Hansard -- Volume 19, Number 10 -- Monday, May 8, 2000

2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

MONDAY, MAY 8, 2000

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 19, Number 10

[ Page 15367 ]

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. D. Lovick: It is my pleasure to introduce a very special guest in the gallery today. Ms. Ndèye Fall, the director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization here in Canada and also the UNESCO representative to Canada, is joining us here. As I think most members will be aware, Ms. Fall was at the grand celebration we had on Friday -- namely, the UNESCO biosphere reserve in Clayoquot Sound. She is going to be staying for a few days to meet with various government officials and to talk about other interesting programs that UNESCO is responsible for.

I would ask all my colleagues in the House to please join me in making Ms. Fall welcome and also in wishing her the very best for a successful stay in her dealings with all the parts of government while she is here.

[1410]

Hon. G. Mann Brewin: In the gallery today is a visitor, Dr. Renee Patenaude. She recently completed her PhD in psychology at Simon Fraser University on how children cope with divorce. She is visiting Victoria for a brief vacation, and I ask the House to please make her welcome.

I. Chong: Today I am pleased to have two sets of introductions. I would first of all like the House to welcome two classes of visiting students from Fairburn Elementary School. There are 28 of them here today. and they are accompanied by their teacher, Ms. Bradford, and up to five adults. They have just had a tour of the Legislature, and they're here to watch question period. I would ask the House to welcome that group of students and adults.

Secondly, hon. Speaker, today it was my very distinct pleasure to host a luncheon for several of our leaders in the Victoria area Chinese community. I'm pleased that they were able to join me for lunch, because many of these leaders have provided invaluable service to our community but have not taken the opportunity to visit this precinct. For many this will be the first time they've been in these buildings and the first time to observe question period. I would like the House to welcome the following people: Mr. Paul Chan, Mr. Thomas Chan, Ms. Georgina Wong, Ms. Kileasa Wong, Mr. Ben Low, Mr. John Cheung, Mr.

Harry Wong, Mr. Henry Low, Mr. Kim Eng and Mr. Frank Wong. Also, it is a great pleasure that we have with us today, accompanying them, our mayor His Worship Alan Lowe from the city of Victoria, who also happens to be a Chinese Canadian -- the first Chinese Canadian to be elected mayor of a provincial capital, as well as the youngest mayor ever elected to the city of Victoria. I hope the House will make them all very welcome.

G. Campbell: The Centennial Foundation is a non-profit organization which was founded five years ago. Its goals are to highlight the positive contributions and achievements of Sikh Canadians. Its aim is to portray as accurate and positive a picture as possible. It has awards which are given out on an annual basis, the Centennial Sewa Awards. Those awards are given to both Sikh Canadians and non-Sikh Canadians. Previous recipients have included Roy McMurtry, philanthropist and novelist June Callwood, Michael Ondaatje, Haroon Siddiqui -- many Canadians who have made huge contributions.

I am very pleased today to inform the House that two British Columbians were recipients of the Centennial Sewa Awards on Saturday, May 6. One is CBC journalist Belle Puri, and the other is the MLA for Okanagan West, Sindi Hawkins. I hope we'll give them both our congratulations.

Tabling Documents

Hon. P. Ramsey: I ask leave to table performance plans.

Leave granted.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Last week I had the pleasure to table performance plans for all government ministries. Today I rise to table performance plans for Crown corporations for 2000-2001. On budget day, March 27, we introduced the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act here. That act requires performance plans for Crown corporations to be tabled in the Legislature. While that act is not yet law, we're not going to wait; we're acting now. Tabling the performance plans for Crowns is yet another step to ensure transparency and accountability.

I have performance plans today for B.C. Hydro, Rapid Transit Project 2000, B.C. Transit, B.C. Rail, B.C. Lottery Corporation, B.C. Assets and Land Corporation, Columbia Power Corporation, homeowner protection office, B.C. Housing, B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, Fisheries Renewal B.C., Forest Renewal B.C., B.C. Assessment Authority, B.C. Ferries, Tourism B.C., British Columbia liquor distribution branch, the Provincial Capital Commission, B.C. Buildings Corporation and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. Hon. Speaker, it is my pleasure to table these performance plans for the 2000-2001 year.

[1415]

Oral Questions

FORMER B.C. HYDRO

CEO COMPENSATION

G. Campbell: The Hydrogate scandal has already cost taxpayers $10 million. Today we have learned that the taxpayers' costs are going to go up even more. My question is to the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro. Will he confirm today that after years of denial, the government has now been faced with paying Mr. John Sheehan $1 million for wrongful dismissal?

Hon. D. Miller: I can confirm -- maybe not down to the penny -- that the settlement is in that range, Mr. Speaker. I can also reiterate what I did last year in this House in question period.

The so-called Hydrogate scandal was an issue that arose because of an allegation by the Opposition House Leader that in pursuing the Raiwind project, it was a deal for "friends and insiders" of the government and that it was done to avoid taxation. I would remind the House that the judgment in Mr. Sheehan's case put the lie to those allegations. They were completely unfounded -- untrue.

With respect to the issue of Mr. Sheehan's dismissal and subsequent court action, the courts found that while Mr.

[ Page 15368 ]

Sheehan had committed errors in judgment, they upheld his right to severance. Hydro initially launched an appeal against that decision, and there was a cross-appeal from Mr. Sheehan. Hydro, using their own judgment, made a determination that it was preferable to settle the matter out of court. The result is what we're discussing right now.

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

G. Campbell: Thank goodness someone was paying attention to B.C. Hydro, because no one on that side of the House -- in the NDP -- was. This minister and this government have been responsible for the people of British Columbia -- the taxpayers of British Columbia -- losing hundreds of millions of dollars because of their incompetence.

I understand today that Mr. Sheehan will be paid $700,000 in severance and over a quarter-million dollars for legal costs. That means one thing. It means that Mr. Sheehan was right, and the government was wrong. Once again it is the taxpayers of British Columbia who are going to have to pay the price -- $1 million in settlement. Will the minister have the decency to stand up and apologize to B.C.'s taxpayers today for his government's incompetence?

Hon. D. Miller: It's interesting how the opposition mentality appears to me to be one in which all the wrongdoing goes to others, and they have absolutely no responsibility or obligation to attempt to even try to get near the truth when they make allegations. And I would repeat for all members: the Opposition House Leader made serious allegations in February of 1996 that this Raiwind power project was put together to avoid paying tax. It was put together to benefit . . . .

Interjections.

Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Speaker, I listened carefully . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. D. Miller: . . . to the opposition's questions. They don't want to listen to my answer. The courts found that there was not one whit of substance to the allegations made by the opposition. Did they have a role in this case? I'd say they had a very big role in this case.

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

G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, this is just another in a long string of legal costs which taxpayers in the province of British Columbia are having to pay: Frank Dixon, John Sheehan, libel suits, the government wilfully breaking contracts with the private sector -- millions of dollars in legal costs and putative damages.

My question to the minister is: when will the government stop using our legal system and the taxpayers' pocketbooks to cover up its incompetence and backstop its mistakes?

[1420]

Hon. D. Miller: You know, Mr. Speaker, I want to continue to try to respond in a very open way about this matter. But I am dismayed . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. D. Miller: . . . and clearly all of us ought to be concerned when we see judgments of this nature. Very real people were hurt in 1996 as a result of allegations made by the opposition. Very real people -- Mr. King was one of them -- were hurt and damaged. Their feelings and reputations were damaged by allegations made by that opposition, which were subsequently found by the courts to be false. Have they ever . . . ? I asked them last year if they would bother, now that the truth is out -- whether they would be prepared to stand and apologize to all those people that they damaged with a false accusation . . . .

Hon. Speaker, it's clear they don't care about any of those people. They don't care about any of those people, and they now have an opportunity -- because there has been a very large out-of-court settlement -- to try to gain some political mileage again. But . . .

The Speaker: Thank you, minister.

Hon. D. Miller: . . . regardless of the mileage they do gain, hon. Speaker, the fact is that they maligned real British Columbians, and they don't care at all about that.

ASSOCIATION OF

B.C. PROFESSIONAL FORESTERS

G. Abbott: Last week in estimates I questioned the Forests minister about the role of professional foresters. The minister responded by saying: "One of the problems is that there's not a governing body that regulates . . . the professional foresters . . . . "

Well, on Friday the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters sent a letter informing the minister: "We are appalled and disturbed that you would not know that we are the regulatory body in question." They go on to say: "We find it particularly surprising, given that the first major speech you gave as minister was to our annual meeting on March 2."

Will the Minister of Forests explain why he didn't know that the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters serves as a regulatory body?

Hon. J. Doyle: You're right. It was one of the first speeches I made in Prince George to this group. I did make a mistake when I spoke in estimates last week, and I was actually going to mention this afternoon in estimates, hon. member, that I had made a mistake in estimates last week.

The Speaker: The member for Shuswap has a supplemental question.

G. Abbott: Clearly that's not good enough. Three days ago the minister didn't even know the association existed, and clearly he should have, hon. Speaker. He is supposed to be the Minister of Forests.

As the association notes, they have 4,000 members in this province, including 1,000 members who work for the Ministry

[ Page 15369 ]

of Forests -- including the chief forester and the assistant deputy minister. Can the Minister of Forests tell us this: who finally tipped you off that the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters was a regulatory body?

Hon. J. Doyle: Mr. Speaker, I answered the question a minute ago. I realized I'd made a mistake when I was in estimates last week. I was going to mention it in estimates this afternoon -- that I'd made an honest mistake.

[1425]

G. Plant: You know, the admission of error does not put an end to the public interest in knowing how we got to the position where a Minister of Forests could stand up in this House and deny any knowledge of the regulatory body that constrains 4,000 men and women who manage forest practices in this province. The forest industry is still the number one industry in British Columbia, but it won't be for long if there is a minister in charge who doesn't know the first thing about his ministry.

So my question to the Minister of Forests is this: how can the public be expected to have any confidence in his administration when he doesn't even know the most basic facts about forestry in British Columbia?

Hon. J. Doyle: I feel I answered the question. I'd wonder just what that member from Vancouver knows about forestry and the fact that it's the biggest part of the economy in the province of British Columbia and will continue to be, because this government has done land use planning -- things that this opposition speaks against. This opposition talks about 100 million cubic metres of cut per year, when it's maybe not sustainable. So I'd say that you should do a little bit of learning, hon. member, before you stand up and ask questions about forestry.

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

G. Plant: Actually, it occurred to me to wonder how it was that someone who has been an elected official in a forest-dependent community -- Golden, to remind the member -- for almost a quarter of a century could stand up in this House and after 24 years of representing that community -- a forest-dependent community -- apparently not know about the association for registered professional foresters.

As the minister no doubt has discovered, courtesy of the note written for him by his officials, the association has an 11-person council -- nine of whom are elected and two of whom were appointed by the minister. So my question is this: who are the two people appointed by the Ministry of Forests to the council? And is he satisfied with their performance?

Hon. J. Doyle: I will take that question on notice.

The Speaker: The question is taken on notice.

REMOVAL OF MLA

FROM BCBC BOARD OF DIRECTORS

M. de Jong: We thought it was tough as opposition to get information out of the government, but it turns out that the problems we face are nothing compared to the difficulties members of the NDP's own caucus face getting information from the government. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, if you will, the surprise of the member for Victoria-Hillside when he showed up at a meeting of the BCBC board of directors, only to be told that he'd been dumped. There's an OIC dated April 20 that says he's been canned. The member says that no one bothered to tell him. The government Whip says something quite different; he says he was informed.

So to the Finance minister: which member is telling the truth, and just what kind of operation are you running over there when members of the government's own caucus don't know when they've been turfed off the BCBC board?

Hon. P. Ramsey: It must be a slow day. I mean, I've been reading "Today's News," and I think I've found every question they've asked so far.

The appointment of boards of B.C. Buildings Corporation, a very well-run Crown corporation, is made by cabinet. I don't divulge cabinet confidences and how those things are determined. I think we'll have ample opportunity to debate B.C. Buildings Corporation in this chamber. The appointment of board members was done in the usual way, and the usual notifications were made.

The Speaker: The hon. member for Matsqui has a supplemental question.

M. de Jong: The member was appointed a year ago to a three-year term, and suddenly he disappears. This is the government . . . . The Premier said the other day: "I am not a vengeful person." Well, the one member who spoke out against government budgetary matters gets kneecapped and discovers, when he attends the meeting, that he's been dumped, and no one has bothered to tell him. I thought there was a ban on non-essential travel over there.

I guess the question for the Finance minister is: how much taxpayers' money did that member spend going to a meeting that he wasn't even allowed to be at? How much money is this government wasting because they just don't seem to be able to talk to one another?

Hon. P. Ramsey: British Columbia Buildings Corporation is one of several Crown corporations. We've tabled their performance plan in the House today, so we can debate it during estimates. There are many important issues regarding ensuring that B.C. Buildings Corporation plays a sound role in assisting government operations -- many important questions. This is not one of them.

[1430]

M. de Jong: I've got OIC 595 in my hand. It's dated April 20, and it's got two signatures on it. It's got the Finance minister's signature, and it's got the Premier's signature on it. The only person, apparently, that didn't know he had been booted off of the BCBC board was the member for Victoria-Hillside. The government Whip says: "No, that's not true. I communicated that to the member in charge." Who's telling the truth over there, Mr. Speaker? This is the minister responsible. Is it the government Whip, or is it the member for Victoria-Hillside? Who's telling the truth?

The Speaker: The light to end question period has come on. I'll ask the minister to give a very brief answer.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Everybody appointed to or removed from the board of B.C. Buildings Corporation was informed of that action after OICs were passed.

[ Page 15370 ]

The Speaker: The bell ends question period.

Ministerial Statement

YOUTH WEEK

Hon. G. Bowbrick: Hon. Speaker, I rise to make a brief ministerial statement. This week is Youth Week. For the next five days all around this country politicians will say things like: "Youth are our greatest resource" and "Youth are the future." While there's some truth to these comments, what we risk during this week is being too patronizing towards youth, if we're not careful.

As we get older, we all like to think that somehow younger generations are different than we were when we were young. But the reality is that young people are simply at a different point in their lives, a point that we were all at at one time. They have hope, but they also have insecurities that they face. They're working towards the job or career of their choice, and they want to know that educational opportunities are there for them when they need them.

They want to know that as they get older, the planet will still be in good shape and the air will be clean for them to breathe and for their children to breathe. They are concerned about their lives, but they're also optimistic about the quality of their lives. For most of us in this House, if we think back, we'll see these traits in ourselves when we were their age.

So while Youth Week is an important reminder, as a government we must focus on the concerns of youth every week, not just on Youth Week. I'm proud to say that we have, and we continue to try and do that. Whether it's freezing tuition fees for the fifth year in a row, expanding our grants program to include third- and fourth-year students or increasing operating funds at our post-secondary institutions by $85 million this year, we're providing opportunities for our young people when it comes to education and training.

Whether it's a protected-areas strategy that has doubled the amount of B.C. parkland in this province in the last ten years or whether it's a significant investment in public transit or environment youth teams, we've taken steps as a government to provide a healthy and clean environment now and for future generations. Whether it's the Nisga'a treaty or any of the many other treaties on which we're making progress, aboriginal youth will have the resources and the hope they need to carry on with their lives.

So not just for this week but for each week of the year, I challenge all members of this House to keep in mind the needs of youth in their communities. Our government has and will continue to do so.

The Speaker: To reply, the hon. member for Chilliwack.

B. Penner: Hon. Speaker, it's my pleasure to reply for the official opposition and address the minister's comments regarding Youth Week. First of all, though, I would like to note some disappointment that notwithstanding this government's pledge to operate in a more open and forthright manner, the minister failed to give the official opposition notice of his ministerial statement.

Nevertheless, it's important to recognize that unlike almost every other province in Canada, we are fortunate that we have a rising number of young people that comprise our demographics in British Columbia. Other provinces are going to be facing a more stressful challenge in the years ahead in servicing public institutions, because they will not have the tax base that British Columbia hopefully will have if we're able to keep our young people here in the province.

Unfortunately, the insecurities that the minister referred to, which are facing our young people, are in large measure brought about by this government's lack of performance in handling the B.C. economy. For the last two months in a row the province has lost a significant number of jobs, bucking the trend across the Canada. While it's true that the unemployment rate has decreased, that's only because a large number of people have given up looking for work. The overall number of people actually working in British Columbia has dropped dramatically in the last two months.

[1435]

British Columbia has had, for many years now, the highest rate of youth unemployment west of Quebec. That is unacceptable, and it's time that we take action in British Columbia to lower taxes and to increase investment in the province, so that our young people don't have to move outside of British Columbia, don't have to move south of the border and don't have to move east of the border. They can live and work in British Columbia to fulfil their opportunity right here.

Orders of the Day

Hon. D. Lovick: I call Committee of Supply. In this chamber, we shall continue debating the estimates of the Ministry of Forests. In the other chamber, we shall begin debate on the estimates for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

The House in Committee of Supply B; T. Stevenson in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS

(continued)

On vote 34: ministry operations; $297,814,000 (continued).

G. Abbott: Undoubtedly, those who have been following the estimates will recall that at the time we recessed on Thursday afternoon, we were talking about some forest health issues. The member for Oak Bay-Gordon Head was pursuing a line of questions, and I think she would like to continue that.

[1440]

I. Chong: I would like to continue with the area that I was pursuing last Thursday, regarding the gypsy moth aerial spray program. When I began my questions to the minister, I was trying to determine whether or not the aerial spray program that was performed here in the greater Victoria area last year was in fact effective -- in that the gypsy moth problem that had occurred had been eradicated after the aerial spray program was initiated. I can appreciate the minister's comment, brief as it was at the time, that we could never 100 percent eradicate it.

However, the whole intent of an aerial spray program as I understand it, when the public is asked to endorse it, is to provide eradication. Because of his comment that we can never eradicate the gypsy moth 100 percent, I would like to know to what extent we expect an eradication -- whether it's

[ Page 15371 ]

90 percent, 95 percent or . . . . To what level are we expecting eradication? In order to determine the effectiveness of that, what is done to determine that -- trapping? Or is some other elaborate scheme chosen? If trapping is in fact done to determine that the gypsy moth situation has not increased, how is that trapping different from the trapping that was done in years before to determine whether we have a gypsy moth problem?

Hon. J. Doyle: I know we were on this issue last Thursday when we ran out of time. The federal government is the one that puts the quarantine in place. It's through a ministry agency, CFIA. For instance, in 1998 there were 585 male gypsy moths on southern Vancouver Island, and today there are two. So we feel this spraying was a success, and we feel we have done the job we wanted to do.

I. Chong: I thank the minister for those numbers. While I can appreciate that the numbers determined in 1998 were 585 and that now they're down to two, the question that still remains to be answered is whether or not the kind of determination that was done in 1998 for the counting of the 585 is consistent with the determination done now that states it's at two.

The questions that have been posed to me by those who are opposed to aerial spraying have suggested that the way of testing, I suppose, where the gypsy moth has expanded, has not been done on a consistent basis, in that there have been fewer traps placed in some areas and more traps placed in other areas.

[1445]

I just want to have some assurance that, if we are trying to be consistent to determine whether the eradication has been successful, the traps that were placed there in 1998 were in fact also placed in the same positions and the same areas in 1999 or the year 2000 -- whenever that was done. Otherwise, if you're putting traps in areas where there were no gypsy moths, how do we know that the number that has decreased to two is in fact correct? I hope the minister and staff can appreciate what I'm trying to establish here.

Hon. J. Doyle: The federal government is the one that does the trapping. It's done scientifically. They place traps around the areas where there was a problem. Hon. member, when we say it's down from 585 to two, we believe that to be true.

Hon. Chair, could I ask if it's possible for a five-minute recess? I just have business outside the House for a couple of minutes.

The Chair: Certainly. Committee will recess until 2:55 p.m.

The committee recessed from 2:47 p.m. to 2:54 p.m.

[S. Hawkins in the chair.]

I. Chong: Before the brief recess, I was asking the minister about the effectiveness of the aerial spray program on the gypsy moth and the method to determine that effectiveness. In particular, when the minister responded that the federal government was responsible for placing the traps to determine that . . . .

I'm just trying to get to the heart of the answer there, that in fact the federal government is consistent in placing the traps where it originally placed them when they determined there was a pest problem and when it subsequently went back to ensure that there was no longer a pest problem that they put the traps in the same spots, or close to or in proximity to the same spots. Only then can you actually have a true evaluation of the effectiveness of the program.

If the minister is not aware of that, then I guess I would ask the minister: why would his ministry not have that kind of coordination with the federal government, which is responsible for that part of this?

[1455]

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

Hon. J. Doyle: We are confident as a ministry that the protocol we have with the federal government is adequate work. We feel that it has worked, and we feel that the spraying has done the job that it was set out to do in the southern Vancouver Island area.

[S. Hawkins in the chair.]

I. Chong: I will therefore accept that as the minister's response at this time -- that the protocols are in place. If further details are requested of him, perhaps the staff will provide further details of that protocol arrangement to satisfy those who may contact me and ask me.

However, I also just want to further ask the minister to verify or confirm that in the area that is now being looked at for aerial spraying or where aerial spraying has begun -- the Burnaby area -- the same kind of process was in place, that the same protocol was undertaken to ensure that there was in fact an established pest there and that the evaluation of the success of the program would also be done in a consistent manner the following year. If the minister would like to confirm that, then I can just follow up with one final question in this area.

Hon. J. Doyle: Absolutely.

I. Chong: The next question I would just like to ask is in fact the cost of the program. I can't determine cost through the estimates blue books. I remember that last year, when I asked the Minister of Forests as to the cost of this program, what was determined to be a $2 million or $2.5 million program had actually escalated to $3 million or over $3 million. It had actually gone over budget. I'm wondering whether the minister could advise this House as to what amount of money has been allocated this year to the gypsy moth aerial spray program in the Burnaby area.

In fact, does it appear to be sufficient, or will there be more funds required? I know it's in progress, and it's sometimes hard to determine that you'll be going over budget, but I understand there are ways and means to establish or determine that.

Hon. J. Doyle: The budget is $500,000. The member also asked if we will have enough. That's an unknown right now. We hope we have enough, but if we need more moneys, we'll get more moneys to deal with the problem.

I. Chong: To the minister, $500,000 seems like a reasonable amount given the severity of the problem, particularly if we were looking at quarantines. But it's substantially less than last year. Last year -- I'm just looking at my notes -- $3.7

[ Page 15372 ]

million was expended. So this is about a sixth or a seventh of the amount. Is the area in the Burnaby area that much smaller, or have we gained efficiencies in other areas? Can the minister just confirm that?

Hon. J. Doyle: In last year's budget we sprayed 14,000 hectares -- the area of southern Vancouver Island that we spoke about a couple of minutes ago. This year it's 300 hectares in Burnaby.

[1500]

J. Wilson: I would like to go back to where we left off last week and talk about the problem with the pine beetle. I'd like the minister's help here to kind of refresh my mind to get into this. I believe that the number of hectares that were infected in the provincial forests was 195,000 hectares. Is that the correct figure?

Hon. J. Doyle: That is correct -- 195,000.

Hon. D. Miller: Madam Chair, I could probably pose some questions about forestry, but I'll try to avoid the . . . and ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Hon. D. Miller: In the gallery with us today is a group of grades 6 to 10 students from the Agnes L. Mathers Secondary School in Sandspit, Queen Charlotte Islands -- Haida Gwaii. Right on. They're accompanied by their teachers, Faye Burles, Peter Gajda and Tracey Cowpar. I would ask all members to give them a very warm welcome.

J. Wilson: So I presume this 195,000 hectares would be referred to as red attacks or older?

Hon. J. Doyle: Due to a little bit of noise, which actually is leaving the chamber right now, I missed the question. If the member could repeat it.

J. Wilson: Certainly. I'd love to repeat that. The volume of land that is infected by the pine beetle that the minister is using . . . . Is he referring to red attack in this area?

Hon. J. Doyle: The answer is yes.

J. Wilson: What was the date of this assessment, when it was completed?

Hon. J. Doyle: The data was summarized on February 11, 2000.

J. Wilson: Now, when the minister refers to the area of land that is affected, is he referring specifically to the total volume of infected areas? When the pine beetle comes in, it will attack an area. It might be small; it might be ten hectares, 20 hectares, 100 hectares or smaller. Is the total volume affected simply those pockets of infection? Or does it encompass the entire land base out there, where you have pockets of infection scattered all through it?

Hon. J. Doyle: It is an estimation of the pockets of infection around the province. That's where the 195,000 comes from.

J. Wilson: Then we have the areas of land between the pockets that are not included in that number. That's my understanding.

I also wanted to clarify a point. The minister said something last week about harvesting this 195,000 hectares. I understood him to say that he thought it would be something that would be accomplished this year.

[1505]

Hon. J. Doyle: We try to harvest as much as we can, but a big part of this is in parks and is not harvested.

J. Wilson: I wasn't on the subject of parks here. Excuse me if I've got things wrong, but the number I wanted was the number of infected hectares of timber in the working forest in the province. That's the number that I need.

Hon. J. Doyle: There are roughly 67,000 hectares in parks. So I agree; the member maybe didn't ask the question correctly. There are about 130,000 hectares outside of parks or in the harvesting area of the province.

J. Wilson: So we have 130,000 hectares in our working forest that need to be dealt with. Would the minister care to give us an estimate as to what he thinks they can actually harvest this year in this red attack?

Hon. J. Doyle: Out of that 130,000 hectares in the province, we do our best to harvest as much as possible. We do emphasize the green attack not the red attack areas, the areas which have gone red already.

J. Wilson: Are we going to concentrate on the red attacks? Or are we now dealing with green attacks? Could the minister lay out, if he possibly can . . . ? I don't believe it would even be possible to have any idea where the green attacks will stand this year, because we haven't reached that point where we've got the bugs moving -- this summer. We are either dealing with red or with green or with both.

Now, when I ask what volume the minister thinks they will harvest, it wouldn't really matter. But I would like to know -- it only makes sense to do as much as you can -- how much. The minister must have some idea of how many cubic metres they intend to harvest this summer on beetle kill.

Hon. J. Doyle: I don't have the numbers as to just what we're hoping to cut this year. But where the beetle attack is the worst, that's the area we're trying to get in, if at all possible, and get that wood out first.

[1510]

J. Wilson: Well, if we don't know what we're going to cut this year, does the minister know what was harvested last year -- in the year '99-2000 -- in beetle wood?

Hon. J. Doyle: We don't have those numbers right now. We will do our best, hon. member, to get the best estimates possible and get them forwarded to you as soon as possible.

J. Wilson: I realize that he doesn't have all of the staff here, maybe, that he would need to get these numbers. But in 1998-99 there was a harvest of 579,000 cubic metres of beetle

[ Page 15373 ]

wood. If we don't have a number for the following year, does his staff know whether there was an increase or a decrease in the harvest and, if there was an increase, an estimate of how big a percentage increase it would be?

Hon. J. Doyle: I had said that there were 195,000 hectares affected in the province. The member says there were 579,000. Does he mean that so many cubic metres were harvested? Sorry, I just wanted to clear that point.

Following up on the answer I just gave to the member, while we're making sure we're talking about hectares or cubic metres, scaling does not . . . . Whenever the wood goes over the scale, it does not break down that it's pine beetle versus other wood that goes over the scale. That's why we're having trouble getting you an estimate, hon. member.

J. Wilson: I can understand the difficulty in producing statistics. But surely he should be able to tell me whether or not there was an increase in the harvest in the year 1999-2000 over the previous year -- and roughly. I don't need it right down to the last cubic metre. But roughly how much of an increase was there last year? Or was there a decrease?

Hon. J. Doyle: When we compare 1998-1999 versus '99-2000, we assume that there was more harvested last year than the year before.

J. Wilson: I would hope there would be an increase. If we look at the volume of wood out there that's infected -- and this is red I'm talking here, because that's the only figure we have . . . . Last winter was probably the mildest winter we've had in recent history in the interior of British Columbia. We can expect quite a flurry this year with the beetle infestation, because there was nothing really to drop the numbers back. If we take the red wood alone, we're looking at roughly 30 million cubic metres of wood that needs to be harvested.

What will we do with that volume? If the minister says we will harvest it, and we do, what are we going to do with that volume of wood?

[1515]

Hon. J. Doyle: The focus of harvesting . . . . The Ministry of Forests is working with the industry out there as we try to get the green attack. We do take some red, but we do work and have worked, I think, well in the past year and other years and would work in the future as best as possible. I think there is a good relationship between the industry and the Ministry of Forests as far as dealing with this problem.

The member made reference to last winter being the warmest for many, many years. Likely I mentioned last week that the statistics tell us that in the last ten years, the winters were the warmest that were recorded in the last 100 years. That's no doubt why we have a problem with the enormity that we do today.

J. Wilson: My memory is short, but I still remember last winter. It was probably the warmest of the last ten.

Now we have refocused here. We have gone from dealing with the red attack out there, which was last year's. We have now refocused, and we're going to deal with the green attack of this year, which hasn't occurred yet. Does the minister have any guesstimate of the volume that he's going to have to deal with if he takes on and tries to harvest the green attack that will occur this summer?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry -- looking at the whole province and the 71 million cubic metres that we cut and did last year and cut this year -- feels we have the capacity, working with the industry, to address the pine beetle outbreak in the province. We're doing our best. Everyone is doing their best to deal with the problem, and that's pretty well all I can say. That's what we all pray -- that it can be dealt with. We all hope, of course, that Old Man Winter decides this winter and the next two or three winters that we'll have a good spell of cold weather. That will assist all of us -- that there won't be the spread of the pine beetle across the province any more than it is today.

J. Wilson: Does the minister have a figure at hand for how many cubic metres of this bug-wood the industry can process in any given year? What is that volume?

Hon. J. Doyle: Mills throughout the province and in the affected areas and, of course, your area and the area north of you are some of the worst in the province. Mills are doing their best to have the capacity to deal with the pine beetle problem wood to the best of their ability. Now, if it gets worse -- hopefully it doesn't -- there may come a time when there's more and more. They're doing their best. Everyone is doing their best to make sure that we can get that wood out and get it run through mills as quickly as possible. It's to do with the capacity of the mills and the ability to get it out of the bush. Everybody is doing their best to deal with the problem.

[1520]

J. Wilson: I guess the minister didn't hear me very well. I asked him if he could tell me what volume of wood the mills are able to process of this kind of beetle wood. How many cubic metres of wood can they process in any given year?

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as how much can be run through mills in an individual year, any year, it has a lot to do with the mill's capacity, how many shifts work in that mill, and at the end of the day, what markets there are for this wood out there when these companies make it into lumber or whatever product.

J. Wilson: I can't help but feel somewhat evaded here, because we should know what our capacity would be. I would like to read to the minister a quote from last year's Forestry estimates and by the Minister of Forests, who, in my opinion, was quite knowledgable. And we were dealing with this problem. It says here:

"But there's only so much you can do to move the licensees into cutting the beetle-kill wood. There's only so much market for pine, for example. What we're finding now is that if you salvaged every tree that was attacked, you wouldn't have markets. You'd be shutting down some operation somewhere because you don't have a market for it. So there are volume limits. There's only so much that the market will buy."

And it goes on:

" . . . current management practices and very aggressive beetle control can't keep up with the amount of beetle-kill across the whole forest . . . . So you ask the licensees to take as much as they can and run it through their mills. Clearly you can't use the beetle-kill to make plywood, so don't expect the plywood producers to buy the beetle kill."

He says we have an epidemic that exceeds the ability of the mills to run it.

[ Page 15374 ]

"They can run full-out -- three and sometimes four shifts -- and they can't process it all. What I said was that some of the mills are plywood mills, and as a rule, they can't process small pine. They don't make pine plywood that I'm aware of."

Given that, we have a volume of wood. We have 30 million cubic metres of red wood now. We have another maybe 10 million cubic metres of green wood coming up this year. Is there going to be a movement to be able to use this pine in all of our establishments out there, including our plywood plants?

Hon. J. Doyle: Mills in the province have increased the amount of pine beetle wood that they bring into their mills. But at the end of the day, the markets out there will determine how much they take into their plants. I feel that is as far as I can go in answering just what can happen with this wood once it's cut and brought into the mills. The mills do their best, with every shift possible put on. But at the end of the day, they have to be able to market this product.

[1525]

J. Wilson: What I hear the minister saying is the same thing I heard last year -- that we can't process the volume of wood because we couldn't sell it all. Is that correct?

Hon. J. Doyle: At this point, when we talk to the industry, they've been able, working with ministry staff, to make sure that we get the green-attack wood out of there. That will hopefully lead to making sure the problem is contained, if not done away with.

J. Wilson: It seems like we're kind of chasing our tail here -- the minister is, anyway -- and going around in circles. He's going to deal with a green attack this year -- he doesn't even have any idea what it will be -- and that's what we're going to harvest. We haven't identified it; we don't know where it is. We've got 30 million cubic metres of red wood there that we couldn't sell -- or not all of it. We could sell a portion of it, yes, but a big portion of it we can't sell because we're going to flood the market. So where does that leave the forest industry in the interior of British Columbia in the next ten years?

Hon. J. Doyle: In 1999-2000 we did ground surveys, and we identified 22,000 hectares through those surveys. We're doing our best, as I said earlier, to deal with this problem. There may be capacity problems out there; I hope there are not. But we are willing to work with the industry -- the Ministry of Forests and industry together -- to see what we can do to contain this problem, which became very bad because we've had ten of the warmest winter in the last years. The member alluded to last winter being the warmest of those; possibly it was.

But we've had ten years where we haven't had the necessary cold spells that do a very good job in helping Mother Nature kill this bug. That's the way it is contained. We're doing our best to deal with the problem to the best of our ability.

J. Wilson: Is there any change in the policy of the ministry with the approach they're taking to the harvesting of this wood?

Hon. J. Doyle: No, there's been no change in policy. But if the problem does continue to get bigger, we'll have to make sure that we work as best we can with the industry to make sure that at the end of the day, they get markets or can make this into some product that they can sell in the marketplace.

J. Wilson: If the minister doesn't think the problem is big now, how much bigger does it have to get before he's going to realize we have to take some drastic action here?

Hon. J. Doyle: I feel that the ministry, working with industry, is taking this very, very seriously. For instance, last year we put in $7 million; this year we're putting in $10 million. We do take this very, very . . . . It's a concern to us. Forestry is the backbone of the economy of this province. It is a concern to many, many communities. It's a concern to the Ministry of Forests. It's a concern to all four million people in British Columbia, including myself. We're doing our best to address it. We put the $7 million and $10 million into those for that reason.

[1530]

J. Wilson: There are quite a few people that maybe wouldn't agree with the minister that his best is good enough. There are a lot of areas out there that have been or are being identified every day. If the minister would reconsider the issue of time frame around approvals for some of these small areas, cutblocks, and if he would reconsider the volumes that they will allow out on a cash-sale basis once . . . . It sits at about 500 cubic metres right now, and on certain occasions it can go up to 2,000 cubic metres.

The turnaround time is one of the biggest factors that stops people from going out and harvesting. They can go out and find them; they can identify the bugs. The work's pretty well all done for the ministry, because people are looking for an opportunity to go to work. But when they do identify the problem, it sits there for six months, in some cases, and simply fulminates and grows larger, and they may not even get approval. So the incentive to find these is destroyed in a lot of cases.

I'd like to maybe go back and look at the issue of this pine being used in the plywood industry. I'm wondering if the minister is going to push the plywood companies to use some pine in their product.

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry is open to working with the industry to see if plywood manufacturers or others that are not presently using pine-beetle wood could start to use it. Maybe that would mean you could take more of it out of the bush and into the marketplace. As far as the member's questions over the last whatever minutes, I'd just like to refer to a news release of March 6, 2000, from the CLMA-NFPA Mountain Pine Beetle Emergency Task Force on some of the things that we are doing jointly with industry.

In the 1999-2000 season the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks worked with industry on a variety of initiatives to battle the beetle in the working forest.

Initiatives taken this year include streamlining of government processes to modify existing plans and permits, increased aerial and ground information collection activities to allow for aggressive and jointly developed mountain pine beetle management plans, accelerated road construction to improve access to green attack stands and stands most at risk of beetle attack, and an enhanced program aimed at reducing mountain pine beetle populations, not just salvaging damaged wood.

J. Wilson: I've pretty well run my course here, but I would like to just point out one fact about the plywood

[ Page 15375 ]

industry and pine. They've been making pine plywood for, I don't know, probably 20 or 30 years now. I know any pine tree that will make a peeler log can be shipped for peeler wood; that's been ongoing. They do use it, and they use it extensively. To buy fir plywood today is harder than it is to buy anything else, because it's a select product now that we are into pine plywood production. That's just to bring the minister up to speed so that he does understand that it is used extensively.

[1535]

One of the problems the minister may be unaware of that I have encountered with the ministry working on this problem . . . . I've had several contractors who've got a small business sale, and they're out there. They've got their equipment in the bush, and they may see that the attack has moved from where they're working into the . . . . They've riven it out, but in the meantime, it may have expanded to include another little zone around that. It might be 100 trees, 200 trees -- whatever. They're there; they're harvesting what they've riven out, and the ministry staff comes in.

They say: "Well, would you like us to go and take these few trees out just on the other side of the line? If you want us to, we can rive them, because they're now green attacks, and if we don't do it now, it's just going to spread."

In almost every case they have been told that: "No, you don't need to do that. We can re-do this sale, or we can set up another sale and you can come back at a later time." And in many cases, it's four to six months before you come back. Those bugs have gotten into the trees; they've killed those trees. Depending on the time of year, it could be another year down the road before you come back to harvest them, and by then they're red and they've gone on.

So what you're doing out there is not working, and I think it's time you took a real hard look at it and made some quick decisions. The time to study this is over; it's past. We don't have time. We don't have the luxury any longer to study this problem and watch it escalate to the point where in ten years we will not have a forest industry left in the interior of British Columbia, when it comes to pine trees and mature stands of pine timber there. It's got to be dealt with; it's got to be dealt with immediately, fast. The decisions have to be made -- not studied and made next year or the year after.

Hon. J. Doyle: I don't think we are studying it. If you ask the industry, by and large, they agree that we are working well on this problem together. It's not perfect, I'm sure -- the way we're working on it. But we're doing our best and are pretty well in agreement between the industry and the ministry that we're working well to address -- I agree with you -- a very serious problem in our province.

G. Abbott: I pretty well want to wrap up the discussion of the forest health issues here. We may revisit the important concern, I think, that my colleague from Cariboo North has raised around the empowerment of ministry officials to deal with on-the-ground problems as they appear. But I think we can come back to that, and the minister can perhaps prepare himself for that when we get to the salvage issues or, possibly, to the small business forest enterprise program, which come a little bit later here.

In terms of closing this off, we've talked about the number of hectares that are currently affected -- 195,000. My recollection from previous debate is that we do not have comparable figures for '98 and '99. Is that correct?

Hon. J. Doyle: We don't have any numbers here other than the 195,000 hectares that we're speaking about.

G. Abbott: The other figures I want to get are . . . . The minister has noted that for the fiscal year 2000-2001, $10 million has been allocated for forest health issues. For '99-2000, we of course recently approved the special warrants for $7 million for that fiscal year. What are the comparable figures for 1998-99 and 1997-98?

Hon. J. Doyle: I don't have the two years that you're asking for, but I promise to get you those numbers, hon. member.

G. Abbott: I look forward to that. I think part of the problem with the way in which this particular problem, the mountain pine beetle, has grown is that for a period of time -- and I would point particularly to the years '97, '98 and '99 -- the responsibility for this was, in large measure, off-loaded onto Forest Renewal B.C. I don't believe that the Ministry of Forests was able to give it the attention that it needed during those critical years. But that, I guess, is a debate for the historians. We don't have the figures for those years right now. Perhaps they'll rush in the door now that I've put forward the controversial thesis that there was an off-load that had an impact here.

I'll leave that aside for now, and if the minister does get the figure and he wants to challenge that thesis about the FRBC off-load, we can perhaps do it at some later point when we have all of the information that we'd need to have an informed debate around that.

[1540]

I'd like to move on to roads and bridges, if I could. I know that one of my colleagues has some questions on this. We've had some discussion of this earlier as we were looking at the ministry's business plan, so I don't propose to spend a lot of time here. Could the minister just . . . ? I'll give him all the questions here, and he can take a few moments to consult with ministry officials -- whatever it takes.

This is essentially the information I need to know: the allocation for roads for 2000-2001 and the allocation for bridges. Then I would like to have a breakdown, on the road side, between funds for maintenance and funds for new roads. Similarly, I would like a number for maintenance of bridges and a number for replacement or for new bridges. So if the minister could take a few moments and provide me with that, then I'll invite my colleague to . . . .

Hon. J. Doyle: For roads for this year, maintenance on roads is $7 million. For bridges, we have $10 million for maintenance on existing bridges. New bridges and new roads are paid through a development cost on stumpage working with the companies.

G. Abbott: I'll invite my colleague from North Vancouver-Seymour to pose his questions.

D. Jarvis: I just want to ask the minister a couple of questions in regards to road deactivation, if you wouldn't mind. As you can appreciate, there are a lot of people out there who feel that this action of the government is not held in that high esteem in some areas. I want to know if the purpose

[ Page 15376 ]

of the deactivation has been changed at all, or if the intention of the ministry is to change it somewhat from what it has been in the past.

Hon. J. Doyle: There has been no change in the policy of the ministry regarding road deactivation. At the same time, of course, roads that are main arteries are left, by and large. Roads that go out to a specific stand of trees -- by and large, if those roads are deactivated and replanted, it does help once you get back to how much land there is for growing trees around the province.

[1545]

D. Jarvis: Sometimes it's hard to appreciate what the purpose of this is, in the sense that it certainly is affecting even salvaging out in the woods for blowdowns and all the rest. They're going to have to come in and rebuild those roads. We're talking about mining -- the question of disrupting staking that's going on in those areas. This is not just something I said by myself. I have reports of this coming in all the time -- wondering how this is going to affect forestry operations in the future as far as firefighting goes, having to rebuild roads.

It is certainly going to impair what has been going on for the last one hundred years in this province with regards to hunting and fishing and recreation, because those roads are . . . .

Is there not some way that they could have put in either water dams or culverts to compensate for the fact that . . . just ripping up a road?

Hon. J. Doyle: Across the province -- your constituency and maybe people that you're speaking for, hon. member -- there's always a balance between those who want the road deactivated and put back into forestry . . . . Of course, there are many, many people -- either for recreation or for business, like mining or others -- who want the road to stay in. The policy of the ministry is: leave the main artery and consult as much as possible with some of the other user groups that you mentioned or that I would think of in my constituency as to whether the road should or shouldn't be deactivated.

You make some reference to firefighting. By and large, pretty well 100 percent of the firefighting in the province is done by helicopter -- or from the air.

D. Jarvis: I appreciate that most of the firefighting is done from the air, but I was also talking about the log-salvaging end of it and going in to look after blowdowns and things like that that make it a more healthy forest.

Also, in the last statement you made, sir, I question the part about cooperation between your ministry and other ministries. I know for a fact -- and I'm going to take it up again this year with the ministry that looks after mining -- that there was no consultation whatsoever. I would get calls, as the mining critic, from people out there that had all their staking torn up as a result of the deactivation. Then I'd phone the mining ministry, and they'd say: "Well, we'll talk to them, because we knew nothing about it." The next thing you know they'd say: "We can't do anything about it; they're the top dogs in the province at the moment."

That's what I was leading to when I asked: is there any change in the purpose of what your intention is with regard to really cooperating with, say, the mining industry and other people that actually do need it? There's an economic value to this province with recreation, hunting, fishing and mining. It would be interesting to know just what the costs are with regard to the actual deactivation versus the impairment to the other economical values of the province that used to be here because we had roads that we could go on throughout the province.

Half this province was staked, in the mining end of it -- and exploration of this province -- through roads that were already paid for by taxpayers in this province. Now you're proceeding to destroy all these subroads throughout this province and impair the recreation and exploration of this province.

Hon. J. Doyle: It is the policy of the ministry that before we deactivate roads, we do our best to consult with users or potential users out there. At the present time there is an ongoing look, between the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Mines, at the very questions that you asked: does the Ministry of Mines have any interest out there today -- or do they think they will have tomorrow -- on a road that Forests deactivated?

[1550]

G. Abbott: I do want to echo the sentiments of my colleague. The minister's right about trying to strike the balance; that's certainly the case. But the issue is one that certainly I hear about, and I know the mining critic hears a lot more about it than I do. Where there is not an obvious case where there is a potential looming liability or an issue like that, I'm hoping that the two ministries will start to work much more closely together around deactivation issues. It does seem to be an issue that regularly rears its head. I guess it's another example . . . .

We have, in many locations in the province, not only the forest resource but mineral resources as well. Somehow we have to develop systems to make sure that those two resources are managed compatibly.

The minister noted, in response to my earlier question, that the $17 million that is in this year's budget was for the maintenance of roads and bridges. Did I understand the minister correctly that new Forest Service roads and Forest Service bridges are now going to be paid for through a stumpage allocation negotiated with the industry? Did I hear that correctly?

Hon. J. Doyle: In new areas of the province that industry wants to get into, that's always been part of the policy -- that was paid back through stumpage or a development charge. The company would work with the ministry to pay for that new structure or new road.

G. Abbott: I was certainly aware of that. I guess the question I'm trying to get a grip on here is . . . . Presumably, every year there is some addition to what is legally termed "Forest Service road," on which there may be any indeterminate number of Forest Service bridges. That's the particular area I'm canvassing here. When we're going into new areas and the road is going to become a Forest Service road, the ministry's position is now that any new road -- any extension to the Forest Service road network and the bridges contained within it -- is going to be the subject of payment by a negotiated stumpage amount.

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as major tenure holders, there's no new policy in place. What has been in place for some years is

[ Page 15377 ]

still in place. The only people, as the member knows and I'm sure will agree with me, that the ministry does build roads for is small business sales.

G. Abbott: Does the minister have an anticipated figure around what dollar cost there would be through the stumpage system for the development of new roads in 2000-2001? And is there an estimated cost to those roads through that period, or is it something you simply add up at the end of the year?

Hon. J. Doyle: I don't have that number with me. Bill Howard, who was here on Thursday, I think it was, would have that number. But I will get that number to the member.

G. Abbott: We'll move on, then, in the absence of those figures.

The next item on the list is forest recreation. We canvassed that fairly extensively when we were looking at the business plan.

I now have the one newspaper

article that was briefly referred to in our previous discussion, rather than just a

summary of it. It talks about forestry staff being given power to ticket campers. My understanding from the discussion we had earlier in these estimates was that while the power may be extended to ministry officials through regulation, it was the intention of the ministry not to introduce ticketing in 2000-2001 but, where it's necessary, to either receive payment or give an order to vacate. Is that correct?

[1555]

Hon. J. Doyle: That is correct. The policy at the present time is that the officer or someone representing the Ministry of Forests would speak to the person who is camping and ask them to pay the fee. If they don't, we would ask them to vacate the camping spot.

G. Abbott: So the staff will have the ticketing power, but it will not be used. Instead, an attempt would be made to see the site vacated. Again, the minister can correct me if there's anything wrong in that

summary.

The other point that I thought should be noted from the

article is a quote from the ministry official involved, who is the recreation forester for the Kamloops forest region. He says: "We're doing the best we can to get staff in the field, particularly on weekends and long weekends." Again, the thing that concerns me . . . .

When we talked about the cost to the ministry in relation to the revenues which the ministry receives through the $27 annual fee or the somewhat smaller nightly fee, the minister indicated that, generally, staff weren't being specifically dispatched to go out and collect fees from Forest Service sites. Rather, when they were in the area, they would attempt to collect the fees and check on the sites and so on. And I'm sure that's true.

The concern I have here is that there is a suggestion that we're going to be getting forestry staff into the field on weekends and long weekends to try to deal with the use of Forest Service sites at that time. I think the minister can probably anticipate my question. We're probably looking at some considerable overtime if, as a strategy, we're going to be sending Ministry of Forests officials out on those long weekends to somehow try to come to grips with campers in the approximately 1,300 Forest Service campsites in the province. What can the minister say in response to that issue?

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as long weekends or other weekends throughout the year, when forestry campsites are being used by the general public, the ministry has always tried to have staff out there. If it was a busy weekend, there might be reason to go out just to see what's happening or if there's been any damage or any noisy parties disturbing other campers. By and large, in a season like that, we do try to reschedule that ministry person so they have another day or two off during the week.

G. Abbott: I don't actually want to minimize the challenge that faces the ministry around managing those 1,300 sites, although, you know, I think that probably the great majority of the 1,300 sites are remote enough that there aren't a lot of problems. But certainly there's a significant percentage of the Forest Service campsites that are close enough to civilization, if we can call it that, that we get all the social problems around rowdiness and so on that occur in those sites. I guess it goes back to: how are we going to manage these sites? I offered the minister my, hopefully, constructive comments on this earlier in our debates, and again we can perhaps just talk about it for a moment.

[1600]

If we are going to have fairly substantial recreation sites that contain a lot of sites are quite close to civilization and are heavily used on weekends, and we encounter all these problems, it seems to me that we are almost to the stage where the Ministry of Forests might want to look at a system of contractors to maintain them on an ongoing basis, rather than engaging ministry personnel to go out on their long weekends when they should, I think, be enjoying some time off and, further, are probably being paid at some considerable expense in overtime to manage that. Perhaps that's another suggestion that I'm putting forward, and I'll invite the minister's comments with respect to it.

Hon. J. Doyle: In the many, many sites we have across the province, there are 31 enhanced sites, and we have been using contractors on those sites to take care of costs that the member mentioned. But I would mention again that for any officers of the ministry that do work, we do try to reschedule their shifts so that Saturday, Sunday or whatever days you were speaking about are regular working days.

G. Abbott: Unless any of my colleagues have questions with respect to . . . . My colleague has a question or two with respect to forest recreation.

I just want to advise the minister, because I know this will require a change of staff: we're moving on to fire protection next. So just alert the staff that they can probably move in, and then we'll be ready to go straight away when we get to that.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

I. Chong: I just would like to ask the minister, very briefly, for what his ministry or staff have been doing in working towards an area of forest recreation -- that is, many of the tourism opportunities that are occurring in the forest. Many businesses which are, in fact, established and heavily dependent on forest opportunities -- the visual viewscapes, etc. -- have indicated that there have been some forest policies in place whereby they're causing some . . . .

This is difficult, I guess, in these forest tourism businesses. It has to do with a lack of communication, perhaps,

[ Page 15378 ]

with the officials involved who don't advise these lodges and these resorts as to the future prospects of the areas, whether we're talking about possible cuttings of timber or perhaps even roadbuilding -- things like that. Those all affect these forest tourism-dependent jobs and business opportunities. My concern is not so much the ministry having the authority to do these things, but the ministry staff not communicating with the Small Business, Tourism and Culture ministry staff as to what the long-term goals or long-range plans are here.

If the minister could just advise what interministerial discussions are ongoing in that nature to protect forest tourism opportunities, I would be most appreciative to hear it.

Hon. J. Doyle: The member has a good question, as they're both very, very important parts of our economy. Forestry, of course -- and through it, tourism -- has been and has continued to grow to be a very, very important part of our economy. When licensees start harvesting in an area that is close to a recreational site, we advise them to try their best to work with recreational activity in that area, so that little cars and big truck are not trying to use the same bit of road, which may be narrow in some cases.

G. Abbott: I'd like to move on to the fire protection

section now. I think there has been a change of leadership at the protection branch in the past year. Perhaps the minister would care to introduce the new director and advise, for the record, whether the general strategy or the ministry's plan with respect to the management of fire protection has changed in the past year.

[1605]

Hon. J. Doyle: The person to my right is the person you are referring to: Gary Hartwig. As far as additional equipment that we have hired -- what we have added to his department -- we have added one new air tanker to that department.

G. Abbott: The business plan makes a few notes about fire protection in the past year. Generally speaking, in the summer of 1999 the natural situation was better, in terms of the heat, the drought and so on. My understanding is that, as a consequence, the damage from forest fires was far less considerable in '99 than in '98, when of course there were the huge fires at Salmon Arm and near Kamloops.

In the interval between the summer of 1998 -- when we had quite catastrophic conditions -- and the summer of '99 and the pending summer of 2000, what, if anything, has changed around the ministry's strategy for managing fire protection?

Hon. J. Doyle: If the member is referring to the ombudsman's report on the fire in Salmon Arm or other activity in the province, there were 20 recommendations from that report. Eighteen have been put in place, and there's two that staff continue to work on -- if that's where the member was going.

G. Abbott: That is correct; that's pretty much where I'm going. Perhaps the broader issues around whether fire management strategies are the same in 2000 as they were in 1998 will become clear in this discussion of the recommendations that were put forward by the ombudsman in "The Silver Creek Fire Review." I don't propose to go through all of them. But a few were identified by the previous minister as issues which he, as Minister of Forests, acknowledged had substance and which he indicated the ministry would be attempting to make some adjustments to accommodate. I'll run through a few of them.

One, on page 48 of "The Silver Creek Fire Review," talks about the communications system. The ombudsman notes: "These communications problems are a real concern and should be acknowledged and addressed by the MOF. The ombudsman finds, therefore, that the communication that was in place to fight this fire appears to have been inadequate." He's making reference there particularly to the communications system that existed in the valley around Silver Creek. From the ministry's perspective, have those communications issues been resolved?

Hon. J. Doyle: The recommendations that the member refers to have been taken care of.

G. Abbott: The second issue that I want to pursue -- again, in terms of recommendation -- is from page 51 of the report. It relates to the failure to designate an air operations boss during the early days of the fire. The ombudsman notes on page 51: "The Silver Creek fire started on July 29. On August 13 the need for an air boss had still not, it appears, been adequately addressed." He goes on to say: "Given the incredible strain on resources over the course of this busy fire season, we do not doubt that the MOF was doing its best to fill this position.

Nevertheless, the early requests for a designated air boss do not appear to have been filled. This deficiency must be addressed to ensure that the air operations boss is in place when requested and required."

[1610]

The former minister noted that they had some concerns with that recommendation, but they were going to be looking at it as well. It may be that in every season, there is a different recipe that's required on the part of the protection branch to deal with the situation. Again, we can talk about '98 and '99 as good comparisons. In '98 there had been an extended drought through much of the interior of the province -- perhaps on the coast as well. The forests were tinder-dry, and the possibilities of the kind of situation that did arise through lightning or otherwise were, I think, reasonably apparent.

It was a different set of circumstances in '99, where we didn't have the extended drought -- more precipitation and not the desperate situation.

Obviously 1998's not going to be the last time that we ever see the combination of circumstances that we had in '98. What has the ministry done to prepare itself around ensuring that the concern raised by the ombudsman doesn't occur again?

Hon. J. Doyle: Action taken by the Ministry of Forests . . . . I'll just read from the document that is in place for all ministry staff that are dealing with fire action: "Protection program will continue to designate air branch directors" -- air bosses that were referred to by the member -- "to large fires and as well shall continue to put air branch directors and air support tactical group supervisors on standby when fire occurrence predictions indicate major fire activity."

G. Abbott: That sounds like a reasonable way to manage that situation.

There are a couple of other issues. One, the ombudsman had considerable discussion . . . . Here we're on pages 54 to 56.

[ Page 15379 ]

The ombudsman had a fair amount of discussion around the width of fire guard that would be appropriate. He notes here, for example:

"The ombudsman does not have the expertise to determine what the ideal size of the fire guards ought to have been for the Silver Creek fire. As can be seen from the excerpt set out above, there are general guidelines for determining fire guard width. The actual widths will depend on a myriad of factors. The ombudsman is satisfied, however, that this is obviously an important issue that needed to be raised in this report. After considering the pertinent material, the MOF should develop guidelines on determining fire guard width."

Further in the discussion, I raised the issue of whether there was anything in the Forest Practices Code, or indeed any other statute of the province of British Columbia, which limited the exercising of discretion of firefighting officials as they attempted to determine what guard size would be appropriate in every instance. I'll invite the minister to note whether this particular issue -- and I think it's an important issue raised by the ombudsman -- has produced any change with respect to the management of fires by the ministry.

[1615]

Hon. J. Doyle: I'll just read from the reply of the ministry to the recommendations of this report:

"Fire guard width is a function of several geographic" -- just where we are in the province -- "fuel, fire behaviour and control variables. Fire guards and their uses are covered in training material used in British Columbia in many other agencies. We will continue to use this training material and incorporate the tables suggested in the report. It should be noted that the type of widths of fire guards used in British Columbia are those used all across Canada and around the world."

G. Abbott: Just so I'm absolutely clear on this point: when the ministry gets into an emergency situation as it did in, say, Silver Creek in 1998, there is nothing in statute, whether it's the Forest Practices Code or other statute, that limits or fetters the authority of the fire bosses to say: "No, we've got a crisis situation here. We've got weather coming in that could cause the fire to blow across the line at its current width." There is nothing that would fetter the authority or the ability of a fire marshal or the fire boss to make adjustments to that. Is that correct?

Hon. J. Doyle: It is at the discretion of the fire boss as to whether he or she feels there should be some variables as to the width of this fire guard. It's at the discretion of the person right there on site.

G. Abbott: I'm understanding from that, that there is no statutory provision that stands in the way of the exercise of authority by ministry personnel in that instance.

I'd like to move on to page 58, then, in which the ombudsman titled the issue "Central Control of Operations v. Local Decision-Making." He notes, for example: "While the ombudsman is satisfied of the importance of a central organization for resource allocation, there appears to be a need for discussions to take place with a view to ascertaining whether the system requires improvement. These discussions are occurring."

That was around an issue which certainly I heard some things about in the wake of the fire in Salmon Arm. That was, how the energies of the district staff were being incorporated into the overall firefighting effort that was being coordinated by the fire protection branch. I don't know what's been done in the interim between the fire of 1998 and today around how those local energies would be incorporated into a major centralized firefighting effort such as we'd have on a very substantial blaze like the Silver Creek fire. The minister noted that discussions were occurring. What has been the product of those discussions?

Hon. J. Doyle: The air boss in the place can take local people and bring them under his command to reply, to work, on any incident that may arise. I'll just read about action taken by the ministry on the report that you're quoting from, hon. member. "For the long-term, fire centres will usually be able to cover the logistics support function for this incident. In some cases, however, depending on workload, the function will be transferred either to the incident command team or by establishment of an area command organization. In this situation, the logistics will be handled at site, and local resources will be sourced directly."

[1620]

G. Abbott: The other issue raised on page 58, and then a variant of it on page 59, are recommendations 9 and 13. Recommendation 9 reads: "The ombudsman is satisfied that safety concerns prevented the use of heavy equipment and ground crews at night during the early stages of this fire. The ombudsman also finds that early start times were ordered by the overhead team prior to August 5, but not necessarily implemented effectively."

Recommendation 13 around the use of heavy equipment: "The ombudsman is of the opinion that the current preorganization system for the deployment of heavy equipment can be improved. The ombudsman endorses the recommendation of the Garnet fire review that the MOF revisit its policies and procedures used to identify and qualify manpower and equipment resources that can be hired locally to fight fires."

Certainly one of the most prominent criticisms in the wake of the Silver Creek fire was whether local heavy equipment resources had been used effectively. Indeed, there is obviously some question in the mind of the ombudsman on that point. What has been done by the ministry to deal with that in the past year and a half?

Hon. J. Doyle: We have taken steps to make sure that the person in command locally, on the site, can determine start times as to the needs of the situation in the field.

G. Abbott: The next question on a recommendation . . . . I guess this goes back a little bit to the question my hon. colleague raised about deactivation of logging roads. Again, I'll quote recommendation 14: " . . . the MOF should revisit its policy in relation to the deactivation of main logging roads in areas designated as extreme fire hazard to ensure that these roads are readily accessible for any future firefighting efforts." Is that a recommendation the ministry has embraced in terms of maintaining that access unless there is some compelling issue to require that a road be deactivated?

Hon. J. Doyle: Out of the 20 recommendations referred to earlier, 18 were completed. There are two that we're working on. This is one of the two that we're continuing to work

[ Page 15380 ]

on, because there is a balance, as the member would understand, as to just which roads should be deactivated and which ones shouldn't be.

G. Abbott: Is the ministry, as it reviews that . . . ? I'm presuming that the 18 have been embraced and completed. I'm presuming that the two that haven't been have not been completed because the ministry rejects the premise around which they are advanced by the ombudsman. Is that correct?

Hon. J. Doyle: No, the ministry is not rejecting the two that are still under discussion. We're just still continuing to work on them. They're just not as easily solved as every one of us would like. We continue to work on them.

G. Abbott: I'm presuming that either a ministry official or a group or committee of ministry officials is looking at the deactivation of roads question in relation to the possible use of logging roads in firefighting. Are they also at the same time looking at some of the questions around accessing mineral and other resources, as the member for North Vancouver-Seymour put forward?

[1625]

Hon. J. Doyle: This is an ongoing issue that really, at the end of the day, has to be addressed road by road as to the feeling of the community and people that the ministry may consult with. When I spoke to the hon. member that you mentioned, the mining critic, some time ago, he said there was communication going on between the Ministry of Mines and the Ministry of Forests as to claims that they may be working on today and want to work on tomorrow as far as deactivating or not deactivating a road.

G. Abbott: How does the minister anticipate that final conclusions about this deactivation issue will be completed? Will there be at some point a report from the ministry around what roads need to be maintained for potential firefighting purposes? How will a policy adjustment, as appears to be required, be made here?

Hon. J. Doyle: We are continuing to work with other ministries, as I mentioned earlier. At the end of the day a policy will be put in place as to how we'll deal with activating or deactivating roads.

G. Abbott: The other point and recommendation on page 61: "The MOF keep the general public reasonably informed of decisions made regarding tactics or problems that arise when the public is voicing concerns. For example, the ombudsman believes that the public should have been provided with an explanation for the reduced air activity on July 31, August 1 and August 2."

The issue of what kind of air response there was at that particularly critical juncture was, of course, something that prompted all kinds of speculation and rumour in the public at that point in time. This was probably quite an unusual situation for the ministry. Certainly it was an unusual situation as far as I was concerned, where we had a fire that was within the sight of a population of about 15,000. We tended to have a fair number of those 15,000 doing a bit of armchair-quarterbacking on how it should be managed.

I think the ombudsman rightly points out that in those kind of situations . . . . Hopefully, we don't have too many severe interface fires like Silver Creek, but odds are that we will. What's the ministry doing or proposing to do to meet this recommendation of the ombudsman?

Hon. J. Doyle: Following up on the questions, the response from the ministry . . . . We will take steps to improve the information we provide to the public. We're adding detail to the fire information teams and public information officers. It contains more detail regarding fire suppression strategies and how different resources are used. The July 31-August 1 and 2 weekend that the member asked about . . . . In response: "A reduction in the air activity at certain times during this fire occurred to allow ground crews access to the fire lines to continue control action." We will address this recommendation in conjunction with action recommendations.

G. Abbott: Could the minister identify the second of the 20 recommendations that the ministry has been unable to put in place?

[1630]

Hon. J. Doyle: The other recommendation was recommendation 13, to do with heavy equipment, and we're still working on that recommendation.

G. Abbott: We've discussed recommendation 13, so I wish the ministry well in coming to grips with that. Again, that certainly was one of the areas where I fielded a lot of concerned calls about how effectively that equipment had been utilized and deployed and so on during the firefight in that case.

Before I leave the issue of fire protection, I do want to say that I want to give the district staff in Salmon Arm a pat on the back for, I think, an exceptional job of following up on the broad range of issues that develop after a very large fire has occurred immediately adjacent to a substantial urban area. I think they have done an exceptional job of dealing with those difficult issues -- from the possibility of landslides, to issues around the insect infestations that can follow and the kind of damage that occurs when fires happen.

I do want to pass along to the minister my view that district staff have done an exceptional job there. Certainly that job is not going to be complete for a while, but I think they've done a very good job, an exceptional job, and I want to recognize that to the minister.

Hon. J. Doyle: I will pass that on to staff, and I agree: those individuals in that area or at any fire in the province do put in the extra mile and are always there. At the end of the day they live in those communities, they live in this province, and they went to school a long time -- many of them to university and college -- to become foresters. They're good citizens. And I agree; they did a very, very good job during this very difficult time, with the fire so close to a community and concerns about individuals and/or property.

G. Abbott: I want to move on now to the small business forest enterprise program, and I'm presuming that may require a change of staff. Does the minister want to take a couple of minutes to do that, or would he like to proceed straight away?

Hon. J. Doyle: Maybe if we could have a two-minute break just while the appropriate staff come in, and maybe we have to make a visit to some other room in this building.

[ Page 15381 ]

The Chair: We'll take a recess, then, for just two minutes, if you're in favour.

The committee recessed from 4:34 p.m. to 4:37 p.m.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

G. Abbott: I want to ask the minister just a few questions around the small business forest enterprise program. I'll refer him initially to page 153 of the estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2001. According to the estimates, the investment in silviculture in 2000-2001 appears to be a reduction of about $9.6 million, or 23 percent, from the previous fiscal year. Is that correct?

Hon. J. Doyle: Silviculture costs vary according to just what is needed in that year. The estimate was $41 million, and actually it was $31 million that was invested.

G. Abbott: Is the reduction in the two years in any way attributable to increased responsibility on the part of FRBC for delivering that?

Hon. J. Doyle: No.

G. Abbott: The estimates, on page 153, refer to an expenditure of $39.2 million on roads. Now, we've just had a discussion about roads, earlier in these estimates. How does the ministry go about sorting out with the industry what portion of responsibility for maintenance, or indeed for the creation of new roads, should be carried by the small business program, as opposed to being carried by the industry through the stumpage allocation?

[1640]

Hon. J. Doyle: In some cases we do share with the person that gets a sale; if we do, then we share in the development cost of that. In some cases there are roads already there, very, very close by. So it's just according to the situation in different parts of the province as to whether the road is built already or roads have to be built.

G. Abbott: In arriving at the figure of $39.2 million for roads under the small business forest enterprise program, are there some assumptions made in developing that figure that there would be some negotiation with the industry around when the program should appropriately carry it and when the industry should appropriately carry it? Obviously the $39.2 million is a projection. Is it based on the assumption that there will be ongoing negotiations between the industry and the program around division of responsibility -- or, more precisely, division of cost?

Hon. J. Doyle: The $39.2 million reflects the actual cost of getting out to develop that wood. To the best of our ability, the $39.2 million are the dollars that we had to spend to access the wood.

G. Abbott: Further down on page 153, again in the budget for the program, there is an allocation of $14.5 million for what's termed "Disbursements -- other." Given that that's a fairly substantial figure, could the minister provide me with an accounting for that $14.5 million?

Hon. J. Doyle: On the $14.5 million that the member asked about, the ministry has gone to a new budget system. That reflects the capital accrual for building roads and other expenditures that are needed.

G. Abbott: Perhaps given that we have a $39.2 million expense for roads, I'm just puzzled how that becomes a "Disbursements -- other" under this budget.

[1645]

Hon. J. Doyle: The $14.5 million is for roads that the ministry has already built and that we're using again to access wood.

G. Abbott: I want to turn to a little broader question around the small business program, and that is its degree of success in serving the client group or the stakeholder group which the program was initially and presumably is still designed for. That, of course, is small business. The smaller producer, perhaps a remanufacturing or value-added operation where the company in question doesn't have an annual allowable cut that they can access, has to survive either by making wood purchases on the open market or by accessing small business sales.

I've had the pleasure of visiting a number of them over the past years. Delta-Cedar Products in Delta, for example, is a good example of that. Without having an ongoing timber licence, they have actually developed quite a remarkable business, where they have a range of products from primary right up to the highest-end value-added products.

Of course, lots of these smaller companies -- I mean, smaller in relation to major licensees in the province -- are very concerned about the ongoing availability of wood for them through the small business program. What steps -- and the minister can take some time and discuss this with staff -- does the ministry take to ensure that in fact the small business program serves the client group or the stakeholder group for whom this program was designed?

Hon. J. Doyle: The small business program is a very, very important part of the economy of our province, especially the value-added sector. Presently 13 percent of the tenure in the whole province is in the small business program -- something that the former minister initiated, and I continue. I actually had a meeting some weeks ago with the value-added sector. They come down here once every quarter. We have a discussion. They meet with the minister; they meet with ministry staff and try to work out any problems that either party has as far as delivering wood to this very important and growing part of our economy.

G. Abbott: One of the concerns that one frequently hears -- and I think that the minister would be in a far better position to evaluate this than I would -- is that, through one means or another, some of the larger companies are in fact able to take over small business sales. As a consequence, the small business group that would like to access it is frozen out.

Again -- and the minister has more or less restated the premise I have about that -- what, if anything, is the strategy of the small business forest enterprise program in dealing with that particular issue?

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as the safeguard to make sure that the smaller companies, which might be one or two people or

[ Page 15382 ]

maybe larger . . . . I'm sure that there is wood available for them. The majors are not allowed to bid on these sales.

[1650]

G. Abbott: Whether that in fact keeps them out of the back door is obviously the object of considerable debate within the industry and one that will undoubtedly go on for some time to come.

In terms of the small business sales volumes . . . . Again, one of the concerns that is raised forcefully to me is that over time -- and perhaps this is a reflection of the initiative, which we discussed the other day, of the small business program attempting to address the accumulated undercut, and perhaps this is a product of this . . . . The concern is essentially that the small business sales volumes have been getting larger and larger -- in some cases up to 70,000 cubic metres. So they are substantial indeed.

Is that in fact the case from the minister's perspective -- that there are more of these larger sales going out through the small business program than would have been the case say a year or two or five years ago?

Hon. J. Doyle: There has been. The proportion of larger sales has increased as we've been trying to get rid of the undercut or undersales that we've had in the past just to get caught up in that.

G. Abbott: Has the uptake on those larger sales been encouraging from the program's perspective?

Hon. J. Doyle: All the sales have sold.

G. Abbott: I think those pretty much are my questions at this point on the small business program -- unless the minister now has the information, which he didn't have a day or two ago, about how the reduction in the accumulated undercut was going. Again, the core of the matter is this: the program is hoping to address 2.1 million cubic metres of the accumulated undercut in the current fiscal year. My understanding was that that would leave probably somewhere between seven million and eight million cubic metres of accumulated undercut from the past few years remaining to be dealt with.

The minister didn't have an answer to that question when I asked it a couple of days ago. Is that figure available to the minister now?

Hon. J. Doyle: The overall target for this year is 2.1 million cubic metres. Last year, 1999-2000, it was 600,000 cubic metres.

G. Abbott: I'd like to move on now to the Forest Practices Board, if I could. Hopefully you have appropriate staff here to answer the questions that I have on that.

[1655]

The first question that I have relates to a submission that was made to the public hearing on the possibility of a land transfer to MacMillan Bloedel -- now, of course, Weyerhaeuser -- surrounding compensation for the lands and cutting rights expropriated for parks purposes by the province. I was surprised -- and perhaps the ministry was surprised as well -- that the Forest Practices Board chair of the day made some comment to the Forest Practices Board with respect to whether that change should occur.

Does the minister see that as an appropriate expression of the board's authority -- to be commenting on an issue such as compensation for park creation?

Hon. J. Doyle: With respect to the M&B-Weyerhaeuser transfer, the Forest Practices Board has a fairly wide mandate, so I'd assume, from that point of view -- as far as the wide mandate that they have -- that that's why the chair commented on this.

G. Abbott: Does the minister see such commentary as being within the statutory authority of the Forest Practices Board?

Hon. J. Doyle: To the degree that it impacts on the Forest Practices Code, I would say that the chair had the right to make his comments.

G. Abbott: It's my reading of what the chair said that it may have gone beyond simple reference to the code. But I guess, again, perhaps that's a debatable proposition, and I don't intend to pursue that further.

More importantly perhaps, in December 1999 the Forest Practices Board released an audit of the government of British Columbia's framework for enforcement of the Forest Practices Code. Indeed, on January 11 of the present year, they issued a news release around this issue, entitled "Ministries Need to Coordinate in Enforcing the Forest Practices Code." The news release says a number of things, the most important of which is: "The current framework may not achieve what government has intended."

The ministry has had a few months now to consider the recommendations and the report that was put before them by the Forest Practices Board. Is the ministry prepared, at this point, to comment on what its view is with respect to the report from the Forest Practices Board?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry hasn't yet completed evaluation of the report we received, I think you said, back in January 11 of this year -- is that right? But one thing I can say on recommendations, is that a lot of valuable experience and learning has been gained. It is now an appropriate time to evaluate and adjust the way enforcement of the code is carried out.

G. Abbott: We've had some discussion of the code previously in estimates, so I don't think we need to spend an enormous amount of time on this. But I think some of the points that have been made by the Forest Practices Board are ones which we really need to take seriously, particularly in conjunction with some of the concerns raised previously in these estimates around the code and its enforcement.

[1700]

Let me just quote from the second paragraph of the news release of January 11, which summarizes the board's findings: "Government does not have a clear strategic framework for code enforcement in place. Policy is incomplete, enforcement approaches are inconsistent across forest districts, and the ministries have not developed measures to evaluate their progress and success in enforcing the code. In addition, there is little information provided to the public about enforcement of the code."

Now I think that's some pretty strong language from the Forest Practices Board about enforcement of the code in the

[ Page 15383 ]

province. How does the government propose to go about addressing what I see as very serious criticisms by the board of established practice?

Hon. J. Doyle: I met with the Forest Practices Board a couple of months ago -- I just can't remember. We must remember that the Forest Practices Board -- as the member knows, and he didn't state that they weren't -- is an independent board, and it's good that they are. There's always room for improvements, and I look forward to recommendations that they or anyone else makes. We don't always agree with all their recommendations; we don't always disagree. They make recommendations; sometimes we disagree with the recommendations.

The Ministry of Forests, for instance, has set up quality assurance to look at code efficiencies. The Minister of Environment is also looking at doing work. I think recommendations that are made by anyone in the province, including the Forest Practices Board . . . . Many, many times there's food for thought in those recommendations, and it's good that they're bringing them forth -- the board or other people.

G. Abbott: Further to that, the Forest Practices Board goes on to note: "The board's main concern is the lack of a coordinated approach to enforcement by the Ministries of Forests, Environment, Lands and Parks and Energy and Mines and the risk this creates that some code requirements are not properly enforced."

I think it's interesting to juxtapose this obvious criticism by the board with the discussion we had around the Gary Bull report, where we see that when we compare British Columbia to Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, the regulatory framework in all those other jurisdictions is far simpler than in British Columbia -- not to say the standards are any less, but rather the delivery is of a simplified, streamlined nature in relation to British Columbia. I'd like the minister to address that particular quote I just read with respect to the board's concern around the lack of a coordinated approach to enforcement by the ministries involved.

[1705]

Hon. J. Doyle: When the code was brought into place, there was a joint strategy between the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forests. I do feel -- and I agree with the member -- that there's always room for more work with ministries working together to make sure that the red tape is cut to the bare, bare minimum. There's always room for improvement.

G. Abbott: Again, I hope the minister can forgive me if we're back to some territory we've discussed before, but just so I'm clear, what is ongoing in terms of intraministerial and/or interministerial discussions around improving this situation? I think we referred to a committee of ADMs that were working on this previously, but presumably the government wants to come up with some definitive response to what's being expressed in this report by the Forest Practices Board. How's the province going to give effect to that?

Hon. J. Doyle: As we speak, each agency of government -- be it in the Ministry of Forests or Ministry of Environment, for instance -- is coming up with recommendations that would assist with the problem that's being discussed by the member now.

G. Abbott: In a subsequent paragraph, the board notes: "Finally, the board found that district forest managers have an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to enforcing the code in the ministry's small business forest enterprise program, because they are also responsible for managing the program." In the context of our discussion around the small business program, what does the government make of that?

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as the Forest Practices Board's recommendation regarding potential conflict that the district managers may have, the Forest Practices Board mentioned this, and the ministry has done its best to put safeguards in place. At the same time I'd have to say -- and I know that you weren't in any way attacking the district managers, hon. member -- that there was never any actual conflict found that any district manager had committed.

G. Abbott: I'll ask the minister to make reference to page 3 of the audit by the Forest Practices Board. There are a couple of points that need to be raised here, and I don't propose to spend a lot of time on it. Obviously the ministry is still studying this and is not prepared to bring forward a definitive response to it at this point. But the minister may wish to comment on a couple of points.

Under "Adequacy of the Code as a Legislative Framework for Enforcement,"

summary of the audit findings notes, for example: " . . . many of the persons interviewed, who are involved with enforcement, are critical of the code and do not think it is adequate when it comes to enforcement." Obviously there's some concern out there in the field about how this is all working out. In the short term, are there any actions planned by the ministry and/or government to deal with this apparent concern?

Hon. J. Doyle: It's the hope of the ministry that the quality assurance will address these programs. There is also ongoing training that hopefully would take care of the concerns that were raised by the Forest Practices Board.

[1710]

G. Abbott: When we discussed the broad future of the code and the way in which, in the future possibly, some savings might be achieved both for government and for industry, we talked about the possibility of third-party audits and certification becoming a way in which a results-based code could be achieved. Does the minister see that as consistent with what is being said here by the Forest Practices Board?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry believes that we have an adequate system in place. We believe that as we work through the code pilots and, of course, as we work towards certification, it will take care of concerns that have been raised by the Forest Practices Board in their recommendations.

G. Abbott: Again, on page 3 under the heading of "Interministry Coordination and Ministry Activities," the board makes a few comments. I'll just pick out a few of them here -- hopefully not cherry-picking. I'm just trying to get to the core of the concerns expressed by the board: "The three ministries have not coordinated enforcement efforts, as was originally intended by government."

Then it goes on to talk about the role of MELP and of Energy and Mines, and so on, in enforcement of the code. It

[ Page 15384 ]

notes on page 4: "The Ministry of Energy and Mines has effectively withdrawn from enforcement of the Forest Practices Code, but confusion over some responsibilities still exists." It goes on to talk in a little more detail about that. For example, where there are mining activities within access roads and power transmission line corridors, the Ministry of Energy and Mines views enforcement in those areas as a responsibility of Forests, while Forests views it as a responsibility of Energy and Mines. Have these kinds of issues been sorted out since the board issued their report, or are they still being sorted out?

Hon. J. Doyle: As the member knows, the Ministry of Forests is the leader on this. The Ministries of Mines and Environment have had to adjust their priorities as they work on this.

G. Abbott: But has the specific concern that is raised in this report -- between the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Ministry of Forests -- been resolved?

Hon. J. Doyle: On the second part of the question, we are working jointly with the ministries that were just mentioned: Forests, Environment, and Energy and Mines.

G. Abbott: So from that I would deduce that we are still in the process of sorting that issue out.

[1715]

Under the heading of "Executive Leadership," we also see some significant concerns raised. Again, I'll quote:

"The necessary control over field operations is not being exercised by management and is contributing to inconsistencies. A lack of effective direction from ministry executives has resulted in an assortment of different structures, policies and procedures in regions and districts, which contributes to inconsistent approaches to enforcement. The lack of effective direction and the lack of corporate objectives for enforcement means staff does not have the necessary guidance to develop consistent approaches to code enforcement."

I'd like the minister to address the primary concern that is contained in this particular passage, and that is the variance in structures, policies and procedures between different regions and districts across the province. Does the ministry agree that there is a problem, as set out by the board? And if f there is agreement that there is a problem, how is the ministry setting out to resolve it?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry is taking steps to ensure that . . . . Of course, each manager is an individual and maybe looks upon the code question differently than another one. But the ministry is taking steps to make sure that we do coordinate and that the same rules apply across the province.

G. Abbott: Just a final note here, from the audit. Again I'll quote: "Government has not established measures to monitor and assess its enforcement performance, which is necessary to guide improvements. The ministries are largely unable to assess the effectiveness of enforcement of the code because they have not set objectives or developed measures against which to assess performance." And then at the end of that paragraph it reads: "Government's performance measurement and accountability for code enforcement is largely absent." That passage is certainly around how the government has achieved or has attempted to achieve performance measures on the enforcement side.

Let me pose the question broadly enough here, so that perhaps we can wrap this all up in one package for the minister to come back with an answer for me. Obviously there's a criticism here about the absence of enforcement of performance measures. The minister may want to comment on that specifically, but I also want to invite the minister at this point in time -- because I've pretty much concluded my questions on the audit by the Forest Practices Board . . . . What's the time line that the minister envisages to bring about that definitive response of the ministry and/or government to the issues raised by this Forest Practices Board audit?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry has a draft response presently, and we hope to respond officially back to the board this month.

G. Abbott: If I understood the minister's response correctly, there is a draft response to the report of the Forest Practices Board that is presumably being circulated within government and between the responsible ministries. Is that draft response something that will be circulated to other stakeholders as well, or is it an intragovernmental document at this point?

[1720]

Hon. J. Doyle: The draft response we are referring to is intragovernmental.

G. Abbott: What does the minister think would be the approximate timing of the formal response? Obviously the draft's there now. And if it's going to be circulating for a month, is it reasonable to suppose that the government's formal response to this will be made public between one and two months from today?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry hopes to have its final response back to the board in early June 2000.

G. Abbott: The government's final response to the board will be in early June 2000. Does the ministry -- or govern- ment, more broadly -- propose to make that public at that time, or do they propose to make it public after the board has had an opportunity to consider it?

Hon. J. Doyle: As soon as the board gets it, it would only be fair to have the board take a look at it. But of course, as soon as it is out there we will make it public -- hopefully as soon as the board has had a courtesy look at it. But at the end of the day, it is FOI'd anyhow. So as soon as the FOI board has a look at it, it will be made public. That's the plan.

G. Abbott: That's all the questions I have with respect to the Forest Practices Board report. That would allow us to move on to aboriginal issues, unless the minister has anything he wishes to add with respect to the Forest Practices Board report.

Hon. J. Doyle: I feel that the Forest Practices Board does a very, very good job. It is important that we have an independent body that looks and sometimes says that many, many times we're doing things right; other times they feel we're not doing things right.

They do travel out there in the province when it's necessary. They meet on a very regular basis. The member, I know,

[ Page 15385 ]

knows many of the people who sit on that board. The time that they bring and the strength that they bring to this board are great. And they're to be commended for the work that they do -- the chair and all the members and staff with the Forest Practices Board.

G. Abbott: I do want to move on to aboriginal forestry issues again. We've had a considerable discussion of this particular area in the context of the Ministry of Forests business plan. We went through a number of parts of the ministry strategy with respect to that, so I think I can keep my questions to a minimum today for the balance of that discussion. There's a couple of things we need to talk about. Obviously we have been through, in the past 12 months since the last time we sat here for Forests estimates, a dynamic and challenging time with respect to the management of some issues in this area. Obviously I'm being very diplomatic in setting this out.

The first question I have is whether the events of the last 12 months have prompted, on the part of the ministry, any changes with respect to consultation guidelines that have been used by the ministry. I'll invite the minister to outline more broadly any other changes that may have occurred since last year's estimates on this particular front.

[1725]

Hon. J. Doyle: When Delgamuukw came down -- I just can't remember when that came down -- it meant that the Ministry of Forests had to make some changes. We're doing our best to work with the first nations sector in the province, as the member knows, in looking at joint agreements and other ways. Tenure holders are working in many, many cases with first nations people. First nations people are looking, in some cases, at getting into one sector or another of the Ministry of Forests.

I think that the answer is to get joint agreements and work with people, sit down and work together, versus standoffs that we have with one another sometimes -- or first nations people have, to do with concerns they have with lands that they feel are possibly theirs without a treaty being in place.

G. Abbott: Is the ministry working on what might be termed a first nations forest strategy to embody a number of the initiatives which the minister has just outlined? Is there a first nations forest strategy, and what steps is the ministry taking to have first nations actually buy into that?

Hon. J. Doyle: The first nations strategy is under review by government as we speak but is not yet completed -- first nations strategy to deal with issues that the member raises.

G. Abbott: What can the minister provide me in the way of detail around the completion of the first nations forestry strategy? Is that something that the ministry is looking to complete in the short term? Or is it a broader-term strategy, perhaps similar to the one that is outlined in the Wouters report?

Hon. J. Doyle: I think the best example would be the agreement that was signed a couple of weeks ago with the Wet'suwet'en up in Smithers. We're still working, as I said, on the strategy for first nations. There are some possibilities in some cases that the province . . . . The 5 percent takeback could be an answer in some cases. We do continue to consult with industry and first nations people to see if there are some agreements that could be reached in various parts of the province.

K. Krueger: I want to briefly ask about the problem of the bridge which was burnt at Adams Lake and the fact that there is a ferry being used to raft people back and forth because of the bridge being gone. Interfor, which has a sawmill -- Adams Lake lumber division -- actually has approved cutting permits for the area from which they're cut off because of the bridge having been burnt. It's causing some supply problems.

One of the things that I learned in investigating this matter was that FRBC actually had a plan, not too many months after the bridge was burned, to replace it with a Bailey bridge. I gather that they had engaged in preliminary discussions with the aboriginal people. We're told by senior levels of the ministry not to proceed, the rational being that a non-treaty band was not to be seen to have had a win of some kind. I wonder if the minister could comment on whether he and his officials are familiar with that issue.

[1730]

Hon. J. Doyle: It's the belief of the ministry that the bridge in question is a Ministry of Highways bridge. Also, we have not said that we would not work out agreements with non-treaty first nations.

K. Krueger: I'm aware that it's a Highways bridge, but I'm told that there was a deal in the making to replace it using FRBC funds. It certainly is a Forestry issue in that that would provide for access to approved areas for cutting permits. Furthermore, it's an issue where government needs to have a look at the big picture. The Bailey bridge would cost, as I understand it, $300,000 to install. The ferry is costing $750,000 a year to run on demand; it's also a hardship to people living on the other side. In the four years that the ferry has had to be in service, that's $3 million, which is ten times what I'm told the Bailey bridge would cost.

I wonder if the minister would commit to looking into this and seeing if we could put a stop to that unnecessary expense by having FRBC get that plan rolling again to replace the bridge with a Bailey.

Hon. J. Doyle: I'd be more than happy to investigate. I would agree with the member. I know the area reasonably well, and it has been an inconvenience to many, many people during the term of this ongoing dispute. Hopefully resolution can be worked out very soon.

G. Abbott: That completes my questions on aboriginal forestry issues. We'll certainly look forward to seeing the results of the first nations forest strategy which the ministry is preparing. That obviously is going to be a significant milestone in meeting what has been a considerable challenge to the ministry in the past several months. I do hope the ministry is successful in that, and I hope that we can provide for some public discussion of that in weeks and months ahead as well. It is of obvious importance to first nations as well as to licensees across the province.

In terms of moving on to other issues . . . . Go ahead.

Hon. J. Doyle: Previously in estimates, when the hon. member for Shuswap asked about the source of funding for

[ Page 15386 ]

the forest policy review, I stated that the $501,585 -- I think I stated approximately half a million dollars -- that the jobs and timber accord advocate identified as the cost of the review was paid for jointly by FRBC and the Ministry of Forests. I think I said it was roughly 50-50. I would like to correct this statement. FRBC does provide funding for the operation of the advocate's office, including the salaries of the advocate and his staff. However, the Ministry of Forests was the source of funding for the review that Mr. Wouters did. I just wanted to correct that statement, which was made some time last week in estimates.

G. Abbott: The value-added questions that I had have been addressed at a number of points now through the estimates process. We discussed a number of those points under the Ministry of Forests business plan, under the small business forest enterprise program and elsewhere in the extensive discussion of the ministry's estimates that we have had to this point. There may be other issues that come up in the context of FRBC, but I think I've pretty much exhausted the questions I have, so I would like to move on to community forests.

Here I'm really just looking for an update from our last estimates about the number of community forest licences that are in existence in the province, the number of applications which have been submitted to the ministry for community forests, and, of those, how many remain under active consideration.

[1735]

Hon. J. Doyle: Whenever the panel was together looking at community forests in the province . . . . At the time that they were out there and asked for interest back from individuals or groups in the province, there were 88 letters of interest shown, 27 actual offers came in to that panel, and actually seven of those 27 were offered licences to have a community forest.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise what process the balance of 20 a