1998/99 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 36th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1999

Afternoon

Volume 15, Number 19

[ Page 13219 ]

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Today in the members' gallery we have some very special

visitors from India. His Excellency Rajanikanta Verma is the High Commissioner for India

to Canada, and he's accompanied by his wife Mrinalini Verma and also by the consul general

of India, Atish Sinha. Would the House please make them welcome.

M. de Jong: Madam Speaker, let me also say welcome on behalf of the opposition

to His Excellency and Mrs. Verma, and Mr. Sinha. We did have an opportunity -- yourself

included -- to have lunch, and Mr. Verma's skill as a diplomat is matched only, I think,

by his ability to withstand an assault by Betty's whipping cream dispenser. So bravo.

G. Bowbrick: Joining us in the gallery today is Amanda Wheeler, who is the

vice-president external for the Douglas College Student Society and is a constituent of

mine in New Westminster. I think she's here today to see some debate on the Tuition Fee

Freeze Act, and I'd ask all members in this House to join me in making her welcome.

S. Orcherton: Joining us in the gallery today are representatives of the Camosun

College Student Society, Local 75 of the Canadian Federation of Students. Chris Green,

Jason Lockston, Troy Sebastian and Meadow Allen are with us. In addition, from the

University of Victoria, a good friend of mine and a tremendous community activist not only

at the university on student's issues but also in the community, Linda Szasz, is with us.

I'd ask the House to make all of these young people welcome to these chambers.

R. Thorpe: It's with great pleasure today that I introduce my legislative

assistant's assistant, Raveena Sidhu, who has just graduated today from the University of

Victoria. In the House today with her are her grandmother Daljit Sidhu, her mother Kulwant

Sidhu, her sister Monica and her brother Gurjeet. I would ask the whole House to give

Raveena congratulations and to welcome the Sidhu family to the Legislature.

L. Stephens: In the precincts today we have about 45 grade 7 students from

Langley Fundamental Middle School with their teacher, Mr. Johnson, and a group of parents.

Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. A. Petter: There are in the gallery today a number of students from various

educational institutions joining us for committee stage on the Tuition Fee Freeze Act.

It's my pleasure to introduce Mark Veerkamp, who's the B.C. chairperson of the Canadian

Federation of Students; Maura Parte, who's the B.C. representative on the national

executive of the Canadian Federation of Students; and Michael Gardiner, who's the B.C.

organizer for the Canadian Federation of Students. With us today from the University of

Victoria Students Society -- and members, as well, of Local 44 of the Canadian Federation

of Students -- are Morgan Stewart, Summer McFaden, Rob Flemming, Kari Worton, Linda Szasz

and Rich Tones. I'd ask the House to make all these students feel very welcome.

[1410]

Hon. D. Streifel: Touring the precincts today are 36 grade 6 and 7 students from

Ferndale Elementary School in the constituency of Mission-Kent. They're accompanied by

their teacher, Ms. Cheater. I bid the House make these folks welcome.

G. Hogg: We have in the galleries 37 delightful students from South Meridian

Elementary School; they're grade 5 students, and they're here to learn everything that we

have to teach. They're accompanied by 13 parents and helpers and their teachers, Ms.

Hammell and Mrs. Menrai. Would the House please make them welcome.

G. Campbell: Today we're recognizing students, and I rise to ask the House to

join me in recognizing the accomplishments of four young women from Vancouver-Point Grey:

Robyn Massel, Olivia Maginley, Katie Mogan and Patricia Lau. All of them are students at

Point Grey Mini School, and they've won first prize in what is described as the world's

largest science competition for kindergarten-to-grade-12 students. Their team was one of

4,000 to enter the Toshiba-NSTA ExploraVision award program, and they were the only

Canadian team to place in the finals.

These young women won the grade 7 to 9 category for their woven engineered bone system,

which is a treatment to combat osteoporosis. They'll each receive a $10,000 scholarship

for their efforts, but I think that they would all far more greatly appreciate the

appreciation of this House. Would you join me in congratulating them.

Hon. S. Hammell: I'd like to join the member for Surrey-White Rock in welcoming

the children from South Meridian Elementary. I would especially like to welcome not only

Mrs. Menrai but my best friend and sister Val Hammell.

W. Hartley: I have a couple of introductions. The first one is a school group

from Fernwood Elementary School in Bothell, Washington. There are some 24 grade 6 students

here with some adults. They're with their teacher, Ms. Cortes, and they're learning about

comparative government and local history. Would the members please welcome them.

K. Krueger: With us in the precinct today are two experts on pensions: Mr. Greg

Hurst, a pension consultant, and Mr. Harry Satanove, an actuary. I ask the House to please

make them welcome.

Hon. J. Kwan: I'd like to introduce a constituent from Vancouver-Mount Pleasant,

the vice-president external for the Simon Fraser Student Society, Local 23 of the Canadian

Federation of Students, Marki Sellers. Would the House please make her welcome.

W. Hartley: Visiting us is a representative from the Douglas College Student

Society, Local 18 of the Canadian Federation of Students, and a constituent of Maple

Ridge. Her name's Sarah Hossick. Would the House please make her welcome.

J. Dalton: Last weekend, my graduating classmates and I -- of the West Vancouver

fortieth graduating class -- celebrated an event, and one of my closest friends came out

from Toronto with his wife. He had to go back to work because he's the superintendent of

financial institutions in

[ Page 13220 ]

Ottawa, but very kindly, he allowed his wife to remain. She is a Victoria native, and

typically, as a Victoria native, this is her first visit to the precincts to see question

period. Would the House please welcome a very dear friend of mine, Tad Palmer.

[1415]

I. Chong: Today I have two sets of introductions. Firstly, I would like to

introduce two fine women for whom this is the first visit to the Legislature. They're not

my constituents. One of them is a constituent of the member for Saanich South and one of

the member for Saanich North and the Islands. I met Shirley Marshall and Helen Bartesko

many years ago when they were employed at the North and South Saanich Agricultural

Society, the society that is responsible for organizing the oldest agricultural fair in

B.C. -- the Saanich Fair. Would the House please join me in welcoming Shirley and Helen to

these chambers.

Hon. H. Lali: I too would like to join the hon. Attorney General and the member

for Matsqui in welcoming our guests from India. As they say in India: " Swagatum ."

Would the House please join me in once again welcoming our guests from India.

L. Reid: My guests in the gallery today are here to attend the forty-fourth

annual Community Living conference. They are folks that are fiercely dedicated to

advancing the issues for their young people in our communities around British Columbia.

They are: Cathy Waddington, president of the B.C. Association for Community Living, from

Port Alberni; Norma John, vice-president of the B.C. Association for Community Living,

from Smithers; Bonny Klovance, board member for the B.C. Association for Community Living,

from Salmo; Bob Keill, vice-chair of the B.C. Federation of Families, and on the

management committee for Families for Mentally Handicapped People, from Vancouver; Richard

McDonald, chairperson of the self-advocacy caucus for the B.C. Association for Community

Living, from Powell River; and Joe Viscount of the provincial advisory council, from

Prince Rupert. I would ask the House to please join me in offering our kindest welcome.

Hon. D. Lovick: We've had so many introductions that I almost feel obligated to

say welcome to everybody who hasn't been mentioned, but I do have a specific introduction,

if I may. Seated in the members' gallery today are four representatives from the Malaspina

Students Union Society, who are also, of course, members of Local 61 of the Canadian

Federation of Students. Joining us today are Mr. Steve Beasly, Ms. Heather Currie, Mr.

Daniel Perkins and Ms. Theresa Sabourin. I'd ask all my colleagues to please join me in

making these people welcome.

J. Sawicki: I have a constituent from my riding. His name is Ben Williams, and

he's a representative from the King Edward Students Association at Vancouver Community

College -- Local 76 of the Canadian Federation of Students. I've known Ben since -- well,

actually, long before he was able to drive. He's been an articulate youth activist in the

party and in the community. He has since become a very accomplished opera singer. I would

like the House to please make him welcome.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I've been in the Legislature about nine or ten years, and I

want to say that it does seem like a long time sometimes. But for the first time, my

closest neighbours, the people who really run the ranch when I'm away, are here -- Melody

and Dan Hamblin, with their daughter Mary Hamblin and a friend, Paul Haller, who's from

Victoria. Please welcome them.

I. Chong: I would like to introduce a second set of individuals for whom this is

not their first visit. In fact, they've been here many times, but they are so enthused

about question period that they're here again. They are the UVic B.C. Young Liberals, and

they are Jennifer Burnett, Herman Cheung, Jon Duncan, Raymond Lau, Janet MacKenzie and

Duane Woytowich. Would the House make them welcome yet again.

T. Stevenson: Also in the Legislature today is a member of my constituency,

Ulrich Naresingh. She is a representative from the City Centre Student Association at

Vancouver Community College, Local 73. I also noticed Michael Gardiner, who is on my

executive, and he's with the Canadian Federation of Students. Would members make them

welcome.

[1420]

F. Randall: In the gallery today are two individuals from the Burnaby Association

for the Mentally Handicapped, which does an awful lot of important work in the community.

There's the president, Kevin Lusignun, and the executive director, Jack Styan. Would the

House please make them welcome.

The Speaker: Are we sure there aren't any more introductions? As the Minister of

Labour said, welcome, all of you who haven't actually been identified.

Oral Questions

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO CHILD,

YOUTH AND FAMILY ADVOCATE REPORT

G. Campbell: In 1997 and again in 1998 I pledged the cooperation of the official

opposition to work with the Ministry for Children and Families to make sure that our

children in care in British Columbia had their needs met. Unfortunately, the government

rebuffed that offer. Earlier this week the children's advocate reported that we are

failing our children in British Columbia. And rather than listening to her advice and

learning from it, the Minister for Children and Families rebuffed her information as well.

In fact, hon. Speaker, what she said was that the advocate was wrong.

My question today to the Minister for Children and Families is: will she immediately

convene a standing committee on children to bring together all those in British Columbia

who are concerned about the plight of children in need in the province of British Columbia

so that we can come up with a plan that will put children at the top of the list?

Hon. L. Boone: I want to make it very clear that right from day one I've never

said that this ministry doesn't need to have things worked on, that we can't improve and

that we can't deliver things better. We've always said that. However, I do reject -- and I

said no to -- the fact that . . .

Interjections.

[ Page 13221 ]

The Speaker: Members . . . .

Hon. L. Boone: . . . the advocate said we were failing children in

British Columbia. We have not failed children in British Columbia. In fact, we have served

children in British Columbia very well.

We have some statistics that I think show exactly how well we have in fact served

children in British Columbia. Since 1995, SIDS death has been reduced by 44 percent; low

birth weight has gone down by 3.8 percent; infant mortality is down 30.5 percent; teenage

mother rates are down 23.9 percent; mortality rates for five-to-14-year-olds are down 14.3

percent; and indirect alcohol-related deaths for children are down 56.4 percent.

The Speaker: Thank you, minister.

Hon. L. Boone: Can we improve? Of course we can improve. Can we work on things?

Of course we will. Will we look at the recommendations from the advocate? Of course we

will. And we will continue to work on behalf of all children in the province of British

Columbia.

The Speaker: First supplementary, Leader of the Official Opposition.

G. Campbell: If we are indeed going to serve the children of British Columbia,

we are going to have to listen to and learn from the children's advocate, and we're going

to listen to the people -- like the people who are here today, who provide front-line

services to help our children in the province of British Columbia. As the child and family

advocate reports, these front-line workers are tired and disillusioned with a government

that is more interested in bureaucratic realignments than with the care of children.

My question to the Minister for Children and Families is: will she work directly, in

direct partnership, with these care providers -- with these people who provide so much

service to children across the province of British Columbia, in community after community

-- to make sure we have a plan that is stable and that will work for all the children of

the province of British Columbia?

Hon. L. Boone: Of course. We continue to do that. Just last year the ministry

put in place a table for the community living sector, for example, to work with us on a

provincewide basis. We have, at the local levels, community living councils. We have a

community living council that . . .

[1425]

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members . . . .

Hon. L. Boone: . . . works with me. We will continue to work with

any organization out there that wants to work with us to try and find ways that we can

deliver services in a way that meets the needs of most British Columbians. It is no secret

that there are pressures out there; there are dollar pressures. We need all of our

partners out there to come together to work with us to find out how we can deliver

services on behalf of all British Columbians to children in this province.

LOG COSTS AND FOREST INDUSTRY JOB LOSS

G. Abbott: Today PricewaterhouseCoopers delivered their annual report card on the

forest industry in British Columbia. Once again this government got an F. Once again they

failed the forest workers in British Columbia miserably. In fact, this report says at the

outset that in 1998 the British Columbia forest products industry reported its poorest

financial performance since the inception of this report in 1986.

The report . . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, members. The member for Shuswap has been recognized and

has the floor. If others wish to gain the floor, you know what you have to do.

G. Abbott: . . . also identifies one of the principal reasons for

the billion-dollar losses in 1998: "B.C. lumber shipments to the United States are

being restricted because the cost structure in British Columbia is too high . . . . "

Will the Minister of Forests admit that his government's high-cost policies continue to

rob thousands of forest workers in British Columbia of their jobs?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: That, unfortunately, is . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members . . . .

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: . . . a recycled report. PricewaterhouseCoopers

made their forecast known several months ago. There's nothing new in this report. And if

the member would read the report, he'd know that 90 percent of the losses have to do with

the pulp industry, not with exports to the United States.

G. Abbott: The thing that's not new here is a government that continues to drive

log costs through the roof and drive thousands of forest workers onto the unemployment

line. This is a government that's always first in line to claim credit . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

G. Abbott: . . . for decreases but last in line to claim

responsibility for the log cost increase in this province. In fact, this report states

that reduced logging activity in high-cost areas accounted for the majority of decreased

cost. Will the Minister of Forests admit today that B.C. remains one of the highest-cost

producers of forest products in the world and that the modest reductions that he's brought

in to date have done nothing to put the thousands of laid-off forest workers back to work?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The losses that the members opposite speak about are the same

losses that we had in the last

[ Page 13222 ]

recession in 1991. There's been a 6 percent reduction in harvest due to the market

problems, and as a result, there was a 6 percent reduction in employment last year. But

since last year -- since that information was available -- we've reduced the cost to the

industry by a billion dollars by reducing stumpage. We've reduced the red tape to have

further savings. Industry has recognized that, and the result is that, year over year,

jobs are up by 300.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE SURPLUS

S. Orcherton: The federal government's employment insurance surplus today sits in

excess of $20 billion. That's more than the entire provincial budget for the province of

British Columbia -- the surplus.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order!

S. Orcherton: In 1987, 74 percent of workers were eligible to collect benefits

in Canada. Today 36 percent are eligible to collect benefits in Canada.

The Speaker: The question?

S. Orcherton: Hon. Speaker, $752.9 million has been sucked out of B.C. -- out of

B.C. communities and out of B.C. workers' pockets -- because of changes to the

Unemployment Insurance Act, and off-loading has occurred in British Columbia in that

regard.

[1430]

The Speaker: The question?

S. Orcherton: My question is to the Minister of Finance. Will the Minister of

Finance tell us today, in this House, what steps . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order! Let's hear the question, members.

S. Orcherton: . . . she will take to express our outrage and

opposition to federal government EI cuts that require employers and workers to pay

premiums, with only a small number -- 36 percent -- of British Columbians being able to

reap benefits?

Interjections.

The Speaker: The members in the House would like to hear the answer. Order,

please.

Hon. J. MacPhail: The work our government has been doing on this very important

issue, not only for workers who need the employment insurance fund but for businesses as

well, started with the previous Minister of Finance. When the surplus that the federal

government was withholding -- not only from workers but from small and medium-sized

businesses as well -- became apparent, we started lobbying the federal government. And I

continue, both on a one-to-one basis with the federal Minister of Finance and also at

provincial finance ministers' meetings, to do two things: one, restore the benefits that

particularly affect British Columbians because of our seasonal nature of work -- British

Columbians are actually much more adversely affected because of our resource-based

industries; and secondly, reduce the premiums, which will greatly assist small business.

We joined with small and medium-sized businesses to call for a reduction in premiums,

which will assist workers as well.

The last thing that will benefit British Columbians is that . . . .

The Speaker: Finish . . . .

Hon. J. MacPhail: A reduction in payroll taxes that won't harm British Columbia

revenues is exactly what we want.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT POLICIES ON PULP SECTOR

P. Nettleton: According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, B.C. continues to be among the

highest-cost producers in the region. Our pulp competitors -- Sweden, Finland and eastern

Canada -- have lower delivered costs than we do. How can the Minister of Forests expect

employment to increase when his government's policies are driving up costs to the point

where we can't compete globally?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The fact is that we don't have the highest costs in terms of

the cost of fibre to our pulp mills. If the member chooses to do a bit of research, he'll

find out we're far from being highest-cost in terms of fibre. Why do we have high fibre

costs in British Columbia? It's because of the practices of the past -- because they cut

the easiest and the best. Now it's tougher: you've got to go up the hills and get the

timber. You've got to go into the sensitive areas and get the timber. Why? The thinking,

the old thinking on that side of the House, was the thinking that got us into this

trouble. Is it any surprise? No, it isn't.

The Speaker: First supplementary, the member for Prince George-Omineca.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

P. Nettleton: It's interesting to hear the minister talk about the past. I think

it's probably time the minister went back to the ranch and left the forest sector to this

side of the House.

According to Mike MacCallum of PricewaterhouseCoopers, B.C.'s pulp sector will have to

shed another 4,000 jobs in order to stay competitive. Will the Forests

[ Page 13223 ]

minister explain to these pulp workers why his government continues to put their jobs

at risk with its policies of heavy-handed regulation and high taxation?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Order, members.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Hon. Speaker, the taxation that affects the pulp industry in

British Columbia -- primarily the cost of fibre and stumpage -- is very low on chips, so

that's not a factor. The policies of this government that affect the major inputs to the

pulp sector are very low . . . and that's reflected in studies, if the member

chooses to look.

EFFECT OF UNLICENSED LOTTERY ON CHARITIES

G. Hogg: Last September I informed the Attorney General that an unlicensed lottery

called Lottostakes was operating in B.C. and hurting legitimate licensed charitable

organizations -- organizations like the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation -- that operate

within B.C.'s rules. Sgt. Don Smith of the Vancouver police department's gaming unit says:

"Lottostakes is in clear violation of the Criminal Code of Canada." Can the

Attorney General explain why this high-profile but unlicensed lottery continues to be

allowed to operate within British Columbia?

[1435]

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We have a case currently before the courts that's testing the

enforceability of the Criminal Code

section that deals with this issue. We also know that

obviously it's up to the police officer and officers that are aware of the matter to

conduct the investigation. I'm actually shocked that a police officer would write to the

opposition member to ask me to do something about a criminal matter, when it's really the

jurisdiction of the police to operationally deal with these matters.

As well, hon. Speaker, we have actually started a campaign. We started it some time

ago, under the Trade Practice Act, to actually shut down some of these companies and

freeze their assets instantaneously, pursuant to court orders. That has been successfully

done in British Columbia.

Tabling Documents

Hon. C. Evans: I have the honour to present the annual reports of the Ministry of

Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for '96-97 and '97-98.

Ministerial Statements

PACIFIC ESTUARY CONSERVATION PROGRAM

Hon. C. McGregor: We are currently celebrating Environment Week in British

Columbia, and World Environment Day is upcoming on June 5. It gives me great pleasure to

highlight the achievements of a unique conservation partnership that's centred here in

British Columbia. This partnership, which is called the Pacific estuary conservation

program, has been recently honoured with an international award from the Ramsar convention

on wetlands. This program is a coalition of seven governmental agencies and three

non-profit organizations. They include the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks;

Environment Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Ducks Unlimited Canada; Wildlife Habitat

Canada; the B.C. Nature Trust; and the habitat conservation trust fund.

Since its creation in 1987, the Pacific estuary conservation program has preserved more

than 50,000 hectares of private and public land along the coast of British Columbia.

That's an area the size of Delta, Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond municipalities combined.

These protected habitats -- which have been secured through either land acquisition, the

creation of nature reserves or stewardship agreements on privately owned land -- are

critical for the millions of waterfowl and shorebirds. They are also home to many species

of fish and other wildlife.

The convention on wetlands was signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, and it is an

intergovernmental treaty. It provides a framework for action and cooperation between

signatory nations for conservation and the wise use of wetlands. I'm pleased to inform the

House that in a ceremony in San Jos�, Costa Rica, on Monday, May 10, the Pacific estuary

conservation program was honoured with the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award for 1999 in

the government and non-government coalition category.

These awards were first established in 1996, and they recognize and honour the

contribution of individuals, organizations and governments around the world that promote

conservation and the wise use of wetlands. I'm sure I speak on behalf of all British

Columbians when I say that this international recognition serves as a further reminder of

our responsibility to work together to preserve our legacy as Canada's most biologically

diverse province. As well, I believe it reinforces the immense practical value of the

partnerships we've created, such as this, in achieving lasting results for our

environment.

I'll inform the House that we're circulating a brochure and a booklet about the Pacific

estuary conservation program to all members of this House.

[1440]

M. Coell: I would like to, on behalf of this side of the House, add our

congratulations to the Pacific estuary conservation staff and volunteers, who provide a

very valuable service to British Columbia. I would also like to say that of utmost

importance for the Delta area right now is Burns Bog. I would hope that the minister would

take initiative with the Pacific estuary conservation program to see if we can preserve

this bog in its entirety through the means that they have at their disposal.

The men and women who work in this program support Environment Week and World

Environment Day, and they do that all year long. They are to be congratulated for that,

and I would add our congratulations to them on this award -- one of a number that they

have received.

[ Page 13224 ]

TRUCKER APPRECIATION WEEK

Hon. H. Lali: This week is Trucker Appreciation Week in British Columbia. The

trucking industry has asked us to take note of two points during this week. One is that

truckers put a high priority on road safety. Despite long driving distances and

challenging conditions, B.C. truckers have a good safety record compared with all other

classes of drivers. The second point is that working in the trucking industry is

physically and emotionally tough. Truckers' jobs often demand that they spend time away

from their families, and this work provides the rest of us with the food on our tables and

the tools we need to do our jobs. I would like to appeal to hon. members and all British

Columbians that if you meet a trucker on the road this week, please give them some room

and wish them well.

D. Symons: It's a pleasure for me to join in this salute to the trucking

industry on behalf of myself and the Liberal opposition. I think a good number of us

happen to go shopping in the stores and so forth, and we really don't consider that those

goods got there by the trucking industry. Indeed, so many of the necessities of our lives

are carried to stores and other locations for us by the trucking industry, and it's

something we simply take for granted. So it's very nice that we set aside a week where we

end up showing our appreciation to those who perform that particular duty.

I think the trucking industry has a very good record for accidents -- that is, a low

record of accidents. The unfortunate thing for the trucking industry, I guess, is that

when a truck is involved in an accident -- particularly some of the bigger rigs -- it's

much more visible. You can have 100 car accidents, but you remember the one trucking

accident you see. Their record is much better than the automobile driver on a

per-mile-covered basis. The trucking industry does well that way.

Interjections.

D. Symons: We must have some ex-truckers in the audience here as well.

I think we should just all remember that the trucking industry is vital to our economy.

We thank all those who are involved in the trucking industry and indeed all those who are

involved in the transportation industry in this province.

Orders of the Day

Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Committee of the Whole to debate Bill 59, the Tuition Fee

Freeze Act. In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. For the information of the

members, we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and

Culture.

[1445]

TUITION FEE FREEZE ACT

The House in committee on Bill 59; W. Hartley in the chair.

section 1.

J. Weisbeck: This is the fourth year we've had the opportunity to speak to the

Tuition Fee Freeze Act. This particular act covers the year from April 1, 1999, to March

31, 2000. I think that we had an opportunity in second reading to express our views.

There's really nothing new in this act that I wish to canvass. Once again, for the fourth

consecutive year, we will be supporting this act. That's all I have to say.

Sections 1 to 6 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

Hon. A. Petter: I'd ask that the committee rise and report the bill complete

without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

Bill 59, Tuition Fee Freeze Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time

and passed.

Hon. D. Lovick: I call second reading of Bill 58.

PENSION BENEFITS STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT, 1999

(second reading)

Hon. D. Lovick: It's my pleasure to move second reading of Bill 58. As hon. members

are well aware, the Pension Benefits Standards Act sets conditions for employment pensions

in B.C. It's worthy of note, I think, that assets in B.C. pension plans, including the

public plans, total some $47 billion. B.C. employers and employees contributed about $750

million to their pension plans in 1997. With almost 1,000 pension plans in B.C., more than

450,000 active members and 200,000-plus former and retired members, it is imperative that

government ensure that all available protections are provided for fund managers and for

pension plan members.

The amendments we are presenting are unanimously recommended by the Pension Benefits

Standards Advisory Council, a representative group of leading pension experts. They

recommend these amendments as essential to the immediate and long-term health of B.C.

pension plans and to member protection.

[1450]

We believe that the changes will provide flexibility to encourage the growth of

employer pensions in B.C. We will achieve greater flexibility by, among other things,

allowing the development of flex-plans and specifying the rules under which those plans

will be administered; by permitting additional voluntary contributions by plan members; by

amending the locking-in provisions; by permitting regulations to be developed that would

allow a multi-employer plan to suspend benefits of a member who took an early retirement

pension and returned to work in the same trade or occupation with an employer who had not

contributed to the plan; by increasing options available for portability of benefits; and

by permitting the withdrawal of surplus funds with member consent, thereby encouraging the

creation of employer-funded pension plans.

We also think the changes being introduced here will reduce costs to employers, as well

as red tape, by doing a number of things -- again, some examples: by eliminating the

[ Page 13225 ]

need for review of certain documents by the pension standards branch; by allowing the

superintendent to reject a portion of a plan amendment and to permit the administrator to

continue to administer the non-offending portions; by exempting non-resident plan members

from locking-in requirements, thereby reducing administration costs for plan managers; and

by increasing portability.

The changes we're introducing will also increase protection and enforcement in a number

of ways: first, by clarifying the duties owed by plan administrators and their agents to

the members to act in good faith, in a prudent manner and without conflict of interest; by

requiring that pension plan investments are invested prudently and that plan assets are

held for the benefit of the plan; by deeming contributions that are due or remitted by the

employer to be held in trust; by extending the notice of plan termination requirements to

potential beneficiaries, such as a surviving spouse, if the plan member has died; by

increasing disclosure and retention-of-record requirements; by requiring an employer who

is not insolvent to pay any solvency deficiency on the windup of a pension plan; by

providing regulation-making authority to change penalties for late filing of materials

required under the act; by allowing the superintendent to (

a) issue directions for

compliance, (

b) pursue an action under the act or on behalf of a pension plan member, and

(

c) appoint an administrator on termination of the plan; and finally, by requiring the

provision of audited financial statements from pension plans in certain circumstances.

One of the amendments being introduced here is a change in the definition of

"spouse" to permit spousal benefits under a pension plan to same-sex spouses

living in marriage-like relationships. This amendment will ensure that those who pay into

pensions have equal rights, regardless of the nature of their spousal relationship.

I should note that this is a change which parallels other amendments that were

introduced in July of 1998 to four public service pension plans and also have some

parallels to amendments that were introduced in 1997 to the Family Relations Act. The

common denominator in each of those pieces of legislation was to say that we will not

discriminate against same-sex couples. Rather, the benefits that are owed to one member in

what we would call a normal relationship -- a marriage relationship -- will also extend to

the partner in the same-sex relationship where there is a marriage-like relationship.

I expect that some members will have difficulty with this. Certainly that has been the

case with the last two amendments we introduced. I respect those differences of opinion,

but I want to make very clear that what we are doing is partly, of course, driven by what

the highest courts in the land have told us -- because of the fact that . . . .

We believe that if we don't do this, we will in fact be subject to constitutional

challenge. But also, frankly, we believe that this is the right thing to do. We think that

discrimination on the basis of one's sexual preference is absolutely unacceptable, in the

same way that discrimination of the basis of race or colour or religious persuasion also

ought not to be tolerated in a free and civil society.

I'm sorry to report that not all other jurisdictions in this country have followed our

lead. Rather, I think some are waiting for the courts to tell them to do so. Some others,

I have heard, are even contemplating Charter challenges -- to perhaps invoke the

notwithstanding clause. We think that's a mistake. We in British Columbia are rather proud

of the fact that we as a government are taking the position that says that we are opposed,

inherently and passionately, to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

[1455]

I sincerely hope that all members of this chamber will think seriously about the

importance of the amendment and recognize, whatever their own preferences and biases and

prejudices might be, that this is essentially about fairness. It's about equality; it's

not about special treatment for anybody. I sincerely hope that members opposite will also

show their support when we vote on this particular bill.

I should also add that there a couple of technical amendments -- rather minor in

nature. There are some technical amendments to clarify provisions relating to the new

vesting rules that came into effect in July of 1998. There are some technical changes

which will bring B.C.'s legislation in line with recent changes to the federal Income Tax

Act. There are also a number of

definitions provided here that will be consistent with

other legislation and/or current practice. With that, I am looking forward to comments

from members opposite and to having a good debate on the finer points of this bill, which

is ultimately a very technical bill. We probably won't have much debate; rather, we'll be

looking for clarification for the most part.

With that, hon. Speaker, I would move second reading.

K. Krueger: The minister has said that we won't have much debate. The minister

is mistaken. This is a terrible bill. Bill 58 is an attack on pensioners and on workers.

I'm astonished that an NDP government would introduce this bill and attack the people that

they have always held themselves forth to be the protectors of and the representatives of,

as they've gone hither and yon spreading false news about official opposition positions on

labour issues and organized labour. Here we have an NDP government literally attacking the

people that they have always referred to as their friends.

In the government communications on this bill to date, it's mentioned almost as a

peripheral matter that this bill gives the NDP, in cabinet, authority to suspend pension

benefits of pensioners when they are caught working. If they've gone out somewhere to

supplement what are often meagre pension benefits -- found themselves a job, perhaps

started a small business -- and if they get caught by Big Brother, they will find their

pensions suspended. What a shocking thing! Of course, the bill is very lean on detail,

because the cabinet will have that authority by regulation -- orders-in-council.

The bill itself wasn't put out for any public review before it was tabled in this

Legislature. The pension industry wasn't given any warning that this was coming down the

pipe. I'm sure that members of labour unions, retirees and people on pension benefits

weren't given any warning or any chance through their associations to respond to this

attack on their rights, attack on their security, attack on what they thought they had

prepared and had set by in store for themselves. Perhaps they agreed to certification in

the workplace in the first place because they were told that the union would help them

have a helpful, even lucrative, pension arrangement when they reached retirement age.

Little did they ever suspect that the big union bosses and the NDP would collaborate to

level this sort of broadside on their security and the security of their families. It is a

shocking thing.

[ Page 13226 ]

I wonder if the NDP backbenchers were silent on this because they didn't read this bill

or because they just weren't told about it. Maybe they were told not to read the bill. I'm

absolutely astounded that an NDP government would table legislation like this. There is

not another jurisdiction in Canada that would allow this -- not one. This government is

fond of criticizing, for example, the governments of Alberta and Ontario and making them

out to be anti-worker. Ontario and Alberta don't allow this sort of attack on pensioners

and on workers. What an absolutely astounding thing!

[1500]

It was only last year, in April 1998, that a judgment came down in a court in British

Columbia where the superintendent of pensions in B.C. had been taken to court by the Sheet

Metal Workers Union, who wanted to be able to do this to people. The superintendent

stoutly defended the rights of the pensioners and the workers -- as she should -- and she

won. The style of cause is "Board of Trustees of the Sheet Metal Workers (Local 280)

Pension Plan v. Sheet Metal Workers' Union (Local 280) and Superintendent of

Pensions." And the superintendent did her job. This union had been caught having

suspended a worker for the great offence of working while he was on pension benefits.

Canadians have every right to expect that once they begin receiving pension benefits,

they will have that pension for life. That's what they count on; that's what they make

their commitments on. When they decide to buy a house and take out a mortgage, when they

decide to buy a car, when they decide whether they're going to fund their children at

university, when they decide whether they're going to contribute to the textbooks that

their children use in school because this government doesn't provide enough money to

schools to provide textbooks to the children, when they make all of those decisions about

their families and their lives and their lifestyles, they don't think for a moment that

some government's going to come along and rip them off for their pensions -- the pensions

that they've counted on all their working lives.

The superintendent of pensions, in a February 13, 1998, affidavit, said this -- which

is similar to what I just said: "There are no jurisdictions in Canada that allow

pension plans to suspend the pensions of members who go to work for employers not

participating in the pension plan." None -- not another jurisdiction. These people

opposite are always talking about right-wing government, making right-wing governments out

to be -- if there is such a thing -- anti-labour. It is so false. This government opposite

is always accusing the official opposition of not having the interests of labour at heart.

But here, when the rubber meets the road, where the government gets to control the agenda,

and government gets to decide what legislation's coming down the pipe, what do we see? We

see the NDP coerced once again, apparently by big union bosses, bringing down legislation

that attacks pensioners, attacks people in the senior years of their lives -- people who

were never expecting that any government in B.C. would do this to them. What a shocking

thing!

The superintendent went on in her evidence to note that according to the reasons for

judgment, the Sheet Metal Workers Union planned for a vesting of rights in a member once

the member had completed two years of continuous membership in the plan. The

superintendent said that it is a well-settled rule of statutory

interpretation, that there

is a presumption against interpreting legislation in a way which would interfere with

vested rights. That's what she argued in her defence -- and in this government's defence.

She quoted Justice Dickson in the Gustavson drilling case as having said: "The

rule is that a statute should not be given a construction that would impair existing

rights . . . . " The superintendent was giving that evidence defending the

B.C. government. Now the B.C. government's bringing on legislation in Bill 58 which the

minister didn't expect us to want to debate. I would think that his whole back bench would

get up and debate this. I would think they would have an emergency caucus meeting. I can't

believe they're putting the boots to pensioners and to workers. What an appalling thing!

The superintendent went on to say that where the application of a provision would

interfere with vested rights, the courts refused to apply it -- as they should -- unless

there is evidence that it was meant to apply despite its prejudicial impact. Now this

government's setting out to provide that evidence. They've tabled a stinking bill in this

Legislature to provide that evidence -- that they mean to let their buddies in the

building trade unions and other unions do this to pensioners. They mean to allow them to

go after their pensions. The superintendent successfully defended it, saying that. The

Labour minister says: "Whoops -- didn't we show the courts that we'd like our buddies

to be able to do this? Well, I guess we'd better do it in the summer of 1999."

[1505]

Of course, this government actually tried to do it in the summer of 1997, when we had a

different Labour minister -- when Bill 44 was tabled in this House and contained this very

same provision. When that Labour minister was asked why he had tabled such a bill, what

did he say? What did he tell the public through the media? He said: "Well, I guess it

was something that the unions felt they were entitled to." He sounded ashamed. He

quit as Labour minister; he left. The man had honour; the man had dignity. The man had

this

section and the whole Bill 44 pulled, hoisted, taken off the order paper -- full

retreat. That time the unions didn't get what they wanted.

The superintendent goes on to say -- and I will leave it to you . . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Hon. members, comments from members' seats are not appropriate now

or at any time. The member has been recognized and has the floor. Hon. members know the

rules. Your objections can be made at the appropriate time in the appropriate way -- from

your seats is not appropriate.

Member, continue -- but with some caution, please.

K. Krueger: Hon. Speaker, thank you. And I trust that you'll pay close attention

to what that minister has been saying. It's very offensive.

I'll carry on. I'm quoting from the court record. The minister says it isn't the truth.

The court continued: "The superintendent submits that the primary purpose of the

legislation" -- that's the legislation we're amending; the superintendent said it,

and the court agreed before this act came in, Bill 58 -- "is to protect the

individual member . . . . " The Legislature, when it enacted the existing

act, wanted to protect pensioners, wanted to protect workers. That's exactly what that act

did in this case, where the Sheet Metal Workers Union came after one of their own --

formerly one of their own.

[ Page 13227 ]

They didn't treat him like one of their own anymore, because they caught him working

for somebody else. But that act did protect that member.

The court went on to say: " . . . there is nothing in the act or the

regulations which would specifically allow the suspension of members' vested rights in the

circumstances . . . . " But there will be if this act makes its way

through this House. I hope that this time the government's gone too far for the members on

the opposite benches. Surely to goodness, they won't stand for this; they won't stand for

their own government gutting pension standards legislation and changing it to allow

pensioners to be ripped off.

I see the members there looking at me very seriously, members who have a long history

in the trade union movement. Those members that they represented -- who they may be on

leave from representing -- are counting on them. When those members work long and hard in

the trades, in the forests, in the sawmills and in the mines, they're not looking for some

government to attack their pension rights once they've begun to claim them -- to turn

their world upside down. That's what this will do for people.

There are many people who have retired, who are drawing their pension benefits. This is

going to declare open season on them. Their unions are going to be able to send out the

pension police, apparently. Who will they be? Aren't there some privacy issues involved?

Aren't there some human rights issues involved? Apparently the pension police will come

around -- maybe private investigators. How far will this go? Who knows? It's all going to

be permitted by regulation, orders-in-council established by the cabinet -- the same

cabinet who brought this in. There's no comfort for anybody in that -- a frightening

thing.

Think of the superintendent of pensions, who did her job in this case just last year

and won this judgment for pensioners. Think how she feels. It's still the same

superintendent of pensions. And now she's got to hold that job while this government turns

the tables, turns things upside down, so that it can attack workers in the very situation

where she was defending them last year. It's reminiscent of the Minister for the Public

Service going after the Motor Carrier Commission employees.

How can this government treat civil servants that way? Maybe that's why we have the

civil service seated up with patronage appointments. It's because the real civil servants

have been leaving, haven't they? They've been retiring; they've been going away, because

they don't want to put up with this sort of thing anymore. They can't work with this

government.

[1510]

People in the pension industry are astounded that this has happened. They didn't have

forewarning. They didn't know this was coming down the pipe. They referred to this

legislation,

section 48 in particular, as draconian and appalling and unfair and

arbitrary, and said that it's going to penalize workers. They said that it's a surprise to

the industry -- a surprise.

The minister talks about the advisory council. Well, how did the advisory council come

to be? They were appointed. So many people are appointed in British Columbia these days.

I'm not saying they're not good people. I'm not saying they don't work hard and don't do a

good job, but are they a genuine cross-section of the industry or the people who have

concerns about what the industry does? I checked. I think these are the employments of the

people on the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory Council. Five of them represent unions.

Four of them represent employers, but only one of those employers is a private sector

employer. The others are all government. So far we have three government employers, five

union representatives and then five representatives of advisory and service providers --

so-called. But three of them are lawyers, one of them is an actuary and one of them is a

trust company executive.

It's not a huge legion of people that work in this industry, but the people who work as

advisory and service providers include a lot of consultants, include a lot of actuaries,

include life insurance companies and people who manage these funds. And of all of those,

we see one actuary and one trust company employee. It's entirely possible, without any

form of conflict of interest, that these people known as advisory and service providers

also work for unions at least part of their time and garner some of their income from

working for unions.

Let's see, then: we have five definite union representatives, five -- or at least four

-- probable part-time union representatives and three government employer representatives,

a pretty heavy representation of strongly union-influenced people. It's good to have those

people on an advisory council. But what about all the other people? What about all the

other representatives of the industry that could have been included?

More to follow, hon. Speaker. An hon. member wishes to make an introduction.

J. van Dongen: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

J. van Dongen: I'm very pleased to introduce to the Legislature today a group of

grade 5 and 6 students and their teachers and parents from Margaret Stenersen Elementary

School. They're here to watch this lively debate in the Legislature. I ask the House to

please make them welcome.

K. Krueger: This bill is discriminatory and unfair and entirely contrary to

general pension principles -- the kind of principles that are embodied in the act that

this bill, Bill 58, seeks to amend -- and similar legislation and in the Income Tax Act

and standard practice. This is not right. This is wrong -- that any government of B.C.

would attack the rights of pensioners, would go out snooping into their private lives,

would try to catch them working. Why would they have to do that? Why would people who

wanted to retire have to be out working? Could it be that they find their children can't

get jobs in this economy? Could it be . . . ?

Interjection.

K. Krueger: The minister says: "How about greed?" The minister thinks

that if a pensioner goes out and works, it must be greed. It's got to be greed -- got to

be that avaricious pensioner, the minister says, out there trying to get more for himself.

The minister knows about greed. The government knows about greed. The government knows

about rewarding friends and insiders.

[ Page 13228 ]

[1515]

The Speaker: Member . . . .

K. Krueger: They know a lot of that -- a lot of greed at work in British

Columbia in the last nine years.

The Speaker: Member, careful.

K. Krueger: Thank you, hon. Speaker. It was the minister who said: "How

about greed?" It was the minister who said that.

This provision is discordant with the rest of the act -- the act that it seeks to

amend. The act is about protecting pensioners and workers. It's not supposed to be about

taking their rights away, taking their security away, taking their pension benefits away.

My goodness, at first reading the minister wasn't talking about doing those things, was

he? He said that this act was to enhance protection of B.C. pension plan members and

pension funds, to reduce costs and red tape, and to increase flexibility for employer and

employees. Flexibility all right. This act was supposed to provide the superintendent of

pensions with the tools to enforce the provisions of the act. She had them -- she had

those tools. She used them last year, and she won for the pensioner. She won. She

maintained his rights; she maintained his pension. She did her job.

This government's going to take away her tools. It's going to make sure she can never

win that argument again. This government is attacking the superintendent and the people

she has a duty to represent and protect. They want to take tools out of her toolbox,

because she was just too darned good at using them. She was too good at protecting

pensioners, so they have to tie her hands behind her back, make sure she doesn't pull that

off again -- boy oh boy. Beating the union bosses -- imagine that.

In first reading, the minister said that this act was to increase flexibility and

protect the interests of the pension plan members while reducing red tape -- to increase

disclosure. He said "flexibility" again. It's protect and flex, protect and

flex, all through these remarks. Next line, again: " . . . increase member

access and protection." Not one mention of suspension. Why was that? Why didn't the

minister mention it in first reading? Because he's ashamed. I believe he's ashamed. He

should be ashamed. He absolutely should be ashamed of this attack on pensioners.

I'll tell you another reason why I believe he's ashamed. It is industry and government

practice, Canada-wide, that before you bring in changes to pension benefits legislation,

you do an exposure bill. You do a White Paper. You float your intentions past the experts

in the industry. You might do it countrywide. You certainly do it for your province. You

don't ambush anybody with these things. Lo and behold, just like real consultation

procedures of all kinds -- real ones, not the phony ones this government does -- people

point out things, because they're more proficient with these things than government. They

point out flaws in the proposed legislation, and they suggest changes. The government gets

to consider those and talk to the other stakeholders and maybe implement those changes.

If we get to committee stage on this bill -- and I surely hope we won't, because we're

surely going to have a lot more debate than the minister obviously expected when he opened

second reading debate . . . . There will be a lot more debate, and I trust

that that debate is going to include every member on the opposite benches. They'll stand

up and be counted, and they'll say whether they support the NDP and this minister in

attacking pensioners and their pension rights and workers in British Columbia and turning

the security of their families upside down. I trust that every member over there will

stand and speak, and I trust that there's going to be a lot of backroom stuff in that

caucus room, and this stinking bill will be hoisted, just like Bill 44 was -- taken off

the order paper.

This government has forever presented itself as a defender of the worker. This

government is squirming right now because this government thought they could just float

this by the opposition, float this by all those union workers out there who probably don't

even know that they've been ripped off. And this has been going on; it didn't just happen

now. It's been going on in other cases as well. You can find evidence of it on the

government's own web sites. This sort of practice is not, apparently, all that uncommon.

[1520]

The Carpenters Union, for example -- an interesting item off the web site. "The

carpentry workers pension plan of B.C., along with other plans in the building trades, has

moved to improve early retirement provisions within the plan." They go on to talk

about how they've been suspending workers. It's been a violation of the legislation, but

they've been suspending them, and the workers probably didn't know that it's illegal. It

is still illegal today, and it will be, unless this government jams this act through. It's

illegal to suspend their pension benefits and attack them this way.

Interjection.

K. Krueger: The member says: "They don't care over there." Apparently

the minister doesn't, but I hope some of those other people do, because they're down to

barely double-digit support in this province. They've got a few people in the labour

movement still fooled. They think that this government represents their interests better

than other parties would. Those people are wrong, and I think more of them wake up to that

fact every day. And this bill will wake up more of them.

I'd be surprised if they aren't at single-digit support levels. I'd be surprised if Mr.

Barlee's report doesn't turn out to be accurate: that they'd be lucky if they could win

four seats. I think they'd be lucky if they could be elected dogcatcher. In fact, the

minister himself, after the Parksville-Qualicum by-election debacle, when he was a

commentator on BCTV, said he heard the message from the voters loud and clear. "Not

only are we not voting for you," he said, "but we hate you and wish you were in

hell." That's a quote from the minister -- a famous quote. I always admire a flash of

candour like that. The Forests minister's famous for his candour, as well. But that was

one from the minister.

Well, if people felt that way before . . . . If the minister's government

was down to 18 percent public support before this, what's it going to be now, now that the

union movement, now that the labour movement, now that all those hard-working people out

there -- counting on the pensions being there for them when they retire -- know that this

government is attacking their pensions, that this government is trying to be the only one

in Canada that would take away pension benefits from workers? Where will the support

levels drop to now?

[ Page 13229 ]

This amazing publication -- and it's the B.C. Ministry of Labour web site, the labour

relations review committees -- makes it clear that the government knows this is going on.

The superintendent of pensions suspected it was going on, caught it by the Sheet Metal

Workers Union, dealt with it and got herself sued, and won. This government has obviously

known. This minister and his ministry have known that this was going on elsewhere, as well

-- that people were being cheated, that their pensions were being suspended when it was

illegal. What a shocking thing!

The Ministry of Labour, at the end of this web site article, says: "For the past

several years, we have continued" -- oh, this is still the Carpenters Union, I

gather, talking to the Ministry of Labour -- "to suspend benefits while changes to

the PBSA were being contemplated." They figure their big buddies up there in the

government will just go ahead and give them everything they want.

"So yeah, while you're contemplating the changes to make this legal for us to do,

we'll just go ahead and do it. Okay, Minister of Labour?" Wink, wink; nudge, nudge.

"Okay?"

"Well, of course," he says. "I'll try and bring that through for you in

the summer of '99, since the previous minister wouldn't do it in the summer of '97. Sure,

I'll try and do that for you."

And the carpentry union goes on to say: "With the shelving of Bill 44, the

superintendent of pensions will have to act on complaints and enforce the current

laws." Oh, shucks. That's what the Sheet Metal Workers Union found out, too. She

would. She had the spine; she had the ability. She went to court and did it.

What do you do with a government that knowingly lets people be cheated? How many of

those people lost how much pension? How many of those people thought: "Oh boy, I

might never get my pension back. I better not work." How many of them turned down

jobs? How many of them turned down work -- expert people who had found themselves some

little niche in this devastated economy where they could still make a little money and do

some things for people? How many of them withdrew from that? How many of them were no

longer available to get young people interested in working alongside them and, maybe,

learning the trade that they had?

[1525]

Here's the recommendation at the end of this web site article: "This is a serious

issue for the Carpentry Workers pension plan of B.C. and other multi-employer plans within

the construction industry. The proposed amendment for the Pension Benefits Standards Act,

formerly the Labour Statutes Amendment Act, 1997, Bill 44" -- we all remember that --

"addressed the concerns of members collecting pension payments while employed after

retirement." Those are the people that the minister referred to as greedy, moments

ago -- greedy because they feel they've got to go out and make a little money to

supplement their pension income.

That recommendation goes on to say: "The amendment was not passed, because Bill 44

was withdrawn. This issue continues to be a real threat to the financial position of the

pension plan." Oh, is that what it is? People are a threat to their union pension

plans if they draw a pension? What an absurd notion! What a ridiculous statement! What a

phenomenally crass thing for a union and a government to say and collaborate on -- but

there it is, off the Ministry of Labour web site. "This issue continues to be a real

threat to the financial position of the pension plan."

I'll tell you what's a threat to the financial position of the pension plans, and that

is union trustees who haven't looked after those pension plans. Speculation in real

estate, real state development, union-built buildings paid for by unions, mortgages --

curious behaviour. Those stories are pretty well known in this province, aren't they, hon.

Speaker? It's pretty well known that a lot of those buildings just aren't paying for

themselves. They were too expensive; they weren't well planned.

So then the recommendation sums up: "Therefore we recommend that this amendment be

reintroduced in the Legislature as soon as possible." Well, there's the Labour

minister, ready to catch that softball. "Okay, boys, I'll go out there and put the

boots to those pensioners for you. That's what you want? That's what you get. Yes,

sirree!"

That's a terrible way to run a government. Hon. Speaker, we've often accused this

government of rewarding its friends and insiders, but union members around the province

thought that they were some of those friends. What kind of friend attacks your pension and

takes it away and collaborates with incompetent people who haven't managed your precious

pensions funds well, to the point that at least one of them, apparently, is down to only

35 percent of its liability in funding?

The building trades unions' pension funds -- a number of them -- are in trouble -- big

trouble. That's no surprise; that's not a secret. That's not news in British Columbia.

They're in big trouble. What is news is the depths to which this government will sink in

trying to help those people out. We see it time and again. Bill 44: slapped on the order

paper in '97 and withdrawn because of the outcry from right across the spectrum in B.C.

Bill 26: rammed through last summer. Big change -- something that the government felt that

they ought to give to their buddies.

Interjection.

K. Krueger: The minister says: "Rammed through, rammed through?" The

only reason it didn't go through was because the official opposition opposed it with

everything we could muster, until we'd exhausted every amendment, everything we could do.

And that ridiculous legislation was rammed through, and it has caused problems throughout

the sector that the minister didn't want to talk about in estimates recently. Oh, no, he

didn't want to deal with the fact that B.C. companies in that very sector that he was

trying to protect with his silly legislation are being driven out of business because of

what it does. Employers in the construction sector in British Columbia don't have any

recourse. If they don't think the CLRA is a fitting representative for them, if they don't

want it, they have no way to decertify. Union members have that right, but employers

don't.

I'll tell you, other employers from around the world, when they pause and look at

beautiful British Columbia -- which is still beautiful in spite of everything that the

government has done in the last nine years -- say: "Yeah, it's pretty, but we

wouldn't want to do business there." Why not? Because of the kind of garbage,

unbalanced labour laws this government insists on bringing in and supporting, this

government's overtaxation and overregulation and the fact that they've ruined British

Columbia's economy. It's going to take years for a new government to deal with that.

[ Page 13230 ]

[1530]

Now the union members, who have already been scratching their heads with dismay, are

saying: "Holy smokes. These are awful results. Maybe we've voted NDP all our lives,

but we can't believe how hard they are on our economy. We can't believe what they've done

to British Columbia. We can't believe that our children have to go to Alberta and

Washington and Oregon and right across the country to find work because there's no work

here. We can't believe that Highland Valley Copper shut down 12 years early. We can't

believe that the forest industry's been devastated and that Sweden has 17 percent of the

Japanese market when five years ago they only used to have 1 percent, because of those

same failed approaches by this government." Those union members look around at this

devastation and say: "These are not the results that we want for our children and our

grandchildren. We are not happy with the doubling of the debt in British Columbia and a

$2.64 billion-a-year interest bill -- the third-largest expense of this government, after

health care and education, which are both in a mess too."

Union members aren't happy -- already. And they're going to be furious, I predict, when

they hear about this. I know that this government will probably put some member up over

there who'll try to reassure those union members, to reassure the public, and even try,

futilely, to reassure the opposition. "Well, we're just going to apply it in a narrow

little sector of the economy. We're not going to do it to very many people. We'll just

quietly do it. Our buddies in the building trades unions really need this and all the

other favours we're doing for them."

But the legislation isn't that narrow at all. It doesn't confine itself to the building

trades unions, does it? It refers to multi-employer pension plans, and there are a lot of

them. We're talking IWA. We're talking retail workers, aren't we? Retail is in a lot of

trouble because of this government. Probably their pensions funds are too; they're

multi-employer pension plans. We're talking dock workers. There are a lot of

multi-employer pension plans.

This government has set up the artillery to gun those workers if, in the minister's

words, they get greedy, if they get so greedy that they think they need a little spending

money or they maybe go out and start their own small business, doing something like what

they did all their lives to qualify for that pension. The minister says: "That's

greedy. We're going to punish those guys. We're going to help our big union boss buddies

punish those guys, because they must be greedy" -- if they need a little more

spending money in this defunct economy that the NDP has blasted to smithereens. Imagine,

hon. Speaker; imagine that. People who certified, people who voted for unions to represent

them because they believed that this way they'd have some security -- job security,

pension security, benefits -- those people are probably pretty sorry. Nobody should think

for one moment that this government isn't coming after them.

I think the only safe people in this House -- the only people in this province safe

from Big Brother NDP government wanting to stick its hands in their pockets and attack

them, right down to the pensions they counted on -- are the 40 people who sit in those

chairs. They're the only safe ones, because they never attack themselves. Nobody snorts in

the trough like a socialist. They'd never ever affect their own benefits. But some poor

trade unionist worked 30 years and maybe has a $1,200-a-month pension. "Ho boy,"

the minister says. "That guy's greedy."

The minister and his spouse get $300 a day per diem for being here. They're getting, in

four days' per diem, what some of these poor people get in a month's pension. A lot of

them get less than that. Some of them get, like, $240 a month.

But the minister says: "They're greedy. How could they expect to have a pension

when we've caught them working, with our pension police?" -- private investigators,

invaders of their privacy, abusers of their human rights. Who's he going to send out?

Who's the minister going to send out? How's he going to catch them? Are they going to peek

over their fences? Are they going to follow them around? Are they going to watch them

through two-way glass from vans and follow them down the street? What are they going to

do? How are they going to catch them? Obviously they've got some ideas. Obviously they've

got some way that they're going to try and catch what the minister refers to as those

greedy, greedy pensioners who think they ought to have a second income.

The NDP may protest that they only intend to apply this to early retirement pensions.

Well, these unions encouraged people for years to take early retirement. That was one of

the incentives to join a union again. The previous act didn't even need to use the term

"early retirement pensions." It didn't have that term, didn't need it, because

obviously when the Legislature enacted the act that this stinking act sets out to amend,

nobody in this Legislature thought of or countenanced, I hope -- at least, they certainly

didn't sanction -- an attack on pensioners, whether they want to call them early or late

or, like the minister just did, greedy, greedy pensioners.

[1535]

Everybody knows that the assurances this government gives people aren't worth the

powder to blow them away. Those assurances aren't worth the paper they're written on,

because this government has broken its assurances time and time again. Balanced budgets,

repeated promises of balanced budgets, an election on the pledge that they had delivered a

balanced budget and would deliver another -- all lies. None of it turned out to be true --

government assurances.

So why would anybody -- anybody -- believe for a moment that this NDP government won't

expand the scope of this legislation? They'll probably do it through their regulations --

they do a lot of sneaky things through their regulations -- and just go after one group

after another. Wherever a union boss says: "Ah shucks, Mr. Minister, we decided to do

a real estate development. We've had our friends build it all, and it cost way more than

we thought. We spent the money out of our pension fund, so we don't want to pay our

members their benefits anymore -- our pensioners, our retirees . . . . "

Wherever a union boss buddy comes forward to the minister, will he have a sympathetic ear?

Why not? Apparently some did; apparently a lot did.

There's consternation about this bill -- and the minister didn't think we'd want to

debate it. Incredible. Ridiculous. What a farcical government! You look at this

government's behaviour on charitable gaming, on FRBC, on probate fees, on the photo radar

fairness plan, on so-called unconditional grants to municipalities. It is a record

littered with false assurances and broken promises. And fair warning to every person in

British Columbia who's a pensioner: this government is attacking thousands of people's

pension rights right now, and we have to assume they're going to attack yours. I hope

pensioners everywhere rise up and deal with these guys.

They tried to make the recall legislation so ineffective that it could never be used.

If you make the people of British

[ Page 13231 ]

Columbia mad enough, hon. minister -- through the Speaker -- they'll boot you out.

They'll boot you out one way or another. You have no right to sit in those seats across

the way, no right to hold power in this province. You took power -- through the Speaker to

this government -- by dishonest means, by pledging things you had never delivered and

never would deliver.

The Speaker: Hon. member, careful -- unparliamentary language.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members who are speaking from their seats, please come to order.

K. Krueger: This government is trying to soft-soap this nasty provision through

like just a crack in the door. If you open the door a crack on something like this, the

next thing you know, there's a jackboot in it. The next thing you know, there's a guy in a

brown shirt following the jackboot. This is an invasion of people's privacy. This is a

violation of their rights. This is an abuse of their homes and their families and their

personal security, and it will not be stood for by this opposition.

The minister's going to have his debate whether he wanted it or not. The minister went

on and on about protecting pensioners. The minister issued a press release yesterday. He

jumped the gun a little. It talks about the debate that we're having today as if it

happened yesterday. But, being proactive, through his massively expensive communications

network . . . . "June 2," it says. " . . . entered

second reading debate today." Well, last I checked, today is June 3.

[1540]

Anyway, this went out yesterday. Only at the bottom of the first page does he get

around now to talking about "provisions to enhance the protection of B.C. pension

plan members and pension funds." It just about slipped off the page of the press

release. It was front and centre in his first reading remarks, but it just about didn't

make it on the first page of the press release. And way down at the bottom, way down at

the bottom of the second page, it does mention that the bill is going to allow for the

suspension of retirement benefits in multi-employer pension plans. What false

communications! What a rotten way to treat people. This government should be ashamed --

and like I said, hon. Speaker, I think it is. Because nobody got to see this act, nobody

got a chance to inspect it, nobody got to look at a White Paper -- it just showed up. It

just got dropped on the order paper and enthusiastically introduced at first reading by a

minister who said it's about protection and flexibility. He didn't say it was about

suspensions.

These poor pensioners are just trying to get by. This is a tough, tough economy -- this

economy that was in full bloom when the NDP came to power at the beginning of the

nineties, the decade that should have belonged to British Columbia. An economy that was

thriving, the most robust, productive economy in the country, and it has been brought low.

Everybody knows that. We've gone from first to worst in Canada -- first to worst

provincial economy. What a shame.

And here's these poor pensioners. They're on a pension. They know that in Canada if you

get a pension, you have a pension for life. The employers are pretty good about looking

after you; the unions are good about looking after you. No government would put up with

anybody ripping you off for your pension. That's what they think. They've got a pension

for life. It's not very much, in many cases, so they want to go out and work and

supplement it a bit. What happens to them? Well, the NDP attacks. The minister says:

"Those folks are greedy. They're on a pension and they're working." That's what

he said. "They're greedy." He said that in this House in the last half-hour, and

he defended it when I spoke with him about it. "Those folks," he thinks,

"are greedy, so we're gonna get them."

The minister doesn't accept any responsibility, I'm sure, for the beggaring of the

economy of British Columbia that has gone on, on his watch and the watch of those members

opposite -- a government that's so consumed by its scandals and misbehaviour that it can't

get around to doing the business of the people -- a government that recently invoked

guillotine closure on what it said was one of the most important debates in B.C.'s history

because it had such important legislation to introduce. Since then, the most controversial

bill the government's come up with is this one, and the ministry didn't expect any debate

on it.

The government didn't have important legislation -- at least, we sure haven't seen it

-- until this thing came down, and they tried to sort of whisk it under our noses.

"Oh, hopefully, those Liberals pay as little attention to legislation as our back

bench," they were thinking. "Hopefully, those Liberals won't even notice that

we're doing something to pensioners that no other government in Canada permits, including

the ones the NDP abuse verbally all the time -- none of them will." So here's a

pensioner who's trying to cope, and the NDP is attacking their pensions as another gift to

the big union bosses.

Who's going to administer this travesty of a program? Who will the pension police be?

Who'll control them, in their invasions of privacy and violations of human rights? How far

retroactive will it be? Will this government do what it's done in charitable gaming and

probate fees and conclusively deem itself to have had the authority to do this to people

for years back? To go back and say: "Ha, we caught you. You're working. Our Labour

minister says that you're greedy, so we've got to get all those pension benefits back that

you claimed. The NDP think you're greedy. We caught you working. You've got a small

business going. You used to be a Carpenters Union member. You used to be a bricklayers'

union member. You used to be a labourers' union member. And you've been doing carpentry.

You've been doing bricklaying. You've been doing labour. We're going to get you . . .

Interjections.

K. Krueger: . . . because that minister over there" -- who's

doing all that frantic bellowing from his seat -- "thinks you're greedy." He

thinks they're greedy. That's what he said.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members from their seats . . . . The member who is

speaking from his seat had an opportunity to speak earlier -- and will later -- and is

disrupting the proceedings.

K. Krueger: Thank you, hon. Speaker. Throw the bum out. Let me finish my speech

and give him another shot.

[ Page 13232 ]

The Speaker: Member, that's not appropriate parliamentary language.

[1545]

K. Krueger: I withdraw it.

How far retroactive will this legislation be? Does the minister want to take another

crack at a second reading speech to elucidate a little more for the people of British

Columbia, to tell the pensioners how badly he is going to rip them off? How badly is he

going to let the union bosses go after them -- ten years? fifteen years? -- if somebody's

got a little file on them? Maybe the pension police have been at work for years. We don't

know.

How can anybody know what this government's up to? We know they're always skulking

around, invading people's lives, passing more regulations and trying to catch them

working, because that shows that they're greedy. That's what the minister says: "Got

to catch them." Maybe they've got a list. Maybe they've got thousands of B.C.

pensioners they're going after. Maybe it's all prioritized. They're thinking: "We'll

go after the building trades union pensioners first, because those are our closest

friends, and we do all this other stuff for them. Then we'll go after the retail workers,

and maybe then we'll go after -- I don't know -- truckers."

Who will they go after? How can we know how long the list is? How many people are on

the hit list? How can we know? Once they've suspended them, who'll reinstate them? Will

they ever get reinstated, or will they be punished forever? "No, you're bad people.

The minister says that you're greedy. We caught you; the pension police caught you. That's

why we suspended your pension, and you're never getting it back." Is that how it's

going to be?

You talk to people whose lives have been violated through all sorts of NDP legislation,

and it's just like being in bed with an elephant -- they're just crushed, and they can

never get out from under. You make the mistake of owning some property and renting it to

people in this province, and you come up against the NDP Residential Tenancy Act, and

eventually you are crushed.

You make the mistake of involving yourself with this government as a charity, and

they'll come along and expropriate your property. You make the mistake of being a

volunteer, hon. Speaker, and this government will come after you. And you make the mistake

of working when you're on a pension, and the minister thinks you're greedy, and he'll deal

with you, because that, he thinks, is a bad thing to be doing.

Will those people ever get reinstated, or will they just keep falling off the table,

like a lot of people in British Columbia feel -- like they've been dropped off the table.

They've been abused. This government that they're supposed to be able to trust is beating

up on them. This government is attacking British Columbians legislatively, and they're

doing it once again -- as they did with Bill 26 last year, as they tried to do with Bill

44 the year before. They're doing it for the big bosses in the unions, the big bosses in

the building trades unions -- and other ones, probably.

Mr. Georgetti was hand in glove with this government before he left. The new guy

doesn't answer my phone calls. I paid him a courtesy call, asked him if he had any input

for me on Bill 58. I'm still waiting for the phone to ring. I've got lots of other people

calling me -- there's growing consternation about this bill in this province -- but not

the B.C. Federation of Labour, not Mr. Jim Sinclair -- not Mr. Georgetti either, I have to

admit. They're not calling me. They probably think it's fine. I'm sure they know all about

it; maybe they drafted it.

This government is trying to bring Bill 44 back one piece at a time: Bill 26 last year,

this odious chunk this year. It got rid of the minister who flat-out said: "It's

something the unions wanted" -- and then quit his job. They got rid of him:

"That guy's too principled -- don't want him in this chair. We can't get Mr.

Georgetti and Mr. Sinclair's agenda implemented. We've got to get rid of him and put up a

minister who will do it."

Well, hon. Speaker, the B.C. Liberals are here to protect pensioners. The B.C. Liberals

are here to protect workers. The B.C. Liberals are here to hold this government's feet to

the fire when it tries to rip off British Columbians and take away their rights and attack

their families and their security -- their pensions. The B.C. Liberals stand up and defend

workers, and those workers are going to remember it at election time. Those workers have

seen the reality; those workers have seen this government's own report card, its

disastrous results, and now this objectionable behaviour. Once again, they see the big

union bosses and the NDP in bed together, and what's coming out from under the sheets is

pretty darned disgusting. It's something that workers and pensioners and British

Columbians of all types will not put up with. This government didn't even have the jam to

put it out in a White Paper, as they surely know -- as their competent superintendent of

pensions who won that court case on behalf of a pensioner who was being abused in this way

surely told them -- is the normal practice right across Canada. No, they didn't have the

gumption to do that; they just thought they'd sneak her through, wrap it all up in

actuarial mumbo-jumbo, make a few mistakes for the opposition to catch, and then lower the

boom on those people because the minister thinks they're greedy. "They're

greedy," he says. "They must be greedy; they're on pension and they're

working." Imagine that.

In our briefing with the ministry, we asked: "Was the business lens applied to

this legislation?" The Finance minister has said . . . .

[1550]

Interjection.

K. Krueger: The member says they don't have a business lens, and I think he's

right. But the Finance minister said they had one. We went and had a briefing with the

people, and they looked like real people; they talked like real people, nice people to be

with. They explained to us how the business lens was going to work, and the opposition has

been watching for it.

We keep asking them: "Did you apply the business lens to this?" A lot of this

legislation, inconsequential as much of it has been this summer, doesn't really look like

a reduction of red tape to us. We tried in the Labour estimates to get the minister to

agree to at least postpone, if not rescind, the horrendous volume of new WCB regulations

on businesses small and large, across this province. There are 4,000 regulations, 1,500 of

them new, and another 50 pages of legislation. But oh no, they're not going to do anything

about that. Government just loves that red tape. Next best thing after pork-barrelling:

red tape. Roll around the pork barrel, and dry yourself off with red tape.

[ Page 13233 ]

This government is very, very quick to add the red tape. But where's this business

lens? We were hoping that maybe they'd focus a little light on what the NDP do and burn

off some of that red tape. "Oh, it didn't get applied here," they told us in the

technical briefing. "No, no, we didn't do that. But we did do three years of due

diligence." Three years of due diligence indeed. Well, how can that be when

section

48 in Bill 58 in 1999 is exactly the same wording as we saw in Bill 44? What happened to

all that due diligence that went on in the intervening two years? I don't think there was

much due diligence applied.

In fact, we went to a Ministry of Finance briefing. They had a number of very competent

people talking to us, explaining, answering our questions. One of them was a very

competent, intelligent-looking person -- I'm sure she is an intelligent person --

who's the manager of the province's unclaimed money fund. It doesn't take a rocket

scientist to anticipate that there would be some overlap, some cross-legislative

considerations -- cross-ministerial considerations, in this case -- between the unclaimed

money fund and the Pension Benefits Standards Amendment Act. I don't think that's a

stretch. I see a member frowning at me over there, like it's a bit of a stretch for him,

but maybe he's just thinking. It's no leap of logic to think that there may well be people

with pension entitlements who haven't claimed them -- people who died, for example, and

whose former spouses don't realize that there's a pension entitlement going unclaimed.

What's an unclaimed money fund all about? They talk about things like deposits provided

by customers to retail stores. It's about anything, as I understand it. If an organization

in British Columbia has other people's money and ought to give it back to them but doesn't

know where they are, or a myriad of other situations, then the government has a fiduciary

duty to hold it in the unclaimed money fund, as I understand it, and try to get it back to

those people if it ever finds them. Try to find them. In fact, the government said it's

going to bring down an unclaimed money act. Good. Why haven't we seen that yet in the

important legislation that the Premier said he was rushing the Nis g a'a debate

through for? Why haven't we seen that?

[1555]

In any event, there's an expert civil servant who knows all about the unclaimed money

fund, who knows all about their plans, who knows all about the contemplated legislation,

but who doesn't know a thing, apparently, about the Pension Benefits Standards Amendment

Act. How can that be? A senior person in the Ministry of Finance, responsible for a fund

that's directly related to pensions, was apparently taken right out of the sun by a

perfectly predictable, logical question from an opposition critic on a bill that was

before the House. Nobody told her; apparently nobody told her that this Labour minister

was making this move against these people that he thinks are greedy, bringing in this act,

with all its changes. It obviously would affect the fund she's responsible for, and nobody

told her. What sort of due diligence is that?

What is this notional business lens? Apparently it doesn't do much. It hasn't been

applied, if it even really exists. Maybe it was just a figment of the Finance minister's

imagination, something she dreamt about one night. She has flashes of rhetoric when she

sounds a bit like a business-minded person, although her results are terrible. Maybe she

imagined, maybe she daydreamed, that they were going to have a business lens and that they

were actually going to start eliminating red tape. No, that's too much to think. I think

all she was saying was that they would try not to impose new, unnecessary red tape.

But somebody is not listening to her. Somebody's got to say to her: "Wake up and

smell the coffee. Your colleagues in cabinet are not delivering on your promise." We

don't see any evidence of this business lens. The senior public servants who briefed the

opposition in technical briefings are having to admit, with wide eyes and startled looks

and red faces: "Ah no, we didn't do that." In fact, it looks to me like they

haven't even heard of it. They didn't know they were supposed to. Obviously they haven't

been told that by the minister who's in charge of their ministry.

So what's this really all about? What is this act really all about? Well, the

superintendent of pensions, I think, has to be pretty guarded in her remarks in a

technical briefing. I wanted to know how many pension funds are in trouble. I didn't get

too much detail, but it was clear there are some. I think it's pretty clear that they're

building trades union pension funds, the ones that she knows about. The minister was

pretty guarded in his estimates too; he didn't want to tell us that.

We've noticed a number of different ways that this government's moving to shore up its

big boss union friends' ill-managed pension funds -- the HCL model, for example. The HCL

model looks a lot like a way that the government's moved to shore up these abused and

ill-managed pension funds -- a tax base, public infrastructure projects paid for by the

general taxpayer being used to pay off big union boss deficits.

There was a report done by a pension consultant named Mr. Greg R. Hurst, in 1997. He

talked about the Highways Constructors Ltd. model and the fact that his careful review had

discerned that this model wasn't actually even going to pay any pension benefits to

certain employees. In fact, he felt that at least 45 percent would never ever draw a

pension, despite the fact that a substantial portion of their wages were being creamed off

by the government into this HCL pension fund.

It flows right through, I think -- doesn't it, hon. Speaker? The minister can talk

about that in committee. It flows right through to the building trades unions, doesn't it?

I think it's up to $3.05 per hour that a worker puts in on an HCL project. It flows right

through to these unions, right out of the taxpayer's pocket and into the pockets of

friends and insiders who, of course, generously support the NDP re-election coffers.

That's no secret. They're proud of it. We hear about that all the time.

So there we go. HCL takes taxpayers' money out of their pockets. HCL pays way more to

get a job done, whether it's building a road, a school, a hospital. That money goes to

unions. The unions get $3.05 per hour -- it's a continually rising amount -- toward their

pension funds. And the unions reward the NDP in their re-election coffers. A nice cosy

circle -- and it just goes round and round, doesn't it, hon. minister? That money just

goes round and round. That's one way that this government is moving to support its big

boss union buddies, who've proven they can't manage pension funds and who are in a

desperate unfunded-liability situation and facing solvency problems.

[1600]

Well, this act sets out to give the cabinet, again through order-in-council, the

ability to enact regulations to relax solvency requirements. Well, there's another NDP

solution:

[ Page 13234 ]

"We'll just make it look like they aren't insolvent -- get the heat off

them." Isn't that a good little manoeuvre? It's not very comforting to the people who

are already drawing pension benefits or those who are looking forward to it one day -- let

alone the fact that their government's attacking their pension benefits if it catches them

working. The Labour minister's calling them greedy for trying. They intend to relax,

apparently, the solvency requirements.

Then, of course, there's always the option that I think they toy with of clawing back

benefits even if they don't catch people working -- all ways of dealing with solvency

problems that have arisen through the incompetence of the managers of pension funds.

This Mr. Hurst went on to say, according to his report, that between $3.8 million and

$9.6 million -- way back in 1997, when the world was still being told by this government

that they would only use the HCL model on the mid-Island Highway -- and possibly close to

$10 million had already been "slushed," as he called it, to about half, of the

pension plans studied. He said: "By the term 'slushed,' we mean that although

contributions were being made for hours worked, it is unlikely that any pension benefits

will ever be paid in respect of those same hours worked."

The NDP government sent out the poor old superintendent of pensions to do battle with

the consultant. There was a heated exchange. He believes he was assured that there would

be immediate vesting for these HCL workers whose wages were being skimmed off the top --

not quite $3 an hour at that time, a little less -- and put into these pension funds.

Well, it isn't there. In fact, Bill 58 sets out, by definition, to ensure that those

workers will remain disenfranchised and cheated out of any pension benefits that they

otherwise would have accrued if there were immediate vesting and some sort of contribution

plan, even if it were an RRSP, where they could get the money out. Bill 58 is going to

make sure that the big union boss pension plans won't be burdened with an effective

immediate-vesting requirement. "No, you guys won't have to worry about that. We've

protected you. You won't have to pay those HCL workers any pension, despite the fact that

their wages are being creamed off for it. No, you won't have to pay it. You can use it for

your unfunded liabilities."

Interjections.

K. Krueger: I wonder if the MLAs on that side of the House are aware . . .

. Is the member for Skeena -- with his silly heckling -- aware that if Bill 58 is

passed with its clarification on the issue of minimum vesting requirements, it will

disentitle many past, present and future employees under the HCL model from the pension

benefits they should otherwise have had vested to their credit under several construction

industry pension plans? Is he aware of that?

Despite the Premier and the government having assured the people of British Columbia,

"No, we're only going to use the HCL model on the mid-Island highway" -- which

incidentally cost a fortune, far more than the Coquihalla Highway . . . . We

believe it's $400 million more than the Coquihalla Highway for far less highway. It's a

highway that has to have red lights up and down the Island, because there's no money left

to build cloverleaves, no money left to build the quality of highway that the Socreds

built on the Coquihalla. It's a way shorter highway. There's no money left, because it was

built through the HCL model.

[1605]

All of this money that's going into pension funds isn't going to go to the people that

are actually doing the work. Not only that, despite that assurance by the Premier, HCL's

been dramatically expanded -- HOV lanes in Vancouver. There are all kinds of projects: the

SkyTrain extension -- a crazy idea. It's going to make the fast cat ferry debacle look

like some sort of piker dreamed it up. The SkyTrain extension, through the HCL model, is

going to cost the taxpayers of this province over $3 billion, I think. I've seen various

numbers. It's going to cost a fortune. It's not the technology that the people of

Vancouver wanted. It's not going where they wanted it to be. It'll probably be another $3

billion, interest that our grandchildren will have to pay.

The HCL model has been expanded to the interior. The HCL model is being used for

interchanges in my constituency. It's shameful. These things are costing way more than

they should. The HCL model has been expanded now from Cache Creek to the Height of the

Rockies. We've got these poor day-labour contractors all being served notice that they're

going to have to come under the HCL model too. That money, I believe, is being laundered

over to these same unions.

The Speaker: Hon. member, take your seat. I recognize the Minister of Labour,

rising on what point?

Hon. D. Lovick: I don't mean to interrupt the flow of the member's rhetoric, but

we have been listening for approximately ten minutes. He has been talking about HCL, which

has nothing whatsoever to do with the bill before us. I would like to think that he ought

to restrict his remarks to the subject under discussion.

The Speaker: I would recommend to the member that this is second reading of this

particular bill, which is on the principle of the bill.

K. Krueger: The principle of the bill is that this government wants to attack

the pension benefits of seniors, the pension benefits of workers -- the pensioners of

British Columbia. That's what the principle of the bill is. The point I was making, of

course, is that this government has found various ways to try and shore up the failing

pension plans of some of its incompetent big union boss friends. The HCL model is one

more. That's an abuse of the public trust.

The minister stood up and said: "We have the endorsement of the Pension Benefits

Standards Advisory Council." I think he said that it was unanimous.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members . . . .

K. Krueger: He might have said "consensus," but he indicated that

they've got the support of those experts. Maybe they do, although my understanding is that

there was resistance about

section 48 from the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory

Council. And that's not the first example that we've seen of this government appointing a

body and then pressuring it to endorse what the government wants to do and what the

government's buddies want to do -- is it, hon. Speaker?

This council does not include any representatives from the insurance industry. Isn't

that bizarre? The insurance indus-

[ Page 13235 ]

try accounts for between about 80 and 90 percent of the defined contribution pension

plans in Canada. But they don't get to sit on the council, and they didn't get to see this

bill before it was introduced. They haven't had any input at all. They're probably

cloistered in their boardrooms frantically trying to decide how it's going to affect them.

There are problems with it, a whole lot of problems with Bill 58, that would have been

identified if the minister and the government had bothered to put it out for inspection,

review and genuine consultation.

I don't think the minister wanted to do that. The minister didn't want those people

saying: "What is this

section 48? How could an NDP government in B.C. attack

pensioners? The NDP government in B.C. is always criticizing Mike Harris and Ralph Klein.

They wouldn't do this; they wouldn't allow this. How could an NDP government be doing

it?" That's what we would have heard if we'd had a White Paper. But oh no. Of course,

it doesn't make any sense to the government to include the insurance industry, which deals

with a lot of this money. It does include the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory Council

and doesn't include any representatives of members of private, non-union pension plans.

[1610]

I believe the unions are substantially in control of the Pension Benefits Standards

Advisory Council. The minister says that they blessed what he wanted to do. I hear

differently. The minister has tried to make sure that he's not going to hear dissenting

voices, because he wants to protect those union bosses.

There are various technical flaws in this legislation. I will try to work through them

in committee, but I don't have any expectation that the government will listen, that the

government will agree to any amendments, regardless of how mistaken they are in their

approaches. It probably won't happen; it's never happened in the past to any degree. This

government is going to do whatever it wants, just as the Forests minister said. That's

what he thinks: "Government can do anything it wants." He thinks that's okay, in

spite of his government's terrible results and in spite of the fact that this government

has proven itself to have the opposite of the Midas touch. Everything it touches in

British Columbia, no matter how golden it was, turns to dust.

Now this government is reduced to attacking pensioners, to a Labour minister who says:

"Those guys are greedy anyway. I don't care if they're pensioners." This

minister thinks it's greedy for a pensioner to go to work to try to support his family, to

try to come up with some cash so his kids can have books at school -- because the

government's not providing the money to do it -- and to try to support them in going to

university. The government, which has frozen tuition rates but won't give the money to

universities to make up for the revenue they made, isn't providing the educational

opportunities to post-secondary students in B.C. that they used to have, so they have to

go away. They have to go out of province or they have to go for an extra year within B.C.

-- spend more money, go an extra year to university, miss out on a year's income . .

. .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, members.

K. Krueger: So there's a pensioner who goes out to try and make a little money .

. .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members . . . .

K. Krueger: . . . to support his kids -- he's an expert . . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

K. Krueger: Maybe he never thought he'd ever have to go back to work, but he

says: "My kid can't get a job, and he's trying so hard to study anyway. He's so

frustrated because of what the government's done to his university, so I'll go out and

work a little and support him."

"Tut-tut," says Mr. Minister: "That's greedy. You shouldn't be working;

you've got a pension. So we're going to kill your pension, and goodness knows when you'll

ever get it back." Quite the stunt for an NDP government.

I wish this government would learn about consultation. It's always talking about

consultation. It consults people till the people are blue in the face. It takes up

people's time until they're exhausted, and then it ignores what they said. They come away

saying: "Those guys, those NDP cabinet ministers, used us." That's what people

think: "They just used us for a phony, sham consultative process. They never intended

to listen to us. They're going ahead and doing what they wanted to do all along, and

they're saying it was our idea."

Hon Speaker, it would be good to have some real consultation. I'm not going to move an

amendment right now; maybe one of my colleagues will. Maybe the government would like to

think about yanking this bill. Maybe the government would like to think about voluntarily

hoisting this bill, because it's not right to attack pensioners -- even if the minister

thinks they're greedy for working, even if the minister is doing it on purpose, even if

the big union boss buddies really, really want it. "We messed up, Mr. Minister,"

they're telling him. "We need some help, so we want some of those HCL funds, and

yeah, we'd like you to help us put the boots to our pensioners -- at least those ones that

we want you to call greedy. We'd like your help."

Even if all that input is coming to the minister, he could save some face for this

miserable government -- not that it's got much face left -- and yank this awful bill. Get

it off the order paper, and go out and have some real consultation, some actual

consultation. Just put the thing on paper -- in pencil -- and get it off the order paper.

Give it to some people like the Canadian Institute of Actuaries or the Association of

Canadian Pension Management. Have the decency and the humility to say: "We shouldn't

have done this. We'd better subject it to the review of some real experts and consult with

them. We'd better listen to our superintendent of pensions and have a look at how she won

the rights of pensioners in court last year. We'd better stop attacking what she

did."

[1615]

Isn't it curious, hon. Speaker? When this government wins in court and decides that its

buddies lost, it'll turn around and reverse the legislation to give its buddies the

ability to win next time. Doesn't this government think that's a bit demoralizing to its

expert civil service? Did the government ever think that might be why a lot of them have

left? I think they know that, and they want them to leave so that

[ Page 13236 ]

they can replace them with more cronies. It doesn't matter if the cronies know what

they're doing or not; it doesn't matter if the cronies are qualified or competent -- or

even honest. It just matters that they're cronies, that they'll get in there and do what

the government wants.

It is fundamentally important that the pension industry, including the insurance

industry, has input to pension legislation in this province -- fundamentally important. We

demand that this government withdraw this legislation and take a second look. When it

comes back, do not be putting the boots to pensioners. Back off. Quit attacking people's

security, people's privacy, people's human rights, people's homes, people's families. Quit

putting them at risk. Quit making them realize that as long as there's an NDP government

in power, everything they thought was fundamental in their life, everything they thought

was dependable, every bit of financial security, every scrap of assets they had is at risk

because this government will attack it. This government might call you greedy for trying

to work, like the Labour minister did in the House today. Absolutely disgraceful!

I think I'll wrap up these remarks. I know that the colleagues with me on the

opposition benches here have a lot of things to say. We're absolutely astounded. Why would

the NDP turn its guns on what little support it might still have left in the province? Is

it just greed? I'm not talking about the same people the minister was, because I don't

think they're greedy. I don't think it's greedy for a pensioner to go out and work to

supplement his meagre pension. I don't think the Labour minister has any right to call him

greedy. I don't think the Labour minister has any right to attack him.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

I think the greed here is the greed of a party -- the New Democratic Party, that's

greedy for money at the public trough. It can't find enough ways to take other people's

money. It promised to pay back the charities in Nanaimo after the Nanaimo Commonwealth

Holding Society scandal broke -- promised to pay it back and has never, ever paid a

nickel. Curiously enough, that's where the Labour minister's from, of course. This is a

government that is greedy for money and launders it into NDP re-election accounts through

the NCHS, through the HCL. They just can't come up with enough acronyms to suck the money

out of taxpayers' pockets and make sure they've got money to put out false advertising to

the people in the next election campaign. Not that they'll fall for it; the people of

British Columbia are done with this government.

I predict that when trade unionists, hard-working people all around this province, find

out that this government's got a bill in second reading in the B.C. Legislature that

attacks pensioners and that the Labour minister calls those pensioners greedy because they

get caught working . . . . I bet that when trade unionists find that out, then

the only people left voting for the NDP in British Columbia will be their hacks, flacks,

bagmen, big union boss buddies and patronage appointees -- and maybe their families. I

think their families are ashamed of them too, and some of them are ashamed of themselves.

I'm sure that the former Labour minister will never run on an NDP ticket again. He'll

be out of this place as soon as he can go, and "good riddance" is what he'll

think. He didn't want to be Labour minister with a government that would table this very

legislation in Bill 44 in '97. "Aw shucks," he said. "Yes, I guess it was

something that the trade unions wanted." Apparently it was something they wanted. So

he didn't want to be Labour minister anymore. Now, that's the kind of dignity that people

respect. Vacate the chair; give up the fancy extra cabinet minister's salary; give up the

4-by-4 leased vehicle. I can't understand why cabinet ministers from Nanaimo think they

need 4-by-4 vehicles leased at public expense.

Give up all those perks of office and just say, with quiet dignity . . . .

That former Labour minister said: "I'm out of here. I'm not going to bring this

garbage into the House. I couldn't defend it in 1997; I won't defend it again. I'm not

attacking pensioners. I'm not a guy that thinks they're greedy, like my replacement

minister. I'm out of here. I don't want to be an NDP cabinet minister anymore. I'll fill a

chair for you. I'll dutifully work for you and vote for you on votes that come before the

House."

[1620]

But that minister -- that former minister -- can't wait to get away from running with

the pack over there. The public's going to give them the boot. People are looking for ways

-- and the government knows it full well -- to give them the boot, to get rid of them,

once and for all, this sorry pack of incompetents, never shy to jam their hands into the

taxpayers' pockets.

Deputy Speaker: Order, member. Relevance . . . . Member, take your

seat, please. Member, I must remind you about the rules in regard to relevance and also to

parliamentary language in the House.

K. Krueger: Hon. Speaker, if you could explain to me how any of this is

irrelevant . . . . It's an astonishing bill. You're pretty late arriving to

tell me whether I'm relevant or not. Frankly, I'm fed up -- fed up with this NDP

government; fed up with their abuse of people, fed up with them attacking pensioners and

workers; fed up with Speakers who tell me I'm not relevant when I'm talking about an

attack on pensioners . . .

Deputy Speaker: Order, member. Member . . . .

K. Krueger: . . . an attack on trade unionists, an attack on seniors

in this province.

Deputy Speaker: Order, member!

K. Krueger: It is wrong, and I will not stand for it, so I'll sit down.

F. Randall: I'd like to say a just a few words on this matter. I won't be that

long. I just want to try and explain so that people on the other side understand.

I just want to say how sick I feel inside after listening to the previous speaker with

regards to his anti-labour, anti-worker attitude. I learned many years ago that when

anyone continually, at least 30 times or more, refers to labour officials or labour

leaders as "bosses," you know that they are very anti-labour. I can tell you

that. That's what I've learned over the years. I also feel that that individual ran for

the right party: the Socred-Liberals over there.

I just want to say that this only applies to multi-employer plans, not all the pension

plans in the world. For those that

[ Page 13237 ]

don't know, a multi-employer plan is a plan that is an industry-type thing where all

the employers are in an association, and they bargain jointly with the union. Every

employer makes a contribution into the plan on an hourly basis on behalf of each employee.

So in the course of a year, you could have contributions coming from five, six, eight,

ten, 15 employers; it depends how many times you move around in that particular industry.

I just want to also say that there were continual statements that the intent was to

take away workers' pensions. That is not the intent of the legislation. The legislation is

only dealing with multi-employer plans to start with. I might just say that it's both

management and labour that are trustees of those multi-employer plans and that are very

concerned about people who take an early retirement at 55 and then go right back to work,

doing the identical work in the industry. In effect, they will go to work and work for an

employer who's maybe paying $12 an hour. They've now got their union pensions, and they're

competing directly with employers who are contributing to the pension plan.

When he talked about policemen sneaking around, it won't be very hard . . . .

The employers will certainly bring it to the attention of the trustees of the plan if

somebody is working in the industry when they've retired early. I think we've got to

remember that a pension plan is established for people who retire. Retirement means that

you are retiring -- sitting back in one of these rocking chairs. There's a real problem

where people take early retirement and go to work in the same industry.

[1625]

The inference from the other side is that if you retire early and take a pension, you

can't go to work and that pension can be cut off. The pension would probably be suspended

if a person were directly . . . . If he was a crane operator and he was right

back running a crane after he took his pension early, said "I'm retiring," that

pension would probably be suspended until he had complied with the decision of the

trustees.

There won't be any union officials in any way involved in making those decisions. It'll

be the board of trustees, which is made up, in most cases, of employers and union

officials as trustees. It'll be a trustee decision, and they will, I'm sure, take a very

close look at any individual case that comes up -- what the facts are. But there's a lot

of concern about people doing that, and I don't see anything wrong with it. You're not

taking away anybody's pension; what you're doing is preventing somebody from, in effect,

leaving the industry where the contributions have come in, taking an early pension and

going out and competing against that industry, doing the identical work. If you want to go

and do some other kind of work, it's entirely up to you. It's very clear. It's only if

you're doing it in the same trade that you were in effect doing it in.

It's just, you know, like . . . . I know that the member raised the matter

of mines. Mines aren't covered. Those are individual employer plans; they're not

multi-employer plans. There are all kinds. All the government plans are not affected in

this in any way, shape or form. It's only industry-type plans, where people can retire and

go right back to work doing the work they were doing. I can't understand how members here

can feel that it's the right thing to do, when it's intended for retirement.

I might just say that I was instrumental in negotiating the multi-employer plan in the

construction industry in 1970. I'm fairly familiar with it, and I'm fairly familiar with

the problems. I just find it very frustrating to listen to somebody that doesn't know

anything about it inferring that union bosses are going to take away benefits that people

have retired on. These people haven't retired if they've left ten years early and are

competing with other people in that industry.

I should also mention that there were comments made about the HCL agreement and money

going into these trust funds, implying that they could have saved that money. That was

workers' wages. In negotiations the employer would say: "Here's a dollar an hour;

stick it where you want." The members would decide to take maybe 50 cents on wages or

maybe put 50 cents into pension, or two bits into pension and two bits into the welfare

plan, because the workers, in effect, had taken all that off their wages. So it's not an

employer contribution in that sense. It was always deducted off the wage offer. You could

either take it in wages or take