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)

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 22, Number 4

[ Page 7093 ]

TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2011

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

C. James: I have visiting me today in the gallery a longtime friend, a former colleague, a former educator and school principal in the Victoria school district Although he is retired now, he has continued his work, his passion for education for children and for mathematics. He's an author of many books and provides workshops. Would the House please welcome Trevor Calkins.

D. Hayer: Joining us in the gallery are six exceptional students from Kwantlen Park Secondary School in Surrey. These students are Peter Singh, Jasmin Ring, Pardeep Birak, Oscar Liang, Laura Wilkinson and Amie Johnson. They are accompanied by teacher Stuart Wohlgemuth. They are the touring the Legislature and Victoria. They are the finalists and the winners in the Surrey Rotary Club's citizenship development program.

Each of them had to write a short speech about what being a Canadian citizen means to them. This competition and trip is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Surrey. I have welcomed them for the last ten years. They'll tour, and they'll get a chance to meet with MLAs and ministers on how the parliament works.

They are also joined here by the Rotary Club of Surrey's supervisor, past president John Campbell, and my wife, Isabelle Martinez Hayer.

Would the House please make them very welcome, these exceptional students and these teachers and Rotary volunteers.

Statements

DOROTHY PARVAZ

D. Donaldson: Earlier this month was World Press Freedom Day, which reminds us of reporter Dorothy Parvaz, a Canadian citizen, North Van resident, former UBC grad who has disappeared, apparently being held by Iranian authorities after being deported from Syria for covering pro-democracy events.

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Would both sides of the House please join in demonstrating support for Ms. Parvaz and her family in North Vancouver and express our hopes for a speedy and successful resolution to her detention.

Introductions by Members

Hon. M. de Jong: Dr. Peter Froese is here. He visits from Abbotsford. He is attending the chamber today in his capacity as a representative of the Federation of Independent School Associations, which is appropriate because Dr. Froese has spent over 30 years in public and independent school education, most recently as the superintendent of MEI schools in Abbotsford.

He's visiting today with Mr. Fred Herfst, who is the current executive director of the Federation of Independent School Associations. He will be retiring in June after 25 years of distinguished service, and Peter will be assuming the position of executive director. I hope all members will make Peter feel very welcome.

C. Trevena: I think most people in the House are aware that May is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month. To mark the month, I'd hope the House will make welcome a number of people in the gallery. Chris and Bill Black have been very involved in the fight against cystic fibrosis. Their daughter Kim, as many of the members of the House may be aware, starred, I would say, in a documentary about cystic fibrosis. Her story was told in a recent documentary.

Also in the gallery are Wendy and Gerry Underhill, whose 40-year-old son recently had a lung transplant in Toronto. Also joining them is Joanne Wallis. I hope that the House will make them all very welcome.

Also in the precincts, if not in the gallery at the moment, are 45 students from Pinecrest Elementary in Campbell River. They're accompanied by their teacher Lisa Storrie and a number of parents. I have to attest that these are a very engaged group of young people who ask many very interesting questions about the parliamentary process. I hope that we prove ourselves to be worthy of their scrutiny and that the House will make them welcome.

J. Thornthwaite: I'd like to welcome to the House my CA, chief executive officer of my office and chief of staff Carol Dawson, who is also a very good friend of mine way back from high school in the olden days. I wish everybody….

Interjection.

J. Thornthwaite: Yes, that old.

I'd like to wish her very well and to thank her very much for joining us.

M. Elmore: I'm very pleased to be introducing 30 grade 5 students joining us today from the Corpus Christi Elementary School. They're sitting here above me, and they're accompanied by their grade 5 teacher Olympia Monteiro; a student assistant, Fiona Farquharson; the chairperson of the parish education committee, Cedric
[ Page 7094 ]
Vaz; parents Yolanda Malari, Patrick Lee, Steve Chan, Milada Delatorrey and Melchior Pat; as well as the teacher, Anthony Chung. They're enjoying their visit and going to be visiting the museum. I'd please ask everybody to make them feel very welcome.

Hon. S. Bond: It is my privilege today to introduce a number of distinguished guests who are joining us here in the precinct. We're very delighted to be joined by Justice Thomas Braidwood, QC. He has served at the highest levels of B.C.'s judiciary and has led vital commissions related to policing issues in our province. I'm also very pleased to welcome Justice Braidwood's wife, Phyllis.

In addition, we have Peter Hourihan, commanding officer of the RCMP's E division and the deputy commissioner. We have RCMP Supt. Tonia Enger, president of the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police; Chief Const. Jim Chu of the Vancouver police department; Tom Stamatakis, president of the B.C. Police Association; and Clayton Pecknold, the assistant deputy minister of policing and the security programs branch.

I am confident that all members of the House will want to make this very distinguished group of guests welcome to the precinct today.

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K. Conroy: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce Fiona Martin. Fiona is a teacher at Stanley Humphries senior secondary in Castlegar, where she teaches in the French immersion department. She was chosen to participate in the teachers institute this week.

I know she's a really great teacher, as in the past she's had the delightful experience of educating our youngest son as well as, currently, my nieces. They all shared stories with me about her that I'll share with her but that I won't share in the chamber today. Please join me in making her welcome.

Hon. S. Thomson: I'd like the House to make welcome three guests in the Legislature today from Weyerhaeuser Canada. I had the opportunity to meet with them earlier today and discuss their B.C. and Canadian operations — Fred Dzida, who's director of Canadian Timberlands; Wayne Roznowsky, who is their manager of public affairs for Canada; and Rob Marshall, who is their manager of Princeton Timberlands. Would the House please make them welcome.

Statements

INTERNATIONAL DAY
AGAINST HOMOPHOBIA

S. Chandra Herbert: I rise today to acknowledge International Day Against Homophobia, and I ask the House to join me in marking today by working to end homophobia in your own communities and by celebrating the great diversity of our province.

Introductions by Members

D. Barnett: I'd like the House today to welcome my constituency assistant Bonnie Gavin. Bonnie is the daughter of the past MLA for the Cariboo for a long time and, I believe, the longest-serving Transportation Minister in the province of British Columbia, who the Alex Fraser Bridge is named after. Would the House please welcome Bonnie.

Tabling Documents

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, I have the honour to present the Elections B.C. Service Plan for 2011-2012.

Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

Bill 12 — Police (Independent
Investigations Office)
Amendment Act, 2011

Hon. S. Bond presented a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled Police (Independent Investigations Office) Amendment Act, 2011.

Hon. S. Bond: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

Hon. S. Bond: I am pleased to introduce the Police (Independent Investigations Office) Amendment Act. This bill will create an independent investigations office which will fulfil a central recommendation of the Braidwood Commission and strengthen public confidence in police.

The independent investigations office will investigate serious incidents involving both the municipal police and the RCMP. Specifically, it will be led by a civilian who has never served as a police officer.

It will conduct criminal investigations into police-related incidents involving death or serious harm and will be able to do investigations involving other serious incidents. It will be able to investigate members of all B.C. police agencies, including independent municipal departments and the RCMP. It will have its powers entrenched in this legislation. It will report, as recommended, to the Attorney General.

B.C.'s office will invest a broader range of serious police-involved incidents than Ontario's model and be more independent than Alberta's, reporting to the
[ Page 7095 ]
Attorney General rather than the minister responsible for policing.

In addition, the proposed legislation will allow the office's civilian director to appoint a civilian monitor. The monitor will be free to raise concerns to the director about the integrity of an investigation and submit a final report within 30 days after the investigation is completed.

I am very proud to say that we have worked very hard over the past year to turn this important recommendation of Justice Braidwood into the legislation I am introducing today. I believe it sets a new standard for civilian-led police investigation and accountability.

Finally, this bill also includes some minor amendments to provide clarification and improvements to some of the other sections of the Police Act.

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

[1345]

Bill 12, Police (Independent Investigations Office) Amendment Act, 2011, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

ROLE OF PRINCE RUPERT IN
ASIA-PACIFIC GATEWAY

G. Coons: A century after it was incorporated and Charles Hayes dreamt of the great port city, Prince Rupert has strongly embodied itself on the international stage. On April 8 one of COSCO Canada's container ships, the MV COSCO Prince Rupert with 8500 TEU capacity, berthed in its namesake.

As one of the deepest ice-free year-round harbours in the world with a 58-hour-shorter transportation time, it's no wonder that many have seen its great potential. As part of the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor the efficiency and reliability of this port has helped to improve Canada's trade relations with Asia and has potential to open up a larger market for Canadian-made value-added products. Some locally generated exports have included waste paper, scrap steel and a Prince Rupert specialty, chilled rather than frozen seafood.

Prince Rupert's resiliency has demonstrated that even when faced with difficult times, when given support, the community can achieve great things. Those who have worked so hard to support an initiative that benefits the entire province of B.C. hope to see the support reciprocated with regards to other services and economic initiatives that share this waterway.

Prince Rupert's container terminal is the first dedicated intermodal container terminal in North America with the design capacity to move 500,000 TEUs per year.

The northern decade is in its infancy, poised to grow exponentially. The economic, natural and human potential of the north will soon be unleashed, greatly impacting the economy and culture.

The Northern Mayors and Regional District Chairs Roundtable on Transportation initiated several key recommendations for the minister responsible, with a forward-looking vision to unlock the full potential of the northern gateway.

Without effective and fully integrated transportation systems involving port, rail, road, air and affordable ferry, the movement of goods, commodities and people will be hindered not only by bottlenecks, low capacity and disparity but by the lack of foresight to meet a changing world.

INTERNATIONAL DAY
AGAINST HOMOPHOBIA

M. Stilwell: Today is International Day Against Homophobia, a day dedicated to promoting a prejudice-free world that has respect for everyone regardless of their sexual orientation. May 17 is symbolic as it was the day in 1992 when homosexuality was officially removed from the list of mental illnesses of the World Health Organization, ending over a century of homophobia and ignorance in the medical field.

Gay and lesbian individuals have been discriminated against like few minority groups. However, major advances have been made in the courts and by forward-thinking governments and their citizens. Today homosexual people are stepping out of the shadows.

However, despite these breakthroughs homophobia continues to be a problem. Homophobia today exists insidiously, propagated by public figures and groups subtly criticizing homosexuality as a choice or as a disease to be corrected or cured. These individuals and groups espouse antiquated ideas and spread hate about these amazing members of our community. The homophobic messages promoted make it difficult for many gay and lesbian individuals to live their sexual orientation, as they are certainly entitled to do.

Notwithstanding, today is not meant to solely focus on hate and prejudice. International Day Against Homophobia is a tremendous opportunity to highlight the positive aspects of individuals and celebrate the contribution of the gay and lesbian community to our society.

Hon. Speaker, I encourage this assembly to stand with me against homophobia.

QUEEN ALEXANDRA ELEMENTARY SCHOol

J. Kwan: Last Friday morning I watched a beautiful play, Acceptance: I Am Who I Am. It was written
[ Page 7096 ]
and performed by grades 6 and 7 students of Queen Alexandra Elementary School.

The play was based on their own experiences and told the story of the struggle between fitting in, accepting and showing their own unique selves. At Queen Alexandra, or QA, children have the chance to learn far more than the three Rs of reading, writing and 'rithmetic. They learn to think independently. They learn to collaborate. Their talent is showcased with the help of artists in residence.

QA's school plan recognizes that social and emotional health is key to the academic success of students and actively integrates curriculum that teaches antiracism, anti-bullying and peaceful problem-solving.

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Last summer when parents, students, educators and members of the QA community found out that their school was slated for potential closure, they organized, rallied and made plans to save their school. The QA community developed a plan to further enhance the existing strengths of QA and presented their vision to the school board. The innovative plan formalizes QA as a fine arts, multicultural, integrated-learning-for-youth school.

This vision builds on the programs and community partnerships already in place, such as KidSafe, the UBC Learning Exchange, Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood House and Sarah McLachlan music outreach. The school strives to nurture the whole child to develop into a successful global citizen.

Through project-based learning, children have the chance to develop a wide range of skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration and communication, as well as to foster students' self-expression, confidence and respect for diversity.

The school teaches acceptance and respect and incorporates the histories of the multicultural communities into the students' learning experience. Recently the SFU community engagement program has been in discussions about developing a partnership with QA, inviting all others to join in to be part of this wonderful school with over 100 years of history.

GIRL GUIDES' CAMP OLAVE
ON SUNSHINE COAST

L. Reid: I rise today to celebrate the Girl Guides of Canada's Camp Olave. Camp Olave is located at Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast and has served young Sparks, Brownies, Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers and their leaders for the past 80 years.

The camp was previously tax-exempt, but a municipal boundary change altered their tax status. His Worship Mayor Inkster and his council provided a grant-in-lieu of taxes owing for this tax year. I'm grateful to the council and to the countless friends of Camp Olave — including the MLA for Powell River–Sunshine Coast, who did a fabulous job — the girls and Guiders past and present who embraced safeguarding Camp Olave for future generations.

The motto for Guiding is "Be prepared." A number of wonderful women are building a Camp Olave endowment fund, and they would welcome your support. They need to be prepared should a grant-in-lieu of taxes not be available in the future.

Please make contact with the Victoria Foundation and offer your support. Guiding in Canada celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2010, and with your support, this organization will continue to offer programs of leadership for young women for generations to come.

CYSTIC FIBROSIS AWARENESS
AND FUNDRAISING WALK

S. Simpson: May is Cystic Fibrosis Month in Canada. Once again the Great Strides for cystic fibrosis fundraising walk will be happening on May 29. CF is the most common and fatal genetic disease facing young people in our country. It causes a mucus buildup by damaging the lining of the lungs and blocking enzymes from reaching the intestines to digest food.

It affects about one in 3,600 children in B.C., including my nephew Liam. Liam is 11 years old and full of life and energy, but it is a life that includes regular hospital trips for his tune-ups and his many medications.

However, in the 1960s children with CF rarely lived to attend kindergarten. Today over half live well into their 40s, but it is still not good enough. We are making progress, but we still have a long way to go.

I know how Liam's diagnosis radically changed his family's lives and their daily routines, including significant additional costs, even with government support. Across B.C. families deal with the challenges of CF every day. They face pressures that leave a terrible uncertainty for their future, an uncertainty that includes the time when these young people begin to understand the consequences of their afflictions to their own futures.

These types of pressures have too often led to family breakups, as parents find it increasingly difficult to deal with the strains and realities of CF and the fallout on other aspects of their relationships. This is what makes Cystic Fibrosis Month so important. I am hopeful Liam will live to collect his old age pension, but it will require more supports from government and individuals, including funding for medical research and increased support for CF families.

I'll be walking in the Great Strides fundraiser on May 29 and hope all members and all British Columbians will support the fight against CF. We can beat this disease. We can give our young people with CF, like Liam, back their lives. I know every member in this House would agree that nothing could be more important than giving all CF kids this opportunity. We can make it happen.
[ Page 7097 ]

NATIONAL ROAD SAFETY WEEK AND
SEA TO SKY HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENTS

J. McIntyre: I rise to inform the House and encourage all British Columbians to honour National Road Safety Week, May 17 to 23, 2011. Each year this week leading up to the Victoria Day long weekend kicks off the summer driving season, encouraging drivers to keep their eyes on the road and minimize driver distractions.

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At this time of year drivers are sharing the road with increased numbers of vulnerable road users — motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians — who all have an increased risk of death or critical injury should they be involved in a collision.

Public safety is priority number one in developing and expanding B.C.'s transportation networks. I've seen firsthand how a safety upgrade investment in a major highway can improve our ability to move passengers and goods in a safer and more efficient manner.

Residents and visitors to the Sea to Sky corridor are now enjoying enhancements made to the once notorious Highway 99 that links communities from West Van to north of Whistler. Improvements like straightening and improving sightlines, 80 kilometres of new passing lanes, reflective pavement markings, rumble strips, wider shoulders and improved pullouts have all combined to more than meet the goal of reducing accidents by 30 percent.

Prior to construction there was an average of 215 collisions per year, and since, collisions have been reduced by approximately 66 percent, head-on crashes by approximately 80 percent. Sixty-three people died from 1998 to 2007 and only one fatality in 2010. Think of the loss prevented.

There's a plaque at Tunnel Point, north of Horseshoe Bay, honouring the over 2,000 workers who laboured from 2003 to '09 to build a magnificent project on budget and on time, designed to improve public safety. Now we all have to take our cues from National Road Safety Week and drive responsibly.

Oral Questions

IMPACT OF LOG EXPORT POLICY
ON FOREST INDUSTRY

N. Macdonald: The vice-president at Teal-Jones in Surrey, Hanif Karmally, says his mill would be running three shifts. They have the market for lumber. What they don't have is access to B.C. wood. He says it is because the B.C. Liberals are shipping our logs overseas.

B.C. logs should create jobs in B.C. That's something almost everyone in this province agrees on. So can the Minister of Forests tell us why he's shipping thousands of jobs to China instead of ensuring that logs stay in British Columbia to create jobs for British Columbia families?

Hon. S. Thomson: I appreciate the opportunity to comment on this very important policy. First, to correct the member opposite, the log export policy in British Columbia is one that creates jobs in British Columbia.

Since 2009 we've opened 27 new mills — 1,600 new jobs here in British Columbia. That equates to over 6,000 additional jobs, building jobs for families in forest-dependent communities across the province.

I do want to say that we have noticed the increasing number of log exports. The former Minister of Forests and myself agree that we would much rather export lumber than logs, and we're going to continue to look at the policy. It does need to be a balanced policy. We are discussing it with industry. We are reviewing it.

Most importantly, we need to recognize that the current policy does create jobs here in British Columbia. It needs to be balanced, and we're going to continue to work towards that balance.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

N. Macdonald: There are 30,000 less jobs under the B.C. Liberals than there were under any previous government. They have lost jobs. More than 30 mills shut down on the coast under the B.C. Liberals. These were good family-supporting jobs.

Meanwhile in China 80 mills have sprung up. The logs are coming from British Columbia and going through Chinese mills. This is a direct result of B.C. Liberal forest policy. Tens of thousands of jobs lost, mills shut down, government revenue lost. So instead of feeding B.C. families, British Columbia's forests are feeding Chinese mills.

The question is: does the minister disagree with the vast majority of British Columbians who make the statement that this does not make sense? B.C. logs should be for B.C. jobs.

Hon. S. Thomson: We have had a log export policy in British Columbia since 1912. It's been provided for in the Forest Act and has continued all the way through the process. It's been managed. Logs do not leave British Columbia without a surplus test applied to them. If they're required for the domestic industry, they're made available to domestic industry.

[1400]

There's a timber export advisory committee that manages that process, oversees that process. That advisory committee includes provincial and federal government, independent mill operators, forest industry representatives, workers in this industry. They manage that process.
[ Page 7098 ]

As I said, this is a balanced policy. This is one that is creating jobs. A log export policy is part of the equation that ensures we have viability in our mills, viability in our industry in the province. It is one part of the equation that does that. It's one that, as I said, is creating good, well-paying jobs in forest-dependent communities in this province. That's one that is supporting families in those communities.

We will continue to review the policy. As I said, I have noted the increase. We are looking at it. We are discussing it with industry, and I will be meeting with TEAC.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a further supplemental.

N. Macdonald: This is unprecedented. Forty percent of the wood cut on the coast was sent offshore — 40 percent. Teal-Jones is running two shifts and not even two shifts full-time. They could be running three shifts full-time. We've heard minister after minister say that it's because of markets, but the fact is that Teal-Jones has a market. What they don't have is fibre.

So the question is: why are B.C. logs being used to create jobs in China when our mills are sitting idle?

Hon. S. Thomson: As I've pointed out, a log export policy, a balanced one, is part of the equation that ensures we have viability in our forest industry. It's been a key part of the equation.

Perhaps the member opposite would like to review a statement by the former leader of the NDP, the member for Victoria–Beacon Hill, who said: "I've been clear that you can't ban raw log exports. There are communities at certain times when log exports have kept workers going and kept communities going." That's the case then; that's the case now.

B. Routley: I worked in the forest industry on the coast of British Columbia for more than 30 years, and I can say that in all that time I've never seen a government decide it was okay to ship 40 percent of the B.C. coastal jobs overseas. Even going back to the days of W.A.C. Bennett, B.C. governments believed that B.C. logs should create B.C. jobs.

What does this Minister of Forests have to say to B.C. families about signing off on the export of their jobs?

Hon. S. Thomson: As I pointed out and I made clear, a log export policy is part of creating jobs in British Columbia. The log export policy allows mills and allows companies to harvest the total profile of the stand in the areas that they're logging. That means that they can harvest under the current economic conditions. This is what has kept mills operating, kept mills going, kept mills employing people in our communities. So it's part of the policy. It's part of what makes a healthy industry.

As I said earlier, I've noticed the increase. We are continuing to discuss that with industry, and we'll continue to meet with TEAC to ensure that the policy is managed in a balanced way.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

B. Routley: This Liberal government has signed off on the export of 40 percent of this year's coastal harvest as being — get this — surplus to the manufacturing needs of British Columbia. At a time when mills are shut down up and down the coast of British Columbia, this government says that 40 percent of the logs are surplus. This is simply outrageous. This is a 300 percent increase in the export of raw logs from the province of British Columbia.

Will this minister finally admit that the log export approval system in the province of British Columbia is broken and that it's not working in the interests of B.C. forest families?

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Hon. S. Thomson: Mr. Speaker, 27 mills opened and reopened since 2009; 1,600 jobs in those communities where those mills are operating; ten mills operating today simply because of the work that's been done by the former minister — and continues to do — in building the market in China. We're building capacity for our industry. This is what is helping the industry through this very, very significant economic challenge that the industry is facing.

As I said, we're going to continue to make sure that the policy is balanced. As I said, the logs do not leave this province without having the surplus test applied to them.

The more important thing, I think, to the members opposite: the job export policy that the industry is most concerned about is the members' opposite support for going back to the job-killing PST. The HST is a $140 million benefit to the forest industry of British Columbia.

D. Routley: Harmac pulp mill was rescued from the Pope and Talbot bankruptcy by the strength and courage of its workers. The Pope and Talbot sawmill next door was shut down. Now a chain-link fence separates those two mills. Across that fence are mountains of raw logs about to be exported to China. On the other side of the fence is the Harmac pulp mill, which is frequently curtailed because of a lack of fibre. Their problem is that they can't get fibre.

Well, it's more than a chain-link fence that separates those jobs from that fibre. It's failed Liberal policies that separate those workers from their jobs. Those logs are deemed to be surplus to need, and yet the mill next door is curtailed. Can the minister please speak to those families — tell them what he thinks about the export of their jobs?
[ Page 7099 ]

Hon. S. Thomson: As I mentioned, 27 mills reopened or opened since 2009 — 1,600 jobs. Building diversity in our markets and capacity in markets is what has helped this industry through a very, very difficult economic circumstance. That is what has kept people working in our communities.

As I mentioned, again, I've noticed the increase in the volume of logs being exported. We are looking at that. It's important that we do. It's important that we make sure that the system and the process is balanced.

As I said, and the former minister said as well, we would much rather prefer exporting lumber. We're continuing to build markets for lumber in those other markets. We will continue to do so, and we'll continue to work to make sure that our policy is balanced. But very clearly, the current log export policy is creating jobs and economic opportunity in our communities.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

D. Routley: Well, provincewide they lost — what? — 90 mills? He claims 30? Negative 60 is the outcome? On the coast here we've seen 30 mills shut down. We've seen 30 mills and thousands of jobs lost. This minister should accept that fact and do his job.

He needs to do like the workers of Harmac: roll up his sleeves and work for the province. Will the minister commit today to enact policies that will protect those jobs at Harmac…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

D. Routley: …protect those families, stop the export of those logs and support the economy of British Columbia?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members. Let's listen to the question and then listen to the answer.

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Hon. S. Thomson: Jobs that are being created with the current policy, the current development of the markets, in other markets…. We're moving away from the reliance on U.S. markets. That's what's creating opportunities for our industry.

For example, the Coast Tsimshian Resources in the northwest — 200 jobs built on the basis of a China market which includes the export of logs. That's 200 jobs and capacity in a First Nations community in the northwest. That's where we're focused. That's how we're helping build the economy of British Columbia.

GOVERNMENT POLICIES ON
FOREIGN TRADE ZONES

G. Gentner: John Ries from the Sauder school of economics has stated that foreign trade zones are simply a race to the bottom. With foreign trade zones, government has to provide subsidies and loosen environmental labour standards. It is unclear what the benefits are to British Columbians, but it is clear that foreign trade zones are indicators of a failed economic policy.

For the record, can the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure explain what the benefits of pushing through a foreign trade zone would be for the average British Columbian?

Hon. B. Lekstrom: Well, we have posted a request for proposals in February for an independent research and analysis of foreign trade zones. I'm looking forward to receiving that. But my knowledge of foreign trade zones — and I'm sure the member has done his research — is that this is not about a tax-exempt status for workers losing their jobs and so on.

This is about the ability that's used around the world in foreign trade zones where commodities can be brought forward, products. They can be value-added. If they remain in the country — and in this case, it would be Canada — the full taxation statutes would apply. If they are then redistributed to other countries, they wouldn't.

I'm looking forward to the information that's brought forward, and we'll read it thoroughly, as I'm sure the member will do as well.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

G. Gentner: It's interesting. The minister seems to know what a foreign trade zone is, and yet they're still asking for a request for proposal to do a research study on it.

If those are the benefits, then why are the B.C. Liberals choosing to sneak this policy through, just like they did with the HST? Hon. Speaker, once a sneak, always a sneak.

Yesterday on Global the Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation stated that the Premier asked him to have a hard look at the foreign trade zone. Now, can the minister explain to the House how the Premier can ask the government to initiate a foreign trade zone when the request for a proposal was already underway before she had even won the leadership bid?

It doesn't add up. The good old boys are back at it again — aren't they, Mr. Speaker?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.
[ Page 7100 ]

G. Gentner: The ministers will have their foreign trade zone blueprint in their hands this summer with no public consultation. It's a done deal. To the minister: if this is such a good deal for British Columbians, why so much secrecy?

Hon. B. Lekstrom: Through to the member: probably some information that may change your mind on the question you've just asked, actually. The RFP is a public document posted on the Internet. I don't know how secret that could possibly be if it's available to the world for their consideration. I encourage the member to look at that.

Foreign trade zones — as well, in your earlier comments — are not a new concept. How would I know what they are? I've actually done some research, hon. Member, and I encourage you to do the same.

POTENTIAL USE OF DELTA LANDS
FOR FOREIGN TRADE ZONE

V. Huntington: Well, my interest in free trade zones is their location, and in estimates we were told that it wouldn't necessarily be in Delta. It might be in Prince Rupert or Prince George or at the Vancouver Airport.

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But I have to say…. I hope the minister forgives me for being suspicious when the former, former Minister of Transportation takes B.C. Rail to Dubai with him, when Global Container Terminals at Deltaport is owned in Dubai, when Global Container chairs the steering committee advocating free trade zones in B.C., when B.C. Rail has stockpiled more land than it requires for rail expansion and when a land consolidation group is secretly optioning agricultural land adjacent to the B.C. holdings in Delta.

Will the minister tell me whether this government is contemplating a free trade zone on the agricultural lands in Delta?

Hon. B. Lekstrom: The issue of foreign trade zones — as I said, I'm looking forward to receiving a document that will outline. This is not a new concept used around the world. There is no determination whatsoever, Member, that any determinations have been made, whether you're suspicious or not.

I have had the opportunity to meet with you on numerous occasions. There is no determination, locations of any such, and no decision has been made on that. I think that would be far too premature.

As I indicated, there was an RFP put forward through the Internet, a public document. Again, I want to reiterate that. I'm looking forward to the findings of that. I'm looking forward to the ability to review that document. But no, there has been no indication of any piece of property, whether it be in British Columbia or anywhere else that I know of, that has been committed to such an exercise.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

V. Huntington: I thank the minister for his response, but we've learned some hard lessons in Delta, and when this government secretly gets this far down the road in any planning, it's usually a done deal.

A Dubai model free trade zone has nothing to do with community. The whole point of a modern free trade zone is to protect business from community. This isn't about jobs. It's about greed. It's about flipping land in Delta, and it's about the destruction of the finest agricultural land in Canada.

I'm asking this minister: if this feasibility study recommends free trade zones in B.C., will the minister tell us today that his government will not remove land from the ALR to create an industrial wasteland in Delta?

Hon. B. Lekstrom: Recognizing your concerns and suspicions, I do want to point out they're foreign trade zones, not free trade zones, something that we're looking at.

I don't want to predetermine what the report will say. I'm looking forward to reading it, seeing what it has. Foreign trade zones do, though, when you look around the world, have the opportunity to create jobs.

There is a lot of speculation in your question, a lot of speculation that I think is unfounded, to be honest with you, Member.

I'm looking forward, as I said. A foreign trade zone concept is not new in the world that we live in. It is a concept that we have put out an RFP for. We have commissioned a report that will be brought back. I'm looking forward to that.

I am all for continuing to enhance our gateway to the Asia-Pacific. It is a vitally important part of our economy. If we have the ability to create jobs for British Columbians and their families and their children growing up here, I'm going to do everything I can to ensure that happens.

SERVICES FOR
DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED PERSONS

K. Corrigan: The Minister of Social Development assured this House that all individuals with developmental disabilities have a plan ready for them when they come into Community Living B.C. My question to the minister: is there funding in CLBC available to implement these plans?

Hon. H. Bloy: Children transitioning into adulthood — Community Living B.C. is committed to assisting
[ Page 7101 ]
these individuals. They are meeting with the individuals before they're 19 when they're known to them, and they're drawing a plan for them so that they will be able to contribute to the community.

[1420]

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

K. Corrigan: Dave and Kathy Martin's son Jonathan has a dual diagnosis of Down syndrome and autism, and he is non-verbal. A CLBC facilitator prepared a report outlining his needs. Let me quote from the report: "Jonathan requires significant supports in virtually all areas of personal care needs." Another quote: "There is a grave concern that Jonathan's independence and acquired skill would quickly decline after he finishes high school and if a day program is not available."

Yet after issuing this report, which included recommendations for the kind of round-the-clock care he should receive, CLBC informed the Martin family that "all available funding for day program, one-on-one life skill support and respite is currently committed" — meaning that Jonathan won't get a single service that he desperately needs.

Again to the minister: what's the point of making a plan for clients of CLBC if the B.C. Liberals have no intention of giving vulnerable individuals like Jonathan the care they need?

Hon. H. Bloy: If I could ask the member across the way to send me the information on this, I'd be prepared to talk to her about it. But I believe it's important for Community Living B.C. to make a plan for every individual that's coming into the system. Community Living B.C. is committed to first helping those with health and safety issues and, next, those individuals that do not have any services provided.

N. Simons: The Minister of Social Development says that it's important to have plans in place for people transitioning from young adulthood to adulthood or from childhood to young adulthood. What is the point of having these plans if there's absolutely nothing available to these struggling families to provide the supports for their children with disabilities?

Hon. H. Bloy: I believe it's important to draw a plan for every individual. Every young person in this country, as they're growing up and going through high school, starts to make plans for life, and I think it's important that they all have an opportunity. Community Living B.C. is committed to helping these individuals formulate a plan for their life.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

N. Simons: I find that answer to be entirely insufficient. It's like saying that you can be fed with a list of ingredients, and what you really need is the actual program in place for these young families.

We're hearing from families across the province, from Prince George to Terrace to Abbotsford, and these families are all saying the same thing. They're saying that there isn't any funding available to provide the necessary supports to keep their young families, their young children or adult children, with the programs that they need to be included in the community — the basic, fundamental responsibility of CLBC.

Will the minister do something or tell the people of this province that he will be advocating for the needs of these families? Will he do what's necessary to relieve the crisis that currently exists in British Columbia?

Hon. H. Bloy: Again, I want to say to the member that I believe it's important that every individual has a plan. I want to say that it's important, and I want to say that I am a strong advocate on behalf of these individuals. I've been in this position, and there are some challenges there. But there are so many opportunities for these individuals, and I have all the faith in the work that Community Living B.C. is doing to provide assistance to each individual.

M. Farnworth: The families of these kids are the ones who are committed. They're the ones who are committed to looking after them every single day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. What they want is some commitment from this government that they'll be there to support them.

[1425]

The minister talks about plans and the need to have plans — absolutely, Minister. But what you require to make those plans happen, what those families need, is for those plans to have funds. Minister, the caseload over the last ten years has grown by 59 percent. Funding has not kept pace. What's your message to those families who have the plans but the government isn't prepared to fund them?

Hon. H. Bloy: I'll repeat again that I'm in favour of plans, and plans are put in place. There are some concerns out there, but we are helping those most in need with safety and health issues and, secondly, people that are not receiving any services at the present time. We need the plan to be able to work with them in the future.

I can tell all members of this House that we have increased the budget year after year, services year after year, since we started Community Living British Columbia. It was this government that started Community Living British Columbia with partners, and it's now recognized around the world for the services that it provides.
[ Page 7102 ]

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

M. Farnworth: It's families of kids with disabilities in this province who are looking to this government to live up to the promise of CLBC, hon. Speaker. The minister has failed to answer the basic question. Families are putting together plans; CLBC is telling them the funds aren't there in place.

What is the message of this government to those families who are desperately seeking respite care, help and support while they look after their kids who have disabilities every single day of the year, who this government is turning its back on?

Hon. H. Bloy: I want to reassure the members and to say again that we have increased the budget year after year. We have increased services year after year. Community Living B.C. has looked at innovative ways to provide services year after year. We're working for every individual in this province with developmental disabilities.

[End of question period.]

B. Bennett: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Introductions by Members

B. Bennett: It's my pleasure to introduce my two constituency assistants, Jennifer Osmar and Brenda Bannister, who raced here from the airport so that they could watch question period — which proves conclusively that somebody does care. Please help me make them welcome.

Hon. H. Bloy: I ask leave to make an introduction.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Hon. H. Bloy: I'd like to introduce a constituent of my riding, Mr. Fred Herfst. He's the executive director of the Federation of Independent School Associations in British Columbia.

R. Sultan: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

R. Sultan: In the galleries today we have the brains behind West Vancouver–Capilano, my CA Terry Oaken. Would the House please make her welcome.

N. Macdonald: I'd like the House to join me in welcoming Darryl Walker, who is head of the B.C. Government Employees Union. Please make him welcome.

Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Coleman: In this House this afternoon we'll be continuing the estimates of the Ministry of Education. In Committee A we'll be doing the estimates of the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Operations.

[1430]

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section B); L. Reid in the chair.

The committee met at 2:34 p.m.

On Vote 22: ministry operations, $5,241,877,000 (continued).

R. Austin: I'm going to lead off this afternoon with something that the minister finished with just prior to lunch. The minister, in the answer to one of his questions, moved into talking about personalized learning. So I'm going to start with a few questions around personalized learning. Just for the purpose of giving some context to the questions, I'd like to spend a couple of minutes to create that context.

[1435]

Late last year in an address — I believe it was in October of 2010 — the former Premier, Gordon Campbell, announced that the government would be investing $9.6 million towards personalized early learning. The goal was to address the approximately 20 percent of children completing grade 4 who are not reading, writing or sufficient in numeracy at that grade level.

I think, in fairness, $9.6 million equates to $1,618 per school, or $11 per student per year over five years. Now, the purpose of this investment, as outlined by Premier Campbell, was threefold: to expand the StrongStart B.C. network, which the minister has spoken to…. By the way, I think StrongStart is a very good thing, but we should be mindful of the fact that it does require a parent to be present, and seeing as the majority of British Columbia families are two-parent working families, it doesn't address the needs of all of those kids in the majority of families whose parent is not able to attend a StrongStart.

Anyway, the purpose of this investment was to expand StrongStart, to do early childhood learning assessments, which the minister spoke to before lunch, and also to address reading, writing and math at grade level.

So my question is this: will the ministry be meeting the personalized learning commitments that were outlined in last fall's television address?
[ Page 7103 ]

Hon. G. Abbott: The short answer would be yes. But based on the presumption that the critic would like more, I would note, first of all, that on StrongStarts, we are going to be expanding the number of StrongStart centres. I should note, just for certainty and clarity, that it doesn't have to be a parent that accompanies a child to StrongStart. It could be an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent, a caregiver, a guardian. There are many that can accompany a child there. It doesn't necessarily have to be the parents.

In terms of the other pieces that were articulated around testing and remediation and so on, the answer is yes. Those are definitely going to be part of the personalized learning agenda.

R. Austin: How is the Ministry of Education's stated commitment to personalized learning reflected in this year's budget estimates for 2011-12? Could the minister give me some specific budgetary commitments that are there to support the policy that he's just spoken to?

[1440]

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for the question. In terms of how we move forward towards a personalized learning model, in some cases it may involve additional resources. In another case it may be a matter of doing things differently than we have in the past.

It is worth noting, for example, the three school districts that we talked about a little bit this morning — Revelstoke, southeast Kootenay and Fort Nelson…. The school districts in those cases are achieving the results they are with the same per-student funding as one would find in a less successful district.

So it is not always a matter of dollars being equated with system improvement. The way in which one deploys dollars is also, we believe, an important part of the introduction of personalized learning and providing attention to those matters.

It is worth noting, though, that probably the most important thing that this jurisdiction, British Columbia, has undertaken in terms of pursuit of personalized learning and in pursuit of enhancing student achievement is the introduction of all-day kindergarten.

There is an additional $58 million in the budget for all-day kindergarten for B.C. That is important. We believe the evidence shows that all-day kindergarten will be very successful in enhancing student achievement over time. That's, I think, an appropriate and substantial investment by the province in that area.

R. Austin: The service plan for this year says that the government will publish "a new and improved suite of goals, objectives, strategies and performance measures tied to personalized and 21st-century learning." What will be the process of creating these goals, objectives, strategies and performance measures, and will there be consultation with teachers and parents and students?

Hon. G. Abbott: The answer is yes, we will be working with all of the parties that the member mentioned. Our commitment is the co-construction of a new model for education. That is often referred to as personalized learning, sometimes 21st-century learning, sometimes individualized learning.

Regardless of how it is named, it is an important step forward in terms of trying to ensure the best student achievement possible for every student. It will involve an ongoing conversation between the ministry and all of our educational partners, including the School Trustees Association, the B.C. Teachers Federation, principals and vice-principals, superintendents, parent advisory councils and students themselves through Student Voice.

[1445]

All of them have important contributions to make in terms of understanding how we can improve the education system in the province, and I think it is vitally important that all of the partners have a hand in building an improved education system.

R. Austin: I'm glad to hear that the minister is confirming that this broad consultation is going to take place and is going to be a part of the process before the government decides on this new and improved suite of goals, objectives, strategies and performance measures.

Could the minister tell this House where in the budget the costs are that are going to be used to cover this kind of broad consultation before any changes are made? Obviously, there's a cost involved in doing that kind of consultation, that level of consultation, to make sure that all of the stakeholders and partners can come and participate. I'm wondering where in the ministry's budget that's going to be covered.

Hon. G. Abbott: The answer is that it is about the way that the ministry undertakes the business of governing and educational reform. The member can look to any portion of the ministry's budget, exclusive of the transfers to the school districts, as areas that we would utilize to continue the conversation. The conversation is not one that has enormous costs attached to it, but what costs there are will come from the ministry's portion of the budget.

R. Austin: Maybe I should have asked this question earlier. You know, we hear a lot, and the minister just used various terms — personalized learning, 21st-century learning. It's something that, as the critic, I've done a little bit of reading about. But I would like to ask the minister to perhaps spend a couple of minutes defining, on the public record, what he believes 21st-century learning is all about.
[ Page 7104 ]

You speak to one school district, and they have this idea. You speak to another school district, and their interpretation of the material is something different. I'm wondering, and I think it's probably good for the minister to put it on the public record: what does the Minister of Education believe is his vision or the vision of the Liberal government in terms of the whole agenda around 21st-century learning?

Hon. G. Abbott: I appreciate the member asking the question. There are many who have written on the subject of personalized learning. One of the educators and authors who I'm particularly appreciative of is Sir Ken Robinson. The member may be familiar with his book The Element, which I think lays out a number of the building blocks of personalized learning.

For me, as I look at the possibilities for personalized learning, it is really looking, first of all, at the student as an individual and identifying very early in the life of that individual, first of all, any barriers that may exist to learning in that individual. That goes to the point we talked about earlier — attempting, as a system, in the very early years, possibly even pre-kindergarten, to pick up some physical disabilities which may be barriers to learning. Those may be in the area of hearing and sight and so on. That's an area where we've added some incremental testing to try to pick those pieces up.

It is also important at K — or grade 1, hopefully, at the latest — to pick up less obvious barriers to learning to ensure that, for example, if a child is troubled by dyslexia or some other barrier to learning, that it's identified early, that the school and the school system understand that barrier and that a plan for remediation of the shortfall in learning that has occurred is remediated by, hopefully, a focused attention on reading, writing or numeracy, if that's the challenge that the child faces.

[1450]

I guess further, just ensuring, first of all, in the model that in that kindergarten to grade 4 period, when we do have such a spectacular opportunity to remediate shortfalls in learning, we identify them, we remediate them and try to get them working optimally by grade 3.

That doesn't mean that every child is performing at genius level by grade 3 or grade 4. It means that they are performing to their optimal ability. I've referenced the three school districts earlier that have achieved that. That's something that we should be enormously proud of and that those school districts should be enormously proud of.

So in my conception, at least, of personalized learning, it will be a matter of understanding what it is that those school districts are doing with such good effect, trying to draw from the success stories, best practices that could be produced in the system and then making those best practices generalized practices across the system so that if we have something that is working in at least three school districts, it is quite possible that they could work in 60 school districts.

If we turn that around, I think it would produce enormous benefits, particularly…. Fort Nelson, with a very high aboriginal student participation rate…. To have the results that they have has got to say some very important things about the future of education in British Columbia. That one is particularly interesting. I'm particularly looking forward to learning more about that over time — the roots of that success.

But if we can get students performing to their optimal level by grade 4, then after that, it's moving from, as they say, learning to read to reading to learn. Then, I think, the other area that particularly comes into play in grades 9 to 12 is in a personalized learning model, allowing students to explore their passion or interests.

We tend still, in the model of education we have, to push students sometimes into areas of learning that aren't of great interest to them. To their credit, we have a number of school districts now — in fact, many school districts now — that have put into place in grades 10, 11 and 12 programs that allow students to, for example, explore a passion about building or construction or carpentry or one of the building trades outside of the school system.

Not because it's maybe the best model, but because I'm familiar with it, in school district 83, North Okanagan-Shuswap, the school district, in partnership with Okanagan College and in partnership with a private sector organization called the Shuswap Construction Industry Professionals, has built a model where in grades 10, 11 and 12 students can get out of the school for a period of time. They go out, do building, and then they'll be back in the school to build again their foundation skills around math, around reading, around writing. That's very complementary to what they want to pursue as a passion in their lives, which is the building trades. That's just one example.

I'll close on this, because I may have given the member more than the couple of minutes that he was looking for necessarily. I can recall back…. It was probably going on ten years now, but I visited A.L. Fortune Secondary School in Enderby, in my constituency.

The administrative assistant, or school secretary, at A.L. Fortune took me aside, actually, when I visited the school and said: "It breaks my heart when I walk down the streets of Enderby and I see kids who have dropped out in grade 9 or grade 10. They're on the sidewalks. They're in the park. They're self-medicating to deal with the pain of failing. We have to find some way to reach out to those kids that we're losing in high school and try to find a way to keep them in school and find a way to have them excited and feeling positive about their educational experience."

She was exactly right. We've got to think about broadening the school system to take account of stu-
[ Page 7105 ]
dents as they come to us, not as we'd necessarily like them to be.

[1455]

There are some very good programs in terms of alternate schools around the province, and again, I think we can learn from that. But I think right through that whole band — all-day K to grade 12 — it's trying to address the students as they come to us and trying to address their interest, their passion, their element.

R. Austin: Thanks to the minister for those very interesting comments.

Can I take it, then, that the minister is looking at finding alternatives to the accepted norm in British Columbia, which is that every child should graduate with a traditional academic graduation certificate, and is perhaps looking at children, as the minister has alluded to, who simply are not that interested in the academic portions of grades 9, 10 or 11 material and are kind of switching off and therefore inevitably often dropping out of school — recognizing that that child may not like reading, writing and arithmetic but may like auto mechanics or carpentry or whatever and finding a way within our school system to actually transfer and shift their focus so that that child has an opportunity, then, to go within the school system, maybe again with some collaboration with a college or whatever?

But is that sort of the minister's intention? Try and move that so we can take, say, those 20 percent of kids who are failing and then say: "Look, instead of finding failure in the school system, we're going to find an alternate for you to be able to go and find success. It may not necessarily come out with a graduation certificate, but you will be able to do what it is that you find interesting, and then you will be able to go out and hopefully find some gainful employment with that."

Is that what the minister is talking about here?

Hon. G. Abbott: The short answer would be yes, but of course, we should never be content with short answers in an estimates process.

I think the longer, more thoughtful answer to the member's important question is this. Foundation skills are hugely important throughout everyone's life. The foundation skills that hopefully we learn in kindergarten-to-grade-4 will serve us well through the balance of our K-to-12 experience and hopefully will particularly serve us well whether a student decides that they want to go into, let's say, building.

One of the first things, of course, that students find when they go out on a jobsite is: "Hey, that practical math has application after all." So the foundation skills around numeracy are hugely important in that. Similarly, say the interest might be in mechanics. The modern mechanic, of course, uses quite remarkable technology in trying to understand what the vehicle is suffering from, and so you need to have that base set of reading and writing skills to be successful there.

I think the answer to the member's important question is yes. Let's widen the description of what we believe to be success flowing from school but never lose sight that the foundation skills are always going to be enormously important, just recognizing that the application of those skills might be different in one circumstance than another.

R. Austin: I'd like to ask a question in regards to the inequity in access to technology. This is a personal interest of mine, because obviously I come from a part of the province that doesn't necessarily have access to a lot of things at home.

The minister will be well aware that more students have access to their own technology at home, and sometimes they bring that technology to school. Those students whose families don't have the resources for their children are therefore excluded from having access to that technology.

[1500]

My question is this. What funding is being provided to overcome these inequities not only between schools but also between individual students in regards to access to technology?

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for his question. It's an important one. I suspect that as we move forward in this decade and a succession of ministers and Education critics have the opportunity to discuss education, technology will feature more prominently year over year in these discussions than ever before.

The first issue, I think, to talk about a little bit is the whole question of the utilization of technology in education, and there's been a considerable debate around that. The tension between sort of traditional pedagogy and utilization of technology is an important one and one that is probably not entirely resolved yet.

There is, in the Premier's council on technology report, a fascinating graph, which the member may be familiar with. It's a graph of student utilization of technologies, whether it's computer or BlackBerry or other communications technology. It shows a huge spike from early morning through the start of school hours, then drops way down, pops way up at noon hour, way down as school resumes and way up after school.

Clearly, we're seeing students utilize technology enormously outside of schools but only to a limited extent in school, although it's changing and changing dramatically and changing quickly. It is now estimated that 80 percent of British Columbia's families utilize computer technology. So that's a huge shift over time as well.

Without a doubt, I think we will be seeing more and more utilization of technology in schools not as a substitute for foundation skills and the continued development
[ Page 7106 ]
of foundation skills through K-to-12 but utilization of technology for exploring learning areas. The computer is fabulous. We have at our fingertips masses of information about the world, and we can get there by clicking a couple of buttons, and it's an amazing thing.

So notwithstanding the debate about what the appropriate balance is between face-to-face learning and utilizing technology and learning and distance learning and all of that, I think that we will see more and more utilization of technology.

[1505]

The member's question about the cost of it is a good one. I did meet with an organization, which I think has been around for at least a decade, called Computers for Schools, which is a non-profit that utilizes a lot of the surplus computers, particularly from the federal government but also from a variety of private and other sectors.

The computers are sort of refitted, remediated if they need to be, and they are sold to schools for a very small percentage of the real-world cost, probably 10 percent or less of the cost. Schools can equip themselves with these refitted, effectively brand-new computers for a fraction of what it would cost to buy them in the marketplace.

I'm told by the folks from Computers for Schools that they can do more. If schools are interested, they should contact them. If the opportunity for the actual hardware is the barrier, we should be able to overcome that relatively readily.

The issue about connectivity is an important one too. We're gradually pushing out the boundaries of connectivity across the province. I'm not familiar with what exactly in the member's riding the issues of connectivity may be. I know there are certainly still rural areas in my own constituency that are not served by a computer line. So that's an issue but probably every year is going to be less of an issue.

R. Austin: I just wanted to ask some questions with regards to seismic upgrading. I think it's probably very pertinent, as we've witnessed some of the tragedies that have happened around the world recently and know that we here in British Columbia live in an area of seismic activity. In fact, I think I'm correct in saying that there was a 4.5-size earthquake just on the Queen Charlottes, I think three or four days ago. So I think it's important for us to look at this area.

A few years ago, in 2005, in a news release when the government announced the seismic mitigation program, they said that more than 700 schools would be upgraded over the next 15 years, or sooner, as part of a $1.5 billion plan. That release at the time also referred to the first 80 schools to be upgraded over the next three years. The schools were ranked from high to low priority based on independent seismic assessments; 293 schools were identified as high priority.

Now, as of April 14 this year, 99 seismic projects have been completed, 25 are under construction, and ten projects are proceeding to construction. I got that from the ministry's website.

However, in December of 2008 the Auditor General warned that the initial budget set up for this process, the $1.5 billion, was — and this is in his words — "woefully inadequate to finish the job." In response to this, the ministry stated: "The extraordinary cost inflation that we have experienced across the province over the last four years could not have been anticipated."

In addition to the seismic mitigation program, the ministry does provide $5 million a year to school districts in seismic-designated zones to complete non-structural work.

My question to the minister is this: what is the status of the Ministry of Education seismic mitigation program in view of the $15 million decline in funding for this area, as in the service plan? This comes at a time when the Auditor General has suggested the original multi-year figure of $1.5 million will not be enough. What's the status here?

Hon. G. Abbott: The first portion of the answer is this: we have now either completed or are nearing completion in construction of some 134 seismic upgrade projects. We have tried to identify the projects of highest concern or highest importance and, as I say, 134 of them are either completed or on their way to completion.

[1510]

In addition to that, we have undertaken a $25 million program. This is over and above the current expenditures. About $680 million has either been invested or has been agreed to for investment in the area of seismic upgrade. But in addition to that, we have invested $25 million in looking at the non-fixed features inside of school buildings — for example, lighting fixtures that might, in an earthquake, fall from the ceiling or fall over from a shelf; looking at the shelves themselves; looking at any pieces that might go ajar in the case of a seismic event. So that's an important piece as well.

Also, particularly having seen the recent seismic events in New Zealand, in Japan and in China, we are working with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists to look at how we are proceeding in British Columbia, to see if there are some elements of science that we have learned, for example, from recent events or events since 2005 which might tell us where we should most appropriately be investing next in terms of seismic upgrades. That work with APEG is ongoing, and it's very important and may tell us some new things about how to shape or how to shift our investments in the area of seismic upgrading.

I guess a final point in terms of the Auditor General. We did appreciate the thoughtful report and the thoughtful recommendations that came from the Auditor
[ Page 7107 ]
General. It should be noted, though, that at the time of that report we were experiencing month-over-month increases — sometimes double-digit increases just on concrete and steel during that period of time.

We have seen some of the construction pressure come off — actually, quite a bit of construction pressure — in the last couple, three years, so the opportunities somewhat improved there. But nevertheless, we still look forward to working with the Auditor General on making this project a success.

R. Austin: Does the ministry have a rescheduled timeline as to when they expect all of these projects to be completed?

Hon. G. Abbott: One of the things that we'll want to do is to have the updated advice of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists as we answer in an appropriate way the important question that's been raised by the opposition critic.

The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists, which helped to put together that list of 700 back close to a decade now, think that there's been much learned about the science of seismic activity since then. We will want to ensure that we take the learnings from this most recent review — that that will help to inform where we make the next series of investments and the timing of that next series of investments.

R. Austin: If, indeed, the original budget that was allocated of $1.5 billion does prove to be inadequate, notwithstanding the fact that there may be new construction methods used, as the minister has mentioned in terms of the latest technology…. If, indeed, it is greater than the $1.5 billion, has the ministry figured out, going forward, where that money is going to come from to be able to complete the schools that still have to be done?

Hon. G. Abbott: I think it would be premature to be thinking along those lines.

[1515]

As I say, we've committed about $680 million to some of the highest-need projects to this point. We will be working with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists to ensure that, as we move forward in time, we are taking account of all of the latest science and technology around seismic protection.

We still have a considerable distance between $680 million and $1.5 billion. I think it would be premature and presumptive to conclude that we would need to look for further dollars. We will, of course, have a better idea of this after the review is complete and after we take the results of that review and look at the range of projects remaining to be undertaken.

R. Austin: I wanted to ask a question in regards to Partnerships B.C. Does the minister envisage a P3 focus in upcoming capital spending initiatives, whether they be aimed at what we've just been talking about, seismic mitigation, or school refurbishment or even the building of new school construction? If he does, can the minister let us know how these estimates support that process?

Hon. G. Abbott: Partnerships B.C. is engaged on school construction projects over $50 million. They don't get involved under $50 million. The recommendations to date have been either to proceed on traditional construction models or, in some cases, with design-build. There has not been a full P3, as we would know it — as an example, at Surrey Memorial Hospital.

R. Austin: Just continuing on the P3 model. Has the Ministry of Education done any studies to see whether this was the most cost-effective way in other countries that perhaps used P3s — to ensure that it is, in fact, cost-effective for the taxpayers in the long run, bearing in mind that the government, of course, can borrow money much cheaper than private industry can? Yeah, that's what I'd like to know, please.

Hon. G. Abbott: I was very impressed by the work of Partnerships B.C. in the day when I had the honour of being the Health Minister of British Columbia. I think they've done a tremendous body of work in relation to putting together partnerships for Abbotsford Regional Hospital, Kelowna regional, Vernon Jubilee Hospital, a number of projects around Surrey Memorial, as I mentioned. I've been very impressed by their work there.

I am advised that Partnerships B.C.'s advice with respect to the school projects over $50 million has been very useful to the ministry and to the school districts involved in those kinds of projects. For whatever reasons, there has not been, to this point, and there may not be, a history of public-private partnerships — in part, I think, because a lot of school districts do have some in-house expertise in respect of construction management.

For that reason, we haven't seen a lot of P3s in that area. But I don't think that I'm in a position to conclude what would be best or other for school projects. I can only advise that Partnerships B.C. has been very useful to us in terms of getting good advice on how to proceed with projects in the school world as well as in the health world.

[1520]

R. Austin: In regards to a P3 within the school system, if there is a project that applies or is applicable in terms of it being over $50 million as a capital cost…. Does the debt that is incurred, that then has to be repaid over 20 or 30 years or whatever the contract is, stay within the Ministry of Education as a capital debt, or
[ Page 7108 ]
does it stay within the individual school district that incurred that project?

Hon. G. Abbott: The possibility of undertaking a school construction project through a public-private partnership has never been undertaken. The answer is probably a question best directed to the Minister of Finance when he has the opportunity, because this has not been the practice in school construction to undertake it that way. Schools are part of the consolidated financial entity of the province, as well, so that may have some bearing on this.

R. Austin: I'm interested in how this would work with schools, because when it's a bridge, then there can be a toll, and then the money from the toll can go to pay back the construction costs. I'm not quite understanding how this would work with a school. If a school is going to be built, and it's a large school, and it costs over $50 million, I'm not quite sure how this could be done as a P3.

Where would the revenue come in to pay back the partner in a school project? I don't quite see how a P3 would work. But I do realize that under the current law, any capital expenditure that happens in British Columbia that is in excess of $50 million does, by law, have to use the P3 model. Maybe the minister could explain to me where that revenue source would come back to pay the private partner.

Hon. G. Abbott: Much as I hate to acknowledge it, I think the member's question certainly goes well beyond my expertise and understanding in this area. I don't think that, necessarily, the issue about not having tolls and so on comes into play with schools, because we've built hospitals on a P3 basis. It just is something that has not occurred in the education system or, at least, the capital side of the education system.

The question, again, I think might be one better addressed to the Finance Minister, who has responsibility for Partnerships B.C. The member is exploring some theoretical underpinnings to Partnerships B.C. which are beyond our realm of expertise here.

R. Austin: I believe that in terms of hospitals, though…. My understanding is that the building is built and then leased back to the ministry, and the cost of that lease each year is what pays back the initial capital costs that the private partner put in. I'm sure as the Minister of Health you would have dealt with that.

I guess we'll have to assume that that would be the same model used for a school, that in fact, the private partner would be essentially putting up the money up front and then leasing the school back to the school district or to the ministry, depending on who it is that contracts that. But anyway, I'll leave that. I see some nods, so presumably, that's how it would work. Is that right?

Hon. G. Abbott: If we were able to do it, yes.

R. Austin: Okay, I'm hearing that if they were able to do that, that's how it would work.

The Chair: Members, through the Chair.

[1525]

R. Austin: Sorry, through the Chair. I'd like to ask a question about the shared services pilot project that the ministry is involved with and ask the minister: what's the status of the four-district shared services pilot initiative that was announced last year by your predecessor?

Hon. G. Abbott: In response to the member's question, the ministry is in a process of exploring and building a business case for a common payroll, a common receivables and expendables system. The four school districts that are involved in that process of building a business case are Surrey, Vancouver, Kamloops and North Van.

R. Austin: So does this mean that if this pilot project is proven to be successful, this would then be put in place regionally or provincewide? What does the minister envisage in terms of the outcome if this is proved to be successful? Is it going to be a regional basis or provincewide?

Hon. G. Abbott: The exploration and construction of the business case will help to point us in the direction of whether it should proceed at all, whether it should proceed on a regional basis or whether it should proceed on an overall provincial basis. That will be among the learnings that will come from the development of the business case.

R. Austin: When will the minister be able to report back to this House on this project? When are we actually going to hear what the results are, the business case put forward, so that we can look at that?

Hon. G. Abbott: Our best estimate would be over the next several months.

R. Austin: I'd like to ask a question with regards to fiscal year changes. What's the status of the discussed change in school district fiscal year to align with the province's fiscal year-end?

Hon. G. Abbott: I am advised that that is an issue which we periodically examine, but there are no im-
[ Page 7109 ]
mediate or pending plans to adjust the school and fiscal years.

R. Austin: At this point I'm just going to cede the floor to my colleague from the North Island.

C. Trevena: I'd like to ask a couple of questions about school district 72. The school board is actually meeting this evening to discuss its budget, and it looks like there are going to be some quite significant cuts to it. They're going to be reducing services by about $841,000 and will have to take about $188,000 from their contingency fund. It is going to mean a reduction in the number of teachers, support staff and administrators.

I wondered if the minister could just give a bit of an explanation about how he perceives it to be good for the school district that they have to keep dipping into their contingency funds to make sure that they can keep on operating.

[1530]

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for her question. In quickly reviewing school district 72, Campbell River, we in our experience have found that school district 72 is a very well managed school district. We're very confident of the ability of the school board to make appropriate decisions to deal with their challenges, and they do have some challenges.

They have seen since 2000-2001, when they had an enrolment of 7,093, a drop in enrolment. It's down now around 5,200 from just over 7,000. They've had some pretty substantial challenges to deal with in respect of that. Despite that substantial drop in enrolment, their operating funding has moved from $46.781 million in 2000-2001 to just over $49 million now — $49,070,589.

The per-pupil has also moved up, and this is an attempt to try to cushion or protect school district 72 from that very compelling challenge of declining student enrolment. We have seen the per-pupil figure for that district move from $6,595 in 2000-2001 to an estimated $9,100 this year — just over $9,100 per student. That will be helpful, but as the member rightly notes, it still leaves some challenges for the district.

We are confident, though, in this district's ability to manage their challenges. I am pleased to say that notwithstanding the challenges they've had for actually every year through the past decade, they have had surplus budgets. In the most recent, $2.482 million was their surplus, and they've been running surpluses of $3 million, $4 million, $4 million, $3 million and $2 million on average a year. These are trustees and managers who are doing a very good job of managing the situation that they have.

C. Trevena: I thank the minister for his response. I'm pleased that he recognizes school district 72 as being such a good school district. I think it is a very well recognized school district. They do very innovative work — not just the board in its governance style but the teachers. Everyone really is doing the best job they can. I'm very fortunate that I actually have three very innovative and three very different school districts in my constituency, with 84 and 85.

Going back to the issue of funding for school district 72, the school district is in some ways lucky that it has a contingency fund it can dip into. It is taking, as I mentioned, $188,500 from the contingency.

[1535]

I'd like to ask the minister for a bit of clarification. We talk about the increase in per-pupil funding, but I have here a statement from the chair of the school district, Ms. Helen Moats, who says in the latest newsletter of the school district: "Although per-pupil funding from the Ministry of Education has increased for 2011-2012, our overall funding is not sufficient to cover increasing costs, such as pension and benefit increases, fuel and utilities cost increases, and simple inflation."

So I just wondered, literally, how to square the circle. Yes, per-pupil funding has gone up, but it still doesn't cover all the, if you'd like to say, non-classroom costs. It's the cost of running the schools and paying the salaries and paying the pensions.

Hon. G. Abbott: Again, we appreciate the good work that is undertaken at school district 72. I wasn't immediately aware of any expressed concerns that they had about the adequacy or inadequacy of the funding.

After now several years as a Health Minister and as a Minister of Education, I certainly am looking forward to the day when I receive correspondence from a health authority or a school district which indicates that their funding is more than adequate and they're going to be returning some to the government. That is something that I'm still looking forward to.

Of course, we don't expect them to send dollars back when they have a surplus, as school district 72 has had over the past decade. Again, just so we're clear, if they are utilizing a portion of their contingency, we don't view that as a bad thing.

When the Auditor General looked at school districts across the province and measured the surplus cash they had or cash on hand they had, he indicated that generally it would be a positive thing for those on-hand cash surpluses to be reduced over time.

So if a school district on a sustainable basis is utilizing, on a year-to-year basis, a portion of a contingency and then potentially restoring it or not restoring it year over year, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If districts are managing their funds well and sustainably, it can be a positive thing. I think, based on the record that I see for school district 72, they're doing a very good job of
[ Page 7110 ]
managing their cash and other funds to effectively provide education.

Again, the fact that they've said that they'd like to have more dollars would probably line them up with 59 other school districts.

C. Trevena: Thank you, Minister. I don't think, however, the minister actually answered my question, which is trying to square the circle of saying that it's not just that we don't have enough funding. The chair of the school board, I believe, has written to the minister twice in this last year about the lack of funding. What she is saying — and very measured — is that "our overall funding is not sufficient to cover increasing costs, such as pension and benefit increases, fuel and utilities cost increases, and simple inflation."

Effectively, what the chair of the school board is saying is: "We are supposed to be running an education system to the benefit of all our children. We have this discussion regularly. It's the future of our province. We don't have enough money to do it. We have to…." I mean, here it's not just going into the contingency funds. It's quite outright cutting out teachers, cutting support staff and cutting administration.

[1540]

If these people that both sides of the House are praising very fulsomely, and I think quite rightly, are saying, "We haven't got the money to do it," I would like to hear what the minister's response is.

Hon. G. Abbott: The last thing I'd ever want to be in these estimates is argumentative, but I'm afraid that I'm not finding the member's argument compelling here.

I want to begin with this: respect that the school district has done a very good job of managing their resources. We respect that. The fact that school districts will indicate to us that they'd like more money is not a surprise. That is something that we periodically see. The only mildly provocative thing I would say about the 60 school districts is I hope they will embrace educational reform and the discussion around that with the same enthusiasm with which they embrace the frequent advice to the ministry that they need more money.

If we look at the accumulated operating surplus or deficit funding of school district 72, one would note, for example, that in 2001, when our government took office, school district 72 had an accumulated operating fund surplus of $659,713. That grew year over year consistently through 2007, when the accumulated operating surplus peaked out at $4,239,740. It remained just over $4 million in 2008, and as I think is appropriate, given the Auditor General's advice around this, we still see in 2010 an accumulated operating surplus of $2,482,661.

If the school district feels that they need to reduce that a little bit more to sustain funding for programs for 2011-2012, we don't have an objection to that. But the reason why they have been able to continue to enjoy an accumulated operating fund surplus, notwithstanding the fact that they have dropped almost 1,700 students over that period, is because we have provided funding protection year over year which protected them from year-over-year loss of dollars — notwithstanding that every year the number of students in the system has gone down.

It's fascinating. I never tire of debating this important issue of school funding. But I do hope at some point that we have an equally relishing conversation about educational reform, because I find it even more fascinating than persistent complaints about the level of funding.

C. Trevena: I would love to have a discussion about education reform. I think there are lots of great potentials, and I think that we have the resources in this province to really revolutionize the way that we do education and that our children can learn. I think it would be a really fascinating discussion.

I think that the present framework with the present funding model is not the best place to start the education reform. I think you have to have more stability of funding, and one of the things that the school trustees have been saying and have been saying publicly is that they do need more stable funding.

I will press on, because I do know that I have colleagues who'd like to ask other questions. I'd like to move very briefly — hopefully we can deal with this in just the one question — to all-day kindergarten.

[1545]

School district 72 again held back from introducing all-day kindergarten until they could introduce it right across the district. They didn't do it half-and-half. I know that the ministry has been putting out a number of news releases about the beneficence of its supply of school portables. I wanted to know whether the ministry would be providing the ongoing, current costs for the upkeep and the running of those portables once they are in the school facilities.

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for her question with respect to incremental investments to support, from a capital perspective, the full-day kindergarten.

In school district 72, Campbell River, there will be two classroom conversions — that is, from other uses. There will be an addition of nine new modular classrooms. The folks who build the modular classrooms take great umbrage or offence at them being categorized as portables because they are built to a much higher standard — a much longer life and much more use of glass and interior finishings and so on — than one would find typically in a portable.

So the nine new modular classrooms, and there will be an addition of two new classrooms — I presume on traditional build — at Ripple Rock Elementary.
[ Page 7111 ]

C. Trevena: I thank the minister for that. Because the education system is expanding with the introduction of all-day kindergarten, we're going to get an increased number of students through from the age of five and maybe even the age of four. I wondered whether there will be a reflective increase in cost to ensure that the school district can carry on paying the running costs of those modular classrooms and the increased space that's being used.

Hon. G. Abbott: School district 72 will get their portion of the $58 million operating that's been allocated to full-day kindergarten.

C. Trevena: I'd just like to thank the minister for his answers. I look forward to the pedagogical debate in future estimates.

S. Fraser: Hello to the minister and staff. I'm looking forward to asking a few questions, raising a few issues, that I hope the minister can help me with.

I have, in whole or in part, representation for two districts — that is, district 69 and district 70 on Vancouver Island. It spans both sides of Vancouver Island, from the west coast — Tofino, Ucluelet — through the Alberni Valley and, of course, to the east side of the Island, part of Oceanside. I also represent Coombs, Errington, Whiskey Creek, Deep Bay, Bowser — that area too — but no longer Qualicum Beach directly, although you can't necessarily separate the boundaries on some of these issues because the students don't always adhere to the electoral boundaries.

I'd like to make a comment, if I could, first, to the minister. He was suggesting, I think to the member for North Island, that the funding requests are never-ending. Somehow, he seemed to be suggesting that these requests from teachers and school districts are somehow meaningless or unfounded. I know that the minister and the government have always taken a position — and ministers before him — that funding is always increased. He seems to just shy away from unfunded costs that are off-loaded and downloaded on to school districts.

[1550]

Those are real, and they do put pressures on schools and on teachers. They create challenges. I don't think that these requests for money are just meaningless or unfounded, and I don't think it's appropriate or accurate to make light of those funding requests. I think the court decision that we've seen recently did certainly indicate that government had made a big mistake as far as taking away the rights of teachers to negotiate things like class size and compositions.

Teachers have spoken repeatedly for years since I've been in this House, raising the alarm on class size and composition throughout the province. That is a funding issue. Cutting funding to schools means that thousands of classrooms have had challenges and have exceeded the limits that this government has put in place. Those are funding issues.

You know, I think the court affirmed that, certainly, the requests for more funding — that there was inadequate funding — were reflected in part by the decision of the court. I just leave that with the minister. He may want to comment on that before I begin my stuff. I think he does.

Hon. G. Abbott: Well, I appreciate the member's thoughtful intervention, and it follows on the heels of the member for North Island, who made a similar submission that somehow our government has been underfunding education since 2001. Notwithstanding the fact that in 2001 the per-student funding allocation was $6,662 and a decade later it is $8,357, and notwithstanding a dramatic reduction of about 59,000 students across the public school system over the decade, we have seen the overall funding — this includes operating but also includes capital — grow from $4.1 billion for education to now $5.8 billion for education. That is a 41 percent increase.

In pretty much any world — possibly excluding the world of health care, which has seen even more dramatic expenditure growth — that is a huge investment that our government has undertaken over the past decade. When we said in 2001 that we're going to protect health care and education, we meant it, and we have.

In anticipation of these kinds of submissions on a persistent basis from members of the opposition, I took it upon myself to ground-proof the investments that we have made against the proposal which was put forward by a group that are often associated with taxing and spending very, very liberally in this province, if I can use that word loosely: the New Democratic Party.

I thought: "Wouldn't it be interesting to compare what the NDP had in their fiscal plan for the 2009 election. Wouldn't it be interesting to compare what the NDP had in their three-year plan for education and then compare it to what was actually spent in British Columbia by this government on education."

Remarkably, what we found was not that we were underspending. In fact, our government had invested $29 million more in education operations than the NDP proposed to in their 2009 budget submission to the electors of British Columbia. So my ground-proofing would suggest that in fact arguments about underfunding perhaps are inconsistent with what the promise was that was made by the NDP in 2009.

I'm delighted to hear these submissions from every opposition member about underfunding, but I wanted to begin with an explanation of why we are funding more than the NDP plan of 2009.

[1555]
[ Page 7112 ]

S. Fraser: Well, we could spar on this one for a while. I could get into tax and spend. We're talking about a government that has run up the highest deficits in the history of the province and has brought in the largest tax shift onto the backs of British Columbia families and small businesses in history.

Interjection.

S. Fraser: Oh no, but you can have the argument. The minister would have no argument from me if we were talking about…. Let's look at taxation as far as paying for….

The people of British Columbia would probably be engaged in a discussion about taxation that would progressively fund things like health care and education. But to have taxation that funds five corporate sectors, well, you know, the public never got the chance for that argument and that discussion.

We can talk about tax and spend at another time, if we could. I don't want to take up more time. I'd like to get to district 70. I'll go to the west coast first, if I may.

The communities of Tofino and Ucluelet — it's exactly a marathon. It's 42 kilometres between the two communities. A couple of years ago there was a ripple of fear through both communities with the spectre of one of the elementary schools, either Ucluelet Elementary or Wickaninnish Elementary in Tofino, maybe being forced to shut down in an attempt by the trustees to try to make budget, a challenge for all school districts. I won't cast blame on that, but the reality is that there have been a lot of schools shut down in the province — 191.

Two years ago, I think it was, it landed on Ucluelet Elementary School. It was being considered by district 70 to shut down the elementary school. The community, to their credit, rallied. All sectors of the community — the chamber of commerce; the local government; parent groups; students at the elementary school; and the trustees, to their credit — worked very hard, and they managed to avert that shutdown of Ucluelet Elementary School.

[D. Black in the chair.]

I'm just wondering: are we safe now? The fear is still there that one of those schools could…. If there's a drop in enrolment, a temporary drop, it might force the closure of one of those schools, and I know the minister would appreciate the challenges of trying to bus kids of elementary school age 42 kilometres every day — 84 kilometres there and back.

I wonder if the minister could comment and maybe give us some comfort that that may not be a fear that's necessary to have any more.

Hon. G. Abbott: Just having a quick look at school district 69, Qualicum, and school district 70, Alberni, in both cases we have seen a substantial reduction in enrolment over the decade. Let's start with 69. The 2000-2001 FTE enrolment was 5,355 a decade ago and is now down to 4,316.

On the positive side, though, there has been in the last year a slight uptick in terms of enrolment, moving from 4,286 to the 4,316 that I mentioned. Hopefully, we're seeing perhaps some modest improvement in that, although it would be difficult to know demographically what will change in the riding in the immediate years ahead.

The challenge in Alberni is similar. A decade ago — 5,178 students. In 2011-2012 the estimates are 4,154. So there have been year-over-year reductions in overall students there as well. In school district 69 the per-pupil allocation was $6,559 in 2000-2001 and is going to an estimated…. It would be just over $9,300 — about $9,377, in that area.

[1600]

So we've seen substantial per-pupil lifts. Because we're protecting year over year, they're funding from declining enrolments. So that is a challenge.

In the case of school district 70, again we've been seeing the school district undertaking to manage effectively. I believe we'd say the same for Qualicum as well. They have been drawing down their surpluses. They have been making appropriate decisions with respect to schools.

The challenge in a public school system that has seen about a 10 percent decline in the number of students over a decade…. It is important to remember that it costs sometimes the same number of dollars to keep open a school that has 50 percent or 60 percent occupancy versus a higher level of occupancy.

So one of the extraordinary challenges of school districts is, on some occasions, to make difficult decisions about school closures. Those are decisions which the school districts make, and by and large, they make them very responsibly. It's never an easy decision, but this is the challenge of shifting demographics — that on some occasions the numbers will drop below levels that are appropriate for them to continue to be open.

S. Fraser: I guess I got a partial answer to my question. I'll move across the Island, if I could. If we could stick with district 70, the schools on the west coast and the issue of Ucluelet Elementary School potentially closing.

I understand. I mean, the world and the province will always have fluctuating populations and demographics, and that will be reflected in fluctuating enrolment. I'm not arguing that. But these are numbers, and there are estimates that are often not accurate. There's some error built into that. We do have the need in our public education system for universality in education. Certainly, the proximal schools in communities are important.

You've got two schools. They're elementary schools, so these are kids from kindergarten through — on the
[ Page 7113 ]
west coast, in Tofino and Ucluelet — to grade 7, including grade 7. For grade 8, it's the Ucluelet Secondary School then. The students from Tofino and Opitsaht, the First Nations community, that are of high school age — grade 8 and beyond — are bused to the Ucluelet Secondary School. There's just the one high school on the west coast there.

It's understood that, historically, Ucluelet got the high school and Tofino got the hospital. There was sort of an informal agreement, if you will, or at least that's the way I've heard history be told.

The elementary schools and the spectre of one of them closing…. This was coming. When this happened two years ago…. There is an increasing birth rate on the west coast. That wouldn't necessarily be reflected in the school for a few years, but it's happening and will happen. So the fear of losing one of the schools…. The only option there is either to move the younger kids into the high school, which has some challenges for children and for parents and adults, as the minister I'm sure will recognize, or busing the kids at that age to the other community.

I would suggest that the challenge the minister is talking about with enrolment is created at least in part by government. There are endless variations to a funding formula for education. This government has chosen a funding formula based largely on enrolment, as opposed to some core funding or more on core funding for schools.

[1605]

Going back to my question, I don't have the numbers there, so I'm asking: does it look like we are pretty safe for the next few years? The spectre of losing one of those schools on the west coast, elementary schools, means losing the ability of communities, Ucluelet and/or Tofino, from gaining a population. It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's hard to get young families to move into a community when you lose a school, whether it's an elementary school or a high school. The fear of losing one of these schools actually has an effect on business and economic development in the area.

Again, can the minister give us any assurance for the people of Tofino and Ucluelet, and the growing communities there with increasing birth rates in some of those areas, as far as security with having an elementary school in the community where people live and recreate?

Hon. G. Abbott: As I've mentioned at earlier points in these estimates, the issue of demographics is what is at the heart of the challenge for school district administration and management in British Columbia, as it is in so many other jurisdictions in the western world that also see the demographic shift.

The demographic shift is one that makes the provision of health care an extraordinarily difficult one because in an aging demographic the pressure on health care systems and resources is enormous. We're seeing and feeling that every day in British Columbia and Canada and across the western world.

Similar to an aging demographic, where year over year there is a reduced school-aged population, again, inevitably that is going to make the management and administration of schools a difficult matter.

As I mentioned before, we have 59,000 fewer students across the system today than we did a decade ago. There is a subtle shift in the demographics. Also, we have to an extent accelerated that shift by moving to all-day kindergarten in September.

If, as the member has said, we are seeing some population growth in Ucluelet and Tofino — at least if a portion of that growth is with the younger population and families in their child-bearing years — then inevitably the school populations will come up. I hope that's the case. Ucluelet and Tofino are two of my favourite places on the face of the earth. I always love to visit them, and I hope that they do well.

But it is, not nor should it be, a role of the Ministry of Education to dictate to school districts the decisions they make around the opening and closing of schools. We don't do that. We respect that they will look at the school population, they will look at the resources they have, and they will anticipate the future. They will draw in perhaps dozens of elements into their decision-making, and we will respect the decisions that they make.

That, I hope, is useful to the member, but we can't guarantee because we could only guarantee if we dictated. We are not going to dictate to school districts how they should manage their resources.

S. Fraser: I'm not happy with the answer that the minister gave. I heard what he said, and I think it's a very simplistic answer to a question that deserved a bit more depth to it — the depth being that it is the role of government to determine funding formulas for education.

I agree with the minister that it is the role of the trustees and the board to make those decisions about how funding will be allocated. They're often not given the tools. They're often given, I would suggest, through a flawed funding formula….

[1610]

It's simply not working for a lot of communities. Schools are being forced to shut down because of this year's budget, even if there is potentially an increasing population, because the formula doesn't allow for any…. The core funding element is inadequate compared to the enrolment.

When you base it solely, or almost all, on enrolment, then of course, it becomes a roller-coaster as enrolment looks like it's going to drop. It has shut down 191 schools already. The minister talked about there being less students. Well, there are less schools, too, because of that, and those communities are hurting for it.
[ Page 7114 ]

I would suggest that if you're not willing to look at that formula, the school closures will have an effect on the graduation rates, on our economy. So I'd like the minister to look a little bit deeper than that.

But I've got to move on. I don't really have any assurances or comfort for the people of Ucluelet-Tofino. The elementary schools, either one, might be shut down at some point because the formula that the trustees are forced to work with may not be serving them as well as it could or as well as it should.

Moving to the central part of the Island, into the Alberni Valley. I'm just wondering if the minister is aware. There's a program that delivers project-based learning in the Alberni Valley. It began in 2007, and it's quite unique. Greenmax Resources are the operators of woodlot 1479 in the Alberni Valley. They partnered with district 70. They're doing a really innovative program where they're taking kids — grade 9 and grade 10, but mostly grade 9….

The program is to encourage students to enjoy learning through a different kind of medium — in the woodlot. It works. I've visited there a number of times. I believe the previous Forest Minister also visited there and was quite impressed.

Not every kid is engaged in an academic setting. I may have been one of those kids. But this works, and the children are learning all their basic skills by hands-on, in a woodlot — whether it's geometry or mathematics or meteorology — in many ways, engaging kids that are otherwise somewhat difficult to engage.

It spans several ministries. It began as a pilot project funded, I believe, through the Ministry of Forests. It exposes kids to a type of education where they can shine and become re-engaged in the educational system.

I'm just wondering if the minister has heard of the program. Shawn Flynn and David McBride are the woodlot owners and operators. They've worked closely with the principal at ADSS, Mike Ruttan, and the teacher Ryan Dvorak — a great program.

I'm just wondering if the minister has any…. I know he's new in this portfolio, but he's learning quick, I see. I'm hoping that he would be supportive, at least in theory, of this program, because there are significant funding challenges that go through it. I would suggest that the investment in such a program, the payoff, is going to be huge.

Hon. G. Abbott: I'll start at the front end of the member's observations and work through to the latter portion of his question.

The issue of the funding formula is an important one. To those who have said that the formula is flawed or there should be some different way of doing this, I always say: "You know, I'm sure, like everything else on the face of the earth, it can be improved." So I extend to the member this invitation: if he has some ideas on how he can improve the funding formula, I'd be glad to hear them. I honestly would be glad to hear them.

The challenge that the member will quickly encounter is the challenge that everyone in the system has, which is that we have 60 school districts in the province. They range from a school district the size of France which has fewer than 200 students in the school district to densely populated districts with upwards of 70,000 students in them.

[1615]

It is remarkably difficult to find a funding formula which everyone in British Columbia is going to go and say, "Well, the member sure got that one right. We all salute that" — because they won't. It is ever a challenge.

We do try, though, to ensure that school districts get the dollars they need to provide the support they get. In a very expansive school district that has special challenges because of the geography and the sparse number of students, funding might be in excess of $20,000 a student. When you get into denser areas, excluding additional funding for ESL or otherwise, it might be a lesser amount.

We have, I guess, the principle of per-student funding as the principal driver in terms of the dollars that move to school districts. If there is a better way other than enrolment of providing funds to school districts, I'm glad to hear about it and glad to think about it, and I invite the member to make suggestions in that regard. But it is difficult to do.

In the case of school district 70, as I mentioned earlier, this is a district that has seen, over a decade, a staggering reduction, a 20 percent reduction, in the number of students in that district. That is a huge reduction in the student population that is served by school district 70. Notwithstanding that, we have seen a $1.7 million increase in their funding. Again, it is substantial.

It's never easy to reconcile these things. I do think that, again, the fact of the NDP's education plan in the 2009 election is another reflection on this, that this is not an easy thing to do. The fact that we've actually spent $29 million more than was anticipated by the opposition in their 2009 campaign platform is an indication that in fact we are not underfunding, that in fact we have given the priority to this that we believe is appropriate.

But I'm always happy to hear from folks who have a better idea about how to do these things, because there may well be some ways that we can improve. I'm always glad to hear about that.

In terms of the woodlot program, we have — or, at least, ministry staff have — visited the project. We understand it's a summer-based, work experience project. It looks excellent from the ministry perspective. We salute what they are doing there. It is very much consistent with what we were discussing earlier with the opposition critic around personalized learning —
[ Page 7115 ]
an opportunity, hopefully, for students to explore their passion for working in the woods — and that's a great thing.

S. Fraser: Thanks to the minister for that. Again, I'd like to go back and discuss the funding stuff, too, but maybe in my last issue I'll touch on it again, and we can re-energize that conversation as I'm working my way across the Island from west to east.

The woodlot program actually happens during the school year. I applaud Principal Ruttan, the teacher Mr. Dvorak, and certainly Shawn and David in the woodlot for doing that.

I'm wondering if the minister would be interested in receiving any further information or submission from those people doing the work. We're looking to try to find a way to ensure that the program continues. It's a challenge, and I understand that challenges can be overcome if we all put our minds to it.

This is a truly impressive program. There's a lot of volunteerism that goes into it. It's very good value for the dollar. I'm wondering if at some later time, when we're through the estimates, the minister would be interested in hearing a little more about that. He's nodding. I'll let him speak to that for the record.

Hon. G. Abbott: For the record, I'd be delighted to hear more of it.

[1620]

S. Fraser: Well, the minister might be getting an invitation to come and visit there soon. That would be a wonderful thing. It's a beautiful location in the Alberni Valley too. It's wonderful.

I'm going to move right to this. Being mindful of the time — I'm taking up more than my share from my colleagues here, and I thank them for that — the last issue is the east side of the Island, and it's Kwalikum Secondary School, KSS. The minister, I know, is aware of this. There is the same spectre that happened with Ucluelet Elementary a couple of years ago on the west coast — the spectre of closure of KSS.

Again, I don't have the expertise to tell the minister how to redo a funding formula, but he did indicate that he was interested in listening to submissions. I would suggest in a very basic way that basing the number on enrolment is somewhat arbitrary. Without core funding, I don't think many schools would have survived colonization in this province, in this country. There wouldn't be communities.

It's a chicken or egg thing. For instance, in Qualicum Beach, if the town of Qualicum Beach loses its high school based on estimates of enrolment for the future, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The growth strategies of the area…. Qualicum Beach isn't just Kwalikum. It's the catchment areas, the surrounding areas right up to Deep Bay. Kids are already busing and being transported for quite a large distance.

Losing that high school means you would have a decline, a rapid decline. Not only would the community and communities surrounding that catchment area lose enrolment because families would move away, young families would not move there. It's a basic criteria for many — to ensure that there is a proximal, community-based school that they have access to, that their children have access to.

I would submit that there's a problem with the current funding formula based so heavily on enrolment. It causes knee jerks, and these are fluctuations.

The enrolment in the area in the '80s, if the minister checks back — and his staff will have the statistics on this — was lower than it's being predicted at the lowest point in the forecast that we're seeing going ahead with the Matrix numbers that have come forward. That enrolment declined further throughout that decade of the '80s.

Again, shutting the school — penny-wise, pound-foolish comes to mind. It's bad business. The school is relatively new. It was expanded based largely on numbers done by Matrix a decade ago. This school provides a gym. It's the largest gym in the entire region. That would be lost — for the entire region. The band. There are two separate large band rooms. The KSS technology programs are award-winning. Their automotive courses are award-winning. The minister's staff are nodding here.

I'm afraid that the formula is failing the people of Qualicum Beach. If, indeed, the trustees are forced to make the horrible decision — and I applaud the trustees trying to juggle and wrestle with this — it would be the best of a bad lot of decisions if it is to close down KSS. It would be a disservice to the people of Qualicum Beach, the families. The students are the ones that have been speaking up the loudest.

I'll leave it there just for the moment to see if the minister has comments, because I know the MLA that represents Qualicum Beach handed them a note, so let's see where this takes us.

Hon. G. Abbott: The member has, a number of times, talked about the challenge of having the funding linked entirely to the enrolment. Of course, it is not linked entirely to the enrolment. Were it linked entirely to the enrolment, school district 70, Alberni, wherein Kwalikum is located, would have seen a 20 percent reduction in their funding, because the student enrolment numbers have dropped from over 5,100 to now down just over 4,100. Notwithstanding that, the operating funding has increased from $36 million to now almost $38 million.

[1625]

The reason why there is not a direct-line correlation between those things is because there is an opportun-
[ Page 7116 ]
ity within the formula to address some of the issues that confront rural schools when they are providing their service, whether it's the issue of transportation costs through busing, or whether it's — in some cases, and this would be more the north than Vancouver Island — the cost of heating fuels. We try to take account of a variety of things.

Again, the challenge is that every one of those 60 school districts will have their own special challenges that we will try to address. But again, I extend the invitation sincerely for the member — in consultation, I presume, with the Education critic — to perfect an improved education formula.

I make this commitment today. If the Education critic and the member put together a proposal for the perfected funding formula, I commit to taking it to the B.C. School Trustees Association and ensuring that in fact, as one might expect, all 60 will stand and salute that perfected formula. I do welcome that, because we're a little short of inspiration at the moment in terms of perfecting the formula beyond where we are now.

Believe me, when I was in grade 10 at Eagle River high school, we were advised, as we were about to move from grade 10 to 11, that our high school was going to be shutting down and that grade 11s and 12s would now be bused to Salmon Arm for their high school years. We had enormous trepidation about that. It probably turned out to be the best thing that ever could have occurred for me and a number of the other students that went, but there was enormous trepidation.

These things are always difficult. They are heart-wrenching. But sometimes the decisions have to be made, and we have to give enormous respect to the school districts and to the school district officials and school trustees for the decisions that they make.

In terms of Qualicum, there is, at the secondary level, 84.2 percent occupancy; 73.2 percent in middle school; and 67.2 percent at elementary school. That is, overall, 74.7 percent occupancy and compares with 89.4 percent across the province. So the demographics there are challenging. The secondary occupation is higher than the elementary.

One of the things we're not going to do is second-guess the school district. The school district knows way better than I will ever know, and I suspect even better than the member will ever know, how to appropriately address the challenges that they have. That's why we elect school district boards, boards of education, to focus on the challenge locally. We can't make the same informed decisions out of Victoria that a school district can make.

There are no easy answers to these things. I'm sure the member would share that view. There are no easy answers here. But we have done our best to ensure that the dollars flowed through to school district 70 and that year over year they were protected so that they didn't have to make as many of those difficult decisions as they might otherwise.

S. Fraser: I appreciate what the minister is saying. As he well knows, in the school district the trustees are elected. They have a job to do, and they do a good job. I'm not questioning that. I applaud them. I try to work closely with them in every way I possibly can and support the work that they do.

[1630]

This does not reflect on their…. If they're put in an impossible situation, it does fall on government. And I am elected too. I am elected to represent communities, whether it's Qualicum Beach or Bowser or Deep Bay or Errington or Coombs. The high school, Kwalikum Secondary School, is accessed by families from all. The growth strategies of the area are based on being able to attract younger families. That can be taken away — again, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Losing the school harms the communities. That's what we as MLAs are supposed to do. A hypothetical situation. If it came to the point where KSS were shut down, which would mean that vital community would lose a youth aspect that would not be…. The seniors in the area, which are a large percentage of the population, would lose that contact. That educational experience would disappear, too, or be much reduced. It's not good for communities to funnel them into a demographic that's not a good mix for families.

I don't have the answers here, but I do know that if you shut down KSS, not only would it be a disservice to those students…. My daughter went to KSS, so I'm biased here; there's no question about that. But I hear from the students that go to Kwalikum Secondary School, and they love their school. They're a part of the community, and many of them volunteer at the seniors homes. You don't want to lose that mix.

If it did shut down, the alternative would be Ballenas, which is also a wonderful school, a larger school in Parksville. But the same people doing the statistics, suggesting that there's a drop in the enrolment, which there is…. There were drops before, as I've mentioned. They were fluctuations always. Those statistics are somewhat skewed too, and I'll touch on that in a minute. Ballenas would immediately be at or over capacity right from the get-go.

The Ballenas students that are there now and the Kwalikum Secondary students that would be moved there and bused there from great distances, in some cases, would all be in a situation where they would be over 100 percent capacity, based on the numbers that I've seen — at or near — and that's immediately.

That is not in the best interests of any of the students. We would be diluting the system — the opposite of diluting the system…. The overcrowding in the schools would begin immediately to the detriment, I would sug-
[ Page 7117 ]
gest, of the quality of education for all of the students in Oceanside, Parksville, Qualicum and the larger region.

Could the minister comment on that? I apologize for being somewhat passionate here, but it's a problem. If all the students are moved into one school, and it already puts it at maximum capacity, where does that leave the students for the future? You would be setting the stage for the entire region to never grow with young families, because you wouldn't be able to attract young families to a situation like that.

Hon. G. Abbott: Again, I won't repeat all I've said in the past about funding and the challenges of funding through periods of demographic decline in areas. I will add this — that school districts, when they make hugely important and sometimes hugely difficult decisions about maintaining the educational infrastructure or portions of it, do that in the most thoughtful way possible.

They look at these issues not on a year-to-year basis but over a period of years. They look at statistical analysis with respect to the student population — what they anticipate a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now in terms of population growth at the elementary, middle and secondary levels.

[1635]

They do modelling to better understand how to cope with the pressures, and then ultimately they may have to make some difficult decisions about funding space versus funding students. That's the most important decision they make, and I am confident that the boards of education of school districts 69 and 70 will make the very best decisions that they can. I am sure they are enormously appreciative of the advocacy of the member as well, but they will make the best decisions that they can.

S. Fraser: Thanks to the minister for that. I guess I'll end with a request. I had a request when it came to the wonderful program that Greenmax and district 70, the high school, ADSS, were engaged in. I can anticipate from these proceedings that there will be a request for me to arrange a meeting or try to arrange a meeting with the minister and the mayor of Qualicum Beach and probably a couple of councillors just to discuss with the minister the other picture besides the raw educational picture — the community picture. I know the minister knows this, but I may be coming forward with that request, and I hope he will consider it.

With that in mind, thanks to the minister and thanks to your staff.

L. Popham: My question is around the Saanich school board, school district 63. I was hopeful when I heard the minister say that school boards know best and that they're a thoughtful group of elected people. The school board in Saanich is absolutely a thoughtful group of people, and I know they have been struggling with their budget for years. This year I understand that they'll be submitting a deficit budget, and I know this was an excruciating process for them.

Given the fact that the minister thinks the school boards know best, I just wondered what they should do in this case or what the ministry will be doing for Saanich.

Hon. G. Abbott: I anticipate that the Saanich school board, board of education, will be submitting a balanced budget to us. A few weeks ago, I think — maybe a couple weeks ago now — they sent in a budgetary statement. But I am confident, based on what I know of the district, that their staff will provide them with a balanced budget to present to the ministry by June 30. I look forward to receiving that.

There is certainly, I think, a base for that optimism on my part. As of June 30, we expect them to have an accumulated operating surplus of $4 million to $5 million. That is slightly down from 2010, when it was $6½ million. But there is every reason to expect that Saanich school district will be providing us with a balanced budget.

G. Gentner: It's a great deal of pleasure to ask some questions about an institution which is the bulwark of democracy, the public school system. It's very much an important part of our society. I'd like to congratulate the minister on his new ministry. I'm sure he's delving into the realm, which I think he has a great big heart with.

Just a few questions. In my constituency we're going through our own problems, like everybody else. But I'm wondering if the minister can explain to me how many alternate programs there are in the province for kids.

[1640]

Hon. G. Abbott: We have details on alternate programs, just not in front of us. But as we proceed through the estimates, we'll be able to get some additional information on that to pass along to the member.

Suffice to say, we believe that alternate programs are an important part of building a personalized learning agenda in the province and that the concept of building an education system that takes account of students with a great range and diversity of interests and aptitudes, and so on, is consistent with alternate school programs. We're encouraged by the programs that exist in the province and certainly look forward to working with school districts to build on that.

So I apologize to the member. We don't have that immediately in front of us, but we've asked for it, and we'll get it as the discussion proceeds.

G. Gentner: Well, maybe I can throw a few things on the list, and the ministry can do its diligence.
[ Page 7118 ]

I'm interested to know how many kids are in the alternate program. Has there been a change over the last couple of years? How do they come to assess that? I have been trying to find that out — if there is such a type of accounting on that.

I'm also interested to know how many alternate programs have been closed and what's projected in the next year for closures. If you could, I wouldn't mind having that information. At-risk students are certainly part of our future, and we have to invest in those vulnerable students. I think alternate programs are essential, as the minister has suggested.

In the sleepy hollow of North Delta we are a suburb, without question, but recently we've seen a closure of an alternate program that's impacting our constituency very much. I was talking to one student. She was a former dropout. She had her problems, and she found the alternate program. She's really starting to excel, and she's looking forward to graduating. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any resolve as to what it's all going to mean.

I don't know if the ministry has a transition plan in place. The school I'm referring to, of course, is Seaquam. There's a real push to keep Seaquam alternate open. There's currently a petition going on by not only the alternate students but many of the students in Delta to keep these programs alive.

So just those fundamental questions I want to know. I'm sure the ministry is monitoring any trends relative to declining enrolment, assessment, how they get in there and where we're going in the next couple of years. I'm sure there is a strategic plan. So I'll leave that to the minister.

Another question I want to ask the minister. We've now gone through TILMA, and there are some changes relative to what that means with not only labour mobility but procurement. We're now dealing with, of course, the new west partnership, which includes Saskatchewan. I'm wondering: has the ministry reached sort of a teacher mobility agreement among Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan?

[1645]

Hon. G. Abbott: I can advise the member that there are an estimated 10,300 students enrolled in alternate programs in the 60 school districts. The boards of education make the decisions on when and where an alternate program would be provided.

There is a wide range of reasons why a student may wish to participate in an alternate program rather than a mainstream program. They may, in some cases, be self-identified. In other cases, they may be using it as a last resort because of behavioural or other issues which made their participation in mainstream programs a difficult one.

But again, on both sides of the ledger, whether it's the provision of an alternate program or who participates in it, those are decisions which the school district makes. Generally, we can only say that we support alternate programs. They are a useful adjunct to learning in the province, and we support them. But the details on a specific program and whether it's offered and whether it's effective — those, again, are judgments and decisions which are made by the board of education.

With respect to the new west partnership, AIT, TILMA, etc., we can only advise that all our projects and procurements are in compliance with those agreements.

G. Gentner: So I gather, therefore, that the teacher certification authorities in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan have agreed to mutually recognize the way each province certifies their teachers.

[1650]

Hon. G. Abbott: Let me return to the Seaquam alt program, the alternate program which the member referenced in an earlier question. We've been in contact with the Delta school district, and we're advised that the program is not closing. It is moving location, but it's not closing.

We understand that a recent letter has been sent from the superintendent to the parents of the students that are enrolled at the school to advise them of the change of location but not of the closure of the school. I'm hoping that is useful for the member.

As I noted previously, all of the projects and procurements our ministry undertakes are in compliance with the various TILMA, northwest partnership, AIT agreements, and we understand that the teachers are able to move from province to province under the labour mobility terms of those agreements as well.

G. Gentner: Has the ministry done any projections or work relative to how many teachers are going to cross boundaries and come from Saskatchewan? Is it 300 in either direction? Are we going to lose teachers to Saskatchewan, or are we going to be clawing teachers from Saskatchewan, for example? Have you made those projections?

Hon. G. Abbott: I could note this in response to the member's question. There are about 1,500 teachers certified annually in British Columbia. Probably over half of those are educated in British Columbia, the balance from outside. School districts across the province hire, in a typical year, about 500 new teachers. So it is of some advantage that teachers who are certified or educated in B.C. have an opportunity to work in other jurisdictions.

G. Gentner: Well, there's lots to be discussed on this, and I guess I'll just leave it. I'm really concerned about the subliminal merging, if you will, of curriculum — if we're going to have this sort of concentration or cen-
[ Page 7119 ]
tralization of teaching strategies between the three provinces. I mean, I think that would be subtle.

I'm not going to pose a question, because I'm sure the ministry hasn't looked at that type of amalgamation. But were teachers and school authorities involved in negotiations of the new west agreement? I'm sure the B.C. College of Teachers probably had something to say and perhaps even the federation of independent schools, if there is such a thing. Were the B.C. Teachers Federation consulted or involved in negotiation with this labour mobility with Saskatchewan, Alberta and the province of B.C.?

[1655]

Hon. G. Abbott: We've just been discussing what the likely consultation processes would have been, and likely the principal consultation around this in terms of the teacher world would have been with the B.C. College of Teachers. That would have been on the formal side of the consultation. Whether the Teachers Federation was involved through participating in any of the online consultation around TILMA or AIT, we don't know.

G. Gentner: Well, I'm going to leave this subject soon, but I'm just curious. When it comes down to labour mobility amongst teachers, if you go from one province to the other, and there are three different federations of teachers associations, are there agreements in place whereby you'll respect the seniority of, let's say, one teacher moving from Saskatchewan? Is that part of an agreement that is understood between all three governments with all labour federations — namely, that of various teacher federations in the provinces?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'm advised that seniority accrues with the employer. It does not typically carry across provinces because there would be different employers involved.

G. Gentner: Well, that's an interesting observation. So there are limitations to TILMA that I didn't quite understand — or particularly the new west agreement.

Something that was mentioned earlier was the building or purchase of portables. And I know recently with some of the early child programs…. There had been kindergartens, for one.

There has been an influx of portables being purchased, and I know it's by the districts, but I'd like to know: does this agreement, various trade agreements, include the purchase…? When you let out a procurement or a contract, does it apply throughout the whole three provinces now?

[1700]

Hon. G. Abbott: With respect to procurement most recently on modular structures — which, I am sure the member appreciates, are distinct from portables — the procurement for that was open to producers in any province. The successful proponent was Shelter Industries, and they are the ones who are producing the modulars, principally for all-day kindergarten.

G. Gentner: Shelter actually is a very good company, and I think it's a local business. We're fortunate to have that company develop those types of modulars, and I'm hopeful, too, that other provinces will be encouraged to purchase modulars from Langley. I believe that's where they're located.

Shifting gears, I want to talk about EDI, the early development instrument, if I could, hon. Chair. You have to excuse, somewhat, my naivety. I'm trying to drill down, and I'm having a hard time understanding it. First of all, could the minister tell me what exactly the partnership is between his ministry and the early development instrument?

Hon. G. Abbott: The EDI, early development indicators, is a tool for understanding the readiness to learn which has been developed by Dr. Clyde Hertzman at UBC, and much of the developments occurred at UBC. It is a tool that is utilized not only by the Ministry of Education but also by the Ministry of Children and Family Development, who also utilize the approach.

It is a tool that Professor Hertzman has developed which now has been utilized in other jurisdictions nationally. I understand that even some jurisdictions internationally use this as a tool to understand the learning challenges in other diverse jurisdictions, as well as British Columbia. So hopefully that's useful.

It's not without some measure of controversy. There are some challenges from the aboriginal perspective about this tool, but nevertheless it is, I think, a useful tool and one that I'm certain Professor Hertzman is constantly looking at and thinking about in terms of its effectiveness.

G. Gentner: How much has the province committed to this program financially?

Hon. G. Abbott: It's $666,000, from the Ministry of Education.

[1705]

G. Gentner: And that is a portion shared by other ministries — correct?

Hon. G. Abbott: That's our portion of the overall.

G. Gentner: What type of auditing or accountability does the ministry play, therefore, with the EDI? If I understand, it's a portion of the overall budget. What commitment do you see in order to have performance and value?
[ Page 7120 ]

Hon. G. Abbott: We have been utilizing the EDI tool for about three years. That's our best estimation here. The EDI tool is utilized to help us understand the effectiveness of, for example, StrongStart, or to identify where we are apt to see a greater occurrence of early learning challenges.

This would go, I think, to a discussion that I had with the opposition critic a little bit earlier about the character of the school district that he represents, or that is part of the constituency that he represents in the Legislature, and the demographic composition of that school district.

The results that come from the tool are constantly analyzed. We are constantly looking at trends. We are constantly looking at utilization data to ensure that we are making appropriate investments in the area, particularly of early learning.

G. Gentner: It is indeed a program that is, I suppose — if I may say this — assisting the learning for children once they get into kindergarten and, of course, beyond into primary school.

I'm interested: is this a universal program now throughout the province? Does every district participate in this?

Hon. G. Abbott: The EDI tool assists us in assessing issues such as physical health, emotional maturity, social skills, language and cognitive development, and communication skills. Fifty-four of the 60 school districts in the province participate on an annual basis. The balance, six school districts, wish to participate every second year in it.

[1710]

G. Gentner: I know the portion of the funding is maybe not as great in the overall scheme of things, but it's a huge program, actually, that's taking off. Why is the ministry committed to helping spend a tremendous amount of money towards centralizing information and data collection through the instrument, and why is it being done throughout the school system without parental consent?

Hon. G. Abbott: We support it because we believe that good information and good data helps drive good decision-making. We need to understand problems early, and the earlier that we can understand why something may be occurring — in a school district or in a region or across the province as a whole — the sooner that we can make informed decisions which would assist us in dealing with those challenges.

G. Gentner: Where does this information, these personal records, go? Do they go to a teacher in grade 1 or grade 3 to assist them to understand where the child is, or is it just an instrument for researchers to look at trends?

Hon. G. Abbott: To address the various dimensions of the member's questions, first, for information to be gathered around EDI, parents need to give consent for its collection from the individual students. The results are not distributed on an individualized basis. The data is aggregated and then is available in an aggregated form to decision-makers who will utilize it, and I think it's available on line.

[1715]

It is useful information. We are seeing, certainly, the EDI as a pretty solid predictor in terms of success on assessments such as the FSA test. So I think that at this point we are satisfied that this is a useful and beneficial tool. We are also utilizing it, for example, to locate new StrongStart centres to ensure that we are addressing those areas that may need additional supports.

G. Gentner: How does the ministry guarantee that these personal records of children will not be used for purposes other than research?

Hon. G. Abbott: All data that we hold, whether it's from EDI or elsewhere, is held in compliance with the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

G. Gentner: The gatekeepers of this information — are they certified? I mean, who gets the key to unlock the records? How is that decided?

Hon. G. Abbott: We have a very strict research agreement with the University of British Columbia in respect to the collection and management of this information. Again, there are standards and requirements around that agreement which would prohibit inappropriate use of the materials.

G. Gentner: How does the minister monitor the survey? Is it the statistical analysis — what it believes is relevant and what it believes may be irrelevant? I'm asking about performance. Are you actually engaged in determining whether all of this information is relevant?

Hon. G. Abbott: Our ministry, in partnership with other ministries, procures the product of the EDI tool. UBC is in the driver's seat in terms of the operation of the EDI tool itself, but it is a peer-reviewed model. It has demonstrated success, and we believe that UBC is providing us with very useful information here.

G. Gentner: The minister mentioned before that there was parental consent needed. What if there isn't? Does the survey still go on with those whose parents do not consent?

[1720]
[ Page 7121 ]

Also, sort of a segue question, I suppose, from that is: how many parents do not give their consent, learned consent, regarding this type of gathering of information?

Hon. G. Abbott: There's a simple rule around participation. No consent, no survey. If there are statistics with respect to participation or non-participation, we don't have them. UBC might be able to provide them to the member, but we don't possess them.

Finally, the EDI tool helps us identify vulnerable groups of students or vulnerable groups of children in the province and therefore is helpful, as I suggested at the outset, in terms of driving informed public policy.

G. Gentner: Just maybe two more questions. I hear there's a round of applause for that idea.

I want the minister to be on record — that while the Ministry of Education is supporting the early learning instrument, he can assure the House that in no way does it violate families' privacy rights via aggregate data collection of their personal records without their informed consent.

Hon. G. Abbott: We may be a little puzzled by the question. Is the member suggesting that the human early learning partnership at UBC is potentially out of compliance with the responsibilities which they must exercise under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act? If he is suggesting such, we have absolutely no information in our ministry to suggest that that might be so.

I certainly can assure the member that utilization of the data that is provided through the EDI human early learning partnership tool is used entirely in compliance with the act by our ministry.

G. Gentner: Well, the question was not somehow nefarious. The question was just making sure we have performance criteria. This ministry is spending money on data collection. When we're dealing with people's privacy, particularly those who are vulnerable children, we want to make sure that there are safeguards in place.

I would suspect that it's all and good for the ministry to suggest that it's going to be another jurisdiction to look after the privacy of children. But since the ministry is putting money into this data collection, that it would bend over backwards to make sure the children of this province will be protected….

The human early learning partnership website states that B.C. has "one of the world's largest collection of private records." It states that it has private records "on B.C.'s four million residents, in many cases from 1985 onwards." The B.C. government is allowing and funding this program with, or without perhaps — I say perhaps — consensual rights from parents. I think a lot of parents don't really know what the implications are regarding the EDI and everyone's privacy rights.

[1725]

B.C., if I have this correct, is the only government in Canada that is allowing the creation of such a vast databank on its residents and children. Can the minister respond?

Hon. G. Abbott: Again, to reiterate, no consent, no survey. Children will not be a part of the survey unless their parents consent for them to be a part of the survey. Further, as I noted earlier, the data is not utilized on an individualized basis. It is aggregated. We do not see data from this project in any other form but aggregated data. In terms of other jurisdictions utilizing it, Ontario, we know, utilizes EDI, but there are numerous others now, I'm sure, nationally and internationally that do as well.

G. Gentner: With that, I surrender the floor to my dear hon. member for Vancouver-Hastings.

S. Simpson: It's great to engage in the discussion about education estimates, hon. Chair. I want to take a little bit of time and focus my comments mostly on the areas of inner-city schools, vulnerable kids, the issues related to challenges that kids in constituencies across the province — all constituencies, but certainly it's predominant in mine — who face real challenges in the role that schools play in their lives, both academically and in terms of a whole lot of other aspects of their lives and the responsibilities schools now have to support those issues that maybe back when I was in school and when the minister was in school were less of an issue than they are today.

I want to go through a few of those topics with the minister.

It seems, and I know this…. I look at the schools in my own constituency, the inner-city schools, the kids that are there. We have large numbers of children who are living in poverty, who are living in households where there are challenges. There are challenges around difficulties their parents are facing. Some of them are issues around addictions, around other issues.

For these kids, in most cases, in many cases the most stable place in their life is their classroom and their time in school, and some of the most stable role models they have are their teachers. Sometimes it might be a youth worker, if the school has those resources, or a child care worker who's working with them. In schools where there are significant numbers of kids in this situation, the problem, because of critical mass, becomes even more challenging at times.

I guess the first question I have for the minister is…. I'd be interested to get a sense from the minister of what he believes the role of the school is in the incidence of those kinds of communities where you have
[ Page 7122 ]
large numbers of kids who are living in poverty or in very difficult and complex situations, maybe because of challenges their family members face, who are facing other kinds of abuse challenges. What does he see as the role that schools need to play in terms of helping those kids to find stability in their lives and have a successful future?

Hon. G. Abbott: I appreciate the member raising this very thoughtful question. The short answer to his question would be that I think school and education are enormously important in the lives of the most vulnerable children and most vulnerable communities in the province.

We have in, British Columbia…. Obviously, in relation to most of the world, we're a wealthy jurisdiction, yet within that wealthy jurisdiction there are groups, there are communities, and there are portions of communities that certainly are vulnerable. We've just been having, and I think the member was present for a portion of it, a good discussion about the early development tool, the human early learning partnership pioneered by Clyde Hertzman at UBC. I think that is one useful tool in helping us to understand where in our education systems we might find those pockets or regions or areas of vulnerability and help us make informed decisions about how best to assist the vulnerable children in those areas.

[1730]

I think that in terms of turning around the life circumstances of those who might be born into poverty, education is probably going to be one of the leading drivers or determinants of turning lives around. What we need to do, I think, as an education system is ensure that we are playing our part — along with the important roles that the Ministry of Children and Family Development might have, that Health might have, that the Ministry of Attorney General or 15 other ministries might have in terms of providing the opportunity and turning those lives around. That's important.

I am encouraged…. I'll provide that this is not an inner-city example, but it is certainly an example of a school district that, with what one would normally expect to be a particularly challenging demographic, has achieved great success in its kindergarten-to-grade-4 programming and is producing results which are as good as you'll find anywhere in the world. That's Fort Nelson.

Fort Nelson school district has a large aboriginal population. It has a relatively young population but to some extent transient — in and out of the oil patch, etc. It would not be an easy school district to produce the kinds of results that they are. But they are focusing on the vulnerable kids. They are ensuring that any barriers to learning are identified early, that there is focused remediation on turning those issues around.

Whether it's the Stikine school district or Shuswap school district or the Vancouver school district, I think there are things that we can learn from some of the success stories in terms of turning those vulnerable communities around. We need to be learning from the range of experiences in our province and utilizing those experiences to build best practices and then taking those best practices and making them generalized practices across the province.

If we can have students with foundational skills in reading, writing and numeracy and if we can build the kind of education system that I think we can in this province, that will be an important step in moving some of those vulnerable children and vulnerable communities into stronger, more sustainable communities and lives in this province.

S. Simpson: I appreciate the minister's comments. I would agree that with the human early learning partnership, we did learn things. The work that has been done there, Hertzman's work, I think is very valuable.

We can learn from that, particularly if we accept the premise — and I certainly do, and I would hope the minister does — that it's children at that very young age…. If you begin to identify the barriers there and overcome those barriers — whether they're around emotional maturity, social competence, health skills or other skills — that's the place to get them and to work at it if we're going to have success down the road.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

The minister talked about it, and I don't disagree at all with the minister that we need to look at these things and that these challenges are complex. Every one is a little bit unique.

The question I have…. Maybe the minister could first tell us about this. We know it's not all about money. Money is an important part of it, but it's not all about money. Does the minister see a difference in terms of the challenges that individual schools face, where they have significantly larger numbers of children who may come from those vulnerable sectors or have special needs or have other challenges that are over and above — and I don't like the term — a typical situation?

This is part of my concern. I look at some of the schools in my constituency. Small schools like the Macdonald school — not many kids, very complex issues there. Because of the nature of that, they deal with these kids. Then things like class size and composition become even more challenging issues.

[1735]

I'm sure the minister has heard this. I've heard teachers say to me: "Give me a class with 30, 35 typical kids" — I use that term again somewhat reluctantly — "and that's an easier place for me than a class with 20 kids if
[ Page 7123 ]
half of them have a special challenge, in terms of what it takes for me to meet those kids' needs."

In the case of schools that have those bigger numbers as a critical mass, does the minister see a role or a need to find additional resources for those schools to allow them to deal with the unique challenges?

Hon. G. Abbott: While first acknowledging the member's point that this is complex, I agree with much of what he has said in respect of this important matter.

I think some of the academic or scientific work that has been done in respect of student achievement and the drivers or determinants of student achievement shows that there is a linkage between the portion of the student population in a school that might be, by objective factors, determined to be vulnerable. The higher the percentage of vulnerable students in a school, the greater the likelihood that is to drive student achievement overall in the school.

That's probably what we would think intuitively, and it appears to be borne out by the data. Indeed, that's why it is increasingly important to have tools like EDI and the human early learning partnership to help guide the investments so that, in fact, we do try to even the playing field somewhat in terms of student learning.

The point is a good one, and I think what we see in some of the more successful school districts is that there is an allocation of resources based on that proposition and based on their understanding, through EDI and human early learning partnership, of where those investments should be made.

The member, then, I think was going on to make a point about supports in the school system for special needs being particularly important in those cases. Intuitively, I would agree. I'm not exactly sure where the member's going with it. I'm sure I'll find out in subsequent questioning, and that's good.

I think, as I said to the Education critic earlier, there is much we can do better in terms of the management of special needs both within and outside the classroom, and I'm glad to explore that with members, because I think that's an important discussion we need to have with the B.C. Teachers Federation, with school trustees and with all the partners in the education system.

S. Simpson: Maybe just to go there. I'm thinking here in terms of special needs, not for what might have been our more conventional special needs but students who are facing a lot of different challenges and the role those schools play.

We know that we're paying per pupil. We have the per-pupil funding that goes into the districts, the little bit of additional money that goes in where there are recognized special needs or the bit of extra money that goes into inner-city programs or CommunityLINK programs. Those dollars are there.

We know we're getting a little bit more money coming in around inner city to help pay for some of those programs, through CommunityLINK and some of the lunch programs and food programs, breakfast programs and those things.

The question I have is this. We know that kind of goes districtwide, and each district kind of targets those schools that they determine, through demographics or geography, face additional challenges. They put a little extra money in there, or those schools get a designation that allows them to have some additional supports.

[1740]

I know that the ministry has largely — and I don't necessarily disagree with this — chosen not to target dollars so much but has said: "Here's the per-pupil funding. School board, you go in and expend this money as you see fit within your district. That's your job, largely." Not entirely but largely.

Does the minister see a place for resources that acknowledge or recognize those schools in the province where the case can be legitimately made that they have challenges of critical mass in terms of vulnerable kids, where they may need other kinds of resources to create the opportunity for success there than might be seen in a school that's in a more typical situation?

I'm not asking for more money — I'll get to that at some point probably — but just wondering, to have the conversation. Does the minister see a value in that? If so, how would you have that conversation?

Hon. G. Abbott: I think the point the member is making is a good one, and I think that we have tried to capture in the funding formula the concern that the member has very articulately expressed — that is, that the funding formula should be sensitive to factors which reflect the vulnerability or potential vulnerability of a population.

It might be new Canadians. It might be aboriginal. It might be any number of factors that would suggest vulnerability, and of course, again, we'll lean on the tools that Professor Hertzman has developed to try to inform more precisely our understanding of those areas. We try to have a sensitivity to that in our formula.

What we don't attempt to do — and I think this is correct, but I'd love to hear the member's view on it if he has a different view — is to try to do a school-based funding model as opposed to a district funding model. We think it is more appropriate for us to take all of the information we can on a district basis and have a formula that is sensitive to challenges and vulnerabilities but leave the specific allocation of those dollars, provided they meet their service plan expectations, to the school districts.

As an example, Stikine district has the highest-funded students in the province — just over $23,000, I believe, per student in Stikine. But Stikine is a very small school district, probably the size of France geographically but
[ Page 7124 ]
with only about 200 students and four schools that are scattered geographically — and enormously challenging, as I'm sure the member can imagine.

[1745]

That's an example of utilization of an understanding of vulnerability to try to determine a funding formula that fairly reflects the challenges that districts have. Now, every one of the 60 districts is going to have some different aspect about it that will, from their perspective, lead them to want to have certain areas of the funding formula emphasized or de-emphasized.

That is, I guess, an ongoing challenge for the minister and the ministry to be thinking about those things. The point, generally, that the member is making, I think, is a reasonable one, but I'm not sure exactly where it's going.

S. Simpson: I'm not sure where it's going either, but we'll see where we get to.

Obviously, every district is different. It's part of the critique, I guess. I'm not here, really, to talk about the funding formula, but I guess I'd make this comment. I understand the rationale behind basing the funding formula on a per-student basis and sort of the simplicity of that. There's nothing simple about the funding, but the simplicity of using that model and saying that that's what we're going to do.

I don't have a better answer for it, but I sometimes think that the shortcomings of that…. There are shortcomings in everything, and I suspect the minister would acknowledge that but say that this is the best we've got, and we build on it. That's fair enough.

I sometimes think, though, that there are other aspects that maybe don't get as much consideration as they should on top of that per-pupil funding basis. I realize that this all has to be in the context of a global budget. I don't disagree with the districts having to do the work and make the call. I'm thinking here that it's not so much that Hastings School can come to the ministry and say: "Here's our circumstance, and can we have an extra $50,000 to deal with these things that go on in our school that will make it better?" That wouldn't be appropriate. I would agree with the minister.

But I'm thinking about the way that…. Are there opportunities here for the board, the district, to be able to say: "Based on criteria that the ministry acknowledges and recognizes and accepts, we can make the case for particular schools that have particular challenges because of critical mass of vulnerable kids that means that there's a recognition that maybe they need extra youth workers"?

It's probably not so much academic as much as it's on the other side in terms of supports, I'm thinking. I'm not an educator. I wouldn't claim to know best. But it's maybe other things. The board comes forward and says: "Okay, here's our case, and here's this case for supplementary support based on criteria that you have, and these funds will be targeted funds. You don't give them, and we don't get to say as the board: 'Now we just take them into our general revenue and spend them as we want.' We've come to you and said these are real issues, and these dollars will go there, and we'll account for them there, but we've made this call as a district to do this."

I'm just looking for the flexibilities. The minister said in an earlier answer, which I absolutely agree with, that this is a complex business, education. We're learning all the time. We're having to rethink these things all the time as it becomes more challenging for kids and families. Complexities become different, and we learn about how technology influences things and that. We're always learning.

I'm thinking that we need to have some flexibility around the funding side or a little more flexibility to be able to operationalize what we learn or test-fly some things without spending a ridiculous amount of money on it. I'm just wondering about the capacity to do that. If that's not there, then how do we do that?

How do we test-fly some of those ideas in schools that might make things better with boards that are all pretty cash-strapped? You know, they're all working within their budgets, but money's tight for all of them. We know that. How do we do that?

[1750]

Hon. G. Abbott: Again I appreciate the member's thoughtful question or observation here.

When I visit with people and am asked to speak, I sometimes will flash up a slide of the Beatles and their song "Money can't buy me love." I do that in part as an attempt to be amusing but also to raise the important issue about whether large and complex service delivery organizations like the health system or the education system can be reformed only with money, without money or in some combination of the two, because it's an interesting question.

I referenced earlier the experience of Fort Nelson school district and the remarkable success they have enjoyed, notwithstanding the challenging demographic that they are working with, and raising the question: is there something that they are doing there — and they're also doing it in Revelstoke, and they're also doing it in southeast Kootenay — which would form a best practice which can be utilized across the province in all 60 districts to produce those kind of results?

It may well be that to do that on a schoolwide basis, on a districtwide basis, perhaps will take some incremental resources. It may. I wouldn't start with that conclusion, but I wouldn't start with the conclusion that we can do everything without resources either.

I'd say this. As we move forward in time, as we try better to understand how it is that some districts can perform at this optimal level with the resources that
[ Page 7125 ]
they have and start to think about what the application is of what's been learned in Fort Nelson and Revelstoke and southeast Kootenay to inner-city schools, is there something we can replicate or emulate in terms of educational strategies at the inner-city-school level that appears to be working elsewhere?

These are, I think, the kinds of decisions, the kinds of strategies, that we need to depend on the school district and boards of education to advance. The success that's been enjoyed in Fort Nelson, in Revelstoke and in southeast Kootenay is not a product of us dictating it at the ministry level to those school districts. They have undertaken to do this through the leadership of their superintendents, through the leadership of principals and vice-principals and teachers.

We always want to be conscious of having the resources available so that they can do it. We need to be extending a guiding hand and sharing best practices. But again, I think it comes back to the point that a lot of the decision-making on school X versus school Y versus school Z…. I think it's better that those decisions are made at the district level as opposed to the provincial level.

Our role is, as best we can, to have a funding formula and an approach to education that is fair and balanced and appropriate. I guess every district is going to have a different idea about what's fair and balanced and appropriate. I recognize that. That's what the challenge is for us — to try to do that.

I hope I've addressed the member's question.

S. Simpson: Maybe just a question to follow up a little bit on that, because I don't understand the funding system well enough. So the minister can explain this to me. What level of resources over and above sort of the in-classroom resources, the per-pupil…? I know that's to take in more than simply in-class.

Are there resources that are made available to districts that allow them to do some of the innovative things that might not seem to just apply right in the classroom every day but that recognize, as the minister said, that much of the innovation, much of that kind of practical research and analysis, is going to happen in the classroom and at the district level, with teachers and principals and those folks on the ground who have ideas and play them out in ways that may not be conventional, necessarily, but some of them you hope prove to work?

[1755]

What supports are available for that to occur in terms of funding?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'll try to do this in a way that doesn't repeat some of the important debate that we had earlier. Just to summarize, boards of education received $382.9 million in 2010-2011 for levels 1, 2 and 3 supplemental funding for special needs. I can go into some detail on that, if the member wishes. Generally speaking, level 1 has more profound challenges than level 2 and than level 3.

That $382 million was an increase of just over $58 million from the previous fiscal year. The increase reflected for level 1 — that is, the more profoundly affected students — was an increase of $4,600, to $36,000 per student; level 2 increased by $2,300, to $18,300 per student; and level 3 increased by $1,200, to $9,200 per student. In addition to that special needs supplemental funding, there is also supplemental funding for ESL and for aboriginal students.

That becomes a part of the formula that is then distributed to school districts based on those factors, plus the base on which all school districts work. When those dollars go to the school district, the ministry doesn't say: "You have X numbers of level 1 students; hence, you must use it exactly there." We give them some discretion for expending and expending appropriately within their district. I think that is the right thing to do.

We provide them the resources, but we give them some considerable flexibility in terms of how they believe the dollars can best be allocated.

S. Simpson: Just on that, I think the minister will know…. I know that some of the critique I often hear is around the assessments and when the assessments are done of students with special needs. Are they done early enough? Are they done soon enough? Is there an issue about the capping and whether there's capping? Districts just kind of stop assessing or the assessments become less when there aren't further dollars available at some point. That's a bit of another issue.

The question I guess I want to ask as well is…. The minister has talked a couple of times about the human early learning partnership. I think it's a valuable program, and I have a lot of respect for the work that Hertzman and his team do. Are there other resources like that that the ministry looks at in terms of beginning to deal with these issues?

I'll tell the minister a little bit about…. I'm just going to take a few more minutes and then turn it over to one of my colleagues. Maybe I'll just open this question now.

When I look at vulnerability, I look particularly at poor kids, which is of particular interest to me — the whole issue of how we break the cycle of poverty. I think that schools and education and the school system play a very important role in the success of that, in breaking the poverty cycle, particularly for kids, to give them opportunities to get out of that cycle, which is not an easy thing to do. They have a big role to play there.

[1800]

The question I guess I would ask is: how does the minister see schools and the Ministry of Education playing that role, in addition to obviously all the other parts of government that would have a role? Social Development, Children and Families, Finance, Health — there are lots.
[ Page 7126 ]

How does he see the Education Ministry playing a role in helping to break that poverty cycle by the work they do with children and with young people?

Hon. G. Abbott: I won't repeat for the member the answer I gave at the start. We agreed that education is enormously important in terms of breaking the poverty cycle for children. No disputing on that.

In terms of the value-added that the Ministry of Education and the education system bring…. Well, it is, first and foremost, creating an environment where kids feel safe, where they feel engaged and where we have an opportunity in those critical years from kindergarten to grade 4 of ensuring that every child — whether they are from a rich, poor or middle-class background — has the opportunity to acquire the foundation skills which will be the principal determinant of their success later in school and will become a principal determinant of whether they go on to skills training or university and to successful employment for the balance of their lives — and, of course, will have broken the cycle of poverty.

I know I've probably, in a remarkably tiresome way, repeatedly referenced the success of Fort Nelson and Revelstoke and southeast Kootenay, but to me it is so important that every kid is equipped with those foundation skills.

Absolutely, the most important thing we can do for a child as they enter kindergarten, all-day kindergarten in the fall, is pick up any barriers that they have to learning, identify any shortfalls they have around reading, writing and numeracy, and then, in a partnership — which I agree we still have some work to do — address in a sustained and focused way those shortfalls in learning or those barriers to learning.

For any child, regardless of the circumstances they come from, if we can give them the foundation skills, we equip them for success right through grade 12. We really equip them for success whether they go on to a skilled trade or on to university. It doesn't matter. We're equipping them with the tools that will provide them for success in life.

M. Elmore: Very appreciative of the opportunity to pose some questions, specifically along the areas of early learning.

We've covered previously this afternoon recognizing the importance of early learning and that it's an optimum time in children's development in terms of their future. It's a great opportunity, a great investment in children and in their lives to support children in their development and also in their families.

[1805]

To the minister: I was wondering if you could make a list of the early learning programs that are administered under the Education Ministry and also the accompanying budgets for those programs.

Hon. G. Abbott: The more prominent programs, for the member's information…. All-day kindergarten is the major investment at $107 million annually. StrongStart is another important and successful program, which will be expanding, but at its current level is about $11 million a year. Ready, Set, Learn is $2.75 million a year.

There are community-based literacy programs in addition to that, but they are not ministry-funded by and large, or at least not directly through ministry programs.

M. Elmore: Other jurisdictions are moving towards integrating the early learning and child care component. I was wondering if the minister has had an opportunity to read the report that's been tabled by the child care advocates of British Columbia, moving towards an integrated framework of early learning and care.

[1810]

Hon. G. Abbott: We have had an opportunity to review the work of the child advocate. Just last week I had the opportunity to sit down with the child advocate and review the early learning programs and, in particular, discuss her concern with respect to vulnerable children — ensuring that whether they're children in care or vulnerable for other reasons, we have appropriate educational programs to ensure that they don't slip through the cracks — and I agree with her.

She is very supportive of the investments that we have made — very supportive of all-day kindergarten, very supportive of the StrongStart centres, very supportive of the programs that are in and around the early development indicators and the human early learning partnership. She's a very strong supporter of the work of Dr. Hertzman, and she's a very strong supporter, coincidentally, of the foundation skills assessment test, because it is a way of picking up, at a relatively early age, potential barriers to learning or potential shortfalls in reading, writing and numeracy.

I know that may be controversial among some of the members, but I'm sure they would want to reference the very thoughtful debate which the Education critic and I had earlier around this — that in fact a foundation skills assessment test at grade 4 is too late. That is far too late to start picking up early learning challenges. We need to have strategies, programs and tools to identify those earlier.

There may be a number of ways in which we can supplement, complement, support, amend and improve the foundation skills assessment in the province, and we look forward to doing that.

But I think the child advocate is very keen to do the personalized learning piece, because whether you're a child from a prosperous background or from an impoverished background, having those skills is hugely important. Having programs and processes that ensure
[ Page 7127 ]
that every child has the opportunity to build those foundation skills is hugely important.

M. Elmore: Thank you for the comments. Specifically, the report I was referring to has been put together by the Coalition of Child Care Advocates in partnership with the Early Childhood Educators of B.C. It's talking about bringing together the provision of early learning and also child care so that it's integrated into one program.

In other jurisdictions — that's also the trend internationally — these areas are coming together and becoming administered under the Ministry of Education in Ontario. It's a subsection of early learning.

That was the report that I was wondering if the minister and the ministry staff are familiar with. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, are you planning to take a look at it? I know the authors are also planning to meet with the minister and ministerial staff from the Ministry of Children and Family Development — and if you also have a chance to meet with them.

Hon. G. Abbott: I am looking forward to meeting with the Child Care Advocacy Association. I believe that our meeting is set up for early in June, so I look forward to meeting with them.

We do look at the experience of jurisdictions like Ontario and others to understand what has worked successfully in those jurisdictions and, therefore, potentially what could work successfully in British Columbia.

I am pleased that we have in many corners of the province now a co-location of care facilities, daycare, etc., on school sites. I think that co-location has proven generally to be a positive thing.

[1815]

We certainly look forward to engaging with all of the early learning constituency to talk about how we can continue to improve the provision and quality of early learning and child care services.

M. Elmore: I was wondering if you can talk about what plans are underway for the provision of all-day kindergarten or all-day preschool for three- and four-year-olds, if you have anything coming forward on that.

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for her important question. The priorities for me and for the ministry in the coming months are, first of all, the successful implementation of all-day kindergarten. This September will be the first time that we have all-day kindergarten, and we believe that will be hugely important in terms of building student achievement in the province in the future. So that's a big investment and a big undertaking, and that's a priority to ensure that it's successful.

Secondly, to me it is vital and critical that we move as quickly and effectively as we can to a personalized learning model for schools across the province. In particular — again, I don't want to repeat things we've had very good discussion of earlier — to me it is absolutely critical in that kindergarten-to-grade-4 period that we build those foundation skills so that we build that base for success for students in their subsequent learning.

All of the scientific data that we are aware of points to: the later that the remediation occurs, the less likely it is to be successful. We've got to remediate shortfalls in learning early, and we need to focus on that, I believe.

We do want to begin to understand better the potential for age four learning and how that should be undertaken. So we're looking to probably do a pilot or some pilots on age four learning or play-based learning. That could be important too. Of course, there's a range of private and non-profit providers of playschools, etc., around the province, and we want to proceed with this in a thoughtful way that maximizes the opportunity and the potential for achievement and so on. But to me, what I said earlier really are the priorities for the ministry in the immediate years ahead.

M. Elmore: I'm just wondering if I can hear a little bit more in terms of the pilots on the play-based learning. Is it primarily research-based to collect data information, or is it to actually fund innovative new pilot programs in existing centres?

Hon. G. Abbott: We are still involved in design of those pilots, but likely it will revolve around proof-of-concept that, in fact, having a play-based learning attached to a school environment at age four would have a meaningful impact in terms of later student achievement outcomes. We want to learn from this.

[1820]

As we did with all-day K, we would likely look at having the pilots placed in areas where we believe student vulnerability or child vulnerability, early learning vulnerability — where that additional attention at age four might prove most beneficial…. But again, that is just speculative, because we're really designing this now.

M. Elmore: I'm wondering if you can help shed some light for me in terms of reconciling some of the numbers, the budget numbers. There's a budget line that attributes investment and spending in the budget of around the number of a billion dollars going into child care and early learning.

Just wondering if you can help reconcile that for me and if you have a total in terms of that number or if you can help clarify the portion of that budget that is attributed towards that number in terms of that overall number.
[ Page 7128 ]

Hon. G. Abbott: The particular passage is not leaping to mind for any of the officials that I have surrounding me. Could the member, hon. Chair, perhaps provide us with a page reference to get a closing in on the document?

M. Elmore: I will get the page number and forward that to you.

Also, just interested to hear what steps are underway in terms of the coordination between the Ministry of Education and also the Ministry of Children and Family Development in terms of coordinating the early learning and child care component.

Hon. G. Abbott: The Ministries of Health, Children and Family Development, and Education are proceeding together to build the model, to build the programs. We had quite a comprehensive discussion earlier on about the early development indices and the human early learning partnership and the factors there.

Suffice to say, yes, this is a hugely important issue. We recognize the synergy that could be produced between or among the ministries in terms of building a better model and better partnership. So yes, there's much work going on together.

The Chair: Minister, recognizing the hour.

Hon. G. Abbott: Oh, recognizing the hour. Yes, of course. How time flies. I had no idea. I thought it was around 4:30, but apparently it's much later. I had such thoughtful questions from the opposition that time was literally flying by.

That having been said, noting the hour, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:24 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

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

Hon. I. Chong moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:25 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
FORESTS, LANDS AND
NATURAL RESOURCE OPERATIONS

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); D. Horne in the chair.

The committee met at 2:36 p.m.

On Vote 30: ministry operations, $363,399,000 (continued).

Hon. S. Thomson: Before lunch, the member opposite, the MLA for Stikine, asked a question about the aggregate application in Fairview, and we had committed to provide a response for him. I do have a response that has been provided. I'd just like to read that into the record so that there's an official answer to the question.

The answer is as follows. Residents claimed high uranium content in the Genelle pit near Fairview. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources made the pit owner hire a consultant to study and measure uranium. The engineering firm drilled holes and measured soil, water and rock samples. No uranium was detected.

The inspector and senior inspector of mines in the Kootenays possess this report, which was recently submitted. The staff's understanding is that the proponent will hold a public meeting to communicate study findings. It's an old, depleted gravel pit that is now proposed for rock-quarrying and crushing into aggregate.

N. Macdonald: Again, as the minister knows, it's going to be somewhat all over the place. We're going to jump around. The member for Vancouver–West End, I guess, will be asking some questions on archaeology, and he should be here in a few minutes.

Maybe, while we're waiting, it'd be an opportunity to spend a bit of time with the report that was just, I think, completed this morning — the B.C. Government Employees Union report on forest policy. Understanding that there has been a fairly short time frame on it, we'll just go through some of the things that they're talking about and get maybe a more detailed response from the minister in terms of at least some of the broad things that the report is talking about.

When it was released today, the BCGEU report made recommendations for changes in forest policy, and that was based on community dialogue and surveys conducted
[ Page 7129 ]
across the province. Those surveys included not only community members but also employees of the ministry.

We're going to focus on, in the first part here, the community response. In short, the B.C. Government Employees Union concluded: "Public lands are no longer managed for the public good." That is the conclusion that they reached after going into communities and talking to people in communities.

Their contention is that private interests are trumping public interests and that as a result we have a crisis in B.C.'s public forests.

The report makes four key recommendations. The first is: "Strengthen public oversight and accountability." The second is: "Recommit to good forest stewardship." The third is: "Reconnect communities with their forests." The fourth is: "Generate more value from B.C.'s forests."

[1440]

My question for the minister is this. Does the minister disagree with any of those four recommendations? If so, which of the four recommendations does he disagree with?

Hon. S. Thomson: I appreciate the opportunity to comment. I've not had the chance, obviously, to have an in-depth review of the report. I just received it at lunchtime today. But first of all, I think the one thing that I do agree with is that the forest is a very, very important resource. That's one of the statements in the report, and that's certainly something we agree with.

In terms of stewardship and compliance, currently we have a very active program of compliance. We have an independent watchdog with the Forest Practices Board. Reviews are done. Generally, those reports show that in the vast majority of situations the industry is operating within the stewardship requirements. Where they aren't, the corrective action is taken, but in the vast majority of circumstances they are complying.

There are other recommendations in the report that talk about connecting with communities. We're working actively in that area. We've had the community forest agreements — that program significantly expanded — and we have plans to continue to expand that program; the woodlot program; First Nations awards in communities — building the capacity in those communities. We have the program that provides those opportunities for First Nations.

The report also talks about getting value from the land base, from the harvest there. We've made many advancements in focusing on bioenergy, full utilization of the resource, continuing to legislate changes brought forward to help do that. We're continuing to look at regulations that will help assist in that area, making sure that we can get the full value out of the land base.

I think that in many respects we're moving forward with or working on these recommendations. I look forward to continuing to review the report in more detail.

N. Macdonald: Thank you, Minister. Obviously, we haven't had a great deal of time to really pore through this.

[1445]

I see Mr. Walker is here from the B.C. Government Employees Union. It's not surprising that many of the things that I saw in looking at the report will be familiar. I think the last time we saw each other was in Castlegar. Many of the same communities, the same people that are talking to me have been talking. It is striking — the similarities of the points that I made during our debate yesterday and parts of this morning with what the B.C. Government Employees Union is seeing as well. It's the need to commit to good forest stewardship and to generate more value from B.C.'s forests.

I just want to draw your attention to some of the community-related aspects of the B.C. Government Employees Union report and some of the comments that are in the report. I'll quote them for you and just get your reaction to them.

From Campbell River the report speaks of somebody making this comment, and I'll just read it verbatim. "Public lands are no longer managed for the public good. The social contract is gone." From Kamloops the report records an individual saying: "The future for our forest industry is unclear. Where are we going?" It speaks to the lack of a clear plan in the public mind.

From Castlegar, the BCGEU heard: "Forests should be the future for our kids, but right now there's no real future." From Prince George: "There's a redistribution of wealth happening — taking it away from workers and communities and giving it to big companies."

Obviously, these are anecdotal and one-off. Nevertheless, it would be consistent with the themes that I certainly hear when I go to rural communities — and even some of the urban communities where there's a connection to forestry, such as Surrey and other communities.

I think that clearly British Columbians in forest-dependent communities are feeling disenfranchised and disconnected from what they know to be forests that they own. The current policy framework is not only failing to ensure good stewardship of their forests, but it's also failing to meet the needs and aspirations of B.C. communities.

My question for the minister is this: does the minister disagree with what British Columbians in forest-dependent communities are saying about the failure of current forest policy to meet their needs?

Hon. S. Thomson: I think what is clear from my discussions around the province in the short time that I've had the honour of being the minister is that what com-
[ Page 7130 ]
munities are focused on is to make sure that we have a policy that continues to get maximum value out of the forest base. We're working on that, and as I mentioned, we've made significant progress in that area on bioenergy opportunities, looking at the utilization of waste and making sure we get that maximum value.

They're also looking for a process that helps build the industry and creates jobs. We have done that. As you know, we've come through a very, very deep cycle in the industry. The industry has always had its cycles. The last one was one of the deepest in terms of the impact of the economic recession.

We're certainly seeing the signs and the optimism coming out of that. Currently, with the work that is done in market development with new mills, with mills reopening and with new opportunities being developed, we will continue to work with the policy. The work that we're doing in providing future opportunities, in getting value from the carbon values in the forest sector, is another opportunity.

[1450]

We'll continue to work with communities in building community forest agreements, as I mentioned. That's a program that we put a lot of effort into, and significant interest and expansion. We will continue to do it.

One of the real challenges that we have in the industry is ensuring the maximum utilization of the fibre supply for all the interests there. We want to make sure that we can work with First Nations communities, like current licensees, making sure that we can have that balance of the allowable cut to keep a sustainable industry in British Columbia. That's what we will continue to do.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thanks to my colleague from Columbia River–Revelstoke for providing the time, and to the minister for taking the questions.

I wanted to ask about heritage. It's one of the many, many little line items in this ministry's budget. I believe it has moved from four different ministers, maybe five ministers, in two years, so it's kind of hard keeping up with where our province's heritage is held. But it's very important. It's been challenged quite considerably over the last couple of years with big budget cuts — and the lack of vision, I believe. Hopefully, in this minister's hand it will find its prominence that it deserves in this government.

I'll go through a few questions, just because I have to get off to another event. I know — many other forestry questions. If there are some of them that you can't answer immediately, I'd appreciate a response later.

(1) When are we going to adopt the provincial heritage strategy?

(2) When are we going to restore the heritage branch budget?

(3) When will we resolve the heritage properties question? So of course, how are we going to deal with support for the province's heritage properties?

(4) When is the ministry going to consider restoring community support — support for municipalities, towns and regional districts all across the province — so that they can properly look after our province's heritage, as the government is mandated to do through the heritage act?

[1455]

Hon. S. Thomson: Chair, my apologies for taking a bit of time there. There were four questions in the overall question. I thought I'd want to just try to address them all at the same time rather than a one-off.

I wanted to open my response here just to say, from a personal perspective, that I consider this a very, very important part of my responsibility and an important part of the work within the ministry. I come from a heritage family farm. Our family settled in the Okanagan, in Kelowna, in 1892.

I think that many of the properties on our farm, many of the barns, would qualify as heritage properties. While they're not officially heritage properties, they could be. My brother continues to move old barns from the salvages and saves from other developments around the Okanagan, moving them to our farm.

The increasing heritage status of our farm is something that we're actually very proud of in terms of our farm operation. My mother is involved with the heritage society in Kelowna. Our farmhouse is a designated heritage building in Kelowna. So I have a strong feeling for this component of the ministry.

So just to let you know in terms of the strategy. You know that there's been work done on it. I've asked staff to make sure they bring it forward to me so that we can move it forward. In terms of the heritage branch budget, we have had a reduction — but a minor reduction in the actual budget — from $1.4 million to $1.1 million currently. We're working with the resources we have to make sure that we continue to focus on working with the heritage community and our responsibilities in managing the program.

With respect to the heritage properties that you've mentioned, I'm pleased to advise the member opposite that I have recently worked with the ministry staff and met with the heritage properties management group and made available $1½ million to them for the properties to make sure that they can deal with the immediate pressures in terms of the deferred maintenance and some of the critical issues that they need to deal with.

They were very pleased to receive that. We're managing that out of our existing budget. That'll address the immediate pressures in those properties and make sure that they can continue to provide a full season and a full opening for this year. We do know that we need to continue to work and address the longer-term sustainable funding model for those properties, and that's work that we're continuing to do.
[ Page 7131 ]

In terms of the community support program, with the budget pressures and having to find resources to deal with immediate pressures, we don't have the funding to provide to those community supports, but we do provide a lot of expertise and a lot of help to those groups, with our staff and our resources. They work very closely with those groups.

All of that packaged together tells me that we do need to continue to work on the strategy and bring a strategy forward for heritage properties. I've asked staff previously and even just reconfirmed now to make sure that they do that.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thanks to the minister for his interest and appreciation for heritage. Absolutely, I'm glad to hear it. I hope that interest is able to be parlayed into real resources for heritage in B.C. The heritage ministry budget has been on the decline for the last two, three years, so to have even further cuts in this existing budget now makes it even harder for the ministry to provide that support to the communities which need it.

[1500]

I think, of course, the call to renew B.C.'s heritage program, which Heritage B.C. put out, where they speak about the drastic cuts which have seriously undermined the heritage branch's ability to deliver on its responsibilities and, of course, being unable to support heritage in communities across British Columbia….

You've only got heritage for so long, as I know the minister knows, before it's gone. In B.C., as a young province, I think that we do need to pay particular attention to those early sites — not just the provincial sites that we already have identified, but the sites that are not under the provincial purview right now but are in small towns all across British Columbia.

If you don't paint the roof of that church, or you don't make sure that a certain location is fire-safe, you can very quickly lose that, as we've seen over the last two years. So thanks to the minister.

I haven't got any further ahead with the rock that we're trying to push up the hill to get heritage better supported in our province, but I hope that the minister will be able to shake some more trees and build some more support for heritage in British Columbia, because otherwise we will lose it, as I know that the minister knows. Thank you for this.

Hon. S. Thomson: Just in terms of a very quick response, I appreciate the questions, and I certainly will make myself available to sit down with the member opposite and discuss the interests in heritage as part of our ongoing work in this important area.

N. Macdonald: Thank you, Minister, for the opportunity. Just to return then to the B.C. Government Employees Union report that was issued today on a decade of change in B.C. forests. One of the things that the report talks about is the 2003 government initiative that was referred to as the forest revitalization plan. As the minister will know, it eliminated cut controls, utilization requirements as well as requirements that logs be processed locally — the appurtenance.

Eight years later, based on what B.C. families are saying in rural communities, it seems that quite the opposite to revitalization has taken place. B.C. families and communities have been devastated by the forest industry's near-total collapse in many parts of the province. In actuality, the government's forest policy, many would contend, has contributed to community economic hardship — particularly in rural British Columbia, but really across the province.

Since 2001 more than 33,000 direct forest sector jobs have disappeared. Major forest companies in both Castlegar and Campbell River, according to the report, have refused to pay municipal taxes. So we get the comment from Campbell River…. You'll find this in the report. It says: "We've seen a sixfold increase in demand for services — from addictions, to services needed from food banks, crime, family violence, increased grow ops, increased use of the needle exchange." The report is getting feedback from communities, and these are things that we hear as well.

So the question for the minister is this. Is the minister going to continue to claim that this government's forest policy is serving the best social interests of British Columbia and insist that it doesn't need to be re-evaluated in light of the reality that we see eight years after the introduction of the so-called revitalization plan?

[1505]

Hon. S. Thomson: Just to reaffirm, there were some very important components of that agreement, as the member opposite will know, in terms of ensuring that there was a process for providing tenure for community forests and providing tenure for First Nations. That is helping build capacity in those communities. The overall process to make sure that we got the right logs to the right mill was another important component of that policy.

I think it's important to recognize that the industry is operating in a globally competitive environment. Many factors impact the economics of the industry exchange rates: development of markets, the very devastating impact of the global economic recession and the collapse of the housing market in the U.S. All of that has significantly challenged the industry.

As I mentioned earlier, we're continuing, and we will always continue, to evaluate the program and the policy mix that we have in place so that the report can help inform those discussions as we go forward, as are many other reports and information that's made available to us from a number of sources.
[ Page 7132 ]

We will continue to do that, but I think the important thing is to recognize that the industry has come through a very difficult time. We are seeing the signs of recovery. I'm hearing optimism in the industry with the groups that I meet. We are opening mills. We are increasing employment. We are seeing the signs of recovery based on current policies. Can we continue to evaluate our programs? Yes, we can, and we will do that.

N. Macdonald: Just to come back to the report, which obviously sees a much different picture…. Certainly, it's consistent with what I hear in the communities that I visit and the communities that we live in. The other part of it that's interesting, and this one that is often commented….

This report says that the government forest policy has put us in a place where local communities now have very little voice in how their forest resources are managed. Public reporting on the forest resource is a shadow of what it was. Public information is difficult and sometimes expensive to obtain. The land use plans for most of the province are out of date, and the government is not re-engaging with communities to update these land use plans.

My question to the minister is twofold. Does the minister believe that it is in the public interest to minimize local dialogue and public input to forest policy, now the preserve of, for the most part, major forest corporations or senior government officials in Victoria? And what plans does the government have to reinstitute local land use planning and to revitalize public involvement in how public forest resources are managed?

[1510]

[P. Pimm in the chair.]

Hon. S. Thomson: In terms of the community involvement, it's important to recognize just some numbers. You know, 43 community forest agreements, and ten more communities have been invited to apply for those agreements, so we're clearly reaching out and involving the communities in terms of their participation within the industry. Some 11.8 million cubic metres are now available to First Nations, so again, building that capacity in those communities.

In terms of the approach to land use planning and community dialogue, that's part of what, as we talked yesterday, the structure is around the natural resource operations approach to making integrated decisions on the land base. So that's an area that is being discussed as part of that process.

When you talk about community engagement and involvement, one of the platforms that our current Premier has run on and mandated is open government. Part of our work that we need to do within our ministries is to make sure how we achieve that objective. Finding forums and opportunities for greater engagement with communities is part of something that we need to address, and it will be addressed.

I think it is important — as we build the industry and see it come out of the very serious challenges it has faced, and we start to grow and expand the industry and have it contribute those important revenues — to continue to have that dialogue with communities. It will be an important part of that process.

N. Macdonald: Just building on that idea. This is in the BCGEU report. It refers to community meetings that were held in Castlegar, Campbell River, Prince George, Courtenay-Comox, Kamloops, and what they're saying is very similar to the experience that I would have in Golden.

I know the capacity that the ministry used to have in Golden. I know that that gave residents the ability to participate in some very successful Forest Ministry–driven processes. For example, the land use plan that I think is relatively unique to Golden, where users got together and decided how the land would be used — where snowmobilers would go, where heli-skiers would go, areas where you would not go to hunt. All of these plans were made by the community, but it was driven by the Ministry of Forests.

We have lost 1,006 employees across the province, and it has removed capacity from our communities. In Golden the gentleman who spearheaded that…. When he finished or he retired, it was not a position that was filled. And certainly, it's not just my communities — Revelstoke, Invermere, Golden, Kimberley — that have lost people. It's across the province. Like I say, well over a thousand people.

[1515]

When you see this report, it's consistent: the connection that people used to feel they had with the land through the Ministry of Forests has really been severed. What you have are survey results where — and this was done in May 2011 — it says that in Campbell River, 92 percent; Castlegar, 91 percent; Courtenay-Comox, 84 percent; Kamloops, 83 percent feel that the continuous reductions in technical, scientific and professional workers in the Forest Service based in those communities have been a bad idea.

I guess the question to the minister is: is it the government's intention to revisit some of those decisions and start to put capacity back into communities so that communities can reconnect to the public lands that are around them?

Maybe just as a sidebar, in March I was at a meeting in Golden. When you looked out to the people that were attending, you had capacities, a broad degree of knowledge — everything from experts in falling and running contracting companies to experts in silviculture and people who were biologists.
[ Page 7133 ]

Sitting in these communities is a tremendous resource. In the past, the Ministry of Forests had personnel to draw on and use that knowledge. I would say what you find, not only in my community but from the survey results here, is that forest-dependent communities feel that that ability to use their knowledge in a productive way has been taken away by the government.

Hon. S. Thomson: Recognizing the structure that we're establishing with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, this is a regionally based ministry. Four assistant deputy ministers, three located out in the region — Smithers, Kamloops and Williams Lake. Regional executive directors in eight regional areas within the province; 80 percent of our staff in those regions.

That was the purpose — to make sure we have that regional focus, the connection with communities throughout the province, to have that input into the integrated decision-making process.

I recognize, as the member says, that there are resources and expertise in those communities that can help. As part of open government, we need to find ways to engage those, looking at new ways of communicating through the social media networks and those kinds of technologies and opportunities. We've come through a very successful process, as we talked about, in engagement of communities with the tele–town hall processes.

The Premier is out holding town halls in communities throughout the province. We are reaching out and engaging those communities. We can do some of that, specifically around the forest side of it, using those technologies.

[1520]

Again, clearly, we want to make sure that we take the input and the concerns of the public and people in our communities in helping to inform those decisions. That's part of what the overall structure of Natural Resources Operations, linked with forestry on the strategic policy, was designed to do.

N. Macdonald: Thank you, Minister. It's consistent with what you see in the BCGEU forest policy report. One of the most compelling findings I saw is that participants in the community dialogue that the union led were adamant that local B.C. communities should be able to have "more control over their local forests." The minister has talked about a few tools that are there to have that happen.

My question for the minister is twofold: does the minister disagree with this unanimous consensus from forest-dependent communities about the need for more control? If not, what measures might he undertake to review this consensus of opinion with a view to recommending change that would see greater control and powers over forest resources being devolved to local forest-dependent communities?

Hon. S. Thomson: As I stated earlier, we're continuing to develop opportunities for community involvement in the industry through community forest agreements, through First Nation opportunities, through bioenergy opportunities. That will continue to be a focus of the work that we're doing.

As I indicated earlier, we need to make sure that we continue to find forums to engage the community with the new technologies, with the social media approach, with the town hall forums — those processes of making sure that we get the input. We continue to focus on building those opportunities within our communities.

That again, as I said, was part of the structure of Natural Resources Operations, to make sure that we had those people working directly with industry out in the communities, in the regions, helping to inform those decisions, helping to make those decisions concerning operations and authorizations on the land and helping all of that to inform strategic policy direction. As I said, we will continue to do that.

We continue to look at bioenergy opportunities. We have the Hydro call for those kinds of opportunities. We've made significant legislative change to provide for bioenergy waste utilization opportunities, getting maximum value out of the land base. We're continuing to look at regulatory adjustments that will help move that forward to a greater degree.

We recognize that as we move forward, as we come out of the mountain pine beetle uplift of annual allowable cuts, overall, we're going to have to work very, very closely with all of the interests in making sure that we can continue to, you know, ensure that they have the fibre supply that they need within the communities to be able to address all of the interests, particularly those local community, First Nations and woodlot interests.

N. Macdonald: To the final section, just on what I've seen from the community response. That's around the concerns about obtaining greater value from secondary manufacturing of lumber. Many communities were saying that the government, even through FII, has placed little emphasis on the value-added sector.

[1525]

The question for the minister is this. Will the minister confirm that value-added manufacturing is a priority policy issue and that funds will be committed to promote that sector? Is that an intention of the government? If so, what is the funding source, and what's the extent of funding?

Hon. S. Thomson: Clearly, we recognize the importance of building the value-added wood sector in British Columbia. There are significant initiatives underway to
[ Page 7134 ]
do that, starting with the wood-first legislation and approach and in terms of government's work there, but also recognizing that over 37 municipalities have signed on to a wood-first program. Within their local government procurement policies, that's helping build demand for value-added wood products.

Specifically within the ministry, we've got, as you are probably aware, under the B.C. Timber Sales, what we call category 2 sales — reserved specific amounts for value-added production. To make those available, we have a new service called Fibre Connections, which helps match people who are in the value-added sector who want the fibre with the people who have the fibre.

Additionally, we're continuing to actively move forward on developing bioenergy opportunities — the carbon opportunities, the biochemical opportunities, all of which help add value — because we do agree that we need to make sure that we get maximum utilization, maximum value, out of the forest base, out of the resource that's there, when it's harvested. That includes maximum utilization out of the trees themselves and maximum utilization out of the waste and other opportunities that are there.

That continues to be a strong focus of the ministry. We're continuing to work in that area, and we have some specific initiatives that are assisting there.

N. Macdonald: Just one quick question. It touches on what the minister said that's not related to the report. I'll come back to the report and some of the employee feedback that comes from the report.

[1530]

But just on biomass, Port Alice, of course, has some interesting things going on. We were meeting with Celgar down in the south. They have some interesting ideas around the possibilities for biomass.

What sorts of initiatives does this ministry have? Or does it sit with Jobs, Tourism and Innovation? What are the thoughts the minister has about the opportunities that may come with biomass, and what is the government doing to promote those opportunities?

Hon. S. Thomson: There is a wide range of initiatives that are underway to help support the development of making sure that we get the maximum value out of the harvest.

Just a list of them, maybe. The $25 million that we have invested in the B.C. Bioenergy Network. We've had the ICE fund in place, which is doing significant work in many areas related to bioenergy, linked with waste utilization and the forest industry. The phase 2 call with B.C. Hydro. We have a fuel-switching protocol. We have the Northern Bioenergy Partnership and, more specifically, around fibre tenure options and things dealing with that.

I have met with Celgar as well, and we've had those discussions about what we may need to do there to make sure they can get the fibre to support their plans, looking at things like the first right of refusal on the waste piles and waste that is there, in terms of when it's not utilized, to make sure they have that available.

We're looking at the concept of receiving licences and making sure that we can provide those opportunities for those companies that want to be able to move forward with those specific kinds of initiatives. It's something that we agree with. We want to make sure we can continue to provide those opportunities for those companies that are doing very, very good work in that area.

[1535]

N. Macdonald: It is exciting stuff. I mean, very often we talk about the challenges. I mean, British Columbia's history is not only, for the most part, being world leaders in terms of stewardship but also in terms of innovation as well. B.C. companies and businesses have often been at the forefront. This is just one of many ideas that just seems to hold up promise, and it's kind of exciting.

We'll come back to the BCGEU report and just a couple more points that come from the survey. There have been, as the minister knows, significant cuts — a thousand people. Living in the communities, people are aware of the impact and what it means on the ground. What is often described as efficiencies…. I think when people are familiar with the impact, they realize that, really, we are degrading a service that was there.

Ministers previous have often linked that to the fact that we're not getting the money that we used to from forestry. Nevertheless, it's our most valuable asset, and the management needs to be the best that it can be.

I'll just read a couple of fairly shocking statements from the…. These are members of the Forests Ministry's workers, so these are BCGEU members in the communities that were visited, and 87 percent of them agreed with this statement. "The B.C. Liberals have gutted the Forest Service by slashing funding, deregulating and eliminating over 1,000 forest workers' jobs. The result is a hollowed-out ministry that is no longer able to properly fulfil its mandate to protect and enhance B.C. forests". These are employees that are saying this, who would be familiar.

I guess the question would be — and maybe it's one that we'll use to wrap up what we've seen so far of this report: given those sorts of statements and as the minister moves around and meets with his ministry staff, does the minister foresee increasing capacity in the Ministry of Forests so that, once again, you can move towards a time when ministry staff would not be indicating in such high numbers that there is a shortfall and that their capacity has been degraded and that the job that they need to do to properly steward the public lands that we have can again be done?

So that's a fairly wide-open question for the minister, but just to respond to that sort of a result from the
[ Page 7135 ]
BCGEU community survey — in this case, of ministry staff in those communities.

[1540]

Hon. S. Thomson: In terms of the specific reference in the report, it's not surprising that the employees there who've seen their peers leave the service would be concerned, would feel that loss. But government's response, and what we need to say very clearly, is that the structure that we're creating with Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations — providing that integrated process in the communities, and building that regional capacity within the communities by focusing resources, by being able to shift the resources within our structure to those priority areas, making sure that we have staff who can deal directly with the companies and the industry in their communities — we will need to continue to focus on that.

We will need to continue to find new ways of doing business. We will need to continue to find efficiencies. We know that we're in a process of some recovery in the industry. It's still, obviously, clearly fragile. When you see the continued situation in the U.S. housing market, that means — and even the report says, even today, earlier today — that it's still quite a ways out and it's not recovering the way people might have hoped or thought that might happen.

We're going to continue to face those fiscal challenges within our ministry. But clearly we're responding by making sure that we have a structure in place that can provide that coordinated activity across the ministries by being able to deal directly in our communities, by having that regional structure working directly with the industry.

We'll continue to work with those resources to make sure that we can focus them on the priorities that will help move the industry forward, the priorities we've talked about in terms of getting maximum value out of the forest, the priorities in terms of maintaining our stewardship role.

We did talk about — we have discussed yesterday and this morning — the research capacity. It's there. It's within the ministry. We need to make sure that that is focused, that we have the good partnerships with our institutions. We will continue to work very actively with the resources that we have.

I appreciate the member's comments that it's exciting and that there are tremendous opportunities. We need to work collectively to make sure that we can achieve those opportunities for the industry, because it is such an important one in the province.

N. Macdonald: Thank you, Minister. So what we'll do is we'll set this aside now and give the minister a chance to look at it over the next period of time. We'll leave it now from estimates. We're going to go to the raw log issue again with my colleague from Cowichan Valley.

Then, what I see after that is again a series of fairly tight questions scattered — they'll really go all over the place — and then wrap up with about an hour from my colleague from Maple Ridge. He probably has a different title than that, but he's from the Maple Ridge area, so I think he's the member from Maple Ridge.

That should take us through the balance of the afternoon. So I'll just turn it over to my colleague from Cowichan Valley.

B. Routley: In all of my experience in the sawmill industry, pretty well every sawmill manager talked about the need to have maximum utilization of their capital assets or their equipment. If you've got millions of dollars invested in capital assets, you need to run the shifts that are necessary in order to pay down those capital costs.

My question to the minister is: what is the total consumption capability or mill capacity of all of the current coastal log manufacturing operations?

[1545]

Hon. S. Thomson: Just to get some clarity on the member's question as we're looking for the information…. I just wanted to confirm that the question relates to sawmills.

B. Routley: The question is about manufacturing capacities. We've got sawmills. We've got pulp mills. We've got what's left of the plywood operations. On the coast of British Columbia, what is the capacity of our mills to consume logs? What is the manufacturing capacity?

I've recently looked at reports that are some years old that talk about the sawmilling capacity on the coast of British Columbia, and I'm certain that the minister must be up to speed on the sawmilling or manufacturing capacity on the coast of B.C.

Particularly at a time when we've ramped up the log exports to 40 percent of the coastal cut, I'd be shocked and horrified and alarmed to hear that the minister has no idea of the sawmilling capacity and the unmet capacity on the coast of B.C.

Hon. S. Thomson: We're working to get that specific number for the member opposite. Obviously, mills change and adjust with their capacity, and I want to make sure that we have the correct figures. We will work as quickly as possible to get that figure for the member opposite.

B. Routley: Is the minister aware of, or has he been briefed on, the number of B.C. coastal mills that have customers and yet don't have enough logs to fill their current orders?

[1550]
[ Page 7136 ]

Hon. S. Thomson: I've met with a number of the companies in the early work within the ministry. Not all companies, not all mills, not all operations come in to see the minister to tell him exactly what their situation is. It's a bit of a process around some coming in — my opportunity to meet with some of them — as I've been out and in a process of engaging the industry.

It's a very, very complex balance because there's the issue of capacity. There's the issue of market, whether they have the markets. They may have the capacity and not necessarily have the markets identified. That changes on a daily basis, depending on what the market is doing and what the price is doing. It depends in many respects on the mix and the profile that's available to those companies — what logs at what price at what time.

In terms of having the specifics, no. But in terms of continuing to work and meet with industry, with the companies, I continue to do that as the schedule permits.

B. Routley: I'll take that as a no, and I hope it's not for lack of interest. Certainly, it's distressing to me that we've got B.C. manufacturers that could use the B.C. logs to fill their manufacturing needs, and they are going wanting. That's clearly unacceptable at this point in time in British Columbia, when we've already suffered so many job losses, to see further impacts like this. The minister, I hope, is at least somewhat interested in their plight.

Could you tell us how much of each grade of log — that's fir, hemlock or cedar; red and yellow cedar combined, if you like — was exported as surplus to our manufacturing needs in British Columbia for 2009-2010 and for the first quarter of 2011?

[1555]

Hon. S. Thomson: I'm just looking for some advice, I guess, from the member opposite in terms of whether he wants us to provide the information for him and make it available, which we can do, or whether specifically you would like me to take each of the years and read down through each of the varieties and read out the volumes. There's an extensive number of varieties and things, so we can certainly provide the information directly to the member for those years that he requested. I'm just not sure whether it provides additional value here in terms of reading directly through it for each species for the year.

I just would like to know whether the member was asking for the information to be provided to him — our staff can certainly provide that — or whether he wants me to read specifically into the record all of that, which will take some time.

B. Routley: To clarify the interest, Minister, the issue is that a lot of the manufacturing operations on the coast of B.C. run primarily on either fir or hemlock or cedar products — so really, those three. If you could just give us the totals for the year for 2009-2010…. I'm sure you would have the total volume that was exported of fir and the total volume for hemlock and the total volume for, as I said earlier, red cedar and yellow cedar combined, if you like.

The point is that there are cedar plants, there are hemlock operations, and there are fir mills that need logs and consume those kinds of logs that would be very interested in the answer to what the grades of logs were that were exported as deemed surplus to the province of B.C. and signed off by this minister and his staff.

[1600]

[J. Thornthwaite in the chair.]

Hon. S. Thomson: We're just making sure that we have the figures here. I want to step back a little bit, too, and just make sure that we understand what we're talking about here in terms of the line of questioning that is being developed here.

First of all, no cedar is exported from provincial lands. Secondly, the process, as the member opposite knows, is that no logs leave without a surplus test being applied for them. When they're looked to be exported, they are advertised. The opportunity is there for the domestic mills to access those logs if they need them for domestic purposes. Only when that surplus test is applied are the logs exported.

Just to be clear, so that we can put all of this conversation into context. In 2010, in volume, four times as much lumber as logs was shipped to China. I know that's where the member opposite is concerned — with the growing market in China. In 2010 log exports to China were only 7 percent of the total value of forest products that were shipped to China. So the greatest majority of export to China is in lumber and not log exports.

I can give the member opposite the numbers. This is total volume for 2010: for Douglas fir, which he asked about, 2.2 million cubic metres; for hemlock, 1.482 million cubic metres.

B. Routley: On the cedar question, I'm aware of the issue as far as certain restrictions on cedar, but there are still volumes of cedar — red cedar and yellow cedar — and I'm not talking…. I should be very clear, Minister. I don't think we object to the small volume of log exports that takes place that are yellow cedar logs that are really a final product for use in Japan as temple logs, for example.

I actually had the opportunity to travel to Japan and saw firsthand what goes on with the utilization of some of our yellow cedar products. Those are very rare instances.

I'm talking about the red cedar and the yellow cedar that is being further manufactured. Just so you know, I
[ Page 7137 ]
actually experienced…. I used to represent the workers at Fantex in Parksville. That manufacturing plant is no longer there. All of those workers were turfed out of their jobs. They were laid off.

[1605]

Those family-supporting jobs are gone in Parksville. And why are they gone? Yellow cedar logs were not made available. They were cut off from the major private land company that was supplying them with yellow cedar logs. They just got cut off.

And now I hear that there are yellow cedar logs being exported out of our country and red cedar exported out of our country, and I get emotional about that stuff. It's unacceptable to B.C. manufacturing workers to think that our government would sit on their hands and allow the export of those kinds of logs.

I'm interested in the volumes of cedar that had been permitted. Ultimately, the provincial government has to be part of the sign-off. Both federal and provincial logs have to be signed off and go through the process. I've been told that they go through the federal process. If that's not correct, I'd like to hear that. But if you could tell me the volumes of cedar that have been exported for 2009-2010 and for the first part of 2011, I'd appreciate that.

Hon. S. Thomson: Just to confirm, because I think the member was inferring that the province has authority over that, those exports occur from federal lands. We administer the test, the surplus test, but we do not have authority over those. If they pass the surplus test, then the permit is provided for them to be exported. But in terms of having any authority to say that they shouldn't be made available or put into the surplus test, we don't have that authority.

But I can provide the volumes. This is for 2010. I think the member opposite had asked for 2009. We don't have those figures directly available, but based on his earlier question, we can make that available for him. But for cedar in 2010, total volume, it's 65,000 cubic metres, and yellow cedar, 28,000 cubic metres.

B. Routley: Again, I have to say that I find it alarming that we've got that much fir and hemlock and cedar leaving the province of British Columbia.

I've got a question. Has the minister been briefed that logs that have been exported from B.C. often end up costing even more B.C. jobs as they end up filling orders for some of the very same customers that may otherwise buy B.C.-manufactured goods?

I'll use this example. McDonald Cedar and Interfor have shut down mills in British Columbia, have relocated across the border and ended up competing, using wood right from British Columbia or exported from British Columbia. So I'm concerned about whether the minister has been briefed on what's happening with the logs that are being exported. Does he have any idea at all on the further impacts to British Columbians of B.C. log exports that are going to other foreign countries?

[1610]

Hon. S. Thomson: I just want to reaffirm that, as I said earlier, no cedar goes from provincial lands. I also wanted to restate that the major portion of the market is lumber. As I said, in 2010 only 7 percent of exports to China were in logs. The lumber portion of our exports continues to grow to China and other markets. That continues to be the focus.

Also, the member asked if I had been aware of these issues, been looking at them, and the answer is yes. I stated in the exchange we had in the House today in question period around the need to look at the overall policy, recognizing that it is an important part of the equation. We've always had log exports. As we're building the markets, it needs to be part of the equation in ensuring we have a healthy capacity. Many people have commented on that, including people in mill towns and in communities.

The mayor of Port Alberni was on the news today or yesterday saying that log exports are a part of a healthy industry. So we need to make sure that we continue to recognize that.

Do we need to take a look at it and be aware of what's happening in the industry and the marketplace? Yes, and I've initiated those discussions. I've been talking to the industry. I've met with the associations. I've met with individual companies. I'm going to continue to do that. I have a meeting scheduled with the timber export advisory committee.

As I stated in question period in the response, it is something that we are working at. As I said, the former minister and myself have said that we would much rather export lumber than logs and add the value here. We need to do that, but we need to recognize that a log export policy is part of the health of the industry. That will continue to be part of our focus.

I think it's quite interesting, as we see reports come out where people are recognizing that. It shows that there is some division within the policy considerations, within the member's office, when the leader is out talking about banning log exports. Clearly, there is a recognition that a log export policy is part of the mix. I think anybody who wants to ensure that we continue to build a healthy industry here in British Columbia will recognize that that needs to be part of the mix.

[1615]

B. Routley: I have to respond to the issue of the surplus test. We've heard from a number of independent sawmillers, and certainly, people are going public. That's a dramatic move — to see what the vice-president of J.S. Jones did in pointing out that they could triple the manufacturing that would go on in that mill.
[ Page 7138 ]

Yet this minister says it's okay to just shut down those mills, lay off the workers and export the logs off to other countries, and is not prepared to take any action. We haven't heard anything from this minister today or any other day reassuring us that there's going to be any action.

We ramp up log exports to 40 percent of the coastal cut. It's absolutely historic. I've learned…. We've talked with the minister's own staff about the issue of raw log exports and about the fact that the surplus test isn't working because there's such a thing as blockmail.

Have you heard of blockmail, Minister? I'll tell you, for your information, what blockmail is all about.

When I used to work and sit down with the manager at the CIPA sawmill — which is, by the way, no longer there; one of the many mills that has gone into dust and rubble — that mill manager told us that when he bought 20 percent, or even 10 percent, of his wood off of the private land owners and then when he would try to pick up the phone and block the logs that he needed for that mill, he was told: "Look, last year we supplied 10 or 15 or 20 percent of your volume, so don't call us. Don't bother calling us if you need logs, because if you're going to block our logs…."

You know, it is a well-known fact in the industry that the current surplus test isn't working. Now, you've got people basically ringing the alarm bells, people like Hanif Karmally talking about this blockmail and the fact that it doesn't work for the people of British Columbia.

Now we've got 40 percent of the coastal cut being exported, and all we hear is a wringing of hands and pointing to the folks like Dave Lewis from the TLA. Well, of course, he directly benefits from having his TLA workers put to work. So it's just: "Oh well, it's too bad about all of those forest worker families that work in sawmills and pulp mills and value-added operations."

In fact, there are four to five jobs that come from every logging job if you actually do the value-added work. So it's unacceptable to give me a lecture about the surplus test and suggest that somehow it's working for British Columbians. It's clearly not working for British Columbians. All we get is more of that pointing to the rearview mirror and saying: "Oh, everything is okay."

Well, it's not okay. If you are a forest worker and a forest worker family in British Columbia, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it is not okay. I want to know if the dramatic increase in coastal log exports is going to place an increased burden on other government ministries. Does the minister have any idea what the costs and impacts are?

I might fill in the blanks for part of that. There is a cost. There are increased social impacts in communities all over British Columbia. I myself have stood in food banks and given soup and sandwiches to people I used to work with in the mill.

How do you think that feels? I can tell you. It doesn't feel very good to me at all. I'm outraged, and I'm outraged that there's no action on this important matter on behalf of those forest workers and families that work in sawmills all over the coast of British Columbia. It's totally unacceptable.

[1620]

Hon. S. Thomson: I hope that the member was listening. That is not what I said. What I said was that I recognize the situation — that there are discussions, that we are looking at it. What I said is that I recognize that the log export policy is an important part of ensuring that we have a healthy industry here in British Columbia, that it needs to be balanced and that there is a surplus test applied.

The member is incorrect in terms of the volumes that he talks about. It's 20 percent, not 40 percent. That may be, you know, a moot point as far as he's concerned, because of the overall issue. But clearly, eight in 10 logs that are harvested stay here in British Columbia.

Lumber exports. The manufacturing side of it continues to increase as we develop the markets. The work we've done in China to develop markets has been a saviour for the industry during this very strict economic downturn that we've had.

If we haven't had those developments and the work that's been done by the former minister and the work that the current Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation continues to do in developing those markets, we would not see the jobs. We would not have seen 27 mills open or reopen since November 2009. We would not have seen those 1,600 jobs created in those communities. It's part of the policy.

Have I said that I'm looking at it? Yes. Yes, I am. We've looked at the surplus test before many times. We've had processors look at it. In the end, all the parties have agreed that that they didn't have a better process or a better system to manage that. The surplus test is applied before any logs are exported. Companies do have the opportunity to bid on those logs when they're advertised, to make them available.

The policy does allow the activity to take place. It does allow the full profile of the harvest to be harvested. It means that there is activity underway now that wouldn't normally have been economic to be undertaken in those areas. That does mean activity, and it does mean jobs in our communities.

Am I willing to look at it? Yes. I clearly said that. I said it in the response in question period, and I'll repeat that again here. We are prepared to…. I have initiated discussions within the staff. I have talked to companies about it. Many of the companies you reference there are members of the associations that we have been talking to in the process. Teal-Jones is part of that process.

[1625]
[ Page 7139 ]

The TLA recognizes that it is a part of the equation. I think that's the important part to remember: that this, an export policy, is part of the equation that ensures that we have health and have that diversity in the industry. We'll continue to review the policy; I've said that clearly.

The member opposite doesn't need to lecture me on…. I know he's passionate, and I know he's concerned about it. I share some of that concern. As I said in my response in question period, we are looking at it, and we'll continue to do so.

B. Routley: First of all, the 40 percent was the first quarter of this year as compared to the first quarter of the previous year. I understand those numbers are right — a 40 percent increase in log exports in the first quarter of this year over the first quarter of the previous year — and 23 percent of the logs on the coast of British Columbia were exported last year. That's a terrible record — terrible, absolutely disastrous.

The next question I have is about the environmental impact of carbon on exporting raw logs. There's a report that's been done by the Steelworkers, and they say: in the overall value chain, the amount of carbon generated when logs are exported for processing rather than being domestically processed rises by about 55 percent.

When you take out logging, shipment to the mill and sawmilling — the portions of the process that would take place in either case — you find that in the log export scenario, dramatic additions to shipping increase the amount of carbon generated by 13 times — 13 times.

So my question to the minister: has this government done any studies? Do they even care about the carbon impact of shipping our logs? First of all, in some cases they have to be trucked. Then they've got to be put in the water. There are tugboats, there are loading procedures, and then there's the boat travelling for 20 days or so all the way to China, spewing carbon all over. Then they package up the products and in some cases sell them back to our customers in North America — and all of the impact of carbon.

Does this minister have any idea about the carbon impact of exporting logs from the province of British Columbia — yes or no?

[1630]

Hon. S. Thomson: Just to confirm, as part of the climate change policy, wood is viewed as one of the most environmentally friendly construction products. Our promotion of utilization of wood through the wood-first policy, through the work that's being done with municipalities on wood construction and through the work that's being done in China on developing wood-frame construction, which is contributing to climate impacts in China…. That all has to be taken into the question.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

I haven't seen the specifics of the report, but I certainly have asked staff to make sure that I receive a copy of that report and be fully briefed on it.

B. Routley: Under the FII program, the Forestry Innovation program, I understand that you were off marketing our products in China. And while some of that was good…. Obviously, I'm interested in selling lumber. At one time I went to Japan myself and offered nice wooden pens and a history book and told them to use those wooden pens to sign big contracts, and on behalf of the workers and their families, we thanked them for their business. But at the end of the day, we've got the government spending money off in Japan, promoting our products.

My question is: has the government spent any of our public's money…? Certainly the taxpayers, all the forest workers that have paid good tax money into the coffers of the province of British Columbia would be keenly interested to know how much time, energy and money was put into selling off raw logs to our competitors in other foreign countries under that program?

Hon. S. Thomson: Just to confirm. The member opposite will know that the FII program is in Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation. That's where it would be most appropriate to canvass this question. But I will comment.

While I haven't been on a marketing program, I know the focus is and continues to be on the work that the ministry has done on marketing lumber. That has contributed to…. It's built around developing the market and focuses on wood-frame construction. The roof truss program in Shanghai was a tremendous success. It has resulted in changes to the building code in the utilization of lumber. That has been the focus of the marketing efforts. But more specifically, your question would need to be canvassed with the Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation.

[1635]

N. Macdonald: Now we're going to jump around a little bit. The minister has met with me on this topic and has also met with the member for Nelson-Creston. It's just around the Jumbo Glacier resort, which falls under the minister's purview. As the minister knows, in our discussions…. I've no doubt that the amount of information that the minister has is substantive. I know that he's working on a decision.

The environmental and the First Nations concerns, the long-term local opposition to the project…. I think that people I represent have asked me to let you know, as the member for Nelson-Creston has, that we would be looking to have that local voice respected. I know that the minister is working on this issue. I guess that if I could get some sense of the time that the minister feels it will take to ultimately reach a decision….
[ Page 7140 ]

As I said, the minister knows my position as representative of the area as well as the representative from Nelson-Creston, who sits on the other side of the Jumbo pass. I'll just give the minister an opportunity to answer that question, and then we'll move over to a colleague from Cariboo North to ask some forestry questions.

Hon. S. Thomson: To the member opposite, I have appreciated the opportunity to discuss this with him and with others. Just to be very clear, the decision-making authority on this does rest in my ministry. I recognize, as part of that, the responsibility for full due diligence on this, which means that I need to and must take the appropriate steps in doing that due diligence.

That includes full review of all the information that is there, which as you know, is extensive. It also includes the requirement for me to do my due diligence in terms of meeting the proponents and meeting with First Nations interests, both the Ktunaxa and Shuswap.

I have also, in terms of making that decision in due course, wanted to make sure that I see the area. I think that's a part of the responsibility — local governments. So I'm working through the process, doing what I feel is necessary as far as due diligence. I'm going to continue to do that over the next while, in terms of making sure that I've got all of that information and the comfort level around due diligence, to make sure that the decision that's made is a durable one.

B. Simpson: I'm going to ask some forestry questions, but given the nature of the minister's ministry…. It's very broad. First off, I do want to make a public statement of thanks to the minister's staff. We had the flooding situation in the Cottonwood River, and some of the Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations staff went and helped one of our constituents. It was very much appreciated by the constituents to help them get some debris and whatnot out of the field of the river.

I want to start with B.C. Wildlife Federation guide-outfitters.

I see the chief forester came and joined. We will get there. I can reverse the order if you want. Everybody has moved.

B.C. Wildlife guide-outfitters. The minister and I have had a number of conversations about this, but I would like a couple things on the public record, if the minister could. First and foremost, just the fact that the guide-outfitters now have another organization that has been established. The minister has been given a document from that and given some time.

I'm wondering if the minister has thought about how this other organization will be brought into the discussions that have been ongoing about B.C. Wildlife Federation and an existing guide-outfitters organization.

[1640]

Hon. S. Thomson: Just in terms of a response, we are currently working through a process with both the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. and the B.C. Wildlife Federation in responding to the concerns that have been brought forward and the Trumpy report.

We do continue to receive input from a number of other groups and organizations, including the organization that the member referenced. We're also receiving lots of input from other groups in response to that, including directly from individual clubs that are part of the B.C. Wildlife Federation, individual members of both sectors, in a sense. All of that input will be taken into account when we look at finding a resolution to the current issue.

B. Simpson: The group's name — and it's unfair to the minister to expect that…. The Western Guidelines is the new group that has been established.

I am in an unenviable position, as the minister knows. I think I have three past presidents of the B.C. Wildlife Federation who are constituents and two past presidents of the Guide Outfitters. Even going through the Quesnel Airport, one of the airport security people got in trouble because they were asking me questions about the resolution to this issue.

Does the minister have a sense of when this may be brought to a head? It's been percolating for quite some time, but it does need to be resolved. There are business interests involved on the guide-outfitters side. There is sort of a longstanding series of questions around the resident hunters' rights versus bringing in big-game hunters from down south, all of that stuff.

It really requires leadership on the part of government to make a definitive decision and let everybody live with it. What's the time frame, if there's a sense of that, when we can get resolution to this?

Hon. S. Thomson: Yeah, just to lay out a little bit of the timeline for the member opposite. We did put a deadline in terms of response for the organizations to respond directly with their response to the recommendations to the report. We've just received that, so we've got those submissions. We agreed that we would have staff review those. I've asked staff to bring me their assessment of the path forward, based on those responses, by the end of this month.

[1645]

We also committed that we would re-engage both the organizations once we had that sense of the path forward, based on their response. It's something they asked for — to sit down with them and do that. The plans are to do that in mid-June and, depending on how all of those discussions go, hopefully, collectively and mutually we would find a decision, a way forward.

There have been, you know…. It's not just us that's been looking at it. The Guide Outfitters Association and
[ Page 7141 ]
the B.C. Wildlife Federation have actually been meeting together themselves — meeting last week in Prince George together — and some encouraging discussion out of those processes.

But ultimately, my sense is…. And I agree with the member that to provide certainty and to allow both to move forward on this, we would need to be in a position to have a decision. If it can be worked out altogether, great. If it can't, as you say, it will take some leadership and some decision-making, but ultimately, my timeline would be to try to get all that done by the end of June.

B. Simpson: I appreciate that, and because I'm time constrained I'm going to jump through some things here.

It would be good — and I just put it on the record — if it hasn't happened already, if one of the minister's staff could have a conversation with the fellow, Stewart Fraser, who put together the Western Guidelines group. Part of the issue, and I'm sure that the minister knows, is the size of the areas in the Chilcotin and what change in some of their opportunities are relative to the size of their area. That's a particular case, and this group actually recognizes that. So if somebody could take that on, that would be great.

I need to switch to a pertinent question relative to my opening comment about Cottonwood, and that's Crown land sales. Part of the proactive work that we were attempting to do with the current situation of flooding on the Cottonwood was to look at relocating those homes off of the floodplain. There is some Crown land in that area, and we were told flat out through the Cariboo regional district that there is no availability of Crown land sales.

Is Crown land available for sale just now? And if so, what would be the process that we would have to go through to look at that Cottonwood area as a possibility of switching people on to Crown land off of that floodplain?

Hon. S. Thomson: Thank you for raising that specific issue. First of all, I'll let you know that in my view, I think it is possible. There are potential options in terms of…. We can sell Crown land if it makes sense. There could be a land swap process. There are various options.

I think the best thing to do would be to have staff liaise with you directly on this to look at what those options might be. It obviously takes work and cooperation with local government. There would be First Nations consultation that would be required in something like this, but certainly, in terms of saying that it's not possible is not correct.

I'm advised by staff that there could be options. I can't say that we could find one, but I think I could certainly say that I'd be willing to have staff meet with you directly and look at the situation and see if there is something that could be done here.

[1650]

Obviously, if there are flooding impacts and it continues, then maybe it's something we want to look at. But without looking at the specifics of the situation, I think we'd just say that we would make sure that staff get together with you and have a look at that specific situation.

B. Simpson: That's perfect. I'll relay that back. It was at one of the emergency meetings. It's something that we had been pursuing, but the answer that we were given was a definitive no. So I'm heartened by the minister's response and will follow up on that.

Again, jumping into…. I know that the minister's commented on hydraulic fracturing, what's going on in the oil and gas. I don't have the opportunity to explore that more directly, but as the minister is aware, the Forest Practices Board has put out a report about some issues around cumulative land impacts. The other aspect of oil and gas is, of course, the resource roads issue that is still unresolved.

Maybe what I'll do is pull a couple of those things together for the minister and ask where the government is at. The minister now has a whole different file. It's supposed to be the one-land-manager approach, yet as he's probably aware, we have different standards for using forest resources if you're under mining authority, if you're under oil and gas authority versus if you're under forestry authority.

The cumulative impact on the land base, I think, we don't really have a good sense of. Plus, a large part of that is the whole unresolved issue of the Resource Road Act that came on the table, off the table, and is now in no man's land.

So if the minister could just comment on…. Given this new ministry structure, what is the intent of the minister and the ministry to try and get their arms around cumulative land impact and resource roads in that particular oil and gas sector up in the Peace region?

Hon. S. Thomson: I think the member opposite has framed the question very well in terms of…. It gets to the heart of the structure and the process that we have with Forests and the natural resource operations structure. It is meant to bring all of those integrated decision-making processes, those cumulative impacts, the competing uses on the land together into that one process.

There is work underway within our ministry, but also involving the other ministries that we work with, around an integrated decision-making project to look at how you take those cumulative impacts and how you bring all of the legislative framework together that would help you address it. Clearly, we've identified that as something that needs to be worked on, and work is underway.

Just in terms of the resource roads. The member is well aware of some of the history of that initiative. Again, it's another one that we've brought forward or — what
[ Page 7142 ]
do I want to call it? — resurrected, in terms of work within the ministry on it. It is part of the equation, part of the work in making sure that as we look at all the decisions, it's part of those decision processes.

[1655]

It's also part — and, I understand, the important part of it — in terms of where we go in the future in terms of back-country recreation, access to the resources, guiding and outfitting opportunities, trapping opportunities, resource roads. They're all part of that. I know there are some issues around in terms of liability and all of that that have to be worked through, but it is work we have brought forward again and are actively working on.

B. Simpson: One of the problems with being an independent is that you don't get a critic portfolio and can't go after all kinds of things. As the Speaker says, I'm now critic of everything, which means I get this little narrow band. So I appreciate the critic giving me this opportunity.

Interjection.

B. Simpson: Hey, I knew I opened myself up to that, didn't I?

Anyway, I would hope that this time…. In both the cumulative impact in the oil and gas sector and their rationalization and the resource roads, the lesson learned from last time is that it needs to come into the public domain sooner rather than later. The parties all have to be part of trying to figure this out, because it is extremely complex.

My final question — and I'll follow up with the minister on some of the other things that I'd hoped to do — relates to that, because often placer miners are collateral damage to road policy. I've had placer miners trapped in behind roads that have been decommissioned because there doesn't seem to be an ability to actually see that they've got a claim. They're in actively working the claim, and when they go to pull their equipment out, their road's been deactivated and they can't get their equipment out.

Specifically with respect to placer — and I'll follow up with the minister on a general issue — I have one of the highest concentrations of placer miners in the Cariboo-Chilcotin region. There was a study done at one point.

The placer miners are concerned, with the nature of the ministry now, that they may be lost because of what the ministry is doing in terms of rationalizing. It's a large-project focus. These are their concerns. It's a large-project focus, etc.

I wonder if the minister can speak to the issue of where these small-claims miners can actually get some advocacy within the ministry. I'm supposed to have about 300, 360 of them operating in my area alone. That's a huge economic boost in an area that needs to diversify.

A placer mining report of some kind was done — apparently, a cabinet document that is beyond the pale for the public to get access to. Then the second question is: who's the champion for this sector of the mining industry, and how can they get their voice heard?

Hon. S. Thomson: Thanks again for the question. I recognize the significance of the group that you're talking about. The policy with respect to placer mining and mining policy generally fits with the Ministry of Energy and Mines, but clearly, we have a…. Given the collaborative nature of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, we work closely with that. We have specific policy with respect to the authorizations and the permitting and things.

[1700]

We do have an assistant deputy minister for the region, John Cavanagh, who's worked closely with the industry in the past. I can make sure that he engages and reaches out to them. He would be one of the ones who would be seen to be a champion for them.

I've also, as you know, with the parliamentary secretary role that we have with Natural Resource Operations Review…. I can make sure that the parliamentary secretary engages that group, because I have asked him to engage all of the groups that we work with in terms of doing his review to make sure that they understand the structure, are comfortable with it, and provide that input back to us and that we make….

The general response has been that all groups support the objective. They know what we're trying to achieve. They want to work with us to achieve it. We have to make sure that we work with them to identify those, and if there are constraints where it may not necessarily be working, or they have concerns, that we do reach out to them. I'll make sure that that happens.

I did miss the one opportunity. Maybe I'll just say it. When you talked about having three past presidents of the Wildlife Federation and current directors of Guide Outfitters and everything all in your community and meeting in airports, I just wanted to say that I feel your pain.

M. Sather: I want to start off by asking the minister some questions about aquaculture insofar as it relates to leases under his purview. Fish farms operate on a lease basis. That means that they lease the seabed beneath them, which is Crown land. How long are these leases for, and how long have some of them been expired?

[J. McIntyre in the chair.]

Hon. S. Thomson: Most of the tenures are 20 years when they are provided. Currently there are 39 expired tenures, and we're currently working through those with First Nations consultation. We're working with
[ Page 7143 ]
the Attorney General and the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation on addressing those tenures. Those continue to operate now, currently, under a tenancy agreement which the tenure provides for on a month-to-month tenancy.

[1705]

They're paying their rents as we work through the required First Nations consultation. Staff are working diligently — and we realize that it's a backlog — to address those, but there are significant First Nations and consultations to work through and complete.

M. Sather: Have there been any issues expressed by the federal government with regard to getting these leases renewed and, if so, what department of the federal government?

Hon. S. Thomson: No, there have been no specific concerns registered. We are continuing to work with both DFO and Transport Canada through a process that harmonizes the tenuring, harmonizes the First Nations consultation.

As you know, the federal government under the Fisheries Act provides the licensing, and for the time being, we continue to provide a business licence for the operations. That is simply so they can continue to operate as a business.

The staff in the ministry are working with both DFO and Transport Canada in moving forward as we go through those First Nations consultations, working ultimately to have an efficient harmonized process. There have been no concerns addressed specifically by the federal government. They recognize that we are working closely together.

M. Sather: Looking at the Cohen Commission hearings, there were questions about the role of viruses and the decline in the sockeye fishery. DFO scientist Dr. Kristi Miller concluded that an epidemic of a novel cancer-causing viral agent or disease — salmon leukemia virus, or SLV — may be associated with wild salmon declines in B.C.

I'm just wondering if there has been testing for SLV in B.C. salmon farms and when that took place.

Hon. S. Thomson: Just to be clear for the member opposite in terms of our responsibility within the ministry, we are responsible for the Land Act tenures, the business licence that I mentioned and a fisheries licence for marine plants.

[1710]

In terms of the specifics the member is requesting, those questions would need to be directed to the DFO. They have the responsibility for the licensing under federal fisheries.

M. Sather: I just thought it might be a determining factor with the minister about renewal, given the health situation.

Just one last thing on that. Alexandra Morton became aware of some 35 indications of another deadly salmon virus, and she had made efforts to discuss this. But through the Cohen Commission, there were interventions that disallowed her from making these reports public. I wanted to ask the minister if the provincial government and the fish farm industry were two of those interveners in that issue.

Hon. S. Thomson: I'd like to take that question under notice or advisement, and we'll provide a response to it. There are a number of agencies involved in the process. Our ministry has limited involvement in the Cohen Commission process, so I'd want to make sure that I have the answer correct. We'll undertake to get that answer to the member.

M. Sather: I want to move on to an area that a colleague has touched on earlier, and that's the wildlife harvest allocation that has certainly been contentious lately. A report having been put out by Chris Trumpy has caused a bit of a stir. The report says that incentive to use wildlife or lose quotas — we will use it or lose it — under the current policy will result in poor wildlife stewardship. Does the minister agree with that?

[1715]

Hon. S. Thomson: Just to explain the process, what we do under the process is set the allowable harvest, and that's based on sustainability, the population, conservation — making sure that that allowable harvest takes all of those values into consideration. Then there's an allocation process that allocates the amount, which recognizes that sustainability and conservation.

The general approach has been that when that's set, it is…. We do it on the basis that we expect that to be harvested. What has been identified is that in some cases, that doesn't happen, and then you look at how you shift that. That's what has become the focus of the discussion and the recommendations that Chris Trumpy has put forward.

As I was explaining earlier, there is an active process currently underway in discussions between the Guide Outfitters and between the Wildlife Federation, in working with both of those organizations to see how the overall allocation policy can work most effectively, recognizing resident hunter priority in the process. Those discussions continue.

We have not accepted — and I'm not planning, at this point, on moving forward with — any of the recommendations in the Trumpy report specifically. We will be doing those in consultation with both of the organizations.
[ Page 7144 ]

We've had a deadline in terms of response to all the recommendations. We've received that response from both interests. We've agreed that staff would review those responses. We've committed to re-engage both of those organizations when we have a sense of the overall responses to the recommendations and other issues around the allocation policy. We've received lots of input. We are going to re-engage with the organizations.

So at this point I am not saying that I agree with or disagree with any of the specific recommendations in the Trumpy report. That was work that was done to help inform the discussions, to help address the concerns that had been brought forward by guide-outfitters. Obviously, we have to put that all in the mix and find a path forward and a process forward, respecting the interests. We recognize that both of the sectors have very, very important contributions to the province — the legitimate concerns of both parties.

The overall goal is to have an allocation policy that works, that recognizes conservation values and sustainability of populations, that helps contribute to economic activity and that helps provide opportunities for resident hunters. We're clearly maintaining the resident hunter priority in the process. And we're continuing to work with both organizations in the month or the six weeks ahead to find a resolution and make any adjustments to the policy that would be collectively agreed to.

M. Sather: The Trumpy report, in the conclusions, says that one of the challenges for guide-outfitters is a decline in the quality of the product. The report goes on to say that how much quality of product will be a factor depends "on how wildlife is managed in the province in the future." So why is the quality declining, and what's the minister going to do about improving wildlife management in the future?

[1720]

Hon. S. Thomson: I think that this goes to…. The issue, really, in one respect is that quality is in the eye of the beholder. Some hunters are specifically looking for certain large animals, more of the trophy kind of hunt that would be portrayed. Others, when you look at the resident hunter priority, are focused on…. You're allocating numbers there without affecting the overall sustainability of the population, to focus more on resident hunter priorities, which are about having some success. So you make a wider range available, and things.

It's finding that balance between the focus on resident hunter priority and wanting people to have a successful hunt. That means they're taking a broader range, potentially, of animals. Some people would see that as maybe reducing some opportunities in terms of the quality of animals from their perspective.

So it's all about finding that balance, and that's the purpose of the allocation policy. That's why we do have a resident hunter priority policy. The work was not meant at all to deviate from that policy. We are working with both organizations to make sure that we have the appropriate balance.

M. Sather: The B.C. Wildlife Federation, as the minister knows, is not at all happy with the Trumpy report. They've done a report of their own called the Intended Consequences of Wildlife Allocations in British Columbia. I just wanted to read into the record their concluding paragraph. The B.C. Wildlife Federation report concludes by saying:

"It must therefore be assumed that losing hundreds of thousands of resident hunter…days, over $100 million dollars in daily expenditures that fuel rural economies, and half of the resident hunter population over the past 30 years, was intended. Decision-making to this effect does not benefit wildlife, resident hunters or the B.C. economy. If it is government’s true intent to increase the value of all hunting in British Columbia, efforts should be directed towards improved wildlife habitat, creating healthy and vital wildlife populations. Taking opportunity from resident hunters and damaging rural economies to subsidize one industry is not in the best interests of British Columbia."

That's a strong statement, and the minister will be aware, I'm sure, of their feelings.

In the interest of time, I'm going to move on to another subject, the Great Bear rain forest agreement. In 2009 the provincial government signed an agreement with First Nations, environmental groups and logging companies to protect the Great Bear rain forest, increase First Nations say in decisions affecting their territory and support sustainable economic practices in the region.

As part of this agreement, there was a five-year transition period established with ecologically-based management logging regulations. Part of the transition plans were landscape reserve plans that outline where logging can and cannot take place in the Great Bear rain forest, which were supposed to have been in place by September 2009 but are not yet. Why haven't these landscape reserve plans been completed?

[1725]

Hon. S. Thomson: It's a very active process, and a lot of very significant, good progress has been made. I think it's important to recognize that this needs to be done on a government-to-government basis, working with First Nations in fully implementing the ecosystem-based management.

I'm advised that the full implementation of the commitments announced in March 2009 must be achieved by March 2014, so we're working actively through that process. Staff advises me that they've had recent engagement with First Nations. They've agreed to re-kick-start the process to make sure that we can achieve that implementation by 2014.
[ Page 7145 ]

M. Sather: There are also about to be interim agreements. The government is continuing to permit roadbuilding and logging when these commitments have not been completed. Will the government commit to not issuing any new permits for logging or roadbuilding until those plans are in place?

[1730]

[D. Horne in the chair.]

Hon. S. Thomson: This is a process around implementation of ecosystem-based management. That includes economic, environmental and social values that have to be taken into all those decisions, within any decision that's made.

No, we'd not commit to not issuing any further permits. We have 80 out of the 120 land use reserves that have been completed or are to be completed by December. There are a number of others that have been modelled. That work continues, but in any decision in this area, all of those important values are taken into consideration.

M. Sather: Well, I think the minister's refusal to do that will be seen as an act of bad faith by the three environmental groups that were signatories to this agreement.

The government also named five focal species in the process of ensuring ecological integrity in the Great Bear rain forest. They are the northern goshawk, coastal subspecies, and the marbled murrelet, both listed as threatened; the grizzly bear and Pacific tailed frog, both listed as of special concern; and the mountain goat, noted as being a very high priority for conservation.

The 2009 agreement was supposed to ensure that these focal species are currently being managed at least to a level that will allow for ongoing species persistence. Focal species gap analysis was supposed to determine if and where additional habitat needs to be set aside for each species to ensure that their habitats are maintained above the high-risk threshold during the five-year transition period.

The government committed to complete the first step, the scientific process to determine habitat needs, by June 2009. This hasn't been done either. Can the minister explain why not?

[1735]

Hon. S. Thomson: I'm advised that the high-risk thresholds for those focal species has been completed, the conservation gap analysis is underway, and that ministry and staff will be engaging with all the parties in terms of timelines and deliverables in the very near future. It's important to recognize that the environmental organizations have been involved in the process and are at the table all the way through this.

M. Sather: Thank you to the minister for that.

I want to move on to an issue that is in my constituency on the north end of Pitt Lake, and it has to do with Pitt River Lodge, who have been operating quite a high-end lodge up there — Danny Gerak and his wife Lee — for quite a number of years. I know they've had the Canucks, and they've had movie stars, and the whole bit.

So they have a pretty good business going there, but they really have a problem in terms of having space to dock their boats and the seaplanes when they arrive.

They're concerned about a licence of occupation turning into a long-term lease for Teal-Jones — Teal-Jones gets mentioned again in these estimates — who are logging up there. Mr. Gerak is very concerned that he has no security in terms of his operation. He says that: "Unless there is a designated spot for my commercial business that I can drop guests off and tie my boat at, I will not be able to operate in the summertime. When there are more boats than dock space, and I return with guests and find my spot at the dock taken, what would you suggest I do?"

I wanted to ask the minister, you know, if he can assist the Geraks in this fairly longstanding issue.

Hon. S. Thomson: I've just received some advice on this particular situation that the member raises. Just to state clearly that there has been an active process of engagement with staff and Mr. Gerak and the tenure holder in the area. There is a negotiated access that is provided.

As I understand it, there are some concerns about that access — that the individual is not completely happy with the terms or the security of the negotiated access. I'm advised that staff continue to work with both the operator and the tenure holder in ensuring that that access is recognized. I'm advised that those discussions are ongoing.

[1740]

M. Sather: Yeah. No, they're not going very well. There's some correspondence here with one of the ministry staff, whom I won't name, but Mr. Gerak says: "You have told me there's nothing in place in this proposed agreement to ensure that I will have designated long-term moorage. Why should I have special treatment over laypeople or general users? I'm still shocked at this comment. You told me directly that I'd have to fight for a spot at that dock like all the other users and asked me why I should have parking and not you."

He also says that previously the former Premier, Gordon Campbell, had written to him saying that if they put in an application for their own dock, your office would address this issue and get us secure dock space. They did that. It cost them $7,000, but they did that ap-
[ Page 7146 ]
plication. I don't know. He said it was all agreed on when a staff person named Andrea LaCasse from your office was working on it, but then later it kind of fell apart.

I'm hopeful, anyway, that the minister can help him because it's a thriving business in my constituency and regionally. I'm sure the minister would want to assist that.

I'm going to move on. If he wants to comment on that further, by all means. I am going to move on to a few questions on the Quesnel Highland wolf control project and the report of 2005-2010, the progress report. I want to get some understanding here in terms of what is being done. I understand that wolves are being killed in this process, and I wanted to know if wolf pups in the den are being killed in this process.

Hon. S. Thomson: As the member opposite is probably aware, this is a project or a process that was about a species recovery plan for mountain caribou. So there was a project underway. It involved a process around sterilization of wolves to see if that would have an effect in terms of reducing populations and reducing the reproductive capacity, which would assist in that species recovery around mountain caribou.

In terms of the specific question, I don't have an answer to that. That is something I would have to follow up on and get back to the member. Clearly, the project was around…. It was part of a species recovery, a mountain caribou recovery project.

M. Sather: Well, I'm very surprised that staff wouldn't know that. That would be a pretty significant event. That should be a yes or no, I would think. But I will look forward to the minister's response on that.

[1745]

Now, under this program, is the ministry killing wolves in Wells Gray Park? And if so, I wonder if that's also happening in other parks.

Hon. S. Thomson: Just to be clear again, the wolf removal program is to deal with species recovery, predation with respect to specific species in terms of species recovery, particularly mountain caribou, or in instances of livestock predation, it's carried out through the legal hunting, legal trapping processes. I think that in terms of the specifics around numbers and areas and things, that's a briefing that we could commit to provide to the member.

M. Sather: I did notify the minister's office that I was going to be talking about this issue, so I was hoping to get a little more information. I will try again, though.

Looking at the report again, which is the Quesnel Highland Wolf Project Progress Report, it indicates that wolf control has only been in place for that area from about 2007 to 2010, as I read it. Now, on page 18 of that report it shows that caribou were stable or increasing since 2000. So the caribou were increasing for seven years before the wolf control program was implemented. Isn't that correct?

Hon. S. Thomson: I have not looked at the specifics the member is referencing in the report.

[1750]

But just to note that the species recovery around this species…. It is quite possible that there may have been some increases or a stable population. That doesn't mean, though, that that population is at a long-term sustainable level as to where you would want to see that population. So that's why the project is in place. That's why we need to continue to work to address the predation issues that could impact the long-term sustainability of that species.

M. Sather: Well, in the discussion of this report it says that the 2010 census…. This is the caribou census, which found 230 caribou. And the 2006 and 2010 numbers show that they're as high as they've been since 1997. It says:

"This census of the Wells Gray North mountain caribou subpopulation observed stable overall caribou numbers but a low calf recruitment of 9.5 percent. This calf recruitment value is well below Bergerud's stabilizing recruitment of 16 percent" — so it's below what is thought it should be — "in order to balance natural adult caribou mortality. The number of caribou observed in 2010 indicates that it is unlikely the population has experienced a significant decline since 2006.

"This fact, coupled with the recent success of the Quesnel Highland wolf project" — so they've got the number of wolves down — "to significantly reduce wolf densities in the last two years, appears to indicate that wolf predation is not the main or sole cause of low calf recruitment in 2010."

It seems to me that this report brings into question the efficacy of what the minister is doing there and, in fact, that it's having the desired result — if the minister could comment on that.

Hon. S. Thomson: The overall plan and process of dealing with this particular species is part of an overall implementation plan, a recovery plan dealing with this. It's based on science. It has an advisory group, a scientific panel that is informing that. Wolf predation is one part of it, but there are also very significant parts of the plan dealing with habitat — all of those parts of the overall plan.

[1755]

We continue to meet with that group. We continue to be informed by the advisory group, by the scientific group. Decisions continue to be made based on science. That advisory group meets regularly, and it includes all interested parties, including environmental organizations that are part of that advisory group. It's done in a transparent way. It reports out as evidenced by the
[ Page 7147 ]
report. We will continue to take the advice of the advisory group.

The current advice is that predation continues to still be a risk factor for recovery. We need to continue to take that advice as we work on the overall plan.

M. Sather: Now fairly briefly, I want to move on to management of another species, the cougar or mountain lion. I would like to know what the government's estimate is for the number of cougar in British Columbia.

Does the minister agree that the population on Vancouver Island has dropped from around 1,200 in 1979 to only about 300 or 400 in 2001, which is a few years ago? I don't know if there's not any further…. That's the information I got. I don't know if the…. Hopefully, the government has some more recent information on the status of the population. I know they're hard to count and all that — but whatever they've got.

Hon. S. Thomson: I'm advised that staff don't have the specific number with them. We'll make sure that we get that. What I am advised is that there are, you know, somewhere in the neighbourhood of between 6,000 and 9,000 cougars in British Columbia. Vancouver Island is known to have some of the highest concentration of cougars, but in terms of the specific number, we would need to research that and get back to the member with that specific estimate.

M. Sather: One last question on that subject. I'm curious if the ministry has done any surveys. Does the minister know of any surveys that determine the level of support among hunters for hunting carnivores for sport? I used to be an avid hunter, but I never wanted to hunt carnivores and never did. I am finding out, actually, that there are quite a few hunters who feel the same way. I just wonder if the ministry has any information on the attitude of hunters towards hunting carnivores for sport.

[1800]

Hon. S. Thomson: I'm not aware of any specific surveys, but what I do know is that hunters have the attitude and approach that harvesting or hunting has to continue to result in sustainable populations. That's obviously an interest of theirs, that it's done in a humane way. I know that the B.C. Wildlife Federation continues to support having access to and representing that broad base of hunters, continuing to have hunting for carnivores available, but they also very much are of the perspective that the hunting policy and everything must continue to result in sustainable populations.

C. Trevena: I have just a couple of questions for the minister, going back to the forestry focus. I will be very brief, because I realize the time, and I don't think that my colleagues are quite finished.

I just wanted to go back to one of the issues that has been canvassed quite a lot, I know, in these estimates and in the House as well. It's the government's commitment to the forest sector and where that is. Representing the North Island, it has been forest-dependent communities for many, many years.

In recent polling it was found that 86 percent of people in Campbell River recognize the importance of the forest industry to the economic well-being of the community, whether they're working in the industry or not. It's a real strong feeling that it's the forest sector that supports our community, and yet we've had this discussion today about the export of raw logs and export of logs from the coast and the capacity of mills.

Well, in my constituency we no longer have any mills, except for the…. We have a couple of small shake mills, and we have the Port Alice Specialty Cellulose mill. We've lost all our other mills. I wondered if the minister could sort of square that circle — how it can be okay to be exporting logs, and how a community that has been seen as forest-dependent, could still be seen as forest-dependent, can survive without any mills.

Hon. S. Thomson: Thank you for the question. We have had an extensive discussion on this. I think what's important to recognize, particularly on the Island, is that there is and has been a significant amount of annual allowable cut available. The challenge is that in many cases it's in a very high-cost area to harvest.

I think that's where you look at the process around the fact that only two out of every ten logs harvested is exported. That does provide the opportunity…. When you can get that additional premium for the export log, it does allow the harvest in areas to be harvested that might not normally be harvested under current economic conditions. It does bring that higher-value wood into the mill or into the operations and allow those operations to continue.

[1805]

I recognize, as we've discussed earlier and as I've said to the members opposite earlier, that the overall log export policy is an important part of ensuring that we do have a healthy forest industry. It does need to be managed in balance. I've said that I'm aware of that, that I shared some of the concerns and that we are working within the ministry and talking to the industry about that.

C. Trevena: I thank the minister for his answer, but my question was about the lack of capacity. The minister's response was that the ability to export logs, if there is no capacity there…. But we don't have capacity in the north Island anymore. The mills have shut down.
[ Page 7148 ]

I think the minister needs to recognize, when working out the policy for exporting and the policies for, really, how our logging should work, that it is the responsibility for companies and for people who have access to our Crown lands and our timber to have production. So we have Western working.

Across the north Island we have no mills. There is no mill working north of Nanaimo. You say there's Port Alice, but that's it. I would hope that the minister can look at that when he is dealing with future policy and future planning about export, that there is a responsibility for those companies that have access to our land.

I realize the time is short, so I'd like to move on to a second question about the different stresses on an economy that is trying to survive.

On the north Island we are a forest-dependent community that hasn't got access to mills, and it has the struggling of people trying to make a living in the forest sector. We have a growing tourism sector there and a lot of ecotourism where people want to have the ability to enjoy the wilderness, enjoy the beauty. It is extraordinarily beautiful.

But what we are now seeing with the changes in forest practice is that people who live in the communities used to be able to have serious input into cutblock plans. I have a letter from a tourism operator here who states that communities with high non-forest-value economies need to be able to have more control into how and where logging takes place. "Every community in B.C. zones their land base for appropriate activity. For example, we don't allow heavy industrial activity to take place in residential areas, so we should not allow extensive and highly visual clearcutting to undermine a large, more stable economic activity such as our tourism and quality of life sectors."

So again, I wonder if the minister could tell me how he's going to be addressing these issues of conflicting needs and conflicting demands where there is still a lot of ability to do logging but just not quite so visibly. If we could have a serious input from all the different sectors in the community, including the economic sectors, into the cutblock plans maybe we could move on without having any conflict on this.

[1810]

Hon. S. Thomson: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. Just a little bit of background. The visuals, and that's what the member's referring to, are an objective that is provided for under the Forest and Range Practices Act. There are visual quality objectives and management towards those objectives.

Over ten million hectares in the province are managed under five categories of those visual objectives. The licensees are required to develop a forest stewardship plan. Those plans are made public in the process, so clearly, the visual aspects of it are an important part of the stewardship plans and an important part of the Forest and Range Practices Act under those visual quality objectives.

C. Trevena: I thank the minister for his response. I understand that our staff are working out a time that both of us can sit down and meet and go through these and many other issues in more detail. I look forward to being able to go through some of these with you at a later date.

Hon. S. Thomson: Just to respond, I'm aware and certainly look forward to and appreciate the member coming forward with a number of those concerns and dealing directly with our staff on that. We'll make sure that that happens as quickly as we can. I'm not sure if a meeting has been set up yet. We're just getting there, so we'll make sure that we get that discussion for you as quickly as possible.

M. Sather: The time is very short, so I'm not going to ask the minister to give me an oral response, but hopefully he can give me a written response. It's around the issue of fair chase, which is a well-known concept in the hunting fraternity.

The Minister of Environment had said last year that B.C. is the home to fair chase, so I just wanted to know if the minister agrees with that but, more importantly, what his view of fair chase is. It's been quite germane, as I say, in the hunting community over the past year or so.

N. Macdonald: Just to wrap up, then. As always, on behalf of my colleague from the Cowichan Valley and others who have asked questions here, I want to thank the minister's staff and executive assistant and ministerial assistants, who helped to organize this.

I also just wanted to say — my colleague and I were talking about it — just how forthright the minister was, and respectful. It's very much appreciated. It was consistent. We noted it, and I just wanted to put it on the record. We very much appreciate how this process went, and we thank you for it.

Hon. S. Thomson: I'll respond, as well, to thank the staff for their support during this process, to thank the members opposite for the discussion and for some of the very constructive dialogue in the process and also to indicate that just as we've provided the opportunities previously and on an ongoing basis, if there are any continuing issues and discussion that the members opposite would like to have, I'm more than willing to make myself available for those discussions.

We will commit to provide some of the information that we referenced that we would provide. We'll
[ Page 7149 ]
review that and make sure we get that to the members opposite.

As I mentioned in my opening comments, while there are significant challenges, this is a very exciting sector on the forest side of it, a very exciting sector overall in the natural resource sectors. I'm looking very much forward to the months ahead in working through those challenges and the opportunities.

Again, I thank the members for the tenor and the tone, and I appreciate that.

Thank you to the respective Chairs for the management of the process.

[1815]

Vote 30: ministry operations, $363,399,000 — approved.

Vote 31: direct fire, $62,901,000 — approved.

ESTIMATES:
OTHER APPROPRIATIONS

Vote 49: Forest Practices Board, $3,815,000 — approved.

Hon. S. Thomson: I move that the committee rise and report resolutions and completion of the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:16 p.m.

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