British Columbia Hansard — Thursday, November 5, 2009

H1105am-04

British Columbia — Debates (Hansard)

First Session, 39th Parliament o FFicial rePort o F Debates of the Legis Lative a ssemb Ly (hansarD) the honourable bill bari So FF, SPeaker iSSn 0709-1281 Thursday, November 5, 2009 Morning Sitting Volume 7, Number 4

Pro Vince o F britiS h colu Mbia (entered c onfederation July 20, 1871) lieutenant -Go Vernor h is h onour the h onourable Steven l. Point, obc First Session, 39th Parliament SPeaker o F the leGiS latiVe a SSeMbl Y h onourable bill barisoff eXecutiVe council Premier and President of the executive c ouncil ......................................................................................................h on.

Gordon c ampbell Minister of State for intergovernmental r elations ....................................................................................................h on. n aomi Y amamoto Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance .......................................................................................................................... h on. c olin h ansen Minister of State for the o lympics and a ctn ow b.c. ....................................................................................................... h on.

Mary Mcn eil Minister of a boriginal r elations and r econciliation .....................................................................................................h on. George a bbott Minister of a dvanced e ducation and l abour Market Development ............................................................................ h on. Moira Stilwell Minister of a griculture and l ands ...................................................................................................................................h on.

Steve Thomson a ttorney General ...................................................................................................................................................... h on. Michael de Jong, Qc Minister of c hildren and Family Development and Minister r esponsible for c hild c are ............................................h on.

Mary Polak Minister of citizens' Services and Minister r esponsible for Multiculturalism and the Public a ffairs bureau ...........h on. ben Stewart Minister of c ommunity and r ural Development ................................................................................................................h on. bill bennett Minister of e ducation and Minister r esponsible for early l earning and l iteracy ......................................h on.

Margaret MacDiarmid Minister of energy, Mines and Petroleum r esources .....................................................................................................h on. blair l ekstrom Minister of State for Mining ................................................................................................................................................h on. r andy h awes Minister of environment .......................................................................................................................................................h on. barry Penner Minister of State for c limate a ction ...........................................................................................................................................h on.

John Y ap Minister of Forests and r ange and Minister r esponsible for the integrated l and Management bureau ........................... h on.

Pat bell Minister of h ealth Services ...................................................................................................................................................h on. k evin Falcon Minister of h ealthy l iving and Sport ...................................................................................................................................... h on. ida c hong Minister of h ousing and Social Development .................................................................................................................h on. r ich c oleman Minister of l abour ................................................................................................................................................................ h on.

Murray c oell Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General .....................................................................................................................h on. k ash h eed Minister of Small business, t echnology and e conomic Development ................................................................................ h on. iain black Minister of t ourism, c ulture and the a rts ...................................................................................................................... h on. k evin k rueger Minister of t ransportation and infrastructure ...................................................................................................................h on.

Shirley bond leGiS latiVe a SSeMbl Y l eader of the official o pposition ...................................................................................................................................................c arole James Deputy Speaker .................................................................................................................................................................................... l inda r eid a ssistant Deputy Speaker .............................................................................................................................................................c laire t revena Deputy c hair, c ommittee of the Whole .......................................................................................................................................... h arry bloy c lerk of the l egislative a ssembly...................................................................................................................e.

George MacMinn, obc, Q c c lerk a ssistant ..................................................................................................................................................................................r obert Vaive c lerk a ssistant and l aw c lerk................................................................................................................................................. ian D. izard, Qc c lerk a ssistant and c lerk of c ommittees ................................................................................................................................. craig h.

James c lerk a ssistant and c ommittee c lerk .................................................................................................................................... k ate r yan-l loyd Sergeant-at-a rms .................................................................................................................................................................................

Gary l enz Director, h ansard Services ............................................................................................................................................................Jo-a nne k ern a cting l egislative l ibrarian .......................................................................................................................................................... Peter Gourlay l egislative c omptroller ....................................................................................................................................................................... Dan a rbic

alP habetical liS t o F MeMberS a bbott, h on. George (l) ........................................................................ Shuswap a ustin, r obin (nDP) ................................................................................ Skeena bains, h arry (nDP) ....................................................................Surrey-n ewton barisoff, h on. bill (l) ............................................................................Penticton barnett, Donna (l) ................................................................ c ariboo-c hilcotin bell, h on.

Pat (l) ..................................................... Prince George–Mackenzie bennett, h on. bill (l) ...................................................................k ootenay e ast black, Dawn (nDP) ................................................................n ew Westminster black, h on. iain (l) ..................................................... Port Moody–c oquitlam bloy, h arry (l) ......................................................................burnaby-l ougheed bond, h on.

Shirley (l) ...........................................Prince George–Valemount brar, Jagrup (nDP) ................................................................ Surrey-Fleetwood c adieux, Stephanie (l) ...........................................................Surrey-Panorama c ampbell, h on. Gordon (l) .........................................Vancouver–Point Grey c antelon, r on (l) ..............................................................

Parksville-Qualicum c hong, h on. ida (l) ..................................................... o ak bay–Gordon h ead c houhan, r aj (nDP) ........................................................... burnaby-e dmonds c oell, h on. Murray (l) ....................................Saanich n orth and the islands c oleman, h on. r ich (l) ...........................................

Fort l angley–a ldergrove c onroy, katrine (nDP) .............................................................. k ootenay West c oons, Gary (nDP) .........................................................................n orth c oast c orrigan, k athy (nDP) ..................................................... burnaby–Deer l ake Dalton, Marc (l) .............................................................. Maple r idge–Mission de Jong, h on.

Michael, Qc (l) .............................................. a bbotsford West Dix, a drian (nDP) ............................................................Vancouver-kingsway Donaldson, Doug (nDP) ......................................................................... Stikine e lmore, Mable (nDP) ................................................... Vancouver-kensington Falcon, h on. k evin (l) ..........................................................Surrey-c loverdale Farnworth, Mike (nDP) ............................................................

Port c oquitlam Fleming, r ob (nDP) .......................................................... Victoria–Swan l ake Foster, eric (l) .......................................................................Vernon-Monashee Fraser, Scott (nDP) ............................................................a lberni–Pacific r im Gentner, Guy (nDP) .........................................................................Delta n orth h ammell, Sue (nDP) .................................................... Surrey–Green t imbers h ansen, h on. c olin (l) ..................................................

Vancouver-Quilchena h awes, h on. r andy (l) ..................................................... a bbotsford-Mission h ayer, Dave S. (l) .................................................................... Surrey-t ynehead h eed, h on. k ash (l) ...................................................... Vancouver-Fraserview h erbert, Spencer (nDP) ..................................................Vancouver–West end h ogg, Gordon (l) ............................................................... Surrey–White r ock h organ, John (nDP) .......................................................................

Juan de Fuca h orne, Douglas (l) ..............................................c oquitlam–b urke Mountain h oward, r ob (l) .....................................................................r ichmond c entre h untington, Vicki (ind.) ..................................................................Delta South James, c arole (nDP) .........................................................Victoria–b eacon h ill k aragianis, Maurine (nDP) ........................................e squimalt–r oyal r oads k rog, l eonard (nDP) ........................................................................... n anaimo k rueger, h on. k evin (l) ..................................... k amloops–South Thompson kwan, Jenny Wai ching (nDP) ...........................

Vancouver–Mount Pleasant l ake, t erry (l) .....................................................k amloops–n orth Thompson l ali, h arry (nDP) ..........................................................................Fraser-n icola l ee, r ichard t . (l) .......................................................................burnaby n orth l ekstrom, h on. blair (l) .......................................................

Peace r iver South l es, John (l) .........................................................................................c hilliwack l etnick, n orm (l) ........................................................k elowna–l ake c ountry MacDiarmid, h on. Margaret (l) ..................................... Vancouver-Fairview Macdonald, n orm (nDP) ....................................c olumbia r iver–r evelstoke Mcintyre, Joan (l) ..................................................West Vancouver–Sea to Sky Mcn eil, h on.

Mary (l) .................................................Vancouver–False creek Mcr ae, Don (l) ............................................................................. c omox Valley Mungall, Michelle (nDP) ..........................................................n elson-creston Penner, hon. barry (l) ............................................................c hilliwack-h ope Pimm, Pat (l) ..........................................................................Peace r iver n orth Polak, h on.

Mary (l) ...............................................................................l angley Popham, l ana (nDP) ...................................................................Saanich South r alston, bruce (nDP) ................................................................

Surrey-Whalley r eid, l inda (l) .............................................................................r ichmond e ast r outley, bill (nDP) .................................................................. c owichan Valley r outley, Doug (nDP) ............................................n anaimo–n orth c owichan r ustad, John (l) ........................................................................... n echako l akes Sather, Michael (nDP) ......................................... Maple r idge–Pitt Meadows Simons, n icholas (nDP) ...................................

Powell r iver–Sunshine c oast Simpson, bob (nDP) ...................................................................c ariboo n orth Simpson, Shane (nDP) .....................................................Vancouver-hastings Slater, John (l) ..............................................................boundary-Similkameen Stewart, h on. ben (l) ........................................................... Westside-kelowna Stilwell, h on. Moira (l) ...................................................... Vancouver-l angara Sultan, r alph (l) .....................................................

West Vancouver–capilano Thomson, hon. Steve (l) ........................................................k elowna-Mission Thorne, Diane (nDP) .................................................c oquitlam-Maillardville Thornthwaite, Jane (l) .......................................... n orth Vancouver–Seymour t revena, c laire (nDP) .................................................................... n orth island van Dongen, John (l) .............................................................a bbotsford South Y amamoto, hon. n aomi (l) ................................. n orth Vancouver–l onsdale Y ap, hon.

John (l) .............................................................r ichmond-Steveston liS t o F MeMberS bY riD in G a bbotsford-Mission .............................................................h on. r andy h awes a bbotsford South .....................................................................John van Dongen a bbotsford West ...................................................... h on. Michael de Jong, Qc a lberni–Pacific r im ..........................................................................

Scott Fraser boundary-Similkameen .....................................................................John Slater burnaby–Deer l ake ................................................................... k athy c orrigan burnaby-e dmonds ......................................................................... r aj c houhan burnaby-l ougheed ............................................................................ h arry bloy burnaby n orth .............................................................................. r ichard t . l ee c ariboo-c hilcotin ........................................................................Donna barnett c ariboo n orth ................................................................................ bob Simpson c hilliwack ...............................................................................................

John l es c hilliwack-h ope ...................................................................h on. barry Penner c olumbia r iver–r evelstoke .................................................. n orm Macdonald c omox Valley.................................................................................... Don Mcr ae c oquitlam–b urke Mountain .....................................................Douglas h orne c oquitlam-Maillardville...............................................................

Diane Thorne c owichan Valley ................................................................................ bill r outley Delta n orth ......................................................................................Guy Gentner Delta South ...............................................................................Vicki h untington e squimalt–r oyal r oads .....................................................Maurine k aragianis Fort l angley–a ldergrove ...................................................h on. r ich c oleman Fraser-n icola........................................................................................ h arry l ali Juan de Fuca .....................................................................................John h organ k amloops–n orth Thompson .............................................................t erry l ake k amloops–South Thompson ............................................ h on. k evin k rueger k elowna–l ake c ountry ...............................................................n orm l etnick k elowna-Mission .............................................................. h on.

Steve Thomson k ootenay e ast .......................................................................... h on. bill bennett k ootenay West ............................................................................ k atrine c onroy l angley.......................................................................................h on. Mary Polak Maple r idge–Mission .....................................................................

Marc Dalton Maple r idge–Pitt Meadows ........................................................Michael Sather n anaimo ......................................................................................... l eonard k rog n anaimo–n orth c owichan ......................................................... Doug r outley n echako l akes ..................................................................................

John r ustad n elson-creston ........................................................................Michelle Mungall n ew Westminster ..............................................................................Dawn black n orth c oast....................................................................................... Gary c oons n orth island .................................................................................. c laire t revena n orth Vancouver–l onsdale ........................................h on. n aomi Y amamoto n orth Vancouver–Seymour .................................................

Jane Thornthwaite o ak bay–Gordon h ead ............................................................ h on. ida c hong Parksville-Qualicum ..................................................................... r on c antelon Peace r iver n orth ................................................................................

Pat Pimm Peace r iver South ...............................................................h on. blair l ekstrom Penticton................................................................................... h on. bill barisoff Port c oquitlam ..........................................................................Mike Farnworth Port Moody–c oquitlam .............................................................h on. iain black Powell r iver–Sunshine c oast ................................................. n icholas Simons Prince George–Mackenzie .............................................................h on.

Pat bell Prince George–Valemount ...................................................h on. Shirley bond r ichmond c entre ............................................................................ r ob h oward r ichmond e ast ................................................................................... l inda r eid r ichmond-Steveston .................................................................... h on. John Y ap Saanich n orth and the islands ........................................... h on.

Murray c oell Saanich South ................................................................................ l ana Popham Shuswap ...............................................................................h on. George a bbott Skeena .............................................................................................. r obin a ustin Stikine .......................................................................................

Doug Donaldson Surrey-c loverdale .................................................................h on. k evin Falcon Surrey-Fleetwood ...............................................................................Jagrup brar Surrey–Green t imbers ..................................................................Sue h ammell Surrey-n ewton ................................................................................. h arry b ains Surrey-Panorama ..................................................................Stephanie c adieux Surrey-t ynehead ...........................................................................

Dave S. h ayer Surrey-Whalley.............................................................................. bruce r alston Surrey–White r ock ....................................................................... Gordon h ogg Vancouver-Fairview ............................................. h on. Margaret MacDiarmid Vancouver–False creek ........................................................ h on.

Mary Mcn eil Vancouver-Fraserview ..............................................................h on. k ash h eed Vancouver-hastings ....................................................................Shane Simpson Vancouver-kensington .................................................................Mable e lmore Vancouver-kingsway..........................................................................a drian Dix Vancouver-l angara ............................................................. h on. Moira Stilwell Vancouver–Mount Pleasant .........................................

Jenny Wai ching kwan Vancouver–Point Grey .................................................h on.

Gordon c ampbell Vancouver-Quilchena ..........................................................h on. c olin h ansen Vancouver–West end ................................................................Spencer h erbert Vernon-Monashee ...............................................................................eric Foster Victoria–b eacon h ill .......................................................................c arole James Victoria–Swan l ake.........................................................................r ob Fleming West Vancouver–capilano ............................................................. r alph Sultan West Vancouver–Sea to Sky ........................................................

Joan Mcintyre Westside-kelowna ...................................................................h on. ben Stewart Party Standings: l iberal 49; n ew Democratic 35; independent 1

CONTENTS Thursday, november 5, 2009 Morning Sitting Page Orders of the Day Second r eading of bills .......................................................................................................................................................... 2087 bill 21 — a mbulance Services c ollective a greement a ct (continued) r . a ustin G. Gentner k. c onroy b. r alston r .

Fleming Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room c ommittee of Supply .............................................................................................................................................................. 2102 e stimates: Ministry of c hildren and Family Development (continued) M. k aragianis G. c oons h on. M. Polak

2087 thurSD a Y , noVeMber 5, 2009 The h ouse met at 10:02 a.m. [Mr. Speaker in the chair.] Prayers. Orders of the Day Hon. B. Penner: Good morning. i hope everybody had a good rest last night. For the information of mem- bers, in this h ouse we'll be calling continued second reading of bill 21, a mbulance Services c ollective a gree- ment a ct. in the Douglas Fir r oom i call continued committee debate on the budget. For the information of members, we'll be debating the Ministry of c hildren and Family Development budget estimates.

Second Reading of Bills bill 21 — aMbulance Ser ViceS c ollectiVe aGreeMent a ct (continued) R.

Austin: i would like to continue my remarks that i was making yesterday evening when we adjourned, in regards to the government's attempt to impose a wage settlement upon the paramedic service — bill 21, the a mbulance Services c ollective a greement a ct. it seems very strange that after seven months where the ambulance workers have been working hard and continu- ing — they are, of course, part of the emergency services act — to provide great service to all british c olumbians, here we are now seven months in and no resolution to the issues that they have been bringing forward to the government. n ow government is essentially saying: "t o heck with democracy.

We're going to impose it." [1005] [c. t revena in the chair.] Y ou know, prior to getting elected into this chamber, i had always heard that, essentially, government can do whatever it wants. but in a democracy, even though a party may have a majority, that doesn't give it the right, morally, simply to impose its will whenever it wants.

There is a sense in our democracy of fairness, of justice, and what is hap- pening here today is not fair. it is an affront to democracy. i'd like to read into the record a letter that came to me from a paramedic in my home community of t errace. h is name is Mike n agel, and i think his words say a lot.

Dear Sir: i am deeply concerned about the recent developments in the a mbulance Paramedics of british c olumbia members strike and how the government has shown its complete and total contempt for the democratic process, of which collective bargaining is a cornerstone. it appears that the Premier has decided that they do not have to follow the time-honoured and legal practices to settle labour disputes. it seems that in this province the government believes it is above the law, and if they don't like a law or the way it impedes their progress towards their chosen goal, they can just change it to their liking. i say no. if you want to enact legislation to bring about com- promise, then go through conciliation, and if need be, take the step and enact binding arbitration legislation. but do not super- sede labour law by legislating an end to a legal strike.

The a mbulance Paramedics of british c olumbia have kept up their end of the bargain and provided essential services. n ow it is time for the Premier and for the h ealth Minister to live up to their end of the deal and bargain in good faith, not use heavy-handed tactics to force acceptance just because they can and are weary of the bargaining process. Sorry, Mr. Premier and Mr. h ealth Minister. in this playground you do not have the right to bully people into acceptance of your will.

Stop stamping your feet and throwing your tantrum because the other children aren't doing what you want. if you propose a just deal, it will be accepted, and everyone could move on.

This is our health and well-being that is on the line here, and there should be no compromise in the funding of it. i challenge the Premier and the h ealth Minister to ride for just a week with any paramedic crew and see what they experience. i believe most residents and voters in british c olumbia would pre- fer to be attended to by ambulance paramedic services that are well trained and funded. i'm sure no one wants to put their life in the hands of a cut-rate and underfunded ambulance and para- medic service — would you? h e refers to me and says: i thank you for all your efforts on behalf of the a mbulance Paramedics of british c olumbia and very strongly urge you to continue to do whatever you possibly can to keep this legislation from passing. in my estimation, this flouting of the law and dis- regard for basic democracy are intolerable. i think that what Mike says is a feeling not just of all the 3,500 people who work for the a mbulance Service here in british c olumbia, but i think it's a sentiment that is felt by many british c olumbians — people who understand that there are people who go to work every day; who are part of the essential services act; who risk their lives; who go and get training; who do very dif- ficult, challenging jobs that not many of us would ever want to even contemplate.

We should treat them with respect. The fact that they have to do this work and are under the essential services act does not mean to say that we can just trample upon their rights. We've already had a discussion in this h ouse about the levels of pay for people in the paramedic service, the fact that they have to pay for their own training and the fact that they have to go and do a challenging job.

They spend time away from their families, going to live in smaller communities to try and build seniority so they can maybe one day get a full-time job. h ere we are in this legislative chamber, where we even have the government Mla s and the Minister of h ealth saying words that suggest that they have full respect for what they do. Well, if they have full respect for what they

british c olumbia Debates2088 t hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 do, then do the right thing.

Don't pass this legislation. bring in a binding arbitrator, and let's get the job done in such a way that it's fair for the paramedics, fair for the taxpayers and fair and right for all british c olumbians. [1010] We rely on this service. i think that as a result of the imposition of this bill, what we are going to see is people being driven out of the service. it is very hard to attract people to do this job, and it's a difficult job to do. a nd you know what? it takes years to get the kind of practice and skills necessary. it's not just going down to the institute in Vancouver, taking a few courses and then going out and thinking that you can do the job. it is on-the-job training, and people put years and years of their lives into this job so that they can get better at it. a nd here we are, upsetting those people who have shown dedication to what is a very difficult task. i'd also like to question the Mla s on the government side.

We had an election a few months ago, and i know for a fact that there were many members in this chamber who were running for office who met with paramedics, both on our side of the h ouse and on the government side of the h ouse. i know for a fact that there are many people who got elected on the government side who, when they heard the issues and understood the challenges the paramed- ics have, were supportive during the election.

They were supportive of there being a fair and just agreement — not a bill such as bill 21. i'd like to read a letter here from a paramedic who lives in n orth Vancouver. i happen to know this para- medic because he used to be working in t errace. h e has a wife and a young child, and i'd just like to read into the record what he has to say in terms of the disappoint- ment of what was said prior to the election by members of the government who are now elected and what we are saying on this side of the h ouse. it reads as follows: i would like to take this opportunity to ask you, my former legislative representative, to convey a plea to my current M la for the n orth V ancouver–Seymour riding to break the l iberal silence. a s you know, i am a career-minded part-time paramedic of 3½ years with the british c olumbia a mbulance Service.

When i was in t errace, i worked an average of a hundred hours per week, covering a mixture of shifts to make a wage equal to one full-time member. h aving only the years of service i do, i still do not qualify for benefits or the ability to purchase the benefits of my employer for 2½ more years. i recently needed to move to n orth Vancouver, as my spouse took a job with b.c. h ydro and is receiving paid train- ing at c apilano university. a s there is no living allowance for my spouse, it is up to my part-time employment as a paramedic to provide for her and my daughter.

Given that i cannot yet be employed in the l ower Mainland, despite the total of 80 unfilled full-time positions, i'm forced to travel to l ions bay to work the $2-an-hour and $10-an- hour part-time ambulance shifts. a s a note, on one of the $10-an-hour shifts i am scheduled beside a full-time member with the same qualifications being paid three times my rate to work as partners on the very same ambulance. This common practice throughout the province is becoming an increasing concern to part-time members, as it eliminates full-time job opportunities.

My plea to my new l iberal Mla is to support me and help restore the worsening critical condition of the a mbulance Ser- vice in a way that i will be able to provide basic necessities for my wife. Please stand up and speak against this bill that will strip me of my democratic rights to collectively bargain and negotiate a fair and equitable contract. My plea begs you to expose the untruth in bill 21, as there are facts readily available to everyone contradicting its statements.

Further, i beg of you to use your 22 years in health care and your experience as a school trustee to speak out with your knowing concern of the public sector struggles that are haunting this ambulance service. My disappointment with my governing body has hit an all- time low as i watch b.c . society crumble so that a select few may attend the o lympic Games. There is still time to restore this ambulance service to the once first-class service that it was. This back-to-work legislation is not that avenue. i applaud all who stand to support me, my family and para- medics.

The respect that is being proven by your voice is astound- ing. i thank the Mla who is speaking for conveying my message that will, hopefully, encourage the support of our liberal Mla.

Steve Stringfellow Part-time paramedic from lions bay [1015] i think this letter says it all about the issues that we are debating here in this h ouse. h ere you have a young man with a wife and a very young child — i believe, from what i remember, she's about two or three years old — struggling to make it, struggling in society to support his wife, to go to school, to get a better job. h e has to go and do a job that is incredibly stressful every single day. on top of that stressful job, think of the hours he has to work simply to make a day's living, put food on the table and support his wife and child.

We don't even have enough respect in this chamber to honour the Steve Stringfellows of this world — people who, if we were in an accident, God forbid…. if any of us were in an accident, who do we rely on to come and solve that problem? it's the paramedics of b.c. it's those people who, if they don't get to us in the first half an hour or hour of a serious accident or a condi- tion like a stroke or a heart attack.… if they don't get to us and apply the skills that they have, it doesn't matter what happens in the hospital. it doesn't matter how bril- liant the doctors or the nurses are or the huge amounts of money we invest in our hospitals. if the paramedics don't get us there in time, it's curtains. it's over.

That's how important this service is. These are dedicated people. c an you imagine mov- ing all over the province in the hope that you can gain enough hours to get a full-time job? Y et we have how many jobs in the l ower Mainland? eighty unfilled full- time positions in the l ower Mainland. Why? because this government is trying to break the a mbulance Service, using part-timers who don't even get benefits, can't make a living wage, can't plan for their family.

british c olumbia Debatest hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 2089 We're using part-timers instead of allowing people who have the skills, like the Steven Stringfellows of this world, to be able, then, to get a full-time job, find some stability in their work and find some stability to live and work in a community — to build those connections and be able to make enough for their families — and then allowing them to concentrate on getting better at their job. a s i've said, this is not a job where you come out of the institute and all of a sudden you're brilliant at it. i've spoken to paramedics over the last several months, and this is a job where month after month you see new things.

There are paramedics who have worked for eight years, ten years, who still find new ways of making their job better, of improving their skills, because it's the amount of hours you put into it that makes you a great paramedic. We need to honour those paramedics, and we need to encourage more to be coming into the a mbulance Service. With the conditions of work of sitting on a pager for $2 an hour, of not being able to pay their bills, not be- ing able to pay their mortgage….

Who is going to be attracted to enter a job when those are the working conditions? i know that the government has appointed somebody under the Ministry of l abour to look into some of these issues, so obviously, there's an acknow- ledgment that there are serious problems. Y ou know what, Madam Speaker? o ver the last four years when i sat in this h ouse, we brought many of these concerns to the government. This is not something new. it didn't happen just seven months ago.

We brought con- cerns about the b.c. a mbulance Service into this cham- ber for the last four years, warning the government that these were serious issues that needed to be addressed. This should never have come to a strike. We should have addressed this. We address other areas of our health care system. When we have doctors who need to be at- tracted to work in remote communities, we find solu- tions for that. When we need to attract nurses to move to smaller communities, we find solutions. Some of those solutions are extremely expensive.

They involve putting bonuses in place. in my commun- ity of t errace and k itimat, it involves giving free hous- ing to attract people to come up to do the difficult work that we need done in our medical system. Why is it, if we're willing to do that for nurses and doctors and other specialists in the medical system, that we are treating b.c. ambulance paramedics in such a fashion? r eally, you have to ask yourself that. i can only contend that it must be that this govern- ment, even though they have nice words and say they're supportive…. it must be that there's another agenda at play. What is that agenda?

Maybe that agenda is to go back to the bad old days where people had to pay for all their own services and it was privatized. [1020] i can tell you that this won't work for the part of the province that i represent.

Maybe there could be private companies that would want to run an ambulance service in Vancouver or the l ower Mainland or in k elowna or in k amloops or some of the bigger centres where there is enough call volume on a regular basis to warrant a com- pany coming in and taking over that service. but how would that work in all the parts of british c olumbia, the small towns, the small communities — places like the n ass Valley, which i talked about yesterday, where there isn't even any ambulance service, where it takes an hour and a half to get there? h ow are we going to attract anybody to go and pro- vide this important service in rural b.c. if we dismantle it and don't have a service that is paid for out of the pub- lic purse and is there for all of us british c olumbians? i notice, hon.

Speaker, that the light has come on, so i'd like to just end my remarks by saying this. i hope that after all the debate that has taken place on bill 21, the government will rethink their position, that they will understand it is important to not just say they respect the work of the a mbulance Service, that they will show that respect by pulling this bill away, going back to the bargaining table, putting in an arbitrator and sorting out the issues. c ome next March, once this deal is imposed on them — this ends in March — we're back to where we are, except that it'll be worse.

Then you will have 3,500 dedicated ambulance service paramedics around this province who feel dismayed, who feel that they have not been treated properly. That is no way to try and solve the next labour negotiation, which will start in March. With that, i will end my remarks and pass it on to those who want to follow. G. Gentner: i rise to speak relative, of course, to bill 21. i begin my comments premised on my childhood. i have to think about those early years of my life, what kids did and how they played. We would act out those jobs that represented our heroes.

Many of us wanted to grow up to be a firefighter, others thought we'd be a po- lice officer, and some of us acted out the idea of being an ambulance driver or a paramedic working for the a mbulance Service. it was kind of good play, but it went to show that in my childhood, being a lifesaver was something that was dear to all of us. it was respected. They were the heroes, hon. Speaker.

They were the heroes that a child aspired to and wanted to grow up to become. it is concerning to me that here we are today after four years of mistreatment, i believe, from this government — at least four years, on how they've been dealing with this issue. of course, it all started in many ways with bill 29 — there's a relationship in bills 29 and 21 — and how this government with its heavy hand came down on all health care workers.

british c olumbia Debates2090 t hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 h ow did this all begin? We had a great legacy. it really began many years ago with t ommy Douglas, who years ago in the '40s and '50s reconstituted and reorganized an ambulance system within his own province.

They created an air ambulance, and it was something very novel, in- ventive and ingenious that the rest of n orth a merica was watching. h e was able to consolidate and put together a triage that worked effectively, and it was the model that all other governments were aspiring towards. of course, in the '70s we had a very progressive gov- ernment led by Dave barrett. Dave barrett reorganized and put together the a mbulance Service itself.

That was a government that looked at the pitfalls of privatization — what happens when you don't have a public entity that could work triage and work all the emergency care sys- tems together. h ere we are today, and it seems to me that there's been an erosion of the health care system. [1025] it also begins from your doorstep — preventative, but a doorstep — when you're in the unfortunate position or situation where you've called upon those first care re- sponders.

Y ou literally put your life and limb on hold in a situation where it's dependent on the good work of those heroes, which all of us aspired to become when we were little children. h on. Speaker, i can get very emotional on this issue, and i'm going to try and stick to a script, because i can get off focus on this one in so many ways — the emo- tions in the letters i have received very recently.

There are so many issues in this province that come and go politically and that have a lasting impact on our social fabric. i believe bill 21 is one. it's a bellwether of more to come, of what this government represents. bill 21, the a mbulance Services c ollective a greement a ct, is really, i believe, the employer's thug bill, because it's a big stick. Y ou take it, and you have no recourse. in fact, it's a bill that's about to set the clock back on labour relations in this province. We are going backwards. it is a position that i call a big stick.

We saw with bill 29, when this government took con- trol, a position that changed a longstanding relationship, a good working relationship, with working people, the labour movement, unions and those who really were giving their lives, giving their worth and jeopardizing their lives, whether it be health care workers or nurses — and above all the paramedics, who are the front line.

They were literally giving their time, their effort and perhaps their lives within a livelihood that is now sud- denly shaken. it's being destroyed by something that i believe is very arrogant and pretentious. i think "arro- gant" is a very soft word for this piece of legislation, in my estimation. i mean, it is only a brute with a big stick that would put forward such an onerous bill, and that is what we are seeing here today.

That is what bill 29 was — the "k ill the health em- ployees union" act — when this government first took over. it was scornful of the relationship over the years, the development that we had with labour and manage- ment and the understanding of collective bargaining — a proud history we built in this province that is now being destroyed. it's now suddenly ripped apart, just like what was at- tempted with bill 29, as though some scrap of paper…. a social fabric, a social contract has been put together — so many toilful long years on picket lines in this prov- ince, built on social and labour history where many people…. in fact, some people gave up their lives, when you talk about the mining industry and what happened on Vancouver island many years ago. it's a long litany to get here, and here we have today a situation where it's all for naught. h ere we are again with bill 21.

Y ou know, hon. Speaker, the government had to eat crow with bill 29. it had to repeal sections of bill 29 that prohibited those collective agreements from including provisions that sought to limit and restrict or in any way regulate the contracting-out of non-clinical services. i have no doubt in my mind that this is where this government would love to go — contracting out ambu- lance services in small towns. it's almost like they're looking forward to perhaps a post office….

The post- master would be a multitude of many things, and the postmaster in a small hamlet would probably have an old beat-up car and run around and pick people up and submit his invoices whenever he was called upon. We have to ask ourselves: what does that mean when it comes to training? i want to talk about that as well. [1030] it took many years to put together an argument, and i'm happy to say that bill 29 did go to the courts. it went before the courts.

The Supreme c ourt of c anada in June 2007 ruled parts of bill 29 illegal and established col- lective bargaining as a right protected by the c anadian c harter of r ights. it's enshrined, and every chance this government has, it's going to test it. This bill 21, i believe, is a fundamental shift that, in its hastiness and almost belittling attempt on the para- medics of british c olumbia…. i believe it's somewhat contemptuous.

That is what bill 21, i really think, is all about. it is why it's important to address the aspects of bill 21, which does not try and reconcile, if you will. it is somewhat representative of a government that's con- ceited, big-headed, selfish. That is what we see in bill 21. We've witnessed the untruthfulness of this govern- ment before the election, the promise that there would be a smaller debt, and it mushroomed by three to four times. We heard the aspect that there'd be no hS t . a fter the election here we go.

There it is. it's this deceitfulness, the falsehood, where it said one thing during the elec- tion and did something very different after the election. h ere we are again with bill 21. on that side there's no credibility or trust by the people of british c olumbia and certainly by those who

british c olumbia Debatest hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 2091 are on the front line of delivering our emergency ser - vices. n ow we have this propaganda or distrust en- shrined in this bill 21. We can look right at its title. l et's look at its title. it's called the a mbulance Services c ollective a greement a ct. "c ollective agreement act." c an you believe that they would come up with the audacity to refer to it as a collective agreement? This is an absolute sham. This is imposing the will of the employer onto the employee, and they have the audacity….

We talked, of course, about the deceitfulness that we've seen from this government, the way they gloss things over. r ight there on the bill — the title, the sub- ject — there it is: collective agreement act. What a farce. it's an absolute sham. it's trickery, and only the b.c. l iberal government would come up with the audacity to call it that. What a collective agreement. There's no collective agreement here. c ollective? n ot. it's forcing, again, the will of the employer on a defenceless group of citizens who are there for you and me.

They should be held in the highest regard, on the pedestal of our employees in this province, and they are completely tossing about as though they're a ragbag of disposable entities. This bill is absolutely outrageous — absolutely outra- geous. c ollective bargaining is sitting down and work- ing out your differences. it's not running around with a piece of paper and saying: "We're calling it collective bargaining.

We're calling it a collective agreement." it's about negotiating. it's about what makes this prov- ince wonderful — to sit together and work our differ - ences out and continue to deliver the services that the people of british c olumbia need. That's the nature of collective bargaining.

That is also the nature of parliamentary democracy itself, a system where we sit around, and yes, there are amendments, and yes, there are times listening to the opposition. a bove all, you listen to those you're about to hurt the most — those who have mortgages, those who, in my estimation, should be seen as the highest- esteemed of the province in the delivery of our health care systems. This is a government that believes in conflict. i believe it should be the other way around. it should be about open discussion — something that's transparent, some- thing that we can sit down and work out with people.

That is what bill 21 is doing. it is here to rip apart that decent way of dealing with our differences in a col- lective bargaining scenario. c ollective agreement act? a greement? Where's the agreement? There's no agree- ment here — none, nada. [1035] i'll tell you what the agreement is really all about. it's about the inability of this government, which cannot bargain in good faith…. That is what this agreement's all about. it's interesting.

We recently discovered, thanks to the good member — our l abour critic here, the Mla for burnaby-e dmonds — who exposed the marching orders from Vanoc that are forcing the hands of our paramedics…. a n agreement is a contract. but i have to ask you: what contract? There's no contract here. This is not a contract. This is a major dispute, and there is no agreement. Just on the title alone — this falsehood — the b.c. l iberal government is making, i believe, a mockery of the process of collective bargaining. They are absolutely deliberately rubbing salt in the wounds of our working people.

That is what this bill is all about. it is a vicious, malicious act. There's no other way to call it. a nd what a joke. a ny rightful-minded citizen will call it the big stick act. That is what it is. The members on the other side don't get it. They jeer the working people. They hold them in contempt, and they hold our paramedics of this province with such a disdain, and in a disrespectful way. i just don't under - stand it. i'll be honest. This is how they view the world. They are the captains of industry, and everyone else must come with cap in hand.

We see all the bureaucrats and the benefits, the bo- nuses that crown corp executives get. We can talk about all the wonderful tickets we're going to see passed out to friends and insiders for Vanoc. of course, we're talk- ing about the o lympics and all the great venues. We know what our paramedics will be doing. Y es, they will be doing their best for the o lympics, and yes, they deserve an opportunity to put their message and their case forward. When you think of public health and safety, isn't that what the o lympics should be built on — that kind of security? We know they don't care about working conditions.

Y ou've heard it here before. i think of the hours and hours, of the moments where…. i've talked to paramedics. They're running every which way. We have the statistics to show where there are various garages. in my area of n orth Delta there are 41 calls a day — just in my area alone. The working conditions. i couldn't do that job. i couldn't. When i was a child, i thought i could. i had a different job awhile back, and i used to see some of the stuff on the road, and how they can do it is beyond me.

This government doesn't care about their working conditions or decent wages. i don't think they care about pensions or better health care for all or equity in this province, where we're all treated equally. h on. Speaker, i don't think they care about you or me, your family, and they certainly don't care about the paramedics of the province of british c olumbia. They don't care. This was the vindictive nature of the government of its day. This is the vindictive nature. it was very clear, upon winning the election, that they didn't care. They say one thing, and they do something else.

british c olumbia Debates2092 t hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 These are workers who are willing to risk their lives for you and me. They should be held in the highest es- teem. They are our heroes, but the pompousness and the rashness of this government turns its back on them. i can tell you that on this side we are willing to stand up for the fundamental rights of workers in collective bar - gaining in the province of b.c.

So what's in a name? bill 21, the a mbulance Services c ollective a greement a ct. c ollective agreement act — it has as much credibility as what happened in the im- plementation of bill 29. it, too, masqueraded itself as something different. it was called the h ealth and Social Services Delivery improvement a ct. Well, improvement it did not do — another untruth. but it mimicked what was to come. [1040] h ere we are seven years later. h ow this l iberal govern- ment tries to gloss over its dirty deeds.

The shoddy mess took us to the Supreme c ourt — a national embarrass- ment, a national disgrace, if you will. b.c. was once the proudest province of some of the most progressive col- lective bargaining processes and legislation in c anada. n ow we are the laughingstock. it's all this sneakiness that comes to mind. a ll the sneakiness of how they implement this nefarious type of legislation. Friday nights are a typical example of how they try to sneak it through. The press releases, you know. a nd here we are.

We'll probably see the same type of sneaki- ness during the o lympics. e verybody will be out with their tickets while attentions will be elsewhere and the midnight oil will be burning over there. Some of their specialized hit teams will be with their hired guns find- ing another way to screw the working person. Deputy Speaker: Member, would you be careful of your use of language. G. Gentner: i'm sorry. i withdraw, hon. Speaker. h ow they demoralize and upset the people of the province — those who work for a living.

That's what's going to happen. keep your ears to the ground, because we're going to see more bill 21s being invented while everybody else is celebrating the games. Y ou can watch the Premier smiling like some Suharto, waving at the crowds, and the oics, the orders-in-coun- cil, will keep churning out. That's how they work. but i've got to ask the question: why won't the l iberal Mla s stand up now and stand up to a very arrogant Premier. Why don't they stand up and put their life- saving paramedics before the despot? Stand up.

Where is c arole t aylor when you need her most? i had respect for but i had great disagreements with the then Finance Minister. tilMa — i could go on and on. but she came up with a $6 billion package that included signing bonuses to public sector workers, ensuring labour peace and security through the o lympics. Where is former minister o lga ilich? n o wonder the moderates, if you want to call them that, left. The ex- treme right over there is in control. There is not one Mla who is willing to stand up. Stand up.

When the boss finally walks into your caucus room, i'm sure the henchmen slink their way into the room and stare for any discontentment. They're frightened over there. They're not going to stand up for the work- ers or the people of the province. They're going to let a special group of people within cabinet dictate to them what it's all about. it's about their friends and insiders and corporatism. There's no real small-l liberal left over there. This government is exposed for what it really is. This bill 21 clearly demonstrates that.

We know what happens when you basically shake your head and get in line with what's going on with the extreme right wing over there. Just ask the former a ttorney General. For four years he ducked; he hid. "it's before the courts. it's before the courts." a nd where is Wally o ppal now? Deputy Speaker: i'd remind you that we are talking about bill 21. We are on second reading of bill 21, so i would ask you to discuss that bill. G. Gentner: a bsolutely, hon. Speaker. That's what bill 21 brings to mind. bill 21 comes to mind how those members are unwilling to stand up. a n apologist will get you nowhere.

There's no improvement in this bill here at all. it's going to create great chaos. it's bombastic. i think it's brassy. it's shameless. it's a condescending view of a gov- ernment over those who are trying to fetter out a better way of life — a better and decent wage. They deserve better than what this government is offering. [1045] h ow can anyone over there sit and agree with this bill 21? Many of them will turn their backs as we speak here. Many will somehow shut down their ears. They don't want to listen to it. They don't want at all to hear what's going on.

They're part of the jet set, will fly around, spend lots of money for parades and everything else — hundreds of thousands of dollars. but they still, through it, will turn their back to what's happening in this room here, with total disrespect to the paramedics and people working in this h ealth Ministry.

Y ou know, it sums up this government to a t . it does — the arrogance. bill 21 strips the union of its right to ne- gotiate. it still amazes me today that this government has the audacity and thoughtlessness to think that it can get away with it, that they can somehow…. i don't know how to suggest it, and correct me if you have to, hon. Speaker, but they think they can just sort of goose-step their way over anything that tramples over people's rights. The government had recanted its bill 29.

british c olumbia Debatest hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 2093 interjection. Deputy Speaker: Member. Point of Order Hon. B. Penner: Point of order. The member knows the bounds of the debate, and he is clearly exceeding them with his ridiculous comments. G. Gentner: i withdraw that, hon. Speaker. Debate Continued G.

Gentner: Government thinks it can march its way.... i won't describe the type of marching, but they can con- tinue and stomp their way over rights people have held very dear in this province. if there was no c harter in this country, constitutional rights in this country, where would we be with this government?

This government would continue to rip and tear col- lective agreements apart like never before at its own con- venience and, of course, for their friends. i don't think they've learned a thing since they had to recant bill 29. it's quite obvious here with this legislation. i know that the government opposite doesn't be- lieve in the notion of security for the workplace, which builds a strong community, knowing you're going to be there, not having to uplift your family at a whim of a government and try and find schooling somewhere else, go into a new community because the job is no longer there.

That security, that stability, is an instrument that government should be upholding, and they're ripping it apart with bill 21. Stability, i believe, is what the o lympics…. it's what the government uses as its flagship. it's there for the fu- ture. it's there for stimulus. it's there for our security. There's no security with this bill. u nlike c arole t aylor, this group couldn't negotiate a dust-off at a preschool birthday party. interjection. G. Gentner: Deep thoughts indeed.

They're deep thoughts, because i harken back to when i was a child. a s a child…. e ven today i still hold the paramedics in this province with the high esteem that most people should be hold- ing them or looking at them with. They should deserve that kind of respect. Y ou know, we can talk about the recruitment that goes in — the disease, the germs, the horrific situations. They deal with severed arms, accidents. They witness acci- dents that most of us would never get over, and there's all the stress and the high suicide rates that go with that job. a nd they've got to be defused.

Those services are not being provided. When you are involved with that type of stress-related job…. There's more related stress than for most of us, certainly most of us in this room. in recruitment, in the absence of long-term training, there's a need for retention of that training. it's no longer there. it's reflected in the increasing frequency of remote stations. They've got to move back and forth — a lack of staff. it goes on and on. l et's not talk about the care they provide at hospitals, when we've seen the complete col- lapse of acute care hospitals and emergency systems in our province.

Who is there to care for you in the hallways — the hallway medicine created by this government? it's the paramedic. We're so far behind that instead of getting back on the road, our paramedics have got to stay with their emergency patient. [1050] Y ou know, these are self-starters. They have a work ethic. but i want to end with the notion about morale. This is a type of job that when you lose morale, you lose everything, because not only is it a system of caring for those who are in dire need; it is a system whereby you count on the team. Y ou're dealing with triage, call sys- tems. Y ou count on that team.

When morale is gone and it's dissipated because of an uncaring government that does not respect them, it's a system that fails. it fails. i have to tell you that it's a download, also, on munici- pal government. When you don't have the proper para- medic systems in place and the ambulatory systems, it's up to our firefighters to be the first responders.

That's another example of downloading by this government, by the uncertainty created by bill 21 and the lack to have bargained in good faith. i'm going to conclude with those remarks, and i have to tell you again that i believe in a province that be- lieves in collective agreements. i believe in a province whereby people are treated with equal rights. i believe in a province that believes that care for our citizens should be above all other needs. i believe in a compassionate province that believes in people and cares for people. i don't believe in a province that puts certain friends and corporate interests ahead of the general population of british c olumbia.

K. Conroy: i rise, too, to take my place to speak against bill 21. This bill is nothing but an attack on the demo- cratic bargaining rights of paramedics in this province. t o bring it in now, while the latest offer is being voted on, is unconscionable. t o say it is about h1n1 — i believe and i know that people in this province just don't accept that. i have, as all members of this h ouse have, been get- ting e-mails and letters to our offices, appalled that this legislation is even being introduced. i agree with them. it is appalling.

We know full well that this is not about the paramed- ics and their strike and the services to the people of this

british c olumbia Debates2094 t hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 province. it's about the o lympics. This is about ensur - ing that there are paramedics on the job during the o lympics. is that a bad thing? Well no, of course we have to have paramedics at the o lympics. but to use this as an excuse to bring in back-to-work legislation is just wrong. We know that other paramedics across this country have been invited by Vanoc to come here during the o lympics to help out, to volunteer.

The response that Vanoc has gotten from paramedics from across the country is a "no thanks" because they are showing their support of their brothers and sisters here on strike in british c olumbia. if this minister and the government truly believed they needed to settle this dispute, why not get involved sooner in a respectful way. Why not appoint a medi- ator? Why not support the process instead of hijacking it, and hijacking it for their own purposes? it's just unconscionable. in our region paramedics are paramount to ensuring people of k ootenay West get the health care they need and should be able to access.

Since 2001 there have been a number of closures of hospitals and emergency rooms throughout our region. Many of our emergency rooms have gone to 12-hours-a-day service and no longer pro- vide that 24-7 access that people need. t o ensure health care access in our region, we have to have our ambulances. We have to have our ambulances and our paramedics to get us to all the services that we need. k elowna is our regional hospital in our region. it's the hospital where the major emergencies go. We have a regional hospital at t rail, a regional hospital that….

Most people in our region get taken to that hospital by ambulance when they need those services. if they can't be served in t rail, they get ambulanced to k elowna. We need those paramedics to do that, so they work for us by air and by land. i have 20 years of experiences of dealing with the health care system, and the paramedics have been right there front and centre for our family when we needed them.

Whether it was by air, by land, they've been there for us, and they've been a critical part of the health care that our family has received in the last 20 years. [1055] They are genuinely concerned, and they care about the health care in our region. They're there, they're respon- sible, and they're available when we need them. When you live in small communities like we do, we all know each other. The paramedics are there not only to provide that necessary service, that critical service we need, but they're there for us as personal friends, as people that we know, and they care about our region.

We have paramedics in our region who are part-time, who have to drive an hour, hour and a half every day to their worksite when they're called out to make $2 an hour — $2 an hour for eight hours — and then they drive back home. That $2 an hour doesn't even pay for their gas. it doesn't even come close to making minimum wage. They're waiting for a call-out. Sometimes they get it; sometimes they don't. but that's been happening for years.

W e know of professional part-time paramedics who've worked for years, often years in other communities. i know of one who worked for seven years in another community, driving every day to the other community that she worked because she couldn't get a full-time position. These are issues that need to be bargained, that need to be negotiated at the bargaining table, not to be slammed on them in draconian methods that just don't work in a bargaining process that should be democratic.

We know of paramedics in our area who now have to pay for their own training. in how many jobs, how many professional jobs, do you have to pay for your own train- ing? These are people who are being trained to save our lives, to save our children's lives, our families' lives, our grandchildren's lives. These are people who have been trained to work so that we can all benefit from it, and they have to go and pay for their own training. Where does that make sense? i want to talk a bit about the paramedics in our region who provide the critical care team services.

This was ori- ginally a pilot project that has been proven to be one of the best methods of providing services in rural b.c. When i look at bill 21 and what it's proposing, i think: "h ow does it leave behind these critical care transport paramedics?" They provide such incredible service in our region, to the point where they even volunteer their time and have worked hard to ensure a helicopter pad at our regional hospital so that people can get their ser - vices quicker.

We all know the critical period of time when you're deal- ing with paramedics, when you're dealing with people that are injured, that are hurt…. W e know that there is a critical period of time that if an ambulance, if those paramedics, can get to you, you can survive just about anything. What these people are doing in our region is they're making sure that they can get to us, that they can get to people that need their services. it is something that we need to recognize and not have these people penalized.

They're being penalized by not being able to go through the due process when it comes to the bargaining process, and this is just wrong. i find it frustrating that what it does is it takes away from these professionals. it takes away when they go to work and they give their all, and it takes away from the morale of the paramedics, and for what? a gain, it's not to benefit the province of b.c. it's not to benefit the paramedics. it's not to benefit the people of b.c. it's to benefit a very small period of time when this did not have to happen. it's to benefit the o lympics, and this just did not have to happen.

We just did not have to bring this in now.

british c olumbia Debatest hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 2095 i hark back — and i know a number of members have harked back — to the '70s, when Premier barrett at the time created the ambulance services. a n e-mail was sent from a person who lived in those days, and i want to quote what this person has said to us.

They said: "back in 1972 our friend, living in what is now a densely built- up area of greater V ancouver, had a stroke during the day, and it took the private — because they were private ambulances in those days — 40 minutes to arrive to take them to the hospital. a s a result of the delay, this person was severely paralyzed for the rest of their life. This is what a private ambulance service does. The doctor at the hospital said that if they had arrived more quickly, they would have recovered most of their faculties in the follow- ing few months." [1100] That was before we had a public ambulance.

That was before we had paramedics that were brought in to make sure this type of thing doesn't happen anymore. h ere we are in 2009, and we're struggling with these very issues in rural b.c., struggling to make sure that para- medics can get to people on time. i mean, we have stats — information from the employer — showing that in the community of Fruitvale, which is in my constituency, in March of this year, 55 percent of the time there were no ambulances available. There were no ambulances available. We have to ask that question.

We have to ask: if the paramedics are of the critical importance that this bill is saying they are, why hasn't it been dealt with before? Why did the community of Fruitvale…? Why are they sitting with 55 percent for the month of March with no services, no paramedics who could be there and no ambulances that were staffed? The same in nakusp. The same in new Denver. These are all communities in rural b.c. which, because of the lack of paramedics in this province, are struggling to en- sure that we have services.

Will this bill help that? n o. bill 21 will not help this. bill 21 is directly related to ensuring that the bargaining process is in place for the o lympics. it is not going to ensure that we have better staffing in n akusp. it is not going to ensure we have better staffing in n ew Denver. Fruitvale will not get better staffing because of this. Will our paramedics benefit by it? Well, we've had hundreds of stories about our paramedics and whether they'll benefit by it. in this province we have 66 stations which are designated either rural or remote.

That means stations where a lot of those ambulance paramedics are making $2 an hour. a re they going to benefit by this? a re we going to actually see in the legislation that they're going to make more than $2 an hour? a re we going to be able to sustain paramedics in rural b.c. with $2 an hour? a nd with this proposed legisla- tion — this proposed agreement — are we going to be able to actually see an increase so that we can sustain paramedics, so that we can keep paramedics in rural b.c., so that we don't have to worry about going back to the '70s, prior to having an ambulance service, where there wasn't enough time and there weren't ambulances staffed by professional paramedics that could get to people on time? r ural b.c. shouldn't have to suffer like that.

This legis- lation will not help that. This legislation will not. We've read through the legislation. i can't see anywhere in the legislation where it actually says that the paramedics will get a better rate per hour for working in rural or remote b.c. — that the $2 an hour call-out will be gone. i don't see it in this legislation. So we have to look and say: "Why is this legislation coming forward now?" is it going to help rural b.c .? is it going to help those remote ambulance sites? no, it's not. People are looking at it.

We're getting so many e-mails, so much information from people saying: "This is not going to help us. This is not going to help us as a com- munity. This is not going to help us in rural b.c. This is not going to help us as paramedics." The paramedics have seen it. They know, and the para- medics are frustrated in the sense that they are following due process. They are bargaining, thinking that they've got their democratic rights to bargain, and that's been taken away. a nd we're getting letters from them. [l. r eid in the chair.] i want to quote from one of them, from an ambu- lance paramedic.

There are so many of these letters, and it speaks from the heart. These are not my thoughts. These are not the thoughts of the members of the cham- ber. These are actual paramedics who are living this life every day, who are working in the field, who are out there struggling to make sure that they are going to give us the health care we need, to save lives. i think r ob Schelski says it best. h e says: "i'm outraged that the government of the day failed to negoti- ate in good faith with the a mbulance Paramedics of b.c.

Despite what your government or the union have to say, neither of the spin masters have addressed the genuine need for negotiation. [1105] "o n one hand, the union wants parity with other emergency services. That is not going to happen. on the other, the govern- ment is trying to balance the books, citing tough economic times. We both know that creative accounting allows numbers to tell whatever story we wish. Somewhere in between this, the truth must be told.

"i am disappointed that the smoking gun of this bill will be bur- ied, that Vanoc's threat to cancel the games if the dispute was not settled is the reason, in actuality, for this piece of legislation. "a t the end of the day, you get your way, but do us all a favour, and try not to hide behind the alleged h 1n 1 pandemic. if the general public is at risk, so are the front-line men and women manning the ambulances throughout b.c.

They will also be affected and be unable to staff the ambulances that need to get to the general public." it goes on and on and on. i spoke with another woman in my constituency who has a family member who's a paramedic. She talked with them about this current agreement, how it impacts them, what it means to their lives.

british c olumbia Debates2096 t hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 h ere are some of the highlights about how her family member works. They attend all the same emergency service calls as police and fire, but have very different collective agreements. Paramedics have a higher per - centage of job-related injuries and are at greater risk than police and fire, but they earn less money. They are expected to settle for $2 an hour for on-call wage rate and a $10-an-hour second-car wage rate while work- ing side by side with fire and police who earn about 30 percent more.

There is still the same number of ambulance cars in the province as there was ten years ago, but there are twice as many call-outs as there were ten years ago. When the paramedics work their various on-call shifts, the wages they're earning do not get factored into their pension contribution. They need to be on a full-time regular shift before they qualify for their benefit. The basic question is: why are paramedics being treated so differently than fire and police? Y ou have to ask that question. Why is this being done to paramed- ics?

Why is this collective agreement not covering these issues, not dealing with these issues? Why are they being put off and at what cost? There's another paramedic. h e's a resident of the o kanagan, and he's also very upset. i'm not going to read part of his letter, but he's very upset about this back-to- work legislation that's being foisted on them. h is claim about the negotiations: "The l iberals' claim is this is a result of prolonged, failed nego- tiations. Well, it's hard to negotiate when one party shows up with the same contract offer for the past seven months. That isn't nego- tiating.

That's forcing your terms. "The first time that we take their offer to vote — and we did so because the government accused the union of not representing its members — we get legislated back to work before the vote is finished. "a nd the worst part? This is all based on manipulation and lies. blaming the legislation on the flu — are you serious? Did the l ib- erals even try hard when they put together their excuses to share with the rest of b.c.?

"in one of the many t V interviews done over the past few days, the minister said that paramedics have been calling in sick and that we are needed to be at full capacity. o f course we call in sick. We work excessive hours, and daily we work with ill people. it is bound to pass on to us and our co-workers. "if anything, this showed the true lack of preparedness bca S had towards the swine flu. i am currently off work because i have the swine flu. h owever, even though i work more than full-time paramedics, i am classified as part-time, which means i get no sick pay.

My wife doesn't work because we can't afford day care for our baby, so she has to stay at home too. "That means that my reward for covering the gaping holes in the service is nothing — a blank paycheque and an illness that spreads to my family. "What were the other excuses? o h yeah, a sudden outpouring of worry about bca S managers working excessive hours during the strike. h ow pathetic is that? Paramedics have been doing that for years, and the government ignores us. n ow a bit of pressure is put on the employer, and they cry foul.

"i moved to b.c . in 2007. i have already started applying for paramedic positions in other provinces. b.c. is the most expen- sive province to live in yet has the lowest minimum wage and the lowest regard for their paramedics. i invite my paramedic broth- ers and sisters to do the same thing." That's the sad reality — that we are losing paramedics in this province.

We are losing them to other provinces where they know they can get a better rate of pay, where they know they can have better family life, where they know they are respected and honoured and the job they do is respected and honoured. [1110] What this legislation is doing is taking away with that respect. it is taking away the ability of these people to negotiate a decent wage, a decent lifestyle. n ot only are we hearing from paramedics, we're hear- ing from the people in the public. heather Whitley says: "i am totally outraged with our present government forcing pub- lic employees to accept a collective agreement while the union is in the middle of voting on an offer from the same government.

"My father and their forefathers have been strong union men and have fought long and hard to get where we are. if this bill goes through, i think all union members need to revolt, stay home from their jobs in protest. "i watch this debate closely and keep optimistic that this bill is defeated." Well, i think most people agree with her that it is totally outrageous. This is the first time in the history of this province, in the history of the country, that back-to- work legislation is being introduced while there is a vote taking place.

While a democratic process is being fol- lowed, we're getting the hammer coming down on these people, on the paramedics. it's just wrong. We had another letter from a paramedic, an advanced life-support paramedic, who's been serving as a para- medic for 22 years. h e says: "n otwithstanding this utterly disgusting attack on my demo- cratic rights and freedoms, this bill epitomizes the contempt, dis- regard and disrespect you have for the work i do. i spent years training to be a paramedic. i have devoted my life to being the best paramedic i can possibly be.

"i work in a profession with the worst suicide rate in the pub- lic service, including all emergency services and health care pro- fessions. There's a good reason. We are treated like garbage on a good day, but the moment we are hurt or disabled as a result of the risk to which we are routinely exposed, bca S turns its back on us. "There are scores of my colleagues that struggle with job- induced mental health issues every single day. Y our efforts to sub- jugate us have only made a bad situation even worse." We have to ask why.

Why is this happening to these paramedics, who are giving everything to be in the fore- front of saving lives, of ensuring we get the medical care we need? What is the response they get from the govern- ment? They said: "Sit down. We're dictating what your collective agreement is going to be. it doesn't matter what you've negotiated to date. it doesn't matter. We're stepping in." a nother letter from another family member. The number of family members who have sent correspond- ence, concerned about this…. They see it. They see the day-to-day lives of what is happening to paramedics.

They see it in their family members. They see it, and they

british c olumbia Debatest hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 2097 truly understand it. They understand what this legis- lation, bill 21, is going to bring down on their family members. "Please exert any pressure you can on the b.c . government to intervene and help settle the strike by ambulance paramedics immediately, or have an arbitrator appointed. i can't believe the lack of respect being shown to our emergency responders. i'm sure you know the details. "Morale is at an all-time low in a service that is critical to british c olumbia's well-being. employees of an essential service should be treated as essential.

We have a son that is a b.c. a mbulance paramedic. h e regularly works 60 to 70 hours per week and is a part-time employee. h e just finished a seven-day, 12-hour-per- day stint. o n his first day off in seven days, he was called at home while we were there. he was asked to work another shift. "This pace of work in a highly stressful job can only lead to burnout. The system needs to be revamped." When you look at what the families are going through, when you see what they're doing, when you see what's happening to our paramedics, you have to ask why again, and we have to continue to ask why.

There's another letter that came from Mission. it's a long letter. it talks about the needs of people here in this province, and it talks about the arrogance of the govern- ment in introducing this legislation that takes away the rights of paramedics.

This person's brother-in-law and friends spent months away from their families, serving with the c anadian Forces in a fghanistan, the purpose of which is to "oust the t aliban and bring to the people of a fghanistan the values that we as a nation believe, values that our fellow countrymen and women have continued to fight and die for. it is those rights, as guaranteed in the c harter of r ights and Freedoms, that make this country what it is." [1115] t o dictate the terms of a collective agreement and take away the right to collective agreement is a slap in the face to paramedics.

They put their faith in the process. They softened their position while their employer made the same offer over and over again. Their employer then goes to the government, saying that there is no hope of a negotiated settlement and that the government must intervene for the safety of the public. Safety of the public? We've been watching the para- medics. They have been working. They have been there.

They are on an essential services ruling. i know para- medics who have been out working every day of this strike because they have to. i don't know any people in our region that have suffered due to this strike, except for the paramedics. They are committed to their job. They are committed to their profession, and it's appal- ling that this is happening to them. h e goes on to say that in the last nine years covered by the 12th collective agreement, they have had zero percent raises while the rest of the world moved ahead. Their total raise was 1 percent, and the employer is feeling that that's unrealistic.

They're all paid by salary, which is calculated on a 70-hour biweekly pay period. The problem for this paramedic and a large majority of their co-workers is that they work 84 hours biweekly, or 42 hours per week.

They're paid for a 35-hour work week, and they work long, long hours. h e says: "My co-workers and i would very much like to negotiate a new collective agreement, including a reasonable wage increase, a standardized hourly rate" — everyone gets paid the same wage for an hour's work; novel concept — "all overtime calculated on the standardized hourly rate, and a commitment from bca S to work with its employees to develop a formula to determine resource staffing levels so that the citizens of b.c. do not have one ambu- lance for 300,000 people on a regular basis." on a regular basis.

This paramedic is hitting…. h e's saying that these are things that could be negotiated, things that should have been negotiated, things that through the proper democratic negotiating process were there, which could have been done. but they're not. it's appalling in this day and age in this province that not only is this being dictated and slammed to the para- medics that they have to accept this…. it is appalling that the mere title of the bill note, saying that it's the col- lective agreement act, is a sham. What kind of collective agreement is dictated to people?

We have to look at that, and we have to say that it's just not right. a nother paramedic from t rail says, "it is bullying like this from a government official that makes me disgusted with our current government in power in this beauti- ful province. r ight now, as you may well know, we have been answering calls out of the Glenwood Motel for quite some time due to mould issues in our station" — mould issues that the paramedics have to deal with. Their station is shut down, and they're working out of a motel. What kind of service is that?

What kind of work- ing situation is that for the paramedics — that they have to be moved out? This is happening again and again across the prov- ince. We know of other stations across the province. k amloops — how long was the k amloops station shut down because of a mould issue, backup of sewer? it's happening everywhere in the province in rural b.c.

These paramedics are not only out there giving it their all to save people's lives; they're in work conditions that are unacceptable. n one of us would accept working in mouldy buildings or having to work out of a motel when you're going out to save people's lives. n ow, there's really something desperately wrong with that. a nother paramedic talks about the issue with the $2 an hour. r eally, in this province, how many people can work for $2 an hour, especially highly trained, highly professional people?

This legislation does nothing to ac- commodate that, does nothing to deal with that, does nothing with the retention of ambulance paramedics in rural b.c. because it doesn't deal with the $2 an hour. This ambulance paramedic says that he works twice as much as a full-time paramedic for less pay. "i'm a part-time paramedic, equally qualified as a full-time

british c olumbia Debates2098 t hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 paramedic with an identical licence, yet i get $2 an hour. Forget all of that. The fact that concerns me most is that we carry the sick, diseased and ill. Y et if we get sick, para- medics do not receive sick benefits for six years." Six years they have to work before they even get a sin- gle sick day, and they work with gravely ill people. [1120] h e goes on to say: "h ow can paramedics be deemed essential according to the essential service act set by the biased l abour r elations board and be forced to work for $2 an hour?

Y ou're forced to work, and when you get sick, you have no sick time, no health benefits. if your sickness gets passed to your family, they are not covered and have no health coverage either. "We have carried this service on our backs for years with more and more demands put on us by our employer, including pay- ing for our training, maintaining our licence and working a second job just so we can subsidize our employment with b.c . a mbulance." i know so many paramedics in my constituency and throughout rural b.c. who do work as paramedics but also have to have another job to sustain their families.

They work at the hardware store. They work at the local grocery store. They work at other places. They work at the mills — the mills that are still operating. They work at those places, and they're on call. They get called out to go, and some of the employers are great. They'll give those paramedics the okay to leave their em- ployment to go save someone's life. n ow, what kind of bizarre situation is that — where we have people work- ing at secondary jobs who have to work in a hardware store and have to have the blessing of their employer to go out on a call to save someone's life?

Does this legisla- tion deal with that? n o. B. Ralston: i rise to speak in opposition to bill 21, which is currently before the h ouse. before i speak, i want to also convey to the h ouse some of the personal experiences that i've had with the very effective and dedicated public service that the ambulance paramedics provide. r ecently in my own constituency office, one of my constituency assistants experienced shortness of breath and all the classic signs of heart difficulties. We immediately got on the phone and called the a mbulance Service, and they were there within five minutes.

The sense of relief that one has when you see those trained people come through the door to deal with the situation is immense and incalculable. The profes- sionalism with which they conducted themselves…. it turned out my constituency assistant had a previously undiagnosed irregular heartbeat, and that was what was causing the difficulty. but that was all brought on very suddenly, and the ambulance paramedics were there to provide the exceptional public service that people in this province are able to count on from them personally.

The service is a significant achievement in public policy in this province. i think it's worth reflecting at this time that this was a legislative change, the creation of the a mbulance Service, which was brought about in 1974 by the then Minister of h ealth, Dennis c ocke. When Dennis c ocke died recently, at his funeral there was an honour guard of ambulance paramedics speak- ing to the great esteem that they held him in and the great pride that he had in launching that initiative as a public service in british c olumbia.

Prior to the creation of the a mbulance Service as a public body funded and staffed with proper training, the ambulance service — the pre-hospital care system in the province — was very much a patchwork network where one might rely on good service in one part of a region and poor or no service in another part of the re- gion.

There wasn't a set of standards, and there wasn't a centralized dispatch — all of which contributed to un- necessary deaths and serious injuries in the province. [1125] That was the goal of creating and consolidating all the private services into one public service — setting a higher standard that would serve the people of british c olumbia well. That was a bold visionary move, and it has served this province well. So it is with some considerable regret that i rise to speak in this debate.

The ambulance paramedic service is a group of people that, in my encounters with them, have a tremendous sense of common purpose, an esprit de corps, a pride in their work, a collective sense of ac- complishment, achievement and service that's utterly exemplary. it compares with other emergency health services across the country, where our paramedics are recognized as leaders and the a mbulance Service is recognized as one of the best, if not the best, in the coun- try and is looked to as a model by other jurisdictions. in the course of my duties as a Member of the l egislative a ssembly, i have been invited to the retirement gather - ing for a person who was a long-serving paramedic and spoke somewhat of the service in the Fraser Valley prior to 1974, when the service was consolidated.

Many of the remarks that i've made about the service in general were confirmed, in the sense that this person had started out working for a private ambulance service and had entered into the public ambulance service when it was created. h e had a long and very colourful history within the service and was very, very proud of the ac- complishments he had achieved personally and that he was able to achieve on behalf of the citizens of the prov- ince as an ambulance paramedic.

The hospital pre-care system that's been established here in british c olumbia is not a small accomplishment. it's a major accomplishment. it bridges the gap between the injury, wherever it may take place, the accident, wherever it may take place, in those crucial moments. The ability to respond quickly through centralized, ac- curate dispatch — to dispatch trained personnel to the scene, to treat the person who's injured or suffering

british c olumbia Debatest hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 2099 from heart failure or whatever other illness has befallen them — is a very crucial service in the sense that the dif- ference can literally — and this is not exaggerating — be the difference between life and death. if the response is quick, if it's effective, medically trained intervention and gets that person to an emer - gency facility as quickly as possible, their life can be saved. if that service is not there, then mortality rates go up very drastically. in setting a context for the dis- cussion of this bill, one needs to bear in mind what this service constitutes. r ecently my colleague — unfortunately no longer with us here in the l egislature, and i can call him by his name now — charlie Wyse, prior to his defeat, spoke about the a mbulance Service.

The perspective of rural members, such as the member from the k ootenays who just spoke, is really important to understanding the service.

The goal of the service was not just to provide intense and effective service within metropolitan regions, where the problems of dispatch and travel are perhaps easier, but to provide a system that extended throughout the province, including to rural areas, on the understand- able principle that equality of service and equality of treatment required that wherever illness or accident befell a person in the province, effective ambulance paramedic service should be there to provide the same kind of level of care and treatment that was provided in metropolitan areas. [1130] The need or the requirement or the scope of the ser - vice that's directed to rural areas is really important to consider. indeed, that has been the subject of much of the tension, although not all of it, in the service in re- cent years.

Members on this side of the l egislature have raised, on behalf of their constituents, concerns about the working conditions of rural paramedics and the kind of service that is being spoken of. The member previous to me spoke of service in rural communities in her riding — in Fruitvale, n akusp and n ew Denver. a nyone who is familiar with the k ootenays will know that those are certainly not major centres. There has been difficulty, because of the wage structure, in recruiting the paramedics who are required in order to provide that service. That's not a fault of the union. That's not a fault of the communities.

That's a difficulty with the collective agreement and the compensation structure, which i hope to speak about, although i want to make it clear that i am not purporting to engage in negotiations here. What has happened here…. i think it's useful to reflect upon what is called a strike by ambulance paramedics because it's legally defined as a strike. but in the context of this kind of a service, the e ssential Services Disputes a ct is applied and the levels of service that are provided are virtually identical to, and in some cases exceed, the requirements of the essential Services Disputes a ct.

So the ability, in labour relations terms, of the union and employees that are members of the union to bring pressure to bear on the employer to settle — that's basically the give-and-take of collective bargaining. its very basic theory is that the withdrawal of services is intended to bring pressure on the employer to force an agreement at the bargaining table. The leverage that's given to this union, given the e ssential Services Disputes a ct, is very little indeed because the e ssential Services Disputes a ct requires the service to be maintained and the members of the union to remain at work.

The actual leverage that can be brought on the situa- tion in traditional labour relations terms is very, very slight, if not at all. n onetheless, there are real issues that need to be ad- dressed both on the wage side and on the working con- ditions and training. There are a number of other issues that are properly discussed at the bargaining table. What is striking about this piece of legislation is that there has been, certainly since the election, a number of bargaining sessions. There was a temporary agreement concluded, or at least an offer being taken to the members.

The members are in the very midst of voting on that offer, which would seem to be a pretty normal collective bargaining process — although given the intensity and, i think, bitterness of this dispute, bargaining has been fairly protracted. a t a point when there is a vote taking place, when the membership of the union is exercising its right and duty under the collective bargaining process to pass judgment on the results of bargaining, to then intervene legisla- tively…. i think it's axiomatic. i think it's a given that it can only and has provoked very, very deep distrust and outrage on the part of those members who are…. [1135] Given all the limitations that are imposed upon them by their observance of the e ssential Services Disputes a ct — the very difficult and lengthy bargaining process, the very point that they are voting — to then have the l egislature intervene by the minister tabling this legisla- tion in this h ouse is not only counterproductive; it sets a tone and an environment where it will be very difficult to conclude an agreement in the future.

This is not a solution.

The number of issues, thorny though they may be, difficult though they may be, pro- tracted though the negotiations may be, are better resolved at the bargaining table with an ultimate agree- ment rather than the government, through this legisla- tion, intervening in the dispute. once this kind of distrust and bitterness sets in and this kind of legislation is tabled, it damages the bar - gaining relationship. it creates a legacy of bitterness. it creates a legacy of distrust and makes the resumption that the minister seems to assume in his comments when he was addressing the h ouse very, very unlikely.

The basic wisdom in collective bargaining is that this measure, legislative intervention, is to be used very spar-

british c olumbia Debates2100 t hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 ingly. This is clearly not the right time or the right bar - gaining dispute to use this legislative hammer. it just isn't. From the government's perspective, i suppose, it forms an agreement for a very brief period of time. but the agreement, even by the legislation, expires very soon, and the parties will be back in bargaining before then. in bill 21, clause 6: "This a ct and the collective agree- ment constituted under it expire on March 31, 2010." W e're obviously in the month of n ovember here.

The agreement is going to expire in approximately 4½ months. So for the sake of an agreement for 4½ months, the minister has pro- voked a wave of bitterness, distrust and damage to the col- lective bargaining relationship to a vital public service in the province. This at the very least is bad labour relations policy and at its worst is a calculated thumb of the nose to those dedicated paramedics who provide this vital public ser - vice in the province.

My colleagues here have speculated about: "Well, given that this legislation is only enacted for and going to be effective…." The legislation itself expires in 4½ months. The collective agreement expires. o rdinarily, bargaining begins before the agreement expires, so the parties — notwithstanding that they're in the middle of a vote, not- withstanding that this legislation is before the h ouse and the government seems determined to try and force this legislation through — will be back in bargaining, i would anticipate, in advance of the expiry of the agreement.

They may well be back in bargaining in January. it's difficult to see, from the government's perspective, why this incremental step of adding a couple of months to the collective agreement — not resolving any of the thorny and difficult issues, sending the parties back to bargaining almost right away in an atmosphere that is poisoned by the passage of the bill, if the government gets its way on this process — is going to help the situation whatsoever. i think it's right that my colleagues have speculated that there may well be another agenda here at work. [1140] The minister offers the explanation in his speech that this is all about h1n1.

Therefore, this legislation is required. it's very difficult to accept that, particularly when one adds the ingredient that was discussed here in this h ouse yesterday — that ambulance paramedics who are front-line health workers, in the priority that's set out for vaccination, should be a priority for receiving vaccina- tions and have not been able to be vaccinated. c ertainly, there were several individual cases advanced here in the h ouse yesterday and publicized. it seems to be a very contradictory message from the Minister of h ealth on the h1n1, since he is the minis- ter responsible for that — at least to answer questions here in the l egislature. h e can defer that to the chief medical health officer, but he is responsible for the b.c. a mbulance Service.

The organization chart shows that it reports to him. h e has the power — indeed, the duty — to manage that operation, and it's completely within his power to direct that that problem be solved.

So it's a very contradictory message, and it's diffi- cult to then know quite what to think. it doesn't sound like, from what i've heard, the public is accepting that. c ertainly, ambulance paramedics are not accepting that as the reason why this legislation is being introduced. t o say that it's being introduced because there's a pan- demic — yet individual members of the service that you claim as necessary to be fighting out there, assisting in the fight against h 1n 1, are not being vaccinated in order to do their jobs properly and avoid illness and contamina- tion of the people that they deal with — seems to be very contradictory and effectively undermines the minister's argument and makes it very, very difficult to accept. it's not surprising that as an explanation, as a rationale for this legislation, it's been rejected by ambulance para- medics. if that's not the reason for the legislation, it's dif- ficult to conceive of what might be the motivation. a nother explanation that's been offered by my col- leagues here is that there is some pressure from Vanoc, the o lympic organizing committee, who require the support of ambulance paramedics.

Y et the e ssential Services Disputes a ct and the respect that has been shown for that really makes that argument very hard to accept as well. The e ssential Services Disputes a ct means that the ambulance paramedics will continue to provide the ser - vice in the way that's directed by the l abour r elations board, and these are lawful orders of the l abour r elations board.

So that argument, again, is difficult to accept. i'm really at a loss to understand why the minister has chosen to table this legislation. it's very obviously bad labour relations policy. it's not due to the h1n1 epi- demic. it's not necessary to fulfil any obligations that are set out by V anoc. So what is the motivation for this legislation, given that it only affords a very, very brief interval before the agreement that the legislation pro- poses to impose expires? [1145] The rationale for introducing the legislative hammer has not been made out by the government.

The chief spokesperson on this bill is the Minister of h ealth, and that's all he had to offer. l ooking at his debate in second reading, that's really all he has to say. h e says in his debate at second reading: "n ow, as mentioned earlier, the decision to implement this legislation was not one we made lightly, but it became clear after this length of time, seven months, that we had simply reached an impasse and that there was no realistic possibility of a negotiated settlement between the b.c . a mbulance Service and cu Pe 873. u ltimately, this legislation is about protecting patients and ensur- ing the safety of the citizens of british c olumbia." Well, certainly the last sentence is very high-minded language, but it really doesn't match what the reality of the situation is here — that service is continuing to be provided.

british c olumbia Debatest hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 2101 The suggestion that there's some danger to the safety of the citizens of british c olumbia is…. a gain, i have to be wary of using parliamentary language, but i find that very difficult to accept.

There's just simply no evidence, nothing to support that suggestion whatsoever. u nderstandably, paramedics are reacting very strongly and very negatively to the introduction of this legislation. l ike many other Mla s, i have received e-mails from in- dividual paramedics, and i want to read an excerpt from one. i'm not going to read the name of this person sim- ply because i wasn't able to contact her, and i don't have her consent to read her name into the record. [Mr. Speaker in the chair.] She is a Surrey resident.

She makes the point that sometimes…. i think it's certainly clear that ambulance paramedics feel that this legislation is symptomatic of a lack of respect for the work that ambulance paramedics do. That's certainly how they are interpreting it.

Given the lack of any coherent rationale for this legislation, i'm not surprised that they're taking that position. one thing she does stress is that the work is not only highly skilled…. i have here a document called Critical Condition, which is a lengthy report prepared by the union on ambulance pre-hospital medical services in british columbia and sets out at some length the training required to become a paramedic. i confess to some embarrassment, as i wasn't familiar with the training modules and the de- gree to which individual paramedics are required to re- ceive training in a broad range of medical procedures and services that enable them to perform their duties. one of the criticisms that has been made by those on the management side of the negotiations is that the profession is not dangerous.

This individual paramedic really wants to make the point — and i think by reading what she says, i will make the point — that, in fact, there are certainly elements of risk and danger on a daily basis in performing the routine duties of a paramedic. She says: "i would like to know why, then, i have walked into routine sick- person calls to find a man holding a knife towards me, or another with a teenager holding a gun to his head. i have been pulled to the ground by my hair and have had to pull patients off my part- ner to save him from an attack — all of that without pepper spray, flak jackets or guns.

"i have cried with family members over the death of their grandma, and i have held a hysterical child in my arms as their mother died beside us in a car crash while trying to extricate them from the wreck. "Y es, as you can see, we are greedy, heartless bastards that only want to pad our own pockets." That's very strong language, obviously, but i think that's very genuine. She feels that the kind of job done by paramedics — and i support this — is a vital public service where they do in fact enter conditions that i think any member of the public would reasonably regard as dangerous.

They do so as part of their job. They do that willingly, and they do that as part of the service they provide to the citizens of british c olumbia. [1150] These are important public services that the ambulance paramedics provide, and this particular collective agree- ment is not…. The way in which this bill is being brought about is not going to solve any of the problems that exist. There's a proposal to appoint an industrial inquiry commissioner.

That's something that could have been done without the necessity of a bill. a n industrial in- quiry commissioner gives, under the labour relations act, a broad ambit to resolve all kinds of questions in collective bargaining, but that could have been done without the need of this legislation. n oting the hour, although i do have a few minutes left….

Well, perhaps i'll continue and leave it to another person to adjourn the debate, given that it's not quite the adjournment hour. i want to conclude my comments by saying that i oppose this legislation. it's unnecessary. it's a legislative hammer. it will damage the bargaining relationship. it will do nothing to improve the ambulance paramedic service in this prov- ince. it's a dangerous act done by the Minister of h ealth without any rationale whatsoever. o ne can only speculate what motivates the bringing of this legislation, but it's cer- tainly not, in my view, any worthy public purpose.

With those comments, i conclude my remarks. R. Fleming: i rise this morning to respond to bill 21. i think, in his

summary there, my colleague from Surrey- Whalley has expressed many of the most important points of what this bill symbolizes here in the legislature.

What it symbolizes is a failure of this government to use the collective bargaining process to improve the situ- ation not just for ambulance paramedics in the province of british c olumbia but for all british c olumbians, who need to have this emergency service well administered, with strong morale, adequately serviced in communities, with adequate hours of operation, adequate compensa- tion, adequate training — all of those things that could have formed goals-based bargaining for both parties and could have produced a satisfactory outcome. i mean, nobody is ever perfectly happy or gets every- thing they want in collective bargaining. but a satisfac- tory outcome is one that would not require legislation to be imposed forcing a settlement that was not agreed to in the collective bargaining process.

What we're dealing with here today very clearly is an admission of failure by this government — a failure to treat ambulance paramedics with respect, a failure to conclude an agreement successfully that i think would have advanced government's goals in the run-up to what eventually and unfortunately became a protracted dis- pute months longer than it ever should have been. it should never have gotten to this point. it's an admission

british c olumbia Debates2102 t hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 that government has failed to secure things that it ought to have secured through collective bargaining. i can't think of a better public service than our ambu- lance paramedics in terms of where there is an alignment between public sector and government goals, improving service and working condition improvements for work- ers. They're the same thing, for the most part, in this dispute.

Y ou look at the condition of some of the ambulance paramedic stations in british c olumbia, the conditions in which our professionals have to work. it is a sham- bles. i'll speak with some knowledge about how that has dragged on for years and years in greater Victoria with regards to the stations that people work at. [1155] i think the legislation itself speaks very clearly to how government failed to see an opportunity to honour and respect and to improve morale in what is a critical emer- gency public response service in b.c. — over the past year and by imposing a collective agreement. i'll adjourn debate on this point and reserve my right to speak again after the h ouse resumes in the afternoon. r .

Fleming moved adjournment of debate. Motion approved. c ommittee of Supply (Section a), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again. h on. b. Penner moved adjournment of the house. Motion approved. Mr. Speaker: This h ouse stands adjourned until 1:30 this afternoon. The h ouse adjourned at 11:56 a.m. PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM Committee of Supply e Sti Mate S: Mini Str Y o F chilD ren anD F aMil Y De Velo PMent (continued) The h ouse in c ommittee of Supply (Section a); h. bloy in the chair. The committee met at 10:07 a.m. on Vote 19: ministry operations, $1,394,139,000 (con- tinued). M.

Karagianis: We left off yesterday in discussions about the various cuts and changes to program deliv- ery around the province. i do have a colleague here that wishes to ask questions specifically pertaining to that, and then i'll return to the line of questioning that we were pursuing. G.

Coons: Good morning, Minister and staff. n ice to see you. i just want to talk about the provincial advisers that were, in lots of people's minds, a cut to direct service, even though the minister has said that there were going to be no changes to services at all and no interruption in services for families receiving the infant development program. She did talk about, preying upon the fears of those who receive the services.... a gain, the minister knows….

She's been to Prince r upert. i'm not too sure if she's been to h aida Gwaii or down to the central coast — a very unique, diverse and challenging region to try to serve children with special needs and deal with not only the infant development programs but also the aborig- inal components of that. i do have a couple of concerns from every part of my riding — in Prince r upert, on h aida Gwaii and stretch- ing right down into bella c oola. The h ealthy beginnings program with the n uxalk n ation down in bella c oola. Gail Moody is the coordinator of that.

There's just a bit of a note here that i want to put on record. h ealthy beginnings has concerns that "if the provincial adviser office goes, we will be without the technical supports necessary to do our job." [1010] "Many parents in the bella c oola Valley seek ad- vice and direction from the iDP and the ScD in their search for answers.

We were disappointed to learn that the advisers were abruptly dismissed by McFD with no knowledge of their work of many years." They say that apparently, there is no consultation with advisory work- ers and no analysis on impact on client services. i'm just wondering: was there consultation with the advisory workers prior to the cut, and was a client ser - vices impact analysis done? Hon. M. Polak: First, just to provide a clarification again around the positions. The positions that are af- fected are the two provincial adviser positions and their immediate support staff.

Those who work out of those offices as coordinators, consultants — they have vari- ous descriptions for their jobs — those positions remain, and they will remain. c ertainly, with respect to the n uxalk n ation and their concern about h ealthy beginnings and that program, they will continue to be provided with the kind of sup- port and advice that they could expect in the past from the provincial adviser's office, because those people who

british c olumbia Debatest hursday, n ovember 5, 2009 2103 would have been providing that advice will remain in place. in terms of the aboriginal adviser, it's important to note that that position has not been eliminated. We have extended that contract to the end of the fiscal year, and our intent there is to review the activities of that office to determine whether or not we indeed need to continue that position. We recognize that the aboriginal pro-

Document details

Collection	British Columbia — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	H1105am-04
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	H1105am 04
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	ab9f21b276b48328ce0a7ca58781e443f4f11beb

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