2000 Legislative Session: 4th 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)

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2000

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 18, Number 20

[ Page 14937 ]

The House met at 2:07 p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. A. Petter: There are several people in the gallery that I would like to acknowledge. They are here because of a bill I'll be introducing in the House shortly to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day in British Columbia. The legislation recognizes the millions who were killed simply for being who they were. I would first like to acknowledge the individuals who survived the Holocaust and are able to be with us today: Rita Akselrod, Susan Bluman, Lilian Boraks-Nemetz, Carl Charles, Mariette Doduck, Jack Gardner, Janushka Jakoubovitch, Rysha Kraskin, Leo Lowy, Paul Meyer, Malka Pishanitskaya, Horst Rothfels, Louise Sorenson and Peter Suedfeld.

I would also like to acknowledge the presence of representatives of several organizations in the gallery: the Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region; Vancouver Holocaust Centre Society for Remembrance and Education; the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver; the Jewish Federation of Greater Victoria; the B.C. Human Rights Coalition; the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria; and the Vancouver Holocaust Symposium.

I'd also like to recognize Gillian Rosenberg, a student from Vancouver Jewish High School, and Bernie Simpson, a former MLA. They are here today. A reception is to be provided later with a commemoration of the Holocaust, to which I invite all members. I'd ask the House to join me in making all of these guests welcome today.

[1410]

R. Coleman: Seated in the gallery are Geoff and Rita Squires, some people from my riding. Geoff is a pharmacist, and Rita is an administrator. Geoff and Rita are an example of one of the great benefits of public life, in that you get to meet some great people who are really committed to their community and who later become your friends. I'd like the House to please make them welcome.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I have the pleasure of introducing to the House 80 grade 11 students from my favourite high school, Sir Charles Tupper Secondary, in my riding of Vancouver-Kensington. I was there some months ago to speak to them; it's wonderful to have them here. Accompanying them are five adults: Mr. McDougall, Mr. Clark, Mr. Wilkie, Ms. Latimer and Mr. Phillips. Would the House please make them welcome.

G. Campbell: On April 12, 1980 -- 20 years ago today -- Terry Fox dipped his foot in the Atlantic Ocean as he began his Marathon of Hope across the country. There are few Canadians in recent memory who have had as much impact on the lives of every single one of us as Terry Fox. Although his run was tragically cut short, I think it's important to remember that his dream and his hope live on year in and year out. Because of his commitment and his dream, literally millions of dollars have been raised towards cancer research and have unquestionably aided literally thousands of people around the world.

Today, hon. Speaker, I'd like to just take a moment to pay tribute to Terry Fox and his memory and use the words of his mother to remind all of us in this Legislature about what we can accomplish: "We can follow our dreams and surpass what anybody ever thought we could do just by trying to do our very best." That's what Terry Fox did. It was his dream; it was the example he set. This side of the House -- and everyone in the House, I know -- would take their hats off to Terry Fox and the legacy he's left us all.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Today is Pharmacy Day, the day we recognize the work of the people who deliver pharmaceuticals and the pharmacy business in British Columbia. We have four members of the B.C. Pharmacy Association here in the gallery, and I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce them. They are Don Millward, the president; David Hill, the past president; Marshall Moleschi, the vice-president; and Bob Kucheran, the executive director. Would the House please make them most welcome.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Hon. Speaker, today in the members' gallery we have a special guest from Switzerland. I'd ask the House to join me in welcoming Peter Felix, who is the newly appointed consul general of Switzerland in Vancouver. I had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. Felix this morning. Would all members please make him welcome to our province.

Hon. I. Waddell: Another dream that we have in British Columbia is to win the 2010 Winter Olympics for Vancouver-Whistler. We are the Canadian candidate. I'm pleased to draw to the attention of the members that we have in our gallery two people from the bid committee.

The first one is a distinguished athlete, our chair, Marion Lay, a former Olympic medallist. She's currently chair of the National Sport Centre in Vancouver and currently co-chair of the B.C. Games Society. The second person is a distinguished businessman, Don Calder. He's CEO of the Vancouver-Whistler 2010 Bid Society, past president of B.C. Tel and past chair of the United Way. Would the House please make these two people very welcome.

R. Kasper: Today we have three representatives from the Island Farmers Alliance: Judy Thompson, Ian Christison and Scott Crawford. They're here for meetings this afternoon. Would you please make them welcome.

I. Chong: I see in the gallery today a friend of mine. I know the Attorney General has indicated the representative from the Inter-Cultural Association, but I would like the House to pay a special welcome to Charlayne Thornton-Joe, a very hard community worker.

[1415]

H. Giesbrecht: I'd like the House to welcome a rare visitor seated in the gallery today. He's someone I've had many a political discussion with over a cup of coffee -- all in good fun and good humour, of course. Would the House please join me in welcoming Dave McClelland.

Introduction of Bills

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY ACT

Hon. A. Petter presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Holocaust Memorial Day Act.

[ Page 14938 ]

Hon. A. Petter: I move that the bill be introduced and read for a first time now.

Motion approved.

Hon. A. Petter: Today I'm proud to introduce Bill 5, the Holocaust Memorial Day Act. Last year British Columbia became one of the first jurisdictions in the world to recognize Holocaust Memorial Day, or Yom ha-Shoah, and did so by way of proclamation.

We are now introducing legislation to ensure that this day is commemorated every year and to reaffirm government's long-term commitment to fight racism, violence and hatred. Holocaust Memorial Day is determined by the Jewish calendar, and this year it will fall on May 2. The legislation provides for the official remembrance of millions of European Jews, their descendants and others who were persecuted between 1933 and 1945. The bill recognizes the singularity of the Jewish Holocaust and, at the same time, acknowledges that others were also persecuted because of their physical or mental disabilities, their race, their religion or their sexual orientation.

The bill we are introducing today is both a reminder of the terrible injustices that can occur when human rights are denied and an opportunity to demonstrate our shared commitment to upholding and protecting the human rights of all British Columbians and to ensuring that these kinds of atrocities never happen again.

G. Campbell: Due to the unique nature of this bill and the importance of this day, I ask leave of the House to make a comment.

Leave granted.

G. Campbell: This government took the step last year of declaring Holocaust Memorial Day, and this year, as we bring in legislation, I think the government is to be applauded for that initiative. Yom ha-Shoah is a very important time for everyone of the Jewish faith and indeed for all of us who must remember the impacts of the Holocaust on lives of people around the world -- 1.5 million children lost their lives as a result of the Holocaust. Those were children who had taken away from them the ability to laugh, to smile and to enjoy their lives.

Our obligation to them, I believe, is to remember and to not ever forget the lessons that are learned from that tragic experience in human history. As Moshe Ronen has commented -- Moshe is the president of the Canadian Jewish Congress: "The Shoah, the systematic attempt to annihilate our people, is a unique event in history with enduring universal lessons for all humanity. These lessons must be learned and remembered if we are to prevent similar atrocities from occurring in the next century."

Today is a day for us all to remember, and I look forward to the reception at three to meet with members of the community to share their experiences and their remembrance.

Hon. A. Petter: I move that the bill be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Motion approved.

Bill 5 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

[1420]

Oral Questions

UPPER PITT RIVER GRAVEL PIT PROJECT

AND PROTECTION OF FISH

G. Campbell: The upper Pitt River produces the largest population of threatened coho salmon in the entire Fraser basin and possibly the entire southern part of the province. Last week the Outdoor Recreation Council nominated the upper Pitt River as the most endangered river in British Columbia. Everyone in this House knows that our salmon stocks are at risk, and it's time to put fish first. My question is to the minister responsible for fisheries. Will he agree to protect the salmon of the upper Pitt River and prohibit the development of a gravel mine on that river for good?

Hon. D. Miller: The permitting falls under my ministry, so I think it's appropriate that I respond so that the members are aware that the proposal is a use that was permitted in 1990 by the then government. A right was granted at that time to mine the gravel. We were advised by the Attorney General ministry that because of that, there is a legal barrier to using the Environmental Assessment Act to review the project. Notwithstanding that, we have been working with the Ministry of Environment to define a process that would review this. I want to assure all members that fish are really the prime concern. We have not yet announced the process, but I would hope that we will get there shortly.

The Speaker: Leader of the Official Opposition with a supplemental.

G. Campbell: There are a number of things that have changed since 1990. One of them is that everyone is now aware that our salmon stocks are endangered in the province of British Columbia. The list of those opposed to the gravel pit is extensive. All local councils are opposed to it. The B.C. Wildlife Federation is opposed to it. The B.C. Federation of Fly Fishers is opposed to it. At least four members of the government caucus are opposed to it. All the members of the opposition are opposed to it.

My question, again, to the Minister of Fisheries is: will the Minister of Fisheries assure us that he will protect the salmon, the sturgeon, the Dolly Varden trout and the fish on the upper Pitt River from a gravel pit taking away their habitat and in fact endangering them?

Hon. D. Miller: Well, it's true that things change, Mr. Speaker, but the law doesn't change. I suppose all of us in this House would agree that in trying to tackle the issue, we ought to respect the rights of the company that has the right to mine. It's something that I think all members would agree on, including members of the opposition. We shouldn't, without regard, trample on those rights.

I think all members of the opposition would also agree that in any situation that's contentious, whether or not that's a legal situation involving individuals, due process is very much an important aspect of reaching a conclusion. If the Leader of the Opposition is advising us to ignore due process, I'll take that under advisement. But it seems to me that to be responsible, one ought to try to develop a process that has

[ Page 14939 ]

integrity, that allows full consultation on the issue and, at the end of the day, that assures every British Columbian -- particularly those with a strong interest -- that fisheries values will not be impacted if this project proceeds.

The Speaker: Leader of the Official Opposition with a further supplemental.

G. Campbell: What I want to hear from the minister responsible for fisheries is that he is going to stand up and protect the salmon, the trout, the sturgeon, the Dolly Varden -- all of those species -- from this gravel pit. At a time when we're told that we're closing fisheries because there's not enough . . . . Aboriginal fisheries are told that there's not enough; the commercial fisheries are told that there's not enough; the sport fishers are told that there's not enough. This government goes to Ottawa and says: "You're not doing enough."

When will the minister stand up and say: "Enough is enough; there will be no gravel pit on the upper Pitt River"?

Hon. D. Miller: Again, with respect, Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in the answer to the first question, the project had received approval by both the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the provincial government in 1990. The project entails not only an assessment of the mining of the gravel but also an assessment of a barge load-out facility. The DFO is fully involved. In fact, I'm advised that the barge load-out facility may trigger the federal CEA process. But DFO, which has responsibility for these issues, is fully in the picture.

[1425]

As I said, I do believe that all governments ought to respect the rights of individuals. We had some conversation about that a few days ago. What the Leader of the Opposition seems to be suggesting is that we not respect the rights of the people who hold the permit, that we ought not to engage in any due process to make an informed decision. Rather, the Leader of the Opposition seems to be suggesting -- because he has now read in the newspapers that a number of people are opposed to this -- that he has conveniently climbed on that bandwagon.

I would prefer to try to have some integrity in the process, to try to respect the law, to try to respect the rights of individuals and, at the end of the day, to make sure that we protect fisheries values.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, come to order.

R. Neufeld: My question is to the Minister of Energy, so maybe the Minister of Fisheries will stand up and answer this one. I'm not really sure.

It's interesting to hear that government talk about infringing on people's rights. My goodness. I'll tell you, it's a little bit hard to take. We know and you know -- the minister knows -- that the conflict on the upper Pitt has been going on for a long time. The government of the day -- this government -- has no long-term plan for protecting fish and the gravel requirements in the province of British Columbia. This is nothing new to the minister; he has known about it for a long time.

Can the minister give me a plan or at least a step towards a plan for the removal of gravel and the protection of fish in the province of British Columbia?

Hon. D. Miller: Mr. Speaker, that seems to invite a lengthy response, but I'll try to limit my remarks. Gravel removal is undertaken in a variety of ways, but all of that is subject to process. In some cases, where it's a new application and the threshold is sufficient to trigger environmental assessment, then the environmental assessment office reviews the project and makes a recommendation to the ministers involved. In other cases, the process is handled through the mine development process at the regional level, led by my ministry.

I think it's fair to say that gravel pits and gravel mining are contentious in various parts of the province. But I think it's also important to note that British Columbians do consume a significant amount of gravel, and therefore there have to be sources for the ongoing work, whether that's provincial, municipal or even individual. Those assessments are based on individual applications. If the member would like a more comprehensive briefing, I would be happy to provide that through my officials.

The Speaker: The member for Peace River North with a supplemental question.

Can the minister tell us, if he has no plan -- which doesn't surprise me -- when he will start putting together a plan for the protection of fish and the removal of gravel within the province?

[1430]

Hon. D. Miller: Well, again, the question is somewhat rhetorical. I did explain that individual applications to mine gravel go through one of a couple of processes, and in those processes -- very much in those processes -- is a requirement that there be no detrimental impact on fish. That's both at the provincial level and at the federal level. The member knows that, I suspect, and is kind of huffing and puffing, because they think they're on to a hot issue.

FUNDING FOR LOVAAS TREATMENT

FOR AUTISTIC CHILDREN

J. Weisgerber: My question is to the Minister of Health. The parents of autistic children in this province are faced with some very difficult choices. They can keep their kids at home and look to the community services, if they're fortunate to live in a large community. They could pay for private treatment -- proven treatment -- which would cost them $40,000 to $60,000 a year. They can move to Alberta, or they can put their children into care and cause enormous disruptions in their family.

Can the minister explain to me why the province of Alberta, that backwater of health care, pays for Lovaas treatment and therapy, and British Columbia does not?

[ Page 14940 ]

Hon. M. Farnworth: Hon. Speaker, to the member, I appreciate his question. That's one of the reasons why there is a court case right now that is looking at this issue.

Interjections.

Hon. M. Farnworth: It is dealing with the issues that the member raised. There is a series of procedures in this province in terms of assessing treatments that are covered by MSP and are paid for by the government. They, in turn, include the input by and the requirement for physicians to assist in making those decisions.

The situation in Alberta is somewhat different. It's not quite as straightforward as the member says. The situation in Alberta is that it pays up to $60,000 to be spent anywhere, and different provinces have different approaches in terms of what treatments are recognized. In this province we rely on the system that's in place to deal with approvals for new treatments, for new drugs, and that should be best left in the hands of those who are most able to make that decision -- which are physicians, for example. But I am watching the court case closely, and we will wait until it's finished.

The Speaker: The member for Peace River South with a supplemental.

J. Weisgerber: Well, the fact of the matter is that about 150 families in British Columbia today are bankrupting themselves to pay for the Lovaas therapy. It seems to me that they, at least, have been convinced that this is the right treatment for their children, and I expect that their doctors have been convinced that this is the right treatment. But people can either pay for it and bankrupt themselves, or they can move to Alberta. It seems to me that this government, which takes great pride in its commitment to universal health care, is letting down those children, is abandoning those autistic children.

Would the minister undertake to advise the Attorney General to abandon his court case, quit fighting these families in court and start standing up for autistic children and their families in this province?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Hon. Speaker, the . . . .

Interjections.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I'm responding to that member's question. When you ask a question, I'll respond to you.

The Speaker: Through the Chair, please.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Hon. Speaker, the member's question is a good one. The Ministry of Health is willing to sit down and work out what the most appropriate response is. But there's a case before the courts right now, and that has to work its way through.

The province is almost alone, of all the provinces in this country, in providing one of the widest variety of treatments available across a wide spectrum of services in this country. We supply a whole host of supplemental practices and services that aren't covered in other provinces. If we're going to make changes, then it should be done on the advice of the medical community, the people who know the issue best, and not decided on the basis of what a particular minister thinks. I recognize the problems that the families face, and I'm willing to work with them on looking at the issue.

But it should be decided on the basis of what is appropriate medical treatment, at the same time recognizing that currently there is a court case underway. I can't comment until that's completed.

[1435]

The Speaker: The bell ends question period.

Interjection.

The Speaker: The member for Matsqui will come to order.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Point of Privilege

Hon. G. Wilson: Hon. Speaker, yesterday in the House the member for Okanagan-Penticton rose under standing order 42(1) to demand that I withdraw comments which he said I attributed to him. That was taken on notice, I believe, by the Deputy Premier. These comments that were attributed to me were suggesting that I had attributed to that member that he was talking about privatizing health care.

I have reviewed Hansard , and indeed the exchange took place in a rather lively set of interjections, when the Minister of Small Business and Tourism was delivering his remarks, in which the member for Okanagan-Penticton was clearly talking about private-public partnership. Perhaps I might be forgiven for being confused, because I note that in the case of the government of Ontario, after which the members so often model their case, public-private partnership came under the responsibility of the Minister for Privatization. Nevertheless, if I have in any way offended or misrepresented the member opposite, I unreservedly apologize.

The Speaker: Thank you, minister. That ends that matter.

Petitions

E. Gillespie: I have the honour to present a petition signed by over 2,000 people demanding that the preserve-and-protect mandate of the Islands Trust be upheld with respect to clearcut logging on Saltspring Island.

Orders of the Day

Hon. D. Lovick: I call continued debate on the throne speech.

Throne Speech Debate

(continued)

L. Stephens: It's a privilege for me to rise today to speak to the throne speech, because it gives me a wonderful opportunity to talk about my constituency and some of the important issues that we are concerned about. It also gives me an

[ Page 14941 ]

opportunity to talk about what this government has proposed for this coming fiscal year in their very sad and sorry document here.

Some of the things that I want to talk about today are the services that people of Langley have received over the past year and, more specifically, those that they have not, and what the throne speech of the government talks about this year and what some of those services may or may not be.

[1440]

I've listened to the government members over the last couple of days, with their many Pollyanna speeches about how wonderful government policies have been and will be. What I want to do is talk a little bit about what government policies in the past have meant to the people of British Columbia -- some of them people in my riding -- and look a little bit at what the government's reality is or what they perceive the reality to be. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the government's reality and the reality of the people in British Columbia are far different.

If we look at the throne speech, we have here a very slim document that runs to 18 pages, with the first five having nothing whatsoever to do with a throne speech. The very first item in the throne speech that has any significance whatsoever is the new budget transparency law. This has been tabled in the House, and that's something that members of the opposition are looking forward to debating at some length. This is something that we have urged the government to bring in for quite some time, so I am very pleased -- as all members of the opposition are -- that that in fact is going to happen.

When we look at or listen to a throne speech, what we expect it to say is what the government is proposing to do for the people of British Columbia in the coming year. Because we are going into the new millennium, I expected and my constituents expected that this particular throne speech would be bold, that it would be creative and that it would be innovative. And you know, Mr. Speaker, I found none of that in this document -- absolutely nothing in this document that could be considered bold, innovative or creative.

As a matter of fact, there is no vision, there is no plan, and there is nothing new in this document at all. It is probably the worst throne speech I have ever seen in this House in the nine years that I have been here.

There are the same old policies, from the same old group of people, that we have seen regurgitated year after year. What we really have to do is ask ourselves: are we better off this year? Will we be better off this year because of government policies that they have talked about, particularly during the budget and somewhat during the throne speech? We have to ask ourselves: is our standard of living higher? Do British Columbians enjoy more access to government services? Is the province being run in an efficient, effective and economic way? Are our taxes lower?

These are some of the questions that citizens ask themselves each and every year, when they hear a throne speech and when they hear a budget.

I think what we have to do is take a really good look at that. First of all, I'm going to have a look at the economic indicators, because for me there are really two. There are the economic indicators of the province, and then there are the indicators of services to people: health care, education and services to children. Those are the things that I think are important as we go through government policy and look at what is and what is not working.

First of all, I want to make a little comment. I believe it was yesterday -- it could have been the day before -- that the Minister of Employment and Investment was replying to the throne speech. There was one remark that he made. I am reading from the Blues of that day; it was on Monday. He said: "The fact that we are second-lowest in Canada with respect to the proportion of taxpayer-supported debt to GDP is a real measure that has value."

I think that for the Minister of Employment and Investment to make such a statement is quite telling of this government and how it understands the economics of the province. The real per-capita GDP is the measure that has value; that is what has value. The debt to GDP is important for this government, precisely because it is going in the wrong way. It is going up instead of down, which it has in every other province in this country. So the prime measure of economic growth is the real per-capita GDP, and that is a measure of productivity. That's what is important; that's what has value.

In British Columbia that has dropped over the last decade, and it has increased in every other province in Canada. So for the Minister of Employment and Investment to make that kind of statement, I think is telling. I think it shows quite clearly why the province is in the kind of difficulty that it is in, simply because members on the other side obviously have no idea of what kind of economic growth or what kind of economic indicators are important to the well-being of British Columbia and the citizens in it.

[1445]

So I want to talk a little bit about what some of those economic indicators are and compare a little bit between British Columbia and the rest of Canada. I'm going to be using StatsCan figures and numbers, because this isn't the opposition that is making these statements. These are quantifiable; these are authentic. These are not fudged in any way, which I don't think you can say for the government opposite.

According to Statistics Canada, British Columbia placed last in Canada in terms of private sector investment growth. This is another key indicator; it's absolutely key. Private sector investment growth -- again, something that the Minister of Employment and Investment doesn't seem to understand, nor other members opposite. If they did, they would certainly take steps to address that. I think that with a province like British Columbia, which has been so vital and so strong up until the nineties, that has been a humiliating experience for all of us who value the standard of living that we used to enjoy in this province.

From 1996, British Columbia's debt to GDP has grown faster than that of any other province. I mentioned that earlier, Mr. Speaker. It's grown faster. So we are going in the wrong direction, and that's something that members opposite have to have pointed out to them time after time. British Columbia is the only province that has not balanced its budget this decade. Seven of the provinces have balanced their budget. We're expecting two to balance theirs this spring; that's Ontario and Newfoundland. British Columbia will be the only province that has not balanced its budget in the year 2000 -- the only one.

One other fact that I find disturbing, too, is that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says that poverty has increased at a faster rate in British Columbia than in the rest of Canada. That's an issue that I want to talk about a little bit later. Again, this is the Canadian Centre for Policy Alterna

[ Page 14942 ]

tives, usually an organization that favours the government and certainly has much in common with the philosophies and direction of an NDP government.

Just in the area of finance, in the economy, under this government the total debt has doubled 101 percent since 1990-91. The total debt per person has risen by $3,000 -- works out to 63.6 percent. The interest costs on the debt have risen by 50 percent. The taxpayer-supported debt has risen by $16 billion, or 165 percent. These are big numbers, Mr. Speaker. They're huge numbers, and they mean tremendous difficulty for this province to dig themselves out of the hole of debt that this government has taken us into.

Since 1997, B.C.'s credit rating has been downgraded each and every year by the major bond-rating agencies. One of the first and most highly symbolic legislative changes that this government made when they came to government in 1991 was to axe the Taxpayer Protection Act. Mr. Speaker, when you look back over this past nine years and you look at that first act that the government opposite did when they assumed power, it is very telling. If you had hindsight, that alarm bell would ring quite alarmingly.

It's been absolutely clear that this government, over the past nine years, has no consideration for the taxpayers of British Columbia at all -- absolutely none. There is no commitment from that government to control spending or to control taxes or to control debt.

[1450]

The real per-capita after-tax income has fallen by $1,800 in this decade. It's the biggest drop in after-tax income in Canada -- another indicator. British Columbia was the only province in Canada where the real per-capita GDP actually decreased -- again, another first and another record for British Columbia. We've also had a pathetic 11 percent growth in private sector investment. That's all -- 11 percent. Alberta was 107 percent, Saskatchewan was 89 percent and Manitoba was 73 percent. Those are big numbers too, and they're certainly a lot better than ours.

The other area that I think the government needs to pay attention to . . . . This is the one area that they talk about, saying that they care about ordinary British Columbians, that they care about the poor, that they care about the disabled, when in fact what we have in Canada and in British Columbia is an increase in poverty. The Canadian rate is 17.5 percent, with the British Columbia rate at 18.2 percent.

Again, it's nothing to be proud of and everything to be ashamed of in this province that was so plentiful in its opportunities for the people of British Columbia to look after themselves, to look after their families and to build a life for themselves. What we have here is the worst record of any province in Canada.

If you look at businesses and look at business bankruptcies in British Columbia, the dollar value of business bankruptcies in 1992 accounted for 6 percent of the Canadian total. By 1998 the dollar value of business bankruptcies accounted for 34 percent of the Canadian total -- another statistic that is to the detriment of British Columbia. If you look at British Columbia companies that have been moving out of the province, there were 131 that moved to Alberta in 1999 alone. There are over 618 that have headed to Alberta since 1992 -- another record that is something the government should hang their heads in shame about.

I know that opposition members who have been travelling around the province to different communities can tell you that each time they meet with community members in various parts of the province, they'll tell you that the stories of families and businesses moving to Alberta or other parts of Canada or even across the line are growing alarmingly. So something that the government must pay attention to is how to make sure that British Columbia remains competitive. With the kind of policies that the government has brought forward, that's not likely to happen.

The throne speech really has been a bitter disappointment for families. It has certainly been a bitter disappointment for businesses. When you look at nine years of high taxes, nine years of high fees and royalties and successive deficit NDP budgets, they've really failed to provide any kind of meaningful relief at all. Really, this year's token tax reductions won't even begin to offset the decline in the real after-tax income that working families have suffered from over this past decade.

When you look at all the policies of this government, you'll find that we're the worst in investment, the worst in job creation and the worst in economic growth. Because of the government's refusal in successive budgets to eliminate these regressive tax and regulatory polices, it has ultimately destroyed the economic growth of the province.

[1455]

On top of all of these failed economic policies, the government has wasted billions and billions of dollars on these mismanaged megaprojects, costly business subsidies, labour settlements, the needless red tape and the bureaucratic bloat that we find in this government that is increasingly top-heavy with administration and bureaucracy. It doesn't matter which ministry you look at; it doesn't matter which area of the government you look at. You find, time after time, endless bureaucratic reorganization and endless bureaucratic red tape that mean less service to people.

When we talk about services to families and what those should look like and we talk about the lack of services -- certainly in health and education and services to children -- the members opposite say: "What would you do? What would you cut? Which schools would you cut? Which hospitals would you cut? Which services wouldn't you provide? What wouldn't you deliver?"

When you look at the government's record on how they spend the money, that tells the tale. There was a billion dollars in the Forest Practices Code, which was just bureaucratic bungling. There was $463 million in the fast ferry fiasco. There was $73 million in the failed Vancouver convention centre. There was a billion dollars in business subsidies to the Skeena Cellulose buyout. There was $65 million in the failed photo radar cash grab. There was $125 million in lost federal revenue from Nanoose Bay, when the former Premier tried to pick a fight with the federal government and lost.

There was a billion dollars without a strategic plan for FRBC, and there was $310 million on the fixed-wage policy.

So there's the money; there's where the money is. That's what the government could have used to provide those kinds of services for health, education and children that all of us in the province want and that we're not getting. This is where the government continually misspends money, continually mismanages the affairs of the province. It's all documented, and it's all there for the world to see.

There are other areas that the government is spending money where it doesn't need to, and that's in some of the liabilities from litigation. I don't know how many lawsuits this government has faced, but it's significant. There are some

[ Page 14943 ]

looming liabilities there. One of them is the Carrier Lumber breach of contract. Another one is the suit by Western Forest Products, MacMillan Bloedel and TimberWest Forest that was brought against the province over its decision to hike timber royalties.

Then, of course, there's the 6,300 forest workers in forestry renewal who are facing the federal tax cuts. This was after the government members told them that in fact they would be tax-exempt from both the provincial and the federal. These poor workers, these poor people, who were trying very desperately to retrain . . . . They were trying desperately to look after their families. I think they were deliberately misled. They were deliberately misled by this government to expect that the amount of training funding they were receiving was tax-exempt, even though the record shows . . . .

The documents from the federal government show quite clearly that that wasn't the case. Whatever the province decided to do with their share of that tax was the responsibility of the provincial government, but the federal government was quite clear that those individuals would in fact be taxed on the amount of money they received.

These are all wasted tax dollars. Every cent of those tax dollars has not been available for these health services, education services and services for families. When you add all that up, it's a huge amount of money, and you can see the lost opportunities for people in this province.

[1500]

Some of them are that they could have built seven new rural hospitals. All members of the House -- certainly members on the opposition side here who travel, who visit some of these rural communities -- can tell you that the health care services in many of them leave much to be desired. The constant refrain that members of the opposition hear as they travel around is that they don't have the hospital services, the technological services, the physician services, the nursing services or the obstetrical services that the people of British Columbia need and desire.

They could have paid for 60 kidney transplants and 40 liver transplants. They could have cared for 200 foster children. They could have bought textbooks for 10,000 high school students. Mr. Speaker, I think that's a travesty. In a province the size of British Columbia, one that has historically been as rich as British Columbia, the fact that our high school students don't have textbooks is nothing short of criminal. We say that children are the future; we say that education is important. The government says that it is protecting education, and yet we know that the textbooks for high school students in British Columbia are virtually nonexistent. That shouldn't be happening.

They could also have bought six MRI scanners. They could have paid for 900 long term care beds. In my riding alone, in the South Fraser health region, that's what we need to have. That's just our health region -- 900 long term care beds. That's just what we need. That's not what the rest of the province needs.

Again, the government has talked about this at length and has made a number of announcements. It's never happened. These beds are still nonexistent; these beds still haven't happened. And to hear government minister after government minister stand up and talk about how many beds they're going to supply and how many nurses they're going to supply and announce the dollars that go with it, and then to find out -- three months, six months, a year later -- that certainly in regards to the mental health plan, those dollars were never allocated to the budget . . . .

And yet the ministers went out and made the announcement. That's what we see time after time after time: government ministers going out there and making announcements that never happen -- never.

To add insult to all of this injury, the fast ferries price tag -- money that's just gone -- is $463 million. What adds insult to injury is the $32 million a year, in the first year, to service that debt. That's more money that is not available to provide health care, education and services.

When we look at the government's plan either in the budget or in the throne speech, there really isn't a plan. There's certainly no plan to stimulate private sector job creation or investment or confidence in our economy. And there's no plan to combat the brain drain or increase opportunities for young British Columbians.

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker . . . . I was in the Cariboo not too long ago; it was in February. The youth unemployment rate in the Cariboo is horrendous. There is either no employment or part-time employment, all of it minimum wage. Many of the young people there are having to work two or three jobs, if they can find them, to stay in the Cariboo. What many of them have done, of course, is leave. Many of them have gone to Alberta. Many of them have come down to the lower mainland. Many of them have gone to other parts of the province to try and find employment.

If you look at the education system there, you'll find that the school district is looking at closing six schools because the enrolment has dropped so drastically -- because the families aren't there anymore, because the children aren't there anymore, because people have left the Cariboo. That's just one example of how badly off many parts of this province are.

There's also been no real personal income tax relief, other than the flow-through from the federal government, and for a while it didn't look like we going to get that. I think it's only because people were watching to make sure that the amount of tax relief that the federal government provided in its budget actually came to the people of British Columbia.

[1505]

There's been no plan whatsoever to control the expenditures or reduce skyrocketing debt, and there's no hope of balancing the budget until 2004-2005. And, Mr. Speaker, based on the track record of this government, it will be never. With this government, there will never, ever be a balanced budget. What that means to families, again, is catastrophic.

I want to talk a little bit about poverty, because I don't think we've had enough discussion around the issue of poverty. The Minister of Social Development and Economic Security talked a little bit about it yesterday. She talked a little bit about how wonderful the government was, how they were providing all kinds of services for low-income families, how this government was prepared to make sure that children had the kinds of services they needed and that single moms had the services they required and that low-income families were in fact made better by the policies of this government. Again, Mr.

Speaker, you only have to look at the reality. You only have to look at the truth and at what is actually happening in the province.

I'm going to read into the record a little bit of this particular

article from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives,

[ Page 14944 ]

B.C. office. It is in the "B.C. Commentary." This particular one is entitled "Falling Through the Cracks: Poverty in British Columbia." It says:

"The 1990s were a difficult decade for British Columbians, particularly for the poorest in the province . . . .

"In real, per-capita terms, wages and salaries in B.C. declined by 7.3 percent from 1990 to 1998. However, those closest to the bottom of the income ladder felt the most pain -- due to more flexible labour markets, matched by cuts in income supports by governments. As a result, there was an increase in poverty in B.C. by any measure. The depth of poverty was also higher and more visible on the street in the rise of homelessness, panhandling and food banks. Life for the poor is more difficult and precarious than it has been in several decades . . . .

The vast increase in jobs in the 1990s has come in the form of part-time work or self employment, neither of which pay as well or have the security associated with full-time paid work."

We talked about that a little earlier, Mr. Speaker. The anecdotal evidence that all of us on the opposition side have gathered as we have gone around the province, as we have met with communities, is verified in reports like this.

I know the government members opposite are going to talk about the Canada health and social transfer. Every time there is an issue about whether or not the government is making the right priorities, they always come back and say: "Well, it's those awful federal people. It's that federal government that never gives us the amount of money that we require or that we deserve. It's their fault; they're the ones that make the cuts. There's nothing we can do about it." Well, what this document says is that British Columbia had the opportunity to make the right choices and chose not to.

Mr. Speaker, I see my time is running out, and that's unfortunate. I had a lot more to say, but just let me conclude. This government, over the past ten years since 1991, has in fact driven this province into the ground -- done nothing for the people of British Columbia. Members opposite are going to make sure that this government is held to account and that every single individual in this province understands the damage that has been done to this province.

[1510]

S. Hawkins: Hon. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to reply to the Speech from the Throne. In my mind and for my constituents, the Speech from the Throne is supposed to be a vision. As other members have mentioned, it should be a new vision, and it should be something that people in British Columbia can look forward to. It's the plan that the government puts out for the year, and the budget is the implementation of that plan.

You know, I've had a chance to look at both over the last couple of weeks, and what I'm finding is that it's not a new vision. It's a bunch of old promises that were never delivered. When I look back over the last few years at throne speeches and budgets that have been delivered in this Legislature, there really isn't anything new. I've got the 1996 throne speech, the one that promised the two balanced budgets and promised a reduction in debt. They said that British Columbians were very, very concerned about debt, and this government opposite was going to reduce our debt. It also talks about tax cuts and job creation and investment opportunities.

Do you know what? The throne speech this year talks about the same kind of stuff, but that's four years of old promises that were never delivered. In the last four years we've had more debt. In fact, debt under this NDP government has doubled since they took office in 1991. We went, I believe, from a $17 billion debt to about a $35 billion debt now. That is absolutely astounding.

Ten years ago we were number one in Canada. We were the envy of every other province in Canada. We had the highest credit rating of any province; we had the lowest debt service costs, the smallest debt relative to our size. And we had the fastest-growing economy. Do you know where we are today? Because of incompetence, mismanagement, mistakes, miscalculations and missed opportunities, we are number ten. I would say that's perhaps because of -- as the auditor general mentioned in his report on the fudge-it budget of 1996 -- the inflation of optimism. So $800 million of optimism was added to the '96-97 budget.

What did that result in? I believe it was about an $800 million deficit in those budgets. So there was a little bit of dishonesty in those years too.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

We have gone from number one to number ten, and in the last four years I haven't seen this government change. I haven't seen a balanced budget since I was elected, and I was elected to this House in 1996. Every year there's a promise of balancing the budget, but every year that promise moves forward to other years. This government promised a balanced budget in '96-97, which was never delivered, and in '97 they said it was going to be balanced in 2000-2001. Well, here we are. Do we have a balanced budget? No, we have a deficit of about $1.5 billion. Unbelievable. Do we foresee a balanced budget in the future?

Under those guys, not until 2003-2004. We will never see a balanced budget, because they won't be in power in 2003-2004. We will see a balanced budget because this side of the House, this opposition, plans to balance the budget.

We have a promise of new budget transparency laws here in this throne speech. You know what? It's not because they wanted to; it's because they have to. It's because people are sick and tired of having the wool pulled over their eyes. It's because the auditor general put out a report, and it's because -- the NDP are before the courts on this very issue -- the public are sick and tired of being lied to. Because they have to define themselves as a new government . . . . And I don't see anything new over there. Really, the words in the throne speech might be just juggled around a little bit, but they haven't changed since 1996. It's the same members sitting over there.

[1515]

Interjection.

S. Hawkins: The member says 1991; I guess so.

It's really interesting, because the auditor general has been talking about transparency and accountability for the last 12 years. It's kind of hard to take when a throne speech says that they have finally heeded the concerns of British Columbians, and they've been heard. British Columbians have been trying to speak out for the last four years, and what they've been saying is that they want an election. They want to have a chance to vote on this government. We have voted down the throne speech and budget every year, because nothing has changed; it's more of the same.

What British Columbians are asking this government to do is have the courage to call an election on one of their budgets and let British Columbians

[ Page 14945 ]

have the right to show what they really feel about this government. That means that they would vote this government out of office faster than you could say go.

I'm going to take my seat, because I understand one of the members has an introduction to make.

B. Penner: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

B. Penner: I'd like to thank my colleague the member for Okanagan West for allowing me to make this introduction.

In the gallery are more than 45 members of the Chilliwack and District Seniors Resources Society, who have travelled to Victoria today to take in the sights and take in the sounds of debate here in the Legislature. I ask that the House please make them welcome.

S. Hawkins: I was talking about the new budget transparency and accountability law that's going to come into place. It's interesting, because the government says that this new law will hold the government to a higher standard on transparency as it uses special warrants. Well, isn't it nice that we're going to get this law after they have overspent last year's budget by $400 million? We don't know how that law would apply for the last nine years that they've been overspending and using special warrants.

It will kick in next year, but it's too bad we had to wait this long to get a process that will limit the government's spending by special warrants and will actually show us what they're doing.

With this law, will they learn their lesson? I don't know. And you know what? Call me a cynic, but I don't think they will. I always look at past behaviour to predict future performance. I think most people do. The past behaviour of this government and what they have done with their reckless spending and their megaprojects, which the Finance minister admitted himself . . . . In fact, in his budget speech one of his admissions and one of their promises was that they would not embark on any more megaprojects or reckless spending.

What an astounding admission to make! And the megaprojects were astounding. It's $470 million and counting, I guess, on the fast ferries, $73 million wasted on the convention centre and a billion dollars in business subsidies. Why should the government pick winners and losers? Why can't the market -- the competitiveness of the market -- decide? They spent $310 million on fixed-wage policies and lost $125 million in federal revenue from Nanoose Bay. I could go on and on. The members on that side are always asking: "Where are you going to find the money for health care and education?

You're going to have to cut." No, we won't, because you know what? If we saved half of what they wasted, we'd be able to have a better health and education program for this province. They have been very irresponsible with their spending.

In the throne speech, I read that they're going to strengthen and modernize health care. You know, they talk about health care being a top priority of today's families. Obviously it is. They talk about how in the coming weeks they'll set out an agenda to relieve the pressure on our hospitals, the heart of our health care system. Well, I'm waiting with bated breath. They talk about addressing the shortage of nurses today and expanding the training for tomorrow. They talk about it like it's a new issue, like these problems just happened yesterday, and they recognized it and are going to solve it now.

The problem with nurses, the problem with congestion in hospitals, the problem with long-term wait-lists, the problem with surgical wait-lists didn't happen yesterday. We've known those problems have been coming for ten years. The problem is that this government hasn't been able to plan for it -- not at all.

[1520]

I was pretty amazed to see the Minister of Energy and Mines stand up the other day, when he was giving one of his replies -- it was either to the budget or to the throne speech -- and say that the nurses and the doctors raised issues and horror stories around contract talks only because they wanted more money. I think that was his premise. That is absolutely astounding to me. I just can't believe that a minister of the Crown would stand up and make that kind of allegation. The nurses don't necessarily raise those issues around contract talks; they're raising them all year round.

They've raised them every year for the last nine years, and I know that, because I was one of them. I moved to this province in 1991 as a nurse, ready for work. I was a specialized nurse -- in fact, I specialized in neuroscience, in brain surgery -- and I couldn't find a job here.

An Hon. Member: And now you can't find a brain over there.

S. Hawkins: The member says: "Now you can't find a brain over there." I'm looking awfully hard, but it is hard to find one, let me tell you.

Nurses have a very significant issue with workload. We're burning out our nurses. The average age of a nurse now is around 45, 46 or 47. They're going to be retiring soon. You know what? The average work life of a nurse is around five years. The thing is that we can't keep them in the workforce, not with the working conditions we've imposed on them, not with the workload we've imposed on them, not with . . . . As a nurse, you end up picking up the slack for everything else that seems to fall short around you. That is not fair.

Those are the kinds of issues that they have been speaking to for the last ten years. In fact, the Canadian Nurses Association, every nursing association across Canada and the nursing unions have been speaking about the nursing shortage for at least the last ten or 12 years. This government, in the throne speech presented on March 15, 2000, says that it's going to address the shortage of nurses today. Well, they should have started ten years ago. They should have started the first year they got into power. That's when they should have started, because that's when the issue was raised.

Now the rest of the world is competing for nurses -- everywhere around the world. We have the best-trained nurses in the world here in Canada. You know what? They're all leaving. I know that, because nurses who worked for me were going to the States, were going to other countries, because they can. Ontario talks about recruiting 10,000 nurses; Alberta talks about hiring another few thousand nurses. This government talks about hiring so many nurses. Well, I want to know: where are you going to find them now? You cut out the training spots. In fact, a couple of years ago . . . .

The member for Skeena might remember that the northern nursing program at UNBC was threatened. The govern-

[ Page 14946 ]

ment was going to cut positions there. Well, how farsighted is that, when they knew when they were making that decision that we were going to be short of nurses? Do you know where we're the shortest of nurses and health care personnel? In the rural areas, where that member over there is from, and he's heckling. Perhaps he should visit his hospitals, visit his rural nurses and find out what pressures there are on them working in those areas. It is very stressful and very hard to find personnel to go out to those rural places.

If health care is the top priority of this government, then we should all be afraid. Frankly, the polling shows it, and anecdotal stories show it. The government might not want to hear it. They keep talking about the health horror stories that don't exist. But they're out there, because we hear them. We hear them day in and day out. They're not pretty. In fact, I think the capital region had a meeting the other night, and it was a very poignant moment when a gentleman stood up, holding his baby, and said: "This is not a number." Patients are not numbers. The government treats them like numbers.

They say they care, but actions speak louder than words. What we've seen is a decimation of our health care services across the province.

The government doesn't act until it has to react. We've seen that time and time again in the last nine years. They don't respond to a problem until it becomes of such crisis proportions and such a media nightmare for them that they have to act on health care problems. We saw that with rural health care. We saw that during the nurses' strike. We see that over and over again. They talk about surgical wait-lists -- that they've improved them. They haven't. The statistics show that they've gotten worse. In my area we have the longest waiting list for surgery in the province.

[1525]

Interjection.

S. Hawkins: The minister over there asks me what I'm doing about it. What are you doing about it? That's what we're asking: what are you doing about it? You're spending money. The government is spending money on fast ferry projects that do absolutely nothing except suck up money. They post a deficit every year that increases our debt-servicing costs. They've doubled the debt. They've wasted money on Skeena Cellulose. It's $73 million that they've wasted on the convention centre. Couldn't that have been spent on health care? Couldn't that have been spent on surgical wait-lists?

When the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast sat on this side of the House, he had a lot to say about it. He had a lot to say about what the government was doing about health care. In fact, he was a huge advocate. Now he seems to be a co-conspirator over there. He was a huge advocate for health care issues. In fact, he had a lot to say.

Let's just go back through some of the nightmares that people in the province had to face with health care. One of them happens to be Glacier View Lodge. If I recall correctly, when the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast sat on this side of the House, he had a lot to say about what the government was doing with Glacier View Lodge and the expropriation of Glacier View Lodge. That poor community fought awfully hard to save their lodge from expropriation, and I didn't hear any of those members over there speaking out for their community. In fact, the member for Comox Valley was very silent on the issue.

I remember going there two or three times and trying to engage the government in a dialogue on saving Glacier View Lodge. It finally went to a court case, and I even have a quote here from the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast -- what he said at that time when he was sitting on this side of the House with respect to the expropriation provisions in the Health Statutes Amendment Act that came before the House. He said that there are two breaches of trust that have occurred in this process.

The first is that there was a real promise -- an absolute promise -- to have elected boards, and that promise was broken. It's gone. No more will we have elected boards. The second breach of that trust has to do with a much more important issue in the minds of some people who are directly involved in running the society. That has to do with where the assets are going to rest in terms of ownership after the amalgamation occurs.

Let's be clear that where those societies have gone out over the year and raised money for various machines that provide health care services -- they're owned by that society -- the government can't simply come in and decide that it's going to take those assets and seize them. That's what the member said when he sat on this side of the House. Now he's wondering what we're doing about health care. The member now sits as a minister of the Crown on that side of the House. What is he doing to protect those patients? What is he doing to protect those assets? You know what? He says it didn't happen.

Madam Justice Southin said in her decision of April 5, 2000: " . . . this snake may have been scotched but it has not been killed." She does speak to the fact that the community or the public should go to this minister, because he spoke so vehemently against the government on that issue then, and perhaps get amendment legislation and have the expropriation provisions of that act deleted.

I'm wondering if that minister is going to do that. We'll just wait; that's fine. We have been waiting. We've been waiting months and months and years and years for this government to act and do the right thing for a change. We'll just keep waiting. We only have a year to wait, and then we won't have to, because they will be off those benches. The public will make sure that they don't get elected again.

The throne speech talks about further upgrades to hospital equipment. I had toured about a hundred hospitals across the province. We're in a pretty sad and sorry state; we really are. I don't know if we're alone in that across the country, but in British Columbia . . . . When we hear governments talking about new technology being CAT scanners, that is not new technology. I trained in nursing over 20 years ago. CAT scanners might have been new technology then; they are not new technology now.

[1530]

This government has not planned for putting technology into hospitals. They have not planned for putting information technology into hospitals. They have not planned to take the duplication out of transferring information and tests in hospitals across the province. In fact, what they've done is not planned, basically. In the last ten years what we've seen is a real downgrade of services across the province, because this government decided, I guess, to engage in other priorities.

[ Page 14947 ]

Those were their pet projects, their megaprojects. Instead of looking after the day-to-day needs of people and what they depend on as far as health care, they decided to embark on their own projects that perhaps benefited their friends and themselves rather than the people of B.C.

One of the biggest places where we haven't planned -- and again it's nothing new; again I'm sure the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast is going to ask me what I'm going to do about it -- is long-term care. We've got the longest wait-list for long-term care in my constituency. What have I done about it? I've spoken out about it in every session. It's not like this government just learned about it yesterday or two weeks ago when they read their throne speech. They have heard it every year from this member and other members on this side of the House. I'm sure the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, when he was sitting on this side, also spoke about it.

The government hasn't planned for long-term care. We know there is an aging population; we know there is a great need. We know that health care services are mostly utilized in our last years. We know that there are care and support services needed by the elderly. Did we plan for that? Did we have a plan in place? All the demographics were done. We knew that certain areas of the province were going to be impacted. I believe the central Island, around the Nanaimo area, has the second-longest surgical wait-list in the province.

There are certain factors that make them that way. They happen to be a desirable place for retirees, and they just happen to have a larger elderly population. Why didn't we use those areas as pilot projects and try something new and innovative -- try and set up services or fund long-term beds in those areas to see if something worked there so that we could plan for the rest of the province? But you know what? We have got such a backlog now, and it doesn't help that we don't have the nurses, we don't have the physicians, and we don't have the personnel to work in those areas.

We are short all over the province; we haven't planned. I think that, again, is something that the government has fallen down on. It's a shame.

Let me think of something else. The government does try to plan; I'm not saying that they don't try to plan. They plan a lot of announcements; they plan those really well. They plan the photo opportunities really well.

The mental health announcement -- a $125 million seven-year plan. You know, there was big fanfare. I think it was announced two or three times, actually, just so everybody got it right that there was going to be a seven-year plan for $125 million pumped into mental health care programs for our most vulnerable. We were going to take our mentally ill off the streets. You know what I read? It was the Minister of Health who now sits in the Minister of Education chair; she sits on Treasury Board.

She said: "The expenditure was never approved by Treasury Board." So they made a $125 million promise that was never approved by Treasury Board. They made a $10 million promise last year to spend some of that money on mental health; that money wasn't spent.

We are wondering where that plan is, where the money is. What's happening to those people? There was a plan. They've never kept to a plan. They've never kept to a plan of promising a balanced budget, they've never kept to a plan of reducing the deficit or eliminating it, and they've never kept to a plan of reducing our debt. They've never been able to deliver. They set all these lofty goals, but they never seem to hit them. They set all these targets; they never seem to meet them. They look great on paper, but there are never any business plans. It's really quite disturbing.

[1535]

We met with a group from Vancouver yesterday to talk about AIDS services in this province. I recall . . . . Gosh, I think we started off with the Minister of Health who is now the Deputy Premier and then the Minister of Health after her, who is now the Education minister. Now I'm sure we'll deal with the Minister of Health who used to be the Employment and Investment minister.

The AIDS strategy. We have a epidemic in this province. I'm sure that every member in this House knows that. It is something that we were renowned for around the world. We are the developed and industrialized country with the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS -- in downtown east side Vancouver. That's not anything to be proud of, I have to say. It is nothing to be proud of. The government said they had a plan. Did I believe them? Not really. Four years later there's no plan. Two years ago we saw a framework, and the government tried to pass that on as the plan. But that wasn't the AIDS strategy.

Then I remember that the Minister of Health who is now the Minister of Education appointed an advisory committee that was supposed to come up with an AIDS strategy. It hasn't happened.

Yesterday, when we met with the AIDS group, we heard that they're very concerned because the funding for HIV/AIDS is going to be regionalized. I don't know if the government understands the impact of that. It's a not a regional problem; it's a provincial problem. It makes sense that we attack it in a provincial way and have a strategy that deals with AIDS and HIV incidence across the province, not just talk about it and break up the funding and give it to regions. It's more than a regional problem.

I hope against hope that the new minister will consider developing a plan, bringing in those groups, bringing in those agencies and developing an AIDS strategy. I'm afraid it's probably going to be too little too late. There are other agencies that pick up the slack. They're doing the best they can, but we still have an epidemic. So I'm hoping against hope that they will listen. I don't see any hope for that in the throne speech, but we hope they will anyway.

There have been so many projects in health care that have been promised, and they either haven't come through or have been delayed. That's not helpful either. Projects like the cancer centre in Kelowna, the Southern Interior Cancer Centre . . . . That was a year late. The government makes the promises, they freeze projects, and they freeze decisions. It's not helpful to patients. That does not put the patient first. The Vancouver Island Cancer Centre here in Victoria -- how many years late is that?

Interjection.

S. Hawkins: You know, the member for Skeena says: "What about the debt?" Of course we're worried about the debt. If the priorities in their spending were really health and education, we'd see the funding going there instead of the megaprojects and waste -- millions upon millions, billions of dollars of waste that they've racked up over the last few years.

Five years ago, I believe, we were promised a new ICU at Kelowna General Hospital. Now, the Okanagan region has grown considerably. In my riding, Kelowna General Hospital

[ Page 14948 ]

serves as a regional centre for the valley and has lots of specialized services. I've worked in old hospitals and in old ICUs. But I'm telling you, the one there was pretty archaic. Every year the government promised that they were going to build a new ICU, and very year it got delayed. I remember . . . . I guess it was four years ago when they had the capital freeze, and it was really delayed. You know what? This year, after about four or five years of delay, we have opened an ICU but not to capacity, and we don't have operating funds. That's a shame. Why are we planning projects and not planning for operating?

We have a cardiac program and an angiography program, a cardiac cath program, at Kelowna General Hospital. Guess what. This government is making announcements saying that we're going to have cardiac surgery at Kelowna General Hospital, but we don't have cardiac care beds. We don't have CCU beds.

[1540]

How can they make promises like that without having services already in place? I don't understand that, the health care people don't understand that, and my constituents don't understand that -- hollow words, hollow promises again.

If the government's going to make plans, if they're going to make announcements, if they're going to build units, if they're going to carry those things through, then the money should follow. They should put their money where their mouth is. But unfortunately, they put their foot where their mouth is a lot of times, because when they've built projects, when they've carried through . . . .

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, member. Thank you very much.

S. Hawkins: Can I just conclude my remarks?

Deputy Speaker: Continue, please -- quickly.

S. Hawkins: Well, I just want to say, hon. Speaker, that I don't see anything new in this throne speech, and I will not be supporting the throne speech. The government's past performance doesn't merit it.

C. Clark: Well, hon. Speaker, you will forgive me if I have a look of astonishment on my face after having sat through all these throne speeches and all these budgets since 1996, when I was first elected. I am still astonished to sit here in this House when my colleagues talk about what the government's not doing and hear the members of the government shout across to the opposition: "Well, what are you doing about it?"

Guess what, folks. I've got a news flash. You're in government; we're in opposition. If you'd call an election, we might be able to change that around. But until then, you're the folks with your hands on the levers of power. The government side are the people who, with a stroke of a pen, can make things happen. It's not the opposition. Guess what, folks. You're on the government benches.

We have a Premier who today might like nothing better than to call reviews and have a second look at things and take some time to decide and never really make a decision. But guess what. When you're the Premier of the province or you're a cabinet minister in the province or you're on the government benches, you're the people with the power to make the decisions. Look what's happened over the last nine years of decisions. The decisions that the government has made have led us down to the path where we have gone from being the best province economically in this country to the worst.

So guess what, folks on the government benches. You're the people with the opportunity to decide to turn things around. When a throne speech gets presented to this House, it's the members of the government whose will is expressed in that document. That document outlines for us the vision that the government presents about the province. It's supposed to tell British Columbians what the government wants to do to fix the problems that it's created. That's what a throne speech is for.

When cabinet members sit across and heckle to the opposition, "Well, what are you doing about it?" it's not surprising that some of us will respond with astonishment. It's as though, after ten years in government, no one on that side of the House understands that they're in a position to be able to do something to fix the problems. It's like the people over there on that side still somehow believe that after ten years, their only role is to be like an opposition -- to just sit there and criticize everybody else and point their fingers and try to shift the blame and shuffle it off. Well, that's not leadership, and that's not what you're supposed to do in government.

Government is about making decisions. It's about charting the future, offering vision and leadership for British Columbians about where you want to take us. That's what government's about. It's not about planning for the next headline in the newspaper the day after. It's not about planning some photo opportunity that you never intend to carry through on. It's not about going out and putting in your best efforts to try and deceive the public into something so that you might be able to make it past the next election.

[1545]

That's not leadership; that's not what government's about. That's not why British Columbians go to the polls every four or five years to elect people. They elect members in this Legislature to lead, to make decisions, to do things, to make the province a little bit better than the way they found it. It's so that after four or five years, they can look back on the government they elected and the leaders they chose and say: "You know what? I'm proud of those people." It's so that they can look at those people, and they can say: "You know what?

Maybe I didn't agree with every decision they ever made, but at least they did what they said they were going to do." That's what government's about. That's why people go to the polls.

This throne speech that was presented to us was an opportunity, I thought, for the government to do better than that. The government benches elected a new leader -- a new quarterback for the football team -- and everyone thought

[ Page 14949 ]

that this might be an opportunity to present a new face, a new plan, a new vision, a new hope for British Columbia. Everyone thought there was a chance that they might do something differently, that this new Premier might look at the error of his ways and the error of the ways of all those who had preceded him and say: "I am going to do something differently. I'm going to take this task, and I am going to take this opportunity, and I'm not going to miss it."

Instead, what do we get? We get a throne speech that charts exactly the same path. It might as well be from the same playbook as his predecessor -- the same old rhetoric, empty words from a government that said it was going to do things differently, from a new leader who said he was going to do things differently.

When you step back and think about it, you realize that perhaps that was too much to hope for. In our desperation for a government that was going to act in the best interests of British Columbians, perhaps we did get our expectations too high. Perhaps we did invest too much hope in the possibility that a new leader might chart a new way. Perhaps we did. Now, when we've had the opportunity to look at the way this government operates, we realize it is the same people populating this government that populated the last. It's a new quarterback, but it's the same players in the field. Is it any wonder they're using the same playbook? Is it any wonder that they're charting exactly the same course?

Not only is it the same people, but this new Premier, who was going to do things differently . . . . Not only has he selected the same people to carry out the same jobs; he's rewarded them for the work they did. He's taken the woman who shut down the fast ferry inquiry and promoted her to Deputy Premier. I mean, where does this stop? Where does responsibility begin? Where does accountability start with this new government?

Where is the new, different way that this Premier promised us? It's certainly not in the throne speech. In the throne speech we heard about . . . . Did we hear about a plan for job creation? Did we hear about a plan for reviving our economy? Did we hear about a plan for getting British Columbians back to work? Did we hear about a plan for relieving the hours of regulation that's been piled onto small business? No, we didn't hear one single word about any of that. Did we hear anything about trying to fix our economy? Did we hear anything about trying to get our debt and deficit under control? Did we hear anything about a new commitment to being fiscally responsible? No, we didn't.

[1550]

Instead, we see an empty, vapid throne speech -- perhaps the thinnest I've seen since I've come into this Legislature -- promising more of the same old thing. Instead, we got a statement from a government that includes a deficit that is going to cost us $7.5 million a day in interest alone -- wasted money. This is a government that's a captive of the big banks -- the big banks they like to complain about. If there was ever a government that had become captive of the big banks, it's this government.

While they sit there and decry the opposition for going out and being pro-business, supporting all these people who want profits, they're the ones that are, I dare say, the biggest contributors in this province to the big banks' bottom lines. That's the hypocrisy we see every single day from this government. Do we see any plan to fix the economy, to get people back to work? No, we don't.

What do we see instead? Well, the government did talk about some new changes that they offered in their throne speech. They talked about transparency in government. That promise became transparent pretty quickly, because it wasn't long before the new Premier, with his new promise of transparency, was asked what he was going to do about the fast ferries. Was he going to live up to his commitment to allow a full public inquiry into what happened with the fast ferries? Was he going to live up to the commitment he made when he was running for leader of his party?

Was he going to allow people to go in and have a look at exactly what happened so that we can make sure that it never happens again in British Columbia?

We had the scandal with the Coquihalla Highway, and this government, when they sat in the opposition benches, yelled and screamed about it. They said that there had to be a public inquiry. You know what the government of the day did? It took them six days, but they called a public inquiry. We all hoped when that happened that the mistakes with the Coquihalla Highway would never happen again. Well, guess what, folks. It did, and it happened worse with the fast ferry fiasco. Does the Premier who's committed to transparency, who made the promise that he would look into this, do anything to look into it? No.

He rejects an inquiry. In fact, he promotes the person who shut down the only thing that we had, the only tool the public had to actually look into that, through the Public Accounts Committee. The woman who shut that down got promoted to Deputy Premier for her efforts. Well, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot for all that transparency.

What about all the transparency the Premier is showing today? You know, with the stroke of a pen -- he wouldn't even have to pick up his pen -- the Premier could tell us how much the government's spending in legal fees to defend his predecessor in court. But he won't tell us that. It's the public's money, but he won't tell us. How much money is the public spending to defend this latest in the long string of disgraced former Premiers? Our new Premier, who's supposed to be committed to transparency, won't tell us. He won't tell us how many either.

How many legal teams does the former Premier have looking after his interests? Our current Premier doesn't even see fit to share that information with us or share that information with the public that's footing the bill.

I got a fax from someone today saying: "I have a limit on how much I can go for in legal aid. I have a limit on how much I can demand of the government because that's public money. It's carefully controlled. They want to know where every dollar is spent when I go out and I ask for that kind of help from government for my legal costs." The Premier won't tell us how much money we're spending to defend the former Premier? For goodness' sake, that's public money too. It's supposed to be carefully controlled. Where is the accountability when they won't even give us that information? Where's the transparency from this government?

[1555]

Then the Premier says that he won't give us an inquiry into the fast ferries. He won't tell us how much we're going to be paying in legal fees for the former Premier. But you know what he will do? He will appoint the truth police to make sure that if he or any member of his government is overcome by an urge to mislead the public about the budget again, there will be someone there to make sure they can stop them before it

[ Page 14950 ]

gets out of hand. Well, thanks a lot. That's the best that this government can offer the public in terms of honesty and transparency?

How bad has it gotten in British Columbia where, after ten years in government, rather than just introducing honest budgets, rather than just changing the way government does business, rather than just making a genuine commitment to transparency and honesty in government, the Premier has to come up with an elaborate scheme to ensure that he tells the truth? He has to come up with a referee who's going to tap him on the shoulder if he's overcome with the urge not to -- someone who can sign off on every one of his budget statements, giving them the certificate of authenticity.

Isn't that supposed to come with leadership anyway? Isn't that the way government is supposed to work anyway? But the government benches have been reduced to having to bring in an outsider to certify the authenticity of their statements, because nobody believes them anymore. Nobody believes them. We've got an Attorney General who used to publicly say that no one would believe him. Is that any surprise, after what we've seen with budget after budget, throne speech after throne speech, promise after promise that this government has made and hasn't lived up to?

You know, the throne speech also promised us a new child care plan for British Columbia. No, no. Actually, that's going way, way too far. The government promised us $14 million for child care. There's no plan. Oh no, that would be asking way too much. Anyway, I'm sure that in this government's view, $14 million is just a drop in the bucket anyway. It's just chump change, as far as this government's concerned. So why would they need a plan?

For goodness' sake, they didn't have a plan for the fast ferries, and that was half a billion dollars. For goodness' sake, they don't have a plan for the SkyTrain, and that's a billion and a half dollars. Why would they bother with a plan for something as measly as $14 million? Anyway, child care doesn't count as a megaproject, does it? Why would the government bother coming out with a plan for that?

Well, you know why they should come out with a plan for that? It's because child care is important in British Columbia. Child care is one of the most important services that government can provide. It's important for government, if they are going to provide child care, to make sure that every single penny that's spent on it actually goes to delivering the highest-quality, most efficient service to as many children as humanly possible. That's important work. That's what government should be spending its time doing. But government can't do that effectively if they don't come out with a plan to deliver it. Saying $14 million for after-school care isn't enough. That's not enough.

An Hon. Member: It's an announcement -- come on.

C. Clark: It's just an announcement. The government needs to be able to say: "Here's how much money we have. Here's where we're going to spend it. Here's the limits on how you can access those funds, and here's what we expect to get out of it.

At the end of the day, when we've spent the money, here's how we're going to measure whether it was spent effectively." That's the way to provide child care in British Columbia, not just to come up with some announcement that you've cooked up on the eve of budget day and that somebody's written on the back of a napkin, so that you can produce an announcement out of your throne speech the day after, because otherwise you're concerned that someone might notice that you haven't balanced your budget again. That's not the way to provide effective child care in British Columbia.

Yes, we should be providing child care. Yes, that's an important service. But if we believe it's important, then let's do it right. Let's make sure it's done properly. Let's be honest about it and up front. Let's make sure that every dollar that's invested in it is invested well.

[1600]

That money comes from people who work hard, pay their taxes, go to work every day and take home half of what they earn because the other half comes to government. We owe it to those people to take the half of their paycheques that government takes away every day and spend it properly, judiciously, prudently, honestly and fairly. We owe it to those people to do better than this. We owe it to all those single moms depending on child care in British Columbia, who hear an announcement in the throne speech that there's going to be child care.

We owe it to them to come up with a plan that's going to work -- that is going to actually improve their lives, not just raise their hopes and expectations so that we can dash them again. We owe them more than that. They work hard every day for that 50 cents they take home and that 50 cents they give to government.

When I look at this throne speech, I see a government that's failed in its duty to work hard, that hasn't rolled up its sleeves and thought creatively about what we can do to deliver better lives for people in British Columbia.

You know, it is time for a government that cares more about the people that it represents than it does about getting re-elected. It's time we had a government in British Columbia that cared more about its citizens than it does about the next day's headline. It's time we had a government that was prepared to be honest and bold and make tough decisions and stick with them, because that's what people expect of government. It is time -- and I'll borrow a phrase here -- that we had a government that worked as hard as the people who paid for it.

Does anybody remember that line? That was the line that the then Premier used in 1991 to get elected. He said that we should elect the NDP, because we deserved a government that worked as hard as the people who paid for it. Instead, we have a government that comes out with a throne speech that was probably written up on the back of a napkin and that offers a child care program that no one has really thought about. That's not a government that's working very hard. That's not a government that cares more about the services it delivers than it does about getting re-elected.

This government promised $125 million for mental health, and it never even went through Treasury Board. The NDP told us they were going to get all those people that live on the downtown east side -- who are shuffling from corner to corner with nowhere to go; who are suffering from severe mental illness -- off the streets. In 1991 they made that promise. They ran those ads; everyone will remember. They said they were going to do something about that problem, and they never delivered.

Those people are not just still there; there are more people down there -- hungry and lost and alone, suffering from mental illness, turfed out of the places where they were receiving care, with nowhere to go in the community.

[ Page 14951 ]

Then the government has the gall to announce $125 million to care for people who have mental illness, and they don't even bother to deliver on it. Not only do they announce it once; they announce it three times. Three times they went out and told people that their expectations would finally be met and that they would finally be cared for; and three times they didn't tell the truth. Now we know that there was never any intention of delivering on that promise either.

When British Columbians look to this government and say, "You know, we just don't think we can trust them anymore," is it any wonder? It's a government that doesn't care -- doesn't care nearly as much as it does about getting re-elected -- when it should be thinking about its citizens, when it should be thinking about delivering services.

British Columbia is founded on the idea that if people come here and work hard, they will get ahead and will be provided for by a government that cares. That's what British Columbia is about. That's the ethos of this province. This last ten years of the NDP seem to have been some kind of determined effort to deter us from that path.

We have a government that not only knows they can do something better than we can with our money but knows they can be better parents than we are. They know what's better for us. We've seen ten years of a government that has, first, deprived people of jobs through its terrible economic management; second, deprived people of the desperately needed services that they're obligated to provide, because they don't make it a priority; and third, been determined to insinuate itself into every single aspect of our lives.

[1605]

That's not what British Columbia is about. That's not where our province came from. That's not what people left places like Scotland, the Ukraine, Africa, India and Asia to come to Canada for. That's not why people came to British Columbia. When my great-great-grandparents came here, they left everything in Scotland. They came here with absolutely nothing, because they believed that this place would be better than the place they left. And they were right about that. But over the last ten years, this government seems to have done everything it could to deter us from that path, to make British Columbia a different place than it traditionally has been.

All those immigrants who came here with my great-great-grandparents in the 1800s kept coming. They came here all through the last century. They were coming here all through the seventies and eighties. But do you know what's happening in British Columbia now? People are leaving. People are leaving British Columbia because they can't make it here anymore. That's what the NDP have done to British Columbia. They've turned this from one of the most desirable places on earth to live into a place where people can't even make a living anymore. They have to go somewhere else to have their children cared for, because the government won't provide those services anymore.

That's what the NDP have done to this province. They've changed it. They've changed it dramatically from the tradition that this place is founded on. It is shameful. Ten years of NDP government have diverted us from the path that has made this the greatest place in the world to live. Ten years of terrible economic mismanagement have made this a place where not only can you not get ahead; you can't even work hard, because there aren't jobs to find. Ten years of economic mismanagement have meant that our shrinking economy no longer provides the revenues to government that government needs to provide services for people.

That's the tragedy of this -- that the NDP . . . . Nobody ever mistook the NDP for good economic managers. Nobody would ever have said that they knew what they were doing with the books. No one would probably ever have accused any of them of knowing the first thing about accounting, but a lot of people might have said ten years ago that the NDP knew something about taking care of people. Well, ten years of the NDP have proven everyone wrong. Not only can they not manage our economy; they don't know how to take care of people either.

There is one group in British Columbia that they do know how to take care of, and that's themselves. The NDP have spent ten years taking care of themselves. You know, we've got a former Premier who's being defended with taxpayers' money. We've got former members of the bureaucracy that the government told us were gone who are still sitting there on the government payroll. We've got ministers who promoted the fast ferry project -- the fiasco -- who get promoted. In fact, we've got a whole crew over there who were complicit in the last ten years of the worst economic bungling we've seen in the history of British Columbia, and every single one of them has been promoted.

Well, it is time for a change. It is time to elect a government that is going to do things differently, that's going to show some courage, that's going to put British Columbia back on the path to prosperity, that is going to put British Columbians back to work and honour the sacrifices that generations of people have made to make this province great. It's time for an election. It's time to get rid of the NDP, and it's time to elect a government in British Columbia that's going to put us back on track and get British Columbia moving again.

[1610]

In the community of Kimberley, for instance, the Cominco mine is closing down in two years because they're running out of ore. For many, many years the water system, because it has been a company town in the past, was totally owned by Cominco. It was a company town, and the company didn't want to be responsible for the infrastructure of the water system any more. As the MLA, I worked with the city to build a completely new dam to hold adequate water to provide the community with services for today and for many, many years to come -- and also a new pipeline. That's a total of $10 million in investment for that community. They now have a very fine water system, one of the finest water systems

[ Page 14952 ]

in the province, thanks to investments by this government in a community like Kimberley to see it through to the future.

This investment in infrastructure meant that this community, for instance, could attract Charlie Locke from Alberta with a new resort that's been built in Kimberley -- again, one of the finest in the province. Charlie Locke is very, very pleased to be in British Columbia, along with many, many other companies that are investing up to $1 billion in the Kootenays in the recreation field.

This government, which I am very proud to be part of, invested in the new skills training centre in the community of Kimberley. When that party was in government some years ago -- back in the eighties -- they closed down the college in Kimberley out of spite. The main reason was that Kimberley had a tradition of not voting for that party under their old name. So they closed down the college service to that community. I was proud to bring investments from this government back to Kimberley -- some of the moneys that they had sent here over the years. They were ignored by that party under their former name. So they now have a skills centre in Kimberley.

Last year I was pleased to announce in Kimberley a brand new middle school, an elementary middle school for the community of Kimberley -- again, catching up on investments that weren't made over many years by this opposition, when they used their old name. As part of that school announcement, we also announced that there is a $1.3 million theatre being built in the community of Kimberley. This theatre is funded by the provincial government to assist this community in its transition to the new economy. It is going to be very, very important for the local community and for the many, many people that will come and visit Kimberley, visiting this beautiful area in our province.

Over the years that I have been a MLA, there were many other parts of the infrastructure that had to be caught up in Kimberley. I worked with the community, for instance, to get a new downtown revitalization program done in the southern part of Kimberley. It used to be a separate municipality some years ago called Marysville. It still is, but it is within the boundaries of the city of Kimberley. There is also major investment in the hospital to upgrade the facilities. It has been a pleasure for me to have worked with Jim Ogilvie, one of the most senior mayors and most capable mayors in the whole province, on projects that I have just mentioned for the city of Kimberley.

In the Columbia Valley, in the community of Invermere . . . . Getting back to other investments this government has made and is proud to have made in our youth and in our aged people -- in everyone in the communities -- we built a new high school very soon after I was elected MLA. I think it is important to make investments like that. The new high school in Invermere is without a doubt one of the nicest high schools and is a very proud part of that community. I was very proud to be there with the Minister of Education as he opened that facility.

I mentioned in a speech a couple of weeks ago that we also built a new college in Invermere which is attached to that new high school. These are two very important investments the government has made in Invermere.

[1615]

We built, I am very proud to say, a new multicare facility in Invermere that is attached to the hospital. The community worked hard. I think it was the Lions Club that led the fundraising over many, many years, and they had money in place when this government had the moneys to invest back into the community of Invermere for this multicare facility. I have also worked with the local government on other infrastructure in Invermere -- a major new bridge replacing a wooden structure that was long past its useful life. It was over $2 million for that bridge.

Other schools in Invermere have had major upgrades under this government. This is some of the work that was left by previous governments, and we have caught up on this. The infrastructure across our province is in good shape, thanks to investments that this government has made in communities -- and of course, that is in people.

In the village of Radium Hot Springs, I have worked with the mayor and council in some downtown revitalization work. While Radium has got only about 700 people, it's a growing, beautiful place. I've also worked to get moneys for them for a new water system in Radium.

Just north of the village of Radium, there's the rural community of Edgewater. Over the last year I've worked to get money for a new sewer system. The community just had a referendum as to their portion of this system, and it passed easily. I think over 80 percent of the people voted in favour. So that's going to go ahead. That's investments in communities in the province, large and small, and I'm very, very proud to have worked to make those investments in infrastructure.

Just south of the community of Golden, we built a brand-new elementary school in the small community of Parson, again investing in people and in our province -- and in this case, of course, investing in our youth, the biggest and most important resource we have in our province. In the budget of a week ago there was an announcement that there will be continued upgrades to the hospital in Golden and also in Kimberley; I think I forgot to mention that a few minutes ago. In Golden over the years we've also made major infrastructure investments in the airport.

I think it is roughly a million dollars in the community airport in Golden -- again, important investments for a community that is growing, major investments in water, sewers, roads.

Another major investment that this government made was, through Canada-British Columbia Infrastructure Works, in the small community of Field about 35 miles east of Golden in my constituency. That's up in the federal park, in Yoho National Park. We worked with that community because for years and years the electricity in that community was generated by diesel power. Commercial people in the community of Field, for instance, were paying 35 cents per kilowatt-hour for power. It was pretty hard for them to make a dollar up there. For residential people there was some small subsidy from B.C.

Hydro or from government, but that was unfair to a small community like Field. Even though they're isolated, they're still part of our province.

As I said in a speech a couple of weeks ago, the area that I represent has been well dammed by the Columbia River Treaty, so it's only right that the people in my constituency have hydro. So I've worked with that small community, with the federal government and with B.C. Hydro and made sure that they now do have hydro service available, the same as the people in this building. So they have power available for their community. The pollution from the diesel engines has gone. Commercial enterprise can thrive, because they have the same chance to compete as other people in the province of British Columbia.

[ Page 14953 ]

In the fine city of Revelstoke, I was proud to have worked over the years, again investing in the community in the new skills training centre, and with major school upgrades over the years to gyms, to schools, to service that proud community. During the time just before I was appointed Municipal Affairs minister, I was able to work with the community to get a completely new water system, because there had been problems with their old water supply. A new $6.6 million water system is being built which will serve that proud community of Revelstoke for many, many years. Other major investments have also been made in road and sewer systems in the community.

Something that I mentioned some weeks ago but must mention again is the community forest. This government worked with the community of Revelstoke to set it up at the same time the opposition said that we shouldn't set it up -- that we should quit fooling around in Revelstoke and not set up the community forest. It has been very, very good for the province and is something I'm very proud, as is the community of Revelstoke, to have worked on. People do remember that opposition to setting up that community forest for the city of Revelstoke.

[1620]

In the province in general this government, over the years since we were elected in 1991, has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure. That is very, very important. Without the infrastructure in place, no matter where it is -- in health care facilities, schools or colleges . . . . Of course that's colleges we're talking about -- advanced education. We all know that the opposition completely forgot about advanced education when they were running for election three years ago. That's how much they care about education; they just totally forgot about it.

Also, in the throne speech this year we mentioned that we are going to make sure we have a publicly funded child care system in the province.

Looking at the provincial governments across the country that they always cheer about, I have no doubt that the opposition believe in a two-tier health care system, and that's what they would do if they ever moved over to this side of the floor. That's what they would do; we'd have a two-tier health care system. One of the things I think that we as Canadians should be very proud of and are very proud of . . . . We've got some problems today with the health care system due to cutbacks in funding by the federal government, but you don't have to bring your credit card when you go to see the doctor.

You don't have to worry when someone has a baby, gets sick or gets old that you have to sell your house to get medical attention. That's what happens in the United States, by and large. That's what would happen with the health care system that the people over there would talk about.

Their real political ally, of course, is not the federal government in Ottawa. It's the Reform Alliance party that is their political alliance today on the federal level. That's who their friends in Ottawa are. That's who they're asking to run as candidates to fill seats over there as they continue to be opposition. We all know the people that are running for the leadership of the Alliance at the present time, including an MP from the Victoria area, and that the stand of the Reform Alliance party is a two-tier health care system.

So whenever they stand up and say that they care about health care for the average person of British Columbia, they don't. They are talking about health care for the people that wear the $2,000 suits in the tall buildings in Vancouver. They don't care about the average family.

I'm very pleased to be a member of this government and a member of this cabinet, and I'm very pleased to stand up in support of this throne speech.

Hon. J. MacPhail: It is the first time that I have risen in the Legislature to speak during this session, so it gives me great pleasure to congratulate you, hon. Speaker, on your appointment as Deputy Speaker -- and of course the Speaker on his election to this illustrious chamber.

I have not had the opportunity to speak to either the budget or the throne speech before now, so I'm really going to take a wide-ranging approach to the good news that's come about through the budget and the Speech from the Throne. Of course, it will all be very much focused on the government agenda.

I would like to start by introducing into the record some good news around the economy. One of the dilemmas that we as a government often face is misinformation about the economy being spread by the opposition. So for the benefit of British Columbians, I'd like to read into the record what is really happening in our economy.

In February the B.C. economy created another 14,500 jobs, and that was the largest monthly increase among all provinces. Our province had solid growth of employment throughout 1999 and really is off to a very good start in employment growth in the year 2000. In addition to the gains in employment, B.C. also saw the unemployment rate decline to 7 percent. That's the lowest we've seen since August of 1981.

[1625]

Since October employment in B.C. has increased by 2.4 percent. That's second only to P.E.I.'s 4.7 percent and, of course, well above Alberta's 1.7 percent job growth. In February of this year there were 32,000 more employed youth compared to February of 1999. That's such a wonderful indicator of economic growth. The B.C. youth unemployment rate actually dropped by 2.7 percent year over year, and in the past two years youth unemployment has gone down by a full 7.5 percent.

Just a couple of other economic indicators put in perspective the economic recovery that B.C. is experiencing right now. Auto sales and retail sales were up in the fourth quarter of 1999. Of course, that's alongside the rising labour income. Since the fourth quarter of 1999 and indeed in the first quarter of 2000, there has been even greater improvement in that area. If you actually compare January 2000 retail sales to January 1999 retail sales, there was a 4.6 percent increase.

The help-wanted index, which is a measure of demand for workers, has been rising since May of 1999 and was up by almost 20 percent in the first two months of the year 2000 from the same period last year. Of course, we all know that exports were up by a full 10.2 percent in the year 1999. The strength of commodity prices and the pickup in the economy are showing up in government revenues.

Those are just a few of the good economic indicators that B.C. is experiencing right now. I know that in future, when the Liberal opposition is describing our economy, they will refer to this good economic news. Is it all good economic news? No. There are still fragile parts of the economy, and the Minister of Finance has been very forthright in his budget -- the most open and transparent budget ever, I think, in any jurisdiction in Canada. I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance for bringing forth such a budget.

[ Page 14954 ]

Let's talk about some of the issues that are on the agenda of the new government in British Columbia under the leadership of the new Premier. Some of these new initiatives have been highlighted in the government's Speech from the Throne. Many of these are particularly significant to my constituents in Vancouver-Hastings, the riding that I've had the pleasure to represent since 1991. This budget, which arose from the Speech from the Throne, really does invest in a healthy, well-educated and productive workforce that strengthens British Columbia's competitive position in the global economy in the long run.

We all know -- both my colleagues on this side of the House and the Liberal opposition -- that a well-educated, highly trained workforce strengthens B.C.'s competitive position in a global economy. That's why we froze tuition fees for the fifth straight year. That's why we made a major investment to increase funding for our universities and colleges. We restored core funding, and that will help with the tuition freeze and will help to create new courses.

Many of the new dollars go to create over 5,000 new student spaces, including 800 high-tech spaces and 400 to educate new nurses. The wonderful message that I would say British Columbia alone is sending to our young people is, firstly, that we believe in a highly trained, highly skilled workforce, and secondly, that we're actually going to create the spaces available for them to get an education. I was also very pleased to see that there is a sound foundation being created in the early years for post-secondary success.

[1630]

Also, and very important in my riding amongst our inner-city schools, there are 300 more teachers to continue reducing class sizes in our early grades. As the parent of a young child, I know how important the early years of education are, and reducing class size is key to our children getting a solid education in the primary grades. We're building over 100 new schools, additions and expansions, and there will be 387 fewer portables this year than last year.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

That's particularly good news for the riding of Vancouver-Hastings, of course, because earlier this week the Ministers of Finance and of Education announced good news for Hastings Community School, one of the largest schools at the elementary level in all of British Columbia. We announced a multimillion-dollar expansion to Hastings school, which was welcomed by the parents, the teachers and the students at Hastings. I was fortunate enough to be there personally to make that announcement.

Both the throne speech and the budget balance the top priorities of today's families: education, health care, child care, tax cuts and a clean environment -- with, of course, the overriding concern of the need to control the deficit. There's more funding for health care for the ninth straight year, and that will help deal with the problems in our health care system. That's an increase of $549 million more, and that's more than double the federal health care increase to British Columbia.

While there was more money flowing from the federal government, which is always welcome news, it's certainly not enough in any way to take care of all of the health care needs that we need, to look after our constituents in British Columbia.

It is clear from this budget that health care is our government's top priority. We're taking steps to educate new nurses; we're creating 400 new spaces for nurses in colleges and universities; we're hiring new nurses -- a full 600 new nurses this year. We're going to recruit and retain nurses by having the best compensation packages in Canada for nurses.

Last week, when the Minister of Finance, under the direction of the Premier, revealed in a comprehensive way everything that our government has done to work with the broader public sector workforce -- to pay fair wages, to recruit nurses and teachers, to train nurses and teachers, to make sure that there's adequate staff protecting our forests and our environment . . . . The Liberal opposition was scathing in their attack on that -- scathing in their attack on paying nurses a decent wage.

I say: thank goodness our government had the foresight to put in place a proper compensation package for nurses, because there is a North America-wide critical shortage of nurses, and now we in British Columbia, because of the foresight of the government in bringing about a fair compensation package, have the ability to recruit and retain nurses. That's good news.

I must say that I do agree with the Premier that funding, alone, of our health care system is not the answer. In the very near future our Premier will bring together the leaders in B.C.'s health care system to map out how health care providers, administrators and other experts can provide new ideas for delivering better health care. Again, a vision from this side of the House about what needs to be done to health care. We don't just take the pat answer, which is throw money at it.

It is interesting to note, though, in keeping track of the speeches of the members that rise on the opposite side of the House, that every single MLA who sits on the opposite side of the House has asked for more money -- more money for health care, more money for education.

I don't recall . . . . I was listening very carefully. I can't be in the Legislature all the time, but I do pay close attention to all of the words of the members of the Legislature. I have to tell you, hon. Speaker, that at no time did I see a vision. At no time did I see a vision for health care from the opposite side of the House. What I did see was a request for more spending without any thought behind it. Our Premier is taking leadership, and we will put together a vision for health care by bringing together all of the leaders of the health care system.

Particularly close to the hearts of my constituents is the fact that we are putting forward a major new initiative for support for working parents. In the throne speech there was an announcement that we would be moving toward a universal child care system. I was extremely proud to be part of the government that brought forward that announcement.

[1635]

As a parent who's actually moving out of the child care system this year, I along with my child's extended family have been very fortunate to always have access to quality, affordable child care. But I do know that there are hundreds of thousands of parents throughout our province who don't have that same access to either affordable child care or quality child care. There is nothing more pressing on a parent than to worry daily about the welfare of your child for that particular day. It was wonderful news that our government announced that we would be moving toward a universal, affordable child care system. We made a commitment; we put our money where our mouth is.

In this budget there's going to be $14 million for new before- and after-school care for working parents who have to

[ Page 14955 ]

juggle jobs and family responsibilities, and that will be the beginning step -- moving toward expanding our child care system at a very affordable rate. I must say I look forward to the day that the Minister of Social Development and Economic Security rises in this House to announce the plan that she has assembled after wide consultation amongst all of those people in British Columbia who are part of the child care system.

I look forward to that day, because I hope that it will be one time that in the spirit of cooperation, no longer confrontation, the Liberal opposition can join with us and say: "It's good for the parents of British Columbia." I was particularly disheartened -- quite disheartened, actually, hon. Speaker -- to see that their initial reaction was to say that child care is something that we can't afford. I actually am trying very hard to understand how that could possibly be said in the context of understanding that investing in our children is the most important investment we will make.

I do hope that they will have had time to revisit that. I think that that probably was a knee-jerk reaction to our wonderful news. I'm sure that they'll revisit that and change their view.

I was proud to be the Minister of Finance for 18 months in this province. So I am particularly glad that our government has made sure that both our Speech from the Throne and the budget show the new government's respect for small and