1984 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 33rd Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 1984

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

4421 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Royal assent to bills –– 4421

Oral Questions

Human rights legislation. Mr. Gabelmann –– 4422

Unemployment. Mr. Gabelmann –– 4422

Mr. Barrett

Pornography. Ms. Brown –– 4423

Tabling Documents –– 4424

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Forests estimates. (Hon. Mr. Waterland)

On vote 31: minister's office –– 4424

Hon. Mr. Waterland

Mr. Skelly

Mr. Kempf

Mr. Passarell

Mrs. Wallace

Appendix –– 4444

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 1984

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I'd like all hon. members to

pay a very cordial welcome to a number of grade 7 students in the west

gallery, from St. Augustine's School in Vancouver-Point Grey.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I'd like the House to make

welcome a large number of visitors in the gallery this afternoon

representing the B.C. Human Rights Coalition. They are here in Victoria

to undertake some legislative lobbying and demonstrations, as the

Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland) well knows.

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Speaker, in the members' gallery this

afternoon are two individuals whom I consider very close friends, all

the way from Fort St. James, Paul and Merlis Bloomfield. I would ask

the House to make them welcome.

MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, from the great municipality of

Burnaby, and more specifically from Burnaby South Senior Secondary

School, are 50 students, led by their department head for social

studies, Mr. John Ruryk. I would ask the House to bid them welcome.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, first I'd like to thank the member

for Burnaby-Willingdon (Mr. Veitch) for greeting my students for me.

I'd also like to join with him in bidding welcome to the 50 students

and their socials teacher from Burnaby South Senior Secondary School,

and ask the House to welcome them again.

MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, I'd like all hon. members to join

with me today in welcoming Mrs. Aldis Hawkins, president of the

Kootenay Social Credit Constituency Association, along with her

brother, Glenn Allen, from Vancouver.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to join the member

for Kootenay in welcoming Aldis Hawkins. She was formerly a resident of

Logan Lake and was of great assistance to me in the previous election.

While I have the floor I'd like to advise the House of a phone call

I just received from Mayor Gloria Stout of the town of Princeton in

which she advised me that that community has been successful in having

the 1987 world parachute championships awarded to Princeton. I think it

expresses the benefits that can flow from things like the Ministry of

Highways establishing a nice paved airport in Princeton and a very

aggressive pursuit by the chamber of commerce and the municipality in

trying to achieve this result.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take this

opportunity for all members of the House to welcome into the assembly

today the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes). Welcome back.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I understand that His Honour is in the

precincts, if we might have a short recess.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, His Honour is in the precincts. Upon being informed of his arrival I will advise the members.

The House took recess at 2:14 p.m.

The House resumed at 2:20 p.m.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took his place in the chair.

DEPUTY CLERK:

Assessment Amendment Act, 1984

Income Tax Amendment Act, 1984

Constitution Amendment Act, 1984

Residential Tenancy Act

Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, 1984

CLERK OF THE HOUSE: In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth assent to these bills.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor retired from the chamber.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege.

MR. SPEAKER: Proceed.

MR. NICOLSON: On September 12, 1983, the House authorized the

Select Standing Committee on Transportation and Communications to

consider "methods for providing for the inspection as to safety and

repair of prescribed classes of vehicles, and providing for different

types of inspections for different classes of vehicles by the private

sector.... The committee met on several occasions, the last being

February 7, 1984, where briefs were circulated and consideration was

given to calling witnesses to supplement the briefs submitted. The

committee agreed to sit again at the call of the Chair after the

witnesses had been contacted. The House adjourned on Friday, April 13,

until today. On Tuesday, April 17, the Times-Colonist carried a

statement from the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. A.

Fraser) that the provincial government wouldn't reimpose mandatory

testing on private automobiles, and quoted the minister as saying:

"We're not going to the private sector, and we're not bringing back

inspections for the private motor vehicle."

Sir Erskine May, at page 138 of the nineteenth edition, specifies

that disobedience to the orders of the House is a contempt of that

House. I ask Your Honour to rule that the minister's determination of a

matter before a select committee effectively stifled an important

discussion on motor vehicle safety which the committee was specifically

authorized to undertake, and that this constitutes a contempt of the

House. If Your Honour rules that a prima facie contempt has been

committed, I have an appropriate motion ready to present. I also have a

copy of the edition of the Times-Colonist ,

which carried the

minister's statement on page 3. The entire newspaper is available in

accordance with the direction of May's nineteenth edition at page 163.

I would submit to the Chair my remarks for your convenience, the

motion and the newspaper,

[ Page 4422 ]

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair will undertake the claim by the member

and bring a reply back to the House, without prejudice to the member's

claim, at the earliest opportunity.

Oral Questions

HUMAN RIGHTS LEGISLATION

MR. GABELMANN: On Tuesday, April 10, the Minister of Labour

introduced into the House the Human Rights Act. Earlier that day

cabinet had approved that particular piece of legislation, according to

orders-in-council. Could the minister tell the House on what day the

advisory committee on the Human Rights Act presented its report to the

minister?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I'm not aware which

order-in-council the member is referring to. Cabinet doesn't approve

bills; this Legislature does.

MR. GABELMANN: Message bills.... Mr. Speaker, I don't want to

get into a debate with the minister. The minister knows the procedure.

It's indicated in the minutes of the cabinet meeting — the

orders-in-council that are passed are an indication of which message

bills have been passed in that particular meeting. When I checked to

see which day cabinet apparently approved the introduction of that

particular piece of legislation, it was the same day as it was

introduced. My question again is primarily this: legislation was

introduced into the House at six o'clock on April 10; on what day did

the advisory committee on the Human Rights Act present its report to

the minister?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, first of all, the terms of

reference for that advisory committee, and for the advisory committee

set up to look at the Labour Code, were that there would be no report

and no recommendations, only that from time to time it would advise the

minister responsible for the bill. That is what happened. I'll take the

rest of the question as notice; I'll check my diary and come back and

inform the member.

MR. GABELMANN: Am I informed incorrectly that as of Thursday

evening — the Thursday prior to the introduction of the bill on the

following Tuesday — the deliberations of the committee had not yet been

completed and their reports had not yet been delivered to the minister?

Is that assumption incorrect?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, the answer is the same. I'll check my diary and report back.

MR. GABELMANN: Is the minister saying, therefore, that the

report or reports of the committee were not taken into full account

prior to the consideration and introduction of its bill?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: No, Mr. Speaker.

MR. GABELMANN: A final question on that subject. Will the

minister undertake now to make public the communications received by

him from that committee in respect of their suggestions as to

amendments to the Human Rights Act?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: No, Mr. Speaker.

UNEMPLOYMENT

MR. GABELMANN: I'll save further comment on that subject to debate in further debate on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, to the same minister on an entirely different subject,

the B.C. Central Credit Union recently described unemployment levels in

B.C. as perversely high. A report which was publicized today indicates

that StatsCan figures on unemployment in British Columbia are seriously

understated, and that in fact the actual figure in B.C. is 17.7

percent. As a result of this kind of information and the serious levels

of unemployment in British Columbia, has the government taken advantage

of the two-week recess we've just had to discuss the failure of its

current policies and to develop a new economic strategy?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I'm reminded that the same

report also said that Expo was going to create thousands of new jobs

for British Columbia. Yes, Mr. Speaker, that's the subject of very much

publicized studies by the cabinet over the past weekend — for instance,

to discuss the positive, new proposals that will enable British

Columbia to meet the problems of the recession.

MR. GABELMANN: B.C. has experienced no employment gain since

the start of the recovery throughout the rest of North America. The

Conference Board in Canada has again downgraded B.C.'s economic

performance for 1984. What emergency job creation measures have the

government developed during the last two weeks to deal with the

emergency that we face not in 1986 but today, at a time when we have

one out of four people under 25 unemployed and facing permanent

unemployment in this economy?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: As I said, some of the deliberations

which have taken place over the weekend will be made public in due

course, and all of British Columbia will be excited by them. In the

meantime, we have some projects already underway, including the ALRT

project –– 7,500 direct jobs and 7,500 indirect, for 15,000 new jobs in

British Columbia; B.C. Place — 40,000 construction jobs over the life

of that contract; Ministry of Highways and Transportation capital

programs, 32,000 total jobs; student programs for this summer, 8,400

jobs under the youth program; northeast coal provided 7,500 jobs;

southeast coal is providing 8,500 jobs; rail expansion, as a result of

the lobbying by this government for changes in the Crow rate, will

provide 87,000 jobs over 1984 to 1994; Alcan Vanderhoof smelter, which

is in the planning stages now, will provide about 2,000 jobs; Western

LNG, 200 jobs; the methanol fertilizer complex, 300 jobs; the possibility

of a ferrosilicon plant, which is under discussion now, about 300 jobs.

This government is working harder than any other government in Canada

to provide new jobs for British Columbians.

[2:30]

MR. GABELMANN: It sounds as though we are going to have to

import labour into British Columbia in order to fill all these jobs.

Given that all of the information supplied by the minister has been

well known by those economists studying our economy in this province,

both at the Conference Board and at B.C. Central, given that B.C.

Central indicates that

[ Page

4423 ]

our staggering unemployment rate will remain high throughout the 1980s, and

given that these projects the minister enunciates do nothing more than maintain

our unemployment levels at 16 percent, 17 percent or 18 percent, and maintain

our unemployment levels among young people at 25 percent, what emergency programs

have been developed aside from that list, which does nothing more than maintain

a bad situation, which is predicted to last for at least the rest of this decade?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I don't for one moment accept the

assumption that that member makes about simply maintaining an

unemployment level which is unacceptably too high — everybody in this

province agrees to that. Those projects are not designed to maintain

any status quo whatsoever. I wish the member would help himself to

reading all of the reports that he quotes in the House and not just

quote pieces which suit his fancy. I don't believe that those jobs will

maintain the status quo. Those jobs will dramatically improve the

unemployment situation in British Columbia. In fact, reading that list

you would wonder how a government could even do more, but this

government is going to, and we'll be making some very exciting

announcements soon.

MR. BARRETT: Given the fact that 250,000 citizens of this

province depend for their monthly income upon either social assistance

or unemployment insurance, could the minister inform me how he intends

to inform those people lining up for sandwiches at soup kitchens, and

those thousands of people waiting for food hampers in order to survive,

where they can go to apply for these jobs? Would he inform us how and

where they go to apply for these jobs, so that they can avoid the soup

kitchens and the handouts of food that, under Social Credit, they're

begging from churches?

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: Oh, no program from Doug Heal?

PORNOGRAPHY

MS. BROWN: My question is to the the Attorney-General. This

morning in Vancouver Mr. Pattison, the chairman of Expo 86, announced

that he is divesting himself of that portion of his magazine business

which handles and distributes pornography. He went on further to

recommend that the government appoint a review board to screen all

pornographic material which is up for sale and distribution in the

province. My question to the Attorney-General is: in the spirit of

change of heart with which Mr. Pattison is making this recommendation,

has he decided to establish such a board to screen or eliminate

pornographic material which is being distributed in the province?

HON. MR. SMITH: I appreciate this question from the member. When I discussed

this matter a while ago with Mr. Pattison, I understood that he was proposing

that the industry itself set up a self-policing body which would recommend standards,

deal with complaints and police the industry itself — very much along the lines

of some of the functions that the Press Council now provides in this country.

I prefer that to having government set up some kind of magazine censorship board.

I would like to see the initiative start with the industry. It seems to me that

what Mr. Pattison is trying to do is give a lead to that industry and give them

a signal to clean up their act. I applaud that and applaud Mr. Pattison.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I'm really disappointed that the

Attorney-General is not going to grasp this initiative which the

magazine industry itself is enunciating and establish such a board, not

on behalf of the magazine industry but on behalf of all the people of

British Columbia. I am wondering whether the Attorney-General is

willing to reconsider his position on this and establish such a review

board.

HON. MR. SMITH: I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the

member would want to create another government board or body to

supervise, regulate or look into something, Mr. Speaker. I would remind

her that the job of deciding whether material violates the Criminal

Code is one that Parliament has already conferred on the law

enforcement agencies. Sure, we could set up something like a magazine

censorship board in British Columbia, but I would rather see some

initiative on the part of the industry to provide a policing mechanism

of their own and to take the lead themselves, instead of government

always being asked to regulate and set these things up. I think Mr.

Pattison was really looking at some kind of guidance and help from us,

but I would prefer a self-help policing agency which the industry

itself would do. I would prefer that as an approach, Mr. Speaker.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, under the present legislation, which

the minister is speaking so proudly about, the distribution of not just

pornographic material, but violent pornographic material, has been

escalating in the province, not getting less. It has been

proliferating, so obviously that legislation is not working. Now an

idea has been suggested. Is the Attorney-General ready at this point to

do something? Until now he's done absolutely nothing to slow down the

proliferation of pornographic material in the province. Is the

Attorney-General ready now to do something, such as to introduce this

review board? In the same way that he is willing to legislate workers

back to work, is he willing to do something in this area?

HON. MR. SMITH: Of course, we have done things to try to stop

the proliferation of pornographic materials — prosecutions, raids, and

particularly the use of video films. But the most tempting solution

always, the eternal solution that flows from that side of the room, is

a government regulatory body, an enormous rabbit warren of censors who

would go around and investigate every magazine in the province. That is

always their solution. It's a job-creation approach to the whole thing,

I agree, but I still prefer an acknowledgment of responsibility on the

part of the magazine industry: that the public of this province is

tired of having available, at kiddie level in newsstands, inappropriate

magazines for kids — and many for adults as well — and that the

industry itself will start policing. They will start saying: "Look,

we're not going to be tied in to publishing arrangements with American

distributors where, in order to get Good Housekeeping , we've got to

take Hustler and something else." They're going to fight that and say:

"We're not going to take Hustler and these other magazines; we're just

going to take Good Housekeeping ." They should do these things, not

government.

[ Page 4424 ]

On behalf of the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) Hon. Mr.

Phillips tabled the Compensation Stabilization Program Annual Report

for 1983.

Hon. Mr. McGeer tabled answers to questions on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Orders of the Day

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS

On vote 31: minister's office, $155,718.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'm pleased to present my estimates to

the House at a time when so much attention seems to be focused on

forestry matters in Canada. The 1984-85 program of the Ministry of

Forests covers broad mandates for managing timber, range and forest

recreation resources. But it is the timber resource that is on most

people's minds today; I will therefore be addressing most of my remarks

to that topic.

The media have recently echoed discontent about how the country's

forests are being managed. Such attention is really a mixed blessing.

It shows that on the one hand forestry has become newsworthy, that

people are increasingly aware of the importance of forests in our

livelihoods and our lifestyles. On the other hand, the content of the

coverage exposes misconceptions of what the real issues are, often

extrapolating conditions from elsewhere in Canada to British Columbia.

Before going on to describe the 1984-85 program, therefore, I would

like to take a short while to examine the conditions of the forests in

British Columbia. There is a widespread impression of historic

mismanagement, of a forest resource declining through neglect and

abuse, and of a need for massive investment to avert financial disaster

in the future. While it may be opportune in some circles to promote

this impression, it represents a gross distortion of conditions in

British Columbia. Notwithstanding arguments about how much additional

timber might be produced if unlimited funds were available, the

resource as it stands today in British Columbia is a major asset. On

average across the province there is still over 50 percent old-growth

timber remaining, and the second-growth timber on most of the balance

of the forest land is in a thrifty, vigorous condition. In fact,

British Columbia has a greater resource of standing old-growth virgin

timber than any other major timber-producing region in the world, with

the exception of the USSR, and most of their timber is economically

inaccessible.

Why then all the concern expressed over our future as a forestry

province? In large

part it's because the potential decline in timber

harvest in the next two or three decades has been equated to inadequate

reforestation at present. The fact is that the planting program has

doubled since the mid-1970s. Even though there must be a transition

from old-growth forest with its many centuries of accumulated wood

volume to second-growth forests where harvest must be balanced with

annual production, yields as high as at present will be achieved over

most of the province. A sound basic forestry program plus future

expanded efforts in intensive silviculture and other practices will

ensure a viable future for British Columbia's forestry sector.

In the mathematical models that are used to predict future harvests

and the changing characteristics of the forests, there is a set of

assumptions about growth and productivity of forest stands. These are

based on the level of management anticipated under the ministry's

program. For example, areas that in the past have not developed an

adequate new crop of timber are not counted in the long-term supply

base until such time as they are restocked. Stated simply, present

harvest levels were predicated on the basic level of forest management

inherent in the goals of the ministry's five-year program. After that

starting point of sound resource stewardship, there are then charges

about how much money should be directed to enhancing forest growth to

generate greater harvests either today or in the future. Intensive

forestry, by its very nature, is discretionary. It is a chance to buy a

better future, but at a substantial price-tag. Much of the outcry of

late has resulted from differing opinions about how much of this work

should be done. The staff in my ministry are devoting a great deal of

effort to analyzing the options for program development, to defining

what can be produced from the resource and at what cost.

[2:45]

As we are acutely aware, recent years have been troublesome for the

forest sector. Prices for lumber and pulp have declined in all of our

major markets, causing a precipitous slump in stumpage revenues. It

appears that market prospects are improving for the coming fiscal year,

but it could be some time before stumpage and other forest-based

revenues rise significantly throughout the province.

This cyclical pattern of revenues is a critical factor in

determining the timing and extent of forest management programs. There

is no doubt that more intensive forest management will pay dividends in

employment and revenue and should be actively promoted in future

programs. For now the investment

schedule must recognize the reality of

what is affordable today. That, in turn, is tied to the vigour of the

forest industry and the revenues that are returned from the public

timber resource.

Before I create the impression that forest and range management

equate solely with funding for planting trees, I should stress that

Ministry of Forests activities are directed to a wide range of

objectives, all aimed at furthering the public interest in these

resources. Since the ministry's first five-year program was approved in

1980, significant progress has been made on many fronts, including the

following examples. The forest land base has, for the most part, been

secured by adding a further 40 million hectares of land to the new

provincial forests — as a matter of fact, only recently we have

expanded some of the existing provincial forest. Reforestation is

accelerating. Planting on Crown and private land has doubled since the

mid-1970s and is still increasing to meet the goals laid out in

successive five-year programs — 1982-83 saw a record 105 million

seedlings planted in British Columbia; some 115 million to 120 million

seedlings will have been planted in 1983-84 when the totals are

tallied; and the recently released plan calls for the planting of 160

million seedlings per year within the next five-year program.

Discussions are progressing on a federal-provincial funding

agreement to restock about 600,000 hectares of good- and medium-site

forest land that is presently not carrying a suitable timber crop. When

a new agreement is negotiated, hopefully this year, an intensive

management program could be

[ Page 4425 ]

brought on stream immediately. In the meantime the current federal-provincial agreement has been extended to March 31, 1985.

A management system has been implemented which puts resource

management by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests on a very sound,

businesslike basis. A pamphlet is available which explains how the

forest and range resource analysis, the five-year programs, long-term

planning and the annual report contribute to providing direction to the

ministry's activities.

The small business enterprise program was introduced in 1979, when

Crown timber sales in the program were started by using Forest Service

reserve timber. In 1982 a volume of timber was apportioned to almost

all timber supply areas in the province to be sold only to small

business operators registered in the two categories of the small

business program. There are now 2,832 registrants under category 1 and

796 under category 2. Crown timber sales under the program since 1979

have totalled almost 15 million cubic metres in over 2,600 sales. Over

five million cubic metres of timber were harvested and 864 small

business sales were awarded during 1983.

A timber land exchange program was established to improve the

efficiency of management of presently scattered holdings. The emphasis

is on consolidating timber licences which remain from a number of old

temporary tenures that were issued around the turn of the century.

Progress has also been made since 1982 toward a woodlot licence program

under which individuals will obtain access to small parcels of Crown

forest land to manage on a sustained-yield basis and in many cases in

combination with privately owned land. The purpose of this program is

to directly involve provincial residents in forestry on Crown lands and

to encourage the establishment of good forest practices on private

land. The program also provides an opportunity to extend sound forestry

practice, as I've mentioned, to these private lands which have been

much neglected by the private land owners. My objective is to have our

total woodlot licensing program, encompassing over 750,000 cubic metres

of annual cut, fully in place within two or a maximum of three years.

Although the forestry sector has been through troubled times and

depressed markets have necessitated layoffs, the province has benefited

from continuous employment in the logging and manufacturing sectors.

Employment opportunities during these periods were supplemented by the

joint federal-provincial bridging assistance program. This program saw

over $39 million directed to creating about 86,000 person-weeks of

employment in worthwhile forestry projects in the province. This work

helped to meet or to exceed our goals in intensive forest management

during that year. A more detailed account of the EBAP program is

available in our recently tabled 1982-83 annual report.

Recently a close look was taken at making a more efficient use of government

and industry forest management efforts. There is a strong case for further delegation

of management responsibilities to industry. Under forest legislation, tree-farm

licence tenure is the most suitable vehicle for this purpose. It is predicated

on joint management by industry and government, and it fosters an interest in

better forest management on the part of a tenure holder by awarding area specific

rights. As with other Crown lands, timber management on tree-farm licences is

based upon multi-use principles. The first new TFL to be awarded since 1966

was issued Tanizul Indian band in 1983 up in the Stuart-Trembleur Lake area.

That award resulted in a total of 29 percent of the provincial allowable cut

to be under tree-farm licence tenure. At this time 34 more TFL applications

are at hand. One has already been through the basic public hearing process;

another two have been advertised, and those hearings will proceed in June.

These and many other activities that constitute management of timber

range and recreation resources will continue in 1984-85. The program

will continue to follow the goals set out following the 1980 forest and

range resource analysis. Numerous measures have been taken to enable

more efficient program delivery and to set priorities that will ensure

that basic goals are met. Intensive forestry, on the other hand, will

have to advance at a slower rate. In effect, work will continue in

order to entrench a sound basic program this year, pending completion

of the agreement with the federal government about our joint federal

intensive silvicultural programs. During that time alternative means

will be examined in which enhanced forest management programs might be

funded. Now that the intensive forest management subsidiary agreement

for 1984-85 has been extended and funding provided by the federal

government, we will be able to proceed immediately to reduce the

backlog of sites requiring reforestation.

The next forest and range resource analysis is to be completed this

year. and that will shed additional light on the problems and the

opportunities that must be considered in developing future programs.

That analysis will be submitted to cabinet this September, and it will

be tabled in this Legislature as a public document in the spring of

1985. This timing will allow the findings to be considered when the

ministry's five-year program, beginning with the fiscal year 1985-86,

is released. I hope that the present level of interest in forestry in

Canada and British Columbia continues, because these long-term choices

will be of immense importance in setting goals for managing the

resource over the next decades and for determining the longer-term

social objectives that must be met.

There was a brief

summary and background, Mr. Chairman, of the

Ministry of Forests estimates for the year starting on April 1. There

were three votes, numbered 31 through 33: vote 31 being the minister's

office; vote 32 for the general forest and range management programs;

and vote 33 for fire suppression. The total expenditure requested for

these three votes for the year is to amount to $252 million, a decrease

of $10.4 million or 4 percent from the comparable figure for 1983-84.

Including the amount allocated for

section 88 stumpage offsets, our

total expenditure budget for the year amounts to $311.3 million

compared to $321 million last year, representing a decrease of 3.2

percent overall.

Vote 32 contains $5.5 million, which it has now been confirmed will

be matched by the federal government when agreement is reached, and

that agreement has now been reached. This will bring our forecast

expenditures in the silvicultural program to $105 million. When one

includes the $42.5 million allocated to silvicultural programs under

section 88 — that is, the stumpage offsets — the total for the

silvicultural program represents an increase of 14.5 percent. I think

that clearly demonstrates the ministry's priorities for the coming year.

This, then, is the brief outline of where we are going, what we have

been doing and where we hope to go in the future. I look forward to

some meaningful discussion with my critic regarding my estimates.

[ Page 4426 ]

MR. SKELLY: It seems that more people have left the House

than left the BCSTA convention. I don't think they recognize your

talents. More people should be here, especially during the discussion

of Forests estimates, because this is one of the most critical areas of

provincial jurisdiction.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Where's your side? Where's your leader?

MR. SKELLY: I'm saying about all members of the House that

they should be here to involve themselves in the debate on this very

critical area of provincial jurisdiction.

The minister went through a brief outline of the program of the

Ministry of Forests, discussing some of the concerns that have been

expressed in the media, concerns that we all have about the state of

the forest resource and also about the state of the forest industry and

the forest economy. I think he glossed over some of the concerns a bit.

There are some serious concerns out there, Mr. Minister.

Before going into those, I'd like to thank you for at least

providing that outline. I remember we had a bit of a heated debate last

session in which no outline was presented and the minister did not

bring his staff into the Legislature, and we were concerned that it's

important that the minister be well advised and that the program of the

ministry be well presented to give us an opportunity to analyze that

program and to have the benefit of his expert staff with him when we're

debating these issues in the House. All we do is reflect the questions

that are placed out there by the people of the province, who are

concerned about what they read in the papers and, in fact, about the

concerns as they are represented even by some Forests ministry staff,

who occasionally have the opportunity to present their concerns at

meetings of professional foresters, the Canadian Institute of Forestry

and the like.

The minister said that the media were causing a bit of discontent

out there and creating the impression of mismanagement and the

widespread impression that the forests of the province are in

precarious condition and are not being managed on a sustainable basis.

That part of his speech certainly rings true, because if you read the

editorials in the newspapers around the province you certainly do get

the impression that the media are concerned. But again, the media are

only reflecting the concerns brought to them by people involved in the

profession, people in the industry and even by people in the ministry,

as well as by federal and provincial government reports released from

time to time that indicate serious concerns about the continued

sustainability of our forests.

Here is an

article from the Prince George Citizen of February

14, 1984. "Crisis Ahead" is the title of the article. "Continuing

neglect of B.C.'s wealth of natural resources threatens to turn what

was once one of the richest provinces of Canada into the backwater of

the nation" — to the extent that it hasn't been done already by the

government's mismanagement. "At the disparate rates logging is

occurring and reforestation is being carried out, timber shortages will

occur in as short a time as five years, according to a report prepared

last year by Environment Canada's Pacific Forest Research Centre in

Victoria."

So the newspapers or the media are not trying to generate hysteria

around the topic of forest mismanagement and the lack of attention

being paid to the replenishment and replacement of our forests. They

are simply reflecting what government agencies, research stations or

institutes and others involved in the management of our forests are

saying around the province. It isn't the media that's trying to create

hysteria through these types of articles.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: It's the NDP.

[3:00]

MR. SKELLY: The NDP does not run the Pacific Forest Research

Centre, Mr. Minister, in the event that you didn't know that. You might

contact some of your colleagues in cabinet, and they will explain who

does.

There are problems that are being documented by people in

government, in the industry and in the professions that are cause for

concern by all people around the province, and it's that cause for

concern that's represented in the media. It is not sufficient for the

minister simply to gloss over what's happening by saying it's media

hysteria or whatever that is causing the problem in B.C. It is the

management that's done by this Ministry of Forests that is causing the

problem, and the management that's regulated by the Ministry of Forests

that is also causing the problem. The same newspaper editorial refers

to the management of the forests of British Columbia as being

"stupidly" done. Unfortunately they say that neglect of the forest

resource isn't our only area of stupidity, and they go on to mention

fisheries in the province of British Columbia as well.

Other professionals, I guess you might call them, are also

expressing concern, but probably in slightly more spectacular ways.

John Walters talks about "fiscal lunacy" and the forests of the

province being "gang raped" by industry and by the government. He says:

"Public apathy has resulted in fiscal lunacy and a jurisdictional

shambles between the federal and provincial governments. For years we

have told the story reasonably and quietly; it's time that we" —

speaking of professional foresters — "told the story reasonably and

loudly. I propose we launch a sustained and intensive program of

forestry education on prime-time television."

So there are people out there in the fields of forestry education

and forestry professions who are critical of the government and the

management of our forests, and concerned about the sad state of forest

management in British Columbia. They are proposing to generate some

kind of public backlash in order to encourage the government to get

more involved in managing our forests and to make those forests

sustainable so that we can pass on the forests of British Columbia to

future generations and so that they will have the same opportunity to

generate the wealth, jobs and industry that we have had, thanks to

previous generations in this province. There are people out there who

are expressing that kind of concern and, as I said, I believe it is

insufficient for this minister to simply gloss it over and say that the

questions and concern about mismanagement are only generated by the

hysteria in the news media.

There is a concern that I have about the management of forests in

this province now, in that in the past there seems to have been more

concern to manage the forests of British Columbia on the basis of

professional forest practice, on the principles of sustained yield. Now

forestry seems to be something that — at least from this government's

point of view — is managed on an ideological basis, and rather than

having a

[ Page 4427 ]

chief forester, we've probably got a chief ideologist managing the

forests of the province of British Columbia. The concern that we do

have is that rather than managing for forestry reasons, we are now

managing forests of the province for political reasons, or on the basis

of a political ideology. For example, in the recent five-year program —

and the previous five-year program — we're talking about concerns like

privatization and downsizing,

whereas in previous five-year programs we

were talking about management of the forests in order to serve the

regional and provincial economies and to encourage sustainability and

management of the forests based on sound forestry practices. We are now

dealing with privatization and ideological concerns rather than with

true forestry concerns.

There are sound reasons why people out there in the province of B.C.

are concerned that the job is not being done well by this provincial

government or by the minister. There are serious concerns as to whether

we can carry on and have the forests of the province of B.C. produce

the same number, or an enhanced number, of jobs to take up the slack in

the employment of this province, which, as the labour critic of the NDP

has indicated, is somewhere in the neighbourhood of a quarter of a

million people unemployed, many of those being in the forestry sector.

There is a tremendous concern out there, and it is strictly

insufficient for the minister to gloss over those concerns and to say

that it's the newspapers that are generating the hysteria.

"Forest Survival." Patrick Durrant, the forestry writer for the Vancouver

Province , which has temporarily suspended operations, said: "As we know

it today, the forest industry is dying. I say this not to discourage investment

in new mills, but to encourage investment in new forests, without which new

mills can't survive." He is talking again about John Walters. Those

are serious statements from a person who has serious concerns about the forest

industry in the province. I ask the minister: what generates these concerns?

People are saying that the forests of this province are dying. They must have

legitimate grounds for making those statements to a meeting of forestry professionals.

These are people with respected credentials in the management of British Columbia

forests. Again I say it's insufficient for the minister to simply gloss

over the concerns that the newspapers have expressed about the management of

forests in British Columbia.

The minister says it's legitimate for the province to continue on

its basic silvicultural program and that intensive forestry is

something we should look at some years down the line. I'm not sure that

that's the case. Reports coming back to us indicate that even the basic

silvicultural programs are suffering in this province. I'll try to get

to that later in the debate. I simply want to respond to the minister

to the extent of saying that it's not sufficient for the minister to

say that the problems in the forests of this province have been created

by the media. The minister himself — and the ministry — are responsible

for the management and stewardship of this resource. It's clear to me

and to many thousands of other British Columbians that his management

is not up to scratch. He's not been a good manager of the forests, a

proper steward of B.C. forest resources, and it's insufficient to

apologize for what he's doing to the forests of British Columbia in

this way.

As I look through the annual report, which the minister mentioned in

his opening statement, some serious concerns are evident. One of those

concerns is for the over-commitment of our forests around the province.

Table 2 on page 90 of the annual report, "Apportionment by Timber

Supply Area and Tenure as at March 31, 1983," shows that the allowable

annual cut in various forest regions is very close to being fully

apportioned. For example, for the Cariboo the allowable annual cut is

6,050,000 cubic metres. You have a Forest Service reserve of about

52,800 cubic metres, so you are almost totally apportioned with the

exception of that reserve. In Kamloops, an allowable annual cut of 7

million, and a Forest Service reserve of 80,230 cubic metres. When you

add the damage done by fire in the Cariboo forest region — 523,000

cubic metres of mature timber, 22,000 immature — and also damage to

timber done by pests, insects, fungi, etc., they are talking about

14.977 million cubic metres of timber, which brings that area very

close to being over-committed. Some of the timber that is available and

is already committed has been severely damaged, so we're not going to

get the kind of quality timber out of that area that the table on page

90 might suggest.

The same is true of virtually every other forest region of the

province: they are either very close to being fully committed or there

is no room to manoeuvre, no room allocated in those areas for damage

due to fire, insects, disease, etc. So the forests of this province, by

the minister's own figures, appear to be in a fairly precarious

situation. There's no room to exercise options. Fire and insect damage

is not taken sufficiently into account. The one area that we're

seriously concerned about is, of course, the Prince George forest

district. The allowable annual cut is 14,850,000 cubic metres, yet the

total apportioned in the region is 15 million, or about 17 to 20

percent over the allowable annual cut. And that doesn't take into

account fire and insect damage, which have been fairly heavy in that

region for the last little while.

I'd like the minister to explain what the process is and what's

happening in those regions. Why have the forests under the ministry's

jurisdiction reached a level of almost total commitment, leaving no

option for allocation of additional cut, no security for timber damage

through insects and disease? Why has the commitment been made virtually

up to the allowable annual cut with none of those options remaining

open, leaving no timber available for security in the event of

widespread fire and disease attacks? Can the minister answer that

question for me?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, I can answer that question

for the member. The allowable cut determined for each timber supply

area in the province includes allowances for normal fire losses, and

for losses through insects and disease. I think it's my responsibility

to ensure that the total available allowable cut is indeed made

available to the industry for use by that industry to create jobs, to

create employment, to create revenue for the province, to create trade.

I wish we could be even closer to that full commitment, but there are

allowances for such normal losses.

When there are disasters such as large-scale insect infestations,

when there are disasters such as massive wildfires above and beyond

what the normal is, these things will be taken into consideration at

the time of our reassessment of allowable cut, which takes place every

five years. If at that time, because of disasters, it's necessary to

reduce the allowable cut, each licensee will have his apportionment

reduced in proportion to the amount that has to be reduced, so we will

still be at a fully committed level. It doesn't make much sense to me

to hold something back in reserve when there are people who are willing

to invest money, time and effort in order to make use of this

sustainable allowable cut.

[ Page 4428 ]

1 would also say that in this total apportionment — in all but, I

believe, one of the timber supply areas in the province — there is an

allotment for the small business program. That gives us flexibility,

through loggers harvesting and through people in category 2 harvesting,

to have that wood change homes from time to time as its demand and

value changes.

Just a comment or two on some of the other comments of the member. I

guess he wasn't listening too closely when I made my opening remarks. I

did use a prepared text so that I wouldn't have to wait for Hansard to

come back, but I didn't mention anything about media hysteria. The

member used that phrase a number of times. What I said, and I'll read

it again, is that the media have recently echoed discontent about how

the country's forests are being managed — and there is discontent

expressed in some sectors in this country about how the country's

forests are being managed.

[3:15]

I would say that the forests of British Columbia are not being

perfectly managed. There are still lots of things that we can do and

should be doing in the future, and we still have an awful lot to learn

about our forests. If we had an unlimited amount of funds to invest in

the forest resource, we could and would be doing a lot more. But

unfortunately we do live in a real world, where there is a limitation

on the amount of funds available.

I did not say, as the member, I'm sure quite innocently, misquoted

me as saying, that we can look at intensive forestry some years down

the road. I've said that we can and will be starting intensive forestry

this year. Under our agreement with the federal government, an $11

million intensive forest management program has been ongoing and will

continue this year and hopefully we will this year conclude a much

larger agreement with the federal government. There are other ways of

acquiring funding for intensive forest management programs, such as we

did with EBAP. I think the member would agree with me that there must be

some way that that type of a funding program can be carried out on a

more continuous basis. I have approached and will be approaching,

together with the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) and

the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland), ways of establishing a

basic EBAP-type program that will be with us at all times and that can

be built up during the downturns in our forest cycle to provide job

creation in a countercyclical sort of way. I think there are better

delivery systems that could be developed than what we had in the past.

But these are all intensive forestry programs, and they are not going

to wait for some years down the road.

The member said that future generations should have the same

opportunities that we have. Unfortunately that's not possible. The

opportunities that future generations have will be quite different

because they will be managing, as we are beginning to manage now,

second-growth forests. I'm not saying that the opportunities won't be

just as good. In many cases they will be better. But they won't be the

same, because we've finished the pioneering era of forest management in

B.C. and are getting into second-growth management, just as has

happened in many other mature forest jurisdictions in the world.

The member quoted from the Prince George Citizen , where the

forest research station of the federal government was quoted as saying

that we're going to have losses within five years. In attempting to

convince their people in Ottawa to commit themselves to forest

management, they quoted from the report on the state of the forest and

range resource that we tabled in this Legislature in 1980. We said then

that unless certain things were done, there would be reductions in

allowable cut in some areas of the province and some as early as five

years. Some of that has happened. We said that if things don't happen,

this will result. One of the things we mentioned at the time was

protecting the forest land base, making sure that the land base isn't

eroded. We can only do that to a certain extent, because there are

other very legitimate demands on the forest land base. We said we would

have to improve the recovery within sawmills of saleable products. That

has happened to a large extent. The recovery in sawmills throughout the

province is increasing rapidly, particularly in the interior, and on

the coast investment is again being committed to the retooling of that

industry. The economic value of wood has to change as well, and as the

world becomes shorter and shorter of woodfibre, many of the fibres that

up until now we have not been able to economically utilize will be

brought from the forest. We will be offered opportunities to use some

of these lower-grade fibres. An example of this is that recently a

pulpwood agreement was offered in the Okanagan, where a company wants

to make wafer board out of stagnant lodgepole pine, a type of wood that

up until now has not been economic to use. Technological advancement

and the economics of making other types of panel board have made it

possible for them to make a success of a venture using wood that wasn't

available in the past and which will increase our allowable cut.

Jack Walters is responsible for the research forest at UBC and is

always very outspoken about what is done in forest management. Jack

Walters is a good forester. He tends to take a somewhat academic

approach, as is quite legitimate in balancing the viewpoints. But as I

said in my opening remarks, if you were to examine what the foresters,

professionals and others are saying, the debate is really how much we

can afford to invest and what level of investment, not whether or not

the investment is needed. The level of investment is what is being

debated. In many cases the media have not fully interpreted that

correctly, because in British Columbia we don't do a bad job of

managing our forests. As I say, we can do better, and we will do better

as we learn more about our forests, and as we have more money

available, but we don't do a bad job. I hope that when that member is

the Leader of the Opposition he will fully support the government on

this side of the House in promoting more investment in the forests of

British Columbia.

MR. SKELLY: And I would hope, Mr. Chairman, that when that

member is on the opposite side of the House he will fully support the

plans of the next government, which will be laid out do him in detail

in due course.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'll be long since retired.

MR. SKELLY: We will take steps to make sure that you enjoy your retirement, Mr. Minister.

It is a question of money, and it is a question of investment. I'm

not convinced that it's a question of the availability of the money,

because our understanding in reading the announcements of the

provincial government as they come down from time to time is that money

is available in the province and is available for other priorities.

Some $128 million is available to build a stadium in Vancouver for the

enjoyment of the citizens of Vancouver and a bunch of football players

to knock heads on artificial turf. The money is

[ Page 4429 ]

available to extend an ALRT line across the Fraser River, which will

cost all the people of this province, from the Yukon boundary to the

United States border, $170 million. The money is available for Expo 86

and northeast coal development. Yet when the minister talks about the

renewable resource upon which 40 percent of our economy and something

like 300,000 jobs in this province depend, he talks about the money not

being available. When the minister tells me that, that's an indication

to me that the priorities are not there, because the money is

definitely available.

You can tell a government is serious when it's willing to spend

money on an issue. When the government talks forestry and doesn't spend

money, the priority isn't there. When the government talks ALRT and is

willing to borrow the money, obviously the priority is there. What

we're saying is that this minister clearly hasn't had the push to get

the government to recognize that forestry, upon which 40 percent of our

economy and 300,000 jobs now depend.... The minister hasn't been

able to have the push in cabinet to get cabinet to allocate the funds

or, if they were really serious, to put the money up front through

borrowing. They are willing to do it for B.C. Rail, B.C. Hydro, ALRT,

Expo and stadiums, but they're not willing to do it for this, the most

critical industry in the province of British Columbia, and that's what

we're concerned about.

In the media, in the forestry professions, in the industry, in the

federal government, in research facilities and in educational

facilities around the province, whether you call them academics or not,

people recognize the need to allocate more funds to the replacement and

the sustainability of our forests. It's this government that simply

hasn't recognized the priority of this area. This government simply

hasn't recognized that forestry, and the sustainability of that

resource, should be the megaproject of the government of British

Columbia. The people would support it. The feeling is already out there

now, among the people of British Columbia, that the forests of the

province are being mismanaged. When this government screws up on human

rights, as they've done recently with the legislation they've

presented, they advertise around the province that everybody's

beautiful. It's no substitute for the enforcement of human rights

legislation, but they put the money up front to try to assuage public

concerns and change public opinions. Right now public opinion suggests

to us that the forests of British Columbia are being mismanaged by this

government and this minister. This minister and this government simply

do not have their priorities straight; they should be attaching more

priority to the forests of this province.

What we're asking this minister to do is what has been done by the

government in other areas: correct the public's concerns by doing what

the public, the forestry professionals and research facilities suggest

they should do. The money is available. It's not a question of the

money not being available. If it's available for ALRT, for a stadium

and for other projects around the province of British Columbia, it

should be available for the most important megaproject over which the

government has jurisdiction, and that's the forests and the forest

industry of the province of British Columbia.

So that's why we're concerned. It's not a question of the money not

being there. It's simply a question of whether the priorities are

there, and clearly this minister has abandoned the priorities that he

once had. When the Forest Act and the Ministry of Forests Act came down

in 1978, and when the forest and range resource analyses came down in

1980, 1981 and up to this year, and when the five-year programs

initially came down, there was a clear indication that the minister was

concerned about forests. There was a clear indication that he was

concerned that money be spent on forests. Also, when he set up the

forest and range resource fund there was a clear indication that this

government was prepared to put up money over a five-year period to fund

its long-range forestry programs. That was endorsed virtually

unanimously in this Legislature. It was endorsed by all sides of the

House because all sides recognized that as a priority.

Suddenly things have changed. The ministry itself, in making its

reports to cabinet back in September 1983, indicated that the restraint

program had seriously damaged the government's management of the forest

resource in the province. The ministry admitted this to cabinet in

private. Yet the minister is trying to correct that impression in

public and say that we are maybe doing a good job in managing our

forests, when the ministry itself, in a report to cabinet in September

1983, indicated that its programs had been seriously damaged by the

restraint program. So we are concerned that the minister is trying to

gloss over what is happening in the ministry and what is happening with

forest management programs in the province of B.C.

One of the other concerns we in the opposition have is the effect on

employment in the forest industry. The federal government said that if

we embarked on this intensive silvicultural program, and applied that

program to something like 600,000 acres of NSR lands in the province of

B.C., we could possibly create 200,000 person-years of employment in

this province if we embarked on that program immediately — over a

ten-year period, of course. The provincial government has not succeeded

in negotiating an agreement with the federal government, and in the

meantime plants have been shutting down all over the province of B.C.:

Vanply in Vancouver, 374 employees; Victoria Plywood, 150 to 200 jobs;

and other mills all over the province. New mills are being built. Where

once, say, in Chemainus they employed 600 to 700 people or more, now

they're building a new mill that will employ 130 people more or less,

which is a tremendous reduction in jobs. What's going to be done for

those people? What programs is the ministry considering for those

people?

[3:30]

Before the last election, of course, in Chemainus and elsewhere

around the province the minister developed the phrase, "Use it or lose

it," with respect to companies that were shutting down plants and

weren't producing employment in the province or weren't managing their

operations properly. I wonder how many companies in this province and

how many tenure-holders have actually lost the tenures they held. Has

the minister been serious in his threat to use it or lose it? What

happens during a strike, for example? When the employees are on the

streets in the pulp strike or lockout, or when they're on the streets

in the forest industry strike, what happens to the allowable annual cut

of the tenure-holders who are being struck? I understand that their

allowable cuts are scaled back, that they don't have to cut their

requirements in that particular year in order to accommodate labour

disputes. It seems to me that that provision encourages longer labour

disputes than would otherwise be the case. If companies were forced to

maintain their allowable cuts even though they get involved in labour

disputes, the settlements in those disputes would come much more

quickly than if the company were forgiven its allowable cuts. I

understand that in virtually every case where there's a strike or a

labour dispute the

[ Page 4430 ]

companies are forgiven their allowable cuts as a result of that

strike, yet the employees who go on strike and have no other source of

income, who exhaust their strike fund and must go to welfare or

unemployment insurance, are denied access to those supports that are

available to the government. The industry is supported, and the results

are prolonged disputes and strikes, prolonged periods of lack of

production,

whereas the employees have absolutely no alternative, no

way to turn. So the pressure is always on the employees, never on the

companies.

I can't think of any significant example — in fact, any example

— where a licensee has been forced to lose his timber tenure as a result

of not performing up to the requirements of that tenure. For example,

Doman Industries on Vancouver Island was given a certain amount of

timber in Nootka PSYU — as it was called at the time — on the central

coast, plus other timber rights. In exchange for its timber rights,

which were granted several years ago, Doman Industries was required to

produce, somewhere on Vancouver Island I believe, or somewhere on the

coast, a thermal mechanical pulp mill. Doman hasn't lived up to its

side of the agreement. In Alberta, B.C. Forest Products was required to

build a mill at Whitecourt in a certain period of time as a condition

of being granted additional timber in Alberta. When B.C. Forest

Products failed to perform, the timber was withdrawn. Why is this

government so soft on companies that do not perform up to the

requirements that they agree to? Why does it not enforce the agreements

that these companies enter into with British Columbia? Why is there

always this forgiveness of those companies who do not perform? Why does

the minister not live up to his threat of "Use it or lose it?" I think

it's because the minister is so soft. The minister doesn't live up

to.... I guess I shouldn't call them threats, but the requirements

that he imposes on the industry. They feel they don't have to live up

to their obligations. What happened, Mr. Minister, to the Doman

thermal-mechanical pulp mill that they were required to build on

Vancouver Island in exchange for the timber they received on the west

coast and on the mainland coast, as well as other timber rights that

they received? What happened to the agreement? What happened to that

thermal-mechanical pulp mill?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: The proposal on the mid-coast four years

ago — somewhere thereabouts — on which Doman Industries bid.... As

a condition of being awarded the sale, Doman was to build a pulp mill.

There was no time-frame put on that mill. It was not necessarily to be

a TMP mill, but probably would have been. I think that's basically what

was discussed. Unfortunately, about that time or very shortly

thereafter the tremendous recession hit the province, and capital was

not available. It was at about the same time that Doman Industries,

together with Whonnock and BCFP, acquired the assets of ITT-Rayonier.

They had their plate full and were in a very serious financial

condition. I didn't think it wise at that time — and still don't think

it wise — when they were in financial difficulty, when in effect they

had their very companies on the line with the banks, to remove their

ability to survive and thus jeopardize the employment of their

employees, jeopardize the Canadian ownership of what was formerly a

large American company. Also, since that time we've had the rollover of

the licences from the old Forest Act to the new one. That timber sale

licence which Doman formerly had is now a forest licence. As a

condition of continuation of that forest licence, Doman must build a

pulp mill; that is written into the licence agreement. We will probably

have to allow some more time until the economy is such that it makes

economic sense, which it doesn't right now. As is the case with most

forest licences, in ten years a new licence will be offered. It is a

condition at that renewal period that if they don't have a pulp mill in

operation or under construction, the licence will not be renewed, so

it's still a conditional licence. It has been delayed primarily because

of economic activities and other investments that they've made since.

In fact, Doman has one-third interest in a pulp mill at Port Alice and

also one at Woodfibre, in which they're investing massive amounts of

money, this through Western Forest Products, as the member knows.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Regarding the cut control, the member is surely not suggesting that

as a result of a strike, lockout or serious economic slump, if a

company cannot maintain its cut and manufacturing level, we remove its

ability in the future to do so by reducing its allowable cut. I've

never said that we would remove that when there are conditions such as

that. I think it would make no sense at all, though that would perhaps

eliminate a lot of strikes in the province, because if members of the

union were to strike knowing that their employer would lose the ability

to employ them after the strike was over, that would be something worth

thinking about. I'll take that up with the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr.

McClelland). I think it would be some type of an infringement of the

labour relations aspect, though, and I don't think it would be a good

idea. I don't think the member really thinks it would either.

We have removed cut, and two instances in recent years which come to

mind are B.C. Timber and Louisiana-Pacific. Also, when through things

such as strikes and downturns in economic cycles there is an undercut

for a cut control period, we don't feel that it would be proper to

remove the cut permanently. We do take that accumulated undercut and

offer it for sale to the industry, generally through our small business

programs. Or at times we can accumulate a larger amount and offer a

larger sale over a long period of time. But it is put to use.

We are reviewing the coastal industry, which, as the member knows,

has some very serious problems ahead of it. The massive capital

commitments made a few years ago were deferred as a result of the

recession. It will probably be some time before all of those can be put

in place again, because the industry suffered tremendous losses, but

there is a need on the coast to rebuild that industry. If we don't see

commitments then.... In fact, there are companies talking to us about

voluntarily giving up some of their cut, because in many cases they say

they can buy it from the log market a lot cheaper than they can log it,

and that is the direction that perhaps some of them will be taking in

future years.

The member mentioned the fact that we don't have money for forest

management yet we can borrow money for ALRT, Expo, the stadium,

northeast coal and so on. I believe that in most cases these funds were

borrowed by other government agencies such as B.C. Hydro, B.C. Rail and

Expo, or whatever they call themselves. However, we have borrowed money

for forest management. This year the province is running a budget of

over $600 million, and I'm sure a good part of that budget is to

provide funds to my ministry as well as others so that we can carry on

with the basic programs that

[ Page 4431 ]

we have to carry on with, knowing that as times get better we'll be

able to expand them. All ministries in government, with the exception

of Health this year, have had to reduce overall budgets. In doing that,

though, I rearranged my priorities within the ministry. The

silvicultural part of my vote has gone up by over 14 percent, so even

though we've had a budget reduction, and even though we've had to

borrow money as a government to even maintain these levels, we are

putting our priorities into forest management.

The members says that I don't have any push in cabinet. Well, of course I don't. When you're ahead you pull, you don't push.

MR. SKELLY: He doesn't have any pull, either. This is a minister obviously without push or pull in cabinet.

I guess the exceptions are the things that prove the rule in this

case. He says he has taken tenure away from B.C. Timber and

Louisiana-Pacific. But the minister did bring up something interesting:

that some of the tenure holders on the coast are now possibly willing

to give up their tenure holdings and to purchase timber on the open

market. We've advocated for a long time that there be some kind of a

market between those who harvest the timber and those who purchase it.

As a result of requirements for processors to purchase on that open

market they will be required to upgrade their facilities and make them

more competitive, and as a result we'll have processing facilities that

are much more competitive than if they can get the logs at low or cheap

prices and don't have to upgrade their mills in order to make the whole

industry competitive. That would be interesting. I wonder if the

minister can tell me where those proposals are taking place, and how

much timber land is involved. Is it on Vancouver Island or the central

coast? Where exactly are these tenure holders who are proposing to give

up their forest tenures and go to the open market?

I am sure there are a number of communities, Indian bands and small

business people, or smaller operators, who might be willing to look at

those tenures themselves. We've always suggested that a diversity of

tenures in any particular area will create a much better market, much

more efficiency in the harvesting and marketing of timber, than when

one single company controls a tremendous area of timber and as a result

there is very little competition. Also employment: the commitment to

diversified economic development in that area declines. That's been

proven with large agricultural concerns. Where you have huge

agricultural enterprises controlling vast areas of land, smaller

business declines.

Most of the inputs to the industry come from outside the region.

Local communities decline and local opportunities for employment

decline; people move into larger cities and create additional problems.

If there are areas on the coast where large companies are willing to

give up their timber tenures, what plans does the ministry have to

diversify tenure holdings in that area? Will the minister answer the

question of what areas are involved? I'm certain that if people in the

area were aware that the major companies were willing to give up

tenures, the minister would receive numerous submissions from small

locally controlled operators who are willing to move into that timber

and harvest it themselves and to sell it on the open market. I know

that when the renewal process came up in the Alberni area for the

MacMillan Bloedel tree farms, a large number of people in the area

expressed an interest in breaking up those large tenures and in

developing locally controlled tenures that would work to support Indian

bands and local communities. I'd be interested in learning in which

specific areas tenure-holders are willing to give up their tenures.

[3:45]

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Chairman, I have a number of concerns with

regard to the way in which this ministry is conducting its business in

the province. I also have some questions of the minister, but prior to

getting into that I would like to make a few general observations on

the forest industry in British Columbia. Some of these observations are

as a result of my 15-plus years of experience in the industry and some

are due to my recent involvement in a certain segment of that

particular industry.

In my estimation, we in this province can no longer afford the

luxury of a number of the things we are doing in the forest industry

which relate directly to the way we husband the forest industry. We can

no longer afford the waste, whether that be due to the way in which we

log and leave behind millions of cubic metres of precious wood fibre,

or the way we allow what I believe to be the wholesale slaughter of

much of the wood harvested when it is processed through our sawmill

operations. We can no longer afford not to carry on a responsible — I

emphasize the word "responsible" — silviculture program in British

Columbia, whether that means planting or reseeding areas presently

being logged or areas which have been logged and not planted and

reseeded in the past, or whether it means treating the countless

hundreds of thousands of hectares of land within our provincial forest

boundaries that are presently going begging for some kind of

silviculture treatment which would in time transform them into

productive forest lands. We can no longer — I speak here I guess to the

industry itself as well as to government — sit back in British

Columbia, especially in this industry, and expect our customers to buy

whatever it is that we want to sell them, rather than selling them what

it is the customers want to buy. Mr. Chairman, it is utter madness, and

it is hurting us badly. It's hurting us very badly out there on the

marketplace. It's driving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of

business elsewhere in the world.

Mr. Chairman, world buyers of wood products are no longer in a position of

having to buy those products in British Columbia, and I predict that that is

going to get far worse. World buyers no longer need to take whatever it is that

we wish to sell them, whatever it is that we, in the forest industry in British

Columbia, wish to manufacture. They no longer have to take it at a price that

we feel they should pay. Those days are gone, I would predict, probably forever.

There are areas of this world, many of them much more stable suppliers than

ourselves, that are now getting in, in a big way, into the wood business: the

U.S.S.R., South America, Africa, particularly the United States, where foresters

in many of the southern states of that country are taught how to grow a tree

every bit as useful for manufacture of wood-related items as those grown in

British Columbia and taking 90 to 120 years to do so. Through technology, they've

taught those foresters to grow that same tree in 40 to 60 years. No, Mr. Chairman,

we in this province can no longer take this industry for granted, and that's

what I believe we have done in the last decade. We've taken the industry

for granted. We've decided that it's our primary industry and that it

was going to be there forever.

Mr. Chairman, I am here to say that unless we wake up, it's not going to be. It's just not going to be. The forest

[ Page 4432 ]

industry has been the backbone of the development of this great

province, but if we don't do something soon, surely it will, as well,

lead to our demise. In a number of regions out there now, there is a

real concern for the availability of wood in the future, for our

children and our children's children. You need only fly over this

province, as I do on many occasions to get back to my constituency, to

see exactly what that means. You can see very clearly, particularly in

the wintertime, where the timber has been cut and where it has not in

the central and northern part of this province. I think we've practised

neglect. Mr. Minister, we have not paid enough attention to

reforestation. I know of literally hundreds of thousands of hectares of

forest land going unplanted, unseeded.

We haven't handled this industry properly, so as to encourage the

technology necessary to provide a very vibrant industry in this

province. We haven't worked toward a vibrant industry; we haven't

worked toward an industry that is highly competitive in present-day and

future world markets in which there will be great competition for

buyers and users of wood products.

I think we've got to find ways to utilize every last stick of

available fibre growing in our forests, ways in which every last board

foot of lumber will be cut out of every log that runs through our

sawmills. In this I must agree with the member for Alberni (Mr.

Skelly), although I don't agree with him on many subjects. I've got to

agree that we've allocated the resource of this province to a very few,

and through having done so have hurt this industry in British Columbia.

We've allocated it to a very few, among whom there is no competition.

There is no initiative to do better and to manufacture more out of the

available wood, no need to strive to attain better recovery from the

cutting rights held, no initiative to pay better prices for the raw

materials and consequently to have to seek out better and more

profitable markets or to produce a product that buyers on the world

market are looking for. We've done this to a point where the resource

is not showing a return to the provincial coffers in British Columbia;

it's also because of

section 88 of the Forest Act, which I'm sure all

members in this House are aware of. During these tough economic times

that we've seen in the last two or three years, the government of this

province is building a debt to the large forest companies for work

presently being done.

I could spend many days pursuing these and other aspects of an

industry that I personally know very well. The industry is the primary

resource industry of our province. Mr. Chairman, I think it's

sufficient to say that at this time our forest industry in this

province, whether or not we're willing to admit it, is in grave

trouble. We as legislators had damned well better find ways to revive

and rejuvenate that industry if we as British Columbians ever intend to

continue paying for the high-priced services we presently provide in

this province, high-priced services that are seemingly expected by

everyone.

[4:00]

As I said at the outset, I have several concerns in regard to this

ministry. I intend to bring some of them out in these estimates, such

as the need for the Vanderhoof Crown land plan, in which the Ministry

of Forests plays a very major role. I want to ask the minister....

I hope he will be able to give me the answer to this question, because

I haven't been able to get it from the other two ministries involved in

this particular plan. Why, when so many hectares of land within

provincial forest boundaries in the Prince George forest district are

literally begging for silviculture treatment, does the Forest Service

wish to take land outside provincial forest boundaries into the

provincial forest? Why do they wish to take land which is suitable for

agriculture out of the realm of agricultural possibilities? Why do they

want to take some 32,000 hectares of land within the proposed

Vanderhoof Crown land plan into what they call integrated forest

management? I want to know the answer to the same question in regard to

the Kispiox Crown land plan.

I want to know before these estimates are through what is going to

be done about the falldown relating to reforestation in the

north-central part of this province, reforestation that's long overdue.

The number of seedlings being allocated is only 58 percent of those

required just to keep up with that forest land that's now being logged.

That's not to speak of the backlog — land which I personally logged

when I was a logging superintendent some twenty years ago — which today

has not yet been reforested. What are we going to do, Mr. Minister,

about those lands? What are we going to do for the provision of new

forests for our children and our children's children to come?

I want to know what's going to happen with the woodlot licence

program. The minister spoke glowingly of it in introducing the

estimates. Well, I want to tell you that it's an absolute disaster.

There is a shortage of woodlots being put up, and there is real

frustration out there among the people of this province, who heard back

in 1977 that we were going to get into a very viable woodlot program in

the province of British Columbia, only to find that since 1977 only

three woodlot licences have been allocated in the province of British

Columbia. Some program! I'm running out of answers to give to many of

my constituents who were very interested to get into this program and

should have had that opportunity. I think it's about time that we

thought of a new program, possibly called the agriculture silviculture

lease program, to give our people, particularly our agriculturalists,

the opportunity to farm trees in this province and thereby possibly

leave a heritage for our children to come.

I want to have some answers before these estimates are through in

regard to the small business program in the province of British

Columbia. That's another disaster in my estimation. Far too few of

these sales are ever put up to meet the needs of the small operator out

there. What happens? Because there are far too few — I think the figure

is 1 percent of the total allowable cut in this province, a mere

pittance for the independent, small entrepreneur — those sales are bid

out of sight, creating a situation where the small operator logging

small business sales in this province pays as much as three, four and

five times as much stumpage for that timber as do the very large

corporations. It's not right. It's not just. I'd like some answers in

that area. Why are these people priced out of existence? Why are these

people driven out of existence because they can't obtain timber for

their small logging or milling operations?

That is some of my concern, and certainly when I hear the response from the minister I'll have more.

MR. SKELLY: I really appreciate the remarks made by the

member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf), and I think we find ourselves in

agreement on most of these issues. I would congratulate the government

for appointing an internal opposition. This gentleman from Omineca is

doing a fine job.

MR. MICHAEL: He's the only one we have.

[ Page 4433 ]

MR. SKELLY: He's the only internal opposition they have. The rest of them are like sheep. They do nothing. But he's doing a fine job here.

I'd like to cover some of the points that the member for Omineca has

covered — because he has covered them as they apply to his area — and

in particular the problem of the small business program and the fact

that the ministry is ripping off small business people in the forest

industry by making them pay more than their fair share for the timber

they cut, relative to what the larger companies are paying on a

non-competitive basis in those huge forest tenures. The small business

people are forced to bid on their timber, and forced to bid on a bonus

bid basis. As a result, they pay much more than those large timber

holders who are able to obtain timber on a noncompetitive basis.

I did a comparison among a few of the annual reports between 1981-82

and 1982-83. The total volume that went to the small business programs,

say, in the Cariboo district in 1982-83 was 5.7 percent of the volume

billed, but they paid 16.9 percent of the total stumpage in that area.

In Kamloops the small business program received 2.6 percent of the

volume billed, and yet they paid 9.8 percent of gross stumpage for that

area. In Nelson the small business program got 3.2 percent of the

volume billed, and yet they paid 7.4 percent of the gross stumpage in

that area. In Prince George the same thing: 5.4 percent of the volume

billed, and yet they paid 13.8 percent of the gross stumpage for that

area. That's repeated in Prince Rupert and in Vancouver. The small

business people in this province are being ripped off by the Ministry

of Forests, and in general the large companies that hold the large tree

farm licence tenures are getting a free ride. It should be the other

way around, because those small businesses are the people who have

roots in the communities such as those communities in Omineca, in the

north and in the interior of B.C. Those people have their roots there,

they employ people there, and they do their business, charge out their

repairs and maintenance and buy their groceries in those communities.

They provide much more benefit to the communities in which they

operate, comparatively, than do the large forest companies who buy

their inputs outside the region — generally in the larger centres or

outside the province and even outside the country. So here we have a

case where the people who are doing most for the communities in which

they operate are being ripped off by the Ministry of Forests by being

forced to bid competitively for timber that the large companies get

without any competition at all. So the Minister of Forests has set up a

small business program, made a great issue of it and made an issue of

it during his opening remarks, and yet what he's doing is ripping off

those small business people compared to the way he's treating the large

companies that get their timber without any competition at all.

If there was more competitive bidding for timber between large

companies and small companies, what we would see is a levelling off of

the price of that timber. The province would get more, the small

business people would probably be paying a little less for their

timber, and the large companies would be paying a little more.

Unfortunately this minister — again, without any pull or push in

cabinet, doesn't seem to be able to set up a pricing regime for timber

in this province that distributes the cost more fairly among tenure

holders and people who involve themselves in the small business program.

I'm told by a number of federations for small business that operate

in Canada that since 1981 most of the jobs created in this country were

created by small business. We're told by the B.C. Central Credit Union

and their economic analyses, and by the forest companies themselves,

through the Council of Forest Industries, that there's declining

employment in the large forest companies. It's these small business

people, who create the most employment and have the most commitment to

their own communities, that we should be assisting and providing

incentives to, yet the minister and the ministry are ripping them off

with the charges they have to pay for timber in the province. I fully

agree with what the member for Omineca said: that we should be

encouraging these small business people, not by removing the

competitiveness from their program but by making competitive bidding

for timber across this province a requirement for obtaining timber in

the province of British Columbia. Nobody in British Columbia should get

the resources of this province without bidding for them competitively.

It's interesting, the differences in principles and policies that

the Premier and the minister apply to various sites, industries or

conditions in the province. The Premier says there should be

competitive bidding for every job at the Expo site, yet he's willing to

allow most of the forest resource of the province of B.C., which is the

mainstay of our economy, to go without any competition at all.

Whereas

the small business people, who are doing a tremendous job in that

area.... He's making them bid competitively for the timber and pay

much more than their share for the timber they receive. I'd certainly

be interested in the minister's response to the questions posed by the

member for Omineca about the obvious difference between what small

business people are paying for timber and what those big dogs, who get

their timber on a non-competitive basis, are paying.

The member for Omineca also mentioned

section 88 and the rebate

provisions. I've heard a number of complaints about the

section 88

administration as I've gone around the province and talked to people

involved in the forest industry. Again, the minister read from a

prepared statement when he opened his remarks during the debates on the

Forests estimates, but he did not circulate that prepared statement to

other members so they could refer back to it during the estimates, and

that's unfortunate.

[4:15]

HON. A. FRASER: They were only copious notes.

MR. SKELLY: COFI notes, meaning Council of Forest Industry notes? Or was that the last estimates?

The minister read from a prepared statement, in which I believe he indicated....

HON. A. FRASER: Copious notes.

MR. SKELLY: Somebody should provide that gentleman with a new battery.

Maybe the minister could just nod. My understanding of his statement

was that

section 88 rebates were going up 14 percent this year, that

they were increasing this year.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Look at the budget. They're about the same as last year.

MR. SKELLY: According to the estimates book, it was $59

million last year and it's $59 million this year. I understand those

figures are a bit deceptive, because there's been a

[ Page 4434 ]

change in ministry policy which takes the overhead for programs from

the stumpage appraisal system and applies it to the

section 88 system.

So actually, when we're applying

section 88 funds to forest roads,

bridges and other forestry projects — to silvicultural and basic

silviculture treatment — we're getting 18 percent less expenditure

under the

section 88 program this year than we were getting last year

because of the transfer of administration or overhead costs directly to

the

section 88 program. That's my understanding after talking to people

within the ministry and in the various regions.

As a result of that, the cost of stand-tending projects has

increased by 18 percent, and they can do much less than they did last

year — approximately 18 percent less. That's a concern that ministry

personnel have expressed to me over the last little while; it has also

been expressed to me by professional foresters. Instead of getting $59

million worth of basic and intensive silviculture out of that program,

instead of getting as much in the way of roads and bridges as we

received last year under that program, we're getting 18 percent less;

or the projects we are doing are costing 18 percent more. So I would be

interested in finding out from the minister exactly why he transferred

those overhead costs from the stumpage system over to the

section 88

rebate system, which results really in a $10.6 million reduction in

what's available for expenditures on the

section 88 program.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, I've been making a few

notes on comments made by the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) and the

member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly), so I will try to find a place to start

here.

Starting with the

section 88 thing, we have done some rearranging in

terms of what is allowed in appraisals and what is offset under

section

88. Quite frankly, right now I can't advise the member of the reason.

But generally speaking, particularly when you are not on minimums, the

cost will.... If it's not in appraisals, that means the stumpage

will be higher and you will get the money back if it's in

section 88.

So the money has to be spent somewhere, whether it's in

section 88 or

as an offset to stumpage or it's allowed in the appraisal or not

allowed in the appraisal; therefore we get more money at six of one and

half a dozen of the other.

The member said that no one should get wood without competitive

bidding. I think in the last couple of years we've gone through some

very good examples of why such a system would be very disruptive to

both community and employment stability in the province. The member

recalls the tremendous international tension a year ago focused upon

the efforts by the Americans to impose a countervailing duty upon

Canadian softwood lumber, most of which comes from British Columbia.

You recall that during that time, and even today, employment levels in

the northwest United States, our nearest competitors, were almost

non-existent in the forest sector,

whereas in British Columbia our

industry carried along at quite a substantial level, with some

reductions but nevertheless far more employment and community benefit,

revenue to the government, than existed in that jurisdiction, the

reason being that our stumpage appraisal system attempts.... It's

not perfect, but it does a fairly good job of determining what a real

market value is for the timber we sell on the stump to the industry.

The Americans were saying that we were subsidizing our industry, which

was implied when you say that we should only use competitive bidding.

In fact, after intense investigation and scrutiny of our system — and

our system was the chief one being scrutinized because most of the wood

to the United States comes from British Columbia — it was determined by

that rather unbiased international group that our system works well. As

a matter of fact, those in the northwestern States would like to see a

system like ours so that when they get boxed into a high bid, as they

did, on the competitive system, they don't have to shut down. Our

system allows for the market and allows us to continue that basic

community stability.

The wood in the small business program is productive logs, but it's

incremental volume. I don't know of any other way, without being just

arbitrary and picking people at random, to allocate that wood. To the

member for Omineca, we have 1 percent of our allowable cut set apart

for the woodlot licensing program, but the small business program in

the province averages around 10 percent. I think some of the areas in

the western part of your riding have a higher percentage than that;

some are up to at least 25 percent, some are down to a few percentage

points. I don't believe Fort Nelson has any, because there is no

interest in the small business program in that country. But how do we

allocate this 10 or more percent of the wood that we have to put in the

small business program unless it is competed for among peers? We don't

allow people other than those who are eligible on the program to bid on

it. Certainly we don't want to see a permanent ongoing quota type of

thing, because that's what happened in the past.

The member for Omineca said that we allocated all the wood to these

big companies. On the coast a lot of it was, in the early days,

acquired by the big companies, but not directly from the government in

many cases. In many cases the smaller operators acquired the wood and

ultimately sold out to the big companies. I have that happening today.

I don't know at times how I can refuse when you have someone who has

spent all his life working in the industry, he's now perhaps in his

late sixties or seventies, his sons didn't want to get into the

business or perhaps like me he had all daughters and they didn't want

to be loggers. Now he has this timber allocation, and over the years he

has made a living, but he's really not set too much aside. He says:

"Mr. Minister, such and such a company wants to buy my allocation. I

want to get out of the business; I want to retire. May I sell it?" I

would very much like to say: "No, you can't sell it to them, because

that's further concentration. I don't want that big company to have

that wood. It would be better for me to put it in the small business

program." But how do I say that when that's all this guy has after a

lifetime of work? Maybe he has some savings, but here is his nest egg.

Usually, in a case like that, I do allow it to happen. I have one on my

desk right now which I'm wrestling with, the same type of thing.

I don't want to see a permanent type of quota thing for small

operators, because, once again, your flexibility is gone. Quite

frankly, you might then get into selling out to the big companies, and

you have further concentration. Our object is to put more and more wood

into the program, and we can. As we accumulate undercuts, as some

licences are reduced in size, and as we learn how to use some of the

wood that we haven't been able to use in the past — and this is

happening — we can increase the general allowable cut in many areas,

and most of that will go into the small business program. I don't know

how to deal with that wood unless it's through a competitive system.

[ Page 4435 ]

The figures that the member quotes as to what the small operators

pay versus what the big companies pay are somewhat misleading — I know

there is no intent on your part to mislead me. What happens is that we

put out a sale, and we either provide the access to the sale ourselves

or tag it onto an existing development. The small business licensee has

very little additional cost to get to the wood and he doesn't have to

assume any silviculture obligations afterwards, which would have cost

him money. Instead, he generally puts that money into a bid for the

small business wood, and quite often, when there is competition for

that incremental supply, he can bid it up. What happens to that wood?

It is harvested by him, and if he has bid it up somewhat above the

going stumpage rate and sells it — and hopefully he doesn't sell it at

a loss — to manufacturing plants and the "big" companies, and they pay

him for that wood, including that extra stumpage which he bid, he's

making a profit. The big company is paying more for the wood and thus

paying that extra stumpage bill, because that guy is not going to pay

for the right to harvest a bit of wood — it is the manufacturer who

ultimately pays for it.

Category 2, the category for those who own small mills, is a little

different. They are supposed to run the minimum percentage, which

varies with the type of stand, through their own manufacturing plant.

Generally competition is somewhat restricted, because there are not too

many of that type of operators around. But at times there is fierce

competition and they do bid against each other. The reason we don't

require them to put all of the wood through their mill is that....

Maybe it is a specialty cedar mill and only 60 percent of the stand

is cedar. He can't really use the rest, so we allow him to sell it.

When he does, he sells it to the existing industry, which then pays the

bonus that he has bid on it.

The program has its problems. I've said many times that the small

business program has its problems. But I would differ with the member

for Omineca (Mr. Kempf). I don't think it's a disaster. I think there

are lots of improvements needed. The problems are different in

different parts of the province, because we're trying to adapt the

program to suit the needs of that small sector, which is quite

different in different parts of the province. On the coast, for

example, the needs are much different than they would be in the dry

belt in the interior. It is imperfect, but it's an opportunity for

those who have developed as a service industry. The loggers are

basically a service industry. We have allowed them the opportunity to

harvest in their own right, and hopefully, as time goes on and the

program expands, we will be able to develop more of a log market.

The member asked me to say who we're talking about who are

considering perhaps giving up tenures. I am afraid it would be

premature of me to discuss who or where at this time, because of

corporate sensitivity, share values and that type of thing. But it is

happening, and as it develops the member will of course be advised.

MR. SKELLY: What are the plans for the timber?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: We are in the formative development and

talking stages now. There are various ways. Obviously no one is going

to give up a secure timber allocation when there are manufacturing

plants that need it, without perhaps some refusal right on the purchase

of that timber on a market basis. These are the types of things we're

discussing in several instances, both on the coast and in the interior,

and it is developing,

The member for Omineca is going to strike out regarding the

Vanderhoof and the Kispiox plans. I can't answer your questions. We are

not the deed agency; it's Lands, Parks and Housing. My deputy has asked

our people involved to come forward with a report. Whether or not my

estimates will still be on when I get that I don't know, but I'll

certainly provide the member with it.

That question and the following one demonstrate, I think, the

dilemma which I have at times. The member is saying that this land

which could be used for agriculture is tied up and is not being

allocated for agricultural use. The member's next question was about

what I was going to do about the falldown effect in the forest. There

is my dilemma. A part of the reason that we will be having a falldown

in future years is the shrinking forest landbase. We have a lot of

land, and some of it in your riding, Mr. Member. You and I have

travelled up between Vanderhoof and Fort St. James, and there is quite

a bit of land adjacent to the highway there that was granted for

agricultural use. The timber was removed, and it is not in

agricultural, timber or any other kind of production. That is why, as

you and I have discussed — we have discussed it in our caucus, and I

have discussed it publicly — we can perhaps satisfy the need of people

to own land if we combine silviculture and agriculture.

[4:30]

That is part of the idea of the woodlot licence program. Why can't

we have a silviculture lease program similar to the agriculture lease

program we have? British Columbia is one jurisdiction in which most of

the forest lands are owned by the Crown. I think that there's a place

for more private ownership of the forest land. People can and should be

tree farmers if that is what the land is best used for. Even the better

agricultural land in the interior is darned good forest land. It has

been demonstrated that you can make just as good a living growing and

selling trees on a continuous basis as you can most field crops in

British Columbia. Combining the two, of course, is the best of both

worlds. A lot of the land that has been alienated should be forested,

and perhaps some of the forest land should he used for agriculture. But

that is what these deferred planning areas are all about: that is,

trying to figure out what the best way is of using that land to get the

best value from it. There is a dilemma there, and I don't have a magic

wand or the instant answer to it.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I agree again with the member for Omineca about the need for better

utilization, especially the need for manufacturing for markets in

specific areas. My recent trip to Europe and to the Oriental countries

— Japan, Korea, China and so on — has indicated to me that changes come

very quickly. In the past we have been able to manufacture anything we

want in terms of solid-wood products. There was always a place in the

world where we could sell it, but that has changed. The competition is

much more severe now, and we have to be much more specific to markets.

The member mentioned the Chemainus sawmill. I think you have a good

example there where that mill will be built to make specialty products

for specialty market niches. In addition, there was a little furniture

manufacturing plant established in Chemainus which is even more market

specific. Perhaps the Chemainus mill can enhance the value of that

furniture manufacturing plant as well. I hope so, because that is the

type of thing we have to be doing. We have to use more

[ Page 4436 ]

of the wood that is in the forest, and it is happening. But I don't

think we can pursue that with such vigour that we destroy the economics

of the industry that is there. The industry has to use more. Because

we've had an abundance of raw materials in the past, we've been

somewhat fat and saucy in what we did with it. Our utilization and

recovery has not been the best, but now as supplies tighten up we're

going to be much more aggressive in pursuing markets and in making use

of some of the wood we haven't used in the past.

I mentioned the fact that it really wasn't the government over the

years that allocated the wood resource to the very few. I think I

mentioned to the member for Omineca the example of what used to be

called the sustained yield unit in the Okanagan. At one time there were

over 90 small licensees, and of those 90 only a couple remain. Over

time, they've gradually sold out as they retired or as the economics of

the old bush-mill business changed and they couldn't compete.

Concentration has taken place over the years. One of the things that

I've tried to do through the small business program is to make sure

that at least that amount of wood never is subject to that

concentration.

I believe I've covered most of the areas. If I haven't, I'm sure....

Interjection.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Oh, the ripoff business? Well, I got into

the small business ripoff by describing the different conditions of

responsibilities. I don't think it's a ripoff. At times some of our

small business operators get carried away, and they have bid dollar

numbers that they can't operate on. Sometimes it is done for spite. Up

until now we've had a relatively small bonus bid, and the guy will put

down his bonus bid and bid the thing out of sight, knowing that he's

not going to be able to operate it, but at least he would prevent

somebody else. That type of competition is not healthy at all. In order

to overcome that, it's been suggested by quite a number of small

business operators that we increase the size of that deposit

substantially so that it is something they can't afford to lose. It

will at least force him to do his homework, to go and talk to his

banker or financier, if he has to have one, and make sure that he can

operate on the price he bids. By and large, the prices are a little bit

higher, but as I've mentioned, the obligations are less as well.

MR. PASSARELL: Mr. Chairman, I have approximately nine

constituency questions to address to the minister. But first, as a part

of your job as my buddy MLA, I was wondering....

HON. MR. WATERLAND: No longer.

MR. PASSARELL: What happened?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: They fired me.

MR. PASSARELL: They should have a long time ago. Okay, I'll

drop that one. I've been working on this joke for about a week, but

that's all right.

My first constituency question has to do with TFL-1, B.C. Timber,

which is included in the Nishga nation. In light of B.C. Timber in that

area, the company hasn't worked in over 13 months. The community of

Nass Camp has been closed down. Very few people are living there. The

very positive proposal that the Nishga nation has put forward regarding

timber is not just a proposal, because if you look at what the

community of Canyon City in the Nishga nation are doing in practically

logging in the area as a start of what could happen in that valley....

The minister has travelled in the area and is aware, as he stated

earlier, of the ongoing need regarding seedlings, and some of the

logged-out areas through the Nass Valley that have never been

replanted. The spokesperson for the Nishga Tribal Council in regard to

forestry management units is Collier Azak, who has put forward some

excellent proposals for timber management in the Nass. I know the

Nishga nation has approached the Minister of Forest and his assistants,

and the question I ask is: what is the ministry going to do with the

proposals that the Nishga people are putting forward in regard to

timber management in the Nass Valley, particularly when you look at

Nass Valley and B.C. Timber, where there have been no operations in

that vicinity for over 13 months?

In regard to your proposals, what proposals do you have for the

Nass? There have been some rumours in regard to Stewart, and I'll get

to Stewart further on in one of my constituency issues. There are

individuals, particularly in Nass camp, who haven't worked for 13

months and who are hanging on. I feel for those individuals who are

living in the Nass camp in that isolated area in the Nass Valley,

waiting for some type of employment. They keep asking: "Whatever

happened to 'Use it or lose it'?" I would like the minister's response

on that.

Look at B.C. Timber particularly, which has the largest tree licence

in the province, TFL No. 1; they're not using it. Why can't the Nishga

people have some of that for jobs? Some areas of the Nass Valley have

95 percent unemployment. Why can't the people use the timber that is

there, which B.C. Timber isn't using, to generate local jobs and to

benefit local communities, and share some of the resources in a fair

enterprise system?

Secondly, in regard to a contentious issue in the lower Stikine

involving forest management in that area, which is a very

environmentally sensitive area — as B.C. Hydro found out in regard to

their plans on the Stikine — I have a recent letter from the minister

dated April 30, 1984, sent to Lynne Thunderstorm in Telegraph Creek. I

want to read one paragraph. There haven't been any public hearings per

se, and that was one of the issues that the Tahltan people were

bringing forward. I'm quoting the fourth paragraph: "As noted in the

attached material, the planning report is an intermediate project. It

will incorporate public consultation between February to April 1984 and

will be available for public review in early June of 1984." Where does

this public consultation begin? What communities? Is some type of

public consultation going on in the ministry in Victoria? I was in

contact with the Tahltan people just last week and my

interpretation of

what they said is that there really hasn't been any consultation in

regard to the licence that was given on the lower Stikine.

A third question. Many residents in the communities that I represent

use wood for heating and cooking and as their source of energy. Are

there any plans by the ministry to enlarge some areas for woodcutting,

particularly around the Atlin area, using trees down towards the

O'Donnel that don't fall into the new forest management area or reserve

that you've put in? I'm not talking about cutting down green trees, because most people don't really want to cut green

[ Page 4437 ]

trees. They'd rather have seasoned wood, trees that are downed.

The fourth issue is a major concern in the Atlin constituency, where

we had a very low snowfall, resulting in a dry winter. A concern that

residents were bringing to my attention during our two-week adjournment

was in regard to fire. We've seen some major fires over the years but

this winter we've had a particularly low snow accumulation, which is a

strong signal for a higher-than-normal number of forest fires this

summer. I'm wondering what type of increase in firefighting in the far

north has been allocated by the ministry.

The fifth issue is the Nass road, particularly from Greenville to

New Aiyansh. The minister has travelled that road numerous times, I'm

sure, and he wouldn't want to bring his own vehicle up on that road.

It's an ongoing problem. When B.C. Timber is in operation, they are

responsible for the upgrading of the road, but since B.C. Timber has

been down for over a year the road has deteriorated. Has the ministry

looked at the possibility of turning that road access between

Greenville and New Aiyansh over to the provincial highways system? It's

fine when the company is in operation and their trucks are moving on

it, but when the company is down, as it has been over the last 13

months, it's a very terrible road to travel on, safety-wise. Because of

their isolated area — particularly Greenville, where 300 individuals

live, Canyon City with 150 people and New Aiyansh with 600 people —

people are wondering why they have to pay taxes on their gasoline even

though their roads are private forestry roads to a certain extent.

My sixth question to the minister is on silviculture. I listened

intently to the member for Omineca and agree with much that he stated.

There was a time a few years ago when we used to have our own nurseries

in the far north, particularly around the Nass, with local seedlings

for local use. I've never understood why the province has ever had to

import seedlings, particularly from Washington. In an era of high

unemployment, why are we not using Crown land for seedling nurseries,

particularly in the far north in communities like Nass Camp? There is

high unemployment in that area. Here's a positive suggestion to put a

few people back to work. These wouldn't be make-work projects, just

going out and slashing some bush to constitute a job, but would be

doing something that's very effective. You can't really take a nursery

and put it into Atlin where there really isn't that much commercial

timber going on, but in the Nass and up towards Dease Lake we can have

some type of employment for the benefit of future generations.

My seventh question to the minister: why did you and your ministry

turn down the federal proposal that would have been worth millions of

dollars in jobs and seedlings in the province? The federal-provincial

negotiations could have been working out some kind of agreement with

the federal government that would have been beneficial to the residents

of British Columbia.

[4:45]

The eighth question is something I referred to earlier, and that's

in regard to Stewart. There have been a lot of rumours going around

over the last few years about the high and low cycles involved with the

community of Stewart in regards to Granduc and mining operations,

particularly since Stewart is closed down, to a certain extent, with

Granduc. What's happening in regards to....? Around Christmastime

they were discussing log sorting out of Stewart. If I'm not mistaken, I

think there was some problem; the federal government's environment

section was holding up the use of Stewart as a port even though the

provincial ministry was in support of it. Jobs are needed in Stewart

today, and I hope the minister can elaborate on what's happening in

regard to that log sorting and shipping out of Stewart, actively

seeking new jobs in the community of Stewart for log sorting and

shipping.

The last question I have to raise with the minister is in regard to

public documents in Dease Lake. While you were out of the country, a

bit of a problem arose with the Tahltan people and their nation in

regard to the lower Stikine forest management. There were some

documents in Dease Lake, and they travelled from Telegraph Creek to

Dease Lake to see these documents. They were under the impression from

their initial phone call that they were entitled to pay for copies of

these documents in regard to what's happening on the lower Stikine.

They arrived in Dease Lake and were told that they could see the

documents but they couldn't take them, even if they would pay for the

photocopying. The next day they contacted my office, and I contacted

your office and found that those documents in regard to the lower

Stikine would be given to the band council. I wanted to know if that is

a policy — that individuals are not entitled to see public documents in

the Dease Lake forest manager's office. Those are the nine questions I

address to the minister regarding constituency issues and problems. I'd

like the minister's response.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Was that nine? I only got eight; maybe I got two of them together.

I appreciate the manner in which the member presented his queries. I

don't have absolute answers for all of them. With regard to the Tahltan

people's attempt to get documents, if documents are the final approved

plan, our policy is that they are public documents and anyone is

welcome to look at them in the office. If they want to pay for a

reproduction of them, it's theirs. I'm not sure whether these were

proposed plans or finalized documents. That's what the policy is.

Someone could have been in error if they refused to make copies for

them, as long as they were willing to pay for the reproduction cost.

Stewart is a difficult area. As we all know, the Granduc mine is

closing. Over the years I've been trying to promote activity based upon

our forest resource there. I think we're getting closer. We are

examining the specific quality of the forest resource, to determine how

much, perhaps, we could put up. If we can put wood up, it would have to

be on a bid proposal basis and open to competition — not necessarily

strictly a bid, but a proposal for the benefit of the community. I hope

to be able to come forward with something in the very near future, and

when that happens the member will be made fully aware of it.

That log export problem. I remember the mayor of Stewart called me,

and I got in touch with my colleague the Minister of Environment. I

don't know what happened, but apparently the federal people did object.

It was just a matter of doing some sorting in the estuary area adjacent

to where that old sawmill skeleton is. Quite frankly, I don't know what

happened, but I did pursue it with my colleague, and he took it up with

the federal people. I don't think it worked out the way we wanted it to.

Silviculture and nurseries. I've suggested many times to our silviculture people that I'd like to have a nursery in

[ Page 4438 ]

Princeton and one in Hope and one in Merritt and one in Lillooet and

one in Logan Lake and so on. Of course it hasn't happened. There is the

economy of scale in nurseries. In some areas the climate is not such

that the cost of operating a greenhouse-type nursery would be

prohibitive because of the climate. We are, I think, still discussing

the possibility of establishing a nursery in the Terrace area. We are

expanding our nursery production capability. It will be years before we

get to the most desirable level, and I guess when we get there, there

will always be people saying we should have more.

We are expanding. We have not turned down any program with the feds.

We're vigorously pursuing and negotiating with them. I guess you're

talking about the backlog planning program that we suggested, which

would plant some 600 million hectares over a ten-year period. I t