2006 Legislative Session: Second Session, 38th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2006

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 12, Number 5

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Page

Statements

Sullivan mine accident

Hon.

G. Campbell

James

Introductions by Members

Statements (Standing

Order 25 B )

Schools in Richmond area

Yap

Trudy Rumbucher

Robertson

World Partnership Walk and

Aga Khan Foundation

Nuraney

Healthy democracy

Routley

Bell Walk for Kids Help Phone

Cantelon

Mount Saint Joseph Hospital

and Chinese community

Chudnovsky

Oral Questions

Softwood lumber agreement and

forest policy in B.C.

Simpson

Hon.

R. Coleman

Government response to

forestry concerns in Port Alberni

Fraser

Hon.

R. Coleman

Evans

Appointment of Carmen Purdy

to Agricultural Land Commission

Ralston

Hon.

P. Bell

Highway interchange project

in Delta

Gentner

Hon.

K. Falcon

S taff concerns at Employment and Income Assistance

Ministry

Trevena

Hon.

C. Richmond

Petitions

S. Fraser

Reports from Committees

Special Committee to Appoint

a Merit Commissioner

J. Rustad

Motions without Notice

Appointment of Merit

Commissioner

J. Rustad

Second Reading of Bills

Representative for Children

and Youth Act (Bill 34)

Hon.

W. Oppal

Dix

Hon.

L. Reid

Austin

Karagianis

Simons

James

Simpson

Thorne

Hon.

S. Hagen

Kwan

Hon.

W. Oppal

Committee of the Whole

House

Tenancy Statutes Amendment

Act, 2006 (Bill 27)

Routley

Hon.

R. Coleman

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Labour

and Citizens' Services

Puchmayr

Hon.

M. de Jong

Chouhan

Simpson

Lali

Brar

[ Page 4951 ]

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2006

The House met at 2:03 p.m.

Prayers.

Statements

SULLIVAN MINE ACCIDENT

Hon. G. Campbell: I'm rising today to update the House on the tragic situation that has developed at the Sullivan minesite in Kimberley this morning. I know that all members of the House are thinking of the families that have been affected by this tragedy.

The details of precisely what happened are still being investigated, but what we do know from this morning is that a worker at the decommissioned Sullivan minesite called 911 to request help for another worker who had collapsed. Two paramedics from Kimberley responded only to find that both workers had collapsed, suffering from an apparent cardiac arrest. These two paramedics, doing their jobs and trying to aid the fallen workers, also collapsed. All four victims were subsequently rushed to hospital in Cranbrook. Tragically, all four have passed away today. The exact cause of their deaths has not been determined.

[1405]

This accident is a sobering reminder of the dangers that emergency workers face every day in B.C. as they risk their lives attempting to save others. I can tell the House that this afternoon the Minister of State for Mining and the Minister of Health are en route to Kimberley along with the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke. As it does with all mine accidents, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources will conduct a full investigation.

Today I know that all members of the House would want to have our thoughts and our prayers going to the families who have been so tragically impacted today. To wake up in the morning and think a day is about to start as a typical day, and then to find that out of the blue one of your loved ones is gone, creates a hole in your life which is difficult for any of us to really comprehend until we go through it.

I hope the House will join me in sending their prayers, their condolences and their support to the families and to the community of Kimberley, a small community in British Columbia, all of whom will have been deeply touched by this tragedy.

C. James: On behalf of the opposition, I would like to join with this House in expressing our deepest sympathies and condolences to the people of Kimberley following the tragic accident at the mine. Certainly, our thoughts and prayers are with the families, friends and co-workers of the two workers and two paramedics who died on the job today.

As legislators, a day like today is really a reminder of our duty to strive as hard as we can to make sure that the people of this province who go to work every day come home safely at the end of the day. I know a town like Kimberley will pull together to provide support to those families. They will do everything they can. I know we send along our wishes to all the people of Kimberley as they go through this very difficult time.

Introductions by Members

V. Roddick: Joining us for a second time in the House are three concerned constituents from Delta South: Bernadette Kudzin, parent advisory council chair for South Delta Secondary; Maureen Broadfoot, communications expert for TRAHVOL; and Cec Dunn, co-chairman for TRAVHOL, which is an acronym for Tsawwassen Residents Against Higher Voltage Overhead Lines. Will the House please make them welcome.

C. Puchmayr: It gives me pleasure today to introduce two people in the House, two people who have worked very hard on the very issues the Premier just spoke about — health and safety, and the safety of workers. They have been strong advocates for not only unionized British Columbians but non-unionized British Columbians as well. I want the House to make welcome Jim Sinclair from the B.C. Federation of Labour and Steve Hunt of the United Steelworkers of America.

J. Nuraney: We have in the gallery today my nephew Shafiq Dahya and a friend, Leigh Dawson. Both of them are students at Royal Roads University. I would like the House to please join me in welcoming both of them.

M. Karagianis: Today in the House we have four of my constituents. We have Gordon Stewart in the gallery, and his three beautiful daughters Charlotte, Lucille and Georgina. All three girls are involved in an organization that I am particularly fond of, the Girl Guides of Canada. Would the House please help me to make them very welcome here today.

Hon. J. van Dongen: Visiting us in the Legislature today are about 50 grade six, seven and eight students from Chief Dan George Middle School in my riding. This school has a motto: "Excellence is achieved together." They have 300 students in band and 600 students in French immersion.

The students are accompanied by their teachers Ms. Laura Stevens, Ms. Amanda Shaefer, Mr. Ray Goerke and Mr. Colin McTaggart, and a number of parents. I ask the House to please make them all welcome.

[1410]

D. Routley: I'd like the House to help me welcome two constituents, Ken James and Roger Wiles. They are members of the executive of the Youbou Timberless Society and are tireless in their advocacy for forestry issues and in the effort of educating the public on the important issues of forest land–based management. Please help me make them welcome.

[ Page 4952 ]

L. Mayencourt: I would like to introduce two very good friends of mine that are visiting from Vancouver-Burrard. Josif and Gitte Bakalinsky are constituents of mine. Josif has been a friend for about five years and is a recent recipient of a brand-new kidney. Gitte is his wife, and she works at Riverview. Would the House please join me in welcoming Josif and Gitte.

S. Fraser: I have all of my constituents here today. I can name only a few, if you will help me welcome them after I name the few I can name: Mayor McRae from Port Alberni; Councillor Jack McLeman and regional district director Wayne Crowley; Wayne James and Keith

Wyton from the Save Our Valley Alliance; labour council president John Young; Steelworker president Monte Mearns; and a whole bunch of friends. Welcome all. Please help me welcome them.

Hon. L. Reid: I would ask the House to please join me in welcoming to the gallery today Brenda Plant. Brenda is the executive director of the Turning Point Recovery Society, which does extraordinary work in the addictions field in British Columbia. I would ask the House to please make her welcome.

H. Bains: It is my pleasure to introduce to this House a number of steelworkers from Local 185, Port Alberni, led by their local director, Steve Hunt. They are here to lobby us on stopping log exports. Will the House please join me in welcoming them all here.

D. Routley: Would the House please help me welcome friend and constituent Laurie Jordan and his parents, visiting from the Maritimes, Herb and Hazel Jordan. They have taken the long route on a repositioning cruise through the Panama Canal to Seattle and, finally, to this Legislature to see how politics ought to be done.

Statements

(Standing Order 25

B) SCHOOLS IN RICHMOND AREA

J. Yap: When I was elected as the MLA for Richmond-Steveston, I made a commitment to visit every school in my constituency. I wanted to gain a firsthand appreciation of our schools. I also wanted to give teachers, students, education assistants, administrators and parents an opportunity to give direct feedback to their MLA.

With the help of Al Klassen, president of the Richmond Teachers Association, I have visited 12 secondary and elementary schools since my election. During my school visits, I witnessed the diversity of programs offered in school district 38. For example, at Hugh Boit Secondary, the first school I toured, I met with PE teachers who double as athletic coaches. Boit offers students a unique combined studies program.

Principal Alex Campbell showed me around McMass Secondary, where I saw the thriving French immersion program and the excellent work they do with the disabled and special needs students.

At Landon and Steveston secondary schools, I learned about the new coordinated campus, which will see the two schools combined into one facility offering students greater flexibility and the opportunity to take courses at either school.

Dickson, McKinney and Menoah-Steeves elementary schools are just three of the many schools in my riding that offer the Montessori program. Dickson also offers its students a French immersion program, which is become increasingly popular.

Grauer Elementary works hard to accommodate low-income families. Ferris Elementary boasts the largest number of students of all Richmond elementary schools, and they have three day care centres operating on site.

[1415]

I learned a great deal from my time in Richmond's classrooms. We have truly great schools in our community, with dedicated and caring teachers and support staff. Our students are receiving a great education. Visiting the schools in my community has been a great experience, and I would highly recommend that all MLAs take on this challenge and visit all schools in their constituencies if they have not already done so.

TRUDY RUMBUCHER

G. Robertson: It is my pleasure today to honour one of my constituents, Trudy Rumbucher, who is a true inspiration. Trudy is 67, a mother of two with six grandchildren. Last July she was diagnosed with cancer of the colon and liver, but this terminal illness has not slowed Trudy down. Even after four operations, chemo and an artificial colon, her motto is: "You don't just sit down and give up." On May 7, Trudy completed her third half-marathon in Vancouver, which she calls her miracle run because it was less than a year ago that she was diagnosed with cancer.

Trudy is advocating vigorously for urgent action on the prevention of colorectal cancer, for which a simple and cost-effective intervention is available. A standard policy of mandatory screening and immediate removal of all polyps upon discovery should be implemented immediately. This is now common practice in Europe. There needs to be the same approach to colorectal cancer as there is for breast and cervical cancers, a point supported by the Canadian Cancer Society. The bottom line: this will save many precious lives and save costly cancer treatments.

Trudy has also taken personal responsibility for her health. Last week she told me about how she changed her whole lifestyle to a good, healthy diet of fish; raw fruits and vegetables, especially dark leafy greens; and supplemented with herbs, vitamins and plenty of exercise. These measures have allowed Trudy to remain positive and active.

We can all learn something from Trudy. Congratulations to Trudy for her miracle run and kudos for all

[ Page 4953 ]

her inspiring hard work on cancer prevention and living life to its fullest.

WORLD PARTNERSHIP WALK

AND AGA KHAN FOUNDATION

J. Nuraney: The Aga Khan Foundation was created by His Highness the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims, in 1967 with a view to improving living conditions and opportunities for the poor without regard to their faith, origin or gender.

The Aga Khan Development Network, an umbrella organization, looks after the Aga Khan Education Services, Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, Aga Khan Health Services, Aga Khan Planning and Building Services, Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the Aga Khan University and the University of Central Asia.

These institutions seek sustainable solutions to the long-term problems of poverty, hunger, illiteracy and ill health, with special emphasis on the needs of rural communities. There are presently 130 projects in South and Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

One of the fundraising arms of this foundation is the World Partnership Walk, which takes place across the country. This year the partnership walk for British Columbia will take place in Vancouver at Lumbermen's Arch in Stanley Park, and in Victoria it will take place at Beacon Hill Park. The events will begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday, May 28. Our Premier will initiate the walk in Vancouver.

I take this opportunity to invite all members of the Legislature to participate in this very important event.

HEALTHY DEMOCRACY

D. Routley: I rise today to talk about healthy democracy. I rise today to speak on that very important subject on the one-year anniversary of this House and the election. Being a proud member of this House, I rise in a spirit of non-partisanship to celebrate the successes of this House.

[1420]

I think we can all be proud, as members, of having pushed several issues forward. The government can be proud of having listened to the constituents and pushed forward on labour relations and in other matters. The opposition can be proud that we have affected government policy in a positive way. We have successfully advocated for our constituents with a louder voice perhaps — well, maybe not louder voices, but certainly more numerous.

With more numerous voices, pressure has been brought to this House, which has resulted in very positive resolution of conflicts in our communities, and we should all be proud of that. We should all be proud of the fact that we've brought our individual constituents' issues to the House and advocated for them on both sides of this House.

A healthy democracy comes from an engaged community. Yesterday we witnessed outside a very engaged demonstration on the issue of child care and early childhood education. Out of that sort of activism comes the kind of voice that legislators will never ignore. Today we saw a demonstration protesting the export of raw logs — again, voices that any legislator would ignore only at their own peril.

Healthy democracy, again, relies on that community engagement. But more than that, it relies on us as legislators to listen and to hear those voices. When the communities are engaged and when democracy is healthy, responsible leaders follow.

BELL WALK FOR KIDS HELP PHONE

R. Cantelon: On May 7 of this year I took part, along with the member opposite from Nanaimo, in the fifth annual Bell Walk for Kids Help Phone event. The help phone line is a vital service to our young people aged five to 20 in crisis. The crisis may be bullying or relationships. It could be abuse, self-image or depression. Intervention and support at these pivotal times can change a life, maybe save a life.

The Kids Help Phone counsellors answer calls and questions every day from kids across Canada who need support, information, or even referral to a local community or support agency. Thousands of children rely on this great service to help them in time of need. The help phone provides young people with immediate help and hope that they need 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, toll-free and in both official languages.

In Nanaimo alone, the walk raised $14,000 — a $4,000 increase over last year. In B.C. we raised $144,000 thanks to the hard work of volunteers in Nanaimo, Vancouver, Victoria — where the walk began — White Rock and Kelowna. Nationally, the event was a big success. Some 20,000 people, approximately 45 communities, raised a grand total of $2.7 million — an increase of $600,000. All of the proceeds from this great event go to the Kids Help Phone.

I'd like to thank the sponsors, Kathy Power and Jason Lambrick of Bell Canada in Nanaimo, Donna Vidal of the Country Club Centre in Nanaimo and Nora Loftus, who chaired and enthusiastically led what seemed like an army of volunteers that made this great event in Nanaimo a tremendous success. Their support will make a difference in thousands of our young people's lives across the country.

MOUNT SAINT JOSEPH HOSPITAL

AND CHINESE COMMUNITY

D. Chudnovsky: Mount Saint Joseph Hospital on Vancouver's east side is a remarkable community facility. Established decades ago by Catholic nuns and members of the city's Chinese community, Mount Saint Joe's soon became known as Vancouver's Chinese hospital.

Today about 50 percent of the patients are still from the Chinese community. Translation services are readily available for Mandarin and Cantonese speakers and for those who speak many other languages. Culturally appropriate programs that take into account the tradi-

[ Page 4954 ]

tions and needs of Asian patients are also available. The Chinese community has provided countless volunteers and millions of dollars in donations to this hospital's charitable foundation.

Members of this House know that the emergency department at Mount Saint Joe's was recently threatened with a 23-percent cutback of physician services. We learned this week that the cut, which was to take effect on June 1, has been put off for at least seven months. This is great news for our community.

[1425]

I want to congratulate the courageous doctors who spoke out in support of their patients. I want to thank the thousands of members of the community who signed petitions and stood up for Mount Saint Joseph's. I want to pay tribute to the Chinese community organizations which joined the campaign to protect vital health services: the Chinese Benevolent Association of Canada, the Chinese Benevolent Association, the Cheng Wing Yeong Tong, the Shon Yee Benevolent Association of Canada, the Chinese Freemasons of Canada national headquarters, the Gee How Oak Tin Association of Vancouver and the Taiwanese Canadian Cultural Society.

If it's necessary, I'm sure all of these individuals and groups will be there again in seven months to protect their hospital and its services. For now, I know all members of this House will want to join me in wishing the staff and patients of Mount Saint Joseph Hospital many more decades of good health, success and service to our community.

Oral Questions

SOFTWOOD LUMBER AGREEMENT

AND FOREST POLICY IN B.C.

B. Simpson: Yesterday the Minister of Forests finally admitted that yes, Washington will have veto power over forest policy changes in this province. However, he stated that British Columbians shouldn't worry about that because: "We're done. We've done our forest policy changes for the next seven years. We're not going to need to adjust them. So frankly, there's nothing there to worry about."

If we're done, as the minister suggests — if we have no more forest policy to develop or change — then there really isn't any need for a Minister of Forests.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

B. Simpson: And as the hon. members on the other side state, maybe the Leader of the Opposition needs to use my resources differently as well.

However, given that the minister has indicated that he is done, when will he be officially stepping down from his role?

Hon. R. Coleman: I hesitate to say that that question was music to my ears.

I didn't say they had a veto power; you said they had a veto power. I said we had an anti-circumvention clause that would be in the agreement going forward so that the two countries would work within the agreement. Working within the agreement, there's always an evolution in policy. It just means you cooperate on that. Just for the member's own information, there was an anti-circumvention clause in the last softwood agreement as well.

Mr. Speaker: Member for Cariboo North has a supplemental.

B. Simpson: The minister indicated yesterday that yes, he would have to go to Washington and that Washington does have the right to approve our forest policy. His response to it was a deflection. He said we shouldn't worry about it as British Columbians, because we have no more forest policy to do.

Well, there's a group of people here from Port Alberni, who have a meeting with this minister. That group is here today to get forest policy changes. There are many other communities and workers who want forest policy changes.

My question to the minister is: if we're done — if under the terms of this deal we will have seven years of no forest policy changes — should these good people from Port Alberni simply go home and come back in seven years?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, they're our trees, it's our forest, and we make our forest policy in British Columbia. When you take a portion of an interview out of context, or a portion of a context of an interview, you run the risk of actually not getting the entire context of that particular interview.

What I was talking about was that since the last NAFTA stuff came along, we've made a number of changes in forest policy in British Columbia — the member is well aware — with regard to how we do market-pricing systems to deal with the circumstances in and around the issues around softwood and our relationship on trade going forward. That had to be dealt with, because there were certain issues with regards to how B.C.'s forests were pricing their fibre in an international marketplace relative to competition.

[1430]

Having said that, that was a huge body of work on policy that was done over a period of time by the previous minister and this government. I, as the minister going forward, know that policy is complete. I also know that policy within a resource-based industry is always fluid, and there will always be other things we need to do in the future.

Mr. Speaker: Member for Cariboo North has a further supplemental.

[ Page 4955 ]

B. Simpson: It's nice to know that I am firmly planted in Cariboo North as well.

With respect to the minister's comments about the interview yesterday, he was explicit. His words were: "We're done with forest policy changes for the next seven years." It's very difficult to misinterpret that statement. The softwood lumber agreement also does not differentiate between market policies and other forest policies. One could argue that every forest policy impacts our position in the marketplace and our price across the border.

This minister admitted that we've still got coastal forest policy to review. We still have a value-added strategy that has policy implications. He enumerated a lot of strategies that require forest policy changes.

My question to this minister is…. His understanding of the softwood agreement and the fact that we need the mutual consent of Washington to make forest policy changes…. Why is he so cavalier in dismissing the concerns about our sovereignty at a time when we still have lots of work to do with respect to forest policy in this province?

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm not cavalier at all. We're not giving up our sovereignty on forest policy in the province of British Columbia.

But just for the member's information, on the historical side of this file, British Columbia and the United States — through different departments of commerce — have always discussed and presented different changes that would be made in forest policy on both sides of the border. That's been going on for years. The reason it goes on is because people within an agreement want to make sure somebody is not trying to circumvent an agreement to do something that will be outside the agreement.

It's incredible to me that somebody says, when you make a deal, and the terms are this…. This is how I think the member from the opposite side of the House.… He's already thinking about how he can break a deal. The reality is that within our forest policy we can operate, but we're not going to circumvent the fiscal and financial arrangements of a softwood lumber deal. That's what it is. It's an agreement between two countries, and we will live up to the terms of the deal.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO

FORESTRY CONCERNS IN PORT ALBERNI

S. Fraser: The minister just said that this government makes its own forest policies in B.C. That is the problem. The minister has discounted the concerns of Port Alberni as a private land issue. The only reason the concerns of Port Alberni are a private land issue is because this government removed 70,000 hectares from TFL 44 with no consultation. Because of this government's decisions, companies are increasing their cut by millions of cubic metres, and Port Alberni will see 15,000 more logging trucks leaving our valley. Up to 80 percent of that wood is going to go across the line.

The government caused this problem. My question to the minister: how can the Minister of Forests and Range sit back and allow a flood of log exports to ruin coastal forest communities like Port Alberni?

[1435]

Hon. R. Coleman: I don't like to see the export of any logs. I believe if we could keep them here and manufacture them, it would be great.

I know we've had this discussion with the member before. The member is aware that private land in Canada…. The export of logs off private land is a federal jurisdiction. We know that. We are the only jurisdiction in Canada that still has Notice 102 applied to our private lands, and we're the only jurisdiction in Canada that has a surplus test on the export of logs.

Having said that, the concern in the Alberni Valley we're going to be talking about shortly, actually. I'm looking for solutions, hon. member. The member has been invited to the meeting with members of his council and members of the B.C. Federation of Labour and the coalition in the valley. I'd like to find a solution to this problem.

I don't know that it's going to be that quick that we'll find it. Even if we look back in history provincially, in 1999 in this province 417,000 cubic metres of logs were exported in addition to provincial log exports without discussion with communities by the job protection commissioner. In 2000 there were 321,000 cubic metres of fibre, and in 2001, 284,000 cubic metres of fibre.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The member has a supplemental.

S. Fraser: I do, hon. Speaker.

Federal issue — private lands. It's interesting that the minister won't accept responsibility for the crisis of these communities, because the forest companies sure know who to thank.

When this government removed lands, they did so without compensation to Port Alberni — compensation that could have been used to build a small mill or provide jobs or job security. A brief to the Minister of Forests at the time presumed that there would be compensation paid to Port Alberni, the people of Port Alberni and the people of B.C. Yet even though these lands were removed from TFL 44 against the advice of your own staff, there was no compensation paid to this community.

To the Minister of Forests and Range: why wasn't the town of Port Alberni, the citizens of Port Alberni, compensated for pulling that land out of TFL 44?

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm not going to sort of inflame this discussion in this environment, because I really do think — I hope — there's an opportunity for some constructive discussion that will take place this afternoon with regards to a number of these issues.

[ Page 4956 ]

I do think, though, we have to remember that log exports in British Columbia have been around for a while. There have been peaks and valleys, under different governments, over a number of years.

I also think there is a contrary to positions here. On November 26, 2003, the Leader of the Opposition said this: "I think we need to take a look at banning raw log exports." On March 30, 2005, on Voice of B.C. , the member said: "There are times that you want to look at some raw log exports. That's why I'm saying that we need to reduce. It isn't possible to look at a complete ban, but we do need to look at a reduction in that area."

I agree with that sentiment, and I hope the member opposite does. The question is: can we find the investment and the manufacturing for the type of fibre that's coming out of the Alberni Valley today to be milled? In the conversation with mills in the valley today, some of them are actually not milling this type of fibre.

That's the type of discussion I really want to have with the people from Port Alberni today, so we can get an understanding of this and, frankly, look at what those long-term solutions are. Maybe for once we can all come together to try and find a solution.

C. Evans: Sometimes when the Minister of Forests is answering questions, I wish I was a blowfish so I could get bigger and be as big as he is.

Mr. Speaker: Member.

C. Evans: He doesn't want to inflame the situation, but I think that maybe it's my job. All the minister seems to have done so far is to obfuscate the situation. Talk about policy — federal government, private land, all the…. He says he doesn't support log exports, and he cites 417,000 cubic metres — 1999. Oh, that's a terrible time. There were 321,000 cubic metres, which was terrible, in the year 2000.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

C. Evans: Maybe the minister will inflame the situation by telling us what it is right now, so that people here have something to compare it to.

[1440]

Hon. R. Coleman: That was just the portion that the job protection commissioner gave out at 100-percent exports, without consultation with anybody.

In the years that I was recording, 2.477 million cubic metres went out, 2.482 million cubic metres went out, and 2.938 million cubic metres went out. It has been as high over the last 15 as 3.5 million to 4 million cubic metres and as low as 1.5 million. That's the reality, but it has been going on for some time now.

The reality, hon. member, is this. What we need to do is find a solution. Frankly, the solution is going to be a combination, with the conversation I had earlier today with the federal Minister of Natural Resources, because part of this is that there is going to be a solution we may have to come up against with regards to a lawsuit with regards to notice Notice 102 on private lands.

There are a number of issues at play here — as well as the competitiveness of the coast, our ability to have a marketplace for those guys to go to…. That's why, hon. member, rather than in this softwood agreement doing something that disproportionately hurt the coast, we've actually given them the opportunity to be their own marketplace for the first time in Canadian history, so they can actually build a marketplace for their future.

Mr. Speaker: Member for Nelson-Creston has a supplemental.

C. Evans: You know, hon. Speaker, I really have only ever had two trades in my life. This is one of them, if you can call it a trade. The other one is logging. I logged under Social Credit, Ray Williston and those folks, and I logged under New Democrats — Bob Williams. I even logged under a member opposite once upon a time, I think, when he was minister.

All those left-wing, right-wing…. It didn't matter. They all had to have a few log exports — a couple million cubic metres a year — in order, public policy would say, to have a window on the market value of our own stumpage in the world. So left or right, we always had public policy that there would be some logs exported.

But today, because of this deal that happened in Port Alberni and the fact that the government has chosen not to ramp down elsewhere, we're now at 4.7 million cubic metres. That's 175,000 logging trucks a year. Imagine that.

What we are facing here is the very first government to abandon the Social Credit principle that the wood was here for the value of community, so people could live in place.

My question for the minister is: do you intend…?

No, my question through the Speaker to the minister representing the government, hon. Speaker: is his government going to be the first government that ever worked here which abandoned the principle of the resources being for the people? And if so, will he stand up and say it, instead of doing it by stealth day by day invisibly?

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Member.

Hon. R. Coleman: Thank you to the member for his question.

Through to the member: this is not a challenge that hasn't been faced by Forests Ministers for generations — number one.

Secondly, starting in January of this year, we made a number of changes with regards to how we deal with pulp logs and pricing of logs on the coast and fibre to try and encourage fibre to come out of the forest to our mills at a price that they could afford. We made those

[ Page 4957 ]

changes, because the industry has to submit those changes, hon. member.

The reason we did that is because we believe there's a long-term strategy that needs to be put in place for the coast of British Columbia, which is struggling. There is no question. Anybody that doesn't believe that is kidding themselves.

The reality, though, is that we started the incremental changes. We will move to the next level of the plan, and that will be working with communities on their future. We have to attract investment — in deference to even the comment from one of your own members, the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, who said yesterday that American investment in Canada is $64 billion greater than Canadian investment in the United States. This is not good for British Columbia.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Member. Member.

Hon. R. Coleman: Hon. member, we need to attract investment for modern mills on our coast, and we're going to do that by building an environment for that to succeed.

[1445]

APPOINTMENT OF CARMEN PURDY

TO AGRICULTURAL LAND COMMISSION

B. Ralston: This government has taken to appointing Liberal friends and insiders to the Agricultural Land Commission. But this partisan policy isn't limited to the appointments of John Tomlinson and Bill Jones. For months now concerned stakeholders have been trying to get this government to address their concerns about Liberal Party supporter Carmen Purdy, who sits on the Kootenay panel of the Agricultural Land Commission.

Mr. Purdy allegedly negotiated with a developer on behalf of an organization that Mr. Purdy is strongly identified with. In a decision of the Agricultural Land Commission made by the Kootenay panel that Mr. Purdy sat on, that same developer, Mark Himmelspach, had land removed from the ALR.

Will the Minister of Agriculture and Lands explain why he ignored the requests of local agricultural groups and renewed the appointment of Carmen Purdy?

Hon. P. Bell: I think I just heard an accusation about a wrongdoing within the Agricultural Land Commission. If the member actually believes that, I would strongly suggest he makes that accusation outside these doors.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The member for Surrey-Whalley has a supplemental.

B. Ralston: The minister himself said that the body has to be seen clearly in the public eye to be an impartial body. Local agricultural groups have pressed this minister to investigate this allegation. He has refused to do so, and his only response was simply to appoint Carmen Purdy again to that panel.

My question is to the minister. Will he remove Carmen Purdy from the panel while these allegations are investigated?

Hon. P. Bell: Again, I would encourage the member, after question period is over, if he wishes to make an allegation against Mr. Purdy, to make that outside this room.

I have a number of names here I would like to read into the record: Christine Hunt, Ruth Veiner, Gus Horn, James Ingram, Patricia Halliday. What do those five people have in common? They were all members of the Agricultural Land Commission in the year 2000, out of a total of ten members. What else did they have in common? They were all NDP party members and all party donators.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

HIGHWAY INTERCHANGE PROJECT

IN DELTA

G. Gentner: Mr. Speaker, 37,000 vehicle movements a day move along 72nd Avenue in Delta and Surrey. For years the government has been negotiating an agreement with Delta for a new interchange at Highway 91 and 72nd Avenue, but during estimates last week the Minister of Transportation placed a new wrinkle on the project. Apparently, the interchange hinges on development of the privately owned lands of Burns Bog.

How is it that the money needed to do this from the government's own border infrastructure program is now contingent upon the developer needs and friends of this government and not the needs of moving goods and people going to and from work every day?

Hon. K. Falcon: Thank you to the member for the question. The member should note that what I said in estimates was that the developer and the city need to work together to come to a common solution to make it easier for us as a province to actually make a decision to go forward. If there are lands required from the developer in order to make this intersection work, which I understand would be a requirement there, then it would be helpful if Delta could come up with a common position in working in cooperation with the landowner so that the province could go ahead and make this happen. That was the issue.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Delta North has a supplemental.

G. Gentner: Well, to the minister: the mayor of Delta knows nothing of this deal between the devel-

[ Page 4958 ]

oper and the province. Last week this is what the minister said: "We'd like get on with it. But you've got a developer and you've got a city that are having difficulty coming to agreement…." Now, again, the mayor knows nothing of this.

[1450]

The minister went on to say: "If Delta can negotiate something with the developer, come to some kind of agreement that would allow them to come to the ministry and say, 'We've already agreed….'" He went on to say: "I think we can get to an agreement very quickly if that was able to happen."

Why is it that the mayor of Delta, her chief administrative officer and staff know nothing of this discussion between the province and the developer?

Hon. K. Falcon: I can't comment on what the mayor of Delta or her staff know or don't know about a situation. I assume that they're in regular contact. All I can tell you is what I understood to be the situation from my staff. I'd be happy to look into it further for the member.

One thing I can tell you, member, is that whenever we as a province are looking to make decisions regarding infrastructure, it's much easier to work when you have a situation of cooperation between landowners and cities and the province. Really, it's as simple as that.

My understanding as the minister — and I don't pretend I have everything perfectly — is that there is some challenge between lands that we require that are owned by a private developer. The developers generally don't just give you land for nothing. My understanding is that the developer has plans for the land that they own — I have no idea what the plans are, but they have plans — and that they have yet to come to an agreement with the city of Delta.

If that's not the case, I'm happy to hear from the administrator or from the mayor directly to find out what the situation is. But that is the situation as I understand it. All I'm saying is that I would love to be able to help move things along if there's some way we could, but it would be extraordinarily helpful if the developer and the city could come to an agreement.

STAFF CONCERNS AT

EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME ASSISTANCE

MINISTRY

C. Trevena: Internal staff feedback on a new service code for the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance shows that staff are deeply troubled by the devastating effect of cuts to their service.

Let me provide a quick feedback for the Minister of Employment and Income Assistance in case he hasn't had time to read these responses. "Over the last four years our government policies have made it more and more difficult to actually help people. We are pushing people around." "The way we were required to treat people who were already in so much pain and need was shameful." "We were actually told that employment plan targets were to be prioritized ahead of medical needs."

The ministry's own staff say that people who are in genuine and desperate need are being turned away. I would like to ask the Minister of Employment and Income Assistance whether he's actually taken the time to read these comments from his own staff and what he is going to do to correct the serious problems they have identified.

Hon. C. Richmond: I don't know which staff the member is talking to, because the staff that we've talked to are just absolutely thrilled with our new service delivery, which we have just introduced ministrywide.

Our caseload has changed dramatically over the last few years as we have put 46,000 people back to work from the income…. These are people who were expected to work, and with a little bit of help from our employment programs, we have managed to get them back into the workforce. Conversely, those with disabilities — the number has gone up dramatically, which refutes the statement that it's difficult to get onto income assistance.

Mr. Speaker: Member for North Island has a supplemental.

C. Trevena: I take it that the minister hasn't read the information that his own staff have provided on an internal website, because he would clearly see they were not thrilled at the way that the service is being delivered or what they're expected to be doing. Nor are they thrilled with the cuts that are being made to the service.

[1455]

In February I asked the minister if staff in his ministry were being given free lunches for cutting the caseloads. At that point the minister replied that my question was absolutely absurd and the idea was preposterous. There was much derision from the other side of the House.

One month earlier, in January, a front-line worker said, as quoted in the review: "I find it distressing that offices in our region are rewarded for caseload reduction with a free lunch or Tim Hortons gift certificates while people we are here to serve live on the streets and go hungry. There is something very, very wrong with this picture."

I think there is something very, very wrong with this picture, so I'd like to ask the Minister of Employment and Income Assistance whether he thinks it is appropriate to reward staff for denying people benefit.

Hon. C. Richmond: I said back when the question was first asked that it was preposterous, and I will say it again. I guess I would ask the member: who writes your stuff? You know, they're not doing their job.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members.

Hon. C. Richmond: They're not doing their job.

[ Page 4959 ]

The rewards she's talking about are lunches that were provided for many, many years through the public service for a job well done by staff.

[End of question period.]

S. Fraser: I seek leave to submit a petition.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Petitions

S. Fraser: This is a petition from the Save Our Valley Alliance. There are about 800 signatures of people very, very concerned about raw log exports.

Reports from Committees

J. Rustad: I have the honour to present the report of the Special Committee to Appoint a Merit Commissioner.

I move the report be taken as read and received.

Motion approved.

J. Rustad: I ask leave of the House to suspend the rules to permit the moving of a motion to adopt the report.

Leave granted.

J. Rustad: I move that the report be adopted.

This report constitutes the committee's unanimous recommendation for the appointment of the first independent Merit Commissioner of British Columbia. As members will know, the Public Service Act was amended last November to separate the role of the Merit Commissioner from that of a deputy minister of the Public Service Agency.

At that time the position of the Merit Commissioner was also established as an independent statutory officer of the Legislature. Therefore, although there had been three individuals serving as Merit Commissioner in the past, this is the first to be appointed in the new capacity as a statutory officer.

The Merit Commissioner is responsible for monitoring the application of the merit principle to the public service appointments through random audits and through reviews of specific appointment decisions as the third and final step in bargaining unit staffing review processes.

As the overseer of the merit principle in B.C.'s public service, the committee believes it's important not only that the Merit Commissioner have the knowledge, skills and ability to carry out the responsibilities of the position but also that the Merit Commissioner personify that principle.

After assessing 102 applications from well-qualified individuals from across British Columbia and Canada, we found a person who does that justice. The committee is very pleased to recommend Ms. Joy Illington to the House.

Motion approved.

Motions without Notice

APPOINTMENT OF MERIT COMMISSIONER

J. Rustad: I ask leave of the House to permit the moving of a motion requesting the Lieutenant-Governor to appoint Ms. Joy Illington Merit Commissioner of the province of British Columbia.

Leave granted.

J. Rustad: I recommend that this House recommend to Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor the appointment of Ms. Joy Illington as a statutory officer of the Legislature to exercise the powers and duties assigned to the Merit Commissioner for the province of British Columbia pursuant to the Public Service Act, RSBC 1996, c. 385.

[1500]

Motion approved.

J. Rustad: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

J. Rustad: On behalf of the Special Committee to Appoint a Merit Commissioner, I would like to introduce Joy Illington, Merit Commissioner of British Columbia, to the Members of the Legislative Assembly.

Ms. Illington has served British Columbia in many capacities during her 18-year career, including investigative officer of the Ombudsman, Assistant Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, deputy cabinet secretary serving under four provincial administrations, chair of the Medical Services Commission, and Associate Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation.

Her dedication and excellence has been recognized by her peers in the public service as well as those of us here who have had the pleasure of working with her in previous roles. The committee is confident that Ms. Illington will bring those same qualities to the Office of the Merit Commissioner.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, in this chamber, I call second reading debate on Bill 34. In Committee A, Committee of Supply, for the information of members, we'll be discussing the estimates of the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services.

Second Reading of Bills

REPRESENTATIVE FOR CHILDREN

AND YOUTH ACT

Hon. W. Oppal: I move that the bill now be read a second time.

[ Page 4960 ]

The Representative for Children and Youth Act will establish the Legislative Assembly's authority to appoint a new officer of the Legislature, a Representative for Children and Youth, and will set out the role, powers and obligations of the representative.

This bill is, in part, the government's response to the B.C. Children and Youth Review , an independent review of B.C.'s child protection system submitted by the Hon. Ted Hughes on April 7, 2006.

[S. Hammell in the chair.]

The Minister of Children and Family Development appointed Mr. Hughes to do an independent review of a portion of the child protection system in British Columbia and to make recommendations for improvement in a report to the minister and to the public. The Hughes review also covered related matters, including the roles of the child and youth officer and the chief coroner and public reporting of child death reviews.

Mr. Hughes noted that the experiences of previous offices, such as the child, family and youth advocate, the Children's Commission, and the Office for Children and Youth. He recommended a new Representative for Children and Youth, who would build on the strengths of these predecessors and on the lessons learned from their experience. This bill accomplishes that.

This bill outlines the representative's role and functions in three critical areas: advocacy, monitoring of service delivery, and review and investigation of critical injuries and deaths in specified circumstances. The representative's functions resemble those of the current child and youth officer in the areas of monitoring service delivery and of providing information and advice to children and families about services.

The representative will review and investigate individual child injuries and deaths, as did the Children's Commission, but the scope of this function has been modified to match the recommendations of Mr. Hughes.

[1505]

The representative will also have the authority to advocate on behalf of children and their families. The bill also contains provisions of various types of reporting that will reflect the representative's mandate and roles to keep government and the public apprised of important child welfare matters.

Madam Speaker, this bill is the enabling legislation for a new representative for children and youth. While the bill is not a complete response to the Hughes review, it fulfils one of Mr. Hughes's primary recommendations and allows us to begin the organizational changes and planning required for the other recommendations.

The first recommendation in the Hughes review is the appointment of a representative for children and youth as an officer of the Legislature, based on the unanimous recommendation of a special committee of the Legislative Assembly. Mr. Hughes suggests a five-year term of appointment, renewable to a maximum of ten years. The status of the officer of the Legislature and the fixed-term appointment for a minimum of five years are critical for us to build public confidence in the representative's independence. It is also consistent with the terms of other independent officers.

Mr. Hughes's second recommendation is that the Legislature strike a standing committee on children and youth and that the representative and the deputy representatives report to this all-party committee at least annually. The representative will report annually to the select standing committee on children and youth in service plans, annual reports and special reports from time to time, as outlined in the bill. The bill enables the representative to appoint deputy representatives.

Everyone here today will agree that our children's welfare is of paramount importance. This all-party committee will give us the opportunity to put aside our differences, as suggested by Mr. Hughes, and work in cooperation in the interests of B.C.'s children. These recommendations of Mr. Hughes and the bill contemplate that we set aside our political differences and work for the common good. This is an opportunity to demonstrate to British Columbians our united commitment to the protection of our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

The representative's role covers three areas, as recommended in the Hughes review: (1) the advocacy role — to support, assist, inform and advise children and their families concerning designated services; (2) the monitoring role — to increase accountability by monitoring, reviewing and auditing the ministries and other public bodies responsible for designated services; and (3) the review and investigation role — to review, investigate and report on children's critical injuries or deaths in circumstances as outlined in the bill.

Critical injuries are injuries that may cause serious or long-term impairment to a child's health or result in a child's death. The bill enables a representative to conduct a review of children's injuries and deaths for the purpose of identifying trends and improving reviewable services or addressing broader public policy initiatives. The representative will be able to investigate a child's critical injury or death if it took place within one year of the child receiving services and if the incident was due to any of the following: abuse or neglect, an accident in unusual or suspicious circumstances, or injuries that were self-inflicted or inflicted by another person.

[1510]

The children's standing committee may also ask the representative to investigate the critical injury or death of any child. The representative will report back to the children's standing committee on any case the committee has referred. Overall, the bill defines the representative's role, function and duties with respect to designated services.

Designated services include the following services and programs provided or funded by government for children and families: services or programs under the Child Care BC Act, the Child Care Subsidy Act, the Child, Family and Community Service Act, the Community Living Authority Act, the Youth Justice Act; early childhood development and care reviews; mental

[ Page 4961 ]

health services for children; addiction services for children; services for youth and young adults during their transition to adulthood; and additional services or programs prescribed by regulation.

The representative's mandate to investigate individual critical injuries and deaths focuses on children in receipt of reviewable services. Reviewable services are services directed at addressing the needs of our most vulnerable children. They include the following services from the list of designated services: services or programs under the Child, Family and Community Service Act and the Youth Justice Act; mental health services for children and additional designated services prescribed in regulation.

The provisions described respond directly to Hughes's recommendations. They respond to recommendation three, which outlines the need to support people who are navigating the child welfare system and to help them become effective self-advocates.

They respond to recommendation four, which specifies that the representative's mandate should include monitoring, reviewing, auditing and investigating performance and accountability within the child welfare system.

They respond to recommendation five, which states that the representative should carry out the reviews of aggregate information on children's critical injuries or deaths.

The bill's provisions concerning investigations of child injuries and deaths respond to recommendations five, six and seven.

As the Hughes review points out, one of the ways to ensure that the investigations undertaken by the representative produce meaningful recommendations to the responsible ministry or public entity is to focus on limited circumstances where services, policies or practices contributed to the injury or death. That's what this bill does. It provides a specific role for the representative distinguished from the coroner's role.

To enable the representative to carry out review and investigation responsibilities, the bill requires ministries and other entities to give the representative information about the critical injury or death of any child receiving designated services within the previous year. The representative also has a right to any information held by any public body or bodies that is necessary to carry out the office's roles, functions and duties as Mr. Hughes advocated in recommendation 54.

As emphasized in Mr. Hughes's review, this bill gives the representative the power to recommend — rather than order — change. The reporting requirements outlined in the bill in the form of annual and special reports give the representative a mechanism to inform the children's standing committee, the Legislature and the public of the recommendations made to the ministries or to other public bodies and their compliance with prior recommendations.

This bill is a testament to this government's commitment to make changes that serve the interests of British Columbia's children.

[1515]

S. Hawkins: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

S. Hawkins: Visiting the precincts and in the Legislature today are 40 grade seven students from Kelowna Christian School in the Kelowna-Mission riding. With them are Mr. MacArthur and Ms. Hendren and, I understand, some adults that are also visiting with the students. I would ask everyone to give them a warm welcome. They're here to see how the Legislature operates.

Debate Continued

A. Dix: It's very good and a very positive thing that we have young people from Kelowna here today, because this is — in this session of the Legislature and since I've been elected — one of the most important debates and most important pieces of legislation that I have dealt with or that we will deal with.

Today that is, of course — for those in the galleries and for people watching — the decision that this Legislature will take to create a new office called the representative for children and youth. I think it's one of the most important things we've done, and it's been part of one of the most important debates we have, or can have, as a society.

That is how we deal, how we support, how we help, how we ensure that everybody in our society…. Not just some. Not just those who have the good fortune — as I have, as many members of this House have had — to have two parents who love them, to have support through their lives, to continue to have support even after we become adults, to live in family arrangements that support us and to have access to public education and public health care that help us….

For children in our society who do not always have access to those things, this is the most important thing we can do as a province, as a society, as a government.

It's something we always have to do together. So when people say that we should take the politics out of this, they're only partly right. We have to put the politics in this in the sense that all of us have to care more, do more, support more, help more, because equality of opportunity in our society is fundamental to a democratic society.

Regardless of your views on great issues of the economy and of state, the issues we deal with when we talk about children in care or children who need the support of the Ministry of Children and Family Development or children who receive support indirectly from other ministries such as the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance — who get income assistance support…. The work that we do is fundamental. It is important.

It is in fact, I think, a debate where we need politics — politics in the best sense — we as representatives bringing these issues, shining light on these issues,

[ Page 4962 ]

never allowing these issues to disappear from the public debate and, of course, treating the issues with respect, treating people with respect and treating children with respect — all of those things.

But if we don't think these issues matter, if we don't put everything we have into solving this issue, if we don't…. When people say to us, or say to my friend the Minister of Children and Family Development: "Isn't it too bad you got this assignment…?" If we don't say: "No. This is the assignment you want. This is the job you want. This is why we were elected here…."

That is what this debate is about. That is why I am so honoured to be the opposition spokesperson for Children and Family Development. In this debate — which, as I say, I think is an extraordinarily important debate — I think of a lot of people who work on these issues every day and who have struggled through what most observers regard as a fairly dark period in the way in which we've dealt with issues of children and youth in British Columbia. I think of social workers who have faced expanding real workloads and who have raised these issues, sometimes at risk of their jobs.

[1520]

I think of them working every day, not just 35 or 37 or 40 hours. We're talking about committed government employees who virtually any time of the day or night, week or weekend, are prepared to go and help people in our society, not just because they're paid to do so but because they've devoted their lives to the support of children and youth.

I think of youth workers, who do the same for a group of youth who have been particularly neglected in recent years — youth 13 to 17. This goes beyond politics again. It is unacceptable to me, and it should be unacceptable to everybody in this House, that there are youth in this province today — youth in care and youth who receive supports from the ministry — who are living in the most substandard and abject poverty.

I admire youth workers who have brought these issues to the attention of the public and who every day try and make life better and improve life and provide the kind of supports and services that youth need. They've brought those issues to the debate in British Columbia in the face, I must say, of some risk to their employment.

Foster parents. Imagine the work of foster parents which, as the minister knows and as all members of this House know, has not gotten easier in recent times. Indeed, the challenges that foster parents face…. Often the circumstances of young people and of children who come into care are increasingly problematic. Foster parents have faced what can fairly be called significant cuts in recent years to the services they receive, given the extraordinary services they provide. They have spoken out. They have brought issues to the attention of people.

I think of extended families, of people who work on these issues, of people who work for service organizations. I think of people who have led this debate. All I can say is that if anyone, any MLA, thinks that being on the new Standing Committee on Children isn't the most important thing they could possibly do, they should spend a few days, a few minutes meeting the people who work in this area. The work they've done, the courage they've shown, the efforts they've made to shine a light on these issues….

It's not about politics. They need more support from us. They need more politics from us on this issue, but the best kind of politics — politics designed to improve and uplift the lives of children and youth in this province.

Hon. Speaker, I should mention at this time to you and to the Clerks that I am the designated speaker on this bill. As you know, the official opposition supports Bill 34. We will vote for it at second reading. We have some ideas for committee stage that we'll put forward.

We support it, first of all, because it closely parallels the legislation that we introduced as private member's legislation last fall. It brings together many of the powers of the old Children's Commission and the child advocate positions, which were created in the 1990s with the support of all members of this House, of both sides of this House. We believed at the time that there was a need.

In the system there is a fundamental need, when you're talking about the Ministry of Children and Family Development — just as there is with other institutions that have significant power in our society — for a second set of eyes, another place for people to go when they have concerns. The Attorney General, who introduced this bill, knows this, because he served on a commission — an important government commission — with respect to the police. There are very few ministries of government or areas where government has so much potential power over the lives of individuals.

Think of it. The Ministry of Children and Families can decide, under certain circumstances, to go into a home and remove a child. Imagine that. Imagine that extraordinary power. Alternatively, as the ministers across know, they can decide to review a situation and make what can also be a very difficult decision to leave a child in a home, under specific circumstances.

[1525]

That level of government power requires a place, an independent place, a place where we can have another set of eyes, where in fact there can be some check on that power, not because — and it's certainly not the case of the police — those agencies aren't intrinsically good. They are. They're trying, with everything they can do, to serve the public interest.

It's important because the power is so great that it has to be checked. Those decisions are so important; they are fundamentally important. No ministry of government has that kind of power, and that's why we believed fundamentally that it was wrong of the government in 2002 to eliminate those agencies in the name of cost efficiencies. It's why we fundamentally believe that was the wrong course, the wrong decision, and sent the wrong signal.

I believe in the idea — and it's certainly what we proposed — of putting those agencies and concepts together — the need for a place of advocacy, a place for people to go if they have concerns and complaints, on

[ Page 4963 ]

the one hand, and on the other hand, also a place of oversight and investigation of child deaths in particular but also of serious injuries. We believe that needed to be reinstated in British Columbia. We are delighted that Judge Ted Hughes agreed with that position, and we support fundamentally this legislation.

I want to talk a little bit — because I think this, too, is fundamental — about how we got here. I don't think it's any secret that the years that children live, particularly their early years but all their years, are fundamental to their long-term development. This is so self-evident that it's almost become a cliché. But we've had a period of years where children have suffered because of mistakes made by government. Those mistakes, and the consequences of those mistakes, are lasting. They don't go away because we've decided to introduce Bill 34. They don't go away.

If we don't shine a light on those issues, if we don't say: "Let's learn some lessons…." If we don't say that what happened over the last few years is wrong, that it should never be allowed to happen again and it has lasting consequences, then we are not doing our jobs as legislators, and we are not doing our jobs as citizens in British Columbia.

Prior to the 2001 election, the Premier of British Columbia said a series of very specific things about the exact issues we are dealing with in this bill. He said a series of things about those issues. He campaigned on them for years. I am not going to bore this House with his quotes over that time, but I will say what he told the electorate prior to 2001, what he promised the electorate prior to 2001.

He said, from their campaign book, in 2001: "We will make children the number-one priority and devote adequate resources." What were adequate resources? He said again and again and again in the 1990s that adequate resources meant more resources. And why not? He promised to "stop the endless bureaucratic restructuring that has drained resources from children and family services." That's what he said. That's what he campaigned on.

He promised to support and keep the Children's Commission of the time and the child advocate at the time. He campaigned on that. He said he supported that. He went to the voters and promised that. Those were commitments. They weren't commitments that we created on this side of the House. They were commitments that he called solemn commitments to British Columbia.

We all remember him on election night waving those commitments. In some cases, it's fair to say, it's true…. As the Premier has said in other cases, circumstances change, and you have to break your promise. He's talked about that with respect to B.C. Rail. This isn't B.C. Rail. This is a commitment to fundamental services to protect children and fundamental services to ensure some equality of opportunity for children.

[1530]

Unlike issues such as B.C. Rail, children in British Columbia — especially children in care, especially children living in poverty — don't have a lobby group. They don't get to see the Premier when promises and commitments made to them are broken. They don't say that at all. They don't get that opportunity at all.

What happened in 2002? In fact, the Ministry of Children and Family Development was targeted with some of the largest cuts any ministry has ever seen in the history of government in British Columbia — hundreds of millions of dollars of cuts from a Premier who promised that he'd make children the number-one priority.

What were the consequences of those cuts? What were those cuts? What kind of cuts did they make? Well, they laid off hundreds of front-line child protection workers. They introduced legislation to punish foster parents who speak out as advocates for kids. They attempted a vast and then botched restructuring that created chaos in the ministry.

They went further than that with respect to employment and income assistance. They imposed very significant cuts on working families at a time when they were committed to families, and they said: "We believe there should be alternatives to care." At the very time they were doing that, they were cutting services to families in need.

I don't need to list them all, but I'll list off some of them. Single parents lost money. Those were the priorities. You know, we talk about single parents and this notion of income assistance that has sometimes formed the basis of some of these policies on that side of the House. We talk about income assistance for parents as if it's their responsibility, their mistakes, and they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

But when you cut services, as this government did systematically to single parents and to families, you're cutting services to children. When you eliminate a child care program, you're cutting services to children. Who in this House can stand up and say that any child in this province deserves that kind of treatment? It must never happen again, and that's one of the reasons why we're here debating this bill.

On the chopping block, what else did they cut? They cut Christmas gifts for children in care. That's what they did. They cut the funds that helped pay for summer camp and recreation programs. They made fundamental cuts that affected the lives of everyone working in this sector. It was wrong, hon. Speaker — the largest cuts in history. It was simply wrong. When you think about it….

They also, by the way, restructured and changed the way we care for children. They said they were going to restore family rights and ensure that children stayed in families. They created programs. Let me recall the words of the Premier: "Enhanced training resources and authority for front-line social workers." Well, it's very interesting. It's very interesting, indeed, what the Premier says about these questions.

In June of 2002 he bragged about how successful this was. Well, what else happened in June 2002? The government proclaimed a new program in the cabinet room. It came to the cabinet room. It's called the kith-and-kin program. They proclaimed a new program,

[ Page 4964 ]

and they put it in place. It would be almost comical if it were not so tragic — a new program to protect the most vulnerable children in society. They implemented it before they were ready, before they had standards in place, by faxing guidelines to agencies. This is where it came to. This is where the rubber meets the road.

[1535]

This is what happens when you don't make children a priority. This is what happens when debate is silenced. So what happened? Well, we know some of the things that happened. I'm not going to go back over the cases we're talking about, but it seems to me that when you introduce new programs…. It wasn't just kith-and-kin agreements; it wasn't just

section 54.1 agreements. There were myriad programs put in place without adequate training, without resources that were cut-rate programs where people got less money to support children in care, children with serious issues because almost every one of those children was in need of protection. Can you imagine being in need of government protection and then being the subject, in addition to that, of government cuts?

Yes, we want to keep children in their families, but we should be supporting families. We should not be creating programs that cut support to children. We should not be making budget savings on the backs of the most vulnerable children in society. That is what this government did, and the consequences for children are what we know — very, very serious.

It is a terrible fact that with respect to children in care but also with respect to other programs, 49 percent of children in care are in aboriginal communities. When you focus cuts, because that's what happened here…. They focused cuts on children services. The consequences were felt greatest, felt most, were most painful in aboriginal communities, communities that surely have suffered from government recklessness before.

This was the road we went down: comprehensive cuts to the supports that children and families need to succeed in life. This is what they did. At the same time as they did that, they eliminated the Children's Commission, and they eliminated the child advocate. They eliminated, in fact, the watchdogs that might have blown the whistle; that might have said too much; that might have shown us, in 2003 and 2004, the consequences of what happens when you engage in such reckless policies.

The decision to get rid of the Children's Commission and the child advocate in 2002 is one we are rectifying today — the decision that the Premier said he would never make and then made, the decision that he, to this day, refuses to apologize for. That decision is why we're here today.

What happened subsequent to that? There has been much talk about this, of course. The Hughes report says it: 955 child death reviews sent to a warehouse. The government did this. They got rid of these two offices, and they didn't have a transition plan. They didn't have any idea what they were doing. They didn't care enough to take responsibility for those cases. And 955 cases were sent to a warehouse.

When did we discover this? How did we discover this? Well, it took years to discover it in the system. It took years for anyone to blow the whistle. The Solicitor General was there the day I asked him about it, and he confirmed that they were in the warehouse last November, three years later. Those files in that warehouse were allowed to rot for three years.

People say that 955 cases sound like a lot of cases. Every single one of those is a child, and we have names for those children. Many of those cases are tragic. If you consider, in the context of this legislation, that 255 of those children in question were either children in care or children known to the Ministry of Children and Family Development…. They're 255 children who this act would have applied to.

[1540]

The recklessness — is that not a public scandal that should make people angry? It did make people angry, and I'm glad it made people angry. It should. We should never allow such things to happen again.

What happened besides that? The government promised that they had a more efficient model. They were bringing forward a more efficient model to review child deaths. It would go to the Coroners Service. Starting on January 1, 2003, there is this claim that they've done 546 child death reviews — a claim contradicted by the people doing the work in the Coroners Service. So you add those cases — 546 cases not done. Apparently, a review there is simply an issue of inputting names into a computer; 546 further cases not done, and the fact they weren't being done, hidden.

They cut the $4 million Children's Commission. They cut the child advocate. They cut the coroner's office by $800,000, then they sent $200,000 over, and they said: "We'll do the same work." This is recklessness. This is the contempt for government expressed as public policy. There is no way that agency could have done what the government said it did.

People can say they didn't know. People can say they didn't know about that. They can say that. They can claim that within government. But how is that possible? How is it possible that reviews can go on one day, and then reviews completely stop and nobody notices?

If ever there was a case for the need of an independent children's commissioner and a watchdog committee of this Legislature to draw attention to is-

[ Page 4965 ]

sues, this is the case, because surely that recklessness, that contempt for the basic responsibilities of government….

People talk about primary reviews and secondary reviews of child deaths. The Premier never, in opposition, made that distinction — that we only had to do one. He always said there needed to be secondary child death reviews. He campaigned on it. He supported legislation in this House based on that, and then as Premier he allowed 1,500 child deaths to go undone.

It must never happen again. It must never happen again, and one of the reasons why I believe it's important that the Premier apologize for that is because people are already rewriting history. The person rewriting history in the first place is the Premier himself. He stood in this Legislature in response to the Hughes report. Let me read the Hughes report just with respect to the circumstances that I'm talking about, because people there may think that this is partisan. It's not partisan.

Here's what Ted Hughes said: "I cannot agree with the Premier's earlier assessment that budget cuts did not contribute to the failure of the transition process or that the transition provisions of the new act constituted a clear plan for the transfer of the death review function." Page 128, hon. Speaker.

He further says that the Premier took the knife too far after he was elected in 2001 and must now restabilize the system. That's what Ted Hughes says. Read the report, hon. Speaker. It is a condemnation through its pages of the exact policies I've been talking about. It is a condemnation.

What does our Premier say? What does he say about that? What lessons has he learned from this scandalous period in our history — a period that never must be repeated? I believe and I'm convinced…. I know that the Attorney General and the Minister of Children and Family Development opposite are good people, and we are going to try and work together to ensure that the system is improved, that the standing committee works, that we get a child representative in place that does his or her job, but what does the Premier say?

[1545]

It is important that people acknowledge their responsibility and their mistakes in life, and sometimes it is hard. We all know that. But what does the Premier say when he refuses to apologize? He says: "Mr. Hughes said that we perhaps took on too many initiatives at once. If we have any failings as a government, I would suggest that it was because we were trying to provide for the children of B.C."

So you stand up in the House, and you give a standing ovation to a budget that cuts the Ministry of Children and Families by 23 percent, that negatively affects every child in care, every foster child, other children receiving support of the ministry, other children receiving the support of the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance. That's what you do. And then you say: "Well, the problem was I was trying to do too much."

We have to learn from these mistakes. This was a serious and fundamental failing of government. That's what it was. Fifteen hundred child death review cases lost; children in every part of this province suffering because of cuts. They deserve more than this. They deserve an apology from the Premier of British Columbia.

Of course, as the Attorney General has said, this bill only deals with part of what Mr. Hughes has recommended and only part of where we need to go from here. There are more fundamental changes that need to be made. Mr. Hughes has set forth a long list of recommendations, and as the minister has rightly said, it will take some time to get on with it.

We believe, on this side of the House, and we have been saying this since last July, last August…. We got into the House last September, and we raised these issues many times in the session last fall, and we were met with denials at that time that change was needed. But now we've reached the point, we've convinced the government that change is needed. There are significant new moneys in the budget, moneys that the Premier had said they didn't need, and there is this new child representative in place.

On this side of the House we are going to continue with everything we have to put a focus on these issues; with everything we have to draw attention to the fact that there aren't enough foster parents in British Columbia, that we need more and they need more of our support; with everything we have to say that if you have programs, as Mr. Hughes said in his recommendations, such as kith-and-kin or other programs, you should fund them and support the families at the same level as you support other families. The children don't need less food.

They don't need poorer clothing because they're in a kith-and-kin program as opposed to a restricted foster-parent situation or in care. They need the same amount.

Those programs deserve our support, and we're going to fight for those programs. I believe in those programs, but I don't think we should ever countenance cut-rate social work. I don't think we should ever do fewer home studies. Every child matters in British Columbia; no child should be left behind in this system.

That's why, to make these programs succeed…. We have in the last year or two a decline in some of these programs. There are significantly fewer — the minister knows this —

section 8 agreements since April 2004. There are considerably fewer

section 54.1 agreements, which are guardianship agreements, than there were then. Those programs are failing because we're not giving them enough support. We have fought for that, and we're going to continue to fight for that, because we believe these issues are important.

They're not partisan issues. Everybody in British Columbia surely should believe that children deserve our support, that children deserve an equal opportunity in life. The fact that we have a child representative who will monitor these issues, who will oversee the ministry, who will review children's deaths and serious injuries, who will provide the opportunity to advocate for children, for their families, for foster parents — with members of the public with an interest in the sys-

[ Page 4966 ]

tem — will help us, as well, and that's why we support this bill.

[1550]

In conclusion, I want to speak of a man that I met along the path of the fight, I think, to change the system, to turn back this terrible direction, to shine light on what has been a dark period in the history of the ministry, of the government, a dark period for children in British Columbia.

I met Harvey Charlie last October, and Harvey's granddaughter tragically is at the centre of some of these terrible events. Again and again, at considerable personal pain to himself, he…. In some respects, it is easy to get up and speak about things as MLAs or as people concerned about the system, even the social workers. It is our passion. We care about it, of course, and it is important, but that's easy. We don't have what Harvey Charlie had at stake.

Again and again he stood up and said no to the government. He said: "In spite of the pain that it causes, we must find a better way. We must seek improvements to the system." I admire it so much, so I think of him today and of what Harvey and Rose did for children across British Columbia — something that was extremely painful and difficult to do.

What our children need in our society is equality of opportunity. What they need is freedom and liberty. What they need is opportunity, and what they need is our fraternity. These are old ideas and old goals, but in this Legislature and this debate we shouldn't forget them. What children need is to have a fair chance in life, a fair opportunity to reach and do whatever they want: come to the Legislature, start businesses, serve the public, join professions — whatever they want to do, or not do any of those things.

What we need, hon. Speaker, are supports to ensure that all children — the 9,000 children in care, the tens of thousands of children who otherwise receive services from the ministry, the children living in poverty in our province — have an equal and fair shot in life. It is unconscionable that in a place as wealthy as this we have the highest child poverty rate in Canada — not according to me, according to Statistics Canada. What we have is a period of economic growth where social inequality is becoming greater — something that for all of us who believe in those notions of freedom, of equality in our society, should be a very disturbing fact.

Every child deserves a fair chance. Having a child representative in place, I believe, will help us get there. The efforts that all of us can make in this House will help us get there. Embracing and acknowledging the incredible work done by people who work with children will help us get there, but we will not get there unless all of us in society take responsibility for our children, for giving them the opportunities they deserve. All of us take responsibility so that, in the best sense, we make this a political issue, and in the best sense, we work together to improve the lives of children.

I commend all members of the House to support this bill, and I ask all members of this House to consider in all our decisions we make, now and in the future, the impact of those decisions on our children. Where we have been, we must never go back to. We must come ahead. We must improve services. There is too much at stake for all of us. There is too much at stake for the future.

S. Hawkins: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

S. Hawkins: In the gallery, visiting from Kelowna-Mission, is the second half of the school I introduced earlier, Mr. MacArthur and Ms. Hendren are here with 40 grade seven students from Kelowna Christian School. I would ask the House to give them a very warm welcome.

Debate Continued

Hon. L. Reid: I rise to lend my support to Bill 34. This is a complex and challenging area. There's absolutely no question about that. Resourcing young children and our families — hugely complex, hugely challenging. Those challenges change day by day and will continue to be a very fluid area of societal development as we move forward.

[1555]

The issues for me are about building resiliency

— how we do that; how we move forward collectively to care for what are, indeed, the most precious citizens of this land. There's no question about that.

It's a complex area. I use that terminology because identifying risk will always be complex. It will always be challenging. For the individuals who engage in that as a profession I have the highest regard and the highest respect. I do not believe for a second that there is any more difficult a decision than one that separates a child from his or her family.

For the people charged with that responsibility, it weighs heavily upon them. There is no question in my mind that it is an enormous responsibility that society places upon them. I bring to my remarks the highest regard for that level of sophistication when it comes to that level of decision-making.

Protecting vulnerability is also an underlying principle. Once we've identified the risk, how is it that we as a society, as a community, as a nation, choose to protect vulnerability? It's a challenge. It's a challenge for babies of every age, for young people, for adolescents, for adults. How do we choose to transition children? How do we choose to transition their support systems? How do we choose to move them through a continuum of service that is about who they are at that time in their lives?

This is never going to be a discussion about one-size-fits-all. This is always going to be a discussion that's underlying a notion of value that says, frankly, one size rarely fits anyone. We have to be adept. We have to be responsive. We have to be thoughtful, and

[ Page 4967 ]

in my view we must always be respectful when it comes to issues of child protection.

This is family. Each person in British Columbia that this legislation will touch is a member of someone's family. I don't believe there's anyone in this room who would wish to have their child raised by a stranger. It affects their child. It affects that level of secure attachment. It affects who they will be as parents themselves one day.

All of those layers must be folded in and must be understood in terms of the complexity of this decision-making. It's a complex area. It's hugely challenging. My time in government has been in this ministry, and my time in opposition has been in the critic role currently shared by the critic today. There are vantage points to this.

What I want to say today and want to clearly imprint upon the individuals listening to this debate today is that we must always place the child squarely at the centre of this discussion, because each family, each corner of the province, each agency, each jurisdiction will bring a different vantage point to how we do it.

We understand that there is enormous complexity to this level of decision-making and that respect and regard must be folded in, in terms of how we proceed. It's the basic underlying principle of the debate that must happen today. It's challenging; there's no question about that. There are family responses to child protection, to building resiliency, to caring for children, and there are community responses. Frankly, there are national responses, and there are neighbourhood responses. To be successful, we need each of those entities to work collaboratively.

This has always been a challenging area. No matter the province, no matter the country, no matter what corner of the globe, this work is not easy work. This is complex and challenging work, and I think I'm in a unique position to comment today. I have been in this House for 15 years, and I have seen and worked with and commented on the work of each of the individuals who have held roles similar to this one.

I was the critic when Joyce Preston was in her role. I was the critic when Cynthia Morton was in her role. Neither of those individuals will tell you that this is easy work. It's complex, challenging, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching. It's tough, tough work. Indeed, this role will require someone who is incredibly gifted in understanding oversight, protection and resiliency and in how we get to have a better understanding of what identifying risks looks like and what protective factors look like in society.

[1600]

There isn't a person in this chamber who wouldn't wish to be part of a process that keeps children safe. I wouldn't believe for a second that there is anyone who would knowingly, willingly put a child at risk. They are citizens, and we have an enormous responsibility to collaborate when it comes to how to deliver a service that's vitally important to every single community member.

I believe that we have an enormous amount to learn from aboriginal communities in British Columbia — their sense of family; their sense of collaboration; their sense of extended family; how children are cared for in community; how extended family plays a vitally important, critical role in that interface, integration and connection. That is a lesson that each of us as community members will learn as we go forward and, I hope, will bring a greater regard and a greater respect to those discussions.

It's vitally important. It isn't about ignoring societal wishes, needs and desires. It's about a better understanding of how to produce the best possible outcomes for the children of this province. I am on the side of measures that protect the integrity of the family. I'm on the side of doing our very best to ensure that every child in British Columbia has a glorious childhood. That has been my professional life; that has been my public life. That is work that I believe in fundamentally because it is the cornerstone.

How families parent their children today is the cornerstone of the health and success of our communities, neighbourhoods and societies. How we engage a process that has oversight protection around that parenting role is enormously important. How we engage foster parents in British Columbia is enormously important. How we understand that collectively we have a responsibility to every baby born in this province…. There are 42,000 of them born each year — 42,000 children who deserve the best possible childhood.

A glorious mentor of mine, Dr. Dan Offord, the late Dan Offord now, said we will only ever become a civilized society if we learn to care for children other than our own. It's a remarkable comment, because for him, it's a work in progress. For me, it's a work in progress.

We don't often have complete and utter civility in the ways that children are cared for in the province. We lament that; we regret that. We're often astonished by some of the trials and tribulations that youngsters are subjected to, often at the hands of their parents. How we engage and hold parenting to a higher expectation is part of this discussion. There isn't one of us who would wish to have a parent in a predicament where they felt ill-equipped to parent their children. There isn't one of us who would wish that. How we pull together, how we collaborate in terms of the parenting piece, the community piece, the neighbourhood piece…. They're all vitally important pieces.

The basic principle I bring to this is one of respectful engagement. I want us to have better relationships with aboriginal communities in British Columbia, but I want us to have better relationships with every single neighbourhood in British Columbia, because children live in every corner of this province.

There is work before us. The work of the children's representative will be about supporting and advising children, youth and families who need assistance, frankly, as they wend their way through the process. That is an important piece of this act. Having resources available — if families are not able to secure them, access them, find them and locate them — is not half as important as ensuring that there is ease of access, public education and awareness of how to receive services

[ Page 4968 ]

that will strengthen you as a parent, strengthen the community and strengthen the neighbourhood. It's vitally important.

I am a firm believer that there is child development and that there is child protection in British Columbia, and those things must be inextricably linked. We cannot do that work in isolation. We will have greater success each and every day with those programs that support resiliency, parenting practice, effectiveness and communication; an array of strategies that provide parents with enormous levels of support; and sounding boards, family resource programs and continuing care programs — all of those pieces. Any one family may need those services at any given time.

[1605]

The reality is that there has to be a range of services in a basket because a family may need a variety of services at any given time.

Our challenge is to ensure that we collectively as community, as society, step up to the plate. If any one entity in society could keep families and children safe for all time, we would not have the issues we have today as community. We simply would have reduced those issues over time.

That has not been the case. Diligence is required on behalf of caregivers, anyone who would care for a child. That split second you're not watching them in the bathtub, and a youngster in British Columbia drowns. The opportunity not taken to secure an infant properly in a car seat that's backward-facing in a car, to give them the ultimate protection. There are choking hazards.

All of those bits and pieces that parents and caregivers must be ever vigilant for are part and parcel of this work, because some of this work will identify trends. It will give advice to parents, to community, to caregivers and, frankly, to newscasters who will bring that information into the public domain. All of us have a responsibility to do that because it's vitally important.

There are children in British Columbia today who die at the hands of a caregiver. There are many more children in British Columbia today who die as a result of preventable accidental death — preventable death. There are ways that we have to collectively pull together to understand what that looks like. It's vitally important to me that we continue to do that. I want coordinated service delivery in British Columbia, and I want better understanding in terms of the contribution each of us has to make to better understand the protective factors.

Every once in a while there's a public service announcement that gives parents that information. Yesterday the news hour talked about cutting the cord on blinds that people have in their homes, because children in Canada continue to die today because they get tangled in those cords. There isn't a parent out there who would have suffered that tragedy, who would not have taken the ten seconds it would have taken to do that.

When I speak of collective response, creating protective factor, each of us has a responsibility to step up to the plate and do that. Legislation alone is not going to protect all children over time. It's going to create opportunities for us to be assisting and understanding trends and understanding the opportunities we have for public education, but it's a big piece of work that needs to be done.

Certainly, the child death review piece — important work. It is about identifying trends. It is about giving caregivers and parents the best information of the day to keep their children safe. The debate today for me is about keeping children safe. It isn't about the best-quality child death review for me. It's about the best-quality childhood, and it's vitally important.

When I talk about municipal government, provincial government, federal government, community and neighbourhood, it's important that we pull together to better understand why each of us has a responsibility not just for our children — for our neighbour's child, the child who lives across the street, the teachers in that child's life and the early childhood educators in that child's life. All of us have lessons we have learned in this place, as legislators, that must not be forgotten. It must be that we continue to always apprise ourselves of the trends that are happening internationally and nationally and how, indeed, we can keep children safer in the province.

For me it's always going to be about cooperation; it's always going to be about the best information. I want government practice to be informed by the best research of the day. I want people to engage in the best possible child development practice, child protection practice, community-building practice and capacity-building practice. I am looking for the best. Indeed, the strides that have been made are extraordinary.

We have some of the finest early childhood educators in the country. We have individuals who believe, heart and soul, that the health and livelihood of a child matters. It matters deeply to me.

There will be ongoing discussion about governance, collaboration and integration. If they're couched in terms of how we protect the integrity of a family, how we better engage parents to parent their children more effectively, that's part and parcel of this discussion. They're not separate issues. They're not issues in isolation. They're vitally important.

[1610]

It is about shared parenting. Each of us, as parents, in this House has probably shared parenting responsibility of someone in our lives over time. We've probably done that. We have probably chosen incredibly well — someone we trust, someone who has ability, a skill set, intuition, connection and a sense of relationship. We've probably had the opportunity to make those choices, to make the best possible choices.

I want that opportunity for every single family in British Columbia. The heartbreaking ones on the news hour are the ones where families have believed they had no choice but to leave their child with the person who turned out to be horrible. We don't want families placed in that predicament in British Columbia. This opportunity to understand that situation better and, hopefully, better support programs that strengthen

[ Page 4969 ]

family…. Children grow up in families. Children live in families. They deserve to have the best possible start in those families.

Certainly, there are opportunities for us to better integrate what we do, better understand what we do. But we represent every community in this province. The legislators in this House today represent every community in British Columbia. How we go forward, how we understand that the goal — the ultimate goal — is a better-quality childhood will be work that is yet before us.

It may take a problem-solving approach. It may not take a confrontational approach. It may take some problem-solving. It may take being responsive. It may take being better listeners on a whole array of different fronts. But the challenge is too important not to take every possible opportunity to engage families, engage providers, engage caregivers in how best to strategize, to look out for the safety of children, to anticipate a risk and hopefully to prevent it.

All of those pieces are incredibly important. How we resolve those issues as we go forward will be a test of the humanity of every single person in this province. It will be a test of every community that has ever resided, every society that has ever existed. How a society cares for its children matters to the future of that society. There is absolutely no question.

Are there lessons we can learn from other societies, other communities, other cultures? Absolutely there are. I will stand before you today and say that I'm absolutely open to learning those lessons.

I am a supporter of the extended-family option, because none of us would wish our children to be in a circumstance where they didn't know a single soul. None of us would wish that. We have work to do in terms of how we create structures that support children to have a connection.

One of the most heartbreaking stories was a young woman in her 20s who came to my office. She had lived in myriad different foster homes, and her last evaluation was…. Someone had written that she didn't know how to form a longstanding relationship. She was heartbroken. The reality was that she had never had a longstanding relationship. She had never lived anywhere long enough.

The expectations we place upon placements, upon children to survive them, are enormous. Collectively we have work to do in terms of bringing wisdom to that discussion, compassion to that discussion, empathy to that discussion, because it is part and parcel of where we want to be as a society. Frankly, it is part and parcel of the society we wish to live in.

I am clear that this is about best practice, how we get there. It will be a constant — a better and better approximation, if you will, of what each of us would wish for the children who live in our ridings, who attend the schools in our ridings, who live next door to us.

What is it we would wish? What I wish for my children is what I wish for every single baby in the province of British Columbia — that they have choice, opportunity and joy. I don't believe members in this House would wish something different.

Are there tools and strategies to get us to that point? Yes. In the recommendations that Mr. Hughes has brought before us, absolutely, there are some recommendations that make good sense. It is work that has begun in this province. How we link databases. How we share information. How we establish trends. How we inform the public. How we build better public safety messages.

[1615]

All of those things are part and parcel of this discussion, because the outcome has to be a better childhood, a more glorious childhood, for every single person in the province.

Again, once the risk has been identified, how do we protect vulnerability? What are the protective factors? What is it that each of us needs to know as an MLA? What is it that each parent, each caregiver, in this province needs to know to keep the children in their care safe?

What is that discussion going to be about in five years' time from now, ten years' time from now? There will be different challenges. There will be challenges that are common to every decade, I'm sure, but there will be new challenges. We must be adept, we must be responsive, and we must bring wisdom and a sense of problem-solving, creativity and innovation to these discussions. We must. It is about going forward, and we must have the wisdom to do that.

Let me give you one example when we talk about a protective factor, a strategy that we can look out for. There is a conference going forward on Friday of this week in Vancouver on shaken-baby syndrome. It's vitally important. A completely preventable defect, if you will, that's created by someone viciously shaking an infant — usually triggered by crying.

As legislators, as humanitarians and as members of community, do we have a responsibility to put in the hands of every parent — no matter their age — strategies they might engage in when their child engages in inconsolable crying? Have we done that? British Columbia is actually leading on that front, because it's vitally important that families have at their disposal a strategy that's not shaking the infant in terms of quieting them down.

All of these are pieces of the same complex and challenging puzzle but a vitally important puzzle that we understand. There is much research done on childhood neglect and childhood abuse. The reality is that very few British Columbians set out to damage their infants. Very few are malicious in any way. Neglect compounded by an array of other circumstances will hopefully be better understood, as we move through this debate and this discussion — and the lives of babies in the care of this province. It's vitally important that we understand better how that's done.

I believe that the care of a child in British Columbia is a shared responsibility. Each of us has a piece of that. What we're attempting to do here is keep children safe. That is my primary focus in this debate. We each have an enormous responsibility. We each have a role to

[ Page 4970 ]

play, and if we better understand what our responsibility is as individual British Columbians, as parents, as family members and as members of community, we indeed will support this piece, Bill 34.

In my view, each child deserves a glorious childhood, an opportunity to maintain a connection to their family and to be parented with the best possible parenting practice. That's my priority. This can't be solely a discussion about the best child death review. It has to be a discussion about the best possible childhood.

R. Austin: I rise today to give my support for Bill 34. I do so with a sense of mixed emotions, I must say. On the one hand, I am definitely pleased that the government has moved quickly to bring this bill into place, which will bring back an independent children's commissioner. But on the other hand, I'm also deeply disturbed that this position was taken away in the first place. I believe very strongly that for a period of time, during the government's first time in office, we went drastically backwards in regards to helping our most vulnerable children in this province.

[1620]

I say so, having had some experience in this matter. I note, in listening to what the Premier said when he was in opposition in 1996 — the same year that I became a foster parent in British Columbia…. I quote: "One thing we should all do is put the care, support and protection of children at the top of our priority list." I believed then as I do now that that is something all of us in this chamber and all of us in British Columbia should be doing.

From what I witnessed over the last few years after the Leader of the Opposition became Premier was that he unfortunately went back on those words and brought into place a series of cuts that drastically affected many people who worked in child protection. Many of us who worked in the field of helping vulnerable children — whether they be in the school system, whether they be through the ministry or whether they be in different organizations that help to give support to children in need…. Those cuts created devastation.

I want to speak for a minute about what it has meant to those of us who live in northern communities. I think it is fair to say that whenever cuts happen within government, the further you go away from the lower mainland, where there are fewer resources to begin with, the worse those cuts are for those of us who have to try and make amends for those cuts.

I was travelling a couple of weeks ago on a plane and sat next to an RCMP officer who had worked up in Dease Lake and in Telegraph Creek during the period when these cuts were taking place. I want to just share his experience.

There was many an occasion when he was called out to accompany social workers in the middle of the night to go out on emergency calls. The social worker would go with the RCMP officer there to provide a sense of protection for the social worker, because obviously these situations would be very unstable. He told me that some of the things he witnessed on these calls challenged him as a human being, because he would go there and see living conditions, circumstances, that he would not want any child to be living under. Then he would have to almost help the social worker to calm down.

Frankly, in places like Dease Lake and Telegraph Creek, even if we discover children who really need attention and protection, there aren't necessarily the resources. I don't just mean money; I mean there aren't the physical spaces to take that child and provide that protection. I think what he was telling me — that gentleman is no longer a police officer; he couldn't take the stress — just speaks to the difficulties of making cuts to a system when a system is already stressed out, as it has been.

I think it's not just in remote communities that we have these problems. Where I live in Terrace, and in Kitimat, which I represent, and in Rupert…. I've had children who've come from Rupert to stay in my home. All of the rural communities are suffering and are having great difficulty to provide the basic levels of service.

I was speaking with a child protection worker recently, who works in the area of resources. A resource child protection worker is someone who has the responsibility of finding a placement for a child who has to be brought into care, whether temporarily or on a long-term basis. I was in her office, and she had a board up beside her desk. It had the names of all the foster placement resources that were under her responsibility and little sticky tags of the children who were placed in these homes.

She was telling me that one of the most difficult things is after the first meeting in the morning, when the various teams and their leaders meet and discover what is the highest priority for beds that they need on that day. Then that resource worker has to go back to his or her office and try and find a foster placement, whether it be temporary or long-term, for that child.

The stress upon these resource workers, when there are no foster placements available, is untenable. I think it's one of the reasons why we have burnout of social workers and why we have social workers who are literally working on a revolving basis trying to get out from one area to another to go to somewhere within the system that has more resources.

[1625]

It creates incredible stress — so much that in my local community, the social workers who at one time looked to resource as an easier place to work have now chosen child protection. It's almost impossible to find resource workers who want to come and do this job on a full-time basis.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

In the last few years while we were under stress in the community of Terrace, we were still taking children coming from the nearby community of Prince Rupert because in Prince Rupert there were even fewer resources than what we had in Terrace. For a number of years I can honestly say that meant that, for example, a placement of a teenage child…. There were no more

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placements left in Prince Rupert for a number of years for anyone in the foster system who was willing to take on teenagers. As a result, those teenage children were brought to Terrace and filled up spaces that we already needed for our own needs in the Terrace community.

There has been a sense of crisis going on for many years, and it was exacerbated, most definitely, by the cuts that were made by this government. I think we have lots of work to do.

I was speaking last week with somebody, a fellow foster parent. We met on a walk, actually. She had five foster children with her, and I was very surprised. The last time I spoke to her, she only had two children in care.

We got talking for a few minutes about what was going on and how she ended up having five children in care. The most extraordinary thing wasn't that she had five children in care. The most extraordinary thing was that she was still getting phone calls on a weekly basis from the resource workers working out of Terrace asking if she could take more. That just shows you how desperate we are to train more foster parents, to bring greater resources there because the needs are so great.

I'd like to speak for a minute about the issue of aboriginal children in care. I have been doing this job now for ten years, and without exception, all the children who have been in my home and in most of the homes in our area are aboriginal. I think I'm right in saying that 72 percent of all the children in care in northwest British Columbia have first nations status. That is a troubling statistic in and of itself. But the difficulty is that those of us who are trying to provide care don't have the ability to keep attachments and to necessarily raise those children with all of the history they need so that they know where they came from.

I think one of the things that fell by the wayside in the last few years, as these cuts were put through, was that the movement to try and allow first nations communities to take responsibility for their own children and to be able to raise those children within the context and cultural environment of first nations society has been put on hold. I think that's one of the things we need to move forward with strongly as we go out and try to bring some of the other pieces in the Hughes report into place.

The Hughes report highlights many of the concerns that I and others have, who have worked in this area. They state here: "That the provincial government actively collaborate with aboriginal people to develop a common vision for governance of the aboriginal child welfare system…."

At present we have child welfare agencies working in northern B.C. who only have delegation to a certain level, but who had hoped that by now they would have full delegation and full authority so they could look after their own children. I think we need to work towards that. We also need to help aboriginal agencies to train and to build capacity so that when they have a crisis, they have somewhere to help themselves with it and don't have to look for support from outside.

I think that MCFD and the community representatives also need to help decentralize the system. I've noticed, in the years that I've worked in the system, that decision-making often got taken away from those front-line workers who built relationships with foster parents and with the children. I've found in the last few years that the decision-making went to team leaders and then from team leaders to somebody else in Prince George. I don't think that's the right direction for us to be going in.

I also feel very strongly that over the last few years, the social workers working within the system have ended up spending about 80 percent of their time in front of a computer filling out forms and filling out reports. It means they are not able to actively engage either with the foster parents or with the children or families who they are trying to support.

[1630]

In my instance, for example, I note that the best-practice standards for someone who is a guardianship worker is to meet with that child, all of the children on their caseload at least once a month — maybe just go out for a coffee, take them out for hot chocolate at Tim Hortons. I can honestly say that in the last four years of my daughter living with us, her guardianship worker has not been able to pick up the phone and even phone on her birthday, let alone take the time and trouble to keep monthly contact.

I say this not to speak ill of that individual social worker. I know what he has to do every day. What has happened over the last few years is that the workload amongst social workers is such that they can't follow any of the policies in the manual under best practices. It's one thing to talk about best practices, but it's another thing to actually have the resources in place so that they have sufficient social workers with sufficient time to do the job they have been asked to do.

I think we have lots to work on as we move forward. This is certainly a start, but we need to form a committee. I pledge, if I am on that committee — and I'm sure anyone else on this side of the House — to work hard to enact any of these recommendations, so the government will bring forward as many as possible as quickly as possible.

As the member for Vancouver-Kingsway stated earlier, people's lives were deeply affected by these cuts. We can never give that back to them. I would honestly say that we have destroyed lots of people. We've certainly destroyed lots of families up where I live. I've had many people speaking to me with tears in their eyes, who've gone through the hardship of the last few years. I hope that now we can turn this around and move forward.

M. Karagianis: I stand with my fellow members to speak in favour of Bill 34. In fact, I think it's time that someone,