2008 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 38th 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)

THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2008

Morning Sitting

Volume 29, Number 6

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Page

Point of Privilege (continued)

Hon. R. Thorpe

Second Reading of Bills

Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 15) (continued)

C. Trevena

G. Gentner

H. Lali

N. Simons

D. Routley

B. Lekstrom

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir

Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Transportation (continued)

G. Coons

R. Fleming

Hon. K. Falcon

D. Cubberley

[ Page 10855 ]

THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2008

The House met at 10:02 a.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Prayers.

Point of Privilege

(continued)

Hon. R. Thorpe: I rise to respond to a point of privilege

made by the member for Cariboo South in this House on April 1, 2008. Let me say

without reservation that the statements by the member for Cariboo South are

without question wrong, and his allegations unfounded.

First of all, the member states that his allegations are the

result of the estimates debate of March 11, 2008. The member wrongly suggests

that I knowingly misled the House.

Shortly after 10:10 a.m. on March 11, 2008, the member for Cariboo

South began asking me questions related to the B.C. Assessment office in

Williams Lake. With each question asked, I conferred with the chief executive

officer of B.C. Assessment and, with advice, provided an answer to the member's

questions to the best of my ability. At no time did I, nor did staff, ever

attempt to knowingly mislead the member.

In addition to the various questions asked, the member and I had

further exchanges. In the review of Hansard of March 11, 2008, the record

clearly shows that just before 10:20 a.m. on the 11th, the member for Cariboo

South made the following statement: "Is the minister willing to review the

situation in the Williams Lake office?"

At approximately 10:20 a.m. I replied to the member with the

following statement:

"I would be pleased to receive details from the

member so that I have greater clarification of what his concern is. I have

been advised by the chief executive officer of B.C. Assessment that there is

no staff reduction in the Williams Lake office. If the member has other

information on that, and if he would be pleased…. He hasn't provided that to

me so far. If he provided that detail to me in writing, I'd be pleased to look

into that matter on behalf of him and his constituents."

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the above clearly demonstrates my

commitment to work with the member and not to knowingly mislead anyone in the

House. I further offer you a quote from the member for Cariboo South, made right

after my statement noted above:

"I appreciate that commitment from the minister

to do such. I will provide the information that I have been provided, and I

will be seeking that clarification through the minister. Upon assuming

confirmation of this information, I would be looking for the minister's

support for the return, retention — whatever the correct word would be — for

the Williams Lake office.

"With that, I thank the minister for his

attention. We will pursue the item later."

[1005]

Mr. Speaker, I ask: does that statement from the member for

Cariboo South sound like he has been knowingly misled? I can assure you, Mr.

Speaker, and this House that I have not misled and will not knowingly mislead

this House, and I believe my comments and those from the member for Cariboo

South clearly demonstrate that the member was not knowingly misled and that his

allegations are clearly unfounded.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you, Minister. I'll take it under

advisement.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: In this chamber I call continued second

reading debate on Bill 15, Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008, and in

Committee A, Committee of Supply, for the information of members, the continuing

estimates of the Ministry of Transportation.

Second Reading of Bills

UTILITIES COMMISSION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2008

(continued)

C. Trevena: I would like to continue with my remarks on

Bill 15, the Utilities Commission Amendment Act, which I was quite vociferously

opposing yesterday afternoon at the end of the session which we have and would

like to continue to vociferously oppose.

One of the issues that I was wanting to move on to when we called

adjournment of the debate was that of the concept of smart meters. While smart

meters are obviously…. It's useful to have meters for electricity. We all have

meters for electricity. As my colleague the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca

mentioned here, we have them outside the house, and we can watch them go around

very fast sometimes and slow other times.

To have smart meters put inside every house at a cost of almost $1

billion doesn't really seem to be very smart to me when we are talking about

energy conservation. We are urging people to conserve energy. Surely a billion

dollars would be better spent looking at retrofitting of people's homes, looking

at ways of making sure that people were not expending energy and were able to

save energy.

If we're talking about smart meters, it's not so long ago that we

had the coin-in-the-slot meters. When I had an apartment — what would be called

a bachelor, a bedsit, in England — when I first started out, you would put your

coin in the meter, and you knew how much electricity you were using because the

lights would go out when you ran out of money. I don't think anybody wants to go

back to that.

[S. Hammell in the chair.]

Instead of installing new meters, instead of going to everybody's

home and installing new meters and urging people to look at the energy that they

conserve in that way, maybe that billion dollars would be better spent on

grants, on assistance and on enabling people to

[ Page 10856 ]

make sure that they could save energy rather than watch how much energy

they're using and panic about how much energy they're using. That would be a

much better use, I believe, of our taxpayers' money.

I really wanted to go back to this whole idea of energy security

and the environment —

part 3 of the bill — which, as I was talking about

yesterday, I am concerned about. The whole idea that the government is using

about sustainability…. The Ministry of Environment was talking about this. The

Ministry of Environment was talking about the need for change and the fact that

this was really going to be a great way to go forward for the people of B.C. and

a really good environmental initiative.

Sadly, this use of independent power producers is really not going

to be sustainable for the production of electricity, at least the way members on

this side of the House believe that sustainability should be addressed. I mean,

our definition of sustainability is much more global, I believe, than the

members opposite. The government side's view of sustainability comes down very

much to dollars and cents. It comes down to economic terms. We come down to how

much money we can save.

Our definition of sustainability is much broader. It looks at

environmental sustainability, social sustainability. It looks at the commons,

looks at making sure that we have a fair transition. The government's view of

sustainability is one that is sustainable for profits.

[1010]

What we're seeing here, when we look at energy security in the

environment, really doesn't address some very basic issues that we as a province

need to be looking at — that we as a society need to be looking at when we are

talking about environmental change, when we're talking about climate change.

When we are looking forward — as the Minister of Environment said, he wants to

look forward — we've got to be much wider. We've got to be looking at protecting

the ecosystem. We've got to be looking at protecting the commons. We've got to

be looking at making sure that this is fair and just.

This bill does not do any of that. It does not reflect the true

essence of what sustainability is about. Instead, it goes to basic fear

instincts. That's one of the other aspects that troubles me about this bill. The

linking A to B to C is that we have energy security. We have the environment. We

have the fear that if we don't go through this path, we are not going to be able

to produce enough energy. According to this logic, if we don't go through this

path and have independent power producers producing energy instead of B.C. Hydro

producing energy, we're not going to have enough energy.

The government is creating a sense of fear around the energy

self-sufficiency argument. It is not dealing with the issues of environmental

concerns. It is just flagging environmental concerns — but without addressing

the real issues of the desire for change. It is again looking at the issues of

environmental concerns and giving the solution that: "Well, we will do it

through independent power producers. We will make sure that our independent

power producers have a greenwashed effect, and everything's going to be fine."

The dots just don't connect. They don't really make sense in the greater whole

of what we really need.

I find that, when we are talking about something that is as

essential for us as our power and our electricity, our utilities, to base

arguments on fear and on specious facts, exploiting people's want for change and

saying that what is really happening here is going to be good for the

environment, when it is essentially good for certain companies' pocketbooks, is

really being…

N. Macdonald: …disingenuous.

C. Trevena: Thank you. The member for Columbia River–Revelstoke

gave me the word. It is being disingenuous.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members. Order. Order.

C. Trevena: We have here a bill that doesn't address the

issues that really need addressing, and that's one of the troubles. It is a bill

that could be directive. We now have it as legislation. We have a bill that the

government side is arguing is part of a greater climate change initiative, which

it isn't, and we have a bill that is going to be taking away, piece by piece,

our B.C. Hydro from us, from all the people of B.C., now and in the future.

That is why I'm opposing Bill 15, the Utilities Commission

Amendment Act, and will continue to oppose it, and I'm very pleased that

colleagues on this side of the House will vociferously oppose this bill.

G. Gentner: Looking up at the gallery, particularly with

the sun that has arisen this morning…. It's beautiful outside. I look across.

There are members donning a daffodil this morning, indicating the need to

acknowledge Cancer Awareness Month, to understand what's happening with major

epidemic proportions in our province.

I bring it to your attention because it is utilities like B.C.

Hydro, with surpluses and money that's able to find its way to general revenue

and filter its way to benefiting British Columbians with medical expertise and

research…. This is a utility that has been a major asset to the province of

British Columbia, and we have to acknowledge that here today. This bill in

particular, I believe, is part and parcel of the dismantling of this major,

important utility.

[1015]

What this bill….When you read between the lines, this is piracy.

This is part and parcel of the lack of regulatory authority to sell out our

rivers, sell out our water, our power and our resources. I've said it before. We

have become the hollow province, a hollow government that believes in P3s as a

sure thing to all our…. A solution, outsourcing. It's hollow because the Liberal

government has privatized to the point that there will be no tangible content

left in this province.

The French are free enterprise, but they would call this savage

capitalism. There's no end to this. It's just privatize, privatize, privatize.

The Utilities Commission Amendment Act allows that even further.

[ Page 10857 ]

When you look at the bill and you look at the notion of the

sweeping powers now — the Minister of Energy and Mines and cabinet will be able

to oversee the regulatory authority of Hydro and other utilities; it's inferred

— I think we are in jeopardy here with transparency and accountability — all

those wonderful things that the Utilities Commission provides the citizens of

British Columbia.

This is a means to an end. This is a means to a long-term project

of this government, to incrementally privatize everything it possibly can, from

resources to water. If it could, it would privatize the air we breathe.

Interjection.

G. Gentner: The member opposite can laugh and sneer. She's

donning a daffodil, commemorating the need to look at the important

acknowledgment of cancer.

But when you look at the cumulative airshed, the air quality up in

the Fraser Valley that is part of the respiratory diseases, etc., and you look

at how this Utilities Commission will be allowed sweeping powers to administer,

to actually increase or decrease the ambient air quality in the airshed…. It

will be done with such things as cogeneration. I'll talk about it in a few

minutes.

These are the little things in this bill, the Utilities Commission

Amendment Act, that we have got to raise to the attention of all British

Columbians, for it's their health that could be impacted.

We seem to forget that there is a connection between the

environment, energy, economy and our health. It's all interconnected. This has

health implications. When we talk about the need or the reason of this bill….

It's one of a long series of trends we've seen from this government. We've seen

how they've attempted to deregulate or dismantle B.C. Rail and the scandal

that's happening because of that. We're now seeing the incremental destruction

and decapitation of B.C. Hydro.

They've done it with removal of the transmission systems — namely,

that of B.C. Transmission lines — and that was an attempt to eventually separate

the marketing procedures, therefore, from the transmission and the power through

grids down to the States. We've seen the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion

Project — another Crown corporation that this government has woefully managed.

We've seen, of course, roof collapse — another Crown corporation.

Now we're talking here about our Utilities Commission, which is a Crown agency.

B.C. Place had a roof collapse. You've seen the ICBC scandal erupting once

again. Here's another Crown corporation. There is a classic example of why we

have a B.C. Utilities Commission which looks at some of the rates of ICBC. It's

doing so because of the privatization of ICBC — namely, that of the premium

rates that private insurers now can involve itself in, in the marketplace.

Of course, we've seen another Crown corporation, the B.C. Lottery

Corporation — major scandal with the retailers, fraud, etc…. The members

opposite couldn't even run a peanut stand.

[1020]

When you look at the examples of how they've run our Crown

corporations into the ground…. B.C. Hydro is one, and the mechanism to regulate

it, the Utilities Commission…. We are in dear trouble in this province.

Now, we see a need here to change the B.C. Utilities Commission.

The importance of the Utilities Commission is, basically, to regulate

hydroelectricity, the gas and other utilities, and its ability to look at the

costs and benefits to British Columbians. That is the purpose and the mandate of

the BCUC. Unfortunately, with the sweeping powers that are going to be afforded

to the minister now, we are going to be denied a full inquiry as to the costs

and benefits.

I've been involved in some of the long, enduring and sometimes, I

admit, boring hearings of the B.C. Utilities Commission, but it is probably a

stellar example of why we have a consultative approach in this province, why we

have to have public hearings and why we have to listen to everybody, whether

it's an intervener or whether it's a common citizen.

I'll give you an example. I've spent many a time listening to the

concerns of Delta residents — that of the overhead transmission lines running

through an area of Tsawwassen. It was an incredible process to actually listen

to it and to have the Utilities Commission listen to all those facts and to

register it.

It was also interesting that the Minister of Energy and Mines,

before the last election, promised the people of Delta that there would be no

such increase in the voltage going through their neighbourhoods. It's also

interesting that, no matter, a few months after the election the BCTC was back

at it again to bulldoze and continue their mandate — what they believe was a

beneficial mandate — to increase the transmission lines through residential

areas.

There is a difference that separates us from those on the other

side, which is that this is the government's amendment to the Utilities

Commission. On this side, we presented — yours truly presented — a private

member's bill. It was an amendment to the Utilities Commission. It was a matter

of opening up the process.

What this government's doing is it's skewing and taking away

transparencies from the Utilities Commission. We introduced a bill whereby we

would open it up even further. We came forward with a bill that would look

seriously at the precautionary principle.

The precautionary principle was that before a transmission line,

for example, would go through a playground or a school or residential area, we

would err on the side of caution before we would take that next step. It would

be an even more stringent evaluation of those impacts to the residents and

people and the environment. It would be somewhat rigorous. But on the

precautionary principle, we had other options we could have looked at. There are

your other rights-of-way through Delta that wouldn't have impacted residential

areas, but the government has refused to go along in that direction.

We on this side are on record as having an open, transparent

process. We would certainly welcome the government to about-face its particular

direction here

[ Page 10858 ]

and seriously consider our private member's bill that was introduced last

session.

The curious thing about all this is that we have a bill that's

introduced by the Minister of Energy and Mines, and yet this jurisdiction, the

Utilities Commission, falls under, I believe, the Attorney General. Again, why

is it that the Attorney General hasn't stood up here and introduced this bill?

Why is that?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Because you're lucky.

G. Gentner: Yeah. Maybe we are lucky. Maybe we are tired of

stonewalling. We're tired of being denied. Maybe we are lucky. Maybe we're going

to get some real answers from the minister opposite. Maybe that's why it's all

it is. But I don't think that's the reason.

[1025]

I think it's because the Utilities Commission has been

politicized. It is now in the hands of the Attorney General. That jurisprudence,

that quasi-judicial influence and tradition of the Utilities Commission, I

think, is a thing of the past.

So I think that when you look at how it works and what has been

happening here, the B.C. Utilities Commission is going down the way of the dodo

bird, just like all the other Crown corporations and all the other Crown

agencies we've seen put forward by this government.

We need more power. We believe in power for the people, but this

government believes in power for the powerful. It believes in power to the

power-producing powerful people, power to the money-grabbing power producers

themselves. It's power for profit before people.

Let's quickly look at the Utilities Commission. I know there's

been a lot of talk about the needs of hydro and what the Minister of Energy is

proposing, but let's really take a closer look at the Utilities Commission

because, after all, that's what this is supposed to be about. It's supposed to

be about the amendment to the Utilities Commission.

I have to ask the question right away: where is the regulatory

authority of the independent power producers within the B.C. Utilities

Commission? When you look at the act itself and its

definitions, a public

utility means: "a person or person's lessee…who owns or operates in British

Columbia, equipment or facilities for (

a) the production, generation, storage,

transmission, sale, delivery or provision of electricity, natural gas, steam or

any other agent for the production of light, heat, cold or power to or for the

public or a corporation for compensation…." That is the definition.

You look at the utilities commissions in the States. They do have

to, indeed, involve themselves with the private corporations, because they are

the utilities that provide it. But where in this bill do we provide strong

regulatory authorities over independent power producers in the Utilities

Commissions Amendment Act? This is not here. It's not here for a reason. It's

not here because that's not the intent.

This government believes in deregulation. It doesn't believe in

regulating corporations who have a run of the river. It's a gold mine. Instead

they'd rather try and overregulate B.C. Hydro, put a damper on its activities,

take away its resource and development and make sure it doesn't expand and

deliver goods for the people of British Columbia.

Now, I want to talk about…. British Columbia Utilities Commission

is an independent regulatory agency of the provincial government that operates

and ministers the Utilities Commission Act. Yet the government created a whole

ministry, when it was first elected, on deregulation. We had these core reviews.

It totally went against the grain of independent regulatory agencies. It

completely decided to go in a different vein, and here we are today.

It's continuing along with that line. The commission's primary

responsibility is the regulation of energy utilities under its jurisdiction to

ensure that the rates charged for energy are fair. It regulates ICBC and gas but

doesn't regulate IPPs. Interesting. We're slowly moving away to private

utilities. We can talk about utilities in the past being a monopoly owned by the

province, but we're seeing oligopolies now run…. That's what they're going to

be.

We know what General Electric has bought in here, for good reason.

Didn't W.A.C. Bennett nationalize a private energy corporation — B.C. Electric?

Oh, sure, he did that because he saw there were some problems here. He

nationalized it. He was a socialist. W.A.C. Bennett was a socialist. He was

nationalizing our energy supply in this province because he was worried. The

free enterprise system was not working. It was gouging people. He used

forethought. He was a creative thinker. But this government wants to dismantle

it.

[1030]

The commission's responsibility is to regulate energy. It's also

there to provide safe, adequate and secure service to their customers. Now,

where are the IPPs in this one? Why aren't they regulated? They're not regulated

through this at all anymore. I'll talk about why that is in a few seconds.

The commission's regulatory jurisdiction is defined in the

utilities act and in

part 7 of the Pipeline Act. The commission regulates

electric utilities, gas utilities, steam heat and intraprovincial pipelines in

British Columbia.

I'm just wondering. Are the IPPs safe? I don't believe they

provide adequate service to the people of British Columbia. To make sure of

that, they should be regulated accordingly under the Utilities Commission Act.

But not according to this government.

Let's look at some of the other major functions that we take for

granted that the Utilities Commission does. It provides, among many things, a

historical legacy of documents that are also available on line. It's a wealth of

information, of precedents, on how things are regulated, rates and how projects

are derived.

Unfortunately, if the minister is going to gain this whole new

authority to interfere — because that's what it's going to be now — how much

legitimate documentation will be available? How far and how thorough will the

jurisdiction of the Utilities Commission go today after this bill is created?

Hopefully, there will be some answers available to that when we get to committee

stage,

[ Page 10859 ]

because those are answers that the people of British Columbia need.

The information is on line, but it also creates precedents that

are available to all. The commission generally receives many kinds of

complaints. These are complaints filed against regulated utilities by other

utilities, individuals or groups. So this is the power of the utilities

corporation.

I have to ask, though: isn't it interesting that we don't regulate

independent power producers but they are interveners under the Utilities

Commission? Just like municipal governments, they are interveners. Isn't that a

flip? Isn't that interesting? Private profit-makers, who are slowly grabbing

control of the electrical grid of British Columbia and the power production of

British Columbia, are the interveners in the Utilities Commission. They're not

regulated, but they can certainly intervene. This is the direction we are going.

The commission receives complaints from utility customers who are

unable to resolve disputes with their respective utilities without assistance.

There's no resolve here, and none when it comes down to the IPPs.

It deals with complaints. It looks at the practices and the

procedure. It looks at power line extensions. It looks at easements,

right-of-way maintenance, meter readings and estimates. The question is: how

much of this is applicable now to the IPPs? We're going to see that the minister

is going to have the ability to interfere with the information that is going to

be produced to the apparently quasi-judicial Utilities Commission. But when it

comes down to the IPPs…. Many do have easements; they do have right-of-ways.

Where are we heading with this? It's an incremental, deregulated,

profit-making scheme for independent power producers. It's not here to serve the

people of British Columbia.

The Utilities Commission also maintains a database of interested

individuals and organizations who have asked to receive information from the

commission. The database contains names, telephone numbers, fax numbers and

addresses. It indicates the types of…. Everything you would ever want to know

about what's actually happening with your electrical power grid system.

[1035]

That data now — if I have it correct, and I believe the minister

has these sweeping powers — could be intervened. It doesn't have to. It could be

a project that could be halted and stopped. The environmental groups,

independent power producers, are among the group of general regulators, and

there are a few dedicated individuals who regularly intervene as active

participants or observers.

How much will that be interfered with now — the ability to make a

legitimate argument before the commission and actually maybe even defend B.C.

Hydro? Those questions have got to be answered.

As a consumer of electricity or natural gas, you may have concerns

about the rates that you pay for these commodities, the reliability of utility

services or the efficiency with which the energy is supplied to consume. You may

feel strongly enough that you want to get involved in the regulatory proceedings

for the purpose of expressing your concerns.

That transparency is in jeopardy. That transparency, that

opportunity, is going to be amended through this act by a careless government

that's going to give draconian powers to the Minister of Energy and Mines.

There are many reasons why energy, electricity and natural gas

should be regulated. There's a component, namely that of vertical integration,

that is a simple firm responsible for several aspects of the industry, from

generation to customer billing, but that's now all going to change.

We're going from public agency regulation to private ownership,

and there's no regulation, no strong regulation on the influence of how once

publicly owned electricity utilities are going to be controlled by a few

privately owned, oligolopic power producers.

I talked at the beginning, relative to our rivers, on the impacts,

the rates regulated. They're not necessarily going to be regulated for or by our

ratepayers. They're going to be regulated for IPPs.

Again, there's nothing in this Utilities Commission Amendment Act

that will regulate the functions of IPPs. I have to repeat it. They are

interveners under the utilities act. They're not regulated, not the same way we

would try and regulate B.C. Hydro. Or now B.C. Hydro is going to be dismantled.

Also, we've had a look at the function of what they, the

government, have done with Hydro, with its assets. One third, almost one-half of

all the employees have been privatized through Accenture. That was an

interesting function that was created by the government in its drive to

privatize.

When you go for rate increases and you ask the Utilities

Commission for a certain rate, they can put everything into a parcel and analyze

it and say that those rates are artificially or legitimately justified. It could

be seen that some of the privatization and the Accenture profit-making could

drive those rates, and it could be that the Utilities Commission could ferret

that out. But with these amendments and the sweeping powers that the minister is

going to derive, it's now very much questionable.

In other states south of the line, their utilities commissions

really opened up the debate on the Accenture deal. But it was also,

interestingly enough, utilities commissions that opened the whole debate on the

Enron scandal. This transparency, and it came forward like never before….

We can see the same thing here, relative to what happened with

Alcan. This was a backroom deal held in secrecy. There was a competitive action.

There is a competitive advantage with Alcan. The plan was exposed, in part,

through the proceedings of the B.C. Utilities Commission.

At the time, the Premier's rationale to give our power and streams

away to Alcan was really a 1,400 percent profit for Alcan. It was top secret.

But in order to allow…. Of course, it was the Utilities Commission that

basically put an end to this.

[1040]

[ Page 10860 ]

I think this Utilities Commission Amendment Act is a gag order to

disconnect that information, to do the rational thinking of where those rates

shall be, the rational evaluation of the projects and to hold whether or not

there's some truth. That side didn't like what the Utilities Commission said.

B.C. Hydro doesn't need Alcan, and it was reiterated through the

BCUC. It explained it. You know, B.C. Hydro would be stunningly self-sufficient

into the far future if it were put back together again, not privatized — allowed

reasonable development and given the chance to involve new ideas. Hydro appears

to have fallen into mistakes that made it look as if the deal might not have

been so bad after all, but the mistakes were easy to spot. It was the B.C.

Utilities Commission that spotted them.

How did the mistakes come to happen? Did B.C. Hydro expect the

commission to rubber-stamp it? The government thought the Utilities Commission

was going to rubber-stamp this deal, but the Utilities Commission — this

quasi-judicial system that we have set up in this province — ferreted it out.

B.C. Hydro was tired of having its throat cut on behalf of the

Premier's corporate friends. But could it be that the people of B.C. Hydro knew

all along? The BCUC will not rubber-stamp, and that is why there are amendments

to this act. We know that there's a minister who will rubber-stamp.

We look at the controversial $2 billion sweetheart deal between

B.C. Hydro and Alcan, and it was quashed. It was quashed by the Utilities

Commission, which ruled it too expensive for the 1.6 million hydro customers who

would have paid for it.

The commission said that Hydro should have agreed to an

electricity sales contract paying Alcan with its 50-year Kemano hydro station

near Kitimat — the same rate offered to new power developers. It said no.

As a utility commission, it still has some shred of integrity to

expose fraud, to expose inaccuracies to rates — that rates are derived by

private profit-makers. But this notion of deregulation — this disease — has now

found its way into the Utilities Commission.

You look at different commissions Stateside. You know, the Federal

Energy Regulatory Commission is not always my best friend, but they were the

ones that released two Enron memorandums describing company plans to inflate

energy prices during the California energy crisis of 2000. The practices were

considered so outrageous that an attorney with the California Public Utilities

Commission dubbed them a smoking-gun memo. The whole Enron business was let out

of the bag because they had a utility commission that had the ability to do so.

You know, it's unfortunate that the Minister of Small Business has

left…. No, he hasn't left; he's still there somewhere. The role of that ministry

years ago was to deregulate under the core reviews — deregulate, deregulate,

deregulate. Many of those people who were involved in that process of

deregulation have slowly found their way into the IPPs. They have found a way in

order to use the system to get the water licences. And where did they go?

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

G. Gentner: Time is up?

Deputy Speaker: Yes.

G. Gentner: I have the red light. I thank you, hon.

Speaker. I see there is a red light, and I see that the electricity of British

Columbia is still effective enough to turn me off.

Deputy Speaker: The member for Yale-Lillooet. [Applause.]

[1045]

H. Lali: I see that for the first time, I have created

unanimity in this House. Members on both sides of the House missed my absence in

the last few days. And who said I didn't have friends on both sides of the

House? That's great. It's great to be missed and to be applauded upon my return.

In any case….

Interjections.

H. Lali: I think the members opposite and the Deputy

Premier are correct in stating that the enthusiasm for my coming back is going

to be short-lived, because they know exactly what I'm going to do. It's a great

beginning, a rebeginning. I'm glad to take my place in this debate taking place

in this great assembly of the people of British Columbia.

I stand here to oppose Bill 15, the B.C. Utilities Commission

Amendment Act. I'll outline my reasons why I'm standing here opposing that. This

is all about B.C. Hydro. It's all about the future of B.C. Hydro and what this

bill actually intends to do under the guise of putting something forward under

the B.C. Utilities Commission Amendment Act.

I want to begin by talking about B.C. Hydro, the generation of

electricity in this province and what it has meant historically in this

province. During the old days of the Social Credit….

I see there are actually three members of the old Social Credit

Party that are still represented in this House, and one of them is the minister.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Thank goodness.

H. Lali: "Thank goodness," says the former member of the

Social Credit, who started out as a Social Crediter and jumped ship to become a

Reformer. When he saw his political future going up in flames, he jumped ship

over to the Liberals. And he says: "Thank goodness." But there are two other of

his colleagues.

I recall those days after 1991 when that member across the way,

the minister responsible for energy, used to stand up in this House and speak of

how proud he was of Social Credit and the traditions of the Social Credit.

Now, I may have differed — and I know other members of my party in

the past may have differed —

[ Page 10861 ]

with the Social Credit on a number of policy issues, but I can honestly tell

you one thing. Whether we as New Democrats differed from the Social Credit in

terms of some of the policies that were put forward or how they were going to go

about doing the business in the province…. I can tell you this thing: both the

New Democrats and the Social Credit were always on the same page when it came to

looking after the public interest and the good of British Columbians, especially

those people who live in rural British Columbia.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about this lot on the other

side of the House that formed government. They don't care about the public

interest or the interests of people in rural British Columbia and those people

who are best served where the hydroelectricity generation takes place, which is

up in the mountains of British Columbia, which are located in rural B.C.

That member across the way, who is the Minister of Energy now,

once used to stand on this side of the House when he was in opposition and sing

the tunes of Social Credit and how proud he was of the traditions of that Social

Credit Party and on all of those items that were put forward on behalf of the

public interest, on behalf of the people of British Columbia, by W.A.C. Bennett

in those days, in the '50s and the '60s.

But the same cannot be said about that party there — the Liberal

party, the governing party — and the positions that same hon. member is taking

now, which are totally contrary to the positions of his once proud Social Credit

Party. It just isn't the same.

You will recall, hon. Speaker, that it was the Social Credit Party

under W.A.C. Bennett which actually nationalized the generation of electricity

in this province and the distribution of that power. It wasn't a New Democratic

Party that did that. It was the Social Credit. It was W.A.C. Bennett who did

that. Why?

[1050]

He did that because he knew that the public interest would be best

served if the generation and distribution of electrical power in this province

were under the purview of the public, which would be the government of British

Columbia, who would own those facilities on behalf of the people of British

Columbia. That was their tradition. That was the history, and it has served this

province for almost five generations, five decades. It has served very, very

well.

When you also look at what has happened historically also….

Because it was public power, generated by the public, our rates have

historically been amongst the lowest in North America in terms of consumers. If

you look at the 1990s, we were able to capitalize on that to make sure that our

rates were kept historically low, the lowest in Canada, and have a hydro rate

freeze for a number of years. Actually, a rebate was given back to the people of

British Columbia as a dividend because that power generation and the

distribution was owned publicly. It was owned by the people of British Columbia.

What we've seen now, also historically, is that at certain times

of the day B.C. Hydro buys power from neighbouring provinces, and in other parts

of the day it sells power to those same provinces and also to the United States.

It all depends on the usage. The people in particular jurisdictions who are

using higher amounts of electricity — at a certain part of the day we sell it to

them. And at certain parts of the day we in British Columbia do, so we buy

power.

We have never had an energy shortage — and I'll get to that — in

the last number of years. We don't.

But I want to talk about this so-called Liberal energy plan. In

2002 the Environmental Assessment Act was actually amended by the Liberal

government to make it easier for private power developers to have their projects

approved quickly. There was no environmental reason to change the act. There was

no outcry — hue and cry — from the people of British Columbia that they wanted

to have the Environmental Assessment Act watered down or that it wasn't working.

There was no other reason than to get government out of the way of private power

developers so that they could have a near unfettered access to our resource in

this province.

But it was done under the guise of trying to streamline and to

also get rid of red tape and hurdles out of the way of business and to improve

the environment, so to speak. Those were all guises that were put forward by

this government. The real reason was to make it easier and quicker for private

power developers to get access to our resource in this province so that they

didn't have to be held accountable to the people of British Columbia.

Also since 2002, what this Liberal Premier and what this Liberal

government have done…. They have taken B.C. Hydro, one of the finest examples of

a public corporation anywhere in North America…. What this government has done

since 2002 has transformed B.C. Hydro from a net generator of power to a net

purchaser of power — a deliberate policy on the part of this government to do

that. Deliberate — there was no need, no necessity. They did it specifically and

deliberately to serve a political purpose of their own, and I'll get to that in

a minute as well.

The real purpose is the privatization of B.C. Hydro. They want to

cut it up and sell it up to the private entities in its member parts. That's

what they want to do.

They also want to make it easier for private power production in

this province to come in — which they already are — and then actually sell the

contracts to them on a long-term basis. What you've got in this province right

now — I've got a bit of an older figure; it's actually more than the figure than

I'm going to give you — are 495 private power applications that are on the table

or in the process or on the ground in some form or another since this government

decided that they were going to privatize British Columbia hydroelectrical power

in this province.

You know, they talk about how we're going to have a net energy

shortage or that there's a crisis looming. That's the guise that they're trying

to go under.

[1055]

The minister talks about an impending energy crisis. There is no

impending energy crisis. If there is a crisis, it's purely manufactured by this

Liberal government to serve a political purpose. They want B.C. Hydro out of the

business of hydro generation in this province.

[ Page 10862 ]

Ever since the days of W.A.C. Bennett, B.C. Hydro has been able to

plan, design, engineer, finance, build and own and operate

hydroelectricity-generating facilities in this province for almost five decades,

until this Liberal government came along. They were able to do it at a lesser

cost than the private entities in this province would have been able to. They

were able to do it in a financially responsible manner.

They were also able to do it by keeping rates for British

Columbians historically low and way below the average in North America, because

we, the people of British Columbia, not only owned B.C. Hydro but also the

ability to actually generate the electricity that we consume in this province.

It has been well managed for all of those years.

Former Social Credit Premier Bill Vander Zalm is totally against

what this particular Liberal Premier is doing to B.C. Hydro in this province.

He's not a New Democrat. He's not a social democrat. He's a free-enterpriser,

and he is totally against what this government is doing in terms of dismantling

and privatizing B.C. Hydro in this province.

What you've got…. You know, it's the old theory in this province,

and this is what the Liberals believe in: if there isn't a crisis, then create

one. Once you've created the crisis, then put forward your own solution. It's

happened with B.C. Ferries, which were privatized. What have we seen since it

went privatized? Our rates have gone up. Our rates have gone up under this

Liberal government with what they've done with B.C. Ferries.

Same thing they're doing with B.C. Hydro. Our rates have been

increasing since this Liberal government took office seven years ago. For seven

years in a row, we've seen hydro rates increase with what this Liberal

government is doing. Now, with all these IPPs, or independent power production

facilities — they're actually private power production facilities that are

coming on board — our debt is increasing.

B.C. Hydro traditionally has had a great credit rating. They were

able to actually borrow money at lower rates and keep the cost of construction

down and, hence, keep our rates down for the future. But these private entities

— they're much smaller than B.C. Hydro are — when they individually go out to

borrow money, they borrow it at a much higher cost, only to then turn around and

have this Liberal government buy power back from these private producers at

double the rate of what B.C. Hydro was able to produce.

That's what's happening, and that's why our rates are going up.

It's all because the Liberals are trying to serve their own political needs. You

can see it's like…. Vultures can smell death for miles and miles and miles away.

You could live in a locality and never see a vulture your entire life, but as

soon as they smell death, you see them circling up there.

That's what's happening with this Liberal government as they are

killing B.C. Hydro little by little by little, dismantling B.C. Hydro. You get

all these private entities lining up at the Liberal doors, at the Liberal

coffers, to go in there to eat up the spoils, hon. Speaker. That is what is

happening.

What they're doing is…. The Liberals are rewarding their friends.

This isn't about good public policy. This is all about election financing for

the Liberal Party, for the Liberal Premier, the Liberal Energy Minister and the

Liberal MLAs sitting across the way. It's all about election financing. It has

nothing to do with public policy. It's got nothing to do with actually managing

the purse on behalf of the people of British Columbia. It's all about managing

their personal, political futures so they can get those private power production

entities paying for their election bills, as they have done.

[1100]

It's payback time. They've paid for their elections in 2001. Those

private entities, those private production facilities, they paid for their

elections in 2005. It's payback time, and they're getting it by the bucketfuls.

Who's paying for all of this? It's the people of British Columbia,

as their rates are going up, as they no longer will be owning their own

hydroelectricity dams and power-generating facilities. It'll be the private

entities, those people who put the Liberals in office by paying for their

election bills. It's payback time, and nothing less than that.

[K. Whittred in the chair.]

Really, when it comes down to it, does the Premier care about the

people of British Columbia? He doesn't, just like everything else. He said he's

caring for the heartlands. It's the "hurtlands," hon. Speaker. He's pulling the

guts out of rural British Columbia. Forestry is dying because of this deliberate

dismantling of forest policy by this government and not putting anything in

place. It's the people of rural B.C. who are suffering. The same thing is

happening with hydroelectricity generation. The same thing is happening because

they're deliberately dismantling it. They don't care.

They think they can win an election in urban and suburban British

Columbia alone. You know, to heck with the people of rural B.C. They don't have

to serve their interests, because if they did, that Energy Minister from a seat

in rural British Columbia would actually show some compassion to the people of

British Columbia, would actually turn around and stand up for his own

constituents and say: "No, we're not going to privatize B.C. Hydro."

But he's not going to do that, because he wants to serve his own

political interests for the future. He doesn't want to leave cabinet and say to

the Premier: "I'm not going to go along with your privatization plan. I'm going

to stand up for the people who put me into this place as an MLA." He doesn't

want to do that, because he doesn't want to be shifted out of cabinet. In order

to go against the Premier, he would have to resign from cabinet. He's not going

to do that, because he's putting his political future before that of the public

interest in this province and standing up for British Columbia and B.C. Hydro.

He's not going to do that. Why? Because he doesn't care, just like

the Liberal Premier and the Liberal cabinet and the MLAs across the way on the

other side of the bench. They don't care. They just don't care.

[ Page 10863 ]

Interjections.

H. Lali: You can hear the heckling coming from across the

way. You can hear the heckling. They don't like it. Why? Because the truth

hurts, and they know it.

These contracts, these 3Ps, are so expensive, these long-term

contracts. The other thing about these contracts is the way they've got them set

up. Once those contracts are over, those private power production facilities do

not have to sell the power to B.C. Hydro anymore. They can turn around and sell

it to Alberta or to the United States all they want, and that's when we'll have

an energy crisis.

We will have an energy crisis in 25 to 30 to 40 years down the

road, when those energy contracts are going to end. That Minister of Energy

across the way is amongst the people sitting there who are directly responsible

for that sellout of British Columbia.

Interjection.

H. Lali: I will go out those doors any day and say the same

things, hon. Member, as I'm saying here, because I am not afraid to stand up on

behalf of the people of British Columbia, unlike the cowardice that is shown by

that side of the House. Any time of the day that you want to debate me, I am

ready, hon. Member. I am ready to do it, because I am not afraid to stand up on

behalf of the people who put me in this place — unlike you. You don't care about

the people of Peace River North. You don't have the guts enough to tell the

Premier: "I am not going to implement that plan." That's what's going on.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Member, take your seat, please. Members.

I remind the speaker about parliamentary decorum.

Please continue.

[1105]

H. Lali: Hon. Speaker, you know, the truth really does

hurt, because if the Liberal Party and the Liberal Premier and this Liberal

Energy Minister actually cared about British Columbians and the future of power

in this province, they should actually be standing up and solidifying and

backing up and making B.C. Hydro stronger than it is rather than weakening it,

dismantling it, cutting it up and selling it off to their friends and insiders —

if they actually really cared.

If they actually cared about energy generation in this province,

what they ought to be doing is they should be saying: "We're going to do what

W.A.C. Bennett did." That former Social Credit MLA who sits as a Liberal Energy

Minister now, if he really cared and was proud of his past and was proud of the

Social Credit Party, he would listen to the words of W.A.C. Bennett.

It was W.A.C. Bennett, a right-wing free-enterpriser, who said:

"It will be the public who will plan, design, engineer, finance, build and

operate the hydroelectricity-generating facilities in this province." He did it

because he knew what was right. He did it because he cared about the people of

British Columbia. He cared about the residents of Peace River South and Peace

River North. He cared about the people who lived in the hinterlands, and that's

why he did it.

What we have seen under this Liberal government, whether you look

at any particular sector that is related not only to all of the British Columbia

but, specifically, to rural British Columbia, is that this government has not

only systematically dismantled everything that was there, but they're doing it

in a way that they are systematically abandoning the people of rural British

Columbia.

Whether they live up in the north in the Peace River country or

out on the north coast country, or whether they live in the Kootenays, the

Cariboo, or in my neck of the woods in the Thompson-Okanagan and the Nicola,

they're systematically abandoning the hopes and the desires of the people of

rural British Columbia.

B.C. Hydro is an icon in the way the public actually looks after

not only the financing of it but in how a corporation ought to be run — that is,

under the purview of the public purse. All Bill 15 does is make it even easier

for the friends of the Premier, who financed the election campaigns of Liberal

MLAs across the way, to get access to our resources in this province. It is that

transparent. All you have to do to get favours out of this Liberal government is

to finance their election campaigns. That's exactly what has been happening.

I proudly stand on this side of the House to vote against Bill 15

and to vote against the privatization of B.C. Hydro.

N. Simons: My apologies to those in the gallery who will

not be treated to the wonderful and powerful and passionate words of my

colleague, although I will do my best to convey the same feelings I have about

this bill and what it does to the British Columbian public and the public

interest.

What essentially this bill does is it allows the B.C. energy plan,

as flawed as it is, to become more rooted in the public policy of British

Columbia. What I worry about with that prospect is that in the past we have

relied on and we have been proud to have in our possession, as stewards of this

province, the control and the ownership over our waterways — over our streams

and over our rivers. We have used that wealth and what was naturally here in

British Columbia to the benefit of British Columbians.

That is something where we have not only managed the resource; we

have also benefited greatly from the resource — not just from the power that it

generates but also from the wealth that we create here so that we can provide

people in our communities, wherever they

[ Page 10864 ]

are, with the kinds of services that we as British Columbians expect. We

expect to be able to look after the children. We expect to be able to look after

the seniors. We expect to look after the environment in a way that is

sustainable for future generations.

[1110]

Unfortunately, what Bill 15 does is it takes another chip out of

that structure, another wedge between the wealth of British Columbians and their

ability to keep that wealth in the future.

So what we have is private interests taking over what has been

publicly managed resources, private interests whose benefit is entirely in the

profits that they generate, where British Columbians will fail to generate that

same kind of revenue. We will not have the same ability to provide the services

that we expect in this province. Unfortunately, that is the end result of this

privatization scheme. Whether or not it will be felt by us is not the issue. We

know that it will be felt by our children and our children's children.

I consider this legislation and this whole ideology of

privatization of the public wealth as dangerous policy. It's not benign, and

it's sold in a way that's supposed to make us feel good, but it is exactly

contrary to how it is being sold. It is about giving away what we have — for

decades, and in some places generations — looked to for the future benefit. We

have to consider ourselves as temporary occupiers of this place. We need to look

for the benefit of the generations to come. What this does is it eliminates our

ability to say that this is our wealth and that this is how we share our wealth.

When it's all in private hands, we see the deals that are made

around this province — the deals between those with very deep pockets and very

strong interests in taking the most value out of our land. The private industry

that does that does not invest back into our communities in the same way that we

as the public are able to do, as we are expected to do in this House. We were

elected to do that in this House. The 79 of us, Members of the Legislative

Assembly, are supposed to be in this House to think for the future, not for the

next election cycle.

What is clear to so many British Columbians is that there is a

direct relationship between this government's public policy and where they get

their ability to run the party. I find that troubling. I find that problematic.

I find that it does make government shortsighted in its approach if it's, in

fact, interested in only the election cycle and not in the future ability of

this province to sustain the quality of life and our ability to help others

sustain a quality of life that we have in the past.

This is not a personal battle; this is an ideological issue.

Simply put, it's a debate between whether or not British Columbians should have

ownership and stewardship responsibilities over our natural resources or if we

are willing to say to whoever the highest bidder is: "You come and manage it,

and we're going to become less and less involved in how you do that. We'll have

less and less authority and power in how you operate, and in 30 short years — in

some cases a shorter period of time and in some cases longer — we will be

required to purchase what you have borrowed from British Columbians at a price

set on the world market."

Now, we have ways of balancing our interests and the interests of

others and finding ways that our policy meets the needs of British Columbians.

The short-term gains that communities are receiving for short-term projects and

short-term jobs need to be seen as that. There may be situations where there is

a desperate need that has been created by successive governments in not

addressing issues of the past, which put people in positions of being accepting

of changes that occur in their communities.

We know that we need to be forward-thinking and progressive in our

energy policy. Yet at the same time, we also need to be able to manage that

energy policy. Bills like Bill 15 just chip, erode and melt away those

structures and those firm foundations that we've put into legislation for

decades. The people that were here before enshrined certain regulations and

regimes that we have seen to work for the needs of the people then and the needs

of the people now.

[1115]

This is, I think, a sad commentary, that it is not understood by

as many people as it needs to be, unfortunately. I think that the interest and

knowledge is growing with the Pitt River controversy. Suddenly people were

looking around and saying: "What's going on there? What was going on there?" We

were about to agree to something that would have been contrary to what we

believe in British Columbia as the more important value — the values of the

natural resource protection in that place.

We put covenants on our land to protect it, not to be overturned a

few years later by private interests with a lot of money. That's not why we

protect parks. We protect parks for the future, not just temporarily so that the

next person who wants to get a lot of money out of it can come along and do so

from scratch. That's not why we protect parks. We protect parks, and we need to

be more conscious of doing that kind of thing.

Now, I'm a bit troubled by the fact that so much interest was

generated at the Pitt River situation, because there are hundreds of those all

across the province that need public scrutiny. The particular example that

recently occurred was a wonderful expression of public will.

I would like to do my part as a member of the Legislative Assembly

to inform the public that this is also something that is happening in various

degrees, in various stages, all throughout the province. Private industry is

going to be taking over the stewardship, ownership and use of our water for

their benefit, at our cost, in the future — not just now but in the future as

well.

It's a complicated subject. I understand that. What makes it even

more complicated is that it's been done in increments. It's been done in such a

way that we haven't realized the impact of it until maybe it's too late. But if

I'm standing here, I have to say it's not too late for me to say that I believe

this is wrong-headed policy. I believe that it keeps us going down in the wrong

direction because of people who believe so

[ Page 10865 ]

strongly that the unfettered free market will always do right.

In this case we have known as British Columbians, as Canadians,

that this is green energy. Make it Canadian green energy. Make it British

Columbian green energy, not foreign corporations' or private interests' green.

It should be the green of our province.

I don't quite know how it is that representatives…. All 79 members

of the Legislative Assembly should be hearing from our communities or

representing what we know to be the interest of British Columbians. We don't

need to hear from every single constituent, because there's a certain trust put

in us that we will guard their public interest.

There's some cynicism. It's not all cynicism. There are a lot of

people who vote and say: "I put my trust in your judgment to consider the

policies that are put before you in the Legislative Assembly. Use your

judgment." My judgment is on behalf of them, whether they're paying attention

right now or not.

They paid attention in the Pitt River scandal, and they are going

to have to pay attention and help me along the way as we try and maintain the

ownership that we have had for generations over our resources so that we can

steward them, so that we can benefit from them and so that we can set a public

policy agenda that meets our values as British Columbians, as Canadians.

This is something that all British Columbians, I believe, are

going to feel with passion when they realize that, in fact, it is what we own

that is being sold to private interests.

So not just for now but for the future, I think this kind of

policy that chips away at our ability to benefit is just bad legislation. It

should not be proceeding down that ill-advised path.

I think that what British Columbians will recognize, I hope, from

this debate is that public policy is set here. Public policy is sometimes set in

regulations, sometimes in legislation, and sometimes the two go together. In

this particular case the public policy was set by government using illusory

concepts to make it sound good in a way described yesterday as somewhat

Orwellian — that good was bad, and war was peace.

[1120]

I think we need to recognize that we all want to make sure that we

have a sustainable plan. When it's not a sustainable plan but called a

sustainable plan, we all suffer.

With respect to the need to maintain our authority, our control

over our own rivers, I find that there's a contradiction between the public

interest and the public policy that's being put before us. When I think about

the first nations and the Sunshine Coast and Powell River area, there are

hundreds of applications for private diversion river plans. They are in

positions where they are going to have to assess each one of those applications

without having been provided with the necessary resources to be able to do the

job even sometimes to their own satisfaction.

They understand that there are cumulative impacts of these

projects. Who is looking carefully at the cumulative impact that these

independent power companies have? We have each project assessed individually.

What we don't want to try and picture…. I've heard a chief of a first nation

say, "We expect spiderwebs over our territory" — the transmission lines that

aren't being contemplated, the hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of

transmission lines that need to be built.

The cumulative impact of this policy is not being considered and

can't be considered by this government under these regulations, under this

legislation. When that's not even considered or factored in, I think the public

interest is not being properly served. We need to make sure that the decisions

that are made in our communities and in our regions are not made out of

desperation or out of a need to deal with current crises that this government is

not able to deal with now.

If you contemplate the fact that we get revenue from our previous

policies that kept British Columbia, through B.C. Hydro, as owners…. If you were

able to generate revenue from that, you can provide services to our communities

that allow our communities to function and allow our communities and our

infrastructure to be maintained — our hospitals. That is how we do this.

When we reduce our ability to benefit as British Columbians…. It's

not just the fact that we shouldn't be selling our rivers. It's the fact that we

should be benefiting from them when they are used as power-generating facilities

or have power-generation capacity. We should be using that for our own benefit.

We should be using that to make up for the gaps that have been created due to

restrictions that government has placed on spending for social services and for

programs that are needed in our community.

We see the need. There's no denial that we have a crisis in

homelessness. We're the worst in the country when it comes to child poverty. We

need to make sure that if we have the capacity as British Columbians to generate

revenue in a way that is sustainable to pay for those programs, one would think

that that would be the way to do it.

It's not going to happen, simply because we're giving away rights

to rivers to private companies. G.E. is a major shareholder. Their public

interest does not include towns and communities and villages and cities across

British Columbia. Their interest is simply in profit.

What we benefit from when we have the interest in that particular

resource is that we have our own interests. We can protect our own interests. We

can support and strengthen and shore up the services which we have been

promoting and providing for our communities for generation after generation.

[1125]

That is essentially what is at stake here with Bill 15. Bill 15 is

just another way of shoring up their flawed energy plan. Unfortunately, it takes

away the breadth of decision-making ability from the Utilities Commission.

That's supposed to be an independent body. When you reduce the rules that they

operate under, it loses its independence. It's not about whether they can make a

decision on their own. Yeah, they can make decisions,

[ Page 10866 ]

but you just take away their options, and suddenly, there's a little bit of

external interference that, I would say, brings into question how much authority

they really would have.

So that's an issue that, I think, we need to discuss at some

point. Perhaps we'll have that opportunity in greater length. I hope, at that

point, that the minister responsible will be able to address those issues.

I'm not so confident that he's going to be able to address the

overall ill-advised plans that really just allow British Columbians to lose all

ownership and jurisdiction over our own resources. I mean, you see patterns

emerging here with our giveaway of forest lands, and this is another example of

that. It reduces our ability to provide services to our communities. It reduces

our ability to say that we can steward the land according to our own standards.

We'll be left to the unfortunate whims of those who don't have an interest in

our concerns.

So I find that troubling. I find that problematic. I think the

legislation is yet another stealthy way of promoting the privatization of

agenda, and I don't know how anyone can see it in another way.

Some people say, though, that in a way it's a good thing, and I

strongly disagree. I think it's a bad idea for British Columbians, and I think

that anyone who understands the values of Canadians and British Columbians knows

that we do try to steward our wealth in a way that we can benefit and that we

can be in a good position to help others benefit.

I think that's sometimes lost in this whole thing. It's like it's

about being the best place on earth but not at the exclusion of trying to help

others. I think that the arrogance that's often shown by this government — this

cabinet, in particular — that promotes this idea of it's all for us, and when

it's us, it's them…. I'm not part of that us.

I think most British Columbians will feel that they're not going

to benefit when they know that their own resource is going to the friends of

government. I don't think that they're going to look at their leadership and

say: "Well, why did you sell our rivers when we could have kept them and paid

for our own services?" They'll say: "Because our friends helped us get elected,

and we can sit back in our chairs in the Legislature and yawn and pretend to be

disinterested."

That will be our legacy for British Columbians. People who are

unable to see beyond the election cycle will do what they can to make sure that

British Columbians are separated from their wealth.

It does nobody any good to try and belittle this debate or demean

it as something less important than it really is. It is a debate about how much

we're allowing our future to be rented out now, just to be sold a few years down

the line. You know, we're renting it now. We still own it now, but we're renting

it now. But in 30 years, we won't. It's rent to own. They've got their hands in,

and they're going to get their hands in deeper. It's like, when their hands are

in, there's no room for ours. And when there's no more room for ours, we've got

no control.

I find that troubling. I find that troubling because it doesn't

reflect the values of the people that I represent, in large part. It doesn't

represent the interests of our future generations, who I also represent. I

think, on that basis alone, we should say that this government's plan should

fail.

D. Routley: I rise to speak to Bill 15 and in opposition to

its passing. I note the title, Bill 15, Utilities Commission Amendment Act. I

think that it would be more properly intituled: Bill 15, the B.C. Liberal

private river diversion act, because that's exactly what this is. It's

continuing a campaign of the B.C. Liberal privatization of the commonwealth of

British Columbia.

[1130]

This act removes the ability of B.C. Hydro to generate new power.

This act is built on the B.C. Liberal myth that self-sufficiency cannot be

attained through B.C. Hydro. This act is built on the myth and the ignorance of

the fact that our B.C. Hydro, as it stands today, is a great source of wealth in

revenue to this province and a great source of sovereignty determination. It's

ours. My daughter, only 20 years old, will vote for less. She comes to voting

age at a time when her vote has been fractioned, diminished and reduced by the

campaign of privatization of this B.C. Liberal government.

We have a great system with B.C. Hydro, or at least we had. I

don't know if the viewers out there, the audience, the people of B.C. realize

it, but what we do in B.C. is let the lakes, the reservoirs behind those dams,

fill up, fill up all night long, when power is at its lowest price. During that

time, yes, we import power at a very low price. Then after those reservoirs have

filled up all night long or during the rainy season, we open up those dams and

we generate more electricity when power is at its peak price. That is a good use

of market forces in the interests of British Columbians.

This bill is an intervention into that free market mechanism that

has benefited British Columbians for generations. Every year this province makes

a half-billion-dollar profit selling power at its highest price and buying power

at its lowest price. That is a good deal for the people of British Columbia. But

this government, the B.C. Liberal government, steps in and changes all that in

the interests of those who have backed them.

They create, through public policy, an artificial gold rush on our

rivers. They intervene in a marketplace in a desperate attempt to prop up a

phony gold rush on our rivers. The myth is built on more than just this

self-sufficiency piece. It's built on this supposed green run-of-the-river

presumption. All German shepherds are dogs, but not all dogs are German

shepherds.

It may very well be that there are benign and beneficial

run-of-the-river projects that could be brought forward to the benefit of

British Columbians — and would be much more to their benefit should they be

brought forward by B.C. Hydro in the public interest. But instead, all is good

in the B.C. Liberal universe. All is good; it's okay. Everyone is green;

everyone is good. Just pick one. It's an auction. Stake a claim.

[ Page 10867 ]

All you have to do is click your way through an Internet site and

you can own a river in B.C. Is that the legacy we've been sent here to steward

and marshal and defend? Is that the legacy that my daughter of 20 should inherit

— with her first vote so liquidated and so fractioned by these measures: the

loss of B.C. Rail, the privatization of B.C. Hydro and the loss of public

control over our forests?

It's a pattern, and this is another piece of that pattern. This is

another piece of a pattern that sees the B.C. Liberal government in the most

arrogant way, in the most conceited way, appoint themselves the generation which

will oversee the liquidation of the common wealth of British Columbia built up

over generations. Those rivers that have flowed for millions of years now will

be diverted through pipes into turbines. If the B.C. Liberals have their way,

there will be transmission lines running through sensitive areas and access

roads punched through parks.

That's the future. What we have is a former Socred member now

sitting as the B.C. Liberal Minister of Energy — the member for Peace River

North. And the green paint flakes off his government and him in the heat of the

exposure to the truth of this matter.

[1135]

The B.C. Liberal history of denial of these issues shows through

that flaking green paint. We remember that they were the ones who abolished the

Environment Ministry when they came to power. We remember them denying climate

change. We remember them abusing the forests of this province by reducing

standards to points that haven't been seen in my lifetime.

That's the legacy of this government to the people of B.C. and my

daughter. It is one of dilution. It is one of dissolved futures, dissolved

value, liquidated assets. It's a Ritchie Bros. auctioneering paradise, this B.C.

Liberal approach to British Columbia's management.

They have abused the birthright of this province. They have broken

the social contract between us and our resources, and they have embarked on an

auction of that value with their friends getting first viewing and first dibs.

Why would the B.C. Liberals…?

Interjection.

D. Routley: Oh, yes. "Socialism," the member for Peace

River North, the former Socred, says, "is…." The definition of that, for these

members, is public interest. Things like public education, public health, public

oversight over tree farm licences, public ownership of rivers, public ownership

of Crown lands and Crown forests. That's all somehow to this government a little

too Red for them.

But the B.C. Liberals have to be asked a question. Why would the

B.C. Liberals sell our rivers? Why would the B.C. Liberals give away our jobs in

the form of raw logs, exacting the fewest jobs per cubic metre of any developed

nation? Why would that be done? Why would they break promises and sell B.C.

Rail? Why would they sell our B.C. Ferry Corp. and see our rates…?

Deputy Speaker: Member, could I remind you that the topic

of this bill is the B.C. Utilities Commission. Please stay on track.

D. Routley: Madam Speaker, it's one more piece in the

pattern of the questions that I'm asking.

Why would they let our ferry fares soar over 100 percent in a

privatization scheme? Why would they break our forest industry? Because they

have opened the door of the common wealth treasury to their friends and

supporters.

This bill represents another piece in the big B.C. Liberal

giveaway, and this is the big B.C. Liberal payoff to those who have backed them.

This is payback time. It represents the conceit of public policy directed

against the people.

We come here, and we possess the trust of the people to use the

tools of democracy to defend their interests and to defend the public interests

of British Columbia. But instead, this B.C. Liberal government has

systematically and in a patterned way turned the tools of government and public

policy against the people of B.C.

You can use a hammer to build a house or you can use a hammer to

tear it down. The B.C. Liberals, by privatizing the common wealth of this

province, are using that hammer to tear down that house that was built over

generations in British Columbia which stands on a foundation of common wealth.

What about the concept of public wealth? What a notion — that

public services and institutions represent a wealth that we all possess, that

this House belongs to my constituents and that this House should have a role in

determining the future of British Columbia. What about this notion of public

wealth? What about the notion that these rivers should remain public, should

remain in public service, not serving the profit-making interests of

corporations that paid for the election of the B.C. Liberal party? What about

that?

It's a very sad day, because the B.C. Liberals are building debt

as they sell off our assets. The B.C. Liberals are transferring that common

wealth at the same time that they take on debt in the name of my daughter.

[1140]

It's unfortunate that the government that had the two record

deficits in the history of this province and that continues to build the debt at

a rate of 5.2 percent — more than double the rate of inflation — can do nothing

but further auction off the wealth of this province, selling off the stock of

the store to pay the rent. You're not doing anything for the future. You're

running on the credit card of my daughter. This government is liquidating her

future.

I guess I grew up with a fairly naive notion that the wealth of

this province and the resources of this province would serve us. I sort of

believe, as many of my constituents believe, that in fact the splendour and

wealth of B.C. and its resources would serve us.

But this government, through their policies like this one —

privatizing rivers, giving away resources, giving away raw logs and our jobs….

It's a pattern, and it adds up to loss for British Columbians. It adds up to a

[ Page 10868 ]

loss of future wealth, and it adds up to a loss of future choice and

determination.

There is a conflict between the word and deed of the B.C.

Liberals. There is an arrogance to their action and a conceit to their policy.

It's an auctioning of the future, and it's a dilution of common wealth. We see

all around us those things that were supported by that wealth — our schools and

our hospitals — being closed, downgraded and diluted, because these former

Socreds have abandoned the notion that B.C. ought to work for us.

They've signed on to agreements that have guaranteed that things

like our value-added industries in the forest industry are given away as well —

just like this — so that, in the future when we ask the question, "Why Ikea? Why

not 'BCea'?" there won't be an answer, because the resources won't be ours

anymore. We won't be able to make the choices. Instead, we see this liquidation.

Instead, we see a government prepare to give up…. Instead, we see a government

prepared to secure its own future by trading off the future of British Columbia.

This bill removes the power, the option of B.C. Hydro generating

new power. This bill moves our public utility to being a private purchaser of

power. This bill guarantees that we will be obligated to buy power for 30 years

at many times the market rate.

It is a market intervention. It is a market intervention meant to

prop up a false gold rush planted in the rivers of British Columbia by this

government. Go ahead. People of B.C., go ahead. Go to their website. Click your

way through. Buy a river. Buy the rights to the water. Buy the future of British

Columbia.

These guys, these people — the B.C. Liberal government — will

guarantee your profit. These free marketeers will guarantee the profit of their

supporters. That is what this bill empowers. It empowers the scheme to liquidate

public control over our rivers.

If there are green run of the river…. Just as I said: all German

shepherds are dogs, but not all dogs are German shepherds. This government just

opened the map wide open, and we see the result.

What will it take if you're wrong, Minister? What would it take

for us to backtrack once these steps are taken — if they're wrong?

[1145]

Ideology of no sort should be applied as purely and as

determinedly as this government has done. They have insisted, whether it makes

sense or not, that there will be privatization. It makes great sense to buy your

car yourself, but it doesn't make much sense to buy the road yourself. This

province has always benefited by a balance between public and private, but this

government doesn't like that. They've put their thumb on the scale of that

balance. They've said: "No, public is bad. There should be no public wealth."

Public wealth is a concept that is toxic to the B.C. Liberal

government. Instead, that notion of public wealth must be stamped out, must be

liquidated, and that liquidation must benefit their supporters. It's clear. Go

look at the list of their supporters. Go look at the list.

The largest donors benefit from their privatization of TFL

controls. Their biggest donors benefit from this bill. Those are the people

being paid off. Those are the people this government is working for — not for

the people of B.C., not for my daughter, not for the future that would include

her and would give her a say over the management of these resources. That is

alien to the ideology of the B.C. Liberals, so it will be stopped.

Again, the green paint flakes off in the heat of exposure to the

truth, when we look at the history and the pattern. We look at the promises: "We

won't privatize B.C. Rail." What did they do? They privatized B.C. Rail and now

our rivers.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Can anyone in B.C. imagine a deeper attack on that common wealth?

Can anyone imagine a deeper and more significant attack on the

self-determination and the future benefit of British Columbians? I hope not,

because this government would definitely employ whatever idea would take them

further down that path.

We have already seen the loss of so much that is supported by the

resources that this government is giving away, from rivers to forests to water.

We see the loss of our schools. We see the privatization of public property

throughout this province. We see the sale of the future. We see the sale of the

future in misguided public policy, and all of those elements that used to be

supported by these services and these resources are going.

We are losing our schools; we are losing our hospitals. Our

highways are in disrepair. Why? Because a priority of this government — as they

reward oil companies and gas companies and claim to be green — is to sell off

our resources, auction off our rivers and reward their friends. More and more of

the future of British Columbia is liquidated.

Caught in that conflict between word and deed, of B.C. Liberal

promise versus action, British Columbians can only wonder what it will take to

bring sense to this government and have them step back from this plan, which

would see us auction off our choice and would see my daughter and future

generations of British Columbians lose their oversight, lose the power of their

vote and lose their input into the management of the resources of this great

province.

It's an outcome that none of us should be able to live with. We

have seen the true colour as that green paint is flaked off. We have been

reminded of the denial of climate change by policies like this. We have been

reminded of the abolition of the Environment Ministry, one of the first acts of

this B.C. Liberal government.

[1150]

Now with an environmental label applied over the bumper of the

same old Socred car, we see the further dilution and auctioning of our province.

It doesn't matter at what cost. We'll pay many times the market rate for

electricity in order to achieve this goal, in order to seed this artificial gold

rush, in order to seed the mine for their friends who need to do nothing more

than jump onto a website and click their way through to guaranteed

[ Page 10869 ]

profits off the backs of my daughter and future generations and through the

abuse and sale of our rivers and our choice.

When this bill further guarantees the implementation of policies

that have consistently shown a pattern of being against the public interest,

then British Columbians shake their heads in wonderment at how a government that

claims this green exterior can have such an unfortunate interior that is in

complete contradiction to all of the words, all of the lofty words.

You can't just say it in a throne speech. You have to do it. You

have to show through public policy that these things matter. You can't, on the

one hand, claim to be environmental and then engineer this gold rush on B.C.'s

resources.

You can't do that any more than you can claim to be a

carbon-cutting government that cuts neighbourhood schools and forces us to drive

our children to schools outside their neighbourhoods at the same time you cut

their transportation.

Somehow, words need to equal actions. Somehow, words need to equal

deeds. Somehow, we need to be accountable to the people of B.C.

The vacant words ring hollow to the people of the Pitt River area.

They saw the truth that indeed not all dogs are German shepherds, and they

stopped the government's plans. There is a way to stop these plans. It's called

political action, and it works.

We on this side oppose this bill. We oppose the run-of-the-river

gold rush engineered by B.C. Liberal policy. We beg the government to finally

see the light, that there is value in defending the common wealth for all of us,

and that there is value in restoring the power of my daughter's vote.

If they did see that, they would withdraw this bill and retreat

from this plan to privatize the resources of this province to guarantee the

profit to their friends. They would return some choice and power to my daughter

and future generations by reinvesting in the common wealth.

Mr. Speaker: Member for Peace River South, and noting the

time.

B. Lekstrom: I rise today to speak in support of Bill 15. I

take a great deal of pride in making sure that I go through each and every piece

of legislation that is presented in this House, and I listen with great interest

to both sides. I listened to the opposition speak about this bill, and I thought

I'd actually read the wrong bill, so I had to double-check.

I kept hearing about IPPs, a bill that wasn't in the public

interest, and that the world was possibly going to come to an end should this go

through. But I want to point out something. This bill, I heard, was against the

public interest. I do note the hour, Mr. Speaker. This bill, if you think it is

against the public interest….

The opposition is saying that they are against…. I want to read

just a couple of lines here. The "'government's energy objectives' means the

following objectives of the government" — and, really, what that is, is for

British Columbia:

"(

a) to encourage public utilities to

reduce greenhouse gas emissions" — you're opposed to that — "(

b) to encourage

public utilities to take demand-side measures" — a pretty good thing — "(

c) to

encourage public utilities to produce, generate and acquire electricity from

clean or renewable sources."

Those are good things. If that is against the public interest, I

would be somewhat scared to see what was in the public interest, in their eyes.

[1155]

"…(

e) to encourage public utilities to use

innovative energy technologies (

i) that facilitate electricity

self-sufficiency, or the fulfillment of their long-term transmission

requirements" — another good one; also — " or (ii) that support energy

conservation or efficiency or the use of clean or renewable sources of

energy."

That's what this bill is about. It's about the Utilities

Commission Amendment Act, not about the B.C. Hydro Act, not about the

independent power producer's act, but the Utilities Commission Act.

I do have much more to say, but noting the hour, I would like to

reserve my right to continue to speak and move adjournment of debate.

B. Lekstrom moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Committee of Supply (Section A), having reported progress, was

granted leave to sit again.

Hon. R. Thorpe moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

afternoon.

The House adjourned at 11:56 a.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE

DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

TRANSPORTATION

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); H. Bloy in the

chair.

The committee met at 10:08 a.m.

On Vote 43: ministry operations, $970,553,000 (continued) .

G. Coons: Just to confirm what's going on today, we brought

in some people to answer some questions

[ Page 10870 ]

from a few members, and then we're going to work with ferries for the morning

and probably go till about four to 4:30. Then that should be it — okay?

R. Fleming: I just want to say welcome to the staff from

B.C. Transit who have been able to join us this morning. I wanted to focus some

questions to the minister on the proposed Douglas Street busway corridor, the

RapidBus project that was a component of the provincial transit plan

announcement in January and has a history, I think, a little longer than that in

the community in Victoria, at least in a draft stage.

[1010]

I guess just to begin some of the questions this morning, I wanted

to ask the minister about the feasibility study that was conducted for this

project and whether, in addition to the technical feasibility study, there has

been a business case also done for this project. Could the minister describe

whether the busway was considered in comparative terms to other transit options

along that corridor.

Hon. K. Falcon: Member, just before I get to the answer, I

want to have an opportunity to introduce the staff that joined me today. My

assistant deputy minister, Sheila Taylor, and my deputy minister, John Dyble,

are joining me today.

I've also got several representatives from B.C. Transit joining me

here today. I want to first of all take this opportunity, for the first time, to

introduce the new CEO of B.C. Transit, Manuel Achadinha. And of course, the two

very hard-working VPs of B.C. Transit, who have been workhorses in getting some

exceptional work done at B.C. Transit, Ron Drolet and Tony Sharp, are also with

me, for the benefit of the member opposite.

The member is talking about the Douglas corridor, the

three-kilometre

section where the Victoria transit commission is working in

cooperation with the city of Victoria and B.C. Transit to create a busway

through that corridor. As I said to the member, we're in the early stages of

working with them in this project.

There will be a business case developed for the entire RapidBus

proposal that was announced by the Premier and myself two months ago. Of course,

that was only two months ago, but what it did do was set out a budget of $1.2

billion for nine RapidBus routes, one of which will of course be the Victoria

RapidBus, which, for the benefit of the viewers out there, will connect the

regions of the Western Communities into the downtown core, right into the

peninsula, with a line also going out to the University of Victoria.

[1015]

Now, the city of Victoria deserves an enormous amount of credit,

and so does the CRD, because they have been working for quite some time on a

transit strategy. As the member opposite would know, the CRD has a regional

transportation strategy for the region. The city of Victoria has been working on

their own to make sure that they do their bit to create a busway through the

three-kilometre

section of the Douglas corridor, and of course, B.C. Transit has

been working actively with them.

I want to take my hat off and recognize the work that's been done

by the transit commission and by the city of Victoria. They are showing great

leadership in this regard, and I want to recognize and applaud the efforts.

They have also, in cooperation with B.C. Transit, invested

significant dollars, about $3 million, to make sure that they've got the

signalization along that corridor which will work and allow the RapidBus to

proceed — the kind of signalization platform that will allow the buses, of

course, to change the lights as they're going through, etc. So there's been a

tremendous amount of leadership by the city of Victoria, and we think that that

is very important to recognize.

Although we're in the very early stages of working on the business

case, because of course the entire route is 57 kilometres…. This is a

three-kilometre section. Fortunately, the city, through their own leadership, in

cooperation with the transit commission, has been making a lot of efforts to

start to lay out what it will look like through the downtown core, how this

rapid busway will work through the downtown core.

One thing I can tell the member — and for the benefit of some of

the folks out there, particularly small business that may have some legitimate

concerns — is that anytime you talk about change, there's going to be

uncertainty around that. One thing I can really, I think, say to the folks out

there that will give some comfort is that this is not a new experiment.

There are dozens of examples of RapidBus corridors and busway

corridors through cities throughout the world, and the evidence in any of those

communities that you want to look at that have gone this route is that they have

been very favourably received and have had favourable results for the commercial

interests along those street busways.

So I guess the answer is that this is an initiative that the city

of Victoria has led. They deserve a lot of credit for that. We are working with

them on that, and we will be doing more work as we develop a business case for

the entire RapidBus corridor — the 57 kilometres from the Western Communities

right down to the peninsula and, of course, out to the university.

R. Fleming: I wanted to ask the minister about the business

case for the commitment he just outlined, the plan as he just outlined and the

parameters.

There has been a lot of discussion in the Greater Victoria

community before pursuing this project, which…. The city engineering departments

of the various municipalities — Victoria, Saanich and others that would

potentially be in the plan — have not contemplated where it applies to them.

But before they would commit to this option, the question and the

discussion in this community has been around looking at other options, whether

it's more conventional HOV lanes along the Douglas corridor and other places

that would be bus priority lanes and that would be in connection with the queue

jumpers

[ Page 10871 ]

that have been installed along the Douglas corridor, or whether it's a

rail-based system in Victoria.

The minister's response through the media and other sources,

through letters to the Capital Region, has been to insist at all times that he's

open to LRT and other options, but that in advance of serious consideration, he

would need to see a business case developed. I think that has been put to the

CRD and other bodies to develop that. That's fair enough. But what I want to

understand is whether the same business case has been insisted upon and, indeed,

conducted for the RapidBus system that is proposed on the Douglas corridor

today.

[1020]

Hon. K. Falcon: As I said to the member, it was just over

two months ago that the Premier and I announced the $14 billion provincial

transit plan, the most ambitious transit expansion ever in the history of the

province of British Columbia by a long shot. As part of that plan we put aside

$1.2 billion for nine RapidBus lines, one of which will be in the Greater

Victoria area to connect the Western Communities with the downtown and, of

course, out to UVic.

Having said that, the city of Victoria, through their own

leadership and as part of their OCP, has plans for a busway through the Douglas

corridor. They deserve, I think, an enormous amount of credit for the leadership

they've been showing and the work they've been doing. Now, the member will be

pleased to know that as part of the planning for the busway that will go through

that three-kilometre

section of what will ultimately form part of the overall

route, they have done the planning. The scope of the work at this point actually

envisions and the design work allows for it to be converted in the future to a

light rapid transit system of whatever sort ultimately would be selected.

That is exactly the kind of visionary foresight that they ought to

be applauded for, and I do applaud them for that. I think that is enormously

visionary. What they have always done, and the city of Victoria has tried to do,

is make sure that the work they do on this corridor will be work that will

connect very well and very smoothly with the rest of the region and be

consistent with the regional transportation strategy that was put into place by

the CRD.

In terms of the member's talk about a business case, again, as I

said to the member yesterday, this is very early stages. The city of Victoria

has always had a vision for what they want to do with their very obviously small

but important three-kilometre

section through the downtown core, but this is a

57-kilometre

section in total for the entire RapidBus, and we are in very, very

early stages.

Fortunately, as I've said, the Regional Transit Commission and

Victoria have been showing great leadership on the three-kilometre

section

through Victoria. B.C. Transit has been working very closely with them, because

it's entirely consistent with the plans that the province has in place. I know

that the city was very pleased when they heard about the transit plan, because

that tied in perfectly to the leadership they've already been showing in this

regard for the

section that they're responsible for.

The member should know, in fact, that there was a great

article on

the front page of the Times Colonist that talked about the fact that

there's a public meeting tonight that we are asking the public to attend, all

interested stakeholders. I understand there will be strong delegations from the

business community, from the cycling community and from others that are

involved.

Let me just say this. At the end of the day, leadership means

taking positions. Leadership means saying that you either support or don't

support initiatives that are underway. I want the record to show that I am in

total support of what the city is trying to achieve here and what the regional

transit commission is trying to achieve.

What they are doing is showing vision and leadership. It is

confirmed by experiences, dozens of examples around the world, where these kinds

of busways have been very effective and have the ability to literally triple the

volume of people that are capable of coming through the corridor. That

ultimately is, I think, a very good result for the community.

I would be interested in knowing whether the member opposite

shares the vision of the city of Vancouver and the regional transit commission

and what they're trying to do. I think that more of us in leadership positions

can stand up and say: "This is the right thing to do. We support the effort to

increase public transit options, and we support the efforts to get people out of

their cars and into a transit system that favours the public transit system in a

very real way and gives people those real options to get out of their cars."

I think I would encourage the member to join with me in supporting

the leadership that's been shown by the city in the hopes that we can actually

get to a point where we do have — the member will know; I know the member has

been studying this — the city making sure that there are going to be cycling

paths as part of this process. I know that the member knows that they have

designed it in such a way to make sure that it will allow for light rail and

light rapid transit in the future. That's the whole point of the work that

they've been doing thus far.

I think it's visionary, I think it's leadership, and I think it

deserves our support. It has our support. I would hope that the member opposite

will join and echo that support — with, of course, the proviso that we all put

in place, and that is that we want to make sure it gets done right.

[1025]

That's why the public consultative process is so important, and

that's why I encourage any members of the public who have the opportunity to be

watching us this morning and who live in the area to please make an effort to

attend the public meeting and bring forward your input. It will be welcome.

R. Fleming: I know the minister has said a couple of times

in his long response there…. He referred to the city of Vancouver leading this

process, and I know that he meant to say Victoria. Although, I must say, when

[ Page 10872 ]

the provincial transit plan was initially brought down, people did think it

was a Lower Mainland transit plan and that Victoria was left out for any serious

consideration, let alone any serious investment in that plan.

I want to get back to who's driving this process here. While the

minister correctly talks about some vision being provided from the regional

district and from various municipalities to have rapid transit technology as we

grow as a region, to grow smarter and in a more compact way and to live up to

the land uses contemplated in our regional growth strategy…. He's quite correct.

The travel choices strategy does come from the CRD.

I was involved in developing that plan. My colleague from Saanich

South was as well, so I'm very familiar with that. But let's be clear, and I

want the minister to put this on the record. This is coming from B.C. Transit.

This is under his direction through the Ministry of Transportation. The very

meeting being held tonight is being held under those auspices. The decision to

date and the service plan very clearly says that they hope to break ground in 12

months on a technology that apparently has already been chosen.

I think what I want to ask here today is mainly about how that was

arrived at. What we don't want is to consider one option in isolation of others

— light rail transit, for example, along that corridor, which had a feasibility

study done in 1996. That was 12 years ago. It was a positive evaluation. It was

a very technical, detailed observation, but it wasn't a business case. We

acknowledge that.

We want to make sure that several options are considered fully,

that a proper cost-benefit analysis is being done, that the investment today is

going to be the right one but, most importantly, as part of that proper

cost-benefit analysis, that we're actually focusing on ridership numbers. We

need to achieve emissions reductions. I know the minister feels, probably more

than anyone else in cabinet, pressure to contribute to those targeted reductions

that are now written in law, and the burden does fall to his ministry. I think

that when it comes to Greater Victoria and what technology we're going to invest

in and which has the most potential, that has to be foremost in our

decision-making process.

I want to ask him again. He's saying that something is being put

out there today, but you know, you can't put out something that has not had any

homework behind it. Tonight I think there will be ridership benefits. I would

hope that there is some data that has been collected. I want to ask him about

whether he is open-minded still and whether he will commit tonight, if the view

of the public is that we want to consider not just a busway but other options

for the Douglas Street corridor that will achieve the greatest benefit for the

greatest amount of people.

My question to the minister is: what is the business case that

B.C. Transit has been using to come up with ridership figures? Is he committed

to do what he has been willing to do with the Tri-Cities area and commit to

support a business case for light rail technology? I think that's what Greater

Victoria wants to see. They don't want to consider a busway system in isolation

of other options. It would be improper for any decision-maker to channel what

they're doing into just one option without studying and doing a proper

comparative analysis to other technologies.

[1030]

Hon. K. Falcon: The member covered off a number of areas

there. I think perhaps the member should know that the commitment we made as a

government was very straightforward. We said that we wanted British Columbia to

join the ranks of the leading cities of the world — the Parises, the Londons,

the Hong Kongs — in terms of the percentage of the population that utilizes

public transit on a regular basis.

That means we need to get from a modal share of 12 percent in, for

example, the Greater Vancouver area, and we need to add another 10 percent on

top of that. In the Victoria area, where we're currently at about 7 percent,

we've got to add another 5 percent on top of that by 2030, if that's what we

ultimately want to get to.

The member can talk about rapid transit, and he can talk about how

he thinks it's all centred in the Lower Mainland. But I would hope that when the

member talks about business cases…. I'm always encouraged when the NDP talk

about business cases because that certainly wasn't a hallmark of their

administration in the 1990s, when they moved forward with projects without any

business cases. We know what the result of that was. So I think that this is

certainly a good change of direction.

But the member would know that, if we are to achieve those levels,

when you've got a population of two million people that happen to reside in the

Lower Mainland, that is obviously where you need to spend a significant amount

of money, because that is where you've got to move a lot of people.

Now, the member might want to argue that you shouldn't do that,

and you should spend that money in other parts of the province where the

population is much lower, where you haven't got the kind of density that you do

in the Lower Mainland. I would have to say to the member that, if that's his

argument, it would be an argument that would not be supported by anyone anywhere

in the world that is involved in transportation planning.

The challenge for Greater Victoria is that you've got a combined

population of about 367,000 people spread out over a large area. So the question

becomes: how do you best serve those people? The CRD actually came out with a

plan. The member said that he was involved in the creation of that plan. The

member should know that, in the CRD zone plan, they contemplated light rail

transit as an option. But that option was not to be realized — even within their

own plan that the member apparently was involved in drafting — until the 2025

period.

It was always contemplated that the RapidBus would be the ideal

way to start to create what I call the culture of ridership, the culture of

rapid transit–type ridership, which is exactly what RapidBus does. I think

[ Page 10873 ]

that the member needs to do his homework on the efficiency and efficacy of

rapid bus systems. They are very, very effective.

I've used the example of Ottawa and the system they have there,

which I believe they call metro valley, which moves more people than the

Millennium line moves in the Lower Mainland each day. The Millennium line moves

70,000 people, yet in Ottawa, the rapid bus system moves more. It can be a very,

very effective way to move people.

So when the member talks about a business case, well, I can

guarantee this member that this government on every major project in which we're

going to be involving a significant amount of funds will be requiring a business

case. Of course we will. That's what we always do. That's why, with a $1.2

billion commitment….

Interjection.

Hon. K. Falcon: Do I hear an echo in here?

The Chair: Members, please direct all your comments through

the Chair.

Interjection.

The Chair: Member. Please direct all your comments through

the Chair.

Continue, Minister.

Hon. K. Falcon: So with a $1.2 billion investment to nine

rapid bus lines throughout the province of British Columbia, in each and every

one of those cases, we will naturally in the preparation of those cases do the

kind of homework that we always do on projects.

[1035]

Of course, we've got, as I mentioned to the members opposite, over

24 just in the P3 projects. We've done over 24 projects, representing over $8

billion in value in the province of British Columbia, that we've committed and

delivered on

schedule and on budget. I think that's a positive thing. So we will

apply the same standard here.

You know, the member talks about how B.C. Transit is driving this

process. Well, that's simply wrong, and the member should know that. The fact

that the member doesn't know that is, frankly, a little concerning. It's the

Victoria transit commission that is driving this process and holding the public

meeting tonight — a transit commission that is chaired, as the member should

well know, by the good mayor of Sidney, Don Amos, and who has on the board Alan

Lowe,the mayor of Victoria, and Frank Leonard, the mayor of Saanich, amongst

others. They are the ones that are driving and holding this public meeting, as

they should.

But so often you will always hear this talk about: "Well, what

about looking at this?" The city of Victoria has this as part of their official

community plan. They deserve credit for the leadership they are showing in

saying that this busway is very important for the future of their city. They

recognize how important this three-kilometre

section is going to be for hooking

up with the rest of the regional network, as defined and as laid out in the CRD

vision that was laid out by the region.

The very fact that they're going to the public and saying: "Here's

what we're planning. We would like to have your input. We're designing it in

such a way as to allow for the easy transformation into a rapid transit or light

rail corridor…." But what they are essentially doing is they are securing the

corridor. They are saying: "We want to secure this corridor as a corridor that

can be utilized initially, perhaps, as a busway corridor, a rapid bus corridor,

easily convertible into a light rail corridor." That is worthy of support. It

has my support, and it has the province's support, because it's leadership.

I want to say right here and now that the Victoria transit

commission that is showing the leadership in this regard, led by the mayors of

the region, deserves a heck of a lot of credit. I can tell you as the Minister

of Transportation that anytime you undertake any kind of a project, you will

always have concerns. That's very normal. It's very normal, and you have to make

sure you listen to those concerns.

You have to have the appropriate public hearings so that people

can express their concerns. You've got to make the changes you can make to try

and deal with those concerns as best you can. But you never lose sight of the

underlying vision, and the underlying vision is that the city of Victoria and

the region want to do their bit to get us to a point where we can double the

ridership here in the Greater Victoria area.

The member can talk about light rail all he wants, and he can

ignore what the recommendations of the CRD in their own regional plan said,

which is that is something we ought to be looking at. But it is going to be

something that they even recognized is likely going to be further out in terms

of when it will be realized.

The work that B.C. Transit has done in the past and previous

studies has shown that you can achieve the best results most immediately by

first of all preserving the corridor and then working on the corridor as a rapid

bus corridor, which will then be easily convertible into a light rail corridor

when you've got the population densities, the ridership, and you've created the

culture of ridership as a result of the rapid bus that's been put in place.

This is a minister and a government that supports the leadership

of the city of Victoria, that supports the leadership of the Victoria transit

commission, supports them driving this, as they are doing, giving them whatever

support and advice we can through B.C. Transit, which we are doing, and in some

cases partially funding, as part of the $3 million investment that the city of

Victoria and B.C. Transit are making in the signalization foundation platform

that they've put in place along the Douglas corridor — that three kilometres —

so that it is ready and available for the kind of rapid bus that will provide

tremendous benefits.

As I said before to the member, we will together…. Even though the

city of Victoria has been showing great leadership — it is moving quickly to at

least secure the area they're responsible for, that three-kilometre

[ Page 10874 ]

section of Douglas corridor — we will work with them, and we have been

working with them, and we will prepare, on the entire 57-kilometre corridor, a

business case that shows exactly why the $1.2 billion that we've set aside for

nine rapid bus lines is going to make sense.

We will do our homework. We will have our business case, and we

will work with the communities to make sure they've got a first-class transit

system, as they will have in the Greater Victoria region.

D. Cubberley: I appreciate having the opportunity to carry

on the line of questioning. I just want to make a couple of statements first.

[1040]

The first statement is that the issue isn't about the Douglas

Street corridor and whether that's the right corridor for rapid transit.

Clearly, it is the right corridor, and it's identified in the growth strategy,

in the transportation plan and in the city of Victoria's documents as being the

corridor for rapid transit. I can even elucidate how that happened.

Prior to any of those documents being in place, back in the '90s

there was a desire on the part of the city of Victoria to get the tail end of

the CN corridor, the abandoned right-of-way that is now part of the Dockside

lands, to be folded into future development possibilities in that area.

In return for agreeing to do that, the provincial minister

responsible at the time, who happened to be the hon. Andrew Petter, reached an

agreement with the city of Victoria — that in return for the province allowing

that land to be folded in, the city would agree to identify the Douglas Street

corridor for future rapid transit use. So the linkage was created back then, and

the city went through OCP amendments to actually put that into print and to

create that as part of the city's future.

So there's no debate, really significant debate, on this side of

the House or in the region about that corridor. That's the corridor where it's

going. Nor is there a debate about the desirability of going to rapid transit.

It's very, very desirable, and I think we're on entirely the same page.

Where the concerns arise…. The busway plan is a plan that was put

in place in an incremental first step — kind of, this is where we might aspire

to go — back in the days when the travel choices strategy was being evolved, and

Transit was looking at what it might do next to evolve the existing bus system

into a form of rapid transit. It was simply supposed that that would be the next

step, because it would be the first kind of step in the direction of rapid

transit.

Fair enough. The challenge we face is that we've never been in a

situation as a region where we've had the ability to say what we should be

trying to do in light of a set of regional goals that we've now established —

towards more compact land use, towards densification around now identified

regional centres — and, in particular, had no chance to have that discussion

around how we would reduce our carbon emissions in this region in order to meet

targets that have been now made part of law by 2020 — that we will have a

one-third reduction.

We've never sat down as a region and said, including the transit

commission, how we will work backwards from that goal that we now share and

envision a transit system that will allow us to get there.

Now, I didn't disagree with anything the minister had to say about

a business case for a transit system. I think it's a very good way to go, but

the concern that I have and that we have at this point in time is that we appear

to be precommitted to an option that was in place prior to the targets ever

being set.

From where I'm standing, I don't see this necessarily as a

problem. I would see us as having an opportunity not to park rapid transit but

to take a step back from it and to say: "Okay, let's put together a business

case for a rapid transit system, and let's use the opportunity we have now, with

a provincial commitment, to go to rapid transit to evaluate what the best system

would be."

That would give us a chance to sort it through, rather than simply

proceeding with the plan that was more or less there on the shelf prior to these

targets ever being put in place, and say: "Well, we might try and accelerate

that plan." It makes a lot of us quite uncomfortable to go down that path and to

think that the shovels might be in the ground before the business case is

developed and that we would start to commit ourselves to a system, which if we

looked at it more closely, we might not do in this manner.

There are some other concerns, and they're real concerns. Transit

has said, in response to things that it has heard — the regional transit

commission and B.C. Transit — that it's heard the concern from the public that

we don't want to see a rapid bus system foreclose the LRT option. Transit has

said: "Well, we'll design it so it's LRT-compatible so that it can be easily

converted to LRT."

Part of the problem with this…. I appreciate the openness, and I

appreciate the fact that people are now thinking about that linkage. But it

isn't that simple. We have done enough work with people who are operators of

light rail transit systems to know that in order to design another system to be

compatible with light rail transit, you'd actually have to know the technology

you were going to choos