1990 Legislative Session: 4th

Session, 34th Parliament

HANSARD

The

following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 1990

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page 10099 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Corporate-sponsored travel by hospital

board members. Mr. Clark –– 10099

Hospital purchasing policy. Mr. Clark –– 10100

Logging on the Gulf Islands. Ms. Cull –– 10100

Shortage of nurses. Mr. Davidson –– 10100

South Slocan logging dispute. Mr. Miller

–– 10101

Island Highway route. Mr. Lovick –– 10101

Flooding at Canyon City. Mr. Guno –– 10101

Crown lands Statutes Amendment Act, 1990

(Bill 5). Committee stage.

(Hon. Mr. Parker) –– 10102

Mr. Williams

Third reading

British Columbia Health Research

Foundation Act (Bill 12). Second reading.

(Hon. J. Jansen)

Hon. J. Jansen –– 10102

Mr. Perrry –– 10103

Hon. J. Jansen –– 10103

Sustainable Environment Fund Act (Bill

16). Second reading.

(Hon. Mr. Reynolds)

Mr. Clark –– 10103

Mr. Harcourt –– 10104

Mr. G. Janssen –– 10106

Mr. Peterson –– 10108

Mr. Lovick –– 10108

Hon. Mr. Richmond –– 10110

Mr. Zirnhelt –– 10113

Mr. Marzari –– 10115

Hon. Mr. Messmer –– 10117

Ms. Pullinger –– 10118

Mr. Perry –– 10120

Mr. Williams –– 10124

Hon. Mr. Reynolds –– 10127

The House met at 2:03 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. LOENEN :

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Premier and myself, it gives me a great

deal of pleasure to welcome a friend, a supporter and a constituent. I

would ask the House to please welcome Mr. Bob Aiken.

MR. CHALMERS :

Mr. Speaker, it's my pleasure today to introduce to the House the

president of the B.C. Tree Fruit Marketing Board from Kelowna, Mr.

David Taylor. Accompanying him is Mr. Brian Karrer from Penticton, a

member of the same organization. Please make them welcome.

HON. MR. JACOBSEN :

Mr. Speaker, it's my pleasure today to introduce to you the recipients

of the Lieutenant-Governor's foster families award. This is the first

year that this award has been presented.

These families

were chosen because they represent the very best quality of British

Columbia's foster parents. Through their commitment to fostering, our

foster families have displayed great parenting skills, patience,

understanding and compassion for the children of British Columbia. They

have cared for abused children, substance-addicted children, disabled

children, emotionally disturbed children and children who, for one

reason or another, have not been able to remain with their own

families. They have opened up their homes, they've opened up their

hearts, they've opened up the future to literally thousands of children

from all over British Columbia. Theirs is truly a special vocation.

With

us are Donald and Loraine Bartlett from Kamloops, Stanley and Gilda

Beech from Courtenay, Phil and Ronnie Braendel from Langley, John and

Marion Coltman from Kelowna, Betty Dube from Mission, Ken and Donna

Gilliland of Port Coquitlam, Allan and Angela Hatch of Victoria, Jack

and Ellen Lacerte of Burns Lake, Robert and Barenina Pohl of Chetwynd,

and Jim and Nancy Stewart of Delta.

Please join me in welcoming these very special people.

MR. HARCOURT :

Mr. Speaker, I too, on behalf of this side of the House, would like to

make the welcome not only unanimous, but equally enthusiastic. The

foster parents of this province of ours play an absolutely

irreplaceable role. The work that they do in taking care of children in

very difficult circumstances, in opening their homes and their hearts

and in helping those children is irreplaceable. No matter how many

institutions you have, you can't beat the work that foster parents do.

So our congratulations too, and welcome.

MR. KEMPF : As the Minister of Labour has

said, among the ten couples who received the Lieutenant Governor's

foster families award are a couple from Burns Lake. Ellen and Jack

Lacerte hail from Burns Lake, and Jack grew up in Nautley village, near

Fort Fraser. They have done an awful lot and should receive great

praise for what they have done for foster children, and I would ask

this House to give them a very special welcome.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS :

I would like to introduce to the House Mr. Mike Healy. Mike is a

director of marketing, media and customer relations with BART, the Bay

Area rapid transit system in San Francisco. I wish you would all make

him welcome.

MR. BRUCE : I beg your indulgence for

half a moment. Today is a very special day in Cowichan Malahat. It's

the birthday of a close friend of mine who is 106 years old, Mr. Dwight

Robinson. For those of you who can't add or subtract, that means he was

born in 1884. I spent an hour with him today just talking about a few

things, and I asked him if there was anything I should deliver to this

House. With a twinkle in his eye and a little excitement in his voice,

there were several words; however, I am unable to repeat them in the

House at this moment.

At 106 years old, colleagues, he's

keenly concerned about the environment around the world and about the

youth, and at 106 he's looking forward very much to the future. I would

ask that this House join with me in sending our congratulations to my

good friend Mr. Dwight Robinson, at 106.

MR. SPEAKER : If it is the wish of the

House, the Speaker can send a message from the House. Is that the wish

of the House?

SOME HON. MEMBERS : Aye!

MR. SPEAKER : It will be a message in

parliamentary language, which may be quite strange for some of you.

MS. MARZARI :

Would the House please welcome to the precincts the Grade 6 and 7 class

from St. Augustine's School, under the leadership of teacher Gladys

Brown.

HON. MR. MICHAEL : Would the House give a

warm welcome to one of my constituents, Joyce Johnson, from the

wonderful community of Blind Bay.

Oral Questions

CORPORATE-SPONSORED TRAVEL

BY HOSPITAL BOARD MEMBERS

MR. CLARK :

To the Minister of Health. Ms. Susan Brice, in response to questions

raised yesterday in the House, indicated that despite the appearance of

conflict she has had no problem in accepting a corporate junket from

Siemens because — as she put it — the trip was "approved by the

Ministry of Health." Can the minister inform the House by what

[ Page 10100 ]

guidelines his ministry approves

corporate junkets laid on by hospital suppliers?

HON. J. JANSEN :

Obviously the member opposite is getting his information from press

reports, and unfortunately there is sometimes a lack of accuracy in

those reports.

I think the House should be aware of the

circumstances regarding this trip. The decision to purchase equipment

which was utilized for digitization in the radiology department was

made in 1983. The process of digitization is a long one and has

resulted in state of the art in the Royal Jubilee Hospital.

The

trip the member is referring to happened in April 1986, some three

years after the decision to purchase. I have said before that I

recognize these types of situations do invite comment. We are looking

at it, and I have no further comment in regard to that situation.

MR. CLARK :

I wonder whether the minister feels that Siemens does this out of the

goodness of its heart. It clearly looks like a payoff to me, if it

wasn't in preparation for....

I heard Susan Brice say on television that this trip was

approved by the Ministry of Health. Yesterday the minister said that

the boards were autonomous; Ms. Brice said that they were approved by

the Ministry of Health. Can the minister stand up in the House and say

which is correct?

HON. J. JANSEN :

Perhaps I should again clarify that the decision to purchase this

equipment happened in 1983; the trip happened in 1986. In April of 1986

I was not the Minister of Health, as the member probably knows. I will

look at all the details concerning this approval process.

said before that the board of each hospital is an autonomous board, and

a decision was made — and it was for public record — to take advantage

of the opportunities for education in terms of the digitization process.

MR. SPEAKER :

Order, please. Before we proceed to the next order of business and the

next question, I must explain to the member that on the issue of asking

a question of a minister about a time in which the minister was not

responsible, we know by parliamentary practice that it's out of order.

So you have to ask a policy question to do with current policy.

MR. CLARK :

A question to the Minister of Health. The standard-of-conduct policies

applying to all government employees clearly prohibit government

employees from accepting benefits and hospitality from corporate

sponsors. Does the minister think it acceptable that the so-called

autonomy of board members should extend to protecting them in

circumstances in which government employees would clearly be fired for

conflict of interest?

HOSPITAL PURCHASING POLICY

MR. CLARK :

A new question to the Minister of Health. Can the minister confirm that

the MRI unit bought for Royal Jubilee Hospital in 1988 — after the

trip, I might add — was purchased without public tender, over the

objections and protestations of other suppliers? Can he explain why

this equipment was purchased without any public tender?

MR. SPEAKER :

As I advised the member earlier, the current Minister of Health was not

responsible at that time as Minister of Health. So you have to reword

the question if you wish to use that question.

MR. CLARK :

Will the minister undertake to table in this House the documentation

surrounding the purchase of that MRI equipment in 1988 and the reasons

why a decision was made not to go to public tender?

HON. J. JANSEN :

Mr. Speaker, I have said before — and I repeat — that I am looking at

the circumstances regarding the whole purchasing policy of hospitals. I

would be pleased to make the findings of my review public.

[2:15]

LOGGING ON THE GULF ISLANDS

MS. CULL :

To the Minister of Finance. The minister has called the request by Nick

Gilbert, chair of the Islands Trust, for logging guidelines on the Gulf

Islands, "the ramblings and musings of a very confused person." Given

that the government's own internal report calls for such guidelines,

would the minister not agree that it is he, not Mr. Gilbert, who is

confused?

MR. SPEAKER : Again, question period

is to deal with the ministerial responsibility. I would think that the

question might be better put to another minister.

HON. MR. COUVELIER : The answer is no, Mr.

Speaker.

SHORTAGE OF NURSES

MR. DAVIDSON :

I have a question for the Minister of Health. One of the key problems

in our health care system is a shortage of nurses in some of the more

specialized fields, particularly in the cardiac operating room and the

intensive-care units. Can the minister advise what steps he is taking

to encourage solutions to this problem?

HON. J. JANSEN :

Perhaps the hon. member opposite is too busy stuffing his pocket with

bread-crumbs to be aware of all the press releases that have been

occasioned in regard to this issue.

I should tell you, Mr.

Speaker, there are three aspects to this current shortage in British

Columbia. One is recruitment, another is retention, and another

[ Page 10101 ]

one is training. We have recently

appointed Ms.

Bonnie Jamieson as provincial senior nurse adviser, and she is looking

at all aspects of this.

One of the most important things is

the lack of recognition by the BCNU of extra payment for those who work

in this type of category. Critical-care nursing is a category that we

in the ministry think should be compensated at a higher level than

other nursing positions.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER :

Thank you very much. Order, please. There'll be no supplementary on

this question. Enough humour for today. The member for Prince Rupert.

SOUTH SLOCAN LOGGING DISPUTE

MR. MILLER : Mr. Speaker, I hope that

doesn't mean I'm not humorous.

question to the Minister of Forests. A broadly based citizens' group in

the Kootenays is attempting to prevent a company from logging on 300

acres of private land. The weather and the ground conditions are such

that logging would seriously impact on the village of South Slocan's

watershed. Has the minister taken any action, or is he considering any

action to halt this logging?

HON. MR. RICHMOND : The answer to the first

question is no. The answer to the second question is yes.

MR. MILLER :

Further to the minister. I understand that the Forest Service has shut

down logging on Crown lands in recognition of the conditions that exist

there. Can the minister advise the residents of South Slocan when they

can expect action to protect the integrity of their watershed?

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

Soon. What do you want? He's talking about two different areas. Unlike

the party opposite — whatever they happen to be calling themselves

today, New Democrats or socialists or social democrats — we take the

rights of people on their own property very seriously. Maybe you don't,

as the actions of your members in Ottawa indicate, but we do.

MR. MILLER : Further to the minister. We

have on record the attitude of the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr.

Couvelier) toward the chairman of the Islands Trust, who, when asking

for regulations, is treated to the buffoonery of the Minister of

Finance. The Kootenay-Boundary municipalities have been asking for

regulations to give them the ability to regulate logging on private

land for two years now, as have people on the Gulf Islands and other

areas of the province. Why has the minister not acted, given that these

requests to take action came not just last week but have been around

for two years?

MR. SPEAKER : Therefore the question is out

of order, but the Minister of Forests may wish to respond.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

I would assume from the member's question that he would act no matter

which group showed up on the lawn or blocked the hallways of the

Legislature so people couldn't get in or out of their offices. If they

demand that you take action on somebody's private property, that's all

you would need. If, heaven forbid, you should ever form the government,

all you would need was a protest group to fill the hallways up, and

you'd tell people what they can do on their private property.

ISLAND HIGHWAY ROUTE

MR. LOVICK :

My question is directed to the Minister of Transportation and Highways.

There is considerable opposition in the community of Nanaimo to the

ministry's proposed inner route — a four-lane highway that will go

directly through that community. The ministry's response to that

opposition is to issue a series of paid newspaper advertisements taking

the form of newspaper columns. Can the minister tell me whether it is

now government policy to deal with divisive issues by disguising

advocacy advertising as news?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON :

Mr. Speaker, I would be interested in having the opinion of the member

for Nanaimo on the highway proposal for his constituency. But the

answer to his question is no.

MR. LOVICK : Sadly, the

minister hasn't done her homework, because if she had she would

discover that I have expressed my position to her and to her ministry.

However, we can't expect miracles.

Another quick question

to the minister, if I might. Can the minister tell this House just how

much this little caper in advertising cost the taxpayers of the

province?

MR. SPEAKER : I believe the question is

addressed to the wrong minister, but perhaps the Minister of Highways

could answer the question for us.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON : I can only respond by

saying that we're a very frugal ministry, and every dollar we spend is

well spent.

FLOODING AT CANYON CITY

MR. GUNO :

I have a question for the Minister of Transportation and Highways.

Yesterday my colleague from Prince Rupert and I were in the Nass

Valley, which is situated in my constituency, to assess the situation

there as a result of the flooding. As you are aware, two communities

were shut off as a result of the severe flooding.

While we

were there, an action was taken by the local PTA from the small

community of Gitwinksihlkw — which is usually called Canyon

[ Page 10102 ]

City

— to not allow their children to cross the tiny suspension footbridge.

It has outlived its life span by about three years. While we were

there, and when we crossed that bridge, the raging torrent with trees

and debris was only a few feet from that bridge.

Is the

minister aware of the situation and, if so, will she undertake to have

an up-to-date engineering study done on that to allay the fears of

these parents?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON : I will have to

apologize. Because of the noise around me, I couldn't hear the question

properly. If you would like me to get the question from the Blues, I'd

be pleased to do that.

MR. SPEAKER : The question was

regarding the footbridge at Canyon City, if that is of any assistance

to the minister. I was barely able to hear it myself, but I am closer

to the member.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON : I would have to take

that question on notice.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Mr. Speaker, I call

committee on Bill 5.

CROWN LANDS STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT, 1990

The House in Committee on Bill 5; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

section 1.

MR. WILLIAMS : Maybe the minister could

elaborate on what the impact of

section 1 is.

HON. MR. PARKER :

If the member cares to take a look under

section 74, he will see that

whenever there's any disposition of Crown lands, there can be a

provision for a public road. We are expanding this to include a road

allowance — or walkway allowance, as the case may be — to make sure

there is public access alongside that property in the years ahead.

Section 1 approved.

section 2.

MR. CHAIRMAN : Would the minister please

introduce the amendments standing on the order paper for

section 2.

HON. MR. PARKER : I introduce the amendment

on the order paper, to wit:

"The

minister is responsible for and may undertake, commission, coordinate

and set standards for base mapping and land related information systems

in British Columbia and for related remote sensing and survey control

functions."

I move the amendment in my name.

Amendment approved.

Section 2 as amended approved.

Sections 3 to 27 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. PARKER : Mr. Chairman, I move the

committee rise and report the bill complete with amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 5, Crown Lands Statutes Amendment Act, 1990, reported

complete with amendment.

MR. SPEAKER : When shall the bill be read a

third time?

HON. MR. RICHMOND : With leave of the House

now, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

Bill 5, Crown Lands Statutes Amendment Act, 1990, read a third

time and passed.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : I call second reading of

Bill 12, Mr. Speaker.

BRITISH COLUMBIA HEALTH

RESEARCH FOUNDATION ACT

HON. J. JANSEN :

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to enable the British Columbia

Health Care Research Foundation to continue to operate as a statutory

corporation under the name British Columbia Health Research Foundation.

The

foundation currently awards grants to individuals and organizations to

encourage health research in our province, including not only basic and

clinical research, but research in the fields of health policy and

health promotion. It also awards scholarships and fellowships, both to

encourage newly established health research personnel in their

endeavours and to retain skilled health research personnel already

working in the province.

The foundation also cooperates In

research endeavours with organizations involved in the delivery of

health-related services or those concerned with the general health of

communities in the province.

This bill expands upon the

foundation's existing purposes to include in its mandate improving

public knowledge and awareness about the foundation and its work,

facilitating fund-raising programs and activities of the foundation and

managing funds and property in a way that will further the research

purposes of the foundation.

[2:30]

Under this bill a person donating money to the foundation will

now be entitled to a claim of up to

[ Page 10103 ]

100 percent credit against taxable

income in any one taxation year.

The

board of the foundation, which may be composed of eight to 15 members,

will continue to receive advice on grants, procedures and priorities

from the scientific advisory committee. This committee coordinates the

detailed peer review of grant, fellowship and scholarship applications

and rates projections for scientific quality, feasibility and relevance

to provincial health issues.

The conflict-of-interest

provisions of the Company Act incorporated in this bill by reference

require disclosure from a director who may be affected by a potential

research grant, scholarship or fellowship.

The annual report and financial statements of the foundation

will be tabled in the Legislature each year.

Employees

of the foundation will continue to enjoy benefits under the Public

Service Benefit Plan Act and the Pension (Public Service) Act.

Finally,

Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention that the provisions respecting the

establishment of the foundation are in fact very similar to the

provisions respecting hospital foundations of British Columbia and the

University Foundations Act.

MR. PERRY : Her Majesty's

loyal opposition will be delighted to support this bill. The British

Columbia Health Care Research Foundation has achieved an enviable

record in supporting research, which has improved the quality of

patient care in this province and has improved our understanding of

scientific issues and public policy issues relating to health.

would simply like to record my appreciation, on behalf of the

opposition, for the foundation's efforts over the last years and our

confidence that it will continue serving the public of B.C. in the

future.

We have no further comments at second reading of this bill.

MR. SPEAKER : Pursuant to standing orders,

the House is advised the Minister of Health closes debate.

HON. J. JANSEN : Mr. Speaker, I move second

reading.

Motion approved.

Bill

12, British Columbia Health Research Foundation Act, read a second time

and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the

next sitting of the House after today.

MR. SPEAKER : The second member for

Vancouver–Little Mountain has an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. MOWAT : It's my pleasure, on behalf of

the first member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Mrs McCarthy), to

welcome to our Legislative Assembly today some students from Eric

Hamber Secondary School in the heart of Vancouver–Little Mountain. I'd

ask the House to join us all in making these students welcome to

Victoria today.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Mr. Speaker, I call

adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 16.

SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT FUND ACT

(continued)

MR. CLARK :

I'll be brief in my remarks today. Yesterday I discussed the PR aspects

of the bill, the minister's picture on the advertisements and the

horror that that provoked among focus groups for polling firms. But

today I want to deal seriously, if I can, with a few aspects of the

bill.

Essentially my concerns revolve around two aspects.

This is called the Sustainable Environment Fund Act. It creates a

separate fund. It seems to me that as parliamentarians we should be

concerned about two things: how money is raised by taxes and how it is

spent. The essence of democracy is that this place is accountable for

both those actions. Of course, the government will be held accountable

for all these tax increases at the next election.

Nevertheless,

this seems to confound to some extent those elementary parliamentary

questions, because for the first time — it appears to me, anyway — we

have a fund which has dedicated taxes. We have a fund which says that

the proceeds from the taxes will go directly to the fund. In addition

to that, we have the minister responsible for spending from that fund.

The taxes go into the fund, and the minister is responsible.

Normally

in this House we have estimates with certain votes and subvotes. The

auditor-general has been very concerned about transfers between

sub-votes. This allows the minister, through the Environment and Land

Use Committee, to spend the money in the fund on a whole range of

programs. Money can go between programs or around programs any way the

minister chooses.

For example, a lot of the money that goes

into the fund is recycled money — if I can use that term — from the

Ministry of Forests for reforestation. But nothing in this act says

that the money must be spent on reforestation; it could be spent on any

range of things that the minister of the day deems appropriate. In

terms of public accountability, I'm concerned that we are asked to vote

on a bill which allows the minister a kind of slush fund with a range

of initiatives that the minister can now spend money on. Rather than

the scrutiny we normally get with line ministries, with votes and

subvotes and the debate and detailed defence of that debate that the

minister is forced to reply to in this House, we don't have those with

this bill. We have a rather general question of a fund with taxes

flowing into it — again, unique in this respect — and then money

flowing out of that fund without the accountability built into it that

we might normally expect from a minister of the Crown through a line

ministry during the estimates debate.

[ Page 10104 ]

That

causes me great concern, because it seems to me that the debate on

where money should be spent in the environment might be more difficult,

or at least the intent of the ministry might be more difficult, given

the range of initiatives that the minister can now choose to put money

into. In fact, over the year, money can flow and priorities can be

altered at will by the ministry. Again, it makes it difficult to vote

on something which gives such flexibility without accountability from

this House. That should be worrisome in terms of public accountability.

I'd

just like to talk very briefly about the new taxes in the bill, because

we know that the government said in the budget speech that there are no

new taxes. But then it says here that there are environmental levies —

so those aren't taxes — but I can assure you that British Columbians

know that these are taxes. We now have a new $3 levy on pneumatic

tires. Every time you buy a new tire for your car, you have to pay $3.

That's hardly going to solve the recycling problem in British Columbia.

We know that there is no program to recycle tires, so all we know is

that they are going to be taxed now, and the money is going into this

fund.

In addition to that, we have a $5 tax on lead-acid

batteries. A more appropriate mechanism would be a refundable deposit

system, where there was a $3 deposit required on tires, and then you

get your $3 back when you return them. That encourages the consumer to

recycle the product; likewise with batteries. What you want to do is

encourage the recycling of lead-acid batteries, so what you do — as

they've done in Ontario — is institute a $5 deposit-refund scheme,

where you pay $5 extra for your battery, but you get the $5 back when

you take the battery back.

This doesn't do that. This is a

tax of $5 on batteries. What happens if I take the battery and put it

in my garbage can? Well, it goes into the dump. That toxic waste goes

into the landfill. What is most appropriate is to have a deposit-refund

system to encourage me as a consumer to take the battery back to an

appropriate place to get a refund. That would be more appropriate. But

no, we don't have that because the intent of this bill is really to

raise a tax; it's really a tax grab. It's really a way to create a

little slush fund for the Minister of Environment to dispense on

whatever projects are the highest profile going into an election

campaign. That's the real intent of the bill. It's a kind of lottery

fund system — of course, some of this money is lottery funds.

The

guidelines on how this money can be spent are very vague in this bill.

They can be spent on a range of issues. The money is raised through

these taxes rather than a deposit-refund system, which would be more

environmentally friendly. Instead, all the money goes into the fund and

there may or may not be a recycling program for tires; there may or may

not be a recycling program for lead-acid batteries. It would be much

more appropriate to use a deposit-refund system if one wants to

encourage the consumer to recycle. But no, that isn't the intent of

this bill and never was.

We are asked to pass a

section of

the bill which deals with levies being applied on environmentally

hazardous products. That's all it says. We don't know how much the levy

will be. We have no idea what the definition of "hazardous products"

is. We could think, I am sure, of all kinds of things that we think are

hazardous products — or hazardous to our children, but I won't go into

that. It's rather vague language.

The power to tax in this

bill is rather wide, it seems to me, and the power to spend is even

wider. It leads one to believe — and it's hard to escape the conclusion

— that it really is a kind of political slush fund. If they were

serious about the environment, they would have strengthened the

Ministry of Environment rather than move it over to a little fund. They

would have a deposit-refund system on hazardous products to encourage

recycling. But rather, they want to go into an election campaign. They

thought there would be an election campaign this fall but they have

kind of derailed from that — and they want to announce again and again

that they have created a fund.

They want to wave it around.

They want to have TV ads with the minister and Eli Sopow on them — that

shadowy figure — and typing going on in the background. That's the real

intent of this bill. It's not a sustainable environment fund act; it's

a sustainable Social Credit fund act. That's certainly the intent.

has very little to do with the environment; it has everything to do

with the government's electoral agenda. It has very little to do with

recycling; it has everything to do with trying to recycle Social Credit

politicians — or in this case an old Tory politician from Ottawa.

It's

very clear that this bill is really PR; it's really moving money from

one ministry to the next. It's a kind of shell game to try and convince

people that they're born-again environmentalists. They weren't born

environmentalists in the first place, but now they want to say that

they are born-again environmentalists.

It won't work,

because the public can see through this kind of smoke-and-mirrors game.

The act is far too broad with respect to raising and spending taxes,

and we don't intend to support it on this side of the House.

MR. HARCOURT : The Sustainable Environment

Fund Act, Bill 16, is the Environment minister's equivalent of the

Finance Minister's BS fund.

is a fund that has been artificially created after reading the polls.

The Social Credit Party has looked and seen that the people of British

Columbia have caught on to the disgraceful record of actual performance

over the last 15 years of despoiling the environment of this beautiful

province of ours. It is an artificially created fund to give the

impression that this Social Credit government is balancing the

environmental balance sheet when it is running red in overwhelming

proportions.

[2:45]

[ Page 10105 ]

This shell game is contained in

section 4 of the bill, which

shows

that the closest they get to recycling is recycling old money. That's

really what it is: recycling old money — the last gasp of the FRDA and

the lottery moneys that in disgrace.... Because of the GO B.C. scandal,

the disgraceful recycling proposal that went through the White Rock

municipality, the Semiahmoo society, it has been shifted over into this

act to try and cleanse the GO B.C. funds. This act really houses those

two sources of revenue, Mr. Speaker. It's the forestry agreement, the

FRDA of $212 million that has been put from the forestry ministry....

The Forests minister was so embarrassed about his efforts on behalf of

reforestation that he shifted it over to the Environment minister, who

lost the flip of the coin to carry the can for reforestation in this

province. And it is the funds that were shifted over from the escapades

under the previous Provincial Secretary, the lottery funds of $50

million.

What we have is a shell game for a shell

department by a shell minister, who is there not out of substantive

commitment to cleaning up the environmental problem we have....

MR. SPEAKER :

Order, please. We must discuss the principle of the bill. The depth of

the minister's commitment, whether or not the minister is the right

person to be holding the portfolio, and all those other things are

inappropriate for discussion at this time; perhaps at another time, but

certainly not now. Now we must remind ourselves that we're in second

reading of the bill and therefore on the principle of the bill.

MR. HARCOURT :

Well, that's the point I'm making, Mr. Speaker. The principle of the

bill is not to take the environment seriously; it's to recycle old

money and give the illusion that this government is doing something

about the environment, because they're scared that the people of

British Columbia are going to catch up with them very shortly when the

next election is called. That's what we're talking about today, Mr.

Speaker.

The point is that this government and the Ministry

of Environment are showing, through this act, that they are more

interested in PR to deal with their disgraceful track record on the

environment over the last 15 years. These are their words. Their

actions are to cut staff so that conservation officers cannot do their

job; to cut staff so that wildlife officers cannot do their job; to cut

funding to municipalities who are trying to clean up their garbage and

their sewage systems. They cut funding to those municipalities when

they could have been taking care of that work, changing their sewer

systems, in the down-time of the depression; this government made it

tougher for those municipalities to do it. So when I hear the

government House Leader talking about cleaning up the sewers.... He was

here then; he was part of the cabinet that cut that funding to

municipalities, so he should answer for that.

The minister, when he finally twigged upon this idea and

created this sustainable environment fund, didn't do it out of a

sincere commitment to the environment, Mr. Speaker. You'll recall that

this is the minister who in his own riding said: "Come on down and have

a crab-bake. The water is just fine." His own officials couldn't tell

him; it was the federal fisheries people who had the last word and

closed down the shell-fishery in his own riding.

MR. SPEAKER :

Order, please. I appreciate now that the Leader of the Opposition must

realize that he is a long way from the principle of the bill. We must

ask you at this time to stick to the principle of the bill. You may

discuss the other matters in committee on the estimates of the

minister, but not at this time.

MR. HARCOURT : Mr.

Speaker, I have looked at the principle of the bill. The object of the

bill, the object of the fund, is to provide for programs to protect and

enhance the environment and for forest renewal initiatives. That is the

principle that I'm speaking to.

MR. SPEAKER : Yes,

but in speaking to that principle, you can't bring into discussion

whether or not it's appropriate for this particular member to hold that

particular position.

MR. HARCOURT : Oh, I didn't say.... I think

it's totally inappropriate, Mr. Speaker. I am not questioning that at

all.

MR. SPEAKER :

Order, please. You're abusing the House at this point. I must remind

the member that the rules that we have in place are long-established

rules, and they clearly define what we can debate and when we can

debate it. It's not in order. I can read you the citation from Sir

Erskine May, sixteenth edition, but the member has already had that

read to him on a previous occasion; I won't go through it again. You

must remember that if we're going to deal with these matters, it must

be done at the appropriate time. The line of discussion that you're on

right now is inappropriate. It must be appropriate to the principle of

the bill.

MR. HARCOURT : Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With

that guidance, I am speaking to the principle of the bill, which lays

out the objects of the bill, which is for programs to protect and

enhance the environment and for forest renewal initiatives. I am saying

that the funding that's made available in this bill is recycled funding

from other departments. It is not there to renew forests; it's not

there to protect and enhance the environment. The objects of this bill

are not going to be met by the recycling of old funds. They're

certainly not going to be met when FRDA I runs out very shortly and

there isn't funding coming from the federal government to carry out the

objects and the principles of this bill.

Where was this

government in trying to establish the proper funding for the

reforestation renewal of this province? What they were doing, when they

talk about these objects, was cutting down the number of

[ Page 10106 ]

not

sufficiently restocked hectares in this province by changing

definitions and shuffling paper, not getting out and replanting the

forests. I'm pointing out, Mr. Speaker, that the minister's flimflam

bill here is not going to aid the wishes of British Columbians, which

are indeed to renew the forests and to clean up the environment in this

province. The closest they come to recycling is to recycle old funds

under disgrace.

The object and principle of this bill is to

supply funding to the round table and to the Forest Resources

Commission, which are mentioned quite prominently in this bill.

might say that that round table was the last to be established in this

country. This was the last province to get on board of the national

commitment to the United Nations report, Our Common Future ,

by Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway. They delayed and

delayed until finally the polls said: "You've got to move."

That's

what drives this government; it's PR — not the people of this province,

not a commitment to cleaning up the environment. The Forest Resources

Commission is telling this Social Credit government what they should

have known ten years ago: that they've been overcutting; that they've

been underplanting; that they've been overwasting; and that they have

been involved, as they were during the recession in this province, in

what's called "sympathetic enforcement of forestry regulations."

we now have to catch up. This bill and this fund are not going to allow

us to do that, Mr Speaker. That is exactly the reason why I say that

this fund, the ministry and this government are not committed to the

principles of this bill. It is strictly PR; it is for surface only. It

is for selling paint, selling stock, selling votes. It is not for doing

what has to be done in this province to clean up the environment and

bring about the renewable force that the people of this province want —

very clearly that.

So I say in sorrow to the staff who have

to work to carry out this bill: we appreciate your carrying the load

for many, many years in the face of indifference and hostility from a

government that doesn't care about the environment, the renewal of our

forests, the cleaning up of our waters and our air, the recycling of

garbage and the dealing with toxic wastes.

The understaffed

environmental officers, wilderness officers, wildlife officers — the

people out in the field — have been trying for many years under many

circumstances to carry out the principles of this bill with inadequate

resources and inadequate funds.

Now what they receive —

disgracefully misusing the name "sustainable environment" — are

recycled lottery funds and the dying gasp of the FRDA with the federal

government. That is not good enough to clean up the pulp mill

pollution, to clean up the overcutting, to deal with salmon streams

that have been despoiled by improper logging practices.

The

only good thing that comes out of this whole sorry political statement,

this sorry political bill that will be recycled through many government

advertisements, many more government publications publicizing only the

minister — not action on the environment — is that the people of

British Columbia are going to see through this act, are going to see

through this recycling of funding.

They are going to have a

say in the next election, and this government isn't going to like what

the people of British Columbia are going to tell them: that they want a

clean environment. They want recycling, not recycled funds.

Thank

goodness we have the fine staff that are staffing the forests and the

environment ministries in this province, because they're surely going

to be able to outlast this sorry, sad government.

MR. G. JANSSEN :

Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry to see the minister's not in the House. The

Sustainable Environment Fund Act — which we're going to discuss here,

going to debate — should actually be entitled "The Recycling Act." What

it does is recycle old dollars from one ministry to another, recycles

old programs into new.

It's like Aladdin's lamp: new lamps

for old. Maybe we should have new ministers for old, except there's no

genie that pops out of the lamp here, because the Socreds have run out

of new ideas. They've run out of promises. Therefore they're going to

recycle this bill.

What happened to the FRDA? No, we're

taking money, in this case, out of the forestry fund and recycling into

the environment fund, so that the Minister of Forests doesn't have to

face the facts, doesn't have to face the forestry companies and the

forestry workers of this province, by saying: "No, we don't have enough

trees. We'll lay that on the Minister of Environment. He's good at

shuffling one set of estimates into another."

We're going

to bring $50 million from lottery funds in order to create this

sustainable environment fund. We should be asking the minister what a

sustainable environment is. Has he identified that yet? What is it

we're actually funding? Are we going to have these lottery funds year

after year after year?

Funds that used to be used in the

communities to develop community programs are now being used to plant

trees, to clean up the environment and to clean up the mess that the

Socreds have made over the last 30 years. Now they're painting

themselves green with a brush and saying: "Look at us; we are actually

doing something, folks."

What they're actually doing, Mr.

Speaker, is taking one set of moneys from one ministry and shuffling it

into the other ministry, because we know that the one ministry has been

a total failure. So we will give it to the Minister of Environment to

see what he can do with it and if he can actually convince the people

of this province that they're doing something over the 30 years of

neglect.

What do they do? They increase taxes on diapers.

They're going to tax babies now. The Minister of Finance in the budget

speech said there are no new taxes. What do we read? Taxes: not on

folks who are making money, the super-rich or the poor, but on babies.

A fine lesson we are teaching the diaper-

[ Page 10107 ]

wearers of this province. We're going

to tax them before they even get old enough to vote.

[3:00]

Now let's examine that $5 on every battery you buy. In the

bill it

says that a battery that weighs less than five kilograms.... In other

words, what are we going to do about flashlight batteries, radio

batteries, ghetto-blaster batteries — you should do something about

that if you know my kid — and motorcycle batteries? There are 156,000

motorcyclists in the province of British Columbia who are going to take

their batteries and throw them in the garbage. And does the minister

care? No, because they weigh less than two kilograms.

Pneumatic

tires? Cars? Sure, we're going to tax the tires on the cars. We're

going to tax them on bicycles. We're going to tax them on wheelbarrows.

Do you really think that these folks, after they finish with their

wheelbarrow and bicycle tires, are going to take them to a recycling

depot? I rather doubt it. And what have we done?

There's no

recycling initiative in this bill — none at all. We call it a

Sustainable Environment Fund Act. What's sustainable about a bill that

supplies no initiative for recycling and sets up no recycling

industries in the province? Are we going to stockpile these, like it

has been done back east? Then are we going to put them in trucks and

truck them off somewhere else?

Is there any money for

research and development? No, we're simply going to tax the product up

front, take money out of people's pockets, load the stuff in a truck

and store it somewhere until we figure out what to do with the damn

stuff. That's the government's idea of recycling. Do we actually have

any plants set up? Do we actually have any research and development

facilities?

Perhaps that's where the environment fund

should be going, so that we actually develop areas of new initiatives

and new development techniques that we can market around the world and

say, "Look, we have taken a tax and done something with it," rather

than shove it into a slush fund for the Socreds to spend before

election time because they've got such a dismal record on the

environment of this province.

What is hazardous waste? It

doesn't identify that or the PCBs and dioxins being spilled out by pulp

mills day after day. Is it gasoline that's spilling out? Is it the

exhaust from the tailpipes of cars? No. What's happening? We don't know

that, and we don't know what we are going to do with the hazardous

waste once we collect it and store it. There are PCB and dioxin sites

across this province that are getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

may want to sustain the environment, but we're doing nothing about

reducing the hazardous wastes. We're doing nothing about taking those

hazardous wastes and finding new ways of recycling them, turning them

into usable products and eliminating the threat that hangs over our

head day to day from the storage of these wastes.

There's nothing in it about sewage disposal. Washington State

disallows....

MR. SPEAKER :

Order, please. You can't talk about what's not in the bill. We can only

talk about what is in the bill. We went into this the other day with

one of your colleagues who wanted to discuss what she felt should be in

the bill, what can be included in the bill and what isn't in the bill.

fact, if the member wishes the Chair to be rather strict on the matter,

since there are a number of private member's bills before the House

currently tabled by your colleague from Victoria, you would find that

the entire line of your debate is out of order. Bearing in mind that

your own colleague has forced you into a corner here, I must ask you to

restrict yourself to the principle of this bill and not discuss those

matters which are before the Legislature in terms of a bill.

MR. G. JANSSEN :

Mr. Speaker, I'll try to relate my remarks to the bill. It's hard to do

that, though, when there's very little in the bill except an

environmental slush fund for the government.

Interjection.

MR. G. JANSSEN :

No, they won't bring our bills forward, because they know they're good

bills, and they know they will stand up. They will be embarrassed by

the fact that they will be forced through their indoctrination as free

enterprisers to vote against those bills.

Mr. Speaker, this

is a slush fund to sell the environment so that they can get

re-elected. They know they're down in the polls; therefore they take

money out of taxpayers' pockets and put it into a slush fund that they

can sell to the people of British Columbia through the Round Table on

Environment and Economy — $18.6 million. That's in the bill: $18.6

million so they can run around the province and give money out here and

there to build up the confidence of the people and to show that they're

actually attempting to do something after 30 years of neglect.

That

round table took 18 months to set up. After the announcement, they

said: "Finally we've got some people who want to sit on this."

Undoubtedly the people they got for the round table that they had to

search across this province for.... They couldn't find anybody with the

expertise to put on that round table. It took them 18 months to find

the appropriate people to sit at that round table, and now they fund it

with $18.6 million of public money.

The Forest Resources

Commission is another one. They set up the Forest Resources Commission

and have it going around the province looking to see what's wrong with

the forests. Thirty years of managing the forests, and they don't know

what's wrong. So they developed the Forest Resources Commission, this

bill and this act in order to fund that.

When you look at

it, it's actually a decrease in reforestation spending. It's $1.7

billion over ten years; that's $170 million a year. What was it in

1989? It was $231.7 million. That included $73.1 million for the FRDA,

which undoubtedly we'll never see a sign of because of the government's

inability to treat the

[ Page 10108 ]

forest

in a manner that will see it sustainable, and their inability to go to

Ottawa and cut a deal that's acceptable to the people of British

Columbia.

They announced that this is actually a 24 percent

increase in spending. Yet it includes in the bill $28 million to $50

million in lottery funds. Year after year, are we going to have to go

to the Lottery Fund to see that the environment is funded properly? Is

the money going to be there? Are we not going to use it for other areas?

Hazardous

wastes are in the bill. It doesn't tell us which ones they are. It

doesn't say anything about recycling programs for communities, cleaning

up landfills and contaminated soils or vehicle inspections for

emissions.

It talks about habitat and park acquisitions in

the bill. Isn't the Parks ministry supposed to be handling this? I see

the Parks minister sitting across. Have they taken some of your control

away, as they have from the Minister of Forests? Are we going to end up

with depleted ministries over there run by one superministry funded by

this act? Aren't the other ministers on the opposite side of the House

somewhat worried that their roles will be diminished? Perhaps their

salaries should be diminished according to the amount of control they

have over those ministries.

But no, we have the Environment

ministry taking on the roles of two or three other ministers over

there, dipping into the Lottery Fund in this instance, and saying:

"We're going to present a new Socred green image to the people of

British Columbia, because we're going to market ourselves as

environmentalists, something we failed to do in 30 years." You can see

that by the pulp mill pollution, the dismal state that the forests are

in and the confrontation that takes place there.

They tax

babies, tires and batteries, and they say: "We don't have any new

taxes." If they would use that tax money to develop some new

initiatives, perhaps the people of British Columbia would buy this act.

But the way it is, there is nobody in British Columbia who is going to

take the government seriously on their new commitment to the

environment.

MR. PETERSON : I didn't think I would

have to get up and speak in favour of this bill, because I thought the

NDP opposition would support it. I'm extremely surprised. In fact, I'm

astounded that they would come up with this almost nauseating rhetoric

dealing with something as important as the commitment this government

is making in terms of this Sustainable Environment Fund Act.

Listening

to the Leader of the Opposition, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Here is a man who is wandering around the province telling people and

giving lip-service to the environment, but when it comes time to stand

up in this House and support a solid, affirmative action that our

Minister of Environment is bringing in for our consideration, what does

he do? He stands up and tries to make a political football out of an

extremely important issue to British Columbia. I think that is

absolutely unforgivable.

Where is the responsibility of

that man when it comes to the environment? It's strictly political

rhetoric that he's dealing with. He doesn't care about the environment.

All he cares about is his and his colleagues' personal political

ambitions. He'll say anything he wishes anywhere in the province, but

when it comes to producing, when it comes to supporting something that

is meaningful, what does he do? He stands up and hands....

MR. SPEAKER :

Order, please. I have tried to explain to members all afternoon that we

are in second reading of this bill, and we must therefore discuss the

principle of the bill and not really concern ourselves about what other

members may have had to say or what their motives are at this

particular time.

It's an interesting bill. There are

several things to discuss in it. There is quite a broad range available

for members. The Chair would be most pleased if some of them would

actually skate occasionally into the principle of the bill. It would

assist the Chair and perhaps the rules of the House.

I ask the member to continue on the principle of the bill.

MR. PETERSON :

Well, Mr. Speaker, I really do appreciate your comments. You're exactly

right. However, my problem is that when I listen to that drivel from

over there, it gets me off track. I do apologize to you, Mr. Speaker.

This

bill shows the commitment of the Social Credit government to the

environment. It shows the commitment of our Minister of Environment. It

shows the real commitment of all of us to solid affirmative action.

just wanted to say that I totally support it. We know this bill will

produce the effect we want: that is, to sustain the environment which

is so critical to all British Columbians. I want to compliment our

Ministry of Environment for bringing it in.

MR. LOVICK : I was sitting here listening to

the debate that has unfolded thus far....

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK :

There seems to be some muttering from the other side of the House to do

with the posture I assume as I stand. I wonder if there is a point to

it. Is there some point to that? Or is it rather the case that the

muttering, as is typical from that side of the House, is simply inane

and filling in time?

I await your instruction, Mr. Speaker,

on whether I am supposed to address what is muttered across the way

or.... In any event, let's proceed and try to talk about the principle

of this important bill — this important measure.

I was

saying that I had been listening carefully to what had gone on thus far

and had also spent a little time reading what had been said about the

measure, and it struck me passing strange and curious indeed that the

other side hadn't been responding as quickly

[ Page 10109 ]

as I would have expected, given what I

think have

been some pretty damning and devastating criticisms offered from this

side. I would have thought that those who support this measure would

have leapt to their feet and seized the opportunity to say something.

am happy to see that the second member for Langley (Mr. Peterson) did

indeed give a response. It's a speech we have heard on many occasions

from that particular member, and I just want him to know that it is

improving in quality, and with another five or six renditions it will

get really quite good. It's entirely out of order, but it nonetheless

has a certain amount of passion, which we appreciate.

the principle of this bill — this thing called the sustainable

environment development fund. The principle of the bill ostensibly is

to take steps to ensure that we do indeed have a sustainable

environment and a sustainable economy as part of that environment. Who

would argue with that?

[3:15]

I wrote some time ago — in a paper I delivered to a conference

about the need for an environment-economy integration. That is a

phrase, by the way, that comes from Bill Rees, professor of planning at

the University of B.C. He has done some really good pathfinder kind of

work in this area, suggesting to us that what we consider as

economically viable — using old measures and old yardsticks — is in

fact not economically viable.

What we need to do, rather,

is rethink our approaches entirely. We need to think about an economy

in which old constructs like free goods — air and water and resources —

are no longer recognized as free goods but rather are recognized as

very precious and indeed rare goods that therefore have to be priced.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

It's

the kind of approach to economics and environment that requires some

pretty radical thinking. It's the kind of radical thinking enunciated

by a professor like Lester Thurow at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology. Thurow is one of those brilliant economists who probably

four out of ten times is absolutely marvellous in what he has to say,

and probably six times out of ten what he has to say is absolutely

impractical and probably irrelevant. But he is sometimes right.

The kind of thing that Thurow has talked about — and I think

it is something that we in this chamber who are committed to a

sustainable environment ought to consider — is this. "Take, for

example," says Thurow, "the example of the Brazilian rain forest."

Everybody recognizes that as a very fragile, unique ecosystem — unique

on the planet — a system, moreover, that affects and influences all of

us on this planet. The problem is, we can't do anything to exploit that

particular forest. It won't grow back. It's the product of a unique

combination of circumstances and climate and resources. There's nothing

we can do to exploit the resource.

What

then do the people who live there do, the people who rely on the goods

of that environment for their own sustenance and their own

sustainability? The answer they have found — those poor people in that

country — is to cut down the forest for wood or to clear the land for

harvesting purposes. In short-term economic thinking it makes perfectly

good sense; it's entirely understandable. The tragedy of it is,

however, that in the long term they are committing suicide.

What

do we, as human beings, have to tell those individuals? Do we say to

them: "You must starve to death because you can't cut down the rain

forest"? Or rather do we say to them: "All of us assume a joint

responsibility for the preservation of that forest"? If we do assume

that responsibility, then we have to put our money and our resources

where our mouths and our principles are.

That translates,

according to Thurow — this economist — into a system whereby all the

rich nations of the world ought to pay a levy or an annual tax to the

people of Brazil so they will not have to cut down the rain forest.

This is just one example. But that's the kind of radical, innovative

thinking that we have to use if we are serious about sustainable

environment.

You don't have to be a scientist or know about

entropy and the second law of thermodynamics or anything like that to

recognize that you can't continue to exploit finite resources as if

they were infinite without having to pay the price. That's what young

people know, because they have seen the price we are paying. I'm happy

to note there are some young people in the chamber today. Those are the

folks who are telling us that no one generation has the right to

exploit the planet as if there were no generations to come. That's what

a sustainable environment model endorses, embraces and accepts.

the paper I referred to a few moments ago, I said that I had tried to

reconcile economy-environment integration, the phrase I borrowed from

Professor Rees. I don't claim any great success in having achieved the

reconciliation. What I know, however, is that makers of public policy,

including Ministers of Environment, have an obligation to grapple with

the problem. Every decision we make today must be made in the shadow —

or the light, if you prefer — of Brundtland. What Brundtland's report

did, you'll recall.... The common rendition of that was the United

Nations report called Our

Common Future .

All Brundtland really did, if I can put the matter rather bluntly, was

to pull together some information that had been a-building and

a-collecting for a lot of years. She put it together in one short,

readable book, and happily that book had the effect of galvanizing

public opinion and making governments throughout the world, in both

rich and poor nations, both north and south, respond to the crisis.

What

I said, beyond the fact that we all live in the shadow of that, is that

what we have under the heading sustainable development is literally an

idea whose time has come. That phrase, as I know many members of this

House well recognize, comes from the French philosopher-writer Victor

Hugo. The full

[ Page 10110 ]

line,

of course, was: "Greater than the might of armies is the force of an

idea whose time has come." The notion is that you can't stop it. You

can't stand in the way of an idea whose time has come.

The

problem, however, is that governments can step aside from the idea

whose time has come. They can pretend to be rolling with the strength

of an idea whose time has come rather than embracing the idea. Sadly,

that is what is wrong with this bill. That is what is fundamentally

wrong with this bill and the principled error in the bill.

The

bill is talking about creating a special sustainable environment fund.

Well and good insofar as we recognize that sustainable environment

matters and that it will cost money to do that. The problem, however,

is that the bill doesn't anywhere embrace the concept that gives it

justification. It doesn't anywhere address the notion of sustainable

environment and what it means and what it entails. It's not good enough

to simply say that a sustainable environment will be the product of

recycling. Lord knows, this bill does a lot of recycling. As my

colleagues have pointed out very adroitly and effectively, this bill

recycles money from the forestry resource development agreements. It

also recycles money from the lottery grants branch.

recycles money, and it even puts the money into a good place. It also

reuses ideas and reuses money — money that, in some cases, has already

been spent, I suspect. Nevertheless, that's about as far as the

commitment to sustainable development really goes here.

have a couple of the famous four Rs of environment and sustainable

environment built into this measure — but only a couple. The other two

important measures aren't touched here, and this bill is flawed in

principle in that it says nothing about our lifestyle, nothing about

our approach, nothing about reducing what we do.

That's

what's wrong with the principle; it's gatekeeper legislation. It stands

at the end, and says: "We're going to punish folks for what's already

happened." It's a heavy-handed "We'll zonk you if you aren't doing what

you ought to be doing."

Thus we have, for instance, the

situation of the so-called special green taxes, or consumer taxes, that

unfortunately seem to be skewed almost entirely toward consumption,

rather than toward investment — i.e., toward those who are

the

producers of the pollution.

We estimate, on the calculus

we've done, that the fund represents an added $18.5 million in taxes on

consumers and, sadly, a corresponding $2.0 million from industrial

polluters. The balance is wrong.

What's wrong with the

balance especially is that what we need to do is to put the emphasis on

lifestyle, on producers. We can do that in a couple of ways. We can use

negative techniques in terms of taxation, but we can also talk about

incentives to decrease industrial pollution.

Sadly, I don't think this government has measures of that

kind, and sadly, this particular bill — this principle — ignores that

construct of sustainable development for the kinds of reasons I have

been articulating. We need to talk about reducing our use of finite

resources. We need to rethink our assumptions.

That

brings me to the fourth R of rethinking. That's what sustainable

development also involves necessarily: a rethinking of our approaches.

Our predicament as a species — and I think all of us who've thought

about it for any length of time know it — is that we all accepted more

or less literally what we read in Genesis. Genesis told us that we were

created first, and that we would have dominion over all living things

and even "over every creeping thing that creepeth" — if I can remember

my Scripture well enough to quote that chunk.

The problem

is that we have embraced that notion of a conquering relationship to

the environment, of regarding the environment as simply so much raw

matter to be pushed around, to be exploited, to be shaped to our

wishes, that we have developed an entire culture and society in which

the centrality of mankind as toolmaker, shaper and technocrat is

perceived to be our highest destiny as a species.

What we

need to do — and the evidence is overwhelming — is to rethink that

assumption. Can we, in any way, any longer assume that we can indeed

have dominion, or that we should have dominion? Rather, what all the

studies have shown in the last 20-odd years, what the science of

ecology has taught us, if nothing else, is that we are part of an

interconnected system and that we aren't the only, or even necessarily

the most important, player in the system. Rather, we're a part of it,

and we need then to co-exist with others. We need to function with our

natural environment, as well as with the environment of other living

forms.

As I say, we all embrace the concept of sustainable

environment. Nobody denies that for a moment. The concept we embrace.

We also recognize we need to spend money. Sadly, though, this bill

seems to amount to a recycling of existing moneys. It's not new money.

Worse, it does not appear to provide us at all with any sense of what

sustainable environment and sustainable development really mean and

ought to require from us.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Mr.

Speaker, I just want to say a few words on this bill, maybe to

straighten the record out a little after we heard the ravings of the

Leader of the Opposition and the member for Alberni (Mr. G. Janssen)

getting up and mouthing the same words we heard from his leader.

was an interesting lecture from the second member for Nanaimo. It was

very difficult to disagree with. I've read some of the same works he

quoted from. I too have paid particular attention to the Brundtland

report, and I've read the book that came forth from that report, Our Common Future .

It's a book that everyone today should read. It should be "must"

reading in the schools.

[3:30]

But I also point out what is so often overlooked when people

quote Ms. Brundtland and her report.

[ Page 10111 ]

She put tremendous emphasis on the

environment and

how it was linked to the economy. She mentions it several times in her

book, and I don't have any of the exact quotations in front of me. I

hadn't even planned to speak on this bill; I didn't think it would be

necessary. But since some of the things that have been said, I think we

should straighten the record out.

Ms. Brundtland says very

explicitly that you cannot have a healthy environment without a healthy

economy, or vice versa. She says that many times. In fact, she even

points out some of the countries that have very sick environments, and

it's because their economy is sick. To paraphrase her, she says it's

very difficult to be that concerned about your environment when your

prime concern is what you're going to have for dinner tonight — if

anything. That's exactly why we pay particular attention to the balance

between the environment and the economy. You cannot have one without

the other.

One needs only to look to countries in eastern

Europe where we're finally realizing the devastation there to the

environment. When we talk in this bill about a Sustainable Environment

Fund Act, it is because we have the wherewithal to do it. Those

countries which have had an economic disaster for the last 45 or 50

years have not been able to pay attention to looking after the

environment, even though they probably wanted to. Even though many of

the good citizens in those countries knew what they were doing to their

environment, they were powerless to do anything to clean it up.

The

factories and smokestacks in those countries — and I've been in a

couple of those countries.... The factories spew out sulphur from the

very poor-quality coal that they use, to the point where the buildings

are deteriorating, the forests are dying and the people are breathing

air that no human being should have to breathe. In fact, I sincerely

hope now that they've taken a first step to economic freedom that they

can find the wherewithal to clean up the environment over there.

heard the other day that the bill to clean up the environment in

eastern Europe will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $200 billion.

I don't know where they're going to find that money, and I hope over a

period of time that they can do it.

So we on this side of

the House take very seriously the environment, the sustainability of

our economy, the forests, all of the industries and how they interact

with the environment, despite what you might have heard from the member

for Port Alberni and the Leader of the Opposition.

We don't run around at our conventions....

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : The member for Alberni

had his time on the floor, and I'll get to him in a moment. I think

that if he isn't already, he should be in a great deal of trouble in

his riding come the next election.

take very seriously the relationship between the economy and the

environment, and industry and how it relates to the environment. This

bill will go a long way to strengthening our commitment and industry's

commitment to the environment.

The member for Nanaimo said

that we should spend more money on the environment. We are — if the

member would take the time to read the bill and look at all the

sections. But it isn't only government that's spending money on the

environment. The pulp industry alone in this province this year is

spending hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up their industry.

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

Thankfully, they have the money to spend, Mr. Member, because the

economy is healthy. Because of the government we've had in this

province over the last few years, we have a healthy industry that can

spend the money to clean up its act — hundreds of millions of dollars

this year alone. If they didn't have the money to spend on it, the

alternative is to close down. There is no in between: they either have

the money to do it — which they have — or they close down. There is no

other alternative.

So thankfully, our industries in this

province have the wherewithal to be able to clean up their act, which

strengthens the statement I made earlier that the economy and the

environment must go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

Yes. All right, let's talk about Sweden for a moment. Sweden does a

good job in the environment, though not as good as they would have you

believe, when you start extrapolating some of their figures and

transposing the measurement system they use against what we use. But

they do a good job — no question about it.

They do a good

job in forestry in Sweden. They're cutting some of their third rotation

now. By the way, they clearcut too. They do a couple of commercial

thinnings, but they clearcut in Sweden. In fact, the law says they must

clearcut.

But let's go a little further in Sweden and see what else....

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

The member keeps hollering at me: "Good socialist government!" I think

that's a contradiction in terms, Mr. Speaker. Good socialist government

— I don't think there is such a thing, and I don't think the member can

point to one anywhere in the world. I challenge him to point to one

that has worked effectively anywhere in the world.

He keeps

hollering: "Sweden!" Let's see how well Sweden stacks up against some

other countries. In Sweden they have a tax called the VAT. Have you

[ Page 10112 ]

heard

of the VAT in Sweden, Mr. Member, the value-added tax, which will be

called a GST over here? Are you in favour of a GST like those they have

in some European countries, which might have started at a low

percentage? Guess what it is now, Mr. Member from Port Alberni. Guess

what the VAT or the GST is in northern Europe now. Take a guess, Mr.

Member. Their VAT is at about 22 or 23 percent. Is that a good

socialist government? Is that what you want for British Columbia — a

GST of 23 percent? The member wants a GST of 23 percent for British

Columbia. Wonderful, eh?

Let's hear what the income tax is in some of those countries,

Mr. Member.

MR. HARCOURT : Are these the Finance

estimates?

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

It seems that the Leader of the Opposition doesn't like this, but he

roamed all over the map talking about this bill. He didn't talk about

what he did in Vancouver, when he was the mayor, to clean up their

sewage effluent.

I didn't go to Sweden, Mr. Leader of the

Opposition; it was your member from Port Alberni who said: "Let's talk

about Sweden." So we talk about Sweden, where an income tax on the

average wage-earner, Mr Member, is about 70 percent. That's a good

socialist government, isn't it? That's what happens when programs get

out of control, when governments don't know how to say no. Oh, I admit

the Swedes and the Danes and the Norwegians did it for all the right

reasons. They are a very compassionate people, and they have had social

programs for a hundred years But they admit that their spending got

totally out of control. When a government doesn't know how to say no to

anybody, Mr. Member, that's what happens.

When we talk

about sustainable environment, and we make decisions that balance the

economy and the environment, like a decision we made on the Carmanah

Valley, which was a balanced decision, to balance the environment and

the economy.... You didn't see the Premier of this province running

around a convention floor trying to make a deal between the greens in

his party and the IWA, running from one member to the other, saying,

"Hey, we've got to worry about our chances in the next election."

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

Yes, sure he was. Just exactly what the Leader of the Opposition was

doing — trying to protect his own job within his own party And then

after he runs around to all the members in his party and makes a deal,

Mr. Speaker, then he gets in front of the TV cameras and says: "Watch

my lips. I'll tell you what we're going to do in the Carmanah: there

will be no logging." He said, Mr. Speaker....

DEPUTY SPEAKER : Relevancy, please, Mr.

House Leader. Bill 16.

HON. MR RICHMOND : Yes, the Sustainable

Environment Fund Act, Mr. Speaker.

said: "There won't be any balanced sustainable decision in the

Carmanah. There will be no logging in the Carmanah." How are you going

to defend that, Mr. Member from Port Alberni? I want you to get up and

defend that in this House when we bring in the Carmanah bill.

MR. BLENCOE : A hundred and twenty jobs.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

That's only one decision. How many would there be if your leader had

that decision to make? They'd all be out of work. There wouldn't be

120....

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : I'm supporting the

decision we made, Mr. Member. And I want to see what happens, as

opposed to losing them all.

DEPUTY SPEAKER : Bill 16, please.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Yes, thank you, Mr.

Speaker. I appreciate that.

The

member said — and I'll try to quote — that my role as Minister of

Forests would be diminished under this bill. Not true, Mr. Speaker, and

I just want to put that on the record. It's anything but the truth. If

the member would care to get up later, in the committee stage, and

defend what he said, I'd like to hear that.

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

He has already spoken, but he can speak again in committee, Mr. Leader

of the Opposition, and he can get up and defend his statement that my

role will be diminished. Nothing could be further from the truth.

just challenge the member and the Leader of the Opposition: when this

bill does come up for final vote, stand up and vote against it. I

sincerely hope they do. It will show everyone where they stand on

sustainable environment in this province. The forests critic can get up

and say where he stands on private land and how he would react to every

group that comes in here, on private land. We'd like to hear that too.

It's sort of: "Aren't we wonderful!"

The

member for Port Alberni talks about toxic waste or special waste and

doesn't even realize that he's in the wrong bill. You'll have a chance

next, Mr. Member, on Bill 38, when we talk about hazardous wastes, to

talk about your batteries. You can get up and talk all you like,

instead of just mouthing what your leader says, getting up with the

same tired old lines about recycled money. It isn't funny.

take recycling very seriously. We take sustainable environment and the

economy very seriously on this side of the House. We know that you

cannot have one without the other, and the decisions we make

[ Page 10113 ]

reflect that, unlike the bills we see

introduced

from your side or the comments from that side of the House. They do not

reflect that you have the knowledge of your member from Nanaimo who has

read the Brundtland report — if you haven't — and knows that you cannot

have a healthy economy without a healthy environment and vice versa. We

take it very seriously.

I urge the members from that side —

if they feel like their leader and the member from Port Alberni — to

vote against Bill 16, so that we can have it on the record that you are

against a sustainable environment and sustainable economy.

MR. ZIRNHELT :

I would like to pick up on defining "sustainable environment." I think

we're getting confused, but I am really glad that the government has

finally educated itself a bit to understand that sustainable

environment is really what we need to talk about, and with that we

would have a sustainable economy. I think it is really important that

the whole issue of what sustainable is, in fact, starts to get defined.

We are looking at a government trying to create some integration of its

different activities at the highest level in order to fight a bit of

fire on the environmental front. The notion that the economy is

sustainable only if the environment is sustainable requires a little

more in-depth treatment than this bill gives it.

[3:45]

Before we endorse the Brundtland report in its entirety, it is

perhaps worth looking at it on balance, as they have also said that

there has to be a major shift in resource expenditures from military

back into sustainable economic ventures. So the report has to be looked

at on balance, and I don't think the speakers from the other side have

done that.

I don't think that all the evidence is in,

either, because the whole history of the western world has indicated

that we have destroyed one ecosystem after the other and turned

rainforests of the Mediterranean into deserts that don't sustain life.

To bring it home, the issue here is: with so little research involved,

how do we know that we aren't doing the same thing here?

is argued that we are reforesting, but are we reforesting for more than

one generation? I am sorry that the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr.

Richmond) isn't here, because although I know he doesn't like advice

from this side of the House, I am glad to see that he is beginning to

take a bit of it in setting up his local advisory council for the

Cariboo. It should have been for the Chilcotin; it's too big a region

to deal with in integrating all aspects of the economy. But I can

continue to give him my advice in letter form if he doesn't want to be

in the House listening to it at the moment.

With respect to the Ministry of Environment, they have set up

an integrated resource management branch, as has the Ministry of

Forests. I really wonder why we need two separate branches dealing with

basically the same subject. I am glad to see that the government

recognizes that there is really no difference between the environment

and the forests when dealing with forested ecosystems. The forest is

the environment, and we have to look at the forest in a lot broader way

than we have been doing.

am a little disappointed that the government has put the sale of trees

as a revenue for this fund. It seems to me that the sale of trees

should go to the Ministry of Forests for replanting and not into this

fund. You are replenishing this fund with revenues that were already

targeted for some other activity.

On the question of

dealing with eastern European forests and how they manage their

environment, when the evidence is in on Sweden and other countries, we

may well have to admit that none of the models in the western world

work for us. We have seen that after three rotations of clearcutting,

the sustainability of the forest ecosystem is seriously questioned.

That is because they have not respected the holistic processes that

deal with the complex nutrient cycling over time.

recognize that the Brundtland report did address some of these

problems, but it certainly didn't address the problems of the temperate

forests that we deal with here. It was a very general work and pointed

to the weaknesses in history, when we haven't paid attention to making

decisions before we develop so that conservation of the resource is

built into the development decision.

When we talk about

paying money for pulp mill pollution cleanup, we have to recognize that

there has been a significant amount of money extracted from that

resource in the past and we are trying to play catch-up. That's what

creates the hardship on the economy: when you have to catch up in short

order. I would like to see the emphasis placed on any funds expended

under this bill — as little as they are — on prevention rather than

cure. I hope there are enough funds for initiatives at the local level

and that people will have the best opportunity to make the trade-off

between the economy and the environment. If there's going to be some

damage to the environment, we should enhance the short-term economy.

The people who have to live with those rights should be plugged into

the process so they have some power.

We see in this bill

that the decisions are going to be made at the cabinet table. If those

issues don't get sorted out through the political system, during

elections or during the consultations that members have with their

ridings, then there's no mechanism instituted that will look at the

trade-offs and the balances. If we're going to trade off long-term

environmental values — what I call economic values — for short-term,

then those decisions have to be made by the people who have to live

with them.

We have this contradiction of people in the

lower mainland living in what are termed the largest clearcuts in B.C.

They are living within an economy that has benefited from the

exploitation extraction in the interior. Those people in the interior

need to have a much stronger voice in resource-management

decision-making.

First, we have to institute some power of integrated resource

management information at the local

[ Page 10114 ]

level,

which means we have to do some inventory work. Officials at the local

level who work in the Ministries of Forests, Environment and Energy are

accountable to local people. I realize the weaknesses we have in the

provincial government system, but we have to work harder to give people

some kind of zoning powers to decide on the complex uses for some

areas, with strong provincial guidelines that show what is, in fact,

ecologically sustainable in the long run.

Our

decision-making now has to incorporate 20 years of research that's

taken place across the border with respect to forest management. We

have to rapidly incorporate that into our decision-making here in this

province. It's creating a lot of problems within the ministry system,

because they are hierarchical, and it's creating noise in the political

system. It creates what I call an inordinate task of decision-making at

the senior levels. There are some risks in terms of allowing people to

make decisions which would sometimes err on too much extraction and

other times err on too much conservation. I'm not sure you could have

that. Thereby it temporarily threatens local economies, but it may be

just temporary. A conservation decision will mete out the resources and

stop the expenditure of ecological capital.

We have to

realize what has happened in this province. We have used ecological

capital; we have lived beyond our means and not just spent the

interest; now we have this pressure to reinvest in backlogged

reforestation, to clean up the estuaries and to generally replace that

ecological capital. That's what Brundtland was talking about if you

read the fine lines. She said we're going to have to take the fruit of

our economy until we can put the economy into a transitional stage.

The

issue of balanced decision-making is going to require more information

than we are providing to local people to provide input, and it's going

to require a process that seeks consensus. That means that people have

the power to make the decisions, not just finding consensus and making

recommendations to cabinet ministers. Those who have to live with the

decisions have to be able to make the decisions. This act doesn't go

very far at all in that direction.

It does talk about the

operation of the Round Table on Environment and Economy, and that's

fine for talk of provincial policy at this level. But the real

decisions and the real integration has to happen at the local level —

the subregional level.

The previous speaker, the Minister

of Forests, talked about the Brundtland report, but he neglected to say

that one of the points that came through in the many hearings they had

in the discussions with young people around the world was the old

notion of the feeling of efficacy. Young people around the world need

to know that what they are doing will make a difference.

This

government has a responsibility to integrate action programs into the

school system that young people can engage themselves in and learn in a

holistic way about resource management. Every school should adopt a

forest or part of an ecosystem that's close to them and be involved in

nurturing that and looking at the negative feedback from development

and looking at the positive feedback from conservation measures that

are instituted.

Brundtland also said that if we don't do

that in a major way, we will be losing valuable time. When the rhetoric

about the healthy economy gets going, people are very quick to say:

"Gee, if the economy or our lifestyle is threatened, we won't make

those decisions that will preserve that lifestyle — or a good measure

of it — long into the future." Our planning horizons have to change. We

have to look at a 200-year planning horizon at least with respect to

forest management. The longest one I've seen is 100 years. In the

interior of the province that doesn't even get you regrowth to a

merchantable size in some of the species.

The idea that we

can sustain the present activities is a notion that has to be

incorporated into policy. In my view, we have to look at large-scale

zoning of the forest base to allow significant parts of it to go

through the old-growth cycle. You might think this is talking about

forest management, but as I said previously, forest management is

environmental management in the forested ecosystems.

The

long rotation age that we must institute in a lot of areas will enhance

the environment and will allow the total environment — the flora and

the fauna — to flourish and adapt to changes in weather patterns and to

changes as a result of disturbances due to environmental contaminants,

man-made disturbances, erosion or whatever. I think that in the process

of long-term evolution, we allow the process of nature to continue to

develop and enhance the environment. We have to map the blueprints that

exist in the wilderness in order to simulate and repair the man-made

disturbances.

To show that this is not a simple matter,

when we look at preserving old-growth forest in the province as

blueprints, I think we also have to preserve what I call young growth.

We have to take areas that have been burned over and not necessarily

reforest them and create a plantation, but allow the stages of

evolution to go on, which is a low-cost way of allowing an ecosystem to

evolve. After 300 years, it will then become an old-growth system.

That's the way nature does it, and that then becomes another blueprint.

We can watch that evolution take place.

I think we have to

be humble as agents of evolution here and watch what nature has done in

a very complex set of environments. On the whole language of so-called

management, we could take advice from whoever said that "man who

manages least manages best." I think we need to approximate natural

systems of management a lot better.

That leads us to

looking at minimal or zero discharge systems. We have to immediately

begin the stage of planning for zero discharge, unless those discharges

can be seen to be beneficial to the environment. In the long run that

will be the most cost-effective. I would hope that government would

take initiatives to invest in those areas or to allow the

[ Page 10115 ]

experimentation of resource management

and

industrial activities that we want to be models for sustainable

development. I feel that there are many more than meet the eye. There

are a lot of them percolating around in communities. A lot of people

would like to experiment, because they feel that by using conservative

resource management techniques, it is going to save money in the long

run — not 25 years, but certainly in the 100- and 200-year time-frame.

That's a difficult one to build into government decision-making.

I'd

like to comment a bit about some of the things that the bill doesn't

address, and that is habitat management. The Ministry of Environment's

budget has gone up by 0.7 percent. We think that this bill could have

covered a lot of issues like wildlife habitat management. Wildlife

habitat officers and conservation officers are critical in order to

determine what is sustainable environment for those species which,

incidentally, have value for themselves and certain economic values.

Wilderness tourism, based on hunting and fishing, is an extremely

important and a very fast-growing area of the economy, and they require

virtually undisturbed ecosystems. If they are disturbed, they have to

be very carefully interfered with, so as to not restrict the continued

development and conservation of those important species.

[4:00]

We're seeing here the largest increase in the Minister of

Environment's funds being expended at a high level, which allows the

government to pick certain high-profile projects and not to invest in

multi-resource, integrated-resource and holistic-resource planning at

the local level, where we can begin to see some real cost-effectiveness

in terms of government spending.

I think we've seen in the

past few years a beleaguered civil service that's trying its best but

can't move fast enough. We have a situation where wildlife habitat

officers can't evaluate cutting permits as fast as the Ministry of

Forests can send them to their desks. There are a dozen of them in the

province, and they have had to concentrate on major options in timber

management which will protect the habitat. I think the need to

integrate the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forests at

the regional and local levels would bring about a very cost-effective

way of providing public service to protect public resources. This

government is not doing enough in that respect.

This bill

indicates the reactive mode that the government is in, in dealing with

serious environmental problems, and not the proactive stance that I

think is necessary at all levels, regions and districts. I'll leave my

comments at that, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER : Thank you. Before we

proceed, I will just

remind hon. members — and I purposely did not want to interrupt the

second member for Cariboo — that there are many items being mentioned

here by both sides of the House that would be much better canvassed at

the time of the ministry's estimates. We are really dealing only with

the principle of Bill 16. 1 would just like to bring that to the

attention of all members.

MS. MARZARI :

Mr. Speaker, it is the principle of this bill that we are addressing

when we talk about sustainable environment. The fund which is being

promoted to address sustainable environment, we believe, has no

principle. Does that mean there should be no debate? I don't think so.

Why doesn't this bill have a principle?

AN HON. MEMBER : It's unprincipled.

[Mr. De Jong in the chair.]

MS. MARZARI : Perhaps because it is

unprincipled. Let me explain that for a few minutes.

Politically

speaking, it's always nice to grab together a big fund — the big-fund

theory. It's rather like the big-bang theory about what created the

universe. The big-fund theory has been used by the federal government

over the last number of years to provide funds for day care and to do

stuff for the environment. Very often these funds are introduced into

the federal House, and they announce billions of dollars and stretch

them over seven years. By the time you crack them all out and look at

them and find out that they're basically recycled money, and then you

divide them by ten provinces, and again by the number of years these

funds are available, you find that you've got less than you started

with. Very often you find yourself, in the context of the federal

government, fighting for what you've got now so that you don't end up

being retrenched and pushed back. This is what happened on the day care

bill.

When I come to look at this bill, I see it's even

more cynical than that. It is not a big fund pulled together out of a

genuine planning process which has taken a careful look at the roots of

the problem and attempts to address the larger problem with a sustained

amount of money over a sustained number of years. What I see here is a

sustainable environment fund which in itself is not sustainable. This

fund is not sustainable.

In fact, the attention of the

Minister of Environment and the Minister of Forests, who were here a

few minutes ago on their own bill.... Their attention span isn't

terribly sustainable, since they are not sitting in their seats. The

Minister of Forests has left, after our leader pointed out that he

hadn't read

section 11 of his own bill to deal with hazardous waste

disposal.

I should say that sustainable environment is

about the principle that you can't take more than you're giving back.

You can't take more out of a system, out of the earth, out of the

ground, than you in fact give back. You can't take more out of

the

taxpayers to address your problems than you give back. You don't

survive.

The sustainable environment fund that I see in

front of me is a hodge-podge of other funds that have been collected,

put into one pot and are being sold as a sustainable fund. Let me tell

you that the $222

[ Page 10116 ]

million

coming into this fund — which is already being spent and would have

been spent anyway for reforestation — is nothing more than a simple

bookkeeping transfer from the Ministry of Forests to some

conglomeration of ministers sitting in the cabinet who will be making

decisions about reforestation. Don't kid me — reforestation has to go

on in this province as it always has. It has to be paid for. Let's not

kid ourselves that the money is not going to go into reforestation. If

it doesn't, there will be a lot to answer for.

The

remainder'of that fund largely comes from small tariffs and levies and

taxes that look good on paper but are not going to produce a lot of

money Fifty million dollars is coming In from lottery money that didn't

happen to be expended last year, because the Lottery Fund came to an

abrupt halt. It was not spent last year, and there were many reasons

why not.

Let's face it, this fund is not a fund as much as

it is an election gimmick not intended to last beyond the election

call, because $222 million plus $50 million plus a few levies does not

a commitment make. It is basically an election fund which in itself

cannot be maintained.

The second reason this fund cannot be

considered credible is that it lacks accountability. It lacks

accountability at the top and it lacks accountability at the bottom. At

the bottom you've established a round table. People in this province

know about the Social Credit government's round tables. They generally

aren't round. They are generally very long tables, and many people —

the citizens of this province and the workers — sit below the salt at

that table. Accountability at the bottom is not guaranteed. Communities

are not plugged into this fund, from anything I see in this bill. In

fact, what I see in this bill is a method of extracting levies and

taxes out of local communities, with no promises as to how they're

going to be spent back in those communities.

Accountability

at the top. Well, I sit on the Public Accounts Committee. I happen to

chair it, and just this week we are looking at the Lottery Fund, and we

will be looking at it again next Tuesday morning This government does

not have a good reputation when it comes to spending funds — special

funds in particular. The Lottery Fund, according to the auditor-general

of the province, has suffered badly from the fact that it has not had

guidelines. Where it has had guidelines, those guidelines have been

exceeded or ignored. There have always been exceptions, and where there

have been exceptions, they are called "special exceptions." Finally,

after this was all divulged in the last year, the Lottery Fund has

given itself a special ministerial committee. Now it's the ministerial

committee that will be looking at the guidelines and the special

programs. Are we satisfied with that? Is there arm's length there? I

fear not.

Moreover, the auditor-general has suggested that

the guidelines that did exist weren't really circulated to the larger

community and that people in the communities didn't understand that

money was available. When they did understand that money was available,

very often there were bidding wars for particular kinds of projects.

When guidelines changed, communities weren't told about that either.

Also, when community groups did receive their money, they were not

asked for appropriate reporting back to government. These are not bad

agencies; these are good community agencies. Government — your side of

the House — did not ask for standard reports on how the money was

spent.

There was no monitoring after the money was given out.

DEPUTY SPEAKER :

Hon. member, I must remind you that we are dealing with the bill before

us. It has nothing to do with the Lottery Fund, except for a portion of

lottery funds to be attributed to this ministry and its program. I

would suggest that you get back to the principle of the bill.

MS. MARZARI :

The non-principle of the bill. The Sustainable Environment Fund Act

sets up a fund. The Lottery Fund was for $86 million last year; this

program is for $300 million. The connection, Mr. Speaker, is that this

government is not very good at spending funds. It knows how to spell

"fund"; it can put "fund" into

an act; it can create a very pretty

piece of paper that incorporates from their polling all of the

environmental issues that are affecting communities. But when they set

up a fund, they don't know how to advertise it, call for tenders or put

it out with proper guidelines. They don't know how to ask for

appropriate reporting back.

What are the similarities

between this fund and the Lottery Fund? Once again we'll have an

interministerial committee. Is it called the sustainable development

committee? I'm not quite sure. It's going to be deciding how this fund

is to be spent.

What should this government be doing? I

think it might be better off looking at the roots of the problem rather

than the politics of the solution. The root of the problem we're faced

with here is that we cut too much in our forests. We cut in the wrong

places. We take out 100 million cubic metres of wood a year in a

province which, we are told by the environmentalists, should cut only

40 million cubic metres. The moderate foresters who have studied the

issues of rotation and what can be regrown tell us that we should be

cutting only 65 million cubic metres. That is the root problem here. We

overcut; we cut in the wrong places.

The problems of

management that grow out of that have to do with the fact that we don't

know how to collect the money from our forests that we should be

collecting. We seem to be collecting $600 million a year from our

forests and our stumpage and our TFLs. Once again, we did not do a

proper job last year, according to the auditor-general, of collecting

the most basic of fees from our stumpage. That seems to be the root

problem in our forests right now, Mr. Speaker.

The whole

problem is being avoided very nicely by setting up a fund which talks

about sustainable environment and mixes together hazardous waste

disposal, toxic wastes, air pollution, tires and dispos-

[ Page 10117 ]

able diapers, and throws them all into

a hopper with the fact that

we mismanage our land resource and our forests. That whole problem is

being dumped from the Ministry of Forests onto the back of the Minister

of Environment, who is going to be stuck with some kind of

interministerial committee, advised by a special commission. The whole

problem is going to be sidestepped very nicely this year, just before

an election. That's what I think is happening here, and that's what I

think the motivation for this fund is.

[4:15]

Go back to the roots. Go back to the basic problem. Go back to

how

we spend our wealth in this province. Our wealth depends upon our land

and our resources, and upon how we treat them. I come from Vancouver,

the largest clearcut in this province, as has been pointed out many

times; and in my community, when I sat on city council, I dealt with

the fundamental power that I had at city council. That fundamental

power had to do with land use, with densities of development. Every

time I made a development decision around a zoning, a densification or

a bonusing, I knew that I was handing out dollars; I was granting the

community benefits to people who wanted to develop in our city. I knew

that. It was money I was giving out when I was handing out zoning and

density. It was money that we were taking back in on city council —

balancing our budgets every year to ensure that proper services were

delivered back.

You don't take more than you can give back.

In our forests, we take more and more each year. We don't ask how much

they're cutting. We don't ask where they're cutting. We don't ask if

they're putting it back. We just cut more and more. When we realize

we're up against a wall, what do we do? We lift the problem right out

of the Ministry of Forests and hand it over to Environment in the form

of a nice big parcel called the sustainable environment fund.

This is probably — more than the BS fund — the biggest piece

of smoke and mirrors we've seen thus far in this House.

HON. MR. MESSMER :

I've listened to the opposition this afternoon refer to the Sustainable

Environment Fund Act as if it was going to be the cure-all for

everything that happens in British Columbia.

But I would

remind the other side that it's exactly what it says: it's a fund act.

It's where the dollars go in, and where the dollars go out. If you look

at it, it very clearly says that the object of the fund is to provide

for programs to protect and enhance the environment and for forest

renewal initiatives. I don't think that either side of the House really

disagrees — or shouldn't — with the object of the fund act under that

basis.

The speech that we heard from the second member for Cariboo

(Mr. Zirnhelt) clearly outlined that he was in favour of that object, I

believe. It clearly states where the funding comes from. In other

words, it says that $50 million is going to be transferred from the

Lottery Fund.

goes on to say that it will also be transferred from the Financial

Administration Act, which means, in the case of parks where there are

funds set aside through Crown lands for the purchasing of property,

that it's already approved by budget. From there it will be transferred

to the Sustainable Environment Fund Act for us to apply to.

talks about the proceeds from the government sale of tree seeds and

seedlings. The list goes on and on. I guess what I'm saying is that it

also talks about the Waste Management Act and fees from the Environment

Management Act, Fisheries Act, Litter Act, Park Act and Pesticide

Control Act. We're clearly outlining the areas within our jurisdiction

where some of these funds should come from that are going to be shown

as revenue. I congratulate the ministry for bringing this in to show us

exactly where the dollars are going to be raised each year.

The

remark was made by the last speaker that the Sustainable Environment

Fund Act does not say where it's going to get its funds from year to

year. I suppose that's only good management, in that we should be

deciding whether or not the fund is a progressive one, whether or not

it's curing what we're trying to cure and whether or not it's negative.

Consequently, because of that, each year we can decide through

government the number of dollars that should go into the fund.

also says where the expenditures are going to go upon application:

"Initiatives to reduce solid, liquid, hazardous and atmospheric wastes;

land acquisition costs for park, fish conservation and wildlife

conservation purposes...." The list goes on and on.

also says in here that when we're talking about municipal waste — the

Waste Management Act — we're talking about applications through the

Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

It's too bad she's leaving

right now, but the last speaker spoke about the fact that in the city

in which she was an alderman, whatever dollars they took in, they

spent, and they had a balanced budget. What they didn't tell you was

that they had a problem with their infrastructure because they didn't

set any money aside to look after the sewage and waste that they have

within their community.

While they said that they were

making dollars for the community, and bringing dollars back into their

municipal council so that they could exercise the right given to them

by the electors to spend those dollars, they put no money aside to look

after the future.

Consequently, through this bill — this

Sustainable Environment Fund Act — it's my belief that that's exactly

what we're doing. We're looking after the future for British Columbia.

We're clearly outlining where the money comes from and where it's

going, no matter which department it comes from or goes to. In other

words, what we're trying to say and do within the province is work with

municipalities.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

[ Page 10118 ]

We're

also saying in here that to start with we're going to charge a fee for

lead acid batteries and for tires within the province. It's a start,

and it's called "user-pay." I don't think anyone can disagree with that.

We've

come to the time when you can no longer ship your stuff out of the

large metropolitan areas to the area that I happen to live in — the

central part of British Columbia — without it costing you any dollars.

That's what this act is going to help reduce.

Mr. Speaker, I support Bill 16, the Sustainable Environment

Fund Act.

MR. SPEAKER : The second member for Nanalmo.

MR. REID : Tell us about the recycling plant

in Nanaimo.

MS. PULLINGER :

Oh, the past Minister of Tourism wants to talk about recycling. How

interesting! Maybe we should talk about recycling. What a good idea!

That is a wonderful idea, Mr. Speaker, because obviously we're talking

about recycling in this bill.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER :

Order, please. We still have a quorum if the member for Surrey–White

Rock–Cloverdale (Mr. Reid) leaves. Short of that, we could ask him to

restrain himself while the member talks about the principle of the bill.

MS. PULLINGER :

This Sustainable Environment Fund Act purports to be based on the basic

principle of sustainability. As we all know, and as one of my

colleagues said, the principle of sustainability is all about not

taking out more than you put in; dealing with our resources, our

environment and our economy in such a way that we can do what we need

to do today without damaging the ability of future generations to use

those same resources. That's the principle that we're being told this

bill is based on.

However, I'd like to point out that what

we're hearing is simply not believable, for a number of reasons.

Probably one of the most salient reasons for this bill simply lacking

credibility is the inherent conflict between the right-wing, Social

Credit, neoconservative economic agenda and the principle of

sustainability. The two simply don't work together They can't. It makes

it very difficult to believe that this bill and the principles behind

it are anything but politically motivated.

There is that

conflict, because let's not forget what a neoconservative agenda is.

Let's not forget what Social Credit and its counterpart in Ottawa, the

Conservative government, and that right-wing think-tank the Fraser

Institute, and the neoconservative politics behind and around that, are

all about. They're all based on a nineteenth-century economic analysis.

It's outdated and outmoded, but they still hang on to it and cherish it

as a central myth, a central ideal. For these neoconservatives, the job

is to free up the engine of the economy. That's the principle behind

right-wing economics.

If you are going to free up and fuel

that engine of the economy, then you do things like deregulate. For

instance, you let pulp mills and polluters look after themselves and

monitor themselves. Part of deregulation is privatization, where

everything is arm's-length, such as privatizing highways. It costs us a

lot more and it's not as effective; however, it fits with that

neoconservative principle.

One of the flaws in that whole

economic analysis, I might point out, is that it assigns no value to

things like clean air and clean water. There's a single economic,

monetary goalpost that kind of forgets things like environment and

social structure and people and society.

What we've seen

under this government is a following of the Thatcher regime, where

they're privatizing everything without much discrimination. I remember

a lot of questions being asked about studies and why those things were

being done, and it's simply philosophical. It's a right-wing agenda,

and it doesn't work. You can't privatize research and development.

We've

allowed polluters to monitor themselves. We've gotten rid of things

like the rentalsman and rent review process and motor vehicle testing

stations in spite of the fact those things were all very effective. In

short, the neoconservative agenda, the Social Credit agenda, rejects

monitoring and regulation. It rejects long-term planning. It rejects

local input or local decision-making and is very much centralist.

That's the neoconservative agenda that obviously flies in the face of

all those basic principles of sustainability.

Sustainability,

as we know, is all about wholeness. It's all about dealing with things

in their context and in the larger picture and in the long term. People

are no longer prepared to put up with that kind of ad hoc

decision-making — lacking planning, regulation and effectiveness — that

we've had under Social Credit for far too long. They're not going to

buy this most recent political ad hoc bill either. It simply lacks

credibility.

Aside from that very basic inherent conflict,

which makes all of us roll our eyes a little bit when we see a bill

titled Sustainable Environment Fund Act, there are some other things

that are wrong in the principle of this bill. One of the major things,

also something we've seen a lot of, is that this whole bill is

deceptive. It's misleading. It represents everything that's bad about

this government. It lacks accountability. It's a slush fund where

spending is very much at ministerial discretion. It lacks any real

guidelines. In fact, it's a sloppy bill.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER : Order, please. I have to ask

the member for Surrey–White Rock–Cloverdale to restrain himself or

excuse himself.

Would the member continue.

[ Page 10119 ]

MS. PULLINGER : I think one of the ways in

which this bill is misleading is that we have a fund that supposedly is

a new fund and new money.

MR. LOENEN : No. You said that; we never

said that.

MS. PULLINGER :

Oh no. It was quite clear that this was a new fund. I think the member

should go back and read some of the speeches we have heard from his

side of the House.

It is supposedly new money, but most of

it, in fact, is $222 million that has been removed from the Ministry of

Forests, where there is accountability, and put into a slush fund,

where there isn't accountability. Not only that, but the bill is just a

bit sloppy. You take it out of Forests and put it into a so-called

sustainable environment fund. Then, before the bill has even passed, it

is amended by the people who brought it in. It then takes the Forests

money, which went out of Forests into an Environment fund, and puts it

back into the hands of Forests. The only difference is that it has been

recycled through a fund. Instead of being accountable through the

normal process of ministerial spending, it now goes through a slush

fund, from Forests to this fund, and back to the ministerial discretion

of Forests. The accountability simply isn't there.

The

money hasn't changed; it's just a shell game. All that's missing — all

that's gone with this whole proposal — is accountability. That simply

isn't good enough. I don't think ministerial discretion is something

that the public is willing to have as a criterion for spending. So the

largest portion of the money in this fund is simply removed from

Forests and put into this fund, to be spent by the Forests ministry.

MR. LOENEN : It's making good legislation

better.

MS. PULLINGER :

It's making legislation, but it's creating what's obviously a political

slush fund that lacks accountability. It's similar to the other funds

we have seen, like the Lottery Fund. In fact, it recycles Forests money

into this fund. It also recycles lottery money into this fund — some

$50 million. So we have $270 million of this so-called new money coming

out of existing funds and ministries and simply being put under a new

umbrella. That's not a commitment to the environment; that's no new

initiative or new fund. It's simply a shell game, and nothing much else.

The

other thing is that this is touted as an increase in environmental

funding. When you peel away all the layers, all the games and all the

shifting around of funds — there are a few amendments to this act that

obfuscate it just a bit more — what you find is that environmental

funding has increased less than 1 percent. When you factor in

inflation, that is a decrease.

[4:30]

With its shifting of more than $200 million out of Forests

into this fund, it also represents a long-term decrease in the Forests

budget. Neither of those is acceptable. We have major problems in both

of those areas. Particularly for the government to decrease those two

ministers' funding while saying they are increasing environmental and

Forests spending just isn't the way it ought to be done. It's not

credible at all.

think one of the other reasons this bill lacks credibility in terms of

being sustainable is that the things that are purported to be dealt

with under it could have — and should have — been done by this

government a

long time ago. We've heard a lot of talk about recycling, but we have

only seen recycling in things like this bill, where we see one account

recycled to another. We haven't seen any moves towards effective

control of disposal of toxic wastes or any effective cleanup of our

environment — our air and our water — which badly needs it. And we have

seen a continuation of overcutting and mismanagement of our forest

resources, lax standards and insufficient restocking of logged land.

What

we are seeing is an inherent conflict in a government that really isn't

dealing with the problem. Instead it comes up with a bill that somehow

is supposed to rectify all of those problems but that, in fact, doesn't

do much. I would suggest that maybe it is an attempt to clean up the

government's image more than the environment.

The remaining

money under this bill comes from a new tax. Again it's deceptive,

because we have heard again and again how there are no new taxes under

the latest budget. I find it interesting indeed that these new "levies,

" as the government side of the House is fond of calling them, are in

addition to the Social Service Tax Act, which makes me think that this

is possibly a tax and should be identified as such.

What we

see with those taxes is a levy — or a tax — not on those who create

pollution, not on manufacturers.... There is no incentive to make

things that are less polluting. What we see instead is a tax on people

rather than polluters. We see a tax on mothers, not on manufacturers.

There's no incentive to recycle in this bill, and there's no incentive

for research and development, or to find or create ways to produce

goods that are either less polluting, not polluting or perhaps even

environmentally beneficial. None o