1984 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 33rd 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, FEBRUARY 1, 1984

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

3005 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Medicare premiums and user fees. Mrs. Dailly –– 3005

Church leaders' request for meeting with Premier. Mr. Blencoe –– 3006

Intentional log surpluses. Mr. Skelly –– 3006

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Attorney-General estimates. (Hon. Mr. Smith)

On vote 9: minister's office –– 3007

Ms. Brown

Mr. Reynolds

Mr. Mitchell

Mr. Blencoe

Ms. Sanford

Mr. Skelly

On vote 15: corrections –– 3020

Mr. Howard

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Forests. (Hon. Mr. Waterland)

On vote 41: minister's office –– 3020

Hon. Mr. Waterland

Mr. Skelly

Royal assent to bill –– 3027

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. R. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, in the galleries today is one of

B.C.'s professional engineers, who happens to be a personal friend of

mine. I am proud to say that he is one of the many members of our

profession who are taking consulting engineering around the world,

helping the peoples of other nations solve their problems. He is Mike

Okun, manager of Northwest Hydraulic Consultants Ltd. Would the House

please welcome him.

MRS. WALLACE: We have visiting from Duncan today a group of

some 25 grade 10 students who attend the Duncan Christian School. They

are accompanied by Mrs. Voss, and I believe they are in the gallery

behind me. I would like the House to join me in welcoming them.

MR. PARKS: As I trust we can all appreciate, one of the most

important persons in our political lives is our constituency secretary.

I have the pleasure of introducing to this House my personal

constituency secretary, who is in your gallery, and I would ask the

House to welcome Mrs. Carol Martin.

Oral Questions

MEDICARE PREMIUMS AND USER FEES

MRS. DAILLY: I have a question for the Minister of Health.

Will the minister advise the House whether the government is

considering increases in medicare premiums and hospital user fees?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The fees associated with premiums and

hospitals have been adjusted almost on an annual basis for some time,

and if there were to be any changes, I'm sure they would be made

available either through the budgetary process or in due course when

that decision has been made.

MRS. DAILLY: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Will the minister

then advise the House why his government has commissioned a $120,000

Goldfarb public opinion poll asking these very questions of the public:

whether they would accept increased user fees and medicare premiums,

among others?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure what survey the

member may be referring to. Goldfarb people do surveys. There was some

information in the media this morning with respect to a survey on

health care. I'm not sure if that is the survey she is speaking of or

one specific survey.... If you have the time when the survey may have

been conducted, or by whom, I would be pleased to check that. But I

don't really see how it relates to whether we are increasing fees at

some time in the future.

MRS. DAILLY: Is the minister saying that he is not aware of any recent

poll on health financing costs commissioned by the government?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Again, I would have to ask the member to be

specific about which poll she may be speaking of, when it may have been

conducted, and by whom — I don't mean the polling company, but who

commissioned the poll. I trust she isn't confused by the report in the Province this morning — by Goldfarb.

MRS. DAILLY: Perhaps if I read the first part of the first

question on the poll it might refresh the minister's memory: "Questions

re health financing from a Social Credit government-commissioned

Goldfarb poll. Think for a moment about provincial health care

services. If the provincial government finds that more revenue must be

raised to finance health services, in your opinion which of the

following methods would be acceptable?" It's a loaded questionnaire.

It's assuming that the government says they have to have more revenues.

So what kind of answer to that can you expect from the public?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I think it's very useful for

government to be advised by the citizens as to how they think health

care should be financed in part, rather than by the heavy-handedness of

Ottawa in imposing restrictions and penalties on provinces. The people

of the province have made it clear on many occasions, either by their

votes or by responses to surveys, private and by government, that they

are prepared to pay for health care services rather than see health

care services reduced. I think it is the responsibility of the

government to ask the people whether they feel it is more appropriate

that there be premiums or hospital fee charges, or increases in

taxation, or some other method of raising the necessary revenue to

provide for our $2.5 billion health care budget. The Goldfarb survey

conducted recently and reported today by the media was that people in

greater Vancouver are satisfied with health care in the province. They

exhibit both trust and confidence in both hospitals and doctors. In

fact, they have little to complain about. I think these findings are

consistent with previous polls. The health care system in British

Columbia is regarded by the citizens as being of very high standard. I

think it is vitally important that government constantly monitor the

attitudes of the citizens to see how health care may be better funded

and in what manner. I think for that purpose polling is very valid.

MRS. DAILLY: As usual the minister has just restated his own

opinions instead of answering the question. If the minister does

believe that public opinion polls are good for the public, will he then

authorize the tabling in the House of the actual questions asked re

health financing and the answers? If the public pays for them, should

not the public see both the questions and the answers?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: If a poll has been conducted, presumably

the people have seen it; otherwise, who would you be polling? The

results of polls and the information received are the policies of the

government.

MRS. DAILLY: Oh, so you won't table it.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

[ Page 3006 ]

[2:15]

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The question of maintaining our revenues

for health care purposes is one which is constantly being discussed

throughout the province. People are repeatedly asked their opinions

with respect to premiums and hospital fees. The B.C. Health Association

is one of those organizations which repeatedly asks such questions at

conventions and otherwise, and makes recommendations. They are perhaps

one of the strongest associations in favour of such fees. In fact they

— along with representatives of the Medical Associations and others —

frequently criticize government for not increasing the fees. The

greatest poll that is conducted with respect to health care and how it

is handled in British Columbia was the last election, when health care

was a major issue. The people said: "We are in favour of the way your

government is conducting its business in health care."

MRS. DAILLY: I ask the question again: am I to understand

then that the minister is not intending to table or to let the public

see the results of this questionnaire and the questions? Would you

please answer that: yes or no.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The information which is available by way

of government publications and otherwise is available in our annual

reports and other reports. If a poll has been conducted by the

government, it will be a decision of government whether that poll

itself will be tabled or whether the results of that poll will be

tabled in some form. I think it's important, Mr. Speaker, that we do

not confuse what the real issue is: not whether a poll was conducted to

determine what the people of the province may feel about health care,

but the manner in which the health care is delivered.

Mr. Speaker, the NDP is so embarrassed by their criticism of the health care

system when the people of the province repeatedly respond in a positive way

to the health care system. What that member is trying to do is say: "Let's

forget the high level of health care we have in B.C., and let's get all

excited about whether a poll was conducted."

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. At this stage the question has been answered.

CHURCH LEADERS' REQUEST

FOR MEETING WITH PREMIER

MR. BLENCOE: That kind of answer is unhealthy for all of us in this House, I have to say.

I have a question for the Premier of the province. In July last year

the Premier received a very important letter from the heads of the

United Church, the Anglican Church, the Canadian Council of Churches,

the Lutheran Church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the

Catholic Church in British Columbia. They requested a very important

dialogue with your office and with you, sir. Thus far, as of January 1

of this year, you have declined to respond to that letter and you have

declined to allow a dialogue with these leading churchmen. I wonder if

you could advise this House why you have decided to take that course of

action.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, the Chair must be addressed and not the member directly; the member should know that.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I receive a number of requests for

meetings, not only from churchmen but from others, and we try to work

them in when we can. I'm sure that any correspondence to my office is

always acknowledged. I'm sure the member isn't inferring that any

letter that arrives does not receive an acknowledgement. Meetings are

arranged when they can be. A number of members of the clergy and

spiritual leaders, not only of the Christian faith but others, have

access to my office on a continuous basis. That member might suggest

that only those who make public statements can get access, but everyone

will have an opportunity, as I'm available, to have input on a number

of subjects. Many do and many will, as we find the time to work them

in. I'm very pleased that the clergy would take the opportunity to want

to talk to the Premier of British Columbia.

MR. BLENCOE: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. These are

the leading churchmen of this province, and they represent a lot of

people and have a lot of views. You, Mr. Premier....

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, please address the Chair.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Premier is that

you have thus far refused to meet or have a dialogue with these

churchmen. You haven't had the decency to respond to them.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to know if the Premier is

prepared to meet, have a dialogue with or even answer these churchmen

in the near future.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I take the position that all

those who serve the church are leading in their own way, and that none

are more equal than the others, and all have access. Those who have

requested appointments eventually will have that opportunity served. I

certainly try to consider them as equal, as I'm sure the member

considers that we are all equal in religious ways before those for whom

they wish to speak.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, through you to the Premier, I would

remind you that the letter was written in July of last year. Will the

Premier answer this House today? Is he prepared to meet with these

leading churchmen on these important social and economic issues? Yes or

no.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, when I respond to

appointments, it will be with those who request them and not those who

seek to be self-appointed appointment secretaries for those who have

something relevant to say.

INTENTIONAL LOG SURPLUSES

MR. SKELLY: I suppose that instruction goes to the BCILA too, Mr. Speaker.

My question is addressed to the Minister of Forests. Last August I

asked the minister what action he was taking regarding the problem of

contrived log surpluses and logging for export. Will the minister now

advise what action he has taken on this problem?

[ Page

3007 ]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, as the member well knows, a study was

done last year about the whole log export question. I received an excellent

report back. As a matter of fact, that report was commissioned as a result of

meetings which I had a month earlier with the IWA. We have that report. It is

being studied. We are about ready to make slight changes in policy in order

to make the system more workable. I would think that sometime within the next

few months we will be announcing what changes in policy have been developed

as a result of that study being made.

MR. SKELLY: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact

that the report was made available to the minister last July and that

figures to the end of November 1983 show a doubling of log exports over

1982 levels, what action will the minister take to prevent companies

from contriving log surpluses in order to export to the export market?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, the member is assuming that

export permits which have been granted have been as a result of

contrived surpluses. I don't think that's the case at all. We are

following a procedure which has been in place for a number of years in

British Columbia, including that period of time when the members

opposite formed a somewhat dubious government. The conditions have not

changed. I think it is quite common, historically, that during economic

cycles log exports will rise and fall in reverse ratio to other

economic activity in the forest sector.

As I said, we will be addressing that issue. Slightly new policy

changes will be forthcoming. I will be announcing them within the next

few months.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the member for Skeena has advised the Chair that he has a matter to raise.

MR. HOWARD: The matter I want to raise to the House is

pursuant to standing order 35, and that is to ask leave of the House to

move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a

definite matter of urgent public importance.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: There he is.

The refusal of the government, including Blow-hard Phillips, to allow the leader....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, if we are to

conduct the business of this House in a proper manner, firstly

interjections, particularly during motions under standing order 35,

must be kept to a minimum, if made at all. Secondly, responses in the

middle of a 35, I must say, would endanger the validity of the motion

itself. So may we have some order and continue.

MR. HOWARD: Yes. I will resist the temptation hereafter.

The subject matter is the refusal of the government to allow the

Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to take

part in the debate on

estimates of expenditures of the office of the Premier.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, without prejudice to the member's urgency

factor, the Chair will take the matter under advisement and bring a ruling back

at the earliest opportunity.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to table a

document, the response to the 1982 report of the Auditor-General, dated

November 1983. I believe that copies of this were distributed to all

members at the time of release.

Leave granted.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call Committee of Supply, Mr. Speaker.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ATTORNEY-GENERAL

On vote 9: Ministers office, $185,732.

MS. BROWN: Yesterday I raised the issue of some

recommendations in a top-secret memo sent by the commissioner of

corrections, Mr. Robinson, to Mr. Rhodes, which had on it an asterisk

saying: "Confidential, regional managers only." I discussed some of the

things in the memo, and I asked the minister to table it. He has

refused to do so. However, I'm going to raise a couple of the other

issues raised in that memo to see if the minister has any response.

Just to refresh your memory, Mr. Chairman, I want to remind you that

the memo dealt with the impact on the adult correctional centres of the

cutbacks in their budgets. One of the things it talked about was giving

increased priorities of making inmate moves based on available

placement rather than on the security of the program requirements, and

stating that this could result in increased risk of disruptions in the

institution as well as in the escape rate.

The other recommendation, which I didn't cover, was one dealing with

the reduction of admissions to the correctional centres. One of the

things the memo suggested was that Crown counsels and probation

officers were going to suggest or recommend to the courts that fines

and unsupervised probation should be used more by the courts rather

than otherwise. It went on to say: "This would necessarily include

persons convicted of motor vehicle related offences, as these presently

constitute 42.6 percent of those admitted to our correctional centres."

[2:30]

I don't know, Mr. Chairman, whether you know it or not, but the

Attorney-General has also terminated the funding for the Counterattack

program, which was supposed to be addressing itself to the whole

problem of people drinking and driving. A commitment was made to the

organization of MADD and to the community in general that the

government was going to deal much more harshly with automobile drivers

who were impaired, and people convicted of driving while under the

influence. The government started out by incarcerating a lot of these

people. Now we find that as a direct result of the cuts in funding, a

recommendation is going from the commissioner of corrections suggesting

that Crown counsels should recommend to the court that fines be used

instead, and that there be unsupervised probation instead. The whole

[ Page 3008 ]

quality of justice in this province is really going

to be jeopardized as a direct result of the decision of the

Attorney-General to cut the funding available to corrections at this

time.

The other recommendation which I touched on had to do with early

release, not because it was in the best interest of the community, not

because it was in the best interest of the inmates, but simply because

of the overcrowding in the institutions at this time. It states:

"When institutions become overcrowded, inmates may be

released under the authority of the commissioner of corrections on a

terminal temporary absence for up to 15 days. It is projected that we

will be using this program twice as much as it has been used this year,

and this could result in some criticism from the courts and from the

public, particularly if an inmate who has been released on terminal

temporary absence is involved in a further offence while on early

release."

So here again we find decisions being made based not on what is in

the best interests of the community at large, or best interests of the

inmates, not by taking into account planning or the rehabilitation of

the inmates, but decisions that clearly place the community in

jeopardy. The institutions are overcrowded and the government is

failing to hang on to the budget they presently have, but are in fact

talking about reducing.

A comment about equipment and machinery purchases was also made.

"While tolerable in the short term, the implication of our equipment

inventory becoming obsolete will have a long-term financial impact." I

want to make clear that I am not being critical of the commissioner,

because I think it is his responsibility and his duty to lay out very

clearly for the Attorney-General exactly what the impact of the

government's decision will be on the corrections branch of his

ministry. That's the commissioner's responsibility, and he is to be

congratulated for being as open, straightforward and honest in

reporting to the Attorney-General as he does in this report.

Medical standards. "Medical standards will continue to be provided

below desired standards." This is a statement by the commissioner, an

admission that present medical standards in the correctional

institutions are below desired standards, and will continue to be so.

"Over the past two years the branch has been under criticism from the

B.C. Medical Association, the Registered Nurses' Association and the

College of Pharmacists for failure to comply with professional

standards. Failure to meet these standards will result in continued and

possibly strong criticism." This is disgraceful. The Attorney-General

stood on the floor of the House yesterday and said the reason he is

privatizing nurses in the women's unit, for example, is because it is

important to meet professional standards in that unit. Lo and behold,

we have a memo issued under the signature of the commissioner of

corrections himself which states that not only are medical standards

below desired standards but that they will continue to be so. It also

admits that the corrections branch has been under criticism for the

past two years from the B.C. Medical Association, the Registered

Nurses' Association and the College of Pharmacists for failure to

comply with professional standards. This is going to continue as a

direct result of the government's decision to cut funding to the

corrections branch of the ministry by something like 3.4 percent in the

upcoming year.

That's just the

section dealing with the adult correctional centres.

There were also recommendations dealing with the youth containment

centres. As I pointed out to the Attorney-General at an earlier date,

I've visited a number of these centres. I've visited the youth

containment centre in Victoria, and I've made a very brief visit to

Willingdon and intend to return. I will be talking in more detail about

those centres and what I found there, but I want to deal with what the

commissioner of corrections recommends in terms of keeping within the

upcoming budget. He talks about reducing admission to the youth

containment centres. Is he going to do this because it's in the best

interests of the youth who are involved? Is this going to happen

because it's in the best interests of the community? Not at all. He is

saying that once the young offenders act is proclaimed on April 1, it's

going to be necessary to reduce admission to these containment centres

simply because the government has not allotted the budget to deal with

the implementation of that particular piece of legislation. How are

they going to do it? Through preventive programs in the community to

keep young people from breaking the law? Is that the recommendation

that the Attorney-General has before him? Not at all. The

recommendation is that Crown counsel and probation officers are going

to be recommending that these youths not be placed in containment

centres. It says: "While this continues to be the present policy, it

may further test the limits of the community's tolerance of juvenile

offenders remaining in the community. Some criticism from the courts

and the public may be anticipated."

Given this kind of information and knowing what can be anticipated,

why is it that the ministry is continuing in its decision of not

putting in the funding that is necessary to see to it that the province

is ready when the Young Offenders Act is implemented by the federal

government on April 1? Again, I'm not being critical of the memo. I'm

not being critical of the fact that the commissioner finds it necessary

to alert the Attorney-General to the exact impact of this program on

the corrections institute. Of course the planning for the youth who

come up against the law is going to be again based not on what is in

the best interest of the young people or what is in the best interest

of the community. We are told in this memo: "Criteria will be

established with recommendations to the court for early release in

order to reduce costly and dangerous overcrowding."

I was under the impression that the Attorney-General, as the top law

enforcement authority in this province, was really concerned about the

prevention of lawbreaking and would be concerned about putting

preventive services into place. Failing that, he would take into

account the protection of the community and, as quickly as possible,

the rehabilitation of the youth. Those are the criteria that would be

used for dealing with these young people. But that's not it at all.

Here the recommendation is being made: "To heck with the community; to

heck with the kids. All that we are concerned about is costly and

dangerous overcrowding." Again, everything is down to the bottom line

in terms of dollars and cents, and no account is being taken as to what

is in the best interest of these young people. When we get to talk

about the termination and the erosion of funding for community

resources and the whole privatization question, we will see the ways in

which the Attorney-General squeezes these kids both ways by not having

the resources in the community, not having the preventive services and

at the same time placing them in

[ Page 3009 ]

jeopardy by not having the facilities for them once they are placed before the courts.

But what about the probationers and the people involved in family

and community services, the people who work with these kids? We are

told that there is going to be a reduction there too — from 602 to 494.

"The resources available to supervise probationers and parolees, to

provide information to the courts and to provide family services will

thus be reduced."

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: It's right here. This is not my statement. I am quoting verbatim, as the Attorney-General knows. You have your copy there, too.

HON. MR. SMITH: Are you going to file those — the whole thing?

MS. BROWN: Yes, I'm going to file mine.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: If I knew the name of the person, I would tell

you. But I haven't got the name of the person. If it is not an

authentic document, you would be able to state that it's not an

authentic document. If this is a forgery and that is not the signature

of Mr. Robinson, then you should say that. If this is not an authentic

memo coming out of the Ministry of Attorney-General corrections branch,

you will have an opportunity to state that. You know you can deny it.

In any event, Mr. Chairman, the document says: "The reduction of the

resources available to supervise probationers and parolees, the

reduction of the resources available to provide information to the

courts and to provide family services." They're going to be reduced. It

says: "Some criticism will result if offenders under community

supervision orders become involved in further offences." Of course

that's possible. You're reducing the number of people who should be

working with these young people, supervising them and assisting them to

make the transition back into the community when the time comes. You're

eroding the services in the community which should be available to

assist them. Of course, the preventive services to keep them from

coming in contact with the law aren't there. We are talking about

eliminating 38 probation officers; that's what it says in this memo.

Some 38 probation officers and 13 clerical support staff will be

eliminated. As a direct result of that, these support services are

going to disappear, or at least be reduced.

What's the recommendation for dealing with that? Something else that

is in the best interest of the child or of the community? Not at all.

The recommended initiative is that the courts should be recommended to

increase the use of fines and unsupervised probation. That's how it is

going to be dealt with. In not one single instance throughout these

recommendation were the needs of the inmates, the community, the youth

or the families of those young people taken into account. Everything

was based on how we keep within our budget in terms of the

recommendation for the reduction either of 5.5 percent in the probation

area or 3.4 percent in the adult correctional area as the case may be.

[2:45]

And then, of course, what happens to funds available to contracted

community services? There will be a reduction of $300,000 in the

funding available to currently contracted community services and

attendance centre programs. That is happening at the same time, The

Young Offenders Act comes on stream April 1, and at the same time we're

being told the supervision of probationers and parolees is going to be

reduced. They're not going to be able to provide the courts with the

level of information which they must have if justice is to be done. The

family services are going to be reduced. And now we find that even

community services and attendance centre programs that are contracted

out are going to be reduced by $300,000. "This will be offset, however,

by increases in such contracting which will result from privatization.

Some small net reduction in the programs available is anticipated."

Even so, there is going to be a reduction.

I like the euphemistic ways in which the memo deals with some of the

cutbacks. It talks about " increase in the management spans of

control." That is a euphemism. After positions are eliminated

throughout the province by means of office consolidation, there will be

increases in management spans of control. It talks about "the

elimination of support services, the amalgamation of districts and

regions, and these initiatives will reduce the capacity of the branch

to provide information, to initiate new activities and to undertake

planning." That's an incredible indictment, I think that's just

dreadful. I extend my sympathy to the commissioner who has to operate

under that kind of duress. It states quite clearly: "reduce the

capacity of the branch to provide information, to initiate new

activities and to undertake planning, " We're going right back to the

days of old, when prisons were dungeons, and that's all they were.

Lockups. No programs, no planning, no community resources, no support

services.

I want to repeat the final thing I said yesterday: reducing basic

training for staff. We have inadequate, inferior medical care. We have

under trained staff, overcrowded situations and planning around

suggesting to the courts that they use more fines and more unsupervised

probation. The only thing we have to worry about is that there will be

some criticism from the courts and from the community if any of these

people — whether they be adults or young people — are involved in

further offences while they're on probation or involved in early

release.

I want to repeat what I said earlier about the probation component

being reduced from 602 full-time equivalents to 494 and ask the

minister if he honestly thinks that he can maintain at least the

current level of services in view of that reduction. Can he confirm

that Corrections is going to be something like $2 million short in

terms of its budget anyway? Also, can he confirm that the memo is false?

HON. MR. SMITH: I guess it would be very tempting to spend

all one's estimates debating a purloined memorandum, which the member

has had great fun with for a few hours, yesterday and today. I'm glad

she isn't being critical of the writer of that memorandum. I would hate

to see her when she was critical of him. By her approach she does not,

I might say, encourage a frank and full discussion by public servants

of ways they might recommend to government on how to meet various

possible budget targets for the fiscal year ahead. In this memorandum a

senior member of my department endeavoured to set out for the executive

committee the implications of some possible budget financing proposals

for

[ Page 3010 ]

1984-85. I have absolutely no intention of debating

with her the 1984-85 estimates. Hopefully she will have the pleasure of

doing that within the next month or two. By continuing to suggest,

under the guise of not criticizing the civil servant, that the

proposals in there are government policy, I think she is doing a great

disservice to people in government who freely and in a confidential way

set out proposals for their ministers in memoranda. I can assure her

that none of the proposals contained in that memorandum is policy or

has been adopted. Many of them will be discussed and probably some of

them — perhaps a lot of them — will be adopted. The member also knows

that we have to operate with very limited amounts of money, and

therefore choices have to be made.

The gist of her criticism of all these proposals is a very simple

one: that is, she believes major additional amounts of money should be

put into the system. I can assure her that the Counterattack program

she spoke of has not been cut. The contribution to Counterattack by

this ministry has a budget of $204,000, and that budget has remained

intact. We ran our part of the program. Of course, part of the

Counterattack funding also comes through ICBC, and they have continued

their part of the program at an even higher level. Also, this year more

funds went into advertising by the industry itself to assist us in our

fight against drinking and driving.

She also spoke of the young offenders act, which I take it she

probably supports. I certainly supported some new initiative by Ottawa

to try to bring dealings with juveniles out of the nineteenth century

and into the twenty-first century. The federal act unquestionably does

that to some degree, but a number of deficiencies and problems are

inherent in it, dealing with confinement, documentation and a great

deal of bureaucracy attendant on all these wonderful federal reforms. I

spent much of the last eight months trying to develop ways in which

portions of that federal legislation could be phased in and some of

those sections not proclaimed; trying to persuade the minister, Mr.

Kaplan, to bring in some of these sections but not all of them. But her

party in the House of Commons in Ottawa has been totally resistant to

making any changes in the young offenders act or to delaying its

implementation whatsoever. As it now turns out, implementation of this

bill has been delayed for a year. It probably won't be implemented on

April 1. We are going to have a reasonable cost-sharing plan, with

Ottawa putting some money into it. So some of the projected horrors in

the memorandum that deal with youth containment will probably not come

to pass, because Ottawa finally recognizes that if they're going to

pass legislation of this kind they have to put some dollars into it to

see that it's properly implemented. I've taken the position with them

that we're not going to implement the young offenders act in some

half-hearted piecemeal way. If we're going to implement it we want to

implement it properly, and Ottawa has to help us.

I can also tell the member that the numbers she speaks of, the

possible reductions in staff, are not going to amount to reductions in

the number of people delivering the service to anything like that

extent. If they occur, as I indicated earlier, many of those services

are under consideration for privatization, and they will be continued.

I want to address only one of the many detailed matters that she

would like to debate with me on the proposed 1984-85 estimates, one

principle: that is, ways, other than imprisonment, of dealing with some

offenders. I would have thought she would welcome that, instead of

being indirectly critical of it. Surely it is not effective, in dealing

with people who commit

summary conviction and motor-vehicle offences,

to load the jails. Surely the way to deal with them is to have very

strict initial penalties which may not involve imprisonment or fines,

because fines impact more heavily on people at one end of the economic

scale than the other. We are examining ways that will impact fairly

equally on all. Those ways include impoundment of motor vehicle,

impoundment of the right to obtain licences, and a registry system

dealing with our fines throughout the provincial public service, so

that if we have people not paying fines, or people who are under

probation orders and are not carrying them out, they will not be able

to obtain motor vehicle licences or insurance anywhere in the province

of British Columbia. I think that we can do a great deal more in being

absolutely tough with the right to licence, and absolutely tough with

the enforcement of motor vehicle licences without loading the jails up

with people who have committed motor vehicle offences.

I do not believe, either, that deterrence at that level is solely

brought about by imprisonment. It's certainly true that if you get a

person who commits a number of motor vehicle offences and continues to

have a pattern of doing so and responds to nothing else, pretty well

the only recourse that you have is to imprison him to get him off the

highways. Also, if you have a person who repeatedly violates the law in

relation to driving without a licence, then eventually the only

deterrent for that person is imprisonment. But I do not believe that

wholesale imprisonment of driving offenders is going to have a strong

enough deterrent effect. We have got to find other ways of deterring

them, and I am going to explore and introduce the use of a very full

and integrated system of reporting on licensing and hope that much

greater use can be made of licensing and of impounding motor vehicles.

I know that it is not a simple matter, but I think it's a matter that

we can address more.

Mr. Chairman, I do not propose to debate with the hon. member every one of the proposals contained in that memorandum.

[3:00]

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I am really

pleased that this memo was sent to me, because it gives me the

opportunity to support and reinforce the warnings made by the

commissioner of corrections in the memo. This is an alarming memo. What

it is saying to the Attorney-General is that if he persists in

implementing the cutbacks in services to the level that he is talking

about, he is placing at risk the community at large, and certainly the

young people as well as the adults in the system, the potential inmates

and some of the staff — and I have some notes from some of their staff

meetings as well. It is not a criticism of the commissioner. I am

echoing and reinforcing the warnings made by the commissioner in this

document, and I want to make that very clear.

I am sorry that the Attorney-General doesn't want to discuss this

with me. I am going to give him some time to mull it over, and I'll

raise it again sometime in the future. But in the meantime I accept,

with a certain amount of pleasure, his comment that he probably will

not persist in implementing all of the recommendations which are

possible, as outlined in this document.

My colleague the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell)

wanted to raise some questions with the Attorney-General at this time,

so I'll allow him to do that and

[ Page 3011 ]

give you a chance to rest from the sound of my voice, and I will see you again later.

MR. REYNOLDS: I am very glad the member for Burnaby-Edmonds

is going to rest her voice. Yesterday she made some comments about the

way that the Attorney-General spoke, and I think she should go and

listen to herself.

I just wonder if the Attorney-General could tell me, after listening

to the member for Burnaby-Edmonds saying that she doesn't want to blame

the commissioner or any of his staff, but she wants to blame the

Attorney-General, whether she has ever sent to you a detailed list of

suggestions as to what the NDP would recommend as to how we should run

the corrections system. Have they ever sat down and said, in a

non-partisan way, "This is how we would like you to run the system, "

or "Can we make some positive suggestions as to how your bureaucracy

could run the corrections system?" Or do they just get up at estimates

time and keep complaining about it?

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Just a minute, one at a time.

HON. MR. SMITH: In response to the member for West

Vancouver–Howe Sound, I have found no such document in my mail tray,

but it could be that it's gone astray and may have gone back to, or

been leaked to, members opposite. Nothing like that has come to my

attention, but I'll do a diligent search of my office when I go back.

Maybe I've overlooked it.

MR. REYNOLDS: I thank the Attorney-General for that. The

member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) said that I should look at the

results from 1972 to 1975, and I would just suggest to her that I have

looked very closely at those results. In fact, I've been doing a little

report on the corrections system following up some of the work I did in

the federal system. I would just suggest to her that, from my point of

view anyway, from 1972 to 1975 Mr. Macdonald, the second member for

Vancouver East, was in charge of the correction system and led us into

one of the most disastrous periods in our provincial history in that

area.

MR. MITCHELL: I think we'll have a little change of pace. I

can't help but comment, though, on the previous speaker. I think the

Attorney-General's office and the treatment of prisoners and the

development of a correctional system is not something that we can

afford to make fun of from a legislative position. It is one of the

most serious — and I say that very sincerely — problems that we have in

giving service and protection to the public. There are attitudes that

we can look at it and laugh at any changes. There have been, over many

many years of the treatment of prisoners and offenders, many changes.

These changes in some cases have been to the good and in some cases

they are debatable. I think I share the same belief as the

Attorney-General that the implications of the Juvenile Offenders Act

are going to cause a great problem to police officers and the courts.

But these are not the main issues I'd like to deal with. I would

like to deal with three or four topics that have come to my attention.

One of them is one that I brought up, I guess in the last session,

before the election. I had many discussions with the previous

Attorney-General about a problem that affected one of my constituents.

I quite believe that if it affected one constituent in the manner that

it did, it's affecting many people in British Columbia. It deals with

the custody of children. Just for the record and for the minister, I

will review some of the facts that took place in this particular case.

It all started in Prince Edward Island where, following a divorce,

the mother was granted custody of the child of the marriage. The mother

remarried to a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. In his occupation

he was transferred from the east coast to the west coast, where they

are now residing in my riding. As she had remarried and had the

custody, they were living in the Colwood area. The child was entered in

school. The father went to court to apply for custody and was granted

custody, and then he appeared in British Columbia and to the local

courts and got an application from the Victoria court to apprehend the

child. The court ordered a police officer to go and the child was

removed from school. The child was then flown back to Prince Edward

Island. There were two subsequent court cases in Prince Edward Island.

It eventually got into the supreme court. The child was returned to the

mother. I'm not going to go into all the detail on the case. The file

in my office is about that thick. But what I am concerned with is that

a person can come into British Columbia, can make application to the

court and a child can be taken out of school and taken back out of the

province to Prince Edward Island without the mother, who, as far as she

was aware from the courts, had custody of that child.

The problem that arises is that she managed, after two court

appearances and going to the supreme court, to regain custody. But that

family is now bearing the cost of it, which is now pushing $18,000.

Somewhere in the system there must be some basic compassion and

sensitivity of the courts, the system that the minister is in charge of

in this province. If in their wisdom the courts, on an application —

though it may have been doubtful if it was completely legal; that is

not important.... The court was faced with an order from the Prince

Edward Island court, and in chambers they accepted it as being

official. The court then ordered a police officer to go with the father

and his lawyer to apprehend a child, and at no time did anyone have the

decency to notify the mother of what was happening. I feel — and I know

the minister is far more competent in knowing all the legal procedures

— that if we're going to have any human rights, we must start with the

family and the children of the family. I know one out of four marriages

is going to end up in divorce, and I know there are going to be many

children who will become pawns of broken marriages. I believe that

protection is needed to take the trauma from an eight-, nine- or

ten-year-old child who is flown back and forth across Canada or who

becomes the centre of a case before judges. Consider a family that is

going to be levelled with a bill of $18,000 to protect their rights. I

think it's important that this government bring in some kind of

legislation so that if the courts are placed in the position of

apprehending the children — I think you know that there are merits both

ways — the child is taken into the custody of the British Columbia

court, the jurisdiction of the courts be protected and then they have a

hearing in British Columbia where both parties together can make their

application.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

[ Page 3012 ]

Last year the Manitoba government did bring in a bill entitled Child

Custody Enforcement Act to cover situations like this. This is the last

letter that I received from the predecessor of the present minister. I

won't read it all, but he did say in his final paragraph:

"Nevertheless, I am concerned that our process does not as a matter of

course provide an opportunity for the respondent parent to be heard

before the child is removed from the province. My staff has made

suggestions for a change of legislation with regard to this point. It

is possible that the difficulties encountered by your constituent in

this matter may result in improved procedures for those who in the

future are confronted with this problem." I waited all through this

session, and every time we had a bill come down, that piece of

legislation did not come down. It was not part of any of the massive

amount of bills that came in. I believe that there is a need for

something of this type for the protection of children and families, and

I was wondering if the Attorney-General has given it any further

consideration. As I say, I won't go through the whole case or all the

other correspondence. What is his position on it right now?

[3:15]

HON. MR. SMITH: That story is really one of a number of very

vexing cases that have occurred in Canada. They have really been a

procedural, interjurisdictional jungle in the area of custody and

maintenance. When you have a divorce pronounced in one province and as

part of that divorce you have an order made either for custody or

maintenance under the Divorce Act, under the old law — that is, the

Divorce Act of 1967, which is still the law — parties had to go back to

the province in which that order was obtained. It was a superior court

order, but in your case it would appear it was obtained in Prince

Edward Island. So if either party wanted to vary the custody or

maintenance part of it, they had to go back to Prince Edward Island,

which is, of course, absolute nonsense. You have a custody order and

the mother, who has custody, and the child move to British Columbia and

the father then goes to Prince Edward Island, gets it varied, and

appears in British Columbia armed with the varying order and tries to

enforce it here.

The jungle that you described can only be dealt with through changes

to the federal divorce act. I'm happy to say that that appears to have

been dealt with in the new bill which was introduced in Parliament

about a week and a half ago. That bill, as I recall, gives jurisdiction

to the court.... The parties can apply in the court where the child is;

that's the natural or normal court for a custody varying. Certainly it

would allow the mother to have access to the Supreme Court of British

Columbia, because she lives here. She could have the matter dealt with

here and wouldn't have to respond to proceedings in Prince Edward

Island. But if the mother had received notification in this case, which

she should have done, even in the Prince Edward Island court there

would have been a chance for her to defend that in Prince Edward

Island, which is not the way it should be. She should be able to defend

in British Columbia. But the new federal divorce act, I believe, will

cure that.

This province could pass all kinds of legislation which appeared to

be progressive in the field of enforcement of child custody and

maintenance, but it still wouldn't address that issue, which under the

constitution is a federal issue because it's an order made as ancillary

to divorce. It would be quite different if an order had been made in

Prince Edward Island under a provincial statute for custody not as part

of the divorce. Then the courts in British Columbia would have had some

jurisdiction, because the child was here. But under the court's

interpretations of orders made ancillary to divorce, the only court

under the old divorce act that had jurisdiction was the court that made

the order in the first place. You could have had both these parties

living in British Columbia, and variation of the order would have had

to take place through an agent in Prince Edward Island at enormous

expense. The whole thing is ridiculous.

I think the federal Minister of Justice has addressed this in his

new divorce bill, and you won't have repeats of that horror. I had

occasions like that in practice; I had people who were put through that

kind of jungle and maze and expense. It's absolutely preposterous, and

it should have been cleaned up a long time ago.

MR. MITCHELL: I agree with the minister wholeheartedly that

it should have been cleared up a long time ago. But what I am really

worried about is that it was courts in British Columbia who gave the

order and instructed the police to attend. They never made any

provisions anywhere along the line, even after the child was in

custody, that the parents should have some knowledge of what has taken

place. This is what bothers me. I know Manitoba has attempted to cover

it with legislation, and I was hoping from the last paragraph of your

predecessor's letter that maybe British Columbia was going to bring in

some type of legislation that would give the B.C. courts custody once

they have entered into it — that once they have endorsed the order of

custody from a Prince Edward Island court, and once the British

Columbia courts have involved themselves in it, they will look at the

very legal point of view that a lot of lawyers look at, but look at the

human side of it: what it does to a family, to the children. I think

it's important that we in this Legislature start looking at things and

giving some protection to people. I don't think this is too far out of

line of modern, progressive thoughts in the community.

Earlier my colleague the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) and

I were talking about different facilities that are needed in the

corrections branch. I know from my previous occupation as a police

officer and as an MLA who does get involved a little more than I should

on problems of families that come into the constituency office....

These are the different types of facilities that we must have to cover

juvenile offenders. I'm not one to promote any privatization of groups

looking after the offenders, but I would like to bring to the attention

of the minister a particular facility that for a short two or three

years was in my riding. The corrections branch and the Ministry of

Health utilized it, but somewhere in the bureaucracy of cabinet the

Minister of Human Resources would not utilize it. It was a facility on

the Malahat; it was run by a George Bullied. Basically it was a

glorified, large sophisticated group home where youth who had gone

through the court system and had been given some type of confinement

were sent. They had their own school system and job training.

I visited it many times with, among other people, the previous

Lieutenant-Governor. They did a lot of job training for those kids

commonly called "street kids" — kids who had been in conflict with the

law and had problems in the home. The problem was that while the courts

and the correction facilities would use this particular group home,

when the sentence finished — and they might be in the middle of

schooling or a particular training program — the Minister of

[ Page 3013 ]

Human Resources would not pick up the cost of

maintaining him there, and the child would be removed to some other

group home closer to the city. It broke up a type of training which,

from talking to some of the people who worked in the school and the

home, and to some of the kids who went through it, appeared to be

successful in that it took a lot of kids who were in conflict with the

law, who had lived on the streets and worked the streets, who had

committed many offences, and brought them into a type of family

relationship that is missing from a typical JDH. You must have some

type of a group home. You must have discipline within it, and it is

important to have some form of training that goes along with it.

What is the minister's approach in dealing with these kids, who have

not had a serious conviction, but in many cases their family cannot

look after them? The typical group home or foster home.... In some

cases the foster homes can't look after the more hardened ones, the

hard-core ones. There has to be something in between, something other

than actual incarceration in a jail, something that is more or less

very free for a typical child who is forced out of a home but is in a

group home; a child who is fairly well settled down and hasn't got to

that wild stage that many of them have. There has to be something in

between. There is a case just this week in my own community office of a

child who's gone from 13 to 17 running away from home, living on the

streets, sleeping in cars, and yet who has never had a conviction of

any type. The RCMP in the Colwood area have dealt with her on many

occasions, but they haven't had sufficient evidence to put her into

jail, to try to get her into the EMI or.... Local foster homes are not

capable of looking after that type of child. There has to be something

in between. We can't wait until they're 17 and enter the criminal

system, and become even more of an expense to society. There has to be

something in between for children who are going through those troubled

years, causing nothing but heartache and expense for the family. There

doesn't seem to be any hope for change at the present time.

What are the minister's views on this, and what does he have in mind for these kids?

HON. MR. SMITH: If, as you describe, this girl has not been

involved with the courts and has not been convicted, this ministry

wouldn't ordinarily be involved. It is a matter that would come under

the Ministry of Human Resources. If they are before the courts, as a

number of them which you saw in your long professional stint in

Esquimalt would have been.... We have quite a range of things in lower

Vancouver Island that are available. They range from community service

supervision to juvenile remand bed space, which is contracted with

private citizens who take the juvenile home while he is awaiting trial

if it's not deemed to be appropriate that that child be with his

parents because he is a runaway, incorrigible, or whatever. There is

bed space contracted for with a number of individuals. We also have a

juvenile residential attendance setup, which is contracted out, in

which there are a number of juveniles. In some cases it's simply

non-residential attendance run by a host of agencies.

You probably are better aware of all of this than I am. I don't know

why I'm telling you this, because I know you've worked with them. The

Kiwanis here in Victoria are involved in that. The John Howard Society

is involved as well on the Island, and some of the churches are

involved. I know that you're really seeking a kind of a social answer

to the question that you posed to me. I think you'd be just about as

able to give that answer as I would. The resources for dealing with the

child that is not before the juvenile court system are only the

resources that are provided by a host of institutions, like churches.

If there's nothing under the Ministry of Human Resources, you're really

thrown back on agencies like Big Brothers and others to try to give

some assistance and guidance. There probably never will be enough

resources to deal with kids who are at that stage — before they come

before the juvenile system. Once they come before the juvenile system,

you've failed at the earlier stage. That's when we come into play. We

get them at the failure stage, and we have that range of facilities

that I mentioned.

[3:30]

MR. MITCHELL: What bothered me was the lack of coordination

between the ministries of the government. In this one particular case

of the 17 Mile Home, or whatever it was called, the corrections branch

utilized them, and they were very effective. The Ministry of Health

utilized them for children who, because of serious injuries, had maybe

mental problems and needed some stricter assistance. But when they

finished that sentence, if you want to call it that, they were cut

loose from an effective rehabilitation atmosphere. They were cut loose

because the Ministry of Human Resources would not carry them on to

either the end of the school year or until they were re-established

into some type of training program. This is what bothered me. All of a

sudden they came to that date and had to be moved out. I feel that if

the corrections branch is going to do a job.... You don't just take a

child and throw him out onto the streets; you try to get him back into

his home or somewhere where he is making some progress. I feel this is

important. If we're going to look at it, we're going to have to look at

it from the total picture of rehabilitation. I know, Mr. Chairman, more

so than maybe you do, and I know the Attorney-General agrees, that

there is a problem. It's not only a grey area it's a black and a brown

area. All kinds of mixed areas are out there in dealing with juveniles.

It's not a simple answer, and it's not something that I want to make

political hay on. I would just like to see that there are some changes

that are going to be constructive.

I have a couple of other questions to ask the minister. We all hear

of the golden handshake in the corporate world when people leave the

corporate structure. I hear a lot of stories, and I know that under the

new revamping of the minister's office a lot of the in-house lawyers

are leaving the ministry. I was just wondering if he could, for the

benefit of this House, outline the various packages that were given to

the lawyers who are going to show the restraint that is being practised

by the department. Is this change in direction really an effective

economic restraint? Is it saving money? Or is it restraint because

that's the go-word? Is it going to cost the people of the province a

lot more money for the services that they are dismantling? I was just

wondering. Without getting into the personalities of the people

involved, for the benefit of the House could he explain the golden

handshake that his ministry is giving to lawyers who are leaving or

staying under different contracts.

HON. MR. SMITH: Regarding the first question about what sort

of packages people are given, that varies so much from individual to

individual. In some cases people have opted for early retirement; we

have that sort of case. We in this ministry have tried to approach the

thing on the basis that

[ Page 3014 ]

we are going to make some reductions in the number

of lawyers inside. We really tried to look for volunteers, and we found

that there were some who indeed were prepared to take early retirement

or go back to private practice, in which case we'd have to take into

account the length of service that they had. Also, we'd take into

account the draft regulations under Bill 3, which the Provincial

Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) has been administering. Or it might be that

this individual who wanted to go back to private practice would do some

of the work they were doing for us on a contract, so that we'd have a

one-year contract with them to provide some of these services. We have

a range of all of those. We have some in each category, depending also

on whether they are civil or criminal.

You asked the question: is this going to be more expensive? I don't

think it's cheaper in the short run. You've got termination costs if

it's an actual termination. If it's a privatization of legal services,

the costs go into a contract. You don't have visible immediate savings,

but I think you do probably get savings down the line. With the cost of

professional employees in government, added up over a number of years

with the various pension benefits that accumulate and the other

benefits, and if you take into account the overhead, the office space

and the support staff required, it really adds up to a considerable

amount. I put the benefits in this area as being more important than

financial benefits down the end of the road, even more important than

the flexibility it gives you. That is, you end up with a mixed system

of justice, so that you have some excellent lawyers in government who

are providing specialized services, and you have lawyers doing work for

you outside who have particular specialities. You don't have to hire

them for a lifetime, but you can call upon them. Suppose you have a

case that involves an international financial transaction with the

Common Market or something like that; you may not have anyone on your

staff who is familiar with Common Market legislation and practice. To

have someone on staff who has that kind of knowledge, who was a

specialist in it, wouldn't be justified by the volume you do. You'd

retain somebody to deal with that for you. It gives you a great deal

more variety of expertise, I guess. It also allows the good lawyers

whom you have to stay with you inside government to perhaps do even

more specialization and to have more interesting work. You could

actually privatize some of the routine work.

I think the mix system is the best: good lawyers inside, some

lawyers on contract and some lawyers who do ad hoc work for you. I

believe in the mix system. Certainly on the criminal side it gives a

balanced approach to criminal law. You won't have a lawyer who has just

worked one side of the street; he has worked both sides of the street.

I think you'd know the benefits of that system, because you've worked

with Crown counsel over a number of years in this town. I like the

balanced system. I'm not saying I would move towards a system in which

everybody was in the private bar, but I think we got too far away from

the private bar.

MR. MITCHELL: I believe that there really hasn't been a

change; we've always had a mix system. If you didn't have an expert

within the ministry, you did go out to the private sector to get

somebody who was an expert. I'm not arguing with that. I think that's

normal with any legal system.

I would like some kind of an example, just to confirm some stories I

hear. For a person who is employed in your ministry as a professional,

for one who went on a contract but stayed within the confines of the

ministry, what package would he receive from the taxpayers to be on a

contract, but still working within the system?

HON. MR. SMITH: There isn't anyone like that, because if he

was on a contract he would not be a public servant. He would have

received a contract to do the work not as a civil servant. There is

nobody who has still got those benefits and is working inside as a

public servant and is also on a contract.

MR. MITCHELL: Maybe I'll put it another way. If a person

signs a contract for one year, I believe he would sign a contract for a

fixed amount of money; or would he sign a contract for so many hours of

service? If he signs a contract for a certain figure, what would that

figure be compared to his wage prior to going out on a contract, and

how would that compare to fringe benefits or to maintaining an office?

Is there anything written in that contract that is arrived at based on

fringe benefits, on salary or on maintaining an office, or services

that the government will provide? To get any figure, have you got any

examples?

HON. MR. SMITH: Yes, I see what you want. A type of example

would be somebody who was prosecuting as a public servant and decided

to go outside and we contracted for him to do prosecuting for us

outside, and to do it exclusively. That person would receive a total

package which was less than the value of what he received inside, but

it would be more than his salary. It would be salary plus maybe 10

percent, possibly a little more, but that would cover the cost of

overhead, the executive bonus plan and other things that he received

when he was a public servant. As I said before, you wouldn't see

immediate dollar savings from that kind of arrangement, but down the

road there are dollar savings, because the commitment to provide

benefits over a long period of time, and a lifetime, is not there.

Also, the nature of the contract can alter. That person might decide

that he wanted to do non-exclusive work, and to do some prosecution for

us on an ad hoc basis for which he would be paid an hourly rate, and

we'd agree to that and he could do other practice. You want an example,

and I'm giving an example of somebody who elected to do that, and we

were prepared to do that because he was a competent prosecutor, we

needed his service, so we would give him a salary plus 10 percent. That

would be an example. He would lose all their other ongoing benefits. He

would possibly have accumulated pension time in there which he would be

entitled to retain or be paid out on.

MR. MITCHELL: You said salary plus 10 percent, giving 1 to 5

percent one way or another. Would that be within 10 and 15 percent?

There's nothing else? Or does it vary?

HON. MR. SMITH: No, it would be within the range of 10

percent to 20 percent. It would vary in individual cases, but that

would be the range. It wouldn't be more than 20 percent.

MR. MITCHELL: You can confirm that it's no more than 20

percent, and there are no other benefits given, like office space,

secretary space, use of government facilities, Xerox, etc.? Once they

get their salary plus their 10 to 20 percent to cover their costs, are

there other costs or benefits thrown in for those lawyers who are

working full-time in the service of the minister?

[ Page 3015 ]

[3:45]

HON. MR. SMITH: I think I should correct something I said

about exclusivity. We have some exclusive contracts and have had them

for some time. These people that I'm describing would be expected and

required to do a full-time volume of work, but they wouldn't be

exclusive. Yes, we do have some people who are in the transition

period, because this just occurred — are making use of some of our

facilities and office overhead, rather than receiving a payment for

that. That's considered to be a transitional matter. I don't anticipate

that it will be a longstanding, continuing arrangement. They will have

to make arrangements to provide their own quarters. It was more

efficient in some cases to do that because we had the space and the

equipment available. So we haven't been rigid on the thing and said:

"Okay, you're going out on a private contract; don't put your fingers

on the Dictaphone again, and this empty office is going to stay just

like this." We've tried to be sensible and reasonable, and where we had

an office and equipment available we made an arrangement on that basis.

So you will have some that are by arrangement actually using the

equipment and office of publicly leased space. That's correct.

MR. MITCHELL: What you're saying is that there is no hard and

fast rule for what happens when lawyers move out. When it comes to

cutting staff, it will say that so many lawyers have been cut off, but

hidden away somewhere in other estimates will be the cost of the

contract, the cost of maintaining that office, the cost of the

dictaphone and the Xerox machine and whatever else goes in there.

In the past I believe that within many ministries lawyers were hired

on contract to do a special piece of proposed legislation. I believe

Consumer Affairs had a lot of legislation they were working on and

hired lawyers to do that independently of anything else.

There is one other question I would like to ask the minister. We

have heard a number of reports that you're going to privatize the

sheriff's branch and various parts of ministries. Have there been any

contracts or discussions within the ministry covering the

transportation of prisoners by private individuals within British

Columbia independently of the sheriff's office?

HON. MR. SMITH: No.

MR. MITCHELL: That's direct. I just wanted to check it out.

So there has been no consideration of anyone else having a contract to

transfer prisoners. What I'm really worried about is the jurisdiction

of an outsider, who is neither peace officer nor police officer, having

custody of prisoners. On the American side of the border contracts have

been given to transport prisoners back and forth from state to state. I

was just checking a story that I heard. The minister confirms that

there has been no discussion within his ministry, or no contracts given

for the transportation of prisoners within British Columbia outside of

the sheriff's office?

HON. MR. SMITH: No, we haven't any contracts with anyone to

transport prisoners or deal with the escort function. We're not

negotiating any, either.

MR. BLENCOE: The whole issue of prevention programs in the

AG's ministry may have already been raised by our critic. However, I

would perhaps like to delve into something a little more detailed,

which is not just a matter of concern to this community and to

constituents but which happens to be a personal interest of mine: the

whole question of prevention in the area of those who come at risk with

the law. One of my particular interests — not only as an MLA, but it's

one I had before I got involved in politics — is the whole question of

diversion. I think the minister is probably aware that for a number of

years I worked on diversion and alternative programs, trying to find

ways to divert first offenders from the court system, and sometimes

from the entanglement of the various bureaucracies involved in courts

and officialdom.

Mr. Minister, it's my understanding that the diversion program is on

somewhat of a hold, and that you have funded or agreed to continue

funding to the end of March, I believe. Before I get into some

background on diversion — I'm sure you're probably aware of it, but I'd

like a discussion of it — could you give us your thoughts on diversion

and the possibilities of having this kind of community and prevention

program continue in the city of Victoria? It is a particularly unique

one and, indeed, has been recommended to continue by a number of

people. It is well supported in this community by lay people and

professionals. Mr. Minister, perhaps you can relate the state of

diversion and what you plan for it.

HON. MR. SMITH: Early in my term of office there was a

serious look taken at not continuing to fund the Victoria diversion

centre, which I intervened in. We did and have continued to fund the

diversion centre, and we did an evaluation of the effectiveness of the

centre — not really the effectiveness of diversion. I don't think I

need any study on that. My own view is that you have to have more

diversion. Our prosecutors and police have an important responsibility

also in diversion. I think diversion centres can be really useful, too,

but diversion begins and is effective if everybody in the justice

system is part of it. The member for Esquimalt, I am sure, did his own

diversion, too, when he was in the saddle. Certainly I did some when I

was prosecuting at various levels.

The centre is being evaluated for its effectiveness, but I can

assure you it's not an evaluation of diversion; it's an evaluation of

how we're doing diversion and how we deliver diversion services and

whether we're effectively diverting enough people. I'll make an early

announcement on it this year. We won't have what we had last year,

which was quite a bit of uncertainty that continued on through the

spring and summer. Ultimately we really just had a continuation of the

funding without an announcement.

MR. BLENCOE: The minister, I am sure, is probably well aware

of the facts and statistics that I'm going to utilize, but I think

they'll be useful. I would like to put them into the record in terms

not onIv of my feelings about it but the position of our party in terms

of the effectiveness of such a diversion centre. I'm going to use the

statistics that have been provided by the Victoria Diversion Centre.

The director, Polly Steele, is highly regarded in this community, and

I'm going to use some of the things she has said about her program.

I could go into all the social impacts of diversion and the merits

of such programs in terms of helping young people and adults to deal

with a first offence and the consequences immediately. For instance,

often when I was involved there

[ Page 3016 ]

we would take the client back to meet the victim to

make some direct apology and offer direct consequences for their

actions. Given the nature of the government and its desire in these

difficult times to control budgets, I would like to talk a little bit

about the financial implications. The elimination of the centre really

does not make much financial sense.

If there had been no community diversion centre in Victoria in

1982-83, there would have been an additional 875 accused appearing in

provincial or juvenile courts than there actually were. If these people

had all entered guilty pleas and took only one hour of the court

system's time, it would have cost a minimum of $299 per case. If these

accused were represented by a lawyer appointed by legal aid, the cost

would be increased to $420 a case. If, as it is highly possible, the

accused were placed on probation, the cost per case would be $757.

These costs are based on figures arrived at through a costing exercise

done by the policy planning branch of your ministry, Mr. Minister. The

breakdown is as follows. These are June 29, 1983, figures that may have

gone up a little: Crown counsel is $45.84 per hour; a judge is $96 per

hour; support staff is $58 per hour; and the facilities cost

approximately $100 an hour, for a total of $299.84; a lawyer through

legal aid is $120 per case; an adult probation officer is $338 per

case, to make the figure of $757.84. By comparison, the community

diversion program cost per case is $106.12. This figure was arrived at

by simply dividing the funding and the clients served.

If the 875 people who were diverted through the community diversion

centre in Victoria had been prosecuted in provincial court, the cost to

the Ministry of Attorney-General would have been between $262,360 and

$663,110 — a fairly substantial amount of money. As it was, because of

the existence of the diversion centre, the cost was $92,852. If we took

the figure I quoted, between $262 and $663.... Say we took a figure of

$400,000; you have saved the taxpayers of British Columbia $300,000. I

would add, of course, that the recidivism rate — and I know that when I

was there, we used to make reports and studies and keep track of our

clients — was indeed low compared to the normal procedure. I think you

are aware of that.

It's apparent that the continued existence of the community

diversion centre of Victoria is in keeping with the government's wish

to save the taxpayers' dollars. Also, the implications in terms of the

social benefit derived from this particular kind of program — community

based, community serviced, immediate consequences for action, working

very closely with family and child counselling, the probation service

often overworked.... According to my colleague the official critic,

we're going to be eliminating some probation officers. That would make

their responsibility even higher in terms of trying to deal with these

kinds of cases.

[4:00]

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I think it's incumbent upon the minister not only to consider the

social ramifications of eliminating this program and the benefit given

to this community — young and old, older clients being dealt with in an

efficient and effective way — but also in terms of dollars. It is an

effective program.

One of the things about the staff who worked there and continue to

work there is the many hours that are put in after hours. Often it's

not necessarily because of the salary. It is a feeling of commitment to

community and to younger people and trying to do something about some

of the more unfortunate things that are happening in our communities

and our society. They are trying to turn younger people around, early

in the stage of what we know can become a second or third stage and

then into serious crime. Having worked in that system, I have seen all

levels and can recall quite vividly talking to those who were into

serious crime about what wasn't available at an earlier stage — what

they didn't get. If there had been the sort of thing that we were doing

and the kind of work we were doing, the opportunities might have been

there to turn many thousands of young British Columbians away from

crime. For many it has unfortunately become a way of life.

I think it is growing because of the economic recession. I would

urge you, Mr. Minister, to consider that on a financial basis the

diversion centre makes sense. It has served this community for well

over ten years. I don't know if you know this, but it was started by

the Sisters of St. Ann, who got things going and then phased themselves

out, returning the project to the community. In my estimation and in

the estimation of thousands of Victorians, this program should

continue. Just looking at the dollars — I'll ask you to respond to that

— it makes sense. I know you are looking at this program, and the

evidence is there. The studies have been done. I think the

professionals beside you — your deputies — probably support such

programs. It's very important that we find the $92,000 or $100,000 in

the upcoming budget, so that the centre can continue to do its work.

Mr. Minister, perhaps you could say today that financially it makes

sense and that there is no reason why this program could not continue.

HON. MR. SMITH: We are certainly aware of the good work that

was done by the Sisters and the good work that the diversion centre has

done over the years, including educational work at Wilkinson Road and

the efforts that have been made with a number of first offenders. I am

not going to announce the 1984-85 spending decisions. I can't do so,

even if I wanted to. We undertook in the spring that we would evaluate

the centre and the delivery of diversion, and that's what we're doing.

We are most supportive of the principle of diversion and of the notion

that the community should be involved in diversion, that the police and

the prosecutors should be involved and should have input into diversion

decisions. Without their input we're not going to achieve reductions in

first offenders on non-serious matters who can, from time to time, come

before the courts.

I can remember so many cases in my day in the criminal courts in

Victoria which involved first-offence shoplifting that would come

before the courts and that were particularly sad because they often

involved a senior citizen. That was before there was any diversion

concept, or formal diversion concept, and these people came — or didn't

come, really — depending on the interest of the investigating officer,

or maybe the attention of the prosecutor. If the prosecutor got a

chance to look at it before it came forward.... But I think that we've

moved quite a distance from that, and that our prosecutors and our

police now have a very watchful eye for this process. I certainly

acknowledge that the centre has done good work. You've been involved in

that, too, in the not too distant past.

MR. BLENCOE: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Given the limits on your being able to comment about the upcoming

[ Page 3017 ]

budget, I think we've got a fairly good answer. I

think there's some kind of support for this kind of program. I hope I'm

not being too optimistic.

I have a couple of other issues, but maybe I just want to touch on a

philosophical question. One of the things that often happens — and my

colleague has probably mentioned it — in the criminal justice system

with the consequences for actions in terms of criminal activities is

that we do indeed put out millions and millions of dollars into the far

end of the system. We continue to do it. We deal with the prison

system, and we know that all the costs of keeping a prisoner are quite

horrendous. I'm afraid, for a number of reasons — and I won't go into

them today — that we continue to provide millions of dollars at the end

to deal with the consequences of breaking the law. My colleague from

Esquimalt is, I'm sure, also well aware of this.

Mr. Minister, I'm wondering if you could perhaps enlighten us a

little bit on your feelings about the whole question of prevention

programs. Is it your intention — and again I know we're talking about

budget items — to try to turn this unfortunate circumstance around? We

seem to always find sufficient funds to deal with the problems at the

end; maybe we should be giving far more serious attention to the whole

question of prevention programs. Instead of putting $92,000 here,

$100,000 here, and $10,000 here, we could put $100 million into a new

penitentiary, or.... Well, you know what I mean.

We struggle to find some paltry sums for some of these programs that

often can't be measured in statistics initially, because what they do

sometimes is somewhat abstract. It may take five or ten years to see

that result, and governments are obviously looking to short-term

solutions, because that's the nature of government. You want to get

re-elected again; you want to show the public you're doing something

immediate. However, I think a responsible government and a responsible

Attorney-General should be looking at putting more emphasis on

prevention programs. As I say, we can find $100 million very quickly

for the deal at the end of the problem, but we struggle to find a few

dollars at the beginning.

Mr. Minister, my question to you is: is it your intention in the upcoming years

to see if you can find a lot more funds for these particular prevention programs?

I think we've all recognized that that's the way to go. There are many

who have always doubted these prevention programs and have said they're

no good or that they don't work, but even some of the heaviest critics over

the last few years — and even some of the most cynical police chiefs, for example

— have changed their opinions. I think we're beginning to recognize that

we've got to put a lot more effort into prevention programs. Mr. Minister,

can you indicate to this House whether you will be putting a lot more money

into these kinds of programs?

HON. MR. SMITH: Well, the subject is one that it's very easy

to expatiate on in a general and supportive way. But when you start to

get down to specifics, governments are maybe not as good at dealing

with or supporting preventive services as they might be. I guess that's

partly because so much of our budgets go to.... In the case of justice,

they certainly go to offender maintenance and not offence prevention.

So much of the health budget goes to illness maintenance and not to

illness prevention, and so on. I think that's a shame, but governments

across the country have tended that way. What you normally get in the

preventive field are hopeful initiatives and high-profile promotions,

and you try to look for some kind of real delivery in that field. There

hasn't been enough real delivery. I went to a national crime prevention

award ceremony here in Victoria — I don't think you were there, It was

prior to Christmas; actually, it was Grey Cup weekend — I remember it

well. It was held here in town and Mr. Kaplan came out and presented a

number of national crime prevention awards. In some cases those were

given to community groups that had actually had some concrete and quite

good achievement — the sort of thing we have supported. We have

supported a number of juvenile crime prevention projects. The Saanich

police have been active in this, and now I think all the police forces

in Victoria are interested and active in this. The Victoria Boys' and

Girls' Club have been active as well. We have supported seminars. We

support the B.C. Crime Prevention Association; I've had a chance to go

to one of their meetings. A number of projects have been supported and

have been valuable in our communities, including the most obvious ones

we're all familiar with: Neighbourhood Watch, Kids on the Block and

Marine Watch. All of these are excellent programs. Some care is now

being given in the design and planning of new towns like Tumbler Ridge

to ensure that they are laid out from a standpoint that will reduce the

opportunity for crime and will produce less opportunity for property

crimes anyway. So I guess what I'll be looking for is some real

initiatives and not just some rhetoric. If we can do some concrete

things there, I would be most open to prevention suggestions. I really

would, because I don't think the record across the country in this

field is great. The rhetoric certainly is, though.

MR. BLENCOE: A second-to-last little issue. An ad appeared in

the newspaper today, February 1, 1984: "B.C. corrections branch.

Submissions invited." It's basically the move to privatization, and one

of the particular programs affected is the attendance program. Sixteen

employees in Metchosin, that's my understanding. I am wondering, Mr.

Minister, with your move to — I hate this word "privatize," good Lord!

— your change of direction in terms of government, do you foresee that

this particular program that is to be taken over by somebody else other

than government...? Do you see any particular service cuts as a result

in this particular move? Are you prepared to allocate the same number

of dollars to whoever takes it over as you have allocated under

government expenditures?

HON. MR. SMITH: No. Most fervently, no.

[4:15]

MR. BLENCOE: I presume that means you're going to cut back

and that there's going to be less funding for this particular kind of

program. Is that what you're saying, Mr. Minister? You're saying going

out of government is going to be cheaper.

HON. MR. SMITH: I tried to deal with this in some other

areas. Cheaper in the long run. Probably not much cheaper in the short

run. But to have the programs delivered outside of government should

not — from our planning, anyway — reduce the service. It may provide us

with a chance to have some changes and improvements, but we're most

mindful of the fact that the service ought not to be reduced, and we'll

endeavour to ensure that that happens if we embark on that change in

direction — I don't want to use the word either because I've used it so

many times. No, that's our main

[ Page 3018 ]

concern: that we're going to be able to deliver the

same kind of service, maybe even with some improvements. Over the long

run I think it'll be cost-effective. I don't promise that it'll save a

lot of money immediately, because of the reasons I gave to the member

for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell). There's a startup cost in

any kind of privatization.

MR. BLENCOE: That was going to be my last question on this particular topic.

Will you be able to clearly document the swings you think you'll be

able to make? The reason I ask that is because one of the problems of

going outside, of course, is that you tend to set up a second-level

administration. You already have your own administration that this kind

of program can come under — you're already administering a lot of other

programs; it's a small amount — and what you're doing is going

somewhere else where there will be administrative costs to set up, and

that sometimes isn't taken into account. It may initially look like

you're saving money in your ministry, but the fact is that with startup

costs and other levels of administration the savings are not that

great, and the service that is carried out may not be as effective.

You've indicated that perhaps there may indeed be some reduction in the

kind of service given by this system. Can you answer that, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. SMITH: I think the point is well taken. It certainly

concerns me any time we're going to privatize that we're not just doing

it for the sake of the exercise or because we're in love with the

concept, but that we're going to be able to get some improvement,

hopefully, as well as lessen the number of people that we are

permanently committed to as employees.

In the field that you're interested in — attendance programs and

correctional programs in the field — we've been doing this to some

extent in British Columbia for quite some time. The experience with a

number of the societies is that they often handle these better than we

do. They don't build up large bureaucracies; they utilize a number of

volunteers and can deliver the service well. I think of the work that

both the John Howard Society and the Salvation Army have done in these

fields, which is quite exemplary. I know exactly what you're speaking

of where there have also been experiences where societies in this

province have done social service work on contract for government. They

have not been cost effective; in fact, they have been exactly the

opposite. We certainly intend, in this ministry, to try to manage that

very closely, but I have some of the same trepidations which you have

raised.

MR. BLENCOE: To change to another topic. A well known centre

in this town is the Law Centre. The question of legal aid is creating

some concern, and I won't go into that because somebody else may.

One area is creating some concern in terms of the Law Centre, and it

may be that you cannot comment totally, because I believe it does come

under another ministry, the Ministry of Universities, Science and

Communications. We understand that there is some question that the

university law student program is in some jeopardy in terms of the

students that are provided to the Law Centre. If that indeed happens

and that law student program is eliminated, it will be a devastating

blow to the Law Centre, Mr. Minister. I'm wondering if you could

comment on that and whether you've had discussions with your colleague

who is responsible for that particular funding. Are you doing your

utmost to ensure that the law student program continues?

HON. MR. SMITH: I'll look into that. That program started at

the Law Centre at a time when I was one of the founding members of the

board that ran that centre — in fact set it up. I was very much

involved in it — both the university aspect and the aspect of being a

legal aid director provincially, which I was at that time as well. It's

been a part of the program at the UVic law centre that if you opted for

the Law Centre program you got credit for it. It was a credit program.

If anyone was thinking of not having that program, that would be a

decision that the law school and the university would make. It wouldn't

be a decision that my colleague would make. I guess it might be argued

that it would be as the consequence of some funding decision that he

was to transmit to them. I certainly support that program and will make

my representations. I'm glad that you raised this and will certainly

make my representations, both to the dean and to the university, and

I'll inquire into it. I suppose in the rumour mill that precedes any

budget you get these kinds of notions. It may be that the university is

looking at that as one of the things they could do to reduce costs. But

I would hope they wouldn't do that, because it provides a great deal of

expertise and assistance to the delivery of legal aid in Victoria. It's

really vital, I agree with you.

MR. BLENCOE: This is my last question. You are quite correct

in some way that the university has said it is having a funding

problem, but the dean of the Law Centre has indeed said that it is a

factor, and that they may indeed not have the funding to continue this

particular program. Hopefully, Mr. Minister, you will be able to take

that up with the dean and see if we can find the adequate funds to

ensure that that program does continue.

MS. SANFORD: I as well want to refer to an ad which appeared in today's Times-Colonist ,

inviting submissions from private agencies, persons or corporations to

provide a community service order program in Courtenay and Nanaimo. I

think the minister is making a very serious mistake in attempting to

make the kinds of changes that the ad indicates the government is going

to undertake in replacing the current program in the Courtenay area —

with which I am quite familiar — with something that is going to be

carried out through some private agency or corporation.

The minister indicated to us that he is concerned that across the

country there is not enough interest, enough financial support, for

preventive-type programs. As my colleague from Victoria pointed out,

when that happens society has to pay by putting up an increasing number

of jails and cells in order to accommodate those people who have not

had the kind of diversion program or the service that is being so well

provided in the Courtenay area right now.

The particular program that I'm familiar with is one that has been supervised

by the corrections branch. The employee in charge of that program has operated

it for six years. It's very successful. The person who is in charge has

been innovative. He's very respected in the community. Now you're telling

us that in order to fulfil some perceived political or philosophical need —

probably both — you are going to put in less money; you are going to award these

private agencies the right to carry on these programs. Even you, Mr. Minister,

[ Page

3019 ]

have indicated that you have some concern about the kind of service that might

be delivered through this new approach that you're taking. There's tremendous

turmoil in that whole corrections branch right now because of the ads and the

setting up of a new program of this type.

The probation officers in the Courtenay area have a huge workload.

They have a large number of cases. They look to this program providing

community service as one of great assistance to them. The job is being

well done now. If the minister is concerned about the way in which the

work is being done in some communities.... He has already indicated

that he wants more money to put into corrections, to put into

prevention. If he is concerned about some areas, then look at those

areas and see what can be done, but don't eliminate a program that has

been so effective in my area simply to fulfil that perceived political

need that has been talked about so many times by this government.

I'm very disturbed by the actions of the minister with respect to

that particular program. I am hoping that the minister will reconsider

and will look at some of these programs. If they working well, let them

be. Already we have young people in great turmoil because of the

economic difficulties of their families, the lack of work, all of these

problems. To add this kind of problem is to me a very shortsighted,

shoddy approach by government in its political desire to carry out a

particular philosophy.

HON. MR. SMITH: Having these orders and caseloads supervised

by private individuals or agencies is not something new. In fact,

one-third of the orders in this province are administered that way

already, including the service in Campbell River.

MS. SANFORD: Not Courtenay.

HON. MR. SMITH: No, that's quite right, not Courtenay. But I

hope the energetic individual in Courtenay who now provides that

service will apply. But that is the intended direction that we are

going to follow, and we'll follow that direction, bearing in mind, I

think, the concerns we all have: to make sure that the service is

performed properly and faithfully and cost-effectively.

[4:30]

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Chairman, I just received a call from my

constituency, and I believe this is the minister who is responsible for

Indian matters and for negotiations with Indian bands to resolve the

McKenna-McBride cutoff lands question. Am I right in that? Assuming I'm

right in that, I'll carry on.

I've just received notice from the Ohiaht Indian band that they are

concerned about the delays in negotiations taking place to restore to

them the lands near the Sarita reserve in my area. I'll just read a

release that the band has put out today. It says:

" In 1913 the federal and provincial governments set up

the McKenna-McBride commission to 'adjust' the acreage of Indian reserve

lands. It was felt the Indians had too much land for the number of people living

on and using it. A meeting was held at Sarita Indian reservation between the

Ohiaht people and members of the royal commission. All Ohiaht people were there

and voiced their opposition to the removal of 600 acres bordering the valley

of Mount Blenheim. The Indian act then and now provided for the removal of lands

on one condition: that the majority agree to the said removal.

"The majority of the Ohiaht people at this meeting

were against the cutoff of this 600 acres of treecovered slopes. The

minutes of the meeting proved this. Since then the Ohiaht band has been

negotiating with the federal and provincial governments for the return

of this land, for compensation for resources removed, for the loss of

use of the land and for punitive damages.

"The federal government has agreed to return the land

to us. The provincial government must compensate us for the loss of 600

acres of top-grade virgin timber which was logged off. Both governments

must pay us monetary compensation for legal expenses and loss of use of

the land.

"To date the provincial government appears to be using

'stall tactics' " — and that's what I'm concerned about, Mr. Chairman —

"to avoid their legal obligations. The Ohiaht people are a patient

people, but every person has a limit to their endurance."

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the minister what meetings have taken

place between his ministry and the Ohiaht people. What is the reason

for the stall tactics by the government? They're avoiding their legal

obligations to restore the lands to the Ohiaht people and to compensate

them for the loss of the benefit of the use of that land over the

period since it was taken away from them illegally under the Indian Act.

I am told that the Ohiaht band is now planning to block the road

between Port Alberni and Bamfield, and I think this is a matter of some

urgency. I hope the minister will at least meet with the band,

reinstate negotiations and be serious about completing the negotiations

for the restoration and compensation of this property to the Indians.

HON. MR. CHABOT: When was it logged off?

MR. SKELLY: It was logged off after it was taken away from

the Indians, I understand. Perhaps the minister can answer that

question when it is your turn to ask the minister a question.

I hope, Mr. Chairman, that the minister will advise me if he will

meet with the Ohiaht band and make every effort to speed up

negotiations so that the Ohiaht claim over this land will be resolved.

HON. MR. SMITH: I'll respond in a few minutes when I have a

report on that. We have completed negotiations on Indian cutoff lands

with a number of bands, as I think you are aware. Those are tripartite

negotiations which involved the federal government, ourselves and the

band. Those negotiations were fruitful in relation to a number of

bands. I actually attended some settlement announcements in Vancouver

in the latter part of last year with John Munro and with the chiefs. I

know that we have ongoing negotiations on other cutoff land claims that

are outstanding. They are three-level. I don't know of any that we have

refused to take

part in or to be prepared to negotiate, because there

is an obligation there under the legislation that was passed in the

1880s and under the constitution. It flows from the McKenna-McBride

agreement. So we have participated in those. But I can't give you an

exact answer on the specific concern of your band, but I may be able to

do so in a few minutes. I think what we

[ Page 3020 ]

probably better do is pass this on to someone else, if you agree; then I will respond to you.

MR. SKELLY: Could I just add one more comment. If the

minister has been a participant in the announcement of some of the

settlements under the McKenna-McBride cutoff lands negotiations, would

he become involved in furthering these negotiations so as to avoid any

kind of cutoff of the community of Bamfield in my constituency, which

may result from the frustration of the Indian band in pursuing these

negotiations?

HON. MR. SMITH: Certainly I will look into the matter, but I

would not respond to threats to block a highway or do anything like

that. Neither would I accelerate matters because of that, nor would the

member, if he had the responsibilities that my colleagues have on this

side. I will get a report on those negotiations so that I can inform

him through the House as quickly as I am able.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I'm really anxious to get the new

budget and to look at the new estimates. A lot of the questions that I

have to ask; in view of the fact that the money for this year has

already been frittered away one way or another, seem almost like an

exercise in futility. I'm going to do everything I possibly can to

expedite the bringing down of that budget.

Rather than pursuing this, I am going to set an assignment for the

minister in preparation for his 1984-85 estimates. I'm going to come

back to the corrections question, Mr. Chairman. I will have had an

opportunity at that time to see whether or not any of those

recommendations and warnings issued by the commissioner were in fact

heeded.

I have real concerns about the decision to privatize the community service order program. Mr. Ted Harrison said in the Sun ,

January 12, that the branch will probably hire an inspector to ensure

the services provided by the contractors meet standards required by the

government. However, I've been through this blue book, which was handed

out at the meeting I attended, and nowhere can I find any indication

that the government intends to hire an inspector or inspectors to do

that, nor that there is going to be any preference given to non-profit

organizations that apply for contracts. So I'd like a quick response on

that, and would let the minister know I am going to be monitoring that.

I want to spend a lot of time in the upcoming estimates on the legal

services to children — what is happening to the detention centres, the

lack of remand centres, as well as camp facilities for young women

offenders.

Maintenance orders. Now that the new divorce act is down and they're

not doing anything about it, I want to know what the A-G is going to do

about enforcement. It's now out of the hands of Human Resources and

into the hands of the Attorney-General.

What are you doing to the funding of the Justice Institute? What

programs are going to be eliminated there? Also, do you have a detailed

historical analysis of the Vancouver Status of Women council and its

contribution to the lives of women in British Columbia? If not, before

you make a decision on their funding for 1984-85, I want to see to it

that that information is in your hands.

My final question has to do with sheriffs. I have a report here with the questions

marked, but since I can't find it.... My colleagues have been hiding

stuff on me, Mr. Chairman. There were some questions having to do with sheriffs.

That's the report that he was just handing you, and you said no. I have

some questions on that in terms of their qualifications and the powers they

were going to have. As I say, I have mislaid those questions at this time, but

I'll be coming back with them. Also, a special plea to protect the funding

for the native courtworker program — no further erosion of that program.

With those remarks, Mr. Chairman, I want to send the

Attorney-General on his way with that little assignment, and tell him

that I look forward to meeting again.

Vote 9 approved.

Vote 10: administration and support services, $65,728,532 — approved.

Vote 11: Superior and county judiciary, $1,894,887 — approved.

Vote 12: provincial judiciary, $9,078,651 — approved.

Vote 13: police services, $72,599,391 — approved.

Vote 14: court services, $42,906,470 — approved.

On vote 15: corrections, $79,176,813.

MR. HOWARD: From listening to the debate, obviously we need something corrected in the corrections branch.

Vote 15 approved.

Vote 16: legal services to government, $9,821,996 approved.

Vote 17: criminal justice, $15,053,323 — approved.

Vote 18: statutory services, boards and commissions, $33,660,320 — approved.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS

On vote 41: minister's office, $143,879.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'm not going to make a long introductory

speech regarding my spent estimates. I would be very happy to respond

to questions from the opposition.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Chairman, I just can't believe the minister's

statement that he is not going to make a speech introducing his

estimates. We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the

Ministry of Forests. The forest industry is having some of the most

severe problems it has experienced in the last 30 years under this

minister....

AN HON. MEMBER: Confine your remarks to the leadership.

MR. SKELLY: I am confining my remarks to leadership and the

fact that this minister has done a terrible job as Minister of Forests.

This minister, when he's outside the House, talks about accountability,

and yet when he stands up in this House he says he's not going to

explain his estimates.

[ Page

3021 ]

How much money are we spending in the Ministry of Forests? My first question

is: how much money are we spending under these estimates?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, we don't spend money in the Ministry of Forests; we invest it.

[4:45]

MR. SKELLY: I suppose that's an example of the kind of flip

and foolish response we get from a minister who is responsible for the

most important industry in the province. People in the forest industry

and the Forests ministry go around this province saying they're

responsible for 40 to 50 cents out of every dollar transacted in the

province of British Columbia. We just can't afford that kind of

flippant response from a minister who has jurisdiction over the most

important resource and the most important industry in British Columbia.

It simply doesn't make sense that the minister isn't willing to provide

at least an overview of what his ministry has been doing over the last

year for which we've been expending this money. The minister may call

it investment. Whatever he chooses to call it, whatever newspeak has

been applied to the term, it's still expenditure from the point of view

of the taxpayer, and the people of this province at least deserve some

accounting from the minister as to his performance in this ministry. It

simply isn't enough for him to stand up in the House and say he's not

going to say anything about the tremendous amount of money that has

been expended on behalf of forests in this province and that he's only

willing to answer questions.

Mr. Chairman, this is my first opportunity as Forests critic to deal

with the minister's estimates and to examine his performance, and

there's not much in his opening speech against which I can measure his

performance. So maybe what we should do is go back and look at some of

the obligations that are placed on this minister by his legislation and

by some of the statements he has made establishing goals and objectives

of the ministry. The only thing we really have to work on are the

objectives spelled out in the Forest Act and in the Ministry of Forests

Act. I was looking through them a few minutes ago, and in the ministry

act it says under

section 4:

"The purposes and functions of the ministry are....to

"

a) encourage maximum productivity of the forest and range

resources in the province;

"

b) manage, protect and conserve the forest and range

resources of the Crown, having regard to the immediate and long-term

economic and social benefits that they may confer on the province;

"

c) plan the use of the forest and range resources of the

Crown, so that the production of timber and forage, the harvesting of timber,

the grazing of livestock and the realization of fisheries, wildlife, water,

outdoor recreation and other natural resource values are coordinated and integrated

in consultation and cooperation with other ministries and agencies of the Crown

and with the private sector;

"

d) encourage a vigorous, efficient and world-competitive

timber processing industry in the province; and

"

e) assert the financial interest of the Crown and its forests

and range resources in a systematic and equitable manner."

Mr. Chairman, I think if you go through those functions and purposes of the

ministry, as far as I'm concerned you'll find that this minister has

not performed properly or in accordance with the functions and purposes prescribed.

The minister is also required under the Forest Act to manage the forests of the province in specific ways.

"'Subject to the regulations, a Provincial forest

shall be managed and used only for (

a) timber production, utilization

and related purposes; (

b) forage production and grazing by livestock

and wildlife; (

c) forest oriented recreation; and (

d) water, fisheries

and wildlife resource purposes."

So the minister has certain obligations in the management of

provincial forests that are spelled out under the Forest Act as well.

At least during the opening of his estimates in the Legislature, the

minister should be advising the people of this province through the

members of the Legislature exactly how he has performed in the last

fiscal year in accordance with the purposes, functions and objectives

specified for him under his legislation. Yet we see no willingness on

the part of this minister to be accountable under those sections of the

act and to explain to the people of this province how well he has

performed. Have the forests been returning the necessary funds to

provide for the services that the people require? Have the forests of

British Columbia over the last year been providing even the money

necessary to replace the forests, to maintain them in good condition

and to pass them on to future generations? Those are the

responsibilities of the ministry, and the minister refuses even to

stand up in this House and tell the members of the Legislature how well

he has performed that function. Has he, in accordance with the

requirements under this act, provided the economic resources that the

people of this province require to carry on their services, and has he

been a good steward of the resource on behalf of the owners of that

resource, the people of the province?

Analyzing the material from the minister, the newspapers, forest

companies and organizations concerned about this province over the past

year, it is my opinion that over the past year this minister has failed

to perform in a competent way on behalf of the citizens of British

Columbia and to fulfil his role as steward of our forests. He has

failed to manage our forests competently and to ensure their

replacement for future generations. He has failed to improve

utilization and to eliminate waste in the forests. He has failed as a

competent manager of forest lands, recognizing that those forest lands

consist of a complex ecosystem in which a number of values are

represented, including those fisheries, wildlife and recreational

values that are described both in the Ministry of Forests Act and in

the Forest Act. He has failed to achieve an adequate return to the

people of the province on the investments made in the forest industry

and in our richest resource, the forests. He has failed to maintain

employment for citizens of British Columbia in the forest industry and

in the various programs required to replace the forests and make sure

that the resource is passed on intact or in an enhanced condition to

future generations. He has failed to provide adequate opportunities to

small businesses in this province in order that they may carry out

their objective of earning a legitimate profit while creating jobs in

their communities. The minister has failed in that part of his role as

well. He is managing the forests of this province, not from an economic

perspective, not from the perspective of making an adequate return to

the people of this province, but from an ideological perspective

[ Page 3022 ]

in the same way that this government is managing everything else.

Look at the way this government manages wolves in this province — in

such a brutal and insensitive way, without providing information to the

public, without consulting with the public. This minister manages the

forests in about the same way. Totally incompetent. I'm talking about

the process of management, the necessity for accountability and the

necessity to provide information to the public. On the basis of good

stewardship, on the basis of commitment to the people whom he was

elected to serve, this minister has failed in his role as Forests

minister. He has failed to consult the public in an effective way.

Look through the five-year forest and range resource programs and

look back to 1980, when we first began to bring out some of these

reports. The ministry's goals were clearly stated in these five-year

forest and range resource programs. On page 3 of his first report he

talked about the Ministry of Forests being responsible, as part of the

government, for increasing employment opportunities, for increasing

real incomes, for ensuring stability in employment and incomes in both

the long and the short term, and for achieving a greater degree of

regional balance in provincial economic development.

Will the minister even stand up at the first of his estimates in

this House in a new year and explain how he has met those objectives in

his ministry's functions over the last year? How has the expenditure of

moneys by his ministry met those objectives of increasing employment

opportunities, of increasing real incomes, of ensuring stability in

employment, and of achieving a greater degree of regional balance in

provincial economic development? He has been able to achieve none of

those things. In fact, I think he's lost sight of those objectives that

were first stated in his forest range and resource management programs

back in 1980.

On the same page he says:

"In British Columbia the public seeks to establish a stable,

diverse and healthy society which satisfies human needs and allows each individual

to contribute in his own way. The ministry can contribute to the present and

future well-being of residents of British Columbia. For example, through responsible

resource stewardship the forest and range resources will be passed on in a productive

state to succeeding generations."

The minister could have at least reported how well the ministry is doing in

replacing the forests that have already been logged and in replacing the forests

on lands that up to this point have been non-satisfactorily restocked. The minister

has an obligation to make this kind of a report to the people of this province.

Just a few minutes ago I asked the minister when the annual report

for the Ministry of Forests is to be released. The last one we have was

for the fiscal year 1981-82. He answered that he's prepared to release

that report now — when we're dealing with the estimates for 1984-85.

There is a four-year gap in the information that has been provided by

this minister to the people of this province. We want to know just what

this minister has done during the past few years and how he has managed

the forests in keeping with his stated objectives in forest management

in the province.

He has changed a little bit in outlining the objectives of the

ministry. In the most recent five-year report, 1983-88, instead of

talking about improving real incomes, increasing employment

opportunities, balancing regional economic development, the ministry

now has a new and a more ideological objective. Here is what the

ministry is now talking about in terms of its five-year program for

1983-88: "In this context the priorities for the Ministry of Forests

have been set to reduce the size of the ministry." He could at least

explain to us how that's going to contribute to the achievement of his

objectives previously stated. "To increase the role of the private

sector." How is that going to help achieve regional balance in economic

development, real incomes and employment for the people of British

Columbia? "To aid, enhance and support the economic recovery of the

forest sector" — and he says that it is these priorities that are

reflected in his five-year program. There is no statement of concern

about the quality of the forests and forest resources; no statement of

concern about jobs for the citizens of this province or about regional

economic development or increasing real incomes. The only statement of

concern we hear, the only priorities we see here, are that the

government should turn the operations of our forests over to the

private sector. That's the priority of the ministry. It