Some may think that a major oil spill in the ocean is a rather localized event. Not so. The Exxon Valdez spill in the Gulf of Alaska covered 2,100 kilometres of coastline and 28,000 square kilometres of the ocean. Less than 10 percent of the spilled oil was recovered. Now, 22 years after the Exxon Valdez disaster, about 25,000 gallons of oil remain in the soil along the coast. Some 100,000 to 250,000 sea birds and at least 2,800 sea otters, 250 bald eagles and 22 killer whales were killed, and billions of salmon and herring eggs were destroyed.


[1120]

One population of affected orcas appears to be on its way to extinction. Some 99 percent of Kittlitz's murrelet have disappeared from the area in part due to the oil spill. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, a double hull on the Exxon Valdez would not have prevented the spill. To add insult to injury, Exxon Mobil has been able to avoid paying 90 percent of the $5 billion damage award that they were ordered to pay. Today oil companies like Enbridge do not own the oil tankers they use. They charter them. How much capability or responsibility would these charter companies actually assume?


Eighty percent of British Columbians support a ban on tankers carrying crude oil off the midcoast of British Columbia. It's time the government recognized how utterly dangerous this proposal is, how devastating a spill will be to coastal communities, First Nations and wildlife, and put an end to Enbridge's pipeline and crude oil tanker plans on our precious coast.


Deputy Speaker: Hon. Members, with your indulgence, I'd ask you to join me in welcoming the students of MacNeill Secondary School in the riding of Richmond East — a superb school. Please join me in making them all welcome.


M. Stilwell: I rise to speak against the resolution: "Be it resolved that this House urges the Government of Canada to immediately propose legislation suggested by the House of Commons to ban bulk oil tanker traffic in the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound."


British Columbia cannot and should not try to cut itself off selectively from the world economy. We can only build our economy by increasing exports, and the world needs what we have to sell. We rely on selling our resources to be the foundation of our economy in the near and medium future. Furthermore, a resource economy spurs scientific and technical innovation in resource extraction and delivery, which can also help build the market for not just the commodities but the transferable services that will be a larger part of our economy in the future.


This motion is anti-trade and anti-innovation. The Enbridge project is undergoing a full Canadian environmental assessment to meet the requirements of both the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the National Energy Board Act. The process has a number of aspects to it, including ensuring that projects are carefully reviewed before federal authorities take action — make sure there's public participation, encourage federal authorities to make decisions that promote sustainability,
[ Page 7007 ]
and encourage communication and cooperation between federal authorities and the First Nations, to name a few.


The resource industries are knowledge-based industries. Safety for people and the environment depends on knowledge to make sure there is continuous quality improvement in each process along the entire supply chain. Why wouldn't we be the best in the world at providing for the specific needs of this kind of endeavour?


I wanted to speak to this motion to respond to a comment made by a member opposite suggesting that we cannot rely on science and technology. But in fact, we must rely on science and technology to aid us in our quest for greater control of our economic destiny. We must always look for the frontiers of technology. At the same time, we should be proud to hold the bar for safety of and on the coast the highest.


The standards will include, to name a few…. All hulls entering Kitimat marine terminal will be modern and double-hulled. The northern gateway will install an advanced radar system to cover important route sections, to provide guidance to pilots. All vessels will be vetted by independent third-party agencies. All tankers that visit the terminal will be guided by B.C. coast pilots, for examples.


None of these or all of these are a panacea, but none of these or all of these should encourage us to take a Luddite approach. Ultimately, trade is a human endeavour. What makes us human is our ability to learn. I refer you to the April 23 copy of The Economist to the article called "In Place of Safety Nets." We should never assume disasters won't happen at the frontiers of technology. We should work together to make sure we've accepted rules for continuous quality improvement and proactive philosophy and actions, to ensure there is planning for the unexpected, development of technology for repair and remediation and embrace the safety-case approach to regulation. As the article suggests, we need long-term relationships that allow us to benefit from "being both confrontational and collegiate." Thinking about and talking about the unthinkable is the way forward to prosperity and sustainability in B.C.


[1125]

G. Coons: The motion before us today is nothing new to 80 percent of British Columbians, the vast majority of First Nations and municipalities who resoundingly voted to stop tankers and dirty tar sands oil from being shipped along our pristine north-central coast.


The oceans are an integral part of our environment, and we need to protect them. The Great Bear rain forest is one of these coastal inland areas that is the largest intact region of the world and must be protected from oil tankers.


There are no comparisons that can be made on the coast to the St. Lawrence to the Vancouver harbour or anywhere else. I've travelled the route from Kitimat to Hartley Bay and beyond to the Hecate Strait and seen where the oil supertankers will have to make four or five tight 90-degree turns, hitting weather up to 200 kilometres per hour in winter and waves reaching three storeys high.


An oil spill would have devastating environmental and economic consequences. According to research by Environment Canada in 2006, 100 small, ten moderate and one major spill are predicted every year based on current levels of tanker traffic, and a catastrophic spill of 10,000 tonnes once every 15 years. More recent stats: with the amount of oil shipped by Enbridge, there will be a catastrophic spill once every 12 years. Only 15 percent of the oil spill is recovered from major tanker incidents, and that's considered a success.


The commercial fishing industry is put in jeopardy. It employs 16,000 people. Sport fishing, fish processing, commercial fishing — close to $1.7 billion combined each year. There's a $20 million commercial crab industry happening on the north coast. Ecotourism, whether it's whales, bears, grizzly bears or kayaking, is a multi-million-dollar enterprise. A crude oil spill along the B.C. coast would devastate marine animals, annihilate their habitats and destroy the fishing and tourism industries. For us on the coast, we have all the risk and no benefit.


On March 23, 2010, on the 21st anniversary of the Exxon Valdez all coastal First Nations from Vancouver Island to the B.C.-Alaska border stood unified and unanimous in their opposition that tankers will not be allowed in their territories, as is every First Nation along the Enbridge pipeline route from Kitimat to the dirty tar sands of Alberta.


The Tsimshian, Haisla, Nisga'a, Haida, Kitasoo, Heiltsuk, Nuxalk and Oweekeno, whose territories are all directly impacted, stand in unity in their opposition. The coastal First Nations issued a declaration from their government saying: "We will not allow tar sands oil to transit our lands and waters." First Nations — hereditary chiefs, elders, council members and especially youth — echo the message: "No to the decimation of our salmon, no to the destruction of our ecosystem, no to the crude genocide of our culture and no to bulk oil tankers." They will not assume the risk with no benefit. The ocean is the First Nations breadbasket, and they will never jeopardize it for any project.


We must support the motion before us today, send a message loud and clear from both sides of this Legislature, especially the government side, that we will protect the Great Bear rain forest and our vital ecosystems, that we will respect the wishes of 80 percent of British Columbians, that we will follow the recommendations from municipalities across B.C., that we will respect the tradition, rights and culture of every First Nation in B.C. and urge the government of Canada to immediately ban oil tanker traffic from the waters of the north and central coast.


J. Les: I'm very happy this morning to respond to the motion from the member for Victoria–Swan Lake. Let
[ Page 7008 ]
me say, first of all — and I hope this goes without saying, but sometimes these things are better actually said — that I don't think any one of us could imagine the destruction that would occur if there were an oil spill along the coast. I think we all value the north coast and the pristine environment that we see there and indeed not only on the north coast but everywhere along the coast of British Columbia and throughout our entire province.


We have a province that is spectacular in every way, and that spectacular aspect of our province should be protected at all costs. That is not to say, however, that we shouldn't have an economy. The reality is we all want to live here. We all want to work here. We all want to have jobs here. That brings with it other realities.


[1130]

I guess what I find somewhat disturbing about this motion is the extreme arbitrary nature of what the motion suggests. It suggests that no further discussion, no further review, no further examination is required. Our minds are made up. We're going to pack up our bags, and we're going to go home. I don't think that is a very wise way to proceed if we're going to try to attract investment and bring jobs into the province of British Columbia.


It reminds me, in fact, of the early '90s when a decision was made around the Windy Craggy mine — again, very, very arbitrary in nature. It truncated the then environmental review process, and it was arbitrarily decided that it would become a United Nations park, forever taking away from this province thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic revenue that could have been put towards, for example, health care and education. That sort of arbitrarily deciding to truncate review processes is, I would think, a very disturbing trend that I hear from members opposite.


Referring to members opposite, you know, the president of their party himself, Moe Sihota, has suggested that the environmental review process should be allowed to go ahead, and we should await the conclusions of that process. So I would ask the member for Victoria–Swan Lake: does he disagree with the president of his party, Moe Sihota, that an environmental process is not required? Is he substituting his wisdom on all things environmental for a properly conducted environmental process? Does he have prejudices that should trump all of the people who would have input into such a process?


I don't think so. I think we should always be open to reviewing these things to see if there is an environmentally responsible way that we can do these things or not. I'm not precluding one conclusion or the other, but I say: let's look at it intelligently. We might just discover something that's good for our economy, which will bring investment to our province and bring a lot of jobs, family-supporting jobs, to the province of British Columbia.


S. Fraser: The member for Richmond Centre opened with a comment saying that this debate highlights the difference between the NDP and the Liberals, and I do agree with the member there. The members on this side, the New Democratic Party members of the opposition, believe in listening to the people of British Columbia The people of British Columbia have said overwhelmingly not to bring supertankers into our waters, not to put everything we have on the coast at risk, not to cater to dirty oil and the pipeline disaster that would be looming. That is what the people of British Columbia have said.


I don't know who the government members are representing, but it certainly isn't the people of British Columbia. That's further affirmed by a resolution at last year's UBCM in Whistler. Local governments, city governments, regional district governments from across the province came together at their convention with a resounding resolution, again affirming what the people of British Columbia have told this government: no to risking our coast and every northern watershed in this province. That's what the people that represent local government said to this government — another resolution roundly ignored by those members on the other side, the government members.


If that were not enough, more than 80 First Nations in British Columbia…. That's every First Nation whose traditional territory would be affected by the Enbridge pipeline and every coastal First Nation that would be affected by the giant spill that would happen subsequent to a supertanker failure. Everyone has said, "No," not: "No, we want to negotiate." No, the risks are too great.


So we have a full poll here. Every First Nation, local government association and the public, the people of British Columbia, have said no to dirty oil from Alberta to the coast and putting at risk every northern watershed in the province, every traditional territory in the north and every community on the coast, First Nation and non-. Absolutely unacceptable.


[1135]

About jobs. Yes, it's about killing jobs. The Wet'suwet'en, I think, put it the best. I was at a session with them dealing with this pipeline and their opposition to it, which is unanimous amongst First Nations and northern communities.


With what is being promoted by this government, we would be the doormat for Enbridge for dirty oil. There are no jobs, relatively speaking, to the end of this game. Every job on the coast in the north would be put at risk instead. It is folly to suggest that this is going to bring in family-paying jobs. The pipeline itself, once built, will produce virtually no jobs.


The monitoring of the pipeline. Well, Enbridge has done a great job so far — 700-plus leaks along major centres when there's a highway right beside the pipeline. This is the most rugged terrain in the province, if not the world. There are over a thousand fish-bearing streams and rivers. Every one of these watersheds links directly
[ Page 7009 ]
to either the Skeena or the Fraser system. Think about that, Madam Speaker.


The members on the government side should think about that. They should listen to the people of British Columbia when they say no. They should listen to local governments when they say no to dirty oil on the coast and through the Enbridge pipeline. They should listen to the people of British Columbia who resoundingly, through every poll I've seen, said no. That is the job of government, regardless of political stripe. Listen to the people of British Columbia and represent them.


J. Rustad: Madam Speaker, it's a pleasure to rise and speak to this. I want to start, though, just by correcting the member for Victoria–Swan Lake about one point. He said that the oil that's produced from the tar sands in Alberta is the most carbon-intensive oil production in the world. Well, that's clearly false.


The carbon emissions from oil produced from the tar sands are actually less than secondary oil production from conventional wells anywhere around the world. Clearly they've got false information, but that's okay. They like to give false information.


The oil tankers moving through the north coast are a concern for me. If it's going to be done right, it needs to be done environmentally safe. I want to see projects move forward in this province. I want to see economic activity. I don't want to just say no because, quite frankly, I've heard that about mining. I've heard that about forest opportunity projects. I've heard that about oil and gas. I've heard that about anything that would create jobs in this province. They have just said no.


With regards to tanker traffic on the coast, like I say, I have concerns. Instead of just coming out and saying no, it can't happen, I've actually sat down with them and talked to Enbridge about what it is they're going to do. I've raised concerns, and here's what they would do.


First of all, these double-hulled tankers that would go through there will be escorted by not one but two tugs all the way through those straits. Only one of those tugs is necessary to stop this tanker from any potential disaster, but they're going to have redundancy worked into the system. They're also going to put in place an emergency response system that is unparalleled anywhere around, which would be needed and be able to be used for any type of naval traffic on the coast.


They would enhance other navigational abilities through technology so that all traffic moving through that area would be able to go safely. Those are the kinds of things that you want to see if a project can go ahead.


Furthermore, the other types of activities that they plan to put in place around the pipeline are unparalleled compared to other pipelines around the world. It would be the safest pipeline ever put in place. But don't take my word for it. The professionals on the environmental panel are the people who are going to be reviewing this, and I put faith and trust in those professionals. It's necessary because the alternative is just to listen to what they say, which is to say absolutely no.


But the interesting thing I find about this whole thing is who is funding the opposition to this project. It is groups out of the U.S. that are funding this. I wonder why the NDP are kind of getting in bed with those groups because, quite frankly, the oil from Alberta…. If it doesn't go anywhere other than the U.S., the U.S. then have a monopolized market on it. They can charge anything they want for it.


Right now they're paying $10 to $20 a barrel less for that oil than other oil that they can access. Obviously, the NDP have no desire whatsoever to see competition, to see the interests of the nation, to see the security that we need for our energy industry and for the jobs and competitiveness we want to have not just in B.C. but across Canada. They're opposed to all of that because, quite frankly, they stand for socialism.


[1140]

Madam Speaker, I want to close with one quick comment. This is from something that was said in the 1930s, so I'm just taking this and paraphrasing it. The NDP want to ban oil tankers, but I wasn't concerned because I'm not in the oil business. The NDP want to ban mining, but I'm not concerned because I'm not in the mining business. The NDP want to ban independent power projects, but I'm not in that business. Now they want to ban my interests, and there would be nobody left working in this province to oppose them.


B. Simpson: I want to just spend a few minutes looking at the arguments that are being presented today, because I am also in favour of taking a much more cautionary approach to this situation and seeing the B.C. government take leadership on this issue by agreeing that these oil tankers do not belong in this part of the coast — in particular, because we've now got a signal from the federal government that they are not going to honour the work that was being done in parliament to make sure that this moratorium or this outright ban was going to go forward.


That's unfortunate, so I do think British Columbia has a special role to play in signalling to Ottawa that they do want this part of our coast protected, and that means that these supertankers will not be allowed on that coast.


What are the arguments that are being presented today? I had to chuckle when the member for Chilliwack started talking about "arbitrary" — because that wasn't in my line of logic — the idea that an arbitrary intervention to protect something is an inappropriate mechanism for government when that government has, I guess, an arbitrary moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling. That government has indicated that they don't want to proceed through some due process. They believe on balance that there are interests at stake there that would be threatened by continuing with that industrial activity.

[ Page 7010 ]

The same argument holds here. It's a question of political leadership. If on balance the people who are in this chamber believe that there is too much at stake — the natural fisheries, the coastline, all of the things that are at risk if there is one error in judgment, which of course we see happening all over the place — it is absolutely appropriate for government to do that.


The member also indicated and raised Windy Craggy and tried to pin that on the NDP of the 1990s. I'm sure the member knows that Mr. Vander Zalm had a bit of a hand in starting that whole process off. There's a bit of disingenuousness about going there.


Let me go to the second argument being posed, that Moe Sihota has indicated that the environmental review process is sufficient as it is. I can tell you that I have contested that face to face with the president of the NDP. He is flat-out wrong in his contention. The environmental review process as it stands today is not his. It is not strong enough, and it should not stand as the test for whether or not oil tankers should be allowed off our coast.


The other side of it is, of course, jobs. Well, fisheries jobs seem to be discounted on our coast when it comes to aquaculture or discounted on our coast when it comes to the possibility of ruining the fisheries through a catastrophic event.


What greater jobs could we have than actually refining this raw material and creating the material here on our land base for consumption on our land base? The refining of this material is what's missing, and there is huge job potential in that — not the negligible jobs of the pipeline, not the negligible jobs and the risk associated with the oil tankers, but the actual jobs of processing this raw material for consumption in the North American marketplace. Canada could choose to go down that path, as opposed to what we always do as hewers of wood and drawers of water and getting minimal return in investment and in jobs on our land base.


I think the critical aspect here is: what is the purpose of political leadership? In my estimation, we've lost sight of that. The purpose of political leadership is the protection of the public good, not private interests. I think what government is trying to do here is to protect private interests at the expense of the public good.


[1145]

P. Pimm: I, too, am happy to take my turn in this debate. It's kind of amazing to me. You know, the member for Victoria–Swan Lake…. It just seems like he's at it again. As usual, if there's one thing we can always count on and be assured of, it's that when this member stands up to talk in here, it's always about some sort of solution to kill jobs. It's a consistency that's ongoing.


This motion is not about banning tanker traffic. It's about trying to make corporations spend millions of dollars doing their due diligence and then saying that our environmental assessment process is no good when even their party president says that it's the best process that we have, that we could possibly have. I just don't quite understand and don't get that part of it.


I want to say to the member that I think a little bit about…. The motion is trying to put forward… I want him to think about the existing traffic along the coast, and I want him to know that that traffic has been there for a long time. It really has. How long before he wants all of the shipping to be shut down on our coast? I think that's probably where he's actually going with this motion.


My area has been involved in the oil and gas industry for over 60 years now. We have an infrastructure of pipelines that is massive. I have to tell you that we don't have pipelines breaking every day. We don't have incidents happening all the time. For the amount of infrastructure that's in place, there are a very, very small amount of issues or problems that you run into, and the technology is getting better and better and better every year.


I'd just like to run a couple of stats out there that I haven't heard today, but I'd like to bring them up. Presently we have approximately three to four crude oil tankers that travel just off the coast every day in this province — three to four tankers that travel every day off the coast. These vessels are just a few miles off Haida Gwaii and Vancouver Island, and I don't see the big issues every day. We've had one incident a few years ago, and that seems to be the only thing that we can talk about. That's a good reason to kill all the jobs out there — one incident. I think there's something wrong in that math.


I want to talk about the Port Metro Vancouver report released in February, showing that shipments of crude petroleum have risen to 3.9 million metric tonnes in 2010 from 2.2 metric tonnes the previous year. The port stats show 241 tanker arrivals in 2006. They've increased by about 6 percent to 271 in 2010.


One last point. Over the last 25 years more than 4,300 deep-sea vessels have safely moved more than 50 million tonnes of cargo through the Port of Kitimat. This includes 1,500 tankers travelling to Kitimat carrying petrochemical products including condensate every day.


C. Trevena: I, too, would like to support the motion: "Be it resolved that this House urges the Government of Canada to immediately propose legislation suggested by the House of Commons to ban bulk oil tanker traffic in the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound."


I know we only have a few minutes for our remarks, but I'd like to preface them by responding to remarks made by the member for Nechako Lakes. I found his final line paraphrasing the quote, which is so well known from the Holocaust, very offensive. I hope that he will find the opportunity to take those remarks back at some point, because I think that they offended me, and I think they'll offend many other people.

[ Page 7011 ]

I'd also like to correct the matter…. The member for Peace River North said that tanker traffic has been going on for many years. The member for Peace River North may have been unaware that there has been a moratorium since 1972 on tanker traffic, only lifted by the Conservative government, who decided that it was not a real moratorium that had to be affected.


[1150]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]


But going back to the member for Nechako Lakes, who talks about the Enbridge line and the fact that we are opposing this because of American interests…. One of the groups that is very active in opposition to this is an organization in my own constituency, which is the Living Oceans Society. They've been very active in working on the tanker ban for many years. I think they would be quite offended to be put into a box in the way that the member for Nechako Lakes is talking about.


Their concern is really the concern of the potential of a spill. The member for Chilliwack said that no one can imagine what a spill would be like, and nobody would want a spill. Well, I think it's because none of us can really imagine the immense damage that the spill would create, that any of us want to even have the opportunity of seeing that.


The spill would have an impact not just on the environment but, as everybody's talking about, on jobs right across the board — whether it is on the jobs of fishers in the area, on sports fishers, on the aquaculture industry, right across through tourism and other areas.


There are a few areas where I think that there has been some confusion. We're talking about the worst-case scenario if there's a spill from the tanker traffic. That is the worst case. Who would be responsible for it? It certainly wouldn't be Enbridge. It is the tanker owner that is responsible for pollution damage from oil spills, not the pipeline or terminal owner. So we are saying that we're not going to see Enbridge clean it up.


How much would it cost? The Exxon Valdez cleanup cost at least $3½ billion, and that was back in 1989. We have no idea how much it would cost to clean up in Canada. It would be at least that amount of money, much more, and whether there is the money available….


There is the whole issue of the emergency preparedness. We have already seen, in small incidences, the federal crews and provincial crews just not able to work together. There is no way that they can integrate their emergency preparedness.


The provincial Ministry of Environment and the Canadian Coast Guard have different ways of working. So we have the issue of how we would clean up in the worst-case scenario that nobody wants to see.


I think that while we are very eager on this side of the House to ensure that we have jobs that sustain families, that sustain communities, these have to be real jobs, not spurious jobs coming from a very dirty industry, from the oil sands to the pipeline to the shipping.


We need to make sure that we are actually seeing jobs that can support our communities, can support our families through fishing, through aquaculture, through other areas, and not through the risks that not having a tanker ban would introduce.


I see my time is up.


C. Trevena moved adjournment of debate.


Motion approved.


Hon. B. Penner moved adjournment of the House.


Motion approved.


Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 this afternoon.


The House adjourned at 11:53 a.m.

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