1981 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 32nd 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)

FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1981

Morning Sitting

[ Page

6013 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Ministerial Statement

B.C. Hydro directorships. Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 6013

Mr. D'Arcy –– 6013

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Environment estimates. (Hon. Mr. Rogers)

On vote 76: minister's office –– 6014

Mrs. Wallace

Mr. Lockstead

Mr. Lorimer

Mr. Davis

Mr. Skelly

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.

MR. SPEAKER: Please proceed.

B.C. HYDRO DIRECTORSHIPS

HON. MR. McCLELLAND:

In the past several years in British Columbia many suggestions have

been made by the public, in this Legislature and other places, that the

people of this province should have more influence on the policy

decisions of the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority. In order

to respond to these public demands for more input, the government

recently brought Hydro under the full regulation of the British

Columbia Utilities Commission. As a second step, which is designed to

further that aim and to bring representation of regional interests into

the boardroom of B.C.'s largest supplier of energy resources, we have

increased the size of Hydro's board of directors from 5 to 15 members.

In all, 11 new members have been appointed to the board, and these

appointments will add a diversity of interest to the board's

deliberations.

For the first time, Norm Olson, Hydro's

president and chief executive officer, will be joining the board of

directors. The other ten appointments will mean that the board will now

have representation from each of the province's main regions. Effective

immediately, these are the new appointments.

Charlie Lasser

of Chetwynd is now a member of the Assessment Appeal Board and a former

mayor of Chetwynd. During his term he served as a member of the

Municipal Finance Authority of B.C., and spent two years as vice

chairman of the Peace River-Laird Regional District. For two years he

also served as vice-chairman of the Northern Lights College board.

Jack

Delair of Hope is a farmer and agriculturalist with a 65-acre

mixed-farming operation. A conservationist, Mr. Delair single-handedly

and on his own time has built a steelhead-rearing pond on the

Coquihalla River. Before his retirement, he spent 20 years as a fish

and game officer in the eastern Fraser Valley and Fraser Canyon.

Charles

Osterloh of Invermere has been a prominent member of that village's

business community for 35 years. He has served on the school and

hospital boards, and has recently been appointed to Invermere's

economic development commission.

Harold Moffat of Prince

George, the city's mayor from 1969 to 1978, is an independent

businessman. Before becoming mayor he was a school trustee for 25 years.

Guy

Rose of Quilchena is a cattle rancher and farm equipment dealer. Mr.

Rose has served on the local school board and the board of trade; his

ranch has served as a model for combining grazing and reforestation. He

is president of the Nicola Stock Breeders' Association, and a director

of the B.C. Cattlemen's Association.

Jack Waldie of Victoria

is a former B.C. sales manager for General Motors. He is chairman of

the board of St. Michaels University School, and a member of the

Capital Regional District Safety Committee.

Four members

will join the board from Vancouver: Hugh Horne, Archie McGougan, Martin

Wedepohl and Sandra Sutherland. Mr. Horne is at present a real estate

investment consultant and past-president of the Institute of Internal

Auditors, Vancouver chapter, and the director of the city's United Way

volunteer bureau in 1976 and 1977. Miss Sutherland is now president of

the Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, and a partner in the Vancouver

law firm of Freeman & Co., where she specializes in corporate and

commercial law. She is a former director of ICBC, and a former public

governor of the Vancouver Stock Exchange.

Dr. Wedepohl is

dean of applied sciences at UBC. He has extensive experience in power

systems and electrical engineering. Before coming to British Columbia,

Dean Wedepohl served as dean of engineering at the University of

Manitoba and was a member of the Manitoba hydroelectric corporation's

board of directors.

Mr. McGougan retired as MacMillan

Bloedel's vice president in 1971, but has remained as a forest industry

consultant, at least until 1979. He has been a director of the Central

City Mission Society in Vancouver since 1969.

Chairman Robert Bonner, Dr. Pat McGeer, Charles Brazier and I will continue in our positions on Hydro's board.

Mr.

Speaker, this is a critical time for British Columbia's power and

energy future. Hydro is becoming increasingly important because of this

— too big and too important not to have the kind of wide public

representation at the management level that these appointments provide.

MR. D'ARCY:

Mr. Speaker, I would like, from this side of the House, to welcome the

announcement of the broadening of Hydro's board of directors,

particularly in view of its regional representation. I would make the

comment that, in view of the growing role Hydro has relative to the

rest of the provincial economy, and particularly in view of its larger

financial operations and some of the environmental concerns that many

people have expressed, this broader board of directors will hopefully

address itself to some of those issues in a most meaningful way.

would also comment that it is significant that there is some

representation from people who at least have had some background in

some of the major economic and industrial areas that are affected by

Hydro's operations. From the initial list of people — although they are

very well qualified — I could say that I would like to see a perhaps

heavier representation from those areas of the economy that are

particularly affected by B.C. Hydro's electrical generation operations.

As well, I would think it might have been appropriate to have a

consumer representative. However, it is certainly a step in the right

direction.

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Speaker, seated in the

gallery this morning is Mr. Jim Pattison, chairman of the board of

Transpo '86 Corporation, and I would ask the House to make him welcome.

MR. LORIMER: Mr. Speaker, I have two visitors from Burnaby in the gallery today, and I'd like the House to welcome Sam Nimeck and Lily Czop.

Orders of the Day

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

[ Page 6014 ]

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT

(continued)

On vote 76: minister's office, $218,076.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Mr. Chairman, yesterday at the adjournment hour the member for

Cowichan–Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) had been asking some questions about a

conference, which grew out of the Canadian Council of Resource and

Environment Ministers meeting, which was held at the suggestion of

British Columbia, hosted by British Columbia and held in Victoria. Out

of that particular conference has come a coastal and estuary management

program.

I wonder if I could get the member's attention. The

member indicated yesterday that after we had gone through this

conference procedure nothing had happened about it. I would refer the

member to vote 78, which is not the vote we're discussing now. If you

look under vote 78 and the coastal and estuary management program,

you'll find that it exists in the ministry, headed up by a Dr. Boydell.

I'll just read through some of the objectives as they're outlined in

our program: "To develop and deliver a province-wide program of

professional and technical environmental advisory services so the

decision-makers and the general public may be provided with factual

information and educational material regarding coastal and estuarian

habitat and resources." We go on to list nine other objectives of that

particular group.

Yesterday's suggestion was that this

conference had taken place and nothing had particularly been resolved

about it. I would recommend that the member, if she's concerned — and

I'm sure she is — have a look at that particular vote, and also the

program that's outlined under it.

As I said, instead of the

first, this program was started at the suggestion of the ministry then

headed by the now Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen), who was also

the keynote speaker at that time. This particular program has grown out

of that. There is a substantial increase in that particular vote about

30 percent over last year.

MRS. WALLACE: I thank the

minister for his response. Sure, the vote is there and the money is

supposed to be allocated. He's probably spending it on more studies; I

don't know. He is continuing to piece-meal off, with the Cowichan task

force, studies on Hatch Point and the Fraser River — all separate —

without getting into this overall policy of coming up with some

decisions as to what we should be doing and where with the least

possible environmental impact. It means that each area is getting a

little bit of industry and a little bit of environmental protection and

a little bit of this and a little bit of that and no real overall plan

as to where we should be going and what we should be doing and where

the least environmental impact can come. We have to have a place to

boom our logs, a place for ferry landings, a place for all those

things, but until we get down and really look overall at where we can

do those things with the least environmental damage, the pressure is

going to be on to do them in river estuaries, as in the case of the

Cowichan, because they are more sheltered and more protected. What we

need is an overall plan with some teeth in it that says: "Thou shalt

not do this here, and thou shalt do this somewhere else." That's an

overall shoreline management policy. All the dollars in the estimates

book aren't going to make that come about, unless your ministry comes

out with some very positive direction with teeth in it that ensures

that that happens.

I checked through Votes and Proceedings and Orders of the Day

and discovered that you're quite right, you did answer my question. I

apologize for not having picked that up. The answer is that this task

force report cost us a fairly hefty sum — $204,750. Last night I read

the 12 recommendations that came out of that report, 11 of which were

for further studies. The one that recommended that something be done

was simply a recommendation to enforce a condition of Doman's contract

back in the 1975 agreement and the 1975 task force report. To me, it's

a horrendous waste of money to spend over $200,000 and to come up with

no recommendations except for 11 more studies and a recommendation to

enforce something that was already there. It proves to me beyond a

doubt that all we needed to do was simply go ahead and enforce the 1975

agreement. It was all there in that one. We didn't need all this. The

costs are going on. We have Mr. Lambertsen stationed up in Duncan

trying to do something with this report. What's he going to do? Is he

going to initiate 11 more task force studies on the basis of those 11

recommendations? I haven't seen anything happening about the 5.8

hectares. Is he going to be able to enforce that? More dollars are

spent and still there's this kind of procrastination and nothing

happening.

Examples of it are coming up all the time. We've

got the order-in-council that's supposed to ensure that nothing happens

in that estuary, and now if this ministry gets it, it's okay. Yet we

have a complete conflict. It's a difficult situation, and I know that.

There are so many departments involved. We've got a logging dump there

which is supposed to be being phased out. The minister writes me a

letter saying that there's a condition established that nothing will be

dumped there except boomed logs and that it has to be kept open for a

little while. They'll dump boomed logs only, and they'll dump them only

at such a high tide that they can float away and not get stranded on

the bottom. In the first place that's an impossibility unless you're in

the middle of the winter with a 20-foot tide, because there's not

enough water there to float boomed logs.

He tells me that on

April 16, and then on May 14 that's not happening at all. They're

dumping single logs and stacking them up there. All you need to do is

drive by there, and that's just a hive of industry around there at that

particular dump. The bay is full of logs. It's right on the Koksilah

River estuary, which is part of the Cowichan estuary. What we're doing

is destroying the environment by delay. If you want to make that an

industrial site, why don't you be honest and come out and say: "Okay,

it's impossible to do anything with this. We're just going to turn it

over to industry"? If that's where you're at, Mr. Minister, then that's

what you should do. But instead you're pretending that you're all in

favour of protecting the environment, and you're doing reports and more

reports and sitting by. Because of your agreement to let these things

continue to happen, it's continuing to destroy that whole piece of very

valuable estuarian land. It just goes on and on.

This

ministry is also trying to push off onto the poor little district of

North Cowichan the responsibility that they should be taking as far as

coming down with an overall program. North Cowichan is in the position

where they're damned if they do and damned if they don't, as far as

their zoning goes. Whatever zoning they bring in, they're going to wind

up in the courts for restrictive zoning from one side or the other. The

minister is not fulfilling his responsibility by not taking some action

there.

[ Page

6015 ]

I was going to deal with my concerns about chemicals, particularly

PCP. My colleague the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) has dealt with

that at some length. I just want to go on record as saying that I am

still extremely concerned about what's happening with the use of PCP in

the logging industry. As long as they don't have an alternative they're

going to continue to use that PCP. We've got problems with workers'

health. As we put more and more treated lumber around our estuaries and

as long as we're using those areas for haul-outs, we're getting more

and more concentration of PCP in those areas. It's becoming more and

more evident that that's another way in which we're destroying our

environment.

I have a couple of other quite unrelated items

that I want to raise with the minister. I'll do it while I'm on my

feet. One has to do with conservation officers under the fish and

wildlife branch. There has been quite a cutback in that particular

area. The conservation officer simply can't do his job. I have a letter

here from Lake Cowichan Fish and Game Club. I'll just read a little bit

of it into the record. It says:

"The conservation officer is at best faced with an insurmountable

task in attempting proper enforcement. The area is far too large for one man

to look after. However, under normal funding, Mr. Broadland and the officers

before him have done an admirable job. Our concern is the cutback in funding

for the fish and wildlife branch, which severely restricts the functions of

the conservation officer to the point where we wonder if it is worthwhile."

So I would strongly urge the minister to make some funding available to ensure

that those conservation officers don't have quite such a large area to cover

and have the support they need to do the job they're expected to do.

final concern relates to the water rights branch and the drainage

problems. The minister mentioned that the emergency program had had a

lot of demands on it this year. I don't think he mentioned the Cowichan

Valley, but there have certainly been some heavy demands on that

program in the Cowichan Valley. Whether or not they have met those

demands is another question. It seems that there is always the problem

of saying, well, this is a local responsibility. We've had a

particularly bad time around the Cowichan River in the city of Duncan.

Those people bought lots there in good faith. I'm pleased to know that

you're going to take some action to ensure that people buying houses in

the future are advised that they are on the floodplain. I hope that

happens. I don't have too much faith in that happening in view of some

of the other experiences I've had with constituents relative to housing

and the purchase of housing.

In the meantime, you have people who have purchased homesites in good faith,

and they are on the floodplain. They are going to be flooded. Moving those people

out is the only way we're not going to get flooding. When you come out and

tell those people that it's a one-shot deal as far as covering any costs

for damages relative to flooding.... Well, the minister shakes his head. I hope

he has changed his mind, but that certainly was the impression I and a lot of

people around this province got when these floods were happening. If you were

on the floodplain and you got damage one time, that was it, the government wasn't

going to get involved again. I don't know what you were supposed to do —

move out, sell your house to some unsuspecting person, or whatever. I would

urge the minister not to take that stand, because those people are there, they

bought in good faith, and they're going to have continuing problems. If

you simply say, "I'm not going to assist them," then it's

out, over, done and finished, and those people are not going to be able to cope

with the damages they receive.

I'm

also a bit concerned about the narrowness of the

interpretation of the

damage that's done. For example, landscaping. People buy expensive

shrubs, bulbs and so on and put them in around their homes, and then

find them washed out, find they're not covered under the emergency

program. Only buildings, structures and so on are covered. I would urge

the minister to consider reviewing that particular policy too, because

it's certainly all part of the living environment when a person spends

a lot of money on those kinds of things.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

I guess I'll go through them in reverse order. We have the most

generous government grants for people who have been affected by flood

of any jurisdiction in North America that I know of. We don't restrict

it to one-time use only. The point I made then, and I would like to

make again now, is that we often pay for the same house two or three

times over, but it's very seldom the same owner. What happens is that

people get flooded, they get the compensation payments, and as soon as

the waters have receded and the grass is back to where it once was, up

goes the for sale sign and someone else unsuspecting comes along. It's

in that regard that I've asked my colleague, the Minister of Consumer

and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hyndman), to see if he can't persuade

the real estate boards to ensure that the people buying them know these

houses are in the floodplain and that we have compensated for them.

I can just touch on landscaping, during the floods of the winter before

last we received one bill for over a quarter of a million dollars for

landscaping for a home that was flooded out in West Vancouver. The

difficulty is that if we start getting into that we can start getting

into more and more. Where do you want to stop the things we compensate

for? That's the problem. The policy has been that we compensate for a

primary residence and normal fixtures in a primary residence. If we're

to broaden the terms we're going to have to lessen the amount, unless

the Legislature decides it's going to have an unlimited vote.

Landscaping is one of the things — as are insurable things around the

house — that are at risk for which we don't compensate. For example, in

Washington state the government will give you a low-interest loan at

half-prime — that's hardly even low interest; that would be 10 percent

— to compensate you if you've been flooded out, and that's based on

your home alone. So I think our program is very generous. If we keep it

to the primary residence of the people involved, then we can ensure

that with the money available we can help the specific ones that are

involved.

Time and time again the argument comes up that

conservation officers have no travel money — not enough funds to go

around and not enough funds for their vehicles. I don't know where the

story starts, because I see the travel budgets, and travel budgets have

been increased. As I said yesterday, we have trained three-quarters of

the conservation officers through the Justice Institute to make their

job a lot easier. They have a higher degree of professional training,

we have reuniformed them all this year with a uniform that they

designed as a committee, and there has been an increase in their

budget. I would like to see more conservation officers. We could use

more, because their terms of reference have been broadened from the

fish and game wardens that they used to be to being people concerned

with all the activities of our ministry.

[ Page 6016 ]

Getting

back to the Cowichan for a minute, the regional district of North

Cowichan has passed some bylaws which cover the areas which were

covered in the order-in-council. What they should have done, and what

we recommended they do, if they want to put restrictions in this

particular area, is approach us for amendments to the order-in-council.

Otherwise, they're going to end up with challenges in the courts, which

they have done.

I agree with you, the Cowichan Estuary Task

Force report recommends more studies and more studies. There is only

one real recommendation, as I read it, about reducing the amount of

logs stored there and going to a dryland sort. There are two things

that have subsequently come to our attention — we knew at the time, I

guess. A lot of the logs in the Cowichan are there on an interim basis,

and a lot of them are visitors. That is, they come in and get broken up

in a boom, and they pick out the junk logs that they cut in that

particular mill, then bundle up the peelers and the pulp logs and tow

them back out again. The Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) and I

are both concerned about this. We think that kind of log-sorting can go

on elsewhere. While their economic activity has to take place at that

particular mill, I don't think any log should go up the channel to that

mill that isn't destined to go out of that mill as cut lumber, hog fuel

or chips.

MRS. WALLACE: Then why don't you stop it?

HON. MR. ROGERS:

That's one of the things Ken Lambertsen has been mandated to go and do.

That's one of the reasons he is there right now. We have some quarrels

with Doman Industries — no question about that. We're working on it to

try to bring the acreage down to the desired acreage which they can

live with and which we can live with, and also to stop this business of

transient logs.

You asked about having an overall estuary

plan for the province. Everybody wants industry, but nobody wants it

where they are. Everybody wants a garbage dump, but nobody wants it

where they are. The trouble is that I don't have dictatorial powers to

draw an environmental map and say this, this and this is where this is

going to happen. We have to work in concert with the landowners, the

local elected politicians, the regional districts and other people. In

some cases, as private landowner, we may have decided that private land

is the ideal place for an oil tank farm. We all need an oil tank farm,

although none of us wants to think about needing it. It may be that the

private owner of the land doesn't want to use it for that. Maybe he

just wants to keep it as barren rock or whatever it is. We don't have

that kind of sweeping power.

With our coastal and estuary

management program we want to have it so that people are aware of what

they're doing. It wasn't ten years ago that it was the easiest place to

build; people just went in and said, "We're going to go ahead and do it

here," and they went ahead and did it. People didn't know what

wire-grass did. They didn't know the support system of eel-grass. They

didn't know that estuaries were critical. When you fly over or walk

around the Cowichan, you realize that, with today's knowledge, no one

would ever be going in there; but the damage has already been done to a

certain extent, and we're trying to minimize it.

One of the

problems is that the small loggers in the Cowichan valley.... Many of

them are good constituents of yours and they'd be screaming at your

door if they didn't have a place to get their logs into the water. One

of Ken Lambertsen's first jobs is to find an alternative source for the

independent operators to be able to get their wood to water, because

they don't get it cut in the area. It always amazes me that logs from

one area of the province seem to go by four or five mills before they

finally get to the mill where they're cut. I can't fathom that any more

than you can, I'm sure. But we have to find a way for these small log

operators to get their product into the water. That's the first thing

we'd like to do. When we do that, then we can start to eliminate

others. But you can't just close the door to the existing traffic and

the existing business out of ignorance or just because we'd like to do

it. That's where we'd like to go next.

MR. LOCKSTEAD:

Mr. Chairman, in this particular debate on these estimates I suppose

every member could go on for hours and hours. I'm going to attempt not

to repeat many of the items that have already been raised, and to

confine most of my remarks to a couple of matters relating to my riding.

I'll

start off with a very local matter: last year's flooding in the Bella

Coola Valley and the Squamish Valley. It was quite an unusual situation

where we had very warm weather, heavy rains and a quick thaw.

Consequently, a number of homes in these particular areas were flooded

out, some of them severely, bridges washed out, etc. People suffered

dislocation to a large extent.

I appreciate that the

minister went there after the flooding had taken place and personally

viewed these areas. There were a lot of problems in resolving financial

settlements for people who had been affected by the flooding. Some

people were not happy with their settlements; some were very happy, as

it turned out. Hopefully the ministry will be better prepared if this

type of situation happens again.

As far as I'm aware, that

study has not been forwarded to the regional district, the flood

control committee in the valley or to myself. Although it's been

requested on a number of occasions, I was always told it wasn't ready.

We were told at one point that that study would be completed at least

two months ago. Perhaps the minister could tell us what is happening

there in terms of that study and when it will be ready, because the

people up there — particularly the regional district — are very anxious

to get the results of that study.

While we're in the Bella

Coola valley, I would ask the minister as well what flood protection

measures will be taken this year to prevent further flooding in the

area, and how much money will be spent this year. I might add that the

board of the regional district asked me to ask the minister that

question, and perhaps we can get an answer.

I have one final

question in terms of the Bella Coola valley. The regional board would

like to know as well if the minister or the ministry has granted

approval to B.C. Hydro for the construction of the Hydro dam at Thorsen

Creek. You may not have that information on hand, but the regional

board would certainly appreciate knowing if approval has been forwarded

from the ministry to Hydro on that topic.

In terms of

flooding in the Squamish area, I personally viewed that area as well.

The problem there was not so much compensation, which was finally

granted to most people but not to all. As it turns out, some were

ineligible. The main problem there was access to these various

subdivisions. I know the minister is aware of the conflict that was

taking place among the regional district, the municipality and the

provincial government. It was a real mess. Perhaps the minister could

explain when he's replying to these questions. There seem to be long

delays. People couldn't get back into

[ Page 6017 ]

their

homes long after the waters had receded because of access problems in

some localities. They were forced to walk along railroad tracks and

over bridges while trains were utilizing the same railroad tracks. It

was a pretty horrendous situation for a while.

Mainly what

I'm on about today is in regard to a relatively new and growing

industry in this province, particularly in areas of my riding and on

parts of Vancouver Island. That is dealing with the fish farming and

aquaculture industry of the coast, which is really just getting

underway in this part of the coast as compared to what is happening in

other countries, particularly Japan. I've had the opportunity to meet

with these people on a number of occasions over the past several

months. They asked me to express some of their concerns to the

minister. I have written to the ministry and the minister and received

replies of one sort or another to some of these concerns.

Before

I get into that, I have one other item in regard to the ministry's

announcement of commercial kelp harvesting and processing licences that

have been issued. I was asked by the Bella Bella Indian band council —

a large Indian band of about 1,100 or 1,200 people within my riding —

to express their concern to the minister over the issuing of these

licences to certain groups. I have a press release here. I won’t really

get into it. Their concern was that while these groups are being issued

licences, they have applications before the ministry as well. They feel

that due to the high unemployment rate within their area this would be

one industry that they could be directly involved in. Certain parts of

the coast should be reserved for seaweed and kelp-harvesting purposes

for native Indian people to provide employment opportunities for these

people. Hopefully the minister will take that proposal under

advisement. I have to agree with the band council in this particular

instance. We have, on occasion, up to 80 or 81 percent unemployment in

the Bella Bella area.

Aquaculture itself is an industry that

is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds in my riding. I'm always

surprised when I visit areas like Okeover, Desolation Sound, Pendrell

Sound, St. Vincent Bay and Nelson Island — all areas that the minister

is familiar with. It's a high-risk industry, but it must be one of the

major industries of the future for the coast of British Columbia. As I

said, I think that the minister has some knowledge and information on

these matters. I get the publications from the ministry relating to

oyster and geoduck growth and population and all of these things.

There's a lot of work being done within the ministry.

That

is sort of background work, and it is needed, but there are a couple of

immediate items of more concern to these people, because people within

the industry are considered neither fishermen nor farmers so they don't

have access or availability to things such as gasoline price

deductions, which are available to fishermen and to farmers. They don't

know if they're fishermen or farmers. They don't come under any act.

They have problems with obtaining leases for their various proposals

for fish farms, oyster-rearing, mussels, or whatever they're going

into. Almost any citizen in British Columbia can apply for a

recreational lease and very often be successful in obtaining that

15-year lease. Yet here we have people attempting to make a living, in

a small way, in a high-risk venture, being able to obtain, in many

cases, only leases for one year — if they're successful at all — after

a great hassle. Would you believe you have to go through 21 different

processes in order to start a fish farm in British Columbia? It's

amazing that bureaucratic red tape can take people up to two years just

to get through it and be able to start at all in some instances. I have

documented examples here which I won't go into.

Those are

some of the concerns. Pollution is certainly a major concern. A

horrendous example we had last summer in St. Vincent Bay just off the

Jervis Inlet concerned an American warship with about 700 people

aboard. It was in that area for several days, and there were 700

sailors doing their duty right in St. Vincent Bay, a prime oyster-,

clam- and fish-farming area. The appropriate people came along, because

of the high coliform count, and put a closure on that area. That's how

high the pollution count was after that vessel had been there for a few

days. They weren't hollering at me at this particular meeting. There

must have been about 30 people at the meeting when this instance was

brought to my attention. They said: "For goodness' sake, doesn't the

government at least have enough regard for our industry to prevent this

type of thing?" That vessel didn't have to cruise around that

particular area. It could have gone somewhere else. We've got a whole

ocean out there, but they had to come right into the bay where this

major, budding industry is taking place.

I raise that as an

example. There is also Desolation Sound, which is now automatically

closed down every year because of the number of private craft, usually

large ones, which congregate there every summer. That area is closed

down because of the high coliform counts, and the oyster producers —

who are people working hard, barely scratching out a living out of the

thing at the present time — have a real problem.

It's my

personal belief that areas like Okeover, for example, should be

protected from this type of pollution. They really should be. We do

have to have priorities. The point I'm making here, and the point that

the people in this particular business are attempting to make to me and

to our MP, Ray Skelly, who attended those meetings with me....

HON. MR. HEWITT: Who's that?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Ray Skelly? He's a very fine MP.

In any event, the point that these people were attempting to make to

us was that both the federal and provincial governments place such a

low priority on this new, budding and extremely valuable industry in

British Columbia. It's amazing that some of these growers have to go to

the United States and other parts of the world for oyster seed, when we

have probably the finest oyster and clam seed-rearing area right here

in British Columbia. The minister is very familiar with the area, of

course — Pendrell Sound and that area. Yet those areas are not being

developed to their potential for a variety of reasons.

Most of what I have here actually was sent to the ministry,

with copies to myself. But some individuals, at their own expense and

their own time, have done really remarkable studies on the areas I've

mentioned in terms of their potential.

One last item is

another major problem that these people relate to me. The government is

not involved in marketing studies for the products that are produced in

the areas I outlined — and Im assuming the same thing is occurring on

parts of Vancouver Island, where we have the same type of industry.

They suggested that I attempt to get the Minister of Environment along

with the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) directly involved in

marketing surveys and attempting to develop off-shore markets for their

products. With that, Mr. Chairman, I think I've pretty well outlined

[ Page 6018 ]

some of the concerns of these people. Perhaps the minister would reply.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Mr. Chairman, I thank the member for Mackenzie for his questions. First

of all, dealing with the Bella Coola valley, if people aren't satisfied

with the appraiser, they can go to another appraiser, and there is

provision to go to a third. We actually have had very little of that

happen. I suppose I get maybe one letter in a hundred or one letter in

two hundred from people who aren't totally satisfied with the

assessments given them by the appraiser. So I'm sure there are always

going to be people who feel they didn't get enough. But, you know, if

your house has been burned or even burgled or whatever, you never get

completely compensated. It's like an automobile accident — they can

never make it perfect again.

The Nusatsum River is a really

difficult problem, because that's where people have built on the fan.

Once you've had it explained to you, as I've had it explained to me

about a year and a half ago by people in the ministry, you appreciate

the dangers of building on a river fan. With one particular house which

you and I both know and which is built essentially in the middle of an

old channel, it's only going to be a matter of time before somewhere up

the hill a boulder rolls one way or the other, and the water will be

going through his living room again, as it did this year. We actually

spent quite a bit of money this year to help Highways build a

protective dyke around that particular gentleman's house. We have at

least got him saved for now, but I don't think we can do it

indefinitely. Nature is too powerful, and that House is going to get

washed away, regardless of the amount of money that government puts in.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: There is no doubt in my mind.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

I'm glad you agree with me, Mr. Member. However, as you know, the

regional district and I have had talks. The study isn't completed, but

it will be shortly. We are looking at approximately half a million

dollars' worth of work to do that. Once that study is in, I would

expect we'll have to make that commitment to do it this fall or next

spring. I will be communicating that just as soon as it is done through

the regional district, because I know they're anxious to do it. But as

you appreciate, our staff have had a considerable backlog after last

winter's floods.

The Squamish situation was a bit of a

problem, you know. The military went in and took everybody out. Once

they'd got them out, people said: "Now that the wife and children are

out, we need little generators to go back in and run our deep-freezes.

And who's going to feed the cattle and do the rest of it?" The military

said: "Oh, no, our policy is that it's a one-way operation." So they

would take them out, but they wouldn't take them back in. Well,

eventually we made arrangements to do that. But part of the problem is

that one whole area in the Squamish valley was serviced by a logging

company bridge — it was a private company's bridge, not a Ministry of

Highways bridge — which washed out, and they wouldn't allow a bridge of

that quality to be replaced. If you're going to do the job, you've got

to do it properly. It was a temporary bridge that the locals had lived

with for years, and when it was finally washed out — which was very

predictable; the Highways engineers knew it was going to go — they had

to go the expensive route by doing it properly. I was up there at the

time there were problems. People did have difficulty getting in and out

to their homesites.

We bring in officers from around the

province to train them as best we can to prepare for an emergency, but

the emergency prepared for is never the emergency that actually

happens, and, of course, time moves very quickly. In one case in

Squamish, probably the most effective thing we had was a fellow who is

a heavy equipment operator, who went over to his employer's office,

kicked the door in, took the keys to a grader and went out and started

working on his own. All he really had to do was replace the diesel and

pay for the lock. His employer was delighted. He just couldn't find a

way of getting into the office at that time in the morning. All sorts

of things like that happen during emergencies. That whole Squamish area

had some people move fairly quickly.

Fish-farming and

aquaculture. We don't have control over navigable waters. If we did, if

we could just draw a line saying from now on nothing is going to go on

in here except fish-farming, or aquaculture operations or mariculture

operations, then I can hear the howls of protest from every other user

of the waterway. One of the problems that mariculturalists have is that

they are dealing with competing uses. When we viewed the same situation

in Japan, we found, of course, there wasn't a problem, because

mariculture had been there for so long. Leases had gone from father to

son for 15 or 20 generations, and they don't have a pleasure-boat

industry or the pleasure-boat phenomenon in Japan. If I recall

correctly, in Powell River every home has at least one boat in the

driveway and probably one down at the slip as well. You're talking

about what are probably the most beautiful cruising waters — in

Desolation Sound, Prideaux Haven and Okeover Inlet. The trouble is that

people and oysters don't get along all that well, although most of the

oyster harvesting takes place in the fall and winter, when recreational

use has pretty well disappeared.

I'm surprised that you say

people have difficulty getting seed. We run a research station in

Pendrell Sound. There was an excellent spatfall this year. Certainly

Pacific Oysters are exporting oyster seed from B.C. Last year they were

exporting to France. They were exporting very substantial quantities by

the plane load. As I said yesterday — I don't know whether you were in

the House at the time — we're hoping to have a small provincial oyster

demonstration farm, where we will collect some wild seed from either

Hawkins Channel or Pendrell Sound and turn that seed loose on public

beaches for public harvest, because there hasn't been a substantial

restocking of oysters.

If you're talking about a marketing

study, at the present time we don't generate enough gallonage

of'oysters to handle the British Columbia market. I don't want to get

into a great marketing study for a product which we can't supply enough

of. Recently I spoke to the oyster growers' convention in Nanaimo. Part

of the problem is that as their volume increases, the market increases.

If we build expectations on the Prairies and other areas where we could

do it, and we don't have the supply for it, then we're really wasting

our time in advertising. As far as I know, no oyster producer has had

difficulty getting rid of his or her crop, especially through the

Oyster Marketing Board. We do see some capital expenditures in new

oyster harvesting areas.

We are negotiating with Lands,

Parks and Housing to have that foreshore lease turned over to us in

those areas which have mariculture possibilities, foreshore lease

turned over to us. Any new applications for foreshore leases go through

the Ministry of Environment. On recreational lease applications for

foreshore, we would say that we prefer it be used for commercial

mariculture.

[ Page 6019 ]

One

of the problems with mariculture is that it is a very attractive

industry to be involved in. It's really very nice. Sure, it involves a

lot of work in cold weather and the rest of it, but it's a very

pleasant environment in which to work. People go into it with great

expectations but often without enough capital. Through the marine

resources branch we're trying to give a little more guidance into what

sort of an acreage you need and the amount of money involved before you

have an operation that will be sufficient to support one family.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

for tax benefits and concessions by being under Agriculture, they would

all rather be under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture; for

technical expertise they would rather be under the Ministry of

Environment. That's just a fact of life.

We've gone a long

way in fish farming in terms of putting out some pretty interesting

pamphlets on what you have to go through to get involved in the

fish-farming business. We have one or two potential problems. You don't

want to have two people fish farming in the same area. If one person

takes fresh water out of a stream, runs it through his fish hatchery

and discharges it into the stream, disease transfer becomes very easy.

We like people to be aware of that problem. It's a problem that the

federal government is now going through with its hatcheries on

Vancouver Island. One mistake can result in substantial devastation.

have people who are successfully involved in the fish farming business,

and there are more coming along all the time. We're offering them a lot

of technical expertise in getting going — at least I think it's

technical expertise. I think the greatest future hope is in the area of

blue mussel culture, which Redonda Sea farms are doing, and in the

half-shelf oyster, which they are developing also. I think there is a

possibility of having a scallop seed operation here, where we could

have a scallop-on-string operation. They're not affected by fecal

coliform to anything like the extent the others are.

Kelp

harvesting. The Bella Coola Indian band did not apply for kelp

harvesting permits, although they were advised about it. The permits

are very restricted; they are only for areas where there is no

traditional kelp harvesting by native Indians. We have asked them to

indicate which areas they traditionally use. In our experiments, we

found that limited harvesting done in the correct way actually enhances

the amount of kelp available. The kelp currently harvested in that area

of the coast is known as nori. That's the common word for it. We now

have several people who are looking at the harvesting of both

nereocystis and macrocystis, as well as a kombu harvest off the coast

of Vancouver Island.

The alginate industry worldwide is a

single-company monopoly. It's one that several people have tried to

penetrate. We've often had people come to us with grandiose ideas about

enormous kelp-harvesting programs. We're extremely restrictive in our

licences. We're very conservative in what we'll allow people to take.

We ensure that it's not in an area where there's a traditional food

harvesting. The one criticism I've gotten from people is that we're far

too conservative on our harvesting. We did do some experimentation in

the last year to find out where the reproductive systems are of the

various types of kelp, especially in the major species. We now know

what restrictions to harvesting do.

As far as Thorsen Creek

is concerned, Bella Coola, as you know has an ageing diesel generator.

With the postage stamp rate for hydro it doesn't cost the consumers

anything, but it really is a very poor use of energy and efficiency.

That particular valley has potential. Admittedly it's going to be a

really small operation relative to the other things they do, but I

think the people there would prefer to have it as a hydro generation

rather than an unreliable or quasi-reliable diesel generation. They

haven't applied for a licence so far, but our people are aware of it.

I'll make sure you're advised just as soon as that application does

come forward. At the present time it looks as if Thorsen Creek is the

preferred route to go, or the one that offers the most potential.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I thank the minister for his answers.

far as I'm aware, since Thorsen is not a fish-spawning river in any

event, there is no criticism of a dam going in there. In fact, this is

why the board asked about approval of the licence. They want the job to

proceed as soon as possible.

Regarding the minister's answer

with regard to river protection this year, if the minister did reply, I

missed it. I wonder if the minister knows offhand what river protection

work is going to take place in the Bella Coola valley this year, and

how much.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Preliminary indications

say that the amount will be about half a million dollars, but I'm going

to wait until that study is finished so we know what amount we're

looking for and then allocate it within the budget that's allowed. We

haven't gotten to that stage yet. It's obviously one of our key areas.

It's one of the areas with which we had the most difficulty last year.

I would anticipate that we will be able to do it, but I can't advise

you of that until such time as we finish the study and know what we're

looking at.

MR. LORIMER: Firstly, I would like to

express some sympathy to the minister. It's not the most enviable

position to be in — Minister of Environment in any Social Credit

government. To that extent, I want to pass on my feelings that he needs

some assistance. I hope he keeps working on his stated goals, even

though his success rate may be somewhat limited through actions by his

colleagues.

I thought my colleague, the member for Alberni

(Mr. Skelly), gave a very thoughtful talk yesterday on the environment,

ecology and so on, discussing the delicate balances. I'm sure the

minister understood what he was saying. I'm sure he also had sympathy

for the concerns expressed by my colleague. But what concerns me is

whether or not those concerns and interests in that type of subject

carried through to the minister's colleagues in the cabinet. There's an

obvious conflict between the different ministers when it comes to the

environment. When there's a conflict between the Minister of Forests,

or B.C. Hydro, or the Minister of Transportation and Highways, or the

mining industry and the Minister of Environment, the environment always

loses. If everything is equal, the environment may have some success.

But if it's an argument in which they will have to sacrifice one for

the other, we know which one is sacrificed. It is always the

environment.

The ministry is really an agency to give out

permits for pollution. Generally speaking, the need for a pollution

permit is not decided by the Minister of Environment. Those decisions

are made in other ministries and he is requested to give a permit. My

colleague the member for Alberni ex-

[ Page 6020 ]

pressed

the opinion that the Ministry of Environment is really a junior

ministry, and it should be a senior ministry. I want to concur in those

remarks. As I said at the beginning, I believe the minister may well

want to be a senior minister, but I don't think he will be allowed to

assume that role under a Social Credit government. I think it's easier

to give in than to fight, and we hope that in the days to come the

minister will show some fight and look at the environment in the best

way possible.

I'd like to briefly mention the Riley Creek

affair in the Charlottes as an example where no action was taken by the

Ministry of Environment. The only protection we have in this province

comes periodically from the federal Department of Fisheries. The

Minister of Environment should be very active in making sure that the

creeks, streams and general habitat for fish and other life are

protected. When the aluminum Co. of Canada reduced the flow of water in

the Nechako last summer, who came to the rescue of the fish? It wasn't

the Minister of Environment, it was the federal Department of

Fisheries. Who takes action about the chemical and other spills into

the rivers and creeks in this province? Generally speaking, action is

taken through the federal Department of Fisheries. I will say that the

Environment ministry has taken some action in recent months in the odd

case. But generally speaking, the protection of our fish especially is

being conducted through the federal department and not through the

British Columbia government.

There's concern about

watersheds being logged and about roads being built for the Ministry of

Highways, for B.C. Hydro, for mining roads and so on. Unfortunately

most of these roads are going through the valley bottoms in the

province where the streams are also located. There's a great danger of

dumping of debris and the destruction of streams throughout our

province.

It's my opinion that all of these different areas

can live side by side compatibly and that the forest industry can carry

on a good existence with just a little consideration for the

environment, like the other agencies. When development occurs, surely

we should be looking to see where that development should be in order

to reduce the impact on the environment. I don't think we're doing

that. In some cases we do have the studies, and that's good; but in a

number of cases where development takes place, studies do not take

place.

There was a request for a public hearing regarding

the effect that the log-booming in Buckley Bay might have. It wasn't

the Minister of Environment who answered this request; it was the

Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr.

McClelland). He stated that there would be no public hearings. It would

seem to me that in a case of this sort the Minister of Environment

should have been taking a leading role and should have decided that

public hearings should be held to make sure that the environment was

properly protected.

A group of environmentalists in the

Nanaimo area has filed a report suggesting that log-booming near the

mouth of the Nanaimo River could be moved a short distance and could

guarantee an increased supply of fish going to the spawning grounds of

the river, which used to be one of the major fish-spawning areas on the

coast.

We see Riley Creeks occurring throughout the

province. In my opinion the minister has to take active remedial action

to make sure that these small things are corrected. They may be small

in themselves, but an accumulation has quite an effect not only on the

environment but on the fish production throughout the province.

The

Fraser has been a polluted river for years and years, but it's not

getting any better. It's getting worse. Most of our salmon-spawning

areas are on the Fraser River or its tributaries. I'd like to know how

the minister would like to swim upstream or downstream in the Fraser

with his mouth open. Maybe his colleague the member for Dewdney (Mr.

Mussallem) would be prepared to do this. The river is not improving in

its quality. The fish that are able to get through the debris and the

pollution of this river are limited in number. Correspondingly the

stocks of salmon are reducing.

The production of salmon has

probably been cut in half in the last 40 or 50 years. Part of the

reason may not be actions of this province; I can see that the treaties

and regulations made by the federal Fisheries department have quite an

effect on the depletion of fish stocks in British Columbia. But part of

the problem is provincial, and that's the

part I'm dealing with: the

need to clean up and make sure that our streams are left free for the

natural spawning of fish.

The fishery resource in this

province used to be probably second to the lumbering industry. Now it's

well down the list. It is probably the most important resource we have.

It supplies food. It should be a renewable resource, but it won't be

without care for the areas in which fish multiply.

There is

also the question of inlets and bays and the problems that occur where

logging or development operations cause sawdust debris to go into the

channels and bays of the coastal regions. It seems to me that there

needs to be more policing of what goes on through the industrial sector

of our economy and what care is being taken, so that not only the

logging industries but also the shellfish industries can survive and

the environment will not suffer as a consequence of logging practices.

would like to suggest to the minister that he go slowly on

fish-farming. I think the experiences in the state of Oregon, where it

has been in operation quite extensively for some ten years, have

indicated that the proponents of those proposals ten years ago now want

to see the experiment end. I think mixing wild stock with farm stock

can develop into a general loss in fish production in the long term. I

would suggest that before the minister does anything very drastic with

reference to these new suggestions he give that area a very close study.

would like the minister to tell us what steps he can take or intends to

take with reference to the general policing of the environment. He is

the only person in government we can look to to ensure the health of

the environment. Up until now I believe that a less than adequate job

has been done. I'm sure the minister has plans and is prepared to tell

us how he intends to proceed, to assure us and the people of this

province that the environment is in good hands.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

The member for Burnaby–Willingdon made a case that people applying for

a pollution control permit somehow dealt with other ministries of the

government and managed to get their permit pushed by without anything

but a cursory glance from the Ministry of Environment. Maybe it would

help if I explained to the committee exactly what the procedure is for

getting a pollution control permit.

Anyone wishing to get a

permit has to apply under the Pollution Control Act. The route is very

specific. It's not a political decision made by the minister; it's a

decision made by the director of the pollution control branch. That

decision

[ Page 6021 ]

takes

into account input from technical people in other ministries. The

decision of the director of the pollution control branch can be

appealed to the Pollution Control Board. If you have an example of that

system being circumvented, where you think great pressure or even small

pressure has been brought on the branch or the board itself to change

that, I'd like to know about it. I'm not aware of one.

You

mentioned the Nechako and the Skins Lake spillway situation of last

summer regarding Alcan. The federal government has responsibility for

anadromous salmonids, and we have responsibility for inland fisheries.

The comptroller of water rights has always dealt with Alcan since that

original Kemano project was finished, in terms of the discharge of

water from the Skins Lake spillway into the Nechako River system. When

we had a particularly heavy snowpack in any one particular year where

there was going to be flooding, it was on the instructions of the

comptroller of water rights that Alcan released water early from the

Skins Lake spillway to avoid flooding that would normally take place if

that snow had run off during the normal runoff time.

It's

clearly an area where we would be usurping federal responsibility by

telling them what to do. They don't interfere in the area over which

they've given us jurisdiction and I don't think it would be wise for us

to start interfering in their jurisdiction. I think it would be even

more confusing if a company was to say: "Well, we get instructions from

both ministries, and since they're both giving us conflicting

instructions, we'll just go ahead and do nothing in the meantime."

it happened, it was the first time that the water temperature in the

Nechako River had reached a point where the federal Fisheries officers

deemed it imperative that water be spilled from that reservoir. When

they were asked to do it, they did so. I don't think we can complain

about how that particular system works. We've talked about spills of

toxic chemicals or chemicals of any kind in this province, but we have

an agreement with the federal government through the federal Ministry

of the Environment that they become the lead agency on any water spills

and we become the lead agency in land spills. If you look through the

history of these particular spills, I think you'll find that in all

cases we cooperate quite well together. But we have expertise in

certain areas, and they have expertise in other areas. I don't think

there is a necessity to duplicate that.

The Minister of

Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) was the minister who made

the determination on what happens in Buckley Bay. But he's also the

minister responsible for that particular area. I can't make

determinations on what my colleagues do with areas under their

jurisdiction, for the very same reason that no other minister here is

going to interfere with other people's ministries. It's not an area of

my jurisdiction. It's as simple as that.

MR. HANSON: Environment covers everything.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Well, if environment covers everything, then just elect me the

dictator, go home and leave me in charge of the whole operation. If

that's your attitude, I can't believe it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

You talked about the Fraser. I regret you weren't here yesterday

because we went through a whole process of things in terms of

enforcement. We talked about the Fraser River Task Force, the

conservation officers, the Environment Management Act, and what we're

doing on the Fraser. You say the Fraser is continuing to deteriorate.

That's not substantiated by the studies. There are some increases in

trace metals, and the major efforts made by my ministry have been to

eliminate the trace metals going into that through our task force on

the Fraser. Last year they laid some 75 charges against people who were

discharging, and those are proceeding through the courts at this time.

am always reminded by the Minister of Universities, Science and

Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) that fish don't drink water, they

merely take oxygen from it and proceed on. We haven't reached anything

like a point where the deterioration is so bad that the fish can't

survive. In fact, we see an increase in some of the factors in the

river. I don't know where you get your statistics on the salmon in the

thirties. Maybe the salmon from the 1890s have dropped in half, but

certainly not from the thirties — not based on the information I have.

think you're confused in terms of Oregon. There is a substantial

difference between fish farming and hatchery operations. Fish farming

is a totally enclosed operation, from roe to frozen product going out

in a truck,

whereas a hatchery operation is a question of assisting

nature by rearing fry and then releasing them into the river systems.

So far we have not experienced the same difficulties that they have

enunciated in their area.

MR. LORIMER: I want to

thank the minister for answering the questions. I am quite familiar

with the procedures with reference to obtaining the pollution control

permits. What bothers me is the input from the other ministries. What I

am saying is that the input from the ministries is much heavier than

the input from the Minister of Environment. Those are the things that

bother me. The fact that the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing was

solely responsible for a decision which drastically affects the

environment, because it is within his jurisdiction, is not acceptable

to me. Why have a Minister of Environment who cannot have input into

the problems that have arisen....?

AN. HON. MEMBER: You didn't even have one.

MR. LORIMER:

That's right, but you haven't either; that's what we're getting at.

You've got a Ministry of Environment which is apt to lead the public to

believe that the environment is in safe hands. We have a Ministry of

Environment and a Minister of Environment who says he cannot interfere

with other ministers even though it's affecting the environment. That's

the problem that the member for Omineca (ML Kempf) doesn't understand.

I would like him to give us a talk today.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, no, no!

MR. LORIMER: No? Not on the Nechako?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. LORIMER: He's chirping away in good form here today.

MR. HANSON: The $4,000 man.

[ Page 6022 ]

MR. LORIMER: Yes, he's called the $4,000 man.

MR; CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I ask the committee to remain orderly, and the member to speak to the vote.

MR. LORIMER: I always speak to the vote. Mr. Chairman. I'm just having a short conversation with the $4,000 man from Omineca.

MR. DAVIS:

Mr. Chairman, I think it goes without saying that the Ministry of

Environment is one of our most important ministries. It's particularly

important at the provincial level because the provinces, under our

constitution, are responsible for property and civil rights. They also

administer our natural resources and are largely responsible for

industrial location. They are therefore responsible for the impacts of

municipalities and industries on land, water and air in their local

surroundings in the province. In other words, local impacts are matters

of local and regional concern, and it's up to our provincial

governments, through the Ministries of Environment, to ensure that the

quality of life in the province is protected.

As you know,

municipal affairs are provincial, forestry is provincial, wildlife is

provincial, the administration of our freshwater fisheries is

provincial, and so is their protection from pollution of every kind.

We've been aware of this for a long time in British Columbia, but

concentrating these provincial responsibilities in a single ministry is

a recent development. The Ministry of Environment in British Columbia

only dates back to 1976. It's barely five years old as compared to ten

years in Ontario and 11 years at the federal level.

The term

"environment" covers a lot of ground. It means nature to many and

pollution to some. It's all-embracing in the sense that it deals with

the renewability of our lasting resources and the disposal of our human

and industrial wastes. It's healthy, but it's vulnerable. It can be

damaged, but it can also be enhanced.

Environmental

protection — the main job of the provincial Ministry of Environment, as

I see it — is a partnership. It's a partnership between man on the one

hand and the protection of his natural surroundings on the other. It's

a partnership between municipalities and the Ministry of Environment,

and a partnership between industry and government in obtaining

well-paid jobs on the one hand and ensuring a sufficient quality of

life on the other. Like most partnerships it takes a lot of doing.

We're dealing with living things, many forms of life, plant and animal,

and this knowledge, largely biological, is in its infancy. Biology as a

science is an imperfect one, and we're always trying to assess side

effects, particularly from industry, so we have to tread carefully,

especially where new chemicals and various waste products are

concerned. We have to play it safe. Of course we have to set high

standards for ourselves, and we have to monitor our actions with a view

to making everything we do more compatible with nature's scheme of

things. Reduced to its simplest terms, we therefore have a partnership

— or should have a partnership — between the doers and the watchers,

between the producers and those who would protect our environment, and

between industry turning out useful goods and providing well-paid jobs

and government trying to make sure that the fallout from industry and

our municipalities doesn't have serious ramifications insofar as our

natural surroundings are concerned.

People who do things

want to do them right. Most producers want to produce in the most

effective way possible. Industry, in fact, abhors waste, because

wastefulness has serious repercussions, not only environmentally

speaking but economically speaking as well. So it's up to us in

government to lay down understandable rules for all to see in advance.

Don't give the polluter an advantage over the non-polluter. Don't allow

pollution havens to exist in some parts of the country and crack down

hard on competing industries in other parts. Be tough. Make the actual

polluter pay, but be consistent. Above all, give the potential polluter

plenty of notice. Let them know where they stand well in advance of

their doing something — spending money on exploration and development,

preparing the ground, only to find that a tardy government, finally

waking up due to the hue and cry from the general populace, cancels

permits and upsets plans which may have been years, or in some cases

decades, in the making.

This problem is by no means confined

to British Columbia. As governments at all levels and in all provinces

and states, we're not always oriented to long-term policy.

Unfortunately, we're often wise after the event. We therefore appear to

stumble from environmental crisis to environmental crisis. This is true

particularly where we are still in the learning process and where the

public often lets its emotions override the considered judgment of the

experts who, if they were more articulate, could point the way to

better practices and better ways of doing things.

I've said

that government should be not only oriented to long-term policy but

decisive. If it has any doubts about environmental degradation, it

should say: "No. Go somewhere else or do something else." We in British

Columbia are fortunate. We have alternatives; we have a choice. We have

other ways of producing energy, mining minerals, harvesting forests,

producing food and providing shelter. The cost of environmental

protection isn't high when the need for pollution abatement is

recognized at the outset. It's only 1, 2 or at most 3 percent of the

selling value of the products of most industries. It's affordable, in

other words. It's affordable from a narrow economic point of view, let

alone from an overall environmental point of view.

Let me

give you a few examples, Mr. Chairman. Let's take Gambier Island on

Howe Sound near Vancouver. Gambier Island is one of the islands

administered by the Islands Trust. It's special, in other words. It's

unique, ecologically speaking. It's close to our main centre of

population and industry. It's a recreational haven, very much in the

public eye. There will never be a large open-pit mine on Gambier

Island. You know that, Mr. Chairman, and I know that. The government in

its heart of hearts knows that it can never approve an immense digging,

hauling and milling operation in Howe Sound. The public on the lower

mainland, and indeed across the Strait of Georgia on Vancouver Island,

will not tolerate the thought of tens of millions of tonnes of mineral

wastes being discharged into Howe Sound every year. In other words,

we'll never have a big copper-molybdenum mine on Gambier Island. So why

procrastinate about it? Why say that the company, 20th Century Energy

Corp. of Vancouver, must complete its exploratory drilling and present

a definitive plan of operations before the Environment ministry, the

Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, the Ministry of

Municipal Affairs and the government itself can focus on this

particular problem?

[ Page 6023 ]

Not

only is this problem upsetting to a large number of people who envisage

the worst happening there, but it also encourages some investors —

potentially a significant number — to put their money into a project

which can never and will never go ahead. They're being led up a

blind alley, in other words. The politics of the situation, if I can

call it that, are too tough. Most people think that the Islands Trust

is in fact a trust. The islands in the trust area, in their view, are

like parks. They're off limits to large-scale mining. Bowen Island,

right next to Gambier Island, was officially declared out of bounds to

mining in 1969. Why doesn't the government do the same for all of the

Gulf Islands in the Islands Trust now and be done with it?

That's

what I mean by drawing up the rules ahead of time: setting high

standards, standards of a kind that the public want; unreasonably high

perhaps, but high enough and fair enough so that the public won't be

misled and investors spending their money in good faith won't be misled

also. There are all sorts of alternatives in B.C., as I said before, so

why should the government get into a difficult situation of this kind?

I'm

told by some that the 20th Century Energy Corp. doesn't really have a

potential mine on Gambier Island, so wait them out — so the reasoning

goes. In my view, that is the wrong way to deal with industry in this

province. As government we should level with industry at the outset.

What we do now at this late stage is, however, a difficult question to

answer. I think the government now has to buy out the 20th Century

Energy Corp. It may cost a few tens of millions of dollars to do so

today, but to wait for years is not only to continue to disappoint

those investors but to build up a much larger bill for the government

in the longer-term future.

What about the rest of Howe

Sound? Dome Petroleum of Calgary bought a large acreage at Britannia

Beach in 1978. Would Dome be allowed to build a big petrochemical

complex there? Would ships and barges carrying chemicals be allowed to

come and go? What are our pollution-control guidelines in respect to

liquefied natural gas, for example? What are our zoning requirements?

It's one thing for an Alberta-based company to buy up a lot of real

estate on tidewater near Vancouver; it's another thing for government

in this province to stand by while detailed plans are being laid for

large industrial complexes to be built a dozen miles — as the crow

flies — from downtown Vancouver. Fortunately Dome Petroleum got the

message through the media. Any industry which goes into Britannia Beach

will have to be very much a clean industry. However, the government

didn't tell Dome; the press did. As the minister knows, Dome Petroleum

is now actively looking elsewhere.

When

I was the federal

Minister of Environment in Ottawa we scoured the west coast for a safe

port area for off-loading coal, shipping wheat to the Orient and

producing petrochemicals for sale abroad. From an overall environmental

point of view, the best site turned out to be Ridley Island near Prince

Rupert. It was far enough away from the Skeena River estuary to have

little or no effect on the salmon runs there. It was close to the open

ocean, but protected from the worst weather. The water was deep enough

and the winds were brisk enough to deal with the kinds of shipping

which would use a port of that kind, and with the pollutants.

Fortunately the provincial government has now decided to ship most of

the products of northern and central B.C. out through a new port on

Ridley Island — not Squamish, which has been favoured all along, as I

understand it, by the New Democratic Party, and not out

through the limited waters of Howe Sound and across our inland sea

between Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Using the long straightaways

and easy grades of the CNR out to Prince Rupert, loading ships at the

Ridley Island site is going essentially with the grain of nature. It's

avoiding congestion in the lower mainland. It's using less energy to do

more useful things. It's opening up the north without at the same time

doing violence to the estuaries and to the recreational and residential

values around Vancouver.

While I'm still on the subject of

not informing — indeed, even misleading — industry, let me say a word

about the proposed coal-mine in the Quinsam area near Campbell River.

Weldwood Ltd. has now spent upwards of $5 million trying to prove to

our Environment ministry that it can mount a pollution-free project

there. It's tried hard to prove that an open-pit coal-mine wouldn't

damage the sport and recreational salmon fisheries downstream of the

project itself. It's hired all sorts of consultants and had numerous

meetings with various ministries here in Victoria. But still more data

is needed. More opinions have to be reduced to fact, newer and higher

standards have to be met; costs escalate, and seemingly there is no end

in sight.

I think this is a very important question: why

does the government lead Weldwood along in this way? I believe there

will never be a large open-pit coal-mine in the Campbell River area —

at least in my lifetime. It's a high-sulphur coal. Oxidization of

quantities of exposed and freshly mined material would present a

serious leachate problem above and close to the Quinsam salmon

hatchery. A large part of the tourist industry in the area would be in

jeopardy. If the provincial government didn't move, then I would expect

the federal government to move against a project of this kind. It would

protect the local fishery at all costs, and it would do what the great

majority of the public has been demanding all along. It would put a

stop to an industrial operation which most environmentalists would say

shouldn't have been given any encouragement in the first place.

think I know how the minister will answer — that private enterprise can

spend its money any way it sees fit. If it wants to gamble on a

development like the Quinsam coal project, then let it take its

chances. That isn't the partnership approach. In my view, it isn't even

an honest approach. Every one of us, as politicians, knows that the

Quinsam coal-mine will never be built. There are too many biological

unknowns. There's too large a public bias against it. Who needs a few

million tonnes of high-sulphur coal a year anyway? We wouldn't allow it

to be burned here in British Columbia. At least, our high pollution

standards wouldn't permit it to be burned today. B.C. Hydro rejected

the idea because of the cost of pollution abatement alone. So why

hasn't the government levelled with Weldwood and said: "Forget it"?

Unfortunately, it hasn't done this. It's given the company a few more

guidelines to meet. It's asked for more information. In effect, it

said maybe. "We'd like to know more. Keep at it, and just maybe you'll

get a permit to mine this coal." If I was the management of Weldwood,

getting this kind of go-round, I would have given up the chase long ago.

B.C.

Hydro's Hat Creek project up near Ashcroft is in a different category

entirely. The government, through the Ministry of Environment and its

pollution control branch, has announced guidelines for coal-burning

power plants. These were announced in 1978. They're tough. They're

among the toughest, if not the toughest, in North America. They can,

and undoubtedly will, be expensive. If they're

[ Page 6024 ]

imposed

to the limit on sulphur in the coal, for example, they'll result in

many hundreds of millions of dollars or perhaps more than half a

billion dollars of expenditure on pollution abatement alone. Actually,

the guidelines are presented as a range. Emissions of sulphur dioxide

can be as high as 1.3 parts per million and as low as 0.3 parts per

million. B.C. Hydro, in its designs, is aiming at 0.6 parts per

million. That's a fraction of the concentrations allowed under our new

federal regulations for coal-burning power plants. It's a small

fraction of the pollutant concentrations actually being emitted by the

largest, newest and best-equipped power stations in the eastern United

States.

We've got two great advantages at Hat Creek. The

coal found in the Hat Creek valley is low in sulphur to start with.

Also, the power plant will have dry-belt surroundings. Our dry-belt

land tends to be alkaline and not acidic. Anyone who knows the southern

interior knows of the alkali lakes that abound there. So there's a

natural buffering capacity in the area. Acid rain, as it is sometimes

called, will tend to help the soil there — to fertilize it. It will not

destroy it from a plant-producing point of view. Notice I said "tend."

That's an overall consideration, and there can be local problems. I'm

not saying that the conditions are ideal, but they're better than they

are in most other parts of the country. By insisting on high standards

from the outset, the government is doing the right thing from a

pollution-control point of view. B.C. Hydro is doing the right thing

from the point of view of the producer.

We'll be using the

latest, state-of-the-art technology. Or will we? If I were British

Columbia's Minister of Environment, I would be asking myself several

questions. First, is fluidized-bed combustion really out? Why can't it

be used in the Hat Creek project? Why can't the sulphur and other

impurities be captured in the combustion process by mixing the coal

with limestone — which, incidentally, exists in tremendous amounts in

Hat Creek itself — prior to combustion, and then, during the combustion

process. capture the sulphur and other pollutants which otherwise would

tend to escape into the atmosphere?

My second question, in

addition to the question about fluidized-bed combustion, is: why can't

the Hat Creek power plant use air-cooling, as opposed to water-cooling?

Granted, the power plant would not be able to run flat out on the

hottest days of the year. But it's on a very high ridge and there's a

lot of cold air up around Hat Creek most of the time. This air-cooling

approach would avoid pumping large quantities of water up several

thousand feet from the Thompson River. It would avoid pollutants

seeping back into the streams there.

Thirdly and finally,

what about converting the coal to a low-grade gas first? The pollutants

could be stripped out more effectively this way; there is less volume

to deal with, in other words. The gas would be clean-burning and air

emissions would be a tiny fraction of the volume of pollutants, which

we're bound to get from a conventional coal-burning plant of the kind

being designed for Hat Creek today.

These are possibilities,

Mr. Chairman. I would have a competent firm of consultants look at them

independently of B.C. Hydro and report in, say, six months' time.

Otherwise many of us are going to have lingering doubts about burning

coal in the old-fashioned way and cleaning up the power plant's

discharges expensively, indeed by brute force. It seems to me that an

Environment ministry that leads instead of follows would take

initiatives of this kind. Instead of commenting after the event, it

could shape things more positively in this way.

I could go

on at length, Mr. Chairman, but I'll limit my remarks to a few other

unrelated matters — matters which, however, are important at this time.

One is the utilization of waste products in our cities and towns and

from industry in B.C. We can burn garbage and make electricity; we can

burn wood wastes and make power; we can clean up our act and produce

energy in its highest, cleanest and most useful form. Why don't we do

more of this sort of thing? One of the reasons is that B.C. Hydro won't

pay enough for this surplus power. I think we should do what many other

countries and a number of states in the United States do: we should

require our major power utility, B.C. Hydro, to take all of the surplus

energy which our municipalities and our industries can generate, and

pay them a price equal to Hydro's average system cost of generation and

transmission — one might even argue Hydro's average cost of generation

and transmission from its latest and most expensive sources of power.

Those prices, of course, are much higher than Hydro has been offering

to pay industry, particularly the pulp and paper industry in this

province. But industry and municipalities — with this kind of

encouragement of a high price comparable to the price that Hydro is

really going to have to charge the rest of us for its new sources — can

make a go of things; wastes can be turned into useful products and

pollution can be limited thereby.

My main message, Mr.

Chairman, is that there is a need for leadership in environmental

matters not just here in British Columbia but across the nation and

around the world. It's a matter of attitude more than anything else.

We've got competent people in our Environment ministry; our standards

are high and our approach is quite specific — that's all to the good.

But for this competence and these policies to be really effective, our

environmental ministry and its agencies must act as if they're in

partnership with industry, municipalities and Crown corporations like

B.C. Hydro, helping them plan ahead and not hitting them after the

event. In other words, be a participant in forward planning; be

positive and, where possible, be imaginative as well. This is the

partnership approach, which I would like to see our government follow

in environment matters in the future; it's obviously upbeat rather than

downbeat; it can protect our environment much more effectively than any

arm's length approach to new projects and developments could ever

accomplish. It's one which, if I heard the hon. minister right

yesterday, he's prepared to follow also. I congratulate him on that

score. I might add that if the federal fisheries department had tried

to lead Amax rather than follow it into its present dilemma, the

trouble which that company, the Nishga Indians and government are

experiencing on Alice Arm would never have come to pass.

Positive,

Mr. Chairman, is the word; partnership is the approach. Pollution can

be minimized in this way. In my opinion, this is the only way to go for

a healthy environment and the best possible quality of life for our

citizens.

MR. HALL: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask permission of the House to introduce some guests.

Leave granted.

MR. HALL:

Mr. Chairman, I'm very pleased to ask the House to welcome to Victoria

two visitors from overseas seated in the Speaker's gallery: Dr. Sidney

Rose and Mr. Chris Muir, who are directors of the Manchester City

football club. They are visiting Victoria and the southern part of

[ Page 6025 ]

Vancouver

Island following the soccer game last Wednesday in the city of

Vancouver. They are accompanied today on their visit to Victoria by Dr.

Alan Robinson, who is also from my home town of Manchester, but is now

of Maple Bay. He is also a friend of the member for Cowichan–Malahat

(Mrs. Wallace). I'd like to ask the House to welcome these visitors

from Manchester, England.

HON. MR. ROGERS: The member

for Burnaby–Willingdon (Mr. Lorimer) asked a question that I want to

clear up before I deal with the remarks of the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis). In terms of the Pollution Control Act,

90 percent of the applications which come before the board receive no

comment from other ministries. The only other ministries which have any

influence at all are the ministries circulated, which are Agriculture

and Health. Perhaps, when the members opposite see the member for

Burnaby–Willingdon, they will advise him of that and perhaps that will

allay some of his fears.

I thank the member for his

comments. If we could take a great felt pen to the map of the province

and draw a line and say these areas are environmentally sensitive and

we are not going to allow operations to go on in them, I think that

everybody in the province would have input to the extent that the

felt-pen line would go around the borders of the entire province. We

have set up a set of guidelines for applications to go forward for

linear developments, for coal developments and for mineral

developments. I don't feel competent, and I don't think many others

would if they were in this position, to be able to say in advance to

any corporation or any entrepreneur or anyone who wants to develop in

this province: "You can't do it here until you've looked at it." They

would ask me: "What's that based on?" I would say: "I just don't want

you to do a development here." "Based on what"" "Based on what facts

you can give us." And that's the difficulty we have.

There's

no question about it, the Quinsam coal-mine, and the 20th Century

Energy Corp.'s proposal for a mine on Gambier Island have enormous

public dissatisfaction connected with them. Dome had the same thing.

Dome reacted sooner than the others have. But how can we go and say to

them that, because there's some heat from the local area, there's some

heat from environmental groups, because the local member or mayor or

municipality doesn't want them to do it, they can't do it? Based on

what? Well, we have to base it on something, and so we set up a

guidelines process which is not strictly technical, but which also

involves the public.

In the case of Weldwood we did not lead

anyone, and I want to make that quite clear. The company knew from the

outset what the requirements were. What they chose to do was avoid the

difficult areas. They chose not to go into the area and involve

themselves with public hearings. When they submitted their stage 2

guidelines, what was deficient? The one where they knew they'd have

some deficiencies. They knew at the outset what they were doing.

must say that before the guideline system was in place, companies would

come along, stake a claim, begin to do their operation and spend

enormous amounts of capital before getting their permits. Permits were

done as an afterthought. Now that the guidelines process is in place,

yes, the companies do have to spend some money prior to getting

approval. But they don't have to spend the massive sums of capital they

once had to spend, with the inherent risk of being turned down. What

really happened was that once they had spent that money, government was

more or less obliged to say yes. I think the guidelines have worked

well in the case of Quinsam, and I'm not prepared to say that, had

Weldwood and Lusgar come to see me or my predecessor when they first

decided to develop this thing, I would have had the judgment to be able

to say no, you can't proceed with it.

I know what the

feelings of the local people are going to be. It sure wouldn't take me

long to find out what federal Fisheries wanted to do; but it wouldn't

take the company long to do that either. I'm sure they have some pretty

good people, and they would have known that. They chose instead to go

the alternative route. Maybe they thought government would solve their

problems for them. Maybe they thought government would override the

opinions of the technical people within the branch and the ministry and

also override the local opinion.

We have gone with the

one-window approach, where all nine of the ministries involved get

involved with the guidelines process to the extent that it's necessary.

I'm not prepared to accept being the environmental czar and being able

to say to somebody no, you can't, or yes, you can based on no

technical information. I would have to base that opinion on fact and

not on anything else.

I share your concern about Gambier

Island. I'm sure the company must be aware of it. However, we have a

guideline system in place, and it's functioning reasonably well.

Nowhere in that system does it say that the companies can't reassess

their particular situation. If they just close their minds to the bad

news or the inevitable difficulties they are going to face with other

groups, then that's to their own detriment. It's to the detriment of

their investors. Maybe for reasons of their own they don't wish to go

ahead and find out what the local public consideration is.

don't know where we draw a line in Howe Sound. Do we draw it at the top

of the mountain in the drainage for that area, or do we just include

the islands in Howe Sound? When I travel up Howe Sound I have a hard

time distinguishing why we should treat the islands any differently

than we treat the mainland. The whole area is one that's widely used by

boaters, and this member is suggesting that if the ore body had been

discovered on the mainland at Port Mellon, or between Port Mellon and

Woodfibre, it would be all right to operate it there. No, it wouldn't.

You've got to expand the boundaries. And where do you expand the

boundaries? To the top of the drainage area. Well, we haven't done

these things.

As you said, this ministry is only just over

five years old, and we have had mines in the area of the Islands Trust.

Admittedly they are not major mines, but these areas have taken part.

We had a mine on Saturna Island. It wasn't very long ago that that mine

closed, and I would venture to say that if a mine wanted to reopen on

Satuma Island, the public outcry would be enormous. There wasn't one

when the mine existed some time ago, but there certainly would be now.

You say: "Level with them at the outset." Well, level with them based

on what information? I could give them a bit of common-sense off the

record and let them know what they face, or point them in the direction

of some people that have tried to go through the same thing before. We

have a set of guidelines and rules for people to try. If they don't wish

to take that advice, that's up to them.

You make some

interesting suggestions about Hat Creek. The state-of-the-art about a

fluidized bed is still doubtful. The Minister of Universities, Science

and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) is very enthusiastic about it.

He's a

[ Page 6026 ]

member

of the board of Hydro, reconfirmed as recently as this morning by my

colleague the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon.

Mr. McClelland). I would imagine that's the place that kind of decision

should be made. There is a great risk involved in going into a project

of this size and going into a totally new scope on a scale that big.

want to talk about burning garbage to make electricity, and what the

experiments have been before in Sydney, Australia, and a whole host of

other areas in the world — Copenhagen and several on the east coast of

the United States. They've all suffered the same problems, and the one

that exists in Sydney is shut down. When you incinerate garbage you

only reduce the mass to about 40 percent, so you're still left with a

landfill problem, and you're left with a problem in terms of air

pollution. What we're burning in the first case is garbage, and garbage

doesn't have the same calorific value per truckload. There isn't a

consistent calorific value per truckload. While we can salvage the

cullets of the glass and metal that come out of the bottom, what's

happened is that in every place one of these incineration operations

has operated it's operated at a massive cost to the taxpayer.

Environmentally it doesn't make all that much sense. All you do is

reduce some of the mass of the stuff that's going into the landfill,

and end up having to subsidize the operation. You can control the

burner temperature with natural gas or oil, and I'm not sure that's a

wise way to do it. It's been tried in other areas. When it becomes

cost-effective in terms of waste distribution, I think it's something

we should attack here.

In terms of B.C. Hydro and their

purchase of energy from alternate sources, I'm reminded that it wasn't

very long ago when we reviewed our sources of energy in this province

and found that wood-waste ends up being one of the major sources of

energy. Since being the minister I've had the opportunity to visit more

than a few garbage dumps, and I think that if people went and looked at

the feedstock we're working with, then these ideas of incineration,

salvage and recovery of some of the feedstock we're working with would

fade pretty quickly. We do have a recovery program, and we do encourage

people to recycle. In fact paper and metal recycling is very much

encouraged by the ministry. We have seen industries grow up out of the

fact that recycled materials are available, but again there's a limit

to what can be done, because there's a limited market for the product.

I thank the member for his comments and look forward to continued debate.

MR. SKELLY:

On this side we also appreciate the comments from the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour. I think it's refreshing to see any backbencher on

that side of the House get up and discuss environmental concerns as

this member has done. We congratulate him for doing that. It's very

seldom that you see a Social Credit member get up and express those

kinds of concerns. Unfortunately he is receiving the same response in

terms of negative responses as this side of the House receives whenever

they make some positive suggestions. I very much appreciated the

member's comments about developers. He talked about the vagueness of

the environmental planning process when a developer seeks to come into

British Columbia to develop a mine or some other industry. It doesn't

really get a firm impression of what the environmental law is with

respect to the development process. At what stage must he present a

prospectus by law? At which stage must there be public involvement and

this type of thing? The process is fairly vague. It's still ad hoc and

catch as catch can. The minister talks about guidelines. Guidelines are

nothing more than guidelines. They vary. Some people are excluded from

some parts of some guidelines. We brought up an issue in this House a

few years ago about the Cheekye-Dunsmuir power project where a

section

of the guidelines requires a cost-benefit analysis of the project from

the total provincial point of view. Hydro had done one which deviated

from the guideline requirement. They had done one from the corporate

point of view. The Environment and Land Use Committee secretariat,

which the minister fired, indicated that there was a difference in the

requirements and that Hydro did not do what they were required to do

under the guidelines.

We went down to the office of the

minister of the day. I believe the member for Boundary–Similkameen

(Hon. Mr. Hewitt) was the Minister of Energy at that time. I suppose he

was as good as any Minister of Energy we've had on that side. The

member for Kamloops of the day was the Minister of Environment. He was

probably better than any Minister of Environment they've had on that

side. We went down to the office and said that under the guidelines

Hydro is required to produce some kind of justification for this

project and go through the public review procedure with public

hearings, etc. The ministers told us: "Forget the guidelines. We've

already made the decision in cabinet. Hydro has been exempted from the

guidelines, and guidelines are just guidelines." They aren't a legally

structured environmental assessment and review procedure. That's the

problem faced by the 20th Century Energy Corp. and by Weldwood-Lusgar;

they really don't know. If they present a slipshod prospectus and

second-stage analysis, they may get through because, politically,

cabinet can accept it.

The problem in this province is that

we don't have a legally structured environmental impact and assessment

procedure. It's all done by guidelines, and it's all done behind the

door. Sometimes it will be accepted if it deviates from the guidelines

and sometimes it won't. Northeast coal is the perfect example. All of

those studies were done but done away from the public view and public

comment. Agreements were entered into without the value of public

review and assessment of those studies and effective public comment on

those studies. As far as I'm concerned, the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) was right on. In the case of the mine to

be developed within the Islands Trust, the people that the minister

should be listening to are the people from the island and the people

who represent those people from the island on the Islands Trust. This

is still a democracy. It's not a government where you consult with your

technicians and your experts, come to a conclusion and impose that on

the people regardless of whether they want it or not. Regardless of how

technically proficient your advisers are, the people may still not want

what you feel they should have. In a democracy the people are the ones

who have the right to decide.

I hear from the people in the

Islands Trust that they do not want an open-pit mine on Gambier Island.

They've ruled against it. They've got bylaws against it. Those people

have the right to decide whether or not they want mines within their

jurisdiction. It's like any zoning bylaw anywhere else in the province.

If you don't want a piggery here and the zoning says you don't have to

have one, you don't get one, because that's the will of the people. It

may be technically feasible to install a piggery there, but the will of

the people has been

[ Page 6027 ]

expressed

in their local bylaws. It's the will of the people that we should be

listening to. I support the member for North Vancouver–Seymour when he

says that the minister should come out and say that that mine is out

because the people have made their wishes known. That's all there is to

it.

He mentioned the Weldwood-Lusgar proposal on Vancouver

Island. I don't think that proposal could pass your technical or

political requirements in a million years. Everything is going against

that proposal. So I'm pleased to see that that proposal has been

rejected at the stage that it's at now. The minister should simply

stand up and say: "That proposal is out. The people are against it. The

technical problems have not been adequately examined. Therefore the

proposal is out." But first and foremost what is required is a legal

framework — not guidelines, but a framework spelled out in legislation

and regulation, which says: "This is how the planning procedure takes

place in the province of British Columbia, and this is how the

environmental assessment and review procedure takes place in the

province of British Columbia. In legal detail this is how those

developments take place." A developer looking at the province of

British Columbia as a prospective place to develop will know precisely

in law how he must begin, how he must proceed, before what tribunals he

must appear and, finally, the fact that the people of this province

have the right to decide what the economy of this province is going to

be like, what the development in their specific area is going to be

like and which developments they would like to exclude — because the

people in this province are sovereign.

That's the principle

that we should be dealing with in this Legislature: the people are

sovereign — not the technicians in this ministry, the Ministry of Mines

or the Ministry of Forests. The people of this province, who elect us,

have a right to decide what the development in this province is going

to be like. This ministry has — and I mentioned this yesterday —

consistently excluded the public from the right to effective

involvement in the environmental decision-making process and the

resource development decision-making process. That's an attack on

democracy. That's an attack on the sovereignty of the people of this

province.

You should be ashamed, specifically, of the way

you handle public involvement in environmental decision-making. It's

obvious that yesterday you missed that point of the debate where I

suggested in a reasonable way that you involve the Select Standing

Committee on Environment and Resources in this Legislature and that you

develop a citizens' advisory committee. All of those reasoned proposals

presented across the floor to the Minister of Environment were totally

ignored, as far as I can see. There was no commitment even to say:

"Okay, we'll take a look at these proposals. I'll come back to you with

a report, maybe later on in the session, maybe next year, and see what

we can do about these things." You just said: "I'll take note." So as

far as I'm concerned, those reasonable proposals have been rejected by

this minister. I'm not even sure he can accept them. I'm not even sure

he has the power to accept them. I'm not even sure what went on in the

discussions with his ministry and with cabinet prior to the

presentation of these estimates in the Legislature. They told him to

agree to nothing, to stand there and stonewall. Is that what happened?

The

member for North Vancouver–Seymour made a number of serious, reasoned

proposals to the minister. As any serious and reasoned proposals that

come from any side of this House, they were stonewalled and rejected

out of hand. On the issue of Hat Creek and co-generation,

I'm pleased to hear the former minister from North

Vancouver–Seymour.... He has been involved in the Hat Creek

proposal for decades. He was working for the B.C. Electric Co., and

part

of his responsibility was the analysis of the Hat Creek deposit for

possible future thermal generation to augment B.C. Electric's

generation requirements. He has long-standing familiarity with that

project. When a gentleman such as the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour comes into the House and questions the direction that

the

government is going now, questions the possible environmental impacts

this project, questions the way B.C. Hydro is going.... He is a

former Minister of Energy for the province of British Columbia. When

that gentleman stands up and questions the project in this House, I

would expect this minister, a rookie in comparison, to take some

cognizance of what that gentleman was saying.

What about

the issue of fluidized-bed combustion? It has been examined. In fact

it's in use in other parts of the world. It's in use in smaller

projects, and that's what Hydro doesn't want. They don't want small

projects. They want huge, monolithic projects. That's what Hydro is

after. The director for that project in B.C. Hydro's hierarchy wants

his name on the door of the biggest thermal generating project in the

world. That's how it appears to us across the floor and to the public:

they don't care about the environmental impacts, they don't care about

the cost to the province, they don't care about how it's going to

affect Hydro's internal operations. For example, we're told that if

Hat Creek is built, to the tune of $5 billion of the taxpayers'

money.... It's not the taxpayers' money, because we're going to

borrow it; it's the money of future generations so far into time that

it's foggy for us to even comprehend — $5 billion in debt. We're told

that if this plant is built on the credit ratings of the people of

British Columbia now and in the future, there will be an obligation on

B.C. Hydro, because of the labour component in this thermal generating

plant, to keep this plant running in preference to hydroelectric dams —

because labour will have some power to keep the thermal plant

operating,

whereas the dams don't have that much of a labour component.

They will let water spill over the dams, with a loss of cheap energy,

and will continue producing expensive energy from the Hat Creek thermal

generation project. It's going to distort the whole economic picture in

B.C. Hydro, not to mention the environmental problems it's going to

create, so that we will be shutting down renewable cheap power sources

with a low labour component, in order to operate this project because

of the high labour component and the pressure labour will be able to

exert on the corporation to keep that plant running even when it

doesn't make economic sense. We're concerned about that as well.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

This

member had a lot to say. He developed very important issues about the

Hat Creek plant. Hydro, in its mindless way.... And you said that

this is an issue that should be dealt with at the board of directors

level in B.C. Hydro. No, sir, Mr. Minister, the buck tops here. That's

been the problem with you all along: you've shuffled it off onto the

federal government when it's a question of uranium transportation in

this province; you shuffle it off onto the federal government when

you're talking about budgets for dyking and draining in the Fraser

Valley; you shuffle the blame onto the federal

[ Page 6028 ]

government

when it's a question of money being delayed and taken out of the

salmonid enhancement program. The buck finally stops with you. You're

going to have to make some decisions on this project. It has tremendous

economic and environmental implications for the province of British

Columbia, and you are solely responsible. For one time in your career

as Minister of Environment, you're going to have to stand up and say:

"No, the project has got to be stopped — not permanently — and

reconsidered." You're going to have to exercise your power.

I've

been listening to this minister over the last few days — over the last

few years — and watching his performance as the Minister of

Environment. This minister seems impotent to get anything done in

cabinet. He seems impotent even to get a budget that's greater than

last year's, without padding and adding things that shouldn't be in the

budget. He seems to be a ministerial eunuch, as far as we can see.

What's the use of a Minister of Environment in this province if he

can't do anything and if he's unwilling to do anything? It's not enough

to slough off these questions.

We have made reasonable

presentations across the floor. We're getting frustrated in making

reasonable presentations. The member for North Vancouver–Seymour has

made reasonable presentations, and every one of them was sloughed off.

"Well, that's B.C. Hydro's responsibility. I can't invade the

jurisdiction of another minister. The federal government is to blame."

The buck stops with you, Mr. Minister. You're going to have to start

answering some of these questions yourself. Don't call another task

force and ask the polluters to decide how they want to pollute. Don't

call another task force to decide how the people who are dividing up

the Fraser estuary want to divide what remains of the Fraser estuary.

The buck has got to stop with you.

We're simply not getting

answers from this minister. We're not convinced that he has the power

to give them. First of all, he hasn't taken the power personally. The

former minister, Rafe Mair — we can mention him by name now — at least

did take the power. The ministry sacked the Environment and Land Use

Committee secretariat while he was cloistered in a Social Credit caucus

policy meeting out in the Richmond Inn. You might remember that event

yourself. They neglected to tell the minister that they had. When he

came out of there he was outraged and he reinstated it. Of course, he

said that they hadn't been fired in the first place.

This

minister is even a prisoner of his own ministry. He's like the national

parks service in British Columbia. You go out to the park and ask them

what the weather is like. They phone Ottawa, and then they're able to

tell you. You ask this guy a question about the environment, and he has

to go back to his ministry. Then he answers the question or gets

somebody in the ministry to answer the question. Why was this minister

appointed? Is he a tabula rasa? He's a blank space. Nothing is written

on him, unless his ministry chooses to write. Does he have no opinions

on the environment of his own? What kind of a ministry do we have here?

What kind of a minister do we have here? Is he a eunuch? Is he

impotent? What we expect from him is to get things done. Let the buck

stop with the minister. Let the minister make the decisions. That's

what we're after here in the Legislature.

Speaking of the

bucks, I'd like to change the subject momentarily here, and talk a

little bit about the budget of the Minister of Environment.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, I ask leave to introduce some people.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

I'd like the House to welcome about 25 students from the Seacliff

Christian School in Richmond. Accompanying the students to Victoria

today is their teacher, Mr. Harris, a friend of mine; Mr. Al Campbell,

the father of Mr. Harris; and Mrs. Van Bruksvoort. I'd like the House to

welcome them.

MR. SKELLY: I don't like attacking this

minister, because I like him personally, but you must understand, Mr.

Chairman, that it gets pretty frustrating in this House when you stand

up time after time — when his own members stand up time after time —

and make reasonable suggestions and they're totally stonewalled in the

House. We get the feeling that his ministry won't let him make any

commitments to members across this floor, and it gets pretty

frustrating, as I say.

I'd now like to talk a little bit

about the budget of the Ministry of Environment. We took a look at the

budget when it first came down in estimates, and the minister's budget

had gone up something like $10 million this year — it's gone up to $81

million. But when you take a close look at the budget, it has actually

declined from previous years. When you look at the padding in the

budget and the things that should have been spent elsewhere or possibly

under other budgets, when you look at the change in the budgeting

procedure, then you have to come to the conclusion, Mr. Chairman — and

I'm sure you have — that this budget is much lower than it was last

year. First of all, by dropping off some of the padding, you end up

with $71 million, which was roughly the budget last year. When you

account for inflation at about 12.6 percent over the year, you end up

with less spending ability in this ministry now than we had before. The

minister in some of his previous remarks was talking about how in the

dyking program on the Fraser River the federal government had cut back

on their participation and also extended the terms of the program,

which made it even more vulnerable to inflation. Well, okay, that's

blaming the federal government.

Talking about the salmonid

enhancement program, recently people in this province and people

associated with the ministry have complained that the federal

contribution for that program has also been cut back and the program

has been extended. As a result it's more vulnerable to inflation and

less can be done now under the program than was predicted in the

agreement signed between the federal and provincial governments. Yet

the minister's own budget has been virtually frozen this year. It's not

the federal government that's at fault here; there are no other people

at fault here. The minister's own budget has been frozen. I know the

minister would like to blame the feds or Treasury Board, but again it

relates back to a question of the minister's own impotence in

persuading cabinet and Treasury Board to assign adequate funds to

fulfill the mandate of his ministry. He says he wins a lot of arguments

in cabinet. It appears to me that the only argument he's won with

respect to this budget is how to cover up the losses.

Obviously

one approach was in the provincial disaster fund. Ordinarily, under the

estimates for the provincial disaster fund, they assign a nominal sum

of about $10. You don't know if there's going to be a disaster from one

year to the next — unless a Social Credit government is elected, Mr.

Chairman. But we're talking about natural disasters, not unnatural

disasters. Every year in the past, a nominal sum of $10 has been

allocated to the provincial disaster fund or to the flood

[ Page 6029 ]

relief

fund, because we don't know if there are going to be flood relief

requirements. We don't know if there's going to be a problem with

landslides, or another Port Alice problem on northern Vancouver Island,

or another Bella Bella problem, or the heavy rainfalls that we had last

December 24 and December 25. We don't know that those things are going

to happen, so we don't budget any specific amount.

This year

we budgeted about $6 million for provincial disasters, and the minister

in the formal budget speech debate stood up and said the expenditure

was required in this year because of flood damage which had taken place

last year. Actually we've budgeted money for this year to pay for

damage that had taken place last year. This is a violation of the trend

that has taken place over the years — that the government should

generally take those moneys out of other budgets or emergency funds to

provide compensation for flood relief.

Also, legally, Mr.

Chairman, we are dealing with next year's estimates — the requirements

for money for next year, not the requirements for last year.

Compensation for those problems should have been paid in the last year

or attributed to the last fiscal year, but not to the next year. That's

why we budgeted in that manner for the past several years. So the

minister has padded his budget to the tune of $6 million on provincial

disaster programs in order to make it appear that his budget this year

is higher than ever, because of course there's been some criticism of

this minister for not being able to get, from Treasury Board and

cabinet, the finances he requires to keep his ministry going at the

level of last year or even to expand the ministry's function so they

can adequately fulfill their mandate. He's padded the budget.

After

you get the budget all prepared, there's a little statement that says

they took off $2.5 million as "efficiencies achieved to control

government growth." Where does that money come off? Do you pad the

budget by $6 million and then deduct the $2.5 million from it? Is it

all just tricks, gimmicks and sleight of hand? The budget has been

padded, and all we actually have in this budget is the $71 million we

had last year.

I'd like to talk a little bit about the way

the budget is developed and how budgets for certain sections of the

ministry are developed.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Order, please. Hon. members, we have been conducting a most orderly

debate up to this point. I would ask both the House Leader (Hon. Mr.

Gardom) and the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Barnes) to come

to order and let this meaningful debate continue.

MR. SKELLY:

For example, the minister in his opening remarks said that he had

developed a new habitat conservation fund to be endowed out of an

additional $3 for every hunting licence in the province. That's not a

bad thing; I'm not opposed to that. It doesn't provide very much money.

Of course, it puts on the hunters and the fishermen, I suppose, the

obligation to provide additional habitat. The same requirement is not

right across the board. As I mentioned yesterday, the polluters in this

province don't have to pay a similar assessment for their right to

destroy certain resources in the province.

We took a look

through the minister's most recent annual report as to the number of

pollution control permits in effect in the province. In the 1979

calendar year there were 506 new pollution control permits issued to

give a total of 3,036 permits in force in the province. The cost of

issuing, maintaining and monitoring these permits during fiscal 1979

and 1980 was approximately $4.4 million after you deduct the cost of

Project SAM. The average cost of administering a licence given to an

operation in the province, which allows that operation to degrade the

quality of a life-sustaining resource, is about $1,450 per year.

Right now this amount is completely subsidized by the taxpayer. The

taxpayers are subsidizing even the issuing of licences in this province.

one time under a former Minister of Recreation and Conservation, Ken

Kiernan, there were complaints from the outdoors community and the fi