2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

MONDAY, JUNE 26, 2000

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 20, Number 15

[ Page 16705 ]

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. G. Mann Brewin: It gives me great pleasure to introduce some very special people who are in the gallery today. I want the House to join me in welcoming two groups.

There is a group of people from the Children of the Street Society that includes Diane Sowden, Rob Sowden, Rebecca Prince, Melony Ward and Megan Ward. With them are some other folks who have a similar interest: Cpl. Jim Burton from the Coquitlam RCMP; Const. Rob McGerr from the Port Moody police; Det. Bill Bunt from the Vancouver city police; Sandy Cook, executive director of Covenant House; and Howard Greenstein from the Act II Society.

There are also some folks here from the ministry who have worked very, very hard on a bill that I am about to introduce. I want to say thank you to them and I want to welcome all of them to the House. Would the House please join me in making them welcome.

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C. Clark: I have some introductions as well. I'd first like to add my welcome, in particular, to Rob McGerr and Jim Burton, who have done so much to protect kids in the Tri-Cities area and in our communities. They've been real forerunners in that, so I'll add my personal thanks and welcome to them.

In addition to that, I'd like to welcome today the University of Victoria's B.C. Young Liberals who are joining us: Lawrence Mak, Sonia Manhas, Erin Drew, Dale Flood, Andrew Gorrie, Ryan Boulter, Roger Doucet and Tara Williamson. I hope everyone will make them welcome when they see them around the precincts today.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We have in the gallery Lynn Murray. This Sunday Lynn will join the Musaic Marching Kazoo Band to participate in the Victoria Gay Pride Parade. The parade is the culmination here in Victoria of various events which have been planned to celebrate the lesbian and gay community in this area. This week and throughout the summer communities all over Canada and around the world will acknowledge the contributions of lesbians and gays to our society and to our communities.

As you know, our government has worked tirelessly in the last several years to bring about legislative equality for gays and lesbians in British Columbia, including the legislation that's been introduced in this sitting. That's a victory for justice and equality, as it is for lesbian and gay couples in British Columbia.

To honour the lesbian and gay community, I am proud to say that we are proclaiming this week, June 26 to July 2, as Lesbian and Gay Pride Week. Thank you, Lynn, for joining us in the gallery, and have fun during the celebrations.

R. Masi: It's my pleasure today to introduce 38 grade 5 students from South Meridian Elementary School in Surrey-White Rock. They are accompanied by their teachers Monica Parker and Val Hammell. Val, of course, is an old family friend and, I believe, the sister of the Minister of Multiculturalism. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. H. Lali: Visiting us in the precincts today is Mr. Mike Summers, who is the operator of Hooterville Taxi in Vanderhoof in the constituency of the member for Prince George-Omineca. Mr. Summers is in Victoria protesting what he perceives to be lack of enforcement by the Motor Carrier Commission and ICBC regarding operations of an alleged illegal taxi. Would the House please make Mr. Summers welcome.

Hon. S. Hammell: I'd like to thank the member for Delta North for introducing my sister, but I would never be allowed to not say it myself. Would the members please welcome my sister Val Hammell, her teaching colleague Monica Parker, 33 kids and 12 parents to the gallery.

T. Stevenson: I'm pleased to welcome to the gallery today Donna Cameron. Donna works in the precinct and is pleased to be here to witness the first time the British Columbia provincial government has proclaimed Lesbian and Gay Pride Week. Donna and her partner Lynn are proud grandmothers of Katie and Travis. Donna and Lynn will be in the Gay Pride Parade on Sunday and will be at the reception in the Ned DeBeck Lounge this evening that all MLAs have been invited to, to meet some of the community from Victoria. Will all members please make Donna welcome.

Hon. G. Bowbrick: My colleague the Minister for Children and Families introduced Bill Bunt as a member of the Vancouver city police. I'd like to add my welcome, because for almost five years he was my next-door neighbour in New Westminster. He's a great neighbour. I'd ask all members to join me in making him welcome, as my former neighbour and as a constituent.

E. Walsh: On the grounds today we have visiting us the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. CUPE local 873 and Fred Muzin of HEU. These brothers and sisters of mine, hon. Speaker, deliver a very valuable service, looking after all British Columbians. I would ask the whole House to please give them a warm welcome.

The Speaker: Hon. members, strictly through inadvertence, BCTV and the Times Colonist neglected to announce the results of the annual tennis tournament between the press gallery and the Legislative Assembly team. The contest was held on Friday, June 16, and Saturday, June 17. Realizing the press gallery would be upset unless this oversight was corrected, I'd like the House to know that despite the inability of one of the Legislature's top players to participate, the Legislative Assembly team secured a precarious victory with a score of 78 to 30. While the major media outlets have been silent on this matter, I'm certain that in the fullness of time Monday Magazine will have the full details.

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Introduction of Bills

SECURE CARE ACT

Hon. G. Mann Brewin presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Secure Care Act.

Hon. G. Mann Brewin: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

[ Page 16706 ]

Motion approved.

Hon. G. Mann Brewin: I am very pleased to introduce the Secure Care Act. This bill will strengthen our ability to provide assistance for high-risk children who are unwilling or unable to get help in any other way. It will benefit children and youth who have severe emotional or behavioural conditions, substance abuse or serious addictions and those who are sexually exploited.

We have listened to people from the community who've expressed concerns that we needed to provide a more intensive intervention to protect kids whose health and safety is so endangered that nothing short of secure care will do.

However, in developing these new methods, we must balance the children's rights, which must be respected to the greatest degree possible. This bill will bring us one step closer to keeping children and youth safe and to ensuring that all children and youth have access to the services and supports that they need.

I want to thank several colleagues for their early leadership: the hon. Minister of Education, the member for Prince George-Mount Robson, the member for Vancouver-Burrard and the current parliamentary secretary, the member for Comox Valley.

I now move that Bill 25 be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 25 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.

INTERPRETATION AMENDMENT ACT

T. Nebbeling presented a bill intituled

Interpretation Amendment Act.

T. Nebbeling: I move that a bill intituled

Interpretation Amendment Act, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and read a first time.

Motion approved.

T. Nebbeling: I'm introducing this bill today to deal with an increasing public concern that Crown corporations are disregarding the will of local communities when they deal with development and construction in communities throughout British Columbia.

Section 14 (2) of the

Interpretation Act exempts the Crown and Crown corporations from being bound by local zoning and land use bylaws. For example, this

section is used in Horseshoe Bay, where the expansion plans of B.C. Ferries are strongly opposed by the local council and the members of that community. It is because of the impact on the character of the village and the quality of life of people living there that they are arguing over this particular expansion.

Over the last three years the government has made amendments to the Municipal Act promising empowerment of local government. Without this amendment, Mr. Speaker, I believe that promise is totally meaningless. Local government must have input in the decisions of provincial Crown corporations and the Crown regarding building and construction within their jurisdiction and must know that their concern will be respected. The days that Crown corporations can walk into town, declare themselves to be the government and therefore do what they want must be over. My bill offers a solution to the problem.

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

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Bill M207 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.

Oral Questions

EX-PREMIER SLANDER CASE AND POLICY

ON LEGAL EXPENSES FOR GOVERNMENT MEMBERS

G. Campbell: Last week the B.C. Supreme Court awarded $150,000 to Bob Ward for being slandered by the former Premier, the current MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway. My question to this Premier is simply this: including the government's internal costs, how much money will the taxpayers of British Columbia be on the hook for to defend this unacceptable activity?

Hon. P. Ramsey: As the member opposite knows because we've discussed it in this chamber before, the member for Vancouver-Kingsway has been covered by an indemnity provided by the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations. That indemnity provides for that member, as a former Premier and minister, the same indemnity provided to senior public servants. The amount of that award . . . .

Interjections.

Hon. P. Ramsey: The amount of expenses is, as we've discussed in this chamber before, a matter of privilege between the member and attorney. We've also discussed the Premier's decision that future indemnities will not be so covered. At the time when this matter is concluded -- that is the appropriate time to discuss the total bills that have been paid, including any judgment.

The Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition has a supplemental question.

G. Campbell: I have a question for the Premier of the province of British Columbia. My question to the Premier is simply this: will he agree today that not one more dime of the taxpayers' money will go to support the member for Vancouver-Kingsway -- if an appeal is to be launched, it will be paid for by the member for Vancouver-Kingsway and not the taxpayers of British Columbia?

Interjection.

The Speaker: Order, member.

Hon. P. Ramsey: We have discussed this policy in some detail. It is regrettable that the opposition, in the desire to pursue a political vendetta against the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, would continue to ignore what is sound public

[ Page 16707 ]

policy to protect people who are serving as elected representatives and ministers of the Crown from legal costs that they simply cannot bear as individuals. That is the policy of this indemnity; it is a sound policy. And I submit, hon. Speaker, that it would be the policy if -- God forbid -- that opposition should assume government benches.

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

G. Campbell: Again my question is to the Premier of the province of British Columbia, the person who claims to lead this caucus. My question is this. We all know that that was not an execution of public policy; it was an execution of political will of one man, who happened to be the Premier of British Columbia. There was a deliberate attempt to discredit Mr. Ward. There is no question about that. It was irresponsible behaviour on behalf of the former Premier, and I want to hear from this Premier today that not one more cent of taxpayers' money is going to go in defence of this reprehensible matter.

Hon. P. Ramsey: As the member well knows, considerations about further action in this case are sub judice, and we are not going to discuss them in this chamber.

I would also submit that this member continues to ignore the real risks to an individual that they assume by becoming a minister of the Crown. I know none of them expect, should they assume ministerial responsibilities, that they would be the subject of legal action. Neither did I. I have found myself, in my time as a minister, indeed subject to legal action, including one time when I was sued for my action as Minister of Health by the pharmaceutical manufacturers of Canada -- the international drug corporations. If this chamber thinks . . . .

Interjections.

Hon. P. Ramsey: This indemnity policy says clearly that citizens of the province who assume leadership roles and serve as ministers of the Crown shall have the same indemnity as senior public servants. That is sound policy, and it must be applied in this case.

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G. Plant: The Minister of Finance refers to an indemnity policy. Well, when Bob Ward filed his lawsuit against the former Premier on March 6, 1996, the indemnity policy didn't exist. The indemnity policy was in fact signed by the former Finance minister on August 6, 1996 -- five months later. How convenient. Will the Premier admit that the real reason that the indemnity policy was created in 1996 was to ensure that the taxpayers would not be on the hook to defend the former Premier of British Columbia for his outrageous slanders?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The member is right in one respect. Review of indemnity provisions began early in 1995, and recommendations from that review were then enacted in 1996. It is, I submit, a sound policy. It says clearly that individuals who take on responsibilities as ministers of the Crown should have the same protection in court actions, actions that arise from their duties in office, as any senior public servant. That is sound policy, regardless of which party forms the government, regardless of what individuals sit in cabinet.

The Speaker: The hon. member for Richmond-Steveston has a supplemental question.

G. Plant: Well, in this case the government had a choice. The government could have -- and the former Premier could have -- apologized to Mr. Ward, for free. Instead, the government or the former Premier decided to fight this case, to drag it out year after year until the taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So the question is: who made that decision? Did the current Premier, in his former capacity as Attorney General, decide to put taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars, or was it just another example of arrogant bullying from the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, the former Premier?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Again, the circumstances of this individual case are sub judice, and the member well knows it.

I will submit that prior to this policy being formally adopted in 1996, ministers were covered by indemnities on an ad hoc basis. I mentioned a case that I was involved in. It was a civil matter. I was issued an indemnity by the Crown when the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada chose to make me the object of . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members. Minister, could you wrap up quickly.

Hon. P. Ramsey: . . . a lawsuit. This is good public policy; it is the correct protection that members should have when they serve in cabinet.

The Speaker: The hon. member for Richmond-Steveston has a supplemental question.

G. Plant: The Minister of Finance keeps saying that it's good public policy. So why doesn't he defend it? Who made the decision to defend the former Premier?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker . . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think all of us enter public life to make sure that we do the best for the people of British Columbia. I think that's something that we take as given. I think all of us may make mistakes that we don't believe are mistakes and are later on judged to be mistakes.

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This matter is currently being reviewed by the Attorney General's ministry. The Attorney General has indicated to me that there are two principles at play in terms of determining whether or not there ought to be an appeal, based on the advice that he might receive from the ministry. One is whether there is any legal merit to the appeal -- and I mean real legal merit to the appeal -- and secondly, whether or not it protects the taxpayers in terms of saving money for the taxpayers at the end of the day.

[ Page 16708 ]

G. Farrell-Collins: Most British Columbians come into this House not hoping to engage in slander against citizens of the province of British Columbia. Those are exactly the actions of the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, the former Premier of this province. I think it's incumbent upon the current Premier of this province to stand up and quit protecting his own members, but stand up and protect the taxpayers of British Columbia for once.

Mr. Speaker, will the Premier stand up today and guarantee the taxpayers of British Columbia, who require that protection, that not one penny of their money is going to go to defend the member for Vancouver-Kingsway in his attack on citizens of British Columbia?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I am as troubled as anyone else with respect to the expenditure of public money. But the difference between this side and the opposition is that they have no regard for due process of law in this province.

The Speaker: The Opposition House Leader has a supplemental question.

G. Farrell-Collins: Mr. Speaker, was that member asleep when they attacked Carrier Lumber? Or was he just not at that meeting? Was that hypocritical member opposite not attending the meetings . . .

The Speaker: Member, member.

G. Farrell-Collins: . . . when this government has chosen time and time again . . . .

The Speaker: Order, member.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, order.

Take your seat, member; take your seat, please. The member will take his seat. I'd ask the member to withdraw his comments before asking his next question.

G. Farrell-Collins: Mr. Speaker, if anything I said offended anyone in this House, I certainly withdraw them.

Well, my question is for the . . . .

Interjections.

G. Farrell-Collins: I withdrew them.

The Speaker: The member will ask his question, please.

G. Farrell-Collins: Will the Attorney General, the current minister, stand up and tell us why anyone in this province should have any trust in that minister, that Premier, when he stood by time and time again while his government attacked the citizens of British Columbia? Now, as Premier, he's standing up defending his former colleague, not the taxpayers he's supposed to be protecting.

Hon. A. Petter: Hon. Speaker, the members opposite, as is too frequently the case, put their political interests ahead of the broader interest. The members opposite should well know, because we've had this debate before, that matters that are before the courts and remain before the courts, insofar as appeal periods run, are sub judice.

Secondly, they should know, and I think they often speak of, the need to treat citizens equally before the law. I've heard the Leader of the Opposition defend the policy of providing legal expenses for members of government. How quickly he's forgotten that policy; it's very convenient. It's very convenient to turn one's political attacks on individual members, because one feels that is the politically popular thing to do.

But the obligation of government and the obligation of all members should be to ensure that everyone's rights in this House, under all policies, are applied equally and fairly, that the courts are respected in terms of sub judice and that that is not sacrificed for the sake of cheap politics.

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C. Clark: The thing that is convenient is this government's indemnity policy, which they created so they could specifically protect this former Premier with respect to his comments on Mr. Ward; that's what's convenient. My question is for the man who claims to lead this province and who claims to lead his party. This government will not tell us how much it cost. This government is going to hide those costs from British Columbians. Well, I think that British Columbians have already paid entirely too much for the mistakes of the member for Vancouver-Kingsway.

So will this Premier stand up today and first tell us how much it's going to cost us to defend this former Premier? And second, will he direct his party to pay every single one of those costs, so the taxpayer doesn't end up footing the bill again?

The Speaker: I'd ask the Minister of Finance to give a brief answer, please.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Oh, okay. I will be brief, hon. Speaker. That member, should she ever find herself on government benches, will be very glad that this indemnity policy is in place.

The Speaker: The bell ends question period.

Tabling Documents

Hon. G. Bowbrick: I have the honour to present the annual report of the Information, Science and Technology Agency for the year ending March 31, 2000.

Hon. H. Lali: I'm pleased to submit the annual report of the Ministry of Transportation and Highways for the period ending March 31, 2000.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Pursuant to the Financial Administration Act, I'm pleased to present reports for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2000, on amounts borrowed by government for making loans to government bodies, as well as the corresponding report on loans to government bodies, amounts borrowed in foreign currencies and amounts borrowed for authorized disbursements. These reports provide an overview of the province's borrowing activity in fiscal '99-2000.

The Speaker: It's my honour to present the annual report of the conflict-of-interest commissioner for the period of

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August 7, 1998, to December 31, 1999; also, the Auditor General of British Columbia report No. 1, 2000-01, "Fostering a Safe Learning Environment: How the British Columbia Public School System Is Doing;" and finally, the Legislative Assembly Management Committee annual report for the period July 1998 through May 2000.

Orders of the Day

Hon. D. Lovick: In this chamber, I call second reading on Bill 21, the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act, 2000. And in the Douglas Fir Committee Room, Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. We will be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Employment and Investment.

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DEFINITION OF SPOUSE

AMENDMENT ACT, 2000

(second reading)

Hon. A. Petter: I move that the bill be now read a second time.

This bill continues this government's commitment to equality for common-law and same-sex couples. I'm pleased to present an initiative that recognizes the rights and obligations of common-law and same-sex couples in numerous pieces of legislation. With this bill the government of British Columbia maintains its role as a province that eliminates discrimination between common-law and same-sex couples.

This bill is a continuation of a proud record of legislation that this government has brought forward to deal with an underlying concern regarding human rights and equality in our society. That concern relates to the fact that same-sex couples -- gays and lesbians -- who are in a stable, loving relationship should enjoy the same measure of protection and recognition, and indeed the same measure of responsibility, as loving couples who are of the opposite sex. There have been changes in the past that have been debated and passed in this Legislature to that end.

The government has continued to review the legislative provisions that are before us in order to continue that process, and this bill represents a further important step in that direction.

It's important that society recognizes that the relationships between gays and lesbians -- same-sex couples -- should be treated with the same equality and dignity as the relationships between opposite-sex couples.

In this bill there are amendments that will increase the rights of same-sex couples and treat those couples the same as married and common-law couples in some instances and the same as common-law couples in other instances, depending on the legislation. Other amendments that are contained in this bill expand the application of the law and statutes that prohibit conflicts of interest that relate to spousal relationships. This bill also standardizes the definition of spouse in provincial legislation.

With amendments that create a uniform definition of spouse, this government ensures that common-law and same-sex couples receive equal treatment under the law. This is affirmed in clear and unambiguous language.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

Hon. Speaker, there are many things that need to be done to move to eliminate discrimination in our society. The steps we have taken with this legislation and with previous legislation move us forward in terms of removing a very important discriminatory component of the statute book, and that is the discriminatory component that has discriminated against same-sex couples. We have also called on other governments, particularly the federal government, to do the same. It's important that governments send a very positive signal to society that this is a form of discrimination that is no longer acceptable.

This bill makes structural changes by providing a stand-alone definition of spouse in each statute addressed in the bill as well.

With that, I move second reading of the bill.

[1445]

G. Plant: Bill 21, Definition of Spouse Amendment Act, 2000, is the latest in a series of bills introduced by this government to effect a new understanding of relationships in society -- to acknowledge that in our society and in our country our constitution is founded on principles of equality, the requirement that we not discriminate and that the laws of British Columbia have to conform with those fundamental values and principles. This is another in a series of legislative exercises by the government in the pursuit of what is an important public policy purpose.

It is tempting, in a way, to take the Attorney General's remarks of a few minutes ago at face value and to leave the issue there and deal with this bill, at least from an opposition perspective, as we have dealt with similar legislation in the past. I think that at the conclusion of this debate, we on this side of the House will in fact deal with this bill as we have dealt with its predecessors. But I would be remiss if I did not stop for a minute or two or more to get below the surface of what people say is being attempted here to understand a little bit about what actually is happening.

We in this chamber can talk about equality. We can read briefing notes prepared for us by people who help us with these things, which tell us that what we are doing is something we are doing in the name of equality. We can introduce and support legislation because politically it appears that what we are doing is supporting the enhancement of equality.

But in this particular area of the law, as in many others, it's not just what we say we are intending; it's what we're actually doing that's important. When the government changes the rules, if you will, about the definition of types of relationships that will enjoy legal protection, the words it uses to change those

definitions, to change those conceptions, are profoundly important. They are important for symbolic purposes, but they are also important for very real, very mundane purposes.

Citizens who believe their rights have changed, citizens who believe that their responsibilities have changed, citizens who believe that their entitlement to benefits provided by government has changed, because they hear the government talk about equality, will go to visit their legal advisers. They will go to visit their lawyers; they will seek to get an understanding of their rights, and if there are disputes, they may contest their rights in tribunals and courts.

At the end of the day, at the end of that process, the judge, who has to decide whether a person's rights are as it is said they are, will have to look at the words of the statute, will have to look at the words used by the legislators -- by the legislative draftspeople -- and ask the question whether the words

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that are used in this statute actually give effect to the public policy purposes that are being argued about in front of the judge. I think it's important, then, to spend a minute or two looking at the words that the government has used in defining same-sex relationships, in defining "spouses" -- defining the idea of spouse -- and in implementing this public policy objective that the minister spoke about in his opening remarks.

Last summer we came to this chamber and were asked to debate a bill called the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act. It was, I think, Bill 100 of the 1999 legislative session. That bill amended the Cemetery and Funeral Services Act. It amended the Coroners Act; it amended the Estate Administration Act; it amended the Family Compensation Act; it amended the Wills Variation Act.

It amended all of those statutes to incorporate within them the idea that, for the purposes of those statutes, someone who is a spouse can be someone who is in a loving same-sex relationship and that people who enjoy those relationships enjoy the same measure of protection of the law in respect of those relationships as people who are married or people who are in common-law relationships of different sex.

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I remember thinking last summer, as we debated Bill 100, that in all likelihood we were doing more than I, at least, had time to think about when the bill came for debate. It was another one of those situations where, as I recall, the bill was introduced for the first time on July 8. I believe we debated it through all three readings, including committee stage, and it was passed by July 14 -- just six days.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, I'm someone who believes strongly that we can improve the quality of legislation when we allow the legislation to sit on the order paper for a while to give the public a chance to look at it, to give the experts a chance to look at it and to allow the people who drafted it a chance to study what they've done and make sure that they've done it correctly. We didn't have that opportunity last summer when we had the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act. It was passed in relatively short order, as often happens.

I suppose you could be forgiven for thinking, if you were a member of the public in July of 1999, that your rights or your obligations as a member of a family in respect of inheritance -- in respect of estates -- might have changed, because a bill had been passed that changed those things. You would, unfortunately, have been wrong, because the bill that the government was anxious to pass last summer -- Bill 100 of 1999 -- has never been proclaimed. It's never become the law.

So for a year it's been sitting there. People who care about real equality, as opposed to the people who just like to talk about it, have probably wondered why it was that the government introduced a bill that it was not prepared to give effect to. The answer apparently is found in the bill that we have in front of us today. The bill that we now have in front of us changes the definition of spouse in each of the five statutes where the definition was enacted last year.

The changes are, I think, probably technical in nature. But, you know, I'm not going to be the last judge of that. The person who will decide that is probably some judge who will hear a real dispute, a real case of real people fighting over things that are really important to them, things that have caused them to shed tears and perhaps lose substantial sums of money.

The judge who hears that dispute will eventually determine whether there is something significant in what we're being asked to do today -- to change the definition of spouse in the five statutes where we changed it last year -- or whether there isn't. I'm sure the Attorney General will stand up and repeat what he's already said -- that these are technical amendments. And they may well be. I must admit that I can't say for certain one way or the other.

Let me give another example of the problem. The very first

section of this bill,

section 1, amends the Adult Guardianship Act. I know, Deputy Speaker, you have a particular interest in that act, as someone who has worked hard in your capacity as a member of this assembly to try and get that statute implemented. That was

an act that this assembly passed, I think, as long ago as 1993, and it took six years for that act to be brought into effect as law. We're not here to argue about the history of adult guardianship. But we are here because the government, having finally implemented the Adult Guardianship Act, which involved some amendments to it last year -- we always seem to be amending the government's legislation -- has now decided to amend the Adult Guardianship Act one more time.

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They're amending it by repealing the definition of spouse and substituting a new definition. I want to just spend a minute looking at the old definition -- that is, the definition that was enacted in that statute in 1993, which in this assembly we certainly would have had an opportunity to change last year when we did some substantial revisions to the Adult Guardianship Act. In 1993 spouse was defined to mean a person who . . . .

And then there are two parts to it: a married person, with some exceptions for people who are living separate and apart; then in the second part of the definition, a person who "is living with another person in a marriage-like relationship and, for the purposes of this Act, the marriage or marriage-like relationship may be between members of the same sex." That looks like a definition of same-sex relationships for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of the Adult Guardianship Act.

Well, apparently that definition is not good enough, because we're changing it. We're being asked, at any rate, to change it in this bill. We're being asked to change it particularly in the description of the part of the definition that relates to same-sex spouses. The new words will be this: spouse will mean a person who "is living and cohabiting with another person in a marriage-like relationship, including a marriage-like relationship between persons of the same gender."

Let me give you some help here by pointing out the two changes. The first is the definition used to talk about "members of the same sex"; the new definition will be "persons of the same gender." The second change is that the old definition said that you had to be living with another person in a marriage-like relationship; now you will have to be living and cohabiting with another person in a marriage-like relationship.

Now, this is not an example of a statute like last summer's bill, where we're coming along now and changing it, but it was never made a law, so people never actually had to determine whether their lives were going to be changed by the law. This now is actually an example of a case where the statute has been the law for about six months or so, I think. The Adult Guardianship Act, I think, was proclaimed earlier this year. For six months or so people have been living their lives according to the definition of spouse in the Adult Guardianship Act, which did not require that you be cohabiting.

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Now we're being asked to change that definition so that in order to be a spouse for the purposes of the Adult Guardianship Act, you have to be living and cohabiting with another person in a marriage-like relationship. I don't know whether it means anything to change the word "gender" to "sex" or "sex" to "gender" in this context. I do know that there are basic rules that apply to how courts read statutes which usually mean . . . . The courts assume that legislators mean something by the words they use and that when they change the words they use, as we're being asked to do here, the Legislature intended to have meant something.

Courts may well be confused to discern the intention behind changing the definition of spouse in the Adult Guardianship Act from a definition that applied to members of the same sex to a definition that applies to persons of the same gender. I can't give them much help on that one.

I also can't give them much help -- the courts, that is, or anybody else who might actually be relying on these statutes -- when they come to ask the question: what is the difference between, on the one hand, living with a person in a marriage-like relationship and, on the other hand, living and cohabiting with another person in a marriage-like relationship? I think that many people would probably see the two words "living" and "cohabiting" as synonyms, one for the other. That is, you don't really add anything by adding the word cohabiting to the word living. But if that was so, we wouldn't need to add the word.

If the definition was adequate as it was, we wouldn't need to change it. Clearly there was something inadequate, substantively wrong, with the definition because that is why we're being asked to change it.

The courts don't assume that we do things in the air. They don't assume that legislators regard the laws of British Columbia as a sort of ongoing drafting exercise. They actually assume that we mean something when we write the words that find their place in the laws of British Columbia. So courts are going to have to figure out whether it means something to add that word cohabiting to the definition of spouse in the Adult Guardianship Act.

If we were talking about the Securities Act and we were talking about different ways of describing insider trading, for example, I might be inclined to move quite quickly over the issue. One of the reasons why I'm not so inclined is because we're not talking about

an act that affects the lives of a few sophisticated business people who can be assumed to judge and plan their affairs according to the subtle variations of legislative language. We're now talking about a statute, the Adult Guardianship Act, which is supposed to be an important part of the ordinary lives of British Columbians, as is the case for a number of the other statutes that we're being asked to amend here in Bill 21.

[1500]

I think that there is certainly, at the very least, a legitimate question for government. It's not just: what does it mean by adding the word cohabiting? It's not just: how does it think it has changed the definition of spouse? It's not just: why was it that it took them six or seven years to figure out that they got it wrong in 1993, and they're fixing it now? Rather, it's: what is it about the process of lawmaking that allows this kind of ongoing shifting back and forth? Last summer we had the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act. It was never proclaimed. Now we're revising it completely.

We had the Adult Guardianship Act back in 1993 that was enacted, not proclaimed. When it was proclaimed, it was with a definition that, even as it was proclaimed, the government knew was wrong.

The so-called standardized definition was already in place last year. The idea of requiring that spouses meet the additional test -- that they establish that they were living and cohabiting -- was in the bill we passed last summer, the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act. It was there for the purposes of those statutes that I talked about earlier, which deal with what happens when people die. The government apparently already thought that there was something wrong with its definition, and yet it allowed the Adult Guardianship Act to be proclaimed with that apparently defective definition.

Now the government is engaged in an ongoing project, and fair enough -- we take one step at a time. It does seem to me that some of the steps that ought to be easier to take would be to make sure that, where we've already had the public policy discussion about what it means to expand the range of entitlements to include partners in relationships that are in same-sex relationships . . . . Where we've already had that debate, as we obviously did in 1993 in the context of the Adult Guardianship Act, then it would have made much more sense, it seems to me, to have fixed that definition last summer. But we didn't, so here it is in this bill.

I suppose the government could stand up and say that standardization is a good objective. We came to it a little bit later than we should have. We've recognized now that the definition we've been using in some other statutes wasn't as good as it should have been. We've changed that definition, but now we've got it right. Now the laws of British Columbia will be revised on an ongoing basis to keep up with the new definition.

I would have more sympathy for that argument if that was in fact what was happening -- if at the end of Bill 21, for example, we could say with certainty that all the laws that currently have a definition of spouse that includes same-sex partners had been updated to conform with the new amendment. That isn't going to be the case.

[1505]

The Family Relations Act is, I think, the best example of how that's not happening. The Family Relations Act -- you will recall, Mr. Speaker -- was, I guess, from a political perspective, where this all began. In 1997, I think, the government introduced changes to the Family Relations Act to ensure that partners in same-sex relationships had the full extent of rights and obligations that partners in common-law relationships had -- not quite the same as partners in marriages, because there are parts of that act which apparently the government thinks don't lend themselves to common-law relationships.

But for the vast majority of that act, and particularly in respect of the issues of support and maintenance, the government wanted to use the Family Relations Act as the place where, from a political perspective, it would begin this project of drawing very strong public attention to its changing definition of spouse.

So in 1997 the definition of a spouse in the Family Relations Act was amended. Spouse is now defined in that act to mean a person who is married to another person and, except in certain contexts, someone -- a person -- who has lived with another person in a marriage-like relationship for a period of at least two years. Now I'm going to move. I'm going to put the period of at least two years issue to one side for now.

I'm just going to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that that definition does not include the additional

[ Page 16712 ]

requirement of cohabitation. That definition will survive the process that we're now engaged in, in Bill 21, because there is nothing in Bill 21 that attempts to update or standardize the definition of spouse in the Family Relations Act. So the government's public policy purpose is to update and standardize the definition of spouse that recognizes same-sex partners in the Adult Guardianship Act, in the Wills Variation Act, in the Estate Administration Act -- all bills that affect ordinary people in their lives.

But the government is apparently not ready to standardize the definition of spouse in the Family Relations Act, even though I would suggest -- and this is just their argument -- that, really, the Family Relations Act is the centrepiece of this government's legislative and policy initiatives in this front, in this area, and that the Family Relations Act amendments were where this began from a legislative perspective and the beginning of the whole debate that we've revisited every year.

So it is a matter of some interest to me that after all this is done, after we've enacted the definition of Spouse Amendment Act -- and after we've waited to see if the government actually proclaims any of it, which is another point I'll come to -- we will nonetheless be faced with a situation where, for the purposes to determining your entitlement to share in the estate of a loved one, there will be one definition of same-sex spouses. But for the purposes of determining your entitlement to share in the obligation of support and maintenance in a relationship, there will a different set of requirements.

In one case you'll have to prove that you live and cohabit; in the other case you'll only have to prove that you live. I am not in a position here to figure out whether there's a difference; I only know that people will work hard to find that difference. It does seem to me that if we are going to standardize, the government should at least be consistent in the project of standardization.

I wanted to draw attention to another aspect of this ongoing and very tortuous process of law reform that the government is engaged in here. It is tortuous, because increasingly it is almost impossible to follow the trail of what the government is actually doing, let alone trying to follow the trail of making sense of what they're doing.

I want to talk for a moment or two about pensions. In 1998, the second year of this public policy initiative of the government, the government introduced and then passed Bill 38, the Pension Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2). That bill, as I recall, made changes to the five public sector pension plans. Municipal, public service, teachers and colleges pensions were amended by changing the definition of spouse in the statutes that regulate those pensions and by changing it to encompass a definition of spouse that includes persons in same-sex relationships.

The definition -- this was 1998 -- of course doesn't include the requirement that the parties live and cohabit; it's only a requirement that they live in a marriage-like relationship.

[1510]

Here again we have an interesting example of the two-year requirement. Sometimes it's necessary for the government to achieve the public policy purposes of the government to ensure that there's a two-year minimum requirement that this relationship exists; other times that requirement does not exist. Mr. Speaker, I know you'll be disappointed to hear that, but you'll look in vain for any public statement from the government of the public policy rationale behind that distinction. They clearly think that it's something that matters.

They clearly think that sometimes it's important to have a two-year requirement and other times it's not. But I've yet to see anyone attempt to draw a golden thread that makes any sense among all of the distinct instances that say, and say persuasively: "Well, in all of these kinds of cases you've got to have a two-year requirement for a relationship, and in all of these you don't." Maybe in the course of further debate on this bill the minister will have a chance to make that exercise.

I note that he only thought it was important to speak about this bill for three or four minutes in second reading. I'm sure his closing speech will be less, because, after all, he would have said everything that he thought was important to say during the course of his second reading speech. I'm only being facetious. I do hope the minister actually has an opportunity to respond to some of these questions. Anyway, I digress.

Bill 38, the Pension Statutes Amendment Act, was amended to include a definition of spouse in 1998. Then we came back here in 1999 -- Bill 58, the Pension Benefits Standards Amendment Act. We amended the definition of a spouse for the purpose of all pension legislation in 1999. That is, the definition of spouse that includes and recognizes same-sex relationships now applies to private sector pension plans as well as to public sector pension plans.

One would have thought that having given pretty detailed and serious thought to the definition of spouse for the purpose of pension legislation in 1998 and then again in 1999, perhaps we in the Legislature could mercifully be relieved from the burdensome obligation of having to once more go back and re-amend or revisit those

definitions. After all, there are in fact a number of statutes of British Columbia which have still not been amended to give any recognition to same-sex relationships. So the real progress, the real path to equality, is in some respects hampered, or at least distracted from, every time we have to go back, as we're doing here in the bill today, and fix up the Adult Guardianship Act -- the definition we don't like from 1993 -- and not fix up the Family Relations Act definition and make changes to the Wills Variation Act.

Here we have, in

section 29 of Bill 21, the Pension Benefits Standards Act. It's being amended by repealing the definition of spouse and substituting a new definition of spouse. I guess there was something wrong with the old definition of spouse. By old, I don't want you to be thinking that we're talking about something that is decades and decades old. We're not dealing with an archaic provision of the law. We're not dealing with something that's been allowed to sit and fester on the statute books for decades and that urgently requires our attention. We're actually talking about a bill that we amended, I think, once in 1998.

We've amended it 1999, and now we're going to change it again to change the definition of spouse. I am probably right in this, but I can't say for absolutely certain that the definition in the bill before us -- which was proclaimed and has been in effect and has been relied upon by people who are enrolled in pensions for some period of time -- has been changed to include at least the requirement of cohabitation, whatever that requirement means.

So those are some of the historical aspects of the exercise we're engaged in that I think are, frankly, a bit troubling. Every year we come back and the government tries again. Every year the government comes back, and they change the

definitions in statutes that have been recently amended and that are on the books and that are being relied upon by the citizens of British Columbia.

[ Page 16713 ]

[1515]

I guess I have some concern about when this is all going to stop. When is the Attorney General going to put his pencil down at long last and say, "We've got a definition, and we're going to have to live and work with it. We're not going to come back every year and amend a growing set of past pieces of the laws of British Columbia to accommodate someone's idea that cohabiting is better than living, or living and cohabiting together are better than living" -- or whatever it is that's intended?

There are a few other things that I wanted to say about this bill in detail. Although it wasn't referred to in the minister's remarks, the bill actually completely repeals the Homestead Act.

Deputy Speaker: Member . . . .

G. Plant: The Homestead Act is a statute of . . . .

Deputy Speaker: Member, excuse me . . . .

An Hon. Member: He's a designated speaker.

Deputy Speaker: You're designated. Thank you.

G. Plant: The Homestead Act is a statute that's been on the books for a long, long time and, I'm told, has become increasingly irrelevant to the point where it is no longer in use by anyone. So when the bill says Definition of Spouse Amendment Act, and you turn to the Homestead Act, what really happened, as I infer, is that the project of defining the term spouse got to the Homestead Act -- maybe they do it in alphabetical order; I'm not sure -- and someone looked at the Homestead Act and then the Court Order Enforcement Act, which relates to the Homestead Act.

And they began to try to figure out how they would revise the definition of spouse in the context of homesteads, and they realized that that might be tough, in any event. The Homestead Act is apparently completely archaic, so let's do away with the Homestead Act altogether.

I don't think that was actually given huge pride of place in the government's press announcements around this bill. Time will tell whether the public is happy with the repeal of the Homestead Act. Looking at it myself, it does seem to me to be a bit outdated. Yet it strikes me as a bit odd that we haven't found this repeal of the Homestead Act in one of the government's many famous regulatory streamlining acts or the bills they bring in every once in a while to repeal legislation which isn't being used or relied upon anymore.

When you look at what this bill does, beyond tidying up the messes from years past, you will find that there's a list of statutes that are being amended to give effect to a new definition of spouse, most of which fall into one category.

The Chiropractors Act, the Podiatrists Act, the Forest Act, I think, and some of the other acts here are being amended in order to ensure that the rules that exist that apply to limit, constrain, regulate or in some cases empower the ability of a spouse to participate in the businesses of their spouse by owning non-voting shares in a company that operates a chiropractor's clinic -- or podiatrists, I think, may be in here . . . . The Health Professions Act -- that kind of stuff . . . .

The government is ensuring that these acts are going to be amended so that some of those same restrictions are as applicable to same-sex partners as they are to parties to a marriage or to common-law spouses. In a sense, I think this is what the Attorney General meant in his first reading remarks, when he talked about this bill taking some steps to recognize the role of the definition of spouse around issues of conflict of interest. I may not get it exactly right, but we're dealing here with the conduct of business affairs as much as anything, and I think we'll pursue some of those particular issues when we get to the committee stage debate.

[1520]

I note that this bill updates the definition in the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act, which I think was introduced in 1997 and has been in force since then and has had a definition of same-sex spouse that is now being changed. That's another example. Oddly enough, it occurred to me to wonder -- given that there will be a different definition for spouse in the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act than in the Family Relations Act -- whether in some circumstances people might be liable to pay maintenance and not liable to have it registered or enforced, or the other way around.

Those two statutes actually work pretty closely together, and that may be another issue that the minister can deal with when we come to it.

All of that being said and really, it's as much as anything an exercise in trying to ensure that there is a context of reality placed around the rosy glow that the government often likes to paint when it talks about equality rights -- this bill, in some important respects, does advance that project of equality.

It does ensure -- albeit perhaps more problematically than I might wish -- that an increasing number of the laws of British Columbia are amended in an appropriate way to ensure that partners in same-sex relationships are subject to the same rights and responsibilities, and are given the same benefits and opportunities as participants in married relationships or in common-law relationships.

In order to achieve that objective, however, the government chooses to do so by defining and redefining the term spouse. As members know, that is an issue which causes some members of the public some important concerns. They see in the idea of spouse, in the word spouse, in the idea of marriage and marriage-like and in the word marriage some things that are important to them about traditional conceptions of married relationships. They see that it ought to be possible both to give effect to the ideal of equality and to respect the traditional values that are important to them.

I believe that it ought to be possible. That is, we could create all of the substantive rights, responsibilities, benefits and obligations, and make them all available to partners in same-sex relationships without amending the term spouse. We could do the same thing without using the term marriage-like to define the relationship between partners in a same-sex relationship.

There are members of the caucus of which I am a member who believe that the appropriate way to give effect to the legitimate, admirable and much-needed public policy objective of recognizing equality is to do so without changing the definition of spouse itself. One way of accomplishing that objective would be to create a new term.

The term that we proposed back in 1997, which we continue to place on the floor of the Legislature for debate each year when this issue arises, is the term "domestic partner." I'm not sure that the term domestic partner will ever achieve the status of poetic recognition. But it does, I think, achieve the objective of ensuring that the substantive rights

[ Page 16714 ]

and obligations which we're all concerned with are accommodated without changing the

definitions and the traditional conceptions that many individuals in our society have when they hear the term spouse and the term marriage. So I think that for many people -- and maybe even for me too -- this bill would be a better bill if it included a recognition of the substantive equality objective but did so in the form of a term called domestic partner

[1525]

You're probably aware, hon. Speaker, that there are some jurisdictions in the world where the idea of domestic partnership or registered partnership is given much fuller effect, where parties to same-sex relationships who wish to be sure that their relationships have all of the attributes of legally enforceable relationships can go and have their relationship honoured and acknowledged in a legally binding document. I have thought about that proposal. Clearly that's not something that we in opposition are in a position to do much about, because it would require some pretty significant public policy planning.

But let me say this in support of that idea. I've talked a lot about

definitions in the words and

definitions. The law has always been troubled, to some extent, by the distinction between marriage and common-law relationships. Most of the time -- all the time -- it's easy to prove a marriage. All you do is pull your marriage licence out of your back pocket; and when you pull your marriage licence out of your back pocket, that's the end of the inquiry. The court says that you're married, and the rights and obligations that flow to you as married people . . . . We will now have a discussion about those rights and obligations. But we won't have to have a discussion about whether you're married.

We won't have to have a discussion about whether or not you in fact owe any rights and obligations. You've come into court, you've held out your marriage licence, and that's good enough for the court.

Common-law relationships are different. Common-law relationships are, by definition, relationships that don't have that same quality of susceptibility of proof. There isn't usually a legal document that standardizes or gives formal legal effect to a common-law relationship. The result of that is that in many cases where the real fight probably ought to be about the rights and responsibilities that people in relationships have to each other, the real fight instead becomes a fight about whether or not the two people have that relationship in the first place.

There's no way you can make that fight go away by saying, "Pull out a document," because the law recognizes that the relationship can exist without a document.

So the law will then have to inquire into the circumstances of living or cohabiting, the arrangements made, the length of the arrangements made, the degree of intimacy, the degree of affection . . . . Do they go out for dinner together? Do they drive separate cars to work? Do they behave in public as though they are spouses? Those can sometimes be difficult issues to decide. And they can be, I think, issues that can be very productive of very heartrending litigation when someone who thought they were in a relationship of dependency finds that, at the end of the day, the court is not prepared to accept that that relationship existed.

There's a way you can deal with that problem. You can deal with that problem theoretically, although I'm not suggesting that it would deal with all the problems. You can say: "Well, if you want the incidence of that relationship, if you want the rights and the obligations, you need to go and get a piece of paper."

The idea behind a registered domestic partnership or a registered partnership is that it would give to people in same-sex relationships the same opportunity. It would allow them to say to each other: "We wish to sanctify and formalize our relationship and to do so on a document, so there won't be any argument about whether we have this relationship. And if we have an argument about who should get what from my will or whether I'm supposed to pay for child support or whether I'm supposed to file a conflict disclosure form with the Securities Act, we won't have to argue about whether or not I'm in that relationship, because the registration, the documentation, will speak for itself."

The problem, of course, is that if we in fact are engaged in the business of honouring rights and responsibilities, then, in effect, to force people to choose the route of documentation may well create another hardship. It may in fact create the hardship where people who are in a relationship of dependency lose out, because the court says: "You haven't satisfied me that you're in an enforceable relationship." It's that tension which has created the distinction between married relationships and common-law relationships in the first place.

It's not an easy one to resolve, but it is, I think, noteworthy to realize that in its project of achieving equality, the government in effect has chosen to follow the route of common-law spouse. It has chosen to say: "We will define in law the terms, the conditions which constitute the basis for arguing that the relationship exists."

[1530]

You won't get to prove it by a piece of paper, although sometimes paper is relevant. But you have to prove it according to -- what? -- the circumstances of the relationship between the parties. That's why, at the end of the day, I come back to where I started. That's why the terms used in the definition are important. The laws of British Columbia, it could be said, are really interesting only when they're fought about. They become really difficult only when people disagree about what they mean. They really become the focus of our attention only when people have a fight, when they have a lawsuit, when they argue.

They don't just argue about the fairness of a situation; they argue about their rights in terms of the words written in the statute books that define their relationships.

This government has chosen to define the basis of a common-law relationship and has chosen to move down this path of equality by defining and expanding the definition of common-law relationships to include parties who, in certain defined circumstances, can establish that they are in a relationship that meets the requirements of the statute. So at the end of the day, people are going to look at these

definitions. Will they find that there are differences in these

definitions? I hope not. Will they wonder why it is that the government keeps changing them? I'm sure they will. Will they hope that the government finally settles down and gets it into a place where the relationship definition is in fact truly standardized and standardized across all of the legislation in British Columbia? I'm sure they'll hope that that happens too.

At the end of the day, this project is imperfect. But for some of us in my caucus it is worth supporting, notwithstanding its imperfections. For others, the challenge of dealing with the issue of conscience or in some cases with the issue of conscience that has been identified to them by their constituents will preclude them from voting for this bill -- although I think in due course we'll have a chance to debate an amend-

[ Page 16715 ]

ment. The amendment does reintroduce the idea of domestic partner. It's there on the order paper. I invite members of the government to consider whether that is perhaps a way that could be found to deal with striking a better balance between the substantive equality issue and the question of competing values that I think is a real aspect of life in our society. We'll introduce that amendment, and I'm sure there'll be a discussion about it when the time comes. I believe that concludes my remarks in second reading.

Deputy Speaker: I recognize the Attorney General to close debate.

Hon. A. Petter: I appreciate the comments from the member for Richmond-Steveston. I want to congratulate him -- or perhaps it's his assistant -- for their legal research, which was considerable.

He describes the history of amendments around the elimination of discrimination on the provincial statute book with respect to same-sex couples as a tortuous history. I don't think I want to disagree with that, because it seems to me the goal of achieving social equality and of changing a fundamental set of societal assumptions and legal relations around a matter of social equality does require many twists and turns and a great deal of effort. It isn't a simple matter. It has been a tortuous history but, I think, a very worthwhile endeavour, and one that is ongoing.

[1535]

I must say that the history may have been tortuous, but that tortuous history pales in comparison to some of the contortions that the member himself seems to go through in raising concerns and objections to some extent, I think, missing -- or perhaps not focusing, at least, on -- the main point of this bill.

That is clearly to take another important step down that road -- and it is a difficult road -- to changing the law to reflect changing social mores and to protect human rights and in particular to eliminate an invidious form of discrimination which has existed in society for too long and which is now being eliminated step by step through the legislation that has been introduced at least in this province.

Now, the member focused on a number of different issues. I think they were worthwhile issues, but I'm not sure they merited the extent of the diversion that the member took us on in exploring them. He talked about the question of

definitions. I think we can certainly have some discussion on this when we get into the committee stage and hopefully clarify in that discussion some of the choices that were made.

But in my understanding of this process, I think the matter is quite simple. As a number of bills were brought together in this bill, a number of bills were brought together with a goal of eliminating discrimination and including within an all-embracing definition of spouse the relationships of same-sex couples. For the purpose of recognizing equality between them and common-law couples, it was disclosed that there were some different

definitions used in different statutes that had accumulated over the years, some of long standing and some of shorter standing.

Then one's faced with the question: what do you do about that? The decision was: well, let us come up with a standardized definition for the purpose of this statute at least, so we don't create what the member would have given us a long speech on had we not done this -- namely, a differential definition within this statute.

The member points out that that may still leave other statutes with a definition that has not yet been brought into conformity with this one. I think that's a good point, and I think it's a point that suggests that perhaps we should review the rest of the statute books with that in mind. But whenever one makes changes, one tries to do the good; and sometimes when doing the good, one doesn't get to do the best, which is to change every definition that is required to satisfy the act before one.

Here certain statutes came into play, and certain decisions were made to try to standardize the definition with respect to those acts. If there are other acts that were not captured in that exercise and not brought into this new standardized definition, the member says there may be concerns about that in terms of

interpretation. That certainly needs to be addressed. But I just think this is an incidence of moving forward in a systematic way through the statute book in trying to deal with a problem of social inequality and in correcting it. Whenever that happens, problems of definition will arise, and inconsistencies which in fact were on the statute book get exposed. It's just that the member doesn't get a chance to see them as clearly or to make speeches about them.

The member says we should be concerned about the fact that some further inconsistencies remain. I accept that fact. With respect to the two-year rule . . . . Again, the distinction of the two-year rule and its application to certain relationships and certain rights and obligations is one that's already on the statute book with respect to common-law couples. What was done here was to extend the ambit of the statute book so that the definition was extended to same-sex couples. The member points out that that perpetuates this distinction.

Fair enough; maybe that's another project we should look at and consider in light of the member's concerns. But this exercise has illuminated that; it hasn't exacerbated it.

In fact, it has ameliorated it in the sense that it has eliminated at least one more important distinction: the invidious distinction of excluding same-sex couples from the benefits of those acts.

Now, the other issue that the member . . . . The member asked a question I have to answer. At some point in the middle of his statement, the member for Richmond-Steveston asked: "When will it stop?" The obvious answer is that these kinds of difficulties and problems and ongoing challenges will stop only when the determination to eradicate social inequality stops -- hopefully it doesn't -- or, indeed, when social inequality has been eradicated. If we're not prepared to face some difficulties and some problems along the way, then we won't make those important steps. I appreciate the member's concerns.

I think we should focus on them in committee stage and hopefully satisfy the member that some of the concerns he has will not produce problems in the courts. But certainly we shouldn't allow ourselves to become paralyzed by those concerns, lest we lose sight of the larger purpose here: the social purpose of removing inequality that is indeed contrary to -- at least, in this government's view -- an acceptable standard of human rights.

Now, the member engaged in another set of what I would call diversions. I'm sure the member won't like me calling them diversions, but there you go -- the differences between one side of the House and the other. That is this discussion about domestic partnership. I do want to spend a minute talking about that, because I think it's an important question.

[1540]

[ Page 16716 ]

There is a lot of literature and discussion around the issue of domestic partnerships, and I think some of it's very valuable and probably merits further consideration. In fact, the Law Institute in this province has done a report on it, and the federal Law Reform Commission, I believe, has done a report on it. The question of domestic partnership is a very important and worthwhile concept that deserves exploration.

It can deal with issues of partners who may have relations quite different from the ones that fall within common-law relationships right now: aunts and uncles living together, brothers and sisters -- what have you. It has the further feature that the member himself discussed -- that is, it's a situation in which the partners have to, in a sense, buy into the relationship and register the relationship, at least according to many of the formulations that I've seen.

I'm not discounting that issue; I think it's important. But let us not allow it to divert attention from the issue of equality. Common-law relationships currently exist. They were brought onto the statute book because governments felt it was important that the state take action to protect parties in common-law relationships. Given that that's the case, the question for us here is: should we now deny the opportunity to extend those protections and responsibilities because the couple living together are the same sex rather than the opposite sex?

This is again a classic example of the best being used as an argument against the good. If the member believes domestic partnerships are the best, fine. But let us not deny the good -- namely, the extension of civil rights and responsibilities that currently exist -- to partners simply because they are of the same sex.

I want to say one other thing about this, because I think underlying the member's position is a very problematic proposition. Underlying the member's position seems to be the proposition that not all civil relationships must reflect the principle of equality. Let me explain why I say that. The member seems to think it's quite acceptable that we would have civil relationships and responsibilities recognized in the statute book that would be denied to individuals based on their sexual orientation.

Interjection.

Hon. A. Petter: No, that's the point. The member, in defence of some of his colleagues, says that they do not like the idea that the word spouse would be attached to people of the same sex. Now, we have to make a choice here. We are on the civil side of the equation. Religious practices are one thing, but the state has decided to recognize certain civil relationships for civil reasons -- not religious reasons. If we got into the religious side, we could point out that indeed some religions recognize same-sex marriages, so even that would produce an ambivalent result.

But we don't have to do that. We have certain civil rights that are established by legislation, and those have been defined in respect of spousal relationships. What is the justification for saying that because the word spouse is used, somehow it's acceptable to deny the rights and privileges of those civil relationships to same-sex couples?

I don't think you can escape the conclusion that implicit in the member's argument -- that domestic partnership is somehow an acceptable end run around providing equality for common-law couples in spite of their sexual orientation -- there's a hidden assumption on the member's part and his caucus's part that not all civil relationships must reflect a principle of equality when it comes to the elimination of discrimination for same-sex couples. It's irrefutable. That's the logic of his argument, and I think it's a very problematic point. I just need to say that. It's a very problematic point.

I agree. Let's talk about domestic partnerships. Let's talk about domestic partnerships in terms of looking to the future. Let's discuss the textual problems about

definitions as we move forward. But let us not lose sight of what's really happening here. This is part of a process of facing up to a historic inequality on the statute books. There are common-law relationships on the statute books. They apply to opposite-sex couples who are in a marriage-like relationship. Do we or do we not agree that the time has at last come -- this is about the third or fourth opportunity we've had to say this -- to eliminate that form of discrimination with respect to that civil relationship? I'm not talking about

definitions; I'm not talking about the future of domestic partnerships, but right here and now when we have a chance to do it.

I suggest that we can't avoid answering that question. The answer should be that we think that time has come, and for that reason we support this bill. With that, hon. Speaker, I move second reading of the bill.

[1545]

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Second reading of Bill 21 approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 57

Evans

Doyle

McGregor

Sawicki

Kwan

Lali

Hammell

Pullinger

Bowbrick

Mann Brewin

Boone

Orcherton

Calendino

Zirnhelt

Randall

Robertson

Sihota

Cashore

Smallwood

Miller

MacPhail

Dosanjh

Petter

Lovick

Priddy

Ramsey

G. Wilson

Farnworth

Waddell

Stevenson

Gillespie

Streifel

Walsh

Kasper

G. Clark

Whittred

Hansen

C. Clark

Campbell

Farrell-Collins

de Jong

Plant

Abbott

L. Reid

Neufeld

Coell

Chong

Sanders

Weisgerber

Goodacre

Weisbeck

Nebbeling

Hawkins

Stephens

Symons

Roddick

McKinnon

NAYS -- 11

Coleman

J. Reid

Krueger

Thorpe

Barisoff

J. Wilson

van Dongen

Masi

Penner

Anderson

Jarvis

[1550]

J. van Dongen: I think the Clerk read my name out as voting in the affirmative. I don't think that was correct, hon. Speaker.

The Speaker: The correction will be made. Second reading passes.

[ Page 16717 ]

Bill 21, Definition of Spouse Amendment Act, 2000, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. D. Lovick: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 24.

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 2000

(second reading)

Hon. A. Petter: I move the bill be read a second time.

Bill 24 contains amendments to a variety of statutes. The amendment to the Assessment Act is needed to bring the legislation into line with administrative practice so that valuation manuals can be adopted annually by reference. Adopting the manuals by reference when they are updated was the yearly practice. However, this year it was determined that the legislation did not clearly support the practice, meaning that the manuals actually had to be included with the adopting regulation, creating an unnecessary administrative burden.

[1555]

The Criminal Records Review Act is being amended to permit the registrar to disclose information received under the act subject to the conditions set out in

section 33(

p) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act -- that is, where there are compelling circumstances that affect someone's health or safety. The existing provision was designed to protect the confidentiality of sensitive information under the act. It would not, however, permit the registrar to advise an employer of a person considered to present a significant danger to children.

The amendment to the Crown Counsel Act will provide statutory recognition of the British Columbia Crown Counsel Association as the exclusive bargaining agent for Crown counsel and authorizes the association and government, represented by the Public Service Employee Relations Commission, to enter into agreements governing terms of employment for Crown counsel employed by the government.

The changes to the Employment Standards Act require silvicultural contractors to be licensed by the director of employment standards in a manner similar to farm labour contractors, talent agencies and employment agencies. There is general agreement from both the employers and the employees that this will create a more level playing field for good employers and will better enable the employment standards branch to monitor and enforce the new employment standards for this industry.

The federal government has introduced legislation to extend parental benefits under the employment insurance program, effective December 31, 2000, and changes to the Canada Labour Code that will require federally regulated employers to provide unpaid leave to match the new employment insurance benefit period. Amendments to the Employment Standards Act in this bill are included with the unpaid pregnancy and parental leave provisions to reflect the new employment insurance benefit period and thereby provide working parents with the flexibility necessary to access those new benefits.

The amendments to the B.C. Fisheries Act establish a research and development fund for the finfish aquaculture industry, following on the environmental assessment office's salmon aquaculture review, which recommended creation of such an industry-sourced fund. The fund will promote development of leading-edge aquaculture technology as well as research into practices that address areas of environmental uncertainty and risk identified by the salmon aquaculture review.

The province is amending the Forest Act and the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act to enable greater flexibility in the incidental cutting of Crown timber while maintaining appropriate management of environmental values and to help promote stability and effective implementation of government-approved land use plans by ensuring that all three resource ministries have a role where business interests and resource stewardship may be affected respectively.

The amendments to the Law and Equity Act will allow us to expand the role of mediation in core processes. Mediation allows people to resolve civil disputes faster, cheaper and more collaboratively. The regulations enacted in this amendment will bring people together to resolve their differences before they go to trial through an expansion of the notice-to-mediate provisions that are currently in place in two existing instances.

The amendments to the Legislative Assembly Allowances and Pension Act allow the Speaker to approve leaves of absence to Members of the Legislative Assembly, allowing for maternity leave benefits.

The amendments to the Liquor Control and Licensing Act and the Liquor Statutes Amendment Act, 1999, are necessary to correct errors and address the needs of local governments and first nations during the implementation of the liquor policy review recommendations.

An amendment to the Local Government Act restores funeral homes, crematoriums and other commercial premises on cemetery lands to taxable status beginning in the 2001 taxation year. I must say that this is a change that is responsive to a concern that arose in a number of areas of the province, including my own constituency, following a recent court decision and is needed to restore equity to the taxation of such operations. In other words, the amendment will ensure that funeral homes, crematoriums and related commercial operations are treated the same for municipal tax purposes, whether they are located on or off cemetery land.

Hon. Speaker, in addition to the previous amendment, the Local Government Act and Vancouver Charter are amended to allow local governments to obtain warrants for the seizure, impoundment and detainment of dangerous dogs in our communities. The amendments will also reinforce local governments' authority to apply for Provincial Court orders for destruction of a dangerous dog. These amendments are again ones that are being very much welcomed in many communities around the province where there has been a problem with dangerous dogs and, in particular, a problem in detaining those dogs pending decision as to what should be best done with them under court order.

[1600]

The amendment to the Local Government Statutes Amendment Act, 2000, corrects a cross-reference. The amendment to the Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act (No. 2) authorizes the regional district of Kitimat-Stikine to forgive a debt owed to it by the Shames Mountain Ski Corp. The amendment is needed because the Municipal Act generally

[ Page 16718 ]

does not allow local governments to provide assistance to business. In this case, however, the regional district requested the authority to respond to a unique situation arising from the sale of its former ski operation to the ski corporation and to perhaps assist the ski corporation in continuing a valuable recreation resource in the area.

Hon. Speaker, the two technical amendments to the Ombudsman Act will clarify the basis upon which investigations into complaints are not started or are discontinued and will reduce the amount of paperwork thereby required by the office of the ombudsman.

The amendments to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act will provide for improved administrative processes, under three sections of that act. Two sections are being amended to correct inadvertent omissions from the consequential amendments of previous enactments, and five sections are being amended to clarify the intent of those sections.

The amendments to the Residential Tenancy Act will expand the act's application to certain types of tenancies to ensure that these tenancies are governed by a fair set of rights and responsibilities and that landlords and tenants have access to a fast and affordable process for resolving disputes. The bill also makes various minor amendments to address concerns raised by landlord and tenant groups and the residential tenancy office. While the amendments may be minor, their impact, I think, is one that will have major benefit.

Again, I think of one that is very, very positive and beneficial, and that is a requirement that landlords change locks when a new tenant takes over premises and seeks the security that the locks in fact are unique to that new tenant and are not accessible by a previous tenant. I think that's a good form of consumer protection and tenant protection and one that is enabled by this amendment.

This bill contains two technical amendments to the Royal Roads University Act and Technical University of British Columbia Act that correct minor errors.

The bill also makes eight minor amendments to the Strata Property Act to correct technical and drafting errors. The amendments will clarify the intent of certain provisions and ensure their consistency with other sections of the act -- for example, by correcting references to voting thresholds and including missing

section references. These amendments will reduce the potential for uncertainty when the new act is brought into force on July 1 of this year.

Final amendments in this bill correct a cross-reference error in the Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company Act and correct a gender-specific reference in the Transport of Dangerous Goods Act.

With that, I again move second reading of the bill.

G. Plant: It must be near the end of the session. We've got another miscellaneous statutes amendment act. I've lost count of how many amendments the government has here. Some of them are apparently munificent enough to cause the Attorney General to deviate from his script long enough to express his serene confidence in the wonderful gifts being provided to Her Majesty's citizens through the complete and utter obscurity of a miscellaneous statutes amendment act. But nonetheless . . . .

There are actually jurisdictions in parliamentary systems that care enough about whether or not particular groups of employees should be certified as bargaining agents that they actually would introduce a bill expressly called whatever the agency is. They wouldn't put the recognition of the Crown Counsel Association as the exclusive bargaining agent for 400 employees, representing $80 million a year of public expenditure, into a miscellaneous statutes amendment act. They'd put it up front; then the public would see it. The public would have a chance to know whether it's a good thing or not. We'll have a chance to have that discussion when we get to committee stage debate.

There is one provision in this bill that strikes close to something I care about. I am going to speak about it for a minute or two because I want to persuade the Attorney General to fix a problem that he's about to create. I want to persuade him to amend

section 16 of this bill by introducing one word as an amendment to the changes he wants to make to the Law and Equity Act. The Law and Equity Act is a statute that has some pretty important stuff in it about how citizens in this province get to have access to courts, about some of the basic rules around what courts do. It's a pretty important statute. It's being amended here by introducing a provision that will give the provincial cabinet the power to make regulations around alternate dispute resolution.

[1605]

I want to make a confession, and I apologize for the fact that it is hopelessly partisan. But I am way past the point with this government where I want to give those people over there, locked up in their little room as they are, any ability to do anything to affect anybody's rights anywhere, anytime at all -- forever. So with that totally partisan . . . . I must say I have been driven to that attitude by experience after experience. When these people get the ability or the right to make rules behind closed doors, they have a heck of a record for abusing people's rights and not much of a record for respecting them.

The government wants to give cabinet some more power; cabinet apparently doesn't have enough power. So they want to give cabinet some more power, and they want to give cabinet that power in respect of the rules around access to courts. The area that's under consideration here is, I think, important -- alternate dispute resolution. The government won't find anyone on this side of the House who disagrees with the notion that we need to do more to encourage the parties to civil disputes and in some cases their lawyers to take advantage of a wide range of options for addressing their disputes. That wide range of options can include, and should include in many cases, mediation.

Mediation is a voluntary process by its very nature. It's a process where two or more parties to a lawsuit agree that they'll try to get together, and without any compulsion, without anyone forcing them, they'll see if they can identify common ground. They'll see if there are points on which they can compromise their differences of opinion. Then, if they have enough of a foundation to build on, they will enter into an agreement. They will compromise their rights, and they will settle the dispute. Mediation is a way of avoiding unnecessary legal expense.

Mediation is a way, in appropriate cases, of avoiding the trauma and the stress and distress that's caused by litigation when parties are forced to tell their stories in court in the sometimes harsh scrutiny of cross-examination.

Mediation, I think, is recognized everywhere as an invaluable tool in the toolkit of dispute resolution techniques. But the essence of mediation is the idea of voluntariness. It is often said that compulsory mediation is an oxymoron. It's a perfect

[ Page 16719 ]

oxymoron because mediation does not work if the result is imposed. So the idea is: how can mediation work as a way of solving a dispute if it's compulsory?

Now, one of the challenges the legal system faces is that in addition to the fact that there is a wide and growing range of tools and techniques available for parties to solve their disputes, there is also the fact that litigation is becoming increasingly expensive. Access to the courts is increasingly frustrated by the high cost of access. That includes in many cases, of course, the high cost of fees created by government, which regards the court system of British Columbia as almost entirely a user-pay system.

That is in fact the impact of the many taxes and fees that have been imposed on the court system of British Columbia. But even apart from all of that, litigation is expensive. There is a legitimate public policy interest in looking for ways to encourage the parties to litigation to find alternate methods of resolving their disputes short of a full-blown trial.

With that spirit in mind and with the recognition of a whole growing body of literature around issues like mediation, the government -- through the Attorney General and his dispute resolution office -- has been working closely with the legal profession, with the practising bar, to see whether there are specific instances in which the idea of mediation can be introduced in a way that is not purely voluntary but where the context is so suitable for mediation that it is likely to be productive of settlement in the vast majority of cases.

There are at least a couple of initiatives underway. One is a set of initiatives in the Provincial Court -- and they include motor vehicle cases, construction cases and family law cases -- where the parties to those kinds of cases don't have a choice. They have to participate in some form of mediation. Experience suggests that in those kinds of cases, if you bring the parties together to talk about what's bugging them, they have a good chance of settling it and solving the problem without a full-blown trial, which saves everybody the money and certainly saves the parties the potential for anguish.

[1610]

My understanding is that the experiment in small claims court is generally working and that the initial feedback from those experiments is generally productive, and that is all to the good. If we found the right place to require mediation to be used -- if it is in fact fair, and if it is not creating a situation where litigants are having their arms twisted unreasonably to force them to accept settlements that are not in their best interests -- then I'm in favour of that. So there's one example of a project that's underway.

The other project that's underway is the proposal to introduce rule 25A, I think, of the Rules of Court . "Notice to Mediate" is the name of the process. What that means is that any one party in civil litigation in the Supreme Court has the right to send a notice to mediate to the other parties, which would then trigger a requirement that they attempt a mediation. It's kind of a hybrid; it's a mix. It's not completely compulsory, but neither is it purely voluntary.

Purely voluntary mediation, of course, is available to any party to litigation at any time now. We don't need the government's help. If you're engaged in a lawsuit that you think can be settled by mediation, you can make the suggestion to your lawyer, or you can make the suggestion to the other side. The lawyer can make the suggestion to his or her client, and indeed that happens every day. In fact, the lawyers that I speak to about this issue believe passionately that it's their duty as counsel to suggest that and to do what they can to persuade their clients to use mediation when it's the right case.

The question of whether and when it's the right case should be left to the parties to a lawsuit. If you don't let them decide, then you're imposing something on them; and when you're imposing something on them, it loses that character of voluntariness, which is the essence in particular of mediation. If parties feel that they are being dragged kicking and screaming into the mediation room, they are not likely to settle their dispute.

One of the concerns I have, which others have expressed, around the notice-to-mediate process is that it has this additional element. Every time you introduce a new potentially compulsory element to the civil litigation process, you are giving one party to a lawsuit the right to invoke that process at everybody else's expense.

If you take that example and apply it to the case of a notice to mediate, you can in fact have someone who has lots of money to spend on a lawsuit but not much interest in settling it realize that one more thing they can do to drive their opponents into a situation where they financially have no choice but to settle on the other side's terms is to send a notice to mediate.

Then they have to call up their lawyer, and it's one more process, one more meeting. The lawyer has to prepare for another meeting. The lawyer has to look like he or she is sincerely interested in attempting to mediate. They have to hire the mediator; they have to pay to hire the mediator, as I understand it. All of that has about it the potential for another element of -- extortion is too high a word -- coercion. It's another aspect of the litigation process that takes it out of the hands of the parties and leaves it in the hands of others.

It's another aspect of the litigation process that gives to one party the right to send out one more notice that will impose one more set of costs on the other side of the process.

[1615]

Those are some of the arguments against mediation alternatives. If I were confident that every single lawyer in British Columbia was completely capable of, and interested in and informed about and committed to, making the decision in each and every case about whether mediation was right . . . . If I were confident that the culture of the practice of law had changed to that extent, I don't think I would let the government -- or at least not willingly -- have any of the powers that it seeks in this particular part of Bill 24.

I'm not confident that the culture of the practice of law has completely changed across the board towards a culture that completely acknowledges the legitimacy and importance of mediation. When I look at the whole situation . . . . I try to be responsible about protecting the interests of citizens in terms of getting access to the courts, of lawyers in ensuring that the process that they know best, that they have used and developed for hundreds of years with judges as a way of protecting the interests of citizens, which in fact do protect the interests of citizens . . . .

I've never met a client who didn't think, after the fact, that they were glad they had the right to have their interests represented by lawyers -- much as we often like to joke about it here in this chamber. If I were satisfied that we could leave it alone and that it would grow the right way all by itself -- that mediation would grow to its full potential without help from government -- then I would not support any of this.

[ Page 16720 ]

However, I am satisfied that the pilot projects underway in Provincial Court are in fact examples of government and the members of the legal profession intervening to create something that seems to be working. I am satisfied that -- at least as an experiment, if you will, in changing how litigation works -- the notice to mediate process should be given a chance.

So where does that take me? It takes me -- I know the Attorney General doesn't like this -- to the words of the amendment. I know the Attorney General doesn't like it, because every time I talk about the words of a law, he stands up and says: "Don't worry about the words. We mean to do something good. Support us with the cause." That's what he always does whenever he's unhappy about the prospect of the words. Maybe just this once I can engage him on the issue of actually caring about the terms of the powers that are being given, to engage him long enough to consider adding the word provincial before the word court in the third line of

section 68(1)(a).

Here is what that will do. It will protect the right of the government to continue with the notice to mediate process in the superior court. It will protect the right of the government to continue with the Provincial Court-level experiments in mediation that are underway. But it will not give the government the unfettered right, which the

section as drafted currently does, to draft a regulation which would require all parties to all litigation in British Columbia to engage in mediation. As I understand it, it's not the government's intention to do that. As I understand it, the government -- and I hope the Attorney General is personally of this view -- would be wrong to go down that path, that far, without a pretty long discussion with the profession. One of the things that has made the projects to date succeed is that there has been that discussion with the profession. On the whole, I think the profession is onside with the things that are underway.

This is not an issue that's going to determine the outcome of second reading. It is an issue which will, I think, determine the outcome or, at least from my perspective, the way people vote when we get to

section 16 of the bill. I don't know how long it'll be before we get to that debate. It may be tomorrow morning. I wanted to give the Attorney General, on the record, a bit of my sense of the issues that are at play here and to point out the particular way in which I think the

section can be improved.

[1620]

If the

section is not improved, then it gives the cabinet the power to make regulations that would require parties to court proceedings to engage in mediation. Without any qualification, that means cabinet would have the power to require all parties to all court proceedings to engage in mediation.

If that's not the government's intention -- if the government really is mainly interested here in ensuring that it can continue the limited experiments that it has underway in the Provincial Court -- then adding the word "provincial" as a qualifier in that clause will protect what the government has been doing and wants to do and will also ensure that it can't go beyond that, at least not without coming back into this chamber for a debate.

So I leave that with the Attorney General. The rest of the issues raised by Bill 24 will be pursued as required in committee stage debate.

K. Krueger: I rise to make a few points about the changes to the Employment Standards Act encompassed in Bill 24. Several of them have to do with implementation of the government agreement in the silviculture industry for a variance to normal Employment Standards Act provisions. Indeed, the government has engaged in a lengthy consultation with the stakeholders in the silviculture industry and, as a result, has agreed to a variance which seems to make sense to most of the stakeholders involved.

Once again the opposition would like to call to the government's attention that if it makes sense to do that in the silviculture industry, if it makes sense to do it in the high-tech industry and if it makes sense to do it in the film industry, then it probably makes sense to allow greater flexibility in all the industries in British Columbia with regard to the onerous provisions of the existing employment standards legislation.

That being said, there has been very little contention about the changes encompassed by sections 6, 7 and 9 of this legislation. Once again, we would just ask the government to consider the oft-repeated appeal by industries throughout British Columbia to allow for more flexibility in the way that they and their employees conduct their working lives.

Section 7 of this legislation actually reduces the number of weeks of unpaid leave to a pregnant employee from 18 to 17. I was told in our briefing session this morning that that is because of clumsy drafting of this government's earlier legislation and that the extra week really pertains to the week of the birth. In fact, this is not a reduction of mothers' entitlement to pregnancy leave, which I don't think anyone in this House would support.

I don't think there's going to be a lot of contention about

section 7. The

section that does raise some concerns in the employer community throughout this province is

section 8, which increases the length of time available to adoptive parents and birth mothers, as well as fathers, to coincide with the federal legislation that is going through its process but is not yet law.

It makes sense to the official opposition that we would want to have legislation in British Columbia that conforms with the provisions that the federal government is making under the employment insurance plans. Certainly we want British Columbians to be able to qualify for the benefits being made available.

It can't help but be regarded with a certain level of cynicism by employers that our government in British Columbia is in the vanguard of embracing such change, when it is something that is costly to business, and yet is so far behind in embracing other progressive measures that would stimulate the economy of British Columbia. Other than Quebec, which already has fairly lengthy parental leave provisions, no other province in Canada has yet moved to embrace these changes. Indeed, a number of provinces have lesser provisions than British Columbia presently has.

[1625]

That being said, we on this side of the House have a great concern about early childhood development, about the fact that parents feel obliged by economic constraints to return to the workforce quicker than they would otherwise have liked. We think it's healthy for children to get a good start in life with their biological or adoptive parents, and those things are good to see. We do wonder, though, why this government doesn't learn its lessons. Even when it has a good idea, it continues to follow the same failed methods of implementation. Specifically, in this case business wasn't consulted by this govern-

[ Page 16721 ]

ment about the changes, and business has some very legitimate concerns. A year is a very long time, particularly in the life of a small business, to get by without a valued employee.

Even though employers also share our concerns and our goals of people being able to spend that quality time with children in the early stages of their lives, they wonder how in the world they're going to cope with this, particularly with the existing provisions of the Employment Standards Act, which are not being amended by this legislation. They wonder what it's going to be like for them -- for example, if a small business with five employees has one on maternity leave, it has lost 20 percent of its workforce -- to struggle along for that year in penalty-killing mode. Obviously many of them will choose to try and find a temporary replacement for the term of the leave.

The Labour minister went so far as to speculate that it'll create employment opportunities in B.C. because of that. But the problem, of course, is finding the best person for the job who's willing to take a job and tie themselves up for a year, knowing that the job is not going to be a permanent one.

The employers also voiced the problem that many people do not return from parental leave but fail to give notice to their employers that they are not returning, so the employers are not able to properly plan for the succession or address their obvious business needs. Once again, business would have liked to have an opportunity to consult with the government about that problem, about the effect on businesses.

Again, in

section 54 of the existing legislation an employer is required . . . . "As soon as the leave ends, the employer must place the employee (

a) in the position the employee held before taking leave under this Part, or (

b) in a comparable position." Well, the work world changes so fast in this day and age. Technology changes so quickly that the job may look nothing like it did when the employee left on their parental leave one year previously. Meanwhile a replacement worker will, by necessity, have been brought up to speed and will be abreast of those changes in technology and in the workplace. They will have to potentially dismiss or lay off that replacement worker and bring back a worker who is no longer in a position to be able to do the job the way they probably were at the time the parental leave started.

Once again, industry -- business throughout British Columbia -- would really have liked an opportunity to discuss that problem with this government before new legislation was enacted in the vanguard of such legislation for Canada. Already our economy is in a crisis compared to the rest of the country. We're the only province of Canada that is having the economic problems we have. And to business people, to wealth creators, to job creators throughout this province, this is yet another indication that this government doesn't consider them worth consulting, that this government doesn't value their input, that this government doesn't really care about the effects its legislation has on business.

When I spoke to ministry personnel in a briefing meeting about this issue, I asked if consultation took place at all. The answer was: "Well, no. There was minimum consultation by us," although the ministry takes some solace in the fact that the federal government consulted fairly thoroughly before it enacted its changes.

In talking with the ministry personnel about the expenses to business and the fact that there's no consequence to employees who fail to do that appropriate thing of giving due notice and letting their employers know that they're not coming back, the answer was: "Well, business expenses must always be borne by the business." This, I thought, was a rather heartless way of looking at things, because government continually acts in such ways that business expenses are increased while it somewhat glibly takes the position that those expenses have to be borne by the businesses themselves.

Not only is that not fair, hon. Speaker; it's a really bad idea. It reinforces the message that wealth creators -- job creators -- in this province have been receiving from this government for the last nine years. That is: "Big Brother government knows best. Big Brother government will tell you how you're going to interact with your employees, how you're going to run your businesses, and Big Brother government doesn't really care about your input or the consequences."

The results are all around us, hon. Speaker, in the economic devastation which British Columbia has suffered, manifested by the fact that we share the negative distinction with Chiapas, Mexico, of being the only jurisdictions in North America that are in the economic state that we are in -- and a very negative economic state it is. So once again, this looks like an example of cavalier treatment of job creators, of disregard for potential investors and of not caring at all about the problems that are created as the government makes legislative changes.

[1630]

In committee we'll have a chance to go into some more detail on these issues, and the government can account for the move from 18 weeks to 17 weeks of pregnancy leave. Also, the government can account for its failure, once again, to duly implement the process of the business lens in identifying what the problems were going to be for businesses in making a move such as this.

Now, I'm told that the government has received its RIS. I had to ask what the acronym meant, and I was told it is a regulatory impact statement, pursuant to last year's legislation. It reminded me of the ROUS terminology from the movie The Princess Bride -- rodents of unusual size. Certainly the wealth creators of this province feel as though sometimes they're dealing with people who have that kind of regard for what they actually contribute to this province. An RIS is hardly effective in voicing the concerns of business and preparing them for the costs that these sorts of changes bring.

All of that being said, we are going to be supporting the changes, because it is certainly a valuable contribution that the federal government has agreed to make -- extending the parental leave period in the way that they have. We do wish to encourage families and take

part in this initiative to provide for a longer period for newborns and for children newly adopted to get a good grounding in their family life and in their homes. But once again, we would ask the government to show greater regard and greater respect for those people who create jobs in this province and in our economy and to try to consult, even now after the fact, with business. This is in order that the costs and the problems which come with changes imposed by government are ameliorated and that we begin to demonstrate to the job creators of this province that we do care about the struggles they have and the constraints that new legislation puts them under.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I know there may be a shock that there's a debate breaking out about this piece of

[ Page 16722 ]

legislation, but I wanted to rise and speak to the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, specifically the sections that the member for Kamloops-North Thompson has been addressing. That is the amendments to the Employment Standards Act, which puts British Columbia at the head of all provinces and territories to amend our employment standards legislation to now match the entitlements that are available to parents under the employment insurance regulations.

Just to reiterate, the federal government has amended employment insurance regulations to allow for a greater length of time that a new mom, a birth mom, can stay at home with her child, and the birth dads and adoptive parents as well. There are different times, depending on the circumstances in which the child arrives in one's home. Nevertheless, they are amendments to the employment insurance regulations that now catch up with benefits that exist in Europe, Australia and even parts of Africa. They are certainly much ahead of the United States, for instance.

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I understand that the Liberal opposition would suggest that not enough consultation was done on these particular amendments. However, the business community may have a bone to pick with the federal government in terms of changing employment insurance regulations -- but they don't. They have not brought that to our attention. I have regular ongoing dialogue with small and medium-sized business advocacy organizations as well as with small and medium-sized business owners. Both groups of business owners know how difficult it is to recruit workers in this province and to retain well-trained workers.

Both groups understand that the growing workforce in the province is amongst women. Both groups know that the trained workforce is shrinking amongst people who are younger than 45, and that just happens to coincide with childbearing women.

This is good news for employers in this province. It's good news for employers that they are now going to be able to give benefits to their workers. They share in the payment through employment insurance premiums, but they also get a return from those employment insurance premiums in allowing them to have a mechanism available to retain their trained workforce.

It makes sense from a parenting view as well. There are many studies available when we examine child rearing as it relates to healthy children in North America these days. The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, under the direction of Dr. Fraser Mustard, clearly demonstrates that the more time a child can spend in the new days of his or her life . . . . It is an incredible investment not only from the point of view of health but from learning and cognitive skills as well. That's why the federal government saw it as a priority to give the extra benefits to parents to enable them to spend time with their infants.

This is about improving the economy. This is good news for small and medium-sized businesses, and it's wonderful news for us as taxpayers that our government has chosen to partner with the federal government to invest in children through greater parental leave. I truly hope that it becomes de rigueur for new parents, whether they've birthed the child themselves or adopted the child -- that they see it as a right that they should access -- to stay home as long as they can afford to stay home with their children in the new days of their life.

I know that the Liberal opposition is merely nitpicking at the very, very minute edges in quite an ineffective way, because this is such wonderful news for parents, for small and medium-sized businesses. It is such wonderful news that British Columbia once again is on the cutting edge for giving rights to workers and their families that are balanced and fair but that also meet the needs of the employers. I do know that the Liberal opposition, through the member for Kamloops-North Thompson, have indicated their support. We should really celebrate these amendments as, once again, doing the right thing quickly for all British Columbians.

The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the Attorney General will close debate.

Hon. A. Petter: I won't comment further on the comments made by the member for Kamloops-North Thompson. The Minister of Labour was provoked into a response. I suspect that was his motivation in any event, and I think that answers the issues more than satisfactorily.

I did want to say a word, however, about the comments from the member for Richmond-Steveston with respect to the Law and Equity Act. He started off wounding me terribly by saying that I didn't care about words, and of course that's absolutely untrue. I care deeply about words, and the member and I have in fact had very productive discussions about words in estimates. And here we even made some amendments along the way, I think, on privacy provisions. We crafted them right on the floor of this Legislature, because we both care about words.

But I kind of like words that illuminate and help point to the important issues, not words that blind us to what's good or divert our attention from what's important. Sometimes we disagree as to whether the words that he's speaking are in that category or in a different category.

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In any event, I'm just kind of concerned. I shouldn't confess this probably, but I have a certain affection for that member, and he seems to be getting awfully sour of late and very, very negative. I'm worried that his use of words -- or maybe it's his feeling that I don't care about his words -- is contributing to that. So I want to make his day. I wish he were here to hear this, but perhaps it could be passed on to him.

I listened very carefully to his comments. He's absolutely correct in what he says is the intention of the government with respect to the changes to the Law and Equity Act. Those changes are designed to provide for a notice-to-mediate provision in respect to superior courts, and other forms of mediation can be continued in Provincial Courts.

I think that the suggestion that he made of adding the word "provincial" helps to illuminate that purpose and clarify it, and I'm going to be very happy, when we get to committee stage, to support that amendment. In fact, I'll introduce it myself, because I think he's right. I want him to cheer up in this chamber and realize that words count, that his words count. When they're positive, when they illuminate, as his suggestion did here, the government will, as always, listen and will bring that amendment about. And with that, I move second reading, hon. Speaker.

Motion approved.

[ Page 16723 ]

Bill 24, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2000, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. A. Petter: Hon. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 18.

FINANCE AND CORPORATE RELATIONS

STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2000

(second reading)

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm very pleased to kick off second reading debate on Bill 18, Finance and Corporate Relations Statutes Amendment Act, 2000, and move that it be read a second time.

This bill amends five finance statutes to implement measures that were contained in Budget 2000, to provide the recently announced additional support for the British Columbia horse-racing industry and to establish the best practices capital management framework that was recommended in Deloitte Consulting's review of capital management practices in British Columbia.

The government under