2015 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 40th 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, September 30, 2015

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 28, Number

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)

ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

CONTENTS

Page

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Introduction and

First Reading of Bills

Bill 34 — Red Tape Reduction Day Act

Hon. C. Oakes

Statements

(Standing Order 25B)

St. John Ambulance

D. Plecas

Mental illness awareness

S. Hammell

Solid Rock Steel Fabricating

M. Hunt

Wildlife poaching in Africa

M. Farnworth

Orange Shirt Day and residential school system

D. Barnett

25 th anniversary of la Maison de la Francophonie

G. Heyman

Oral Questions

Youth in care death case and child protection system

J. Horgan

Hon. C. Clark

D. Donaldson

C. James

Health authorities’ handling of personal health information

J. Darcy

Hon. A. Virk

Education Ministry data breach

D. Routley

Hon. A. Virk

J. Rice

Orders of the Day

Third Reading of Bills

Bill 29 — Property Taxation (Exemptions) Statutes Amendment Act, 2015

Government Motions on Notice

Motion 19 — Site C power project

Hon. B. Bennett

A. Dix

Hon. M. Bernier

S. Fraser

M. Morris

G. Heyman

J. Martin

A. Weaver

Hon. P. Fassbender

C. James

D. McRae

L. Popham

D. Barnett

S. Simpson

V. Huntington

Hon. B. Bennett

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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Introductions by Members

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to introduce Brenna Czornobaj, who is a recent graduate from the University of Victoria geography department and a volunteer in our office downstairs. This is her first time in question period.

Would the House please make her feel very welcome.

Hon. T. Wat: I’m pleased to introduce two guests from B.C.-based Altentech Power Inc. They are Mr. Larry Taylor, president and CEO, and Mr. Paul Adams, government liaison and technical adviser.

[1335]

I had the pleasure of recently meeting with Mr. Taylor and Mr. Adams to discuss their company’s innovative clean-tech product and Asian business strategy. Altentech develops the advanced proprietary biomass dryers that can virtually dry any type of wood fibre for the production of wood pellets. Their biomass dryers reduce electricity costs by 30 to 50 percent, and they are now looking into exporting to Korea.

Would the House please join me in welcoming this innovative, small, B.C. clean-tech business.

D. Routley: Can the House help me welcome my constituency assistant Patty McNamara — the backbone of the operation, who we employ in our constituency and who does fantastic work representing constituents’ issues to various ministries — and her son Clint Brooks, who is a rising, upcoming representative for the United Steelworkers, and his partner, Cayla Masur.

Can you please help me make them welcome.

Hon. C. Oakes: It is my privilege today to introduce several guests into the House.

Laura Jones is the executive vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. In this position, Laura’s responsibilities include the federation’s legislative, communication and research functions. Since joining CFIB in 2003, Laura has spearheaded a number of high-profile campaigns on behalf of small businesses, including CFIB’s annual red-tape awareness week.

Also joining Laura today is Samantha Howard, director of the CFIB in British Columbia. In this role, Samantha represents the interests of CFIB’s 10,000 members in British Columbia by leading the legislative, research and communication activities on issues affecting small and medium-sized businesses.

As well today, I’m pleased to have James Chase, chair of the Coalition of B.C. Businesses and CEO of the B.C. Hotel Association. James is responsible for advocating on behalf of small and medium-sized businesses on labour and employment issues in British Columbia.

Would the House please help make our guests welcome.

G. Heyman: It’s a pleasure for me to see in the gallery today and to introduce an old friend, Sarah Cox. Sarah was the communications director and my colleague at Sierra Club B.C. She was also acting executive director when the then executive director took a somewhat lengthy leave in 2013. More recently, she has been the senior conservation program manager for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. She’s got a long history of working on preservation of important lands in the Flathead River Valley with some success and, more recently, has been working on preserving ecological values and agricultural values in the Peace River Valley.

Will the House please join me in welcoming Sarah.

D. Plecas: Today in the gallery we have three great leaders and champions for St. John Ambulance, and that is Mike Maceras, Stacey MacIntyre and Morrie Morceau.

Would the House please make them feel welcome.

C. James: Another reminder today that I need to remember to wear my glasses. As my members on this side of the House reminded me, I have a surprise guest in the Legislature today. I’d like to introduce my best friend, the love of my life, my husband, Albert Gerow.

D. Ashton: My good friend from Nanaimo–North Cowichan mentioned the backbone of our organizations in our constituency assistants. But also, our legislative assistants make a huge difference to each and every one of us in here.

We’ve been very fortunate — the rogues downstairs — to have some wonderful young ladies and gentlemen that have made a difference in our lives. But unfortunately, we keep giving them good performance reviews, and they go up to the ministerial level, and we lose them.

So we have two new young ladies to introduce today: Brianna Green and Rosa Ellithorpe. Thank you very much for coming and just a heads-up, girls. No good performance reviews for two years, sorry.

[1340]

R. Fleming: I just wanted to share some great news with the House today. I have a new constituent in Victoria–Swan Lake. Jack Henry Dean was born on September 25, right on his due date, 7 pounds, 12 ounces. His proud father is none other than Jeff Dean, who works

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in these very buildings as an opposition research officer.

It’s wonderful news for him and his wife, Oona. May I commend them on choosing the name Jack. My son and I agree that’s a great name.

Please, would the House congratulate both Jeff and his wife Oona on the birth of their first child.

Hon. B. Bennett: I’d like to take the opportunity to welcome Brad Bennett as the new chair of B.C. Hydro. Brad was announced today by the Premier and will take over, effective tomorrow. Brad is the president of McIntosh Properties. He’s served on the B.C. Hydro board since January of 2012. He’s been chair of UBC. He’s been chair of Okanagan University College, chair of the Kelowna General Hospital Foundation.

Although there’s absolutely zero blood relationship between Brad and I — we worked that out years ago — he does have important familial connections. His father served in this place for many years as Premier, and, of course, his grandfather, W.A.C. Bennett, served here longer than any other Premier in the history of the province and actually was responsible for creating B.C. Hydro, which both sides of the House I think are happy about.

Welcome Brad to his new position. It’s not a highly paid position. It’s a volunteer position, and I know he will do a very good job.

Madame Speaker: Hon. Members, if you’ll join me in welcoming my guests today, Kimberly Sorenson from Richmond and her daughter Gabrielle.

Thank you for joining us.

Introduction and

First Reading of Bills

BILL 34 — RED TAPE REDUCTION DAY ACT

Hon. C. Oakes presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Red Tape Reduction Day Act.

Hon. C. Oakes: I move that Bill 34 be introduced and read for the first time now.

Motion approved.

Hon. C. Oakes: I am pleased to introduce Bill 34, the Red Tape Reduction Day Act for 2015. Bill 34 introduces a commitment by our government to host an honorary day devoted to reducing red tape through regulatory reform and the repeal of outdated or unnecessary regulatory requirements on the first Wednesday of March of each year. This legislation institutionalizes accountability and transparency of regulatory reform. It demonstrates our government’s commitment to ongoing…

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. C. Oakes: …commitment to reduce the red-tape burden imposed on citizens and small businesses.

Since 2001, we have reduced regulatory requirements by over 43 percent. Bill 34 will impose on government a requirement to reduce red tape and demonstrate its continued commitment to regulatory reform on the first Wednesday in March of each year. Reducing the regulatory burden on citizens and small businesses is critical to ensuring British Columbia’s economic competitiveness and providing all citizens with easy access to government services and programs.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. C. Oakes: Bill 34 will also make positive and effective shifts in the management and continuous improvement of our regulatory environment to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of citizens and businesses while maintaining our cap on the number of regulatory requirements.

The legislation solidifies British Columbia as the Canadian leader in regulatory reform by being the first Canadian jurisdiction to enshrine in law a commitment to reduce red tape and repeal outdated, unnecessary requirements on an annual basis.

Madame Speaker, I move that this bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

[1345]

Madame Speaker: Members. The member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head has called division.

[1350]

Bill 34, Red Tape Reduction Day Act, 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 on the following division:

YEAS — 71

Lee

Sturdy

Bing

Hogg

Yamamoto

Michelle Stilwell

Stone

Fassbender

Oakes

Wat

Virk

Rustad

Wilkinson

Pimm

Sultan

Hamilton

Reimer

Ashton

Morris

Hunt

Sullivan

Cadieux

Polak

de Jong

Clark

Coleman

Anton

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Bond

Bennett

Letnick

Bernier

Barnett

Thornthwaite

McRae

Plecas

Kyllo

Tegart

Hammell

Simpson

Robinson

Farnworth

Horgan

James

Dix

Ralston

Fleming

Popham

Conroy

Austin

Chandra Herbert

Fraser

Martin

Foster

Macdonald

Karagianis

Eby

Mungall

Bains

Elmore

Shin

Heyman

Darcy

Donaldson

Trevena

D. Routley

Dalton

Gibson

Chouhan

Rice

Holman

B. Routley

NAYS — 2

Huntington

Weaver

Statements

(Standing Order 25B)

ST. JOHN AMBULANCE

D. Plecas: It gave me a great deal of pleasure to introduce some leaders from St. John Ambulance this morning and even greater pleasure to talk about that organization.

As you know, it’s a charitable non-profit organization dedicated to helping Canadians improve their health, safety and quality of life. It’s an international humanitarian organization and a foundation of the Order of St. John. As Canada’s standard for excellence in first aid and CPR services, St. John Ambulance offers innovative programs and products, ensuring Canadians receive the best quality training. In fact, as one of Canada’s leading charitable enterprises St. John Ambulance has been providing first aid and CPR since 1883.

Across British Columbia and the Yukon, St. John Ambulance volunteers play a vital role in building healthier, safer and more caring communities. There are over 1,200 volunteers who contribute over 240,000 hours of unpaid community service a year. Volunteers contribute to programs such as emergency and medical first response, youth programs and therapy-dog services. St. John Ambulance also plays a vital role in emergency preparedness and response across Canada. This organization is an integral part of every community.

This Saturday, members of St. John Ambulance will be present at the monthly breakfast event that I hold in my community. It’s an honour to have them present. A number of demonstrations will be held throughout the morning for the public.

Members of this House, please join me in thanking the volunteers of St. John Ambulance for the very, very important work they do.

MENTAL ILLNESS AWARENESS

S. Hammell: Next week, October 4 to 10, is Mental Illness Awareness Week, an opportunity to focus on mental disorders, the signs and symptoms, how to get help, stigma, hope and recovery and the impact of mental illness on lives, families, workplaces and society. This statement is from the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health, a national 15-member alliance of organizations representing the entire mental illness continuum.

With that in mind, I’d like to share a reality. Mental health issues will directly or indirectly affect every single person in this House and in your support system, whether it be family members, friends or colleagues. Everyone sitting in this House today will at some point witness a struggle or be diagnosed themselves with some form of mental illness. The reality is that 20 percent of all Canadians of all ages, cultures and economic backgrounds will suffer a form of mental illness at some point in their lives.

Fortunately, the issues surrounding mental illness are emerging from the shadows as our understanding of this illness and treatments improves. We, in this House, must do our part to destigmatize and give voice to those most affected.

[1355]

I ask this House to show support to the alliance efforts to amplify their message through engaging your communities across this province. Early intervention through education can be a powerful tool in combatting the inevitable struggle we will all at some time experience.

SOLID ROCK STEEL FABRICATING

M. Hunt: Starting tomorrow, October is Small Business Month, and there are many successful businesses that are homegrown right here in British Columbia. They deserve recognition for all the high quality and rewarding jobs they provide throughout the province.

Solid Rock Steel Fabricating is one of those companies. Their main forte is to supply and install custom architectural structural steel in the Lower Mainland. In fact, if you’ve ever ridden aboard the SkyTrain, you’ve most likely stood on one of the platforms that this local firm has built. However, Solid Rock Steel also ships fabricated metalwork all over the world, including France, Chile and as far away as Cyprus.

It all began with the dream of Benny Steunenberg. With the encouragement of his friends, in 1965, he decided to strike out on his own. He worked two jobs, the day shift and the night shift, for three months to save up enough money to buy a flat-deck truck, a secondhand welding machine and a torch setup. The equipment enabled Benny to begin fabricating a variety of small jobs in the basement of his home. Yes, he soon discovered that the basement door was not large enough for some of his projects to leave the basement in one piece, and that’s how it all started.

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Now, 50 years later, Solid Rock Steel is celebrating a special anniversary for a business born and bred right here in British Columbia. The longevity and success of this business is a testimony to the entrepreneurial spirit and the determination of its founder, Benny Steunenberg, and his sons. I’d like all members of the House to join me in celebrating the 50th anniversary of Solid Rock Steel.

WILDLIFE POACHING IN AFRICA

M. Farnworth: The recent shooting of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe let a light shine on the global scourge of wildlife poaching.

Wildlife poaching is having a devastating impact on the world’s wildlife populations. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Africa, where the population of elephants has been decimated. In 1979, there were 1.3 million elephants. Today there are just 440,000.

The population drop in elephants is a direct result of poaching on an industrialized scale. Poachers are using automatic weapons, poison, drones and are luring animals out of sanctuaries to slaughter an estimated 35,000 elephants a year. These are animals that live in social and complex matriarchal societies and often live to 70 years in the wild.

Rhinos are even more threatened. And they are hunted in just as horrific ways, often using a tranquilizer gun, so that they are still alive when the horn is removed with a chainsaw and then are left to suffer a painful and agonizing death.

The result of this savage industrial slaughter is a world rhino population that numbers now fewer than 25,000. And the reason for this slaughter is greed, corrupt government officials, criminal gangs, under-resourced conservation programs and the misguided belief that rhino horn, for example, will cure diseases such as cancer or even impotence. It doesn’t. It’s made from the same material as your fingernails.

In the case of ivory, it is for vanity items such as jewellery and trinkets, and a misguided belief that elephants just shed their tusks as they age. Fortunately, people around the world and conservation organizations are fighting back.

This October 3 and 4, in 120 cities worldwide, the global march for the protection of elephants and rhinos is being held to raise awareness of this terrible slaughter and for governments to do something. Here in British Columbia, the organization Elephanatics is organizing the march that will take place on Saturday, October 3, at 12 noon at Vancouver Public Library. I encourage this House to give it the support that this cause deserves.

ORANGE SHIRT DAY AND

RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SYSTEM

D. Barnett: Today is September 30, Orange Shirt Day, which is a legacy of the St. Joseph Mission residential school near Williams Lake. Orange Shirt Day grew out of the story told by Phyllis Webstad, of how her brand-new pretty orange shirt, given to her by her grandmother, was taken away from Phyllis on her first day of school at the mission.

[1400]

Phyllis was only six years old, and it is heartbreaking to know that a little girl had to experience that kind of loss in a place that was new and foreign to her. Ever since that day, Phyllis said, the colour orange always reminded her of how feelings don’t matter.

Orange Shirt Day has been recognized since 2013 to keep alive the discussion on all aspects of residential schools and the harm they caused to children’s health, safety, well-being and self-esteem. Here in British Columbia, our commitment to reconciliation with aboriginal people is unwavering, and we are making significant progress. Most recently we are working to ensure the history and legacy of residential schools is thoroughly covered in B.C.’s K-12 education curriculum.

Orange Shirt Day is an affirmation of a commitment to ensure that every child matters. It is also an opportunity to set the stage for anti-racism and anti-bullying policies for schools, First Nations, governments and communities and to come together in the spirit of reconciliation and hope for generations of children to come. Today on Orange Shirt Day, let us remember that every child matters.

25 th ANNIVERSARY OF

LA MAISON DE LA FRANCOPHONIE

G. Heyman: Tomorrow I’ll have the great pleasure of attending the 25th anniversary celebration of La Maison de la Francophonie de Vancouver in Fairview.

In 1990, a non-profit organization established La Maison as a francophone community centre, the first such large, urban centre outside Quebec. Since then, both the structure and operational model have served as inspiration for similar developments across B.C. and Canada.

La Maison has 13 sponsoring non-profit partners, most housed in the building. A sampling includes the French Chamber of Commerce of Vancouver; Francophone Cultural and Artistic Council of British Columbia; Francophone Youth Council of B.C.; L’Express du Pacifique , B.C.’s only French newspaper; Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique; Collège Educacentre, offering job training, literacy and adult education courses; and Réseau-Femmes, a provincewide women’s rights organization.

It is also home to the only Vancouver preschool with a French education curriculum and, of great interest to many who work nearby, to a wonderful French bistro.

La Maison has undertaken a number of projects to provide a supportive environment for francophone asso-

[ Page 9277 ]

ciations and artistic groups. The largest was the complete renovation of Studio la Seizième, a venue for concerts, lectures, movies, plays and other performances. Théâtre la Seizième, B.C.’s only professional francophone theatre company, has a youth program and a training and theatre professional development program in addition to regular productions.

La Maison is a unique gathering place for Vancouver’s 30,000 francophones, a place to meet and nurture the community’s cultural, educational, social and economic needs. I’ve been honoured to be a guest at a number of events held there.

It’s obvious how much it means to francophones to have a place that celebrates their first language and culture. Mais cela signifie aussi beaucoup aux francophiles, comme moi, et à la communauté en général. Tous sont enrichis par La Maison et la clairvoyance de ceux qui ont établi le centre il y a 25 ans. [But this also means a lot to francophiles, like me, and to the community in general. We are all enriched by La Maison and by the foresight of those who established the centre 25 years ago.]

[French text and translation provided by G. Heyman.]

Oral Questions

YOUTH IN CARE DEATH CASE

AND CHILD PROTECTION SYSTEM

J. Horgan: As we discussed earlier in the week, last week we learned of the tragic passing of Alex Gervais, who died alone in a hotel room in Abbotsford without the supports he needed and deserved. He died in that hotel room despite assurances by the Minister of Children and Families that he and the 32 other children that were being removed from group homes in Abbotsford would not be housed alone and in hotel rooms. The minister’s response to these issues was to discuss yet another review of her ministry.

[1405]

This failure is not the first in the past 12 months. The death of Isabella Wiens, the story of Paige and the continued tragedy of J.P. and her children seem to me and to many in this country and this province to be enough.

Would the Premier agree with me that in order to get to the bottom of these challenges and to bring new leadership and new solutions to the Ministry of Children and Families, it is high time that there’s a leadership change at the top and it’s her responsibility to do that? And will she do it today?

Hon. C. Clark: This is for all of us and for all British Columbians an incredibly tragic event and a terribly tragic story of a young man in government care who died.

We do need to make sure that we understand exactly what happened, the circumstances surrounding his death, the work that was done between the delegated agency and the ministry. If mistakes were made, then we will make sure that there are consequences for whoever it was that was involved and who may have made mistakes.

But the larger question, I think, that we need to be focused on is the life of that young man. What I’ve observed in this Legislature this week has been that the debate has been focused very much on the minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the critic, myself. I think in that debate, as it has gotten very political, we have forgotten the person at the centre of this tragedy — and that’s that young man Alex.

We have a duty to serve all of the children in government care as well as we possibly can. In Alex’s case specifically, we have a duty to understand, through a review, exactly what happened, make sure we understand it, make sure we address it. And that is, in honouring Alex’s death, what we intend to do.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition on a supplemental.

J. Horgan: It’s interesting, the Premier’s tack on this question. Because last week when she was asked about this, she was very quick to lay blame at the feet of the delegated agency. She had cast judgment instantaneously on this matter, the minister hiding behind the need for yet another review of yet another failure in her ministry to protect the most vulnerable in our community. The Premier’s response was to blame someone else.

At the very least, it seems to me that the Premier would recognize that the leadership issue is not about the minister. It’s not about the individual. It’s about new eyes trying to find new solutions.

To that end, what we tried to do today was start at a reasonable place. We have a standing committee of this Legislature that has worked extremely effectively in a bipartisan way to address the challenges within the ministry, the challenges within the community with respect to children in care. Today we brought forward a motion to that committee and sought to bring the minister to that chamber to have a discussion about the challenges she faces and the challenges children face in British Columbia. And what was the response from the B.C. Liberals on the committee? No.

So if we can’t have a discussion here and we can’t have a discussion in a committee that’s designed and created to protect children, at what point does the Premier have to intervene and say: “My highest responsibility is to the children of British Columbia, and to get to that end, I’m going to put someone else in charge so we can have new eyes looking at these vexing problems and actually ensure that we learn from the loss of Alex’s life”?

Hon. C. Clark: Well, I disagree with the member. I do not think that the best interests of children are served by getting into what is really, essentially, a political debate about it.

[ Page 9278 ]

The best interests of children will be served when we understand exactly what happened in this situation. What we do know is that there is a responsibility for the delegated agency to report that a child is in a hotel, and that did not happen in this case. The review will give us more information about what happened and how it unfolded. That is the way we’re going to make sure that children are better protected.

I should say, note for the House, that the Minister of Children and Families has not been shy or reticent about talking to the public and answering questions fully on this issue. She has made herself absolutely available, I think almost every day, since it came to light.

[1410]

We want to make sure that this issue is reviewed, understood and dealt with appropriately. I think we would do better in honouring his death, and any of the issues that young people face when they’re in government care, than making a political issue of it. We have to protect those children. That is our highest duty, and that is what this minister is working incredibly hard every day to do.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition on a further supplemental.

J. Horgan: Perhaps I’ll just remind the Premier of her comments in a similar situation in a time far, far away — the 1990s. She likes to go there periodically. Perhaps she’ll go back and review her comments in this regard.

She said: “It’s right to lay the blame at the feet of the political decision-makers who did not give the office the resources they required.” There is a long list of quotes from the Premier when she was the critic for Children and Families. It’s not a political exercise to ask tough questions. The people of British Columbia expect that their government will do its level best to protect the most vulnerable in our society. That is the responsibility of the minister sitting across the way.

At some point, continued failure is not political. It requires new vision and a new approach. If you don’t see that….

Madame Speaker: Through the Chair.

J. Horgan: Hon. Speaker, if you don’t see that and others don’t see that, then they’re not paying attention.

Again, through you to the Premier. Will she do the right thing today: ask the minister to step aside and appoint someone else to address these very challenging and difficult issues?

Hon. C. Clark: Well, I have no doubt that back in the 1990s, when that member was working for the then government, he had a lot of…. He probably expressed his view that the things that were said by the opposition about children in care were absolutely wrong, when there was a problem. And now, today, he stands up and says he’s changed his mind about that. There is a word for that, but I’m not allowed to use it in the House.

It is also not appropriate, I don’t think, to be speaking about these issues with this young man and his death as a political issue. Someone — a young man — lost his life. A young man in government care that we had a duty to provide, that the delegated agency had a duty to provide.

We’re working hard to make sure that we understand specifically what happened in this case. Before we rush to judgment about what did happen, we need to understand it. Until we understand it, we can’t address it.

This minister has made sure that there are 110 new social workers, most of them on the front lines, out working for the ministry in just the last year. There are 7,200 children in care all across the province. That’s the lowest number, I’m told, since about 1996. There is a lot of good work that is being done in the ministry by delegated agencies and by the individuals who work so hard every day to support those children.

Having said that, though, when the system fails or it doesn’t work, we have an obligation to understand that, and we’re going to do that.

D. Donaldson: What I say to the Premier and to the minister is: let’s honour Alex Gervais’ life by providing some accountability, through the minister and through this government, for his death.

Gwen Point, a First Nations leader well known to this House and chair of the Fraser Valley Aboriginal Children and Family Services Society, has spoken about the Premier’s efforts to shirk responsibility. In a statement released yesterday she said: “Shifting focus solely to the delegated agency appears to be a political move and is not what is needed at this time. What we need now, more than ever, is leadership, not politics. “

When is the Premier going to stop pointing fingers at others and start making the protection of vulnerable children a priority for her government?

Hon. C. Clark: The purpose of the review is to ensure that we understand exactly what happened. I think it’s unfair for the opposition to characterize it as just another review. A review needs to happen.

[1415]

We need to understand the circumstances, and we need to, in understanding them, be able to address them. We can’t do that without thoroughly looking at it and trying to understand it.

The purpose of that review is to also make sure that we can hold appropriate people accountable. If those people, those individuals, are working for the delegated agency or for the Ministry of Children and Families, we will ensure that appropriate accountability is measured, and we are going to make sure that we do that as a result of the review.

As I said, we can’t understand what the problem was

[ Page 9279 ]

and, therefore, who was accountable for it unless we take the time to understand what happened, and we can only do that through a review. I know the minister is working very, very hard to make sure that we do this as quickly as humanly possible.

Madame Speaker: The member for Stikine on a supplemental.

D. Donaldson: Well, it isn’t just the Alex Gervais case. It was J.P., a case revealed this July — children abused while in care. It was the Isabella Wiens case in March — revealed that a child died while in care. It was the Paige report in May — a child, a youth, who had just left care, dying on the Downtown Eastside. So it’s not just about this case.

Yesterday, Ms. Point said: “The Ministry of Children and Family Development cannot disengage or distance itself from its role in the systemic issues that create devastating outcomes, such as the death of this young man.”

The Representative for Children and Youth said: “The agency got nothing special to meet the needs of this young person. They had nowhere to put him. If you’re going to point the finger at this agency, then you should be well aware that there are four pointing back at you.”

So why does the Premier continue to say others were to blame for this tragedy? Will the Premier show some leadership and stop trying to shift the blame for her minister’s failure to protect Alex?

Hon. C. Clark: I want to be clear. It’s only the opposition at the moment that is trying to lay blame, definitive blame, in this case. Our purpose and the minister’s work is to go through a review and understand what happened at the delegated agency, understand what happened at the ministry, and then hold appropriate people accountable. But we can’t do that without a review, and we need to make sure that before the members start blaming individuals, as they have been for the last several days, we understand exactly what happened.

It’s impossible to hold people accountable without the facts, and it’s impossible to get the facts without a review. And a review takes a little bit of time. The minister is working as hard as she possibly can to make sure that we get that review done and that we understand its contents as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, she’s going to continue the good work that she does — 7,400 children in care in the province, the lowest number since, we think, 1996. The number of adoptions in the last year under this minister’s work has gone up by 21 percent.

There is still work to be done, but in all of this discussion, I’d like to point out that there is still also very much good work that is happening on the front lines by workers who are giving their hearts and souls to protecting children every day.

C. James: When will this government recognize their responsibility? When will this government recognize their accountability around not providing the resources needed for those front-line workers to do the job of caring for the most vulnerable?

In May, following the tragedy of Paige’s story, I asked the minister to order a full review for all children in care who were aging out, turning 19, to ensure that they had the supports that they needed to prevent another tragedy in this province. That was not done. And now, not six months later, another young person has died.

This minister and this government have received reports and specific recommendations from the independent Representative for Children and Youth to address the challenges and problems in the ministry, recommendations that have been ignored and not acted on. And now we see the Premier not working with delegated agencies to do what’s necessary to protect children but instead using agencies to deflect attention from her government’s responsibility.

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Will the Premier do the right thing today: make it clear that her minister and her government bear full responsibility for the safety of children in the ministry’s care?

Hon. C. Clark: We do have a duty in government to make sure that the children who are in government care are looked after. All members of this House, I know, agree that we all share that duty.

The Ministry of Children and Families does incredibly hard work every day. They look after 7,400 kids in care, as an example — the lowest number since 1996, we’re told. They’ve put 273 youth into adoptive families this year. That’s up 21 percent. Front-line staff have increased by 21 percent since 2005, and 110 of those workers came in, in just the last year.

It’s not accurate to say that the government has not responded to recommendations from critics and outside agencies. We have. Some of those changes are a response to some of the criticisms and the concerns that have been raised.

I will add, though, that there is still more to do. The death of Alex Gervais points to the fact that there is much more to do. That’s why, before rushing to judgment, as the member is doing today, we are taking the time to do a proper review, understand exactly what happened and make sure that, then, we can address the situation that arose and hold those responsible accountable.

Madame Speaker: Victoria–Beacon Hill on a supplemental.

C. James: In 2013, the Representative for Children and Youth released a report calling for better residential services for children and youth with complex needs — children like Alex. The minister ignored that one as well.

Another report and another recommendation that were

[ Page 9280 ]

not acted on. As a result, Alex had nowhere to go when his group home was closed down. Instead of the kind of safe, stable supported housing that Alex deserved, he ended up alone in a hotel. That was after the ministry told the representative that no children would end up in a hotel.

Instead of pointing fingers elsewhere, will the Premier demand that her minister and her government take responsibility for failing to ensure that her ministry was equipped to be able to help children like Alex?

Hon. C. Clark: We are continuing to do the hard work that’s necessary to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make the system as good as it can possibly be. I’ve pointed out a number of times some of the responses that the ministry and the government have had over the last several years to critics and reviews that have happened within and outside the ministry. It’s good work. There is much, much more to do.

I just should finish by saying that the ministry’s policy is that children should not, except in exceptional circumstances and for very short stays, be in hotels. The first response is that children should be with their families wherever possible, recognizing that government does not make a better parent for children than their own parents do. It’s our responsibility to make sure that we are supporting families in trying to stay together and do the best job that they can in raising their children.

In those cases where children need to be removed, we want to make sure that they find themselves in the best possible situation that’s going to give them stability in the long term. That does not include hotels. Having said that, sometimes it is a necessity. We recognize that, but it’s our policy that it’s only in exceptional circumstances and for a short period of time.

When we get through this review, we’ll have a better understanding of what happened in Alex’s case. We’ll get a chance, really, to honour the fact that this young man died a tragic death, and we want to learn everything that we can from it.

HEALTH AUTHORITIES’ HANDLING

OF PERSONAL HEALTH INFORMATION

J. Darcy: This morning B.C.’s Information and Privacy Commissioner released a report on the way our health authorities handle private health records. What did the commission find? Health authorities are losing British Columbians’ personal health information because it’s being stored on laptops and USBs that are not password protected, privacy training is inadequate, and there are no standard reporting protocols. If this sounds awfully familiar, it’s because it is. This government has been warned about this time and time again.

[1425]

My question is to the minister responsible for data and privacy, the Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services. When is this government finally going to understand that it is putting British Columbians’ confidential health information at risk?

Hon. A. Virk: I understand and appreciate that British Columbians expect their information and privacy to be effectively managed. I think we all appreciate that in this House. We all appreciate that the protection of government data and networks, indeed, is a top priority for this government, especially when it comes to British Columbians’ privacy information.

I appreciate the report also this morning of the Privacy Commissioner and the work that she’s done in highlighting the positive work that’s been done so far. I also appreciate her making recommendations to make that system even more robust, to identity the gaps in the current process. I’m advised that the health authorities are examining all the recommendations and will be taking action in due course.

Madame Speaker: The member for New Westminster on a supplemental.

J. Darcy: Platitudes just don’t cut it anymore from this government on health records. British Columbians deserve better.

We are talking about records that contain highly sensitive details about British Columbians’ health: their medical, their physical, their emotional health; their use of medications; their test results; their medical procedures; and their family history when it comes to health. If this minister doesn’t take this issue seriously, how can he expect other government agencies to do so?

The Privacy Commissioner has told this government, year after year after year, that it has to fix this problem, that it needs robust procedures in place to affect everybody in health care, including health authorities. This government has failed to act.

How many more privacy breaches do we need to have before this minister and this government recognize that they need to act to protect confidential health information of British Columbians?

Hon. A. Virk: Well, what the member for New Westminster fails to say is that in the report the commissioner also says the health authorities are working hard to ensure that when there are breaches, it’s reported appropriately. Those health authorities are working closely with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner regarding any possibility whenever there is a breach.

I think we all recognize that privacy protection is a job for everybody, from every position in the health care system. In fact, all health care staff at every different level are trained.

What the member certainly doesn’t understand also is that there are cases when breaches are analyzed, when they’re reported, and they’re investigated. In fact, this very

[ Page 9281 ]

year Island Health took disciplinary action against employees who were inappropriately accessing information.

It’s the responsibility of everybody in that system to ensure that the responsibilities are fulfilled and that there is accountability.

EDUCATION MINISTRY DATA BREACH

D. Routley: In this House, it’s your responsibility.

As we discussed yesterday, the minister responsible for data security lost 3.4 million students’ personal information, a breach that has become routine with this government.

A couple of highlights from the many breaches and their responses. In 2010, the minister said: “Protection of British Columbians’ private and personal information is a top priority for this government.” Sound familiar? “We committed to improving the system, and we have put the policies and education programs in place to do that.”

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In 2014, the next minister responsible said: “The provincial government takes the management of personal information and the protection of privacy very seriously.”

Same issues, same excuses. The only thing that changes is the date and the names on the press release.

My question for the Minister of Citizens’ Services: after all these breaches, all these investigations, all these commitments to do better, why are you still failing to safeguard British Columbians’ personal information?

Hon. A. Virk: I understand that the members opposite received a fulsome and robust response to the very same questions that he poses today. What I heard was misinformation, fearmongering and an embellishment of the details from that side of the House.

I’ve been clear — I’ve been very clear — that a mistake was made. The creation of that duplicate hard drive and the manner in which it was stored was not correct. I have also made it clear — and I said it before, as well — that I’ve asked the chief information officer of government to do a complete review of the Ministry of Education and of core government to ensure that the protection of privacy is enhanced.

Madame Speaker: The member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan on a supplemental.

D. Routley: Fearmongering? Is that an indication of how seriously this minister takes this issue? British Columbians’ most sensitive information, a bell that can’t be unrung once it’s lost. It’s disgraceful. This government does the same thing again and again, and they expect a different result. They continue to lose British Columbians’ personal information, and we continue to hear the same excuses. “We’re investigating why this happened. We’ll improve the system. We’re sorry.”

To the minister responsible for data security: you weren’t supposed to have an unencrypted hard drive full of personal information in the first place. How many other drives just like this are still sitting unprotected in warehouses?

Hon. A. Virk: Perhaps I’ll repeat some of the facts of this incident. The drive in question should not have been created in 2011. It should have been encrypted. It should not have been stored in the manner it was. To ensure that the protection of data is enhanced, I have asked the chief information officer not only to investigate the initial incident but to do a fulsome review across core government to ensure that the data protection policies of this government that were in place at that time, and now, are fully followed.

J. Rice: Information about the province’s most vulnerable children is missing because this minister failed to keep it safe. Highly personal information about 9,273 people was collected by the Ministry of Children and Family Development and stored on this missing hard drive — highly sensitive information on children in the system who moved schools and lived in difficult circumstances, entrusted to this government. But this government broke this trust.

To the minister responsible for data security, when is he going to contact these 9,200 people and warn them about the risks to their personal information?

Hon. A. Virk: What the member certainly knows is that at present, I have no evidence to suggest any of that information on that drive has been accessed or used for any other purpose. The member clearly knows that.

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The member also knows that the Information and Privacy Commissioner will be working alongside the chief information officer of government to analyze the data that was on that duplicate hard drive and to come up with a plan by which they can assess which individuals need to be notified.

[End of question period.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: Madame Speaker, third reading on Bill 29.

Third Reading of Bills

BILL 29 — PROPERTY TAXATION

(EXEMPTIONS) STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT, 2015

Bill 29, Property Taxation (Exemptions) Statutes Amendment Act, 2015, read a third time and passed.

[ Page 9282 ]

Hon. M. de Jong: I call Motion 19, standing in the name of the Minister of Energy.

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 19 — SITE C POWER PROJECT

Hon. B. Bennett: Let me read the motion into the record:

[Be it resolved that this House supports the construction of the Site C Clean Energy Project; because the Site C Clean Energy Project represents the most affordable way to generate 1,100 megawatts of clean and reliable power; and the Site C Clean Energy Project will create jobs for thousands of British Columbians; and the Site C Clean Energy Project has been the subject of a thorough environmental review process.]

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

That is the motion, and I’m the designated speaker on the motion. I understand I have up to two hours to talk about this. I can see excitement and enthusiasm just bubbling up from the other side of the House. That will give them a chance to applaud early in my remarks. I’m only going to speak for probably around 30 minutes. I think 30 minutes should be enough time for me to get the point across.

Let me start by saying that we all get elected for the right reasons. I’ve always believed that. Even though we have these sometimes severe differences of opinion and world view, I think we all come here to do the right thing and certainly to represent the people that send us here, the people that we’re accountable to.

Sometimes there are big decisions that happen, and this particular project is a big decision. It’s a big issue. Lots of people, as it turns out, support the Site C project in this province. There are some folks that do not support the Site C project.

What I would propose here today is that…. I intend to make some remarks as minister responsible for B.C. Hydro on the project itself in terms of the need for the project, the cost of the project, whether alternatives were examined before making the final decision — what are the environmental impacts, what are the impacts on agriculture, and what about First Nations? — all of the issues that I think all members would canvass if they were going to canvass this decision to build Site C.

What I’m hoping for with this motion is that all members of the House, on both sides of the House, will have an opportunity to express whether they support building the Site C project or whether they oppose building the Site C project. It is our obligation as elected MLAs — whether we’re ministers, whether we’re not ministers, whether we’re in opposition, no matter what political party we’re with — to let the people know, who we are accountable to, where we stand on the big issues.

I’m hopeful — I really am — that members of the opposition will let us know how they stand. I notice that the Leader of the Official Opposition has taken positions on Site C, so I thought that might be a good place to start. In November of 2006, the Leader of the Opposition said: “I get excited about the prospect of a large project like Site C.” It sounds like he’s in favour of Site C. But then about a year later, in February of 2007, he said: “The current policy of my political party is to oppose Site C.”

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Then a few years later, in 2013, he said: “On paper, it’s certainly the next best project.” Then a bit later, he said: “I’ve taken many positions on Site C.” That’s right.

I understand, or at least there is a rumour, that NDP MLAs are not allowed to take a position on Site C. I hope that’s not true. We’re going to find out today. I hope that’s not true. They’re going to get the opportunity. I understand that there were some NDP MLAs out on the lawn today, participating in the protest.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Hon. B. Bennett: Clearly, those folks would be opposed to the project. This is their opportunity to stand up and say that they are opposed. Or perhaps there are some folks over there…. I suspect this is the case. I suspect that there are members of the opposition over there who support the Site C project. I’ll tell you why.

Interjection.

Hon. B. Bennett: Well, it may be a secret, or they may be whipped into a certain position where they’re just not allowed to stand up and say that they either oppose the project on principle or they support the project on principle.

Anyways, we’re going to find out. My prediction is that they will do their usual bobbing and weaving, and they’ll probably attack some of us personally — probably not me. I’m sure that they won’t attack me personally. They’ll probably do some of that, you know. They’ll talk all the way around the issue of Site C, all the way, a full 360, but they’re not likely to tell us whether they’re in support or opposition.

As Minister of Energy and Mines, again responsible for B.C. Hydro, let me just walk members through some of the important issues that led to the government’s decision to build this project. Let me start with the need for this project.

There shouldn’t be any lack of clarity, by the way, about where government members stand on this project. We have a very democratic process on this side of the House, where all members have an opportunity. In fact, I’ve seen members on this side of the House vote against government legislation. I’ve seen them do that. I have never in

[ Page 9283 ]

my 14½ years as an MLA seen an opposition member stand up and be counted all by himself or all by herself and vote with government. It doesn’t happen. We have a nice democratic process on this side of the House. We’ve been through a full internal discussion and even debate at times on the Site C project.

Let me say first of all — and I know that all members know this to be true — we will need the electricity. We’re going to need the electricity by the time this large project is built. And another large hydroelectric facility will generate clean, green power for over 100 years, long after the investment is repaid. That proves that Site C is the best way to acquire the electricity, in my view.

I’ve heard that the Leader of the Opposition, and I’ve heard my critic as well, say that we don’t need it right now. In fact, that’s language that they’ve used: “We don’t need it right now.” If W.A.C. Bennett had waited for the day that B.C. might need the electricity…. “Let’s just wait until we need it.”

It’s going to take nine years to build Site C. I’ve heard several of them on that side of the House say: “Well, let’s just wait. We don’t need it right now.” Right? “We don’t need it right now. Let’s wait.” Imagine if W.A.C. Bennett had waited until they needed the electricity. B.C. would have lost the opportunity for decades and decades of economic growth. Imagine all of the opportunities we would have lost in this province if W.A.C. Bennett had not make those decisions.

It’s the job of leaders, I would submit, to determine not only what is needed today but also to determine what’s going to be needed for tomorrow. That’s our job as leaders. We’ve been criticized for building the northwest transmission line. The Leader of the Opposition has called it the power line to nowhere. There are members over there who know darn well…. They know how valuable that power line is going to be to their northwest region in this province. It’s true that we took a chance by building that power line, but it’s already proven that it was the best thing to do for the future of that part of the province. That’s leadership.

[1445]

How does a forecast get done? How do we actually know that we’re going to need that electricity? That’s another place that opponents of the project have challenged, so one of the things that we did was we asked the BCUC to take a look at B.C. Hydro forecasting methodology and just tell us what they think.

The opposition is always saying, “Refer things to the BCUC,” so at some point in time, it was referred to the BCUC. This is what they said. They said that B.C. Hydro’s forecasting methodology is as good as anywhere in the world. That’s pretty good. Their forecasting methodology is pretty good.

We weren’t satisfied with that, and B.C. Hydro wasn’t satisfied with that, so they brought in a third party, whose name was Mark Gilbert. In September 2014, this gentleman with over 30 years’ experience in load forecasting, known around the world for his expertise, said: “B.C. Hydro is using state-of-the-art methodologies for forecasting sales. The company utilizes several methodologies to produce peak forecast methods, all of which are among state-of-the-art methods.”

That’s pretty clear. I don’t think there can be any doubt, certainly from this side of the House, that we need that electricity. Let’s have a show of hands if the opposition agrees with the fact that we need the electricity.

Let’s talk about the cost. What about the cost? Is the estimated cost accurate? Is it reasonable? The Site C capital cost estimate of $7.9 billion was developed in 2010. It included all construction, development, inflation and interest costs, as well as contingencies. The bottom-up estimate was completed by a team of internal and external engineering and construction experts and underwent an external peer review by KPMG.

I hear from the opposition, all the time, and from opponents to Site C: “Well, it wasn’t reviewed.” Well, that was in 2010. It was reviewed by an external group from KPMG to validate the methodologies and the assumptions.

In 2014, we did a cost refresh: “We’d better have a second look at this.” The refresh showed that while some costs had increased due to factors such as a longer environmental assessment process, enhancements to worker accommodation, and larger diversion tunnels, the original cost estimate remained appropriate as these increases were largely offset by savings from lower-than-anticipated interest rates, efficiencies in project design and reduced excavation requirements.

KPMG — once again, brought in to review the cost refresh in 2014 — said the level of care and diligence was consistent with an infrastructure project about to enter the construction phase, that reasonable and appropriate processes were followed for developing the assumptions used in the financial model, and that the methodology behind the cost estimate was appropriate. That’s what KPMG said. KPMG wasn’t working for government. KPMG was an independent contractor hired by B.C. Hydro to give their professional opinion as an international audit firm on the work done.

The direct construction cost estimate was also reviewed by a group of independent panel of contractors. I’m going to get to a point where I’m going to respond to the criticism about the BCUC not being involved in assessing the cost of Site C. But here’s a group of individuals who had between 35 and 50 years of experience in construction. These people build things all over the world. Hydro hired these people to sit on a committee and come in and take a look at all of the work that Hydro was doing on costs.

This is what that grey-haired construction group had to say: that the capital cost estimate was sufficient for the proposed scope and

schedule of the project, that B.C.

[ Page 9284 ]

Hydro estimate contained an appropriate level of accuracy for making a final investment decision and a level of detail comparable to a private sector contractor estimate, and that the contingency was sufficient to cover any reasonable cost increases.

That’s what we had to work with on this side of the House. We had two KPMG audits that had been done, and we had this group of experienced construction professionals who had looked at the project and at the cost estimates and said: “It’s good to go. Government, you are good to go to on making a final investment decision.”

[1450]

You know what? As we got closer to that final investment decision, we wanted to get even a little more certainty around the cost. We wanted to make sure that we knew what the cost of this project was actually going to be. So we took the project, and we said: “Ministry of Finance, take a look at this. Take your time, whatever time you need. Have a look at this.” Finance pointed out a couple of things. They didn’t quibble, actually, with the 2010 budget, but they pointed out a couple of things. They said: “There are a couple of items in the contingency fund that we think you should add to the capital costs.” That took the project from $7.9 billion to $8.335 billion.

Cabinet then decided that while B.C. Hydro’s existing capital cost estimate already included a healthy contingency, we should establish a project reserve of an additional $440 million for a total up to $8.775 billion. So that’s how you get to the $8.775 billion. That reserve will account for events outside of B.C. Hydro’s control, such as higher-than-forecast inflation or higher-than-forecast interest rates. It will be managed by the provincial Treasury Board. As with all large capital projects, B.C. Hydro will be required to provide regular reports to the B.C. Utilities Commission and government during construction.

Let me just end my remarks on cost for the Site C project by quoting from the federal-provincial panel. That’s the panel that the province and the federal government put together to study this project. This is what they said: “The panel concludes that the risk of Site C to the province’s debt management plan is entirely manageable by a prudent B.C. government.” They also said: “There is little doubt about the competence of B.C. Hydro to build and operate the project efficiently.”

Alternatives. I’ve heard many people in the province and, particularly, on the opposition benches say that we didn’t examine alternatives to Site C, that there are better ways to acquire the new generation that the province will need. There was actually a member of the opposition who said that within the last ten minutes. I heard him. Well, I want to assure that member, and I want to assure members of the public that we did very extensive consultation with the independent power industry before we made a final investment decision. Clean Energy B.C. had unprecedented access to B.C. Hydro’s information — more access than they ever had at any time in the past. Ask them. They’ll tell you that.

As part of our due diligence process, we considered a number of options. This is important for the province to know. We didn’t land on Site C just in the blink of an eye without considering all of the alternatives that are available to us. Site C obviously is one of those alternatives. IPPs are alternatives. Natural gas — we’ve got lots of it, relatively cheap right now. Geothermal — I mention geothermal because the independent panel mentioned it, and I’ve read that people have an interest in it. Market purchases — another way to acquire electricity if you’re not generating enough.

Natural gas is actually quite tempting. I said that it’s cheap, so the cost makes it tempting. It’s also very reliable in terms of firm power, but we’d need to abandon our commitment in the Clean Energy Act to 93 percent of our energy generated in the province being clean and renewable. It would also produce significantly higher GHG emissions, and it would expose ratepayers to gas and carbon price volatility. So we ruled that out after considerable consideration.

Market purchases. Again, this is something I’ve heard, certainly, the Leader of the Opposition say and, no doubt, other members of the opposition caucus: “Why doesn’t the government just tell B.C. Hydro to go buy the electricity on the spot market in western North America? It’s pretty cheap right now. Just go out and buy it. If you need electricity, just go buy it on the spot market. Why don’t you do that?” That would put us in a position where we are completely reliant, first of all, on the source. Can we get enough electricity when we actually need it? Is it going to be available?

How do we know how much it’s going to cost? Prices do change, as we all know. They go up, and they go down. How do we know what it’s going to cost?

The third point — and I was advised of this by people who know more than I do — we don’t actually have transmission that would be reliable enough to bring that level of electricity from the U.S. or from Alberta to fill the gap that we’re going to have here in the next ten, 15 years.

[1455]

Geothermal. I hope that some day somebody will be standing in this House as an Energy minister or an MLA talking about how geothermal is this wonderful resource that is being used in the province to generate electricity. I truly do. It has the potential to be firm electricity, because once you can locate the hot air — I know there are going to be jokes that’ll come from that — and create steam, you can generate electricity 24 hours a day. It’s firm electricity; it’s great stuff. They do a good job of good job of it in Iceland.

The problem here in B.C. is that, despite the fact that we have issued over a dozen permits for geothermal exploration in this province, and despite the fact that a lot of money has actually been spent trying to identify these resources, we have not had one geothermal project bid

[ Page 9285 ]

into any of the procurement processes that we’ve had. Geothermal — it’s a great idea, and I hope it’s a great resource someday. It is nowhere close to being able to provide electricity to our economy here in the province.

That left us with two options: Site C or a suite of independent power projects. Had we chosen the suite of independent power projects, because they’re intermittent power, we would have to have had some natural gas generation to back up that intermittent power. That’s the way it works. My critic knows all this stuff, because I think he used to work for B.C. Hydro. The Leader of the Opposition used to advise the Minister of Energy back in the 1990s. They know this is true.

That left us with the two options. We went through comparing the energy sources like wind and run of the river. They’re great resources, but they’re intermittent. They’re not always able to generate the electricity that we need. The wind doesn’t always blow. The sun doesn’t always shine. The rivers that we get so much energy from run heavy in the spring, not so heavy in the summer. It’s called spring freshet. It’s intermittent electricity.

The irony in the decision to build Site C as it relates to these other renewable technologies is that with Site C and with the 1,100 megawatts of capacity that will be available from Site C, B.C. will actually be in a stronger position to acquire more intermittent electricity — an important point, I think.

The joint panel, again, said…. I want quote from them again, because they have a lot of credibility on these issues. “Electrical systems are limited in their capability to manage resources such as wind while maintaining system reliability due to the intermittent nature of the resource. The project would increase the amount of wind the system can reliably integrate.”

They also went on to say that they agreed with B.C. Hydro “on the importance of predictable delivery and hence storage over periods from hourly to annual. Weather-dependent renewables alone are not the answer. The sun does not always shine or the wind blow.” That’s their language. For anyone who actually believes that the province or B.C. Hydro did not examine alternatives, that is not borne out by the facts, and it certainly isn’t shared by experts in the field.

Let me touch, just briefly, on environmental impact. It’s an issue that’s important in terms of the motion. In October 2014, the federal and provincial governments announced that the Site C clean energy project had received environmental approval. Environmental approval of Site C came with numerous conditions from the federal and provincial governments that B.C. Hydro must meet to build and operate the facility.

If the opposition would take the time to actually look at how this project is being built and the care and attention that B.C. Hydro was putting into doing things right, they would probably feel a whole lot better about the project — or maybe not. It’s our idea to build the project, and perhaps there’s no way for them to come around to supporting it.

The environmental assessment process started in August of 2011. It took three years to complete. The environmental assessment process was thorough. It was independent. It included multiple opportunities for timely and meaningful participation. There were two months of public hearings in several of the northeast regional and aboriginal communities.

Again, I’ve heard members of the opposition try to claim that there was no consultation around the decision to build Site C. There were years and years of consideration on this project. The public did have plentiful opportunities to say what they thought, as did First Nations.

In May of 2014, in the report, the joint review panel concluded that the benefits of the project were clear. “Site C would be the least expensive of the alternatives, and its cost advantages would increase with the passing decades as inflation makes alternatives more costly.”

[1500]

They also concluded — the panel, that is — that after the initial burst of expenditure — in other words, after building it — paying the capital costs “would lock in low rates for many decades and would produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy than any source save nuclear.” That’s what the panel said. Apparently the opposition is opposed to that.

Site C will be the third hydroelectric dam on the Peace River, following the W.A.C. Bennett dam that was completed in 1968 and the Peace Canyon dam, completed in 1980. That’s important because, as the third project on the Peace River, Site C can take advantage of water that’s already stored in both of these reservoirs, particularly behind the existing W.A.C. Bennett dam in the Williston reservoir.

What this means is that because you’re building a third dam on the same river downstream of the first two, Site C will actually generate 35 percent of the energy produced at the W.A.C. Bennett dam with only five percent of the reservoir footprint.

When you’re talking about environmental impact, you have to compare projects to all the other alternatives out there in the province. You’ve got an opportunity to generate 35 percent of the electricity out of the W.A.C. Bennett project, with 5 percent of the environmental footprint — another reason why this was the right decision.

I want to speak a little bit to agricultural impact, or impact on agriculture, because I know there are members on both sides of the House who come from farming areas. I’m one of them. I come from a ranching area, although our soils are not as good as they are, certainly, in a place like Saanich South.

Last spring I heard a lot about the impact on agriculture from Site C. People felt obviously…. Well, certainly the member for Saanich South felt very, very strongly about it. That was clear. But what are the facts? Well, the

[ Page 9286 ]

facts are that more than 99 percent of class 1 to 5 agricultural land — that’s the land that you can grow stuff on — in the Peace will not be affected by Site C. Over 99 percent will not be affected.

While there will be a permanent loss of 3,800 hectares of class 1 to 5 land, about 2.7 million hectares of class 1 to 5 land will remain available in the Peace agricultural region. The environmental assessment process considered agricultural impacts and had two dedicated hearings on topic — thus, no reason for it to go to the commission.

Here’s what the independent joint review panel concluded. “The permanent loss of the agricultural production on the Peace River Valley bottomlands…is not, by itself and in the context of B.C. or western Canadian agricultural production, significant.” That’s what the panel said.

Overall, agricultural production in the region is expected to benefit from proposed mitigation measures, including a $20 million agricultural compensation fund that will support agricultural programs in the Peace and projects such as irrigation and draining improvements.

The panel was so impressed by this offer of the $20 million fund by B.C. Hydro that they said: “The current annual value of the crops from the portion of the valley that would be inundated is but $220,000. The proposed 20 million agricultural investment fund to be spent on improvements outside the inundation zone is generous by comparison.” I’m just quoting what the panel said — the Canada-B.C. panel.

What about benefits? What benefits will come to the province from the Site C clean energy project?

Well, B.C. Hydro is spending $2.4 billion a year right now on infrastructure to try to catch up from ten years in the 1990s, when very little was spent on infrastructure, in order for us to have the reliable, safe, clean, green electricity system that we all, I think, probably take for granted. It is necessary to reinvest in some of the assets that are over 50 years old, and it’s also necessary to build new transmission and, in some cases, new generation.

This Site C project is going to add $13 billion to B.C.’s GDP over ten years — that’s not bad, $13 billion — 123,000 person-years of employment over ten years. I think we should be celebrating the benefits of this project.

I know that some of my colleagues are going to get up, and they’re going to talk a little bit about Site C. I think there will be lots of evidence in those remarks from those government MLAs about how the people in this province are going to benefit.

[1505]

I wonder. I mean, even the most cynical, partisan opposition member surely can share in the joy, surely can help celebrate the good things that are going to come from the project. Or maybe not. I guess we’ll find out when they get up and they speak. We’ll see whether they want to join the 80 percent of British Columbians who seem to like this project and who are prepared to celebrate the very real benefits.

Just some more benefits from the project: $3.2 billion added to the provincial economy from the purchase of goods and services during construction; $130 million of that will go into the regional economy, and the two members from the Peace, I’m sure, are happy about that. And $40 million in tax revenues during construction to local governments — not to the province or the federal government; to local governments. And then after the project is built, during operations, there will be about $2 million per year in taxes.

Then $179 million in provincial revenues, $270 million in federal revenues from activities during construction. And here’s the good one. This is the one that my colleague who is responsible for the Jobs Ministry is so pleased about. Site C is going to create 10,000 construction jobs. We’re pretty happy about that. We are pretty happy about that. [Applause.]

I didn’t notice anyone on the other side clapping when they heard that there would be 10,000 jobs created during construction of Site C. But I’m sure that when they have their opportunity to get up and speak to the motion, they will, at the very least…. Even if they’re opposed to everything else, they’re going to say: “We sure are happy that people in B.C. and other Canadians are going to get this opportunity to have these highly paid positions on this Site C project.”

The project has only just started. It’s about five weeks in to an eight-year project. There are going to be lots of job and contract opportunities. It really is an opportunity to be part of a legacy project that’s going to provide the province with clean, reliable, cost-effective electricity for 100 years.

One of the members on the other side mumbled something about workers coming from outside, I think. B.C. Hydro is promoting local hiring by working with regional economic development agencies. They’re funding skills-training programs in the region, planning and participating in local and regional job fairs.

There are many local companies who are already seeing opportunities from Site C. I’m not going to name them all — there are too many, actually — but I’ll name a couple of them. Paul Paquette and Sons. The member for Peace River South will know that firm. Paul Paquette and Sons Contracting from Chetwynd have been awarded a contract for south-bank clearing. A.L. Sims and Son Ltd. from Prince George won a contract to improve public roads.

Other local companies working on the site already, 60 days in: Petrowest Construction from Charlie Lake. Charlie Lake is just on the other side of Fort St. John, if you don’t know where Charlie Lake is. The Fort St. John office of WSP Canada will be doing the surveying work, and there’s a company called Helical Pier Systems out of Fort St. John that’s been engaged to conduct the pile work for the camp.

These companies are all out recruiting local workers, and B.C. Hydro is planning on holding all of these job

[ Page 9287 ]

fairs. This is an opportunity for anybody in the province who is either out of work or wants a job that pays more to get hired on with this project, to get some training, to maybe work through an apprenticeship and improve their situation in life, make them happy. A job is what most people need to be the foundation for their lives and help them support their families.

B.C. Hydro is going to be hosting business-to-business networking sessions. They’re going to be introducing contractors in all of these communities. They’ll be in Tumbler Ridge. They’ll be in Chetwynd. They’re going to be in Fort St. John. They’re going to be in Dawson, obviously. They’re also going to be in Quesnel. These sessions will build on sessions that have already been held in 2014.

Labour stability. I do want to say a few things about labour stability, because I’ve heard from the opposition we’re not doing it the right way, that we should go back to the way it used to be done in the good old days and do it differently.

To ensure labour stability, the B.C. Building Trades and B.C. Hydro entered into an agreement.

Interjections.

Hon. B. Bennett: I don’t know whether the members heard me say that, because they were talking.

[1510]

To ensure labour stability, the B.C. Building Trades and B.C. Hydro entered into an agreement on the Site C clean energy project, recognizing that stability is best achieved with a mix of labour representation that includes the building trades unions.

The framework allows the project to operate as a managed open site that includes participation from union and non-union workers, as well as independent and First Nations contractors.

B.C. Hydro has agreed to place greater weight on bids with a mix of labour representation that includes the building trades unions. The B.C. building trades unions have agreed to no strike, no lockout, no raiding provisions and no organizing on the main civil works component of the project.

I can tell from all the mumbling on the other side that the NDP are very uncomfortable with the fact that B.C. Hydro and this government have been able to make peace, have been able to start a huge megaproject and have it built with a managed open site where everyone — non-union First Nations contractors; non-union, non–First Nations contractors; union contractors; union employees — gets a chance to work at Site C.

I came across an interesting quote just today. It was in the Vancouver Sun , written by Mr. Palmer. It said: “Well, the Leader of the Opposition came out last week and said he wants to see a project labour agreement on this. I’m tempted to tease the leader of the Opposition a little bit since the NDP doesn’t even want this project to go ahead.” Is that true? I wonder if that’s true. “They want a project labour agreement on a project that they don’t think should go ahead at this time because they think the entire mess should be sent to the Utilities Commission for another review.”

That pretty much sums up the position of the NDP on the Site C project.

We’ve all heard that the NDP think that we should have sent this Site C project to the BCUC. I read it on a regular basis in the newspapers, and I’ve heard it here in the House. I think we’ve all heard it — despite what I think can fairly be characterized as an extraordinary effort to do the due diligence that’s necessary, both by B.C. Hydro and their independent assessors and also by our Ministry of Finance. We have examined the need. We have examined the cost. We have examined the alternatives. We’ve examined the impacts. We’ve worked with First Nations as best we can. We’ve examined the environmental impact.

We’ve examined the impact on agriculture. Yet the NDP claims to have a position that that’s not good enough. No, you should have sent it to the BCUC.

Just the other day I was leafing through some old Hansard records from the 1990s. Lo and behold, what did I find? I found that there was an NDP minister who actually agrees with our government that this kind of decision is best made by government. The current member for Port Coquitlam, who was then Minister of Energy — and a man I have the greatest respect for, and I’m sincere about that; I do — was a staunch advocate of it being within the purview of government, not the BCUC, to make public policy decisions on building capital projects.

I’m going to quote that member when he was Minister of Energy, sitting probably over here somewhere when he said it in July of 1998. “In terms of a public policy issue, the decision on whether or not to go through and approve power plants, for example, is the purview of the province.” Wow. He also said: “The question is: do you go through this one big environmental assessment process, come out of that and suddenly go through another process, when the issue of the Utilities Commission should really be the rates and the rate structure? It’s a question of eliminating red tape.” That’s what the member for Port Coquitlam said when he was Minister of Energy.

The Vancouver Province at the time characterized those statements and the position that the then government made. They said the following: “The government has made it official. New B.C. Hydro power projects will be exempt from examination by the B.C. Utilities Commission.”

So all of this hot air over the past three years from the opposition — “Oh, you should send it to the BCUC” — has just been that, just hot air.

[1515]

When they were in government, they actually took a position. Their Energy Minister stood in the House and

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said those kinds of projects actually don’t need to go to the BCUC. Government should make those kinds of big energy policy decisions. We certainly agree with that member when he was minister.

In concluding…. I’ve probably been up longer than my 30 minutes. I said right from the beginning that our primary consideration when considering Site C is how to meet the growing energy needs of the province but meet those growing needs in the best way possible for ratepayers. How can we generate that electricity in the most inexpensive way possible?

We have the third-lowest residential electricity rates in North America today. We need to keep them there. We have a ten-year plan. We’re going to stick to that plan. It’s good for ten years. Rates are not going to change. In addition to keeping our rates low, we also have an obligation to make sure that the system remains reliable and that it remains clean. That goes to the $2.4 billion that we’re spending right now on capital.

Just to remind members, 93 percent of the electricity we produce in this province is clean. I think we should be proud of that. I think we should be proud of the fact that our system is so reliable and is so clean.

I think we should also be proud of the fact that when there was an historic outage a few weeks ago from the windstorm, 710,000 users disconnected…. Within five days, the utility had them all reconnected. I don’t know if there is another place in North America that actually could pull that off. Within 72 hours, 99 percent of the ratepayers that had been disconnected — so 99 percent of those 710,000 ratepayers — were reconnected by B.C. Hydro.

We have a good system, I believe. Time will tell, but I believe that this project will be built on time and on budget.

It’s now time for me to turn it over to someone from the opposition. I know that there are members who have spoken out publicly against Site C. There is the member for North Island, the member for Saanich South, the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast, the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, the member for Esquimalt–Royal Roads, the member for Surrey-Whalley. All have spoken out against Site C. I’m sure they’re all going to jump to their feet today and speak against the Site C project. The member for Vancouver-Hastings has done that; the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan.

This one really surprises me and, actually, astonishes me: the member for Kootenay West. She said Site C doesn’t need to be built. The member for Kootenay West, another person I have a lot of personal respect for, lives in the heart of the Columbia River hydroelectric system. She knows what benefits come from large hydroelectric projects. She knows where all these jobs come from. She knows about the tax revenues that communities like Trail and Castlegar derive from that system, yet she’s opposed to the Site C project.

On that note, I’m going to turn it over to the opposition. They’re going to tell us very clearly — and I’m going to keep track — who opposes the Site C project and who supports it.

A. Dix: Just as a sort of homage to the minister, I will start my speech the same way he did — by saying that I am, indeed, the designated speaker for the official opposition on this motion.

The Liberal government announced this project last December — final phase. We had a session in the spring. February — didn’t raise it. March — didn’t raise it. In April, we raised it. I asked the minister about it in estimates. He’ll recall the debate. He was there. Didn’t do it in May.

The last day of the session they had an emergency ministerial statement, where they announced that in October they were going to bring it forward to the House for debate. So we know…. Well, a ministerial statement, by definition, is…. Actually, the minister might want to review the basic rules of his job.

[1520]

In any event, the minister did all that. We know what today is. It’s the government being the government. I mean, this is the day where they added to red tape and laws by introducing a law saying they were proud of eliminating red tape. This is the government we’re talking about.

Yesterday we heard government members celebrating the Auditor General for Local Government and saying: “Absolutely, there should be regulatory processes and oversight.” Today they have a motion that says: “We don’t care about regulatory authority and oversight.” They will say anything. They will do anything. But everybody in British Columbia now knows that we can do better than the minister just did in this House.

On B.C. Hydro, which is what we’re talking about today, the minister will recall the conclusions of our estimates. B.C. Hydro, over the last number of years under Liberal administration, is in chaos. It was their reviews, their urgent reports, their hiring of Mr. Dyble and others to go in and try and save the situation.

They have spent the last good part of a decade avoiding the law with respect to the BCUC. Burrard thermal — they didn’t listen to the BCUC. The minister didn’t refer to Burrard thermal. That’s 900 megawatts of capacity down the drain, contrary to the opinion of the BCUC. Of course, he didn’t discuss that as an option because it wasn’t yellowed out in the report.

Smart meters — they made all kinds of commitments on smart meters that have disappeared. A billion-dollar investment taken away from the BCUC. The green energy plan, otherwise known as “no Liberal lobbyist left behind,” exempted from the BCUC. The northwest transmission line, exempted from BCUC review. The IT plan? They didn’t exempt that; they simply didn’t tell the BCUC the truth about it. That’s what we discovered over the last number of months. Those were the conclusions of estimates.

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Generally, the minister’s response when I put these things to him was: “Gosh, I agree, but we’ll do better in the future.” What’s the consequence of that, though? We have to understand what the consequence are of the decisions that the government has made.

Their decisions on the Interior–Lower Mainland line — yet another over budget. Their decisions on northwest transmission, their decisions on DCAT — also over budget. Their decisions on all these questions that they have exempted are being felt today by every ratepayer, every renter, every homeowner, every small business, every medium-sized business and every industrial user.

In fact, their 28 percent rate increases were caused by Liberal policies, caused by policies where they said: “We know better. We don’t have to prove our case. We don’t have to show the facts to the people of B.C. We don’t have to follow the law and go to the BCUC.” It’s the taxpayer, the ratepayer who has paid the price for this incompetence at B.C. Hydro.

Now, people say: how could this possibly happen? On all of this list of projects, how could the Minister of Energy, who seems like — some of the time, at least — an affable fellow — maybe all of the time an affable fellow…? How could he be so wrong all the time? How could he be wrong on billions and billions of dollars’ worth of projects?

Well, I think the only answer to that question…. I know it’s unfair, and as soon as I do it, I’m going to regret having done it. As soon as I say it, I’m going to regret having done it, but I think the only thing we can do at this point is to quote the minister himself.

[1525]

What did the minister say about Site C and the BCUC? It wasn’t what he said in the House today. It was a version of it, I suppose. He said: “I wouldn’t characterize” — we’re talking about a $9 billion project that they exempted from regulatory review — “my view of the Site C project as one of confidence.” Well, that makes me feel better. “I’m not confident. I’m just the guy.”

When asked if putting Site C to a regulatory review would get in the way of the provincial government’s energy plans, he said: “That would have exposed these projects to the intervener process that we have at the BCUC.”

People would have actually been able to ask questions and to challenge the government’s assumptions, under oath, according to the law. When the minister says that, that is what he’s saying. He says: “It doesn’t matter what the facts are, it doesn’t matter what the proposal is, I decide, and I’m not going to follow the law. It doesn’t matter what it said in the Liberal platform again and again and again. It didn’t matter what the former leader and the current leader of the Liberal Party said about the BCUC. That’s all in the past. We’ve made all of these mistakes, and I’m the minister, and I’m planning to repeat them.”

How does he do it? Well, what’s his decision-making process? I think people, when they again see the political debate, probably think the minister talked about the rigorous debate in caucus that his members had and the rigorous debate in cabinet. Fortunately, the minister, in a rare moment of clarity, a rare moment of insight, let us in on how they make these sorts of decisions when he talked about the northwest transmission line.

Here’s what he said…. I’m quoting the minister again. Again, it seems unfair, and yet I’m doing it.

“I will share with you what I think happened with the northwest transmission line. Back, many years ago, when then Premier Campbell decided we were going to build that line — and it was a courageous decision on his part — he needed a number to use when he was announcing this. I think Hydro came out with a very preliminary number. Typically, what they do is they’ll come out with a number, and they’ll say it could be 50 percent higher or 30 percent lower. That’s the kind of number that came out.”

As the minister knows, that is the number that they put in their budget, that is the number they put in B.C. Hydro’s public information, and that is the number that, clearly, this minister and the government didn’t believe in at the time. When you want an insight into their processes — and I cut short his tribute to Premier Campbell there just for the sake of the minister — that’s the insight you need: that they needed a number and they came up with a number.

You can do that if you don’t follow the law and go to the BCUC. You can’t do that if you have to go to the BCUC and answer questions under oath. That’s why they decided, and that’s why they’re down this road one more time. Even after a BCUC review, they’re going down that road one more time.

It was this government that committed to using the BCUC on these very projects, and they broke their word to the voters of B.C. again and again and again, and the voters of B.C. have paid the price again and again and again.

Now, the minister talked about Hydro’s estimate of costs in that context. To use what we’ll call the Minister of Energy doctrine of plus 50 to minus 30, he sort of narrowed the cost of the project to between $6 billion and $14 billion, through that ministerial formula. In any event, he has, in fact, over time…. We’ve seen the increase of the project, since the previous Premier, his friend Mr. Campbell, announced it, increase by approximately 33 percent. That means $2.3 billion, if you’re keeping track at home.

Who believes, after this litany of overruns on the northwest transmission line, on ILM, on all the major projects combined and cumulatively, if you add that and DCAT….? We’re talking about overruns of close to $1 billion. Who believes them anymore? I mean we could have believed them if they’d gone to the BCUC on northwest transmission. They chose not to do that. They’ve exempted themselves, as they have in this case.

[1530]

We know, from the minister’s own analysis of Liberal policies and Liberal strategies here, that they picked a number, they found a number, and now they’re trying to sell a number, a new number in terms of costs.

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It’s not just this project; other projects go over budget. We know, for example, that back east, the Muskrat project…. That project, of course, went through financial reviews, as they do with these sizes of projects in most jurisdictions — and this is with a contractor currently on the short list for B.C. Hydro — and is going massively over budget. But in that case, at least they had a project that went through a financial review and had an oversight committee — something they don’t have in this case — to deal with it.

Compare that and this. A 1,100 megawatt Site C project at an estimated cost of $8.9 billion has undergone no public financial reviews. I repeat: no public financial reviews. It’s not subject to any oversight committee, and the province of B.C. is guaranteeing the debt for 70 years. That’s what they’re doing — 70 years — this government of contractual obligations of tens of billions of dollars of B.C. Hydro, and they’re doing it one more time.

The only transmission — and this is different than Muskrat — included in the Site C budget is the link to B.C. Hydro’s Peace Canyon project, which is about 90 kilometres away. How you get it from there to market is anyone’s guess and not included, in any event, in the cost.

B.C. taxpayers, because of this minister and this process, won’t know of cost overruns until the project is completed. The responsible individuals will be long gone, maybe back in Ontario telling stories of the good old days in the Kootenays.

In any event, all we can say about this situation is that the government has proven itself at B.C. Hydro again and again not to be credible on the issue of costs. Yet here we are, a motion saying: “Trust us. We failed you every time before, but trust us now.”

The second question, I guess, is: do we need the power? Do we need this amount of power in this way now? Again, what we have is a government that has failed and continues to fail to be straightforward with British Columbians.

The last public forecast, the one referred to in the minister’s speech, was from 2012. It was the basis of the 2013 IRP. That is the last forecast. It used to be the case that they would come out with such forecasts every year, but in the lead-up to the Site C decision, suddenly that disappeared — even though people at B.C. Hydro tell me, and surely they tell the minister, that in fact those forecasts are in serious jeopardy.

This year — I’m just, again, unfairly reading from government materials and B.C. Hydro’s materials — there is an actual reduction of 1,320 gwh in the domestic tariff sales. That’s about a quarter of Site C. That’s how much it was reduced this year under this government. Over the last ten years, industrial demand has actually dropped significantly in British Columbia. Heavens, if we hadn’t had such a pro-business government….

In fact, they have been consistently wrong, consistently overestimating demand. Now they overestimate demand and are trying to put forward this project. So the question is, I guess: do we need the power?

The answer is: B.C. Hydro won’t give us the information, but just about everybody from consumer groups to seniors groups to the business community says that they don’t. They are afraid that what will happen here is exactly what happened the last time they exempted themselves from the BCUC — that they’ll be caught holding the bill for a huge mistake by the B.C. Liberal government. Again, if the government has confidence in its numbers, which they’re currently hiding from the public, why don’t they take them to the BCUC and show them? They don’t.

[1535]

It’s an interesting question, and even in B.C. Hydro’s own model — imagine, its own model — they couldn’t, I guess, wash through the document dramatically enough. What it shows is….

It’s in the integrated resource plan. It may or not have been yellowed out. Since it’s bad news, it probably wasn’t yellowed in the briefing note, but it showed — that note,

chapter 6, bills with Site C — that B.C. Hydro would save about $250 million if the service date for Site C was deferred from 2024 to 2026. That’s not me saying it; that’s B.C. Hydro saying it.

That’s $250 million. Imagine what the people of B.C. could do with $250 million. And this is after the model was cooked to favour Site C. The question, I guess…. I will happily share that information with the minister — who, I know, will be listening carefully in any event — in Hansard .

We go on to this question of needing the power and what’s the best option. I asked the minister when he was speaking about Burrard Thermal. The government rejected the BCUC’s advice. It rejected common sense that this is a backup for our system.

What we need is capacity. That’s what B.C. Hydro says: we will need capacity by 2020. What they did was got rid of that capacity. Also, the minister shelved the Revelstoke 6 project at the same time.

Interjection.

A. Dix: The minister says it’s not true. I guess the minister thinks that deferring a project till 2033 isn’t shelving it. In any event, he shelved Revelstoke 6. What does Revelstoke 6 bring? It brings about half the capacity, which is what B.C. Hydro says it needs, as the Site C project.

According to B.C. Hydro…. You know, I got this off their website again today. Indeed, it’s unfair to read their website. I’m glad I can at this point. The minister will recall, having discussed his IT plan with us in the House, that the minister and the government went 900 percent over budget on a website upgrade, and I don’t think that worked very well. I was able to access the website today. Only 900 percent. I think if we were to apply a Liberal bell curve to that, that might not be bad.

[ Page 9291 ]

In any event, off their website today, what does it say? So 500 megawatts of capacity — about 45 percent of what Site C can bring — for $420 million. We need capacity. Just remember that Revelstoke 6 adds to an existing footprint at Revelstoke.

It would create jobs. It would save ratepayers money. It would be done under the Allied Hydro Council agreement, according to the B.C. Hydro website. It wouldn’t put at risk any agricultural land or raise any issues with First Nations. The minister shelved it, and the only reason that he shelved it was because if you did this, you couldn’t do Site C. If you spent the $420 million, you couldn’t spend the $8.775 billion. I guess that looks like a bigger number — and it is — in a press release. But it doesn’t feel so good when you’re a ratepayer having to pay the price.

Is there a business case? When the minister and the Premier shelved Revelstoke 6 in favour of Site C — shelved the less expensive project, the more efficient project, for the more expensive project that will cost ratepayers and cost jobs — was there a business case for this? Did they produce a business case for this? Is there one they could show the BCUC or this House or the opposition? Surely, the Liberal MLAs will raise that in the debate and show us the model they used. These numbers are big numbers.

[1540]

I mean, imagine you’re involved in organizing socials at a church, as I happen to do from time to time, and you had the choice between buying the 20 loaves of bread you needed for, say…. I don’t know. Theirs is more expensive, and we get a nice bulk rate. Let’s say $30. Or you could do what the….

Interjection.

A. Dix: Oh, Revelstoke 6 isn’t green electricity? Of course it is. The minister is saying it’s not green electricity. B.C. Hydro says it is right here on its website that’s working today. It’s working today, so I was able to access that today. It’s green electricity.

If the minister was at your church and he was organizing a luncheon and he was making sandwiches and he wanted to order and we needed 20 loaves of bread — because, you know, it’s a United Church and we’re a smaller church — what he would propose is if you need 20 loaves of bread, which you could buy for $30, he’d say: “Well, let’s buy 55 loaves of bread and let’s pay $700.” That’s what he is talking about here.

If he wants to test that analysis before the B.C. Utilities Commission, I invite him to do so. But the fact of the matter is that Burrard and Revelstoke 6 have more capacity in Site C, and capacity is what B.C. Hydro needs. We’re talking about, according to the minister, $9 billion — according to the minister’s formula, up to $14 billion — for this project. That’s what we’re talking about.

You know what would happen if the minister proposed to spend $600 instead of $30 at the church and someone complained? You know what he’d say? “Oh, it’s about leadership.” That’s what he’d say. “I don’t want my views questioned. I don’t want to follow the rules and have my views questioned. We’re buying the gold-plated bread.” That’s what he would say. “We are not going to go to the BCUC, as we repeatedly promised to do.” That is the gist of the minister’s position on that question.

Then there are other options, of course. Revelstoke 6 is simply one of the options that’s available to the government. The minister talked about having reviewed all the options. Essentially, that meant he reviewed one option that he wanted to proceed with and option B, which was really lousy. What he discovered was option A was better. He created this false debate. He didn’t talk about Burrard. He didn’t talk about Revelstoke 6. He didn’t look at what’s happening in the energy industry.

He would be the kind of guy who would say, “You know, I’m going to buy a cell phone for the next ten years,” ignoring the circumstances in the market. Again, he can test that out. If he disagrees with my view of things, he can test that out by referring this $9 billion to $14 billion budget…. According to the Minister of Energy’s doctrine, it could be that high — 50 percent more, 30 percent less.

He could test that out by going to the BCUC and answering the questions of B.C. business and answering the questions of B.C. small business and seniors groups and consumers, groups that he describes in here as not worthy of having their voice heard about the future of energy policy in B.C. and which, regardless of that, is in fact the law in British Columbia. He could do that, and he has chosen not to do that.

I think that’s why we’re here today — because this is the way that the government does business. They want to do something, and it doesn’t matter what the rules are. They’re going to do it because, as the minister says and as the government says, you know, we won’t be paying the bills, there won’t be an impact on energy rates, until 2024 or ’25 or ’26, when it’s finished.

They put forward numbers that are not credible. They’re before the courts right now on Site C, on this very day we’re debating it. Here’s what they say before the courts. They say that a year’s delay has a total cost impact at Site C of $335 million.

[1545]

Now, that’s very interesting — a year’s delay — because Site C in the original plan, the Campbell Minister of Energy plan, was supposed to be completed by 2020, and it was supposed to cost $7.9 billion. Here’s the latest — $335 million. And yet, as of last year, the cost, when it’s 2024 — this is what they’re telling the courts — was still $7.9 billion. They have shown none of this as a basis for changing their assessment of the project.

They found a number that they like, and they’re going to stick to it until the bills come in and ratepayers have to pay. And they have done this, as we say, again and again and again — avoiding, disinterested in other options, dis-

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interested in considering seriously other proposals and other options that would create more jobs.

So yes, jobs too. Because it costs jobs when you have a 28 percent rate increase, as we have now. It costs families, because they can’t afford to do the things they need to do. It costs small businesses, because they can’t afford to bring on new workers. It costs our major industrial businesses when they try and compete internationally.

The cost of similar Liberal decisions in the past that they failed to take to the B.C. Utilities Commission — those cost jobs too. When you decide on the $9 billion option instead of the $450 million option, that costs jobs too. When you have a project that’s amortized over 70 years and you’re arguing for a flat “no improvement in technology” over that time, that costs jobs too.

When you turn down projects like Revelstoke 6…. I know it’s unfair. And the member for Surrey-Whalley is very unhappy that I am quoting from the minister’s documents again. But I have to do it. Here’s what their document says today, and my colleague from Vancouver-Hastings will be speaking to this.

“Construction work for the Revelstoke unit 6 project would be completed by independent contractors through several large contracts that would be awarded according to B.C. Hydro’s procurement policies. Under an agreement with the Allied Hydro Council, workers for the projects would be hired through the Columbia Hydro Constructors agreement that includes provisions to support local and equity hire.”

It’s right on their website. They’ve rejected this notion. It’s right on their website, as if something to celebrate.

The Revelstoke unit 5 project hired over 380 person-years of trades work under the CHC agreement. Of these, 33 percent were local hires, and 6 percent were First Nation hires. The Revelstoke 6 project would be expected to similarly create 390 person-years of direct employment.

This is what we have. We need capacity, according to B.C. Hydro, and they’re delaying capacity. We need capacity by 2020. That’s what your report says. So they have decided, because they could get Revelstoke done and in place for that time, to delay it. They created the need for that capacity by shutting down Burrard, and now they want to spend, without any review. Nonsense. It has no impact on B.C. Hydro’s system? I mean, no one takes the minister’s comments seriously in this regard. No one takes them seriously.

I would say — and my colleagues who will take

part in this debate — as we vote against a motion that’s misinformed, vote against a motion that’s incorrect, vote against a motion that takes us down the same path that the Liberal government took us in all these projects that, after the election, they told us were going to cost us so much on our hydro bills and hurt the competitiveness of British Columbia…. That is the reality of what has happened here.

But in addition to all of that, there are other issues. I mean, if you could, hon. Speaker, create more jobs, would you do it? I think most people would say the answer is yes. The Liberal government doesn’t care to find out.

Can you get the same amount of capacity significantly cheaper? We know you can, because B.C. Hydro says you can. We should try and find out. But the Liberal government doesn’t want to know.

Ignorance is not a defence of public policy. Deliberately avoiding the facts is not a defence of public policy.

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I remind people, the members opposite, that the consequences for people in the region, the consequences for the environment, the consequences for First Nations, the consequences for agriculture are serious, and my colleagues in this House are going to speak in detail to those questions in the course of this debate.

There is an option to avoid those consequences or, at least, to put those issues to the B.C. Utilities Commission. That’s what we would do. That’s what we believe in. We think B.C. Hydro and the government should, after failure after failure, after overrun after overrun, do what’s right. If they have the courage of their convictions, they should take their case to the BCUC and see what that kind of review would show. They should not do five-page reports on the economic value of a $9 billion project and say: “We’ve consulted.”

Instead, they should show the business case that says this makes more sense than Revelstoke 6. They should show the business case that says it makes more sense than Burrard. They should show the business case that says it makes more sense than other clean energy projects around B.C. They should show that business case, but they don’t want to because they already know the answer. All they want are political stunts like this. They know they’re not going to be around when we have to pay the price for these mistakes, and they don’t want to make the case now.

As an opposition, we will be voting clearly and unequivocally against the motion, against this political stunt by the government. And we will again implore the government, for the future of B.C. — for our children, for the region, for First Nations, for agriculture, for our business community and for our jobs — to come to their senses and refer this project to the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Hon. M. Bernier: First of all, I want to thank my colleague the Minister of Energy and Mines for bringing this forward today. Looking at the motion, there are a couple of ones that pop up right in time for me to really look at this.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Bernier: I’ll get to you in a moment, thank you.

One of the things out of this motion that really comes to mind for me is why we need to do this — because the Site C clean energy project represents the most affordable way to generate 1,100 megawatts of clean and reli-

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able power. And then the other portions of this…. The Site C clean energy project will create jobs for thousands of British Columbians. In the motion, that, I think, sums it up why this is an important project. These are important decisions to make for government.

As mentioned earlier, too, 80 percent of British Columbians, in the polls, are in favour of this project. I’m not going to make my decisions completely on polls. I know that the members opposite sometimes like to rely on polls. We saw how that worked in 2013 for them. But for myself, I’m making this decision based on the facts.

I want to stand up right away and say I’m in favour of this project, and I’ll tell you why I’m in favour of this project. What I’m hoping is that members opposite, when they stand up, before they get into a half an hour of talking about Burrard Thermal and talking about Revelstoke and talking about everything except the motion that’s on the floor…. What I’m hoping you’ll do is actually stand up and say yes or no — “Am I in favour, or am I not?” — and then say why.

I’m not hoping that you’ll all stand up and say you’re in favour. I know you won’t. But I do know there are a lot of members opposite that are in favour of this. They understand that there are jobs at play. It’s going to be interesting to see how today works out. This is important for the people here in British Columbia.

I’ll tell you why I’m in favour — because it is affordable. It’s reliable, clean electricity, and this is the backbone. Our hydroelectricity is the backbone of British Columbia. B.C. Hydro has done an amazing job, and it’s a legacy that we should be proud of here in British Columbia.

I can tell you that in my former role, when I was the Parliamentary Secretary for Energy Literacy, I had the privilege of travelling around in the United States and parts of Canada in that role. One thing that I heard over and over again is how lucky we are here in British Columbia.

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When I was travelling around the United States, when I was in Dakota and Idaho and Montana and I was talking with governors and with elected officials down there about being from British Columbia, every single one of them said how lucky we are in British Columbia to have clean power, to have hydro power. They’re in a position right now — and other parts of Canada and the United States — of trying to make tough decisions. How do they get off of coal? Do they refire up their nuclear plants?

Here we are in British Columbia, with the decision in front of us for the future of British Columbia, for my children. Do we make the decisions now, as great leaders before us made, to make sure we have clean, reliable power; that we have cheap, affordable power; that we can grow the province; that we can grow industry; that we can have jobs? Can we do all that in the province of British Columbia?

Well, I want to bring this a little bit closer to home for myself. I look at this as the jobs. This project is in my backyard, so I see the impacts. I’ve heard from people in my area what they support and the concerns they have.

The minister before me, when he spoke, talked about the $20 million agriculture fund. I want to thank my colleague from Peace River North, who was very vocal about the fact that we needed to ensure that when B.C. Hydro made the decision that we wanted to have a $20 million agriculture fund, that money was spent in the Peace region. He stood up for constituents in the area, and I was proud to stand next to him, to make sure that that $20 million is going to be spent in our riding.

You know, today is all about…. Really, I guess it’s the line in the sand. Today is where we actually stand up, and we’re accountable to our constituents. This is where we get to actually decide what we are for, what we’re against, and to be able to be accountable for that.

In that, I actually want to acknowledge my good friend, I’ll say, from Oak Bay–Gordon Head, who’s the leader of the Green Party. One thing I can say about that member…. I don’t always agree with everything that that member says or what he comes forward with, but one thing I will say is that when he stands up, he stands up with conviction. He makes a decision. He stands up. He tells the room here what he thinks, how he’s going to vote. I expect everybody in this House to do exactly that.

On this side of the House today, you’re going to hear from each of us that stand up why we’re in favour of this. We’re not shying away from the fact that we’re in favour. We’re going to all collectively say that we’re in favour of this. I’m hoping the members opposite, when they stand up, will stand up with the same conviction, for or against. Tell us where you stand. Tell your constituents where you stand, be accountable for the decisions that you’re going to make today in the House.

I can understand, though, why it might be a little bit confusing for some of the members opposite. The member for Vancouver-Kingsway, painstakingly, through most of his comments today, without actually saying whether he’s for or against…. I assume that he’s against, towards the end of it, the way he was talking.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Bernier: My apologies. He is in the unknown category right now, but we think he’s against. I’ll stand up and say that.

I can understand why it might be confusing for a lot of the members opposite, when most of the conversation was around “this needs to go for another review; this needs to go back to the BCUC.” I’m not sure. Most of the time….

Interjection.

Hon. M. Bernier: I know. It is interesting, because through question period, everything I hear is: “We don’t need more reviews.” The opposition keeps saying: “Stop

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doing reviews. Make a decision. This should be easy.” Now, they’re saying: “Do a review.” I can understand why it’s confusing for the members opposite when it comes to the discussion today.

It’s also really understandable why it might be hard for some members opposite today to stand up. I mentioned the member for Vancouver-Kingsway talking about the BCUC. This project has gone under more scrutiny than any other project, I would say, in B.C.’s history. But what’s interesting about that is that even though he’s saying it should be going for more scrutiny back to the BCUC, when the NDP were in government, the Minister of Energy and Mines at the time actually said: “Our government has made it official. All new B.C. Hydro power projects will be exempt from the B.C. Utilities Commission.”

I can understand why it might be a little confusing, because that member is actually still here serving. I can understand that the discussions behind the scenes might be a little bit tough to have.

On this side of the House, we’ve made it really clear. We’ve looked at the information. We’ve discussed the challenges. We’ve discussed the opportunities.

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Back to the opportunities, for a moment. One of the things I want to do is thank B.C. Hydro. B.C. Hydro has made a commitment to, wherever possible, hire local in my region. There are going to be a lot of opportunities, and I want to say not just in northeastern British Columbia.

As the Minister of Energy and Mines said, 10,000 jobs are coming out of this project — that we’re expecting. I actually am happy to say I don’t think we have 10,000 people up in northeast B.C. that are unemployed and looking for work. So we know — because of everything else that’s going on in my area, how active my part of the province is — that this is going to be all of British Columbia. There are going to be opportunities for everybody. This isn’t just about my beautiful corner of the province.

When I look right across the north, when I look right across into Vancouver…. I know there are environmental companies that are already working on projects, as well, up in my area. So this is something that is near and dear to my heart because of what it’s going to bring to my area.

The minister, earlier, mentioned the benefits to my area. I just want to reiterate a few of those. To me, it’s really important to highlight the fact that this project is really important not only for jobs but for the economy within the province of British Columbia, specifically in my area. I would say that throughout this entire process….

I know for some reason Site C sounds like a shock to some people, even though discussions have been going on since, I believe, the late 1960s. I will say that that’s actually when I was born. So that kind of gives you an idea of how long we were talking about Site C or a third dam on the Peace River. Through all of that time….

I really want to commend B.C. Hydro and everybody for this as well. Specifically, in the last five or six years, the amount of work on the ground that has taken place in discussions, communications with First Nations, communications with the regional district, communications with the municipalities…. I was part of some of those discussions. Some of them were tough discussions and heated discussions, but B.C. Hydro and communities all came to an understanding of what was important for the region and what was important for the province of British Columbia.

When I look at the regional legacy benefits coming to the regional district, specifically…. It’s going to provide $2.4 million annually to the regional district. T