2011 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 39th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Monday, May 14, 2012

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 38, Number 2

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)
ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

MONDAY, MAY 14, 2012

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

D. Hayer: We have some very special guests in the House today. Actually, one of our special guests in Victoria is Admiral Nirmal Kumar Verma. He is the chairman, chiefs of staff committee, and the chief of the naval staff of India. He's meeting with our chief of staff of the navy from Canada today and our Lieutenant-Governor and some other guests.

Also, we have some other special guests here today. They include our very special guest, Consul General Ashok Das from the Vancouver Consulate General of India office. He's here with his wife, Dr. Erika Das, and their family — daughter, Ashika, and son, Aranis.

Consul General is completing his three-year term in Vancouver on May 23, 2012, as we all know. We all want to congratulate him for the excellent work he has done for British Columbia and Canada and for improving our trade and cultural ties between B.C. and India as well as helping our Premier with the trade mission they did last fall to India. The consul general of India has worked in the Indian Foreign Services since 1987 in various positions. His new posting is going to be the Ambassador for India in Iceland.

Would the House please make the consular general and his family very welcome.

H. Bains: I'd also like to join the member for Surrey-Tynehead in welcoming Mr. Ashok Das and his wife, Dr. Erika Das. They're also joined with their lovely children with them. Mr. Das is completing, as the member had said, his three-year term here. What a pleasure it was to work with Mr. Das — how he bonded the community together, how he tried to deal with the issues that are on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes they're very difficult issues to deal with.

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I just want to say thank you on behalf of our side here for a job well done, Mr. Das. Hopefully, you will continue to stay in touch with us and keep on improving our relationship with India as we are moving forward. Thank you, and enjoy your endeavour.

Please say thank you very much.

Tributes

RYDER HESJEDAL

Hon. I. Chong: I rise in the House today to congratulate a fellow Victorian, Ryder Hesjedal. As many will know, Ryder is a constituent of, I believe, the member for Juan de Fuca. He lives here in the capital region. He is in one of our country's premier cyclists. He's currently competing in Italy in one of the most prestigious cycling races in the world, the Giro.

Ryder became the first Canadian to capture the pink jersey as overall leader of the race, and I do hope that all members will cheer on Ryder as he looks to win this race at the end of May.

B.C. RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIPS

Hon. I. Chong: At the same time, I would like to congratulate all the teams that completed in last weekend's B.C. provincial rugby finals, including two Victoria clubs from my own riding. The Velox Valkyries of Gordon Head won the Harris Memorial Cup for the B.C. women's championship over Burnaby Lake, 20-14, and the Castaway Wanderers of Oak Bay defeated the Meralomas of Vancouver, 24-16, in the Ceili Cup for the men's division 1 title. So I want to say congratulations to Velox and Castaways on outstanding seasons.

Introductions by Members

J. Brar: Visiting us today are three very special guests, concerned parents advocating for Surrey schools. They are Linda Stromberg, a member of the ad hoc committee; Brenda Peterson, vice-president of the district parent advisory committee of Surrey; and Pat Enair, co-chair of the district parent advisory committee of Surrey. They met today with the official opposition Education critic and also the official opposition Finance critic to talk about the Surrey school district and the overcrowding situation of the Surrey schools.

They will be pleased to meet with the Minister of Education and the Minister of Finance as soon as they get the appointment with them. I would ask the House to please make them feel welcome.

I also join the member for Surrey-Newton and the member for Surrey-Tynehead to say thank you, my sincere thanks, to Mr. Das and his family and children for their extraordinary work here. I wish them well for their future endeavours.

C. James: I have a school group that's visiting the Legislature today. St. Patrick's School is here, teacher Mrs. Lisa Hoffner's class — 26 grade 6 students and five adults who are with them. Would the House please make them very welcome.

Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

BILL 54 — PROVINCIAL SALES TAX ACT

Hon. K. Falcon presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Provincial Sales Tax Act.
[ Page 11874 ]

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

Motion approved.

Hon. K. Falcon: I'm today introducing the Provincial Sales Tax Act, 2012. The new Provincial Sales Tax Act implements a sales tax that applies to the same goods and services and provides for the same permanent exemptions as the old PST and hotel room tax but in a new, modern, clear and more comprehensive act. The PST will be implemented effective April 1, 2013.

The Provincial Sales Tax Act imposes tax on the purchase or lease of goods; on goods brought, sent, delivered or used in B.C.; on purchases of software and on purchases of accommodation, legal services, telecommunications services and services provided to goods.

The Provincial Sales Tax Act provides the legal authority for all exemptions from PST and refunds of PST. This is the case even where the specifics of an exemption or refund will be located in the regulations. In addition, Bill 54 establishes the framework for the administration and enforcement of the PST and implements certain taxes that were part of the old PST.

Bill 54 also makes a number of improvements to the PST, improving clarity and readability, streamlining administration and providing certainty about tax obligations, addressing tax avoidance and reducing the overall compliance burden on businesses.

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Finally, Bill 54 makes consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act to eliminate the B.C. HST credit, reinstate the B.C. sales tax credit and reverse the basic personal amount tax credit enhancements that were made with the implementation of the HST.

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.

Bill 54, Provincial Sales Tax Act, 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)

PENTICTON VEES JUNIOR A HOCKEY TEAM

E. Foster: Mr. Speaker, on your behalf as the MLA for Penticton, I would like to congratulate the Penticton Vees Junior A hockey team on an exciting win yesterday in Humboldt, Saskatchewan. The team won their first Royal Bank Cup national championship in 26 years with a close 4-3 victory over the Woodstock Slammers from New Brunswick.

The Vees were up 2-0 in the first period, but the Slammers didn't go down without a fight, tying it up in the second period and taking the lead in the third. True to form, Mr. Speaker, your Vees refused to give up time and again before scoring the game-winning goal with just 51 seconds left in the third period.

Comeback victories seem to be the signature style of the Penticton Vees, who started the RBC Cup tournament with two losses before winning their next four games. This championship win capped off an outstanding season for the Vees, who also set BCHL records for points, at 110, and wins, at 54, and consecutive wins, at 42, during the season.

Mr. Speaker, we may not always agree on much in this House, but I'm sure everyone here is pleased that the Royal Bank Cup has gone to a BCHL team for three of the past four years. I might say that my own Vernon Vipers won the cup in 2009 and '10, and I know from those victories how much it means to a community when their team wins the RBC Cup. These players have trained hard, and their fans have supported them through some pretty tough seasons.

I'm sure Penticton is proud to celebrate their Junior A hockey champions and welcomes them home. I wish to congratulate head coach Fred Harbinson, his staff and the players of the Penticton Vees for returning the Royal Bank Cup to its rightful home — British Columbia.

MAY DAY CELEBRATIONS
IN PORT COQUITLAM

M. Farnworth: Well, if you were lucky enough to be in Port Coquitlam this incredibly gorgeous Saturday, you would have been able to see the 89th annual May Day Parade in the city of Port Coquitlam. It's a tradition that everyone in our community looks forward to. With weather like we had this weekend, there must have been 7,000 to 8,000 people lining Shaughnessy Street, Elgin Avenue, Mary Hill Road to watch an absolutely fantastic community celebration.

It's rooted in the heritage and the history of our early pioneers. It reflects our community today, and it sends a strong message of hope into the future. It couldn't happen without some terrific volunteers — volunteers who, year after year, give up their time to make sure that we've got the maypole dancing, an incredible parade and just a terrific community celebration.

I would like today in this House to pay tribute to the following volunteers who make our May Day Parade such a tremendous success — Bev Moulds, the chair; Disa Fladmark; Robin Jones; Dee Perry; Bob Lee; Samantha Lowe; Russ McMurchie; Phil Ranger; Kayla Steele; Michael Thomas; Walter Van Drimmelen; Kevin Van Veen; April Zucker; and Sandy Battle — because they did an absolutely outstanding job.

This year was our 89th. Next year is our 90th, the same year that we celebrate our centennial in Port Coquitlam, when we declared our freedom from the loving grace of
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Coquitlam and set in place a community that I think is an absolute joy to represent.

With that, I ask all of us in this House to congratulate the volunteers and the people of Port Coquitlam for having a truly terrific May Day Parade once again.

RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

D. Barnett: May is a significant month for individuals with disabilities. This month marks an important milestone in the journey of the United Nations convention of the rights of persons with disabilities. The convention affects an estimated 650 million individuals with disabilities worldwide. The aim is to ensure that the benefits of existing human rights are extended to everyone, no matter what their ability.

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Countries like Canada that have ratified the convention promote and support the rights of individuals with disabilities. This is part of a movement to identify persons with disabilities as subjects with rights who are capable of making decisions for themselves as full members of society, rather than recipients of charity or medical treatment or social protection.

Although they have tremendous skills and abilities, people with disabilities have an unemployment rate of almost 20 percent, higher than the rest of the population. That certainty has a significant impact on the more than 360,000 people of working age with disabilities in this province.

Progress is being made on many levels. There is much more to do. In British Columbia we have set an example for inclusiveness and progress, and made the world a better place for people who live with disabilities.

We have changed people's views on what is possible. Through the determination of great British Columbians like Rick Hansen, Sam Sullivan, Lauren Woolstencroft, Terry Fox and so many others that we all know of in our own communities, we have been challenged to step up and make a difference.

We have conquered a great deal of ignorance and changed the way we as society view the potential of people with disabilities. We know that people with disabilities can live full lives of purpose and dignity and be respected. I ask the members of this House to join me in recognizing the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.

MINING WEEK

D. Donaldson: Mining Week in B.C. is an opportunity to remind British Columbians of the importance of the resource economy in our province. We are blessed with a province rich in many natural resources that have always played an important role in our economy, from fishing to forestry to mining.

With the recent decline in the forest sector, mining is increasingly important for British Columbia, both for our overall economy that supports government programs like health care and education and for our rural economy, creating good jobs in all parts of the province for British Columbians.

Miners on the road to success understand the need for social licence in order for projects to proceed, and the basis for that social licence is having a full, robust hearing of social, cultural, economic and environmental aspects of a proposed project. Taking shortcuts leads to uncertainty, and uncertainty leads to unnecessary delays in reaching a decision.

Successful mining companies understand this. That is why they have called for a number of changes that will insist in ensuring we will not continue to lose opportunities to benefit from record-high commodity prices we have witnessed during the past decade.

Foremost among those recommendations is for a more explicit First Nations consultation framework. Good companies want to do their part in the consultation process. This is a government-to-government relationship, and miners have said they need to know what is expected of them so that they can support that relationship.

Miners have also pointed out the need for increased training opportunities so that people in B.C. locally, regionally and provincially have the best chance at securing a job in their own backyard. And it's no wonder. Mining companies are now facing a shortage of workers, leading to increased costs. Thompson Creek Metals, for instance, recently announced a share offering to raise an additional $430 million towards construction of their Mount Milligan project due to a shortage of skilled labour.

Mining Week is an opportune time to consider the opinions of the mining sector, with the overall goal of reducing inequality and increasing prosperity derived from our commonly owned mineral resources.

DARLENE THOMAS

P. Pimm: I want to tell you the story about a local hero in Fort St. John. Darlene Thomas was born January 27, 1944, in Port Alberni, B.C. She completed her licensed practical nurse training in 1971, and Darlene became an instructor for Canadian Red Cross and St. John Ambulance for the next 30 years.

On the morning of September 25, 2006, Darlene woke up with a slight rash on her face. She treated herself for an allergic reaction. However, this wasn't an allergic reaction at all. It was instead a rare blood disease called polyarteritis nodosa and catastrophic necrotizing vasculitis. The disease took one of Darlene's arms and both of her feet.

Darlene now works in Fort St. John as a Wal-Mart greeter, and on Easter Monday of this year Darlene gained her hero status. Darlene heard the cry: "Call 911!
[ Page 11876 ]
Call 911!" She leaped out of her motorized wheelchair and sprang into action. She saw a 43-year-old man who had collapsed into a potato chip display, and in Darlene's own words: "He didn't look like a potato chip to me, so I hauled him out and started to perform CPR…. I got rid of my right arm, because you can't do CPR with an artificial arm."

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Once the man started breathing again, Darlene turned him on his side. The weight of him against her triggered the release of the mechanism on her leg, and she saw it go flying. This was the least of her concerns when the man stopped breathing again. Darlene continued to perform CPR until the paramedics arrived.

Darlene is a true hero, and she goes out of her way to help anyone in need. An especially touching moment for Darlene was when this great big bear of a teenaged boy approached her at Wal-Mart and asked if he could give her a hug because she'd saved his dad.

Through all this, Darlene has humbly asked that people take one thing away from this. "I'd just like to encourage everybody to get out there and take a basic CPR course, because no matter what physical shape you're in, even if all you can do is ventilate for the chief CPR giver, then by heavens, that's an awful big help."

This is the ninth person that Darlene has resuscitated in her lifetime.

100th ANNIVERSARY OF
HERBERT SPENCER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

D. Black: One of the oldest schools in New Westminster, Ecole Herbert Spencer School, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The school is named after Herbert Spencer, a Victorian era biologist and philosopher. He was an influential figure in sociology and psychology at the time. Although not widely known, he is believed to have coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" several years before Darwin.

Herbert Spencer offers dual-track English and early French immersion programs to students from kindergarten to grade 5. The school has a population of 485 students from wonderfully diverse cultural backgrounds and languages.

Located in the historic Queens Park neighbourhood, adjacent to the park itself, the school is known for fostering a strong sense of community. There's an active choir, track-and-field clubs, community school programs and a well-developed music program.

I have a very personal connection to Herbert Spencer. My granddaughters Meagan and Lauren are both active and engaged students in the school. I've seen firsthand how a team of dedicated teachers, support staff and parents work together to ensure students acquire the skills and knowledge they need to become successful and contributing students and citizens of our community.

The school is holding a 100th-anniversary open house on June 9, and Herbert Spencer's principal, Tracy Fulton, who was actually a student there, will be an active participant in the celebrations. Please join with me in congratulating the entire Herbert Spencer School community on this historic anniversary and thank them for providing New Westminster children with an outstanding educational experience.

Oral Questions

GOVERNMENT ENERGY POLICY AND
ELECTRICITY GENERATION COSTS

A. Dix: My question is to the Minister of Energy. The government's energy policy has stripped away B.C. Hydro's ability to capitalize on the high water flow, as we're experiencing this spring. As a result, our public utility is being forced, as a result of government policy, to pay massively inflated rates for power.

Would the Minister of Energy acknowledge that the government's energy plan and the government's energy policies are going to cost taxpayers dramatically now and in the next few years?

Hon. R. Coleman: No, I won't acknowledge that, hon. Member.

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

A. Dix: You know, maybe in a 1970s British sitcom it makes sense to buy power at $60 to $100 and sell it at 20 cents to $17.60, but it certainly doesn't make sense for the people of British Columbia. The government's policies are costing taxpayers, according to Marvin Shaffer, $1.28 billion over the next four years. That's the cost of them overpaying for power.

Can the minister at least explain…? Can he suggest or can he confirm one way or another whether B.C. Hydro will be spilling power over the dams, spilling water over the dams without generating electricity?

Hon. R. Coleman: You know, there are year-over-year fluctuations of water. I know that he isn't aware of that maybe, necessarily, or knows that sometimes it affects one year versus another.

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We have companies sitting poised to invest tens of billions of dollars in British Columbia for liquefied natural gas. One of the advantages they see in British Columbia to make that investment is clean energy. They actually see it as them being able to have a market-competitive situation worldwide by being able to say to their customers that liquefied natural gas in British Columbia is produced with clean energy.
[ Page 11877 ]

Now, I know the members opposite don't like that sound because that means they might want to have to support new hydroelectric power, run of the river, wind and other clean sources of power in order for us to continue to have that advantage as we pursue this huge opportunity of tens of thousands of jobs for the future of British Columbians.

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

A. Dix: A 36 percent rate increase over four years. It's impossible to understand the government's argument that it makes our economy more efficient to overpay dramatically for power. That's their argument. That's what the minister says — that it's more efficient to buy high and sell low. That's his argument.

It's the consumers of British Columbia and the businesses of British Columbia that are going to pay a price for this argument for years to come. Will the minister not admit…? He didn't answer the question the first time; he didn't answer the question the second time. Will he at least tell us — because this would be information of interest to the people of B.C.: is B.C. Hydro spilling water without generating electricity?

Hon. R. Coleman: I know the opposition leader just wants to talk about one little piece of the microcosm other than the huge piece of information around power in British Columbia. We actually support things like bioenergy, which is more expensive to do, the reason being that we know in British Columbia there's going to be a river of wood that may not be able to go through woods because of the pine beetle epidemic.

We think we should have those options in front of us for the value to the whole supply chain of power for British Columbians in the future. That includes looking at all aspects of power to make sure that we're striking a balance and making sure we get the right investments to use the resources in British Columbia in the best way possible.

J. Horgan: It is surprising to hear a Minister of Energy in British Columbia say that by focusing on the 90 percent of hydroelectricity that B.C. Hydro produces, that's just one small component of the puzzle. That seems odd to me.

But rather than deflect, perhaps the minister could focus his mind on the prices today. The mid-Columbia price for average peak power today: 20 cents a megawatt hour. Twenty cents a megawatt hour off-peak, and it soars to $17.60 at peak. Now, contrast that to the average price of independent power that B.C. Hydro is paying today. It's between $60 and $100 a megawatt hour.

Now, that may be just a small part of the puzzle to the Minister of Energy, but I'm fairly confident the Minister of Finance understands what the discrepancy would be between 17 bucks and 60 or 100 bucks.

My question is to the minister. Can he quantify just how much the B.C. Liberals have blown on IPPs rather than focusing on keeping rates down for British Columbians and having a strong power sector so that we can generally grow the economy, not just the friends of the B.C. Liberal Party?

Hon. R. Coleman: To the member opposite: the fact of the matter is that in peak water years you do have situations in the fluctuation of power. He knows that; I know that. What he doesn't want to talk about is what was happening a few years back, when the peaks were spiking totally the other direction — when we had an energy crisis in the United States, when people were looking at power prices that were astronomical. We had brownouts across areas of the Pacific, of California and other states.

We made decisions to try and build the future for B.C. Hydro in the proper way at that time. We'll continue to build the future of B.C. Hydro in the proper manner. We know that we've made decisions, like Site C, that the members don't like. Frankly, if you read the quotes, it's: "Today I like it; tomorrow I'm not sure I'll like it." Maybe they'll at least tell us what they think about a new hydroelectric dam in the Peace country.

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Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

J. Horgan: I do, hon. Speaker, but before I launch into that, maybe I'll just correct the minister's memory. It was 12 years ago, and we were selling for $1,200 a megawatt hour, not buying at $100 a megawatt. We were making money for the people of British Columbia. In fact, the good people of California still owe us $300 million.

It was a good policy then; it should be a good policy today. Unfortunately, instead we have $2.2 billion in deferral accounts, rising to $5 billion by 2017, with $45 billion to $60 billion in unfunded contractual obligations, $1.3 billion on self-sufficiency, and let's not forget $1 billion on smart meters.

The B.C. Liberal…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

J. Horgan: …energy plan has been a catastrophe from the get-go. Will the minister have the decency to stand in this place and tell B.C. taxpayers just how much they're going to cost before we get to an election next May?

Hon. R. Coleman: Well, I'd tell the member not to tilt at windmills, but then he doesn't support wind power in places like the Hecate Strait or Banks Island or anywhere
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else in British Columbia. He doesn't support other forms of green power, and new forms of power are more expensive than the dams that were built back in the 1950s and '60s.

Ironically, they actually get up and talk about the rates of hydro. What they don't tell you is this. They made no significant capital investment in the structure of B.C. Hydro in the 1990s. So today we have a $1.2 billion upgrade that has to take care of the John Hart dam, an $800 million project at the Ruskin dam.

The only power project they actually invested in was a failed power project somewhere in Pakistan. I have no idea how they're going to get that into the grid of British Columbia.

PRIVATIZATION OF
LIQUOR DISTRIBUTION

S. Simpson: The minister responsible has refused to produce a business case for the privatization of liquor distribution and continues to make unsubstantiated claims that this will be cheaper for consumers.

Matt Phillips, the founder and owner of Phillips Brewing, one of B.C.'s leading craft brewers, doesn't share the minister's claims. Mr. Phillips has told the opposition that today he pays the Liquor Distribution Branch 78 cents for a case of beer for distribution from the time he delivers it to them. In Alberta, with Exel Logistics, which runs their system and is the leading contender for the B.C. contract, he pays $1.53 for that same case of beer from the time it arrives in Alberta.

Mr. Phillips is paying almost double…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

S. Simpson: …for the same service in Alberta. Those costs are passed on to consumers.

What evidence can the minister produce, like a business case, to show that B.C. consumers are not going to end up paying more for beverages because of privatization?

Mr. Speaker: I want to remind members to listen to the question and listen to the answer.

Hon. R. Coleman: With regards to his question, I know that you're afraid of any form of privatization. I know you're opposed to any type, except — oh, I forgot — in 2000 and 2001 you were prepared, on the hump you came over when you lost government, to sell B.C. Hydro, the Liquor Distribution Branch and other Crown assets. You said you wanted to sell a big-ticket item.

What we're doing is we have a negotiated RFP on the street. The proponents have had their meetings. They will come in with their bids. We will look at the bids and see if they're good for government, and we'll make the decision on the basis of the information that we receive back.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

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S. Simpson: Mr. Phillips was not consulted about this. Others in the industry have not been consulted. There is little, if any, public support or support from the manufacturers and licensees for this scheme. The government has produced no evidence that is credible to support the move.

Brewers are now identifying real increases in costs — 78 cents a case in B.C., $1.53 a case in Alberta. They'll be facing this with no adequate response from the government — costs that they will have to pass on to the consumers.

How is it that this government feels the need to have a two-week consultation about which Monday in February to create a holiday but won't have one day of meaningful consultation for the industry or the public when it sells off the LDB?

Hon. R. Coleman: There's been a flat tax on beer in British Columbia for a number of years, and there've been no changes to that in a long, long time. The only people that ever actually wanted to raise the price of liquor, in my memory, both in policy and as a government, were the NDP.

As the members opposite are always proud to advise us, we're not Alberta. We are actually British Columbia.

We have a negotiated RFP on the streets. It's a totally different package. The liquor stores in Alberta were sold. They're not up for sale in British Columbia. It changed how that model worked completely. We're looking at it strictly from the wholesale, the distribution and warehousing of liquor in British Columbia.

All the pricing is staying with government. All the taxation is staying with government. We continue to manage for the financial health of British Columbia.

M. Karagianis: I have big doubts as to whether the B.C. Liberal government has considered the long-term impacts of this sell-off of liquor distribution. The minister said that prices won't go up and that the privatization scheme will save money for consumers. However, there's nothing in the RFP that protects consumers, and we know that government officials have refused to answer numerous questions that the industry has, so I don't see anywhere in this where there's protection for consumers.

Would the minister, rather than continuing to try and undermine the process here, simply table the documents, the business case that he has and that he has stated clearly in here that he has tons of paper on? Table it in the House so we can look and see if there is really evidence to support this move to privatization.
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Hon. R. Coleman: What are you so afraid of? We're going to go to the street and see if somebody can do something better than we do it as government. What is wrong with that? It actually makes pretty good sense.

We have an old warehousing system that will need to be redone in one way or the other. It will cost tens of millions of dollars for the taxpayers of British Columbia. Or you could actually go out and do a negotiated RFP, look at industry's opportunities and see whether it's more beneficial to British Columbians to privatize the warehousing and distribution. I don't know what you're afraid of.

I guess what you're afraid of is that you might find out that there's a better way to do business and that it doesn't always have to be done by government.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

M. Karagianis: Well, those in the industry — small wineries, breweries, distillery businesses — are raising many concerns about this privatization and the impacts it will have. You know what? They weren't consulted, and they've had no adequate response to any of their concerns.

Matt Phillips from Phillips Brewing writes this:

"Our distribution costs in Alberta are approximately twice as high as they are through the Liquor Distribution Branch, and we suspect that there will be a similar increase in B.C. once distribution is privatized. This cost will inevitably be passed along to consumers. These sorts of decisions don't benefit consumers, government employees or small industry. The benefit to the province is fairly suspect."

If it's such a good idea, why doesn't the minister just table the business plan and put all of this to rest here in the Legislature?

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Hon. R. Coleman: Why didn't you wait for the results of the RFP? Except you prejudge everything over there. You want to prejudge every environmental process.

They want to prejudge every environmental process, go into their caucus and make a decision. Forget statutory authority. Forget opportunities. Forget any decisions of government. They just want to actually ignore all that process.

We have an RFP on the streets. We will see if we get back a proposal that makes sense for British Columbia and the warehousing and distribution of liquor, and then we'll deal with it.

CHANGES TO ADULT EDUCATION COURSES
FOR HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES

M. Elmore: Accounting 11 and 12, physics 12, chemistry 12, geology 12, biology 11, English 11, business computer applications 11 — these are just a few of the many courses which will no longer be accessible free of charge to British Columbians wanting to upgrade their high school education.

Last week the minister trivialized this issue, saying that while these courses may be "enormously interesting to the individuals who take them…they are not consistent with the education guarantee." In fact, these courses are exactly what is needed to develop a skilled British Columbian workforce.

My question is to the minister. Can he explain why he is making it more difficult for British Columbians to upgrade their skills?

Hon. G. Abbott: I think the explanation I provided last week was a very good one. Clearly, the member wasn't listening to it. To begin, anyone who has not graduated from high school can continue to access all of those courses free of charge. That has been very successful.

What have not been successful are a number of the elective courses which apply to those who have completed graduation but are going back and accessing programs. We've seen some school districts provide electives like equine studies, photography, film and theatre, etc., and we are seeing completion rates as low as 35 percent on a lot of those courses.

Again, as I said to the Leader of the Opposition last week, I hope this is not indicative of the ability of the opposition to make value choices. It is clearly much more important that we continue to provide the core courses, both to those who have not completed high school and also to those who have completed high school.

The school districts do not need to be in the business of providing electives which can be found elsewhere. If they want to access them, they'll be able to access them on line, but there may be a modest fee for that, which will be returned if the student completes the course.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

M. Elmore: Maybe the Minister of Education can share with us if he finds these courses of value to foundational skills in our economy: accounting 11 and 12, physics 12, chemistry 12, geology 12, biology 11, English 11, business computer applications 11.

My constituent Tamina Akter, the mother of two children who recently came from Bangladesh to Canada, took an entry exam at Vancouver Community College. She was told she'd have to upgrade her English in order to enrol in the dental assistant program. Tamina is currently taking English 11, but the Liberals are now putting the grade 11 course Tamina needs out of reach. This makes no sense.

B.C. is in the midst of a growing skills shortage. Why are the Liberals closing the door on opportunity for immigrants like Mrs. Akter to contribute to their new home?

Hon. G. Abbott: The costs of the programs the member references have gone from $1.5 million a few years
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ago to $15 million today. The large reason for that is the proliferation of elective courses which are being offered by the school districts.

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For every student who has not graduated from high school, they remain free, all readily available. For those who have graduated and are going back to upgrade, all of the courses the member referenced remain available to those students. There will be a deposit, which the student will be making in order to access the course. Provided they have substantial completion — not necessarily even passing the course but substantial completion — they will have their deposit returned.

Again, I guess that this goes to the easy answers that are available in opposition. If I had to make a choice between early childhood education and ensuring that all students who hadn't graduated had the opportunity to have adult basic education courses, I would take the former and not have it spent on elective courses, which many people enter but never complete.

TIMBER SUPPLY FOR FLAVELLE MILL

J. Trasolini: Flavelle sawmill, owned by Mill and Timber, is located on the waterfront in Port Moody. For years Flavelle ran two shifts per day, employing 60 workers. Now they're down to a single shift, and even that's not consistent — a 50 percent job loss at this mill. Why? Lack of fibre. The Forests Ministry is actively encouraging the export of raw logs, yet a mill in my community can't get wood to keep workers employed.

What's the minister going to do to restore the timber supply to Flavelle so they can rehire the laid-off workers?

Hon. S. Thomson: Firstly, I appreciate receiving the first question in the House from the new member.

Again, this issue has been canvassed extensively in the House. We are continuing to work on ensuring that our log export policy remains balanced. There's a surplus test to ensure that lumber needed for domestic mills is subject to the surplus test. That is done through both a surplus test and a fair-market test.

We're continuing to work to ensure that the policy is balanced. We're working through it with the industry, with the stakeholder groups. We'll continue to ensure that we have a balanced policy — one that is creating jobs in British Columbia, one that is ensuring that uneconomic stands are harvested. Harvest levels are up in both the Interior and the coast. We're continuing to work to make sure that we have a balanced policy here in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

J. Trasolini: Flavelle has skilled workers, efficient operations and a good market. What they don't have is wood, because the B.C. Liberals think shipping raw logs is better than processing them here at home.

Will the minister put our mills like Flavelle ahead of offshore jobs? Will he take steps today to ensure that B.C. logs stay in B.C. to create B.C. jobs?

Hon. S. Thomson: The log export policy surplus test applied, making sure that logs are available for domestic mills, when that surplus test is applied under export permits. Again, the balanced policy — 7.3 million cubic metres of lumber to China. That's creating jobs — 9,000 new jobs in British Columbia as a result of having the balanced policy — and continuing to build export opportunities for lumber in British Columbia.

That's what we're going to continue to focus on to ensure that we continue to build the opportunities for harvesting in British Columbia, which will provide logs for the domestic market. We're working with the industry to ensure we have that balance. We're working to ensure that the surplus test is applied efficiently.

That's the work we continue to do with the timber export advisory committee. That work will continue as we work towards that balanced policy here in British Columbia.

[1420]

PROPOSAL FOR NATIONAL PARK
IN SOUTH OKANAGAN AREA

R. Fleming: The study of a South Okanagan–Similkameen national park was designed to protect Canada's only desert ecosystem. It is one of the highest priorities for conservation in Canada, and B.C. has been a party to a park feasibility study since 2004.

However, three months ago the Environment Minister unilaterally withdrew provincial support. In February the Premier cited a feasibility study and said: "We do not as a province support a national park. And the reason why is because the majority of people don't want it."

The opposition received a copy of the feasibility study through a freedom-of-information request. It clearly shows that the park is both feasible and that, in fact, 63 percent of the local population favours it, while 26 percent are opposed.

Can the minister tell us, then, why he made the decision to withdraw provincial support, against the wishes of local residents and against the advice of his own ministry?

Hon. T. Lake: Well, if the member would like to know about the local residents' feelings around this proposal, perhaps he should check in with his colleague, the member for Fraser-Nicola, who has publicly stated his opposition to this proposal. His colleague…

Interjections.
[ Page 11881 ]

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members.

Hon. T. Lake: …has echoed the feeling of many residents of the local region. The feasibility study shows that about 42 percent in one region have support for the park. There are a number of people that are undecided and a significant number of local people who are opposed.

A change of this magnitude in land use changes people's livelihoods. It impacts their economic ability. It impacts First Nations. It impacts recreational opportunities.

There are a number of different ways to preserve the conservation values that want to be protected in that area. We will continue to work for those conservation values through the many mechanisms we have available. But to turn people's lives upside down without significant local support is not something that this government is going to do, and that's something that the member for Fraser-Nicola agrees with.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The member has….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The member has a supplemental.

R. Fleming: I know that for members of the government's side, a poll that shows 26 percent support is pretty good these days.

Here's what the minister said in estimates when I asked him about the province's reasons for pulling out.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

R. Fleming: He said: "I made the decision that we did not have adequate public support so that we could end the uncertainty."

But the FOI shows a majority of the regional population supports it. The Okanagan First Nations support it, local mayors support it, chambers of commerce support it, regional tourism associations are for it, and so are conservation groups. The Deputy Minister of Environment signed off on it, and even the Liberal MLA for Boundary-Similkameen has supported it, opposed it and supports it again.

If they killed the proposal for reasons that go against the advice of science…

Mr. Speaker: Pose the question, please, Member.

R. Fleming: …his ministry, business groups and local residents….

Mr. Speaker: Member, pose the question, please.

R. Fleming: I will, Mr. Speaker.

The facts don't support the excuses offered by the Premier and the minister. To the minister: what's the real reason for killing this proposal?

Hon. T. Lake: Well, I guess at the next meeting of the member's caucus he can ask a number of his members why they don't support this proposal.

[1425]

When you are changing the use of land that people make their livelihoods upon, that people use for recreation, where businesses have invested $5 million and more in terms of the use of that land, the historic use of that land, you have to have overwhelming local support. Whereas there may be groups around the province that like the idea, it is important that the local population be listened to and to ensure that there is overwhelming public support.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. T. Lake: If the member is truly worried about preserving the environmental values, I would be happy to speak with him about provincial parks, protected areas, wildlife management areas and a number of other mechanisms that we have available to protect the conservation values in that part of our province.

[End of question period.]

M. Mungall: I seek leave to present a position.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Petitions

M. Mungall: I have a petition here from 288 people who live on the east shore of Kootenay Lake. Their petition is to restore original sailing times for the Kootenay Lake ferry.

Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Coleman: This afternoon in this House we will start with debating second reading of Bill 51, South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act; followed by second reading of Bill 45, intituled the Income Tax Amendment Act; then second reading of the Coastal Ferry Amendment Act, Bill 47;
[ Page 11882 ]
and then Bill 53, intituled the Family Day Act.

In Section A, the Douglas Fir Committee Room, we will be continuing with the Ministry of Health estimates.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 51 — SOUTH COAST
BRITISH COLUMBIA TRANSPORTATION
AUTHORITY AMENDMENT ACT, 2012

Hon. B. Lekstrom: I move that Bill 51 be now read a second time.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Hon. B. Lekstrom: Bill 51 amends the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Act and provides consequential amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act. This bill includes TransLink governance amendments and a new fare evasion structure for Metro Vancouver transit system.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

The governance amendments will address concerns raised by the Mayors Council on Regional Transportation and by the public. These changes aim to strengthen the role of local government in TransLink's planning and decision-making processes and to ensure that TransLink is running effectively and efficiently.

Amendments include that we are adding two new seats to the TransLink board — for the Mayors Council chair and vice-chair. These new seats will strengthen the link between the Mayors Council and the board and facilitate communications. It will give mayors direct input into TransLink planning and the decision-making process. I believe that this change will support the objectives of the Mayors Council without fundamentally changing TransLink's governance structure.

We will also be extending the submission date for TransLink's annual base plan from August 1 to November 1. This extension will allow TransLink to consult more with the public and the Mayors Council on the content of the annual plan. It will also allow TransLink to include updated fiscal information in their forecast and to save administration costs by combining base plan preparation with its annual budgeting.

In addition, TransLink can now be audited periodically at the request of either the province or the Mayors Council. The performance audits will examine TransLink's operations with the goals to help the organization increase its efficiency and better serve the public. Periodic performance audits will help to maintain the public confidence that TransLink is spending taxpayers' and transit users' money wisely.

Lastly, we will also be adding the director of electoral area A to the Mayors Council. This will enable the 13,000 people living at UBC, the University Endowment Lands and the rest of the electoral area A to have their elected representative voting at the Mayors Council's table. It provides representation on the Mayors Council to taxpayers in the electoral area who contribute to TransLink's funding.

This change was requested by the Mayors Council and the director and the public as well.

[1430]

Also in this bill are fare evasion amendments. This bill will actually move forward to allow people to pay their fines and encourage them to do so, and if they so choose not to, there will be repercussions. People have been stealing from transit in Metro Vancouver, and they're now being put on notice. They will face the full wrath if they refuse to pay their fines. While most people pay their fares, those who are caught without fares will face serious consequences if they do not pay up.

Fare enforcement will be changing from a provincial offence system to the TransLink bylaw system, supported by statute and regulation. This means that TransLink will no longer just be issuing the tickets. They will be establishing the infractions and ticket amounts and also be responsible for the collection of the fines. TransLink will be able to keep the proceeds of the fines as well.

The province, working with TransLink, will establish the initial parameters of its new bylaw. This will include establishing future dispute resolution and appeal procedures to protect people who believe that they have been issued a ticket unfairly.

TransLink, with the approval of the Mayors Council, will have the ability to modify its bylaw over time. For example, it can revise fair evasion fine amounts or craft strategies such as discounts for early payment and surcharges for late payments. This will encourage people to pay their fines as quickly as possible. The bylaw can also be amended over time to address emerging technologies like smart cards and fare gates.

TransLink will also have new enforcement and collection tools at its disposal. ICBC will now refuse to renew drivers' licences and vehicle registrations to people with outstanding fare evasion fines. This includes all past provincial tickets and future TransLink bylaw tickets as well as fare evasion tickets on the B.C. Transit system.

In addition, TransLink will also be able to prohibit people from using the transit system or any other services that TransLink provides. They will use collection agencies to recover unpaid fines. As well, they will be able to file certificates in Provincial Court that will provide all the powers of a court order to recover outstanding fines.

The province will continue to support TransLink fare enforcement efforts. In the rare cases where TransLink is unable to collect on a ticket, we can offer our enhanced powers to deduct the fine amount from provincial tax refunds and other provincial payments.
[ Page 11883 ]

The amendments that I'm introducing today represent a strong, new direction in combating fare evasion in Metro Vancouver. I look forward to continuing to work with TransLink and the Mayors Council in implementing these governance and fare enforcement changes.

I certainly have had encouraging discussions with the Mayors Council and TransLink over the past year that I've served in this ministry. These are challenges, and these challenges will continue, but we will face these challenges head-on. Together, we can find solutions as are presented in this bill today.

I look forward to hearing the colleagues from the other side of the House discuss second reading of this bill — their issues and their concerns and comments.

H. Bains: It is a pleasure to talk about…. I believe Bill 51 goes a long way, in my view, in dealing with some of the issues that the local riders are facing, that TransLink is facing and that the mayors have talked about for a long time.

Essentially, as the minister has laid down, it has about five different components to the bill. In no particular order, it does talk about change to the governance model of TransLink. It talks about dealing with fare evasion and enforcement of the fines. It talks about a performance audit, and it talks about adding another representative from area A to the Mayors Council and also extending the date of submission of the base plan by three months, I believe — August 1 to November 1.

I will deal with each one of those areas as I speak, but let me begin by saying what brought us here, what the need was behind this bill and why the minister felt compelled to bring this bill to the House today for second reading.

[1435]

When you talk about governance, there is a history behind how…. We are at a stage where we have a governance model today that was the creation of the previous Minister of Transportation, who happens to be the Minister of Finance today. I think the background is necessary for people who are listening — why we need to bring these changes that the minister is recommending through this bill to the governance structure.

Previous to 2008, Madam Speaker, you will know, and many members here will know, that there were elected members from all across the Lower Mainland. Those could be the mayors or those could be the council members who were elected by their constituents. Each of the councils would appoint representatives based on the population, on a per-capita basis, to work on the TransLink board.

That system worked from 1999 until 2008. I think a number of major projects were brought into service during that period of time. I think this was around the time when discussion around the Canada Line and Evergreen line was taking place in the board rooms of the Mayors Council and the mayors board that was comprised of the elected officials, the TransLink board.

It was a conflict between what the government of the day wanted to do and the minister of the day wanted to do and what the mayors felt was the right thing to do. There was a huge dispute going on. In fact, if I recall it correctly, the mayors went three times, I believe it was, before finally agreeing to go with Canada Line project first, before the Evergreen line.

Originally, the mayors felt that we needed to deal with the Evergreen line first, because they felt the northeast sector along with the south of the Fraser were two of the fastest-growing communities in the region and the entire province and that we needed to connect those communities with the current and existing SkyTrain lines.

The mayors did that through a lot of consultation. The mayors did that through a demonstrated need from those regions and also the promises that were made by this government to those communities. And one — the mayor, I'm happy to report, from Port Moody — is here today. Thanks to him a lot of work was done. He pushed the issue of the Evergreen line because that was the right thing to do.

The minister and the government had a different agenda. We were going into the 2010 Olympics, and the minister felt it was more important for them to deal with the Olympic file than to deal with the real needs of the Lower Mainland as far as public transit was concerned.

So what did he do? He had a snit over that argument, and he basically went out and fired the entire elected board. Talk about democracy. Many people talk to me…. You know, this is the House of democracy. How does democracy work sometimes? Here's an example where democracy doesn't work as far as that Minister of Transportation was concerned.

You will see that the government here talk a lot about consultation, talk about listening to all different communities, talk about making decisions based on consultation and what the needs of the communities are. That one decision that I want to bring to this House's attention shows clearly how not to make decisions that are affecting our communities.

He went out there, fired the board — because the board felt that there were some needs that they needed to meet, that that was their mandate, and they were doing the right thing. The minister didn't like it, and he fired them.

[1440]

He brought in and appointed a nine-member board. He called them professional board members, and yes, many of those members, I agree, bring a lot to the table. I have a lot of respect for a lot of those board members who make decisions, as far as public transit is concerned, for our region.

But the democracy suffered there. The transparency and accountability that comes with a true democracy was lost in that decision.
[ Page 11884 ]

What happened was that the board started to make decisions — I think that was the mandate given by the minister — behind closed doors. When those decisions were made, no one knows how they came up with those decisions — no consultation, no transparency, no accountability. And then those decisions made by those board members — behind closed doors, I may add again — were brought out, and they were presented to the commissioner.

The commissioner's role was to see whether there's a revenue stream that will be sufficient to the decision that they have made. Once that decision was made, then the Mayors Council that was created, also with that model by that previous minister, will now look at the policy that is brought to them by non-elected board members, behind closed doors, without any consultation with anybody. And they are now asked to say yes or no to that plan.

That's all they are asked to do. That's all their role is — say yes or no to the plan. If they say yes, then they were expected to go find money to pay for the policy that they would say yes to. Mayors have since that time said, "Look, this model is not working," that they are totally left ineffective. They are disconnected from the decision-making table.

And I don't blame them. I don't blame them because these are the people who make land use decisions on a day-to-day basis for their communities. Every expert on public transit in the world will agree that land use decisions and public transit go hand in hand. There's no question about that.

Why not have those people who make land use decisions have some say on the decisions that would be made on public transit that affect their communities? It makes a lot of sense, but not to that Minister of Transportation at that date, because he just wanted to have his way.

He got his way, and we are suffering as a result of that one bad decision. We can talk about many bad decisions made by many ministers on that side in the last 11 years, but that one thing, when we talk about public transit, is the one that comes out and hits you — that this is how not to do business.

What we see now is that the mayors are saying: "Look, someone else is making decisions that affect their communities, and we are only there to say yes or no — rubber-stamp someone else's decision." Madam Speaker, that's not how you do business. If you want people to engage in key decisions that we talk about in Bill 51, then you want to engage those people who will be affected by the legislation that we talk about here.

So on the governance side, I think it is a real shame, in my view, that we lost four or five years, where decisions were made and the mayors simply felt that they were disconnected from those decisions. I think that is not the right thing to do, because these are the people who are elected by their constituents. They expect them to do the right things, make the right decisions when it comes to public transit, because the public is way ahead of this government — believe it or not.

They want to leave their cars home. They want to help improve our environmental situation that we have. They want to leave less in carbon footprints. They want to deal with greenhouse gases. They are worried. They are concerned not only today but for their children, and their children as well. So they want to have their locally elected members, who represent their views, on the TransLink board so that the TransLink board can make the decisions that actually will deal with the needs of our public needs.

[1445]

How do you make them leave the cars home when there's no real alternative for them to use an alternative mode of transportation? It's very difficult, and they don't see that that's happening today.

You know, when we are talking about the change in governance here, again, I want to talk about the minister having tried to deal with this issue. Once again, true to the form of this government, they did it again, said: "We will tell you what is good for you, and then you have to accept it." Like the previous minister did back in 2008: "I will tell you how to run TransLink. I will make decisions for you." He did that, and we're still suffering as a result of that.

I think this minister had an opportunity. I do have a lot of respect for the minister for trying to deal with the issue that is before us. In what he did in Bill 51, trying to deal with the governance structure, I think he seriously missed an opportunity to do the right thing — didn't do the right thing.

Back a month ago, two months ago, after Mr. Crilly, who was the commissioner of TransLink, rejected the fare increase — right after that — the mayors passed four resolutions. One was to deal with the minister's announcement. The minister suggested that he would try to fix the TransLink board structure. The minister announced what is listed here in Bill 51 back then, that he is going to add a chair and a vice-chair to the TransLink board.

Look what the mayors did to respond to that. They got together. They had a meeting. They passed four resolutions. One of the resolutions was to deal with that governance structure. They said: "This move does not go far enough."

I thought the minister would accept their resolution and the direction they put forward, but the minister failed to do that in this bill. He didn't address that issue.

I want to say that it is disappointing, to say the least, because the minister did write a letter to the mayors on April 10, 2012. I will use one of the paragraphs that the minister wrote to them on dealing with the governance issue. The minister said:

"Your motion No. 4" — this is the motion that I just finished talking about, that the mayors made after the minister made the
[ Page 11885 ]
announcement of changing the governance structure — "indicates that the Mayors Council wishes to explore governance models and practices from other jurisdictions. I will be interested to hear about the outcome of this work, and there may be additional refinement for us to consider in the future; however, I feel compelled to reiterate the provincial perspective that TransLink should continue to be overseen by a professional board."

Here, on one hand, the minister mentioned to them — at least gave them a hope — that he will look forward to hearing from them about the outcome of their proposal. What I suspect the minister is talking about here is that the mayors, previous to this meeting, put together a subcommittee to talk about the governance structure. The mandate of that committee was to come back with proposals to make the governance structure better.

That committee, I understand, has met, and they have not concluded their deliverance on their work. I am told that there will be more meetings scheduled.

[1450]

So the right thing for the minister to do would have been to wait until the Mayors Council, and their subcommittee that is looking at the governance structure, would come back with their proposal on how to make the governance structure better, more effective, more democratic, more transparent, more accountable. At the end of the day, that's what we all want.

But for some reason, on this one the Minister of Finance — who happened to be the Minister of Transportation earlier, who I think messed it up in 2008 to begin with — again got his way and won the day with this minister as well, which is unfortunate.

This minister has a lot to offer, in my view, when it comes to this file. I think it is not the right approach, and the mayors said at that time that this doesn't go far enough. Since that time the chair of the Mayors Council also commented in public. He said that this step goes sideways and not in the right direction, basically. That's how you read it.

I have talked to a few mayors since the time this bill was introduced, and I am getting the sense from those mayors that the government isn't serious in dealing with the governance structure of TransLink. Bill 51 doesn't even come close to what is needed to fix the TransLink board's governance structure.

What you need is a board that is elected, that is a professional board. There are workers who deliver these services on a day-to-day basis. There are drivers. There are other service providers in there that deal with the public every day. Who better to provide information on how to deliver the services, which are decided behind closed doors by the current board? Why not have someone from the workers, who deal with the public on a daily basis, to represent the workers' perspective? Why not have someone sit on the board there? But the minister missed that opportunity again.

The minister also missed an opportunity to consult with the mayors. The minister said earlier today that through consultation with the mayors…. But when you judge what the mayors' reaction is to this bill and to the minister's announcement earlier of adding two of the mayors, chair and vice-chair of the Mayors Council, onto a nine-member board now…. I think there are a lot of flaws in that approach.

First, I will be asking some of those questions during the next stage of the bill debate, third reading. How are they going to make decisions behind closed doors? Many of those could be in camera. Many of those decisions and many of those meetings would be in-camera meetings. Decisions are made there. But how are they now to take that information and bring it to their colleagues and share that information with their colleagues? So there could be a technical issue, a legal issue, here as well.

I don't know whether the minister has that area covered. How are they able to report the decisions that they are making in camera, behind those closed doors? How do you deal with that?

There's no such thing in here that those meetings would be public meetings. That was one of the complaints the public had — that these meetings are behind closed doors. No one has access to those meetings. No one knows how they arrive at those decisions. All they know is what the decision is, and the decision is, again, made by those who have no connection to the land use decisions that are being made in the communities.

When the mayors and the councils plan for their communities, they'll look at the land use decisions based on where the public transit is going to go. And not being at the table when those decisions on public transit are made…. I think there is a huge disconnect, and I agree with the mayors for being upset over that. I think those are some of the serious flaws in this bill when it comes to dealing with the governance.

[1455]

I think it's, once again, a missed opportunity, I will say, for the minister not to wait for the mayors subcommittee to come back with the recommendations on how to improve the governance model and governance structure.

Madam Speaker, here's another quote I want to give you — what was promised and what was delivered. I have read the minister's letter. He looked forward to hearing the outcome of the work that is conducted by the Mayors Council. The minister basically said that in the letter but didn't wait to hear the outcome. He rushed through this bill and put his own stamp on it, put his own suggestion on it.

But here's what the Premier had said and promised to the mayors and to the public on changing the governance. This is nothing new. If you go back to since the time of the previous minister…. He had a little fit, a tantrum, over not getting his way, Canada Line versus Evergreen line. He fired the whole board. Since that time there's a demand…. There's presentation after presentation from mayors, from the public and from many of the other
[ Page 11886 ]
stakeholders that this governance model is not working.

As a result, when the current Premier took office…. This is what the Premier said when she was asked about changing the TransLink governance: "There's no appetite to start monkeying with it before we get through municipal elections." This was a decision obviously made before the municipal elections. "We will look to municipal governments for direction on that and see if we can find some consensus. I don't think this is going to be a fast process."

I hope that the minister has read that. I hope that the Premier passed those sentiments to the minister when this issue of governance was put together in Bill 51.

I repeat again. She said: "We will look to the municipal governments for direction on that and see if we can find some consensus. I don't think this is going to be a fast process." So the minister is saying: "I look forward to what the mayors have to say on changing the governance." The Premier said: "We will look to the municipal governments for direction."

Then the minister went ahead and did what he did in Bill 51 and said: "Well, I will tell you. I'll do all those promises by the Premier and by the minister, but look, this is all I'm going to do. Two members from the Mayor's Council, a chair and the vice-chair — those are the only two that will be added. I'm going to make that decision. I'm not going to wait until you deliver on the work that you have taken to talk about what kind of governance model there has to be. I'll tell you what's good for you."

I think it's a pattern that we see — minister after minister after minister making decisions here and not consulting people who use those services and actually who make those decisions. They have to live with those decisions.

I'm talking about the mayors and the council members who have to make decisions on land use based on the public transit. That's one area that I have serious issues with. I think much more comes with it.

Governance is one area. Who runs TransLink? That's what we are talking about — how those decisions are made. Are those decisions based on the demonstrated need of the communities or through consultation with the public, with the locally elected officials, with the stakeholders, with the workers who deliver those services? That's what was expected. That's what you do through the right governance structure — make those right decisions, based on all of the consultations and input from the people who will be left dealing with the decisions made by the TransLink board.

[1500]

I think there was an opportunity. I had high hopes with this minister — not with previous ministers, but this minister — that this minister would actually listen. I think the Minister of Finance had his way. Again, he won the day on this particular issue. I don't think this is the right thing to do.

I would suggest to the minister to seriously consider waiting on this particular area of the bill until the mayors have come back with their proposal on how and what kind of governance structure they would like. At the end of the day, those are the people who would be making decisions based on what is needed in their communities.

If you are going to have them come and participate in the decision-making process, why not get their input on what kind of governance structure they can live with? That would be the right thing for the minister to do.

Knowing how reasonable this minister is, I'm sure that he will listen. I'm sure that in the next read, the minister will come back and say: "Look, it was a mistake to rush through that one particular area of this bill, and we are withdrawing that. We will come back after true consultation, real consultation, effective consultation by the mayors and the communities and the workers who deliver those services and then put together a governance model, governance structure that actually will work and be reflective of the communities. It will be reflective of the needs of the riders. It will be reflective based on what the workers have suggested — what they experience on a day-to-day basis — and the council members' needs, the mayors, for their particular communities."

I think that is one thing that I'd really like to talk about in this, when it comes to the governance structure.

The other part that this bill, Bill 51, talks about is the fare evasion part. I think it's been in the media, in the public eye, for some time now. What that means is that it was actually very embarrassing to hear the inability of TransLink to first issue tickets, through TransLink police, and then not having any mechanism or authority to collect those fines.

There are a couple of reports floating around out there in the media. One is that there were 63,000 tickets that were issued in 2011 and only 7,500 paid. So you're talking about 55,000 tickets that were issued by TransLink police. If you just think about it, just imagine, each ticket…. How much time does it take?

Deputy Speaker: Member, are you continuing as the designated speaker?

H. Bains: Yes, Madam Speaker.

When you just think about and imagine…. For a police officer going through the exercise of catching someone who failed to pay the fare, pulling them aside and writing them a ticket, taking the information, all the time when they could be out there providing security and comfort to the rest of the passengers out there…. So they write their ticket. So 55,000 uncollected tickets — just one year I'm talking about — and how much time they actually spend on that.

The irony behind all of this…. Actually, it's quite embarrassing. The embarrassing part is this. Again, I want to go back to the minister who messed it up in the first place in 2008 — the current Minister of Finance. In 2008 he acknowledged in public: "We know there is a problem,
[ Page 11887 ]
and we are going to find a better way of collecting these fines." This is his promise in 2008.

Mr. Doug Kelsey — head honcho, high up there with TransLink — is also quoted in the media, saying: "We've been asking this government for years to give us the authority to collect those fines."

[1505]

Yet when the current minister was asked about the situation, he said: "Well, this is the first I've heard of it." What does that tell you? It tells you one thing: that the previous minister, who knew about a problem and promised to do something about this, failed to do it — failed to act. That is a neglect of your duty. That is mismanagement. That is negligence of your duties, I think, when you say that there is a problem, acknowledge there is a problem, and then you fail to act on it after promising to deal with it. That's a real shame — that that minister didn't act on the problem that he acknowledged existed — that he would fix it.

Then there comes the next minister, previous to the current minister. She did nothing — nothing — after the previous minister acknowledged publicly that there was a problem and that they were going to fix it. I feel for the current minister, actually, believe it or not. Being in opposition, that's not a good thing to do, but I do feel for this current minister. Generally, he's saying that this is the first he's heard of this. What does that mean?

The previous ministers failed to act on it, failed to pass that information to the current minister. That is neglect of your duty. How bad can you be as a minister, who acknowledged there's a problem…? It's not even a small problem, Madam Speaker. You're talking about tens of millions of dollars, taxpayers' money that is sitting there uncollected. And not only that, but there is money and revenue sitting there uncollected when we hear from TransLink that there's a shortage of money and that we have to put some expansions on hold. So $43 million, one account shows, going back to 1999 — $43 million in uncollected fines sitting there because TransLink didn't have the authority or mechanism to deal with the collection.

That's money that could have been used now — it's more than enough — to put all of those projects that have been put on hold today back on track. I'm talking about expansion into south of Fraser, talking about improvement to the current SkyTrain station and about adding 417,000 new service hours for buses. Now that is curtailed down to 117,000, when we need 417,000. Actually, that 417,000 comes close to the need that is there for south of Fraser and in other parts of the Lower Mainland. Those are all put on hold.

Also put on hold — they're still talking about fare collection and the evasion of fares — are the turnstiles that were promised as part of the solution to this, at $170 million dollars — $170 million to put the fare gates and turnstiles in. But two of the busiest stations — Main Street and Metrotown — will not have the turnstiles installed at the same time when others are being installed. The explanation from this government is that those two stations need upgrading, and that upgrade is linked to that $30 million shortage that I talked about earlier to improve the services all around the Lower Mainland.

That explanation does not make sense to me, and it does not make sense to many other people out there. First, why leave two of the busiest stations out, when we are talking about curtailing fare evasion? Secondly, the reason given for not installing those turnstiles — of upgrading those two before the turnstiles go in…. There are two other stations — in New Westminster and Surrey Central — that are also getting upgrades and turnstiles at the same time. So explain that. How do you explain that? There is no explanation to that. I think the only explanation I could come up with is mismanagement, misdirection.

[1510]

I thought this minister had an opportunity through Bill 51 to lay and set the direction straight here and, number one, deal with the governance in a real way, in a real sense — a governance model that the mayors can live with, the stakeholders can live with, the local communities can live with. That was needed, and the minister failed on that.

Fare evasion. Giving TransLink authority to collect those fines and enforce those tickets is a good thing. It's a good thing. It's long overdue — $43 million behind. After $43 million, finally the minister one day felt….

This minister — you know, I give him a lot of credit. He took notice and said, "I'm going to deal with it," and he's dealing with it through this bill. So I say good work, to the minister. Where two previous ministers failed, this minister actually acted. He talked less, but he acted on this issue.

The previous two ministers talked a lot for political expediency and tried to take political mileage out of that but failed to act. That is not how you want to do politics in this province, and that's what happened with the previous two ministers.

The fare evasion issue, I think, is the right thing to do, under this bill, where TransLink will have an opportunity to, through ICBC…. Again, I will be interested in asking all those questions at third reading — how that system will work, how much it will cost to collect those fines, and how much, actually, TransLink will net out from the total money that is left out there uncollected. And what does that mean to the bus riders and the transit riders? I think all of those questions will be there.

The minister talked in this bill about giving tools to ICBC, where they will not be able to renew their driver's licence or registration. I think an issue also arises out of that.

ICBC is asked to do a lot of collection for many of the government agencies. I think that, maybe, is the only way
[ Page 11888 ]
to collect some of those fines, but there are some issues by some members who get affected by ICBC and collection of ICBC and using ICBC's resources to be the enforcement agency for this government without getting any extra resources. I think there are some issues from that side, so I will be asking some questions from the minister about that as well.

I think the other issue would be: how do you collect from those who do not have driver's licences, do not own cars? Although in here it does talk about the Minister of Environment wanting to speed it up, I think he failed to understand that this issue is a very, very serious issue, and the government should start to take serious issues more seriously.

I think how the fare collection and government registering in courts to collect fines from those — how that will work and how the people will be affected by it will be another issue that we will talk about.

The other part, I think, in order to make our public transit work best for everyone, is to make sure the people who deliver those services are protected. People who drive those buses, people who provide a service on SkyTrain stations — how are they and their safety protected?

Many times I'm approached by members of the public that perhaps a driver should be asked to do more when it comes to collecting fares. There is a study out there that 70 percent of the assaults that the drivers face and are subject to are caused by fare evasion or a refusal to pay fares by those people who don't want to pay fares.

[1515]

I think we are putting our drivers at such a risk. Their health and safety are actually compromised when we don't have enforcement such as TransLink police going on buses to do random checks. Thanks to the president of the bus drivers' local, brother Don McLeod — who along with his colleagues went and met with the head of the transit police, about a month ago, I'm told — the police have taken notice. The police have escalated the presence on the buses, I'm told — but not nearly enough, according to the representative of the drivers, brother McLeod.

I think that's another area that we need to work through. I will be asking some of those questions, as far as fare collection, fare evasion and what kind of mechanisms are existing through this bill, in addition to what already may or may not be there, to make sure that every person who uses our service pays for that service.

There are some questions. This is what Don McLeod, the president of the local, told me. He said: "Our drivers are faced with many occasions. For example, there is a last bus, the last bus at nighttime. There are folks who want to get home, and they may not have sufficient change, sufficient fare." The drivers are put in such a situation. Do they leave them behind? That may compromise their health and safety. Or do they take them without the fares being collected? Those are the kinds of answers that we need to provide to the drivers.

This government has failed to provide for our drivers and protect our drivers when it comes to assaults by the public when they are using buses or TransLink. That issue is also not addressed here. I would say that our drivers deserve better — much better from this government than what they are receiving from this government.

I would be asking some more questions on that to make sure that the drivers are protected and, at the same time, that the people who use our services pay the fare, an appropriate fare, and that the health and safety of drivers and our passengers are protected as well.

We talked about fare gates earlier. I think that a lot more effective way of enforcing our fares and making sure that the fares are paid — and also for the safety and well-being of our passengers — would be having uniformed TransLink employees present at all stations at all times. We raised this issue earlier, when there were some passengers that were assaulted. Minister after minister has said, "No. There's no need for it," which is unfortunate.

You know, women at nighttime, many of the seniors who use our public transit — many of them don't feel safe at certain times and in certain places in the Lower Mainland. I think that's another question that I will be asking at the next stage of the bill debate.

The other part is the performance audit that the minister has tried to address in this bill — that once every three years, the Mayors Council can ask for one performance audit and that the minister will then comply. I again have a lot of questions on that. What does that mean? We have three audits now, so far, that this TransLink board has gone through, and what has this government learned?

The most recent one was by the comptroller general of this province. That report came down with a number of recommendations — a number of recommendations when it comes to the governance part, when it comes to talking about auditing and the efficiency in our TransLink.

[1520]

Here are some of the recommendations that are listed in an October 2009 report by the office of the comptroller general. Again, it was through the auspices of the Ministry of Finance.

I talked about the governance. This is what this report said. "A Framework for Transportation Governance, Comments and recommendations." This is what they had to say: "Through our review of B.C. Ferries and TransLink governance models, we identified key components of a framework that could guide future applications of independent, regulated, publicly created authorities so that they are effectively structured to fulfil the following four principles."

The four principles listed here are: "(1) protect ratepayers' interest with minimal administration costs, including hard caps on compensation levels for senior executives
[ Page 11889 ]
and board members; (2) protect clearly mandated customer service levels; (3) minimize costs and maximize benefits to B.C. taxpayers of provincially funded grants; (4) improve transparency and public accountability for decisions and performance levels."

It went on to say: "We suggest the province consider this framework in establishing governance structures for other applications and if modifying the B.C. Ferries and TransLink models in the future."

Here was an opportunity for the minister to look at these suggestions and recommendations that came through that report — what kind of governance model there could be. I don't know if the minister paid much attention to that report. It doesn't seem that way. When you look at what is being proposed under Bill 51 — adding just two members of the Mayors Council, the chair and the vice-chair — and ignoring all the other recommendations that came through the previous report that was commissioned by the previous Minister of Transportation, what does that tell you?

The mayors are saying: "We will actually investigate how to make the TransLink governance structure better." The minister didn't wait for them to come back with the recommendations. Then we already have — the minister has it on his desk — this report that was conducted by the Minister of Transportation, through the comptroller general's office. There are recommendations here. None of that has been actually looked at or parts of it even taken into consideration.

Again, it went on to say: "An essential element of the governance framework is a body to oversee and hold accountable the operating company's board of directors. This body is given a mandate to fulfil responsibilities that parallel those of corporate shareholders. In the case of B.C. Ferries and TransLink, the shareholder/overseer should be the authority and Mayors Council, respectively."

There are all kinds of recommendations that came through this report. It seems to be a pretty extensive report. It is almost half an inch thick and many recommendations. Again, it seems to me that this government ignored those recommendations.

There's another recommendation that came through that report, which seems to be ignored, again, under Bill 51. It talks about: "We recommend the province consider establishing a single regulating entity for the transportation sector, including B.C. Ferries, TransLink and other entities considered appropriate."

I think there is a lot to take from this report. I'm not suggesting that everything could have been included in Bill 51, but it seems to me that when you ask the comptroller general of the province to conduct a review of governance, conduct a review of efficiency, and then you ignore it — substantially, when it comes to governance structure — I think it sends a wrong message.

These studies, these reviews — and there is another one being conducted by the minister now, the efficiency review — are seen to be…. I'm sure, people see that they are cynical about these reports and reviews — that they are only for political expediency…. And I don't blame them.

[1525]

Why go through these reviews, go through these studies, have our hard-working staff conduct these studies and do thousands of interviews and then ignore those recommendations? At least we should learn from them, and if not entirely…. Look at, you know, what component of that can be taken to deal with the governance structure that the mayors have been asking about, opposition has been asking about. It's not there in Bill 51.

The minister is taking notes, I know. I hope the minister, when we come back to the next stage of debate — third reading — will come back with an amendment to the bill saying that we are deleting the component of the governance, because it doesn't go far enough. According to the chair of the Mayors Council, it's a step sideways. I'm paraphrasing those words — not an exact quote.

I think I could feel the sentiment that is coming from these mayors. They work day-in and day-out trying to represent their communities based on the needs of their communities and what kinds of communities they want to develop into, because we have a growing community. Unlike London and New York, we are a growing community still, relatively speaking, and we have an opportunity to do it right — do it right now for our coming generations and the generations that are going to come after them.

For example, south of the Fraser we are still a growing community. It's the fastest-growing community. If we don't make the right decisions today, what kind of community will this look like 20, 30 or 50 years down the road? Where are industries going to be? Where will the jobs be located? Where are the residential areas going to be, and how are we going to serve them through our public transit so that we don't clog up our roads through more cars and having to build more roads and more bridges, being a leader in dealing with greenhouse gases and leaving the least amount of carbon footprints? We have an opportunity now to do it right.

All the mayors are saying, asking this government, is to work with them, to give them an opportunity — give them an opportunity to work with the government so that their decisions on land use can actually go hand in hand and coincide with the decisions that are being made on public transit.

If we fail to do it now, generations to follow us will look back and reflect on all of us here in this House: what the heck were we doing? What were we doing when we made those decisions? Why didn't we deal with our public transit at a time when we had an opportunity, when the community was still developing?

That's what the mayors are asking. That's what the public is asking. That's what the public wants us to do. Again,
[ Page 11890 ]
I think arrogance has set in so deep with this government that they ignore any recommendation, any review of their own, to deal with some of those issues.

Again, I want to quote from this report of the comptroller general from 2009, under "Planning." This is what the report says: "The current planning structure for TransLink is challenged as a result of ineffective communication between TransLink, the Mayors Council, the TransLink board of directors and the province and the short time frames allotted to conduct planning and satisfy the complex statutory funding requirements."

Here again, the report identified what the serious and real issues are out there, and the minister completely ignored this report, it seems to me — completely ignored this report. It seems to me there's one person over there who may have more to do with ego than dealing with what the real issues are: "I made those decisions back in 2008. I am the Minister of Finance today, and I am going to tell you what is the right thing for you to do."

[1530]

I think that is the wrong approach. I think we are all grown-up men and women in here. We all are going to make mistakes. If mistakes were made, acknowledge them and then commit to work to eliminate some of the after-effects of those mistakes that were made.

That's exactly what should have happened. It hasn't happened. I think that is a real shame in not having to deal with the issues that we need to deal with. The minister had an opportunity when he brought this bill in. He could have dealt with it, but he failed to deal with it.

I think the performance audit, again…. I would say yes, from time to time you need to do an efficiency review. There's no question, because as large an organization as TransLink is, there is such a wide area of their job and their responsibility to cover. I think there could be complacency setting in, whatever the reason may be, where we could always go back and say: "Look, I think the way you're delivering these services, the way you're making these decisions, the way the taxpayer dollars are spent — there may be a better way. Let's do a review."

The purpose of the review would be to act on some of those recommendations that come through it. So far what I've seen from this government is that they go through the exercises but fail to act on any recommendations that come before they make decisions.

I will talk about how, when you ignore your own recommendations from your own people, it could affect the long-term future services that may get affected by it. Madam Speaker, here is one example that I'm going to give you. When the previous board was in place, before the current Finance Minister decided to fire them all, the total cost for the entire year of 2007, for all those board of directors, was $126,000 — for the entire year $126,000. That's where the cost was.

Here we're talking about finding efficiencies through yet another report that the minister has commissioned. From there, in 2008 when the new board came into effect, the total went up to $488,000 — more than four times. It didn't just stay there.

From 2008 — $488,000 — to 2009 it went to $545,496. Then you go to 2010, and it's getting better. In 2010 the entire cost of running that nine-member board went up to $624,586. Where do you find efficiencies with that kind of runaway remuneration for the directors that were appointed by the minister at that time?

He said: "I'm going to make this board more efficient." So this is their way of finding efficiency — the board that cost them $126,000 in 2007 and in 2010 cost us $624,000. That's 2010 numbers. We still don't know what the 2011 numbers are and what the 2012 numbers are. If you look at the way they're escalating these last three years, it won't be good news. Believe me, it won't be good news for the taxpayers.

[1535]

I'm going to use one more example here. The chair of the board in 2007 was paid $43,000 for the year. It happened to be the mayor, hon. Speaker, of where you come from. At that time he was the mayor, and he was the chair of the board. He was paid $43,000.

The following year when the Minister of Transportation said he was going to find efficiencies and make the TransLink board more effective and more reflective, this is what the new chair was paid in 2008 — $75,000, almost double from the previous year.

I don't think your current mayor would be happy to see how the remuneration…. The work they did was no less than the work that the new board is doing. They did the same amount of work. The member from Port Moody will tell you the time it requires to be on those boards and make those tough decisions along with your own decisions that you need to make to run your municipality.

So that's 2008 — $75,000. For 2009, would anyone like to guess? You know, is it by the rate of inflation maybe? Maybe double the inflation rate? Maybe 10 percent? No, from $75,000 it went to $100,000.

That is 2009. For 2010, I think your mayor will not be very happy to hear this number. The chair of the board in 2010 was paid $125,000. So in three years from $75,000 to $125,000 whereas, according to the previous Minister of Transportation, the ineffective, inefficient board was paid only $43,000.

If the previous Minister of Transportation was running his finances that way, no wonder we're in big trouble right now as a province. We're in deep trouble. No wonder that to fix up their problems, to cover up those problems, they had to come up with bills like HST where they would gouge the small businesses, the taxpayers, $1.9 billion — $1.9 billion through that one bill — the tax shift from big corporations onto the working people, the small businesses, the consumers.

No wonder the previous Minister of Transportation was so ineffective in making those decisions, and no won-
[ Page 11891 ]
der we are in such trouble with TransLink services today when it comes to delivery of services. No wonder we have to put all those expansions that were promised in the Moving Forward plan for TransLink…. Madam Speaker, $30 million is short. As a result, all the services….

The member for Surrey-Panorama will know the kinds of services that we need. I'm sure the members of her constituency, which is next to mine…. They come to our offices all the time. They tell us about the lack of services of public transit, the bus service that is not there.

The Surrey mayor and our council have been saying that we could use 500 buses based on the population that we have today, and never mind the population growth we are seeing in the coming years. We are talking about 12,000 new residents moving into Surrey alone. Then we talk about Langley, and we talk about North Delta. The services that are required are not there as far as public transit is concerned.

This bill — and I give credit to this minister — tries to deal with some of the issues such as fare evasion and giving authority to TransLink to collect fines that are sitting there uncollected. I think it's a step in the right direction, long overdue. I think it's $40 million later. Nonetheless, it's there. Finally, we will deal with that issue and see how that works.

[1540]

The issue that also is in Bill 51 is to add one more representative from area A, which is the university endowment area. I think that it also makes some sense, because there are needs of that region that this member finally could take to the Mayors Council. But again, the Mayors Council, the way the whole structure is, the governance structure that I talked about earlier — feel that it is totally ineffective.

They will be there. They will not be able to deal with the issues that…. Area council A, which will be representing the university endowment area, will not have a real effective way of dealing with those issues because they're not at the decision-making table.

I think that, again, it's the right thing to do — to have some voice on the Mayors Council from that area, and it's a step in the right direction.

Also, moving the submission of the base plan from August to November is, I think, a step in the right direction. Again, more time means better consultation, and better consultation has to be there.

You can't simply say that I'm giving you more time if you are going to use that time to try to undermine the mayors and the Mayors Council and try to convince them of how wrong they are rather than trying to consult them in a real and effective way. That should be the real intent behind this. If it is — and I say to the minister that I'm sure he's genuine in this — it will be a step in the right direction, again.

In conclusion, I just want to say that there are things in this bill that make some sense — actually, make a lot of sense — when it comes to the fare evasion and collecting the fines that are sitting there uncollected. I think it's a step in the right direction. When we are talking about the performance audit, again, I think it's a step in the right direction. Once every three years, I think, makes sense. But again, what do you do with that audit? What do you do with the review that comes out?

I hope that the minister won't be around at that time as a minister when that next review comes back, but I think that it'll give the government of the day real issues to look at and deal with to see where the efficiencies are found. But the minister may be sitting here as a backbencher on this side of the House at that time. I think it'll be a good thing, though. We could go out there and consult with them about some of the failures of their government and how we can actually avoid those mistakes ourselves.

So again, the performance audit is the right thing. But with the governance changes that are being proposed here, I have a serious issue. I have a serious issue with this. It's not only that it doesn't go far enough. It does not even reflect, it doesn't even come close to, what is needed to have a more accountable, more transparent, more cost-effective TransLink board and a TransLink as an organization.

It doesn't even come close to dealing with that issue. It is, I think, a reaction to questions being raised by the mayors and many stakeholders, but again, the minister missed an opportunity. It was a golden opportunity. Here was an opportunity to do it right, but the minister failed to do that. The reasons? I just can't imagine what those reasons might be.

[1545]

I have a lot more to say, and I have so much material to go through. But it is something that we will be dealing with during the next stage of our debate, so I think that I will take my place at this time. There are a number of speakers who are very, very passionate about TransLink services in their communities. I would now allow them to have their say.

Thank you very much, hon. Speaker, for the opportunity.

Deputy Speaker: Hon. Members, latitude is enjoyed, but I would ask individual members to bring their comments to the contents of the bill, Bill 51.

I might also ask that members who wish to interject into the debate do so only from their seats.

S. Simpson: I have just a few comments in relation to Bill 51, the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act. This piece of legislation essentially deals with three matters. It's a bit of a band-aid. It's a bit of a correction. It's dealing with some errors that have been made previously, and we'll talk about that a little bit, but it deals with three significant areas.

The first is the question of governance and some minor
[ Page 11892 ]
and modest modifications to the governance structure of the board. It does deal with issues around putting in place a remedy to deal with the collection of fines for lack of fare payment, and it deals with the question of performance audits. There are a couple of other minor things, but largely, those are the three pieces that the bill embraces.

Whenever legislation comes forward and a bill is presented to the House, one of the first things you ask yourself is: well, what's the purpose for this? What's the reason for doing this? Why has the government chosen to bring this piece of legislation at this time? And what's it to address?

In the case of Bill 51, I think that that's fairly clear, and we know where that was going. If you want to kind of know what the roots of this bill are, you go back and you look back to, certainly, some of the past issues. We know that in the past, back earlier in the term of this government, issues around things like the lack of fare payment and those issues have been issues that have troubled TransLink and the government for a period of time. So we go back to deal with that.

This notion of performance audits. Well, I think that probably intertwines pretty well with what have been the funding challenges that we've seen faced by TransLink over an extended number of years.

The governance issue. That also goes back to 2007 and the decisions of the minister's predecessor to essentially blow up TransLink as it was known at the time and restructure the organization, including a significant restructuring of the board where an appointed board was put in place by the minister. The mayors and councillors — those people who were local elected officials, who had prior to that comprised the board of TransLink in large part — were, in fact, set aside, and a Mayors Council was created that had some limited powers and limited authority to support the work of the board that was put in place, the private board.

At that time the argument of the minister of the day was that this would be a more professional board, that it would be a more efficient board and that it would lead to better operational decisions or better operational outcomes by TransLink as it moved forward. The challenge with that, of course, is that we can all argue whether, in fact, we've realized that.

What we've seen, in fact, have been increased challenges since those structures changed. I think that we see those increased challenges for a number of reasons.

One, and it's a fair comment, is that, you know, transportation and transit are extremely expensive. They're challenging to do. They cost a lot of money.

Local government, who are looked at to pay a significant portion of that, don't have a whole lot of revenue streams at hand. Pretty much the only revenue stream of significance that they have is property taxes. Sadly, what we know, of course, is that property taxes tend to pay for almost everything that local governments have to pay for. So they're stretched pretty thin in terms of the property tax envelope as it is. So that has created this challenge.

[1550]

Now, there's always been the range of conversations about the other tools that might be available for funding for TransLink, for funding for transportation and transit options. The challenge has always been, of course, that in too many times and in too many cases, when the mayors and the councils and the TransLink of old had looked at decisions around where to get that money from, the decisions were overruled by the provincial government in terms of allowing TransLink to, in fact, be able to take advantage of those options or those choices.

We now have the situation that has come about in the last period of time where you've had the mayors pushing back in terms of where the dollars would come from — the additional $30 million that has been spoken about in terms of dollars that are required for priority funding. There's been push-back over that.

We've also seen, of course, the work of the regional transportation commissioner, Mr. Crilly, who had rejected fare increases and had called on another further efficiency review to try to find those resources within the TransLink that we have today.

So we have this situation where the previous minister was telling us that he was going to create a more efficient, effective system. What we've seen, as a result, is a system that really hasn't demonstrated much in the way of efficiency or effectiveness in terms of what it's accomplished there.

We now have Bill 51, and I see Bill 51 as the minister's efforts — I think a sincere effort — to try to deal with these problems that are facing TransLink at this given time. The problem, I think, with the bill is that on what may be, in the long term, the key issue here, which is the governance issue, the minister has chosen to put a band-aid on this rather than try to strive for a substantial solution.

The band-aid that the minister has put on this is to add the chair and the vice-chair of the Mayors Council to the board of TransLink. So you have a board that is made up of private individuals appointed by the minister, by the government, and we now are going to add the two elected officials, two mayors, to that group in the hopes, I assume, that they will reflect the position of our elected leadership at the local level, who make up the Mayors Council.

Now, in some areas, they might accomplish that. But one of the real challenges around transportation, around TransLink, around transit, is how integrated it is into land use planning.

When we look at local government land use planning — and governments are making decisions about housing decisions, about land use decisions, about decisions about where they want to create business opportunities and commercial development and to put those pieces together where they want to enhance neighbourhood
[ Page 11893 ]
development, those kind of things — transit plays an integral role in those decisions.

People who look at local area planning, at community planning, will certainly tell you that if you're not talking about land use and housing and transit in the same conversation when you talk about planning, then you're missing the boat on planning. You need to connect those three pieces in a pretty integral way to make things work.

That really was the benefit of having elected officials be, largely, the decision-makers. I think that the province has to be at that table, but to have local elected officials — mayors, councillors — be essentially the primary decision-makers in that discussion is because they always, bring to the table a consideration of those land use issues and how they move forward.

[1555]

If we as a legislature — and we, ultimately, as the province — want to encourage more sustainable development, if we want to encourage more efficient communities, if we want to encourage less vehicle use, if we want to encourage enhanced transit use, if we want to look at ways to develop affordable housing in our urban areas, in our suburban areas, all of that will connect to the discussion around transit. Ultimately, in the Lower Mainland it will connect to TransLink.

Those decisions are going to need to be partnership decisions that are made with local councils. And those local councils, in order to do that, it's my view, need to have a more significant say and a more significant role in the decision-making of TransLink and the discussion at TransLink than they have under the current structure.

So the question becomes whether, in what the minister has chosen to do here — by putting the chair and the vice-chair, two mayors, on the board of TransLink — he has met the test to be able to get enough input from the locally elected leadership onto that board to make this decision-making work in a way that's responsive to our desires, or what I hope would be our desires, for more effective land-use planning that starts to meet our objectives around compact, complete communities and our objectives around how we develop our communities.

It's a point of debate. There's no doubt about that. I would argue that it doesn't get us there, that there's a need for a more significant role to be played by the mayors, by local councils, probably through the mayors, in the bigger decisions there. Also, under the previous board of TransLink….

Something that governments didn't avail themselves of, not in the way that they should have, was the ability to have MLAs playing a role representing the provincial interest in the discussion around TransLink. That was an opportunity that wasn't necessarily taken advantage of, to make sure that the province, who pays a lot of the bills when it comes to TransLink and to transportation and transit, has a voice there as well. We didn't see that opportunity really being availed very much by the province when it had the opportunity to have those MLAs sitting at that table.

The concern I have here is that we have a governance structure that hasn't been successful. I don't necessarily blame the nine people — the people who are sitting on the board and who have sat on the board previously. I think they got put in a difficult situation. I think they were created…. It was almost a board that was somewhat, because of the secrecy of the board….

It was a pretty private board. It held very limited public input in terms of public meetings, unlike the TransLink board, the previous board, that was more public in its nature because it was elected officials, who tend to be more public in their nature as to how they hold their meetings. It's a more secretive approach. I think that board was put in a difficult place. I think that the board has not been as successful as we'd want.

I think that's reflected in the fact that we today have this crisis at TransLink. We have the situation where in April of this year the CEO basically put all future expansion projects on hold — with the exception of Evergreen, which will go ahead — until these financing issues are resolved.

We all know these financing issues come and go on a pretty regular basis. We think we've found a resolution, and then all of a sudden somebody changes their mind about whether that particular vehicle for financing will be allowed. Then we're back at the starting gate again as to whether we'll be allowed to use those tools. Local governments clearly have their challenges with it.

That's created a situation where I think that we have a very difficult time in looking at how we move forward. And it really doesn't matter. I mean, we know that there's a desperate, desperate need for a significant expansion of transit opportunities south of the Fraser, the highest growth areas. We know that that has to occur.

We know the pressures that we feel in Vancouver to build out Broadway line heading out to UBC. We know that there is no shortage of demands for additional bus service or better, more enhanced SkyTrain service or longer hours of service.

[1600]

Of course, we're going to see here soon, relatively soon, the Evergreen line in place. Once it's in place and operating, it will have increased demands on it as well. It probably won't take very long before people will be talking about enhanced hours there and other things on Evergreen, and that will be inevitable.

The problem we have is that we have created a situation where there doesn't seem to be a capacity to get at these decisions. I do believe that the structure that was put in place in 2007…. I think it had a lot to do with the significant differences of opinion between the minister of the day and the mayors over the priority of the Canada Line and how that would move forward.

Those differences were what they were, and the Canada
[ Page 11894 ]
Line is there, and it's doing fine. The result of that was a structure that here we are, five years later or so, that the minister is trying to correct by making adjustments through Bill 51. I'm not convinced that the adjustments necessarily go far enough. We have that situation.

We know that the mayors, in their discussion on this, have asked for the minister and the government to do a number of things. First of all, they have said quite clearly that they don't believe that property tax should be the funding source, or certainly not the primary funding source, for their share of funding of future projects. They have said the governance changes proposed by the minister don't go far enough, and I think that's fair comment.

They've asked for the Auditor General to really take a look at that question of the governance model and — considering the objectives, considering the legitimate interest to the governance model, considering the legitimate interest to TransLink — whether in fact there's another model that might look more appropriate. I'm sure they are hopeful, and I think, quite rightly so, that any model that was put in place would be a model where the mayors and local councils and local governments would play a more significant and substantive role in that question.

They have argued, in light of the recent efficiency reviews on TransLink, whether another audit is necessarily required but have said — again, going back and pointing to the provincial Auditor General — that they believe that the Auditor General would be the appropriate authority, the appropriate place to have any review done as, clearly, one of the leading independent voices on those things in the province and the body that we look to as a legislature to give us guidance on most audit questions.

Then they have called, of course, for the latest expansion plans to be set aside until alternative funding sources for the $30 million that's in play can be determined.

[D. Black in the chair.]

Those are pretty significant demands by the mayors. I think they are serious ones. They're ones that are precipitated by what has gone on not just in the last short while but over the last number of years, primarily since the changes came about in 2007.

I think that where the minister has gone…. I understand that the minister has made the effort to get at this largely through the governance model and the call for performance audits every three years. When we get to committee stage, maybe we'll get an opportunity to have more conversation about this. The minister might say I'm putting on a band-aid here because it's necessary, but I'm also going to open the door, and I'm happy to open the door, to having a harder look at this for down the road, when maybe we're going to make more substantive and what may be more effective changes on some of these questions. We'll have to look at that and see how that all plays out.

[1605]

One of the other things, and I think that everybody would be in agreement with this, is that there are steps included here to finally…. I'm sure we would all shake our head over this, but we are finally looking to be in a place where those fines that are put in place by TransLink for people for nonpayment of fares…. There would be a fine system in place that is enforceable, that will allow TransLink to actually collect the fines they are owed.

I think that what the minister has proposed here hopefully takes us there and will get us there. It's certainly worth pursuing. The structure that the minister has put in place in order for us to be able to collect those fines and have that revenue go to TransLink to help offset some of their costs and maybe begin to rebalance a little bit the operating challenges of TransLink is a good thing.

That fine structure, the structure that has been put in place here…. The ability, possibly, to use ICBC as a tool in some ways to help with collection and the ability to use some judicial tools to get at collection all make some sense. Hopefully, that will sort itself out, and we'll see some of the money — most of the money — that is rightly owed through fines for non-payment come back and come into the TransLink coffers.

Then the third piece here, and I had referenced this a little bit before, is the notion of performance audits every three years. That may be a good idea. I don't have any qualm with that.

I think we would all agree that organizations that are as complex as TransLink, organizations that expend the amount of public dollars that TransLink does, organizations like TransLink which always require some degree of subsidy in order to do their business…. It's the nature of transportation systems, I think. If you want to provide them in a broad and effective way, there's going to be some degree of subsidy always there. It's important that you continue to make sure that they're being run as efficiently as possible. We need to be able to look at all of those matters.

I think the question that will come about will be to ensure that those performance audits…. The questions will be confidence in where the performance audits land and who they're done by, confidence in the criteria and the breadth of the audits, the ability to ensure that they're done in a transparent way. All of those will be important things, and I'm hopeful and confident that we'll be able to proceed with those and to meet those objectives there. So as we look at those things, I think that's important.

Now, Bill 51, as I said, will look to touch on a number of issues within the mandate of TransLink, and some of them, I think, it puts some band-aids on. A couple of others that you would hope…. For example, with the things like the fines and that, maybe it has found a solution to that, whereas I think on the governance it has placed a band-aid on the issue.
[ Page 11895 ]

Other things that it didn't deal with that would have been helpful…. I think that there are safety questions related to TransLink that may have been able to have been addressed in this bill. If they're not being addressed, and they aren't being addressed here, hopefully, the minister will be able to talk to us at some point as to what his thinking is about how we move forward and deal with some of those safety issues — both in terms of some issues around riders, but we've seen it particularly in terms of operators.

I know we've had a few instances with operators when they've been assaulted. This is totally unacceptable to the minister, and I know the minister would want to take action to ensure that our operators can do their job in a safe way.

I have no doubt that that would be the minister's objective as well, and we just need to look at how that occurs. Hopefully, the minister may be able to speak to that in some fashion, because Bill 51 doesn't deal with that. That doesn't mean it may not be an agenda item, but it's not an item for Bill 51. That would have been a good thing to have had there.

This may come back to the governance question, and maybe it comes, actually, to the performance audit question too, in many ways, which is how service planning and service priorities are set. We'll know that that's always a debate. It's certainly been a debate in relation to SkyTrain, and it was probably one of the underlying debates around the Canada Line as to whether it should have been the priority over the Evergreen line, for example, and whether those choices were made. But they were made, and they are what they are, and we now have the Canada Line. Hopefully, soon we'll have the Evergreen line.

As to how those priorities are set and the processes we go through, that would be an important discussion to have, and Bill 51 doesn't deal with those matters — not directly, anyways. We may be able to get at some of that through the performance audit questions. We may get at that a little bit through the governance questions, but we're not seeing it today.

[1610]

As we move forward on the bill, we're going to see, hopefully, a little bit more insight when we get to committee stage — if we get to committee stage on this bill. With a raft of legislation in front of us and the timeline, we'll see if the third House gets us there. At this point it will be a challenge to get through committee stage of all of the legislation, including Bill 51. We'll see how that all goes.

I think that generally, most people who would look at this bill would say: "Yeah, it does a few things. It puts some band-aids on things. It is not a solution, but it's a step or two in the right direction." There's still some uncertainty about it, and we'll need to address that and see whether, in fact, it is getting us far enough in terms of the objectives of the bill. We'll learn that in time.

With that, I will take my place. I'm sure I have colleagues who want to speak to this bill.

M. Karagianis: I'm happy to take my place and talk about Bill 51, the bill that we have before us. It's very interesting, when I look back over the last number of years since 2007, when, in a pique of vexation, the current Minister of Finance, who was then the Transportation Minister, really did a kind of big overhaul of TransLink. It seems that we have been in some kind of habitual and cyclical debate in some form or other in this House ever since that point.

I know that each step of the way, as TransLink's governance was remodeled by the current government, the mayors were moved away from having authority and responsibility for TransLink. The government put a sort of handpicked group of individuals in there to set the course for this new model that they envisioned. We've had an endless series of debates here on whether or not that new model was going to be successful.

Here we are in 2012, and no, that model has not been successful at all. We are now in the throes, with Bill 51, of trying again to patchwork and, as I think my colleague the previous speaker said, put some band-aids on TransLink to try and resolve all of the numerous issues that come with it. I think it does go back to the genesis in 2007, though, of this governance model that was put in place by the current B.C. Liberal government, with very specific individuals who were to carry out a course of action for TransLink that has not been successful at all.

You only have to look at all of the financial crises that has gone on with the organization and the ongoing issues around governance and authority — the battles with the mayors around who would be responsible and how taxation would play into the issues of TransLink — to know that the government was not successful in launching the new model in 2007. I think that we're going to continue to see more of this patchwork approach to not just this bill but to many bills. I think that perhaps in this session alone we'll be able to stack up a list of bills that have gone in to try to sort out errors and omissions and problems with other pre-existing bills that the government put forward.

In looking at Bill 51, I am struck by the complexity of the problems and all of the various little bits and pieces here that this bill is trying to resolve for TransLink at a time when elsewhere in the province…. Most certainly in my region here on southern Vancouver Island the government has virtually starved us for some of the very key transportation infrastructure needs that we have had and been asking and petitioning the government for, for a long time.

It seems to me that in 2007, when the Liberal government undertook this whole transformation of TransLink, it was at the expense of everything else in the province.
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They've had to put some kinds of bits and pieces, piecemeal funding into some of the infrastructure, but certainly on the south Island we have been starved repeatedly.

[1615]

When I look at Bill 51 and its efforts to try to put back together the humpty dumpty that is TransLink, it's a bit frightening. One of the things we're asking for here on the south Island is some kind of transportation authority that would have the responsibility for making a concerted plan for interlinking all of our transportation needs — from transit to potential commuter rail to highway use, to HOV lanes — all the things that we need and desire here on the south Island.

Whenever we talk about that in any public way here, people immediately say: "For Pete's sake, don't make it like TransLink." It's unfortunate. As we try and now put together some solutions around the funding, around the ticketing, around the other governance issues here, it's a bit bittersweet that, again, we can't turn to the model and say: "Now there's a model that we would all aspire to. That's the poster child for how you'd want a transportation authority to operate." In fact, we've seen anything but.

It's interesting. A few years ago I submitted a private member's bill here called the TransLink openness and accountability act, which was, in fact, to open up the issues of TransLink. At the time we were very suspicious, and I as the critic was very suspicious, about what was going on in TransLink. The government was extremely secretive and would not allow any part of TransLink's financial circumstances to be made public. I can certainly see why, because here we find ourselves with huge financial problems and not, I don't think, enough remedies on how the government is going to move forward to resolve that.

In looking through the bill, there were a couple of very specific points that kind of struck me. One is around the membership on the authority. Section 6 provides that the chair and vice-chair of the Mayors Council are, except in specific circumstances, members of the board of the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority.

Interesting how the government shoved all the mayors away, got into a huge battle with all of the mayors in the Lower Mainland, overrode the local area planning that had been done, basically steamrolled over everything and said: "We're going to put this new authority in place. You're going to build the transportation infrastructure that we dictate, not that your local area plans have figured out over a series of years in a democratic way. We're going to shove all of that aside."

Now we're having to slowly try and return some sense of democratic connection to the communities into the transportation authority. I do see, however, that the directors, as in the past, are not underpaid, self-sacrificing individuals. I remember having debates in this House when the then Transportation Minister, who is now the Finance Minister, was so disdainful about the questions we had about remuneration for these individuals. We've seen that in fact the board of directors pay has skyrocketed in the ensuing years. They are paid more than $2,000 per meeting.

I can remember having questions in here where I thought that $1,500 a meeting was absolutely outrageous, and the government thought that was just an absolutely fine number to be paid to individuals who had meetings. But now that's up to $2,000 a meeting, and the retainer for the chair has gone from $75,000 to $125,000 in a couple of years. We can see right now where one of the geneses of some of their financial problems is. The government has allowed their own created governance model to put in place what most British Columbians would consider unacceptable skyrocketing pay raises.

I go on to look at bonuses — right? I know that this was a bone of contention. I think the Premier stepped in and said: "Oh, we're not going to do these bonuses anymore." But how many years was this in place, and how deeply has that impacted the bottom line of TransLink? Nine TransLink executives are currently in line for a potential bonus of about 15 percent of their base salaries, with the CEO in line for 20 percent of his base salary, up to about $60,000. For lots of British Columbians that is a year's income, not just a bonus. That's a year's income in this province. I know in my community that's a good income for many of the workers trying to support families.

[1620]

When you look at the financial issues facing TransLink, some of which are going to be addressed here in some fashion, the government itself has really been so permissive in allowing this situation to occur. It's been growing. It's been fomenting since 2007, since they first ripped apart the pre-existing board and created this new one.

I think it has been notorious for the last couple of years. I remember the Premier announcing a $14 billion expansion in concert with TransLink's plans. At the time when the $14 billion plan was announced, I know we asked questions about it. "Now, where is that money going to come from?" We were told: "Oh, don't be so negative. That money's going to be there. This is the greatest thing that could happen. TransLink is in great shape."

Certainly, right from day one we've asked the questions over and over again. How could this possibly be a sustainable funding structure within TransLink when there's no clear idea about how any of these things will be paid for? It's great for government to make great, sweeping announcements, but if they're not prepared to put any kind of funding structure in place that will pay for it, then it's folly, which is exactly what has occurred here.

As I read through Bill 51, much of the detail here is, I think, appropriate and interesting. Then you get to the point where it talks about the ongoing need for performance audits. If memory serves me right, this might be the fourth time they've audited TransLink. They created this body. They didn't give it enough money. There's been a
[ Page 11897 ]
continuing crisis and an outcry by communities, by mayors, around the lack of ability to pay for TransLink in its current form.

All kinds of promises here, there and everywhere of new lines and expansions. The Evergreen line was announced seven or eight times. Apparently, that's now going to be built, but it was announced over and over again. All of these outcries for funding, and continued audits. What does an audit show you? It says that we don't have enough money. The audits continue to say that we don't have enough money for all of the things that this government has promised. Pretty straightforward stuff, yet more audits, more reviews.

I do know that the government's kind of current, latest response and panacea for all things is: "When in doubt, let's review it. We've got a big problem there. We've mismanaged." "We've been inept in how we have conducted the governance on various files, whether it's this or Children and Families or whatever it is, so what will we do? Well, let's do a review." "We've underfunded the criminal justice system and the judiciary. Oh, let's do a review."

Well, you don't need audit after audit to tell you that the government has been inept in the way it has managed this. In September 2010 the livable cities memorandum of understanding between the province and the mayors on regional transit acknowledged this: "TransLink requires access to sufficient and stable long-term funding." Well, what a revelation. That was the problem in 2007, '08, '09, '10, '11 and — guess what — 2012. That is still the same problem. TransLink requires access to sufficient and stable long-term funding.

You don't need an audit to know that that is pretty straightforward, a pretty simple evaluation of TransLink's problems.

What do we find today, with this idea that we're going to go in and audit? We're going to audit the fact that TransLink is facing a $30 million funding shortfall. Well, that's pretty straightforward. I guess an audit will tell you whether it's $30 million and 41 cents or whether it's $29.999 million and 99 cents. The reality is that it's a huge funding shortfall.

At the mayors' request, TransLink said in 2012, under pressure, that TransLink's expansion plans are put on hold until their financial issue is resolved. Well, that's been the case all along, even when they were telling us what a great governance model they had built for TransLink.

[1625]

They weren't building the Evergreen line because — guess what — there was no money. They were promising it but not building it. Communities were asking for clarity on expansion, and there was no money. The fact that they're now officially saying it's on hold is, I guess, finally our first attempt at openness and accountability.

Service expansions. Further, they go on to say that the Evergreen line is going to be built because there's been a dedicated gas tax allotted to that. How long did that take? It was like pulling teeth to get to that point for communities.

Meanwhile here on the south Island, of course, we don't have any of those challenges, issues, because we don't have an authority. We can't get on with planning the kind of expansion that's needed here — commuter rail, more transit, HOV lanes, all of those things — because we don't even have the luxury of any kind of authority.

Interestingly, it goes on. The service expansions are on hold, except for Surrey — so King George B-line, the Highway 1 bus rapid transit, White Rock–Langley bus service. Of course, we are going to have to do something about fare evasions, so I guess the next lump of money they've got to find is going to be trying to find ways to put some turnstiles in effect.

I can remember the previous Minister of Transportation, who's now the Finance Minister, talking with great fanfare when he came back from Europe about how great the turnstiles were. Well, those turnstiles have been in place for a long time. They were built at the time that transit and subways were created in many places in Europe.

We've heard promises about that. The government's going to have to get on with doing something about it, because this issue of trying to collect fares is the biggest challenge. That's part of Bill 51, part of the patchwork — to now go in and kind of fix that little piece that they have failed to deal with adequately.

Let's talk a little bit about this issue of fare evasion and fine collections. I don't understand. It makes no sense to me whatsoever why we have been able to ticket and fine people who evaded fares but have had no way of collecting it.

This is a government that has purported itself to be a superlative business manager. They were going to bring a huge corporate business ethic to everything they did. We've heard that mantra from day one, when they were elected.

We certainly heard that in 2007, when the Minister of Finance, who was then the Transportation Minister, went in and eviscerated TransLink's governance structure. It was going to be all about putting a better business structure, a much more business-conscious culture in place in TransLink.

How in the world did you get to the point where you've realized that for years and years no one ever followed up on any of the fines, any of the ticketing, any of the attempts to stop evasion? It makes no sense to me that we are only now, in Bill 51, getting to the point where we're going to put in place some way to allow TransLink to collect the fines.

It just defies logic to me that the government would be so inept. If this had been, maybe, year 1 or 2 out from the new governance, you might have understood it — right? They were busy restructuring TransLink and hadn't got around to thinking about how they were going to collect
[ Page 11898 ]
fines. But this is years in the making. By TransLink's calculations, this could have been a big solution to some of their financial problems — that and perhaps not such an enriched remuneration situation for directors and bonuses for directors, and all of those things.

I don't think there's anybody who doesn't support the idea that you have to find a way to put fare collections in, and a system much like they have in Europe. I've been to Europe. It's a very simple system. A couple of years ago I took my daughter to Italy. It's very easy. You buy a pass. You stick it through a turnstile. It lets you through. Your ticket gets spit back out, if it's a week-long pass or a month-long or whatever — very simple.

It would seem to me that that would be a good business investment, if in fact TransLink is correct and all these years they've lost thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in fare evasions.

[1630]

I am very interested in…. I'd like to hear an explanation from the minister. Perhaps I've missed the logic around why they're extending the annual submission date for the base plan. I thought part of their whole business ethic was that the planning process would be fully reliable. It would be very accountable, transparent, open. People — certainly the mayors and the communities — would know what the planning is. So there does seem to have been some concerns around why this period had to be extended.

If the government had been more successful throughout this entire process in demonstrating that their approach to imposing some kind of business culture…. If they'd been successful in demonstrating that this was successful, I guess we wouldn't be here trying to patch together this kind of broken-down model that the government still continues to think that they can fix. I'm not entirely convinced of it. It seems to me that so many of the bills that we are debating here in this session are second thoughts, third thoughts, fourth thoughts, afterthoughts about how to make things work better for bills that the government promised were going to be the solution.

I am deeply concerned that the great amount of time and attention that is devoted to trying to manage and fix this mess of a TransLink system that the government has been responsible for in the Lower Mainland has really been a distraction away from their ability to look at fairness for other communities as well.

Again, I'll come back to the south Island here, where we are in need of transportation infrastructure investments just like other communities are. I would argue that we have got the wherewithal, the approval, the interest from all the communities on the south Island here to get on with doing and creating some better transportation solutions here.

We don't need audits. We don't need to spend a lot of time looking back at the mistakes that we made, as the government has been doing with TransLink. So we are being starved for that attention, because really, everything has been about trying to sort out what they've done in the Lower Mainland. Maybe if they'd got it right the first time, they wouldn't have to be doing so much of this backward revisiting of all of these issues and trying to rethink how you patch this thing together and make it work, because I'm not entirely convinced that it will.

The governance changes here I think are fundamental to this entire problem. If this has been almost six, seven years in the making here, I'm not sure that putting together a few amendments here in this — putting in place audits, putting in place, obviously, legislation to collect fares, which should have been done a long time ago…. Putting in place all of this, I'm not sure that it entirely resolves the whole issue.

I know that those who live in the Lower Mainland will have some things to say about this. Those who have been waiting for transportation solutions that have either been late coming or not coming at all will have something to say about this. I do sincerely feel, though, that all of this has been, really, at the cost of other communities — mine in particular — around our ability to move forward and get the attention and, unfortunately, the funding apparatus that we might need.

If the government has made such a mess of this that they've run TransLink so far into the wall here with such dramatic financial problems, I don't have a lot of faith that they are going to be able to come forward to us here on the lower Island and come up with a model that isn't going to be just equally as inept and poorly put together.

Now, I do know that the things my community needs are not going to be answered in any way by this piece of legislation. But I do think that there is an opportunity here for us to look back historically at the debate we've had here over the last number of years where the government has steadfastly refused to admit that much of what they've done is wrong.

This Bill 51 clearly puts in place some fixes — some quick fixes, some not-so-quick fixes — to a system that they built, that they destabilized and that continues to be a financial challenge, and it will be for those communities in the Lower Mainland for some time to come.

[1635]

I'm not even sure how you get on with doing business in any of these communities. You only have to look at how long it's taken the Evergreen line to get off the ground, how many times it was promised, how many times — I think, for numerous election purposes — it was marched out. We're finally going to build it, but I think it's because the government is desperate.

You know, they have done nothing but try and patch together the poor old TransLink structure from day one of their interference. I don't see a way forward here that is clean and clear. There has just been too much interference.
[ Page 11899 ]

All of these audits and things, all of these reviews. Government has to keep reviewing their own work — right? If they were brand-new in government, if this was all brand-new, just landed on their desk, you could see where they might have to do audits and do reviews to look into what might have happened. But they're reviewing and auditing their own work, their own mistakes, their own bumbling, their own mismanagement.

Bringing in convoluted bills does not solve that or change that in any way. You know, we've seen that with other bills — bills that have come in here with typos, bills that have been poorly thought out, bills that are now being challenged by independent authorities.

Let's assume that this is not going to be one of them. Let's assume that this in some way addresses some small aspects of the problems at TransLink. The issue around turnstiles and the fact that the government has now had to make some moves here but will not be putting turnstiles into the busiest of the TransLink…. I ride TransLink whenever I'm in the Lower Mainland, so I'm familiar with those particular stations.

Again, it's like: can this government not get it right at all? They're like the gang who can't shoot straight. I know that my colleague from Juan de Fuca has coined that phrase a few times. Really, you've got to say to yourself…. You know, they're in such a financial mess that they can't even put in place the very specific structural changes that would be needed to recapture a bunch of money to help them get out.

It's just a vicious kind of circle. I know that they…. Because of the poor management by this government, they have found themselves in a position where they have very few other choices here, and that's unfortunate.

I will be very interested to see what the next bill after Bill 51 is that comes in and tries to rectify some of the other issues here. It would seem to me that TransLink has really found itself in an untenable position. How will they make up all of these funds without going to the poor taxpayer yet one more time in an overt way, as they've done with many fees and charges, making it impossible or unaffordable for people to use transit?

That's sort of the antithesis of what we're trying to do in a modern age where we're trying to find ways to put more public transit in place and enable more people to get out of their cars and find greener, cleaner, more sustainable ways of getting around their communities. We're not very successful. As soon as you price even public transit out of a certain range, people will not use it anymore. As soon as you continue to add gas tax or property tax or all of these various fees one on top of the other, it becomes unsustainable.

For a government that prides itself on its business ethic, I don't see any long-term planning here. I have not seen any long-term planning that has been effective or delivered on that promise. In fact, I think we've seen very much the opposite.

It seems to me that each and every place we look now, at the kind of business structure that we were promised — whether it's the disaster that they've made out of B.C. Hydro, whether it's their purloining some of ICBC's funding rather than putting it back into users — they found ways to use it to cover up some of their deficits. All of those things — every place you turn, you do see that this government has not been successful in any way with putting what I would consider successful business models in place.

TransLink really is, I think, the orphan child that has been treated the most viciously by the restructuring that's gone on. I'm sure we're going to continue to see bills come through like Bill 51, which are ways for the government to try to make right that which is wrong. I'm not sure that that's going to be very successful either.

[1640]

We've seen so much legislation in this session right at the tail end. Again, it just shows how poorly thought out all of these things are that the government didn't bring forward legislation early on in the session when there was adequate time to peruse it and to have that debate and consultation.

Instead, everything is being rammed through right near the end of the session. That doesn't make for good legislation, and it certainly doesn't reflect well on the business ethic that the government was supposed to bring through. That's not the way business does its work.

I just think that Bill 51 is a patchwork. It's more band-aids on a bad situation. I guess there's no choice. Who's going to be able to oppose it. You can't say, "No, we can't put this band-aid on," because the organization will bleed to death without something to staunch the wound at this point.

I look forward to hearing from Lower Mainland MLAs, who have a much more direct pecuniary interest in this, as well as taxpayers in the Lower Mainland. It's starving decision-making here and the ability for an authority to be successful in this community in the south Island. I wait to see what other MLAs have to say.

S. Chandra Herbert: Well, Bill 51, known as the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act, also could be known as the "former Transportation Minister and now Finance Minister made a mistake act" — and didn't listen to government.

I remember when the government decided in a fit of fury to change how TransLink ran. They didn't get the decisions that they wanted out of TransLink so they decided to change it so they could get the decisions they wanted out of TransLink.

For this government, as we know, a history of trying to ram through decisions which the population, the public, the people of B.C. may not agree with, will then go around and find other ways to do what the people didn't agree with. We saw that, certainly most recently, with the
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introduction of a bill to get rid of the HST. They tried their best on that one, but the public won.

Anyways, on Bill 51, I think what we see here is a government trying to fix problems with TransLink governance, trying in a roundabout way to try and calm the mayors, calm the councillors and calm the people of the Lower Mainland who are upset at how this government has dealt with transit, how it's dealt with our road system, how it's dealt with how we get around in our region.

When you get to a situation where we can't find out how to get enough money to make the Evergreen line run, and it takes much toing and froing in the media, back and forth — the government saying it's not going to do it and then flip-flopping, and the Liberals then saying that they are going to do it — and then going back recently to an announcement that the Premier made to try to help her win the by-election in Port Moody — which sounded, again, like a flip-flop; oh, they weren't funding it when, in fact, they were — it all makes one scratch one's head and ask: "Who is really running this thing, and why are they running it so poorly?"

Well, part of the challenge here is that the mayors aren't running it and the regions aren't running it. It's a hand-picked board, hand-picked by the Liberals. I understand that this legislation is meant to help find ways to bring the Mayors Council and TransLink together so that they can maybe coordinate. Well, they should do a lot better than maybe coordinating. They should be working in tandem.

We know that land use planning in Metro Vancouver is set by mayors and councils, yet TransLink is over here providing direction for where transit should be built, not always in concert with those mayors and councils.

I think one of the examples of why this legislation doesn't go far enough and why this government, indeed, continues to face criticism over this is what has happened south of the Fraser. If you talk to mayors and councillors south of the Fraser, they are up in arms about what TransLink is doing around transit in their regions.

They were told by this government numerous times that if they build a park-and-ride in Langley, there'll be a bus going over the Port Mann to get there, to bring people into Vancouver. So yes, they could assure their regional taxpayers. They could assure their citizens that they would be getting something out of TransLink. They would be getting something out of their taxes.

Well, now what has the government gone and done? They've found ways to muck that up. They've found ways to rain on their own announcement parade. They've found ways to make Langley township consider breaking off and moving away from the regional governance and joining a south-of-Fraser caucus.

[1645]

We hear that concern in Surrey. We hear it throughout the whole south of Fraser. Again, when we're talking about regional planning, we're talking about Metro Vancouver, and you want people to be working together. You don't want people fighting in pitched battles, to be saying, "You're getting something I'm not," all because of how this government has mucked up TransLink.

We should be looking at regional MLAs. We should be looking at government MLAs south of the Fraser. Where have their voices been on the huge needs for transit south of the Fraser? Certainly, we haven't heard that in the media. We haven't heard that in this House in responding to this bill yet. Now, they may still get up and speak, and I certainly hope that members south of the Fraser will get up and speak and address the concerns that even I, as the MLA for Vancouver–West End, am hearing in my neck of the woods.

There are people who like to travel from Langley to come down to the West End. There are people from the West End who like to travel out to Langley. They would like the opportunity to do this by transit.

Bill 51 — its only response to this issue is to say: "Well, we'll put the chair of the Mayors Council and maybe the vice-chair on the TransLink board." What are the challenges in that? Well, they may be advocating for a position that TransLink itself is advocating against.

Could they come to the floor of the TransLink board and make their case under this framework? Well, maybe they could. Could they ever say anything about it? Well, TransLink board meetings are held in camera. They're not widely public. You can't see how people are figuring out who should get transit service, who shouldn't; who should get a road paved, who shouldn't. You don't get that understanding based on how this government has decided to structure TransLink.

Now, I get it that this government didn't like local democracy in presiding over TransLink. It can be messy. We know that people have loud voices, and they make their arguments very passionately in Metro Vancouver, just like we can make those arguments in this House. Yet here we are making our arguments in this House in public.

The government chose to have TransLink make its arguments in private. Now they hope that by bringing in the chair and the vice-chair of the Mayors Council in private into TransLink, maybe this will help to solve that problem. I guess in camera they can't debate out in public what they're hearing about in private. That could be an outcome of this, and I certainly hope that the minister will make clear if this is the case or if it's not the case, because it is a concern.

Let's just think about transit. I know that we talk a lot about transit and how we need it. If we're going to ever deal with climate change, if we're ever going to reduce our climate change impacts, we need to provide people opportunities to get out of their
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cars. Certainly, that's been a goal of many politicians: "Oh, get out of your cars. The carbon tax — that tells you it's a price signal to get out of your car, because it's going to cost you more in gas."

People south of the Fraser would like to get out of their cars. They would like to be able to take a new B-line down to King George. They would like to be able to take a new Langley–White Rock bus, a new highway bus over the Port Mann. They've spent money. They've spent their own tax dollars to help to make that possible, whether it's through taxes on gas or whether it's through property taxes in their own constituencies and their own communities to help pay for things like the park-and-ride in Langley, which would have allowed a bus to leave from that park and go over the bridge.

Instead, the people right now, because of the funding gap in TransLink and because of the largely dysfunctional governance model created by this government, sit in traffic. They sit in traffic. They pay the taxes, but they don't see a bus going over the Port Mann.

I remember that at the time. The Liberals talked all about: "Oh, there'll be a bus over the Port Mann. Don't you be concerned. We understand the environment. We're going to make things happen." What does it look like now? We have regional discord. No bus is going to go over that Port Mann unless we fix this thing, and this bill does not fix this thing.

As much as I've been raising concerns about south of Fraser and how they're paying for things they're not getting, I'd like to look to the people of electoral area A. For them, finally they're going to have a seat at the Mayors Council. Now, what is electoral area A? I raise this because I know that the member for Vancouver–Point Grey is unable to at this point but, hopefully, will be able to later.

[1650]

Electoral area A represents the University Endowment Lands, the University of British Columbia, so that's quite a big chunk in Metro Vancouver. It also represents Bowyer, Passage and Barnston Islands; the west side of Pitt Lake; the northern portion of Indian Arm; and an area north of the North Shore. That's how it was described in the bill note.

The electoral area A director represents those areas — certainly, UBC is the most obvious — that need transit. They have huge transit needs. Students are jammed up all throughout the region trying to get to UBC, but because of challenges in getting more buses — maybe it's a student out south of the Fraser — they're having a very difficult time to get there.

Well, the constituents and the representatives represented by electoral area A director were also in those situations going the other way, trying to get to downtown, maybe trying to get to Langley — the situation I mentioned earlier. But they did not have a director.

Now, the system may be imperfect, and it's certainly got a lot of challenges. I think that it's in quite a bit of discord. Surely, those citizens — those voters, those constituents, those taxpayers; however you want to characterize them — deserved a voice. It was missed by this government the first time they went about this. They've added it in here. Even with all of the problems, it's better, I guess, to have a voice and a vote than no vote, as the situation was before.

I congratulate the electoral area A director for her passionate fight to get some standing so that she could speak on behalf of those constituents who have elected her to speak for them when it comes to transit issues.

One of the things I noticed when this bill was introduced: there were headlines in the paper. There were speeches. There were media clips and on the radio: "Now we're finally going to get tough on those deadbeats who don't pay their transit fares." This was the huge action of this government. They got it. They were going to respond.

What many of the stories failed to note was that this government has known about this problem for years. Indeed, four years ago the Finance Minister, who was the Transportation Minister at the time — the member for Surrey-Cloverdale — talked about it in the media. He was going to crack down.

He was going to give TransLink the ability to chase those fare cheats. He was going to give that ability to them so that they could get the money they needed from those people. Then three years went by. Nothing happened. Two years went by; nothing happened. A year went by; nothing happened. Well, it became part of the media stories again. I believe it was CKNW that took it on again and ran with the story, and then the minister quickly went to bat and changed it.

Well, he could have changed it four years ago. This government could have changed it ten years ago. This was a problem, a longstanding problem, where TransLink would go after people to fix things and didn't. They saw the problem.

Interjection.

S. Chandra Herbert: I hear the minister saying that it was 13 years ago that it could have been fixed. Well, maybe it should have been fixed then. I would agree. But 13 years is an awful long time to solve a problem that the government was aware of. Thirteen years is an awful long time for a government that has run in the 2001 election, the 2005 election and the 2009 election, and refused to fix the problem. There was tough talk. They were going to get those cheats and did nothing about it. That seems to be the issue here.

Now, the other issue, of course, is that we know that this government was aware of this and has said they're going to set strong new direction to combating fare evasion. Again, talk is cheap.

It's similar to, of course, how the government announced they were going to have buses running to Langley, but they didn't do that. Again, talk is cheap. They can put out all the press releases and the photo ops that they want, but follow-through is what constituents that I know are looking for.
[ Page 11902 ]

Indeed, they did not follow through on their pledges to be tough. I think it would have been handy. They did not follow through on pledges to put in fare gates. I know, certainly, the leader on this side spoke very strongly in support of fare gates and actually had petitions brought to this House in terms of fare gates, because that was his belief at the time. That's something that the minister at the time, the Minister of Finance today, the member for Surrey-Cloverdale, called for at the time and, again, didn't do anything about at that time.

[1655]

This bill. Well, it provides some changes in governance. It doesn't deal with the mayors' changes. It doesn't really deal with the huge number of concerns they've put forward around the need for accountability, the need for them to be able to plan our region's future. In fact, it just continues on with the status quo, which is bus service cuts, in which we'll see some fares increase but really sees south of the Fraser shut out in a big way.

My honourable colleagues from Surrey-Newton and Surrey–Green Timbers will be very, very honoured that I've come to bat for their side of the river, because we in the West End have pretty great transit. We have a very dense neighbourhood that has been well planned, which allows very quick transit in and out of our constituency. But for many south of the Fraser, that's not the case. I don't know what government members will say in this debate about how they're standing up for their constituents south of the Fraser, but I look forward to hearing it.

Now, I know that my colleague from Port Moody–Coquitlam has some interesting details to share about the fight for transit, the fight for the Evergreen line — which, after a while, had started to be known as the Nevergreen line because it took forever for this government to come to the table to help bring it about. They were finally brought kicking and screaming to the table because of determined local leadership.

I will take my place in this debate today, just to leave it up to say: if you want to get tough, you should follow through on your words. If you want to bring greater democracy and governance, take a look at what went wrong to begin with, with this TransLink approach from this government. Take stock of the errors made, and find ways to bring better coalition between governments, municipal and provincial, rather than coming up with a solution and then going to them and saying: "This is your solution. Take it."

I think it would be better to be more collaborative, to work with people, rather than trying to sneak things by or push things through despite their protests.

Thank you, and I'll take my place.

J. Trasolini: This is my first speech in this House. It's perhaps very fitting that I come here and speak on a subject that has occupied a long time in my life in the past 15 years. I will be addressing Bill 51, South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act.

I probably have made friends or enemies with the past few ministers on the subject, and it has given me more time with the media than I've liked and cared for. It has disrupted my family life more than I can think about, but it has been all very interesting, and the citizens of the Port Moody–Coquitlam riding would be very pleased, in fact, if they could be here to listen to me advocate on their behalf — and on behalf of the Lower Mainland, in a way, because TransLink and the issues with transportation of the GVTA do affect 2.3 million people in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

I think that what we have today is an attempt to solve a problem. The problem is there, and the current minister is very aware. We've had some discussions. I have been a member of the TransLink board since 1999. I have been a member of the Mayors Council since it was started — in fact, one year or a couple years I was vice-chair of that group — and perhaps I know a bit too much about the issues, if that is possible.

I rise today to offer some sincere help, because I think changes are needed. Changes are needed because of the changes that were made in 2007, in fact. The way the TransLink board worked, and I do emphasize that it did work….

[1700]

It worked based on democratic principle. Perhaps democracy comes at a cost. There is debate when you use democracy. There were some people who didn't like the fact that it takes time to adhere to democratic principles. But a lot of things did happen. A lot of projects were achieved. In fact, if I may say, I cast the deciding vote in favour of the Canada Line on the TransLink board. I am proof, in fact, that the system did work. So what happened?

We came up, with a previous minister, with changes to the GVTA Act that did away with having elected representation on the TransLink board. I was an elected member. My colleagues were all elected. We paid a price every three years when we stood up in front of our citizens in our respective cities, vying for their support on municipal elections. They brought the issues of the TransLink board — the governance of the very important transportation system — to us, even though we weren't responsible for the delivery. But we were there making decisions. We took that responsibility seriously.

So changes happened, which resulted in having appointed members of the TransLink board, which were not elected, which made decisions in camera, which did not believe in public input, did not believe in having members of the community come up and state their views. I believe that was the beginning of the downfall of the GVTA.

All of the input, all of the power of the mayors was watered down if not completely taken away. Priorities were made by the unelected board. The only thing we saw was
[ Page 11903 ]
a vague long-term plan that came to us for approval — which, of course, would be reneged on the following year or a week after. I'll use an example of that.

On the last meeting of the elected TransLink board, that very board unanimously approved a project in my city, the Murray-Clarke overpass. It approved it, and it set out a timeline to be built. Actions were taken. Lands were sold. Moneys were returned to the provincial government for that very project. The community was waiting for it.

Three years later, under the new TransLink board, the project was…. Well, how can I put it? It changed priorities. It was put aside, reversing a lawful decision made by an elected TransLink board. I know; I was there. So the new TransLink board shut out the mayors.

One-third of the operating budget of TransLink comes from local money. The mayors have to go back and answer for that. Yet they do not have any direct input into decisions that are made, priorities, but they do have one responsibility. That is to make sure that local taxpayers pay for their portion.

[1705]

That was left on the books, of course. I can tell you that has been very painful to me as a mayor and to my colleagues over the years.

So if we are here today to make changes, to make something better — and I acknowledge the current Minister of Transportation for wanting to do that — we have to learn from what is wrong. I'm here today to sincerely offer some insight. I'm here to offer sincere suggestions as to what is wrong.

There's a consistent theme that was there in '99, and it's still here today and not included in this bill. That is sustainable funding. If there is one theme, one message that we as a group — as mayors and councillors and also Metro Vancouver board…. If there's a consistent theme that we have tried to put across at every meeting, it has been that sustainable funding is lacking.

This is why you have an ad hoc type of funding for projects, and this is why there are ad nauseam changes to priorities. It is because projects that we all want, which we all need, lack sustainable funding. And we can't make decisions at that level — nobody can make decisions at that level — hoping that the money will show up.

You know what? As much as I think that my ex-colleague the mayor of Burnaby could go on about things, there is one thing that he was right about. Let's stop making ad hoc decisions on funding. Let's make sure that if we want to grow…. Economic development is in the mind of every mayor, every council in this province. The need to grow — wanting to grow, to increase economic development — is there.

Transportation. In order to keep a sustainable community, a livable community, you need transportation decisions to go along with that. What I'm saying here is that when the GVT act was changed, there was another fundamental mistake, in my opinion. Metro Vancouver board, then the greater Vancouver regional district, was completely cut out in the planning process. We used to have a direct voice, and I know. I served on that committee — the planning committee of Metro Vancouver.

The document Livable Region Strategic Plan had a direct linkage with the priority-setting for transportation in Metro Vancouver. That was removed when the act was changed. Then we were left — the new board — with setting priorities without getting direct input from Metro Vancouver on where they were going with their planning.

Entire cities, like Burke Mountain with 30,000 people, being planned. That planning was left out of transportation planning for the area. There was call at one time to extend the Evergreen line to Port Coquitlam, which would then serve Burke Mountain. But you see, Metro Vancouver did not have that connection, that linkage, with making those types of decisions. That mistake, mark my words, will haunt us in the future.

So then having said that changes were made, today we're trying to undo those mistakes. If we are trying to undo them, let's make sure…. I owe it to my ex-colleagues — the meetings that we've had. They want to make sure long-term funding is addressed so that they don't go begging for every project, for every piece of road, for every public transit addition, for every upgrade to a station — that there is sustainable funding.

[1710]

I don't know why we are afraid of doing that. If we accept that we are growing, if we accept that economic development depends on growth, then let's make sure there is sustainable funding. If we don't, then let's send a message out there that the status quo will stay. Let's maintain what we have, live within our means and stop the growth. But I don't think the taxpayers of this province want us to go there, and I agree with them.

If we are changing it, then let's take a look at what needs to be changed. Sustainable funding is one. The other issue is governance. How can we, with due respect, ask the chair and vice-chair of the Mayors Council — I know; like I said, I was vice-chair for two years — to all of a sudden be included with the elite and the rest of the mayors sitting out there? You are creating another division where there need not be a division.

The mayor of the village of Anmore is part of that body, Metro Vancouver board. They're part of the Mayors Council. And you know what? He is there because the citizens, the voters of that community, put him or her there. And they should be heard. When you have the chair or the vice-chair linking with an appointed TransLink board, they come back well-informed and wanting to send a message to the rest of the mayors.

Well, frankly, I've been there. And you know what? There's a lot of division. And you know what fuels division? Not being on equal terms. You have an informed few and an uninformed rest of the Mayors Council, and
[ Page 11904 ]
there's going to be division. I can just see my colleague saying that you bought into the message.

I believe that what we had, where the mayors were part of the TransLink board, bringing in their regional issues to the table and, along with that, their tax contribution from those very cities, making the decisions…. And you know what? When a representative buys into a decision, then they go out there and advocate it. They support it. They become your PR people for the general community.

Isn't that what we want? We don't want divisiveness. So my recommendation would be to look at that to make sure that the governance is first democratic, inclusive. Along with that inclusiveness comes the funding. When you're talking about sustainable funding, those very community leaders — mayors and councillors — will go out and sell the ideas for you.

How many times have we met to talk about sustainable funding and been told by the provincial government: "Oh no, don't go there. That is politically unacceptable. That's divisive"? We can't go there anymore. We cannot have that type of leadership. We need leadership that takes responsibility for results, and the results have not been there.

I make these recommendations based on experience and sweat. I probably have dedicated way too much time on these issues of transportation in the past 15 years, but when you take something on, you have to take it to a completion.

[1715]

I don't want it to be said that we missed our opportunity on this bill. I know I have been in the office of the present minister as recently as a year ago, making suggestions. Wouldn't it be great if the system worked, that somebody like me didn't have to do that? Wouldn't it be great if, in fact, the TransLink board, representing the people — the Mayors Council and other bodies — had a system of cooperation, where they could make decisions in the best interests of all of us, all the community?

In any group you're always going to have people that are disruptive. We're going to do that. We are human beings. That happens. However, if you don't give them the ammunition…. If you have a system that is fail-safe, a system that is built on democracy, on equal representation, equal opportunity…. When the decisions are made, those decisions are sound.

Let's make the changes through this bill. Let's incorporate the democratic principle of representation. Let's make sure the funding is available. Nobody wants to pay taxes. I don't want to pay taxes. But if somebody comes to me and says, "This is what we're going to do with your taxes…."

You know, I can just hear it now. In the Tri-Cities, the northeast sector — well, perhaps in Metro Vancouver — I can't go anywhere without a citizen coming up to me and saying: "Mr. Trasolini, good work — great for advocating for transportation." I say: "Well, what have I done? I'm only answering questions." "Well, you tell the truth. You are not afraid of saying what needs to be said."

If I've been able to say we need funding for this project and we need sustainable funding, I think that the TransLink board, an elected representative…. I think the mayors and councils and Metro Vancouver board can work together and say the same thing. The taxpayers, begrudgingly, will agree that you have to pay your way. It's when we shy away or when we are divisive or when we play one group against another that it's a problem.

Property taxation. You know, we all knew that $400 million needed to be raised for the Evergreen line. We all knew that. The Mayors Council offered many, many options, but every time we met with the provincial government, we always got pushback. There was nothing that was acceptable. And then property taxes all of a sudden came up.

Do you know why property taxes came up? Let me tell you why. It's because there was nobody at the table advocating for the property taxpayer. You see, the unelected TransLink board doesn't have open meetings. We had open meetings in the old TransLink board.

Decisions were made without the input of the mayors, without the input of the locally elected people. No wonder, then, that when it was floated, it was unacceptable to the community. What did you expect? If you don't have input….

This is one lesson that I have learned over 12 years of being the mayor of the city of Port Moody. If I want to tackle a tough problem, you know what the best way is? It's to bring people in. Include them in analyzing the problem, first of all. Get their recommendations. Get their input. Then, together, you make the tough choice. It's amazing.

[1720]

It is amazing how far that gets you as an elected official at any level. People don't change. It doesn't matter if you are at the municipal level, the provincial level or the federal level. It's the same process.

When this board met privately to talk about priorities and where to get the money and who to tax — who is the easiest group of people to tax? — I'm surprised that they are surprised that their ideas wouldn't fly. If in fact we are changing what is not working, then let's learn what worked, and let's not leave something there that doesn't work. The Mayors Council — I've read some of their views — are saying they want to examine how in other jurisdictions, in other areas, their governance is and what the track record is. Let's give them an opportunity to do that.

At the end of the day, if you don't have the Mayors Council on your side when you're making changes, how do you think they're going to react? I know I was on the TransLink board when the minister accused us of being dysfunctional. Well, let me tell you one thing. They became dysfunctional after that.
[ Page 11905 ]

Let's look at the present board and say: "How can we make it better?" Well, first of all, if you don't have elected representation from the cities, the taxpayers are not going to buy it. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times at council meetings: "Those scoundrels. They're taxing us, and they haven't been elected." Of course, they came yelling at us because we were there to listen — right? Where are they going to go? They're not allowed to go to those in-camera meetings.

I recommend that we take a look at this. I suggest that we start with a democratic principle. Let's make sure that the mayors get their wish. If they want to study what's happening in other jurisdictions, let them do that. If you're going to change it, what's the hurry? It's broken anyway, and if the changes continue to keep it broken, then why make the changes? Let's listen to the mayors. They're going to be a fundamental part of this. When you have one-third of the funding for TransLink that comes from property taxes, and the mayors and councils of those communities are responsible for that, you need them on board. You need them on your side. You need them to cooperate with you.

I don't want to let go of what is not in this bill — that is, the sustainable funding. I remember two years ago, we, the Mayors Council, had a meeting in Coquitlam — Vancouver Golf Club, I think that's where it was — with the chamber of commerce, and we signed a memorandum of agreement with the past Premier. That memorandum of agreement was supposed to be the foundation of coming up with sustainable funding for TransLink.

What happened to that? It didn't go anywhere. Perhaps we should look at that again. We should not be afraid of that. Sustainable funding, proper elected members that go back and answer to the tune of an election — we do that; we're not afraid of that. I've never been afraid in my 15 years of political life. I've always been very proud of going back to the people that I report to — the voters. If we do that, then there's a chance of making changes that will work. There's an opportunity of going out there and TransLink not being a bad word anymore.

[1725]

You know, it hurts me — it did then, and it does now — to go out in the community and have people of all walks of life, seniors…. Everybody talks about: "TransLink is taking money away from us. They're making decisions we don't agree with, and we can't get to them." I don't want to hear that.

Then, of course, the organization themselves — they're professionals there. They do a great job to provide the service of transportation in Metro Vancouver. They have to deal with that. Then they have to go out and spend money to make sure that they can get enough people to fill in their questionnaires. Can you imagine that? They have to offer money. It shouldn't be that way.

I want to summarize. I've said a lot of things, but the fundamentals are there. Don't make changes to something that doesn't work unless you know that the changes will improve it to such an extent that you don't have to revisit in a year or two. Governance — chair and vice-chair going on the board is not going to do it. It's going to be more divisive.

Long-term sustainable funding, as hard and painful as it is, has to be addressed. If you don't do that, then you've given up on growth. You've given up on economic development. You've given up on efficiency, on sustainability. It doesn't matter which way you define it; you've given up on it. If we do that, then we might as well go home.

If you address those two main issues and if you respect the planning process that Metro Vancouver has, then you've got it together. Then you've got a winning formula. I think that if we go there, then at the end of the day we can look at each other and say: "We have made the right changes." [Applause.]

Deputy Speaker: Members, take your seats, please.

D. Thorne: It's my pleasure to rise today and add a few comments to the discussion on Bill 51. I would like to put into the record, right off the top, that I've got a hard act to follow. It's pretty tough to follow a maiden speech, so to speak, by a mayor who comes fresh from the Mayors Council on Regional Transportation.

I, too, have a little history in the Lower Mainland, southern British Columbia, around transportation issues — not to the same extent as my colleague. But I did sit on Coquitlam council for nine or ten of the years that all of these events were taking place, and I also sat on the board of directors of the greater Vancouver regional district when all of the decisions actually were being made around the next project — whether it would be the Canada Line or the Evergreen rapid transit line.

That was when I think the real trouble began with the whole concept of TransLink and rapid transit and transportation issues on the Lower Mainland. It was 2003, and TransLink had made some decisions around proposals and had — as they had to, according to law — sent their recommendations, their ideas…. Really, everything that happened at the TransLink board had to then come to the board of directors of the GVRD, the greater Vancouver regional district, to be okayed — or, I guess, not okayed.

[1730]

I can tell you that those were very tumultuous times. My colleague just referred to the order of projects in the Lower Mainland around rapid transit. They were primarily considered SkyTrain technology projects, but there was some discussion on and off around whether some of these projects on the list of municipalities that were next on the list and second on the list, etc., might in fact become light rail transit, as opposed to SkyTrain.

So they were very, very interesting times. We had many, many meetings around discussing the Canada Line taking precedence over the Evergreen line to the
[ Page 11906 ]
Tri-Cities, which had been number one on the list for a long time. A lot of money had been spent by Port Moody and Coquitlam by staff on contract expenses, sorting out routes and sorting out technologies. It went on and on.

Anyway, all of this happened at the GVRD and TransLink over 2003-2004. It was sort of a one-, two-year period. In the end, I remember those meetings very well. They always went over time. They were always on Fridays. Normally, we would meet on Friday mornings at the GVRD. We went into the afternoons several times because there was no consensus on any of these issues.

It was a very full debate. I guess that would be the way to put it. Everybody was involved. I think, in the end…. Well, we all know what happened in the end. In the end, the GVRD voted to support the motion. Actually, the final motion was to support the Canada Line but to simultaneously build the Evergreen line. That was the only way it would pass the GVRD in order to be sent back to TransLink to have any further action take place on any of these things — that we would build both.

My friend from across the way probably remembers this. He represents Richmond, and we voted by one weighted vote at that time. I can't remember if that was the end of 2003 or the beginning of 2004, but there was one weighted vote. What that means in terms of the size of the community is that one weighted vote would be a community the size of Lions Bay or Anmore or Belcarra — a very small community. Coquitlam had several weighted votes because of the size of the community.

Anyway, in the end, by one weighted vote — a very, very small majority — we voted that yes, shovels would be in the ground for the Canada Line, but simultaneously they would be in the ground for the Evergreen line.

You know, it brings back so many memories to me. Also, that was one of the few times that myself and the mayor of Coquitlam at that time…. We were the two representatives to the GVRD, and we voted the same way. That rarely happened.

Normally, we cancelled each other's vote out in most of the votes at the GVRD board meetings over those years. But in this instance we were happy to have come to an agreement, to put it to bed and to know that both lines would be shovels in the ground at the same time, built simultaneously, so we could live with the Canada Line going first.

I think, as I referred earlier, that that's where the trouble really began over here in Victoria. Those were the days where I wasn't quite as involved in what was happening in Victoria as I am these days, but I suspect that the Transportation Ministry here in Victoria was probably pretty edgy throughout the debate that went on at TransLink and then GVRD and back to TransLink, etc.

[1735]

[L. Reid in the chair.]

I can imagine that behind closed doors there were lots of cabinet discussions and lots of staff discussions with the Ministry of Transportation talking about the "trouble" at the GVRD and TransLink because things weren't going as quickly and as smoothly as they would have liked.

That is what happens when you have democratic boards that are elected, that are representing their communities and are expected to look out for the interests of the taxpayers and the members of their communities. When I was appointed to the board of directors of the GVRD, I was there representing the people of Coquitlam who had elected me, as were all the other members of the board.

Of course it gets messy. Of course it takes longer than people want. People don't just knuckle under and make the kinds of changes that were being suggested when it's going to hurt the community that I represent.

I think that that led slowly to the major changes to TransLink that we saw in 2007 around governance. As several of my colleagues have pointed out earlier today, it all started then. The governance issues, I think, have been more a result of the fact that the meetings are not public. The decisions are not done in public the way the old TransLink board and the GVRD to this day…. Metro Vancouver it's now called.

They meet in public. Anybody can go. They're reported on. Yes, it definitely gets really messy. There's no doubt about it. Democracy is not neat, quick and tidy. It's very messy. It's very messy just getting elected, as my colleague the minister knows. It's not an easy thing getting elected. You have to go out there, and you have to be prepared to deal with how messy it can get.

Actually, I have a little bit of a chronology here that I'd like to go through. The two major things that we're talking about here today…. I know that Bill 51 mainly is looking at changes to performance audits. We've had several audits already. I guess this would just put audits at a particular time every year, or you'd have one every year, but there would be some kind of a schedule for audits.

Then, of course, they are addressing fare evasion and fine collection issues. That's a big issue right now. There was a big article in the Vancouver Sun this morning. I cut this out because I thought it was very interesting. I'm assuming it's correct. I mean, it looks very official.

It does sort of the last ten years and how many tickets have been issued and the amount of money, and how many have not been paid and the amount of money. I'm going to do the percentages that are unpaid. In 2011, 84 percent unpaid; 2010, 83 percent; 2009, 82 percent. These are unpaid tickets. In 2008, 82 percent; 2007, 80 percent.

[1740]

I think this is a good thing to have on the record in Hansard.

K. Krueger: It goes back into the '90s, so keep going.
[ Page 11907 ]

D. Thorne: Yeah, well it doesn't. Isn't that just too amusing?

So 2006 is 80 percent, 2005 is 80 percent, 2004 is 76 percent, 2003 is 76 percent, 2002 is 74 percent, 2001 is 71 percent, and 2000 is 73 percent. That will make the member across the way happy.

Interjection.

D. Thorne: Yes, I'm not going to get into a debate with the member across the way. That happens very easily with me, so I have to look away and concentrate on what I want to say, not debate the member across the way.

He can get up and speak after me if he likes, because that's how we usually do it. We speak, and they speak, and we speak. I would encourage the member across the way, who seems to be wanting to talk a lot, that he should get up and speak when I'm done. I'm not done quite yet.

So we're looking at the fare evasion and collecting fines and that kind of thing. Now, I've also heard some troubling news today. Again, when we come to third reading of this bill, I'm hoping to be able to ask the minister about this, but I did hear today that if somebody is disputing a fine, everything changes. They're out of the system, so to speak, and they can actually get their licence renewed.

Again, I'm hoping that the minister is going to be able to clear that up, because surely to goodness this has been looked at — all of the different ramifications of what happens when you get a fine.

We're having a performance audit or a performance review or something of the justice system, as well as the ones we are suggesting that we continue having of TransLink right now. Things are kind of weighted down and a bit behind schedule. People would be one, two years, or possibly even longer, stuck getting their fine adjudicated in the court system, just like traffic fines and drinking and driving and all the rest of it.

I see, also, that the bill is suggesting that we add seats on the TransLink board for the chair and vice-chair, which I'm sure everybody would agree is at least a step in the right direction. However, it would be better if we had some public meetings as well — if not all public meetings, at least some public meetings, the way TransLink did.

Those are the main changes proposed in this bill. As some of my colleagues have said earlier, I also don't think that it goes far enough. I sort of have a vision that there will be bills coming from the Ministry of Transportation, possibly every year or two, forever, if somebody doesn't actually deal with the problems with TransLink, one of which is the governance and the lack of public meetings. Even if there's nothing going on behind closed doors, people always think there is when they're locked out or can't get in to hear what's going on.

There's no good in saying: "Oh. Well, they don't do this, and they don't do that. Everything is fine." Nobody believes it. It's human nature. We just don't believe it. If there's nothing going on, if everything is being done the way it should and if my best interests as a taxpayer of British Columbia are being looked after, then why isn't it public? Why can't anybody answer that question? I think this is a huge issue.

[1745]

Of course, money. There never, ever has been a solution to sustainable, ongoing funding for TransLink. As several people have already said, there's no way that we can do the kinds of things we want to do in British Columbia around transportation, the things that are needed.

Just looking at my area in the Tri-Cities — Port Moody–Coquitlam and coming down to Coquitlam Centre, a very short route…. It's been on the drawing board forever — literally forever. It's unbelievable. We've had so many different ministers. We've had so many different proposals, and all that happens is that it changes and it gets put on hold.

Every suggestion that anybody comes up with — whether it's the Mayors Council or the transportation commissioner, Mr. Crilly…. It doesn't matter where the suggestions come from. They get vetoed by somebody else. There was no solution for sustainable funding unless there is sustainable funding, and there will never be enough money to do the kinds of transportation improvements we need in the Lower Mainland, let alone the rest of British Columbia.

I only represent Coquitlam. My colleague here from the Sunshine Coast. My colleague here from up in the Interior. There will never be a dime. The moment the Canada Line was built — and I'm not trying to sound like the voice of doom or anything like that….

Deputy Speaker: If you might come back to Bill 51, Member.

D. Thorne: Well, I am. I am. I'm sorry. I'm speaking about sustainable funding, which are the two major issues which are not contained in this band-aid bill — right?

We're going to be here forever. I certainly may not be here forever, but there are younger people than me here in this fine House. They will be talking about this for years and years to come as more band-aid bills come in to try and deal with the two real problems, which are the secrecy around the TransLink board — the lack of accountability, I guess you could say, because if you don't know what's going on, you don't feel the board is accountable to you as a taxpayer — and the sustainable funding. That is what we have to have.

The cities, in good faith, do their developing before the transportation comes in. It's like you have to develop…. I can only really speak for Coquitlam. My colleague spoke for Port Moody, but I know that Port Moody was in the same situation. They put a stop to development, in fact,
[ Page 11908 ]
until shovels were in the ground.

Certainly, Coquitlam didn't go that far, but Coquitlam has overdeveloped over the past few years. The complaints at city hall and the complaints to mayor and council and even to the MLA's office from the taxpayers in Coquitlam about the traffic and the fact that it takes them an hour to get out of Coquitlam some mornings, when it used to only take them 15 minutes are all because there's no sustainable funding. If not, the Evergreen line would have been built and opened at the same time as the Canada Line.

I'm sorry. I am talking about the Canada Line, which doesn't seem to be part of it, but it is part of it. The Canada Line. The moment the shovels were in the ground for the Canada Line, it sucked every dime out of the transportation budget, the whole budget system. There isn't enough money in the world to build all the SkyTrains and make all the improvements we need just for the Lower Mainland.

We get very little money from the…. There's no sort of national transportation plan with the federal government. We have no sustainable funding from here. The municipalities cannot do it on their own. They will be in this situation forever.

[1750]

In that sense, I'm disappointed by the bill, even though it's a baby step in the right direction. I can't say that I'm opposed. When I look at the amendment act, 2012, I can't say that I'm really opposed to anything in here. It is baby steps. I just wish that we'd just bite the bullet.

You know, I'll bet anything that the Minister of Transportation agrees with a lot of what I'm saying. Yeah, I'll bet he does, because he would like to also deal with the real issues. He would like to see it cleaned up and running smoothly while he's still the Minister of Transportation. I'll bet you anything. That's what I think. My colleagues may agree with me. Even some people on the other side may agree.

Anyway, it is what it is. When we get to third reading, I'm sure there will be amendments proposed, and some of them will come from our side, I'm sure. Let's hope we get to third reading, because we are starting to back up a bit now. But some of them may come from the other side.

We just did a bill with the Minister of Agriculture. He brought forward amendments, and they were amendments that we'd helped with, so we can do this together. There's no big rule that says we can't work together, make this a better bill and really deal with the problems so that all of British Columbia, all of the people in British Columbia will, hopefully in their lifetime, get to see real improvements in their transportation in their community — in Powell River, Sechelt and Gibsons and in Golden and Revelstoke and all of the areas. Just because I'm unfamiliar with those areas, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be dealing with them.

I probably could talk for a longer period of time, but I do have other colleagues that want to speak. I appreciate the minister sitting there. I'm sure we'll be talking about this later on this evening and coming up with some good ideas.

M. Elmore: It's my pleasure to take my feet and make some comments about Bill 51, the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act.

I've had the opportunity firsthand to have experience with our public transit system as a transit operator for ten years. Also, I've been quite interested and actively involved in advocating on behalf of transit issues and working with the TransLink board for a number of years before I was elected. So it's with some interest that I rise and speak on Bill 51.

The issue that has been raised — in terms of looking to address the challenges and the deficits in the governance model, primarily, I think — is one of the central areas. On the one hand, it has been recognized that the changes that were made….

Even though imperfect, the TransLink board was previously an elected board that had mayors elected to its board making decisions on transit and the integral component that transit plays in terms of regional development. It's something that has to be coordinated and I think previously had been addressed in terms of the livable region strategy and also in looking to develop not only individual municipalities but the whole region of Metro Vancouver in a sustainable and long-term fashion.

The change of the TransLink board in 2007 that created an appointed, unelected board was what can be explained as a democratic deficit. Also, there was a lot of frustration in terms of decisions on transit priorities in the region. There was a lack of ability not only for public input but also for elected representatives to bring their voices and concerns forward and to participate in that strategic planning — decisions that would impact their regions.

Also, fundamentally, not only would decisions come down and plans come down from the TransLink board, but there was also the expectation that the municipalities themselves would have to fund these plans and move forward.

[1755]

Bill 51 seeks to address some of those shortcomings and the shortfalls and the weaknesses of the current governance model of TransLink — being an unelected board, lacking accountability and lacking the transparency, not having the ability for the public to access and make presentations and have their concerns addressed.

By adding two positions for mayors onto the board…. I think this is a partial move to try and deal with the structural deficits, the structural problems in the TransLink board, but I think it doesn't quite go far enough in terms of ensuring that the region as a whole is able to fully participate, have their concerns brought forward and also have that representation at that level, at the decision-
[ Page 11909 ]
making level. So while Bill 51 tries to look at resolving that issue, I feel that it doesn't quite go far enough in terms of the challenges of addressing the weaknesses and the shortfalls in the current governance model of TransLink.

Also, on the issue of fare evasion. While the bill claims to address some of the difficulties and challenges of recovering fares that aren't paid either on SkyTrain or transit or SeaBus and other areas, I think it doesn't quite address these challenges. One of the issues that was brought forward to me on the issue of fare evasion is how it ties together and connects with safety for transit operators.

Seventy percent of the assaults that take place have to do with fare evasion. We've seen recent cases come forward in the media where operators have been assaulted, and there haven't been significant penalties come down for that. So the issue of not only collecting the fares but also recognizing the need to put more resources in for ensuring that transit operators have fuller protection in terms of providing more transit security, ensuring that that support is there for those front-line operators who are driving buses — I think that is an area, as well, that needs greater attention and certainly can be improved to ensure the safety of our transit operators who provide that service.

In addition, there's also a need for improved service and improved public transit within the region. Certainly, looking at it, I know that we'll hear from members in terms of the need to improve service, particularly to the areas that are expanding the fastest — in particular, south of the Fraser, where Surrey lacks and really falls behind in terms of a per-capita investment. Also, the ratio of public transit provision and the frequency of service of buses to the city of Surrey fall behind.

These issues of planning, of participation, of having issues brought forward at a municipal level and being able to shape the direction and the strategy are fundamental challenges in terms of ensuring that public transit planning is effective, that it is able to meet the challenges of the entire region and also that we're able to meet the challenges of not only the planning and implementation but the funding provision.

The issue of sustainable funding is also a central challenge and difficulty — ensuring that once plans are reached, there's an ability to finance them.

Those are just a few comments I wanted to get on the books and to have registered here in the debate on Bill 51. While Bill 51 looks to address the shortfalls in governance, fare evasion and others, I think it doesn't quite go far enough to address the fundamental and the root challenges.

[1800]

Having said that, Madam Speaker, I will take my seat. I know there are other colleagues who would also like to raise some points on the bill.

K. Corrigan: I'm pleased to rise on Bill 51, the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act. I'm only going to speak for a few minutes, because I know I have a colleague that also wants to get a chance to speak for a few minutes before we finish this evening. So I'm going to keep my remarks very brief.

I think, given the lack of time, what I'm going to do is limit my remarks to the issue of governance and my concerns about governance. This bill provides that TransLink's board, governing board — an unelected board — will add two positions for the chair and the vice-chair of the Mayors Council to go on to TransLink's board. I think at first blush, when you look at a change that brings more representation, one might have the mistaken belief that this is actually an improvement. But I don't believe it is an improvement.

In fact, it's going to create problems, because now we're going to have representatives from the Mayors Council sitting on TransLink's board, I expect outnumbered. They are going to be outnumbered and ineffective. They're going to be put in a position that they are going to have to come back. They'll have in-camera meetings, because we know that the TransLink board meets behind closed doors, not democratically like it used to do before it was legislated out of existence in 2007 by a minister — then of Transportation, now Minister of Finance — who was having a snit because he wouldn't get his way with the transportation planning in the Lower Mainland.

The elected board is gone, and we now have a behind-closed-doors appointed TransLink. The proposal is to add two positions to that, and I think it's a terrible idea, frankly. What we're going to have is two people who are compromised in their ability to come back and act in the best interests of the taxpayers when they come back to the Mayors Council because they will be unable to report out on what's happening with the board. Because they are in-camera meetings, they're not going to get a chance to be able to come back and act fully and openly with the Mayors Council.

By the way, this solution was not asked for by TransLink. It was not asked by Metro Vancouver. Nobody asked for this. This is simply a creation which is not in any way consistent with the requests that were made. The requests that were made unanimously by the Mayors Council were to have real approval of a budget, and there is nothing in this act that provides for that.

The way it operates now is that the budget every year comes as a base budget in a supplementary budget. The only thing that the Mayors Council gets to do at this point, despite the fact that it's the taxpayers of the Lower Mainland that are paying for this, is approve or disapprove of the supplementary budget. Of course, in the supplementary budget — not the base budget, the supplementary budget — is all the stuff that the people of Vancouver actually want, that the representatives want. Then they put in the base budget all the things that the private TransLink board and the provincial government want. So it's quite a scam going on there.
[ Page 11910 ]

They ask for full approval of the budget, which you would expect them to have, given that they are the democratically elected representatives. They wanted a vehicle levy in order to be able to cover the shortfall. That has been ignored. They wanted an independent study of governance. That again was ignored. Instead, what we get is a token two new people put on to the TransLink board, which will change absolutely nothing and will hamper their ability to deliberate.

The final thing that was asked for was that TransLink be subject to either the new municipal or the provincial Auditor General, and that hasn't happened either. I'm not sure why.

[1805]

Now we've had three audits. It seems like every time we get a new minister, we have another audit — another way to rag the puck and not actually do anything to fix the mess that TransLink is. We have another audit, and the mayors felt that having the independence of either the municipal auditor or the provincial Auditor General would have been a good solution. Unfortunately, that is not happening with this bill either. I think this is a step in the wrong direction.

We are continuing on, having meetings behind closed doors. Transit, unfortunately, now is disconnected from the citizens of the Lower Mainland who are paying for it. It's disconnected from the land use planning, as it used to be. It's disconnected from the elected representatives that are there, elected to act on the citizens' behalf. I think this is an unfortunate move that'll do absolutely nothing.

I know I have a colleague who wants to speak for a few minutes, so I'm going to take my seat.

S. Hammell: I rise to join the debate on Bill 51, the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act. I am pleased to join the debate and actually endorse what has been said, largely, by my colleagues on this bill and the concerns that I have about it.

I would like to start with the governance, because I think the bill is fundamentally flawed when you are trying to tinker with the part of the bill that is absolutely broken. The notion that you can draw a third of the budget, a third of the money needed to run a system, from a group of people that have literally no input into the decision-making just cannot work. There is a fundamental principle that if you are going to pay the piper, you need to have input into the tunes the piper plays.

What we have is that the elected board of TransLink have their authority stripped and removed from the decision-making and a professional or unelected board put in their place. That hasn't worked. The board, the councillors and the municipal people throughout the regional district and the area do not like that model — have not liked it from the word go. It makes absolute sense that people would not agree with that kind of model. I don't know how in good conscience you can require people to spend the money and then have absolutely no input on what those decisions are.

Hon. Speaker, when you think about it, you get your tax bill from the cities and from the municipalities. On that tax bill is a bill on their property tax for TransLink, and they don't have any say in it. They don't have any input. There's very little link from them to the decisions that are made by the board. To then, in a kind of token way, say, "Oh well, we'll now put on the mayor" — the chair of the Mayors Council — and the co-chair or the vice-chair and add them to this unelected board and say, "Now it's okay," is just trying to put a band-aid on something that is bleeding. It's not going to stop the concerns around this.

Hon. Speaker, you've heard the mayors. It's no wonder right now that we have a mayors' caucus meeting to talk about a new social contract with the board — or with this government — because what is happening is expenses are being downloaded such as the contract with the RCMP. Unexpected money is being attached to the municipal level of government with very little input. Surprises are coming at them, and they don't have input into that decision.

[1810]

Yet they are the ones that put out the bill, and they're the ones that have to deal with their people and their municipalities. I can speak very strongly from the point of view of Surrey. We do not have enough transportation south of the Fraser to meet the needs of this incredibly vibrant and growing community. It is just not there.

It has huge consequences for our city, because if you can't get around by transit, you take your car. We have no clear, efficient links between the five city centres in our big city. It makes it very difficult for us to operate as a community and to build in the things that we need in a city, such as sustainable transportation, and to get people out of their cars.

I can tell the minister that you can try to get through that city through the middle of the day, and there is gridlock. We need a functioning and effective transit system. But you expect the mayors to just pour the money out of their coffers and not have any say or any input around the decisions that are made on their behalf.

The fundamental flaw in the process is that you do not have ownership of decision-making and the consequences of that decision. It is fine for the province to make a decision on how you're going to fund and then just have somebody else carry out the work. It won't work.

People will go on that board — if the mayors agree to go on it — and then you will just have two other people who have insight but not the mayors from the council, who have a larger responsibility. On the principle of governance, I absolutely disagree with the bill.

The other area that I'd like to stop a moment in is the whole area around fare evasion. I mean, if you actually think about it…. To think that we've been operating with
[ Page 11911 ]
this entity for the length of time we have and there's no mechanism to ensure that people pay their fines is absolutely shocking.

If you think about it, if you had no way of enforcing a parking ticket, who would ever pay it? The consequence would be you'd park anywhere. If you have no consequences for speeding, I would suggest there would be a lot more speeding.

The worst in terms of driving is that if you have no consequences for something like drunk driving, we wouldn't have the pressure to bring on to people so that they would stop. So if you have a system where you don't have to pay your fines, why would you pay them?

Then the consequence of having fare evaders and people talking about them all the time is that you're building turnstiles with millions of dollars of cost to the taxpayer. But your system that you had to begin with had no enforcement. You had no enforcement for your fines, and now you're putting in turnstiles so that people will pay their fares. It's like Alice in Wonderland.

Then the minister said he didn't know anything about it. The fact that there had been this problem for years and….

Interjections.

S. Hammell: Is there a debate going on that I'm not aware of?

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, I'm having difficulty hearing the member who does have the floor.

S. Hammell: I'm having a hard time hearing myself.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I think the whole issue around fare evasion and the inability — more the inability — to collect fines is quite remarkable. I mean, who would have guessed that you would move to put in turnstiles to make sure we're collecting fines when you haven't got a mechanism to enforce the fine system?

Interjections.

S. Hammell: Hon. Speaker, you can go that…. I'm kind of remarking on the fact that you haven't had a system for a long time, and you've made decisions based on that.

[1815]

S. Hammell moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, the Lieutenant-Governor is in the precinct.

[1820]

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took his seat on the throne.

Royal Assent to Bills

Deputy Clerk:

Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2012

Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2012

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Amendment Act, 2012

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2012

Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Statutes Amendment Act, 2012

Criminal Asset Management Act

Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2012

Limitation Act

Legal Profession Amendment Act, 2012

In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth assent to these acts.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor retired from the chamber.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

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

Hon. I. Chong moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:24 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); J. McIntyre in the chair.

The committee met at 2:34 p.m.

On Vote 29: ministry operations, $16,032,867,000 (continued).
[ Page 11912 ]

Hon. M. de Jong: Before we resume, last day the member for Burnaby-Edmonds posed a series of questions, and I indicated I would endeavour to obtain answers as best I could. I have those answers and will put on the record that we will provide his office with that material. Hopefully, it will assist him on the matters he raised.

[1435]

B. Simpson: I just have a couple of questions to follow up on antipsychotic drugs, and I want to thank the minister. He and I have had conversations about this that, partly, along with other things, led to the review of this. As the opposition critic for this pointed out, that's been further enhanced with the Ombudsperson's report — that this is an area of priority.

I read the Hansard transcript exchange between the minister and the critic, and I don't want to repeat that. I just want to ask two other areas. The minister indicated it is a complex public policy issue with a lot of different things at play. Some of it, some jurisdictions point out, is staffing.

I was wondering if either the province or the federal government is looking at what other jurisdictions are doing to nip the promotion of these drugs for use with dementia patients in the bud. The United States attorneys general are looking at going after the pharmaceutical companies to stop the promotion of antipsychotics for use with dementia patients. The U.K. is actually establishing benchmarks for use and going after the doctors. If the doctors continue to use it, then there will be punitive measures taken against the doctors.

It seems, in a very complicated issue in terms of the inner workings of our seniors care facilities and hospitals, that may be a straightforward way of dealing with things — where you stop the use of these drugs for the purpose they were not designed to be used for. I'm sure the minister knows that both the FDA and Health Canada have said that these drugs are not supposed to be used for this purpose.

So there may be other ways of doing that. I'm just curious if the minister is having any dialogue with Canada around alternate measures to nip this in the bud.

Hon. M. de Jong: To the member: I guess it's about balance and just canvassing. The item did come up the last time the provincial and federal Health ministers met for discussions. Now, when I say it came up…. There was a discussion about the challenge this represents across the country. I don't want to leave the member, though, with the impression that we're on the verge of some Department of Justice–led investigation, because I didn't get any indication that that was in the works.

[1440]

What we are doing here is recognizing that there are various players in here. The clinicians are being reminded of the need to be guided by the ethical requirements of their professions, whether they are doctors, nurses or pharmacists. To that end, we are continuing to develop and evolve more detailed guidelines around the use of an antipsychotic. The balance comes in when one considers that there are probably some circumstances where they are appropriate and necessary. But we have, as the member knows from his review of Hansard, talked about the rate of usage and how that compares with other jurisdictions. And that is troubling.

There are additional regulatory steps that the province might consider that relate to building in requirements for special authorizations. There's a shift in culture that we are probably discussing here. That is never easy, but with the comprehensive monitoring that has been established more recently, coupled with the establishment of the guidelines, we are hoping that we can see the trend lines for usage move in the right direction, not the wrong direction.

B. Simpson: Thanks to the minister.

Again, as the minister is well aware, Health Canada and the FDA have pointed out that inappropriate use…. There is appropriate use when the diagnosis substantiates the use of antipsychotics, for whatever age an individual is. But for restraints, it has caused early death. There are scientific indications of that. I think it is something that needs to be controlled.

The other aspect of this, in terms of a complicating factor — and I wonder if the minister could just speak to it; it's in the review and in the dialogue around this — is the issue of families who reject the use of antipsychotics. They have a representation agreement, a power of attorney or some kind of legal framework to reject them, and then a health authority certifies the patient under the Mental Health Act and supersedes the representation agreement. I know the minister is aware of one such case, but there are other such cases out there.

What is it the government is doing about that particular nuance to this complicated issue? If families say no, if families reject that it is the correct drug to use in a specific circumstance — and they have the legal right to say no — what is government going to do to stop health authorities from certifying that patient in order to give them the drugs that the family does not want them given?

[1445]

Hon. M. de Jong: I was trying to get as much information as I could. A couple of things come to mind, starting at the front end.

The focus of late, particularly in the aftermath of the review that took place, is to emphasize in the strongest terms possible the importance of establishing the dialogue and the relationship between the caregivers, the clinicians and the patient — and, if not the patient, the family support network — and embedding in the culture of care the realization that before one can make a decision about
[ Page 11913 ]
something as significant as prescribing an antipsychotic — which, by its very definition, is behaviour-changing — there needs to be that dialogue.

My sense is that as that work takes root — as the education that I'm reminded is taking place with physicians through UBC in dementia identification and treatment — once those lines of communications are better established, the incidence of the kind of disagreement that the member has described will reduce.

I think they'll still occur. I think there will still be times when, from a practical point of view, a family takes issue with a diagnosis and a prescription for an antipsychotic.

The member correctly points out one of the pathways that can follow — where, in the wake of that dispute, application is made by the facility. The first thing I'd say is — I don't say this to be insensitive or unrealistic — there is always the option for a family of removing a family member from a particular facility. In some instances, that may or may not be realistic, but that is the first thing. They have that option.

In a case where a dispute arises around the mental health or competencies of a patient, there are provisions, of course, for fairly immediate short-term certification on the basis of the opinions of treating clinicians, but the family, in those cases, would have a fairly immediate short-term means by which to challenge that assessment and that diagnosis.

None of that is optimum. None of that is the route you really want to go here.

You do want to get to a point where clinicians understand that part of the extraordinary process around the prescribing of antipsychotics is to ensure that there is a comprehensive understanding — on the part of if not the patient then the patient's caregivers, family members — as to why that makes sense and why that is the appropriate route to go. So there's a bit of a sketch of what's taking place and where the off-ramps may be.

B. Simpson: I thank the opposition critic for getting some of those questions into the public domain. I just need to switch tacks here, onto something totally different.

[1450]

Again, I looked at the Hansard around this. It's the oil and gas health study. I looked at the Hansard between the opposition critic and the minister around this and the 18-month time frame for phase 2. But I can relay to the minister that folks in the Peace are anxious to see the results of phase 1.

When I was up there, they did indicate that they were comfortable that their voices were heard. They liked what the Fraser Basin Council had done in terms of engaging people and bringing many voices together, but they are anxious to see what was canvassed, what was heard and what was documented in advance of the phase 2 starting, which is the real work. I ask the minister if he can be as concrete as possible as to when that report will see the light of day so that people will clearly understand where we're heading to in phase 2.

Hon. M. de Jong: Really a logistics issue. It'll be released before the end of the month.

K. Conroy: There are numerous issues that have been raised in the Ombudsperson's report, a rather extensive report with the 176 recommendations and 140 findings. I know that many advocates, groups and individuals, have contacted both myself and the minister, asking that these recommendations be implemented. I know that a lot of individuals, because they've contacted both of us — the health coalition, COSCO…. There are hundreds of them.

I'm going to be going through the report and highlighting some of the issues and asking where the ministry is at with the recommendations. I want to follow up first on The Best of Care, part 1, the report that was released in 2009. When I'm going around talking to different seniors facilities, one of the issues that keeps coming up is the whole issue around family councils and the fact that it was recommended that it be implemented.

Some facilities have been quite proactive in ensuring that the family councils are working, and some haven't. In fact, some have been rather — shall I say — obstructionist, almost to the point of it's being a real detriment to the facility and to the seniors in that facility.

I'm wondering if the minister will ensure that regulations for family councils are actually implemented across the province so the health authorities actually have input into it too, so that it's not a suggested practice but an actual practice. Seniors and residents in facilities and their families actually can benefit by the family councils, the ones that are operating. That can be a great example, and ones that aren't can use that as an example to carry on with it.

[1455]

Hon. M. de Jong: Thanks for the question. I was trying to get a sense of — and the member can maybe help me with this as well — whether there are different levels of uptake, depending on whether we're talking about a public residence, a not-for-profit residence or a private residence.

The three mechanisms by which the desire to have the family councils exist is promoted and required are through ministry guidelines or policy, which does not enjoy the strength of legislation or subordinate legislation — that is, regulation. That certainly covers any facility that receives public funding. Similarly, any facility for which there is a public funding component and a contractual relationship would be required to abide by the terms of the contract, which implicitly adopt the requirement for a family council.

The last thing, which we're verifying now, is there may
[ Page 11914 ]
actually be the regulatory requirement as set out in the residents bill of rights. I'm casting my mind back two or three years ago to when I reviewed the residents bill of rights, which I think incorporated a requirement that a facility have a family council. We're just checking on that at the moment.

K. Conroy: They're required to have a family council, but it's whether they're actually embraced. There is no follow-through to find out if facilities are actually carrying through and supporting the family councils. What I'm finding in discussions around the province is that there are actually some facilities that are not very supportive at all.

There are issues with the family council, and there's no follow-through to find out if that's happening or not. It's fine to have a bright, shiny, framed residents bill of rights inside your door. That looks great. If you don't follow through with what you've said you are going to follow through on….

What I'm asking is where the follow-through is. Will the policies or regulations, whatever you want to call them, actually be implemented? In some facilities, they're not.

[1500]

Hon. M. de Jong: The most regular mechanism for ensuring that the requirement is being met in a facility would occur during the at least once annual inspection. There may be more, depending on the circumstances. It would be part of the checklist that the inspector would address when visiting a facility.

Now, I think the member's observation might be: "Well, that's fine. There are family councils, and there are family councils. There are, perhaps, varying degrees of enthusiasm with which the concept of a family council is embraced by a facility." I don't want to lead the member on.

Whilst the requirement is clear and there, in a situation where a facility isn't complying with the spirit of the requirement to the extent that that is generating concern or complaints on the part of either a resident or a resident's support network or family, they would register that with the patient care quality review office, who would then be in a position to say to the facility: "Look, you are obliged to ensure that this council is present and functioning and is there in more than just name."

Of course, if the member, during her travels and discussions, has been confronted by circumstances where family councils are not functioning in the way that they should, I'm certainly interested in hearing that.

K. Conroy: We'll have those discussions outside of the estimates process. I'll be happy to talk to the minister about that.

I'm going to go into a bit of the overall framework around home and community care. The issue with tracking and reporting publicly on the funding being allocated to the expenditure on home and community care services is an issue I hear a lot about, and it was one of the first recommendations in the Ombudsperson's report.

The recommendation was actually that funding allocated to home and community care services by each health authority be reported, because a lot of people are commenting that there's not true transparency with that funding, and how much of the funds are actually expended in each health authority when it comes to home and community care.

Hon. M. de Jong: I want to make sure I'm seeking information on the correct area. So home and community care, and the member's particular interest is the importance of reporting on expenditures in those areas, by health authority. Is that correct? The member is indicating it is.

[1505]

So what I can tell the member…. I won't read the figures; I can provide them to her. In the area of home and community care, the $2.5 billion that is spent is broken down in home care, home support, assisted living and residential care. The figures are broken down provincially on that basis and then, in addition to that, have been broken down and are reported by health authority. Therefore, it should be possible for someone to go to the health authority public documents and see precisely how much is being spent by health authority in the home and community care area.

I have the figures compiled, and I'm happy to share them with the member.

K. Conroy: So the figures show the amount that the ministry allocates to each health authority. Then we also can see how much is actually spent on home and community care by each health authority?

Hon. M. de Jong: The figures I have been referring to are indeed what is expended by the health authority. There is not a similar figure for home and community care in terms of the budgeted amount that flows from the ministry or the Crown to the health authority. It's a global amount that is calculated on the basis of a fairly complex formula that if you are at the high end you think is wonderful and if you are at the low end you believe is fundamentally flawed — as is the case with all of these formulas.

The health authority gets a global amount from the ministry, from the Crown. What is reported is what they actually spend, keeping in mind, as I was just reminded, that in addition to the funding they receive from the Crown, the health authority would receive in some cases revenues from other sources as well — sometimes from co-payments from patients.

The figures I've been referring to relate to the expenditure by health authority in that area.
[ Page 11915 ]

K. Conroy: So the ministry figures out how much money they are going to allot to the health authorities based on requests by the health authorities, planned results, or planned…. No. The health authorities determine how much money they're going to need for home and community care in discussions, negotiations with the ministry. The ministry allocates that amount of money, and the health authority spends that money.

So if what the ministry allocates isn't spent, is there any way of tracking what wasn't done or what was done or why there might have been more spent or not? Obviously, usually it's not, they hope.

I'm just wondering how that is tracked with the ministry and the health authorities.

[1510]

Hon. M. de Jong: I think the first thing I should probably do is try to candidly disclose to the member and the committee the nature of the discussion that takes place around the budget. I would not use the term "negotiated." That would suggest a level of exchange that, quite frankly, at the initial stages does not occur. The ministry, the Legislature, the executive council, the Finance Ministry and Treasury Board establish the budget for the Ministry of Health.

I will say this. It represents a significant advance, in my view, that in the face of all the pressures that continue to accrue relative to the delivery of a broad range of health care services, the health authorities, particularly over the last couple of years, understand that the budget is the budget. We are no longer confronted by the scenario where they come along and say: "Well, we need an extra billion dollars in such and such a health ministry to provide the services."

They understand, and they then take that amount and turn their minds to how it will be expended in the areas. It would be fair to say that there is then a discussion with officials within the ministry on how that is going to take place. But they make the operational decisions about how to allocate those fundings.

Now, the formula does get adjusted to take into account, for example, in Surrey the opening of the new patient care tower — or the same in Vernon, in Interior Health. The formula does get adjusted to take into account the additional operating costs, which, by the way, is generally the biggest single impediment to moving ahead with large capital projects. The capital money is one thing. Building into the formula and the out-year budgets the cost of operating the new facility is generally the much larger challenge.

That is a rather long-winded way of saying that the budget is set pursuant to (1) the ability of the Crown to pay and set the global figure; and (2) the application of the formula, which then generates an amount for each of the health authorities. Then the health authorities set themselves to the task of determining how that is going to be allocated within the health authority.

Some of that, to be sure, involves a discussion with the ministry. But it would not be accurate for me to suggest that the ministry says to health authority A, "And we are giving you $1.2 billion for home and community care," because it doesn't work that way.

K. Conroy: Then the health authorities are given a lump sum, and they determine how the money is going to be expended — whether it is going to home and community care or acute care. That's under the jurisdiction of the health authorities, so you would see differences within the regions dependent on what their needs are.

[1515]

Then how does the ministry ensure that there is continuity of care across the province? We do see differences of care depending on…. In some health authorities they provide more home support than other health authorities. Where do we get some kind of continuity of care? Where does that enter into the discussion?

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, to the extent that one seeks to ensure a measure of parity and equity, here is the fact that the health authority, having received its budgetary allocation, must then prepare its budget and a spending plan, which the ministry signs off on. That generates, in part, the discussion I referred to earlier. There are also in place, in a number of these areas, provincially applied and determined care standards that must be met.

Again, candidly, the approach accepts the proposition that different regions and different parts of the province will have different needs and operate on the basis that the health authority operating executive and the health authority board should have some measure of flexibility to tailor the resources that are provided to them to their particular region. That's a balancing act.

It does account for the fact, as the member says, that in some of these areas the quality should not be different. The distribution or the nature of some of the care will be — and where a particular emphasis lies in one area versus another.

It is about finding the balance between the desire to ensure all British Columbians have access to a similar suite of services versus the decision we have made as a government that the health authorities should have some measure of discretionary authority to tailor the delivery of those services — a broad suite of services — to the unique needs of the region in which they operate.

Most times, I would suggest, they get it right or come very close to getting it right. Occasionally I expect they don't.

K. Conroy: We hear about it when they don't, especially seniors that move around the province, as seniors are prone to do in B.C.

One of the things that was noted in the report — and
[ Page 11916 ]
I've noted myself, in talking to other people…. Well, the ministry and the health authorities weren't able to provide consistent data in a number of issues.

[1520]

The question came up as to how that information is tracked on home and community care. How can it be better tracked so that the information is obtainable? What is the ministry doing to ensure that it is better tracked and that the health authorities also have that information that can be accessed?

Hon. M. de Jong: I just want to make sure I'm going to the right area. I think I know what the member is talking about. But could she offer a little bit more information about the nature of the data that she is particularly interested in?

K. Conroy: It's data in general around home and community care support — things like wait times, assessments, how long it takes. In general, that wasn't readily available, and it's not very often available publicly. It's difficult for people to access that information.

Hon. M. de Jong: Hopefully, this is a partial answer, at least, to the member's question. I think the Ombudsperson correctly identified the ongoing challenge associated with presenting meaningful data in a way that an average person could make use of it. Here's where I think, humbly, we're at now.

I believe it is fair to say that in virtually all relevant areas, the data is being collected. The remaining challenge is to collect it in a standard format that lends itself to fairly immediate public presentation in a single place. I would add one other caveat: on a comparative basis. Some of this information in isolation is interesting, but it isn't of use to people to know that a particular facility may have an average wait time of 60 days unless they are able to assess that in comparison to another facility.

[1525]

The focus of the work now is to ensure that the health authorities are collecting the data and passing it on in a standardized format and then developing that portal, that mechanism — whatever the legal jargon of the week is — that will allow it to be displayed in a single place and in a format that an average, reasonable person could access and say: "There. That answers the questions that I have about a particular facility or a particular community in the areas I am interested in."

K. Conroy: Is there a time frame for this? Or is it an ongoing issue? Can you actually say that this is going to be happening by this time?

Hon. M. de Jong: There are some benchmarks. The action plan stipulates that the reformatted website will be unveiled in September of this year. That will include and present data in the reformatted way. There will continue to be an evolution, I'm told, for about six months thereafter as all of the health authorities begin to provide that reformatted data and an expanded range of data. So a new reformatted website in September will contain much of the information in a user-friendly mechanism, but the work will continue thereafter, I'm told, for about six months.

K. Conroy: I'm assuming it's going to work so that it can be utilized between health authorities and ministries. I hope I don't need to ask that. I'm just assuming that's a…. Okay, good. I'm moving on. I'm noting the nods.

One of the key things for seniors is the whole assessment process for assessing whether they're going to end up needing home support or assisted living or actually end up needing more residential care services. There seems to be a bit of a discrepancy around waits for assessments. In fact, I think it's Interior Health and…. Is it Vancouver Island or Vancouver Coastal? At Vancouver Coastal they actually don't start assessing the wait-lists until the senior is assessed, whereas other health authorities start the assessment once they're referred. There is a difference in how long people wait for their assessment.

Is there going to be some kind of continuity across the province for how long a senior takes to get assessed for the services they need?

Hon. M. de Jong: I'm going to address, in this first response, the timing around assessment. I think the member may have questions that go beyond there.

[1530]

Referring back to one of those provincial policies that we have in place, the home and community care policy requires health authorities to contact the referred individual within 72 hours of receiving the referral to do that assessment, to determine the nature and urgency of the individual's health care needs. I am told that the majority of clients are assessed by phone or in person within one week of the initial contact. And of course, they are prioritized on the basis of the urgency of the health care need, the availability of caregivers and a risk assessment. That's the stepping stone.

The policy requires contact within 72 hours, and then, I'm told, the majority of the assessments take place within a week. That's the timing issue. I think the member probably has more questions than that, however.

K. Conroy: In some areas, even though they're referred, the actual assessment doesn't take place in 72 hours. It can be up to two weeks, which is an issue for families when they're waiting for the assessment.

It just seems that it's not happening, because we hear about it. We hear about it from constituency assistants and people throughout the province when I meet with seniors. It does tend to be an issue in some areas — that
[ Page 11917 ]
they don't quite get the assessment done quickly enough. Then there is a difference in some health authorities where they actually start counting the time waiting for assessment from the actual time that they do it, as opposed to when they were referred to do it. There are some discrepancies there on the actual assessments.

We know that they can't start receiving actual support until the assessment is completed. For some families, when they decide that they need some help, especially with home support, they don't realize…. They think that if they're going to need home support, they can go and ask for it and they'll get it. They don't think through that there is a whole process where they have to do an assessment and then they have to wait for that process to be completed before they'll actually get some support.

It can take a lot more than 72 hours before they actually get hands on the ground helping them out. There is that issue in some parts of the province.

Hon. M. de Jong: Right. Well, I won't dispute at all that there are, undoubtedly, differing schedules. The 72 hours referred to the initial contact, and then the policy requirement is a follow-up within a week.

The member is quite right. My sense and experience has been that in circumstances where we're dealing with a senior who has a spouse or a partner, this is where it gets really urgent. In some cases it is the caregiver who has fallen ill, and the support isn't just for him or her. The implications fall to the spouse — whether they are able to stay in the home.

I think I have the point, and I would not dispute the urgency of providing the assessment in as timely a manner as possible.

K. Conroy: We'll go a bit more into home support itself when we get there.

One of the issues about assessments that I found concerning is that when assessments were done and families or seniors asked to have a copy of their assessment, they had to go through a freedom-of-information process to get their assessment. I'm wondering if the ministry is going to change that policy or do something. It seems a little ridiculous that somebody can't get the information that was done to assess them for their needs — that they can't see a copy of it.

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, that would seem odd — that you would have to FOI a report about you. Happily, I'm told that the opinion that the member has and that I have is one shared by the deputy and the ministry itself. That now has changed, and the standing instructions are not to require the citizen to go through that FOI process.

[1535]

Government has evolved over the last 20 years. The generally positive step forward — freedom of information, in my view, was designed to represent something of a sword in the hand of the citizen. For a period of time, I regret, it has become something of a shield that the state uses and has used to limit access.

Happily, I see that changing now where we seem to have gone through a period…. And I think I understand why this is so, because the state has so much information and builds up these processes by which people can access that information.

It became a little too automatic, in my view, for the state to say to the citizen, "Well, you can FOI that if you want it," when logically there was a far less bureaucratic means of saying: "Well, if it's a report about you, then here it is." There are other things that are not specific to individuals that fall under that category as well.

Happily, I see the pendulum swinging the other way. It is something — I, again, say modestly — that we are trying in our own way within the Health Ministry to promote and advance.

The member has posed questions about one of those areas, where happily it is no longer necessary for the citizen to make that formal FOI request but can get the copy of the assessment, which will be of great interest to a citizen, given the importance it plays in determining the level of service they may or may not qualify for.

K. Conroy: And it's an opportunity for the ministry to say they've completed a recommendation from the Ombudsperson's report, and it's not going to cost them anything. So that's a great thing.

Speaking of costs — fees — I just want to talk a bit about the whole issue around fee waivers. There seem to be some authorities that the information about…. The fact that fees can be waived, that there is the opportunity for people that are having difficulty, that they can get a reduction…. There is that information, and it's not getting out to residents or clients or people that are accessing these services.

I'm wondering if there is any way that the ministry is going to move forward with some kind of recommendation to ensure that that does happen.

[1540]

Hon. M. de Jong: The formal response to the recommendation and the recognition that more work needed to be done to ensure people were aware of what their options were with respect to fees and fee waivers is to advise the member and the committee that it is part of the unveiling of the website. All of the broad suite of waivers and waiver information will be included in that in what I hope and believe will be a user-friendly format that will allow seniors and their families to ascertain in clear, unambiguous terms what's available.

The best example I've run across recently on this didn't actually relate to residential care. It was parking fees at hospitals. I remember when that debate occurred just before Christmas or around Christmas. People were saying,
[ Page 11918 ]
"Well, why should people have to pay parking at hospitals?" and the short answer was, "Well, I guess they don't. But where are we going to find the $19 million that it generates in income?" — largely in the Lower Mainland.

In fact, there was a fairly comprehensive and logical structure of waivers for the folks, which we in this room would say makes sense — people that are challenged with their income that are having to attend at the hospital on a regular basis for dialysis. It was, I would say, a fairly logical, commonsense basis for excusing people from having to pay parking fees at the hospital.

The problem was you couldn't find it anywhere. So people would say, with some legitimacy: "Well, that's great. I applaud your commonsense generosity, but no one knew about it." I guess, again, to be fair, in a system that has been as challenged as publicly funded health care has been to contain costs, there is a competing force that wants to put people to a little bit of the test to find out about these things.

At the end of the day, though, what we have resolved is that if the waivers are available…. If, for example, we are calculating the co-pay component of a residential care facility on the basis of income, which is what we do, but someone also has a spouse who's trying to stay at home, then let us state clearly and openly what those waivers are and determine it from the outset and relieve people of the worry that would otherwise accrue.

The practical answer to all of this — we were just reminding one another of this — is that when the assessment officers, when the home care or residential care facilities are having contact with the clients, it is to try and determine on the basis of the conversation what the circumstances are and whether any of these waivers apply and to say clearly: "Well, look, you should also look into this. Here's the form. If you fill this out, you may be in line for some additional support or assistance."

At the end of the day, there is still something to be said for good old human intuition about the circumstances that a particular client or patient might find themselves in.

[1545]

K. Conroy: I think a good-news story is the senior from Penticton who was charged convalescent care fees in a long-term-care facility in Penticton. He actually had to go and take out a loan to pay for the bill he received when he left the facility.

When we raised it with the minister in the fall, the health authority actually got ahold of him and paid back most of what he had paid out on his loan. So there's a good news story. But he had no idea that there was the hardship waiver — that there was anything he could access, as far as that goes.

I'm assuming, then, that the ministry will be ensuring that health authorities are also making sure that they get the word out. It's great to have it on the Internet, but it's actually the people that are providing the care, the front-line people, that need to be providing that information. And they have a sense, when they're dealing with people.

I'm assuming, from the nodding heads, that I'm on the right track here. Then I'll just go on with the next question, and we'll take that as a yes. That's great to know.

Does the ministry, through the health authorities, track the number of people that request hardship fee waivers?

Hon. M. de Jong: What we are able to determine is the number of people who have received a hardship consideration or a hardship reduction. We would have that data provincially. It's not yet available publicly, but we certainly have it in the global sense.

K. Conroy: Is there a tracking of the number of people that have asked, not just the number of people who have received it?

Hon. M. de Jong: No.

K. Conroy: Is that something that the ministry is contemplating doing in the near future?

Hon. M. de Jong: I certainly appreciate the member's interest. The immediate response is that we're not sure, from the perspective of the ministry, how we could do that reliably, based on the information that is presently at our disposal. The reason I could answer the first question about the number of people who receive a hardship allowance is because the information that comes to us via the health authorities requires a notation to say that someone has received a hardship allowance.

There's no requirement at this point for the health authorities to identify for the ministry the number of people who have made application. And in fairness to the ministry, I don't think anyone had contemplated, until the question arose, requesting that information.

K. Conroy: Then, is it something that the ministry will contemplate doing in the future? I think that it's easy enough. It might not be easy enough, but the health authorities know who's asking, and they probably should be tracking that so that the province can get a sense of what kinds of issues there are out there with the fees being charged.

[1550]

Hon. M. de Jong: I think I understand, in part, the member's interest in having that information, but not entirely. I suppose, if we are successful in communicating with the public and the clientele the availability — more successful than we have been thus far — and in saying, "Here is a broad range of relief and hardship allowances that are available; you are encouraged to apply…."
[ Page 11919 ]

The fact that only 40 percent of those who applied actually received such an allowance…. I'm not sure what that would tell us. I'm happy to hear from the member what she thinks it would tell us. It might tell us that there was broader interest. She might say that it might tell us there's a broader need. But I'm not sure what that additional data would tell us that would warrant requiring that information.

K. Conroy: I think it would show a definite need. If there are more people applying for a waiver and they're not receiving it, I would wonder why. You know, what are the criteria? Why are they being denied? People apply for a waiver for an obvious reason. For the most part, you would hope that they would receive it if they genuinely need it.

I guess that's the rub — if they genuinely need it. I think it would be telling to see how many people are actually applying for the need and then seeing who gets accepted and how many are actually accepted. I think there's a message there for health authorities and for the ministry.

Hon. M. de Jong: I think it's an important discussion we're having. As the member knows, the amounts are set on the basis of income as reported in income tax returns — whatever the line that we use is. The existence of a hardship allowance takes into account that there may be extraordinary circumstances.

We've talked about a situation where a partner or spouse is being maintained in a home and income splitting and that sort of thing or the timing around that. But there'd be a relatively, I would think, finite number of exemptions. I don't know that we can establish a structure where, depending on the success of your advocacy skills, you can circumvent the threshold.

[1555]

The member may want to argue for decreasing the income threshold for hardship assistance or the kinds of scenarios we talked about where there's someone remaining in the home. But I don't know that it would be fair to establish a process in which someone with an income of $2,000 a month is obliged to pay X amount unless you send in a really compelling story about why you need extra money because of whatever reason.

It's trying to get the balance between taking account of truly special circumstances and having a threshold that says if your income is X, you're going to contribute Y. But I am interested to hear more about the kinds of unique circumstances the member has run across that she feels may not be properly taken account of under the existing methodology.

K. Conroy: I think the example I hear the most is people that have extraordinary drug costs that aren't covered. So then they're struggling to make ends meet, and they can't afford it.

Obviously, the one where one person is left at home and one person goes into the facility is the one that sees the most, but the drug costs is definitely one that's commented on. Then you have the issue where they're cutting back on their drugs instead of taking their full allotment of the prescription that they should be taking just to save money because they have to pay for this other issue.

For me, it's an issue of the couples, but also the drug costs. And then some people have extraordinary costs that you can't see from just their tax assessment. So they have to discuss that, and the assessor would have to take that into consideration.

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, that's a good example that the member highlighted. Here's my understanding of where that might reveal itself. First of all, I'm reminded by the staff that extraordinary drug costs are taken into account in calculating hardship fees.

What we were just discussing for a moment is the fact that sometimes those drug costs can descend upon a person or a family with extraordinary suddenness and dramatically change their financial circumstances. In those cases I am assured that an individual can reapply for hardship consideration immediately. Then there is a mechanism in place to reassess every three months.

Now, we just spoke a few moments ago about the degree to which people may or may not be aware of that option and the degree to which people are being advised that they have that option. That is something that I am happy to pursue as part of our general desire to provide better information. Drug costs can change very quickly, and for people on a relatively limited income, an increase of $200 or $300 a month can have pretty dramatic consequences.

[1600]

K. Conroy: So there's a three-month set reassessment of the situation.

Once someone has applied for a hardship waiver, is there a time frame for when the health authority has to respond by?

[D. Horne in the chair.]

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, the short answer is that there is not a stipulated turnaround time.

I think the member's submission would be that in the case where a catastrophic change has occurred to the detriment of a family or individual, they would appreciate having the comfort that there is some guarantee around turnaround time for their application for hardship assistance. I actually think that makes sense. I think that setting a service standard that says, "From the time you submit your application with the required information.…"

It does essentially become an arithmetic calculation, because one looks at the categories and the costs and
[ Page 11920 ]
what has changed, and there is a formula that determines the applicability of the hardship assistance. I think that setting in place a standard of service expectation around turnaround time for that is something that makes sense and something we'll pursue.

K. Conroy: Just so that I have this right. I'm not just talking about when there's a reassessment of hardship but actually right from the start. For instance, there's a two-week deadline, or once they've done the initial application, there's a time frame that someone knows that they're going to hear within two weeks, if not sooner, if their waiver is going to be accepted.

So it's not just for when there's a catastrophic change to drugs, as we had previously discussed, but it's right from when the person applies for the very first time that there's some kind of time frame for them.

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, I think the argument is the same, and it makes the same measure of sense to me that someone would want to know within a reasonable period of time. I think that's reasonable. I think that from a practical point of view, the issue will generally be: has the person submitted the information required? That's why keeping these forms as simple as possible while still getting the information required is important.

Assuming we can do that and assuming that the person has provided the information required on the application, saying that they will get a response within a stipulated period of time is one way to track performance, I would think. As I say, I can't think of a reason we wouldn't want to pursue that and imbed that in service performance standards.

K. Conroy: Thanks to the minister for that too, because I think that many people will welcome that change and making sure that that gets out to the health authorities. That's a good thing.

[1605]

I just want to go back a bit to the patient care quality offices and review boards. In an earlier question we had talked about the issue around resident and family councils, and the minister had referred to the quality offices and review boards as an avenue for where these complaints could be taken.

But on reviewing this again, it's my understanding that these offices are only able to process care quality complaints that are made on behalf of a particular person who received the care. This prevents them from responding to broader issues, like family councils and whether they are being accepted into the facility or not.

Is it, then, my understanding that the ministry has already moved ahead to ensure that the offices can take those complaints, or is that something that needs to happen?

Hon. M. de Jong: No, I think my assessment is unchanged. If I am a resident at a facility that has been reluctant or unwilling to abide by the requirements around a family council, that is a care issue that relates to me as a resident and I, therefore, am entitled to register that complaint and have it acted upon by the patient care quality review process.

K. Conroy: The issue is the family councils. If you are on the family council and the person who is in care is someone — your family member, for instance — who has dementia or is well into the stages of Alzheimer's and isn't part of that process, that person then cannot go and complain about the issue. It's the family that needs to put their issue forward. It's not the resident. That's the difference, and that's what is not spelled out currently.

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, my position would be that in the example the member has described, the resident/patient's family member would have standing to bring that complaint, insofar as that patient's family member would have the right to participate in the family council but for the fact that there isn't a functioning family council. Therefore, the complaint relates back to the patient via their family member. It's called a family council for a reason.

Having said all that, if the member has encountered a circumstance where a patient care quality review board has said, "We're not prepared to receive, entertain or act upon that complaint because we don't feel a complaint relating to a family council falls within our mandate," I'm happy to hear about that, because my bias would be to the contrary — that they actually would have standing.

K. Conroy: By the same token, an advocate that is part of a family council for a resident that perhaps doesn't have family — a friend or advocate-type position that would sit on family council representing that resident — would also have the same standing.

Hon. M. de Jong: Insofar as we'd be talking about an advocate who is there on behalf of a patient, my answer and response would be the same.

[1610]

It may not be the same if we are talking about a third-party interest group that is seeking to involve themselves in a family council, albeit for positive purposes, but is not connected with a specific patient. I think the right and the right to complain accrues to the patient and/or their family and/or their specific advocate, as opposed to a third-party group that is interested in the matter, if I can put it that way.

K. Conroy: Yes, we're definitely talking about people that have some direct connection to the residents that are in the facility. So they are at the family council because they are an advocate or spokesperson or they are a sup-
[ Page 11921 ]
port person for the resident that's in the facility. I think we are all clear on that — right? Can we move on? Okay.

The Ministry of Health has talked about support to people navigating the system and ensuring that with the action plan…. It talked about the website and what's going to happen as far as navigating the system. I'm just wondering if there will be support for people who navigate the system in addition to something on the website — actually a position.

Hon. M. de Jong: The short answer is yes. As I understand it, we're now talking about something separate from the seniors advocate. We're talking about support that would be specific to the website and the ability for a senior or a family member to contact a specific individual by phone and obtain specific, personalized assistance as it relates to the problem for that senior and/or their family.

So yes, the intention is, as we discussed last day, to have that network of phone support in place so that there's a live, breathing human voice on the other end of the line saying: "Here are the avenues you need to pursue."

K. Conroy: Does the minister also see that this potentially could be a role for a seniors advocate?

Hon. M. de Jong: I think the difference might be this. I can think of circumstances in which the advocate will step in.

[1615]

But to be sure, what I am hopeful develops is, one, a less complex overall structure; two, a seniors help line that can help people with some of the basic issues and problems and challenges that come along; and then an advocate who is able and has the authority to step in, in extraordinary circumstances where the process has failed — where people have not been able to get answers, are getting answers that don't make sense or are confronted by situations that may fall outside of government entirely, that are indefensible and that require the intervention by someone with a mandate to exert some influence or some pressure. So probably an escalating scale of seriousness.

One hopes that the state can organize itself in a way that reduces the complexities experienced by seniors and their families; can build in some general help mechanisms that help most people through that process; and then, thirdly, provides the backstop of the seniors advocate, who can deal with those extraordinary individual cases and also provide advice and recommendations around any ongoing systemic challenges that they see recurring as a general trend.

That's in very rough terms how I see the pieces fitting together at this point.

K. Conroy: Does the ministry have a time frame for when they'd like to see that happening by?

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, we do, and I think we've canvassed some of that — a phone line on June 1, the ongoing work that we've talked about today, a reconstituted website in September and the process for the seniors advocate that we talked about. So there is that timeline to try and bring all of those pieces together.

I think, quite frankly, the single biggest challenge relates to the regulatory and statutory changes that will be necessary to reduce the overall complexity of a system that evolved over not just years but decades and finding a way to make all of that fit together so that it serves the interests of seniors and is manageable and affordable from the perspective of the taxpayers. I think that work-in-progress is going to determine the overall success of this.

We'll be able to point to some of these individual components. We'll be able to point to the phone line. We'll be able to point to the seniors advocate. It's that other bit that is more nebulous and more complex but no less important.

K. Conroy: I just have a personal bias towards the seniors advocate, and I appreciate hearing the minister talk about its importance and the hope that it's going to be there sooner than later. I think we canvassed it quite well last Thursday, but I still don't mind bringing it up again.

One of the issues that has come out of the report and that also is some issue with care providers is around training for community health workers and the fact that there are some private institutions that don't have to follow the guidelines of the new curriculum — or the curriculum at all — that has been put out there. There are concerns about that — having care providers in facilities that don't that have same quality of training that we would like to see in all facilities across the province.

[1620]

Hon. M. de Jong: To make sure I'm obtaining an answer to the right question…. My sense is that the member was talking about the agencies that provide training to care aides and whether those training institutes are all following the same curriculum. Is that correct?

K. Conroy: That's correct.

Hon. M. de Jong: What I can relay to the member is my understanding that a set of guidelines have been determined. Their curriculum has been settled for the training of care aides and for those individuals who wish to work in a publicly funded facility within British Columbia, meaning a facility that receives public dollars. It might be privately owned. It might be a non-profit. It might be wholly owned by the health authority.

They must meet that standard or have completed that curriculum to be on the care aide registry. For anyone working within a facility or a home that receives public funding, they must have received training pursuant to the recommended curriculum.
[ Page 11922 ]

K. Conroy: The ministry created the B.C. care aide and community health worker registry in 2010. How much funding is in the 2012 budget for this registry?

[1625]

Hon. M. de Jong: The budget for the first year of operating the registry was $165,000. We believe that amount has grown. We are endeavouring to confirm what that number is. I think the member asked about the present fiscal year, or the budget we are discussing today. I'll endeavour to confirm what that figure is for 2012-2013.

K. Conroy: It's my understanding that the registry was set up to protect vulnerable seniors and to ensure that caregivers have appropriate qualifications. I'm concerned. If a person is working in a private facility that doesn't have any public funding, would there not still be the government's mandate to protect vulnerable seniors? Those people don't have to register with the registry, and there is no determining whether they might need a criminal record check or if, in fact, they have a history of past abuses.

I am wondering why all caregivers working with seniors in the province wouldn't have to register with the care aide registry.

[1630]

Hon. M. de Jong: Happily, the requirement that anyone working with a vulnerable adult, a senior, in the context that we are discussing is not dependent on being included in the registry. There is a separate statutory provision which requires that criminal record check to take place, in much the same way that it is required for people working with children.

The assurance that people working in the setting that we've described have been subjected to that criminal records check does not rely upon them having been entered on the registry and could cover people well beyond care aides. It has a much broader application than simply care aides.

K. Conroy: One of the issues that caregivers are finding is that there was understanding that the registry was going to carry through on investigations, when there's an issue that an investigation comes up.

What I've been told is that the employers and the unions have to pay for the investigation if the facility is unionized and that the health authorities don't have any responsibility, even though they oversee the facilities. It ends up being a bit of a detriment to the investigation carrying forward, because the people — the employers and the unions — are having to cover the cost of the investigations.

Hon. M. de Jong: Can I ask the member to just provide me with an example of the type of investigation she's referring to? Are we talking about an investigation of criminal behaviour, theft, or are we talking about something else that would engage the attention of the registry?

K. Conroy: The example that was given to me was of issues of abuse.

[1635]

Hon. M. de Jong: The process that I can relate to the member goes like this. In a care facility a complaint is made about a care aide. That initial complaint is investigated by the employer, and at that stage a determination is made by the employer about whether or not the complaint has merit or not. It can be serious because, amongst other things, the potential sanction is the removal of the care aide from the registry, meaning they can't work in their chosen profession in B.C.

Those costs, to the extent that there are costs, are borne by the employer, and if the employee obtains assistance from their union, if they are a member of the union, by the union. If the care aide chooses to appeal that finding, the registry will retain the services of an investigator for that appeal. Those costs on the appeal are borne between the employer and the union.

A long-winded way of saying: "I think the member is correct." The costs do not, nor were they intended to, accrue to the registry itself. It was not intended to be funded at a level that would allow it to fund an investigative role.

K. Conroy: Just to clarify the other question then. That caregiver would be bounced off of the registry but could still go and work in a private agency, because there would be no record. The registry doesn't apply to the private agency. So that caregiver could still go and work in a private agency, even though there had been concerns about him or her?

[1640]

Hon. M. de Jong: First of all, going back to something I indicated we'd locate for the member. The 2012-13 budget for the registry: $428,000.

With respect to the matter the member has just raised. For an individual family member or a private facility that is receiving no public money, the member, I think, is correct. At this point there is no requirement that they only hire a care aide whose name appears on the registry. So a family seeking a care aide has an option. They can choose to make it a requirement. Similarly, a facility not receiving public funding has the option of making it a requirement. It is not mandatory at this point.

K. Conroy: I think that opens up concerns for seniors who are in that type of care that could have long-reaching consequences for those seniors. Hopefully, the ministry will put some thought to some way of protecting those seniors, because they would be vulnerable seniors in situations that they need that protection.
[ Page 11923 ]

I'm hoping that somewhere in the very close future the ministry might be relooking at that whole situation to ensure seniors are protected.

I'm going to move into home support. I just got reminded of my time frame, and I'm only allowed to have the rest of today. I don't get any time tomorrow, so I have to move on.

Just around home support. One of the issues that comes up across the province is that there aren't consistencies in the health authorities. Some health authorities allow home support workers to prepare meals, and some don't. Some say there are 15-minute allotments to go into a home and do what you have to do in 15 minutes, and then there are actually differentials in the health authority. One area of a health authority will say: "It's 15 minutes, and then you're out." Another area will say: "No. You have half an hour."

So there are differences all around the province. Is there any hope that the ministry would look at some kind of consistency for home support — and not by going to the lowest common denominator but actually going for the best level of care?

We know studies have shown that home support actually in the long run will save money to the system if it's done properly. There is a concern that that's not happening. There's great home support being provided, but there needs to be some consistency across the province.

[1645]

Hon. M. de Jong: I think the member is touching on a matter of significant practical importance. Here is the distinction, and I think the member knows this. It still causes some confusion and, at times, very difficult circumstances. It is the difference….

If we assess this from a logical perspective, as we were doing a little while ago or on Thursday: what does this senior require to stay in their home? It may be some medical support. It may be someone to prepare some meals and keep the house clean. Our health care system tends to be oriented to the former — to being there to assist with medication, with the attendance to wounds or other chronic ailments.

How do you bring the two together if the overall objective is to create a circumstance in which someone can stay in their home longer and there isn't necessarily a clear delineation between health necessities and the general necessities of life? I think there is merit in the idea that we would establish some standards across the province and have them embedded with a formality that does not presently exist in the various policies that exist.

[1650]

Again, my one word of caution, though, is a policy that says you have 30 minutes to prepare a meal may at the end of the day make no more sense than a policy that says you have 15 minutes to prepare a meal, because depending on the circumstances, in both cases there can be nonsensical ramifications.

Establishing a set of provincial guidelines makes sense, doing so in a way that recognizes there is medical assistance that allows people to stay in their homes and there are other kinds of home support that allow people to stay in their homes. Accommodating that in a way that takes account of the taxpayers' ability to pay and the individual's ability to contribute to those costs is all part of the big juggling act that needs to be performed in order to have a system that is economically viable and sustainable.

K. Conroy: I think it would bode well for seniors and for the ministry in the long run to have a base set of guidelines that health authorities have to follow with their home support, that there are basic guidelines they have to abide by when it comes to issues around cleanliness.

I'm not sure the minister knows, but there are very few health authorities that actually prepare meals. They don't allow it anymore. They are allowed to heat up soup that's left out, that a family member has left. They don't prepare meals anymore, which is an issue if a senior doesn't have a family that can actually do that for them. I think the days of Meals on Wheels are long gone too.

In the long run I think it would actually save the system money if there was a way of ensuring that there was a baseline of support provided. It would lead to healthier seniors. They'd stay in their homes longer, and it would just benefit everybody in the long run.

It's my understanding that under the Continuing Care Act the ministry does have the power to establish specific quality-of-care guidelines and hasn't taken the opportunity to do that. There is that ability for the ministry to establish those guidelines. It's there. They have to be implemented. I'm wondering if that's something the ministry would consider doing in the near future.

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, we will be proceeding with the establishment of quality-of-care standards. Whether or not they reflect the measure of detail that the member has alluded to in the example she gave, I can't provide that assurance at this point.

I am interested, though, as part of the conversation…. It's an interesting feature. We're having this conversation as part of the $16 billion Health estimates discussion. I wonder if one were to go to the level of detail that we talked about in a moment, what would they look like and who would be entitled? Would it be income-based?

I think there are examples where the ability for a senior to stay in their home could depend on them having someone providing them with two or three meals a day and keeping the house clean.

[1655]

I know where it fits in terms of seniors care. Where does that fit in terms of a health care budget, and what role does the individual…? What part of that responsibil-
[ Page 11924 ]
ity does the individual share to the extent they are able to?

Again, we partially had this discussion the other day. I mean, these are practical questions that we are obliged to ask, lest people think that the state will one day conjure up the ability to provide a meal service for everyone who gets to a certain point in their life. I'm not suggesting the member is advocating for that. I do think there is this difference, and yet you can make a pretty compelling overall argument that says a person in their home is by definition healthier. Therefore, at the end of the day it's all quasi-health-related.

I realize that my role in these proceedings is supposed to be to provide answers, and all I've done is ask a series of questions. I do that because going forward, I see this as a major source of ongoing consideration and public debate.

Actually, I think it requires more public debate. I don't think people plan for this in the way that they need to. I think that's in part based on an expectation that by hook or crook, much of this will be available and provided for in some way, shape or form. If that is going to be so, we'd better make a purposeful decision that it is going to be so and figure out how to pay for it all.

K. Conroy: I think I would be more than happy to be involved in the process and the discussion around determining health policy, but probably not in the estimates process. I think that's something that myself and other members of the opposition would be only too happy to engage in, because we've been looking at this.

It is a dilemma that we all have to look at and will have to look at, but I think its time has come in the sense that we know that home support, like we've said and I canvassed last week, can be a lot more cost-effective in the long run and provide those services.

When I talk to families, some of them have said that they do provide a lot of those extra supports. But there are those seniors that just don't have those families to provide it, and that's where we end up in a quandary.

Some of the issues with home support are around the complaints process. It's an issue for the seniors, because they're complaining about a person that comes into their home on a regular basis to take care of them. It's a one-on-one situation.

There are not clearly established guidelines or roles about where they can complain, so to speak, or issue their complaints or concerns about the type of care that they're receiving. There isn't a clear process for people to express their concerns when they're dealing with home support, and I'm just wondering if the ministry has any thoughts about guidelines around that process.

[1700]

Hon. M. de Jong: I'm just confirming that the statutory mandate for the patient care quality review office does include publicly subsidized home care support. So the short answer is that it is there.

Having said that, I would accept the proposition that, to this point, I think most people equate that office with acute care hospitals and maybe, to a lesser extent, with care being received in a residential care facility. I would share the member's view, if she were to express it, that it is less widely known that if people have an issue with the care they've received in their own home through a publicly subsidized home care support service, they are equally able to register that concern and that complaint with the patient care quality review office.

Hon. Chair, with the committee's indulgence, might I suggest we recess for five or seven minutes?

The Chair: All right. This committee will take a short recess.

The committee recessed from 5:01 p.m. to 5:12 p.m.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

K. Conroy: I just got told my time has been cut even more substantially, so we're flipping to assisted living.

Some of the issues with assisted living are around the confusing amount of information that's available when seniors are making a decision to live in assisted living, and what the fee they're going to pay entails.

I'm just wondering if the ministry is going to ensure there are some kind of standards around it or what. Are they going to make sure there'll be information around what basic services are going to be available, what the facilities should make available as part of their basic services that are included with their cost and the type of services it's going to provide? I'll just start with that.

Hon. M. de Jong: Inevitably, part of the debate that I hear about here is the desire to have a menu that people can go to with some certainty, a standardized menu that they understand what it means. Then there's the desire to standardize that, particularly with respect to — and I will emphasize this again — homes and facilities which are receiving public dollars.

On the other hand, for the private facilities, that may be equally appropriate, and yet I don't get the same level of concern. It may be a function of the fact that the folks going into private non-subsidized facilities are a pretty robust market that are able to speak for themselves, or their families are able to speak to maintaining certain levels of care because they're paying for it and therefore are very much engaged.

For the purpose of the conversation that we are beginning, if the member is all right with this, I will be commenting on facilities that are receiving public dollars firstly. She may have some additional questions about private care facilities, but I'm going to assume that for the moment we're talking about any facility that is receiving public dollars.

[1715]

The provincial policy that guides the determination of what benefits must be included and which items there can be a separate charge for, first of all, exists. I think at the end of the exercise what I should do is make sure the member has it, if she doesn't already.

The requirements include — I won't read them all — a private housing unit with a lockable door; personal care services; two nutritious meals per day, one of which is the main meal; access to basic activity; weekly housekeeping; laundering of towels and linens; access to laundry equipment for personal laundry; heating or air-conditioning necessary to maintain safety and basic comfort level; 24-hour emergency response system.

Then there are chargeable items — everything from cable to personal telephone to guest meals and suite rental. There's a whole host of those — a fee for pet damage and cleaning, transportation, equipment rental. So that menu exists as to what a resident is entitled to when they enter a facility, and I am happy to provide the menu, if I can use that term, to the member.

K. Conroy: I think what happens is that for some reason, even though the menu exists, seniors and their family still come away with different information on what is actually available in the facility. There's not consistency across the province, and there are different cost factors across the province. Different facilities charge different things for different items. There just doesn't seem to be consistency across the province, even in publicly funded assisted-living facilities.

What the minister could be looking at — or, hopefully, will be looking at in the future…. What I'm aiming at is that, for the basic services, there is information so that seniors can access that and know what they're actually paying for — that aside from just a basic menu, they know what the cost factors are.

Hon. M. de Jong: I think what we should set as an objective in terms of the information we want to have available for people is the ability either to provide or point them to a place where they can reliably calculate, in advance of them or their loved one entering a facility, what they're going to get and what it's going to cost — in the same way, quite frankly, that we would do when we book accommodation or rent an apartment. We want to know how many parking stalls we're getting. We want to know what the security service, if any, is going to be and whether the utilities are…. We want to know all of that stuff.

When seniors and their family are looking at identifying or locating supportive housing and care, they want to know the same thing. Finding a way to ensure that all of that information is available so there are no surprises…. "Here's how much this is going to cost."

[1720]

If there is an additional cost for connecting my television in my room, I want to know that up front. Do I need to calculate that into my determination of whether or not I can afford the service?

I think that is an appropriate objective, and I think we're making progress. I don't think we're there yet.

K. Conroy: The minister is quite right that it's a good objective, and the ministry is not quite there yet, because we obviously still get complaints and concerns about it — even things like: "I moved from one facility to another, and it costs this much to do this here, and now it's costing me this much here." So there are those inconsistencies across the province, even within the health authorities.

One of the issues that seniors face when they're either moving into assisted living or even moving from assisted living into residential care is that whole process of when they move. I hear more about it when they're moving from assisted living to residential care than, say, from home care to assisted living.

The process of when they need a bed…. They've been offered a bed in a facility, and they have a certain time frame to make up their mind. In some facilities they're told that they have to make up their mind within hours or by the next day. Others have a little bit more time. There's a whole process seniors have to go through when they're going to be moving to another facility. I'm just wondering if the ministry has some guidelines that they have thought about or some support — just some basic guidelines.

I know for some seniors that if they have been told, "If you don't take this residential care bed — if you're not going to take that, you're going to go to the bottom of the list; you won't stay near the top of the list," even though there might be a priority that they get moved into a residential care facility, they end up in assisted living. They might have to be in assisted living for an extra month before they can get into residential care.

Then the assisted living is ending up providing more support than what they had originally intended to, because they need to provide that support to make sure they have what they need before they get to the residential care bed. There is not consistency across the province on guidelines around the moving of seniors from one facility to the next, one level of care to the next.

[1725]

Hon. M. de Jong: I won't try to dismiss the nature of the problem the member has identified. I think there are circumstances in which — well, not some — people are provided with the next available bed, and because of the pressure that exists in terms of the number of people who require a bed, they are urged to make a decision very, very quickly.

The scenario that I was just talking about with the staff is…. I understand the rationale, because of the pressure that our facilities are under and the number of people who require access to them. Where you can see chal-
[ Page 11926 ]
lenges develop is on a weekend when someone says to a senior whose family members are away: "Look, there's a bed available. You've got to take it. You've got to decide now."

People come to a point in their life, I think, where they aren't obliged…. They're sort of out of practice in making decisions, and something as significant as where they're going to live is a pretty big decision. Asking a person to make that kind of a decision without being able to consult whatever their support base is can be a problem.

Now, what should never happen, although I am prepared to accept that it does from time to time, is that no one should ever be threatened. No one should ever be told, "Look, you have to decide now, or you're going to the bottom of the list," because that's not the way this is intended to work. There needs to be a degree of humanity and common sense involved that recognizes the unique circumstances that someone might be in.

Having said all that, I don't want to, again, leave the impression that we're going to be in a position to say to someone: "Take a couple of weeks to think about it." The pressure to access, the number of people needing access to these rooms and these beds are such that that's just not a luxury we have. There is a way — a practical, human way — to say to someone: "Look, we've talked about this in the past. Your needs are such. Here is a bed in a facility that we recommend. It's available for you. Talk it over with your support group" — sometimes that conversation takes place with the support group; in fact, in many cases it does — "but we do need to make a decision about this."

I have seen and read and actually been involved in circumstances where I have seen families who are loving and caring and also incredibly astute about being able to identify whether or not there is going to be a problem with a facility for reasons that no clinician might be able to identify. We have to take advantage of that insight.

I've also, quite frankly, run into circumstances where a family has decided that they know what's best, and if it isn't precisely what they believe and if they have to drive an extra 15 minutes, that is unacceptable. Actually, that attitude is unacceptable as well. We just don't have the luxury of being able to accommodate, in every instance, people and families to that extent.

[1730]

Having a structure in place that preserves an element of humanity is, I think, what should guide us in terms of the discussions we have in moving people and finding them available beds and available care facilities.

K. Conroy: I think that would be a good thing to put into a policy — that a level of humanity needs to be implemented when making some of these decisions. Sometimes it doesn't seem like that is, so I highly applaud that statement.

One of the statements that comes up or an issue for a lot of people — not a lot of people, but a number of concerns — is when a family needs to get their parent or grandparent or spouse into residential care. There are no subsidized beds available in the area, so they cobble together enough funds to be able to get a privately paid bed, thinking that they're still on the list to get a subsidized bed.

What happens is they fall down on the list, and then they end up in a situation…. A lot of families have got enough money to last maybe three or four months, and then they don't. They're still in private-pay, and they have to keep on paying because once the resident is in care, they've got to keep them in care. There is an issue where people fall off that wait-list, although some health authorities still tell me they don't have wait-lists — the imaginary wait-list. There is a wait-list somehow. They fall off of the priority to go into a subsidized bed.

It is a concern. I think it's something that the ministry needs to look at and to get the message out there that, yes, it is an issue to get seniors at home that need to go into residential care. We still need to look at the pressure you're putting on families. Sure enough, there are families that can afford it, even though they say they can't. But there are those that can't. I've met with some of them who are really struggling with it, and it's a concern.

[1735]

Hon. M. de Jong: Certainly a vexing problem, because…

Interjection.

Hon. M. de Jong: It's a good word, and an accurate one in this case.

…how do you differentiate between the family the member described, who should be applauded for marshalling whatever resources they can, scraping together whatever discretionary leftover dollars are available to put Mom or Grandma, while she waits for the facility she can actually afford…? How do you do that without penalizing…?

What happens, of course, is that the penalty reveals itself in the following way. Suddenly, she's less urgent. In a process that is driven by urgency, suddenly she has fallen down the urgency chart because for the moment she's looked after but not in a way that is sustainable.

Coupled with that — what I am reminded the Ombudsperson said in her report — is the need to make sure that that lady and her family are made aware right up front that by making that decision they are affecting the priority that she is in. Nothing would be more frustrating than to think you've done the right thing and then find out three months later: "Well, yeah, but by doing that, you've moved Grandma two months further down the list."

It's something that we are actually looking at. We're, quite frankly, struggling with it, because how do you find
[ Page 11927 ]
the right mix? How do you properly assess the ability to pay? Right now, it's an income test for the patient, for the resident. Are there other factors? It's hard to know.

It's hard to assess urgency without delving into some of these other factors. Some people, quite frankly — as the member quite fairly pointed out — actually can afford to have their loved one in a particular facility. They've made the decision, and that does lessen the urgency.

For other families the situation has developed to a point where they no longer believe they are capable of caring for Grandma at home. They're waiting for the facility, the bed that Grandma is entitled to under the subsidization policy. In good conscience, they think they're doing the right thing by scraping together whatever additional resources they have to find her a temporary bed in a private facility, but they're not in a position to sustain that over the longer term.

So the member has identified an area of public policy that we are examining but to this point struggling with in terms of trying to find the mechanisms for establishing the balance. The one thing we're not struggling with, though, that the Ombudsperson did comment on fairly robustly, is the need to ensure that families have this information up front and aren't surprised by it three months into the exercise.

K. Conroy: Just to clarify. I think I heard the minister saying this previously. Along the same lines as this, when we're looking at couples that…. Say they're in assisted living, paying $5,000 a month for assisted living, and suddenly one of the couple has to go into residential care, has to go into private care, where it's going to cost another $4,000. This other person is still in assisted living.

[1740]

It's my understanding — and a nod would work — that the ministry is now ensuring that it's not 80 percent of one of those person's net income to figure out the cost of the care in residential care. In fact, they will look at the situation where one spouse remains in assisted living and the other one goes to residential care so that they make sure that you're not looking at someone who suddenly has to pay twice what their income is, for instance, in care. I'm thinking that I'm getting a yes on that, and I can move to another question?

A Voice: Yes.

K. Conroy: Yes. Okay, good. The member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant is going to ask a few questions.

J. Kwan: I have a specific case, actually, about a constituent of mine, for whom I have a consent release form signed here. Essentially, this is about a senior who was admitted to the hospital for hip surgery on June 8, 2011. Then after the surgery he was in the hospital for about two weeks but not well enough to go home. Then he was moved to, I guess, what the ministry now categorizes as a convalescent care bed for the remainder of the time for which he stayed there — quite a number of days, almost three months in total. So clearly, he was not well enough to go home, but at the same time, obviously, he should not have been occupying an acute care bed.

That said, when the gentleman returned home, he received a bill. The bill actually is in the amount of $1,312.22, to be exact. When he received the bill, it also had a stamp that said "credit action pending," meaning to say that if you don't pay now, I guess there'll be some credit action taken. He actually had zero recollection at the hospital that somehow he was going to be charged for the bed that he stayed in. He's on a fixed income, so the matter was then brought to my office's attention.

We then brought it to Vancouver Coastal in an attempt to try and resolve the issue. Vancouver Coastal looked into it and then discovered that there was an error made in the billing — that he should not have been charged the full $1,312.22. The rate was subsequently reduced to about $300.

Then along with it, we also got, I guess, a bunch of government policy material that says who these charges apply to and whether or not these charges could be waived. It turns out that an individual who is on PWD, which is a disability pension, is not eligible to have their charges waived. He's clearly on a fixed income. While he was in the hospital bed, he had to continue to pay for the cost of his home — right?

I guess there are two questions that I have. There is, in the information that was sent to me from the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, a hardship waiver provision. So my first question is: can a person on a disability pension apply for hardship?

Second, in this instance and particularly related to this case, what can be done for this gentleman? The $300 charge — $295.75, to be exact — is still not affordable to him, a person who is on a fixed income, on a disability income. What can be done to help him in this situation?

[1745]

Hon. M. de Jong: The short answer to question 1 is yes. We're not aware of any impediment to someone on disability or permanent disability making application under the hardship provisions.

The answer to question 2, I'm afraid, is one the member probably anticipated, which is that if she wants to send me the material, we'll have a look. I really can't say a lot more than that about what the options are at this point.

J. Kwan: I would be happy to send the material to the minister, and hopefully, the minister can find some way to resolve the issue.

I find it really strange that the regulation basically says that people who are on either income assistance or
[ Page 11928 ]
on disability pension are not allowed to ask for a waiver. The whole purpose of the waiver, of course, would be for the people who are least able to pay for these expenses, yet this huge category of people who ought to qualify are not able to qualify.

Even upon an inquiry, it came back to basically say that, sorry, because the person is on PWD, they are not allowed to apply for a waiver. It is only on inquiring further into it that there's this other clause on hardship waiver. It's unclear to me whether or not people on disability or on income assistance would be able to apply for hardship.

None of this information, by the way, was shared with this constituent of mine. In fact, he didn't even know that he was being charged until he got home and got a bill that basically says, "Pay up or we're going to go after your credits," etc. So I think there's a big problem in that way, and it's worth reviewing the policy overall around qualification.

I'm just going to leave it at that, because I know time is of the essence here. I'm happy to pass along the package to the minister for him to review, and I look forward to a response from the minister before we're out of the session so that I can get back to my constituent on how to resolve this issue. It's hugely stressful for him, as the minister could imagine.

K. Conroy: Moving on to the issue around fees in residential care. The ministry started charging residents an additional fee. It was said by the former Minister of Health — it might have been the former, former Minister of Health — that all fees would be going back into residential care. The report was just done that showed, in fact, that it didn't all quite go back into residential care, into the actual care.

I'm wondering if the government is committed to not only ensuring that from now on the money will go back into the actual care, but that the ministry will release a site-by-site or assessment of who actually did receive the funds — which facilities actually received their funds.

Hon. M. de Jong: Again, I say this not to be argumentative, but if we are approaching the issue from dramatically different perspectives, then we're not destined to have a very fruitful conversation.

I think my position and the position of the government and the ministry, though, would be to challenge the assertion that the additional revenues generated by the adjustment on the fees…. I'd challenge the assertion that all of those moneys didn't go back into residential care.

[1750]

The member may have a basis for saying that which she wants to point me to, and I've got a myriad of numbers that I can relay to the member. But we might start, if the member has an aspect of the report or numbers that she has that she wants to put to me…. At this point my response would be to challenge the premise of the question, which is that not all of the money went back into residential care.

K. Conroy: It was to increase staffing and increase care. Part of the funding went to facilities that could no longer charge a differential, so it went to that facility to cover their costs of adjusting that. Some would say it didn't necessarily go back into increased staffing or increased care. It just went to maintain status quo.

There was a significant portion, because the ministry didn't…. The facilities had some time to adjust the residential fees they were charging that they couldn't charge anymore, that differential, so some of the money covered the cost off for those facilities.

What I'd probably be more interested in than debating that aspect of it is if there is information on which facilities actually received funding and how much they actually received.

Hon. M. de Jong: These numbers will be in Hansard. I can give her a copy of this so she doesn't have to worry about writing them down.

Here's a breakdown on the costs we have that has been provided to me with respect to 2010-11, year 1 of this reinvestment. Increased staffing levels for health-authority-owned-and-operated facilities was about $3 million. Increased staffing levels for contracted facilities was about $24 million.

[1755]

Education for staff in health authority–owned and in contracted facilities was about $2.1 million; specialized services, $650,000; non-capital equipment for health authority–owned facilities, $4.3 million; non-capital equipment for contracted facilities, $5.7 million. And this goes to what the member was, I think, referring to: elimination of preferred accommodation charges, health authority–owned facilities, was $2.3 million; accommodation charges, contracted facilities, $3.4 million.

That's the breakdown across all the authorities. What I have is broken down in those categories by health authority. What I don't have, nor do I think I have access to, is a breakdown by facility, which I think was the second part of the member's question.

K. Conroy: Where I was going with it…. I think those are the numbers that were in the report that was just released. I do have a copy of it. What I was looking for was the breakdown of facilities, because there is the concern from facilities that they are not getting back the amount of money that they thought should be coming to them. There are a number of facilities that have expressed that concern.

The obvious way of dealing with that is seeing the actual breakdown of funding that goes back to the facilities. I'm wondering: is the ministry going to be doing that? Are those funds that we will have access to in the near fu-
[ Page 11929 ]
ture? Or is it something that isn't going to be accessible?

Hon. M. de Jong: Just confirming that I was right. The breakdown by facility isn't available to me to pass along to the member. I appreciate what she said about the numbers being available, the authority numbers being available in the report.

I should emphasize and disclose to the member that the other feature to this is the fact, for example, that ten residents in residential care facility A were assessed a higher co-pay element that translated into — for this conversation, let's say — $10,000, would not automatically translate into an additional $10,000 going back to that facility. The health authority would have distributed that additional revenue throughout the health authority and not necessarily purely on the basis of where it originated from in terms of a particular facility.

[1800]

What I am comfortable saying with certainty is that the amounts that I read and that are included in the report went into additional staffing within facilities in that health authority. I am less well equipped to say that facility A received that additional money because that's what was generated in additional fees from that facility. That would be incorrect for me to say.

K. Conroy: With due respect to the Chair, I'm going to put two questions into one. My first question is…. We all hear about seniors in acute care beds waiting to get placement into residential care facilities. That's happening across the province. Some hospitals have more seniors than others. We hear quite often about the overcapacity situations in hospitals, and we're always told that there are X number of seniors in beds waiting for placement in a residential care facility.

I'm also told that there are a number of residential care facilities across the province that have beds available. I'm just thinking: is it not more cost-effective to have those seniors go into a residential care facility where they'll be getting the proper care they should be getting — not paying what it costs to house a senior in acute care, but actually putting them into residential care and opening up some of those beds that are right now private paying and ensuring that those beds become subsidized beds?

They're there. They're waiting for seniors. We have seniors in acute care. I get queried on that often. It's a question that I put to the minister.

My other question — these are just simple ones for the end of estimates — is around historical funding. Quite often I'm in facilities where I'm having discussions with administrators, and there is the issue around historical funding. The facilities that have been around for a long time…. This tends to happen more with non-profit facilities.

I was at some wonderful non-profit facilities out in Abbotsford last week — in fact, in the minister's own constituency — and was just amazed with what they've done over the years. They have frustration with the lack of availability of capital funding but still have incredible facilities that are really well run. They also talk about the inequities of funding between facilities that have opened up in more recent years and facilities that have been around for, say, 30 or 40 years. There is that inequity.

Is there any hope that in the near future the ministry will be looking at ensuring that those inequities don't continue to exist and will penalize those facilities that have been providing good-quality seniors care in our province for many years? I just wonder if there's any hope for that in the very near future.

The Chair: Minister, and noting the hour.

Hon. M. de Jong: Thanks, hon. Chair, and I'll do this more quickly than the question deserves, because it is an important one. The member is right about the evolution of contractual relationships over three, four or five decades, which has resulted in some inequities.

There is ongoing work to try and level out some of those inequities, but let's not kid ourselves. When people talk about levelling out the inequities, as the member herself said a few moments ago, it's generally about bringing the folks on the lower end up as opposed to bringing people at the higher end down. That is dependent upon finding additional resources and reallocating resources.

Some of that can be done with some new partnership models. It's why I am someone who is particularly enthusiastic about exploring some of these new partnership models that allow us more flexibility to do this.

[1805]

I'm pleased the member had an opportunity to see some of the facilities that run in my neck of the province which, she is quite generous but quite correct in saying, have distinguished themselves over many, many years on the basis of philanthropy and community caring from a large segment of the population.

That in no way does justice to the breadth of the question but is, I'm afraid, what we are left with on this occasion. I'm not sure if the member will be back tomorrow to pursue questioning. If not, I have found the exchange helpful and in a couple of instances have garnered suggestions that we will endeavour to pursue and keep the member apprised of as we make those advances. So thanks to her.

I move the committee rise, report progress and seek leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:06 p.m.

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