2016 Legislative Session: Fifth Session, 40th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 36, Number 5

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

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 2016

The House met at 1:35 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Introductions by Members

Hon. Michelle Stilwell: I’d like to welcome my friends here today from Barrier-Free B.C.. Barrier-Free B.C. is a newly formed advocacy organization working to create a barrier-free province for all people with disabilities.

One of their main goals is to establish a British Columbians with disability act, and earlier today they launched their awareness campaign on the front steps of the Legislature. I had the pleasure to meet with some of the members of Barrier-Free B.C. shortly afterwards to talk about our shared goals.

As members very well know, our government has set the vision to become the most accessible jurisdiction in all of Canada. One of our commitments in our Accessibility 2024 action plan is to consult on those options for a made-in-B.C. approach to accessibility-related legislation.

Last month the federal government announced that they would be launching a cross-Canada consultation on a national disability act. We remain committed on this side of the House with our goal, and we will build on those federal conversations as we look for options on consulting on provincial disability legislation.

I look forward to working with my friends at Barrier-Free B.C. as we move forward to ensure we create the most accessible jurisdiction in all of Canada.

M. Mungall: I would like to join the minister in welcoming members from Barrier-Free B.C. They are taking on excellent work to move this province towards having legislation for a persons with disability act, following Ontario and Manitoba’s lead and now the federal government’s lead. Eventually I’d like to see this dream right across the country, because as we know, accessibility is a non-partisan issue and is a human rights issue and is the right thing to do in this country.

With special guests…. I’d like to introduce the House to the members of Barrier-Free B.C. who are up in the gallery right now. They asked me to share with the House the barriers that they experience because of their different and diverse abilities.

We have Mr. Rob Sleath from Richmond, B.C. He’s the spokesperson for Barrier-Free B.C. He is living with the barriers associated with total sight loss. We have Ms. Lynn Hunter from Victoria, B.C. She’s the chair of the government relations committee with the MS Society of Canada.

Ms. Lynn Malayly is from Victoria. She’s living with the barriers associated with paraplegia. Ms. Jasmine Parr is also from Victoria, representing Power To Be Adventure Therapy and living with the barriers associated with quadriplegia.

Mr. Brent Page is the national manager for community engagement and integrations services for March of Dimes Canada. He is a member of the Barrier-Free B.C. steering committee. And Mr. Reed Poynter — pardon me for probably not pronouncing that correctly — is from Langley, B.C. He’s a director with Access for Sight-Impaired Consumers, a member of the Barrier-Free B.C. steering committee, and he’s living with the barriers associated with total sight loss.

May the House please make them welcome and wish them all the best in their journey to achieve legislation here in British Columbia.

Hon. S. Cadieux: In the House today, now I believe and probably following quite shortly, are two groups of 40 grade 11 students from Southridge School in Surrey-Cloverdale. The teachers accompanying the students today are Darren Jones, Ira Alexander and James Knihniski. I would hope that the House would make these great students very welcome.

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K. Corrigan: In the precinct today, we have members of the UVic Native Students Union council. The UVic Native Students Union is a student-run collective dedicated to supporting the indigenous student community at the University of Victoria. We have with us Blake Desjarlais, Taylor Carpenter, Grace-Anne Thunder, Jessica Curry, Jackson McDermott, Natashe McKinstry and Richel Donaldson. I hope the House will please make them all very welcome.

Hon. A. Virk: I have the pleasure to introduce a family which is indicative, sort of, of the migration of what makes Canada. I have a family here, and half of them are from Bangkok, Thailand.

We have Pritam and Daljit Singh, who were born in West Punjab, which is now Pakistan, in the ’30s. Then they migrated to Hong Kong. Pritam lived there during the Japanese occupation, 1941 to 1945, went back to India, married Daljit. They then moved back and made a life in Hong Kong, where he eventually became the chief executive officer in the Hong Kong government. He retired after 35 years of service and retired to Canada and became a Canadian.

The next generation is my connection. The next generation is my friend, Bijay, who then migrated from Hong Kong to Canada as a young SFU student at age 18. I was 18 at one point as well. Bijay came to UBC as
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an 18-year-old, went on to Stanford to do his MBA. I recall during university he would jump from English to Punjabi to Cantonese to Mandarin, and people — their jaws would drop.

Bijay. went on to work in the pharmaceutical industry, worked on a number of continents — in Africa. He’s worked in Asia, he was a general manager for China and a regional head for Africa for Novartis. He currently lives in Bangkok, Thailand, and works as a vice president of business development for DKSH, the largest market expansion service for health care companies in Asia.

The story of migration continues. Bijay is married to Angelique, who was born in Basra, Iraq, educated in Kuwait and India and then, finally, the U.K. They met in New York and married and have three children who are Canadian citizens. Currently two of them are at U of T, and the other one lives with them in Bangkok, Thailand.

Quite a complicated story, isn’t it? Of course, Amrita, Daljit and Pritam’s daughter, was born in Hong Kong, migrated to Canada, married a Canadian, moved all over the world and eventually settled back in Canada.

Would the House please make this worldly family, where multiple languages are spoken…. Would the House please make them feel welcome.

B. Ralston: I’d ask the House to recognize and welcome in the gallery Director General Tom Lee of the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office, who has joined us here today.

Hon. T. Lake: I have a couple of introductions today. As I was going through the hallways, I met a couple that were here with Barrier-Free B.C., Brent and Sonya. Brent tells me he’s been living with a vision disability from birth and had a question about a policy issue. I asked him to meet with the member from Nanaimo so that we could raise that up. So just to give the member from Nanaimo a heads-up — Brent and Sonya, a wonderful couple. Would the House please make them very welcome.

Also, it’s my pleasure to introduce and welcome to the House the Tribal Chief of the Stó:lō Nation and current chair of the First Nations Health Council, Grand Chief Doug Kelly. Doug, everyone in this House is aware, has done amazing work in the design and transition to First Nations health governance as well as overseeing the delivery of the health action items identified in the tripartite First Nations health plan.

Doug is a tremendous advocate for his people, a tremendous advocate for healthy living. We ran into each other on the street last night. We were comparing athletic injuries until we realized that they weren’t really athletic injuries; they were injuries related to getting old.

Please, everybody, help me welcome Doug Kelly here today.

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M. Elmore: I am very pleased to welcome…. We have with us today members from Advocis, which is the leading association of insurance and financial advisors. We all know very capable, competent financial advisers in all our communities across British Columbia that provide needed and important financial support and advice to families, small businesses and British Columbians right across our province.

They are here to talk to us about the value of professionalizing the industry, bringing the central principle that guides the success of their businesses’ trust they have with consumers and clients and really raising that to a higher level. Certainly, to benefit all British Columbians, they are passionately undertaking that project as well.

They are talking to us about the value of a commission-based business and the example of the United Kingdom, which has eliminated embedded commissions — not the route to go in terms of ensuring that all British Columbians have access to affordable and accessible financial advice.

I also want to recognize the value, the benefit that they bring to our communities, not only as passionate professionals but also in bringing important financial literacy and providing that important resource to us here in British Columbia.

Please welcome all of the members and thank them for their great service to British Columbia.

Hon. M. Bernier: It gives me great pleasure today to introduce in the House, up on the top to my right here, players from the Spectrum Community School’s football team. As well, they are accompanied by their head coach, Darren Vaux, their principal, Rob House, and former graduate here on the Island, retired NFL kicker Eddie Murray.

They’ve come to the Legislature today to celebrate the NFL’s recognition of Eddie’s contribution to football in his 1994 Super Bowl victory with the Dallas Cowboys. As somebody who actually watches all of the Super Bowls, if memory serves me correctly, in ’94, I think they won by a kick from Eddie right close to the end of the game. Congratulations to him for that.

Eddie began his football career, actually, right here on the Island. He was with the Saanich Hornets in the Lower Island Junior Varsity football league. He was selected in the seventh round of the 1980 NFL draft by the Detroit Lions and went on to serve 20 years in the NFL. Eddie had the honour of being the 1980 Pro Bowl MVP, and retired as the 16th-highest scorer in NFL’s history.

As part of a new football program created in 2013, these students here are excited to be creating history, just like Eddie. I’m very honoured to introduce them in the House. I know that when I was out on the front steps with them earlier today, the excitement they had to learn from the experiences from Eddie but, more importantly, to look at his drive and the excitement of the opportunities we have right here in British Columbia to go on and
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do great things in sports. I’m hoping the House will make them all very welcome.

J. Horgan: I was at the ophthalmologist today, so I had eye drops. But if I’m not mistaken, up around and beside that pillar is former city councillor and former Member of Parliament, Lynn Hunter, I believe. Yeah, it is. Good. Also, she’s a friend and a resident of James Bay, so there’s truth and proof that people do just meander into the building every now and again to see what’s going on. Would the House please make Lynn very, very welcome.

Following on the minister’s introduction of Eddie Murray, Eddie played soccer before he played football, and he was pretty good at it. But with the great rivalries between my high school of Reynolds and Spectrum, which were fierce during the 1970s, Eddie decided on football because he couldn’t hit the net. He kept kicking the ball over the crossbars.

He ended up going to a great career at Tulane University — yeah, Green Wave, that’s right, Tulane University — before he was drafted by the Detroit Lions. But Eddie did a great service at one time in his life, bringing Reynolds and Spectrum together when he married across city lines to one of the Rogers girls, who was famous at Reynolds as well.

Eddie, I can’t see you. I know you’re here. Would the House please say to Ed Murray: “Way to bring Reynolds and Spectrum together!”

V. Huntington: I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome two grade 5 classes and their teachers from Southpointe Academy in Tsawwassen. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Sergeant-at-Arms, who not only graciously escorted them onto the floor of the House but spent a few minutes of his valuable time in talking to them about the traditions of this place. Thank you so much, Sergeant-at-Arms. Please would the House make them feel welcome.

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Hon. S. Anton: Here with the Advocis group is a constituent of mine, Mr. Rick Lam from Genssante health and life insurance. Rick is a marathoner — in fact, he went out running with some of our colleagues this morning — and he is a longtime member of the Chinatown Revitalization Committee. Those of us from Vancouver and area will know how important an entity that is. May the House please make welcome my constituent from Vancouver-Fraserview, Mr. Rick Lam.

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to introduce to the House today Denis Canuel. Denis runs a professional gardening business here on southern Vancouver Island, and he’s with us to see the introduction of a bill later this afternoon. Would the House please make him feel very welcome.

E. Foster: I have a rather lengthy introduction, but fortunately, the member for Vancouver-Kensington has probably used most of it. Just to say a very big welcome to the members of Advocis from this side of the House. We met with them this morning. Welcome to the House, and continue your good work.

The other introduction…. Well, it’s not an introduction; it’s an announcement. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone in the chamber and people that work in the building for supporting Lumby in their bid to be Hockeyville 2016 Canada. We were successful.

G. Holman: I wanted to introduce to the House today a constituent of mine, Gerald Kazanowski, a financial adviser working out of Sidney who’s also a member of Advocis. I think I can say, without hesitation, that Gerald is the tallest member at 6 foot 9. Of course, many of you will remember that he was a star player with the University of Victoria and went on to play with Canada’s national basketball team. Would the House please make Gerald feel welcome.

D. McRae: Today in the chamber, in the gallery behind me, I have two friends from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office joining us here. Director General Tom Lee has been in the province for about two months. He’s joined by the division director for British Columbia, his colleague Jack Pan, who has also been here for about the same amount of time. He and his predecessors have done a great job visiting communities across British Columbia, and I look forward to his two-year station in British Columbia. I ask this House to please make him and his colleague very welcome.

J. Thornthwaite: I’d like to also welcome one of my constituents — actually, two of my constituents — Mr. and Mrs. Michael Thorne. Thank you very much for coming.

L. Krog: If the House will forgive me, I want to also recognize that Mr. Kazanowski is not just a star athlete; he’s from Nanaimo originally.

I’d also like to welcome Paul Tidey and Scott Bickerton, who are here from Nanaimo with Advocis. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. A. Wilkinson: In keeping with our welcome to the members of Advocis, I have to point out that a constituent of mine is here, Mr. Bob Cowan. Let this sink into your heads: he began his professional career in 1961.

Tributes

SARAH BECKETT

M. Karagianis: As the House will know, my community and the community of the member for Juan de
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Fuca are in mourning today. We are mourning the loss of a mother, a partner, a community leader and a proud member of the RCMP.

Const. Sarah Beckett leaves behind two small boys, a husband and a family who loved her dearly. Her West Shore RCMP family adored her as well. Sarah joined the RCMP in 2005. She served in Port McNeill and at the West Shore detachment and was a detective with the Vancouver Island Integrated Crime Unit.

Sarah had just recently returned to duty after maternity leave. She was working the overnight shift yesterday when tragedy struck. This is the first time since 1991 that Vancouver Island has lost a police member on the job. It is very heartbreaking for our communities and for everyone who has been touched by this tragedy.

To help the family in this difficult time, citizens have already started fundraising. A barbecue fundraiser will be held at the Fountain Tire in Langford on April 17. All donations should go through the West Shore RCMP to help the family. The RCMP is also setting up a webpage for Canadians across the country to offer their thoughts, and a book of condolences has been set up in the lobby of the West Shore RCMP detachment.

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A GoFundMe page called “The Loss of Const. Sarah Beckett” has raised in excess of, I believe, $44,000 at last count in just the last day. I’ve received notice that a candlelight walk will be held this Sunday, April 10, at 8:30 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Park.

When word of Sarah’s death began to spread yesterday morning, citizens started to show up at the West Shore detachment and place flowers around a statue that stands in front of the detachment. It shows a police officer helping a child. In one of the sadly ironic twists of life, Sarah was the model for that statue.

I know that all members will join with me in sending our deepest condolences to those who loved Const. Sarah Beckett: her family, her friends, her extended family at the RCMP. Please know that we are thinking of you and offering our heartfelt appreciation for the great service she has done to our province.

Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

Madame Speaker: Leader of the Official Opposition.

J. Horgan: Thank you, hon. Speaker….

BILL M212 — ANIMAL LIABILITY ACT, 2016

A. Weaver presented a bill intituled Animal Liability Act, 2016.

A. Weaver: I move introduction of the Animal Liability Act, 2016.

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I’m pleased to be introducing a bill intituled the Animal Liability Act. Earlier this year a number of vicious dog attacks occurred in the Lower Mainland. Over the years, British Columbians have been calling on B.C. legislators to act.

According to the Canada Safety Council, more than 460,000 dog bites occur in Canada each year. Just last week, there was a case of unprovoked dog attack reported in Saanich, an attack that nearly left an individual without his employment for years to come. In this case, the dog was a repeat offender.

Here in B.C., we do not have adequate laws that ensure owners are liable for the actions of their animals. Indeed, we only have liability being imposed on the basis of scienter doctrine, negligence or, in some cases, the Occupiers Liability Act.

This bill would ensure that owners are liable for any damages resulting from harm that the animals cause to a person or property. This bill, based on similar legislation that exists in Manitoba, is designed to ensure that owners of animals take their ownership seriously and are held responsible for the actions of their pets.

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 M212, Animal Liability Act, 2016, 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.

BILL M213 — CAMPAIGN FINANCE
REFORM ACT, 2016

J. Horgan presented a bill intituled Campaign Finance Reform Act, 2016.

J. Horgan: I thank the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head.

I move that a bill intituled Campaign Finance Reform Act, 2016, of which notice has been given on the order paper in my name, be read a first time now.

Motion approved.

J. Horgan: The Campaign Finance Reform Act is a bill to take big money out of the politics in British Columbia. While other provinces have instituted strict rules on campaign financing, B.C. has moved in the opposite direction. British Columbians are telling us clearly that this is the wrong direction. They’re tired of the real or perceived influence of organizations with big pockets over the political process in this province.

This bill bans corporate and union donations to political parties and restricts campaign donations to indi-
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viduals. It calls on the Chief Electoral Officer to review campaign financing and specifically set limits on individual donations.

This will be the fifth time members on this side of the House have introduced this bill. Just days ago I was pleased to see my colleague from Delta South introduce a similar bill in this place.

This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue of public trust, and it goes to the root of the health of our democracy. It’s past time that we in British Columbia, rather than depending on having big money at the heart of our politics, put people back at the centre of our politics.

At this time, I move, pursuant to Standing Order 78A, that this bill be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for immediate review.

Madame Speaker: Hon. Members, you have heard the question.

Hon. M. de Jong: Sorry. Excuse me, Madame Speaker. I want to make sure that I understand the question that’s been put.

J. Horgan: The member will have his MacMinn at hand.

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Pursuant to Standing Order 78A, it is at an opportunity after first reading of a private member’s bill, or any other bill, that it be immediately referred to a committee of the Legislature. As the Select Standing Committee on Finance has been used in this session for the work of the Ombudsperson to create a shield for the activities of the government with respect to health researchers over the past number of years, it seems only appropriate that an important act like this, being brought forward for the fifth time — not just by the official opposition but also by a member of our group of independents — be sent to an appropriate body for immediate review.

Hon. M. de Jong: I do now better understand the motion.

I wonder if this might be an appropriate suggestion, though. The member has tabled the bill, and I’ve not had an opportunity, nor have members of the House had an opportunity…. The bill might be tabled. I believe the standing orders provide for the member to make his motion at a subsequent sitting day of the chamber. Candidly, we’d be in a better position — I’d be in a better position — to render an opinion on his motion if we were to have an opportunity to review the bill.

J. Horgan: The member is a senior member of this House. He’s been here since the 1990s, and he will know this bill chapter and verse, I would expect, because this is the fifth time he’s had an opportunity to look at it.

It strikes me that this is a matter of urgency. I have reviewed the standing orders. I have discussed this with the Clerks’ table, and I believe this is the appropriate time for immediate action on this file.

Other provinces are taking action right now. This is an opportunity for this Legislature to stand with one voice and say: “It’s time to take the big money out of politics.” I would suggest that the member support that.

Madame Speaker: I appreciate the submissions. There will be no further debate. We’re putting the question under 78A. Shall this be referred to a committee?

Division has been called.

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Hon. Members, the question is committee referral of the bill introduced by the Leader of the Official Opposition.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Hon. Members, there will be silence for the reciting of the division.

Motion negatived on the following division:

J. Horgan: I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading in the House at the next sitting of the House after today, which could be tomorrow.

Bill M213, Campaign Finance Reform Act, 2016, 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.

BILL M214 — LOCAL GOVERNMENT
AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

A. Weaver presented a bill intituled Local Government Amendment Act, 2016.

A. Weaver: I move introduction of the Local Government Amendment Act, 2016.

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I am pleased to be introducing a bill intituled the Local Government Amendment Act.

In British Columbia, we have a municipality that has no houses, no infrastructure and no people. The Jumbo Glacier Resort is designated as a mountain resort municipality, and despite having neither any people nor any buildings, it is governed by a mayor and two councillors and funded by the province.

For the existence of a municipality to make any sense, it needs people. The Local Government Amendment Act would ensure that this be the case across British Columbia. This bill would close a glaring loophole created in 2012 by this government solely to support a project that has not substantially started. It’s opposed by the Ktunaxa Nation, whose environmental assessment certificate has expired.

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 M214, Local Government Amendment Act, 2016, 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.

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Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

HISTORY OF VANCOUVER

S. Sullivan: One hundred and thirty years ago today, this parliament passed an act to create the city of Vancouver. It was the most contentious act of 1886. Twice it was sent back to committee, and when it finally reached the Legislature for a final vote, there was one more attempt to stop it. Supportive politicians got streets named after them. Drake, Davie, Robson, Smythe, Dunsmuir — all are artifacts of that battle.

Many were opposed to the name. There was already a place named Vancouver — Vancouver, Washington. It had been abandoned 24 years earlier. It had been the capital of proto–British Columbia before the border treaty, the largest city on the west coast when the area was governed by the honourable Hudson’s Bay Company, which was the legal government in most of western Canada. The governor, James Douglas, led a caravan from Vancouver up to Victoria, his new capital.

The old Vancouver had been a very multicultural place: 35 ethnic groups lived there; 30 percent were Hawaiian. The aboriginal trade language, Chinook Wawa, fully developed there. Part aboriginal, part non-aboriginal, it was spoken by all the Vancouver children in their mixed-race families. The new Vancouver started as multicultural as the old. The largest employer, the Hastings Mill, operated in Chinook Wawa.

For thousands of years, the Coast Salish people called this area their home, and their traditions and respect for people and nature are deeply engrained in Vancouver’s cultural fabric. Vancouver has been transformed by immigrants, traders, entrepreneurs, from humble beginnings as a village around a sawmill to its current status as a cosmopolitan destination with international appeal. It is an economic hub renowned for its natural beauty and cultural diversity.

Today Vancouver is the home of more than 600,000 residents. Vancouver is a bridge between the economies of the world and the rugged natural beauty of B.C., and together its citizens have shaped it into a thriving, dynamic city that is among the best places in the world to live, work and play.

Please join me in wishing the city of Vancouver a happy 130th birthday.

ARTS AND CULTURE IN BURNABY

K. Corrigan: For the creatively inclined, the city of Burnaby offers a full menu of artistic pursuits through its cultural services department. At the beautiful Shadbolt Centre, over 30 shows a year are produced in the James Cowan Theatre. Over 10,000 students attended the centre last year, including thousands enrolled in after-school arts classes. Shadbolt also provides valuable community space for meetings, conferences and special events.

Over 225,000 visitors per year get a taste of frontier life in the early 1900s at the Burnaby Village Museum, which features a vintage 1912 Parker Carousel and a fully restored Interurban tram. Hundreds of volunteers help to ensure the village museum continues to be among the top five tourist attractions in the Lower Mainland.

The Burnaby Art Gallery continues to thrive, hosting eight major exhibitions in 2015, and has strongly
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attended art programs. The public art program featuring the Playground of the Gods at Burnaby Mountain’s Kushiro Park is also cherished by Burnaby residents and visitors alike.

Burnaby is home to the spectacular summer concert venue at Deer Lake Park, which has hosted memorable shows by the Lumineers, Jack Johnson, Black Eyed Peas and k.d. lang, among others. Canada Day shows at Swangard Stadium are free to the public. In addition, Burnaby’s again free Symphony in the Park at Deer Lake hosts 11,000 classical music lovers in August. Burnaby also hosts, at the same park, the daylong Blues and Roots Festival.

The legendary Hats Off Day community celebration and the Giro di Burnaby annual bike race are just two examples of Burnaby’s special events that each draw over 10,000 attendees every year.

Congratulations to the city of Burnaby and all of the staff and volunteers who ensure wonderful and accessible cultural services in our community.

CABER THE TRAUMA DOG

S. Hamilton: I’m going to guess that the House probably by now knows I’m a bit of a dog person — more specifically, a dogs-with-jobs type of person. We know my wife, Kristen, has been here with Gambit the guide dog on a number of occasions. We’ve hosted the B.C. Guide and Autism Support Dogs, PADS, etc., and the list goes on.

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In keeping that with tradition, today I rise in the House to recognize an individual that has impacted my community for the past six years, Caber the trauma dog. Caber was introduced to the Delta police victim services department in 2010 after being trained and then kindly donated by the Pacific Assistance Dogs Society, or PADS for short.

Caber was just eight weeks old when he started his training with PADS in their puppy education program. He then went on to advanced training in Calgary before returning to PADS and joining the Delta police victim services at the age of two.

Caber was the first trauma canine in a victim services setting, and it’s his calming, affectionate and docile temperament and nature that makes him an exceptional fit for the work that he does, calming and comforting people experiencing traumatic situations. Caber’s work includes helping to reduce people’s blood pressure, providing a healing and calming touch and promoting communication. He responds to an array of traumatic events including homicides, arson, sudden death and domestic violence.

Other examples of Caber’s work include his support of a family and a group of children and teachers in response to the tragic homicide of 15-year-old Laura Szendrei. Caber attended the victim’s classes for the first full day back at school and elicited a significant emotional response from those in his contact. Caber was there to help soothe a rocked community in a time of need.

In 2013, Caber became Canada’s first courthouse dog and participated in a pilot project that saw him attend pretrial interviews and promote comfort to victims when discussing their testimony. In the same year, Caber even featured in the September edition of Modern Dog. The magazine highlighted how Caber’s use in the police force is as a different type of dog.

Over the years, Caber has provided support for over 500 victims of crime, and he looks set to continue helping many more. When we speak of crime, Caber is a wonderful person to have at your side.

And welcome to Lucca at the Vancouver police department, as of yesterday — same type of dog, same type of support.

TERRORIST ATTACKS IN PAKISTAN

S. Hammell: On Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016, at one of the largest parks in Lahore, Pakistan, an explosion at the entry gates took the lives of 75 people and injured over 340. Families of all religions were spending an evening in the park eating and playing together.

An offshoot of the Pakistan Taliban took responsibility for the suicide attack and declared their intention to continue terrorizing the citizens of Pakistan. Since the beginning of this year alone, there have been seven terrorist attacks in Pakistan, leading to 146 deaths and countless people injured. Innocent mothers and fathers and children have become targets in a war that residents in all corners of Pakistan cannot escape.

Pakistan is and has been at the front of the global war on terror. With a large Pakistani community in my constituency and in this province, I saw the frustration and fear firsthand as many waited after news of the bombing to hear if their friends and families were safe.

Powerful words were spoken by leaders in the community at a candlelight vigil held at Holland Park. I heard messages from a community that rejected the fear and hatred of a twisted religious ideology and heard that what we truly have is a fight for the love and acceptance of all humanity.

With similar attacks happening with increasing frequency in all corners of the globe, a solution to this complex problem must somehow be devised. I’d like all of us to reflect on the lives lost on March 27 in Lahore and support our Pakistani community in their grief and distress.

SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGISTS
AND AUDIOLOGISTS

D. Bing: Next month is Speech and Hearing Month. Before my son Graham married Tamara, a speech-language pathologist, or SLP, I knew very little about the work they do.
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When most people think about SLPs, they probably think of someone who helps people who stammer or stutter. They may remember the movie The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth as stammering Prince Albert, who would later become King George VI, and Geoffrey Rush as Australian Lionel Logue, his unorthodox speech therapist.

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While it is true that they do help with these issues, their scope of practice is a whole lot broader. SLPs are highly educated professionals who have a master’s degree in audiology and speech sciences. SLPs work with people of all ages whose disorders may include delayed speech and language development; neurologically based speech and language impairment; stuttering, voice or swallowing disorders.

My daughter-in-law Tamara specializes in swallowing disorders, and she works in a hospital. In Tamara’s own words: “SLPs and audiologists are communication experts. Our job is to help people to speak, to understand, to hear, to eat and to enjoy life with the people they love. We do the work we do because we want to help people participate in the meaningful activities of their lives to the fullest potential.”

By nature, humans are social creatures, and so much of our identities are built on how we engage with the people around us. SLPs and audiologists want to maximize that with whatever challenges a patient or client faces. Especially during Speech and Hearing Awareness Month in May, let us recognize and thank all speech-language pathologists and audiologists for what they do as health professionals.

WALK AWAY FROM RACISM EVENT
IN CAMPBELL RIVER

C. Trevena: I rise today to talk about an event in Campbell River that proudly marked its 20th anniversary this last month, the annual Walk Away From Racism. Every year, people gather to show their commitment to living and working as a true community, a community in which people’s race is not an issue and diversity is enjoyed and celebrated.

Last month hundreds gathered at the community centre for singing and for speeches ahead of the walk through the Campbell River downtown core. Sliammon elder Elsie Paul spoke movingly about racism and about the need to work and live together. The local band Inclusion played music, and as we walked along the city streets, drummers were walking along with us.

The message that the organizers at the Immigrant Welcome Centre wanted to share was one of living and working together, and to illustrate that, an art installation, part sculpture and part tapestry, was created out of fabric and donated shoes. It symbolizes people walking away from racism and walking together to form that strong future for the community. Real shoes, cardboard cutout shoes, baby booties, you name it, were included in the montage, which became an immediate temporary art installation. That colourful and very creative piece is going to be displayed in different venues around the city to share the message of hope that is carried in it.

Campbell River is a diverse community, with people from many backgrounds calling it home — Vietnamese, Syrians, First Nations, Europeans, to name just a few. It’s a joy to see the annual Walk Away From Racism and a pleasure to work and represent a community so committed to inclusion.

Recognizing the strength that diversity brings is something we celebrate every March at the walk and acknowledge every day in our city.

Oral Questions

STAFFING LEVELS IN
SENIORS CARE FACILITIES

J. Horgan: Over the past two days, the Minister of Health has struggled to come to terms with his attitude towards seniors in this province. When the revolving-door approach to care home operators struck again at Wexford Creek, the second revolving door in two years, the minister said: “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

Unfortunately, at that time, the minister neglected to tell us in this House that Wexford Creek is one of 232 publicly funded care homes that the seniors advocate says do not meet the government’s own staffing guidelines. Eighty percent of the government-funded care homes are understaffed, and seniors are paying the price.

Governing is about choices. My question to the Premier of British Columbia is: can she tell this House why she believes it’s okay that 80 percent of the seniors in care are not getting the care that even the government’s levels prescribe?

Hon. C. Clark: As of September 2015 in B.C., we have almost 32,000 publicly subsidized residential care, family care home beds, assisted living and group home care beds. That’s a 26 percent increase of over 6,500 beds. That’s been the result of historic investments, record investments that our government has made over the years in one of the most durable, best health care systems you’ll find anywhere in the world.

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In British Columbia, we have the best health care outcomes in Canada. That is because we work hard to spend money wisely. It’s because we work hard to set priorities and stick to our plans. It’s because our staff in health care centres across the province work so incredibly hard with such ethical dedication. It’s because of other innovations like, for example, bringing in the country’s first and only seniors advocate.

This is a challenge all over the world — making sure that as that population of senior citizens grows and as the
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acuity of that population’s needs grow, we keep up with it. The Minister of Health is making sure we do everything we can, with a plan for seniors, listening and responding to the seniors advocate, which he had the pleasure of bringing to life.

We are making sure that we continue to make those investments because we hope senior citizens in British Columbia will be able to live the longest, healthiest, most fulfilling lives of any senior citizens in Canada.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition on a supplemental.

J. Horgan: The government’s choice to make an investment in this budget and the last budget was $236 million in tax breaks for the top 2 percent of wage earners. That was the choice she made last year.

What do care facilities do when they lack staff? They prescribe more drugs. At Wexford Creek, 28 percent of the residents there are taking antipsychotics even though they’ve not been diagnosed. Worse still, nearly two-thirds of the residents are taking antidepressants when only one-third of the residents there have been diagnosed. This goes on in care home after care home after care home.

Can the Premier tell this House if she is truly honouring seniors and actually advocating and living up to the commitments that the seniors advocate is making when she’s cutting resources for care homes and forcing them to overprescribe to our seniors?

Hon. C. Clark: Only a New Democrat would call a $3.2 billion increase in health care over the next three years a cut. That is classic NDP math. The member is right that government is about choices. The choices on this side of the House that we’ve made are very clear and starkly different from the choices that that member would make.

We understand that in order to be able to make those historic increases of almost 50 cents on every dollar that citizens send us, to make sure we have the best health care system in the country we need to have revenue to government growing. Now, there are two ways you can grow revenue to government. One of them is to raise taxes, which is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition advocates every day. The other is to grow the economy.

That’s why when he says no to the Port Mann Bridge, when he says no to building the Coquihalla Highway, when he says no to all of the changes that we’ve made, when he says no to the South Fraser Perimeter Road, when he says no to Site C, when he says no to LNG, when he says no to the McKenzie Interchange, what he’s saying no to is jobs.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. C. Clark: He’s saying no to growing the economy. We understand that we need to grow the economy if we want to look after people. We are looking after people and making those investments so that the senior citizens of British Columbia can have the best lives of any senior citizens in the country.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition on a supplemental.

J. Horgan: Well, I think that evidence…. For those who’ve just arrived here today for the first time, the only party that said no today was that party over there when we said: “Let’s get big money out of politics.” When it comes to growing the coffers at B.C. Liberal HQ, steady as she goes….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members, this House will come to order.

Please continue.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Minister.

Please continue.

J. Horgan: All politics is local. I know that the Premier sometimes visits Kelowna. So I’ll let her know that in her own constituency, the David Lloyd Jones facility, Lakeview Lodge and Three Links Manor are all underfunded according to the standards set by this government.

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The seniors advocate has raised some very serious concerns about the way that the B.C. Liberals are managing seniors care in this province, and the Premier’s response is to talk about the Coquihalla Highway — absolutely extraordinary.

I would like, if at all possible, to see if the Premier could alight down here on planet Earth and talk to the people of British Columbia directly, right now, about seniors care. What are you going to do to make it better?

Hon. C. Clark: I always get the feeling that the Leader of the Opposition gets a little bit antsy when we start to talk about the economy in this chamber. Here we were today talking about Site C, for example, which the member has opposed. We’ve been talking about LNG, which would create 100,000 jobs.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. Nelson-Creston. Vancouver–Point Grey.

Please continue.
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Hon. C. Clark: No to Site C. No to LNG. And he talks about saying no.

Here we are in this Legislature voting openly, making our views known on the issues. Meanwhile, this Leader of the Opposition sends a secret letter to the federal government to outline his….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. Members, this House will come to order.

Hon. C. Clark: He sends a letter — he won’t put it out publicly; he won’t talk about it publicly — to the federal government telling them that he wants to put a stop to LNG, to put a stop to the 100,000 jobs that that would offer to the people of this province. Rather than deciding to build this province, that member doesn’t have the courage to stand up and say yes. He doesn’t have the courage to stand up for the things he used to say he believed in. Instead, what does he do? He runs and hides.

He opposes economic development all across British Columbia. He says: “It is clear to us that for the purposes of the CEAA review, the Pacific NorthWest LNG proposal before you does not meet the condition of concern…. Until and unless these deficiencies are addressed, we urge you to withhold final recommendation for approval.”

If this House needed any proof that that member does not stand up for yes, does not stand up for jobs and does not stand up for working people, all they need to do is go dig their way through the CEAA website and find out what this member really stands for.

J. Darcy: Let’s talk for a minute about building this province. It is those seniors in care who built this province and who sacrificed. They deserve dignity and respect from this government and not a Premier who says no to improving seniors care for the most vulnerable in this province.

Yesterday the Minister of Health tried to justify, as the Premier is, why 80 percent of care homes in B.C. don’t have enough staff to provide the most basic level of care — including, often, one bath a week. The Minister of Health said: “Seniors are not widgets. They need individualized care plans.” Lofty words yesterday but very far from the reality that faces most seniors in many care homes in B.C.

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Why isn’t the Premier asking the question: why are so many seniors in care on antipsychotics? The answer is that when many seniors with dementia are disruptive or aggressive and there aren’t enough staff to care for them, too often they are sedated instead. It’s called chemical restraint, and it’s an inhumane way to treat our seniors.

My question again is to the Premier. Seniors deserve to be dealt with and treated with dignity and with respect. Will she commit today to say yes to increasing staffing levels in care homes so that vulnerable seniors are not drugged in order to restrain them?

Hon. C. Clark: We absolutely need to make sure that the care homes and the places where seniors are looked after are up to the highest possible standard. That is one of the reasons that we’ve added $3.2 billion to the health care budget over the next three years. That’s one of the reasons that the Minister of Health has been working so hard to make sure that a health care plan for seniors is implemented and executed according to plan in our province. That’s one of the reasons that we’ve appointed a seniors advocate — the first one, the only one in Canada — who can make sure that we’re on top of these issues.

The member is right. Seniors did build this province, and we owe seniors a lot. Seniors built the hydro infrastructure that we depend on today. They built the mines and the forestry infrastructure. They built the communities that we all live in and that we all depend on. We owe senior citizens a lot.

One of the things we owe them is the best health care in the world. And another thing we owe them is to make sure that we don’t fritter away their economic legacy, that we build on what they left us rather than tearing it down, that we make sure that they know the future for their kids and their grandkids and the kids who come after them is one that they can be just as proud of as the one that they left for us.

Madame Speaker: The member for New Westminster on a supplemental.

J. Darcy: Let’s really talk about our parents and our grandparents and our loved ones in care. When they move into residential care, it becomes their home.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Please continue.

J. Darcy: When our vulnerable seniors move into residential care, it becomes their home — their last home — and the staff who care for them provide for their most intimate care needs day in and day out. They also share their laughter and their pain. They share their joy, and they share their tears. And it is often the care staff who are with them at the end of their lives, and they want nothing more than to be able to sit with them and hold their hands and comfort them in their moment of loneliness and fear.

Yet even when residents are dying, they still only have the 20 minutes of care…

Madame Speaker: Please pose your question.
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J. Darcy: …to help put people to bed. That is wrong. It is terribly wrong.

When will this Premier finally take action and give our seniors in care the dignified care that they deserve?

Hon. C. Clark: I think that senior citizens — whether or not they are in care in this province — and their families deserve better than what we’ve heard from that member of the opposition today. Because what she’s saying is just not accurate.

For those of us who have lived with a family member living with dementia, for example, who have worked hard to find them care, who have given a good portion of our lives to make sure that they are looked after and loved…. We understand how vulnerable people are when they’re in that position — the senior citizens themselves and all of the people around them who are trying to provide them with that support.

So it’s really important that all of those people, all of whom are in a time of crisis and who are vulnerable, have the right information — not information the member makes up on the spot because the theatre of question period is convenient for her. They deserve better than that.

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Our Minister of Health and our government is dedicating $3.2 billion over the next three years for our health care system. A large portion of that goes to make sure that seniors get the care that they need.

We do need to do more. That’s why we have a plan for hospice and palliative care. That’s why we have a plan for seniors care and are working on a plan for dementia care. That’s why we have a seniors advocate — so that people can get the right information and have the right supports.

For those of us like me who have lived through this, the worst thing in the world is to be the recipient of the kind of inaccurate information that the member is talking about today. People need facts. They need to know where the opportunities are for them to find care for the people that they love. They deserve better than what that member has offered today.

The Minister of Health, I have absolute confidence, is going to make sure we do absolutely the best that we can to make sure that this is the best place in Canada for seniors to live out their lives.

SENIORS ADVOCATE ACCESS
TO INFORMATION ON SERIOUS INCIDENTS
IN SENIORS CARE FACILITIES

S. Robinson: Perhaps we need to remind the Premier that everything that is being said on this side of the House comes from her own seniors advocate report. Everything.

On Monday, the Minister of Health said….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. Members, the Chair will hear the question.

Please continue.

S. Robinson: On Monday, the Minister of Health said in this House that the seniors advocate was doing great work.

Today, just two days later, we learn that the advocate can’t even get the information she needs to do her work. Vancouver Coastal Health has decided not to provide the seniors advocate with information about serious infractions in government care facilities. The seniors advocate believes it’s important that families know about serious incidents involving residents living in government care facilities when they consider where to put their loved one.

Can the minister explain why his staff is withholding important information on serious incidents from the advocate and, ultimately, the families who have to make this most difficult decision?

Hon. T. Lake: Seniors in our province did build this province, which is why it’s so ironic to hear from members opposite who are absolutely opposed to building this province. Every time there’s an opportunity to build this province, to grow the economy and to support social programs, they say no.

The seniors advocate provides great information. This website that the office of the seniors advocate has created was a result of the Ombudsperson’s report, a recommendation that came to life in this website. We act on recommendations of the seniors advocate, as the members are aware, with legislation before us this session on assisted living.

We take the recommendations of the seniors advocate seriously. We will continue to do that and, as the Premier said, continue to build this province and continue to reward the people that went before us and ensure they have the very best seniors care in all of Canada.

Madame Speaker: Coquitlam-Maillardville on a supplemental.

S. Robinson: Well, not only have staff at Vancouver Coastal Health decided not to provide the seniors advocate with information about serious infractions in their care facilities, but they are also telling families not to pay too much attention to the advocate’s report when deciding how to choose a place for their loved one to live and to be cared for.

Can the minister tell this House why his staff is keeping this information about serious incidents in care homes from the advocate and from British Columbians? What’s this minister hiding?

Hon. T. Lake: The members opposite represent a party that between 1994 and 1999 saw the number of public long-term beds fall by 18 percent, and the number of pa-
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tients receiving home support fell by 19 percent. That’s the shameful record of the members opposite.

Since 2001, 32,000 beds in the province of British Columbia….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members on both sides.

Please continue.

[1445]

Hon. T. Lake: Today, with the number of additions — 7,400 new publicly subsidized residential care assisted-living group home beds — we don’t have lineups at MLA constituency offices any more of people begging MLAs to find a placement for their parents. We have created a system of care that makes sure that seniors are well looked after, and we will continue to work with the seniors advocate and with our Parliamentary Secretary for Seniors to ensure that we lead the country in looking after seniors.

HUMAN RIGHTS HEARING
AND GOVERNMENT ACTION ON MISSING
AND MURDERED ABORIGINAL WOMEN

M. Mark: To the Minister of Justice, tomorrow in Washington, D.C., there will be a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The subject of these proceedings will be a follow-up on the commission’s 2015 report into B.C.’s treatment of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, a report that clearly states how this government has been failing to meet its international obligations to protect and remedy violence against First Nations women. This is two years after the completion of the Oppal Inquiry.

Will the Justice Minister inform this House whether she or any other minister is attending the hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights?

Hon. S. Anton: We will not be attending the hearing, but I will assure this House that the issue of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls is one that has been supported by our Premier, that has been supported by this government and now, indeed, is supported by the federal government. An inquiry is happening.

We have been participating actively in consultation with our partners in First Nations and with our partners in the community to give our advice to the inquiry as to how it might be formulated — the federal government, indeed, has been seeking that advice across the country — and, at the same time, speaking of our experience. British Columbia did do a Missing Women’s Inquiry with the dreadful time that came out of the missing and murdered women in the Downtown Eastside.

We are very active participants in this debate, in this discussion. We want to see that inquiry succeed, and we are working actively and vigorously to make sure that that happens.

Madame Speaker: The member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant on a supplemental.

M. Mark: The Inter-American Commission reports over a dozen recommendations on how B.C. can meet its obligations to indigenous women, including a real provision of legal assistance, which would mean fixing this government’s broken legal aid system, and full and substantive compliance with the recommendations made in the Oppal Inquiry.

A national inquiry won’t help this government from being held accountable for B.C.’s insufficient response to missing and murdered indigenous women, a response that has included deleting emails that documented its indifference towards the Highway of Tears.

In the absence of attending, has the minister prepared at least a written submission for tomorrow’s hearing, and will she table it today in this Legislature?

Hon. S. Anton: To the suggestion that we have not taken this matter extremely seriously, I reject that suggestion. We received 63 recommendations from the Missing Women Inquiry, and we have pursued all of the themes in the report that was given to us.

We have given compensation to all the….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. S. Anton: Through partnership with the federal government and the city of Vancouver, we have provided compensation to all of the children of the missing women who are identified in that report.

We have made fundamental changes to policing to require bias-free policing, to improve police information and cooperation. We have created supports for vulnerable women throughout British Columbia through a variety of ways and very substantial investment every year.

We have made changes to the missing-persons legislation. There’s a missing persons unit at the RCMP and E division. We have, yes, indeed, increased safety along northern highways.

We have taken that report seriously. We take the safety of aboriginal women and girls in British Columbia extremely seriously, and we work closely with our partners to make sure that they are safe and well in their communities.

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GUN VIOLENCE IN SURREY

S. Hammell: It’s becoming a sad and frightening norm in Surrey. Another day, another shooting.
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Last night gunshots rang out again, the fourth time in four days, despite assurances from the Solicitor General that everything that can be done is being done.

Yesterday the minister said in this House that covert operations were ongoing, that surveillance teams were following gang members around day and night and that “if they look over one shoulder, they’re going to see a police officer.” I ask the minister: where were those surveillance teams that were looking over the shoulders of the gangsters last night when Surrey marked its 32nd shooting so far this year?

Hon. C. Clark: Although that question was not addressed to me and although it may be the last, the very last moment that the NDP get a chance to ask the question in the Legislature today, I want to make sure I get a chance to address it, because for the people of Surrey, this is a vitally important….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. The Chair will hear the answer.

Hon. C. Clark: This is an issue of vital importance for people in Surrey. For mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers to be worried that some of their family members could be at risk, that they may not feel safe going outside, is just wrong, and it’s something our government takes extremely seriously.

We need to address these problems of crime in Surrey. It means that we need to take the time to add to the strategy on guns and gangs which we have deployed over the last several years, which has had a very real impact. But we need to do more, because the people of Surrey need to know that when their daughter or son walks home by themselves from a soccer game, they are going to get home safe.

Surrey is a beautiful, thriving community. But no community is a great place to live when people don’t feel safe in it. Our responsibility as a government is to build on the strategy that we’ve deployed very effectively against guns and gangs. We are doing that. We will do that. So today I want to say to the people of Surrey….

Interjection.

Madame Speaker: Burnaby–Deer Lake, please come to order.

Hon. C. Clark: I think this issue deserves more than the heckles from the opposition. I think this issue is one where, as a Legislature, we can surely come together and talk about what we can do better and how we can do more to protect people in a community that dearly needs our help.

The opposition may decide they want to heckle, but I will say this to the people of Surrey. We are going to do more. We will have their backs, and we will make sure that the families of Surrey know that when they send their children home at night, they will get home safely.

S. Hammell: My community, my neighbours, friends and constituents want real answers. We understand the police are working hard, but we are on an escalating path of violence that is not acceptable, and this rash of gun violence has to stop.

My question is for the Premier. If what you are doing clearly isn’t working…

Madame Speaker: Through the Chair.

S. Hammell: …what effective action are you going to take to keep the public in my community safe?

Hon. C. Clark: I am glad that there is a member on the opposition side who takes this issue seriously, because it deserves to be taken seriously. The people of Surrey need to know that their community is a safe place to live.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Order.

Surrey–Green Timbers.

Hon. C. Clark: Because the member is right.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. C. Clark: The member is right. The people of Surrey do deserve to know that their kids are going to be able to get home safe. They deserve to know that their community is just as safe as anywhere else in the province. And the member is also right that we do need to build on the strategies that we already have in place, and that means doing more.

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Now, for people in Surrey, they should know that as of February 1, 25 people have been arrested, 176 charges have been advanced, and $4.5 million in drugs have been seized. At the end of 2015, 6,200 people had been checked, 800 arrests had been made, more than 170 weapons and firearms had been seized.

But more needs to be done. This is not a partisan, not a political issue. It is an issue of people’s sense of safety in one of the best communities in the country. We are going to build on our guns and gangs strategy. We are going to evolve to make sure that we’re keeping up with changes in the gang community as we see them unfolding, and we are going to work with the men and women of law enforce-
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ment, in Surrey in particular, who put their lives on the line every single day to make sure that the people of Surrey can have the same feeling of security that people have living in any other part of the province of British Columbia.

[End of question period.]

Point of Privilege
(Reservation of Right)

B. Ralston: I rise to reserve my right to raise a question of privilege based on the remarks made by the Premier.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: In Section A, Committee of Supply, for the information of members, the ongoing estimates of the Ministry of Energy and Mines. In this chamber, second reading debate on Bill 19.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 19 — GREENHOUSE GAS
INDUSTRIAL REPORTING AND CONTROL
AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

(continued)

L. Reimer: On behalf of my constituents of Anmore, Belcarra, Port Moody and Coquitlam, I’m pleased to join the debate on Bill 19, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act.

The purpose of this legislation will give regulated and non-regulated operations more choices and flexibility for a cleaner tomorrow. Bill 19 encourages new and innovative approaches to managing emissions. It also builds on previous legislation that will make B.C.’s LNG industry the cleanest in the world.

In late 2014, the government introduced two critical pieces of legislation to establish the highest standards in the world: the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Act and the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act. This legislation will have far-reaching benefits that will extend for generations.

To the Premier, I must congratulate her for her steadfast determination and unprecedented tenacity to launch an entirely new export industry. This is no easy task. Although the natural gas industry has been present in British Columbia for almost 50 years, this is the first time that we have made a concerted effort to seek out and capture the interest of energy companies to design and build LNG facilities for export.

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There are many critics and naysayers who tell us that we are facing an uphill battle. In the first instance, our critics claim the government is hindering our own efforts to attract investment by insisting on developing the cleanest LNG industry on the planet. Yes, it is true.

It would be an easier path if we were to lower our environmental standards, but that is not going to happen. We are choosing the more difficult path because it is the right thing to do, not only for us in the present but for succeeding generations of British Columbians.

B.C.’s world-leading benchmark will limit GHG emissions to 160,000 tonnes of CO₂ per million tonnes of LNG produced. These are the lowest emissions of any similar facility in the world. The province arrived at this target by surveying leading LNG facilities worldwide and determined that a 0.16 benchmark would surpass the standards of any other jurisdiction.

One day future generations will look back and thank us for choosing to develop the industry properly. If we start out on the correct path, then the technology to extract the gas will only begin to improve each time, over time. That is the nature of innovation.

The legislation we have before us is designed to encourage technological advancement and innovation. The scale of taxation is escalated over time to provide companies the opportunity to invest in better technology — specifically, technological advancement and innovation in waste recovery, carbon capture, cogeneration and the use of natural gas in heavy vehicles out in the field. These types of technology will drive further innovation.

Our critics have also attacked the government’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become a carbon-neutral government. In fact, the official opposition vehemently opposed the carbon tax, saying it would be a disaster for the economy. They said it was impossible to reduce emissions without costing jobs. That was in 2007. By 2012, the government achieved its interim target for GHG emissions, that being 6 percent below 2007 levels. This was an aggressive target, and we achieved it without hurting the economy.

British Columbia is leading by example in terms of setting and meeting our own climate change targets. The fact is that British Columbia is a world leader in the reduction of greenhouse gases.

In fact, we are attracting international attention and literally convincing other jurisdictions to follow our lead. France and Mexico are implementing carbon taxes, the European Union is following a regional program, and Chile announced plans to implement a carbon tax. And through the Pacific Coast Collaborative, which British Columbia belongs to, we know that Oregon and Washington states are also following suit.

It’s also a fact that British Columbia has an abundant supply of natural gas. We have emerging technologies that will continue to drive innovation and more environmental extraction techniques. We have the geographical advantage as Canada’s Pacific Gateway. More specifically, our large reserves of natural gas are close in proximity to
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proposed facilities. We have a skilled workforce, robust infrastructure and the shortest transport times from North America to key markets in Asia.

It all adds up to the fact that while the price of energy will fluctuate over time, the demand for energy will always increase as countries like India and China grow their middle class. These economies will come to expect the same comforts and enjoyments that we in developed economies have known for many years. This demand will propel B.C.’s LNG for years to come and generate a source of revenue for generations. For example, if just one medium-size plant starts to export LNG, it will generate $800 million per year for taxpayers.

Let’s return to the present. In the energy sector, natural gas is by no means a new industry in British Columbia. Already we are the second-largest producer of natural gas in the country, responsible for 26 percent of Canada’s natural gas. There are already thousands of people who are employed by the production of natural gas. So in addition to being a major source of jobs in the province, LNG is also a major source of public revenue.

Over the past decade, British Columbia collected $8.6 billion in LNG royalties. This is money the private sector pays to the government for harvesting natural gas. This revenue helps pay for services that people cherish, like health care and education. With money derived from natural gas royalties, we’re able to build hospitals and schools. We’re able to invest in the province’s future and make it a more desirable place to do business.

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That is the commitment of this government — to build on our current success and expand opportunities for the province to grow. The world needs energy, and British Columbia is well positioned to provide it. Alone, our province sits on trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. That is a sufficient supply to satisfy our own domestic use for generations to come and to take advantage of expanding markets.

We have all heard the skeptics. They say that B.C. is behind the competition and that we have somehow missed the boat on LNG expansion. But it is worth reminding ourselves that between the years 2000 and 2010, demand for LNG doubled worldwide. I would also point out that global demand for LNG is expected to increase by another 50 percent by 2020. That’s less than four years away.

It’s also worth noting that in 2014, B.C. produced 1.6 trillion cubic feet in natural gas, or the equivalent of 273 million barrels of oil. In other words, we have the capacity to replace a diminishing world oil supply with natural gas, the cleanest-burning fossil fuel of all.

It’s also reassuring that British Columbia is making a commitment to ensure that B.C.’s LNG production facilities are the cleanest in the world. It’s our intention to promote a clean industry to help preserve the pristine environment that British Columbia is known for around the world.

We also want a fair industry. It is the intention of this government to proceed with a further development of the LNG industry in partnership with First Nations. First Nations want a better future, and they want to be a part of resource development in the regions in which they live. We are therefore committed to work with the private sector and First Nations to ensure LNG-related benefits for aboriginal communities.

Overall, we want to make sure that British Columbians are first in line for all of the jobs created by LNG development. That’s the reason why the hon. Minister for Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training has been working diligently on the blueprint for skills training. It’s a ten-year strategy to realign our secondary and post-secondary systems to make sure that we’re preparing the people for tomorrow’s job market by giving them the opportunity to train for a career that’s close to home and is equally rewarding.

While the focus of our LNG industry is concentrated on developing export markets, it’s also about securing our own energy self-sufficiency. In a world of uncertainty, it is nice to know that British Columbia has its own secure source of energy. Of all the proposed export facilities in British Columbia, several intend to focus on the domestic market that provides fuel for the transportation and heavy equipment industry. That makes for a cleaner fuel for the environment and a more secure source of energy.

As you may be aware, B.C. Ferries is proceeding with plans to convert the largest vessels in the B.C. Ferries fleet, the Spirit class, to run on liquefied natural gas by 2019. This announcement comes in addition to plans to build three smaller vessels that will all run on LNG.

Fuel is B.C. Ferries’ largest expense, and natural gas is 50 percent cheaper than marine diesel. By gradually converting the fleet to run on natural gas, fare prices can be kept under control, rather than be ruled by volatile spikes in the cost of petroleum on world markets.

Think of it. By reducing our reliance on petroleum and converting to a cleaner-burning fuel, LNG will be the source of energy for everything from public transit buses to ships at sea. As we lead the way in LNG transportation technology, we will encourage our customers overseas to make similar conversions. Once our customers see they can realize a 50 percent saving in the cost of fuel by converting to LNG, we will generate an even greater demand for our product.

Our customers overseas will also realize that British Columbia will become a reliable source of energy. As a free and open society, we are not subject to political strife or global sanctions that other jurisdictions sometimes have, which can seriously interrupt the flow of a steady and reliable source of energy to a customer.

Thanks to trade missions that the Premier has led across Asia, people overseas know about British Columbia. They know British Columbia stands for clean technology. They know B.C. is reliable. Sure, there’s always some uncertainty moving forward with the development of any in-
[ Page 11860 ]
dustry. But it is the willingness to take a risk that will pay off in the future.

The momentum toward LNG development in British Columbia is unstoppable. Approximately $7 billion has already been invested by industry to acquire natural gas assets that support LNG development. In addition, another $2 billion has been spent in the preparation of LNG infrastructure. We are preparing the province for the LNG industry.

[1510]

One single plant will generate more provincial revenue than the entire forest industry. This is a means to secure our future. LNG will be a source of well-paying and good-quality jobs for generations. My constituents, many of whom rely on the natural resource industry for their occupations….

That’s why, on behalf of all of my constituents, of Anmore, Belcarra, Port Moody and Coquitlam, I am pleased to vote in favour of Bill 19.

D. Eby: If it wasn’t for that last line, I would have forgotten we were debating a bill here in the House that was making proposals around specific amendments to the rules around LNG. I would have thought that we were hearing a two-minute statement about the government’s aspirations.

In any event, let’s talk about the bill. There’s a reason why the member doesn’t want to talk about the bill. There’s a very good reason. It’s because it’s terrible legislation. It’s embarrassing legislation for this government.

This new bill, Bill 19, the bill that’s on the table that the member didn’t want to talk about, amends the old bill that was passed in 2014, which is now law. That law, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act gave a licence to industrial polluters to buy the right to dump as much carbon pollution into our atmosphere as they can afford. It’s now law in B.C. That’s the law. It was a very permissive law.

This law amends it to make those rules even more permissive. Now, in addition to creating, as they did with the old law, a system where the province sells a licence to pollute, it exempted all of the emissions, from the wellhead all the way to the plant — emissions associated with the extraction of the gas, the flaring of the gas at the well, fugitive emissions, venting of the gas, leaks from the pipelines. None of those were counted under the old bill. It’s as if the emissions didn’t exist — except, of course, that they actually do exist.

You know, if you want to pollute in British Columbia, it only costs $25 per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted under the old law that this government brought forward, that the new law amends and makes even more permissive. You can emit as much as you want. In fact, the cost might even be lower, because under the law, you can buy B.C. offsets at “market prices.” Well, there’s no market, so who knows what that means.

Keep in mind that this new law makes it even more permissive. It was February when the Minister of Environment for this province said of the old law — it was only a few months old, really — that it would have the very significant effect of blowing us right past our 2020 targets for greenhouse gas emissions, even if the companies don’t take advantage of this licence to pollute, which the province will sell them cheap.

Now, on February 29 — I’m going to quote the Minister of Environment — she said: “As I’ve said, and as the” — climate leadership — “report outlines, we are not in line to make our 2020 targets. The team, of course, recommends establishing a new 2030 target.”

The team the minister is talking about is B.C.’s climate leadership team. That team recommended a new 2030 target for polluting greenhouse gases. The old bill, which became law, was so weak and the emissions from these proposed plants so huge that we had to rewrite the target for our emissions.

This is the context for this bill that’s in front of us today, which weakens the old bill, which was so weak itself to start with. It wasn’t enough that the law was weak. It wasn’t enough that we had to rewrite the pollution target. More had to be done to let these companies pollute even more.

Two weeks ago the Premier chose a person who, in the time of Galileo, would have been leafletting to say that he should be put in prison for saying that the earth wasn’t the centre of the universe. In the time of Columbus, he would have been worried about Columbus sailing over the edge of the world. The Premier chose a former director of the climate-denying Fraser Institute to implement the new 2030 target.

This is a person who, when he was the editor of the Vancouver Sun, said that coal would be a great way for B.C. to generate electricity. He described global warming in 2008 as follows: “Global warming is the latest weapon in the West’s arsenal to subjugate and impoverish millions of people in the Third World.” Is it?

[1515]

Not satisfied by saying that global leaders who were stepping up to fight climate change were trying to impoverish the Third World, he went on to say: “Western politicians have now grabbed the global warming club to beat up the developing world. By using this moral high ground, saving the planet, they can claim they are just trying to do the right thing and that it has nothing to do with erecting barriers to trade. Then again, the old colonialists justified their racist behavior by arguing that they were just trying to civilize the savages.”

So after comparing leaders taking action on climate change to racists, after recommending dirty coal power for electricity in British Columbia, of all places, Mr. Mihlar was appointed the head of B.C.’s oil and strategic initiatives division, responsible for seeing oil development in B.C. Now where is he? He’s the leader of B.C.’s climate action team.
[ Page 11861 ]

Well, congratulations to him, but what about the rest of us? The Premier put a man who thinks we should burn coal for energy in charge of her climate action team, on top of a bill that sells the right to pollute as much as these companies want — astounding.

We can see how this will turn out, how it’s been designed to turn out. Now we get this bill. That is the context for this bill in front of us in the Legislature.

At least under the old law, the government could argue that polluters had to buy a licence to dump as many greenhouse gases as they wanted into the atmosphere in B.C.: $25 a tonne, or cheaper if it’s market prices. Now, under this new bill, you don’t even have to buy the right to pollute anymore. Polluters get the first 18 months free. Unlimited pollution for 18 months. It’s like a desperate cell phone company, but it’s not. It’s our government. But they certainly are desperate.

They’ve already offered super-deep discounts on the royalties. They’re doing a royalty giveaway. “Hey,” says this government, “hold on. It’s worth it if there’s at least one LNG plant to talk about during the election in May 2017. Give away anything. Dump as much pollution as you want into our atmosphere. Just build one plant, someone, anyone, please. Please.”

Now, some members of this place may remember something called the Pacific Carbon Trust. Remember that? Under that debacle, money was transferred from hospitals and schools to oil and gas companies, supposedly in a bid to make government carbon-neutral. The schools and hospitals could have spent the money putting in insulation, replacing their windows, doing desperately needed retrofits on their own facilities to reduce their emissions. Instead, the government said, “Take the money that’s supposed to be spent on students, on the sick, and send it to Encana,” a highly profitable gas company.

The scam was called a scam by the Auditor General, as it should have been, and the whole thing collapsed on itself in a scandalous outrage, as it should have. Well, here we are in this bill, as if that wasn’t enough, with the return of the Pacific Carbon Trust, part 2.

Section 6 of the new bill opens this proposed B.C. Carbon Registry to companies and municipalities. In other words, the same discredited model of the Pacific Carbon Trust is haunting us again: new fictional carbon credits, the same government that gave out dubious carbon credits to Encana and this Darkwoods project, things that were already going to be done. Carbon credits were created and then sold to hospitals and schools. This government’s going to allow these fake carbon credits to be sold to LNG companies as a licence to pollute.

I said a couple times that these are fake credits. I don’t say that lightly, because cap-and-trade is a serious thing. There is a cap-and-trade market. California is participating in it. Quebec is participating in it. It’s being explored by Washington and Oregon. We were actually, under legislation, part of that — audited carbon credits that were looked at by a third party to make sure they were real, that they weren’t fake. Bill 2, the old bill, that this government passed into law, specifically repealed our participation in that real system.

Now we have our own system. After failing once, we’re going to do it again: fake credits in, real polluting emissions out. What a debacle.

[1520]

I’ll be voting against this desperate, Hail Mary pass of a government weakening already nonexistent standards around pollution — 18 months of unlimited pollution into our atmosphere; giving away our public resource at record-low rates; putting a man who advocates burning coal for electricity and calls leaders taking action on climate change akin to racists as the head of their climate action team; reconstituting a discredited carbon credits scheme that ended in scandal.

They even want to build an LNG plant right on top of the Eelgrass beds essential for juvenile salmon — wild salmon that are the heritage of First Nations and the right of our children, our children’s children and their children — on the mighty Skeena River. This government will do anything to get at least one plant. Mark my words. They will do anything to get that plant, and this bill is evidence of that.

Why are they so desperate? Because the real economy, not the plants that don’t exist but the real economy — the mills, the mines of these same areas where the plants are proposed — is tanking. This government needs to do something — anything — even if it’s a giveaway, even if it’s a polluting disaster, even if it destroys a precious natural resource.

Let me make a list of just some of the mines and mills closed over the last 18 months. These are closures decimating the economic base of rural B.C. where these plants are proposed: the salmon cannery in Rupert, Wolverine mine, Willow Creek mine. Trend and Roman mines, 380 jobs there. Quintette, 80 jobs. Mount Polley — oh, reopened. Myra Falls, 300 jobs. MAX Moly, 65. Gibraltar, 114. Highland Valley, 80 jobs. Treasure Mountain, 20 jobs. Avino Silver and Gold Mines, 60 jobs. Coal Mountain Phase 2, 100 jobs. Quinsam, 66. Yellow Giant — I don’t know how many people were working there — a lot. Huckleberry, 100 jobs.

HD Mining — now, those are 51 temporary foreign workers, but still…. Canal Flats sawmill, Houston Forest Products sawmill, Elk Falls paper mill, Howe Sound newsprint mill, Chetwynd Mechanical Pulp mill and the partial closure of the Howe Sound Pulp and Paper Corp.

Now, commodity prices are low, but hydro rates, B.C.’s advantage for decades, are up 74 percent from 2001 to 2015. That hurts all of these companies badly, clearly. And while the government, in this bill and in others, has been falling all over itself to get the government of Malaysia over here — and their Crown corporation Petronas — to
[ Page 11862 ]
take our gas for record-low prices, to dump whatever pollution they want into our atmosphere for 18 months for free…. They have been engaging in this conduct while the real occupations, the real jobs, the real mills, the real mines of people of British Columbia are closing. They are desperate, and they are looking for help.

Now, that’s a tough political message in 2017. A politically desperate government is dangerous to the public interest. That’s what we are facing here in this bill — a disaster for the public interest put forward by a desperate government. I’ll be voting against this bill.

L. Throness: It’s a pleasure to stand in my place today and speak to Bill 19, which is the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act. That’s quite a mouthful. It amends the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act. It’s a new act, an act that only came into force on January 1 of this year, an act that has never before been used — but will be, we trust, soon. That act, as well as the one before us today, the amendment act, is all about clean LNG.

The act enables performance standards to be set for industrial facilities or sectors for the purpose of upholding our province’s commitment to having the cleanest liquefied natural gas operations in the world. I want to talk a bit about how we achieve that.

First, I have been skeptical, and I remain skeptical, about human-caused global warming. I prefer, instead, to think in terms of reducing pollution. I understand and appreciate the value of LNG in reducing pollution around the world. But insofar as it is necessary to deal with greenhouse gas emissions in order for this project and this industry to go forward, I’m happy to take some water with my wine and speak in support of this bill, because I’m looking to the end. I’m looking to the goal. I’m looking to help build, with our caucus, an industry in B.C.

[1525]

I want to point out that China is the largest producer of coal in the world. They have 11,000 coal mines in China, and they’ve announced that they’re shutting some thousands of those coal mines. What are they going to replace that coal with? They’re going to have to replace it with something. We want to replace that fuel, of course, with clean-burning LNG. It only makes sense, for China and for other countries in Asia and for us, to do that.

To do that, we have set a greenhouse gas emissions benchmark for LNG facilities in B.C. That benchmark is a low one. It’s 0.16 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of LNG produced. How do we get there? We get to that low level through efficient plant design and through investing in emissions reductions or clean technologies. A producer that meets this goal will have a clear claim as the world’s cleanest LNG facilities.

Now, how do we know that? We in the B.C. government have studied the greenhouse gas emissions of leading LNG facilities around the world. We’ve looked at independent research done around the world, and we’ve established that benchmark, resulting from that information. We know that there is no other LNG facility in the world that will have GHG emissions — the requirements to reduce them — as stringent as we will.

Allow me to talk for a moment just about the benchmark. A benchmark is a regulatory tool. It sets an absolute limit on greenhouse gas emissions for every unit of LNG produced. But at the same time, it allows for the growth and the development of an LNG industry in B.C. We’re not throwing out the industry because it’s not perfect. We’re going to control it instead.

How do we administer that benchmark? Well, LNG companies are required, by regulation attached to the act, to report all of their greenhouse gas emissions for every facility that they operate. That includes emissions from natural gas turbines, of course, used in the liquefaction process, which is an energy-intensive process. It includes emissions from electricity generation, from CO₂ venting, from fugitive GHG emissions and other areas.

We’re making the benchmark as flexible as possible. We’ve already made it as flexible as possible in three ways. First, it allows facility operators to choose between investing in GHG emissions reductions at their facility or elsewhere in B.C. Second, facility operators can lower their GHG emissions by adopting more efficient technologies or using clean energy like electricity. To give an example, the facility proposed in Squamish plans to use B.C. Hydro’s clean electricity to power its plant. That, of course, would lower its GHG emissions by a huge amount.

The third way…. If it’s not economically favourable to immediately reduce facility GHG emissions enough to meet the benchmark, a producer will be able to invest in GHG emission reduction projects, which we call offsets, across the province or purchase funded units that contribute to clean technologies. So we have flexible options — including purchasing compliance units, offset units, earned credits and funded units — under the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act.

In these flexible ways, the benchmark provides an economically efficient path — and that’s an important consideration — to meeting the province’s goal of having the cleanest LNG facilities in the world.

That’s the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, but we are amending it. We’ve been consulting with the industry, and we think that there are changes that we can make out of the gate before the industry even begins, to give regulated, as well as non-regulated, operations even more choices and more flexibility in order to meet our targets.

To be clear, this is not about going easy on companies. It’s not about going hard on the environment. This is about innovation. This is about flexibility. This is about meeting a goal. It’s about creating a new industry, so we are encouraging new approaches, innovative approaches, to managing emissions even while we maintain our
[ Page 11863 ]
greenhouse gas emission benchmark that will make B.C.’s LNG the cleanest in the world.

The proposed amendments before us today are the fruit of ongoing negotiations with the LNG sector. They support the commitments the government has made to industry, to First Nations and to the public. Although LNG is not yet a reality in B.C., we need to get it right from the start because of the incredible benefits that can accrue to all British Columbians. I want to point out here, as I’ve done before, that B.C. taxpayers have not risked anything in getting to this point. There’s no reason for us not to pursue this industry with great energy and drive because it can only benefit our province. There’s no downside risk to it; there’s only a benefit to the citizens of B.C.

[1530]

Let’s talk directly about the act for a moment. In particular, the government is proposing three broad amendments. They’re a result of ongoing negotiations to give regulated and non-regulated operations more choices and flexibility. What will the amendments do if they’re passed? This is what we intend to accomplish.

There’s an initial compliance period defined in the law as it stands now. This act will redefine the first compliance period and allow new regulated operations, such as LNG facilities, to apply for a longer initial compliance period to allow for testing and other initial activities that may temporarily produce higher GHG emissions while production of LNG is low.

Second, we’re going to allow non-regulated operations to join the B.C. Carbon Registry to buy, to transfer, to retire offsets. That will help them to fulfil partner commitments and to meet voluntary commitments. So we’re broadening the scope there to make sure that more operations can benefit.

Finally, more of a minor amendment to correct a transitional piece of the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act to make sure that government’s carbon-neutral requirements are met.

Let me explain these three amendments in turn and in greater detail. Currently, under the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act and its regulations, there are no allowances for new regulated operations such as LNG facilities during start-up when emissions are higher and production is lower than during the full state of production. It takes time to ramp up production. During that period, new LNG facilities may have, temporarily, higher emissions and lower production associated with start-up.

Facilities will now have a longer first compliance period to provide time to normalize production and their emissions. Of course, they will meet the benchmark at the end of this first compliance period. Should the legislation before us pass, new LNG facilities can apply for a longer compliance period of up to 18 months before having to pay compliance costs. It will allow for testing and other initial activities that may, as I said, temporarily produce higher GHG emissions and lower production. After the first period, I want to emphasize, all facilities would be subject to a regular compliance period to meet the GHG emission intensity benchmark that we have set and that we will hold them to over time.

The second amendment is additional account holders to the B.C. Carbon Registry. The B.C. Carbon Registry was established under the Greenhouse Gas Emission Control Regulation, and it enables the issuance, the transfer and the retirement of compliance units on an electronic trading platform. Currently the act only allows regulated operators, such as LNG operators, to buy and to retire funded units.

If these amendments pass, the B.C. Carbon Registry would be opened up to include non-regulated entities such as companies and municipalities. It would allow companies and municipalities to participate in the carbon market, to buy, transfer and retire offsets and to help fulfil partner commitments. For example, B.C. Hydro is not now under the B.C. Carbon Registry. By being part of the B.C. Carbon Registry, B.C. Hydro would be able to meet its commitment to provide zero-emission electricity, although it’s pretty close to zero now, to LNG producers by purchasing offsets or funded units and transferring those units to LNG producers.

The final amendment is more of a minor one. It’s a transitional provision. It’s a purely technical matter that would correct a transitional piece of the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act to make sure that the government’s carbon-neutral requirements are met.

These are the three broad amendments that will be considered under this act. I would certainly encourage all members to vote for them.

I want to talk for a moment about the industry in a broader sense. Natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel. Natural gas is increasingly a part of our global market and increasingly replacing dirtier oil and coal. Natural gas is part of the answer to a cleaner planet. But the liquefaction of natural gas is an energy-intensive and emissions-intensive process. Herein lies a problem for the opposition.

[1535]

I want to note that in the Globe and Mail yesterday, the headline was: “B.C. NDP Opposes Proposed LNG Plant.” This is what it said, in a headline above the fold in this national newspaper: “In a decision that the B.C. New Democratic Party shared only with federal regulators and its environmental supporters” — not in a press release — “the opposition has officially rejected the proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG plant near Prince Rupert.” They did so in a letter to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. That letter was dated March 10, several weeks ago. The B.C. NDP leader and his Environment critic signed it and said that, in their view, the project was deficient.

I don’t really understand that. This is not just an off-hand comment by a rogue MLA. This is an official letter on NDP letterhead, signed by their leader and by the
[ Page 11864 ]
Environment critic, that they oppose this project. I’m trying to get inside the heads of the opposition to figure out what’s going on in their minds. I think: “In whose interest is this letter, this decision that the NDP have made?”

Let me go through it. Is it in the interests of the planet? Well, no. If this project doesn’t go ahead, more coal will be burned in China out of their 11,000 coal mines, and elsewhere there are coal mines. The planet will be a dirtier, more polluted place as a result. So it’s not in the interests of general humanity and the environment. It’s certainly not in the interests of 1.4 billion people in China that the LNG industry not go forward in B.C.

Well, then, is it in the interests of Canada, our nation? Well, LNG is as big as the oil sands. It’s possibly as big as the oil sands, and it’s cleaner than the oil sands. LNG would produce billions for federal and provincial coffers. There would be jobs for people all over Canada, opportunity, development, and still, there would be lower emissions than the production of oil. So I would submit that it’s not in the interests of our nation.

Is it in the interests of B.C.? I would argue that it is not. There are thousands of families, perhaps hundreds of thousands of British Columbians, who will be able to enjoy a high standard of living because of LNG. Health care and other social programs would benefit. We’d have lower debt. We’d have more infrastructure. We’d have less poverty. We’d have more housing. All of the things that the opposition loves would be made more possible because of LNG. We’d be able to develop the north more and make it as wealthy as the Lower Mainland. So it’s not in the interests of British Columbia that the NDP would oppose the Petronas deal.

Is it in the interests of the NDP themselves? At one time, they were concerned about the worker in B.C. But it seems that they are now unconcerned about the thousands of jobs, and many of them union jobs, that this project would create. I want to quote again from the Globe and Mail, which quotes Tom Sigurdson, executive director of the B.C. Building Trades Council.

This is what he said: “‘I’m very disappointed. The building trades have been working hard with LNG proponents to try to develop the industry in British Columbia,’ Mr. Sigurdson said in an interview…. The labour leader said he hopes to meet with the NDP MLAs next week to ask where the New Democrats would propose to support job creation in advance of the May 2017 election. ‘We’re going to have that conversation with the NDP caucus.’” Well, I would love to be a fly on the wall in that caucus meeting.

A couple of weeks ago there were pro-LNG rallies in Terrace, in Fort St. John, in Fort Nelson. I can only imagine how those working people who want to work in LNG, who participated in those rallies, would feel now about the NDP, knowing the headline in the Globe and Mail. So I would argue that this decision is not even in the interests of the NDP.

So whose interest is it in? I think it must be in the interest of the narrowest group in society, the hard ideological environmental bean-counters, who insist on hiding their eyes to the actual problems of pollution experienced around the world and narrowing their focus to one tiny jurisdiction in the world — B.C. They would happily ignore the interests of our province and our country and our planet in order to satisfy the purest legalistic dictates of environmental ideologues.

We are doing the most of any country in the world to have the lowest GHG emissions on the planet, and even this is not good enough for the NDP.

I feel very good that on this side of the House we understand the interests of workers and families in B.C. We understand the national interests and the global interests in getting this industry up and running, and we’re going to continue to work hard to seize this enormous opportunity that we have before us. This act is going to help us to get there, and that’s why I will support it.

[1540]

S. Hammell: I rise in the House to join the debate on Bill 19, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act. This Bill 19 cannot be understood without realizing that it is really an amendment to Bill 2, which was tabled in the past, in 2014.

Just for the benefit of the member for Chilliwack-Hope, we, the opposition — although you may have forgotten, and you’re quite befuddled by it all — did vote against Bill 2. So when you are astonished, and you are confused about the NDP’s position, we actually voted against it in this House. I don’t know whether you weren’t here. Maybe you were somewhere else. But we’re very clear….

What also is a bit astonishing was that I almost heard — though I wouldn’t want to put words in your mouth….

Interjection.

S. Hammell: Oh, hey, settle down, settle down. Shocking, shocking. “You” — five times.

Deputy Speaker: Through the Chair.

S. Hammell: Yes, through the Chair. I can’t say “you.” I have to go through the Chair, right?

An Hon. Member: Third person.

S. Hammell: Third person. So no “you” down there, to the member for Chilliwack-Hope. I go through the Chair. How many is that now? Seven?

To the member for Chilliwack-Hope, through the Chair: Member, you almost sounded like a climate change denier. Is that correct? Through the Speaker, to the member for Chilliwack-Hope, do you…?

I mean, I understand that there are people in the government ranks that actually do not believe there is a thing called climate change, and that 97 percent of the
[ Page 11865 ]
scientists who have now come to agree with that position are all crazy, that really, climate change is not taking place, despite the fact — I think it was yesterday in the Vancouver Sun, or at least in the TNO — there was a description of a scientist who was doing work, flying across the province of British Columbia, and noticed how little snow there was on the mountain caps.

Now, I am sure that the member for Chilliwack-Hope is not a climate denier. I’m sure he really does understand there is peril and danger if we do not actually change our behaviour in terms of how we deal with our environment and the planet we live on, that we are quite capable of fouling the nest that we live in and that we actually have to change our behaviour and do things differently, hon. Speaker, through the Chair to the member, that then turns the way things are going in terms….

I know that I have seen, through the wild world of the video and all that…. I’m sure that all these videos could be phony. But we have actually seen the ice caps slewing off and the fact that the polar ice is reducing. I mean, my goodness, I think I understand that there’s going to be a major cruise ship going through the North Pole this year, the first time ever. Yet we don’t have climate change? There’s not something that we should be concerned about? We, as a province, should not be engaged in being very, very concerned about how much we are responsible for heating up the atmosphere?

It’s almost unbelievable. I digress, but not really too far, because Bill 19 is really allowing pollution from the LNG industry to accelerate. We are giving a greater period of time off in terms of having companies accountable for their pollution. We are allowing an increase in emissions.

[1545]

At this point in our history, particularly after we have seen this amazing conference in Paris, where people and countries from all over the globe were represented…. Unlike Copenhagen or unlike other major climate conferences, people really did understand that we were at the tipping point and that if we didn’t get control of our emissions, we would be in trouble. We, as people on this planet, would get into an acceleration of warming that we, even if we wanted to, could not decelerate.

We not only have allowed an increase in the emissions through this bill, we also have provided, through selling, a licence to pollute. I believe that there are people on the other side of the House that are as concerned about climate change and the warming of the planet as we are. I think you sell your soul when all you care about is getting something in the ground that, in the end, is destructive to our way of life.

We now have Bill 19 that actually weakens the control that we had around Bill 2. Before I leave — and again, referring to the member for Chilliwack-Hope, who I won’t refer to as “you” — there’s some sort of kerfuffle about some letter that went out.

I can actually look at…. The official opposition caucus has said repeatedly that the LNG development project proposed in B.C. must meet four criteria to be acceptable to British Columbians. This has a very strong echo of the pipeline coming from Alberta through British Columbia. I think there were five conditions that the Premier set that that pipeline had to meet. We’re not being quite that high in numbers. We’re only saying four.

One is that the projects must expressly guarantee jobs and training opportunities for British Columbians. I believe that the members opposite will want jobs for British Columbians. They keep saying so and saying so — although I’m not sure there’s any guarantee on Site C that those jobs will go to British Columbians, and I’m not sure what the guarantees are in terms of any potential economic development around the LNG industry in the north or on the coast.

We say, in this letter — that there seems to be some kind of shock at — that projects must guarantee jobs and training opportunities for British Columbians. I have no difficulty at all going to the public with that concern. That is a number one condition. I would think the members on the other side would celebrate that.

Second is that British Columbians must receive a fair return for the resources that belong to them. That means we shouldn’t give them away and get nothing in return. I think that’s been a kind of a shared position from all members on both sides of the House, that when you have the resources that actually belong to the people of the province, you shouldn’t just give them away. You should get a fair return to your province on behalf of those resources.

I’m sure there’s not very much disagreement from that side of the House. I mean, we’ve been very clear about that. I am sure you could find these arguments in the debates in 2014 when we dealt with Bill 2.

The government, as our third condition, must respect and make partners of First Nations and recognize their right to a share of any benefits that flow from the resource. Of course, that is in law now after the Supreme Court decision so this isn’t anything that is mysterious or something that should be worried about by the other side.

[1550]

It seems to me that…. I think we’ve even sort of detailed that a bit more. It says: “In particular, consideration of and decision-making for any project must recognize the aboriginal title and interest of First Nations and the prerequisites of consultation and consent which have been laid out in the Supreme Court of Canada decision.” We know what that means.

This is the law of the land. This is not something mysterious, not something secretive. I’m sure that, again, the members could have recognized some of these points in the debates that we had in 2014 around Bill 2.

Of course, the last and probably very pertinent part of this letter, which seems to have sort of distressed the members opposite: “B.C.’s land, air and water must be
[ Page 11866 ]
protected, and resource development should be as clean as possible.”

To me, these four qualifications or four conditions seem rather simple, rather straightforward. They’re almost like mother pie. I mean, projects must guarantee jobs for B.C. people. Who would be against that? Is there any member on the opposite side who would say, “I’m sorry. All the jobs must go somewhere else”? — the jobs and training opportunities for British Columbians. British Columbians have a fair share of the resources.

Now, we could quibble over what exactly a fair share is, but certainly the words “fair share” shouldn’t have any difficulty being endorsed, and the government must respect and make partners of the First Nations. Four,: “B.C.’s air, land and water must be protected.”

I’m not quite sure what the fuss about the letter is, because our position has been very, very clear. We voted against Bill 2 and for precisely the reasons around some of the issues. Again, I think that this discussion can only be understood if we put it in the context of 2016. We are well beyond wondering whether climate change is really happening. We’ve gone past that moment.

I know — or at least I’ve been told, or I’ve listened carefully — there are climate change deniers on the other side of the House, but I do not believe they are in the majority. I think that the vast majority of the government members believe that we do have a problem, and some of them are probably more than a little bit worried about the direction that the government is taking around the LNG development.

We know that we have climate change. We know we have to deal with it, and we are in a post–Paris talks situation where the target of a 1.5 increase has been accepted by the powers that be in this country. We have a senior government that has committed to 1.5, and we also know that a huge development and the development of the LNG industry will put strain against that commitment. It’s up to us to make sure that all of the conditions around the industry are conditions that ensure the future of British Columbians, their livelihood and their environment.

When the climate conference in Paris was on, we had the Minister of Environment and the Premier there talking up how good British Columbia was in terms of its climate goals, despite the fact that some of the goals and targets of the original plan won’t be met.

[1555]

I will quote the minister. This is February 29, 2016. This is the minister, speaking on behalf of the government. She said: “We recognize that our emissions are going up, and that’s why we need to take action. That’s why we’ve called a leadership team together, and I would thank them for their work.”

Our emissions are going up. I think that would be a concern to everybody, not only on this side of the House but on the other side of the House also. The Minister of the Environment went further, to say: “…we are not in line to make our 2020 targets.” So we have targets for 2020. We are in post-Paris, where we have a senior government that’s committed to a 1.5 percent increase, and we are not in line with our targets that are coming on line, on stream, in 2020.

Of course, what you immediately do, instead of knuckling down and bearing in and trying to rejig the operation so that you do meet your targets, is that you just make new targets for 2030. In essence, what you do is say: “We can’t make our targets. On behalf of the citizens of British Columbia, we cannot make our targets, and we will continue to pollute.” That is a serious, serious issue for all of us.

I’m going to quote the member for Vancouver-Fairview. “We have a government that on the one hand talks about a climate action plan and being a climate leader and, on the other hand, brings in legislation to govern an industry as if that industry would operate in complete and total isolation from the overall provincial climate plan, from commitments made by this government to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions overall.”

On one hand, you say you’re going to be something. You go to Paris, and you talk about how great you are. On the other hand, you come back here and say you’re not going to meet your targets. You’re going to shoot them out longer, and you’re going to bring in regulations that allow an industry to pollute even more. Then you have some crazy system of dealing with offsets.

I think you can only understand this if you really understand the larger picture of where all of this has come from. I think you have to dial the clock back to 2013, where there were outlandish promises made by a desperate party trying to regain government. And it was successful. I mean, we are the opposition. The government is on the other side of the House, and key to part of its success was to make outrageous promises around the LNG industry, of which, to date, not one has come through. Twenty LNG plants — not one, not two, but 20. Trillions of dollars in economic activity, 100,000 jobs, a prosperity fund and no debt. My gosh. Unicorns and fairy dust.

We are now coming up to the next election, and the fairy dust hasn’t settled. There’s nothing at the end of the rainbow.

In desperation, what you do is you try to force a win, and to force a win, you make it easier and easier for the industry to come in, and there are consequences. Eighteen months before there has to be any measure of emissions. There are no real consequences or incentives for LNG facilities to watch their emissions, as there are amendments that allow the LNG facilities to apply for a longer compliance period of 18 months — 18 months that they do not have to comply with GHG regulations.

[1600]

Both Bill 2, 2014, and Bill 19, 2016, allow for offsets and/or technology fund contributions if LNG propon-
[ Page 11867 ]
ents exceed the emission benchmark. Essentially, the benchmark targets do not actually represent a real-time reduction in GHG, as they can be offset by other means.

The legislation provides LNG proponents with flexibility to meet those benchmarks. If proponents cannot reduce their GHG emissions to 0.16 CO₂ per tonne of LNG produced, they can either invest in B.C.-based offsets at market prices or contribute to a technology fund at a rate of $25 per tonne of CO₂e.

But listen to this. They have opened the door for LNG proponents to invest these offset funds into companies owned and controlled by themselves. This double-dipping, not paying for excess emissions by spending money on offsets that they then get back into their pockets….

Facilities are permitted to emit as much GHG as they please, so long as they purchase offsets or technology fund contributions. There’s no cap on emissions for facilities. These offsets were estimated by the ministry to be complete in 2015, but to date, there still has been no framework created to see what the complex offset tech funds will look like.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

There are no emission regulations placed on upstream emissions — i.e., extraction, upstream combustion, flaring, fugitives and pipelines, which the Pembina Institute study says accounts for 70 percent of the GHG emissions in the LNG life cycle and are not covered by this legislation. The federal government has now focused on including upstream emissions in their latest energy plan.

There are real problems with this bill. It sits on top of a bill that was passed in 2014. I think that when it’s all said and done, all of us in this House, or most of us…. I really can’t say all of us. But I certainly would believe that most of us are concerned about the economy as well as about the environment in which the economy thrives.

The LNG industry, if it meets the criteria that we talked about in the letter…. I think I don’t need to repeat that. It’s very clear that there are four conditions under which an LNG industry would be welcome by this side of the House, but this particular example is not one that we think meets the test.

In completing my discussion and my part in this debate, I just know that there are other ways to get to home. I think it is incredibly important that we build a strong economy. But I do not think we can pollute our way to prosperity. With that, I will take my seat, making it very clear that I do oppose Bill 19.

J. Thornthwaite: I am pleased to stand and rise in support of Bill 19, Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act, 2016. But first, just to comment on a few of the item remarks that the previous speaker had spoken.

[1605]

B.C. is recognized as a leader in environmental leadership. We are. It’s a fact. We came up with the first revenue-neutral carbon tax. Jurisdictions all across the world are looking at us for how we were able to do that and grow our economy. Certainly, in responses to other bills and our budget and throne speech, many, many speakers talk about our fourth consecutive balanced budget. We were able to do that in addition to having a very progressive revenue-neutral carbon tax. So it’s a fact that British Columbia is a leader.

There was also a mention about Paris. Certainly, our Minister of Environment had told me, at a previous speech that I was preparing for, that in Paris, apparently we, British Columbia, were one of the only 14 jurisdictions in the world that were invited to a closed-door meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in recognition of our leadership in the environmental initiatives that British Columbia has accomplished and is continuing to accomplish.

On that note, I’d like to just move on to the bill at hand, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act. The act sets performance regulation standards for regulated operations such as LNG operations. The act streamlines several aspects of existing greenhouse gas legislation, including emission reporting, offsets tracking and compliance.

Government is proposing three amendments, stemming from ongoing negotiations with the LNG sector, to give regulated and non-regulated operations more choice and flexibility to succeed.

If passed, these amendments will redefine the first compliance period, where new regulated operations such as LNG facilities can apply for a longer initial compliance period. This is to allow for testing and other initial activities that may temporarily produce higher GHG emissions. It will allow non-regulated operations to join the B.C. Carbon Registry to buy, transfer and retire offsets, helping them to fulfil partner commitments and meet voluntarily commitments. And it will correct a transitional piece of the act to ensure that the government’s carbon-neutral requirements are met.

The first amendment allows for a longer compliance period, up to 18 months, before having to pay compliance costs. This allows for testing and other initial activities that may temporarily produce higher GHG emissions and lower production. After the first period, all facilities must be subject to a regular compliance period to meet the GHG emission intensity benchmark.

The second amendment enables the issuance, transfer and retirement of compliance units on an electronic trading platform. Currently the act only allows regulated operations, like LNG operators, to buy and retire funded units. If the amendments pass, the B.C. Carbon Registry would be opened up to include non-regulated companies and municipalities and allow them to participate in
[ Page 11868 ]
the carbon market to buy, transfer and retire offsets and help fulfil partner commitments.

For example, by being part of the B.C. Carbon Registry, B.C. Hydro would be able to meet its commitment to provide zero-emission electricity to LNG producers by purchasing offsets or funded units and transferring those units to LNG producers.

The third amendment would correct a traditional piece of the act, ensuring government’s carbon-neutral requirements are met.

The purpose of the LNG greenhouse gas emission benchmark is to be a regulatory tool that sets an absolute limit on greenhouse gas emissions for every unit of LNG produced while allowing for the growth and development of the LNG industry in British Columbia. In this way, a benchmark provides an economically efficient path to meet the province’s goal of having the cleanest LNG facilities in the world.

[1610]

The Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act requires LNG operations to achieve a greenhouse gas emissions intensity benchmark of 0.16 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per metric tonne of LNG produced. This is lower than any other LNG export facility in the world.

Facilities not meeting this benchmark directly by the incorporation of lower emissions technologies or the use of electricity will be able to achieve compliance with the benchmark through flexible options. This includes purchasing compliance units, like offset units, earned credits and funding units, under the act.

The liquefication of natural gas is an energy- and emissions-intensive process. But natural gas is still part of the global climate solution. Why? Because it is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel. New LNG facilities may have temporarily higher emissions and lower production associated with the start-up of the operations. Facilities will have a longer first compliance period to provide time to normalize the production and emissions, but they must meet the benchmark at the end of the first compliance period.

We are ensuring that our LNG facilities are the world’s cleanest. By studying the greenhouse gas emissions of leading global LNG facilities, along with independent research, B.C. has established that no other LNG facility in the world will have a GHG emissions intensity as low as 0.16 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of LNG produced. Therefore, an LNG facility in British Columbia that meets the 0.16 benchmark through efficient plant design, investment in emissions reductions or clean technology will have a clear claim as the world’s cleanest LNG facility. That is why I’m supporting Bill 19.

M. Mark: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 19, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act, 2016. There is a saying in martial arts: fail to plan, plan to fail. Our climate is looking for an advocate to speak on its behalf, a champion in climate change, a leader for climate action. We need integrated communities with shared values across and throughout all four corners of British Columbia. At this moment in time, we are far from reaching consensus. There is no doubt that there is a lot of debate on the issue of LNG throughout British Columbia and how we are going to reduce our carbon footprint.

What is clear, however, is that we must apply the highest standards when it comes to environmental protection. We must have a balanced approach that measures our actions of today by the actions of our great-great-grandchildren. I fear, like many constituents in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and throughout this province, that this government is not exercising the discipline and fortitude required for meaningful climate action.

There is no question that human behaviour doesn’t change overnight. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions won’t happen voluntarily. It is therefore imperative that we have measurable targets and targets that will always be held to account. Targets are meant to be met. It is not clear to me why — I will canvass this at the committee stage — we are not going to meet our 2020 goals to reduce carbon emissions.

What are the consequences of not meeting our 2020 targets, and who pays? If action is not taken today, then when? Why are there no measurable targets in this act so that we can assure future generations and our generation that we took all measures to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions? When I looked at this bill, I would have thought that it would have been progressive if, for example, it was called the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction, Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act.

What will be left of our environment in 2050 if we’re not to meet our 2020 goals? When I think about 2050, I think of my daughters, who are now five and 12. In 2050, they’ll be 40 and 47 years old respectively. What will I tell them were the measures that we took in 2016 to ensure that we reduce our carbon footprint and our greenhouse gas emissions?

[1615]

We are frequently accused of being the party of no. Time and time again what is repeated from our side of the House is that to get to yes on issues like LNG, we must ensure that the benefits include First Nations people in a meaningful way, that we protect our air, land and water, including living up to B.C.’s climate change commitments, that we include express guarantees of jobs and training opportunities for British Columbians and that we get a fair return for our resources.

As the member on this side of the House mentioned earlier, which I haven’t heard on the other side of the House, we must also respect that the highest court has acknowledged aboriginal title here in British Columbia. When we think of LNG and we think of First Nations
[ Page 11869 ]
people, there has to be careful consideration and decision-making for any project that recognizes aboriginal title and interests of First Nations people.

The prerequisites of consultation and consent which have been laid out in the Supreme Court of Canada must be sought, as laid out in the Tsilhqot’in decision and in Delgamuukw. As well, consultations and obligations to meet that consultation must be met in all courses of action when we talk about climate reduction.

B.C.’s air, land and water also must be protected, and resource development should be as clean as possible.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill. I do, again, think of the future. I think of my daughters and what vigour, leadership and discipline we have exercised to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

I would have hoped that there would have been less loopholes in this act that allow people to participate in the carbon market to buy, transfer and retire offsets and fulfil partner or voluntary commitments. The reason for doing so and allowing this loophole in this act is not clear, but it could allow, presumably, LNG companies to enter into the offsets market and profit off the GHG offsets they are required to purchase to comply with the legislation.

It is not clear why 18 months was set in this bill. Why 18 months? How did we come to the determination that 18 months were required? Why not no months? Why not meet the standards of the offsets if you’re going to enter into this industry?

There are lots of questions around this bill. I also have to ask: when we think of not meeting our targets and not including things like the emissions with respect to the upstream, why are we not meeting our emissions with respect to the upstream? Why were they excluded from this act? There are many questions that I look forward to bringing at the committee stage.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill. For this reason, I will put on record that I will not be supporting this bill.

Hon. M. Morris: I’m, obviously, going to be supporting this bill. I think it’s a great step forward.

I was just listening to some of the comments of the various speakers here. We’re looking at a snapshot in time with LNG. Everybody’s basing a lot of assumptions on what we know today with LNG technology. What we need to take into consideration is that technology and changes are happening so quickly in our society and within this particular industry that what is actual today with respect to the efficiencies of our transportation systems and our LNG distribution system is not going to be the same 50 years from now. There will be a significant difference down the road.

We see this as an opportunity, by bringing LNG on stream in British Columbia as a major fuel source, to start upgrading and updating our vast transportation system that we have right across the province here. The trucks that are transporting resource goods up and down our highways — north, south, east, west — throughout the province here and into the Lower Mainland converted to run on natural gas. Our locomotives converted to run on natural gas. Remote mine sites that currently rely on diesel power to generate the electricity to run their mills and their facilities will be run on natural gas.

[1620]

I’ve been told by some companies that have been looking into this that with today’s technology, there’s an immediate 30 percent savings in the cost associated with the fuel but also a significant reduction in GHG emissions as a result of converting from diesel to natural gas.

I think everybody should be behind the conversion of this province to go from fossil fuels like diesel and gasoline into more GHG-friendly fuels like LNG. By increasing the production in the northeast part of British Columbia and increasing the opportunities not only overseas in China and India and these countries that are going to rely on LNG to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by converting from coal to natural gas but in British Columbia — our ferry system, our road system, our highways — everything is going to benefit from cleaner-burning fuel throughout British Columbia.

I look back to significant little steps. I go back to my own home, and I was burning natural gas in my home in Prince George. I had an old furnace that dated back to 1980, very inefficient, burning natural gas. I’ve upgraded it, and I have put in a geothermal system, so my natural gas consumption went down to a fraction of what it was before. I’m probably burning 1 percent of what I was burning before that.

If we take that into consideration when we look across this province of ours at the natural gas that we produce in northeast B.C. and all of these different technological changes that we see taking place, what we will see in 50 years…. The member opposite, speaking just before I was speaking, was talking about what her children will see in 50 years’ time, and I look at the same thing. I’ve got little grandkids from nine years old down to one year old, and they’re going to see a significantly different world 50 years from now than we see sitting here today.

We can’t get cemented in our position. We can’t get such tunnel vision that we’re basing everything on today’s technology. This 18-month period of time that gives companies an opportunity to meet the standards or to determine what they’re going to do to meet these standards is significant here, I think, because in 18 months, there are a lot of things that can happen.

There’s a lot of research going on right now with the liquefied natural gas, with natural gas. We’re going to see a significantly different world, even in five years from now. The technology is just exponentially changing so quickly that as we invent something today, somebody else is going to modify that, and five years down the road, it’s going to be a completely different component.
[ Page 11870 ]

I think this is a good step forward. It’s not doom and gloom. We are going to reduce GHG emissions by virtue of the fact that LNG and natural gas is going to become a widely used commodity right around the world. It’s going to reduce the use of fossil fuels like coal and diesel fuel.

As more people start using this technology, more scientists are going to start looking at it. Everybody is going to be looking to see how they can develop a better mousetrap, and that’s going to speed up the technology. It’s going to speed up the innovation that we’re going to see in this field, and it’s going to help reduce GHG emissions even more.

I think that Bill 19 is a good act. I think it’s going to set the stage for future development in this province. I think it’s going to enable greater use of natural gas. It’s going to make everybody mindful of the fact that everybody has a responsibility to reduce GHG emissions, and we will see how that transpires.

Mr. Speaker, like I said, I support Bill 19, and I look forward to further discussion on this.

G. Holman: I’m pleased to speak to Bill 19. Unfortunately, I do not share the members opposite’s optimism around the success of the bill in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

[1625]

In fact, it’s pretty clear that what Bill 19 does is weaken already weak and ineffective legislation that was brought forward by this government a year ago in the form of Bill 2. In effect, for an 18-month period, it gives LNG facilities a free pass to continue emitting at whatever level they please — for 18 months. This is on top of what was previously known as Bill 2, which is now legislation that’s already completely ineffective.

It is ironic. Bill 2 was known as the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, and this is an amendment to that act. Bill 2 neither controlled nor did it report all of the emissions associated with the LNG industry in British Columbia. In fact, as many of the speakers on our side of the House have noted, it actually omits 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the industry upstream of LNG facilities.

This is the flaw in the argument put forward by government that, in fact, natural gas is going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that it’s going to be the saviour because of use in other countries — or even here, for that matter. The flaw in the argument, and it’s a giant one, is that the existing legislation and Bill 19 further worsen the problem. The existing legislation omits the vast majority of emissions associated with the industry.

In a nutshell, that’s my argument today. That’s what others on this side of the House have spoken to. Because Bill 19 is related to Bill 2, there’s a context there that needs to be established. So I wanted to go through, a little bit, some of the flaws that we saw in Bill 2 and, in fact, the reason why we voted against it, the reason why the independent members of the House voted against it.

First and foremost, of course, is the fact that Bill 2 did not mention, did omit, 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the LNG industry. To define that more carefully, that includes emissions associated with…. I’m looking for the precise definition in my notes here. I can’t find it. In any case, in particular, production where methane emissions are associated with fracking is omitted from current legislation. Bill 19 does nothing to address that.

Methane, of course, is a much more serious greenhouse gas than CO₂. Depending on the period of time that you’re thinking about and the calculations you do, there are estimates that methane can be up to 70 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO₂. So the omission of methane from the current regulations is a huge gap in the existing legislation. Bill 19 does nothing at all to address that.

The existing law also omits emissions associated with transportation — venting associated with transportation, for example. That is one of the reasons why we voted against Bill 2.

On this side of the House, we understand that it’s not an easy matter to deal with this challenge. Not at all. But Bill 19 reflects an attitude that just seems to completely ignore the imperative that we deal with climate change in British Columbia. It completely ignores our responsibilities to address the issue.

[1630]

Although B.C. comprises a pretty small proportion of world GHG emissions, it’s very important that we play our role, that we live up to our responsibilities, that we provide a model for elsewhere in the world and that we apply our considerable technical capacity here in British Columbia. But if you don’t have regulations that force that, that force industry to apply its ingenuity, to apply its resources to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, you’re not going to get those improvements at all.

Unfortunately, I think this government, because it has been so desperate to establish an LNG industry in British Columbia, are probably the last ones that really should be negotiating taxation, B.C. employment provisions, regulations around greenhouse gas emissions, the ability to buy offsets.

All of those things are very complicated, very difficult to negotiate with a worldwide, very large industry with the wherewithal to negotiate with governments. This government, in particular, is probably the last one that should be negotiating these provisions because of the commitments made during the 2013 campaign, their desperation to get at least one project off the ground and their almost single-minded focus on the LNG industry.

When you’re in that position, you’re not in a…. Desperation is not a strong negotiating position. This is a basic problem that we’re facing right now. This government has very little leverage against the industry because they’re so desperate to get at least one LNG facility off the ground.
[ Page 11871 ]

Back to Bill 2, which is now current legislation. Aside from the fact that it omits 70 percent of emissions, of course the other issue is that it’s not really a hard cap on emissions from the industry. It’s an intensity cap, so it’s all relative to the size of the industry. There’s no upper limit, unlike in Alberta.

With the change to an NDP government, we have the remarkable turnaround of government in its approach to the oil sands, where the Alberta government has now placed a hard cap in terms of GHG emissions on the oil sands. A year or two ago that would be inconceivable in Canada. It would be inconceivable that a government in Alberta would do that. We don’t have that approach here in British Columbia. We have this intensity measure per tonne of production. So there is no upper limit.

It actually, though, gets worse than that. Even though the measure is 0.16 CO₂ equivalent units per tonne of LNG…. That’s the benchmark. In fact, in order to get there, you don’t actually have to reduce your emissions. You can buy offsets. You can purchase…. I think in the Catholic Church they’re known as indulgences. In fact, because there is no hard cap and because industry is able to purchase offsets, there is no legal requirement for the industry to actually reduce its emissions. It gets to purchase offsets.

Certainly, the devil is in the details around offset programs. Look at our experience here in British Columbia under this government with the Pacific Carbon Trust, which has been dismantled by government after the problems that that entity had.

In fact, the Pacific Carbon Trust was spending millions of dollars purchasing offsets from organizations from projects that were already underway, that would have already happened. This is one of the key problems with a cap-and-trade system, with an offset purchase system. It’s very difficult to administer in a way where you’re getting actual additionality, as it’s called. It’s difficult to determine whether or not the project would have occurred in any case.

[1635]

I predict that we’re going to have exactly the same problems with this offset provision for LNG facilities. It’s not going to be clear at all.

So you don’t have to reduce your emissions. You can purchase offsets. And then it’s not going to be clear at all that the offsets you purchase will be effective and wouldn’t have happened anyway, even without LNG money going into the particular activity — another reason why we opposed Bill 2, which is now enacted as legislation in British Columbia.

It actually gets even a little bit worse than that, because if your emission intensity is below 0.23 CO₂ equivalents per tonne of LNG…. Again, remember the benchmark is 0.16. If you’re at 0.23, government will actually provide you a financial incentive to reduce your emissions.

Not only does industry not have to reduce emissions, it could purchase offsets. Those offsets may or may not be additional. They may or may not be effective. Over and above that, within certain limits, government will actually subsidize you to purchase those offsets. The story just gets worse and worse — the reason why we voted against Bill 2.

Bill 19 does nothing at all to address these concerns that have been raised not just by the opposition, not just by independent members of the House, not just by independent research organizations like the Pembina Institute. There is broad public concern here, and government is simply ignoring it. Bill 19 just takes us further down the road to further relaxing what are supposed to be regulations that result in the cleanest LNG in the world.

Our spokesperson for the environment made the point very well about the subtle change in language that’s being used by government. The Premier first started talking about the cleanest LNG in the world. That has now evolved to the cleanest LNG facilities in the world.

I think government has come to understand that they’re missing most of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the industry, so they’ve now more carefully defined their benchmark so that it only includes facilities. Even there, with the way the offset programs will work, the way government subsidization of the industry will work, even the greenest LNG facility in the world really is an empty commitment.

In terms of the purchase of offsets, again our environment spokesperson made the point that the current legislation allows the LNG industry to purchase from the British Columbia Carbon Registry at $25 a tonne or make a contribution to a so-called technology fund at $25 a fund.

The legislation also permits industry to purchase offsets on the open market, which as we understand it, can be had for considerably less than $25 a tonne. We’ve seen estimates as low as $8 or $9 a tonne. Industry certainly will go in that direction, in my view. Even if market offsets could be purchased a dollar less than $25 a tonne, industry is not going to be investing in that technology fund.

There are so many barn doors here through which horses can escape — GHG emissions can escape. There is little wonder why this side of the House could not support Bill 2, and Bill 19 does nothing to address these concerns.

Just to speak a little bit about what Bill 19 actually does say. It allows for LNG facilities to apply for a longer initial compliance period — up to 18 months — to allow time for testing and other initial activities that may affect emissions and production levels.

[1640]

As we’ve said before — many of us on this side of the House — this is essentially a GHG regulation free pass for 18 months, making already weak and ineffective legislation even more irrelevant, even weaker.
[ Page 11872 ]

There is also this other amendment that opens up the B.C. Carbon Registry to non-regulated operations, including companies and municipalities. We’re a bit dubious about that. We’re not entirely clear what that might mean. I’m sure we’ll be getting into questions like that during committee stage.

Again, anything to do with offsets, any change in legislation around offsets, which is already a very tricky area to administer properly and enforce — certainly, this government has had real problems with it — any changes to those rules, we’re very leery of because we already think that offsets are way too easy to take advantage of. So we’ll be asking further questions about that in the committee stage.

Again in terms of context, government likes to boast about its world-leading carbon tax. It is true that when it was brought in, there weren’t other jurisdictions that had a carbon tax in North America. The government of the day should be given credit for that.

But the carbon tax, quite simply, on its own is not enough to reduce GHG emissions to the levels that we’ve committed to in law: by 2020, 30-some-odd percent and a much more significant percentage by 2050. The carbon tax alone will not, cannot do that for the simple reason, to use a little bit of jargon, of demand elasticity for fuel products.

The demand curve is very, very steep. You have to increase that tax. In fact, this has been a recommendation by the so-called climate leadership team that was appointed, to their credit, by government and has now made recommendations to government. That team is recommending that if you’re going to try and do the job with the carbon tax, it has to be increased substantially.

The carbon tax, as you know, has been frozen for the past five years, and in every year since Premier Clark has been the leader of her party, GHG emissions have gone up. My apologies, Mr. Speaker, for using the Premier’s name. In any case, my point is that the carbon tax alone cannot do the job in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

With the carbon tax in place, which this government is very proud of…. You know what? To a certain extent, I don’t disagree with that. It was groundbreaking at the time, but it’s not enough, and the experience we’ve had over the past five years demonstrates that. Greenhouse gas emissions have steadily climbed over the past five years, and they will continue to climb.

In fact, there are economists…. I’m thinking specifically of Marc Lee of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. His analysis indicates that it’s very difficult to determine the impacts in the real world of tax measures. One of the things that was going on in British Columbia when the carbon tax was brought in was a financial crisis that almost brought our developed economies to their knees. British Columbia was severely affected by that.

Marc Lee believes that part of the reason why emissions went down for a brief period of time was because our economy was being impacted by that financial crisis. So the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, at least in part, had nothing to do with the carbon tax. It had everything to do with the impact of the financial crisis on the British Columbia economy.

[1645]

I’ll be interested in the opposition members’ view of the impacts of the carbon tax. But I can tell you, as an economist, that the carbon tax alone won’t do the job. That’s why, in the NDP platform in 2013, we committed not just to broadening the carbon tax to address the emissions that have been missed out by Bill 2. We promised to broaden the carbon tax, and we also committed to doing away with the revenue neutrality aspect of the tax and to reinvest the incremental proceeds in measures that actually would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including public transit, including investments in energy conservation across all sectors.

That’s on the record, Mr. Speaker. The opposite side of the House likes to point out our original opposition to the carbon tax of 2009.

There was a reason for that. It won’t work. The evidence that we’ve had in recent years with greenhouse gas emissions climbing for the past five years…. I would really appreciate to hear from members: why, if the carbon tax is working, are greenhouse gas emissions increasing? Why? If it works, why are greenhouse…? If they’re increasing….

Interjection.

G. Holman: The Minister of Environment is chirping in here. I want to hear from the Minister of Environment. If greenhouse gases are increasing with the carbon tax in place, why is that happening? Clearly, the reason it’s happening is because, in and of itself, it’s not sufficient.

The government’s commitment to LNG without any effective regulation is only going to make that worse — much, much worse. There is absolutely no way this government is going to meet the legally required reductions in GHG emissions in this province with their policies as they currently are and their blind commitment to getting some kind of LNG off the ground and their concessions to industry because of their desperation in trying to fulfil a political promise. That’s not going to make things any better. It’s going to make things much, much worse.

That’s the context here. The carbon tax is not working. The regulations that government has brought in to try and curtail emissions is ineffective, misses out 70 percent of emissions and allows industry to purchase offsets which may or may not be effective. There is no longer any leadership on the climate action file from this government.

There was. Premier Campbell did show leadership in bringing in the tax. There’s no leadership from this gov-
[ Page 11873 ]
ernment. They’re so desperate to get an LNG industry off the ground that they’ve given away the store, and they’re reneging on our legal obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in British Columbia.

Just some final comments. I know other members of the House do want to speak here. Again, I will be interested in hearing from government why greenhouse gas emissions have gone up for the past five years if the carbon tax is working. I’d really like to hear that.

I just wanted to point out, too, the recent announcement. I mean, it does beggar belief, as our Environment spokesperson said. The appointment of Fazil Mihlar as deputy minister for climate leadership — surely, this has got to be an April Fools’ joke.

If you know anything about Mr. Mihlar’s former association with the Fraser Institute in British Columbia and some of the statements he has made, it’s just unbelievable that this government would pick that particular person to demonstrate their leadership on the climate action file.

Just to provide an indication of some of the comments that Mr. Mihlar has made and has been associated with. And of course, Mr. Mihlar was also, at one point, head of the editorial board of the Vancouver Sun.

[1650]

During his stint with the Fraser Institute…. Sorry. This is when he was with the Vancouver Sun. In an editorial, he encouraged readers “to think of coal to meet our future energy needs.” This is the person that this government has appointed to demonstrate their resolve, their commitment to climate action in British Columbia.

In 2008, Mr. Mihlar wrote that “global warming is the latest weapon in the West’s arsenal to subjugate and impoverish millions of people in the Third World.” You can’t make this stuff up. In that same article, I believe, he compared “eco-imperialist generals” and their foot soldiers who want to save the planet to the racist behaviour of European colonialism. Students of history…. I know my colleague from Nanaimo is a student of history. It’s just unbelievable the person that this government has brought to show leadership on the climate action file.

While serving as editor of the Vancouver Sun editorial page, Mr. Mihlar apparently argued that B.C. high school teachers should “not preach to students about the consequences of climate change” and suggested that schools that show Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth — I think most of us have probably seen that film — should also show a documentary entitled The Great Global Warming Swindle. This is the person showing leadership on behalf of British Columbia. The editorial asked deep questions like: “Could the science be wrong or, more insidiously, doctored?”

One has to shake one’s head around. It’s just hard to believe that a government that at one point could lay claim to showing some leadership on this file has appointed this person to demonstrate their continued leadership going forward.

Again, my final comment in relation to the…. It’s funny. This Bill 2, which was called the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, which does neither, does remind you of subdivisions that are sometimes built by developers that actually name the subdivision after the very natural attributes which they’ve destroyed — like Eagle Creek, for example, which no longer has the creek and no longer has any eagles. It does remind me of that.

Also, the doublespeak from this government around the climate action file. The naming of a bill that pretends to actually control and monitor GHG emissions, which in fact does quite the opposite, does remind one of the term “doublespeak” — which, according to Wikipedia, is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts or reverses the meaning of words. That’s what Bill 2 represented. That’s what Bill 19 represents.

This side of the House will be voting against this legislation, which does absolutely nothing to address the serious issue of climate change in this province. It does absolutely nothing and in fact, takes us in the opposite direction that we need to go in order to fulfil our legal, ethical and moral obligations around the issue.

Hon. T. Lake: It’s a great pleasure for me to stand and speak in support of Bill 19, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act, 2016, and maybe, perhaps, just a few general words about climate change and government’s action on climate change, given the comments of the member opposite in his remarks.

[1655]

I’m the former Minister of Environment and served in that capacity from 2011 to 2013. It was, for me, a job I treasured, because one of the issues that I believe we as a society, as a civilization…. One of the greatest challenges we face is, in fact, climate change.

I am very happy to see my colleague, the current Minister of Environment, take on this role with such tenacity and put together a working group of experts from non-governmental organizations, experts from academia, experts from industry that have worked remarkably well together to come up with recommendations that help guide us as we look to further our policy direction in terms of climate change.

I’m also honoured to be in the same House as the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, who has devoted much of his life to the issue of climate change. I was very happy, as Minister of Environment at the time, to present him with a Queen’s jubilee medal for his work on climate change. While we may disagree on approaches to tackling climate change, I think we share a commitment to making sure that we, as a civilization, as a country, as a province, address climate change.

When I talk to people about climate change, I try to describe it in the way I know as a veterinarian — some-
[ Page 11874 ]
one who’s studied physiology and tried to understand closed systems. The simplest comparison or analogy I use is an aquarium. Many of us, as our kids were young, experienced the joys of owning an aquarium. As our kids brought home tropical fish and we tried to keep them alive and provide a good environment for them, we found that sometimes the environment in which they lived became visibly contaminated.

What we would do is we would try to change the environment quickly so that it wouldn’t look so bad, and we felt that we were doing something good for the fish. Unfortunately, often, as many a parent knows as they do that — when they change the aquarium — if you change a closed environment too quickly, it cannot compensate. It’s a rate-of-change problem.

The body is much the same. If the body is dealing with slow rates of change, as we do when we age, we tend to accommodate and adjust, and we do quite well. If there are rapid rates of change — acute changes to the equilibrium — in a closed environment like the body or like an aquarium, bad things happen.

Our atmosphere is a closed system. It is a rate-of-change problem in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions that are building up in our closed environment, leading to the climate change effects that we are seeing, which include average temperatures increasing and also, of course, severe weather events and changes to the jet stream, which do impact weather on a regular basis.

For me, this is about slowing that rate of change. There isn’t any one thing that is going to be the solution.

The member opposite says: “Well, the carbon tax isn’t working.” There is agreement across academia, across policy people around the world, that the best way to tackle climate change is to make it less desirable to emit. The best way you can do that in a market-based system is to put a tax on what you don’t want, which is greenhouse gases, and reduce taxes on things you do want, which are prosperity, income, etc.

British Columbia’s carbon tax is the highest price on carbon in any jurisdiction and has been effective in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. There may have been some increases over the last year, but the reality is, two points are not a trend. The initial of 2013-14…. We did see a reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions. We saw a reduction in our fuel consumption here in British Columbia, despite a growing economy. That was not the case elsewhere in Canada without a carbon tax.

[1700]

If you look after the recession, we saw economies start to grow in other provinces, and greenhouse gases and fuel consumption also grew. That was not the case until the past year in British Columbia. There’s no question that the carbon tax is not the only answer, but it is a big part of the answer.

We also have to do other things. This is where the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head and I will probably disagree. Well, I know we will disagree. We have to look at what we can do to help others around the world reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. I’ve been able to travel around the world and been fortunate enough to be in Japan and in China. I have seen firsthand, particularly in Beijing, the terrible challenge that countries like China have with carbon pollution — all kinds of pollution but particularly carbon pollution. The amount of coal-fired energy created in China is enormous.

There will be a day when we won’t rely on fossil fuels. However, until we get to that time, we need to find ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by using less-carbon-intense fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency did a study that looked at non-conventional sources of gas. In other words, tight gas — gas that is released by hydraulic fracturing. They looked at two scenarios: one in which all of the non-conventional gas was exploited and one in which it was not. In fact, the studies showed that greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by taking advantage of non-conventional natural gas.

That is what we do in British Columbia better than anyone else in the world. We have the Oil and Gas Commission, which has a very, very good, rigorous and robust regulatory regime. We’ve got natural gas sitting in northeast British Columbia — volumes and volumes of natural gas that is sitting at a lower temperature, so that when it is liquefied, it does not need as much energy as natural gas deposits elsewhere around the world and so that the energy intensity of liquefying that natural gas is less than it would be elsewhere.

We can transport that liquefied natural gas safely to other parts of the world that are currently dependent on coal. That will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, even though we recognize it will increase our provincial greenhouse gas emissions. It’s important that we look to other areas to make up for that. We are helping the atmosphere around the world, but how can we, as a province, mitigate our greenhouse gases here? That’s looking at the transportation sector, it’s looking at the built environment, and it’s looking at the ability to soak up carbon dioxide in growing our forests and looking at some of those offsets.

While the member previous was mocking some of the offsets that are available, it was his party that, when they wanted to axe the tax, was recommending a cap-and-trade system that relies on offsets. In fact, First Nations in the province of British Columbia have an enormous opportunity, through the atmospheric benefit agreements that we have created with First Nations, to develop economic opportunities around stewardship over the forests, which will act as a carbon sink.

In terms of transportation, we have one of the largest electric charging infrastructures in the world. I am an owner of a Chevy Volt, and I can tell you that when I’m driving around Kamloops, I never have to use gasoline. The only time I use gasoline is when I’m on the highway
[ Page 11875 ]
— going to Vancouver, for instance — and even then, that vehicle gets tremendous gas mileage.

So I’m driving around on electricity, using the hydroelectricity that is produced here in British Columbia, which is among the cleanest in the world, despite members of the opposition that are against increasing that clean energy through Site C. I use it every single day to charge my vehicle and for my transportation purposes.

We live in a townhouse. We have one car between the two of us. We use transit. We use electricity to get around. I’d like to think that I not only talk the talk. I walk the walk of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I think pragmatism is something that all governments need to come to terms with. While we’ve made real policy decisions that have made a real impact, we are looking at transition fuels that will help the rest of the world — liquefied natural gas being one of them.

[1705]

Part of that pragmatism is enabling these huge developments. I mean, Petronas would be the largest single investment, I think, in Canadian history in infrastructure. It’s not like going out and building something simple. You are building a complex system there that will take time to regulate effectively to make sure that all the systems are working.

This bill gives the flexibility needed to allow facilities to have that breaking-in period so that they can get their systems optimized and get their emissions down to where they can be. As part of that, of course, we know that the benchmarks that we have set here in British Columbia are the greenest in the world at 0.16 metric tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per metric tonne of LNG produced.

Where the members of the opposition may first of all decry what everyone else around the world has given us kudos for, we on this side of the House are extremely proud of our leadership on climate action. We will continue because we know there is more to do. Part of that is allowing other jurisdictions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions while we here work on other areas where we can reduce ours.

With that, I will take my seat and thank the Minister of Environment for bringing forward this legislation, which will allow a thriving liquefied natural gas industry that not only will create economic development and help to fund increased health care services around the province of British Columbia but I believe will help the world reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A. Weaver: Thank you for allowing me to rise and speak in opposition to Bill 19, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act. I’d like to start off, first, by acknowledging that in British Columbia there used to be a lot of leadership on the climate file. I do acknowledge what the Minister of Health said in his particular role in that leadership over the years to come.

The carbon tax is lauded internationally as one of the most effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, British Columbia has been singled out as a leader in that regard. Again, that is for the initiatives of the past administration, not the present administration, so it’s a bit rich for the present administration to claim credit for the introduction of measures by a previous administration that have led to British Columbia being lauded for its efforts in climate change mitigation, which have had a very real effect, a measurable effect in terms of reducing per-capita emissions until very recently.

It is at that time that this government decided to switch direction, to switch priorities and to move down the direction of trying to encompass an LNG industry. At the same time, the government stopped the increase in the carbon tax, which sent a signal to the market that we’re no longer moving in that direction. And at the same time again, it started to introduce loopholes to allow certain aspects of the market to no longer be subject to the carbon tax.

I do also want to recognize, on the issue of climate, that the present Minister of Environment put together what I will describe as a blue-ribbon panel that came out with a very, very fine set of recommendations prior to Christmas. Those are bold recommendations that actually, I think many people would agree, would be leading if this government were to adopt them.

Honestly, I don’t know how they can adopt them in light of the fact that we have the former Minister of Agriculture putting out petitions calling on people to actually fight against his own government during the actual consultation period, where we’re supposed to be listening to the public, not listening to rogue MLAs telling the public that they shouldn’t support the government’s efforts in terms of listening to the public on carbon pricing. I wonder whether the government can follow these recommendations, because they are so very bold and so very inconsistent with the approach the government is taking with respect to LNG.

Back when the first version of this bill, the original Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, was brought in, I suggested a rather unusual amendment that was amending the title to something like the greenhouse gas industrial reporting and increase act. The reason why, of course, I did that at that time was that it was a very clear movement away from a direction government had towards greenhouse gas reduction.

[1710]

This included the repealing of the cap-and-trade regulation. It included a move towards emission intensity targets, as opposed to real reduction. Here, in what I’ve historically called a generational sellout to the LNG industry and then a multigenerational sellout, we see that we haven’t quite gone far enough on our sellout, so we’re going to weaken the rules still more.

Now, back in February 2008, I sat on the floor of this Legislature when the government started down the direc-
[ Page 11876 ]
tion of actually taking climate change seriously. I watched them introduce not one, not two, but a whole pile of policies and regulations that acted like knobs, buttons and switches that would allow government to actually send a signal to the market and move a little bit here and there to start to take emissions down, and they were coming down.

Then along came 2012, when the government recognized that it was not doing so well in the eyes of the public, and it needed a different vision. Everybody thought that the government was going to fall, so they needed to offer British Columbians a vision of hope and prosperity. What was that hope and prosperity? It wasn’t continued leadership on the climate front. It was that we’ll all be wealthy, we’ll all be able to drive Maseratis in our home, because we’re all going to come and benefit from this wonderful opportunity called LNG.

Now, I’ve been saying the same thing now for not one year, not two years, not three years, but over three years. The market did not, does not and will not support an LNG industry in B.C. then, now or any time soon. The reason why is because there is a glut on the market. Right now, landed LNG in Asia in 2019-2020 is trading at $4 and change. China, whose supply gap we were building our LNG to meet, is actually a seller in the market. Why? Because they have contracted excess supply over what they need for years to come.

What do we do? We watch BP move on, and we watch Shell slow down, even though we’ve signed long-term contracts to provide them fixed-cost, cheap electrical power through the construction of Site C. Given that that’s fallen apart, we desperately seek an energy market in Alberta and a plea to the federal government that they add infrastructure funds to get our energy there. But the government said no federally, as did the Alberta government.

We continue down, and we watch so-called LNG plant after so-called LNG plant move away until now we hear only about four that may be. We’re starting to get really shaky firms involved. We’re not talking about the multinationals, the globally traded, highly responsible corporate citizens of today. Some might argue about the level of corporate citizenship.

The reality is we’re talking about big players, but players based in nations like Malaysia, places like Indonesia, where the owners are mired in scandals. Yet we’re getting into business and negotiating with them in a position where we have no negotiating power, in a position of desperation. We really think that this is for the benefit of British Columbians? No.

There is no market now for our LNG. Australia already has got so much LNG that they can’t keep up. They don’t have a market for it. Australia and the United States. The first shipping of LNG out of the ports in the Gulf of Mexico has occurred.

The U.S. government recently told a proposed Oregon establishment of an LNG facility: “No, you’re not going ahead, because there’s no market for LNG, and you can’t make the economic case to build an LNG facility on the U.S. west coast.” But in B.C., what do we do? We continue on down this path, this path of folly.

India has just announced that it will look to have all cars on the road be electric within 15 years. What signal is that sending to the market? What market signal is that sending? It’s saying that the new technology of tomorrow is the clean technology that’s emerging.

[1715]

While the minister who spoke previously talked about the opportunity of assisting others in reducing their greenhouse gases, I agree this is an opportunity British Columbia should be meeting, but we’re meeting it the wrong way. We cannot compete by digging gas out of the ground and trying to sell it to markets that don’t exist. What we should be doing in British Columbia is investing in our strengths that no one else has.

We have three such strengths that no one else in the world has. Without a doubt, we are the best, most beautiful place in the world to live. [Applause.] Thank you for that. That’s assuming that we don’t have too much more of that government to actually destroy it. No more claps there. We are the most beautiful place to live.

The second thing we have that no one else has is: we have access to renewable water, we have access to renewable fibre, and we have access to renewable energy like nobody else in the world.

The third thing we have is a highly educated, highly skilled workforce that is able to be there for business that wants to actually come to B.C.

Why do I say we should be focusing on those three things? Because we can attract and retain business here in British Columbia, because of the quality of life we can offer the workers who are there. Highly skilled, highly mobile workers can go anywhere in the world. If you can offer them the best place in the world to live, they’ll stay here.

This is what we should be doing to help those other jurisdictions get off their dependence on fossil fuels — investing in our clean-tech sector and exporting that technology worldwide. We could be leaders there, and we used to be leaders in this area under the previous administration when that started to take off.

Now we see it collapsing. We see the Canadian Wind Energy Association pack up their bags and move to Alberta. We see the Canadian Geothermal Association throw up their hands and say: “We give up. B.C. is the only jurisdiction on the Pacific Rim with no geothermal energy. We give up.” What are we doing? We’re doubling down on natural gas.

Talk to the people around Fort Nelson. Ask them how this is playing out for them. Ask them how this double down focus on natural gas is playing out for them when all the drills shut down and move on because there’s no market for natural gas.
[ Page 11877 ]

There are some people in the Fort St. John region still taking natural gas out of the ground and then putting some of it back in because there’s no market for it. Fortunately, there are some liquids that are still in some desire there. Instead of doubling down, we should be diversifying our economy there.

This bill is about giving any proponent, in yet another desperate attempt to land an LNG industry here, 18 months in which they can actually not really have to worry too much about their greenhouse gas emissions.

Let me talk to you a little bit about some of those emissions. In the 2014 B.C. Reporting Regulation — that’s the emissions report summary table — from fugitive emissions and venting of methane a full 2.15 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent is released a year. That’s in the form of methane. About 0.1 billion tonnes come from fugitive methane emissions and 1.3 million tonnes from venting CH₄. That 1.3 million tonnes is deliberate venting, not venting that happens through leaks. That’s the fugitive emissions.

What we’re saying here is: we’re going to continue to be climate leaders, but we have 2.1 million tonnes of CO₂ a year. That’s an underestimation, very conservative. Some of these are kind of best estimates. We’re going to say another 18 months where you don’t have to worry about it. We have legislated targets that we’re supposed to reduce emissions in B.C. by 33 percent by the year 2020. Those are legal legislated targets.

This government needs to stand up. I know it won’t do it, but it needs to stand up now, not after the next election but now, and actually repeal that legislation, repeal the legislation that says we will meet 33 percent below by 2020. Because we can’t. We simply can’t. The government has missed the boat. Even its own Climate Action Team has told them they have missed the boat.

[1720]

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give up, but it certainly means we shouldn’t double down on an industry that is from the 20th century and try to chase this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow by giving away as much as we can, reducing regulation after regulation, desperation after desperation. Here, just the latest one is giving business another 18 months to actually really do nothing and worry about greenhouse gases down the road.

What we should be debating here in this Legislature…. It’s not about further giveaway. It’s about repealing the Petronas development agreement. That legislation is bad legislation for British Columbia, bad legislation for this generation, bad legislation for the next generation and bad legislation overall, because it sets a maximum bar, a really bad maximum bar, that we’re actually saying you can do LNG industry here in B.C. It’s a giveaway, a generational sellout to meet irresponsible promises made during this past election campaign.

We’re supposed to have a couple of LNG facilities up and running right now. What do we have? A lot of smoke, a lot of rhetoric and the Minister of Natural Gas hopefully eating humble pie, or crow, at some point, as he told me I would be doing this time, when I’m still not.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Why would I hope for him to eat…? No. The economy in B.C. will grow, but the economy in B.C. is not going to grow through natural gas. It will not grow through natural gas. We’re dreaming.

Look at Australia, which tried this kind of desperate attempt — a natural gas giveaway. It didn’t help them much. Ask the Australians what they think about the price of natural gas that they’re paying right now there today. Ask them how much it cost them in terms of the social cost, the environmental costs. I don’t think you’d find Australians rah-rahing to the same extent as this government seems to be doing here.

On October 23, 2014, when I spoke against the implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act for the first time, I argued that just one LNG plant would emit 12 million tonnes of carbon pollution into the atmosphere. I argued against the bill at that time because it would place us into the somewhat laughable category of not actually reducing our emissions but only our emissions intensity, a change that we’ve seen in other jurisdictions which actually increased the overall magnitude of emissions.

As I said at the time, essentially what we did is we took a card from the Harper playbook, and we said: “We’re going to play this emissions intensity card.” This is yet another example of why I repeatedly point out that today’s B.C. Liberals, as they like to call themselves, are nothing more than yesterday’s Harper Tories.

I argued against the bill because the climate system does not care about the intensity. It does not care about cleverly worded policies or trick loopholes. It cares about actual reductions of emissions. Now, I recognize that some over there on the other side of this are in a delusional sense that we’ll ship LNG, and the world will be saved because China will buy it and switch off coal, despite the fact that China is already contracted with oversupply for years to come and are sellers on the market.

It’s not going to happen, and just because you wish it so does not mean it will be so.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: I missed that from the Minister of Health. Sorry. I love the banter back with the Minister of Health. I actually thought he did a very fine speech just before I got up to stand. When he said we’re going to disagree on this, indeed, we do disagree on that. The point that we’re disagreeing upon I would say is rather fundamental in terms of disagreement.

I would argue that it is reckless economics to invest in yesterday’s technology, to double down on a stock that’s
[ Page 11878 ]
falling, to buy Nortel at $50 and say: “Look, everybody. I’ve got Nortel stock, and I only paid $50 a share.”

I would say that the proper way to approach the economy would be to view the new opportunity, that new dollar stock in a sector that’s about to go crazy — the biomedical sector — buying the stocks young and watching them grow. But we’re not. We’re buying the Nortel stock and missing out those biomedical stocks. We’re missing out Apple at $10. Instead, we’re buying Nortel at $50 — with respect to those involved in both Apple and Nortel.

Back in October, I spoke against the bill because there was simply no way we could meet the legislated targets, our 2020 and 2050 targets, with the LNG plants that were being proposed. I honestly believe this government should stand up and look British Columbians in the face and be truthful to them, because you cannot meet our 2020 target. You cannot meet our 2050 target with an LNG industry. It just can’t happen.

When are they going to stand up and say it can’t happen? I would have far more respect for this government if they actually were honest with British Columbians and said: “We have decided to give up on our climate leadership, because we’re going to go all in on LNG.”

[1725]

I know the former minister, or the member for Peace River North, would be happy about that. I suspect half of this end of the Legislature — the members from the Fraser Valley hither and wither — would also be very supportive of that. It’s honest. It’s truthful. But the government doesn’t do this.

The government is trying to have it both ways. We’re going to be leaders in climate, and we’re going to be leaders in LNG. I don’t know who you’re kidding, but you’re not fooling anyone outside of the British Columbia borders. You may be kidding yourselves, but nobody takes that seriously.

It does a disservice to British Columbians. It does a disservice to us in the international eye. While United Nations members might pull in the Premier to special meetings and give British Columbia praise for what it has done, let’s be very clear, that is praise for what it has done — not what it is doing, but what it has done.

There is an opportunity before this government. There is an election in 2017. There is a Climate Action Team that has made very bold recommendations. Let’s see if this government will listen to those recommendations. Let’s see if this government will tell the member for Peace River North: “You know, we don’t like the direction.”

I mean, this petition has been going out for days. There was like 900 people. I could phone up 900 friends and get a petition signed. Clearly, not a very strong petition that this member for Peace River North was doing, despite the fact he got a fair amount of media coverage on it.

What does that tell this government? If he can only get 900 signatures in the heart of natural gas territory, it’s telling me that there is no support for the LNG industry, horizontal fracking and everything that’s going.

British Columbians want us to move to the new economy of tomorrow, not more generational sellout; not more give out a loophole here, a loophole there; not more tax breaks for the LNG industry that’s not going to happen. And not more: “Let’s find even shadier characters we can get into bed with to set up an LNG facility.”

No. British Columbians want leadership from this government in tomorrow’s economy — the economy that brings the tech sector together with the resource sector; the economy that focuses on our strengths, not on someone else’s strengths; and the economy that builds hope for all British Columbians, not just those today but those tomorrow and the generations after that.

I have been saddened to watch this government over the last three years on this file. I’ve watched them go from promises of wealth and prosperity, to struggling to give away a resource, to desperation to land one LNG facility, which is where we stand now.

One LNG facility. Just one. We don’t care who it is. Despot dictator in some country somewhere in the world — you want an LNG facility, we’ll roll out the red carpet for you. That’s what this government is so desperate to do, and that’s a shame, because this government was a climate leader. This government had a diversified economy building. This government is watching that diversified economy move on.

It lauds its balanced budget, but that budget is moving. It’s being balanced now not on a healthy, diversified economy, but on a Scottsdale-like, Arizona-based economy fuelled by investment from afar in a highly speculative housing market that only ends in one place, and that is an economic crash.

I do not want to say I told you so, although for the last couple of years, I’ve been pointing out that this affordability crisis is not going to end well — that we should be investing in the tech sector, bringing the tech sector together with the resource sector, diversifying economy.

Now, the government lauds balanced budgets, thinks the B.C. citizens are not really looking this through carefully, but the reality is this balanced budget is very, very shaky. We have no revenues from LNG. Where are the revenues from natural gas? Ten years ago, there were healthy revenues from natural gas. Now they’re pretty dodgy. It’s really dodgy, in fact.

So what are we doing? We’re incentivising building. Can you see it happening here? A Scottsdale economy. For those of you who don’t know where Scottsdale is, type in “Arizona, Scottsdale,” and you’ve got it there. Watch what happened there. This is what’s happening in B.C.

What happened there? Of course, it was a massive housing crash in Scottsdale. People lost their homes. They lost their shirts. Their mortgages were worth multiples over their housing values. That was because this was a bubble market.

[1730]

It saddens me when I see the Canadian Wind Energy Association leave British Columbia. We should be actually using our existing dams and bringing intermittent sources of power together with these dams to stable the base demand.

It saddens me when a $1 billion investment of U.S. money walks from British Columbia, walks from Vancouver Island — a partnership between five First Nations, TimberWest and EDP Renewables to put wind capacity on Vancouver Island close to the requirement for electricity, reducing substantive transmission loss. It’s an intermittent source that partners First Nations with private land, TimberWest land, with EDP Renewables and brings foreign money — a $1 billion investment — into B.C. It saddens me when they walk.

Why do they walk? Because “we don’t need you anymore; we’ve got Site C.” We’ve got Site C why? Because we irresponsibly, as part of our platform of giving away our resources, signed long-term contracts with Shell to provide them fixed power to actually liquefy their natural gas using electric compression from electricity that we did not have.

What we should be doing right now is saying, “Okay, Shell, we can’t make that because we’re not going to move forward with Site C,” not having silly announcements about turbine contracts being given. “We’re not moving forward with Site C right now because it’s killing our clean tech sector. We know you’re not going to come here anyway, so this contract really doesn’t make much sense.”

But they’re not. It’s still LNG — yet another bill to give it away. Right now we probably won’t be coming to a fall session. We have so little agenda on this session. But if we do, I’m sure it’ll be another emergency because there’s yet another giveaway.

I’d love to be sitting in the Petronas board room right now, thinking: “Heck, let’s go negotiate some more with British Columbia. They don’t know what they’re doing. Come on over here, B.C. I know you’ve got an election in May. We just need one more giveaway before the election.”

If I were in Petronas, I’d know I have you — completely. The expression I was going to say was probably not appropriate in this Legislature, hon. Speaker. I would say: “Look, I’m not going to sign anything now. I’d be mad to sign anything now, because I know there’s an election in 2017 and you’re desperate” — the government. They’re desperate. “I’ll come back in the fall and say: ‘I’ll make a final investment decision, maybe — maybe if you do this, that and the other.’”

The government will say: “Emergency session. We need to do this, that and the other, because it’s for the best interests of British Columbians, and we’re going to put our trusted Minister of Natural Gas negotiating on behalf of all of us for future generations, in the best interests of those future generations.”

It is a sad day in British Columbia that we continue to debate this bill. With that, quite clearly, I will be voting in opposition to this bill. I certainly will be joining my colleagues on this side of the House in voting in opposition to that bill, resoundingly so, as this government has lost credibility on the natural gas front. It continues to actually give away a resource that, frankly, is not in the best interests of British Columbians.

Point of Privilege
(Reservation of Right)

Hon. T. Lake: I rise to reserve my right to raise a point of privilege in regard to comments made by the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville during question period earlier today.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you.

Debate Continued

L. Krog: I was about to give the courtesy to a member of the government benches, but if no one wishes to speak, I’m always delighted to fill the odd void that occurs in this chamber. No doubt, some of the members will suggest that I don’t fill it very well, but it’s the best they’re going to hear for the next few minutes, in any event.

This isn’t my critic area, but one doesn’t have to be a chicken to recognize an egg either. As I look through Bill 19 and back to its predecessor, so to speak, its birthplace in Bill 2, one is struck by the fact that we have now gone to the extent of not just putting water in our wine once, with the passage of Bill 2; we’re now going at it a second time with the proposed Bill 19 before the House now.

[1735]

At a certain point, one can hardly call it wine any more when you water it down consistently, and that appears to be exactly where we are today with Bill 19.

There is no greater issue facing the planet today than climate change. Even the most reluctant politicians, and certainly the majority of leaders around the world, be they of the so-called First World or Second World or Third World, have come to acknowledge that central fact of our time.

They have also come to acknowledge the central fact of our time that this is not just some natural cycle, although it may well be that too, of the planet’s history, which has seen ice ages come and go. It is also, and in large measure, caused by human activity.

Interjection.

L. Krog: The member from Kamloops, the Minister of Health, is listening, and I’m always touched when he does. I’m always touched, and it’s not easy to touch a hardened old cynic like myself.

Having said that, it is the central issue of our time. It is the central issue, without question, and how the people
[ Page 11880 ]
who exist in this time in the planet’s history respond to it will be how we will be judged. There have been other occasions throughout history where we will be judged on how we responded to revolution, to democratic change, to the desire for reform, to feeding the planet, to all the issues that have plagued humanity since we first walked the Earth. But in this time, it will be about climate change.

Even those nations which have not had much respect on this issue until recently, that have been seen as the bad players on the stage, acknowledge that it is the central issue. When the leaders of the People’s Republic of China meet with the leaders of the United States, arguably the two most powerful nations on the face of the Earth now — one, the coming economic power, the other somewhat in decline, although still the greatest military power on the face of the planet — when they come together and acknowledge that we have to set timetables, that we have to take meaningful and concerted action, that it’s necessary to enter into international agreements and treaties respecting climate change, there is a message here for us.

The message is: we don’t have any more time. It isn’t just about politicians trying to lead the way. It is about politicians acknowledging in those meetings, in those agreements and in those proposed treaties and agreements that we can’t ignore this any longer, that it isn’t someone else’s responsibility.

I come back to the criticism of those nations which have been sort of the bad actors on the stage, as I said earlier. One of them is China, seen as a country producing an incredible level of greenhouse gas emissions. But this is the same China that’s come to the table. This is the same China that is rapidly engaging in the construction of alternate energy creation. Whether it’s windmills, whether it’s other forms of power, whether it’s recognizing the value of solar, they’re moving ahead quickly.

Now, in fairness, it’s a lot easier to move forward in a country like China, where process can largely be ignored, and I say that with all due respect to the way the Chinese govern their affairs. It’s one of the oldest civilizations on earth. They don’t have to engage in what we’re engaging in here in the same way, but even they are moving ahead and recognizing quickly that the jig is up, the planet is in trouble, and we have very few opportunities to do something tangible.

Let’s bring it back to beautiful British Columbia — great licence plate slogan — a province that has been kind to my family for several generations, a province that has given me a wonderful education in a public school system, a province I am always grateful to have been born in, a province that I’m grateful is providing now a refuge for Syrian refugees and others from around the world who have lived in conditions I can’t begin to imagine.

[1740]

What are we doing here in British Columbia for our part to face that great global challenge? What we’re doing is following on Bill 2. We’re now trying to whitewash, if you will, Bill 2 with Bill 19.

I once used the phrase in caucus, and the members were all quite shocked, like they’d never heard it. I used the expression I’d learned as a boy, that a family, when they were really poor, were too poor to paint and too proud to whitewash. Well, I’m not too poor or too proud to say candidly that this government is engaged in whitewashing today, and there’s no question about that. This is a whitewash, and it is a political whitewash.

It all began, not in a galaxy a long time ago, not in some fairy tale…. It began in what some might call a fairy tale, of course, which is another election in British Columbia. When the great armies of goodness and darkness, as they will call each other — not knowing who’s dark and who’s good and who’s bright and who’s white and who’s dark and who’s light…. And who cares, in many respects? The Premier with her incredible campaign team, to whom I continuously give credit, came up with the idea: “We’re going to promise them liquid natural gas and $100 billion and a debt-free B.C., and let’s go for it.”

It was very effective as a campaign tool, and indeed, it brought into this chamber members who probably in their time hadn’t anticipated sitting here — members, indeed, who might have anticipated they were just going to run as a sacrificial lamb and pay their dues to the B.C. Liberal Party and move back or retain their positions that they were happy with.

Instead, goodness gracious, much like the B.C. Liberals in the 1991 election, they suddenly found themselves sitting in the Legislature and being members of the official opposition — just as some members, no doubt, over there have discovered to their surprise that they became government, notwithstanding all the dire predictions. That is the great tale of 2013.

Instead of using that electoral opportunity, this gracious gift of the electorate, this fourth term, and doing something about the major issue facing our time and our generation, our period in history, we instead….

Interjection.

L. Krog: Oh, the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, the Minister of Health, says: “We shouldn’t do what we promised?”

Well, it reminds me of something W.A.C. Bennett was famous for. Sometimes you have to take the famous second look. You have to look and say to yourself: “Okay, so we’re probably not going to have $100 billion fund. We’re probably not going to have a debt-free B.C., and given the state of the world market and given how rapidly the world is moving forward around energy generation from alternate sources, just perhaps, we’re not going to have quite the liquid natural gas industry we promised.”

To come back to that wonderful fairy tale of the 2013 election, we can’t admit, certainly on the government
[ Page 11881 ]
side, that it just isn’t happening. The way it turned out, there isn’t a happy ending here in sight. The story is getting longer and longer, and it’s less and less interesting.

Candidly, if you think the people of British Columbia are enraptured by the story, they’re not anymore. They don’t believe it. And they don’t believe this fairy tale is going to have a happy ending. The prince is not going to rescue the princess, in the old sexist language of many of those books, and the Paper Bag Princess has certainly figured out that Prince Ronald is, in fact, a bit of a goof. He’s kind of useless.

The reality is that the people of British Columbia have figured out that the promise of liquid natural gas and its benefits just isn’t going to happen. But still, we carry on. Last year, last session — Bill 2. This session — Bill 19. And then the famous summer legislative session to set up a tax regime for an industry that so far hasn’t generated one nickel, not one. As the member for Vancouver-Kingsway always says, not one centime, not one sou has been generated by the development of liquid natural gas in the way that the B.C. Liberals had promised.

[1745]

So what are we doing here? Well, we’re debating a bill that makes it easier for an industry to develop — if, in fact, there was an interest in developing it. What does this bill actually do? Well, essentially it allows liquid natural gas facilities to apply for a longer initial period for compliance, up to 18 months, to “allow time for testing and other initial activities that may affect emissions and production levels.”

Now, some have rather sarcastically described this as a free pass for 18 months. I won’t use the term “get out of jail free” card — that would be unkind — but it certainly sends a message that we’re not going to be quite as rigorous about this concept as we promised.

We’re going to give this poor, fledgling little industry some more time to actually do the things that the Premier promised it was going to do, which is bring us prosperity, reduce the world’s carbon emissions, make everybody happy, finish the fairy tale with a resounding bang, money and gold in the pot, jobs for British Columbians, cleaner energy and prosperity for generations and on and on.

None of that is going to happen because we passed this bill, but the government can now go out — there’ll no doubt be a photo op in here somewhere — and say: “We’re moving forward. We’re passing more legislation. We’re looking at this very carefully. We’ve reconsidered, and we’re going to fix a little bit and fine-tune it, but essentially, the vehicle of future prosperity is up and running. It’s ready to go, and it’s going to be powered by liquid natural gas.”

[R. Lee in the chair.]

Is that really what it’s about? You know, the price of those wonderful systems that provide for solar energy…. I understand the price of those panels has gone down about 80 percent in the last two years. At the same time, battery technology, in progressive, forward-looking parts of the planet, is in fact being refined in ways that are quite remarkable.

If you can secure the energy through creation of non-carbon-emitting sources and then store it, you can actually do a couple of things which are sort of obvious. You reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You promote new technology. You promote renewable energy. And you create an economy — and to praise the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head — basically what is a new economy, not an old economy.

You have to ask yourself why we’re working so hard to create an industry where the marketplace — and the Liberals are supposed to be the party of the marketplace — has said loudly and clearly, for a reasonably substantial period of time now, that there is no market. The price is down, basically, close to a fifth of where it was.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I had a house and it was worth $100,000 today, and a year down the road it was worth $20,000, and I had no need to sell it, I don’t think I’d sell it. That would be a very poor economic strategy. If liquid natural gas has dropped significantly in value, and nobody’s really searching for it much anymore, I think I’d be looking for other things to do than selling my house to generate income. I think I’d be looking at other economic activities that might prove beneficial.

Certainly, when you look at Bill 19, it is a clear admission, when you’re softening up the regulation, that things aren’t going according to Hoyle.

[1750]

The new Solicitor General talked about how “changes are happening so quickly.” Now, I am pleased to see that the member opposite recognizes that changes are happening so quickly. However, his conclusion is that we should take advantage somehow of this opportunity to put all our eggs in one basket — the liquid natural gas basket — like some psychotic Easter bunny and pretend that it’s all going to be well and good as long as we look after it. Because who knows, 50 years from now…?

This isn’t the time of Andrew Carnegie, the founder of U.S. Steel and the Carnegie libraries. We have a wonderful old building downtown that still has the beautiful stone on it — the Carnegie library. Now, he once wisely said, in the days before Teddy Roosevelt broke up the great trusts, in the time of the gilded age when capitalism was arguably at its harshest: “Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.”

What I want to say to the members opposite — some of whom do, as I say, recognize that changes are happening so quickly — is that this is not the time to be putting all our eggs in one basket. That is apparently what the B.C. Liberal government is doing.

We continue down this path of a certain amount of hyperbole still. Although I do notice…. Again, I think the
[ Page 11882 ]
member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head talked about it being — how did he phrase it? — not the cleanest energy in the province but the cleanest natural gas plants or facilities.

Interjection.

L. Krog: Yes. It’s a shift from talking about the cleanest energy industry or something a little more expansive than the language of the Premier. We’re getting it toned down a little bit, so there is some recognition of reality.

There are a couple of ways that you know government is serious about an issue. The most obvious, and I say this to constituents from time to time, is: where does it figure in the budget? In other words, how much money is being spent on something? Despite all the rhetoric and all the talk, that tells you more sometimes than you want to know about government and the legislative process.

The second thing when a government is really serious about something — and you can, again, use it as a measure — is the severity or complexity of regulation that might be involved.

So what’s the message that Bill 19 sends? I would argue that the fact we’ve got a budget that isn’t clocking any revenues from liquid natural gas and, more importantly, that we have a bill that is in fact a watering-down of regulation tells me that the real truth here is that we’re engaged in what I’ll call a bit of a political sideshow where we have to pretend that we’re still going to keep the promises and that things are going to be fine.

But in reality, when you use those two measures…. They’re not the only measures. I’m not suggesting they’re brilliant or perfect, but they’re helpful. And the opposition is always trying to be helpful to the government, offering our criticism and suggestions. I just offer this as a suggestion. Instead of us sort of carrying on with this…. I won’t call it quite a farce. It’s not as funny as the French used to write the farces, but it is somewhat, to some degree, a farce.

Instead of carrying on and pretending that we need to change legislation to deal with an industry that we can’t seem to get up and off the ground, why doesn’t the government just step back and say: “You know what? It’s going to be years before we do this, so we’re not going to count on it. Here’s the new path. We are going to use” — I don’t know — “B.C. Hydro.”

Use the legacy of a previous right-wing government from a very long time ago. Use it in the way that it should be used to be on the cutting edge of the development of alternate energy sources. But instead, we are stuck with a government that insists on carrying on and pretending that….

Interjection.

L. Krog: The member from Kamloops — God bless him. Thank you for reminding me. He brought up independent power producers. Actually, that had slipped my mind. I’ll come back to that thought in a minute.

[1755]

Now, the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head also used the phrase “sellout.” He said it’s a generational sellout. I guess I’ll step back for just a moment because the Minister of Health did kindly remind me about a previous one that, again, in the fever of debate and discussion here, I’d forgotten. My goodness, yes.

We’re not opposed to alternate energy. We’re just opposed to putting money into projects where you pay way more than the market rate for something in the fond hope that it might be useful down the road. That’s what the NDP were opposed to.

They were opposed to the use of ratepayers’ dollars spent extravagantly to make significant profits for some individuals and corporations to develop power sources that, frankly, even the most inexperienced people in this area of power generation would acknowledge are good for generating power only in certain locations and only at certain times of the year when, in fact, Hydro was already in a position to generate that power. So I am grateful….

Interjection.

L. Krog: Oh, now he wants…. I must have sunk a battleship in this little game here today, because now we want to shift on to Site C. We don’t want to talk about independent power producers anymore because maybe, just maybe, we’re acknowledging that they weren’t quite the clever investment we thought they were.

After all, one hesitates to admit mistakes or apologize when you’re in government. There’s a fear in modern politics that if you ever apologize or admit a mistake or you have to explain, I think…. What is it that Ronald Reagan said? “If you’re explaining, you’re losing,” or something like that. If you have to explain, you’re done.

I guess that’s the problem here. We now want to shift the focus from independent power producers, which didn’t turn out to be quite the boon that it was supposed to be. That industry, which actually has opportunities now, is in fact, as a result of this government’s policy, as I understand it, shifting a lot of its energies — no pun intended — to other parts of the country and the world.

But let’s not stray away from liquid natural gas. After all, that should be the focus of the discussion today. This reminds me of…. It’s like a legal file where a mistake is made early on in the conduct of the file, and you can never ever get it quite back on track. Just everything seems to go wrong. It’s like a curse. I’ve just been reading the wonderful new book — her name is Schiff — about the Salem witch trials and what a crazy time that was.

This is a file for the B.C. Liberals that just hasn’t worked out. It started out swimmingly with grandiose promises. Now it’s mired in a marketplace that isn’t responsive. It has no significant customers, it isn’t generating any
[ Page 11883 ]
money, yet we’re still carrying on with legislation presented in this House trying to deal with it.

What is this all about? Is it about something that the government needs to do? Something the government wants to do? Something the people want?

I’ll tell you what the people want. The people would like to have employment. The people would like to have a government that would admit mistakes when it makes them. The people would like to have an opportunity to live in a province where they could say with pride that their government, their province, was on the cutting edge of addressing — where I began — the greatest issue facing the planet today, and that’s climate change.

[1800]

They would like to think that we were focused on that, not just here in this Legislature but in this entire province, that people had it uppermost in their minds and would also acknowledge — as the many suggestions that have been made from various folks in this province and around the world — that it’s actually good for the economy to address the major problem facing the world and that you could actually make money and generate employment if you went after climate change in an intelligent and thoughtful and forward-looking way, instead of trying to rely on industries that may well be disappearing.

The member for Saanich North and the Islands talked about the gentleman who was the editor at the Vancouver Sun and his praising of coal. Liquid natural gas is an improvement over coal, no question about it — probably an improvement over gasoline, no question about it. But we have to look at it honestly, and the same criticisms apply as they did back when Bill 2 was presented in the fall of 2014, because the GHG intensity benchmark didn’t apply to any upstream emissions — i.e., extraction, upstream combustion, flaring, fugitives, venting and pipelines.

It’s kind of like some people I know who have a horrible vision issue — it’s awful — where their spectrum of vision is focused in narrowly. It’s a horrible thing. It doesn’t happen through any fault of their own. But when governments choose to duplicate it in terms of public policy, that is reprehensible.

That’s what Bill 2 essentially did, and that’s what Bill 19 seeks to continue. It is to look, instead of at the whole process, from the ground to burning to liquefication…. To not look at the entire process…. Instead, Bill 2, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, which was so full of promise in its title and so full of promise according to the government propaganda, was in fact that narrowing of vision.

As I conclude today, having reviewed Bill 19 and the history of this government and its approach to energy, the damage it’s done to B.C. Hydro, the damage it continues to do to our economy for its failure to move us into the 21st century in a way that’s appropriate, I can only say, with some sorrow and regret, it’s too bad we have to spend so much time having to discuss B.C. Liberal failures once again. There is every opportunity available to this government to do the right thing on energy policy, to do the right thing in terms of the planet, to lead the charge in the fight against climate change, to actually do our part not just for reasons of patriotism or pride but because it is important to us, to our children, to our grandchildren and to those who will follow.

Let me just say that I will be voting against this as I voted against Bill 2 back in October. It’s the right thing to do. The government is going to continue down this path. We’re going to try and write the fairy-tale ending, but if nobody believes the fairy tale — you know what? — it’s like when the kid falls asleep. You might as well give up reading the stupid story.

And, hon. Speaker, you might as well give up reading this stupid fairy tale, because nobody believes it’s ever going to come to a happy conclusion. People have lost confidence in the storyteller, and they’ve lost confidence in the story, so let’s finish this thing. Pretend, for once, that the reality is something different, but it ain’t going to work anymore.

R. Fleming: I’ve just given the courtesy of allowing a government member to participate in this debate. I know that it’s pretty much the centrepiece of this government. Here we have another piece of legislation, Bill 19, where we see laws chasing markets and projects that don’t exist.

[1805]

This was the central campaign promise of 2013, so I find it unusual that nobody from the government side — at this stage of debate, when we’re just into it here in second reading — would want to get up and explain why this industry that doesn’t exist yet needs to have more concessions made to its regulations; more concessions made to its reporting requirements; more concessions made, ultimately, to the taxes that it pays to British Columbia; and more gains in terms of the subsidies that potentially could come to this fictitious industry that doesn’t exist at all except in the minds of some of the folks that remain in the cabinet on that side of the government.

But they are sitting on their hands for the time being in this debate. Maybe we’ll hear a little bit more from them later.

Of course, any discussion of Bill 19 requires us to go back in recent history and look at Bill 2 and how that has been added to here. There are many aspects of Bill 19 that ask more questions than answer them in terms of how the law will actually apply.

We very recently had an experience where we had a government-run, Crown-owned but supposedly market-based entity called the Pacific Carbon Trust. Many of the members on all sides of the House will remember the illustrious history of the Pacific Carbon Trust in terms of how it created an offset market within British Columbia by taxing, at the rate of $25 a tonne, the emissions of the public sector.
[ Page 11884 ]

Schools, hospitals, colleges, universities — all paying a carbon offset fund to the Pacific Carbon Trust. Where did that money go? Did it go to fund energy efficiency in the public sector? Did it go towards greening schools at a time, for example, when facilities grants were extremely difficult to come by for the school sector, where we have a deferred maintenance crisis that now totals about $1 billion in the school sector?

No. These funds were not going towards new boilers and new energy-efficient equipment in hospitals or colleges or universities or, indeed, in our schools. This money was collected by the Pacific Carbon Trust. It was converted into an offset trade product, which then allocated subsidies to — guess who — well, in many cases, Fortune 500 companies — resorts in resort communities like Whistler; natural gas companies, who had been exempted from paying the carbon tax on many of their flaring and other activities that produce emissions that count in our inventory but are exempt from the tax.

All sorts of industries, profitable industries that paid dividends to their shareholders, were getting in the province of British Columbia 25 bucks a tonne from schools, hospitals, universities and colleges, where we have amongst the highest levels of student debt for graduates in the country.

Some of the students’ tuition fees, in essence, were going toward the administration of a university and college having to pay into this fee that then transferred that money into for-profit corporations operating in British Columbia to try and reduce their pollution activities.

That’s our brief flirtation with the offset market. It eventually — as you will recall, Mr. Speaker — became utterly politically unsustainable for this government to create and maintain this absurdity that this offset market was accomplishing much, that it was well-designed in terms of taxing only the public sector and transferring that to the private, and it could not go in the reverse order.

It became politically unsustainable for a number of other reasons, particularly at a time when government was pushing an agenda of relative austerity in many of our ministries that were supporting the programs and education services for British Columbians.

So it was scrapped. I think the icing on the cake as to why the Pacific Carbon Trust ultimately was killed…. It was with an election looming, I might add, and with an opposition that, I think, effectively prosecuted the case that this entity did not function properly and, in fact, that it was based not on some kind of sound market principle but on a flawed state subsidy system that did very little, if anything, to address carbon mitigation in our province.

[1810]

What eventually killed this pseudo, fake market entity, which was 100 percent owned by government and got its revenues 100 percent from public sector entities, was that they were paying far above the market rate to the private sector. I say paying — giving money to private corporations at $25 a tonne when, at the time, the European Union carbon trading system was only trading at a rate of $8 to $10 a tonne. That was the final nail in this shell-game coffin of an entity in British Columbia.

Now we have something called the B.C. Carbon Registry that is contemplated in Bill 19 before us. Now, nobody knows what its costs are, how it’s staffed, what its line of business will be exactly, what its responsibilities will be, what role it will play in monitoring or reporting or compliance-based activities. It is an empty piece of legislation that promised to bring into regulations at the Bill 2 stage…. It has not done so to this point in time.

Here we have it being amended again to look at other non-regulated operations that could include companies and could include municipalities to expand, if you will, a carbon market that, of course, doesn’t exist at this point in time.

Now, this is another leap of faith that the government is asking us to do, so quickly on the heels of a failure of a carbon offset market that was created and died within several years of the Pacific Carbon Trust, as I’ve just mentioned. But what Bill 19 points to writ large — and it has to be seen in this context — is that this government has completely lost its way and abandoned any claim to any kind of mantle of climate leadership.

I would quote Matt Horne. I think members on both sides of the House would appreciate and make time for this gentleman, who is the executive director of the Pembina Institute, who works with industry, works with government, works with municipal governments and has been on the scene for a long time and has given a lot in terms of public service to try and make realistic and strong recommendations to government on climate action, recommendations that are routinely and very recently ignored by this government.

He put it this way. He said: “B.C.’s climate leadership has stalled, and carbon pollution is going up as a result. For the province to get back on track, it needs to say yes to an ambitious climate plan.”

Is an ambitious climate plan putting a bill before the House, like Bill 19, which foresees even longer non-compliance, non-reporting periods for an industry, granted, that is fictitious, that doesn’t exist yet? It’s an 18-month free pass for an industry that does exist on other parts of the planet — Australia, for example, other countries that do have LNG industries, where emissions are known and can be quantified and measured. These would be the exact same kinds of plants.

But because it’s British Columbia and because there is the fake homage to some kind of long-ago dwindled caring for climate change and some kind of climate action agenda, what do you get here? You get an 18-month free pass, even though we can measure those emissions and they should be covered and should be the responsibility of that industry.

Let’s not forget that this government not only promised that we were all going to get rich from LNG. It was
[ Page 11885 ]
going to be a $1 trillion industry. There was going to be…. I can’t remember. I’m going to low-ball it, but I think the Premier said there was going to be $100 billion sovereign wealth fund in British Columbia. How’s that going? Oh, I remember. There are zero dollars in the prosperity fund from an LNG industry that doesn’t exist.

We had a budget that was brought before this House in February that said: “Hey, we’re going to open up a starter account for junior. Junior needs a bank account. We need to call it the prosperity fund. We’re going to take $100 million from raising MSP on British Columbians, again, and take government public revenue — none of it private, none of it from LNG or oil and gas companies — and we’re going to put it in a starter account called the prosperity fund.”

[1815]

So at least the government can go into the next election and say: “Well, we’re quite a few zeros short of $100 billion, but looky here. We’ve got $100 million. Where’d that come from? We started out the prosperity fund. Doesn’t that count? Come on, voters, don’t do the math. Look away.” That’s the con game that’s going on here. That’s the light in which Bill 19 ought to be looked upon and with.

It’s not just Matt Horne from Pembina talking about how the disinterest and the disingenuousness has infected this government on the issue of climate action. It’s the numbers themselves.

Look at the emissions totals in British Columbia. They’re going up the fastest in Canada. From 2011 to 2013, the most recently reportable numbers, they went up by 1.5 megatonnes, the equivalent of adding 400,000 cars on the road. That’s what British Columbia’s climate action agenda looks like today.

So 2011, by the way, was a significant year. We had a leadership change and a new Premier. In other words, emissions in this province have gone up every single year that the member from Kelowna, the Premier of British Columbia, has been in office.

Now, is that because it’s the economy and growth and all the other excuses that government will offer? Ontario managed a steep reduction of four megatonnes. Quebec managed a steep reduction of 1.6 megatonnes. We’re the outlier. We’re not the leader. We’re the outlier in this group.

What’s interesting is that gas consumption in neighbouring jurisdictions close to us that don’t have a carbon tax…. I’m in favour of a carbon tax, by the way. But in neighbouring jurisdictions Washington state and Oregon — no carbon tax, more steep decline in fuel consumption in those states. It’s interesting that the government never puts that in its press releases, where it simultaneously boasts about having created the carbon tax a decade ago, almost a decade ago, and reassures anyone who cares to listen that it will never change. It will never move. The carbon tax will be frozen for an eternity or for an indeterminate future. That’s the government’s policy right now: don’t move it.

Interjection.

R. Fleming: Oh, 2018. Oh, so there’s a post-election thing. Okay. Well, that can be taken to the bank for sure, as the Minister of Environment knows. Yeah, that’s so gutsy — to run for something two elections before its time. That is politically bold.

It’s just amazing that the Premier would delude herself into thinking that she can fly to a jurisdiction like Paris for an international climate summit being the leader of a subnational jurisdiction like British Columbia, with the fastest-rising emissions in Canada, and say, “Yoo-hoo. I’ve arrived. I’m a climate leader, as you all know, because I’m from British Columbia,” when the trend line is going in absolutely the wrong direction.

We have heard eloquently, from members on both sides of the House, what it means globally for the trend line to be going in the wrong direction. It means that we are losing biodiversity. It means that we are losing thousands of species around the planet. It means that we are adjusting to a changing climate in this world in ways that we can’t even gauge how fast it’s happening to us or how it will affect people.

Certainly, droughts and all the civil strife that could arise from the instability created, the political instability of governments, from the onset of a huge climate crisis and food shortages and all those sorts of things are a very real possibility, one that every scientist involved in the international community can speak to. Even the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency warns its lawmakers and policy-makers in the United States that that is a future that is not a nightmare but a statistical probability from doing nothing — or from doing what British Columbia, under this Premier, is doing, which is adding to the greenhouse gas inventory here in British Columbia and, therefore, internationally.

We’re not getting towards the goal. I think 2016 is the year in the climate action plan for this province where we’re supposed to see a 16 percent reduction in GHGs. Now, is that going to happen? Would the Minister of Environment stand by that number today?

[1820]

Are we going to see a 16 percent GHG reduction over the 2007 benchmark? No way. It’s not going to happen. If you look at Bill 19, how the LNG industry, which isn’t actually in existence…. If it were structured and built, if you look at the additions to emissions, if you look at what’s happening in all of the sectors and areas of GHG inventory in the economy right now, you have to conclude that British Columbia is hopelessly at sea when it comes to actually having a plan that can be called a climate plan that will help mitigate the production of climate change–causing gases, GHGs.

We need a shake-up in the government. We need a new plan. We need to recompass and reorient government. We need to retool a climate action plan that a former
[ Page 11886 ]
Premier was very proud of in 2006. I won’t pretend that he’s listening in London right now. He’s got other things to do there. We need to reorient the plan.

What should government do? Well, I’ve got a great idea. I’m going to borrow it from the Premier of British Columbia. We need to find the right person. We need to find somebody who has experience, who believes in the moon shot, to get towards a steep reduction in GHGs. We need to be a climate leader again in British Columbia.

What is the answer from the Premier? Let’s hire a climate denier who’s a former director of the Fraser Institute to figure out how we get emissions down and how we get a climate plan for British Columbia. Great idea. That is climate leadership. Hire somebody who doesn’t even believe in it, who wrote editorials when he worked for the Vancouver Sun denying that climate change was even a reality.

Yeah, that’s the perfect candidate for the job. The government must have searched high and low. They must have called Al Gore. Oh, he turned it down. Let’s hire Fazil Mihlar. Yes, great idea. Hire somebody who doesn’t even believe in climate science. Hire somebody who has, quite frankly, weird ideas on this critical challenge of our time. Somebody who is so far outside of the mainstream on what global leaders, to their credit, are finally focusing their minds on.

We hire somebody who doesn’t even believe in the central tenets of the most recent summits of the United Nations, the climate of parties on climate change, to lead our modest little corner of the world over here in British Columbia where we once aspired to climate leadership. We’ll hire somebody like that, with those views? Somebody who just a decade ago was actually putting out the spin when he was in editorial control of the Vancouver Sun that there was such a thing as clean coal and that British Columbia should stand down the naysayers and generate all future electricity from coal. This is the person in charge of the climate plan now. It’s ridiculous.

Other members have spoken quite well to the failure and the folly of putting all your economic eggs in one basket. As business leaders tell me, the problem with LNG is not that it couldn’t be a viable energy source or that it shouldn’t be the greenest LNG in the world, as the Premier once said. The problem is that if you’re going to orient your entire state economic development apparatus and all your negotiations to international oil and gas companies — and that’s all you’re about and that’s all you do — you down tools on the other 99.9 percent of GDP in your economy.

You give up, as this government has, on economic diversity — where there are tons and tons of opportunities for British Columbia to do better, where other jurisdictions are literally eating our lunch. That would include in the clean energy sector. One of the members, in their speech, talked about how the wind energy sector has closed shop in British Columbia and moved to Alberta. They’ve gone from a clean electricity jurisdiction like British Columbia to the heart of oil production in the country of Canada to develop clean energy. It’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable that by pursuing this pipe dream around LNG, they have managed to become so unfocused and detached that they’re ignoring everywhere else in the economy.

[1825]

I want to make this point. They’re even managing to miss opportunities within natural gas. We have a government that is chasing markets and multi-billion-dollar projects at a time when gas prices have never been lower, at a time when the global gas supply has never been higher as new sources of supply come on stream from Asia, Russia, Australia — places that are closer to some of the markets that we hope to pursue.

Now, I’m not trying to talk British Columbia out of getting deals that are viable. I’m talking British Columbia out of signing deals that are shortsighted and geared around election promises rather than the long-term economic interests and dividends to the province of British Columbia.

It seems to me that government has missed the point that while it’s difficult, to put it mildly, to land anything in terms of a major LNG project in this province at this point in time, there is a huge opportunity to increase domestic natural gas consumption precisely because prices are so low. Where is the effort in the transportation sector, for example, which is responsible for 40 percent of greenhouse gases emitted in B.C., to take gasoline and diesel trucks in our trucking fleet and convert them to compressed natural gas? Where’s the initiative around CNG?

I toured a plant of B.C.’s largest clean-tech sector company, Westport Innovations, a great company in South Vancouver — $1 billion worth of revenue created from original R and D that was conducted at the University of British Columbia, technology made here in British Columbia. They created a valve and a flange system that allows efficient natural gas–powered engines to have the kind of torqueing power that can transform trucking fleets.

You know what? I don’t know how many…. At that time that I toured the plant a couple of years back, they had probably converted 200,000 vehicles. I asked: “How many of those vehicles are on the road in British Columbia?” The answer was 40 — 40 of these vehicles, where the technology is owned by a British Columbian company, are on the roads trying to get at the 40 percent of GHGs in the province of B.C. The rest of them are being sold to other jurisdictions where they’re actually trying to make a difference on climate, where they’re trying to reduce smog and reduce greenhouse gases.

It strikes me that there are a ton of opportunities for B.C. natural gas to be used domestically, and they’re not being pursued by this government because this government is entirely consumed by trying to ludicrously fulfil an election promise that was never responsible, that was
[ Page 11887 ]
never realistic, that was never going to happen and that nobody believes anyway.

Why doesn’t the government take some of the smart people at work in our public service and some of the smart people that are experienced hands in industry and look at opportunities to spur domestic demand for natural gas in downmarket conditions that are projected to go on for at least the next five or ten years and maybe beyond — we don’t know — rather than continue to pursue this fantasy where we take a resource that is not worth what you get it out of the ground for, that has a dramatically falling international price, that consumes pipeline infrastructure we don’t have right now — as opposed to the pipeline infrastructure that we have for our domestic supply — and that consumes vast amounts of energy to chill it, put it in boats and sail it across the world on however many days’ time that is and with all the dissipation? An expensive proposition.

Now, if it worked and it was done responsibly — if, for example, we actually did have some substance, some meat to the claim that we have the greenest LNG in the world — it might be worth considering. But we don’t have that. What we have is bill after bill — Bill 2, now Bill 19 — where the requirements of industry for both reporting and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions get lowered time after time after time, so we’re asking less of industry and allowing more emissions. That, to me, makes no sense.

[1830]

Instead, we should be looking at natural gas opportunities to create B.C. jobs here, to clean up our transportation sector, for example, to displace more GHG-intensive fuel use throughout our economy. We’ve got diesel-dependent communities in British Columbia that would happily convert to natural gas or to gas shipped in other forms, and there are no supports for that going on in government. There’s no inclusion of that in our climate action plan. And so it goes on and on and on.

You know what? I’m sure the Environment Minister and others would like British Columbians to sit back and tell them: “Don’t worry about this global warming stuff. We’ve got it figured out. Yeah, the emissions are going up, but don’t worry about it. We’re getting there. We’ve got the right guy in charge now. We’ve got Fazil Mihlar. He’s not even sure that this stuff is real, so we’ll get back to you later about it.” Unfortunately, that’s not going to fly in British Columbia.

British Columbians care about the environment. We are an outward-looking, globally minding citizenry in British Columbia. We believe that a country with our kinds of resources and know-how ought to be leaders in industry, ought to be leaders in international political agreements that bring a political solution to the climate crisis, that offer economic ideas that will be a help, not a hindrance, to tackling this problem that the entire international community must focus on.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Those globally minded citizens that I speak of are in rural British Columbia. They are in cities, large and small, right across B.C. They work across different sectors. They are certainly our children, whose awareness levels are incredibly high. We have a citizenry that isn’t going to take smoke and mirrors from government — a government that promises an industry that’s the greenest in the world and in fact isn’t, that is making laws that allow for less reporting in the name of reporting principles in this sector.

I say to you that because British Columbians won’t be fooled about this stuff, because they see that our emissions are rising and not reducing, because they see how lost at sea this government is on having any credible claim to having a climate action plan and have put the wrong people in charge of trying to get it back on course, they will vote accordingly in less than a year’s time. I conclude my remarks on that point.

L. Popham: I was looking around to see if the government is going to stand up and tell us how great this amendment bill is, but I don’t see anybody. That’s too bad. You’d think if it’s something that they’re extremely proud of…. They don’t miss an opportunity in the media or at a fundraiser or anything to talk about their pipedream of an LNG industry. But in here, where it really counts, right here when we’re talking about legislation, they certainly are silent on the other side.

As we look at the latest rendition of the B.C. Liberals’ attempt to carry on this facade and to have “the cleanest LNG in the world” — I mean, at this point, it’s any LNG — Bill 19, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act, we need to go back to Bill 2. My colleagues really laid out our strategy on Bill 2 last time, but I’m going to just talk about my views on it.

We opposed Bill 2. I think we made really great arguments around why it should have been opposed. While doing that, we laid out our concerns about what this bill did and what it didn’t do. Really, what it didn’t do was it failed to address the whole picture. That’s again what we’re doing with this amendment. The whole picture is not there.

When you talk about the cleanest LNG or an LNG industry or opportunities that we have as a province, and you fail to address all the emissions coming from the LNG processing and extracting process, then you’re not there. You’re not doing our province any favours. You certainly don’t have the right, I don’t think, to stand up and talk about how much you care about children’s future in this province if you’re not taking into account 70 percent of emissions coming from an industry.

How did we get to this point where we are allowed to do that and it works in this chamber? Unfortunately, it’s because we have a majority government that it doesn’t have to matter if it’s true or untrue what they say. So
[ Page 11888 ]
the cleanest LNG? We’re going to have an industry that discounts 70 percent of emissions. How do the other members sleep at night knowing that that’s what they’re running on, that that’s okay?

[1835]

Who are they trying to fool? Environmental groups, business leaders — they don’t buy it. There has been heavy criticism. At what point does the government say: “Yeah. You know what? You’re right. We hear you, as a province, and maybe we were on the wrong track. Well, we’re going to fix it”? I don’t see that.

You’re going to do an amendment bill, but it actually makes it worse. If the changes would have actually made this industry more accountable, I can see that we would have, on this side of the House, taken a look at exactly what you would have put forward and reasonably supported it if it did what you were saying it’s going to do. But it doesn’t.

It’s hard for me to hear the members stand up and just read off their song sheet. It makes me think: “Why don’t they believe they have to think through the process? Why do they believe that it’s okay to allow something and vote for something which is unaccountable like this?”

At least it’s transparent. We know they’re going to not take into account 70 percent of emissions. At least we know that. But how do you square that on the other side of the House? It’s problematic for me. It makes me believe that as the public and as people in this province look at this government and its decision-making process, their credibility is going down the tubes just as fast as their opportunities to develop an LNG industry.

Right now, it’s funny, because we have a government that’s in place that’s giving itself a lot of credit for being climate change leaders. A lot of credit. I’ve heard it over and over again on the other side. In fact, credit for leadership on this file comes in very interesting forms in this chamber.

We’ve got climate change deniers that are sprinkled through the chamber. Every once in a while, they’ll come out with a statement that just about astounds everybody on this side of the House. They can be at a point of stating that with climate change, the science is sort of here nor there. And perhaps climate change is just regional. I’ve heard that in this chamber, which is just outrageous.

Then we’ve got ministers who give credit to climate change scientists but, at the same time, discount their opposition to this bill — so go on about how important the contributions from a climate change scientist have been and his getting awards for being a climate change scientist and then discount his opposition. That’s really bizarre. Then as an extra twist, they’re touting their own expertise on climate change in this chamber as superior to a climate change scientist’s because they drive an electric car. That’s bizarre.

This is a government who’s leading, not on the climate change file but, I think, on the file of being entitled to make decisions. In this case, I believe it’s because they’re so desperate to fulfil campaign promises that aren’t going to happen that they’re really throwing away our future in this province. It’s a selfish, selfish decision.

They’re not legislating like we’re in one of the most important races of our lives, and that’s the race to slow down the effects of climate change on our planet. This is not a joke. It’s not something that should be built around election cycles. We are in a race for our lives with climate change. Other areas of the world are acknowledging that. At the same time that they’re acknowledging that, we’re passing legislation that basically greenwashes climate change legislation with reckless, empty rhetoric that doesn’t mean anything. And it’s very, very dangerous.

We have a government that, on one hand, talks about a climate change action plan and being a climate leader but, on the other hand, brings in legislation to govern an industry that would, in Liberal reality, operate outside of a climate action plan. How does the government square that? It’s very concerning. The fact is that there are no commitments made to control or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 70 percent of emissions.

[1840]

You know, if there are two different sciences on this…. I guess the government must have different science than we have, because our science says that 70 percent of the emissions would be the majority of the emissions coming from processing. So the majority of emissions are not going to be accounted for. Maybe on the other side of the chamber, their science says that more is less? I don’t know. I don’t know how they square it, because every explanation I’ve heard on the other side doesn’t make sense.

Of course, they’re in a bit of a bind right now, these members. They’re creating reckless legislation, which, in my mind, as someone who has always been an environmentalist, is absolutely reckless, irresponsible and disappointing. They’re creating this reckless legislation. They’re sweetening the deal as much as they possibly can, treating LNG like a loss-leader in a department store.

It’s a loss-leader in our province. They can’t really get that right, because when you have a loss-leader, it’s a pricing strategy where a product is sold at a price below market cost in order to stimulate sales of other goods and services. But we haven’t done that, because we’ve put all of our goods and services in one basket. That’s very poor planning.

Really, when I think about it, it’s like a crazy yard sale going on in B.C. Really, that’s the image I see. It’s like a cartoon that’s happening, and we’ve got a front-row seat right here in this chamber.

Here’s the other thing. Even with these sweet deals this government is brewing up, they’re struggling to get any deals at all, and that’s a sad thing. We’re lowering all our standards in order to get a deal, and even that’s not working. There were, you know, 100,000 jobs, billions of dollars — and we’ve yet to see a single investment. To me, that makes it even worse.
[ Page 11889 ]

I don’t know whether to be thankful or not. If this industry starts up and we’ve got this shabby legislation in place, then we’re in real trouble. I don’t know why we didn’t take the opportunity to say: “If you want to do business in B.C., you’ve got to do it right.” Not: “If you want to do business in B.C.” — pause — “please do business in British Columbia. What can we do for you?”

Anyway, everything this current version of today’s B.C. Liberals is based on, everything it’s based on right now, has failed. We’re far past saying that the emperor has no clothes, on this opportunity. In fact, it’s the whole cabinet at this point that’s completely naked. There’s no deal, and we’ve got bad legislation.

One of the things that I find so despicable, the most despicable almost, with this bill is something that Marc Lee from CCPA states so clearly: “A small step for GHG emissions and a giant leap for greenwashing.” Greenwashing is such a good term for this.

If I’m not mistaken, we just debated a bill in this chamber that promises to change regulations to stop farmers who are not certified organic to state that they’re organic. So if you’re not certified, you can’t say that you’re organic. It’s a way to stop greenwashing, basically, in the agricultural sector.

Now we see legislation coming forward to allow government to greenwash the LNG industry. How does that make sense? It doesn’t. It doesn’t make sense. Obviously, I’m going to be voting against this bill, as well as my colleagues, and I would assume the independents are also doing the same.

I think it comes down to credibility. There’s a problem with credibility. I want to be proud of this province. I want to be proud of the government. Whether it’s us in government or someone else in government, it still doesn’t mean I don’t want to be proud of the decisions and the directions that governments are taking here in this province. We do have amazing opportunities here, but why would we squander them just to get an election promise through at all costs?

[1845]

It doesn’t make sense. I’m disappointed. Why don’t you take this time to pull this bill right off the table, to come back with an amendment that actually speaks to climate change and emission targets? Then you could see us support something like that. But until you do that, we will not be supporting this bill.

K. Corrigan: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to stand today and speak on Bill 19, the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act, 2016. This bill amends the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, Bill 2, from the fall of 2014. Bill 2 was, I think you could call it, government’s cornerstone piece of legislation on LNG and the greenhouse gas emissions. It established what they said was the world’s cleanest LNG benchmark.

We voted against that bill and strongly criticized it in 2014. The main reason we did that was because it excludes upstream greenhouse gas emissions from the so-called world’s cleanest LNG benchmark. It excluded 70 percent of upstream greenhouse gas emissions.

It is so frustrating to hear claims of being the world’s cleanest LNG by manipulating the framework and simply saying: “We’re the cleanest because we’re not counting 70 percent of the LNG emissions.” Bill 2 also allowed for offsets or technology fund contributions if LNG proponents exceed the emissions benchmark. So in practice, the bill does not actually require greenhouse gas emissions.

We have spoken against several of the bills related to LNG, and we have been very clear that we can be supportive of LNG projects if those projects are the right projects — if we get the benefits in British Columbia that we deserve and if we get the jobs that we deserve. So far, there is no guarantee of either of those things.

Certainly, there are great concerns about the environmental impacts at a time when, as many of my colleagues have said, we are living in a world where we have to make some basic decisions. We have to make some basic decisions about what we want our future to be.

Do we want to have a future that we leave for our children? I have four children. Do we want to leave a future for our children? And if I’m ever successful in having grandchildren…. I’ve talked to my children about that and said that is their job. What’s the point of having them if they don’t provide grandchildren for me? I want to have those grandchildren. And they want to have children — I think.

I want to have those grandchildren, but I want them to be born into a world that I feel is going to be a safe place for them. The world is not going to be a safe place if we continue to shutter our eyes, if we continue to ignore the fact that we have contributed to climate change and are continuing to contribute to climate change. This bill and the framework that the Liberals have put in place certainly do not protect us in the future.

I just wanted to get on the record, just for a few minutes, my concern about this bill. I wanted to spend just a few minutes, but recognizing the time, I’m going to wrap up my remarks.

Madame Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the minister closes debate.

Hon. M. Polak: I’ve appreciated listening to everyone’s contributions during second reading. Lots of different views. Let’s be clear that the intensity benchmark that has been set for our liquefied natural gas facilities…. While people can argue that they could have been more aggressive, could have been stricter, you can’t argue that they aren’t the best in the world, because they are. There are no other plants that reach that kind of benchmark. So let’s be clear about that.

[1850]

This bill proposes an up-to-18-month period where we can adjust our requirements based on the commissioning process of plants that sees, sometimes, wild fluctuations in what emissions profile there is.

I have to push back against the assertion that we’re willing to see LNG come to British Columbia at any cost. If that were true, we wouldn’t — in a climate where these companies are struggling to make money on a low natural gas price — be planning to charge them $30 a tonne for carbon tax. We certainly wouldn’t be having a benchmark that causes them to have to impact their bottom line, either through the installation of technology or the purchasing of credits.

Lastly, for those who claim that it is an impossibility to develop LNG and at the same time meet our targets, in fact, the climate leadership team’s recommendations were based on an assumption of two operating LNG plants in the province — aggressive recommendations. Nevertheless, that’s what the team recommended.

I thank you for the opportunity to make my closing remarks, and I would move that the bill be read a second time now.

Madame Speaker: Division has been called.

[1855]

Hon. Members, the question is second reading of Bill 19, Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act, 2016.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: There will be silence for the reading of the division. Members will come to order.

Second reading of Bill 19 approved on the following division:

[1900]

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

Bill 19, Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Amendment Act, 2016, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

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

Hon. M. Polak moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 7:01 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
ENERGY AND MINES

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); M. Hunt in the chair.

The committee met at 3 p.m.

On Vote 20: ministry operations, $25,912,000.

The Chair: Minister, would you like to begin by introducing your staff and making any comments?

Hon. B. Bennett: It is a pleasure to be back in estimates again this year. To my right is my deputy minister, Elaine McKnight. To my left is my assistant deputy minister in charge of the mines and minerals division, Peter Robb, who recently moved into that position. Behind me is Nathaniel Amann-Blake, who is in the mines ministry as well. And our financial expert, who expects many
[ Page 11891 ]
questions today on the financial items in the budget, is Mr. Ranbir Parmar.

By way of introducing the ministry’s estimates — I plan to be very, very brief — the ministry is divided, essentially, into two sections, one of which is mining, which we’re going to deal with today, as I understand it. Then the other side of the ministry is energy, which is mostly electricity. We have responsibility for B.C. Hydro, for Columbia Basin Trust and for Columbia Power Corporation.

I’m not sure if tomorrow there will be questions on that, or Monday. My understanding from our House Leader is that we will deal with mining for the rest of today. It might be worth me asking the member opposite, my critic, whether or not mining is expected to carry on tomorrow.

N. Macdonald: We can tell you at the end of the day.

Hon. B. Bennett: Okay. In the interest of time and getting the most out of this that we all can, I think that’s enough of a preliminary commentary, and we should just get started.

N. Macdonald: A lot of the first, initial questions come from steelworkers and union people, just focusing on workers.

I represent a community that was built by workers, who mined for almost a century in the Sullivan mine. Kimberley benefited, of course, immensely, and the community members fought hard to make sure that the operation was safe and returned a fair value to the community. Now, Sullivan led to vast sums of money coming into B.C., and it led to developments throughout southeastern B.C., to be honest.

Mining continues to be a very important part of the British Columbia economy, with 7,500 jobs. On page 8 of this year’s service plan, the performance measure has the heading “Number of new and expanded mines.” In last year’s service plan, the criterion was new mines opened since the start of the so-called B.C. Liberal jobs plan, which the document states is September 22, 2011. The B.C. jobs plan promised eight new mines fully in operation by 2015, with an additional 1,500 direct mining jobs from 2011 numbers.

Now, since 2011, we saw Mount Milligan open in 2013. Red Chris is operating starting in 2015, and Bonanza Ledge in Barkerville as well. We had reopenings at New Afton and Copper Mountain prior to the last election.

[1505]

But there have been over a dozen mines that have closed, with 2,380 direct mining jobs lost. Those are the figures I have from the union. Maybe the Mines Ministry has different numbers or up-to-date numbers or something that they want to contest about those.

There are 7,500 people still working and 2,380 jobs lost. Rather than the 1,500 jobs that we were promised and instead of eight more mines, as we were promised, we end up with three opened, one opened and closed, two reopened, but over a dozen closed — almost a dozen less mines operating in B.C. right now.

The figures that I have…. If we include MAX Moly in 2011…. We have Treasure Mountain. We have Wolverine. We have Willow Creek, Brule, Quintette. Trend and Roman was the one that opened and closed. We have Bralorne and Endako. We have, if we include reductions, Gibraltar and Mount Polley. We have closures at Myra Falls, reductions at Highland Valley. Kitsault — I don’t know how many we’ve lost there. Coal Mountain phase 2 — it’s withdrawn from the EA process — 100 jobs gone there. Quinsam coal, Yellow Giant, Huckleberry, Murray River…. It is a difficult time in mining.

The first question I will ask for the minister is: Does the ministry track what happens to miners that have lost their jobs?

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m happy to have the opportunity to correct the record. Certainly, the member has made no effort to be briefed by my ministry about what actually is going on. His recitation of mines that have opened and mines that have closed is grossly incorrect.

I’ll do my best, off the top of my head, to give him the correct information. Then we’ll commit to providing something to him in writing that will list the mines that have opened and the mines that have closed — doing our best, also, to give him an indication of jobs created and jobs lost when a mine does close. Some of the mines the member mentioned, for example, were never opened. In any case, we’ll get the specific information to him in writing.

What I can tell the member off the top of my head is that since 2011, six new mines have opened. One of them has closed subsequently. Two other mines are currently under construction. One of them is called Brucejack, and the other one is called Silvertip. That’s eight new mines since 2011. That, in fact, represents a renaissance in mining, in new mines in this province.

One would have to go back dozens and dozens of years to find another period of time, another five- or six-year time period, in which eight new mines were either opened or under construction. The industry, despite the fact that currently commodity prices are very, very low…. That happens regardless of who’s in government. Despite that, industry representatives would tell the member that since 2011, the record of new mines in this province has actually been excellent. There’s no other word for it. It’s been quite remarkable, actually, to have six new mines open and two more under construction, even though one of those six is currently not open.

In terms of closed mines, I don’t know where the member gets his information other than he said he gets it, maybe, from the unions. I noticed some inaccuracies in what he said. I think the best thing to do, again, on that
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is to put it in writing and give it to the member so he’s got the correct information.

With respect to: do we track people who lose their jobs when a mine closes? We have a fairly comprehensive process within our government, mostly focused in the Ministry of Jobs, which really works hard to try to help workers and their families when the worst happens — when a sawmill closes or a mine closes.

[1510]

I know that ministry has had people on the ground recently in the member’s riding, in Canal Flats. I know that that ministry has had people on the ground in various situations around the province when mines do close.

Does our ministry get involved with that process? Only to the extent that we try to track the number of people involved. I certainly work with my colleague and other cabinet ministers to encourage everyone in government to do everything we possibly can to generate opportunities for the people who have lost a job in mining.

That goes to the difference in the approach that our government takes — from what the NDP government took as an approach in the 1990s — which is to try to encourage as many economic opportunities as possible so that if one thing ends, there is something else new that is starting that those people can go to.

N. Macdonald: I think the starting point has to be that these are troubling times in mining. The mines union would not be concerned about things if it wasn’t. I think it’s generally understood that these are difficult times. The mines are closing. The mines that we expected to have opened haven’t opened. You don’t have eight by 2015. That was the goal. That was what was said. There was supposed to be nine. By this year, there was supposed to be a further one. That hasn’t happened.

Now, the minister can say, and it will be accurate, that global commodity prices have changed and that we are subject to those things. But I think the starting point for the discussion is that these are challenging times.

What the Steelworkers union sent to cabinet, including the minister, was a call for the return of the jobs protection commissioner. That would have been March 11 of this year. The jobs protection commissioner saved jobs, if possible. My own experience was with Doug Kerley. He saved the Evans mill, which still operates as an LP plant in Golden, and of course, the Trail refinery, which still operates. They also tracked displaced workers and supported them in transition.

Now, the minister, I believe, voted to dismantle the jobs protection commission. Given the challenges in rural B.C. at the time, does the minister now see merit in the steel union’s call for it to be reinstated?

Hon. B. Bennett: I need to repeat what I said a minute ago. The member clearly didn’t hear me. There have been six new mines opened since 2011, one of which has subsequently closed, and two mines under construction, also in 2015. Therefore, there were eight new mines either opened or under construction by 2015. That’s a fact. I can provide a list of the names of the mines to the member.

With respect to the old NDP policy of a jobs commissioner, it is not this government’s view that that is the best way to help generate opportunities for people in the province, whether it’s resource industries or more generally in the economy. We have different approaches in terms of tax policy and other ways of attracting investment from abroad and encouraging investment in areas of the economy that do employ people.

I guess the proof in the pudding is our record. We lead Canada in terms of job creation. We lead Canada in terms of our fiscal performance. We can never rest on our laurels. We can never forget about the family — in the member’s riding or my riding or anybody else’s riding — who is out of work. We can never minimize that. We can never disrespect that. We just disagree on the policies that will get us to the place that, I think, we probably both want to be.

N. Macdonald: The starting point will be recognition of the problem. I mean, there is clearly a problem in mining. If the minister was going to stand up and say that he has no ability to control commodity prices, then we would move on. I would agree with that. I think that would be a more useful conversation. But to say that there is not a problem or to talk about what it means to have met the commitment of the service plan and the jobs plan….

I mean, clearly these are not good times. Clearly we are not eight mines up. Even one of the mines that the minister talks about, Trend and Roman — it went up, and then it’s down again, right? So these are difficult times. Copper prices are not expected to pick up anytime soon, and metallurgical coal will continue to be a challenge.

[1515]

What the service plan has done…. Instead of talking about the new mines, it’s moved away from there and talks about three mines permitted. Now, I guess we’ve changed the goalposts a bit. Can the minister tell me the three mines that the ministry expects to have permitted? These are the mines that are identified in the service plan.

Hon. B. Bennett: Perhaps naming the mines specifically will help the member through this. Since 2011, the following new mines have been built and opened: New Afton, Mount Milligan, Copper Mountain, Red Chris, Barkerville Gold, Banks Island. The two that are in construction are Brucejack and Silvertip. Of course, Banks Island is closed. There are five new mines opened since 2011 and two others in construction.

With respect to the mines that are in the pipeline coming forward, we have 11 projects in our major mines permitting office, which we established last year. It would not
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be appropriate for me to name any one, or multiple, of that 11, because it would, I think, be like picking favourites.

We have 11 that have earned their way in the door of that major mines permitting office. Again, given the circumstances with commodity prices, the fact that we have five new mines operating, two more under construction and 11 mines in the major mines permitting office is absolutely incredible, and it is a huge success for the province.

N. Macdonald: There are two sides to the ledger. How many mines does the Mines Minister say are closed or in reduced operations or in care and maintenance? How many of those right now in B.C. since 2011?

Hon. B. Bennett: Again, I offered to provide this in writing to the member. I’m going to make sure that we do that. He mentioned some mines, some coal mines in the northeast that are not operating, and I know they’re not operating. I don’t have them on my list, but we’ll get the member a comprehensive list.

What I can tell him today is…. He mentioned the Roman mine. That mine actually never opened, but there is an associated mine there called the Trend mine. It’s really part of the same project, which is not operating. That’s one.

[1520]

The Banks Island mine is not operating. He’s well aware of that. And I thank the member for his involvement in that, because he was part of the process in terms of highlighting some inappropriate activities that were taking place at Banks Island. That’s a second one that I know is closed.

Treasure Mountain. I think the member mentioned that. It’s not operating. It’s in care and maintenance right now.

Quintette was not operating. Quintette hasn’t operated since the 1980s, so it shouldn’t be on his list.

Myra Falls. The member is correct to suggest that Myra Falls is in care and maintenance at the present time. That has nothing to do with commodity prices because of what they mine there. They could be mining today if the owner of that property wanted to mine it. That property is in play right now, and with the new owner, that property will open up. Again, it has nothing to do with government. It has nothing, actually, to do with commodity prices.

I dealt with Quinsam already. Wolverine — the member mentioned it. Wolverine is one of those northeast coal mines like Willow Creek, I think it was, that is in care and maintenance right now. The price of metallurgical coal is such that those mines will not open up, probably, any time soon, although it depends on when metallurgical coal prices come back.

Obviously, there is nothing that the province can do about commodity prices. We did create a program for mines to avail themselves of in terms of deferring electricity costs, and some of our mines have decided to avail themselves of that program. It’s not a gift. It’s not a grant or a subsidy to the company. It’s a way for companies to defer a portion of their electricity costs and pay it back later when commodity prices come back at a commercial rate of interest.

I think that’s about as complete an answer to this as I can provide at the present time. Again, I will make sure we put this in writing so we’ve got it all down for the member.

N. Macdonald: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Let’s just maybe talk about the program that the minister put forward, which is something…. You’re right. It’s not a gift. The rates are, I believe, 12 percent. So it’s not a gift.

Huckleberry mine — I believe it’s a gold-copper mine. It went down, with about 100 miners losing their jobs. They are closing with the government’s offer of a B.C. Hydro payment deferral on the table.

Does the minister have any indication of interest in the proposal? The minister did indicate that there were companies that were talking about it. Has any company so far stepped forward to utilize the program, or have they indicated that they intend to use the deferral?

Hon. B. Bennett: The question is in respect to the electricity cost deferral program. All of our mines in the province have registered for the program except for the Teck mines and the new gold mine at Kamloops, New Afton.

You know, it’s of interest, I guess — I’ll say it, and I hope it’s of interest — that if you’re strictly a copper mine, and you have low-grade copper, you’re in a more challenging position at the present time with low copper prices than you are if you’re a copper mine and you have a good grade and quantity of gold. There are some of our mines in the province that are mainly copper mines, but they have very good gold content and it’s easier for them to keep their doors open during times like this than if you are strictly a low-grade copper producer.

[1525]

The mines that have registered…. As I say, all of our mines have registered except for the Teck mines and New Afton. That includes Huckleberry. Huckleberry is an interesting case, a very well-run company — low-grade copper, but a successful company, given average, ordinary, “normal” copper prices. When we created this program, they actually availed themselves of it and have told us that they have called workers back to that mine because of this program. We also know that the other mines that have registered for the program will be able to stay in business longer because of the program and retain their workers longer.

Now, we have said from the beginning of announcing this program that if commodity prices go down much further, even the opportunity to defer electricity
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prices could well not be enough for mines to stay open. We’ve been fortunate in the last month or so in that copper prices came up a little and stabilized, it seemed, so everyone has their fingers crossed that that will remain like that.

None of these operations have actually closed. I know that Huckleberry is not actually mining. I think they’re just running their mill right now, but we know that that’s where they use most of their electricity, so we’re hoping that this program will continue to encourage them to run their mill and keep those workers working.

N. Macdonald: My information will be anecdotal. I was just talking to people in the Elk Valley who were talking about this program. One of the things they said was that it wasn’t hugely appealing to companies that were financed in certain ways or had certain types of…. For instance, they could go to the bank and get better rates and manage their short-term electrical needs as well.

Given that, that doesn’t make it a bad idea, right? If a company can go and manage it in a different way, then that’s fine. But the question then does come. The companies that would go after this, potentially, have…. There’s the issue of: are they going to be able to pay you back?

That’s the question for the minister. Is the taxpayer, through B.C. Hydro, a secured creditor in this program if a mining company goes bankrupt?

Hon. B. Bennett: The first part of the answer is that when you become familiar with the financial status of these various mining companies, you soon see that for the vast majority of them — all but two companies — a deferral based on an interest rate of prime plus 5 percent is more attractive and represents money that they can access a lot cheaper than any money they would get from the market.

[D. McRae in the chair.]

It’s a tough business. The member has said that. It’s really tough right now. For these companies, although prime plus 5 percent may sound like a lot, it’s cheaper money than the vast majority of B.C. mining companies can access on their own. So it is an attractive program to them.

For the two companies that have not yet registered for the program, what we have been told is that situations can change. If you can access money for cheaper than prime plus 5 percent today, in six months, a year, a year and a half, two years from now, that may or may not be the case. The program will last for five years, so we don’t know whether 100 percent of the mines in the province will eventually avail themselves of this. Frankly, I hope not. I hope that commodity prices come up and they don’t need the program.

[1530]

With respect to whether we have assurance or certainty around the repayment of money that’s deferred by B.C. Hydro, it is obviously a very fair question. Our analysis…. And when I say “our,” I don’t mean my analysis of the company’s financial status; I mean the analysis of the financial status by the Ministry of Finance. We dug deep and went through a lot of documentation. We went through a lot of information, and the people in the Ministry of Finance did, I think, a good job of understanding the financial status of each of these companies. We do not foresee that any one of these companies would ever close permanently or walk away from their obligations to B.C. Hydro.

But the question is a fair question. The member, obviously, and the public deserve to know: “What if? What if they did?” And if they did, right now the program is set up such that the ratepayer would be liable, not the taxpayer.

What we have done with the program, however, is to include an agreement within government, between ministries, that if we encounter that unfortunate situation where one of these mines cannot repay, our ministry and the Ministry of Finance will have a discussion — we’ll have a discussion, I would imagine, with the rest of cabinet — as to how that liability should be divided or shared amongst ratepayers and taxpayers.

In a nutshell, we don’t expect it to happen, but it is theoretically possible. If it does, currently the ratepayer is on the hook for that liability. But we have an agreement with the Ministry of Finance that we will discuss sharing that liability or dividing that liability differently, as between the taxpayer and the ratepayer.

N. Macdonald: Just on this topic again, the ratepayer, then, may take a portion if a company goes bankrupt. Of course, the ratepayer is not a secured creditor. I guess the question is: does the minister have a sense of the exposure that the government is willing to go to with these programs? At some point, does the government intend to limit exposure to the possibility of ratepayers and taxpayers having to swallow, in the event of a bankruptcy, the deferred payments? I guess the question is: is there a limit to how far mining companies are going to be allowed to defer their power cost?

Hon. B. Bennett: Of course, in the course of doing our due diligence before we offered this program to the industry, we obviously needed to understand the total exposure for B.C. Hydro and, potentially, the taxpayer. So we calculated what the total amount would be if every operating mine in British Columbia availed themselves of the full, complete opportunity under this program.

Just to remind the member and the public, companies under this program have the opportunity to defer a maximum of 75 percent of their hydro bills for 24 months over a five-year period. In other words, they could defer
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this month and for three months consecutively. Perhaps they’re assuming their electricity bills are going to be lower for a few months, so they stop deferring and they pay, and they pick it up. They can do that to a total of 24 months in a five-year period.

If you assume that every single mine in the province is going to avail themselves of that program and defer the maximum amount, based on the calculations that we’ve done — of course, we have to assume a few things — the total exposure to B.C. Hydro would be about $331 million. Currently there are six mines in the province not registered for the program, so it doesn’t look like we’re going to see that maximum exposure. It’s very early days.

[1535]

Commodity prices are a little better than what we had thought they were going to be when we created the program, so it may well be that we will never get close to that maximum. But we needed to know what it was. The member wanted to know, and that’s what it is. It’s $331 million if everyone does it to the absolute maximum they’re allowed to do it to.

N. Macdonald: Just to understand. Now, my understanding on Huckleberry is that on February 2, there were curtailment notices to all employees, and the notice said that there was going to be a suspension of operations at the end of the summer. Is that accurate?

Hon. B. Bennett: My advice from staff — and they have had fairly recent discussions with the operators of Huckleberry — is that they are going to wait until the end of August or sometime in the month of August to decide whether to keep their mill running or not. The program that we have offered, the electricity cost deferral program, is helping, and it will assist them in making a positive decision.

They’re also pleased, I’m told, by what’s happening in the commodities market. They’re a little more hopeful that they can make the decision they’d like to make in August. We don’t know. I don’t think the company knows for sure whether they’re going to be able to keep that mill running.

What I can say to the member is that I’ve had direct discussions with all of these mines, including Huckleberry. Certainly, the sense that I got from the people I talked to in management is that they want to operate this mine. They want to keep not just the mill running, but they want to get back to mining again and extracting rock and crushing it and selling the product.

They have, from everything that I have seen, a great deal of care and respect for the people and the families that depend on that mine. I think they’re making every effort, as we are as well, to ensure that the conditions — to the extent that we can impact them, that government can impact the conditions — are such that they make the positive decision. We won’t know until August. Of course, many things can happen between now and then in terms of commodity prices.

N. Macdonald: Wolverine, as well as Willow Creek, Brule…. That mine ceased operation, I think, of metallurgical coal in April 2014. The minister will know that the owner was Walter Energy out of the States, which went under chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last summer. My understanding is that Wolverine represented a loss of 415 direct mining jobs. Willow Creek and Brule meant a loss of 280 jobs. So on top of the complications of lower commodity prices, we have the bankruptcy of the company.

The question for the minister is: what are the implications of the bankruptcy proceedings on workers who have lost their jobs? That’s the first question. I’m not sure that that’s a question that the minister is going to be able to answer.

The second question, which the minister will be able to, is: what are the implications for safety and environmental liabilities at the mine site? I’d invite the minister to be comprehensive in terms of describing what the ministry is doing, both to support workers and their interests but also in terms of making sure that the mine is looked after in terms of the safety of the site, the environmental liabilities and making sure that it’s protected so that it can operate in the future as quickly as possible.

[1540]

Hon. B. Bennett: The question goes to the reliability of commitments by a mining company when the mine itself shuts down. So it’s a question that, I think, extends across a number of different circumstances because mines close down for a variety of reasons. The mines that the member mentioned in the northeast are coal mines, he points out, owned by Walter Energy, which is currently in insolvency proceedings.

I’ll address that specific situation but also make some comments more generally about mines that are closed and environmental liabilities and risks and the health and safety of workers and other people on these sites.

More generally, the rules that we have in place require companies to maintain a safe site and to manage environmental risks whether they’re closed or open. It, I suppose, becomes a little easier to maintain safety when there aren’t as many people on the site. Nonetheless, even a company that’s in bankruptcy is required to have people on the site and a mine manager who’s responsible for that site to ensure public safety and the safety of any workers on the site and also to ensure that any work that needs to be done to protect the environment is, in fact, being done. That goes across the board — any mine that’s closed for any reason.

With respect to the coal mines that the member mentioned that are owned by Walter Energy, we’ve had several discussions with Walter Energy throughout the last couple of years, some very recent — within the last few
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days, I understand. They do have a mine manager who has met with my senior staff on more than one occasion. They are keeping all of the commitments that they are required to keep in terms of keeping the site safe and also in terms of managing any environmental risk that may be there.

There, of course, are also bonds in place on each of these mines — if the circumstance did arise where a company didn’t have or chose not to meet their commitments. We don’t have that situation with those coal mines in the northeast. In fact, the company has been very responsible, by all accounts, in making sure they’ve got enough people on the ground and making sure that they’re maintaining or meeting their commitments.

N. Macdonald: Just to come back to the first part of the question, which was…. This is an American bankruptcy proceeding. It’s a chapter 11. I don’t know if it’s California or Alabama. It’s one of those jurisdictions. I don’t know which one. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Is the ministry aware of any implications of the bankruptcy proceedings on workers who’ve lost their jobs? Are they secure in terms of the obligations the company previously had to them?

[1545]

Hon. B. Bennett: In answer to the member’s question, our ministry does not have information from workers or from the unions about any unpaid wages. We can’t say with any certainty whether there are unpaid wages, but we do understand that there is some legal action or actions between some workers and the company. At the very least, there is an accusation of unpaid wages.

The member asked: what implications are there from the bankruptcy proceedings? Well, that certainly would be one important implication, if workers were not paid. We’d certainly be happy to know more about that, if the unions or the individual workers wanted to share information with us, but we don’t have that information. I can’t think of any other implications from this bankruptcy, other than the ones the member has raised.

There are the unpaid wages, or potential for that. There is the obligation of the company to continue to manage the environmental risk and the ongoing obligation of the company to keep everyone safe on the site. I think we’ve dealt with those three issues.

N. Macdonald: Well, I still have this question about how that works. The minister, again, can be fairly broad in terms of how he describes what takes place, because I’ll ask certain similar questions with reference to other mines as we come along. This is something I don’t fully understand.

You have ongoing personnel that have to be paid by a company that is now bankrupt. The minister has talked about a security deposit that is there, presumably for reclamation of the site. My presumption is that all mines have to provide that. Is that a fund that is, then, used if the company is no longer paying personnel? Presumably, these are sites that people can’t just wander onto. There are also ongoing water issues and safety issues, I’m sure.

The question is just an invitation for the minister to be quite broad in terms of how exactly a bankrupt company makes sure that the safety and environmental liabilities are looked after. Maybe also, to lump in with the chief mines inspector or the staff that the ministry has: are these reports that the ministry is receiving? Or are there physical visits by your staff? How often do those physical visits take place, and what is the nature of those visits?

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m checking with the staff to find out the last time that an inspector was on one of the sites up there.

Bankruptcy is a funny process sometimes. By its very nature, you wouldn’t think that there would be any money to pay anybody, but there often is. That’s what receivers and trustees do. They get in charge of the company and run the company until such time as the court decides what should happen.

I don’t know what the status of the bankruptcy proceedings is right now for this particular company, but there is obviously money to pay a mine manager, to pay people to keep the site safe and to maintain the site in terms of environmental risk. My staff is comfortable that these closed coal mines are being managed appropriately.

I’m also advised — I’ve actually read this in the financial news — that Walter is trying to sell these coal mines. So it is in their best interests to maintain them, to keep them safe and to avoid any environmental liability developing until such time as they can locate a buyer.

[1550]

I hope I’ve answered what the member has asked for. I’m still waiting for the last time — the date or the frequency — when inspectors were on these minesites. As soon as I have that, I’ll give it to the member.

N. Macdonald: This is the last question I was going to have on this mine. It was simply…. The question is: is the minister aware if there’s a buyer, or if the mine has…? Clearly, from the minister’s previous answer, there is not a purchase that has taken place yet. But does it look like we’re going to get a buyer in there, with the possibility, when prices improve, that there will be a quick and efficient reopening?

Hon. B. Bennett: My staff has advised me that I can’t comment on that. I am aware of lots of rumours. Sometimes companies come and talk to me about their plans. It would be just pure speculation on my part to speculate on whether these coal mines would ever be sold.

I think that aside from these particular mines, the principles that the member could rely upon to answer this question himself would be: what’s the price of metallur-
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gical coal? What’s happening in Asia? The two things are linked, obviously. If it looks like there’s a market for this coal, somebody will probably buy them and operate them.

N. Macdonald: Moving to Banks Island. It was a gold play called Yellow Giant. Gold prices have been fairly strong. They’re not like copper or metallurgical coal.

How many jobs were lost with this shutdown? I couldn’t find this anywhere. I don’t think it’s a union site. I couldn’t find it. Does the minister have a sense of how many people were employed there and how many jobs have been lost with the shutdown of the Banks Island Yellow Giant gold mine?

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m advised that 30 jobs were lost when the ministry ordered that mine shut down.

N. Macdonald: As the minister referenced, I emailed the Minister of Energy and Mines as well as the Minister of Environment in July 2015 with information and pictures from an employee — it was an employee at that time — deeply concerned about what was happening at Yellow Giant on Banks Island.

The pictures and the information showed clear environmental degradation, but the reason that the Minister of Energy and Mines was included in my email was because of a large number of unsafe practices, which, if true — and I had no reason to believe they weren’t true; they were supported with pictures that seemed to show this — put lives at risk. The minister will remember that it was unsafe ventilation issues in the shafts and other serious concerns.

The mine was shut down on July 15, 2015. The employee in question asserted that the Ministry of Mines had been informed and had not acted, so they came to me. There is likely a broader story here. For the record, can the minister explain what took place? Things like: was the ministry contacted? Is it true that the ministry was contacted and didn’t act? Is there a reason for that? As I say, again, the minister can be as broad as he likes in terms of providing information.

Hon. B. Bennett: On July 2, the ministry received an anonymous tip that there were inappropriate actions being taken at this mine site on Banks Island.

[1555]

Shortly thereafter, we heard from the critic. I don’t know how many days, but it was a very short period of time. We heard from three different parties. We heard from the anonymous person first, then we heard from the member, and then I heard from one of the chiefs. I got either a letter or…. I think it was an email. We can check on the specifics of that, but that’s generally how it happened.

In terms of the response, a team from the two ministries — Energy and Mines, and Environment — and the conservation officer service and Environment Canada went up and inspected the Yellow Giant mine on July 9, 2015. The mine was found to be in non-compliance in terms of the Environmental Management Act and the Mines Act.

While on site that day, the inspector of mines issued two stop-work orders, immediately ordering the company to stop discharging to the environment from two bulk sample sites at the mine. On July 10, the next day, the Ministry of Environment issued a pollution abatement order, requiring the company to immediately cease all unauthorized discharges and to begin cleaning-up activities.

On July 15, the Ministry of Energy and Mines technical staff went up to the site to inspect the underground workings and to ensure compliance and safety. As a result of those issues discovered during that inspection, the inspectors immediately ordered a full shutdown of the Tel mine, based on a variety of issues.

Then on December 21, 2015, Banks Island Gold Ltd. provided notice that the company could no longer meet its financial obligations with its lenders. They provided notice of termination to all of their remaining employees, effective December 31, 2015.

The mine remains shut down, and on January 8, 2016, Banks Island Gold filed for bankruptcy. I am told that…. I don’t know if it’s the receiver or the company that is attempting to sell the project. They are, as with every other mine in the province, whether they’re operating or not, still responsible for health and safety and for managing environmental risk.

N. Macdonald: Thank you. That was a comprehensive answer.

In a media report, it talked about this being shut down under environmental legislation. But what the minister is saying is that using the Mines Act, the tool that you have available to you of shutting down the mine…. That is actually part of what took place. I understand that.

The other thing related to the bankruptcy is: is the minister able to assure taxpayers that they’re not going to be left on the hook to clean up Banks Island? Maybe at this point, he can describe what normal practice is to ensure companies don’t walk away from their responsibilities.

We’ve talked before about posting bonds or having money available. My understanding is, in talking to the local MLA, that it’s still a mess up there and that there is a substantial amount of work to do, both environmentally and in terms of securing the site or making sure that it stays viable for, potentially, another buyer.

I guess here, again, the minister can go as broad as he wants and describe how, in a situation like this, the taxpayer is not left on the hook.

Hon. B. Bennett: The receiver has hired a mines manager to make sure that the minesite is safe, to make sure that environmental liabilities are being managed or that risks are being managed. But the member is asking, essentially: is there enough bond money in place to pay for
[ Page 11898 ]
a complete reclamation of the site? The honest answer is no, there isn’t.

There is $420,000 in place from the variety of permits that were issued. These bonds are usually tied to various permits.

[1600]

We don’t know the total cost of reclaiming the site, should there be no buyer move in. It could be as much as $1 million, so there’s obviously a shortfall.

The ministry is aware that that is not acceptable policy. I have made a commitment to my colleagues that we need to make sure — particularly, following what happened at Mount Polley — that we have sufficient money in hand to manage situations where a mining company just simply disappears. It doesn’t happen very often, but it could happen.

In this case, as the member stated, it is a gold property. Gold is, fortunately for those who have gold stocks and gold mines, still a pretty attractive mineral to mine. We’re certainly hoping that the property will be sold. The new owner would come in and begin to operate again, generate the revenue that would allow them to pay us the additional money that we would need to have in place for the bond.

N. Macdonald: Thanks again for the answer. Obviously, different mines have different sums of money that they have to set aside. The figure I heard for Gibraltar was $33 million. I guess the question for the minister is: across mines, what is the method for determining an appropriate amount for a particular mine? It sounds like it would obviously be tied to the size of the operation or an estimate of the cleanup.

The second question is…. Presumably, that sum of money cannot be touched, right? It’s completely separated. Mines at different times will want to dig into sums that they have, no doubt. I’m sure that at Mount Polley, there was interest. Am I correct in assuming that it is untouchable, that it is separate and held in a place, and under no circumstances would the government allow them to dig into funds that are set aside?

Then, of course — since I’m some length away from the first part of the question — it’s just how you determine an appropriate amount to put up as a bond for a particular mine.

Hon. B. Bennett: Two parts to the question, two parts to the answer. The first part, the easy part, is that when money is collected as a security, it is off-limits to the Finance Minister or to any other part of government. I can provide complete assurance that once the bond is paid, it is always available.

The process for determining what the bond should be, what the security should be, is complex. I’m going to give the member a choice. If he wants it on the record, I’ll get myself briefed up by the chief inspector of mines and do my best to provide the explanation. If the member would like it in writing, we can do that, or we can do both.

N. Macdonald: The minister doesn’t have to go on record here. I’ll take it in writing. That would be useful. Like I say, I want to understand it because it comes up a lot with many of the issues we’re raising.

I’m going to raise a local issue. It’s one that the minister and I have had an exchange on, as we often do, in the media. This is a real opportunity that’s a bit complex in terms of where the company is. I know that the company and the minister will be constrained in terms of some of the things that he has said.

I’m referring to the letter on HiTest. They have a quarry, as you know, as many of the silica quarries in our area have been doing quite well. This is a long-standing quarry. It’s a high-quality product. What has been talked about over the last number of years that is new is the proposal to build a facility to upgrade the material from the pit. The new facility is an exciting opportunity, but there are a lot of unknowns, and the business has always been very clear that they want confidentiality.

Now, we’ve been in contact with the minister through B.C. Hydro. What the minister…. As I understand from the letter that you wrote, they’ve asked for a break on power, and that’s not something that’s possible.

[1605]

That’s the first question. Am I understanding that correctly, that there’s not the ability, with B.C. Hydro, to provide a special deal on power? That’s my understanding of what you said.

The second part. We have heard from B.C. Hydro that there will be cooperation in terms of the connection from the new transmission line that was on the west side of the valley. That’s been understood that B.C. Hydro can make that work for us. But the question I have is: is there an ability to subsidize that? Is there an ability to have the company pay over a period of time? Is there the ability of B.C. Hydro to do a more complex crossing of the river that would satisfy neighbours? What are the tools that the minister has available to him — I guess is the question — to deal with this issue?

If you can’t answer because of confidentiality, that’s fine too. But there is potential for…. It’s 120 jobs, 300 jobs in construction.

Hon. B. Bennett: I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the project. Let me first apologize to the member. He said he sent a letter to the ministry in 2014, and I don’t recall getting it, but I believe him that he did. And I said publicly that he didn’t, so let me get on the record, first of all, and just say that I’m sorry, that I was wrong. It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.

With respect to the project itself, it seems like a very, very good project for an area of the province that really, as the member knows, could use some high-paid job op-
[ Page 11899 ]
portunities, particularly for young people to stay in the region but also for people who have been travelling away to mines in Alaska and the Northwest Territories and to the oil patch to work and coming home every three weeks or something. For those people, this opportunity would be good for them as well. So it is something that I’m trying to help with within the confines of my position as minister.

The deposit seems really high quality, from all accounts. The company is very interested in mining the deposit. I don’t think it’s confidential, because I’ve read it in the newspaper. They’re considering where they’re going to mill this material, where they’re going to refine it.

Are they going to do it down in the state of Washington, where the state provides all manner of concessions and subsidies, including free land and cheap power and all kinds of things that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to match here in British Columbia? Or are they going to build their mill in British Columbia, in the member’s riding? Of course, our government would prefer to see the mill built in B.C., and I’m sure the member would, generally, as well, all things — environmental concerns and so forth — being equal.

One of the key components of this business consideration is the cost of the electricity that would be used in the mill, and they would use copious amounts of electricity. I don’t know how much in gigawatt hours or megawatts, off the top of my head, that they require, but B.C. Hydro has told me that they would be a big customer. That’s a good thing.

The member makes reference to a public statement I made — that it is probably not possible to create a special rate. We currently don’t have any tariff. We’d have to go to the BCUC and ask to create some sort of special tariff for this kind of company or for all new companies. I don’t know how you would create such a special tariff, and we don’t have plans to do that.

However, there is considerable cost associated with the interconnection. The member mentioned the west side of the Columbia River. This is right beside the Columbia wetlands, a very, very broad, flat area of the Columbia Valley with lots and lots of water, tremendously rich and diverse wildlife in birds and so forth. Obviously, it will be a challenge and it will be costly to get a transmission line across that valley to the site of the mine and the potential mill.

[1610]

What I’ve asked Hydro to do in recognition of, first of all, the fact that this company would be a very good customer and it would help us grow our load and, secondly, the fact that we are trying to generate opportunities for people to work and be sustained in the places in the province that they want to live, like the Columbia Valley…. They have been working very closely with HiTest to find a way through this in terms of the interconnection.

I can’t give you details. I would start, I think, to get into an area that should be confidential. I understand the company has not yet made their minds up. I understand that the company, prior to my intercession a month or so ago, was very close to deciding to go to Washington, and all I can say is that we will do what we can within the law and the policies that we have for B.C. Hydro to work with this company and try and help them make the decision that all of us want them to make.

N. Macdonald: I appreciate the work the minister is doing. One of the challenges for an opposition member is that we do not have the ability, of course, to test the assertions that a company will make. But on everything that they have said and whatever they’ve allowed us to share, there is huge opportunity here.

The minister is correct. Just like in his area, in my area many of the people that were working — having left forestry, many of them — were able to find very high-paying employment in Alberta in the oil sands. Those opportunities are not the same as they were, and therefore, we have a lot of people that are coming home and are looking for opportunities. So I appreciate the work that the minister is doing on this, and I look forward to seeing some progress.

Let’s move, then, to a mine that didn’t get operational but was controversial, which was HD Mining’s Murray River project. For the moment…. I’m not sure that you would describe it as being shut down, but certainly it’s not operating. Fifty-one foreign workers have left B.C. Now, the intent of the company was to bring in over 200 foreign workers, claiming that longwall mining of a coal seam is beyond the capacity that’s here in British Columbia.

Just as in the minister’s riding, in my riding we have lots of miners, people that are generational miners who work, very often, away from the community. Of course, they’re working away from the community, but they’re coming back, and they made a point of telling me that that’s not true, that there is the capacity to do the longwall mining of a coal seam. In any case, we do have a time now. At some point, as with all of these sites, there is going to be a time when there’s going to be a demand for this coal again.

I guess the question for the minister: with the delay at Murray River, is the government making sure that miners are trained in longwall mining to take these jobs when the project eventually proceeds? Is that something that the ministry is at least communicating with some fellow colleagues, if that’s what’s needed?

Then I guess the second question: does the minister have an opinion on whether we have the domestic capacity to do the longwall mining of a coal seam?

Hon. B. Bennett: Again, it’s actually a great opportunity for me to try to set the record straight. Politics gets in the way of these kinds of discussions. The NDP have a narrative about what’s going on there, and it’s not accurate. We obviously have our own political interests, but I
[ Page 11900 ]
will tell the member quite up front what actually is going on with that project.

It isn’t actually delayed. This company came over from China, a private company. I think they bought some claims, did some drilling, discovered that they had some very high-quality metallurgical coal at depth. The only way to mine it would be to mine it underground.

[1615]

We don’t have any underground coal mining presently in Canada, really, because the mine on Vancouver Island is currently shut down, and I’m not sure about the one in Alberta. There may be one small underground coal mine operating in Alberta right now.

There is a tremendous amount of high-quality metallurgical coal underground at depth in B.C. that would require underground mining. I have always believed that this represents a huge opportunity for the province.

Above-ground mining is messy. A lot of people don’t like it. It’s done. It’s allowed. And I hope that it continues to be allowed for many, many decades, because it supplies a lot of jobs to the people who live in my riding and a lot of people along the railway all the way to Vancouver and a lot of people at the port. But the opportunity to mine coal underground is exciting, because not only would it create new jobs and all the economic spinoffs from a new mine or mines, it actually would keep the environmental footprint much smaller than an open-pit mine.

I am excited about the opportunity of underground coal mining in British Columbia. I think we should be prepared, as government, to facilitate the development of that industry.

When this company first came forward, they said that they didn’t think they could find workers to do what they needed to have done on this site. The member is correct. They said there weren’t enough longwall miners left in Canada with only the two little coalmines operating at the time, and they weren’t using the longwall method. Yeah, there’s coalminers but, as I understand it, the expertise and training is quite different for longwall mining, and you can’t put people who work in surface mines or even people who work in underground metal mines immediately into this situation to do longwall mining.

Here is the kicker, I think, on this, and one of the reasons why there’s been so much misunderstanding about the project. This company came to Canada, to British Columbia, to take a bulk sample. In order for them to take a bulk sample…. Unlike a surface mine where they could do some blasting and get some heavy machinery in there and take the bulk sample and ship it wherever in the world they need to ship it to, to have the coal tested — because it was going to be, and will be, an underground mine — they had to go underground to get the bulk sample. That means they had to tunnel under the ground and do a relatively small amount of longwall mining to get the bulk sample, send it out to various places in the world and have it tested.

They claimed that they needed these workers from China to do that. They convinced the federal government, which is responsible for the temporary foreign worker program, that in fact they could not hire longwall miners in Canada to take that bulk sample. And the federal government decided that they would allow this company to bring in these miners from China to take the bulk sample.

They came in. They took the bulk sample over a period of one or two years. I’m sorry that I don’t know exactly, but they were here a while. They were here at least a year. They took the bulk sample. They have completed the bulk sample. The miners have gone home. The coal that came out with the bulk sample has been sent around the world to various testing agencies that exist — various places like Australia and the U.S. and in Asia — to determine whether there’s a business case, essentially, for building an underground coal mine at Murray River.

So it’s not a delay. It is a normal phase in the development of an underground coal mine in a place like British Columbia.

I don’t get involved in determining whether there are enough qualified people to do what they wanted to do; i.e., take the bulk sample. That’s up to the federal government, and they clearly decided that this company could not find the people to do it.

When the company comes back, if the company comes back, and says, “We want to build this mine….” And I should tell the member that this project is actually in our major mines permitting office right now. It’s in there, doing work with the Ministry of Environment. They certainly are, by all appearances, going to be making a decision to go ahead and build the mine. But I don’t think they know that absolutely, for certain, yet.

[1620]

When they do, there will be obligations on the company to train Canadians to do this work. There will be a phase-in over a period of time — I think it might be ten years — where they must, by law, phase in the number of Canadian workers that learn this technique. Eventually all the workers at the mine would be Canadian.

I think that agreement has been signed with the company. I’m going to look to my senior staff for some confirmation that it has. What I’ll do, I guess, since I’m not getting any nods of acknowledgment from anybody…. I will say to the member that I think that there is an agreement with this mine to phase in Canadian workers. If there isn’t, there will be, because we can’t have a mine being operated in the province with temporary foreign workers. We will train the Canadian workers that we need to do that.

I’ll get back to the member on the details. I believe that, in the environmental certificate, there was an obligation on this mine, if it actually went into operation, to train Canadians over a ten-year period. Again, I’m going to get some more detail for the member on that.

That’s the story with this particular mine. The provincial government…. I guess I should really restrict what
[ Page 11901 ]
I’m saying to myself. I, as minister, have never had anything to do with the hiring or bringing in of temporary foreign workers for this particular project.

The federal government made the decision to allow the temporary foreign workers in on the basis that this was an exploration project. They’re taking a bulk sample. They’re not building a mine. They’re determining whether you can build a mine. So on the basis of it being a temporary exploration project, the federal government clearly came to the conclusion that yes, we’ll let them bring in these temporary foreign workers.

We will say, as a province, if you’re going to build a mine, you’re going to have to use Canadian workers. I believe we have done that through the certificate, but again, I’m going to get the member the details.

N. Macdonald: It has been talked about a lot, and concerns…. Just a couple of questions, and then I’m going to get the member for North Island to ask about the mines that are in shutdown in her area.

Two quick questions. First Ajax, which is the proposed mine near Kamloops. In the throne speech, it talked about — it wasn’t the enemies of mining — people who are against mining. It’s a funny thing that people can be very in favour of mining, and then when they’re actually right next to your city, it becomes a bit more complex. I don’t doubt that the mayor and council of Kamloops are in favour of mining in general, but they are, I think, still in the process of figuring out how to respond as a city to the project which is still in development — which is Ajax.

When I toured the proposed mine site — the proponents were kind enough to take myself and a couple of colleagues — I was told that their plans for tailings storage had changed from dry-stacking to a more traditional tailings storage facility. The question I have — and it’s one I know that I’ll likely be asking a couple of times — is just around the expert panel’s direction to go to dry-stack. I was just curious at the time, and I didn’t have an answer. Why — given the direction from the expert panel and, presumably, the interest of the ministry for Ajax to be looking at dry-stacking — was there a decision to move into a more traditional method?

Maybe it’s an opportunity for the minister to explain the complexities of dry-stacking, which the expert panel was pretty clear on. I’ll be coming to a report later on that was put out, which the minister will be familiar with, talking about four different mines and why didn’t the minister push for dry-stacking at Red Chris and so on. What are the complexities? Why would Ajax move away from the proposal to dry-stack, which presumably would be more advantageous in terms of the proposal and go to a more traditional tailings storage facility?

[1625]

Hon. B. Bennett: Again, a wonderful opportunity for me to correct the record on what the independent panel actually did say about tailings storage facilities. They did, in fact, in their report, use the example of dry-stack tailings as one of the “best available technologies for TSFs.” Unfortunately, the media interpreted that example as the independent panel stating that all tailings storage facilities in British Columbia or anywhere in the world ought to be done on the basis of dry-stack tailings.

If you go back and you read the report — and I’ve read it many times; I’ve also spoken many times with members of the panel to clarify my own understanding of this — they did not say that all mines ought to have dry-stack tailings. That’s the interpretation taken by those who want to take that interpretation, but it’s not a correct interpretation. It’s very easy, when you read the report, to see that’s not what they said.

It is an example of best available technology. It’s just not the only example of best available technology. Essentially, what they say is that less water is good; more water, not so much. Dry-stack tailings have very little water involved, so in terms of managing risk around tailings storage facilities and dams and so forth, clearly dry-stack tailings is a good way to go. We’ll be ordering companies to use that technology wherever it makes sense.

I know that my colleague the Minister of Environment has added some additional requirements in the environmental assessment process to require companies…. We’ve done the same thing through our permitting process at MEM to require companies that want to build mines in this province to give us more information, to show us that they have really examined carefully, comprehensively, best available technologies with respect to their tailings storage facilities.

They always had to do that in the past, but subsequent to the disaster at Mount Polley, we have added a new layer of obligation to companies so that we can be absolutely certain that they really have examined all of the best available technologies, including dry-stack tailings, but including a lot of other technologies, as well, and that they’re not just saying, “Well, it’s easier to build a tailings storage facility with a pond and a dam and some water” — not that it was easy to do that in the past, because if you talk to any mining company that’s ever gone through the permitting and assessment process, they will tell you how rigorous, time-consuming and expensive those processes really are.

In any case, in the case of Ajax, there was a concern expressed by the community about dust from dry-stack tailings technology, as I’m told by my staff. I was not approached directly by the community, so I can’t say the community said this to me personally. But I’m advised that the community presented some significant concerns about the dust that would be generated by dry-stack tailings, and that is the main reason why the company decided to change the technology.

They also, incidentally, moved their TSF, I think, a good five kilometres away from the community from
[ Page 11902 ]
where it was originally proposed to go, which presumably was also helpful to those who were on the fence in terms of whether they wanted to support this project or not.

Aside from Ajax, in terms of new projects, we do have that additional layer of due diligence that companies are required to go through with respect to tailings storage facilities. Where we feel that the best available technology is dry-stack tailings, we’ll order that to happen. But where the company can show that because of the geography, because of the soils, because of the nature of the rock, whether it’s acid-generating or not acid-generating and a whole bunch of other complicated factors….

If the staff and the Ministry of Environment, the environmental assessment office and the Ministry of Energy and Mines are satisfied with what is being proposed for a TSF in terms of technology, they would be approved.

That could, and likely will, involve some tailings storage facilities that the member has characterized as traditional — dams and some water and so forth. That is not contrary to what was suggested and recommended in the report.

[1630]

N. Macdonald: In terms of the report, I think there’s no question that this was put forward as an example of best practice, so we’ll come back to it. I’d be interested to know eventually — and the minister and staff can consider this — just what work is being done to consider where it would be appropriate. It just seems strange to me. I can understand the dust, given where it was first proposed at Ajax, but it does seem a particularly dry area, as opposed to what might be considered in the northwest as one of the complications of dry-stacking.

The other question I had was around New Prosperity — it did fail the federal environmental review; it was opposed by First Nations — clearly a complex find but still a very significant ore body. I guess the question is: is the ministry involved in any way with the project still? What’s the status of that proposal?

Hon. B. Bennett: The province is not involved currently with the New Prosperity project. The company, I’m advised, is in litigation with the federal government. I don’t think we have anything at all to do with that project at the current time.

[S. Hamilton in the chair.]

C. Trevena: I have a couple of questions for the minister about some mines in my constituency, which are both, sadly, not operating at the moment. They had been providing several hundred jobs at one time, well-paid jobs for my constituents.

However, the minister is aware that Myra Falls — which is a copper and zinc mine in Strathcona Park — closed, with the loss of 300 jobs, in May last year. Concerns were raised with the critic — the then opposition Environment critic — and myself about the management of the tailings storage facility at Myra Falls. We wrote a joint letter to the minister in November last year. The concern came from people who had been working at the mine.

I’d like the minister to explain what action he has taken so far to ensure that the tailings storage facility at Myra Falls doesn’t present a risk to people, specifically since it works into Campbell River’s water supply.

Hon. B. Bennett: Prior to this question, I answered a question from the critic with respect to this project. It might be worth the member’s while for me to repeat part of that, because the project is in her riding.

This mine has a lot of potential to reopen. It has a very good grade and a sizeable deposit. This particular company wants to sell it. I think that’s public knowledge. It is likely — who knows for sure? — that the mine will be sold and that new operators would come in and operate it.

More to the point of the question from the member, our inspectors have been up to the site on more than one occasion. We are working very closely with management for the mine. I’ve actually had a meeting with the mine management myself at least once. They are in compliance, in terms of managing the environmental risk, in terms of managing the TSF and in terms of keeping the site safe. By all accounts, it would appear that everything is being done according to the rules.

[1635]

C. Trevena: I thank the minister. I just wanted to confirm that…. When I talked to the management, when they were shutting down the mine about this…. We had a long discussion about it. Obviously, they were concerned about being able to ensure that it was kept safe, that the tailings ponds were kept safe.

One of the real concerns that was flagged for me that I didn’t get clarity on from the mine itself or from the management of the mine…. Maybe the minister has more confidence and can explain this. There is a period of time, because there aren’t workers at the mine…. There’s a period of time — over a weekend, particularly — when there isn’t actually anybody there to ensure that the tailings ponds will be safe and that there wouldn’t be a breach into the water supply.

If the minister can guarantee that that is not an issue, it would give great confidence to the people of Campbell River, who are, obviously, concerned about impacts through their water system leading down through from Buttle Lake.

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m advised by the chief inspector of mines that there are always people on the site. Management is required, and apparently is fulfilling this requirement, to have responsible people on the site making sure that the TSF is fine and that everyone who goes on the site is safe and secure.
[ Page 11903 ]

C. Trevena: Just out of interest, if the minister could explain to me — and possibly, this also relates to my subsequent question about the Quinsam mine — how often it is inspected. How often does somebody from the ministry go to inspect these mines, particularly when the mines aren’t operating?

Hon. B. Bennett: The obligation that we put on ourselves as a ministry is to have a geotechnical inspection a minimum of once a year — that is, the geotechnical engineers who work for the company, who are primarily interested in the tailings storage facility and the engineered structure.

In terms of health and safety, it averages probably once a month. It depends on the size of the mine. It depends on whether there have been some deviances from the rules. Recently they might go back more often if they picked up something in the mill or something on the minesite that wasn’t safe. But generally speaking, health and safety inspectors get there about once a month.

The geotechnical inspectors try to get there once a year. We have been able to maintain that for the last few short years.

There was a period of time, since you asked the question in a general way, during the life of this government when we lacked geotechnical inspectors and where inspections did not take place as regularly as they ought to have. It is something that we need to ensure never happens again.

There are reasons for that. When you’re in the middle of a flurry of mining activity in the world and people are taking jobs all over the world in the mining industry, geotechnical engineers are very, very scarce. They go where they can make the most money, and that’s not in government. There were some years where we didn’t do as many inspections as regularly as we ought to have done, in terms of the geotechnical side of things.

We have…. I don’t know what the actual number is. I’ll figure it out, and maybe the other member will ask me this later. I can give you the number later. I think we have seven geotechnical inspectors — five, right now — doing the work. We have to find a way to maintain that number going forward.

Frankly, when we go back into another up-cycle on commodity prices — it will happen; it always does — it will become difficult to keep these people. We are going to have to find ways to keep people and to replace them if they do leave.

[1640]

It is a very serious obligation of the ministry. I take it seriously. I’m not pleased or satisfied with the record of the ministry over the past 15 years on that score. We can do better, and we will do better.

C. Trevena: Given that the mine is currently closed, is there still an average of monthly inspections going for health and safety and the annual geotechnical inspection, or is it being scaled back?

Hon. B. Bennett: I think it’s probably what the member would assume. Health and safety inspections would diminish in relation to the number of workers on the site. There won’t be as many of them happening when a mine is in care and maintenance. They still have to happen, because there are still people there, and we have to make sure that it’s safe.

Nyrstar’s mill, of course, is shut down. That is a particular focus of health and safety inspectors. So fewer health and safety inspections; however, the geotechnical inspections remain equally important. We have to monitor that through engineers. Certainly, with the annual inspection, that part of the inspection obligation does not diminish just because the mine is closed.

C. Trevena: I wonder if the minister could give me a figure for the number of times the mine has been inspected since it’s been closed down. Likewise, I’m going to be asking about Quinsam Coal and would like to have a similar response to that, although it is only just now closing down.

Hon. B. Bennett: Just so that, on this side, we understand what the member wants…. We’ll have to provide this later in writing. The member wants the number of the various kinds of inspections that have happened since these two mines have closed.

Interjection.

Hon. B. Bennett: Fair enough. We’ll get that for the member.

C. Trevena: That’s exactly what I want — just the inspections since the mine was closed.

I’d like to switch to Quinsam, which is, as the minister well knows, a coal mine. Not long ago it had several hundred people working there. By January, it had gone down to 66. On Thursday, there were, I believe, just six people left at the site.

They supply thermal coal to the cement industry. They’re very valuable to industrial growth within British Columbia, and there’s obviously hope that it will get going again. It is, again, important to the community.

There is concern about flooding in the mine and the impact that might have on the future reopening. I wonder if the minister could explain whether his ministry has any involvement in ensuring that there is no flooding of the mine so that the mine can reopen.

Hon. B. Bennett: I am advised by my senior staff that it is quite common for an underground mine to fill with water while it’s in care and maintenance and for it to be
[ Page 11904 ]
pumped out when they restart. Apparently, nothing unusual about that. All of the equipment, everything that would provide contamination, I am advised, has been removed from the mine.

Access to the mine is severely restricted, so the public certainly ought not to be there. The few workers who are left are well trained. I’ve actually spent some time with the mine rescue teams from both your mines, hon. Member. They’re very good at what they do, so I’m sure they are safe.

But the mine could well be filling up with water, and I’m told that that’s not usual.

[1645]

C. Trevena: Is there any extra precaution being carried out, bearing in mind the concerns there have been for many about Quinsam and the effects, the impacts, on the Quinsam and the Campbell rivers, which are both salmon rivers, with the mine filling with water?

Hon. B. Bennett: Two parts to the answer. First of all, I am advised by the chief inspector of mines that there is actually a benefit of having a coal mine flood up with water when it’s not operating. Apparently, there are substances in the rock that can oxidize which can potentially have an impact on water. By flooding it up, you prevent that oxidization, so there is a benefit from that.

In terms of whether there is any potential impact on watercourses in the region, I asked my staff if there was a history of selenium or any other type of contamination like that associated with this particular coal mine, and they’re not aware that there is. But I think what we should do is go back to the Ministry of Environment and find out whether there is selenium or any other type of issue around that mine so that the member has something that she can take to her constituents.

C. Trevena: Just to help the minister, there has been a long-running discussion about whether the mine is contributing to arsenic in Long Lake, so there will be some record of that. If there is any extra information he can provide, I’d very much appreciate that, and providing it in writing would be great.

I just wanted to know, with the closure and with the apparent no problem of the flooding of the mine, whether the mines inspector has visited Quinsam. I know that there have been discussions with Hillsborough Resources about the future of the mine, but I wondered whether there has been an inspection of Quinsam and, if so, again, if the chief inspector can say on what date.

Hon. B. Bennett: I have committed, I think, already to getting the member an inventory of what inspections have taken place at both these mines since they’ve been closed. I am advised that inspections have continued at the coal mine since closure, but we’re going to get the exact numbers for the member.

D. Donaldson: I have a question regarding the proposed Morrison mine about 200 kilometres northeast of Smithers. It’s a proposed copper, gold and moly mine. It’s actually near the old Bell mine and north of Granisle and, I believe, is in the constituency of the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation.

On December 9, 2013, the ruling of the Supreme Court of B.C. found that the government refusing to issue a certificate failed to comport with the requirements of procedural fairness. This was in relation to an environmental assessment process that did not approve of the proposed plan for the mine, so the mining company challenged that decision in B.C. Supreme Court and was granted a relief. The relief was that the petitioner’s application to the ministers for a certificate be reconsidered.

[1650]

A little background on it. The mine proposal at Morrison Lake is actually where 80 percent of the Skeena wild sockeye runs spawn, so there’s a great interest by the local First Nations and others. In the process of the environmental assessment, the Lake Babine Nation, the Gitxsan and the Gitanyow were all asked for input into the process.

The reason the relief was granted is that the actual EA process said the impacts of the mine could be mitigated. Then in the end, the executive director, or an agent of the executive director, of the environmental assessment process rejected the proposal, and the courts found that Pacific Booker Minerals wasn’t given enough of a chance to respond to the reasons why the executive director rejected the proposal.

I want to point out that the three nations I mentioned…. All three rejected the notion that significant long-term environmental effects would not occur, which was the finding of the original EA team. They quite strongly stated that nothing in the environmental assessment process would they consider as consultation.

This environmental assessment process is supposed to be what the government typifies as deep consultation — the best, the biggest, the most rigorous type of consultation — with First Nations. So for the three affected First Nations to say that this wasn’t consultation really raised a lot of red flags. I’m going to be asking the minister for an update on where we are with this project application.

As a result of the B.C. Supreme Court on July 7, 2015, the minister and the Minister of Environment sent a letter to Pacific Booker Minerals saying that as a result of the court decision, the province would be asking for more information from the Morrison mine proponents around the design and some of the questions that needed to be answered. They issued what is called an order under section 17 of the Environmental Assessment Act.

Some of the things that were asked for in that order are quite interesting. I’ll quote from section 2.3, and this was to the company. They’re asking for information on the “potential adverse effects on the Lake Babine Nation,
[ Page 11905 ]
the Yekooche First Nation, the Gitanyow Nation and the Gitxsan Nation and their potentially existing aboriginal rights, including title, aboriginal interests; and, to the extent appropriate, ways to avoid, mitigate or otherwise accommodate such potential adverse effects, taking into account the applicable legal tests.”

This, to me, is a bit astounding. We have a government who is not endorsing the treaty process to any great extent, and we saw what happened there. They’re asking a company to consider how aboriginal title has impacts on mining, when the government hasn’t actually done a very good job of explaining their position on that.

What has happened now is that the Gitanyow have said that Pacific Booker has not contacted them in the last six months, since this letter was written. And the Gitanyow still maintain the position that this was not consultation and that the project will create significant long-term impacts on their ability to harvest wild sockeye salmon in the main stem of the Skeena River.

The last part of this is that on February 10, 2016, a letter was sent to Pacific Booker from the government asking for additional details — supplemental application information requirements that were outlined in this section 17 order — and that they look forward to receiving additional details in the coming months.

I would just like to get an update on what appears to be a chaotic process. We have a company being asked to provide to the government what the impacts of their project would be on aboriginal title. We have the Gitanyow saying that they disagree with the assertion that significant environmental impacts would not occur and that there was no consultation. This is what we’re faced with, and it creates a lot of uncertainty and a lack of confidence.

[1655]

I would just ask for the minister to advise the status of the application by Pacific Booker, given the chaotic nature of the process.

Hon. B. Bennett: Just to correct the member, the executive director of the EAO doesn’t make a decision about certificates; the ministers do.

The two ministers at the time made a decision not to issue a certificate. That was challenged in court through a judicial review, as the member indicated. The ministers were ordered to make sure that the company had an opportunity to respond to information that had been sent into the EAO by some First Nations and other interested parties.

In the meantime, there was an election. Ministers changed. I became the Minister of Energy and Mines. We sent, on July 7, a letter to this company, Pacific Booker, and asked them for a variety of information that we needed to further consider their application — not chaotic at all, actually, but very much in sync with our process that we use in every mining project assessment and application.

It is customary — as I am advised, anyhow — that we do ask companies to tell us what they think the social, economic and cultural impacts of their project might be on surrounding communities. That includes First Nations, of course. We’ve been doing that for a long time. Maybe it was done even in the 1990s; I’m not sure.

It’s a standard practice, and a reasonable practice, to ask not only the First Nations themselves what they think and not only the local communities, non–First Nations communities what they think but also to ask the company what they think the social, economic and cultural impacts would be from the mine.

Currently, in terms of status of the project, we have not heard from the company in a few months at least. The ball is in their court. We’ve asked them for additional information, and we have not heard back from them. So we’re not sure where they’re at with their project.

N. Macdonald: Just for the minister’s information, what we’re going to do is ask a few more questions on issues for myself. Then we’re going to go to Shawnigan Lake questions and then, if we don’t get very far, a number of questions on Mount Polley and the chief mine inspector’s report related to that. But that’ll be Monday, probably. That’s how I think it’s going to go.

Just related to Mount Polley and the situation there, we’ll use an example, Gibraltar. It’s one of many mines that has significant water management issues. They’re currently dumping water. Of course, Gibraltar has a many-times-larger tailings storage facility than Mount Polley. I’m not able to judge, but even with Mount Polley, when it went, many of the people that I initially talked to weren’t sure which mine it was. They thought it was Gibraltar.

Anecdotally, people raise concerns about that and other mines, but it’s anecdotal. Let’s just use Gibraltar as an example, then. It does have complications with water. It has a tailings storage facility that is many times bigger than Mount Polley.

Just given what happened at Mount Polley, can the minister describe the oversight regime in place for Gibraltar’s tailings storage facility, specifically over the course of the last year? Maybe the number of visits, what sorts of things the ministry is asking of Gibraltar in terms of having them provide information so that the minister can be assured that the facility is not operating in what Mount Polley engineers described as the danger zone — just to be sure that it’s a facility that’s being operated the way the minister would expect.

[1700]

Hon. B. Bennett: My staff will determine where the water is actually coming from that is being discharged under a permit from the Ministry of Environment at Gibraltar. My staff are not sure whether the water being discharged is from the tailings storage facility or from a mined-out pit that they want to use for something else. We’ll get that, and probably by tomorrow we’ll be able to tell the member where that water is coming from.
[ Page 11906 ]

In a general sort of way, it is very normal practice in the world of mining — and frankly, in the world of industry generally — that excess water is discharged into the environment. The critical consideration is not whether there’s water discharged into the environment but what the quality of that water is. Does it meet drinking water standards? Does it meet standards that protect aquatic organisms? Only water that meets the standards that I just mentioned is allowed to be discharged into the environment.

Mines are so far away from most people today that live in cities — sawmills, pulp mills are probably the same — that when we hear about water being discharged from a minesite or from some other sort of industrial site, I think a lot of people are surprised that that happens. It does happen. It happens regularly. It happens all around the world on a regular basis.

Again, the critical thing is that if the regulator finds itself in a position where water must be discharged, the proponent must be able to show that it is safe to the environment, to human health, for the water to be discharged. I think it’s important to put that in perspective.

After the Mount Polley accident, we ordered the annual dam safety inspections to take place immediately, within a very, very short window of time. That would have included the Gibraltar mine. The annual dam safety inspection that they’re required to do by law — they would have done it, I think, within a couple months, maybe even less than that.

We also ordered the companies to retain an independent engineering firm to assess the annual dam safety inspection that was done. So there was a second unusual and new layer of oversight, given what happened at Mount Polley, of that annual dam safety inspection. So we did both of those things very quickly after the accident at Mount Polley.

We also ordered all of the mining companies with TSFs around the province to do an analysis of their subsurface soils around their tailings storage facilities, given what happened at Mount Polley. The independent panel and the chief inspector of mines…. In his report, he examined over 100,000 documents. Both of those reports concluded that the accident at Mount Polley happened because of an unstable layer, something called a glaciolacustrine unit, a GLU, under the perimeter embankment that no one knew about.

Given that this type of soil is fairly common in British Columbia and given that they missed it in the Mount Polley situation, we ordered every company to take a look at their records and to do whatever site investigation was required to determine whether they had that type of soil anywhere close to their TSFs. That was done as well, and I think we have posted all of that information to our website.

[1705]

As an aside, we are trying to do a better job, as the smallest ministry in government, to be more transparent in terms of getting all that information up on the website so that people can actually see it. It’s very detailed and very technical, but the public has a right to see it. We’re doing our best to put it up there.

N. Macdonald: It will sound like a quibble, but it isn’t. When I used to travel with my colleague from the Cowichan Valley, we would go to mills. He had his starting point in health and safety in mills. The description of it being an accident…. It’s an easy word to use, but when the minister first talked, he talked about it being a disaster.

The trouble with Mount Polley and the challenge with describing it as an accident…. The minister has talked correctly about the one trigger. But I think the minister and anyone who reads the documents and certainly the fine work done by the chief mines inspector…. There is a host of problems at that minesite in Mount Polley that led to issues that wouldn’t be acceptable to the minister, I’m sure. So to describe it as an accident maybe suggests that we can’t do something better. I don’t think the minister thinks that, and I don’t think that.

It is a situation where it’s clear that there was an inevitable problem that was going to happen, and we very nearly overtopped. It’s a quibble, but I would suggest that in using the term “accident,” we set up a situation where we don’t think we can do better. I don’t think the minister believes that, and I certainly don’t believe that.

Maybe related to Gibraltar in a broader sense, there was a lack of capacity that the minister highlighted in certain areas. I know the ministry…. In terms of what followed Mount Polley, there were going to be increases in resources.

Can the minister describe the increase in staff with the Ministry of Mines related to oversight of tailings storage facilities and the total annual cost of those additional FTEs? We used to have in the service plans FTEs. I don’t see them anymore. So how many more resources related to the tailings storage facility, and how many FTEs does that actually represent?

Hon. B. Bennett: I don’t mind the quibble. It’s semantics, I suppose. But I used the word “accident” quite purposefully, because as we know from the ICBC ads on television, accidents are preventable. It is quite the opposite, I think, if I understand, from what the member said. By using the word accident, I do not mean to suggest that it was not preventable. It has to be preventable. It absolutely must be preventable, and we think we are taking a lot of actions that will ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

In any case, we, in this ministry, received approximately $9 million a year more to our base budget. That can be broken down as the $6 million base budget lift and another amount that can get you up to $9 million, or a bit less, from fee revenues. The member will be familiar with the program we announced where, if you are taken into the major mines permitting office, you have the advantage of a very skilful and streamlined process, but it costs money to deliver that process, so you have to pay fees.
[ Page 11907 ]

So companies now pay fees, and we would collect typically anywhere from $1½ million to $3 million a year. So $6 million on the base budget, $1½ million to $3 million in new retained fee revenues. The total amount, if it is $9 million or $7½ million, $8 million, is split between permitting and inspection.

[1710]

N. Macdonald: Just to understand, about how many FTEs does that represent? How many more people do you have in the field doing the work of either looking at reports or actually going physically to inspect tailings storage facilities?

The other thing that I guess is not happening — last year it was very useful — is the third-party report. That was an easy thing to work on. I guess I’m also interested in what replaced that. I think last year I said: “Are you going to do that every year?” I guess the decision, maybe, at the time was that you weren’t. But that’s part of what I want to understand too.

This is the review, the third-party review of existing reports from each minesite in terms of the dams. The minister ordered it right after Mount Polley. By December, everything…. Is that done every year? I guess that’s one question. The other thing is: how many more people do you actually have, does that $9 million buy the ministry, in terms of staff that are going to go and do some of the oversight that we feel is needed?

Hon. B. Bennett: The first part I’d just reference back to my previous answer. After the Mount Polley event, we ordered that the annual dam safety inspections take place immediately, regardless of when they were scheduled to take place, and then we ordered that an independent assessment by an independent engineering firm be done of that annual dam safety inspection. That’s taken place at all of our mines with TSFs in the province.

We’ve also committed to establishing independent engineering panels, review panels. As we are going through our mining code review right now, I can assure the member — in fact, I can guarantee the member — that in the changes we propose to the code, we will, in fact, be requiring companies that have these significant TSFs to have also this independent engineering panel that actually assesses the work of the company and their engineers.

That’s something that was a best practice. There were a few companies. For example, Teck was already doing it at Highland Valley, but it was a practice that not every mining company had embraced. Now they will have no choice.

N. Macdonald: During the summer, when the Fraser’s water flow is reduced, one of the anecdotal concerns I had or that people have asked about is the dumping of water from Gibraltar. They say that it raises the temperature of the river and that it impacts the fish or salmon coming up.

Is the ministry responsible for monitoring things like that and making sure, at times when the river might be stressed by water that’s coming in at a different temperature, that it doesn’t come in at that point? Can the minister explain the protocols around dumping of water, in particular with regard to Gibraltar? But perhaps if he wants to talk in a more general sense, that would be fine as well.

Hon. B. Bennett: I have no intention of sidestepping the question. It is, in fact, a Ministry of Environment jurisdiction. They issue the discharge permits. They would be required and, I’m sure, take into account the impact of discharged water on the watercourses that the discharged water goes into.

I don’t think that I should provide a lot of specificity, but I can tell the member that there is a process happening right now where the water discharge permit at Gibraltar is being reviewed by the Ministry of Environment and the company. I’m not sure where that’s at, but it is a live issue between the ministry and the mining company. Again, I don’t have any sense of whether there are problems or not problems. I just know that they’re having another go at it right now.

N. Macdonald: Just one more set of questions, and then I’ll turn it over to my colleagues. Swansea Ridge is a ballast quarry near Cranbrook. The minister will know it well. It is a site under the responsibility of the Ministry of Mines — under the Mines Act, not WorkSafe B.C. In September 2014, two workers died while a truck on a steep incline lost its brakes alongside the conveyor belt.

[1715]

I was at the site, and I saw the slope the truck was on. I’m a layman, so I can’t judge it. It just looked extremely steep, and it ended in a berm. It seemed to me a questionable practice to do what was done.

Now, the Coroner Service completed their investigation a year ago — more than a year, actually — and the conclusion was that the brakes went on the steep slope. Both workers in the truck were killed. It was a 1991 truck with welding equipment on it. I know, by contacting the ministry, that the report is going to be coming out soon. I’ve been assured that it will be. I think I was told the end of the month.

I guess a couple of questions. Is it normal for an investigation by the Ministry of Mines into a fatal incident to take that long? Then the second thing is that the Steelworkers union is pushing for gravel pits and aggregate quarries to be covered by WorkSafe. They feel that that’s a more appropriate investigation tool. I personally don’t have an opinion on it. I don’t think WorkSafe always does a great job either. They have problems. There are likely reasons for why it would take so long. Like I say, it seemed an unsafe practice, and 18 months later it still isn’t identified as such.

Then the second part of the question: would WorkSafe B.C. be an organization with more capacity to investigate
[ Page 11908 ]
things that happen all over the province in gravel pits, as opposed to the major mines?

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m advised, and I’ve experienced this enough over my years as Minister of Mines, that every investigation of a serious accident, such as the one the member described…. It’s actually in my riding, so I’m quite familiar with what happened.

It takes the time that it takes. I know that’s not a…. I don’t mean to be impertinent. The chief inspector of mines and his staff have to be absolutely certain that their method of investigation has all of the integrity and certainty that is required to support a prosecution if the lawyers decide that a prosecution is possible.

The concern that I’m sure the chief inspector of mines and his staff have is that if you rush anything or just neglect to cross the t’s or dot the i’s, you could be the reason why a prosecution can’t take place. So it is incredibly important for the chief inspector of mines and his staff to take the time that is necessary. With particular respect to this event, I am told that they are really taking a lot of care because of the potential for probably not only a prosecution but perhaps, also, civil litigation.

I know I had the misfortune, I guess, or bad luck of being minister in 2005-07, minister of state. I wasn’t responsible for the ministry, but I was certainly there when the accident happened on Teck’s property in Kimberley where the four people died. That investigation took years. I think it took a minimum of two years. When you have fatalities like that, you just have to take the time to do it right.

I would say, in conclusion, that it is always important to remember, in the context of discussing specific episodes of failure where somebody gets hurt or worse, that mining is still the safest heavy industry in Canada. It has been the safest heavy industry statistically for a very, very long time.

[1720]

There is a culture of safety on any minesite I’ve ever been on that is second to none. I don’t see, frankly, the same adherence to a safety culture anywhere else I go in the province like I do on minesites. Having said that, some of the mining that takes place is done by smaller operations. Some of it is not gold and copper and things that are worth a lot of money and where there’s a lot of revenue being generated. Some of these operations are dimensional stone and other types of aggregate, and so forth.

This particular mine was either dimensional stone or aggregate — I can’t remember; limestone or something like that — but it was a small operation. So I take the member’s point that it is important for these small mines to be inspected on a regular basis, and I’m advised that that was the case with this particular situation.

B. Routley: I’m sure the minister is aware of the excitement that arrived in Shawnigan Lake when the Supreme Court made their decision. But let’s start with a question to the minister regarding that decision.

Will the minister agree with Supreme Court Judge MacKenzie that the operation of a landfill in a small gravel quarry is not a mining activity as governed by the B.C. Mines Act?

Hon. B. Bennett: I should make the member aware that I’m likely to be referring some of his questions to the Ministry of Environment. They are responsible for permitting around the deposit and management of contaminated materials, including contaminated soils.

We deal with the permit for a quarry, so we don’t actually have jurisdiction over the whole contaminated soils matter. That’s the best I can do. I don’t want to start conjecturing around what a judge said in a particular case. Those are the facts.

B. Routley: Well, let’s try this follow-up. Does the minister agree that operating a contaminated waste landfill is not within the standard practice of reclamation of mines here in British Columbia — or done in any small gravel pit ever in B.C., for that matter?

Hon. B. Bennett: Well, I’m very flexible in terms of the kinds of questions that we get in estimates. Very few of them are ever about the actual budget for the ministry, and I accept that. It’s a good opportunity for the opposition that often doesn’t get the opportunity to ask questions, although I would take questions in question period, if they wanted to ask me more questions about mining there.

In any case, it’s not a cross-examination, so I’m not going to be answering leading questions like “does the minister agree with what the judge said.” I’m going to let the lawyers and government determine what they think of the lawsuit, and we’ll go from there.

B. Routley: I’m not trying to cross-examine. What I am interested in is if the minister is aware of other sites in British Columbia. Let’s try that. Are there any other sites in British Columbia where there is contaminated landfill used as a standard part of mine reclamation?

[1725]

Hon. B. Bennett: The question, I think, is: am I aware of any other mine sites in the province where contaminated soil is being deposited? I think that was the question. If it wasn’t, the member will ask it again.

I’m not aware of any mine sites in the province where contaminated soil is currently being deposited. I have no idea, and I can’t really say to the member with any degree of assurance, whether it has happened in the past anywhere in B.C. or whether it is apt to happen in the future. It clearly is something that’s within the law, or it wouldn’t be happening. But I don’t know the regularity of it. We’re not aware right now, today, of another mine site where there is contaminated soil being dumped.
[ Page 11909 ]

A point of clarification. The member indicated, I think, that at the site in his area of the province that has been so controversial, contaminated soil is being used in the ordinary course of reclamation of the mine site. I’m not sure that that is correct. There is contaminated soil being dumped on a quarry site that has a permit to be a quarry site from the Ministry of Energy and Mines. I’m not certain that the member is correct that that contaminated soil is actually being used there as part of the normal reclamation of the site.

B. Routley: Well, we’re satisfied with the answer up until the part where I think I heard the minister say that it must not be against the law or it wouldn’t be happening. Well, in fact, it’s not happening. I’m happy to celebrate, once again, that the reason it’s not happening is that the Supreme Court — I know full well that the minister is clear that that’s one of the highest authorities of law in the province of British Columbia — has determined that, in fact, it should not be happening.

So, to be clear, let’s get back to…. Well, maybe I could just clarify that once again. Is it your suggestion that we’re making new laws up as we go along, that it is somehow lawful, either under the mining act or…? I assume you don’t want to comment on the Minister of Environment. It would be a revelation to our community to find that it’s somehow under the law to have this going on in mine sites in British Columbia.

I don’t think we can leave that one open like that. It sounds like you’re suggesting there’s some legality somewhere. Again, I’m not clear on that. I thought we just had a definitive win, and somehow I feel like you’re trying to snatch that away from the good people of Shawnigan. I won’t be part of that. Could we have some clarity on that law?

Hon. B. Bennett: I want to assure the member I’m not trying to snatch anything, other than perhaps the clock. The reason that I said what I did was because, as I understand it, the lawsuit was about the local government’s bylaw and whether they had the right to prohibit certain things, and the court agreed that they had the right to prohibit certain things. That’s what that lawsuit was about. It was about the bylaw. It wasn’t about the rules, the laws or the regulations that I am responsible for as minister.

B. Routley: Thank you for that clarification. If I might add, this is not the first win in a community in British Columbia. I know that the CVRD has had at least two other wins about zoning. In fact, I would suggest that without zoning, really, what can communities achieve? It’s a pinnacle of being a community — to be able to enforce the government’s own legislation, the Local Government Act. In fact, it’s the laws of British Columbia that require it.

[1730]

I think if there are any laws or law here going on, it would be clear that zoning is one of the issues that’s actually given to communities through government. I would think that both the Ministry of Mines and the Ministry of Environment would want to steer clear of such a problem.

My question, the follow-up on this whole law thing, is: is it not correct that the minister…? Maybe the Minister of Mines was not as complicit as the Ministry of Environment, but they certainly were parties to amendments, all kinds of things that seemed to try to get in the way of the CVRD.

I guess my clarifying question would be: why would the government of British Columbia ignore the laws of British Columbia when it comes to the Local Government Act? Everybody must have known that they had these rights. I don’t think it was new. It ought not to have taken the Supreme Court of British Columbia to announce that zoning was important in British Columbia, surely, when the laws are actually presented right here in the Legislature and enforced by government.

So why would the Minister of Mines and the minister — well, I’ll stick with Mines — somehow feel it’s okay to ignore another section of the law in British Columbia? Were none of your experts advising you that this was very problematic and that maybe you should steer clear of it?

Hon. B. Bennett: You know how I feel? I feel like the member is asking me, you know, when I stopped whipping my dog. I didn’t whip my dog.

B. Routley: Please tell me you don’t whip dogs nowadays.

Hon. B. Bennett: I didn’t whip my dog, Member.

Certainly, I’m not going to comment on the member’s editorializing about his interpretation of what’s happened. He’s got a job to do, as the local MLA, in representing his constituents, who clearly are genuinely and very sincerely concerned about the situation there.

[D. Ashton in the chair.]

I’m not going to make any comments about why government took the actions that it took over the years, other than to say that it’s been my experience that the officials in my ministry are very responsible. They do care about health and safety and the environment. I’m confident that the decisions they made over the years with respect to that site were made in good faith.

B. Routley: I just want to be sure I clarify, with two beautiful golden retrievers at home, Gracie and Molly: I would not be using an analogy such as the minister suggested, about whether you’ve stopped beating your dog, yes or no. Anyway, let’s focus in now — like a laser
[ Page 11910 ]
beam of light, to be sure — on past mining practices and carry on.

Under past mining practices, there is the health and safety manual. A five-metre undisturbed buffer is required on the site — of course, the Shawnigan site. All of these questions are about Shawnigan. This five-metre undisturbed buffer is required. However, the fact is that they still have not repaired the incursions into that buffer in a number of places. This has been going on for a long time. This is the background that I’m giving you.

Exactly when will the Ministry of Mines enforce its own health and safety laws and other regulations in the quarry?

[1735]

Hon. B. Bennett: I think I’m on the record on this from question period some months ago on this particular situation, involving the sloughing off of materials — soil, rock, etc. — from the permitted site onto regional district property. Of course, the company was at fault for that and was ordered to go out and bring back whatever materials had gone onto the RD property.

I’m advised by the chief inspector of mines that there are two circumstances that we’re aware of, one of which the bylaw officer, the ministry and the company decided that, after all, it would be better, actually, to leave the materials. I don’t know the extent of the materials, whether it was boulders or sand or clay or what it was, but they all decided it was probably better just to leave it where it was. That was one situation.

The second situation was something that the officials refer to as fly rock, which is rock that flies around when you have a blast. Some of that rock landed on RD land, and the company was ordered to clean it up. It’s our understanding that they did.

B. Routley: Actually, that really wasn’t what I was after, but that is a question further on, so maybe we’ll get some more clarification on that later. But there have been a number of places where there have been incursions into the buffer zone.

To be clear, it’s specified, as I understand it, that this is to be — under the permit and under your many amendments, somewhere in there — specified as an undisturbed buffer. That means there can be no quarry works in this buffer.

Over the past year, the operator has continued to build berms and works for the settling pond. They’ve built diversion ditches, dumped gravel and done other works in the buffer zone, along the west side of lot 23, the boundary with the CVRD park.

Again, does the minister have any interest at all, or any plan to enforce his own regulations and health and safety laws in the quarry? Now, I’m hearing a suggestion that there is some enforcement action, but I’m told that as of yesterday, nothing has been done.

Hon. B. Bennett: Well, the member has left an incorrect impression about the work that the inspectors do in the ministry. They’ve actually shut this operation down on more than one occasion — I’m sure that the member is aware of that — and will do so again in the future if the need arises.

There is a buffer zone. It’s required by the mining code. The company is certainly not allowed to build anything in the buffer zone. If the member has evidence that that, in fact, has happened, I’d really appreciate getting the evidence. As we have done over the past year, year and a half, we can have people go there and make a determination about the facts.

[1740]

I’m not arguing with the member at all about the buffer zone and the need to keep it clear, but we don’t have any knowledge of the kinds of intrusions into that buffer zone that the member describes.

B. Routley: Well, thank you for that. There’s clearly an interest in taking some action. I will be informing the community and the folks that have been advising me that pictures would be welcomed, or maybe we could email some pictures to yourself of this berm-building and the works for the settling pond, diversion ditches, dump gravel and other works in the buffer zone.

There’s another one, as well, that we want to talk about. Again, I’ve been advised that the walls of the pit inside the five-metre buffer are specified as having a slope 1.5 horizontal to 1 vertical. In many places along this boundary, this requirement is not being met, particularly the pit wall over the lake. I think most people that have been up there or people within your ministry that have attended will know what’s commonly referred to as the lake that’s inside the site.

Does that apply, this offer, to take pictures and to show what we’re talking about with this buffer zone? Is that an area that you may not know about as well? Or is that an area that you are prepared to comment on?

Hon. B. Bennett: Both ministries and both ministers are more than prepared to respond to reasonable requests for the ministries to take a look at any situation in the province where citizens are concerned that rules aren’t being followed.

The member is providing an opinion of what’s happening at this site. I don’t necessarily accept his opinion, but he might be right, so I have to take his opinion very seriously and pass that along to my officials. They’re here, obviously. I see the chief inspector of mines furiously making notes, and we’ll have the Hansard transcript, as well, to go back through the member’s comments.

Absolutely, if the member is right about his assertions, we need to be all over it. The type of potential infraction that the member has talked about in terms of the slope of retaining walls and that sort of thing, I think, would
[ Page 11911 ]
fall within the Ministry of Energy and Mines. I appreciate the member’s point of view. Again, I’m not accepting his evidence, necessarily, or his opinion, but we’ll certainly have a look and determine whether he’s correct or not.

B. Routley: Well, thank you again for that offer, and we’ll certainly take you up on that. It does lead me to…. I had to look for the question that was coming further on, but I think it’s more timely right now.

According to the Shawnigan Residents Association, they sent a letter to the ministry dated May 20, 2014. They’ve asked me to ask the minister and the ministry: why have they never received a response to the letter from the Shawnigan Residents Association dated May 20, 2014? Why, and will any kind of a response be forthcoming anytime soon?

Hon. B. Bennett: Well, I hope the member’s wrong. We should be responding to citizens who write to us about anything. I know we have responded to a few hundred enquiries that have come in to my ministry and, I’m assuming, probably more that have come in to the Ministry of Environment.

If there is a letter that has not been responded to, I do express my apology to those who wrote the letter. If in fact we have not responded to it, we’ll try to find this letter from the residents association that the member states was sent in 2014, and if we haven’t responded to it, we will.

The Chair: We’ll recess for ten minutes. It’ll be a bit of a break.

The committee recessed from 5:45 p.m. to 5:55 p.m.

[D. Ashton in the chair.]

B. Routley: Why did the Ministry of Mines issue an amendment to the permit to Cobble Hill Holdings just days before the CVRD land use case was to begin in the Supreme Court? That changed, by the way, the final end use for Cobble Hill Holdings’ site from residential to industrial/ forestry. My question is: why did the Mines staff do this without consulting local government or the CVRD and…? Well, I think I’ll just stop there. Why did staff do this without consulting local government?

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m not sure that the member’s characterization of the amendment is correct. If it is, then it is, but I have different information. My information indicates that this was a pretty simple amendment that was characterized as housekeeping. It clarified that the end use of the land would conform with local zoning, which I think the member would support.

Also, it ensures that the terminology within the permit is consistent with the MOE permit. There was some discussion between the two ministries that the wording in the two permits from the respective ministries might not be consistent. That was part of the reason. In addition to wanting the end use of the land to conform to local zoning, it was to get the language consistent.

The amendment, I’m advised, also gave my ministry’s health and safety inspectors authority to carry out their duties in all areas of the site where mining and related operations were taking place. That, apparently, was somewhat limited by the language in the permit.

I’ll see whether I have anything else here to provide the member in terms of why else this amendment was made. “Normalize the terminology used by MEM and MOE permits.” The amendment, in essence, replaces the word “waste” with “contaminated soil,” which is what the MOE permit uses. Wanting to have the same language in each permit, obviously was a fundamental part of why the amendment was made. The reason….

Oh, now I understand why the member referenced forestry. One of the purposes was to clarify the end use of the land. The current permit states “industrial encapsulated soil containment cells,” and that did not define the future use of the land.

[1800]

The amended permit now states “forestry/industrial,” which, I am advised, conforms to the local zoning. It was actually not, as I understand it, problematic for the local government. It, in fact, brought the permits in line with one another and in line with the zoning by local government.

B. Routley: You know, if I was a suspicious man, I would think this was just sheer jiggery-pokery. But when I think about it, this is pretty clear interference with what was going on.

Think about this. The Supreme Court of British Columbia is about to hear a case on zoning, and now we’ve got the ministry doing, what I would say, cleanup — you know, trying to get their ducks in a row. They got together and said: “Oh my, my. We’re not meeting even local zoning here. We’re out of compliance with local zoning. We’ve got these problems for the proponent that we’re busy getting to yes for.” As the government, that’s one of your clear commitments. In fact, you talked quite proudly about getting to yes. It’s all about getting to yes.

At the end of the day, what we find out here is a confession that they were getting in conformity with local zoning right before the CVRD was taking an application to the Supreme Court on local zoning. That’s very troubling indeed. Very troubling. And I think there should be some kind of investigation into that, because I am not satisfied and comforted by what I just heard. In fact, it raises more questions than answers.

Again, I want to state that the Minister of Environment has said that there’s been no political interference on this file whatsoever. We find out during the Environmental Appeal Board hearing that there was so much a tonne being paid for a lobbyist. You don’t even know who the lobbyist is yet.
[ Page 11912 ]

I don’t know whether the minister can reveal that one for us. It’s still unknown who the political lobbyist was, but suddenly we have an amendment. Isn’t an amendment by the mines designed to help Cobble Hill Holdings in their case against the CVRD, which it clearly was? It clearly was. You were getting it in compliance because they weren’t in compliance with forestry versus….

What you didn’t mention is that it used to be residential. So it was changed — you know, just one more amendment. Let’s get together, get the shop together — you know? — go for a coffee and have a talk and say: “Well, gee, we’ve got a few problems here. We’re going to the Supreme Court, and we realize that we’ve got some problems, so we’d better get our ducks in a row.” So just before the case, we have this….

I guess my question is: are you here today to say that there was no political interference of any kind? There was no planning? What other reason…? You’re suggesting that they just happened, right before the Supreme Court, to have an epiphany and decided to do all this work that just happened to fit in precisely with the problem that was going to be addressed by the Supreme Court, and that was zoning?

There’s no political interference. Is that what I’m to believe? Your ministry had no involvement in trying to help Cobble Hill Holdings?

Hon. B. Bennett: What I can tell the member is that I had zero to do with the amendment to the permit. As minister, I was advised that it needed to be done, that it was a fairly simple thing to do, that it was necessary to do, that we do it on a fairly regular basis. We have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of permits out all over the province. I’ve never been asked to do anything that someone might characterize as political interference with regard to this file or any other file, for that matter.

[1805]

I know the NDP really likes to think that there are boogeymen everywhere and that it’s all a big conspiracy and that those dastardly B.C. Liberals — you know, they’re always up to something dishonest. But I can tell the member that I personally, as minister, would never do anything inappropriate with respect to my duties as a minister.

This was brought to me by my staff. I didn’t know it was coming. I was told it was an ordinary amendment of a permit. It looks like a very standard amendment of the permit to me. Why would you not want permits to have consistent language in them? Of course you would. My staff are doing their job, what we expect them to do, and I did my job as minister. There was no jiggery-pokery involved in any of it.

B. Routley: Maybe the minister could help clarify this matter by giving us some examples. How many times has your ministry been involved in changing zoning provisions for licensees over the last five, ten years, or maybe even a year? Is this a regular occurrence? If it’s a regular occurrence, then how regular is it? How many times could you point to examples? Let’s hear them. Let’s have some of these examples.

Hon. B. Bennett: The ministry makes amendments to permits dozens and dozens of times over the course of a year — probably hundreds of times over the course of a year.

B. Routley: This is even more alarming. Who is this motivated by? If things are done so badly…. They’re done so badly and so poorly that we have to play fix-up and catch-up with all of these licences. We have to spend hundreds and hundreds of times amending the licences because we didn’t get it right the first time. Or worse yet, are we amending these on the basis of the proponents? Friendly government? There are lots of cash donations.

Now, this is not a secret. It was just announced today. All of the big corporations are lining up to feed the Liberal coffers. At the end of the day, I’m supposed to say it’s all good. It’s all very innocent, and you should just forget about the fact that there are all of these amendments.

My question is: what are we to believe with all of these amendments taking place? Really? For who? Is this done by the ministry? What percentage of them are initiated by the ministry because they found a problem, and what percentage is initiated by the proponent?

Hon. B. Bennett: We’re coming perilously close to the irrelevant. This has absolutely zero to do with my budget. The questions are offensive. I would say to the member that he may know something about forestry, but he knows diddly about mining. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked such a really poorly considered question.

Permits are amended on a regular basis with mines because activities on mines change. Designs change. Things change on minesites. Mines last for years and years and years, so it is necessary to change permits. There’s no boogeyman out there causing these permits to be changed.

I guess I would just conclude…. I’m not going to get into the whole donation baloney that the member raised here in estimates, other than to say that I hope your leader enjoyed his $2,000-a-plate breakfast this morning.

The Chair: I would caution both members on both sides of this House: while I’m sitting in this chair, let’s keep our conversations to what we’re here for, which is the estimates. I would just ask, please — and cordial, if we don’t mind. Thank you.

B. Routley: I would be happy to be advised, maybe in writing. I don’t expect it today, but maybe we could get a commitment that the minister would advise in writing. I think it’s a fair question to ask.

[1810]

I think it is clearly relevant. We’re talking about the Cowichan Valley regional district trying to defend the community. This is a huge issue for our community. It’s been a result of millions of dollars in legal expenses, both for the CVRD and for the community. They’re still doing fundraisers to try to pay for the roughly, I’m told, $2 million in legal bills between all of the parties. The CVRD — it’s well towards $1 million alone.

Then we’ve got the Shawnigan Residents Association — similar matters — trying to defend, in their view, their water. It’s a pretty important issue for them.

I’m not trying to, you know, throw grenades. I’m trying to get to the truth of the matter as to how does one…? Again, if it was a constituent in your area, wouldn’t they want to know? Wouldn’t they be concerned if they learned that the community — on behalf of its residents, spending almost $1 million — is going to the Supreme Court? And just days or weeks before that, the Ministry of Mines is working on zoning amendments without any communications with the CVRD to their licence.

Again, maybe if you could help me out with that. Let’s just focus in on zoning. It was suggested to me that it’s a regular occurrence. If you could send us some examples of where this is a regular occurrence, where it’s happened in — let’s not make it too ridiculous — five other instances. How about that?

Could the minister send us five instances in the last year or two where the Ministry of Mines has been busy working on zoning changes to licences? Again, I’m told that it’s a regular occurrence. I’ll be comforted with five.

Hon. B. Bennett: We’d be happy to give the member five examples. We can probably give him 20 examples based on the people I’ve got behind me, but we’ll give him five examples in writing.

B. Routley: Last spring, the Ministry of Mines — and we did hear a little bit about this — promised that the soil that was dumped onto the CVRD property, which is adjacent to Cobble Hill Holdings property on Stebbings Road, would be removed. I’m told it hadn’t been removed. What steps has the ministry taken to ensure that this trespass will be remedied and that the soil that was illegally dumped will be removed from the park?

Hon. B. Bennett: I think the member is referring to the situation that we’ve already discussed. There were two different circumstances where materials from the permitted site went onto RD land. One was the fly rock situation from blasting, which I described to the member, and that rock, I am advised, has been removed.

The other, we’re going to get clarity around this, and we’ll make sure we get back to the member on this so that we’re sure. What my staff thinks is that the dumping that’s referred to by the member are the soils that the bylaw officer determined should probably just stay where they were. Again, we’re not absolutely certain of that. If we figure that out in the next 45 minutes, we’ll let the member know, but that is the advice that I’ve been given on the spot here today.

[1815]

B. Routley: There is a group of technical experts that advise me. I don’t pretend to have the aptitude to think up these questions on my own, so I am looking at what’s been provided for me by a group of resident…. I call them experts, because we have everything from cell biologists to biologists, geologists: people with a whole range of skills who have come together, and a lot of them volunteer their time to help the community.

The next question is about some of these technical matters. I’ll just give you a bit of background. First, it’s clear to the Shawnigan Lake residents that the on-site lake is, in fact, groundwater-fed and that the level of water in the lake is the level of the water table. Water runs continuously out of the lake and down the channel by the settling pond, even when the settling pond is empty. The operator still claims it’s surface water.

I might add that I toured the site last summer at the end of the summer, one of the hottest summers…. It was a record in our region, and there were all kinds of water restrictions, but there was still a lake. I saw it myself — pristine clear water. You almost felt like going over there and going swimming, but you couldn’t do that, because it’s on their property.

The operator still claims that it’s surface water. According to the many local residents who make regular visits around the site, to them it’s clearly groundwater-fed, so the operation of the quarry below the water table is an infraction of the permit. It would be a violation of the permit if, in fact, it is water table.

Now you’ve got conflicting experts. The community and many of their experts are saying it’s a lake that is groundwater-fed. The operator, I’m sure, is telling your staff that this is runoff. The question from the community is: will the Minister of Mines, or their staff, commit to determining for certain the source of the water in the on-site lake?

Hon. B. Bennett: The member should address questions about environmental matters to the Ministry of Environment. That’s where they belong. This area of questioning has to do with water quality. It is not something that my ministry is responsible for, and I’m very uncomfortable trying to answer, as best I can, questions that really ought to be answered by the Ministry of Environment.

B. Routley: With regard to South Island Aggregates’ permits Q-8-094 on lot 23 and Q-8-331 on lot 21, the ministry appears, to the community — again, I’m quoting from the community — that they’re much more concerned with the commercial success of the operator than
[ Page 11914 ]
the public interest. The permit has been revised on the fly on a number of occasions. Now, this does come back to the issue of permit changes.

Will the minister please provide us a full list of all of the mine permit amendments to the permit on the licences on lots 21 and 23, and if possible, in chronological order? Again, that’s not something I expect you to necessarily have at your fingertips, but if we could get a commitment to get that to us, that would be appreciated.

Hon. B. Bennett: We would be overjoyed to do that for the member.

When the member suggests that the Ministry of Energy and Mines is willingly not acting in the public interest, he’s not criticizing me. He’s not criticizing the minister. He’s not criticizing the politician. He’s criticizing the people who are sitting around me and behind me.

It’s actually offensive for a member to suggest that a professional public servant would knowingly, willingly just put aside the public interest. I’ve worked with people in ministries for my 15 years as an MLA and as a minister. I’ve never met one public servant that would do that.

[1820]

B. Routley: The only comment I would add to that is that the public interest is guided by what government’s rules and regulations and legislations provide. I’m certain that they’re directed by, for lack of a better term, their masters. So to suggest: “Oh, it’s not me. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at the politicians. We’ve only been around since 2001. It’s not us. It’s the good staff you’re impugning with any suggestion that it’s….”

I just want to be clear that it goes right back, in my view, to the top. I am very concerned about the direction that’s being given when you look at it in light of other laws in British Columbia such as the Local Government Act, which seems to be able to put blinders on and ignore those laws.

Why does the ministry appear to go out of its way to help these operators when they have such a poor record of compliance? The minister is aware himself of situations where we’ve got problems with the CVRD. We’ve got problems with the neighbours. Suddenly they announce that they hadn’t paid their taxes and even gave the land back to the province of British Columbia.

Why would the government change the mine footprint on lot 23 to avoid non-compliance with a pile of illegal perc soil?

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m advised that the materials that the member is referring to were squarely on the private land owned by the operator but outside of the boundaries in the permits. Therefore, the ministry wanted to be able to regulate the activities associated with those materials on the private land, so they changed the boundaries of the permit so that they could regulate the activities around those materials — a very reasonable and prudent permit amendment.

B. Routley: Just to clarify, what lot would that be — lot 21, 23 or some other lot?

Hon. B. Bennett: There are only two lots in question here. I think it’s 21 and 23. This pertained to lot 23.

B. Routley: So it was private land, but it did have…. There was a change to the mine…. Let’s clarify this. Was there a change to the mine footprint on lot 23?

Hon. B. Bennett: It’s the same answer as I just gave. The boundaries in the permit were changed to ensure that materials that had been placed on the private land but outside of the Mines Act boundaries would be subject to the regulation and enforcement of my ministry.

B. Routley: Just to be clear, your ministry, then, is aware that there was a giant hole dug and that a pile of illegal perc was buried on lot 23.

Hon. B. Bennett: I told the member that I don’t beat my dog. I don’t know what he’s talking about. We’ll try to figure out what his reference is to and get back to him.

B. Routley: Well, actually, the minister just said, in his comments before that, that they were making these changes to deal with a problem they had of non-compliance. Is that not correct?

[1825]

Hon. B. Bennett: It’s not correct. The member’s question was about some sort of contaminated soils dumped outside the boundaries of the Mines Act permitted area. I can’t respond to it because I don’t know what he’s talking about. I have no idea what the member is talking about.

I’ve explained to the member why the permit was amended. It was amended to make sure that whatever was on the outside of the Mines Act boundaries came inside the Mines Act boundaries so that the ministry could regulate it.

B. Routley: Again, I’m surprised at that because it seems to be common knowledge within the community that there was a dry-cleaning area that was ripped down, that that’s where the perc came from and that it was dumped illegally. Just so I’m absolutely clear before I move on from this, your ministry has no knowledge about any perc whatsoever on this site?

Hon. B. Bennett: I can’t be categorical. Staff want to go back and check and determine what the ministry staff would have known when that amendment was made about the materials that were outside the Mines Act
[ Page 11915 ]
boundaries. We’ll check. We’ll get the categorical answer for the member and get back to him.

B. Routley: Thank you for that. Another issue came up in terms of ministry amendments, which seem to come up more in favour of the proponent than, certainly, the community and without any consultation with the community. This was one that troubled, certainly, the nearby residents. Apparently, the amendment was…. They allow the operator to operate beyond permitted hours.

There’s a permit in place that says what the permitted hours are, but there are two permitted conditions that can allow for colouring outside the lines, if you like, on the permitted hours. Those two are: (1) a safety concern on the site is such that a failure to complete necessary work can result in harm or risk to workers, members of the public or the environment; or (2) an agency having jurisdiction declares an emergency, and product from the operation is required to mitigate or assist in the mitigation of an emergency.

Those are the two exceptions that I’m told are part of the permit requirements. Again, I’ve got people in the community that are very familiar — a lot more familiar than I am and, I’m sure, a lot more familiar than the minister is — with the conditions of the permit and all of the details.

They’re telling me that there’s an issue here. Could the minister please clearly explain the requirements of what must be done with the questionable fill that sits on lot 21, and also, what about the permitted hours being ignored? Or is that one that the ministry was not aware of?

[P. Pimm in the chair.]

Hon. B. Bennett: My staff are aware of two circumstances where the company was allowed, permitted by the ministry, to take trucks in and out of the site after the normal hours of operation that are stated in the permit.

[1830]

One of those circumstances involved soils that were being delivered to the site off a barge in Nanaimo. The choice for the ministry inspector was having large dump trucks full of soil sit out on the highway or allowing them to dump and then go home. The inspector decided that it would be in the interest of public safety to not have those dump trucks sitting on the edge of the highway but to allow them to dump and then go home. That’s what happened in that case.

In the second case — the second circumstance — due to a protest, the company was unable to operate, lost time and needed to make up time and was given permission that day to operate beyond the hours set out in the permit to make up for the time lost due to the protest.

We will endeavour to review our files to determine whether there were any other circumstances under which the company was allowed to operate outside the normal hours stated on the permit. If the member wants, he is welcome to full copies of both permits so that he himself can be as knowledgable about those permits as his constituents are. Happy to share those with him.

B. Routley: Thank you for that offer. That’s certainly something I’ll take you up on.

The other question that I’ll go back to is: could the ministry please clearly explain the requirements that must be done with the mountain of questionable fill that sits on lot 21? Last I heard, there was a stop-work order on this site. If I have that wrong, I’d be happy to be corrected, but I think it’s lot 21 that has the stop-work order. Is that still in place? If it’s not, could you tell us the circumstances why the ministry thought it was necessary to put in place a stop-work order?

Hon. B. Bennett: I think the stop-work order that the member is referencing was issued — if this is the one that he’s referencing, and I think it is — on May 1, 2015. The ministry issued a stop-work order to the company with respect to the importation of soil onto that lot 21. It was activity that was covered by the permit.

[1835]

We asked the company, I’m advised, to forward all documentation relating to the importation of soil onto the site and got that information. The stop-work order remains in effect. What I can’t tell the member right now, today, is why the stop-work order was issued and why it remains, but we’ll get back to the member on that as quickly as possible.

B. Routley: Well, if you’re working on intrigue, it’s working. I’m very intrigued by that answer. So there’s a stop work order, but I assume the community can’t quite yet know why. Well, I hope it’s nothing illegal.

Maybe this is tip-toeing out of the bounds, based on your answer that you can’t tell us why, but if it has anything to do with a hazard of any kind, are you working on a plan to address this hazard?

Hon. B. Bennett: I actually accept and agree with the member’s comment, in terms of what he really means, which is that we should know why the stop-work order was issued, and we should know why it’s still there. I’m surprised that we don’t. Often — in fact, 99.9 percent of the time — with government, it’s usually not a conspiracy. It’s usually pretty mundane reasons why these sorts of things happen. But we should know, and I apologize for not knowing. We’ll find out and get back to the member as soon as possible.

B. Routley: I appreciate that response.

Again, the community is asking questions that I don’t have the answers to, so I’ll pass it on to you. On lot 21, there’s a large volume of material. Now, I’m assuming that
[ Page 11916 ]
they were bringing in soil. I’m understanding that there was a plan to build up soil reserves so that they could cap the mine at some point, at some future date. I’m told that’s also what could be part of that material, or it may have changed.

Does the ministry have any idea of the volume of this material? I think that under the Mines Act, there’s a requirement to let the Minister of Mines’s staff know how many trucks so you would be able to keep track of these large volumes and exactly what’s being dumped on the site in terms of material. Do we have a volume for this material?

Now that there’s a stop-work order, was it legal in the first place? Why was this allowed to happen in the first place? Was it legal? I mean, obviously, dumping soil may or may not be legal. I’m assuming that as long as it’s clean soil, that would be okay. Is that correct?

Do you have any idea of the volume of that mountainous material that people see there?

Hon. B. Bennett: Just to go over the circumstances of this scenario again. There are two separate permitted areas. One is lot 23, and one is lot 21. Lot 23 has the special cell that accepts contaminated soil. I’m advised that we can provide the member — not right here, today — with a pretty good estimation of how much soil is in that cell.

[1840]

Lot 21 receives soil that is…. I’m going to read this, because it’s important to get it right. “Both parcels, lot 21 and lot 23, are permitted to receive soil at contaminant concentrations that are deemed safe for their specific land use.”

Depending on how the land is supposed to be used, there is soil with some level of contamination that can go on both parcels, as I understand it. But the significantly contaminated soils that do not meet the zoning use rules have to go on this cell that was created on lot 23. I hope that’s helpful.

B. Routley: It was helpful. But I heard something about the zoning changed from residential to forestry. Can I just have confirmed…? This soil, at some level, may be contaminated, but will it grow trees?

Hon. B. Bennett: I did not say anything about changing zoning from residential class. The member actually was the one who used those words. I talked about a different class of…. When we did the permit amendment…. I can look up the technical terminology for it, but it wasn’t residential. It was a form of industrial use. I’m sorry to say that I can’t speculate on whether trees will grow on that site or anywhere else. It’s beyond my expertise.

B. Routley: Well, that’s not good for trees. That’s not good for trees at all — that we don’t know. Maybe the minister could commit at some later date to let us know whether this soil….

Again, the one thing I think we do agree on is that it was changed from something. He says it wasn’t residential; it was some kind of industrial. It may well have been to forestry. But the fact remains that it was changed to forestry. If that’s, in fact, the zoning….

We all agree that zoning is very important, apparently, because we were busy and we had the ministry busy changing zoning before the Supreme Court was about to happen, to do with zoning. So there seems to be a laser-like focus on zoning. I’m sure that includes whether or not it suits…. Well, I think I heard the minister say that it has to be suitable to its end use.

I’m not clowning around here. I would hope that when you’re reclaiming a mine site with this soil…. I would imagine that somebody is going to take some nice trees and go and plant them. It is critical to the community that it be able to grow things like trees. If not today, maybe some other time.

While we’re contemplating that, we could also ask: are there any records of the provenance of the material that was dumped on lot 21? Again, it’s my understanding under licensing that there’s some requirement to identify what material is being dumped. If there is any record of that…. I’m asked by the community, because they tell me they’ve tried to get material on what was dumped, so what action, if any, have you taken to require a list of the provenance of the material that was dumped on that site?

[1845]

Hon. B. Bennett: Just to clarify for the member, I was correct in saying that I had not used the words “residential zoning.” It was him that had used it.

The zoning was changed from “industrial encapsulated soil containment cells to forestry/industrial,” which is apparently consistent with the Ministry of Environment’s permit language. So that’s that.

Our ministry requires trucks with aggregate or any other kinds of materials to have a truck log, and they’re required to include information on every single load that they carry. So there is that record. I believe that government has that record because, at the time that the stop-work order was issued, we asked…. Both Environment and MEM asked for all of the records the company had on their activities on these two sites. We’ve got the truck logs, and we can certainly determine what they say.

I think there’s probably a very important part of the answer to this that the member would get from the Ministry of Environment, which is in charge of and has jurisdiction for the management of contaminated sites.

With that, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:47 p.m.

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