1982 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 32nd

Parliament

Hansard

The following electronic version is

for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

( Hansard )

THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1982

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page 8427

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Expenses of Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

Mr. King –– 8427

Use of government aircraft. Hon. Mr. Fraser replies –– 8428

Wildlife Act (Bill 55). Second reading. (Hon. Mr.

Rogers)

Hon. Mr. Rogers –– 8429

Mr. Nicolson –– 8430

Mr. Ritchie –– 8431

Mrs. Wallace –– 8432

Mr. Kempf –– 8433

Mr. Howard –– 8435

Mr. Hanson –– 8437

Ms. Sanford –– 8438

Hon. Mr. Rogers –– 8438

Division –– 8439

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Transportation and

Highways estimates.

(Hon. Mr. Fraser)

On vote 76: minister's office –– 8439

Hon. Mr. Fraser

Mr. Lockstead

Mr. Passarell

Appendix –– 8448

THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1982

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today are

representatives of the Elk Valley Coal Producers Association. They are:

Jerry Joynt, director of public affairs for Fording Coal; Mr. Gary

Duke, vice-president of government relations for B.C. Coal; Mr. Kent

O'Connor, public affairs director for Esso Resources, Byron Creek

Collieries; and Mr. Charlie Vermeeren, manager of public affairs for

Crows Nest Resources. I'd like you to give them a warm welcome this

afternoon.

Also in the gallery today is Mr. Tyrone Colgur, Mayor of the key

city of the east Kootenays. I'd like the House to give him a warm

welcome this afternoon as well.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce Mr.

Merril Turpin and Gordon Veitch, who are representatives from the

United Injured and Disabled Workers Association. They are in Victoria

today to meet with the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Heinrich.) I would

like the House to welcome them.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, I have two guests in the

gallery today: Jim and Sonya Buchanan from Lusaka in Zambia. I would

ask the House to make them welcome.

Oral Questions

EXPENSES OF MINISTER OF

CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier. The

Premier was recorded in Hansard on April 3, 1978, as follows:

I was advised last weekend of an

investigation touching upon the member for North Vancouver–Seymour.

Accordingly, at the first opportunity, I met with the member. Under

these circumstances I requested the resignation of the member from the

executive council. This action is not a prejudgment of the matter by

me, nor is it to be taken as an admission of any matter by the member.

In light of that statement and the resignation of

the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis), I'd like to point

out that the Premier has been asked on three separate occasions what

the difference is between the circumstances surrounding the member for

North Vancouver–Seymour in 1978 and those matters surrounding the

investigation by the police of the current Minister of Consumer and

Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hyndman).

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I've taken this question as

notice. There is a difference. I would say that at that time, in the

case of the member for North Vancouver–Seymour, I was advised by the

Attorney-General of the province that an investigation had been taking

place for some time — without my knowledge, I might add. He provided

certain information to me that made it necessary for me to interview

the member for North Vancouver–Seymour in my office. The result of that

conversation was that the member tendered his resignation.

In the case of the present Minister of Consumer and Corporate

Affairs I have not had such a conversation with the present

Attorney-General concerning that minister. However, when I became aware

of rumours in the building, I had a conversation with the Minister of

Consumer and Corporate Affairs, the result of which was different than

the conversation I had previously. Eventually, because of statements

made concerning the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, it was

my advice that the appropriate way to deal with those matters was to

refer them to the auditor-general without prejudicing the position of

the legislative committee on public accounts to undertake its

traditional responsibility. Those are the differences.

MR. KING: On a supplementary, I take it from the Premier's

response that the reference was made to the auditor-general on the

Premier's advice then.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Don't presume anything.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, on April 6, 1978, the Premier made

another statement relating to the member for North Vancouver–Seymour,

wherein he said that he in no way presumed to prejudge the case with

respect to the member for North Vancouver–Seymour. Is it not a fact

that the Premier is now prejudging the case of the Minister of Consumer

and Corporate Affairs, who is under police investigation?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. If there's

any prejudging, it is happening in other quarters. What I have

suggested is that the result of discussions held was that the matter

was put before the auditor-general. I, along with all members of this

House, I expect, look for the auditor-general's report.

MR. KING: As far as I know, the auditor-general's report in

no way affects, supersedes or impinges upon a police investigation.

MR. SPEAKER: The member is now debating. Please proceed to

the question.

MR. KING: No, I'm prefacing a further question, if I might,

Mr. Speaker. Why, when the Premier outlined clearly the acceptable

terms for membership in the executive council as being free from any

police investigation, has he changed those terms with respect to the

Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I've tried to explain to the

member for Shuswap-Revelstoke that in two major areas the matters are

different. I also advised the member that an appropriate investigation

to clear up the matter on behalf of the member, as well as the public

and this chamber, is being undertaken by the person responsible to this

Legislature, not to the government, and that is the auditor-general. As

in any other case, I have not prejudged it. I think, on the basis of

the information that I've given the member, he can clearly see the

distinction if he wishes to.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, the Attorney-General has commissioned

a reference through his criminal investigation branch, and subsequently

to the police, and I don't think the Attorney-General's action could be

construed as prejudging the case. I would like to ask the Premier if

the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs discussed with him at any

[ Page 8428

time the decision to refund to the government

certain moneys that related to his expenses.

HON. MR. BENNETT: First of all, I want to clear up the first

part of that statement by the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke, because it

has a disturbing inference. Number one: the Attorney-General, as a

result of any investigation concerning any member of this Legislature —

which could be one or all — has not sought my counsel; neither has he

come to me with information and advice that would lead me to take any

action or discussion that was taken in the same context by information

being brought to me by the former Attorney-General.

MR. KING: I'll leave the conflict between the Premier's

statements of '78 and the current ones to him.

Can the Premier tell the House why, after the announcement of the

police investigation by his Attorney-General, he announced publicly

that no police investigation was necessary, if he did not seek to

prejudge?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Well, I didn't make an announcement; I made

a response to a question. As a member of this House, I have confidence

in the mechanisms of this House to deal with matters which, from the

newspaper accounts, deal with procedures — and from the statements of

the opposition of what they term extravagance. Not only do I have

confidence in this House to deal with its own matters, but I also have

confidence in the area in which it was placed for a thorough

third-party investigation — that is, the auditor-general. It was my

view — as a member of this House and having confidence both in the

auditor-general and in the public accounts committee — that such a

matter could be reviewed there. If you want to speculate — without

using this particular case as an example — on any case in which such a

discussion and such an investigation took place, if there were further

actions to be taken, I presume it would go beyond a matter of practice.

I presume it would take place after such a report was made available.

MR. KING: Is the Premier seriously suggesting that a

procedure of the Legislature should override the independent course of

justice in this province, and the opinion of the Attorney-General that

a matter was of such serious import that it should be returned to the

criminal investigation branch?

HON. MR. BENNETT: The answer is absolutely not, nor would I

suggest — as is the suggestion made in that member's question — that

such an investigation would not be held without the auditor-general,

who I have great confidence in, completing her investigation and report

to members of this assembly.

USE OF GOVERNMENT AIRCRAFT

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I would like to reply to a

question asked by the member for Atlin (Mr. Passarell) and taken on

notice on Wednesday of last week.

The member for Atlin asked for information relating to when cabinet

ministers' spouses started using government aircraft. I don't know what

that member is insinuating, but I'm sure it will be muckraking of some

sort. However, I can tell you that when going over the logs, I find

that as far back as December 1972 Mrs. Levi flew on a government

aircraft. It couldn't have been an isolated case, as I also notice the

names of Mrs. Barrett, Mrs. Macdonald, Mrs. Nicolson and others

mentioned in those logs that I quickly looked over.

I'm not critical of those spouses of ministers travelling on

government aircraft, but it appears that the member opposite is. I

can't tell you why. This government felt that a policy statement was

necessary. In July 1979, I announced that ministers' wives would be

allowed on government aircraft under certain conditions. What that did

was formalize what appears to have been going on while that member's

party was government. I think he may have been hoping that the people

of British Columbia had short memories. I can assure that member that I

give the public more credit than that, and he would be most wise to do

the same.

The same member asked me to assure this House that the spouse of the

Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) was not using the

privilege of travelling on government aircraft to conduct his personal

business in the interior communities where he has interests. Mr.

Speaker, I leave it to you and the observers and members of this House

to analyze the member for Atlin's remarks and decide just what it is

that he is insinuating. I must tell you that the member had his figures

all wrong again, even after I gave him the logs so he could do some

research. However, I won't bore the House with statistical information.

I just suggest that the member go back to the drawing board. It's all

laid out in a form that I have no problem understanding.

What the member did not tell the House was that of all the flights

the individual in question was on, only three went to the interior of

the province. You will recall that the member stated that Mr. McCarthy

was on flights all over this province, and wanted to know if he was

using the aircraft to do his own business in interior towns where he

owns property. Again, of all the flights the individual was on, only

three were to points other than Victoria and Vancouver; also, he

accompanied the minister on each of these flights to the interior.

I don't want it left in anyone's mind that there was anything out of

the ordinary involved here, and I would hope that in the future the

member will be a little more thorough in his research.

I would also like to say that I'm very happy Mr. McCarthy was able

to accompany his hard-working wife, dedicated to the business of the

people of British Columbia. She is not only the Minister of Human

Resources; she is also the Deputy Premier — and highly regarded.

The member also requested information on whether or not there'd been

any flights out of the country during the last six months. I informed

him that there had been three.

I just wanted to mention that while looking at the logs for 1972 to

1975, I also noted government flights involving Seattle, Bellingham,

Juneau, Spokane and, of all places, Reno. It appears that members

should be aware of the fact that necessary government flights do take

place to points outside the country. The logs are available for

perusal, as a courtesy; there is no requirement to table them. The only

logs that we're having some trouble locating are for January, February

and March 1974.

If the member has any further questions I would be pleased to

provide the information.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I would remind ministers that in

giving answers to questions, if the answer is

[ Page 8429

exceedingly long, perhaps a better practice would

be to ask leave of the House to give that answer after question period,

because we have only 15 minutes for question period.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I'm not through.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: My point of order....

MR. SPEAKER: Order! Would the member please be seated.

The Chair has erred in permitting the question in the first place if

the answer to it, of necessity, had to be that long. I apologize to the

House.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: On a point of order, the point you just made

is very valid indeed, and the opposition agrees with you. I'm therefore

asking leave of this House that the question period now be extended by

the time taken up by that minister with that long, written, unnecessary

— and not necessarily true....

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I'm on the same point of order, Mr. Speaker.

This opposition has never, in the history of this question period in

this House, refused the government…. We've always given leave to every

cabinet minister over there to answer questions with long written

statements after the termination of question period. I think that was a

flagrant abuse of question period.

MR. SPEAKER: The member's point is not only well made, but it

is well received. Hon. members, there is no way that the Chair can

determine, when the question is asked, what the length of that question

might be. We must have confidence in the integrity of every member.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: On that same point of order — I won't

argue whether or not the member's point was well made — there was a

practice in this House for a long time — the first five or six years

that I was in the House, and certainly during question period when the

members opposite were in government — that questions taken as notice

did not have supplemental questions attached to them. The practice for

years was that supplemental questions were asked at the time the

question taken as notice was answered.

Mr. Speaker, with respect, in the last two or three years — at least

in this session — supplemental questions have been allowed to questions

taken as notice. Because a question may, come with five, six, seven,

eight or a dozen supplemental questions, it means that the answer must

necessarily be much more lengthy than it would have been had no

supplemental questions been allowed. I think it's perfectly legitimate

to answer all of those supplemental questions in the place where they

were asked, and that's in question period.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, yesterday the Chair undertook to

review the matters concerning question period. There were questions on

both sides of the House. It is a clear indication to the Chair that the

rules concerning question period not only need to be reviewed but

perhaps need to have some of the leniency extracted from them. I will

include the request of today in that review and bring some

recommendations to the House.

I think we've heard sufficient on that point of order. On a new

point of order, the member for Mackenzie.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the points you

just made, so I now ask that you consider my request that we ask leave

of the House to extend question period for the undue length of time

that minister took up with his long written answer. I'm asking leave.

Leave not granted.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: I ask leave to proceed to public bills and

orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill 55, Mr. Speaker.

WILDLIFE ACT

MR. SPEAKER: We will not proceed until we have order in the

House. Would the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm)

come to order? Those members who are exchanging their places for places

of other responsibilities, please do so quietly, and then we can

proceed.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, the Wildlife Act is one that

has been a long time in coming to this House. It is

an act which had a

great deal of work put into it by an awful lot of people. It was the

subject of a White Paper which I released at Kamloops last year in the

spring. We know it's a substantial improvement over the existing

Wildlife Act and hope it will meet with the approval of the members of

this Legislature as it goes through the various readings.

Mr. Speaker, a whole host of groups of people have a personal

interest in this act. The first group you would probably think of would

be the sportsmen's groups, mainly reflected through the B.C. Wildlife

Federation and its affiliated and member clubs throughout the province,

but this act also affects the native people, trappers, guides and

outfitters, naturalists, ranchers and farmers, outdoor

recreationalists, snowmobilers, members of four-wheel drive clubs,

tourist facility operators, mining and forestry companies, railways and

many more.

This act cannot be all things to all people and to all of those

special interest groups, but it's our hope and it was our design, in

drafting this legislation, that this act is best for the wildlife of

the province.This 124-section bill is different from the old act in

many ways and updates and improves the act. One of the more specific

sections is the definition of ownership of wildlife, which has been a

legal problem in the past, and now rests with the Crown until wildlife

is legally acquired by the person hunting it.

In the previous act, wildlife habitat was not as threatened or as

close to man as it is now with the development of this province and the

expansion of roads, railways, powerlines

[ Page 8430

and pipelines. Access into areas of wildlife

habitat has become more readily available, so it was necessary for us

in this act to bring in a broader and more specific definition of

wildlife habitat and also to bring in a

section dealing with

harassment. In the last two years there has been a much greater

recognition of our threatened and endangered species. In this act we

bring them into a clearer definition.

There are several new initiatives in this act. One deals with the

acquisition, administration and improvements of land for wildlife

habitat and management purposes, and it provides for our ministry to

enter into agreements with other agencies that have charge of the land

in dealing with wildlife. It gives us a definition and designation of

wildlife management areas, critical wildlife areas and wildlife

sanctuaries, and provides in the penalty

section for recovery of costs

and awarding of damages for any damage done to any of those three

sections.

Last year, when I introduced the Habitat Conservation Fund, it was

widely received. Under the chairmanship of Dr. McTaggart-Cowan it has

been a great success and is now embodied in this act. The success that

this Habitat Conservation Fund has enjoyed to date — and it's been well

received throughout the province — is a tribute to the people involved

in that particular committee. Again, it's confirmed in this act.

In this act, we have for the first time addressed licensing. We have

two grades of hunting licences: a junior licence, which for the first

time sets 10 years of age as the minimum, is issued for those from 10

to 14; and from 14 up we issue a senior licence. The preservation of

our highly successful CORE program, making that mandatory for all new

hunters in the province, continues under this legislation.

As in any wildlife area, there are those who abuse the resource, so

we do have quite a few penalty sections in this act for things such as

pit-lamping and misuse of firearms. Regretfully, these things do

happen, and the misdeeds of a few must be covered in legislation. So

that's one of the new portions. Of course, much of this act brings the

penalties and fines up to date — into the eighties from the sixties

where they had been before.

The role of the guide and outfitter industry, which is one of the

commercial ends of wildlife use, is simplified substantially over what

it was in the past as we enter into a single licensing system. Sections

in this act deal with the power to close highways where necessary

because of access that is causing a problem for wildlife. In

conjunction with the Minister of Transportation and Highways, the

minister has the power to do that. We also have a new

section on

interference with hunters; that is, if a hunter is legally entitled to

hunt and is engaged in a lawful hunt, he is entitled to do so without

harassment. It will be an offence to harass them. That new

section

will, I think, be welcomed by all who participate in this recreational

opportunity.

We have borrowed from the Motor Vehicle Act a very successful

section. The 24-hour roadside suspension is being transferred to the

wildlife area, where hunters have perhaps had one or two too many and

are confronted by a conservation officer. Rather than going through the

substantial business that would be required to charge them with being

impaired, we have a lift from the Motor Vehicle Act to allow a 24-hour

treeside suspension, as we're calling it.

There is an appeal section, and in light of the Environment

Management Act introduced last year, in which all appeals from

decisions in the Ministry of Environment are to go, the appeals in this

section will go from the regions to the director and from the director

to the environmental management board.

There are several improvements for the cattle industry and the

ranching industry. Livestock owners can take action to protect

livestock that is subject to attack by predators. There's also a

prohibition on trespass on cultivated land and Crown land or grazing

leases occupied by cattle.

The Wildlife Act is appropriate for its time. It offers better

protection and management for fish and wildlife and a more efficient

means of encompassing the overall framework of this act. I'd like to

thank all those people who have contributed: the many hundreds who

responded to the White Paper that we released last year, and the

virtually hundreds of people who wrote letters and also had personal

visits with me and the staff. I'd like to thank my staff and my

colleagues for the time and effort they've put into this act. It's a

very detailed act, and I think there'll be a lot of questions asked in

committee; there may be some further debate at that time.

Mr. Speaker, I have the honor to move second reading of the Wildlife

Act.

MR. NICOLSON: The New Democratic Party will support this bill

in second reading, but naturally we do have several concerns and some

suggestions on how we think the bill could be improved. As the minister

said, it's been the subject of not only a White Paper, but I think even

the McCarthy report — which goes back to a previous Legislature; also

Sam Bawlf. I think we should look at some of the recommendations that

were made.

One omission that we see is the lack of a public advisory committee.

Such a committee exists in Saskatchewan and was recommended in the

McCarthy report. McCarthy said the act should create a wildlife

advisory board to aid and assist the fish and wildlife branch in

formulating policy and administering the guiding industry. The Mair

report also recommended that an advisory committee to the department be

established, the members to be appointed by the government and to be

drawn from the community at large on a basis of proven interest, area

of knowledge, or concern in areas of the province; and that advisory

committees of a more specialized nature be established at regional

levels. I think such an advisory committee might have been of great

assistance over the past couple of years in terms of the harassment

problem mentioned by the minister. It could have led to quicker action,

and an opportunity for all sides to be heard. Certainly in the province

of Saskatchewan, under

section 9 of the act.... The act is permissive;

it allows the minister to appoint an advisory committee each year

consisting of not more than eight members who would meet upon the

request of the minister and act in an advisory capacity to the minister

and the director on matters of general interest respecting the carrying

out of the provisions of the act. The members of the committee would

receive remuneration that the minister would determine. I think that

such an inclusion as has been suggested in the first couple of

preparatory reports before this legislation was introduced.... It is a

very serious omission from the act.

I notice the act also still allows the licensing of non-resident

guides. The minister explained, when he amended the old act to allow

this, that it was to facilitate some people who actually lived in the

Yukon but very close to the B.C. border and did their guiding in

British Columbia. I don't see why the act could not have been amended

to be more specific

[ Page 8431

on that. If our intent is to allow Yukon guides to

guide, let's put down "or the Yukon Territory, or the Northwest

Territories." I don't see why under this legislation Alberta guides

should be enabled to get licences, or indeed somebody who might retain

his Canadian citizenship but reside in Palo Alto, California, or

wherever. All kinds of people can retain citizenship and live outside

the country.

AN HON. MEMBER: You just go there to golf.

MR. NICOLSON: I've never been there in my life, but I'd love

to go there.

Mr. Speaker, as the minister says, a great deal of this encompasses

things that could be handled in committee.

One of my colleagues will be talking about crop damage and damage to

livestock. We feel there is a serious omission from the act in that

respect. The member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) will take that

up. I also wonder if.... Actually, it's under one of the very detailed

subsections; I think it's

Section 110(2)(cc). That

section appears to

allow the legitimization of the Gang Ranch's intention to bring hunting

on private game-farms in British Columbia. As the minister well knows,

there's been a lot of concern, particularly by the resident guide of

that area, Chilco Choate, about the fact that indigenous elk which have

existed in many parts of this province.... It's being claimed that elk

and game species have been introduced by the Gang Ranch into that area,

that they are not indigenous, and that the Gang Ranch in fact owns

them. I guess they want people to hunt buffalo and other things there.

This seems to be opening the door to that type of legislation. It's

permissive, of course, and it's something to which I take exception.

I'll tell the minister that my father-in-law, who was one of the

most-recognized guide-outfitters during his day, told me that when he

first arrived in the Peace River country in 1912, he found evidence of

elk in that area — antlers and such — although they were never thought

to have existed there. Everything has its cycle. In many places where

elk didn't exist in the West Kootenays — of course they've been in the

East Kootenays for years — there are now sightings. These are animals

that run their cycles. Predators take them, and they come back. I don't

think we should ever turn the outdoor experience in British Columbia

into the very different type of experience which is afforded in the

private game preserves of Europe and other places. I see this very

little section, but for me it has great ramifications. Perhaps in

summing up the minister could comment on that.

Another trend which we see in the regulation

section is that it's

left up to the minister — there's no real firm guideline — as to the

apportionment of licence fees between resident and non-resident

hunters. If we look to 1974 as a base year and compare the licence fees

to March of this year, we see that the ordinary firearms and hunting

licence has gone from $7 to $14, an increase of 100 percent,

whereas

the same type of licence for a non-resident has gone up from $25 to $40

in one case, an increase of only 60 percent. In another case, to hunt

wildlife and carry firearms there's been an increase of $75 to $90, an

increase of only 20 percent. We see that the tags for black bear,

caribou, cougar, deer, elk, grizzly bear, moose, mountain goat and

mountain sheep for B.C. residents are up 100 percent. For non-residents

to hunt, the increase is up only 25 percent for black bear, 20 percent

for caribou, 20 percent for cougar, 20 percent for deer, 20 percent for

elk, 23 percent for grizzly bear, 20 percent for moose, 30 percent for

mountain goat, 20 percent for sheep, and there was no increase for

wolves — it still costs $75.

I think that there should be a provision in the act which guides and

compels the minister to maintain a very marked difference between the

privileges of resident hunters and anglers and non-resident hunters and

anglers. You can't explain in this House the kind of resentment that is

sometimes created. For instance, angling in the Balfour Narrows before

it was all fished out by non-residents coming with their canning

equipment and various other things, and the very heated feelings of the

residents who are, after all, the taxpayers and have the rights and

privileges of residency in this province, as opposed to what we are

virtually giving away....

In 1974 we introduced special licence fees. We introduced trophy

fees on steelhead. We introduced a special trophy lake classification

for Kootenay Lake. We actually closed parts of the west arm of Kootenay

Lake, which is a fantastic area for fishing the resident Kokanee salmon

and other fish. We are slipping back. It seems to me that this act

should mandate an increase in licence fees that would maintain a very

stiff differential between those who hunt or fish as part of the rights

they enjoy as citizens of British Columbia and those who come here as

guests and help people to exploit commercially. It really is a

commercial exploitation of the limited wildlife resources we have.

Certainly a bill that has so many sections will bear close scrutiny,

but that is an overview of this act, as I see it.

MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I

congratulate the minister on this bill. Certainly it's going to

accomplish a great many things in our province that are going to be

generally beneficial. There is one area here that I have a little

discomfort with, as it would affect the agricultural industry, and that

section 2(4), which states that there is no right of action and no

right of compensation in the event that an animal that escapes or is

released from captivity or is abandoned should do any damage.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not suggesting that there be a compensation program

in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, because I don't believe that

it would solve the problem. I believe that it may just create more

problems, in that it would be like having one department subsidized to

start fires in the province while you subsidize another department to

put those fires out. But I believe that there is need for some

incentive to cause those people who are responsible for the management

of wildlife to manage very closely and tightly to make sure that the

wildlife are not bringing havoc or creating problems for the farmers of

our province.

Mr. Speaker, being from the farming community and living in close

relationship to one of the wildlife reserves, I can tell this House

that I have seen farmers losing substantially overnight only because of

certain wildlife that has been protected and enhanced and allowed to

grow under the protection of the wildlife department. It moves in on a

crop in the evening and leaves in the morning, having demolished or

consumed most of it. This is of concern to me.

We are setting up all of the protection necessary to allow the

growth and the multiplying of wildlife, without due consideration to

those in agriculture who are attempting to make a living. I know that

it would be totally out of order if, as I mentioned earlier, we set up

a compensation system or scheme in another ministry, as has been

suggested, because

[ Page 8432

that would be very difficult to administer and too

costly for the province. But I believe that something is necessary in

the Ministry of Environment to bring pressure on those people

responsible for the management of the wildlife to make sure that they

are managing them in such a way that those hardships will not be

brought on the farmer of the province; or we should then put into the

hands of the farmer the tools or the opportunity to take into his own

hands whatever would be necessary to protect his crops or livestock.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have had the opportunity of making these

comments, and I hope that our minister will have some suggestions to

make to us as we proceed with this bill.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, it's much better when debate goes

back and forth between the two sides, and that's something that doesn't

happen too often in this House, unfortunately. It seems that the back

bench over on that side are very loath to say anything.

I want to deal with the same item in this particular bill that my

friend from Central Fraser Valley has just dealt with. In

section 2(4)

of the bill — and I know I can't deal too specifically with any one

section — there is a principle involved which gives the Crown a

tremendous authority for wildlife management, and then absolves it of

all responsibility if that management happens to get out of hand. I

would not suggest that we should wipe out subsection (4), because I

think we have to protect the Crown from falling prey to anyone who

happens to fall down in the woods and breaks his leg when out hunting,

or anybody who has two or three pet chickens that happen to be

destroyed. It has to be something much different than that. I am sure

that the minister could devise ways in which he could add a subsection

to this bill that would provide the kind of compensation to serve the

purpose that my friend from the valley was talking about.

It has certainly been done in other provinces. I note that two years

ago in Alberta — our neighbouring province — they established a fund

for compensation. That fund was set up, and the minister makes payments

out of that wildlife damage fund with respect to any claims arising for

wildlife damage, the expense of operating the fund, the operation of

wildlife depredation-control programs and any other purposes. But there

is a provision in the Alberta legislation to provide compensation — out

of a fund which is set up — for bona fide losses.

In Saskatchewan, the next province, their legislation came in a year

earlier, in 1979, in which it read:

"The minister may, subject to the regulations, (

a) provide compensation to any person suffering property loss or damage

caused by wildlife or hunters; and (

b) enter into an agreement with any

person for the purpose of insuring or indemnifying against loss

resulting from damage caused by wildlife or hunters."

Then it goes on to other things. But the provision is there, Mr.

Speaker.

The Manitoba bill came in in 1980 and it provides that "the

Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may make such regulations and orders..."

which prescribe various things. In that act (

d) mentions "regulations

respecting the claims...for the manner of payment of compensation for

damage to livestock," and (

e) is "respecting the establishment,

development and administration of such programs as may be deemed

necessary to prevent, moderate or provide compensation for damage to

crops caused by wildlife." So, Mr. Speaker, it's already been done in

the three prairie provinces to the east of us.

I'm sorry I was not able to hear what the minister had to say. I had

an urgent call to meet with a constituent just as he was speaking and I

had to leave the chamber; but I did hear him say on the speaker in my

office that this act makes provision for compensation to farmers.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: I thought I heard you say that it was better

for farmers. Apart from the regulations about trespass on agricultural

land, I see nothing in this bill.... And that's good.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: Okay. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be here to

hear that.

The thing is that while the minister still could — even though there

is no right to sue the Crown — make the kind of compensation that I'm

talking about and that the agricultural community is asking for,

unfortunately that hasn't happened in the past, and the wording in the

old act was very similar to this. The minister has, I'm afraid, hidden

behind that wording to say that he can't make compensation because of

what the act says. I'm very concerned that if the wording of the act

stands as it is now with no additions, that same thing will happen and

the minister will again hide behind the fact that no one has the right

to sue the Crown, and will not use his discretionary powers to make

compensation.

I would suggest that a very simple addition of a subsection (5) to

that

section might be very appropriate. For example, it might read that

the minister may pay compensation to a farmer or rancher engaged in

commercial production of crops or livestock, if in consultation with

the Minister of Agriculture and Food — who hasn't even seen fit to sit

in for this debate — it is determined that damage was caused to crops

or livestock by wildlife and that such damage could not have been

prevented by reasonable action on the part of the farmer or rancher. I

think a very tight wording would protect the minister from anyone

taking advantage of anything relative to compensation and allow him to

have discretionary powers to make payments in case of damage.

I've sat in on many agricultural meetings and I've heard the total

loss estimated at $2 million. That's the total loss estimate in any one

year, and a great amount of that would be not be compensable under the

terms of any of the amendments that I have read or under the change

that I have suggested to the minister. In fact, it would relate

basically to managed species, not those that are not under management

of the minister. It would relate only to bona fide farm operations and

only to very provable cases.

Mr. Speaker, I think the problem is that there are not that many

cases that are major, but when there is a major case, it's very, very

serious. The case that comes to my mind is that of one farmer's field

of cauliflower. There were a lot of cauliflower fields there, but the

birds chose not to just take a few plants from each of the several

farms, which would have been a minor loss and wouldn't have amounted to

enough to worry about, but they took a whole 30-acre crop from one of

the farmers. It was gone overnight. It was a loss of $30,000, which is

very, very difficult for one farmer to absorb, and yet it certainly

could be compensated by this ministry. It's not a

[ Page 8433

lot of money in terms of the ministry, but it is a

lot of money when you relate it to one individual farmer.

The estimate that I have heard in these sorts of compensable types

of loss would not be $2 million; it would fall more in the bracket of

approximately $800,000 a year. It's peanuts in terms of government

spending. It's certainly peanuts in terms of this government's

spending. For example, up to this point in time, the opposition has

moved amendments to reduce spending in the area of office furniture for

ministers in an amount in excess of $800,000.

MR. SPEAKER: This must be happening in committee, hon.

member. Is it? Because the House is not aware.

MRS. WALLACE: That is correct; these motions have been moved

in committee. For your information, Mr. Speaker, the opposition has

moved these motions in committee, and in all instances the government

benches have lined up solidly to oppose those spending cuts. Certainly

the motions that have been moved relative to office furniture have

already amounted, with the few ministries we've gone through, to an

excess of $800,000, which would have been enough to provide funds for

compensation. If you go on to the travel expense cuts, you will find

another $500,000; the advertising and publications is in excess of

$400,000; and office expenses are another $500,000. It's a total of $2

million. In fact, if you made compensation for all the losses, which

certainly wouldn't fall within the categories that would be compensable

under any terms of any sort of reasonable and responsible

legislation.... Certainly this is what the agricultural community is

asking for, and it only seems fair to me that there should be some

provision in the act that would cover losses that are impossible for

the farmer to do anything about.

I think the minister has a bill from a farmer in the northern

reaches of the island, around the Comox area somewhere, for something

like $7,000 for damage to one farmer's crops there. I'm quite sure that

unless an amendment is forthcoming in this legislation, and probably

unless it's retroactive, that farmer is just going to be out of luck.

I have some hope, because I know the cattlemen have been working

very hard on this. The minister will be aware of that, because it shows

in the letter of June 21, of which I too received a copy. It urged that

changes be made to the act to provide the kind of thing we're talking

about. They were asking for the deletion of subsection (4) in that

area. I'm not sure that's the way to go. I think the addition of

another

section is better. But I don't think it matters how we do it,

as long as we do it reasonably and correctly. I'm sure the

Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams), who is sitting in the House,

would be more than willing to help the Minister of Environment come up

with a properly worded amendment to this bill that would provide the

kind of protection for all those farmers out in the Pemberton area who

would really appreciate anything you could do for them.

I also understand that when the representatives of the cattlemen's

association met with the minister yesterday — they also met with

members of our caucus — they were reasonably assured that the minister

would introduce the kind of amendments they have been asking for and

the kind of amendments the member for Fraser Valley and I are talking

about. I have great hope that we will see an amendment that will bring

this into place on the order paper tomorrow. I have hope, particularly

when some of the suggestions are coming from that side of the House as

well as this side. It would be nice if we could be united on something

in this House for once. I think this would be a good place to start.

MR. KEMPF: It's a shame to ruin the tranquillity of this

afternoon with a howl against, not of, the wolf in this chamber, but it

must be done. Before getting into that, I would like to make a couple

of remarks on what it was the member for Cowichan-Malahat just said

when she was on her feet. Mr. Speaker, don't get me wrong. I'm not

going to ruin the atmosphere of this afternoon on this particular bill

by saying that she was wrong, because she wasn't.

The minister has a bill for $105,000 from a rancher who happens to

be in the constituency of Skeena. He has had great losses through wolf

predation, and is looking to the government to make up some of those

losses. But that isn't the answer. You don't throw good money after

bad. You don't try to rectify the problem after it's happened. The

solution in the case of predation by wolves on our ranches in this

province is to attack the problem where it exists at the outset. That's

with the wolves. You've got to alleviate the problem, not spend good

taxpayers' money to try to cover up that problem after the damage is

done. That is what restitution to our ranchers because of wolf

predation would be.

I would like to congratulate the minister for bringing in Bill 55. I

think a revamping of the Wildlife Act in this province was long

overdue. I'd like to particularly congratulate the minister on the

recognition in this bill of what I consider to be a very important

industry in this province — the guide-outfitter industry. It certainly

is a step in the right direction. There are still some problems. I

guess there will always be problems. There are even a couple of

problems in this bill. I'll be talking about those in the specific

sections of the bill in committee.

I commend the minister, as well, for the anti-harassment clause in

this new act, again something that was absolutely necessary in this

province to stop the kind of harassment that has taken place on several

occasions in the Spatsizi in the last three or four years. Certainly

this will be a deterrent to that. I only hope that somehow we can carry

out that which is in the act in regard to anti-harassment.

But I'm dismayed that I didn't find more emphasis in this act in the

area of predator control and particularly in the area of wolf

predation. I hear other members speaking of problems with birds and

other wildlife — deer, elk, etc. I have no experience with that at all,

but I have much experience — as do many other people in this province

and many of my constituents — in the area of wolf predation. Mr.

Speaker, I spoke in the estimates of the Minister of Agriculture and

Food (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) about the horrendous problem that's faced by our

agriculturists because of wolf predation, and that's true. I said it

earlier when I spoke of the $105,000 bill that was presented to this

government for wolf predation in Skeena constituency.

The predator-control problem in the corrals and on the ranches of

the agriculturists in this province is not the place to start. The

problem emanates from a position further a field than that. The problem

emanates from the hills and the valleys, where at one time we had great

herds of caribou, deer, moose and many other ungulates. But we don't

see those great herds anymore because in the last couple of decades we

as politicians have been afraid to do what is necessary in the province

of British Columbia to rectify the

[ Page 8434

problem, and that is bring in a proper

predator-control program. There is no other way but to lay that

responsibility at the feet of the minister who brings this bill in, and

at the feet of the fish and wildlife branch, which comes under that

ministry, because I believe that it's unquestionably because of the

academics — the institution-educated biologists that work within that

branch — that we have the problem.

Over the years they have not wanted to listen to the people who

really know what the problem is and have said many times how it is that

is could be rectified. They pay no attention to those people; they go

about their merry old way and really think that they know everything

that there is to know about wolf predation. Well, Mr. Speaker, they are

wrong. They are absolutely incorrect.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to read into the record this afternoon....

I wish I could read into the record a couple of true-colour pictures

that I've got in my possession, and I will leave these pictures with

the House so that anyone wishing to see them can. We talk of Farley

Mowat, and I see a former member of this House, Mr. Cyril Shelford, in

the gallery this afternoon. I want to tell you I don't have to give

this speech for him, because he knows. It's people like Cyril Shelford

that we as politicians should start to listen to if we are ever to

rectify the problem that exists in regard to wolf predation in this

province. I know the reason that we won't listen. I know where the

majority of the votes are in this province. They're in the lower 10

percent of the province, in the urban areas, and that's why we can't

rectify the problem.

Before I get into some of these letters, maybe there is help on the

way. I quote from an item in the Times-Colonist dated April 1,

1982, which says: "Want an Island wolf? Just howl one up." Well, Mr.

Chairman, maybe that's the answer, and I said it during the estimates

of the Minister of Agriculture. Maybe when we start to see real wolves

on the steps of the parliament buildings here in Victoria, then we'll

start to do something about the problem.

Mr. Speaker, we've got to start listening to the people who know.

Farley Mowat's books are a myth; make no mistake about that. I've got a

picture here that will show it. In his books he says over and over

again that wolves only kill the sick and the old, and then only for

food when they're hungry. I've got a picture here that shows five deer

carcasses that all fit into this very small picture, none of which have

been completely eaten. In fact they have been hardly touched. There

must have been an awful lot of old, weak and sick deer in that

particular herd.

Mr. Speaker, many letters have been written to newspapers,

particularly in the north-central part of the province, by people who

really know. I'd like to read into the record parts of a letter written

by Mr. Al Fletcher, who for many years worked in the employ of this

province as a predator control officer until government saw fit to do

away with that very necessary program. I quote from this letter which

appeared in the Smithers Interior

News on February 17 this year:

" From the years 1951 to 1966 I was in charge of

predator control from Tweedsmuir Park to Telegraph Creek and from

Endako to Prince Rupert. Here is a little illustration of predator

control versus game management: in 1953 we did an aerial survey of the

caribou herd in the Telkwa Mountains, in March, when most of the

caribou were above timberline. We counted 170 caribou. There were a lot

of wolves around Mooseskin Johnny Lake and the Telkwa River. We got rid

of the wolf pack with 1080 bait and kept the wolf population under

control in the area from then until 1966. In 1966, on my last count, we

saw 272 caribou — an increase of over 100 head, in spite of the fact

that all that time there was a legal caribou season. From 1966 on there

was no more wolf control in this area and a closed season on caribou.

As a result, we only have a very few caribou left."

A little further in Mr. Fletcher's letter he says:

"In the fifties and sixties there were only two of us

in the Smithers office — Les Cox and myself."

I read this into the record to point out what the

problem we have really is. You know, we had very few people in the

field in those days. Today we have many people in the Fish and Wildlife

offices of this province, but we don't have the people in the field. We

don't have the people out there doing the job that is necessary to

alleviate the problems we have. Mr. Speaker, I quote again from Mr.

Fletcher's letter:

"All we ever had was a two-wheel-drive truck and a

pair of snowshoes. Now there are about a dozen men in the Smithers

office, plus two or three stenos to do all the work, plus their

four-wheel-drive vehicles with a winch on the front and a snowmobile on

the back, and you nearly need a crowbar to get them out of the office.

We used to have road checks nearly every weekend. I don't hear of any

anymore. I guess it's too cold standing out on the road all day. I know

a lot of conservation officers who work very hard at their jobs, and I

don't want them to take this personally or feel affronted in any way.

But because of the 'system' they, along with the general public, become

victims.

" Oh, by the way, I wasn't fired. I quit for the same

reason as Brian Baldwin…"

Brian Baldwin was another predator control officer

working out of the Smithers office who recently left the employ of this

province.

"... quit last year, as well as a few others from this

Smithers office. We couldn't stand the bureaucratic incompetence."

We have two problems in regard to predator control. We've got a

bureaucratic problem, and we've got a problem out in the field because

we, as politicians, don't have guts enough to do what is necessary:

that is, bring in a proper predator control program in this province.

[Mr. Richmond in the chair.]

I could go on all day. I've got letters, pictures, other material.

I've got books written by people who really know about the problem of

wolves in our ungulate population. I'll do more in the minister's

estimates, and also in committee on this bill, Mr. Member for New

Westminster. I'll stand and talk in this House until we get a proper

predator control program in this province if it takes the rest of my

life. It probably won't need to take that long. Do you know why?

Because unless we do something now, immediately, about the wolf

predation problem in the northern two-thirds of this province, we won't

have to institute such a program. We will have no need because there

won't be any wildlife left to protect. Maybe that will be the factor

that gets this particular problem off the backs of the politicians and

the bureaucrats in this province. I say again, unless we institute a

proper predator control program within five years in British Columbia,

we will not have to do it because there won't be anything to

[ Page 8435

protect. Compensation for wolf predation?

Absolutely band-aid.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you going to vote against the bill?

MR. KEMPF: No, I'm not going to vote against the bill. It's a

good bill. I'll talk about certain sections that aren't what they

should be, but I'll speak for the bill and we'll vote for the bill —

absolutely. I said at the outset — you might have been here, Mr. Member

for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) — that it's long overdue. I wonder what

the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) is going to do. I've never heard him

stand in this House and speak for a predator control program, while his

ranchers lose $105,000 worth of cattle. What are you going to do, Mr.

Member? You write letters to the Smithers Interior News . We talked about

band-aid, and that's band-aid on your behalf. Stand in this House where

it counts and speak for a predator control program, a program that will

alleviate the problem faced by not only your agriculturalists out

there, but by everybody who loves wildlife.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

MR. HANSON: You're a wolfist.

MR. KEMPF: The second member for Victoria doesn't know what

I'm talking about. You've never been off the rock. You wouldn't know a

wolf if it came out from under your step and bit you in the leg.

I get pretty worked up about this particular issue, and rightly so.

It's another case of a north-south problem more than anything. We see

this happen in many cases, and this is a glaring example. I say again

that within five years not even I will have to stand in this House and

talk about a predator control program, because we just won't have

anything to protect.

I'd just like to end.... As I said, I could go on and on, and I will

at other times in this chamber. We profess to have a predator control

program, and I know what the minister is going to get up and say. He's

going to say that we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on

helicopters, we've done more studies, we have high-priced biologists to

tell us that we should have this and we shouldn't have that. I ve heard

all of those stories over the years not only from this minister but

from many other ministers. We had an administration from 1972 to 1975

in this province that did absolutely nothing about the problem either.

I'd just like to read another letter into the record, and

incidentally it's another pair of constituents of the member for Skeena

(Mr. Howard). He doesn't speak about predator control in this province.

He only gets excited when I say in a news

article in the Smithers Interior News that he might be

talking about.... And they call me two-story Jack. Well, we've got

another two-story fellow in this House, Mr. Speaker, and he is

two-story Frank. He gets a little excited when someone has said in one

of his weekly newspapers that he's not doing his job properly. I've

never heard him to this time, but maybe today.... I hope that by this

little exercise that we've gone through — and the member hasn't seen my

latest letter in the Smithers Interior

News — maybe he'll get up in this House and speak for his

constituents as he should be doing.

Mr. Speaker, I'd just like to end for now — only for today, I'll be

speaking about this more in the future — with a couple of paragraphs

from a letter from two constituents of the member for Skeena. They talk

about the 1080 program that we presently have. We profess to have a

predator control program and we waste taxpayers' money trying to hunt

them from helicopters. We have 15 baits — or some ridiculous figure —

for all of the province of British Columbia when we talk about a 1080

program. I don't want to just give my views in this House; I want to

read from this letter. It was published in the Interior News on March 24 of this

year and was in regard to the predator control problem. I quote:

"I feel that the present poison program is totally

inadequate. Much of the information sought in the costly studies

undertaken could have been gleaned from local residents — ranchers,

prospectors, trappers, guides and some of the other wildlife officers.

Too many times it is assumed that these people 'don't know anything

about it,' because they don't have a piece of paper to show that they

do. That piece of paper is fine, but without the practical experience

in the field, that piece of paper is 'not good enough.' The results we

see today in comparison with the results obtained in the period 1951 to

1966 bear that out."

Again I say that we don't have to reinvent the wheel in regard to

predator control, particularly of wolves. We need only, firstly, to

listen as politicians to the people who know. Secondly, if we don't

believe our own citizens in the province, we don't have to go very far

afield to see what's done in other jurisdictions. We don't have to

reinvent that wheel; we just have to adopt some logical wildlife

management in the province of British Columbia.

MR. HOWARD: I have urged many of the ranchers, individuals

and people concerned about wolves and the devastating effect they have

on cattle and on other wildlife that I've spoken with to do two things.

One, obviously, was to write to the minister, and that includes this

minister and his predecessor. The other thing that I urged them to do

was to write to the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf), because I know the

position of the member for Omineca, and it coincides with mine. We come

from an area that has a contiguous border and the same type of terrain,

generally speaking. I say to people: "Yes, indeed, write to Jack

Kempf." That's what I say to them, I don't use his name here. To put it

in parliamentary terms. I urge them to write to the member for Omineca

and to the minister. Some of them do: I know that.

He showed us some pictures a while ago. I'm not sure if those are

the pictures he received from some folks who live in the Kispiox or

not. but if it is, that was partly at my urging as well, because I

approach this problem from the point of view of trying not to involve

politics but just concerned people in trying to cooperate together to

get a point of view across to government. It hasn't paid off so far;

we've still got the problem; we've still got an inactive or

disinterested minister. It is a little bit — and I must say this —

galling, when I take that approach on a non-partisan basis and with the

purpose of best serving the interest of the people that both the member

for Omineca and I represent in that general area and I find him writing

open letters to the newspaper in Smithers — and he referred to it. Let

me tell you what he said, just as an example. This is politics, and

this is the way the member for Omineca plays politics. This is in an

open letter to Dave and

[ Page 8436

Bernice Aspeslet, the people who sent him on the

pictures. It said: "What I do need is the support of other northern

MLAs, and it's unfortunate that your member won't come out and support

the issue." That paragraph is patently false, as the member knew when

he wrote the letter. It was inaccurate. He was trying to make some

slight political gain. He was trying to make political exploitation out

of the misery visited upon ranchers in that area, because his

government won't do a damned thing about wolf control.

But that's the way the member for Omineca plays it. Fine. That's the

way he's going to get it. I'd like to read another letter. I wonder why

the member for Omineca didn't read this one into the record. It's a

letter dated February 1, 1982. It says:

"When the mini-cabinet meeting was held in Terrace

late in the fall of 1981, I enquired of Jim Hewitt what the department

of agriculture was going to do about predator control. He told me that

the man I wanted to talk to was Stephen Rogers, and he introduced me to

him. Mr. Rogers, when asked what he was prepared to do about the

predator problem at Hazleton, stated quite bluntly that he had no

intention of doing anything about it. When asked how we were to protect

our livestock from wolves, his reply was that we should go to Alberta

and buy poison and do the job ourselves."

That's what this letter said the Minister of

Environment told a rancher who came to him with a concern. The letter

goes on to say:

" I take exception to the fact that we have a Minister

of Agriculture who ceases" — and I can't read it, because it's stapled

under here — "and an Environment minister who blatantly encourages me

to break the law. Quite frankly, I can understand why the Federation of

Agriculture gives our hon. minister a vote of no confidence. As for Mr.

Rogers, he is a discredit to his ministry and the party."

That's from a rancher that the member for Omineca pointed out had

put in a bill for $105,000 to this government for compensation for loss

of livestock because the government took no interest whatsoever in

predator control. Yes, we do need, and have needed for some time, a

proper and effective wolf-control program of poisoning. We need a

program of predator control such as was engaged in by Allan Fletcher, a

Smithers resident, who wrote a letter quoted by the member for Omineca.

Allan Fletcher knew what the situation was when he was predator control

officer in that area. They functioned well at that time.

The minister's response in correspondence to me and others was: "We

have a control program that's based upon ranchers reporting wolf

sightings. Report to us where the wolves are and we'll have our

officers come out and shoot the wolves or do something with them."

Ranchers in that area have given up reporting because — the member for

Omineca will know this — over the years they have reported, time and

time again, wolves on their property, attacks on their cattle and

attacks on deer and other ungulates. The response has ranged from nil

to minimal. It's ineffective. Nothing occurs in response to the

reports. So the ranchers gave up. They say: "What's the point in our

continuing to report to the ministry about wolf sightings when nothing

happens in response?" In spite of that, we still urge those ranchers to

report. The minister, in a letter to me written dated March 9, 1982,

said: "Close cooperation of ranchers.... Your influence will help." I

told him that ranchers had given up reporting, but we still go back and

tell them to report again, tell the ministry what's going on, and maybe

you'll get some kind of effective response. So far it hasn't happened.

These are not exclusively my own words. Let me read from a letter

from the Bulkley Valley cattlemen's association to the Minister of

Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Hewitt), dated March 10, 1982, to substantiate

what I've said. I won't read the whole thing, because he talks about

the use of 1080, helicopters, shooting and so on. The relevant

part I

want to read into the record says: "Due to past experience, our members

tend to believe that there is little value in reporting predator

attacks. The officers of our association are trying hard to convince

our membership that they must report predator attacks, but our efforts

will be in vain if there isn't effective control." That's just one

group of cattlemen in the area represented partly by me and partly by

the member, for Omineca. Ranchers ask, what's the use of reporting, but

the cattlemen's association is saying to continue reporting. I'm

telling people to continue reporting. That's what the ministry says we

should do. You may have become frustrated, we tell the ranchers, by

getting no response and action, and a lack of care and attention to

this matter, but continue to report. I hope they do.

Control and the poisoning and killing of predators is necessary.

When the wolf populations get to the magnitude they have in the past

few years, it becomes even more necessary to engage in that type of

killing program. A companion activity has got to be the question of

compensation to ranchers who lose their stock as a result of wolf

predation. The member for Omineca says: "Don't worry about the

compensation. Deal with the control program. Then you won't have a

compensation problem because there will be an insufficient number of

wolves, and therefore an insufficient number of kills of cattle." That

may be so in a theoretical sense, but the practical reality of life is

that cattlemen have lost cattle. The one company with a bill of

$105,000 that the member for Omineca referred to, which I have here as

well, sets out in detail how they arrived at that $105,000 figure.

We maintain that in addition to an adequate and proper

predator-control program there should be the companion compensation

program; and that will be an added incentive to people in the ministry

to more effectively engage in predator control.

Let me go back to the letter from the Bulkley Valley cattlemen's

association on that point; they make this point very well. "As we have

indicated in previous correspondence, we believe the primary problem is

that the responsibility for protecting cattle from predators is in the

hands of people who take little interest in protecting cattle and do so

with reluctance." They are talking about ministry officials, people

working in the Ministry of Environment: little interest, little direct

concern, little motivation, little experience in the predator-control

program. They maintain, and I maintain, that if the government and the

ministry had to fork out money by way of compensation to cattlemen,

they'd darned soon find a way to cut down on the forking out of the

money. They would then find the incentive to more effectively prosecute

whatever wolf- or predator-control program they have.

When we get to that

section in the bill —

section 2, I believe — as

indicated by the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace), we intend

to propose some changes which we hope will be accepted by the minister.

Perhaps when he closes the debate this afternoon he may indicate that

section 2 is not

[ Page 8437

worded fully enough to be able to deal with this

fundamental question of the right of a rancher who loses cattle to

claim for and receive compensation from the Crown. All wildlife in the

province is property vested in the Crown. The Crown is the owner, and

when the property of the owner visits some injury upon another party,

namely a rancher, then I maintain the owner has a responsibility. While

the minister may not be able at this juncture to outline and embark

upon an enlarged and more effective predator-control program than has

existed up until now, at least while we're dealing with a particular

bill that has in it reference to compensation, even though it denies

that, I hope on second reading he will give some indication that he is

prepared to amend that

section when we get to it and take another step

in the direction of doing something helpful to ranchers, and something

helpful for the protection of wildlife itself.

MR. HANSON: For some time now I've been extremely concerned

about the lack of strength of this minister in dealing with a couple of

his colleagues: the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr.

Chabot), and the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland). This

minister has recently been left out in the dark in the implementation

of a Crown grazing lease program in this province — which is extremely

disturbing and has far-reaching effects.

I would like to read to you a letter that went from the Minister of

Lands, Parks and Housing — with respect to the Wildlife Act, in case

Mr. Speaker was wondering whether my debate was relevant to this issue

— to individuals concerned about the 250,000 hectares of valley bottom

land of critical winter habitat in the interior of this province: in

the Okanagan, in the Columbia River, in the Bulkley Valley and so on.

The Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing makes this observation with

respect to the Wildlife Act and whether it will apply to land under

lease. He states: "It is this ministry's position that the Wildlife Act

provisions of access cannot apply to Crown lands alienated by lease."

The significance is extremely far-reaching. For example, the 650,000

acres of Crown grazing land of the province, if they were to be

occupied by cattle. In the Bulkley Valley alone it is estimated that

the moose population would be reduced by 60 percent. The fish and

wildlife branch estimates there are something in the order of 3,200

moose in the Bulkley Valley region. If the Crown grazing leases

administered by the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr.

Chabot) were to be utilized on a regular basis by cattle, it is

estimated that the moose population would be reduced by approximately

60 percent.

The reason for raising this, Mr. Speaker, is that an arrangement was

entered into by the Ministers of Lands, Parks and Housing and

Agriculture and Food and excluding this minister. They entered into a

long-term lease arrangement with the ranching industry for a different

practice — not policy — for these Crown grazing leases. My concern is

why the Minister of Environment was left out during the duration of

this discussion. Even the people within his own ministry do not

understand the weakness and the ineptitude. For example, a rather

senior person in the ministry states in a letter I received from him:

"It is difficult to justify this grazing-lease policy when it has the

potential to limit recreational access to a large area of Crown land."

Yet here we have the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing saying in a

letter to constituents in the Okanagan region that Lands, Parks and

Housing's position is that the Wildlife Act provisions of access cannot

apply to Crown lands alienated by lease.

This province is departing from the integrated use, the multiple use

of lands and is being oriented toward a more single-use approach to

lands. The fantastic capacity of these low-bottom lands through the

Kamloops area, through the Okanagan and so on provides critical winter

habitat for elk, for mule deer, for sheep and for various game animals,

and recreational potential for hunters, fishermen, canoeists, hikers,

photographers and naturalists. I understand that the unstated practice

in the past was that permission had to be sought from the lessee of

those Crown grazing leases; however, the ranchers and cattlemen always

were of the understanding that provisions of the Wildlife Act would

allow them access — the provisions of the Wildlife Act granted access

to recreationists. But now it's clearly stated that the Wildlife Act is

superseded by the Land Act and the Trespass Act, and that the public

are now denied access to these vast tracts of the interior of the

province, which are the portals to the higher-elevation Crown lands of

this great province.

The Minister of Environment, as the advocate for wildlife in this

province and the advocate for the hunters and fishermen and all

recreationists, has been silent. When we have representatives within

his own ministry critical of the long-range implications for game

management and habitat management in this province.... He has sat

quietly back and written letters to various citizens of the province

indicating that he will try to argue strenuously with his colleague the

Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing, to attempt to come to some

negotiated settlement to allow the public of this province onto their

own land. Shame, Mr. Speaker!

In the bill that has been introduced,

section 40, "Agricultural and

cleared land," indicates that it is an offence to hunt over Crown land

which is subject to a grazing lease if the land is occupied by

livestock. Some of these grazing leases are very large. The grazing

lands often are only occupied for short periods of the year — seven to

eight weeks in some instances. The public is going to be denied through

posting these lands; if they happen to enter onto that land thinking it

is not occupied by livestock, or thinking that they had permission from

the lessee, they're subject to an offence under the act. If somewhere

in that large geographical tract there happen to be animals grazing,

then individuals and the public are subject to charges under this

section.

The point I'm raising, Mr. Speaker, is that there's a great

injustice occurring, and that is that the Ministry of Environment (Hon.

Mr. Rogers) is being subordinated to such an extent by the Minister of

Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) and the Minister of Forests

(Hon. Mr. Waterland) that the minister cannot carry out his mandate to

protect the wildlife of this province. In that context, this bill, with

all its clauses on licensing, on the protection of beaver dams, and on

proposed management plans, is rather hollow, because when it comes to

fighting for the protection of access to those resources and for the

integrated resource management of this province, that minister fails in

his responsibility. How can he sit idly by and have the Minister of

Lands, Parks and Housing writing literally thousands of letters around

this province — form letters, I might add — that indicate the

provisions of the Wildlife Act will not apply to Crown leased lands,

which are the majority of lands in this province?

Later on in committee stage I would like to ask the minister what

his role was in that particular negotiation. Why

[ Page 8438

wasn't he invited in when the Ministers of Forests,

Lands Parks and Housing, and Agriculture met with the ranching

community and listened to some of their legitimate problems, but in

response to those concerns managed to sell the entire farm? His own

staff throughout this province feel he's let them down. He has not

acted on behalf of the resource that he is mandated to protect. What I

see happening down the pike is that some of these large ranches, with

their large Crown grazing leases, will be moving into private game

preserves. On the higher elevations of these Crown grazing leases is

the spring and summer habitat, and in the fall and winter, when those

animals come through the timberline into those Crown grazing leases,

those are excellent possibilities for private game preserves. If that's

the direction this government is taking us, it is a major departure

from the traditions of land management and resource management in this

province. It's not multiple use; it's not integrated, rational resource

planning; it is single use. When you have cattle oftentimes overgrazing

on Crown grazing land, you're making it extremely difficult for other

wildlife to coexist on those lands.

I have reiterated the point a number of times for emphasis: I

believe the minister has been derelict in his duties in not speaking

out strongly and publicly on behalf of wildlife, the wildlife habitat,

and multiple, integrated resource use in this province.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, I have an issue that I have raised

a number of times in this Legislature, both under Agriculture and under

this ministry. It relates to what the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs.

Wallace) was raising earlier. That is the matter of compensation for

those farmers who find, particularly with these species that are

protected, that they have no access to compensation. They have no

access to any alternative except to accept what is happening to them.

They are suffering severe losses. As the member for Cowichan-Malahat

pointed out, the total cost in compensation, at least according to the

B.C. Federation of Agriculture, who have done some work on this, is not

all that great. Yet for individual farmers the impact can be very

severe.

I have a copy of the bill submitted by Edgar Smith, one of the

farmers in my constituency. The member for Cowichan-Malahat made

reference to this. That bill is for over $9,000 for the damage done to

his fields by trumpeter swans. Some 350 trumpeter swans arrive on the

farmer's field every fall. They choose that place every year, yet there

is absolutely no way that any compensation can be made available to

that particular farmer, so he submitted a bill. The minister responded

by suggesting trumpeter swans are really under federal jurisdiction.

While the province administers the federal act, discussions are taking

place between the federal and provincial governments with respect to

some solution to that problem. I would like the minister to advise what

kind of discussions are taking place with the federal people under the

Migratory Birds Act and what sort of solution he sees in terms of the

damage done to farmers such as Edgar Smith from my constituency.

Another one relates not to a federal jurisdiction but to the

Roosevelt elk, which are also protected. They have been moved down from

the northern part of Vancouver Island into the constituency of Comox

and are troublesome to some farmers as well. The farmers in the area

have tried to get compensation for the damage the elk are doing.

Unfortunately, when there is no form of compensation available and when

these species are protected and there is no avenue open to the farmer

to take any action, then the farmers are tempted to destroy those

animals, even though it is against the law to do so. The government is

really tempting the farmers to take illegal action in order to protect

their own crops and means of livelihood. That's very tragic. I hope the

minister will, before we pass this act through committee stage, bring

an amendment which will ensure that farmers can be compensated, either

through the federal government program, if it's under the Migratory

Birds Act, or through the Wildlife Act, if the animals in question are

under provincial jurisdiction.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I thought for a moment there that we were in

my estimates.

The one minor point I did not mention during second reading, which

is a point I think I should have made, is that we have made provision

in this act for paraplegics and other people who are confined to

wheelchairs to be able to shoot from a vehicle. That's something that

hasn't happened before, and something that came up last year during the

Year of the Disabled. It was one of the things that was sent to us as

part of our submission for the White Paper.

The member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) asked a question about

the fact that guides don't have to be citizens of the province. It

would be contrary to the new federal Charter of Rights to prohibit

another Canadian from practising his trade in this province. However,

we do require that they have 24 months of active guiding experience in

the province before they are allowed to guide in this province. With

Mr. Trudeau's new Charter of Rights, a more restrictive covenant than

that cannot be put on them.

He asked about the management of controlled shoots in terms of

running game farms. We did a paper of consideration on the business of

running commercial game farms for the purpose of providing meat only,

and not for hunting. The public response from the interest groups was

very definitely against it. We had a public opinion survey done by, I

believe, the Harris Co., tagged onto another survey, and the public are

only slightly more interested than disinterested. Very few of them

would actually purchase wild meat, so we've decided to continue our

present policy of not allowing commercial hunting operations, with the

one exception of the upland game bird operations in the Fraser Valley

which exist at the present time.

There were several questions asked about hunting regulations in

terms of the percentages charged for hunting regulations. It's our

intention to maintain an approximate ratio between the two, which means

a dollar increase in some cases and a percentage increase in others.

The subject of

section 2(4) is one that the member for

Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace), the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard),

the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) and the member for Comox (Ms.

Sanford) brought up. The experience in other jurisdictions is that

prevention seems to be much more effective that compensation. At the

present time we're spending over $2 million a year on a prevention

system, and that will continue. We are, however, examining the

possibility of a compensation system. This act does not include that

and this act is merely a reflection of the existing act and maintains a

status quo and has recently been confirmed in a recent case law.

However, hunters are liable to the damage that does take place where

they have been involved in shooting cattle, for example.

You asked for the sections that affect farmers.

Section 27(2)

certainly affects farmers. They do have the chance to

[ Page 8439

sell the right to hunt on their own property for

the birds that come to prey on their crops. There is a federal

agreement with the three prairie provinces to do with cereal grains. We

are negotiating with the federal government to see if that compensation

agreement can be extended into British Columbia, but, again, it would

only come on cereal grains.

I was interested in the questions raised by the member for Omineca

and the member for Skeena on the use of monosodium fluoroacetate in

terms of predator control. I'm not sure if it's the policy of the

entire NDP caucus or if it would just the policy for the member for

Skeena, but predator control is a policy problem. It's not covered in

this act. There's nothing in here about predator control, so I think

maybe my estimates should have come before the bill. However, I have

asked the staff to bring forward a program that might be brought into

place in terms of predator control because of the problems that we do

have, and it certainly is a problem in several areas. I would certainly

like to know, if we brought in a poison program using monosodium

fluoroacetate, whether it would receive assistance from both sides of

the House. I don't think it would. The member for North Island (Mr.

Gabelmann) shakes his head. Sure, your colleague the member for Skeena

is all for it, but if the House divided he'd probably miss the vote and

I'd look like the villain. My mandate is the critters, not the pressure

groups.

MR. KING: Accept the responsibility.

HON. MR. ROGERS: No, if you were to accept the

responsibility, you'd take your position. I take the position that my

responsibility is to look after the animals and not the pressure

groups, and that's precisely what I'm intending to do.

He made the big point about ranchers not reporting the fact that

they're losing cattle. Well, can you imagine what the people would say

if we entered into a massive poisoning program throughout the whole

north of this province? There's no need for it. You don't even have any

documented cases of people losing cattle. Every time that I go into the

Skeena area, ranchers come to me and say: "We keep losing cattle, but

we never report it; we've given up reporting because your staff

wouldn't come anyway." I say: "How are we going to come unless you

call?" You have a problem wildlife committee. They say that that

wouldn't work so they don't even pick up the phone to do it. I just

don't accept that argument. If you think you've got a problem, then you

contact your local problem wildlife agency, and you send a carbon copy

to the minister. The five or six letters that I have had aren't

sufficient to justify a massive poisoning campaign.

The second member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson) must wait for my

estimates, because I don't believe any of the questions that he asked

were in question.

The member for Comox did ask one question that I think bears

pointing out. The farmers that have problems with elk on their

property…the elk are not protected. We would issue permits for that. In

the case of the Black Creek area, we have open hunting on those elk. If

the elk are predating on the crops of a farmer, the farmer need only

apply for a permit and we will give him a permit to shoot those animals.

Mr. Speaker, we have had a great deal of debate, very little of

which was in order. I therefore move second reading.

Motion approved unanimously on a division.

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Bill 55, Wildlife Act, read a second time and referred to a

Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of

the House after today.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

TRANSPORTATION AND HIGHWAYS

On vote 76: minister's office, $228,769.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a few

remarks first to explain the responsibilities of this ministry — to

explain to the committee what the ministry provides to the province and

its people. I feel that we provide for them very well.

I'd like to run through the essential part first: road maintenance.

We maintain 42,000 kilometres of provincial public roads in this

province — 26,000 miles, for those of you who are not yet metric. This

is by the efforts of 270 road crews spread throughout the province.

Some 100,000 kilometres of these roads are trunk or main highways. We

have 18,000 kilometres of paved roads in B.C., or 11,000 miles. In 1975

we had 9,500 miles of roads paved. We maintain a total of 2,538 bridges

on our public highways, 798 or 31 percent of which are not to the full

modern truck loading; 215 of these bridges are 30 years old or more. We

replace between 40 and 50 bridges each year.

Ferries. I'm talking now about the ferries under the Ministry of

Transportation and Highways, not the B.C. Ferries. In the ministry

fleet we have 42 vessels running on 36 routes; we handle about four

million vehicles and nine million passengers per year.

Some random statistics. We have between 40 and 50 major road-grading

contracts per year, amounting usually to 400 or 500 kilometres. Our

paving projects run 700 to 800 kilometres per year; the ideal that our

engineers would like to see would be about 1,200 kilometres per year.

We install an average of 30 intersections with traffic signals per

year. We install an average of 30 kilometres of concrete guardrail per

year: this is a big safety feature, fairly new in the last five or six

years. We produce about a million tonnes of crushed gravel every year

for road maintenance alone. We centre-line or edge-line a total line

distance of approximately 16,000 kilometres per year.

In an entirely different role we process about 2,500 subdivisions

each year in unorganized territory in our province and issue about

8,000 permits for accesses to our highway system.

I'd like to discuss for a minute what our major challenges are. Most

important among them is trying to keep our highway pavements intact —

or as intact as possible for as long as possible — in the face of

rising costs and increasing traffic and loading; trying always to make

our highways safer in the face of deteriorating driving habits and

driver behaviour; trying to assist the expansion of our province by the

provision and improvement of access to the developing areas; and trying

to make life more attractive in the remoter areas of this province,

where often the most jobs lie, by the provision of better roads or

better marine or air services in the face of great

[ Page 8440

distances, rugged terrain and extreme weather at

times. It's a large job, and it's not done easily when funds are short.

It is a job that must be done, or we'll pay dearly for the lack of it.

Then we have the more mundane but much more personal services of the

ministry, the testing and licensing of drivers. We tested 107,000

drivers last year, and there were two million licensed drivers in B.C.

We issue lots of vehicle licences: 1.1 million passenger and 427,000

commercial in 1981. We inspected 100,900 commercial vehicles last year

out of a total of 591,000 of all types inspected by our personnel. This

year we plan to increase the vehicles inspected to 635,000. All these

inspecting activities add to the enforcement thrust put forward by the

amended Motor Vehicle Act, following the task force report on our

traffic-law enforcement, which this House has just given assent to.

I'd like now to turn for a minute to an entirely different area of

the activities of this ministry, our transportation policy department.

This department handles the representation of this province's needs

with our federal government, with our fellow provinces and with our

neighbours in the United States. This involves the establishment and

implementation of provincial policies on all national and provincial

issues. Believe me, the federal government hears about those we do not

agree with; for example, the federal ports policy.

The handling of our major ports by the National Harbours Board is

nothing short of a fiefdom. They have a castle in Ottawa and they rule

from there. We press for real and effective provincial and regional

representation, and they won't give it to us. Their latest ports bill,

now before the House of Commons, is a continuation of the same thing.

Quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, it's a disgrace. Vancouver is the only

really profitable port in Canada. Ottawa mishandles it and profits by

it. All the help that the province could give is very largely frozen

out.

Other national issues carefully and thoroughly monitored by our

policy staff include the national railways. We fight about abandonments

and service reductions. We have taken a leading role in forcing the

federal government to do something about the Crowsnest freight rate.

The solution of that could bring immeasurable good to our lumber

freight rates, could ease our railway capacity problems and could help

our trucking industry. This ministry also initiated a study of BCR

passenger services and has taken a lead role in the rehabilitation of

the Fort Nelson line. The line from Fort St. John to Fort Nelson has

now been pretty well completely rehabilitated at a cost of about $45

million.

Our engineering inspection branch of the transportation policy

department looks after such things are aerial tramways — there are now

255 of these in the province — as well as our interprovincial pipelines

and provincial railways, of which there are 52; but only two, the

British Columbia Railway and the B.C. Hydro Railway, are fully

operative railways in the true sense.

One of the most onerous tasks is safety — safety of operation and

safety of dangerous goods. The branch is most active in both these

areas, with inspectors of high calibre being added to staff as a large

and comprehensive study of all aspects of rail safety comes to

completion.

I hope you will bear with me when I outline briefly to you what I

personally believe are some of our most vital and most valuable

programs. I have always liked the air transport assistance program.

This is a program where people do not just accept handouts; here they

work with us to build their airstrips and to operate them. We work with

municipalities, societies, associations or chambers of commerce. Here

the result serves the people immediately and continues to serve the

people. What use are the finest of air ambulances — and we have them —

if there is no airstrip on which to land the planes, especially in

locations where they are most needed, where the advanced medical

facilities are not in existence? Since this program started in 1977 we

have helped 59 communities with airport assistance. We have made 105

separate grants in this period. Yes, I like the air transport

assistance program and, despite the reductions necessary this year, I

will continue to fight to keep it going, be it in Atlin, Merritt,

Salmon Arm or Chetwynd. We will be helping more communities to build

and operate their airports this year. We have spent $15 million on this

program since 1977.

Other activities. I've always been interested in trucks and in

truckers. I used to be one more years ago than I'd like to think, and

I'll always support services to make our trucking industry safer and

better. We'll expand our roadside safety inspection services for trucks

and for school buses. We'll put on more of those surprise roadblocks

for on-the-spot inspections, especially of vehicles coming into B.C.,

and we'll expand our campaign against bad drivers by implementing the

amended Motor Vehicle Act.

One major program of vital importance to those using our highways is

the maintenance of our paved surfaces and shoulders, and the levelling

and recapping or repaving or patching of those surfaces when they

become worn out. We have recently called a number of tenders for

paving, mostly repaving or recapping on main highways, and the

Trans-Canada Highway is prominent among the sections which will be

worked on this summer.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I am proud and happy that our ministry is part of the great

northeast coal project. We recently called for new highway contracts,

and with one called late in the last fiscal year, I believe we now have

a program of up to $50 million starting on that roadwork this year. In

fact, they are all at work. This is not the only highway work being

done due to megaprojects underway in British Columbia this summer. We

continue to work on the highway relocation between Revelstoke and Mica,

such as to permit the filling of the reservoir of the Revelstoke Canyon

Dam in 1983. These jobs, along with the other highway-grading work,

have given much-needed support to our fine B.C. road-building

contractors in 1981, and will do in 1982 as well.

Talking about our road construction and paving programs for this

year, I should first of all say that 16 existing road contracts will

continue into this fiscal year, which will let road contracts expend

$64 million this summer. Thirty-four bridge and ferry-landing contracts

will carry on in 1982, which will lead to an expenditure of $34 million

this season. Four paving contracts from last summer will expend $5

million. The total this year in continuing contracts of all types is

$103 million. Among the other various projects underway, or which will

get underway, are many on the Hart Highway north of Prince George, on

Highway 16, Highway 3, Highway 97 and on Vancouver Island.

We are creating the Annacis crossing system on the lower mainland

between Delta and New Westminster. We are preparing the first

structural contract on the new swing bridge over Annacis Channel for

both road and rail. This movable structure will replace the causeway

and leave the channel

[ Page 8441

open up to the proposed low-level, four-lane span

on the Annacis route. The work this year on the main channel will be

interesting. Dredging will proceed to create two new islands in the

Fraser River to enable pile-driving on the first substructure.

Contracts on the main span will go ahead in 1983. Fill is also

continuing to be stockpiled for the approach roadways, and negotiations

with the municipalities are moving ahead. Right-of-way purchases are

well ahead towards completion. We will have the Annacis system in place

late in 1985 or in 1986. We will have spent a total of over $65 million

on Annacis by the end of this year. The figure on our capital bridge

replacement program this year is also $65 million — the largest in

several years. Thirty major structures will be worked on. Included in

this figure will be two bridges on Highway 99 between Vancouver and

Whistler, five structures on the Sparwood-to-Elkford highway and four

bridges on Highway 37 in the north.

I might comment here that for the first time ever we're just about

to award a contract for a large bridge across the Nass River to hook up

the community of Greenville. One of the contracts is just in at a rough

price of $3 million, but that is only for foundations and piers; there

will have to be another contract for the superstructure. There will be

five bridges on the northeast coal route between Chetwynd and Tumbler

Ridge, and those contracts are all awarded.

Before I sit down, I want to say I also have responsibility for the

fine B.C. Ferries fleet, which services the lower mainland and up the

Pacific coast. In that fleet we have 24 ships and 25 terminals. It's

the largest ferry fleet in the world and the Pacific Northwest's

biggest shipping company, with more ships than the Canadian navy. It

began in 1960 with two ships and a capacity of 210 vehicles. Now we

have 24 ships and a capacity of 3,466 vehicles. This year they're

forecasted to carry 3,725,000 vehicles and 12,186,000 passengers. In

1981, capacity was added with Queen

of Oak Bay , 362 vehicles; Queen

of Surrey , 362; Queen of

Vancouver , 94; Queen of

Victoria , 94. In 1982, additional capacity was provided by the Queen of Saanich , 202 vehicles,

and the Queen of Esquimalt ,

202 vehicles. That was done by lifting those fine vessels. Since the

corporation came into being in 1977, we have invested in excess of $230

million on capital expansion to provide the best ferry service in the

world.

That's a rough outline of the activities and responsibilities of

this ministry. Before I sit down, I'd like to introduce the people who

actually do the work. Mr. Stuart Hodgson is chairman of the B.C.

Ferries board of directors. Mr. Hodgson is an outstanding Canadian, and

I'm sure the House welcomes him here. With Mr. Hodgson is George

Baldwin, general manager of the B.C. Ferries fleet; we're glad to have

him along as well. Some of the people here with a few years of service

in for the province of British Columbia include my deputy minister, Bob

Harvey, and Al Rhodes, assistant deputy minister. Al hasn't been around

too long; I think this is his forty-second consecutive year of service.

Al tells me that he's really a rookie, but he's just about had it.

After serving with me as minister, he has no intention of serving with

any other minister. Last, but not least, Tom Johnson. assistant deputy

minister in charge of highway operations.

I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much for listening.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: We always have fun with highways estimates and

I thank the minister for his opening statement. He kept it mercifully

short this year.

AN HON. MEMBER: Let's hope you'll do the same.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, we're going to be quite brief. I expect

we should be through these estimates a week next Friday, if things go

well. We all have highways, or boats, or something in our ridings, so

every MLA is pretty well obliged to get up, at least briefly. We don't

expect to give the minister too bad a time.

First of all, I want as well to welcome to the House the minister's

staff and the people from the Ferry Corporation, and to say that I

appreciate the way they have cooperated with me and other members of

the opposition on problems in the ridings. Before I tackle the

minister, I'd like to say that from time to time even the minister

cooperates quite well with members on this side of the House on

constituency matters. On politics he could be a little more

cooperative. In terms of his portfolio, however, he does pretty well.

For the benefit of the minister, I might say that one of my

colleagues, who is responsible for our caucus on the air transport side

of things, has to be away tomorrow. So I'm going to keep my opening

remarks fairly brief in order that he can put his questions to the

minister this afternoon. Having said that, I usually start off by

discussing the general administration of that particular ministry, but

today I'm going to be just a little bit different.

I'd like to bring to the minister's attention what I deem to be a

very a serious matter. relating to funds from that ministry being

promised to a group of people up in Bella Bella under the airport

assistance program and the various conflicts that have taken place

there. I don't want to dwell on this too long, because I'm sure the

minister was listening yesterday when I raised this matter under the

spending estimates of the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Williams), who is

responsible for native Indian people in this province. In fact, I asked

for a public inquiry into this whole matter. I might say at this point,

Mr. Minister, that I'm a bit disappointed that you did proceed to

promise — in fact, you signed a contract, of which you were good enough

to forward me a copy on June 7 of this year — $350,000 to the Denny

Island Airport Society. I would imagine that this has been brought to

public attention. In fact, I have been told that the band council at

Bella Bella on the Campbell Island site are extremely concerned and

upset over this arbitrary government decision, particularly in view of

the fact that the First Citizens Fund Advisory Committee of this

province voted $100,000 towards the construction of an airport on

Campbell Island and the federal government had promised, contingent on

this $100,000 forthcoming from the provincial government, a further

$250,000 for the Campbell Island project. The minister is aware that

the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) — I'm pleased to see the

Provincial Secretary in the House at the present time — arbitrarily

blocked that $100,000 to the 1,200 people living on Campbell Island.

I tried to make it abundantly clear yesterday that I don't knock

private initiative. The small group of people over on Denny Island

proceeded on their own, and I'm not sure where they got all the funding

from, and it really doesn't matter. The fact is, I'm told, the funding

they received — the approximately $800,000 to construct their 4,000

metres of airport — was private money, and that's fair enough. All over

this province, every year, people construct all kinds of facilities for

various purposes on their own initiative without the aid of government

funds, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[ Page 8442

Just to back up a bit, in 1968 the federal government, at the

request of the Bella Bella band council on Campbell Island, did in fact

do a study on the two sites — the one out in the bush over on Denny

Island, with no access and no people, and the proposed site over on

Campbell Island, where the hospital exists, the people live and the

police and all of the other facilities of any community are located.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, this is what we're trying to find out

here. The reason I'm a bit disappointed, Mr. Minister — just to back up

a bit further — is that you did promise me a year or so ago that you

wouldn't send funds to either one of those applications until the

matter was totally resolved. The fact is, the matter is not resolved.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Listen carefully, Mr. Member, because this is

a very serious matter and I'm making some very serious allegations in

this House this afternoon on this matter.

The federal government study was shown to me. They didn't release it

to me, but I went to the MoT office in Vancouver in about 1971 or 1972

and did discuss it with the technical people there. The fact is, there

was not much to choose between the two sites; but in view of the fact

that the majority of the inhabitants live on Campbell Island, and there

were some minor navigational problems involved in the Denny Island site

as well, their preference was the Campbell Island site.

It's all water under the bridge, and we won't go through that

12-year history. But you can imagine my astonishment when I learned

just two weeks ago or so that this government had arbitrarily decided

to award $350,000 for road access from the air transport assistance

program to these private developers, which will undoubtedly eventually

make some of them quite wealthy. There was no consideration given to

the needs of the native Indian people. I call this sheer discrimination

against the native Indian people of this province. It's no less than

that.

This is an editorial in the Times-Colonist of June 2 of this

year, which points out: "Local People Involved in Denny Island Airport

Society. Two of the six directors list Bella Bella post office as their

addresses; the other four are from Campbell River, Richmond, North

Vancouver and Tsawwassen — hardly Bella-Bella locals." It's a sheer

business venture, I suspect. Would any rational group of people spend

$800,000 of their own money if they hadn't had prior assurance from

someone in your ministry, perhaps yourself? I don't know that, but

would any rational group of people spend $800,000 of their own money to

build an airstrip up over a rock bluff in the bush with no access? I've

viewed the site, and the cost to complete that airport is going to be

horrendous.

I agree with those people and the studies that indicated that there

should have been an airport there, but you chose the wrong site. You're

backing the wrong people at the expense of the native Indian people of

this province. So I have to ask myself if there was collusion. I don't

know, but it looks mighty suspicious to me. There is nothing wrong with

those investors — a good private enterprise effort. Maybe they're

taking a chance as you do on the stock market. I'm inclined to doubt

that very much. I'm guessing that these people had prior approval —

probably verbal — that this money would be coming from the provincial

government to the exclusion of the native Indian people of that area

for that airport. I'm understandably disappointed that this decision

was made in that manner without consultation. I have written to the

Premier, the Provincial Secretary, the Minister of Highways and

Transportation and the Attorney-General; I have not as yet had the

courtesy of a reply, although the letters went out on June 10.

Nonetheless, it's a bad decision, a wrong decision and, in my view, an

inappropriate expenditure of public funds.

I do agree that there should be an airport there for a lot of

reasons. It's a long distance between northern Vancouver Island and

Prince Rupert for those people who fly in and out of there commercially

or privately for the local residents. The Coast Guard heartily endorses

an airport in that locality, as do most of the major airlines who fly

in that part of the coast. But you made a wrong decision. You made a

political decision based on political considerations, in my view.

That's exactly what you did there.

I know your answer. I won't give you the answer now, because I

prefer to hear it from you again. We've discussed this before. You've

been good enough to discuss this with me on a number of occasions. The

one thing that you forgot, Mr. Minister, is that you did say to me when

we discussed this matter a year ago right out here in the hall — and it

was a fair enough statement — that before you afforded any money to any

group, you'd ensure that there was equality on the two sides and you

would consult with me before the matter of the airport location would

be resolved.

I know what your answer is going to be; I've heard it many times.

You'll say: "How can we now support two airports within a few miles of

each other?" The fact is that you made a mistake in the first place.

You deprived the Indian band of that $250,000 promised from the federal

government, which was contingent upon the $100,000 from the First

Citizens Fund. It was voted by the First Citizens Fund committee and

was overruled by your Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Wolfe). I'm

extremely disappointed. You were wrong, wrong, wrong.

I move on to more cheery items. Every year at this time I enjoy

going through this with the minister. One of the things I do as the

opposition critic responsible to our caucus for this particular

portfolio is to go over the annual report as best I can to see who got

the money and who didn't get any, in every riding and electoral area. I

have to tell the minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, that it was no

surprise to me at all to see once again that Cariboo, with the

exception of Shuswap-Revelstoke, which is quite a different situation

because the dam is being constructed and they have to move the highway

and all of those things.... Revelstoke leads the list, but once again,

in actual fact, Cariboo leads the list. I know the minister will say

they've got more roads in Cariboo than anywhere else in the world and

all of those things, but the fact is that after four years of Cariboo —

the minister's riding, by the way — leading the list in Highways

spending, you would think by now that every cow trail in the Cariboo

must have a four-lane highway. It's just incredible. Everything is

paved. It is blacktop end to end — money, employees, you name it. So,

Mr. Minister, I always enjoy reminding you, since you do have control

of the pork barrel…or of the purse-strings, that your riding does seem

to come out ahead every single year.

[ Page 8443

MR. CHAIRMAN: There's a certain phrase that the Chair found

offensive.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Oh. I have to think back. Purse strings? No? A

little further back, eh?

Mr. Minister, I just thought I'd point that out to you, knowing your

answer, just to have it on the record. Actually, as we go through the

ridings we find that your reduction of highways expenditures for this

year, when you consider the inflationary factor, appears to have been

reduced by about 6½ percent. I may be wrong, but it's somewhere in that

area. So quite obviously you're not going to be able to do some of the

work that you anticipated doing around the province, and I know that

there are areas of the province that need work. My riding is one of

them, and I'll get to that in due course.

I'd like the minister to explain to me — and I do believe that the

$65 million spent this year on the Annacis Island crossing.... I can't

find any funds in this year's budget for the Annacis Island crossing.

There are other problems, and some of my colleagues will be discussing

some of the other problems associated with that particular crossing, so

I won't get into those problems at the present time anyway. But I would

like to know where the minister intends to find the $65 million. What

part of the budget are you going to take it out of? I've gone through

this budget as carefully as I can, and I cannot, for the life of me,

find any funds allocated for the Annacis Island crossing. If it's in

there, fair enough, but I've gone through this.... You've changed the

books so that you have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to figure this thing

out this year, and you've got these computer printout cards, which are

even more horrendous. Perhaps the minister could explain where that $65

million is coming from.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like the minister to tell me as well if he has any

estimated costs on highways that are directly involved in the northeast

coal infrastructure. I know that last year I had this particular

question on the order paper, and I did receive a reply; the minister

did answer the question. So perhaps the minister could update us on the

projected cost of the roads for the infrastructure on the northeast

coal project. There must be quite a cost attached to that whole thing.

Mr. Minister, I want to change the topic here for a moment, before

we get off highways. I wanted to bring to your attention — and now that

you have your people working with you here.... We're going to discuss

water transportation at some length here later on. We'll probably get

around to that tomorrow morning. It's a very serious problem throughout

the province.

You mentioned in your opening statement the number of access and

subdivision approvals that Highways handles. Part of the reason for

that, I would assume, is that at the present time there is no other

means of handling those subdivision approvals. If your colleague the

Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) has his way then I

would imagine he will have full control of that at some future date,

but I doubt that that bill will ever come forward in this House or be

approved. Nonetheless, the problem is simply this: most of us rural

MLAs anyway — because you're dealing with rural areas, where you have

no municipalities.... I know the process. I know that you check with

Fish and Wildlife and regional districts and all of these things. But

some of us have cases on our desks.... I've got one right now. For

three long years this person has been waiting for an answer.

Incredible! Do you know that in the state of Washington — they're a bit

looser there in some respects, I would guess, about the regulations —

you can usually get a yes or no on whether you can subdivide your

property to build a home, or two homes, or whatever, within three

months?

At some of the offices I've been into I'm told that they don't have

enough personnel to handle the cases. I've written to you about this,

and you replied to me about budgetary constraints and qualified people.

The situation is the same today as it was a year ago. I would ask you

now — and I don't expect an answer, because I don't see how you can

answer it — to somehow within your ministry come up with some type of

procedure where the.... For instance, my riding…. It has to go from

Powell River to Gibsons to Burnaby and back to Gibsons and back to

Burnaby, over here, and often it gets lost somewhere here in Victoria,

when they find it, back to Burnaby. It's a horrendous, crazy process,

and it makes no sense, and some of the bureaucratic things that happen

in the process are totally unbelievable.

I've got a proposed subdivision this person approached me about two

years ago now on Texada Island. The subdivision is right along a

gazetted highway, a couple of five-acre plots, and yet they took an

acre and a half off this one five-acre chunk for possible future access

leading to nowhere — straight into a rock bluff. There was adequate

access right off the gazetted highway fronting the property. It's

absolutely crazy. That decision wasn't made in Burnaby. Somehow

somebody at an office in Victoria looked at a map. This is the kind of

thing that I'm talking about. It's crazy. It makes no sense.

I want to tell you, Mr. Minister, if we ever get the chance on this

side of the House to restructure some of these items within these

ministries, it will be done.

Drainage assistance. It's no big deal, unless you're getting flooded

out; then it's a big deal. Highways will not take responsibility at the

present time. I can understand it. If they started now they would

probably have 50,000 of these. On the lower side of the highway,

they'll put the culvert in to the edge of the highway and the water's

on its own from there. Unfortunately, people were given approval —

before they even required approval years ago — to build homes in areas

where probably homes shouldn't have been built, in low gully areas.

Every year. on the Sunshine Coast particularly, we've got these

flooding problems. Highways takes no responsibility whatsoever once

that water leaves the road. People are flooded out, basements are....

Sometimes your colleague there, the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr.

Rogers), under the emergency fund.... The fund has to be tapped to

assist some of these people in paying off these bills.

There are times where a simple ditch, a backhoe.... They're working

there anyway, and they could do something; they could assist the local

populace. I know Highways isn't obligated to do so; they take

absolutely no responsibility whatsoever on those matters. We have so

many of these incidents. Last year wasn't as bad as the year before. I

must have had 50 the year before in my riding. Just for good public

relations — the machines are there, the people are there, the equipment

is there.

We had two homes flooded last year in Powell River on the side of

Highway 101. For example, if Highways had put a backhoe in there for

four hours and dug a ditch between the two lots to get rid of that

water.... But Highways said no, they weren't responsible. As a

consequence, one basement and one house were flooded out, with a great

deal of damage

[ Page 8444

to the property of the two families involved. This

is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

The Coquihalla. Mr. Minister, perhaps you could bring us up to date

on that. I believe you previously announced that you are abandoning

that project for the present because of budgetary restraints; I can

understand that. Nonetheless, perhaps you could discuss that with us

for a few minutes.

I've not nearly completed my remarks on Highways, but in order to

give my colleague an opportunity to ask some questions of the minister

on another matter, I'll sit down now, if the minister wouldn't mind

letting him speak now. Perhaps you could answer later the questions I

raised today. Thank you very much, Alex.

MR. PASSARELL: I'd like to just pay a few compliments to the

minister's able staff. I see a good friend of mine sitting back there,

who will be able to offer....

AN HON. MEMBER: What's his name?

MR. PASSARELL: They're not legally in the House, but he's

there.

I have a number of constituency questions as well