1995 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 35th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1995

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 18, Number 24

[ Page 13413 ]

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Prayers.

G. Farrell-Collins: I ask the House to welcome to the precincts a good friend of mine, Gord Zeilstra, who's here from Fort Langley-Aldergrove along with his parents, Art and Chris Zeilstra, from Kitchener, Ontario, who are in town for his graduation and here today for a visit. Would the House please make them welcome.

R. Chisholm: Today in the House we have Lisa Ryan and Colin Roberts from the city of Seattle, visiting Victoria and coming down to see the parliamentary system in action. Hopefully, we'll give them a good show. Would you make them most welcome.

D. Lovick: I would call this a contrary-to-what-you-might-expect introduction. I'd like to ask my colleagues in the chamber to join me in making welcome a member of the fourth estate. There is a reporter here from the Nanaimo Bulletin, exploring a day in the life of an MLA. I ask all my colleagues to please make Michael Munro most welcome.

G. Campbell: Today in the House we have 30 students from the grade 11 class at Prince of Wales Minischool in Vancouver. They are joined by Ms. Heather Spencer and Ms. Susan Jackson. I hope the House will make them welcome.

Oral Questions

CROWN LEASEHOLDS AND ABORIGINAL TREATY NEGOTIATIONS

A. Warnke: My question today is to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. Recently a number of Crown leaseholders in the Fraser Lake area have become increasingly concerned that they are unable to convert their leases to fee simple due to a policy of B.C. Lands. The referred to the appropriate first nations for comment, to identify if any traditional aboriginal uses will be impacted by the application. The result of this policy is that many leaseholders are justly concerned that the improvements that they have made on their properties are in jeopardy of being lost.

The question is: in light of the minister's statement in the past -- and even that of the Premier -- that private property is not on the table, will the minister undertake to assure the people of the Fraser Lake area that they will not lose the right to purchase their leasehold lands?

Hon. J. Cashore: With regard to the question concerning Crown leaseholds, there's an element of this question that should appropriately go the Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks. Our ministry and our government have issued a Crown land referral policy. That policy should not result in undue delay but should result in fulfilling the obligations that we as a government have with regard to the Delgamuukw appeal requirements. That is the process underway when these items come up. With regard to the owners of Crown leaseholds, this is one of the issues where we are seeking to achieve certainty through this process.

The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.

A. Warnke: The residents of Fraser Lake are clearly looking for answers, yet they see the land claims process as being operated behind closed doors. A number of the NDP ministers have not answered letters. Even their own MLA, the member for Prince George-Omineca, has not raised this issue in the House. The information these residents have is from the local native bands, and it's not exactly what the residents want to hear.

One such letter from the Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council states: "If any privately owned land is needed by the first nations communities as part of their economic base, this land would be acquired through negotiative purchases and/or land exchanges based on fair compensation." Could the minister clarify whether or not private land is on the negotiating table? Can he assure the residents of Fraser Lake -- and indeed, all British Columbians -- that they will not be used as bargaining chips in the negotiation of land claims?

Hon. J. Cashore: Private land is not on the table; that is a certainty. With reference to Crown leaseholds, the term "Crown" is within that definition, therefore this is Crown land. The hon. member knows that.

I wish to correct a point that the hon. member made. The hon. member said that negotiations are going on in secrecy. He knows this is not true, and he should acknowledge that as a result of the leadership of the Premier last September at the UBCM -- at first criticized by some first nations -- we now have six openness protocols to ensure that openness will be the standard in the negotiation of treaties. That is leadership.

VAUDREUIL SENTENCE REDUCTION

J. Dalton: My question is for the Attorney General. Verna Vaudreuil has had her sentence reduced from ten to four years for the manslaughter of her five-year-old son. That means Mrs. Vaudreuil will now be eligible for parole after only 18 months for the abuse and death of her child. Will the Attorney General commit to appealing this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: No. I won't use this forum to make that commitment.

The Speaker: The hon. member has a supplemental.

J. Dalton: Without question, the reduction of this sentence sends a very dangerous signal that this government does not take child abuse seriously. I will ask the Attorney General again: will he instruct his staff to ensure that Mrs. Vaudreuil receives a sentence appropriate to the crime she committed?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Unlike the member, I intend to make no comment whatsover in respect of the B.C. appeal court decision at this point during the appeal period.

TIME FRAME IN ABORIGINAL TREATY NEGOTIATIONS

L. Fox: My question this afternoon is to the Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks. Unlike the Liberal opposition, I've taken some time to research the issue.

[ Page 13414 ]

The effect of the interim protection measures agreement on the residents of Fraser Lake and other recreational land leaseholders, as well as on agricultural lease applications, has been that it has given veto power to the native bands. Can the minister assure the people in my constituency and, for that matter, across the province, that there is going to be a time frame placed on the length of time the native bands have in the consultative process?

[2:15]

Hon. M. Sihota: I thank the hon. member for the question. As the hon. member knows, we are obliged under the provisions of the Delgamuukw decision to engage in consultation and to make reasonable efforts in terms of fulfilling that obligation with regard to consultation. We will do precisely what we are legally obliged to do as a result of the decisions of the courts, and that does take its time. I do have a lot of sympathy for your constituents, who certainly have written to me about it.

I took the opportunity last week when I was in Prince George to talk to my staff about it and pressed upon them my concern that this is an issue that I would like to see attended to and clarified within the context of that court decision.

The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.

L. Fox: The fact of the matter is that many bands do not have the ability to even explore all the recommendations that are placed before them. Through that lack of administrative time, they are holding up applications on such things as recreational lots, agricultural land leases, and so forth. In fact, I have written to 540 leaseholders out of the Prince George region and I wait to place before you the answers, which will show substantial concern by those residents about this policy and the lack of the native bands' ability to deal with it. Can the minister give us some assurance that he is looking at a realistic time frame that would give some comfort to those taxpayers?

Hon. M. Sihota: We are looking at time frames, I can assure you of that. I appreciate that there is substantive concern in that part of the province in regard to this issue. As a result of it, we are placing additional resources to deal with the issue.

Let me also say that we do have obligations under these court decisions. As a result of those obligations, native bands don't necessarily have the requisite resources to deal with the implications of those court decisions, also. So there is some juggling that goes on. But I do appreciate the concerns that are expressed by your constituents. That's why we're prepared to look at providing more defined time lines than we have in the past so as to allay those concerns on the part of your constituents. I wish to thank you for the question.

BAIL FOR SUSPECT IN VIOLENT CRIME

K. Jones: My question is to the Attorney General. Last September Trevor McCallum was brutally and deliberately shot dead in the parking lot of a Victoria doughnut shop. We now understand that the alleged murderer has been released on a paltry $1,000 bail. How can the Attorney General claim to be protecting the people of British Columbia when potentially dangerous and violent people like this individual are released on bail that is an absolute joke?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The member should know -- although it seems that he doesn't -- that it's the courts that make those decisions.

The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.

K. Jones: The Attorney General has short answers but absolutely no substance in his answers.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, please. Please proceed with your question, hon. member.

K. Jones: In a letter, the mother of the murder victim, Burness McCallum, asked how a person who has murdered an innocent bystander in a premeditated kill excursion can walk freely on the streets of our country.

My question is to the Attorney General. Why have you allowed this potentially dangerous individual back out on the street, with the possibility that he may reoffend?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I thought I had already answered that question.

NANAIMO COMMONWEALTH HOLDING SOCIETY

G. Farrell-Collins: Within a few weeks the forensic auditor, Mr. Parks, who has been assigned the job of examining the books of the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society, is due to submit his report to the Minister of Finance. Unfortunately, after the Rigaux fiasco in the Ministry of Social Services, British Columbians no longer trust the NDP government to make sure that those reports are released unaltered.

Will the Premier commit to this House today that he will instruct that Mr. Parks's terms of reference be such that the report Mr. Parks tables will not go to the Minister of Finance but rather to the Speaker, and be tabled immediately in this House?

Hon. M. Harcourt: I see that the Easter weekend didn't do much to the politics of smear coming from the opposition. Instead of this House being able to concentrate on the issues that are important to ordinary working people -- jobs and job creation, where we are leading the country.... Forty percent of the new jobs came from British Columbia in the last three years. We're going to protect medicare against Liberals on that side of the House and in Ottawa. That's what we're here to do.

Mr. Parks was appointed to prepare a report, which will be tabled by Mr. Parks and which will not be touched by any member of the government. We have said that from the beginning. The slurs coming from that side of the House against our integrity are wearing very, very thin on the working people of this province, who are fair-minded people. Instead of this politics of smear continually from the opposition....

The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.

G. Farrell-Collins: Unfortunately, it's been the New Democratic Party, and this Premier in particular, who have been smearing the province of British Columbia all over the

[ Page 13415 ]

place with their misappropriations of funds in Nanaimo. They made a laughingstock of British Columbia. Will the Premier commit, contrary to what Mr. Parks's terms of reference are, to making it clear today that that report will come to this House before it touches the hands of any one of his ministers?

VIDEO LOTTERY TERMINALS

D. Mitchell: I'm pleased to have a chance to ask the first question of the new Minister of Government Services. Could the minister inform the House as to whether or not he has discovered that the video lottery terminal file is on his desk?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I did, thank you.

The Speaker: Hon. member, supplemental.

D. Mitchell: Now that the minister is a seasoned veteran at question period, I'd like to ask the minister if he can advise us how long it's going to take him to answer some serious questions on the video lottery terminal issue that he, as a private member, expressed such strong and adamant positions against -- against the positions taken by his predecessor. Could he tell us how long it's going to take him to answer some serious questions on the VLT issue?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: As soon as the hon. member asks me one, I'll answer it.

LINKS BETWEEN PREMIER'S OFFICE AND U.S. POLITICAL ADVISERS

W. Hurd: A question to the Premier. The Premier has admitted that U.S. spin doctor Karl Struble was paid under a contract disguised as a retainer to provide strategic political advice to his office as well as to government ministries. Could the Premier tell members of this House what steps he has taken within his office to ensure that Mr. Struble will not be engaged by this government under another deceptive contractual arrangement?

Hon. M. Harcourt: Aside from probably costing the taxpayers more money than any calls that went from British Columbia to Washington, with the misuse of the various procedures that we've set up through freedom-of-information and conflict....

I understand -- and I'm going to check the Blues -- that I and members of this government were just accused by the Opposition House Leader of misappropriating funds. Hon. Speaker, I would ask the hon. member to withdraw that remark and those implications against members of this House, myself in particular.

The Speaker: Hon. members, the bell terminates question period. However, the hon. Premier sought to have inappropriate remarks withdrawn by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock, and I would ask the hon. member if he is inclined to accommodate the request.

W. Hurd: Mr. Speaker, you identified the member for Surrey-White Rock as having uttered inappropriate remarks, and I wanted a clarification on what those remarks might be.

The Speaker: I'm sorry, that was my mistake. The hon. Opposition House Leader.

G. Farrell-Collins: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I think if the Premier checks the Blues he'll realize that I smeared his party and not him personally.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, hon. members. As a matter of parliamentary decorum and good practice, all hon. members know that we try to respond at the time to a request to withdraw, and should it be found in due course that there is other evidence to the contrary, we will deal with that. But as a matter of decorum, if the member would simply withdraw in the event that he was inappropriate, this would be appreciated.

G. Farrell-Collins: Well, hon. Speaker, the fundraising arm of the New Democratic Party was convicted of a criminal offence, and I have no intent of withdrawing that. I won't deny it even if the Premier will.

The Speaker: The hon. member is then telling the House that he has no intention of withdrawing?

G. Farrell-Collins: That's correct.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, please.

It is with regret that I will have to ask the hon. member.... If he is absolutely certain he does not wish to withdraw, then he knows that the procedure is that a member vacates the chamber for the remainder of the day.

G. Farrell-Collins left the chamber.

C. Serwa: On a point of order, hon. Speaker, we're getting onto very thin ice here. In the matter of debate, all through, many things are said by government members and opposition members with reflection on party -- not vitriolic personal remarks directed against individuals, but against parties. That's part of the nature of the politics in this forum. I stand here very concerned as to where this is leading us.

The Speaker: Thank you, hon. member.

Hon. members, I think the concern raised by the hon. member is well taken. However, it is not the place of the Chair to determine whether a remark is intentionally inappropriate or not. It is a practice and custom of the House simply to respect the honour of every member and therefore to comply. If a member refuses to comply, there is no other course for the member than to vacate himself for the remainder of the day.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I'd like to table copies of an interim report and recommendations from the independent inquiry into child protection headed up by Judge Thomas Gove.

The Speaker: I have the pleasure to table the report and accompanying documentation of the commissioner of conflict of interest regarding the matter of applications by the hon. Leader of the Third Party and Mr. Kim Emerson, a private citizen, respecting an alleged contravention of provisions of

[ Page 13416 ]

the Members' Conflict of Interest Act by the hon. Premier. Copies of the report and an opportunity to review accompanying documents will be provided in the usual way through the Clerk's office.

Orders of the Day

Hon. G. Clark: I call Committee of Supply A for the purposes of debating the estimates of the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture. In the House today I call second reading of Bill 7.

[2:30]

J. Doyle: Hon. Speaker, I'd like leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

J. Doyle: In the gallery today from Golden, in the riding of Columbia River-Revelstoke, I'm pleased to introduce Mr. Bud Stuart. Bud runs a shoe store in Golden. I'm very, very pleased that Bud is here today. I'd like the members to make him welcome to Victoria.

COLUMBIA BASIN TRUST ACT

(second reading continued)

C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, I would like to advise the House that I'll be the government's designated speaker on this bill. As I understand it, that just means that if what I have to say takes a little too long, it becomes legitimate.

I'm really pleased to stand here and to enter into the debate on the creation of the Columbia River trust. As a matter of fact, I can't imagine any better job that might someday have been mine. I want to make the point that underlying everything I have to say -- in fact, underlying everything that everybody has to say about this issue -- it should always be remembered that we did this. I'll get to it further on in my remarks, but I'm of the opinion that the government of the day -- this government, these MLAs -- are probably the only people who would ever have created the Columbia River trust.

The process this government went through to get to this day is the only process that could ever have created, thought up, come to an accord, a consensus, on the existence of a trust.

But I want to start back a long time ago. I want to suggest to the opposition party and the third party and the independents -- the growing fourth party in this room -- that the purpose of this debate, the reason I want to take you back in history, the function of all this talk, is really to help you to decide how you're going to vote, because in a couple of days, maybe even this afternoon, the most historic moment in 30 years for about a quarter of a million people is going to come to a vote here.

We've had our differences about whether you agree with the Columbia River trust, whether you agree with the accord the government has come to with the region. Of course, that's necessary; that's natural. Democracy says that, in our wisdom, we'll pay people wages and give you guys researchers and staff to oppose the government. That way all these folks are guaranteed there's legitimate discourse; there's somebody out there to say this is right and this is wrong.

But after the debate is over, eventually each of you, as individuals and as members of a party, just like each of us, has to actually decide if you are for it or against it. Then all the people outside get to see if you are for it or against it.

The neat thing about politics is that it survives us all. People will remember if you are for it or against it, long after you don't work here and I don't work here. People are going to write it down in books: are you for it or against it? And people are going to read it long after none of us work here. I know that, because they are already reading about the last time there was a moment like this in Canadian history.

School kids are already reading how we got the Columbia River Treaty. So it's safe to assume, hon. members, that you're going to go down in history -- this afternoon, maybe tomorrow -- when you actually say "I'm for it" or "I'm against it." I hope you hear my remarks, as kindly as I can make them, even though I might get to a

part later on where I'm the tiniest bit grumpy about what some of you have said. But as kindly as I can make them, I want my remarks to sort of gently ease you toward deciding that all that opposition stuff and government stuff, and all the things that we do to one another and say about one another, is going to fall away at the moment where you go down in history as supporting these people in this land, or being against it.

For myself, the long road to get here started about 20 years ago. I was a regional district director in the Regional District of Central Kootenay and, as all members who have been part of municipal government know, one of the things you have to do when you're part of municipal government is try to find the money to do what the people you represent want. Some people in Slocan Park asked me for a ball diamond. I thought that should be easy; I would just go get the money and give it to the recreation commission. The recreation commission would clear the land, plant the grass, and we'd have a ballpark.

As it turned out, I couldn't raise the money to get the people of Slocan Park a ballpark. It was my first foray.

Members might think it's silly, now that we're all working here in the Legislature and vote on budgets with hundreds of millions of dollars, and we itemize them right down to how much so-and-so gets for their job. Members might think it's silly, but when I was first in politics I didn't quite understand where the money for ballparks comes from. Maybe some of you who never were part of regional districts or municipalities don't know, but there's a legal function called recreation commission. Everybody pays taxes, and there are so many dollars that go into recreation from your area.

It turned out that the area I represented -- area H in the Regional District of Central Kootenay, the Slocan Valley -- didn't have enough money; it wasn't worth enough to pay enough taxes to build the ball diamond. So I went to the administrator of the regional district, and I said: "How can this be? We're living in this incredibly modern industrial society. We've got sawmills, houses, farms and dams."

And he said: "Stop right there. You've got farms, houses and sawmills; that's all true. But the dams don't pay any taxes, so you've got to forget about that part."

I said: "What are the dams worth?"

He said: "I can't really tell you, because part of the thing they decided not to do when they decided not to pay taxes was not to assess what they're worth. But I could guess. B.C. Hydro says they're worth so much, and in round figures, the

[ Page 13417 ]

one that was within the area that was trying to raise the money to build the ball diamond was worth half a billion dollars."

I said: "Well, if what we have for industry is concrete and turbines, how come concrete and turbines don't pay taxes?"

He went to his filing cabinet and got out a pile of paper about this thick, and a couple of books. He put them on my lap, and said: "If you want to understand the relationship of your ball field to B.C. Hydro, you had better start with the Columbia River Treaty. You had better do your homework and understand, because the people you'd be taking on don't live here. They've got way more money and power than you do; they've got lawyers working for them the likes of which you've never met. At least you'd better read all this paperwork."

Well, six months later, when I'd read right to the bottom of the pile, I realized that my generation of residents -- in fact, my generation of politicians -- didn't understand what the older generation had lived through just ten and 15 years earlier. We were living in this transformed ecosystem where the largest industrial user of the land had basically no employees, paid no taxes and served no function, and we drove right past those concrete edifices every day and we didn't think about it.

I didn't think about it until I tried to build a ball diamond and realized that my neighbours didn't have enough money to pay enough taxes to build the ball diamond, and this huge, half-a-billion-dollar thing at the bottom of the valley didn't have to pay anything.

The administrator said to me: "You know, sometime if you truck off to Vancouver and you make a really good presentation and hold out your hand, B.C. Hydro will put a few thousand dollars in your cap, and you can come back and say, 'I couldn't get any money but I got a donation, a grant from the good corporate citizens, B.C. Hydro; as long as we put up an eight-foot sign that says, 'B.C. Hydro built this ball diamond,' they'll give us the money'." But structurally or legally in a long-term way, we have no right to anything.

In the bottom of that pile of paper, I found a promise from the people who worked in this place exactly 30 years ago that when the dams were built, we would all be rolling in money. In fact, they believed in this building so much....

We have a bit of a strange situation in the Kootenays: the towns of Creston and Kaslo are separated by a lake, and to get across the lake, you have to ride what we call the world's longest free ferry. It really makes no sense that the towns of Creston and Kaslo would be in the same school district, but 30 years ago when they were making up the school districts, the people who worked in this building said to the people in Kaslo and Creston: "Hey, we have a good idea.

We'll put Creston in with Kaslo, then when we build the Duncan Dam, you can tax the Duncan Dam and that will pay for schools in Creston." So we got this bizarre school district with a whacking big lake in the middle. Then, right after they got the dam built, they all came back down here to work, not in open session -- not where you and I can actually have this conversation, not where anybody could see -- but in the cabinet chamber. With nobody taking any notes, they passed an order-in-council that said: "No, we've changed our minds; they won't pay any taxes."

I realized that in order for our generation -- your generation and mine -- to understand the issue, we were going to have to put it right up front to every citizen in the Kootenays. I proposed to the regional district that we have a referendum. We've got a whole political party over here -- sort of in the middle of the room -- running around saying Canada should be run by referendum and the people should decide what should happen.

Well, 20 years ago we had such a vote in the Regional District of Central Kootenay. We figured it would look pretty dumb to put on the ballot: "Should B. C. Hydro pay taxes to build ball diamonds?" So it said: "Should B. C. Hydro pay a hospital tax like you do -- yes or no?" I guess it won't surprise anybody here to know that something like 98 percent of the people said they think that this industry should pay taxes just like every other industry.

In my naivety and my youth, I thought we were home-free. We had a referendum and everybody said that B.C. Hydro should pay back into the region. So we trucked off to Victoria and came down here and said to the Social Credit people of the day.... By the way, it wasn't me. We had enough sense to send somebody else to go talk to the Social Credit cabinet minister, somebody maybe a bit more acceptable than me.

We came here and we said: "Okay. We had a referendum, and 98 percent of the people said Hydro should participate in the society." And they said: "So what?" The people of the Kootenays said that. You'll never in your wildest dreams get the real people -- the people who pay the bill, the people who are the population, the people who vote, the members who fill up this room.... I'm speaking about the people in Vancouver. You'll never get the people in Vancouver to agree that their hydro rates should go up so you can have some kind of economic relationship with their electrical company.

"In your dreams," the cabinet ministers of Social Credit said. So I thought: "Well now, there's a challenge. I'll just truck on over to the big smoke and tell my story and see if I can't convince those people."

[2:45]

In those days I was a cat operator, and I didn't have any money. We had a rule at the regional district that we wouldn't pay regional directors to attend any other function as delegations. I couldn't really get the day off work, because I needed the money. But the regional district -- people of all political parties -- felt so strongly. They agreed they couldn't pay me to go to Vancouver City Council to make my case, so they paid a cat operator off the street to drive for me so I could go to Vancouver City Council. They put a little ad in the paper: "Cat operator wanted. One day's wages." They paid the guy.

Away I went to make the case that people in Vancouver should pay 1 percent, 2 percent, maybe 3 percent more on their hydro bill to deal with the devastation that they had left behind 30 years ago. When I got to Vancouver City Council, boy, was that ever an education in Left and Right dysfunctional politics. The Vancouver City Council of those days, you might recall, was represented by people like Mr. Puil and Mr. Rankin and the people who agreed with Mr. Puil and the people who agreed with Mr. Rankin. It was pretty well split right down the middle, and these people liked to argue.

They thought arguing was like an indoor sport. This is what they did as a way of life and as a way of resolving issues.

[ Page 13418 ]

The council was headed by an individual all of you are familiar with. He works right over there. Mike Harcourt was at that time the sort of sane middle person who broke the ties and deadlocks and attempted to manage Vancouver City Council. Mr. Harcourt, whom I had never met....

The Speaker: Order, hon. member.

C. Evans: Oh, sorry. Got it.

The Speaker: Please proceed.

C. Evans: The present Premier, the then mayor, granted me a hearing with the council at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We drove all night long, slept four hours in Hope, came in in the morning and sat and watched council.

At about 11 o'clock they got into a battle about whether or not there should be a drinking fountain in a park. There were ideological reasons why there should be -- because the poor people use the park, and they should have access to water. And there were ideological reasons why there shouldn't be -- because it attracts the riffraff and the junkies and all that. They battled this out for a good three hours, while I sat waiting to have my hearing on the subject of B.C. Hydro. They missed their lunch hour, and then when it got to be about 2 o'clock, the then mayor, now Premier, said: "Oh.

Well, we've resolved that, but there's this fellow from the Kootenays here, and he's come for something about a referendum. He thinks.... Well listen, members. We've missed our lunch. Let's just vote to support the people of the Kootenays; Hydro should pay taxes in the Kootenays, because I think that's fair." Even in those days the Premier was a person of fair perspective. So the Left and the Right, they all said: "Yes, let's get to lunch." And they all raised their hands, and it was unanimous that Hydro should pay taxes in the Kootenays.

I was incensed. I went down there to have a good fight -- a scrap -- and tell a story, not just to have everybody raise their hands.

So I went off into the lunchroom, and I said: "Mr. Mayor, that's not what I wanted. That's not why they sent me here and paid the wages of that other person. They want you to get it -- to understand. They want me to tell you that you built this town on the backs of what you took and that making it right is going to cost you something. So when you decide, the people in Victoria will listen." The then mayor said: "You know, if you say all that stuff, you might lose the vote. You just won. Go home and tell them you won." I said: "Well, I think it's going to be a bigger fight than what's happening right here. I want these people to understand."

So we went back into the room after lunch, and the then mayor said: "You know what? The strangest thing just happened. This delegate from the Kootenays, who just won, wants to tell you a story to see if he can't manage to lose." So they let me. Then I stood up and told them about all the people who were flooded out and burned out and of the institutions, edifices and dams that were built, some as drone dams for America, some as electricity-producing dams to feed Vancouver. I explained to them that we didn't get any jobs out of it. The job-to-investment ratio on a hydro dam is worse than anything else you can do.

The day you finish building it, it takes almost nobody to run it. And I explained to them that Hydro didn't pay any taxes and that if Hydro was going to pay taxes, their power bill would have to rise.

That inspired a debate. I'm happy to say that Vancouver City Council didn't split exactly Left and Right; it split sort of Left and Right. Mr. Rankin again was on one side and Mr. Puil again was -- am I allowed to say their names? -- on the other side, but the folks in the middle believed what I had to say. It came out, four to two, that the people of Vancouver thought B.C. Hydro should pay taxes or a contribution in some respect in the Kootenays.

For the second time I thought that we had just had the battle and that now those folks in Victoria -- the previous government, the Social Credit people, the people in whose cabinet the Leader of the Third Party used to sit -- were going to listen to the people of the Kootenays. For the second time we sent our most respectable delegation to Victoria. And for the second time they said: "Not on your life."

A couple of years later, those same people, the Social Credit government, decided to close a whole bunch of institutions and lay off a whole bunch of people in the Nelson area. Among the institutions they closed was the university in Nelson. A couple of hundred students got on buses and went down to Vancouver to a demonstration and to Victoria, and they stood in front of this very building about 13 years ago.

They didn't have placards saying: "Save our University." They had lightbulbs. They walked down the street out there with unlit lightbulbs in their hands. Nobody here could get it. The people went out and said: "We thought it was a university. What's the deal? Why are you packing around lightbulbs?" The students said: "If we can't go to school, we think we should turn out the lights, because without us you can't have this." The microphone and the lights wouldn't work, it would be too cold to work in here, and there'd be no Hansard. You couldn't run the richest culture on the planet if the people out there decided to unplug the system.

Of course, it didn't help. The university stayed shut. But it did do what has always had to be done, which is that it kept the issue alive. One more time, another generation raised the issue and said: "It matters to us."

In 1986 I was a candidate for public office. We tried to raise, from the New Democrat side, the Columbia River Treaty as an issue in that election, just as every NDP politician in southeastern British Columbia had done for decades and as the CCF had done before them. What was the Social Credit's response? The response of that party, in which the Leader of the Third Party sat in cabinet, was that it was a non-issue.

In 1991 I was a candidate for public office, running with the NDP in the Kootenays. One more time, we raised the Columbia River Treaty as an issue for the public to consider in the election. This time people started wanting to talk about it. Even members of right-wing parties started wanting to talk about it. And why was that? Was it because they just read a stack of papers? Did they just go down to the library one day and take them all out? No, it was a little more crass than that. It was because people who worked in this building started to figure out that 30 years was up; now they had to negotiate what the next 30 years was worth and what they wanted to do with all that money.

The hon. member for Esquimalt-Metchosin came to Castlegar during that election. We were having a meeting of people supporting the candidate in Castlegar and me. They asked the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin what he thought should happen to the downstream benefits when they were

[ Page 13419 ]

renegotiated from the United States. He gave the right answer, which was the mandate for that election; he gave the answer that led to us sitting here in this room. It's really hard for a politician to say; I always have trouble with it myself. He said: "I don't know. I think that's a Kootenay issue, a Columbia Basin issue. It's you folks who have had the experience, and it's you folks who kept the issue alive. Why don't you tell us what we should do with the downstream benefits?"

An Hon. Member: Did you hear that?

C. Evans: They don't hear much.

The next thing that happened, for the first time in history that I know of, was that all the seats in southeastern British Columbia were won by one party. All five MLAs from Valemount east and south came from the same political party. And what was the second half of the miracle? That party became the government.

Before I ever came to this town to stand in this place and tell this story, I figured that I really wanted to go and see where the president of B.C. Hydro worked. I thought it was the honourable thing to do. If you're about to tilt at somebody, it would be in good taste to go to them first and say: "Okay, here I am. My reason for living is to change our relationship, yours and mine." So I got the address out of a book, and I went to Vancouver. I took a bus downtown and went to this huge building and looked at the front. The office of the president was at the top; I rode up about 30 floors. I had an appointment with the president of B.C. Hydro.

Hon Speaker, the only thing I really want to tell you about that meeting, because it's the only part that I remember as being really relevant, was that that person's office was bigger than the square footage of any house I ever lived in. As you walked from the reception area to where you had your conversation, which overlooked the bay and the whole town, the lights came on in front of you and went off behind you. I said: "My name is Corky Evans, and I just got elected. I'm here to mess with you." And he said: "I know who you are. We've been following what you've had to say for years."

The next thing I did was to come over here and meet with the ministers responsible for negotiating the downstream benefits, and I asked them what was happening and where the negotiations were at. One country, Canada, was negotiating with another country, the United States -- or I believe they were negotiating -- the dollar value of half the increased power created in another country, the United States, for 15 million acre-feet of storage in the Columbia River Basin. Amazing to tell, there were no negotiations. There was no negotiating committee, and there had been no meetings.

[3:00]

I hope everybody working over here understands that the people now working over there -- who used to be government over here, including those who have been criticizing the deal that was made with the United States and the accord with the people in the basin -- had no negotiations in progress. Why was that? Because the right wing was going to do the same thing to the people of B.C. this time that they did 30 years ago. They were going to go down across the border and say: "Yessir, whatever you say. Cut me the cheque, because I want the money up front to go use it politically, to get myself elected or to get power.

I don't want to bother with negotiations. The people of the Kootenays won't matter. They'll probably always vote wrong anyway. Nobody else understands the water-level issue. Nobody else cares, so just cut me a cheque." That was the negotiating tactic of the previous government -- if you can call it a tactic.

Negotiations began in two places at once. The ministers of the Crown sent negotiators to the United States to begin to have a conversation with those people about what the next 30 years of the Columbia River Treaty would be worth. Meanwhile, a parallel process began in Castlegar. Two ministers of the Crown, for the first time ever, came from this building and from this government to Castlegar, and they sat down with the representatives of the regional districts from all of southeastern B.C. This was three years ago. They said to those people: "Okay.

We are now entering into negotiations with the United States, so let's talk about what the deal is here in the Kootenays. What would you people like? What do you want to say to us?"

Nothing like that had ever happened before. This government did it: it walked up to the door voluntarily, not being prodded or shoved or coerced, and it opened the door and said to the people in the region: "Let's have a conversation." The people of the region said an amazing thing, because when government comes to you and asks you what you want, most people out there would say they want swimming pools, highways -- the sky's the limit on what they want.

The people of the region shocked all of us. They said: "No deal. We don't want to go into a room and make a deal with you. As municipal leaders, we represent 250,000 people, and what those people want first is a conversation, not a deal. We got a deal last time. This time, we want to tell you what it cost."

This idea about having a conversation instead of a deal scared the living daylights out of a whole lot of people in this town who have worked here for a really long time. To the credit of the ministers responsible, the conversation happened. Two and a half years ago we held the first symposium in Castlegar, B.C. It was like the constituent assembly when so many Canadians said they wanted to discuss what they wanted for a constitution. It wasn't made up of just those of us who get elected or those people who are elected municipally; it was made up of all kinds of people.

Over 300 invitations were sent out, and then the regional districts went from town to town and said: "Okay, we're going to have a conversation with the province. Who would you like to send from your village?" The people chose; they went to the symposium and talked for two days.

When the talk was over, we said three general things: (1) it must never happen again -- even if there is no entitlement or no change in our relationship with Hydro or the province, this must never happen again anywhere to any people; (2) if we do negotiate an entitlement it must last forever, because the reservoirs and the impact will last forever -- this is not about a payoff. And the third thing they said was that whatever we accomplish when we're through with conversation, there needs to be a body in place here, made up of people from here, that will manage this entitlement; we need to have some form of trust.

As I've tried to explain in the stories, over the 30 years -- time after time -- the elected people who came to work here then forgot about what they were talking about there. And the people in Castlegar said: "This time, you have to create a body that meets here, works here and is made up of people from

[ Page 13420 ]

here before we talk about any accord, entitlement or deal." For the next six months representatives of the cabinet ministers negotiated with representatives of the regional districts about what this trust would look like.

During that time, another miracle happened -- at least, something I've never experienced before. The Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Tribal Council voluntarily decided to put up money to join the negotiating team with the five regional districts, who had each put up money for staff, lawyers and travel expenses. We began in the next six months to negotiate not just with those governments representing the municipalities and regional districts but also with the five bands who, through their tribal council, put forward two representatives. We, the province, were now negotiating with all the people in the region.

After six months of discussion over what a trust and an entitlement would look like, the government came to the conclusion of its negotiations with the United States.

I want to digress just a bit and talk about those negotiations. Last time, 30 years ago, when Social Credit was the government -- Social Credit, which was an amalgam of Liberals and Conservatives and other kinds of people -- the right wing was the government. They went down to the United States and cut a deal for $254 million for 30 years. They gave them a cheque and they went home. When the value of electricity went up because of the Gulf War and changes in our economy, the people of British Columbia couldn't do a thing about it. They had sold -- literally down the river -- 30 years of storage to the Americans.

This government negotiated a completely different kind of deal. This deal says that the people of British Columbia, through their government, at any moment for the next 30 years, can decide to accept cash in lieu of electricity, or electricity. If the value of electricity goes up high enough and we need the power, we can take the power. If we have enough power from our own projects, we can sell it and take cash. The last government negotiated an upfront payment. Why? So they could put everybody to work on the eve of an election, spread the money around and be returned to power.

This government negotiated payments over 30 years -- long after there's an election, long after this government.

Once those decisions were made, the Premier announced in Vancouver, simultaneously with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources in Nakusp, an accord with the people of the Kootenays, which said that approximately one-third of the downstream benefits would be shared by the people and the land. We didn't know what form that third would take; we didn't know what form the trust would take. So we agreed there would be a second constituent assembly -- a second symposium -- and this time we'd hold it over the mountains in Cranbrook.

At the second symposium, the Minister of Employment and Investment suggested to the citizens in the room that instead of taking cash, they take an entitlement in the form of hydroelectric capacity -- the ability to generate electricity. We had been negotiating this very option with representatives from all the regional districts in the tribal council for six months. The chairperson of the Columbia River Treaty Committee in the region just stood up in Kaslo and said that for eight years the region had been talking about hydro-generating capacity as a form of entitlement.

I want to make this point, because the Leader of the Opposition and some of his cohorts have been standing here in recent weeks saying this is a bad bill and a bad deal, because the people of the region didn't choose it. I want to know if there's anybody sitting on the other side who has even understood the issue for eight years. Is there anybody over there who's been talking about it for even six months? Do you think that the Leader of the Opposition even knew six months ago where the region was?

When the minister stood up in Cranbrook and said, "What do you think about instead of cash, you take electrical entitlement -- the ability to make electricity?" there were 200, 300 or 400 people in the room. I would say the reaction was pretty much to be stunned, because the idea that a government would say to them, "We have the power, we control the dams, we own the dams and we'll give them to you," had never occurred to most of the people in the room.

You'd have to admit that a senior level of government coming to a community and saying, "We believe in cooperative ownership, community ownership and entitlement of people...." It's not an experience we've had a lot of practice with. It's not something that the parties who sit over there -- who have primarily governed in here -- have ever said to anybody.

I'd say the people were stunned, because they realized that the rhetorical debate between us as a region and the big bad province and the big bad United States and the big bad Hydro was over, and now we were actually going to have to consider taking responsibility, actually becoming players at the table. In this job, politics, the easiest way to keep your job is to identify who to hate, who to blame, and to get people everywhere agreeing that all the ills of their lives are because Joe's doing it to them or Hydro's doing it to them -- the province.

We were actually going to have to consider becoming the kind of government -- a government that generates wealth -- that we had been attributing all of our travail to for three decades.

[3:15]

Over the next few months, conversations were intense; conversations between people working here and people working for the Columbia River Treaty Committee happened daily. Negotiations were intense; negotiations were weekly. What we came up with was a package the likes of which I don't think anybody in this room has ever seen or heard. The provincial government would agree to transfer one-half of the existing electrical capacity -- the capacity to generate electricity in future at the Waneta Dam, the Brilliant Dam and the Keenleyside Dam -- to the region.

In order to do that, we have to have a group in the region to receive it; we have to have a level of governance to empower. This bill, which I'm hoping each one of you folks is going to stand up in a few hours and vote for, is the bill to create the level of governance to receive the entitlement.

The region said they didn't elect us to go into big-time debt. The province agreed to transfer $25 million a year for ten years to the region for the down payment on the turbines to engage in electrical generation. The people of the region said: "It'll take us ten years to go through the construction process and begin to have a return on investment. How will the trust exist in the meantime?

And what will the economic benefits be in Golden, Sparwood, Fernie, Creston, Nakusp -- those towns at some distance from the construction projects involved?" The province said: "We will transfer $45 million to the region in the short run for investment in economic diversification and environmental mitigation in those regions." The region said: "What about our administrative costs until the trust is making money?" The province agreed to transfer $2 million until the debt is repaid and the income begins. The region said: "This is a risky investment. What if there is a

[ Page 13421 ]

worldwide depression? What if the aluminum industry goes down?" As some hon. members know, the American market and the British Columbia market for electricity are both largely determined by aluminum production -- our largest user. The province agreed to backstop the sale of the electricity. The people in the region said: "We're just people who do jobs; we're just people who are elected.

We need somebody to tell us if this is a good deal economically or not." They sent the deal to two sets of lawyers and accountants independent of the government -- bet you five bucks none of them even vote for the government -- for an independent analysis of whether this was a good deal or a risky deal. Both of those groups of accountants said to the region: "It's a dream."

I don't think anybody but this government would have done this deal. But I want to make it absolutely clear that this is not about making anybody rich. What will happen with the money that's transferred to the region? For starters, about 10,000 jobs will be created to put the turbines in the dams. The people who work here on the electoral agenda.... The way it's always worked, in our experience, is whoop, somebody gets elected, and there's large unemployment while the government claws back all the money; then whoop, there's a megaproject just before there's an election.

The people of the region and the government have decided that the boom-and-bust cycle was part of the problem. It is a solution to nothing. So we have agreed to a timetable that will phase these jobs in over a decade, not a timetable useful to the government but a timetable useful to people.

When the jobs are done they will generate electricity. What will the electricity be used for? I submit that the first need of the region to have electricity -- the reason the people at the symposium and their delegates chose this option -- is that without electricity there's no seat at the table. You don't get to negotiate lake levels, dust and storage patterns with the United States or with B.C. Hydro if you don't have the ante, and the ante isn't money.

When the Leader of the Opposition stood up in this House and said, "It's a bad deal; the government should have given the people money and let the people decide what to do with the money," what he was saying to the people who live there is: "We should have bought them off again." This way, the people of the region get power and can actually negotiate with the people of Vancouver, his constituency. He's saying to buy them off the way his group has always done and the way his government would have done. The people would go out, buy themselves a whack of swimming pools and pave a bunch of roads.

"Then we'll control their ecosystem forever, the way we always did." That is the position of the party that sits over there. That's the position of their leader. If it's not, let them walk through the door before the end of debate and take it back. The people chose electricity in order to empower themselves against the nature of that kind of avariciousness and control.

Will it work? I don't have a clue. I want to say here in Hansard, on TV and in front of these people and all of you: this is as risky as the day they created medicare. This is as risky as saying: "I've got an idea. Let's go out and start a ferry company, because the people have an island and a mainland, and they'd better have some ferries." This is a risky notion, to take this much money, concrete, water and dams and put it in the hands of a level of government that you're just about to vote on, not one that you've watched for 40 years. It is a risky deal. It would be a whole lot safer to give it to B.C.

Hydro and just let the next 30 years look like that last 30 years. We would be, in the eyes of some, more responsible to do the safest thing.

I think it will work. When a whole bunch of people get together -- different nationalities, Indian people, non-Indian people, East Kootenays, West Kootenays, north, south, people who do all kinds of different things for a living -- and not in one generation but in three or four, our grandparents, parents, us and our kids and the college kids outside eight or ten years ago, generation after generation.... They say: "We have to fix it. It's broken." Then the two sides get together and negotiate for three years on the nature of what "fix" is.

This group of people who work here in the Legislature says: " 'Fix' is not getting us re-elected with a megaproject." And the other group of people from the region says: " 'Fix' is not making us rich today." Then it's got the elements of the goodwill that it takes to make it work.

The other thing it's going to need to make it work in the long run is an end to parochialism. Members know that I haven't been here every day since the session started. I've been travelling from town to town, talking with people about the nature of the accord. I went to Nakusp the other day, and there were more than a hundred people in the room. There had been an editorial in the newspaper before I got there, and it said: "It's a bad deal. We didn't get anything. We can't hold in our hand the golf course we got, or the swimming pool, the paved roads or the factory." Well, it didn't quite say that, but they were words to that effect.

So I stood up, and there were a hundred people in the room asking: "Corky, the newspaper says it's a bad deal. What did we get?" And I have to try to say: "You didn't get anything to hold in your hand, because we didn't negotiate something to hold in your hand. The nature of the 'broken' was the absence of control or of a say, with the power being 400 miles away on an island. The nature of the 'fix' was to set up and empower the trust and to solve the problems of the future in the future yourselves." They asked: "What will we get ten years from now?" I had to say, and I'm proud to say it here: "I don't know if you'll get anything then, either."

The reason is that it costs half a million bucks a year just to keep the kokanee salmon alive in Kootenay Lake alone. It costs half a million bucks a year to keep the swans alive in the Creston Valley wildlife management area, and on and on. When it's the last three-day weekend of summer, and the kids are going swimming at Siringa and in Nakusp, it costs a million dollars a foot to hold the water in the lake. You have to pay the United States a million dollars a foot for the deal the people who worked here 30 years ago made, and there's no way to take it back. We can't take down the dam, and we can't rip up the deal.

It may be that because the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket people and the regional districts are working together, they might decide a most startling thing. There are whispers beginning. There are people actually saying: "Maybe we want to use the money to put the salmon back in the river." Imagine that. There's a river that hasn't seen a salmon for decades, and people are saying: "Maybe instead of a lake level right outside my village hall, or my swimming pool, or something, maybe I'd like to spend that money seeing if the very science that put these dams here couldn't work with the United States and bring the salmon back up some day." I don't know what the nature of the people's dream will be.

[ Page 13422 ]

I want to close this speech by saying that nobody else would have done this deal besides this government. There is not another government in this country, and there hasn't been another government in this province, with the nerve to walk through these doors and offer the people an accord while having to say: "We don't know how the future will look." Politicians believe in surety, in being able to say the deal is this in black and white: "I made it; I know it; I'll pass the law." That's what politicians do.

This accord or this trust you're about to vote on asks if we believe that a bunch of people out there on the land can decide for themselves what is the best thing to do in decades to come to mitigate the decisions the people in here made.

D. Mitchell: I'm pleased to enter the debate on Bill 7, the Columbia Basin Trust Act. I'm delighted to follow the member for Nelson-Creston as well, who I think spoke eloquently to the bill. He's one of the more energetic members of the House; he's obviously working hard for his constituents. Which MLA in this House wouldn't like to be in the position, like the hon. member for Nelson-Creston, to be talking about investing hundreds of millions, perhaps $1 billion, into the region they represent in this Legislature.

In this debate we should talk about whether or not the government, through Bill 7, is doing the right thing, not only doing things right. We should talk about whether or not the member for Nelson-Creston, who speaks so eloquently to this bill, is talking about doing the right thing or about trying to satisfy the needs of his constituents, his region of the province, perhaps at the expense of other regions of the province. I hope that's not the case.

When we look at Bill 7.... We're here to debate in second reading the principle of Bill 7. I think the hon. member who preceded me took some latitude with that, but he was also quite eloquent in giving some background and some history and context to why we are here debating Bill 7 today.

[3:30]

The explanatory note for Bill 7 is very brief, but it might be useful just to read it into the record. It says:

"This Bill creates the Columbia Basin Trust to manage that portion of the downstream benefits available to the Province from the Columbia River Treaty that is to be allocated by the government to the Columbia River region for the economic, environmental and social benefit of the region."

That's how the government seeks to briefly explain the purpose of this bill. If that's all the bill is doing, I daresay it should pass unanimously in this House -- if it's going to satisfy the purpose in principle explained in that explanatory note. But I think the bill goes beyond that.

[D. Lovick in the chair.]

On face value it seems to be a good idea, but it also.... If you take a look at the contents of the bill and at the process that led up to the tabling of the bill in this House by the Minister of Employment and Investment, I think there are some concerns that need to be flagged. There are some concerns that need to be put on the record during the second reading debate.

The bill seeks to create a trust, or a regional corporation, as the bill describes it -- a quasi-Crown corporation, as the minister who tabled the bill in the House describes it. He also said that this quasi-Crown corporation will have "unprecedented autonomy." Those are his words. Given this government's record of providing such poor accountability for Crown corporations, I would think they should be embarrassed about bragging about creating yet another quasi-Crown corporation with yet unprecedented autonomy. I think that's got to be some cause for concern.

Of course, when we get into committee stage on this bill, we'll have a chance to question the minister as to what he meant in terms of the unprecedented autonomy of this quasi-Crown corporation.

When we take a closer look at the bill, I think some aspects of it are quite laudable; I think I described that in the explanatory note. But a number of other elements of the bill are cause for serious concern. I'll give you just one example. When we look at the

preamble to this bill.... Not every bill that comes before this assembly has a

preamble; some special bills do. A

preamble is a statement of principle, a statement of vision. Typically we don't find partisan politics included in the

preamble to a bill. When we see the very first statement of the

preamble saying, "Whereas the desires of the people of the Columbia Basin were not adequately considered in the original negotiations of the Columbia River Treaty," we have to ask: according to whom? Why is it appropriate to be putting a political statement right into the

preamble of a piece of legislation?

That's a cause for some concern, and it makes me suspicious of the government's partisan motivations in bringing this bill forward. We've had statements from various ministers or various government speakers in this debate in second reading talking about the need for justice for the people of the region. We've heard about the devastation and trauma caused by the construction of dams pursuant to the Columbia River Treaty. I think we have to ask some questions: what are they talking about when they make these statements? Is it possible that they are exaggerating the negative effects of the Columbia River Treaty?

Is it also possible that, likewise, they are minimizing the benefits of that treaty to the region? Could they be trying to do so for political purposes? These are questions that I think beg to be asked, hon. Speaker.

Government members have spoken nobly about righting historical wrongs. Well, you can't do that without first understanding history. Earlier in this debate the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources accused me of concentrating too much on the past. But how can you right historical wrongs unless you understand your history first?

Just as important, we should ask whether it's possible or whether we can afford to right every so-called historical wrong. What kind of a precedent are we making when we make such an effort? Are we making victims out of selected groups of our fellow citizens so that we can force all taxpayers, in turn, to make reparations? Those are some of the questions and larger concerns that I think we have to address when we deal with Bill 7, the Columbia Basin Trust Act.

The government seems to like to create victims so that they can then glorify them and even pretend to save them after that. This victimhood philosophy is very dangerous. It's dangerous because it divides the province into special interests, each one of them having been victimized in some way, shape or form. The NDP then comes riding to their salvation with the taxpayer's purse. If you're a member of a so-called disadvantaged group, fear not. The government will first declare you a victim, then offer to pay you off and then hope that they can count on your vote, by the way, in the next election. I call it victimization; some might call it

pork-

[ Page 13423 ]

barrelling of the crudest form. We're creating a province of victims and it's unhealthy. Let's face it: we can't right every historical wrong; we simply can't afford to -- sometimes a collective apology is all we can afford.

It is true that by today's standards some of the policies and actions of past governments don't make the grade. That's judging the past by today's standards. Is that fair? It's folly to judge the past by today's standards. Unless we truly understand the motivations and goals of previous generations of policy-makers, today's initiatives will be based upon a very poor and partisan motivation.

The Columbia River Treaty, which this bill is a response to, is a very good case in point. From the time of the Second World War, both the Canadian and American governments were studying the possibility of a cooperative approach on the Columbia River. What they were trying to do was to deal with the Columbia River, which flows on both sides of the Canadian-United States border.

The object of the various studies and discussions by engineers, policy-makers and a number of other technical personnel was to maximize the flood control and hydroelectric energy generation of the Columbia River on both sides of the border. After years and years of dialogue, an important international agreement was finally concluded in 1964: the Columbia River Treaty. It's amazing in retrospect to realize that this treaty between two countries, Canada and the United States, was shaped in such a large part by the wishes of the province of British Columbia.

Perhaps the best single volume written on the subject was by Prof. Neil Swainson, formerly of the University of Victoria, just recently retired. He wrote a book, which I would recommend to all members who aren't familiar with it, called Conflict Over the Columbia: The Canadian Background to an Historic Treaty. Describing British Columbia's role in the negotiation of that treaty, I can tell you what Professor Swainson said and I quote from page 315 of the text: "In conjunction with the sheer staying power of Mr. Bennett" -- and he's referring to former Premier W.A.C.

Bennett -- "the result was that two national governments came to realize that the wishes of this province would have to be agreed to substantially if any agreement was to be reached." That's Prof. Neil Swainson referring to the fact that it was unprecedented that a province would exert such influence over a major international treaty between two countries.

But the wishes of W.A.C. Bennett prevailed. What were those wishes? I think it's important to understand them because they've been misinterpreted in this debate. First of all, the Columbia River Treaty was part of W.A.C. Bennett's famous "two-rivers" policy. It wasn't only the Columbia River that was going to be developed, that was going to maximize flood control and that was going to generate hydroelectricity. It was also the Peace River. The Columbia and Peace rivers had to be developed simultaneously, according to the government of the day, according to the Premier of the day.

They had to be developed simultaneously, and W.A.C. Bennett had a grand vision why: he wanted to develop the interior and the northern part of British Columbia's wealth. He wanted to develop them simultaneously. He wanted to make available inexpensive hydroelectricity to encourage industry and to encourage development that would benefit all British Columbians.

There was another major wish of the government of the day. That related to the development and creation of a new Crown corporation, the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority -- B.C. Hydro, as we know it today. The formation of B.C. Hydro was part of this whole debate that took place back in the early 1960s. At the time, a major power utility that was privately owned really dictated power development in the province, and that was B.C. Electric. A free enterprise government led by W.A.C.

Bennett expropriated that private utility because it was serving as an obstacle to the development of the province, the interior and northern parts of the province in particular. So we have to understand the creation of B.C. Hydro as part of this two-rivers policy.

There were many who disagreed with that vision, principally the NDP, who were the political opposition of the day. What would they wish today? We should ask that. Would they wish that we roll back the hands of time? Would they wish that the Columbia and Peace developments had not proceeded at all and that we hadn't opened up the interior and northern parts of our province? Would they wish that the province was still controlled by a Vancouver-based private utility, which perhaps today would still be holding back the interior and north from development? I don't think so.

At the time of the Columbia River Treaty, the NDP opposed it, and they opposed almost every aspect of the two-rivers policy. They attempted to throw sands in the gears of the project, but they failed. They said the Columbia River Treaty was a sellout of our birthright -- a sellout of our birthright to the Americans. They said it was a giveaway of our water resources. They were wrong; that was untrue. Of course, this was back in the days when the NDP had a strong and vicious streak of anti-Americanism. I don't know if you can remember that, because, of course, that was a long time ago.

Who could have predicted back then that today the NDP, the same party that was so strongly and viciously anti-American, would actually be run by and controlled by advertising and public relations firms from Washington, D.C.? Who could have believed that at the time?

But times have changed. Times have changed; we've come a long way. But we haven't come very far in understanding the key feature of the Columbia River Treaty, which is the downstream benefits. The downstream benefits have been referred to in the debate by members of the government, and members of the Liberal opposition in particular, in a way that I think really demonstrates a lack of understanding of history and a lack of understanding of the term "downstream benefits." It's an important concept, but they should understand it before they bandy the term about.

I think that the member for Nelson-Creston, who spoke before me in this debate, understands the concept quite well. While he didn't address the concept of downstream benefits in his speech today, earlier, on March 31, at the start of this session, he delivered a private member's statement in this chamber in which he addressed this issue. He offered a very good definition of those downstream benefits and what they are and what they represent.

Just to set the record straight, I'd like to offer my definition of the downstream benefits, because it's important in this debate to have this on the record and no one has addressed this specifically yet. The downstream benefits are actually made up of the American-developed power on their side of the border, half of which belongs to British Columbia. Half of the power generated on the American side of the Columbia River is owned by British Columbia. That's part of the negotiating achievement of the Columbia River Treaty.

[ Page 13424 ]

It's an amazing negotiating achievement in many respects. At the time, W.A.C. Bennett's government presold those downstream benefits for the first 30 years. We can second-guess that today. At the time, in 1964, no one could forecast energy prices; no one could have expected the oil crisis in the Gulf; no one could have expected OPEC and have anticipated all of those changes. But at the time, those downstream benefits were presold for 30 years, for the first half of the treaty, for a purpose: to fund all the developments on the Canadian side of the border, in both the Columbia watershed and in the Peace as well.

That turned out to be not a bad deal considering inflation, which has run its course since then. W.A.C. Bennett's government presold that power to the Americans. We used the cash proceeds from the sale to build the dams on our side of the border, and the Columbia and Peace projects went ahead.

This was part of the two-rivers policy. These two developments were tied together; they went ahead simultaneously. For the next 30 years of the treaty, as the member for Nelson-Creston pointed out accurately, in British Columbia we have the option to either tell the Americans to give us our power, because we own it -- to deliver it to British Columbia because we own it -- or sell it again. Maybe this time it wouldn't be prudent -- I don't think it would be, and the government has recognized that, to their credit -- to engage in any long-term sales.

We all know how faulty and how dangerous it is to predict energy markets over long periods of time. So we've learned our lesson. Nevertheless, those downstream benefits are owned by us here in British Columbia and we have the option; we have the upper hand; we have the lever with the Americans this time.

Either way, over the last half of the treaty those downstream benefits are worth billions of dollars to us. It's a unique benefit. If we had left it up to Ottawa at the time, to allow the federal government to negotiate the Columbia River Treaty with the Americans, our federal representatives would have settled for far less, and that's important to recognize. The federal government would have settled for far less. The Columbia River Treaty would have been of much less benefit to us than it is today, and it is a greater benefit to us today because British Columbia played a key

part in those negotiations. It was a shrewd negotiating achievement directed by the government of a former Premier by the name of W.A.C. Bennett.

[3:45]

Those downstream benefits are a provincial legacy, because they are an asset owned by all British Columbians. In fact, W.A.C. Bennett was adamant that no future government should ever use this asset to fund the pet political projects of the day. All the people of British Columbia own the downstream benefits, and they should be used for the benefit of all British Columbians. Over the years there has been a good deal of discussion and debate about what those downstream benefits should be used for.

In the last parliament, one member of this House -- a private member at the time whose name was Grace McCarthy -- made a suggestion and she introduced a private member's bill in this chamber that unfortunately the government of the day didn't see fit to embrace. I think it would have been a good idea to invest all of the downstream benefits into a fund whereby all young British Columbians would be able to receive scholarships to fund their post-secondary education and training. It was a bold and unique proposal, but it was in the spirit of W.A.C.

Bennett, who argued vociferously that those benefits are a resource of all British Columbia and should be used for the benefit of British Columbia families.

Even earlier, in the previous parliament, a former Minister of Energy in this House, the late Jack Davis, once proposed that the downstream benefits should be used to pay off the provincial debt. I can tell you there was a time -- back when the Hon. Jack Davis made that proposal -- when the downstream benefits would have eliminated the entire provincial debt of this province. We couldn't do that today. The provincial debt has mushroomed, particularly in the last few years under this government. To the credit of the NDP government, they have made a commitment that most of the downstream benefits will go to pay down our provincial debt. I think that's important.

However, this bill doesn't deal with that at all. Bill 7, the Columbia Basin Trust Act, doesn't even address that issue. This is a commitment that's been made by the Premier outside this House. Without legislation or a specific guarantee, I don't know if we can feel comfortable that this government -- or, indeed, any future government -- will live up to such a commitment. I think we require a legislative guarantee that those downstream benefits can only be used for debt retirement, and that such a law should not be amendable -- should not be repealable -- without the unanimous consent of this assembly.

That's the kind of guarantee we need to offer taxpayers. That's the kind of guarantee we need to ensure that those downstream benefits -- a provincial resource, a provincial legacy -- are not tampered with by any future government.

The NDP government hasn't quite earmarked all of the downstream benefits to debt reduction, because that is what we are here debating. Bill 7, the Columbia Basin Trust Act, says that an initial portion of those benefits should be directed to a new corporation that will spend many millions of dollars from this legacy in the Columbia-Kootenay region. In fact, it's part of a billion-dollar strategy in energy infrastructure that the government has proudly announced. It's investing in new hydroelectric generating facilities at the three dams in the region: Waneta, Brilliant and Keenleyside.

We have to ask: is this a good idea? Even the member for Nelson-Creston questioned it. He said he wasn't sure if it was a good idea; he couldn't give us any guarantee. So we have to ask, and we have to seek an answer: is this actually a good use of those downstream benefits? Is it a proper use of a provincial resource that's owned by all British Columbians, not just the residents of the Columbia-Kootenay region?

Members may be interested to know that during the negotiations on the Columbia River Treaty, Premier W.A.C. Bennett wanted to establish a special endowment for the people of the communities of the Kootenays. He actually strove to achieve that during the negotiations with the Americans, but he failed. The negotiators at the table weren't able to achieve that goal. The former Premier regretted this later on in life when I recorded some reminiscences with him for a biography I was writing. He expressed that regret to me. Nevertheless, he failed.

It adds to the argument that an investment in the region may be appropriate and have some symbolic value as well. There is a case for some compensatory investment in the region; there's no doubt about that. We have to ask, though: is the NDP government bending over backwards -- unnecessarily, in my view -- to justify such a move?

[ Page 13425 ]

The government talks about the lack of justice and supposed environmental trauma caused in the region by flooding after the dams were constructed. Could it be that they're exaggerating this in order to justify a partisan effort?

Almost a decade after the treaty, a book was written by J.W. Wilson called People in the Way: The Human Aspects of the Columbia River Project. It's a good book; I recommend it to hon. members. Professor Wilson had a unique perspective on the treaty because he was a participant in the original project. He was responsible for the resettlement planning and was later appointed as an independent investigator of the project's effects on displaced people. His book, People in the Way, is very sympathetic to the people who were in the way of the so-called progress being made at the time.

It's based in large part upon a survey of people who were moved, whose property was expropriated at the time, who were displaced by the treaty. He did a detailed survey of all of them in 1970. He wrote this book and it was published in 1973.

What does Professor Wilson say about the legal expropriation process and whether or not people were treated in a humane fashion or received fair compensation? I'd like to read a very brief excerpt from page 146 of People in the Way. This will tell you what Prof. J.W. Wilson said:

"A number of the displaced people have said that their compensation was far from generous. Their feeling is a fact. What is also a fact is Hydro's feelings to the contrary. The Authority always accepted the inevitability of some error, but is convinced of the generosity of its compensation program in general. Is there any way of adjudicating between these opposite views? Short of a study by a royal commission, no. For such evidence as there is does not present a clear picture."

Professor Wilson does go on on page 147 to quote another academic by the name of Donald Waterfield, who had been highly critical of the Columbia River Treaty. In fact, he was one of the leading opponents of the Columbia River Treaty and its effects on both sides of the border. He was certainly no apologist for B.C. Hydro. Donald Waterfield says: "Inevitably, in so many awards" -- he's talking about the awards of compensation for the expropriation of properties -- "there must be some peculiar ones. My impression now is that, with a few exceptions, all the small people were well paid.

But the middling ones had to fight for what they got." He has also said: "Hydro leaned over backwards to be generous in most cases." That's Donald Waterfield quoted from People in the Way by J.W. Wilson.

I read from these books and these studies on the Columbia River Treaty and its impact on people to make a point, which is that one has to question why the government would want to exaggerate the supposed injustices done to residents of the Kootenays.

Why is there no discussion of the benefits of the Columbia River Treaty: the employment that was generated for an entire generation of engineers and construction workers on the dam projects, the development that expanded opportunities not only for residents of the Columbia-Kootenay region but for all British Columbians, and the inexpensive hydroelectric power now available to us as British Columbians? Why has no one even made any mention of the benefits of the treaty? Why do we talk only about the supposed injustices?

I think there's probably a reason for that. Even more curious is why we have not talked about the Peace River. As I mentioned, the Columbia River Treaty would not have proceeded if we didn't also have simultaneous development of the Peace River. That was the two-rivers policy. Yet the government has made no mention -- certainly not in Bill 7 or elsewhere -- of doing justice to the people of the Peace. Surely, if there's an argument to be made that we should be setting up a local trust for the residents of the Columbia-Kootenay region consequent to the Columbia River Treaty, a similar argument must also be made that the residents of the Peace should also be entitled to some kind of justice.

I think the leader of the Reform Party actually made a good point in this debate earlier on when he asked the question about the people of McKenzie who live on a large man-made lake, Lake Williston. Shouldn't they be eligible for a fair share of the benefits? I think that's a good point, and logically, it would follow. But the government has made no mention of that. We have to ask why: is the government showing regional favouritism and seeking to divide the province? Shame on them, if that's the case. Could it be because the provincial constituencies in the Columbia-Kootenay region are currently represented by members of one party, the NDP,

whereas up in the Peace region opposition members represent those constituencies? Is that why the government is not directing any of the benefits to the Peace? Could it be crass politics? I hope not, hon. Speaker, but it makes one suspicious.

Even more surprising, and even more lamentable, has been the curious, unusual position taken by the Liberal opposition on this bill and generally on this matter. I'm sad to say that my friends in the Liberal caucus don't seem to understand the issue or the concept of downstream benefits. They have no understanding of the background to the Columbia River Treaty at all. That's evident by the comments they've made in this debate.

Tragically, I think they're playing crass politics with this issue. The leader of the Liberal opposition has gone so far as to say that he would direct more, perhaps all, of the downstream benefits to residents of the Kootenays. In fact, he's indicated that he believes that direct payments should be made to all residents of the Kootenays. Now, not only do such incredible assertions demonstrate a woeful lack of any understanding of the history and background of this issue but they also show a highly irresponsible approach to public spending on the part of the Liberal opposition.

What we have here, I think, is a case of a Vancouver political boss trying to outbribe the current government for the votes of the rural residents of the Kootenays. I can only hope and pray that such a crass and cynical approach will fail, and fail miserably.

There are a number of important questions that Bill 7 raises. Many of them will have to wait until committee stage, but I'd like to flag just a few. With Bill 7, the Columbia Basin Trust Act, are we in fact setting up a new Crown corporation? It's called a regional corporation, a quasi-Crown corporation with unprecedented autonomy, according to the Minister of Employment and Investment; but it's unclear what the status of this trust is actually going to be. We're going to have to establish that in the committee stage, I suppose, because we've had no answer to that question.

Are we setting up a new power utility with this act? Is that what we're actually doing? Can the new power generated by the three dams on our side of the border be sold to whomever? Why isn't B.C. Hydro, our publicly-owned hydro utility, being given the opportunity to do this? If we're setting up a new major utility, why not sell shares to the public? We all know how successful and how profitable power utilities

[ Page 13426 ]

are, so why not let the people invest? We're also allowing this new corporation to borrow money, and my understanding is we're going to be going another half a billion dollars into debt with this bill. Is that a good idea, hon. Speaker?

Finally, is this bill just a recognition of the regional nature of the British Columbia economy? If it is, I can support it because I think that's a good idea. There's no doubt that our natural resources are owned by all of us as citizens. Our constitution says that the province owns them: our forests, our mineral wealth, our energy resources and our water -- our most valuable natural resource -- are owned by all British Columbians. The government may have got this right, but we need to understand it a bit better.

In my constituency I'd like to see some of the benefits of resource development go directly back to communities like Squamish and Pemberton. The BC Forest Renewal Act last year indicated that it believed in that philosophy. Bill 7, the Columbia Basin Trust Act, seems to be a step in the right direction. I'm not sure if I can accurately see it that way. We have a lot of concerns about the bill -- I do, personally. But I think the bill tries to do some laudable things, and maybe in the committee stage we'll get some answers to these important questions.

Deputy Speaker: I thank the member for his comments and now recognize the member for Okanagan West...Okanagan East. Member, I must apologize; I've done that to you a number of times and I can't seem to get it straight. My apologies.

J. Tyabji: That's okay, hon. Speaker; that happens frequently.

I'm happy to get up and debate Bill 7. First of all, I guess I should say that with respect to the concept behind Bill 7, it is not a new concept. The first time I heard about the Columbia River basin trust concept was when I was in the Kootenays in the summer and fall of 1992 during the Charlottetown accord. At that time, because the Columbia downstream benefits were being discussed as something that was pending and coming out in the next year, there was a lot of discussion about what should be done with them.

The then leader of the Liberal Party, who is now the leader of the Alliance, said very clearly at that time that there should be a regional development fund created out of the totality of the downstream benefits. But the idea of the fund was that it would be there for economic diversification, which would be determined by the people who live in that area.

[4:00]

I've heard many comments today, including those of the member for Nelson-Creston, who was the designated speaker for the government. What I find interesting is that when we sit in this chamber and hear what's represented in a bill, we often have very little idea of what discussions have occurred in the regions. At the first of the town hall meetings that the provincial government set up in conjunction with some of the local people in the Kootenays, we had a member of the Alliance Party attend as somebody who would oversee and try to keep some accountability in the process.

It was very interesting with respect to what came out of that process and out of our member's participation. It gives a very, very different perspective on the debate today. I would have to say that the debate today bears no resemblance to the debate that's occurring in the Kootenays right now.

What is the debate in the Kootenays? Once we get past the concept -- and, as I say, the Alliance Party stands for that concept; it is one that the Alliance leader has been espousing since 1987 -- it is about regional diversification of the economy. Diversification is a key word. What has the provincial NDP government decided to do with the downstream benefits? Through Bill 7, they will not only be setting up a Crown corporation or a trust fund; they have already decided, through the memorandum they signed with the people of the area, to start developing three more hydro projects.

Who decided that? Who decided to expand on those hydro projects? I think it's interesting that the member for Nelson-Creston, who, on the one hand, when he was talking about the original setting up of the dams and the Columbia River Treaty system, said that they didn't get any jobs out of it.... Well, if they didn't get any jobs out of it, then.... He then went on in his speech to say that the expansion of the existing projects that this government is planning to do through the new trust fund is going to result in 10,000 jobs.

You can't have it both ways; either you don't get any jobs out of it or you get 10,000 jobs. I happen to believe that he was correct in saying, as he did originally, that they didn't get any jobs out of it.

In this current new proposal for expansion of the three existing dams and the implementation of the turbines, there will be no long-term jobs. It will be exactly as the member for Nelson-Creston portrayed it: once the construction is done, the dams will run themselves. Who is going to be ultimately responsible for that? Is that going to be something that the people of the region will have any control over? Once this $1 billion is put into the trust fund, to what extent will local people have any input in the spending of that money?

We have seen, through the memo that was signed by the provincial government with the people of that region and announced by the Premier, that they will have absolutely no input. Even though we have Bill 7 in front of us and it sounds fine, we know that Bill 7 actually followed the memo, and that the ink was well dried on that memo to develop and expand the three existing dam projects before Bill 7 was conceived, written and brought to this chamber.

What does that memo say? The memorandum of understanding on the Columbia Basin accord, which was announced by the Premier in the Kootenays, says: "The province desires to develop long-term, meaningful employment opportunities and to foster investment in British Columbia." How do we do that by expanding on existing dams?

We know that the environmental impacts of the current Arrow Lakes system and the dams that were put in place in the Kootenays are going to be long term. In fact, what they did when they flooded the lower valleys was wipe out what I think was considered to be the second-most-productive agricultural land in the province, in terms of a region. So what did the people of the Kootenays get in exchange for that -- in exchange for losing their agricultural base, losing the ability to have a pristine environment and, in effect, creating a new microclimate for the Arrow Lakes area? In exchange for losing all of that, they got nothing. They received virtually no benefits.

For this government to come in now and say that they are being benevolent, beneficent, magnanimous and generous -- and all the long words that we've heard used in this debate -- is dishonest. Because there is nothing generous about taking

[ Page 13427 ]

money that's in one fund, which is the province's, putting it into a trust fund, and the province then deciding exactly how it will be spent. Setting up some sort of locally controlled regional board where the province has prescribed how that board will be constituted, and that that board will, in effect, only act as window dressing for decisions already being made by the province, is just a dishonest process. It's a fraudulent process. It's clearly a process that will see us into well after the next election, because in Bill 7 it says that it could be up to two years before this board will actually have any say.

Before this board was even in legislation, what the board was going to be mandated to deal with had already been decided by the province.

I'd like to put on record one of the letters that we received from one of the local representatives of government. It's interesting that when he wrote this -- it was prior to one of the public processes -- the numbers he used in his letter actually were higher than those projected by some of the people who were concerned. His letter is headlined: "Sold Down the River Again." He talks about the public process as it has occurred in the Kootenays and how uneasy the people of the Kootenays are with the way the government is dealing with all these things.

The first thing he talks about is: "No. 1, the government ignores the public input anyway. CORE and New Directions in health care." Anyone who has spent any time in the Kootenays knows that both CORE and the regional health councils have been an unmitigated disaster. "No. 2, the negotiations are behind closed doors." We know that this memorandum of understanding was delivered already signed, and that was prior to the bill being brought up. "No. 3, no mandate was ever given to the Columbia River Treaty Commission." That's true. The commission that was struck by this government has no mandate.

He mentions the Kinbasket Tribal Council. What's interesting is that after the Columbia downstream benefits were accrued, the local tribal council arbitrarily changed their boundaries so that all of a sudden they had jurisdiction over the dams.

Interjection.

J. Tyabji: The Minister of Employment and Investment is saying "So?" -- with the implication that that's probably a good thing. His government might not have a problem with the local aboriginal band arbitrarily changing their boundaries. But we can see what's happening here: we've got B.C. Hydro, an extremely powerful corporation that the people in the Kootenays have long been frustrated with because they have no accountability, they don't pay any taxes, and they're primarily located outside of the area; and we have the aboriginal bands. What do we know about aboriginal bands?

We know that their power, their authority and their jurisdiction are going to increase. It's going to increase through another closed-door process called the aboriginal treaty negotiation process. That process is fraudulent, but it will be giving them more power. And the power that they will have will now affect the people of the Kootenays in a much more important way, in a much more substantial way, because they will have jurisdiction over the dams.

We know that there will be this puppet organization put together by the NDP -- in fact, maybe not even by the NDP but by the government that replaces the NDP; certainly it will be constituted by the NDP -- and that there will be a board which will have virtually no power. How do we know that it will have no power?

I should finish this. In the letter, No. 4 is: "The Kemano project was axed against the recommendation of the BCUC. No. 5, there's an election coming up soon." So here we see that some of the local representatives.... This is a member of the regional district who says that there is absolutely no due process in the Kootenays and no way for people to have a say in something prior to it being announced or dumped on them.

Where's the environmental impact assessment of this? Where is the after-the-fact environmental impact assessment of what happened before? To what extent will these three new enlarged projects have any impact on the bulk water diversion and large-scale water flushing that, through B.C. Hydro, is currently going on in and having devastating environmental impacts on the Kootenays?

One thing that came out of that April 10 meeting, where we had Alliance members present, was that the government and the five sitting MLAs presented this as: "This is a done deal; this is the best you're going to get. We really don't want to open this up again, because you're not going to do any better with the Liberal Party or the Reform Party." Those are disgraceful tactics, to come into a public meeting with something already done and say, "Well, you'd better like it, because you don't have any better choices," and then use fear tactics. Those are not the kind of tactics that should be used for good government.

But the central point is: how do we know that there will be absolutely no real monitoring or accountability? How do we know that Bill 7 means nothing significant to the people of the Kootenays? Well, we know because one line in Bill 7 is the most significant line of the bill, I believe, and we haven't talked about it yet in this debate.

That line says: "Section 5 of the Offence Act does not apply to this Act or to the regulations." That in itself might not seem like a big deal --

section 5, big deal: one

section of a big act. But we have to look at the Offence Act. What is it? What is

section 5?

Section 5 of the Offence Act says: "A person who contravenes an enactment by doing

an act that it forbids, or omitting to do

an act that it requires to be done, commits an offence against the enactment." So in that line Bill 7 says that if

section 5 of the Offence Act does not apply, you can break any provision of Bill 7 and do not commit an offence. Or on the other hand, you don't have to do anything that Bill 7 says you have to do; you don't commit an offence. We should have done our homework on this debate before we started it, because that line wipes out any of this airy-fairy warm and fuzzy feeling that we've had through this debate.

That line in Bill 7 shows us that this government is moving forward in bad faith. This government has no intention to hold B.C. Hydro accountable or to hold B.C. Hydro to whatever long-term plans its puppet board sets up for the Kootenays. Even though in Bill 7 they talk about the Columbia Basin management plan, we know that we won't even see a plan like that for two and a half years at least. And in that time, all the important decisions will already have been taken, either through B.C. Hydro, through order-in-council or through this government after the session is over, when nobody can talk about it anymore.

[ Page 13428 ]

It's no wonder the people of the Kootenays feel sold out and disenfranchised. The last thing they needed was an expansion of the existing dams. How about economic diversification? How about trying to invest in the community outside of the hydro projects?

How do we know -- and we'll be canvassing this later in the session -- that this trust is going to do anything to prevent the large-scale water flushing that through B.C. Hydro has occurred in the past? This government might be looking at this as a very lucrative deal for the government. B.C. Hydro must be delighted to have access to this kind of capital. B.C. Hydro must be delighted that the government is prepared to give them low-interest financing for capital investment in the Kootenays. They must be just thrilled; I can't imagine that they wouldn't be very happy with Bill 7.

Do you know why else B.C. Hydro would be very happy? Do you know why else this bill is making sure the people of the Kootenays have no provision in law for any kind of accountability? Because of another few lines at the end of the act. The end of the act mentions three sections of the Company Act that will apply to the corporation or corporations. What are those three lines? Are they the lines that talk about taxation or about money accruing to the local area? No, they're not.

The most significant of those three lines is about

section 152 of the Company Act, which talks about indemnification. Do you know what that says? It says there's no liability. Of the three tiny little sections of the enormous Company Act that apply, the one that strikes me as the most important is that no one is going to be liable for anything they do. It's a large

section of the act, and I won't read it, but it's amazing that it is saving harmless people who may go out and devastate the environment in the Kootenays. It's a trapdoor.

So what do we have? We have no ability under the Offence Act to charge anybody, we have a trapdoor for anyone who might be held liable, we have a piece of paper that's worthless and we have negotiations in bad faith with the people of the Kootenays. Deals that have long since been decided are presented as if they're doing them a favour. We have no movement forward in terms of local control or any kind of accountable process for the people who live there. I'll be looking forward to the committee stage of this debate.

In terms of local representatives who feel like they've been sold down the river again, they're right; they have been. The only thing we can say is that based on the level of debate that has occurred in the House so far by Liberal and Reform Party members, perhaps they're better off with the NDP. I'm not sure it's something they should be celebrating, because even though there might be $1 billion going into the Kootenays, it's all going to be going into capital investments in projects that have not been things that the people of the Kootenays have been happy with in the past.

There is no demonstration that any of the new power that will be generated is for domestic consumption anyway. It's going to be sold off, probably to the our southern neighbours, with incredible profits for B.C. Hydro.

[4:15]

I don't know why the people of the Kootenays should be happy with this deal. I certainly think it's a bad deal. The Alliance is strongly opposed to the way it has been structured. The concept of putting the downstream benefits into a local trust fund for local decision-making on economic diversification was a good concept. It was a concept that the leader of the Alliance has been advancing for several years. This is not the way to do it. I would urge the government to reconsider. I hope things have not proceeded so far that they cannot amend this act or amend the process so the people who live there can have some input.

J. Doyle: I'm pleased to speak in second reading on Bill 7, the Columbia Basin Trust Act. This is good news for Columbia Basin residents -- finally, after 30 years. This government's agreement with Cominco protected 700 jobs in Kimberley, in my riding, and also hundreds of jobs in Trail. It allowed the province to set up the Columbia River basin power corporation. It allowed the province to add generating ability at the Brilliant and Waneta Dams. We promised to right the terrible wrongs of the Columbia Basin, and we have done that -- another promise kept.

Past Socred governments devastated our best lands. Our largest export in these past 30 years has been the youth living in the Columbia Basin. Those have been the effects of this Columbia River deal, which we have lived with for 30 years. Never mind the effects on our forests, the thousands of jobs we lost when our best valleys were flooded, the small communities that were wiped out and the agricultural lands that were flooded. Parts of the year they're just dust bowls. What was left of the fisheries was wiped out.

What did all this happen for? So we could have cheap power for the rest of the province -- those in different ridings in the Vancouver area -- and for the United States; that's what we got. What did Columbia Basin residents get? I will remind you: they got shafted. W.A.C. Bennett promised serene lakes. What did we get? Right now in some areas of the Columbia Basin, it's 20 miles from your boat dock to the water. Some serene lake, Mr. Bennett. This was a sellout, plain and simple.

This is a government that I am proud to be part of. We held symposiums in Castlegar and Cranbrook. The people finally had a chance, after 30 years, to tell their story. As we know, there were no public hearings when those dams were built. Things happened. They got a couple of dollars and had to leave town -- that was it. We worked with the communities, the locally elected people and our native councils. We have an agreement to add power generation to the Brilliant and Waneta Dams. For the past 30 years, Keenleyside has been just to provide flood control for Uncle Sam, our American friend south of the border.

That has been a disgraceful thorn in the side of residents of the Columbia Basin. Now, thanks to this agreement, we are finally going to have generating power.

We've got $1 billion in total with this agreement. This money will be spent in the basin. There's $77 million that will be spent not in the areas where the dams are going to be built but in the rest of the basin. One use that I'm going to be working for is to use some of that money to assist in getting natural gas. Most of my riding doesn't have natural gas. While people in the rest of the province have had cheap power compliments of us, they've also had natural gas. That is something that I will be working for. All work on the dams will be done under the allied hydro agreement.

I know that the opposition doesn't like unions. We will provide good-paying jobs for the residents of the basin. For the opposition's thoughts on unions, let's look at the pittance

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they pay their constituency assistants. This shows their belief about unions and decent-paying jobs. Let's look at their stance on fair wages and the minimum wage; they look out for the average people.

The trust will have ten elected local representatives, two native council representatives, plus six provincial appointees, for a total of 18 residents. The only way any one of those 18 people can be part of this trust is if they reside in the Columbia Basin. In the past, that was not true. The people that made the decisions that affected our valleys and our homes and our communities and our economies and our youth lived in Vancouver, Victoria, the United States -- everywhere but in the Columbia Basin.

We as government have also set up the compensation fund in the last three years. That's the fishery enhancement fund. About $5 million per year is going into that fund to assist in getting some fish back into the Columbia River.

What is the Liberal stand on this Columbia Basin Trust? The Liberal leader was up in Castlegar on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. What does he seem to know about this agreement? I would say he doesn't know much about it. Let's quote one paper, the Castlegar Sun. They said that it seemed like he was firing SCUD missiles, and you know how successful they were. The Liberal leader has at least three plans: (1) all the money to the Kootenays; (2) all the money to debt reduction; or (3) all the money all across the province -- a different song sheet in different locations of the province.

We have all heard of people speaking out of both sides of their mouth; I would say the Liberal leader has done a good job of speaking out of at least three.

The other day, on April 11, the Okanagan West member was speaking on Bill 7. I would like to quote from Hansard part of what he said:

"...we have dams such as Mica and Revelstoke, which occupy areas that were not inhabited by a number of people; it did not destroy low-level farmland. The reality is that a lot of areas in the Arrow Lakes are reservoirs, and they go up and down with respect to the flow. Nevertheless, they weren't intensively cultivated areas, and they weren't the best farmlands in the province. But we've lost them, and we've lost some homesites, and I understand that. Again, as I've said, growth and development have some costs, but they have great benefits as well."

To the member for Okanagan West, I say shame. We can see why there's one member of your party left here. To the other opposition parties that agree with you, I say shame to them too.

The Reform leader -- who, as we all know, was elected as a Socred -- until the last month or so agreed totally with the hon. member whom I quoted from Hansard. But suddenly he sees now that this government has consulted the people in the Columbia Basin, and so now he's somewhat onside.

Let us remember that if the Socreds, Reformers or Liberals -- whatever they want to call themselves over there -- had been in office, this agreement would never have been in place. One or two of them have seen the error of their ways, when they saw that we finally have a good agreement in place to bring something back to the people who live in the Columbia Basin. I say we've had our cows milked long enough and given the cream away long enough. This is a good deal, and it's about time.

I am very pleased to support the second reading of Bill 7.

Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for Delta South.

F. Gingell: I'm pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill 7, because there are some important issues involved here.

One of the pleasures of listening to portions of this debate, which I have done, was to listen to the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi, who I thought gave us a most interesting dissertation on some history. I will miss the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi in the thirty-sixth parliament, but I certainly hope another historian is elected. As we all know, if we don't learn what has happened from the mistakes of the past, we're bound to repeat them. I wish that our friend across the aisle, the Minister of Employment and Investment, could take that bon mot to heart.

I would like to get one thing into Hansard. I believe that the downstream benefits, rather than as described by the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi.... Rather than being 50 percent of the power that is generated in the American dams, it is 50 percent of the increase in the power that comes about because of the flood control and control of water flows. I appreciate that that's a very difficult matter to measure, and one that is subject to a great deal of

interpretation and argument. I understand, I guess, why the province has sold the rights to those in excess of 950 megawatts for the sum of $250 million.

Interjection.

F. Gingell: Half of it.

We all know that none of this comes into play until 1998, when the first agreement expires and the new agreements start, so what on earth the Minister of Finance was doing including $250 million in this year's budget is beyond my understanding.

Exactly 20 days ago, the Minister of Finance promised me I would receive copies of letters given by various individuals who were asked for an opinion on whether the $250 million, which appears in this year's budget as revenue from the downstream benefits, is properly revenue of this year. I am still waiting. I go into the office every single day and ask if my letters are ready yet, and I don't get them. I wonder why.

In fact, I wonder why the Minister of Finance had to go and get an opinion on an issue like downstream benefits from the Columbia River and what year they properly applied to. If they're not income of 1995-96 -- and at the moment I'm convinced that they're not; I haven't had the privilege of seeing the documents -- instead of supposedly having a $114 million surplus in this year's budget, we'd have a $136 million deficit.

If you add that to the $337 million which is the net expenditure after revenue from the Transportation Financing Authority, we would be showing a deficit this year of $473 million, which -- until I am proven wrong -- I suggest to members of this House and to you, Mr. Speaker, and to all the people of British Columbia, is the correct number. I guess that's all beside the point in dealing with Bill 7.

Bill 7 does remind me a little of history, because I think we had the Minister of Employment and Investment acting like a Pierpont Morgan, a Fisk or a Huntington of the nineteenth century as he went about the province spending other people's money to build major megaprojects. Although when one looks at Bill 7 and the Columbia River Basin Trust, one thinks perhaps in a more modern genre of his making a deal we can't refuse: "If you don't take this, members of the Columbia Basin communities, you don't get anything."

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So what is this? I appreciate, and I know you appreciate, Mr. Speaker -- even if all the members of the government benches do not appreciate -- that the Liberal Party, the official opposition, supports a major allocation of these funds to the Columbia River Basin communities.

[4:30]

Interjection.

F. Gingell: We have said that from the very start. What do we want those funds to be used for? We want them to be used for investment and to create jobs. There is nothing that is more important in this province than well-paid, family-supporting jobs. Does this do that? Are the Waneta, Brilliant and Keenleyside Dams good investments to make to create jobs? The answer to that is no. The minister knows as well as I -- as well as anybody -- that megapower projects have the least job creation ability of any industrial major investment -- the very, very least.

It's an important lesson that I am sure he would have learned at the feet of his guru at Simon Fraser University, now the Deputy Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks.

I was very fortunate in that I got a copy of the KPMG draft-for-discussion project report. One of the advantages of getting hold of a draft is that you've got it before the government gets it. You never know, something might happen to it in being typed. And what does this report say? It says some very important things. Let's first of all deal with the issue of job creation. It says:

"Based on the report and other information, the B.C. Energy Council" -- the council of this government's own making, with their own favourite lawyer as its chief commissioner -- "set up for the purpose of considering these issues in its energy strategy for British Columbia says: 'Energy projects have long been looked to as a means of triggering economic development, but careful analysis shows that the number of jobs created in energy projects is low compared to other uses of equal amounts of money. For example, almost no investment produces fewer jobs per million dollars of investment than a large hydro dam.' "

The last word in that sentence is dam, and I think that's a good adjective. Would it be an adjective? Maybe the Minister of Education can correct me, but it's a pretty damning evaluation of this project that I see being pushed by the Minister of Employment and Investment.

There are a whole series of questions to do with generating units on the Keenlyside, Brilliant and Waneta Dams that deal with environmental issues that have not yet been dealt with that perhaps will make it uneconomic. All that should certainly have been canvassed and clearly dealt with before they made their decisions. There are issues to do with sturgeon spawning in the Columbia River, and there have been no estimates of the cost of dealing with the mitigation of that problem.

When we produce electricity in British Columbia, whether it be through hydro, co-gen, gas turbines or coal-fired turbines, the object of the exercise is to produce electricity at the least cost. All of our standards of living will rise if we recognize that the economics of power generation are paramount. The report that KPMG has produced indicates particularly that the cost of generating power at Keenlyside suggests that it will not be competitive under current market conditions.

I am really pleased that this province and this government finally seem to have opened the door for independent power producers. Before we know what they can do and before we know what the cost of that power is, I see this government creating three major hydro-generating projects which we will be forced to use. If the cost is higher, and if it becomes important -- as I'm sure it will -- that the Columbia Basin Trust organization receives some revenue, the price of the power to the consumers is going to be pushed up. That is another form of hidden taxation.

If they're going to interfere in the market, it is clearly government's job to ensure that the services that they provide, whether it be for automobile insurance or for electricity, be least-cost. If it isn't least-cost, it's a form of taxation. If they put in hydro-generating units and that power has to be paid for at a higher price, the rest of the taxpayers of British Columbia will be paying those costs. Industries will be less competitive than they would otherwise be, and we will, in effect, be pouring a portion of the resource over the spillway.

In principle, we support the issue of resources from these downstream benefits going to the Columbia River Basin communities, but it's important for the communities to make the decisions as to the type of investments and the way those funds should be spent. It is not appropriate for us to be making them in Victoria. They understand the issues better. I'm sure they will make wiser decisions, because they would not make the decision on their own to invest in these three hydro projects. With all sincerity, I beg that the minister r