2016 Legislative Session: Fifth Session, 40th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 35, Number

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)

ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

CONTENTS

Page

Orders of the Day

Committee of the Whole House

Bill 9 — Motor Dealer Amendment Act, 2016 (continued)

M. Farnworth

Hon. M. Morris

Report and

Third Reading of Bills

Bill 9 — Motor Dealer Amendment Act, 2016

Committee of the Whole House

Bill 8 — Mines Amendment Act, 2016

N. Macdonald

Hon. B. Bennett

Report and

Third Reading of Bills

Bill 8 — Mines Amendment Act, 2016

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 2 — Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act

Hon. S. Thomson

G. Heyman

D. Bing

B. Routley

J. Thornthwaite

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Agriculture (continued)

Hon. N. Letnick

L. Popham

V. Huntington

D. Donaldson

G. Holman

Estimates: Ministry of Small Business and Red Tape Reduction

Hon. C. Oakes

D. Eby

S. Chandra Herbert

[ Page 11467 ]

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2016

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. T. Stone: In

Section B, the chamber of the assembly, I call continued committee stage of Bill 9. In

Section A, I call the continued estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 9 — MOTOR DEALER

AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

(continued)

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section

B) on Bill 9; R. Lee in the chair.

The committee met at 1:34 p.m.

The Chair: Bonjour. I call the committee on Bill 9 to order.

section 24 (continued) .

[1335]

M. Farnworth: In

section 24, one of the issues that is contemplated or that this

section addresses is around the issue of reconsideration and the powers of the registrar on reconsideration.

In terms of new evidence, for example…. The minister talked about that shortly before the break. Can the minister explain in further detail, perhaps through some examples, the threshold information that would be needed to qualify as new evidence as is set out in

section 26.12, (

a) and (b)?

Hon. M. Morris: That would be for evidence that was not available at the time and must satisfy the requirements of

section 2(b): “Did not exist at the time of review or did exist at the time but was not discovered and could not through the exercise of reasonable diligence have been discovered.”

M. Farnworth: I appreciate that response from the minister. Again in relation to the further question I’ve asked, can that be reviewed by the Ombudsperson — a decision on the issue of reconsideration?

Hon. M. Morris: The process can be reviewed, but if they don’t like the decision, it has to go to judicial review.

Section 24 approved.

section 25.

M. Farnworth: This

section is perhaps one of the more interesting sections in the legislation, in the fact that it removes mention that the order issued by the registrar to a person under investigation be delivered in writing or by telegram.

I ask that question because I know, and I know he won’t mind me making reference to him…. This obviously anticipates the work being done by email, I would take it, as opposed to telegram or writing. I’ll just get that clarification from the minister.

Hon. M. Morris: Yes. You’re correct.

M. Farnworth: I’ll somewhat tongue in cheek ask: did the minister consult with the Minister of Finance, who recently stated that he doesn’t use email….? If he had, for example, an issue, how would we communicate with him if not by email but by either writing or by telegram? The minister doesn’t have to answer that. I just ask that tongue in cheek.

Just out of curiosity — this is updating legislation, and it gives some idea of how long legislation has been in place — when was the last time that the ministry used a telegram to notify? Is that information readily, handily available, or is it that long ago that we no longer keep records?

Hon. M. Morris: We haven’t had telegraph machines in this precinct for quite some time. Nobody knows for sure.

Sections 25 and 26 approved.

section 27.

M. Farnworth:

Section 27 makes a motor dealer employing an unlicensed salesperson an offence under the act. Given the fact that this is being added, how is this different from the existing legislation? Is this correcting a problem that already exists, or was there another way of dealing with this particular issue without the changes that are being made in this legislation?

[1340]

Hon. M. Morris: This

section places the onus on the dealer to ensure that the salesperson is licensed.

M. Farnworth: Can the minister, then, explain the consequences in terms of if that is violated, if the dealer does employ an unlicensed individual?

Hon. M. Morris: There’s a range of administrative tools. There would be the compliance orders that would

[ Page 11468 ]

be applied first. But, you know, if a dealer repeatedly keeps on reoffending, then there are provisions here to take prosecution action against them.

M. Farnworth: I think it’s about a $100,000 fine that is the maximum and up to six months in jail. That is my understanding of what the absolute maximum is. What the minister is saying, then, is that there is, in essence, a progressive system of enforcement and penalty that will be in the act.

Could the minister explain: to date, prior to these changes, have those penalties had to be used that often? Has it been an issue that has been particularly problematic in terms of the number of times that someone has employed someone who is unlicensed?

Hon. M. Morris: The first part: the maximum penalties under the offence act are $200,000 for a company and $100,000 for an individual.

Getting back to your other question, there is no provision under the existing legislation to issue fines to an unlicensed salesperson.

M. Farnworth: Maybe I’ll phrase the question the other way. How significant has the problem been that has required, then, the introduction of this

section in terms of the potential of the offences? Has it been a particular problem? Like, how many cases a year, for example, or over the last five years, do we have of individuals or dealerships hiring an unlicensed salesperson?

Hon. M. Morris: In a bad year, I’m led to believe there have been 300 of such cases. As we stated yesterday, there is, on average, about 20 to 30 per week.

M. Farnworth: I would say that is a not insignificant problem, and it’s one, then, that this

section should be addressed….

[1345]

This comes back to the…. I guess a question arises out of this, and it would relate to the other sections in terms of revenue being spent on education.

The education programs, then, in place at the time, obviously, I don’t think would have been working quite as effectively as we would have hoped, if that’s the number of cases that we’re getting. The education programs, coupled with the fines and the penalties that we are dealing with in this legislation, the minister feels should be able to address that.

Does the minister feel, in essence, then, that there is enough of a program in place to communicate the changes and the importance of the changes and what these changes actually will mean to someone who is, in fact, engaged in committing these infractions? The reality is that if there’s no real penalty, obviously, people keep doing it because they figure they can get away with it and there’s no consequence.

Clearly, there’s a consequence, then. I would hope that the minister and the ministry would, in fact, step up the education initiatives and the communication in terms of: “Look, there are some real changes here, and you need to know they will impact you if you engage in these practices which you are not supposed to be engaging in.”

Hon. M. Morris: There are a series of bulletins that will go out to all the dealers and salespeople that are involved in that. As well, there will be a special report on all the legislation and the impacts that that legislation is going to have. There are education programs in place right now, and there will continue to be educational programs in place.

Up until now, there have been no consequences. You can tell everybody exactly what they need to do, but there are no consequences. This legislation will change that. In addition to that, all sales people need to take a course now. That course outlines all of the legal requirements and the ramifications for non-compliance.

M. Farnworth: Just to confirm, where we started at the beginning of the debate, as we are coming to the end of the debate…. I can see the minister breathing a sigh of relief on that.

These infractions, then, would be reported, and I guess the consequences that flowed from that would be reported — as we talked about initially, within seven days, quarterly and then annually. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Morris: Yes.

Sections 27 to 29 inclusive approved.

section 30.

M. Farnworth: These changes provide for regulations to be made governing the new class of “license broker-agents, broker-agent representatives, salespersons and wholesalers” and the establishment of an enforceable code of conduct for licensees in the act.

That brings me back to a question I asked once before in another part of the act. Now this will apply to the code of conduct of the act.

[Interruption.]

Was that a ventriloquist?

[1350]

Anyway, the changes in the act, I think, are positive changes. They’re substantive changes, and they have the support of, I think, both sides of the House.

The minister has outlined that one of the problems is that if you are unlicensed, there were no consequences, and consequently, we could have 20 to 30 infractions a

[ Page 11469 ]

week. The previous agreement in place, in 2004, provided for the establishment of a code of conduct.

I’ll ask the minister again. I know he is new in this position. I know it was not up to him as to when or why this has taken place. The reality is, given those issues that are being addressed in this legislation by administrative penalties and actually having teeth in the legislation, why has it taken 12 years — from 2004, when the initial agreement provided the ability to do these kinds of things, until now?

Hon. M. Morris: I’d like to say that they were just waiting for me to come along, but I know that’s not the case.

The code of conduct is just one small part of this whole program. What’s been happening in the interim, since this came in, is there has been licensing of salespeople. There has been continuing education to get everybody up to speed — web-based learning and whatnot. But also, the Vehicle Sales Authority has been administering parts of the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act as part of the entire process here.

M. Farnworth: I think I like the first sentence of the minister’s answer the best. I understand what he’s saying about the rest.

On a final quick couple of questions. It has taken 12 years for us to get here. The code of conduct is going to be established by regulation. How long is it going to take to establish the regulations? Will it be 12 days, 12 weeks, 12 months or 12 years?

Hon. M. Morris: Of course, there is more than the code of conduct involved here. We’ll do things in a logical fashion, step by step. We have advised you that we’re also going to do a lot of consulting, both with the dealers and the consumers, but we will endeavour to get this done within the next 12 to 14 months.

M. Farnworth: I appreciate the minister’s answer. I would agree that step by step is the right approach to take, and consultation is always good, especially if the consultation is acknowledged and listened to. I will accept the minister’s answer of 12 to 14 months. I think that’s fine.

In 12 months, I look forward to asking him the status of where we’re at on the regulations.

With that, I am finished with questions on this section.

Sections 30 and 31 approved.

Title approved.

Hon. M. Morris: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 1:55 p.m.

The House resumed; Madame Speaker in the chair.

Report and

Third Reading of Bills

BILL 9 — MOTOR DEALER

AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

Bill 9, Motor Dealer Amendment Act, 2016, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. T. Stone: I now call continued committee stage of Bill 8 here in the chamber of the assembly,

Section B. While the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture are underway in

Section A, when they are concluded, I call the estimates, after that, for the Ministry of Small Business and Red Tape Reduction and the Minister Responsible for the Liquor Distribution Branch.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 8 — MINES AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section

B) on Bill 8; R. Lee in the chair.

The committee met at 2 p.m.

section 1.

N. Macdonald: Just for context, Bill 8 is the Mines Amendment Act, 2016. The intention of the bill is to amend the Mines Act by allowing for financial penalties for transgressions of permits.

Now, as the Legislature will know, currently compliance and enforcement tools under the act are limited to shutting down a mine through cancellation of a permit, issuance of a stop-work order or pursuing prosecution in the courts. The maximum penalty will be raised with this legislation from the current $100,000 up to $1 million, and from one year as a maximum penalty to up to three years.

With those tools in place, no prosecution under the Mines Act has taken place. This is intended to be a more effective tool for the minister, and it’s a tool that the opposition supports.

[ Page 11470 ]

Now, the other thing that the minister made a point of and that I’ll be referring to in the questions is that this act brings it in line with the Environmental Management Act, the Forest and Range Practices Act — which I will, from my time as the Forestry critic, be calling FRPA, if that’s easily understood by members — and the Oil and Gas Activities Act, all of which include administrative monetary penalties and still leave in place or have in place more severe penalties for court convictions.

This, of course, is introduced because of the Mount Polley tailings storage facility breach. So this is part of the recommendations.

Just moving to the questions under changes —

section 1 in this act — to 36.1 in the Mines Act. It is being amended, and the first question is around subsection 36.1(1) which says the chief inspector — which I presume is the chief mines inspector — may apply an administrative penalty to a person after “giving a person an opportunity to be heard….”

The first question is: what specifically is the “opportunity to be heard”?

Hon. B. Bennett: The first thing that I think I should do is to make clear that this discussion on the changes to the Mines Act relates to compliance and enforcement — in particular, enforcement. The minister, under this legislation…. I’m not aware that the minister has any authority with respect to penalties. We’re going to have a close look at the legislation.

The ordinary course of business is that the statutory decision–makers make decisions about whether a mine is in compliance and whether a penalty is in order or not. It’s not something that ever has come across my desk before it happened. In other words, I’m not asked my opinion as to whether or not a mine should be penalized. I just want to make that clear.

The second thing, just for clarity’s sake…. I think the reference to the chief inspector is a reference, as the member said, to the chief inspector of mines, but it’s also a reference to the position or to the office. There are inspectors, of course, that are delegated by the chief inspector, who have the same powers under this legislation that the chief inspector of mines has.

To answer the specific question, in terms of the opportunity to be heard, the opportunity to be heard could be spelled out with more detail in regulation, but it’s not prescribed.

[1405]

It can take written form. It could take an oral form. It could be a telephone call. It could be an email. It could be a letter. That would constitute an opportunity, first of all, to be notified by the ministry and then, secondly, to be heard.

N. Macdonald: Well, thank you for the clarification on the chief inspector. So it’s not only the chief mines inspector. But as the minister has said, the chief mines inspector has the ability to appoint people, presumably within the ministry, that would operate in the same way.

Just to understand, it’s somewhat confusing to me that there would not be a more specific process. Now, possibly it’s coming in regulations, but we are talking about the possibility of substantial fines. There are rules that we will get to and that are in place, which are pretty specific about timelines for notification and so on. Can the minister not give me a clearer idea of the process that the ministry has in mind here? Can it be a written submission that is needed? Can it simply be a phone call?

We are talking about giving a person an opportunity to be heard. There must be something more specifically that is planned, other than the options that the minister has set out. I would think there has to be consistency in terms of how this is handled. Otherwise, it seems to me that when you are dealing with possible penalties of hundreds of thousands of dollars, you open yourself up to some fairly inevitable problems.

Can the minister be a bit more clear in terms of the discussions that he has had with those that have crafted this bill, in terms of the process that they see for giving a person an opportunity to be heard?

Hon. B. Bennett: It’s an understandable question in the context, particularly, of a large fine. It would be, perhaps, less of a concern if it were a fairly minor infraction and it was the first time and it was a warning of some sort. But in any case, the details that will be prescribed around the opportunity to be heard will be spelled out by regulation.

N. Macdonald: What the minister says makes sense, in the sense that when I go and I look at FRPA, for instance, and I look at the types of administrative penalties that are common, 90 percent of the penalties we’re talking about are less than $500, right? They are not these — in fact I couldn’t find any — really major fines. Most of them are of the nature that the minister described in his answer.

It does make sense, if we’re talking about relatively small fines, that you would have a relatively casual way of doing it. Does the minister anticipate that, in the regulations, there will be a financial limit that will trigger a different sort of response?

What I would anticipate, and I think most people would anticipate…. A $500 fine — well, you know, you can easily manage that. The process perhaps has to be less rigorous than what is anticipated by the legislation, which is the possibility of several hundred thousand. To me, that means a more formalized process.

Is the minister saying that in regulation, we can anticipate a trigger to a more formalized process? If it is more formalized, then what is the opportunity that a person can expect, as a process, to be heard?

Hon. B. Bennett: I think the short answer to the question is yes. The somewhat longer answer is that we would

[ Page 11471 ]

anticipate, through the drafting of regulations, the creation of a prescribed meaning for “opportunity to be heard” that would have different layers, depending on the severity of the penalty — which is, I think, what the member is asking. That is correct. That’s my understanding of what’s going to happen.

We have not drafted the regulations. We’ve promised that we’re going to consult with First Nations and the industry and give the public a chance to be involved in this in terms of the details, so I can’t speak to the range of penalties.

[1410]

I can’t really speak to the specifics, even, around how the opportunity to be heard would be prescribed. I can say that given there is a right of appeal in this legislation — which we’ll get to, I think, this afternoon — and because administrative fairness is the basis upon which companies could challenge the penalty, we will need to be careful and thoughtful about the way we design these regulations so that the process is fair, particularly for the larger penalties.

N. Macdonald: I would have anticipated that this would’ve been thought through. FRPA, in the legislation, has things through…. Having said that, I do take the minister’s answer that there is a period of consultation and that there is the possibility that the ministry needs a degree of flexibility.

I don’t think I’m reading into the minister’s words that it is anticipated that with larger fines, there will be a more formalized process. I don’t think the minister will correct me in saying that one could look for that when the regulations come into force — right? — there’s going to be a more formalized process.

The next question, then, is: is the process open to the public? Not in the sense, necessarily, that they would participate in the phone calls or anything like this, but do we anticipate that this is an officially recorded process that is then going to have the information and the discussion or elements of the discussion available on the public record?

Hon. B. Bennett: Two parts to the question. There is ample opportunity for members of the public or employees to report what they think are infractions today. In fact, it happens, from time to time. In the case of the Banks Island mine, that’s exactly what happened.

It was a member of the…. Well, we don’t know whether it was a member of the public or whether it was somebody who was working there who made an anonymous phone call to the ministry and got through, and that’s actually what instigated the investigation.

I think it’s fair to say that there’s nothing in the legislation that’s going to change the public’s opportunity to do that. That’s as simple as picking up the phone or sending an email.

With respect to the transparency, though, between the public and the chief inspector of mines and penalties that are levied, we are, as a ministry, doing our best. We are the smallest ministry of government, doing our very best to get everything we do up on our website. We’ve made huge progress, in that regard, since the Mount Polley accident.

It is our objective to be transparent, and I believe that we can fulfil the objective to be transparent around penalties, with the obvious limitations of privacy and perhaps legal considerations if a company is in the midst of an appeal or something.

[1415]

N. Macdonald: Just to be clear, we see more and more legislation that has the meat of it in regulation. It does make it difficult to do our job as legislators when we don’t have clear answers on a lot of things.

In the first questions, I asked about process, which I think is really significant. It would be to the people of British Columbia. We’re waiting on regulations there.

Now the minister says there needs to be consultation. Okay, but still, it’s pretty difficult to judge whether we are putting forward legislation that’s going to cause foreseeable problems, I would suggest, in the future, or whether it’s solid legislation.

On this count, I am talking specifically about the process. Here it may be that you again separate the minor and the more serious cases. I am talking not only about reporting out. The minister will know, with FRPA and with other types of legislation that he’s referencing, that there is a yearly report that indicates the fines and who’s paid them.

It’s not completely comprehensive, but I think it’s a fair question to ask the ministry. Is that what we can expect with this? Are there going to be records or information available to the public from these processes? Perhaps, again, as I say, with a threshold — you know, if we’re talking above 10,000 or above 100,000 — that the public can look at and other legislators can look at and get that information and do their job as those that are supposed to be overseeing the ministry and holding the minister to account. Is it anticipated that that is something that will come from this legislation?

Hon. B. Bennett: Two parts to this answer. I would refer the member to

section 36.3, where it makes reference to the notice of contravention or penalty. There’s a little more detail there on the topic that we were discussing a minute ago. It ends with: “The chief inspector may make public the reasons for the decision and the amount of the penalty, if any.”

The ministry will want to make public every detail that we can about an infraction and a penalty. It’s hard to foresee what obstructions there might be around this, but certainly the legislation is clear that we have the authority to do that and will do it wherever possible, and I would assume that in the vast majority of cases, we will

[ Page 11472 ]

do that. It would have to be an exceptional circumstance, I’m sure, where we wouldn’t do that.

The second part of the answer, in relation to whether this legislation changes how the chief inspector of mines reports out on all of the activities of his or her department around compliance and enforcement…. The chief inspector of mines does prepare and file an annual report today. It is our commitment that we are going to revamp how that report is prepared. It will definitely be public, and it will list all of the various infractions and compliance orders, penalties, etc., from the previous year and will be on the ministry website.

N. Macdonald: Just one more question in this vein, and then we can move on.

Does the minister anticipate any of these interactions, no matter how large or small, to have a mechanism for recording what goes on in greater detail than simply putting out the result? If so, does the minister anticipate that the information gathered will be open to the public in a process simpler than freedom of information but simply as a regular, routine business that there will be a report — maybe a

section in the mine inspector’s report that lays out in detail what exactly went on?

I would anticipate that the ministry has to do this anyway so that there is consistency in how they apply rules. A $500 fine should be something that comes from a certain event in the same way that if that same event is done, it should result in a $500 fine or changing with inflation.

[1420]

But there has to be that recording going on. Otherwise, for the chief mine inspector or the next chief mine inspector to be consistent, it just seems to me to be impossible.

If that’s being collected, will it then be available to the broader public so that those of us who have the responsibility to oversee have access to that information and can have informed views on what’s actually going on? That’s the question for the minister.

Hon. B. Bennett: Our plan — part of our response to what happened at Mount Polley — is to publish or publicize all of the orders made by the chief inspector of mines’ office over the course of the year. We’re going to be in a position to be able to do that, I think, fairly soon.

Again, though, I want to be really clear that there could be rare circumstances where a company might be appealing a penalty or may have lawyers involved, in which case it might not be possible, legally, for the ministry to post an order — at least for a while until the legal matters are resolved. But it’s our intention to put up on our website all of the orders that are made by the inspectorate.

I can tell the member that, when you look at those orders — when you look at any order — there’s sufficient detail to determine what the infraction was. Those orders will, in fact, allow the public — if they’re interested — to follow the narrative, essentially, on the compliance and enforcement efforts that are being made on a particular mine site.

N. Macdonald: The minister touched on the next question I have, which is that the same contravention may go also to court, presumably. While we are talking about a tool that the ministry will have — or the chief mine inspector will have — it’s a tool that could be paralleled by a court process.

Can the minister explain the thought that has gone into how that parallel process is going to be managed?

Hon. B. Bennett: I don’t know if the member wants to have a vote on that first section. We’re moving into 36.2, “Administrative penalties.”

While I’m on my feet, I might as well just read what it says in subsection (3): “In imposing a sentence for an offence under this Act, the court may consider an administrative penalty imposed in relation to the same matter.”

Subsection (4): “If a person is convicted of an offence under this Act, an administrative penalty may not be imposed on the person in respect of the same circumstances that gave rise to the conviction.”

N. Macdonald: I should have explained clearer. We will get to that section, and we will ask questions on how that works.

I’m thinking more of the minister’s commitment to open up material and make it available to the broader public. It is possible that you have a process in the administrative system that’s proposed here that, if that information becomes public, it takes away some of the rights that an individual accused in a court case would have.

The minister is a lawyer. I’m not. I’m just asking in terms of the questions I had about making this broadly public and putting everything out there in terms of….

[1425]

Basically, you are going to have the chief mines inspector perhaps saying that they are guilty of something — now on a different scale, a different way of judging it, like a balance of probabilities rather than what a court would have, right?

What has the ministry thought through in terms of: when releasing information, how is that managed if there is a court case going on? I should have been more specific, but that’s what I’m talking about here.

Hon. B. Bennett: I don’t know what

section it is — we’re going to get to it — that deals with the right of appeal to an administrative penalty. But the right of appeal to an administrative penalty, based on this legislation, should it pass, does not include taking the province to court.

You know, it will involve a second administrative process — “it” being the appeals process — but it is not a situation where the ministry and the company would find themselves in court, because that’s actually not permitted under this administrative penalty scheme.

[ Page 11473 ]

N. Macdonald: I don’t know if I’m being obtuse here. What I’m talking about is parallel processes. The contravention takes place. We have here administrative penalties, but the administrative penalties do not preclude the government taking them into a court process.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about the appeals. I am talking about parallel processes. Have I made myself clear? I am talking about: you have an administrative process that may move fairly quickly; that’s the intent of it. The minister, in estimates, expressed difficulty with taking it actually to court, that that’s a long process. So I’m not talking about the appeal. I’m talking about parallel processes that the government has in play.

The administrative process that is proposed here does not preclude the government also running a parallel court process. What I’m asking is: if you run the administrative process and then you put everything into the public realm, do you take away rights or, in some way, undermine the court process that could also be going on from the government — this is the government process — and has that been thought through? How is that going to work in terms of the release of information from the process that’s proposed here?

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m advised that it is consistent with other natural resource legislation to have these two sections in 36.2. “In imposing a sentence for an offence under this Act, the court may consider an administrative penalty imposed in relation to the same matter.” Then the next one: “If a person is convicted of an offence under this Act, an administrative penalty may not be imposed….”

Both of those sections are, apparently, contained within the other natural resource legislation — I think the Environmental Management Act and, probably, the Oil and Gas Activities Act.

[1430]

The way that these sections are written — they’re written across the board the same way. I’m advised that we don’t expect any particular legal difficulty with the way that they’re written.

N. Macdonald: I guess it’s possible that with this legislation it has been tested. From what I can gather, it never has been actually tested, where you’ve had administrative penalties and a court action in the legislation, that I’m aware of. Now, if that’s not correct, the minister could correct me. That’s what I think. But we can move on. The minister can correct me if that’s not right.

I guess the next question is slightly different. It’s a legal term, the minister will be aware, but just to put it on public record, and for me. In the first paragraph, it says that the chief inspector must find…. And they use the term: “on a balance of probabilities.” Can the minister put on the record what that term means legally?

Hon. B. Bennett: I was almost going to get some advice from the Attorney General, but she has walked away.

The balance of probabilities refers to the burden of proof. In a criminal case, the burden of proof is to prove a person’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil matter, typically — well, always — the burden of proof is less than that. And that lesser burden of proof is described in common law and also in the United States as a balance of probability.

It just refers to the burden of proof that, in this particular case, the Crown would have to prove in a case — in a court case or even in the case of levying an administrative penalty. It’s that burden of proof that has to be executed or exercised.

N. Macdonald: Let’s use FRPA for a while because this is what the minister says it’s based upon. Let’s just examine some of the ideas behind the minister’s explanation for balance of probabilities.

In FRPA, there is a list of things that have to be considered. I’ll just read from FRPA. This is directly from FRPA. It says that those administering the administrative penalty must consider “(

a) previous contraventions of a similar nature by the person; (

b) the gravity and magnitude of the contravention; (

c) whether the contravention was repeated or continuous; (

d) whether the contravention was deliberate,” and so on and so on.

I guess the question I have is: as this evolves, is it government’s intention to do something similar but to put it in regulation — I guess for the broader public — the guides, the statutory officer or decision-maker and the courts in the same way as legislation…? But it’s made or amended by cabinet without the Legislature being involved? Is that the government’s intention — to in regulation put more parameters to how one arrives at a decision as to whether a contravention has occurred or not?

[1435]

Hon. B. Bennett: I think if the member skips ahead to sub 38(2), he will see the powers that can be prescribed in regulation. In answer to his question, there is flexibility in this language in sub 38(2) to create regulations that will circumscribe or prescribe what the inspectors have to think about or consider before they levy a penalty.

N. Macdonald: I guess the questions are, because so much of this is in regulation…. Presumably, the ministry is in a place where we are going to get the regulations fairly quickly. And presumably, there is thought that has gone on. So I do know that there is the ability to do something like this.

I guess the question is: is it anticipated that you will have a framework similar to FRPA, similar to what you have in legislation, in regulation? Surely we’re in a place where this is going to come into practice fairly quickly. So that’s the question for the minister. Is it his intention,

[ Page 11474 ]

through regulation, to come up with a framework that is not dissimilar to what you would have in legislation in FRPA?

Hon. B. Bennett: My staff make an important distinction between the Mines Act and FRPA, in that FRPA is not responsible for health and safety. Under the Mines Act, the ministry is responsible for health and safety.

The second part of the answer would be just to repeat the fact that it is our plan to consult, specifically, on what regulations we should have and how they should read — not necessarily how they should be applied but how they should be written.

We expect to do that this summer and probably into next fall — given that the health and safety aspect is there in addition to the mining part of it — and to have these regulations in place not later than the beginning of 2017.

N. Macdonald: Thank you for the explanation and the timeline. It was one of the questions I had.

The minister, if he wouldn’t mind, can explain the added responsibility of health and safety and how that has implications for the regulations that are drafted.

I’d just be interested. I’m just curious as to how that works and what the conflicting pressures are, under the Mines Act, that have to be reconciled with the regulations.

Hon. B. Bennett: I’ll try this. I don’t know of it’ll be a sufficient answer or not. If the member considers the complexity and the comprehensiveness of the WorkSafe B.C. legislation and regulations and then thinks about the fact that those regulations and legislation do not apply to the mining industry, he will get a pretty good idea as to how complex and how comprehensive the health and safety portion of what this ministry does is and also why it’s going to take some time to consult on regulations.

[1440]

It’s one thing to consult on regulations that go to the design and construction of a tailings storage facility and the maintenance over the years and lifts to that facility and dust control on the site and what happens in the mill and what happens in the mining process. All of those kinds of things relate to mining, obviously. But the health and safety component is very, very complex, and it will take that amount of time that I mentioned — from, probably, starting in June through the fall, early fall, and then the regulations would be drafted to be ready for January 2017.

I hope that gives the member some sense of why it does complicate the situation and make it different from FRPA.

N. Macdonald: Okay. That actually was very helpful.

The minister talked about the consultation process. I don’t think it was a comprehensive list, but involved in the consultation will be, presumably, unions that are often representatives at the mines and are often at the forefront of many of these issues. Is that the intent? And what’s the formal process for doing that?

Hon. B. Bennett: The consultations that are taking place today on the code, the mining code, do involve union representatives. In fact, they have for many decades and, I’m sure, will continue to involve union representatives.

The development of regulations will be no different. It would make no sense to not have union representatives consulting with government and with the industry on what the regulations should look like. We’re envisioning a web-based consultation process for these regulations, so actually anybody that is interested can have a go at looking at what’s being proposed and telling the ministry what they think.

In addition to that, though, we would have some targeted consultation exercises that would involve industry and the unions and First Nations.

N. Macdonald: In subsection (2) of this, these first amendments to the Mines Act, it talks about a corporation contravening or failing to comply, but it is the directors, officers and agents who are held responsible. I guess the question is: why is that? And can more than one person be held responsible for a single contravention, or is there some focal point within an organization that is held responsible? I just want to know how that works. I’ll just stop there.

Hon. B. Bennett: This

section is common in not only natural resource legislation but other legislation that includes penalties or compliance and enforcement aspects. The idea here is to hold individuals accountable. If they attempt to hide behind the so-called corporate veil, this is the way that the ministry and/or a court would pierce that corporate veil and say to the subject director or directors, officers or agents of the company: “There was a mistake made. There’s a fine payable. If the company is not able to pay the fine, then you must.” That’s the purpose of it.

N. Macdonald: Just to understand, this is not that they necessarily personally would pay it, right? It would be the corporation. But if the corporation were to go bankrupt or to try to do something else to evade responsibility, the responsibility would still follow responsible people within what was that corporate structure so that you would have — I shouldn’t use the term “fines” — penalties that would still be applied. Do I understand that correctly?

[1445]

Hon. B. Bennett: The answer is yes to the question. The member, I think, fully understands the intention of section (2).

[ Page 11475 ]

Maybe to just provide a little bit more value in my answer, subsection (3) actually works the opposite way around, so if an employee, contractor or agent of the corporation contravenes some

section or contravenes some sort of an order, the corporation is responsible for that.

N. Macdonald: I was going to ask about that too. The minister has answered one part of the question.

The other part that I have is: if there’s a contractor, is it possible for both the contractor and the business that has contracted that company…? Are they both able to be held responsible under the administrative penalties?

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

The Chair: Minister.

Hon. B. Bennett: Hon. Chair, I actually haven’t had the opportunity to apologize to you since we were in the House together and I used profane language. I do apologize for that. You were in the chair. I’m sorry about that.

In subsection (3), an employee would not be held responsible for the actions, even for their own actions. The corporation would be held responsible. A contractor…. It’s a legal answer. It’s one of those “it depends” answers.

It depends on the legal arrangements between the contractor and the corporation as to whether or not the ministry would be able, legally, to find the contractor and collect from the contractor or whether the ministry would be limited to go to the corporation. The same thing is true of an agent. So it really would depend on the circumstances as to whether or not you could hold a contractor or an agent of the corporation legally responsible for an infraction that they might have been involved in.

N. Macdonald: I just want to understand the possibility of multiple penalties for one offence. Are we talking about finding one person within a corporation that’s ultimately responsible? Are we talking about anybody who, like, ordered…? I think the exact language gives a number of different wordings.

Are we talking about anybody involved being held responsible in the administrative penalties, or are talking about there being one focal point that is the representative for the corporation and ultimately would be deemed the most responsible? What is anticipated in terms of holding people responsible? This is under subsection (2), I think, or subsection (3).

Hon. B. Bennett: What these two provisions — actually all three provisions — in 36.1 do is establish the authority for determining liability. In subsection (2), if a corporation contravenes the act and is unable to pay a fine or penalty, then a director, officer or agent could be held accountable. In subsection (3), if an employee, contractor or agent contravenes the act, then the corporation is responsible. It establishes who the Crown can go after in the case of an infraction.

[1450]

As to the member’s more specific question about how many of these different parties could be penalized, it isn’t spelled out, but there is lots of common law that would provide direction. It would obviously have to be reasonable under the circumstances, whatever decision is made in the case of an administrative penalty by the chief inspector of mines.

When I say “reasonable….” First of all, they determine if there’s been an infraction, on the balance of probabilities. They then look to the corporation to pay the penalty. If the corporation is unable to pay the penalty, then they look at directors, officers or agents.

I’m not going to say that it would never happen, but it would be unusual for various parties to all be subject to a penalty, particularly if the corporation was able to pay the penalty. But under unusual circumstances, where a corporation is trying to evade accountability, it is possible that you could have multiple parties involved and the Crown actually trying to collect from multiple parties. It’s unlikely but possible.

N. Macdonald: It probably again is rooted in common law, in terms of what the term means, but in subsection (2) it states that a person contravenes by acquiescing to contravention, which is similar to wording in FRPA and other legislation.

I guess the question is: what is the legal meaning of “acquiescing”? Is it being aware and doing nothing, or doing something, or allowing it to happen? Is it that they should have been aware; is that acquiescing? Is it not refusing to follow directions from a superior — that is, in some way, a person should have said no? What does it mean specifically?

Hon. B. Bennett: Just to keep things rolling, I’ll just say back to the member that we’re checking to see whether the word “acquiesced” is used in the other natural resource legislation. If it is, we may be able to provide the member with a bit more understanding of how the word is used.

But in a general way, as long as it’s used someplace else in legislation, I’m sure it has been interpreted many times by the courts. That’s where a person would have to go to determine what it actually means: it’s what the courts have said it means in other cases. As soon as I get the answer on whether the word is used in the other legislation, I’ll let the member know.

N. Macdonald: We were going to support this section, so it’s not a matter of having to stop this section. The minister can just tell me when he gets the information. So we can move along and move to 36.2, the second

section of this bill, if you want to have the vote now, and then we can move to the next set of questions.

[ Page 11476 ]

The Chair: Shall

section 1 pass?

So ordered.

section 2, Member.

N. Macdonald:

Section 2 deals with changes to the Mines Act — 36.2 — and it addresses administrative penalties. Subsection (1) gives the chief inspector the right to “impose an administrative penalty.”

I guess the question is: how is the amount determined? What are the ranges of penalties? I suspect that this is part of the consultation process, but I’ll still ask the minister to put it on record, to answer those two questions.

Hon. B. Bennett: The member is correct in assuming that the details of penalties will be fleshed out in regulation.

What I can say in terms of guidance that I am providing to those who will actually create the regulations is that we have to have penalties that are small enough to allow inspectors to use them for what might be classified as minor infractions, because sometimes minor infractions can lead to bigger problems. If the fines are too high, it’s possible that inspectors might be less inclined to levy them. So I think that we should have some smaller amounts for those situations.

[1455]

On the other hand, I think that we definitely need to have penalties that are large enough to get a company’s attention if there are serious contraventions of the legislation. We’ve looked at the oil and gas legislation, the forestry legislation and the environmental legislation to get a sense of the range of penalties that exist in those acts. Through our knowledge of what other ministries have done with their legislation and through the consultations, we’ll determine that full range of penalties, all the way from a relatively small penalty up to a much, much larger penalty.

The Chair: Member, just for clarification, are we discussing

section 36.2 or doing

section 2 on page 3?

N. Macdonald: It’s

section 2 on page 3, and the change to the Mines Act is 36.2. That’s the

section that’s been amended.

The Chair: Continue. Thank you.

N. Macdonald: The minister raises a challenge. Is it anticipated, then, that one of the considerations for the imposition of the mine will be the impact it has on the particular business? That means, if it is a small business, a $10,000 fine can change behaviour. If it is an international world-class-sized corporation, a $10,000 fine would not change behaviour. Is the ministry anticipating that one of the considerations for the imposition of an administrative fine would be the impact it would have on the business — therefore, the size of the business — and the fine being big enough to actually change behaviour?

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m not quite sure where we’re at.

Section 2 actually deals with sub 37(3) of the Mines Act. That gets into the prosecuted offences, and I don’t think the member is there yet. So maybe we could just make sure we know where we’re at.

N. Macdonald: I apologize, I’m still on

section 1.

The Chair: Okay, so we are back on

section 1.

Member, is this subsection 36.2 now?

N. Macdonald: It is 36.2. My apologies.

Hon. B. Bennett: I think that the question is: what sort of flexibility would the chief inspector of mines have in determining the amount of penalty? I think I heard the member ask whether the size of the company would have a bearing on the size of the penalty.

I’m talking about something that hasn’t been created yet. I want to be really clear that the regulations have not been created yet. But in terms of principles, the principles that will be applied in the creation of these regulations will be based upon the threat to the environment or to human health and safety. If the threat to the natural environment or to human health and safety is significant, the fine will be higher. I don’t believe that the size of the company is nearly as important as the degree of risk to the natural environment or to human health and safety.

N. Macdonald: My apologies for the confusion over the sections.

As I say, we’re supporting this, but I still have a question. All of the acts, the legislation that the minister has cited — the Land Act, FRPA, the Wildfire Act, the Oil and Gas Activities Act, the Environmental Assessment Act — that have administrative penalties…. Each year there is a report the government puts out, and the library, of course, found it easily. I thank them for providing it for me.

Now, what they had there was a lot of information about the nature of the acts. I could look up and see that the ministries in 2013-14 had 85 administrative penalties. It totalled $48,000, with almost 90 percent under $500. The report really breaks it down. It tells what acts were the most common. For instance, the Lands Act was the most common.

[1500]

I guess the question I have for the minister: is it anticipated that the Mines Act would have a similar reporting-out process? Would it participate in the same process that these other acts use so that the public could get a clear understanding of what is going on with these administrative penalties?

Hon. B. Bennett: The answer is yes to that question.

[ Page 11477 ]

Following up on the member’s question about the word “acquiescence,” the word is contained in FRPA and also in the Environmental Management Act. I wouldn’t, I don’t think, attempt to describe the meaning of it for purposes of any of this legislation. I would refer the member to the case law in which it’s been interpreted to know exactly how a court might interpret the meaning.

N. Macdonald: Just coming back to something we’ve talked about before. Even with the administrative penalties in subsection (2) of 36.2, a person could still face charges in court. Can the administrative penalty still be applied before court proceedings? Is it completely separate, or will one wait until the other process takes place?

Hon. B. Bennett: If I understand the question, it is: can an administrative penalty be levied prior to a court prosecution or, perhaps, prior to the conclusion of a court proceeding? In either case, the answer is, yes, an administrative penalty can be levied before court prosecution has started or before a court prosecution is concluded.

N. Macdonald: In subsection (3), it says that the court may consider administrative penalties. Does that mean that the court does not necessarily need to consider them, and why is that flexibility given? I have no opinion as to whether the flexibility is a good thing or a bad thing, but I am curious as to why that flexibility is given.

Hon. B. Bennett: This subsection (3) in 36.2 is the Legislature’s attempt to guide the court in a case where there is a legal prosecution for an offence under the act. It simply allows the court to consider whether an administrative penalty that’s been imposed should be taken into account for the court-imposed penalty or in regards to the court-imposed penalty, or not. It essentially leaves that question up to the court and makes it clear that the court has the authority to consider that.

N. Macdonald: And 36.3 is about notice of contravention or penalty. Just to be clear, the chief mine inspector must give notice if they find a contravention and, separately, another notice if they impose a penalty. After notice of contravention, the person has a right to be heard. Or does that take place before this notice?

I just want to understand. Does there have to be a formal notice and then the person has a chance to be heard? Or does that happen beforehand?

Hon. B. Bennett: Before I answer the question, hon. Chair, could we vote on 36.2?

The Chair: Have we moved from 36.2?

N. Macdonald: We voted on

section 1, which includes all of these, so we’re actually a bit cockeyed here.

The Chair: Minister, subsection 36.2 is part of

section 1, so we’ll deal with the whole

section entirely before we vote on it.

[1505]

Hon. B. Bennett: Do I really have to answer questions if we voted on this already? Just some humour, hon. Chair.

The Chair: Yeah,

section 1 has several subsections to it, so we are dealing with one subsection at a time. Once we complete all subsections together, then we will vote on the complete

section 1.

Hon. B. Bennett: This provision sets out how the chief inspector of mines and his or her delegates provide notice to a mining company that they have contravened some portion of the act, and that an administrative penalty is being applied. The opportunity to be heard has already happened by the time the notice would be given and the ministry has made the decision to levy a penalty.

N. Macdonald: The minister did talk about this somewhat before and said that it’s yet to be decided. Is it anticipated that a notice given is going to be a registered letter or some formal equivalent? Given that we have timelines, there has to be a record of when it was given. There’s got to be some mechanism for doing that. Is that the intent?

I guess a further question: Is that notice then within the public realm?

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m not quite sure whether I’m answering the question or not, but once the offending party has had the opportunity to be heard and the chief inspector of mines decides, on a balance of probabilities, that there’s been a contravention of the act and has decided that a penalty will be applied, then notice is given to the offending party. It spells out in some detail in 36.3 what that looks like.

Given that it’s a penalty to the mining company, it certainly would be a formal notice. It would absolutely be in writing. The details of notice could be fleshed out further in regulation if the lawyers who advise us on these things said that we should do that, but it would be a notice in writing, and it would obviously be quite formal.

N. Macdonald: In subsection (

b) it says: “may make public the reasons for the decision and the amount of the penalty.” You have “may” there, very specifically. Could the minister give me a list of scenarios where not making either the decision or the amount of the penalty public would be in the public’s interest? Why would you not do it? Why is there the term “may” very specifically in the language there?

Hon. B. Bennett: I can provide the member with the example that comes to mind. That is the situation, which

[ Page 11478 ]

we have discussed already, where there is a legal prosecution against the company. It may be that it is not legally possible for the Crown to disclose, at least for the time being, the reasons for a decision or the amount of the penalty until the court prosecution is over.

There may be other situations where it would not be possible either, but the intention, clearly, is to make public the reasons for a decision and the amount of the penalty wherever possible.

N. Macdonald: In 36.4 — that’s the

section about the due date of the penalty. This amended

section of the Mines Act says that the penalty must be paid in 40 days. I just wonder. Is this a standard period of time? Does it correspond to other acts? How does one arrive at the 40 days as the length of time chosen?

[1510]

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m advised that this is an improvement over existing natural resource legislation in that the time for appeal is 30 days. Therefore, we won’t land in a situation in this ministry where the time to pay is 30 days and the time for appeal is 30 days and you have a company not paying and filing an appeal and having to be involved in expensive court proceedings.

By setting the time for payment at 40 days, that gives the company the opportunity to file an appeal within the 30 days, which keeps the two different dates separate and the process a little simpler.

N. Macdonald: Okay. Just 36.5, which is the enforcement of administrative penalties. In 36.5, subsection (1), it describes an administrative penalty as “a debt payable.” Again, it’s a legal term. What does that mean in layman’s terms?

Hon. B. Bennett: It’s important to use the words “debt payable” so that all of the remedies available to a creditor would be available to the Crown, should a company or individual fail to pay the debt payable.

N. Macdonald: In FRPA, still on 36.5, there’s a special fund to take administrative penalties. If there is an administrative penalty and money is collected, it goes into, I think, an environmental mitigation fund.

So I guess the question is: is it anticipated that administrative penalties under the Mines Act are going to go into a special fund for a particular purpose? Or will they go into general revenue, or will they come back into the budget of the ministry?

Hon. B. Bennett: The money collected from penalties under this legislation would go into general revenue, not into a special fund. It’s not intended to be a revenue generator. It’s intended to help the ministry with the compliance and enforcement effort.

The mere existence of the authority for administrative penalties and the regulations setting out what those penalties look like…. We are hoping — and, certainly, with experience in other ministries and other provinces — that the operators will, where necessary, change behaviour and we actually won’t need to fine them.

N. Macdonald: In 36.6, it talks about the limitation period in terms of how long the chief mine inspector has to deal with the situation, and it puts the term of three years. Is that consistent with FRPA and other similar legislation? And if not, why the difference?

Hon. B. Bennett: The limitation period in this piece of legislation is consistent with the Environmental Management Act, the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Oil and Gas Activities Act.

N. Macdonald: In 36.7, it deals with the right of appeal. Subsection (2) says that a person given notice may appeal to a tribunal.

[1515]

So they’ve gone through a process that has found them with an administrative penalty given to them, and they can go to a tribunal. The question is: what is the makeup of the tribunal? Here I’m looking for: is this a group of professionals? Are there rules about this group of professionals having no professional relationship with the company or with things? Is it independent of government? Is it appointed by the minister? If the minister can just sketch out the thinking on the tribunal.

Hon. B. Bennett: Always wanting to save the taxpayer money, we will utilize one of the existing boards or tribunals. We have had conversations with the Oil and Gas Appeal Tribunal and also the Environmental Appeal Board. We have not made the final decision on which agency we would rely on in this legislation, but we will obviously be doing that in the next six months.

It’s a question that we’ll work at by talking some more with these two boards and tribunals but also doing the consultation with everyone who’s interested in this, to determine what would be the best agency to send appeals to.

N. Macdonald: Not being completely familiar with the two tribunals that the minister is thinking of, the expertise they would have is…. Do they have some legal training so that they have expertise in dealing with legal arguments? What is the type of expertise that the minister is looking for? Do they need to have specific mining expertise to properly judge what would be put in front of them? That’s the question for the minister.

Hon. B. Bennett: I’m advised, or I should say reminded, that the people who sit on the Oil and Gas Appeal Board

[ Page 11479 ]

are the same people who sit on the Environmental Appeal Board. I’m also advised that they consist of a broad range of expertise and experience. There are lawyers, accountants, engineers. I would assume people with environmental expertise would sit on the board.

How it works is that the chair of the board or the tribunal appoints those members that are going to hear an appeal. We will ensure that the expertise required to sort through these issues is there, with respect to non-compliances in the mining industry. We do have the opportunity to add people to the tribunal or board if we find that there is some specific expertise that’s still required to make sure that they can work through these appeals in a rational, informed way.

N. Macdonald: Finally, with subsection (4)(

a) and the same question with subsection (4)(b). It says that upon appeal, the tribunal may confirm, vary or rescind the decision. I guess the question is: is the practice, with other legislation and with this legislation, that that decision is then made public? If it is public, in what form? Where is it posted?

Hon. B. Bennett: Subsection (4) states: “On an appeal under subsection (2), the appeal tribunal (

a) may confirm, vary or rescind the decision that is the subject of the notice.” In other words, it “may” confirm, vary or rescind the penalty that’s been levied by the chief inspector of mines. If it said “must,” there wouldn’t be any point of having the appeal. You’d just have to go to the appeal board and apply, and your penalty would be overturned — unless I’ve misunderstood the question.

[1520]

N. Macdonald: I guess I wasn’t clear. What I mean is: you’ve gone through this process, and the tribunal has looked at the penalty and decided to, let’s say, rescind it. Is that, then, in the public realm immediately? If it is in the public realm, that decision, then is it posted somewhere? That’s the question.

I understand they have the ability, of course, to do these things. But if the public is trying to follow or the legislator is trying to follow, how would we follow the process to its conclusion?

Hon. B. Bennett: Well, the use of the word “may” in this subsection 4(

a) relates to the decision. It doesn’t actually relate to any notice, but I can tell the member that the Environmental Appeal Board, for example, posts their decisions.

I’m sorry that I don’t know how promptly. They do post their decisions — I’m assuming that it’s fairly promptly — on their website, so the decisions in relation to appeals under this legislation would also be posted there.

Section 1 approved.

section 2.

N. Macdonald: Just a quick question here. We have, changing from $100,000, up to $1 million as the outer limits here. Then we also have “one year” to “3 years.” The presumption is that the administrative penalties would go up to $1 million, but I’m not clear on that.

Of course, the jail sentence would be within the court system. Can the minister lay out the range of penalties? What is part of the administrative penalties process, and what, of course, would be part of a more rigorous court process?

Hon. B. Bennett: The reason that this is a different section…. This is

section 2 — versus

section 1, which we’ve been spending our time on up to this point. It’s that this is a completely different enforcement process. This is the process relating to court prosecutions. We just finished discussing the administrative penalties section.

There is no connection, actually, between the size of penalty here in the court prosecution

section and the administrative penalties section. I hope I understood the question properly.

N. Macdonald: That is helpful. I knew, of course, that the jail time wouldn’t be. I was unclear as to, with the administrative penalties, the range of penalties that were being considered. I thought that it was possible that we were talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I guess that the next question for the minister…. While it’s slightly outside of the realm of this question…. I clearly understand that this is all in the courts. But with administrative penalties, are we clear, or is it anywhere stated, what the range of penalties is that we’re talking about? Or is that something that, within FRPA, is actually laid out?

As I say, it wasn’t clear to me whether the $100,000, up to $1 million, was actually administrative penalties. Although now, as the minister has pointed out, it’s clearly in the courts. I understand that. Beyond the range of this specific section, can the minister give me a sense of the administrative penalties, which we’ve spent so much time on? What is the range of penalties that are actually anticipated? What sort of money are we talking about here?

Hon. B. Bennett: I gave a couple of fairly fulsome answers on this question while we were working through the sections on administrative penalties. I’ll try to be as succinct as I can be.

The range of administrative penalties is not established yet. They will be established by legislation. I’m hoping — well, not hoping…. I can assure the House that there’ll be a wide range of penalties in terms of smaller penalties that can be used, hopefully, not frequently but used where necessary if there’s minor non-compliance, all the way up to very costly administrative penalties. Again,

[ Page 11480 ]

there is no chart. There is no list at this point in time. We haven’t yet done the consultation.

Section 2 approved.

section 3.

N. Macdonald: I think that the minister has been fairly clear on the timeline. I mean,

section 3 changes

section 38. It basically gives cabinet the ability to make regulations.

[1525]

The minister has talked about a timeline, given the complexity of what’s trying to be accomplished, of next fall, right? The fall of 2017? That’s a reasonable timeline? Is that what the minister has said, or am I misspeaking — that the regulations should be finished by that period?

Hon. B. Bennett: To be clear, what I said was that the regulations will be complete and in effect by January of 2017. My reference to the fall was…. There’ll be a point, and I can’t say exactly when it will be, but we’ll transition from the consultation process into a drafting process. That will take place at some point this fall.

Sections 3 and 4 approved.

Title approved.

Hon. B. Bennett: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 3:26 p.m.

The House resumed; Madame Speaker in the chair.

Report and

Third Reading of Bills

BILL 8 — MINES AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

Bill 8, Mines Amendment Act, 2016, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. T. Lake: I now call second reading of Bill 2, intituled Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 2 — GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST

(FOREST MANAGEMENT) ACT

Hon. S. Thomson: I move that the Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act be read a second time.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

This is a very proud moment for all involved who have worked so hard to see this legislation brought forward into the House. I really look forward to providing comments in second reading here and then dealing with the specifics of the legislation during the committee stage.

This act takes forest management in the globally significant Great Bear Rainforest to a higher level and cements British Columbia’s role as a global leader in sustainable forest management. It enables the implementation of ecosystem-based management in the Great Bear Rainforest, an area that covers 6.4 million hectares along British Columbia’s north and central coast — an area the size of Ireland.

The region is traditional territory for 26 First Nations and contains one-quarter of the world’s coastal temperate rainforest. Last month, the Premier and I were honoured to be joined by representatives from First Nations, from environmental organizations, from forest companies and from interested parties to celebrate the land use order and agreements that protect much of the region while allowing opportunities for economic development.

The Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act allows our government to make the vision that everybody had, in working through the process, a reality and completes the many, many years of moving from conflict to collaboration. The act supports implementation of strict ecosystem-based management rules in the Great Bear Rainforest that go beyond existing forest management requirements.

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It gives the legal authority to make sure we can apply both the new rules and the existing rules under the Forest Act. This is a unique model of forest management, one that supports both ecological integrity and human well-being.

The act also supports another unique element of the Great Bear Rainforest agreements: a negotiated maximum allowable annual cut of 2.5 million cubic metres for the next ten years. This acts as a cap for the rate of timber harvesting from the current timber supply areas and tree farm licences across the entire area. After ten years, the annual allowable cut in the Great Bear Rainforest will once again be determined by the chief forester under

section 8 of the Forest Act, as is the case in other management units.

Bill 2 enables the establishment of new timber supply areas, reconfiguring existing ones, and it allows partitions of the annual allowable cuts to be established. It also provides for the designation of eight new special forest management areas that prohibit commercial timber-harvesting activities while allowing mining, hydroelectric development and tourism. Those areas cover over 295,000 hectares.

The Great Bear Rainforest is a global ecological treasure. When we announced the collaborative agreements on February 1, there were headlines around the world.

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I’m really proud of what all the partners have been able to accomplish, and I want to acknowledge the leadership in achieving this historical agreement: the leadership of environmental organizations through the Rainforest Solutions Project, with Greenpeace, ForestEthics and the Sierra Club of B.C.; and the industry, led by the Coast Forest Conservation Initiative, with the companies Interfor, Catalyst, Western Forest Products, Howe Sound Pulp and Paper and B.C. Timber Sales.

I had the opportunity to attend the follow-up gathering. Or probably “gathering” is understating it. It’s probably more aptly described as the celebration event or the celebration party.

I had the chance to hear so many of the stories of the history that led us to where we are today. Stories like meetings in neutral locations, out of sight and out of mind, meetings of people who weren’t supposed to be meeting and didn’t want to see, as they were working through this process, that they were there developing relationships that went from what some people told me was visceral dislike of their respective positions to one where it moved from that to agreement to work together, to build their relationships, to build the understanding, to develop the science that ultimately led to the joint solutions project and the initiatives that got us to where we are today.

I’ve heard so many stories and anecdotes about the process, starting with where the name was developed on the back of a napkin, I think, in a restaurant in California where the name was developed, to meetings, to processes, to great, great work.

I stand here today, thinking very much about the significance of what we have achieved here, and I was really proud to be able to have shepherded the process from those initial agreements, from the agreement that was reached in 2006 and in 2009 as we moved through the process, to bring it to the point today where we have the legislation here in the House in front of us to provide the legal framework for all of that work that was done by so many people over such a long, long time.

I heard stories and things about the number of years…. Some people talk about the decade that it took. Others reflect all the way back to the original start — probably over 20 years of work to bring us to this day. It’s something that we can all be proud of.

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I had the opportunity to travel into the Coastal First Nations communities, up into the Heiltsuk community to join them in a celebration with the community. I could see firsthand in that First Nations community the opportunity and the sense of excitement that they see in the future because of the human well-being component of this agreement that is providing those opportunities for all of those First Nations throughout the coast.

We need to acknowledge and recognize the leadership of the First Nations in achieving the work that we have here today — the N a nwa k olas Council, the Coastal First Nations, the umbrella organizations that brought all of those First Nations together to achieve the components of the agreement.

This is something that will leave a legacy for our children, for our grandchildren and for our province, for our country and for the world. Eighty-five percent of the area’s forests are protected; 15 percent, or 550,000 hectares, are available to support forest activity. We’re able to offer stability, economic opportunity, certainty for local communities, local First Nations, local forest companies — along with their employees, investors and customers.

This legislation really is the culmination of working together for a common purpose, a process that took it from conflict through to collaboration, through collective work to agreement. As we have said in so many opportunities as we’ve been through the process, this really is — and what’s captured in this legislation is — a unique solution for a unique, important region of the province, a unique, important region in Canada and a unique, important region in the world.

This legislation, as I said, provides that framework to complete the agreement. When we met with all the groups, we recognized that there is significant work to continue, to implement the agreement, but with the model that we’ve developed here — the collaboration, the relationships that we have developed — I am confident that we will move forward in implementation, following the completion of the legislation, in that continued approach of collaboration and trust that has been built by all the parties.

This really is something that we can celebrate, something that we can be very, very proud of as a province, as a government, to have completed.

I know, when I look back, there were other leaders in the process who did a lot of heavy lifting and a lot of work. I had the honour to be able to come into the process and assume the responsibility of the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations at a time when this was moving forward, and I want to acknowledge all of that previous work. I’m really proud to be able to stand, to have brought this legislation in.

I look forward to the comments from all who are going to speak to the legislation, and I will certainly look forward to the committee stage. It’s a technical bill that implements significant agreements, so I expect there will be comments and questions as we go through that process.

As I said, this is really something that leaves a legacy in this province for our children, for our grandchildren, and something that is to be celebrated, acknowledged, recognized. I know that all of the parties that worked so hard to do this are excited for the opportunities that this will bring to the region, to the coast, to the First Nations communities.

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The certainty moving forward, the protection of these unique ecological, cultural and social values in the region,

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is something that we can all look forward to and all celebrate. I know everybody is ready and willing to get down to work to implement the agreement with the framework of the legislation.

With that, I’ll look forward to comments and continued debate on this bill. I’m very, very pleased to be starting the process of second reading of this very, very important, historic legislation and historic agreement that this legislation provides the framework for.

G. Heyman: As the minister has said, it’s an honour and a source of pride to speak to a bill not simply because of the content of the bill but what the bill itself represents, which will be, I suspect as it was for the minister, the subject of the debate for so many of us. I should add that I am the designated speaker on this bill.

It’s not often that we can rise in this House and reflect in discussion on legislation something that is the process of so many years of hard work, so many changes in perspective, such demonstration of people finding ways to move from…. The phrase the minister used was “conflict to collaboration.” That’s a phrase that many people have used to describe the lengthy — over two decades — negotiation process that went into the forming of the Great Bear Rainforest agreement and, ultimately, this legislation.

It not only is significant because of the values that are being preserved in the Great Bear Rainforest…. The ecological values. The ecosystem integrity. The species. The ways of life. The importance of old-growth forest both for its own intrinsic values and its support as a home for so many species. The importance to the integrity of those species and their ability to maintain life. Also, for the significant role as a huge carbon sink that’s formed by these centuries-old trees in such a massive area.

All of these values, I think, represent, in some ways, the dichotomy that many British Columbians have grown up with, that many of us have experienced in our lives as British Columbians, where we grow up surrounded by natural beauty and splendor.

We are aware of our surroundings and the rare beauty of those surroundings because that’s part of the lore with which we grow up. We talk about British Columbia as a place of great beauty, as super, natural B.C. We profess and try to live our environmental values, our desire to be in and part of nature, our pride at showing off to the world what we have. But we also have been for virtually our entire existence, since colonization, a society based on resource extraction that has been overlaid over centuries and centuries of First Nations life and values on the land.

Many of us have lived the duality of both appreciating nature and making our living in resource extraction. Many of us have considered ourselves miners and environmentalists. It may seem like a contradiction. Many of us have been loggers and environmentalists. I’ve talked to many a logger who talks of their awe and wonder at being in the forest, while at the same time making their living from cutting down part of it.

I’m leaving aside for a moment the whole issue of First Nations rights, title, the history of caring for the land and the environment that they have always lived and from which there is much for us to learn. I’ll set that aside for a moment, as important as it is.

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I will speak to it, but of course I cannot bring to that discussion the same authenticity that people born with First Nations heritage can bring. I can just bring my perspective and my appreciation.

For many years, we experienced what seemed like an irreconcilable dichotomy. People saw it as their responsibility, their duty and their passion to speak up for and to defend environmental values, to defend special places. Much of conservation history and environmental history is place-based. It’s about a particular valley. It’s about a particular watershed. It’s about trying to preserve a piece of the wonder of the planet from being added to the list of many other places of wonder on the planet that have been despoiled.

On the other side, we often had people who said it wasn’t that they weren’t appreciative of that. It was that they were part of communities that needed to sustain themselves, communities that needed to know that there was a way to make a living — ideally in harmony with nature, but as we all know, very often, as our values have changed, we’ve seen that harmony with nature was not always possible.

It’s always been a learning process. Part of that learning process has been brought about by people who took fierce and passionate positions and protested, blocked roads and engaged in campaigns to protect a particular swath of forest, a particular value in the forest. In many ways, it came to a head in the area that came to be known as the Great Bear Rainforest.

Over 20 years ago, a group of environmentalists felt it their duty to bring to public attention that the area now called the Great Bear Rainforest represented 6.4 million hectares, or one-quarter, of the world’s coastal temperate rainforest. Think about that: one-quarter of the world’s coastal temperate rainforest in one area of what we now know as British Columbia — home to First Nations for centuries, an area that had seen logging but where there were still large tracts of unlogged old growth that were still intact.

What environmentalists saw was an opportunity to try to protect that, for a whole range of reasons — partly because it represented one-quarter of the world’s coastal temperate rainforest; partly because of the majesty of the trees that were being considered for logging; partly because of the growing awareness of the interrelationship of species and ecosystems; partly because of the growing and increasing awareness, which has only escalated, of the importance of trees in sequestering carbon and protecting our planet from runaway climate change.

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If we flash forward to today, to this bill…. The bill is significant, but what is even more significant is the over two decades of talks, of conflict, of negotiation, of campaigns, of accommodation, of mediation, of learning, of listening, of not listening — of taking a step forward and a step back, taking another two steps forward and another two steps back. Later in my remarks, I will quote extensively from some comments by people who lived this process for the better part of two decades and who took great lessons from it.

The significance of this bill is the significance of the agreement itself. It’s the significance of people who were, as the minister said, entrenched in their opposition to each other — in some ways, they saw themselves as irreconcilably opposed in values, as almost contemptuous of each other, filled with raw emotion, much of which was anger — and learning that in order to achieve their goals, the time had come to talk. In order to talk and to find solutions, one has to listen.

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It was a long process, obviously, and not an easy one. But out of that process came not only the protection of 85 percent of this 6.4 million hectares from logging. It also includes an entire new system of forest management and logging, to which the minister alluded — ecosystem-based management, rules that move beyond the current legislation and regulations that we’ve seen in place through evolution of forest practices over many, many decades.

It also assigned an initial annual allowable cut of 2.5 million cubic metres per year for ten years for the entire area. For the forest companies, this was significant. This is certainty that there is an area, within a context of ecological values, to which they do have access in a different form of logging.

It’s not unrestricted. It’s built around specific protected areas. It allows partitioning. It allows focusing on protection of unique pathways that species may need to travel. It recognizes many, many values that have to be taken into account when trees are designated or areas are designated for harvesting.

That is, in fact, what the negotiations were about. They were based on science. They were also based on human well-being, which means the well-being of First Nations in the area; economic opportunities for First Nations; respect for their history, their rights and title; as well as an understanding that in a modern world, they had to have ways to support their communities with economic activity — not economic activity superimposed upon them but economic activity to which they agreed, to which they said: “This suits our culture. This suits the future we envision for our people. This suits the values and the rights that we believe we hold and which we want to carry forward into the future.”

And for others — for the companies who have investments, for workers who are employed by those companies — it was an understanding that there was something to be gained by ending conflict through negotiation and collaboration. That was not only the certainty that there would be an industry but an added certainty — what was often called during negotiations “the value proposition.”

Not only was there an end to market campaigns against their products as being unsustainable or not environmentally friendly; there was actually a premium for their product once it could be demonstrated that the product was the result of a process that was protecting an area of such global significance, that was setting a model of environmental and economic sustainability in this small area of the world, notwithstanding its global significance as one-quarter of the world’s coastal temperate rainforest. It formed a model.

The companies will find that instead of buyers turning away from their product because of market campaigns or their own values or the values of their customers, saying, “We don’t want products that are based on extermination and liquidation of old-growth forests and important areas of ecological significance,” they will now find that these products have an enhanced market because people understand that the companies are operating with a high degree of ecological integrity, a high degree of respect for First Nations and a high regard for the important environmental values that they have, through discussion and through looking at the science, agreed are worth protecting.

I also want to take a few minutes to talk about the Great Bear Rainforest negotiations as a model. This is not the only area in British Columbia or around the globe where there is conflict over resource extraction and ecological values, whether it’s protecting water or fish, preventing the liquidation and extermination of species, looking at cumulative impacts of human activity in a range of regions, looking at the impacts on climate change of any particular economic activity — whether it be the product itself, the emissions involved in harvesting or the opportunities that exist, in this case in old-growth forest, for sequestering carbon.

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A lot of people took a chance. They moved beyond their comfort zone. They moved beyond what they were used to doing and what they were comfortable doing. They moved beyond in a way that said: “If we want to achieve our goals, we understand that we can’t simply rely on ultimately being the victor and the other parties ultimately being the vanquished. We need to find a way to move forward together. We need to find a way to reconcile our values, our beliefs, the science upon which we rely, our economic interests and our ecological interests, and that will not be easy.”

Again, as I said, I will, at some point in my remarks, take some time to talk about and read some of the comments that have been recorded by people who took

part in this process.

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Let me take a moment, because this is a significant bill. It’s the culmination of and government’s recognition of the contributions of First Nations, of environmental groups, of forest companies who decided to chart a new path. They weren’t sure they’d be successful, but they decided to chart a new path to see if they could reach an agreement, as opposed to entrench a conflict.

Many, many people were part of this process. I will apologize in advance for not naming some of them, but I think it’s important to read into the record of Hansard the names of some of the people who perhaps played — I won’t say more significant roles; many people participated for a very short period of time but played a significant role — a significant role over a lengthy period of time.

I will say, as the minister knows, that before coming to this place, I spent four years as executive director of one of the organizations that was a part of the environmental coalition that took

part in the negotiations. I worked with a number of these people on every side of the issue. I met a number of them. I learned firsthand, by sitting down with them at the table, how difficult it was to reach agreement on certain points and push past barriers and how successful they were, ultimately, at finding a way forward, even when it looked like there was a stalemate.

Let me start by talking about some of the First Nations people who played significant roles in the creation of this historic agreement and, ultimately, the government-to-government agreement that gives it life.

You can have environmental groups and forest companies negotiate an accord between themselves — a way to stop conflict, an agreement to move forward — but ultimately, environmentalists and companies, while representative of interests, are unelected representatives of interests;

whereas we have, in this House and in the government, a formal representation of all of the people of B.C. with First Nations. We have both the traditional and elected leadership of the First Peoples of this place, who have title, who have rights, who have history and to whom what we call the Great Bear Rainforest is their home. It is their place. It is theirs.

The minister mentioned that the N a nwa k olas First Nations, as well as the alliance of First Nations known as Coastal First Nations, were absolutely critical at every step of the discussions and the negotiations. Among the individuals…. Again, I will end up leaving names out, and I apologize. The only way to avoid that is to probably read 200 names into the record of Hansard . Perhaps others will add some names to the list at another time.

Dallas Smith certainly deserves recognition and has been in the forefront of a number of announcements at different times, at different stages of this process, at different milestone agreements as well as at the final agreement.

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Art Sterritt of Coastal First Nations, Garry Wouters, Marilyn Slett, Dan Cardinal, Merv Child, Ted Nash — these are people that my colleagues have said were instrumental in these agreements being reached.

Let me also add the names of some of the people — most of whom I know personally, although not all — who were, over many years, part of the environmental groups who brought pressure to bear to, let me say, give the forest companies an incentive to look for a negotiated way forward, through campaign planning, through market-based campaigns. Also, the people who spent long, long hours researching, studying the science, making plans, mapping, figuring out bottom lines for ecological protection and sitting at the negotiating table — sitting at an often frustrated negotiating table.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

Jody Holmes is a name that comes to mind. Jody was active almost from the very beginning. There was a hiatus when she dealt with some very, very serious health issues. I know that hiatus coincided with most of the period of time during which I was with Sierra Club B.C. I know from talking to my colleagues how valued her contributions were, how she was seen as a calm and steady influence, as somebody who could always refocus people on what was necessary to move ahead and stay on track and make a deal.

Valerie Langer, who I think is well-known to British Columbians, has a history as somebody who has been a principled, fierce defender of forests, a fierce defender of environmental values, but also a very down-to-earth and pragmatic person, a person of great principle and, from my experience, a very good and calm negotiator. Valerie Langer has filled that role mostly through ForestEthics Solutions.

Eduardo Sousa of Greenpeace, as well as other people from Greenpeace, like Karen Mahon and Stephanie Goodwin, played important roles.

My good friend Jens Wieting came to Canada from Germany for what he thought was a couple of years and found in British Columbia a home in which he wanted to raise a family — and a sense of grandeur and nature which he felt a duty to use his passion, his skill and his knowledge to help defend. Jens is an incredible human being. I know the minister has met him, and I’m relatively sure the minister would agree with me that he played an important role in bringing this agreement to fruition.

Chris Allnutt served for many years. Chris is an old colleague of mine, not just from environmental issues but from labour issues. Chris Allnutt played an important administrative role with the Rainforest Solutions Project in coordinating the activities of environmental groups, as well as fundraising activities.

Rachel Holt. Merran Smith, who was involved from very, very early days, is of course known to many people in British Columbia and in this House, having moved on to be a passionate spreader of knowledge, as well as activ-

[ Page 11485 ]

ity, around climate change issues and clean energy issues.

Tzeporah Berman is, I think, known to most British Columbians as a colleague and a compatriot of Valerie Langer’s in the early disputes at Clayoquot Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, but has gone on to speak pragmatically and in a very principled way about climate issues and other environmental issues. She most recently served on the climate leadership team of the government, along with Merran Smith.

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Lisa Matthaus worked at Sierra Club for ten years as campaigns director and was intimately involved in the negotiations and the planning for the Great Bear Rainforest campaign and then ultimately the Great Bear Rainforest negotiations. She then went on to lead a coalition of environmental groups who come to this place to meet regularly with government-side members as well as opposition members to talk to us about what environmental priorities are in B.C. and how they see the work of legislators contributing to that.

Amanda Carr is also a name that I should mention, as well as Marlene Cummings and Caitlyn Vernon, who now serves in the role that Lisa Matthaus once filled at Sierra Club as campaigns director.

Let me talk about some of the people from the forest industry who learned early in the process that they could stonewall, they could fight an entrenched battle, or they could take an entirely different approach. It was a different approach that I’m sure they had some fairly intense discussions about in their organizations, as others did.

Ultimately, they chose a path of trying to seek consensus in order to stop conflict, in order to protect their markets, in order to gain economic certainty. I think that as time went on, they — at least in the conversations I’ve had with a number of them — took pride in reaching an agreement that not only protected their markets and gave them some economic certainty and protected their companies and organizations but also contributed to agreements that respected First Nations rights, respected First Nations well-being, contributed to First Nations well-being, as well as contributing to the ecological and environmental integrity of the land base on which they’re working.

Some of the names that come to mind are Rick Jeffery, from the Coast Forest Products Association, who joined the negotiation table as the lead negotiator, around the same time I went to Sierra Club, and shepherded the forest industry team — in many ways, herded the forest industry team together, led them through some difficult times, through some rocky shoals, and steered them to agreement.

I’ve come to know Rick, somewhat, over the years, and when I last saw him at the party celebrating the agreement in Vancouver, he was pretty happy. He was ecstatic. I’ve talked to Rick many times. I think there were times that he wasn’t sure people could get to the deal, but he was, clearly, convinced that people had to get to the deal, that too much effort had been put in. Too much was at stake to let things fall apart. I saw in Rick real pride in the accomplishment.

Rick Slaco, Karen Brandt, Bob Craven, Shannon Janzen, Jonathan Armstrong, Kathryn Willis, Graham Kissick. Patrick Armstrong was a key player and someone else for whom I have…. I have respect for all of these people, but someone who I’ve known both in this context and also from a context of the steps that her company, Catalyst, took to deal with their emissions in an era of climate change, is Lyn Brown. All of these people contributed, and many more from the industry side, to reaching this agreement, and they deserve acknowledgment because the work they did was important.

On behalf of the province of B.C…. I’m not going to mention various ministers by name. Besides, I’m not permitted to in this House. At other times, people who’ve held elected office may be recognized by speakers, but some of the names that I know personally and that others have indicated to me deserve special recognition are Rory Annett, Dorthe Jakobsen, John Sunde, Gary Gwilt, Craig Sutherland and Doug Konkin.

I hope, Minister, that if I’ve missed people you consider were critical to this agreement, you will urge some of your colleagues to add their names to the record as well.

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Someone who played a very, very critical role in this agreement being reached was Dan Johnston. Dan Johnston is a very skilled mediator. I think that anybody who’s watched lengthy, difficult, protracted, multiparty negotiations of any kind would recognize that there are times when it takes a skilled mediator to reflect back to the other side both what they’re saying and how they’re being heard, as well as to help them understand what the other side is really saying.

Too often in negotiations, and I’ve experienced this on far too many occasions, people react to words. They fixate on words. They fixate on positions. They fail to actually hear beneath the words, hear beneath the positions and understand that the position and the words represent a real interest, something that has to be addressed for the person opposite to be able to move forward and find a way to reach agreement.

There are times…. It’s only too easy, in negotiations, to get emotional. I have seen…. I’ve not only seen. I’ve probably been guilty of this behaviour myself, of taking so much offence at the way somebody opposite me on a bargaining table has presented a position. Something that wasn’t particularly important to me becomes what is known in bargaining language as a hill to die on, which is not a very productive way to conduct discussions.

What we need are mediators who can calm the waters, who can dig beneath the words, who can calm the parties down and remind the parties of what they believed a day ago, what’s really important to them and how it is

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not impossible to achieve that interest while at the same time finding a way to answer the concerns and interests of the other parties. In that regard, Dan Johnston was instrumental, and I think everybody would say that was the case.

Finally, one of the critically important pieces of this agreement was the issue of human well-being and economic certainty for First Nations. It’s not acceptable, and we certainly…. At least, I hope we don’t think so today, although there are times, honestly, that I wonder. Certainly, 20 years ago it was not as common as it might be today — part of the reason for this is a number of court cases — for people to understand that environmentalists or government or industry can’t sit down and decide the future of a land base to which First Nations hold unceded rights and title and interest.

People can’t, in a patriarchal and patronizing manner, make decisions for the First Peoples of this land. For the First Peoples of this land to look at the negotiations that were taking place, even if they believed that ultimately the goal of significant conservation in the Great Bear Rainforest was a goal worth pursuing….

It was important that there be a way forward for First Nations as well. First Nations would see that if such a deal was made, and they agreed to it on behalf of their people, there was well-being for their communities ahead, there were opportunities for new economies, and there was an opportunity to support their people to make livings. We’ve seen this in many ways, but instrumental to this….

I will give, I think, environmental groups significant credit for this. The coast opportunity fund of $120 million was raised by environmental groups from significant funders on this continent and elsewhere in the world to help provide opportunities for Coastal First Nations in this transition. People who were instrumental in setting up this fund, as well as the funding, were Ross McMillan and Scott Rehmus.

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Rudy North of the North Growth Foundation is somebody who I think is well known to British Columbians as a person who has both helped grow the economy of British Columbia but has also taken the wealth that he and his family earned and given a very, very significant amount of it back to protect the conservation values that he holds dear, whether it be the Great Bear Rainforest, whether it be species like grizzlies and fish or whether it be rivers and waters through his support of the Rivers Institute.

The Tides Canada Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Moore Foundation, the Wilburforce Foundation, the Brainerd Foundation — all of these people came together to provide funding for the coast opportunity fund and to allow the financial aspects that had to be in place to support developing and finding new opportunities for First Nations to go forward. Of course, many of these foundations also helped the environmental groups support the staff that it took to undertake these protracted negotiations.

It’s interesting, and I’ll digress for a moment. It’s these very groups, these very foundations, these very funders who were so fundamental to helping develop the conditions and the infrastructure and the support for the negotiations that led to this historic agreement, this agreement that people on both sides of the House hold in high regard and in which we place great value and, I think, in which British Columbians for decades to come will place great value — and not just British Columbians but people around the world.

It’s these very foundations that until recently were reviled and held in contempt by the recently departed federal government of Stephen Harper. It was incredible to me to listen to statements made by ministers of the Crown federally that portrayed the activities of foundations that were established by people who were trying to take some of the wealth that they’d made and use it for progressive social good and environmental protection and conservation….

They were reviled. They were portrayed as people who had an ulterior motive instead of people who were contributing to the well-being of Canada and British Columbia, the well-being of our heritage in British Columbia, our natural heritage, as well as, ultimately, of our forest industry and protection of our species, which can only be to the benefit of people both socially and economically as well as, in a very holistic way, our future health.

These people were not enemies of Canada. They weren’t people with ulterior motives. They weren’t people who were trying to stop important economic development in Canada. They were people who were trying to give back and trying to support people who were trying to achieve something historic. And something historic was achieved.

To those people, I say thank you. To the recently departed Prime Minister and the ministers of the federal Crown who failed to appreciate the significant contributions not only of the funders and the foundations, whether they were Canadian or from the United States or from Europe, but the contributions of environmentalists, activists and employees of environmental organizations who found a way forward to achieve conservation values in concert with development and economic values and respect for First Nations….

To those people who tried to drive a wedge between Canadians and showed such tremendous disrespect to people who acted in good will to advance appropriate values, I say simply: you were wrong, and goodbye.

Let me move on now to talk a little bit about some of the very significant aspects of both the negotiations and this agreement. Let’s look at some of the features of this agreement.

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[ Page 11487 ]

There were a number of things that were put in place that needed to be put in place to make this happen. First, let’s talk about some of the significant features of the agreement that are reflected by this act. I think the government has talked about the region that’s being protected, protected significantly as an ecosystem but not totally preserved from any economic activity or not totally barred from any economic activity. Rather, instead, it has been given the gift of sustainable economic certainty.

We’re talking about an area that’s larger than Switzerland and that holds the largest tracts of intact coastal temperate rainforest on the planet. It has been home to First Nations for thousands of years — an area larger than Ireland.

The tremendous accomplishment of this agreement is to take 85 percent of this area and say that we will concentrate our economic activity in the remaining 15 percent. We’ll do it with new ecosystem-based management logging practices. We’ll do it in a way that is responsive to the needs of particular species that need to be protected. We’ll do it in a way that we believe is sustainable, both economically and ecologically.

An achievement that many people thought was impossible within this context was achieved, and it was based on science. The science said that to maintain species and ecosystems, to maintain the integrity, we had to protect 70 percent of old-growth forest. That was a larger figure than one that was initially being discussed early on in the negotiations, but at the end the parties, in good faith and with much good will and much hard work, were able to reach exactly that agreement.

What’s significant about this is it’s a figure that science dictated needed to be reached. It wasn’t arbitrary. It wasn’t, for instance, an arbitrary figure of, let’s say, 50 percent: you get half; we get half. Nor was it a figure of: we’ll protect it all because none of it should be taken. It was a figure based on science, which said that with the proper logging practices, regular review and good oversight, this is what can be logged while, at the same time, protecting the ecosystems and species in question.

It’s 3.1 million hectares, the size of Vancouver Island. That is what’s represented by this 85 percent of the coastal temperate rainforest which, I’ve previously pointed out, is one-quarter of the world’s coastal temperate rainforests.

Ecosystem-based management includes, in this case, protected areas covering 38 percent of the land and 42 percent of the region’s rainforest. More forest habitat and cultural values will be set aside under the ecosystem-based management logging rules.

What is ensured by this agreement is that enough rainforest will be protected from logging across all of the ecosystems to ensure healthy ecosystems. It’s important to examine what that means. It’s one thing to say that we’re going to protect X percent or 12 percent or so many hectares — “We’ll just take that block, and we’ll set it aside.”

That’s maybe a good thing, but it may do nothing for species protection. In fact, what may be necessary for species protection is migration corridors, the ability for species to move as climate changes — not just fauna but also flora. The interaction of various species that support each other and are integral to each other’s well-being. That’s the kind of thing you accomplish with very specific measures rather than arbitrarily marking amounts or blocks.

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Part of this is logging companies being legally required to develop reserve designs for the areas that will be set aside. As I’ve said, the logging will be limited to 15 percent of the forest under designations called managed forest. These will be subject to the most stringent commercial legal logging standards in North America.

These standards were agreed to by companies over many years and approved, ultimately, by First Nations and the government of British Columbia. As I’ve said, this outcome allows for long-term forestry with certainty as well as greater benefits for First Nations who’ve entered into new forestry agreements with companies and the B.C. government.

I wish I could speak with more direct and personal knowledge of exactly what this will mean to First Nations. Perhaps others in this House will be able to do that. I do know how significant that factor is for not only the First Peoples themselves, for individuals to see an economic future that’s consistent with the values they have inherited for many generations, but that it allows them to plan for a modern future for their communities.

It’s probably impossible to overstate the significance of that, and I’m sure the minister would agree that without this, there could be no agreement. We can reach any agreement we want between environmentalists, logging companies and the government of British Columbia. If it doesn’t meet the needs and the approval of First Nations, if it doesn’t meet their free, prior and informed consent, it can’t ultimately succeed. It’s not just. It’s not fair. It won’t work, and it ultimately would send us all back to the drawing table.

To the parties who recognized that this was necessary and that ultimately government-to-government negotiations were necessary, I say: well done.

Let me take a moment to just look at some of the history of how we got here. I mentioned early in my remarks that sometime around 1995 some environmentalists who believed that we needed to stop logging in the Great Bear Rainforest, because of the ecological values that were at threat there and because of the prospect of unlimited logging going forward, tried to figure out how they would do that.

They took a clue from marketing and industry, and they decided what they needed was something that was a little more snappy and likely to grab public attention than: “Let’s stop logging in the midcoast timber supply area.” They decided they needed a brand, and the brand they came up with was the Great Bear Rainforest, ob-

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viously in honour of the iconic bears whose home is among this old growth — not just the grizzly bear but the iconic spirit bear, the kermode bear, the black bear with the gene that results in white fur.

They coined the term “Great Bear Rainforest.” They campaigned on the basis of saving the Great Bear Rainforest, and it took hold. In fact, if I actually look at this, this goes back to 1993. Some of the groups that were involved early in the discussions about how to protect this area were Greenpeace, Coastal Rainforest Coalition, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Rainforest Action Network.

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They began by focusing attention on what was at risk in the Great Bear Rainforest by unrestrained and continued logging. They focused on the buyers of forest products in Europe, the United States and Japan — what’s known as a market campaign. They did this intensely. They did this with persistence. They did this with effectiveness. They did this at length. And it had an impact. It got people’s attention.

Companies like Home Depot, companies like Staples, purchasers of paper, Lowe’s and companies in Europe responded to approaches from representatives of environmental groups, who said: “This is what you’re buying when you buy this product. You are buying the destruction of habitat. You’re buying the destruction of ecosystems. You’re buying the destruction of species. You’re buying the destruction of the largest remaining intact coastal temperate rainforest on the planet. If you want us to campaign against your products, then you will make products out of that timber.

If you want us to say that the products you’re selling are sustainable and worthy of purchase, you will buy your timber elsewhere.”

The companies in question made a very logical, market-based decision. They said: “Why, if we have alternatives, would we buy a product that is controversial and buy a product that is produced directly in contravention of the values that many of our purchasers hold, many of our customers hold?”

We talk about the term “social licence” these days. We talk about it a lot. It has entered the lexicon. In the early ’90s it wasn’t so common, if used at all, but basically that’s what the companies who were the targets of the market campaign came to understand. They came to understand that they would lose market share and it would cost them money if they operated without social licence, and they delivered that message to the forest companies who were supplying the timber and the timber products.

Some of the things that happened between 1994 and 1995. There was a PacBell shareholder resolution to end the use of old-growth fibre in their directory. It failed. But as a result, PacBell endorsed significant changes in Clayoquot Sound forestry. This, as an example of marketplace actions related to old-growth logging, began to expand, and they began to dominate activist strategy.

In the United Kingdom, Scott Paper decided it would no longer purchase pulp from British Columbia. Think about that. Think about the impact that had on British Columbia, that it had on the pulp industry. It served its purpose: it got people’s attention.

As a result, the Premier at the time led a delegation to Germany and the U.K. to promote B.C. forest practices. There was beginning to be an understanding that in order to protect the resource industry in British Columbia, there had to be some active convincing of people that forest practices were sustainable.

Greenpeace went on to stage protests at embassies in the United Kingdom and Europe, which had a significant effect of leveraging these events with media and customers. Industry officials visited customers throughout Europe, and along with the Canadian government, they hosted numerous customer field trips to British Columbia.

The B.C. government and MacMillan Bloedel accepted without conditions the reports of the Clayoquot Sound scientific panel and the B.C. government signed an interim measures agreement with First Nations of the Nuu-chah-nulth central region. The controversy in Clayoquot Sound, as a result of these agreements, was significantly reduced.

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We were beginning to see the first testing of market campaigns, the response of the government, the attempts by the industry and government to counteract the impact that these campaigns were having on the sale of B.C. products. But ultimately, the thing that had the impact was an agreement to change practice.

It was around this time, in 1995, that environmental groups launched the Great Bear Rainforest campaign, and they focused almost exclusively on customers. The initial demand was a complete end to logging in old-growth temperate rainforest, and they specifically were targeting undeveloped watersheds in the central and north coast region. So in 1996 and 1997, the 64,000 square kilometres of the Great Bear Rainforest became the focus of a global environmental campaign.

I think all of us now know and understand that Greenpeace is a global organization, a global environmental organization. It has tremendous impact. It has many campaigns. It has been very successful. It significantly impacts government and industry decisions elsewhere.

What many people know, but not everybody knows, is that Greenpeace actually began in Vancouver, in British Columbia, and grew from there to become a global environmental influence, a very significant influence across Canada, across the globe. The fact that, at this point, Greenpeace took up this campaign was significant.

Again, marketplace campaigns were launched primarily in the U.K., in Europe and the United States, and customers were becoming increasingly concerned about logging of coastal old growth. Industry and environmental groups began to engage in an increasingly polarized

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debate. They were doing it in the marketplace. They were doing it in the media. They were doing it with customers.

At this point, when we talk about “from conflict to collaboration,” this was solidly in the camp of conflict. It was not getting anyone anywhere, except as laying down the conditions that ultimately led to the decisions of both parties to have discussions and to talk.

It was around this time that the B.C. government implemented a forest practices code to govern forest practices on public land. The B.C. government launched a multi-interest land and resource planning process for the central coast, but environmental groups did not participate in the process, would not participate in the process, unless logging was deferred in all of the undeveloped watersheds.

Throughout May and July of 1997, Greenpeace launched actions at Western Forest Products and Interfor operations in the central coast and, in fact, blockaded forest product shipments at ports in B.C., the U.K., Netherlands and Germany. At this time, a number