Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

MONDAY, JULY 14, 1997

Afternoon

Volume 6, Number 21

Part 2

[ Page 5675 ]

The House resumed at 6:35 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Hon. J. MacPhail: In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. For the information of members, we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Environment. In this House, I call second reading of Bill 42.

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 1997

(second reading)

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act contains amendments to a number of statutes.

An amendment to the British Columbia Buildings Corporation Act will allow the corporation to continue to serve its existing customer base and expand it where possible. Currently, BCBC's mandate prohibits the corporation from serving organizations other than government ministries and Crown corporations. Amendments adding the

definitions of "public body" and "publicly funded" body will allow BCBC to provide services to a variety of government entities such as school districts, colleges, regional districts and municipalities, and any public body funded directly or indirectly from the consolidated revenue fund.

Amendments to the Court Rules Act and the Offence Act are another step in implementing government's commitment to strategic reforms of the justice system. Our reliance on paper and the requirement that parties to a court proceeding physically appear before the court can delay and impede service delivery in the justice system.

Amendments to the Court Rules Act and the Offence Act address these concerns by enabling the use of technology to improve service and efficiency in the justice system. Amendments to these acts will establish a legal foundation for the use of electronic records and remote appearances in court proceedings. Savings in time and money will result, as appearances in Offence Act proceedings will be accepted through videoconferencing or other methods of telecommunications. Valuable court resources will be used more effectively, and litigation costs will decrease.

Use of electronic records will enable a more efficient use of resources by freeing up time traditionally consumed by paperwork, reducing storage requirements, permitting instantaneous information and improving communication.

Minor amendments to the Health Authorities Act are a result of the regionalization initiative in health care, whereby health programs, primarily in health units, are being shifted from the province to local health authorities. In order to accomplish this, community health services societies were created to assume these programs in areas where no regional health boards exist. As these societies are not specifically exempted from the obligation to pay tax, these amendments will allow the current tax scheme to continue.

This means that grants in lieu will continue to be paid, and other existing tax exemptions will continue to apply to property of community health services societies. The first amendment allows the existing exemption from property taxes to continue; the second amendment adds community health services societies to regional health boards and community health councils as bodies which may, by regulation, be exempted from tax.

Amendments to the Hospital District Act support changes to the hospital district structure, from one based on regional districts to one based on regional health board areas. As the Hospital District Act does not contemplate two coexisting regional hospital districts, these amendments are required to validate the change and to assist new regional health boards in their operation.

Finally, hon. Speaker, this bill amends the Supreme Court Act, in the interest of using court resources more effectively. The effective use of resources will be achieved by combining the counties of Westminster and Vancouver into one judicial district. Currently the act does not allow the judiciary to

schedule criminal trials between the New Westminster and Vancouver law courts. This limits the efficient use of judicial resources and courtrooms in both locations. The amendments address this issue by amalgamating the two counties, thereby allowing the court to direct civil or criminal matters to be heard anywhere in the newly created Vancouver-Westminster judicial district.

Hon. Speaker, that concludes my remarks.

G. Plant: I am pleased to rise in second reading debate on Bill 42, to be the first of a select group of speakers on the diverse issues dealt with in this bill.

I want to speak, for a moment or two, about the parts of this bill that make changes in what I'll generally call the judicial process. In many ways lawyers who participate in the litigation process all too often have an adherence to a particular vision of the way things ought to be done based solely on the fact that it is the way things have been done.

I am as mindful as is the Attorney General of the pressure on the limited resources that now appear to be and are available to keep the judicial system going and the need to ensure that rules, processes and procedures are examined to see if there are ways in which things can be done more expeditiously, more efficiently, less expensively, without sacrificing any of the basic hallmarks of fairness and due process that are at the heart of what makes our legal system the wonderful thing that it is.

This bill strikes out in three directions, in respect of making some changes to the way that our court system operates. I'll be dealing with them in more detail when we get to the committee stage debate, but I want to at least make reference to the three of them now and say one or two things about them.

First of all, the change to the Court Rules Act is part of an ongoing attempt by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, other judicial officials and other members of the profession to try and find ways to take advantage of changing technology, to allow some aspects of court process to happen less expensively and more efficiently.

I once had the experience, in a particularly long and complicated trial, of commencing a chambers application before a judge in Vancouver on one day, continuing it approximately a week later in Kamloops for a second day and then continuing it on a third day and finally concluding it -- again, with much delay -- in Kelowna. We were accommodating the rota and the convenience of the judge, who was moving about from different assize assignments around British Columbia.

It always seemed to me then -- and this was ten years ago -- that it was pretty foolish to have to pack a car full of lawyers, or the larger part of the cabin of a small airplane full of lawyers to follow a judge around British Columbia, to make what was essentially an oral argument on the basis of affidavits about whether or not an examination for discovery should be allowed to proceed in a particular way. I'm delighted to see that we're now creating a situation or a context within which rules can be made that will allow, hopefully, some of these situations to be avoided.

[ Page 5676 ]

[6:45]

I know that another part of my own experience as a lawyer was the happy task of travelling around British Columbia to speak on matters where the client was bound and determined to hire a Vancouver lawyer to appear in some place like Cranbrook or Courtenay -- or who knows where -- on a matter. It always seemed to me to be awfully expensive to have to get on an airplane just to go and make an application in Courtenay. It seems to me, in my memory, that those experiences are almost always accompanied by long, delayed airline flights on dark rainy nights in November. If we can do something to move away from that, I think we're doing the right thing.

As always, I have a cautionary note for the Attorney General, who will have very little to do, I suspect, with what the court rules committee does once these amendments are enacted. But the cautionary note is to ensure that we don't lose sight of the fact that sometimes a personal appearance is a vitally important aspect of persuading a judge in a particular case to make an order. I think that it's better in these sorts of cases if we enable these things to take place as a first step, rather than requiring them to take place.

We empower or we enable lawyers and judges in particular proceedings to begin to deal with some kinds of applications and things like that by telephone. Some of that is already happening, and always has been, but it tends to be happening in non-contentious matters or pretrial conferences.

I would prefer to see rules where these things were made possible, and the judiciary and the rules committee and the profession could scrutinize how these things happen over time to see if the rules are working or not, rather than bringing an iron hand down with mandatory rules limiting the right of appearance and application in person.

This is also, I suppose, a bit of an anecdote from personal experience. I was very fortunate to participate as counsel at trial in one of the longest trials in the history of the province: the Delgamuukw land claim lawsuit. Depending on how you add the days, there were something like 374 days of trial plus numerous days of commission evidence hearings that added to the evidentiary bulk. All of that resulted in a long trial judgment, which then went on to the Court of Appeal, where I think there was a 30-odd day hearing, which some might regard as a reasonable distillation of the essence of a long trial.

But the next stage of the process, as I understand it, was the hearing in the Supreme Court of Canada, where we took all . . . . I wasn't part of this, but all the enormous evidentiary complexity of the case and all of the legal complexity of the case was ultimately distilled somehow into something like two days of oral argument.

This all happens because there is pressure on the part of the judiciary to say that there is less need to hear from counsel in person than there used to be, that they can be persuaded by arguments in writing as well as in person. Increasingly, I suspect, and occasionally I fear that at least in some forms of litigation, we are going to move down a path which is remarkably similar to the American system, where virtually all motions are argued on the basis of written briefs, and there's very little oral advocacy.

So yes, it's good to be making rules that will allow counsel to appear in particular matters by telephone or by teleconference or by video conference as a way of addressing the problems of expense and inconvenience. But I hope that we can move down that path without moving too far down the other path where we sacrifice the value of personal appearance, the value of oral advocacy, as essential parts of our litigation process.

The second part of this bill that I want to speak about is the provisions under the Offence Act, which, like the Court Rules Act provisions, talk about the use of electronic data records as a means of recording the paper flow that happens in Provincial Court offences -- and provincial statute offences, I guess. I think this may be part of an ongoing ministry project to develop a computerized system for tracking the various matters that come into the provincial ports of British Columbia.

At least on my inspection of it, it strikes me as an excellent project and a very good step down the road to standardizing procedures and saving the enormous paper flow that is often the by-product of criminal as well as civil litigation. I'm sure it will also mean in due course that hundreds, if not thousands, of lawyers in British Columbia, who are not as computer literate as they ought to be, will have to become so. I'm personally convinced that that's a good thing.

I think we will need to spend some time looking at these provisions in committee-stage debate to make sure they go far enough down the road to ensuring that electronic data records and all that stuff can be used to their full advantage without exposing us to the risk of compromising access to data by people who shouldn't have access to it and ensuring that, where we are talking about doing things like serving people documents electronically, we are comfortable that in fact the terms and requirements are there which ensure they will have been received, and that all of these things that I think are the ordinary part of making rules will work well in practice.

Finally, I want to talk about the amendments to the Supreme Court Act. The amendments, as explained by the Attorney General, essentially merge two counties, the counties of Vancouver and Westminster, into one judicial district. I understand what the Attorney General says when he speaks of the need for efficiency in scheduling -- efficiency in the allocation of precious court resources. Those are good things; we should work towards those things.

But we are in fact also going to expose ourselves to the risk of a potential problem. I want to just outline it. I think that our judicial system -- and especially the criminal justice system has at its roots -- the notion that an individual charged with a criminal offence has the right to be tried by his or her peers. That's one of those traditional sort of statements. What does it mean? I think that it has traditionally meant, in part, that one is entitled to be tried by a jury of one's geographic peers -- that is, to be tried in the community where the offence has taken place.

Now, there are obviously cases where this is not a good thing, and we have a well-established body of rules that allow trials to be moved from the community where the offence took place if the accused person is unable to obtain a fair trial because, for example, of the level of media attention that's been given to the case.

With that exception aside, I think we have this long tradition, in Anglo-Canadian jurisprudence, of the right to trial by a jury of one's peers. Frankly, I think it's one of those traditions which has more going for it than simply its longevity. The more we talk in this chamber, and in government generally, about restorative justice, diversion programs and community-based sentencing alternatives, the more we recognize that there is a value to ensuring that a person charged with an offence is brought to account for that offence in the community where the offence has taken place. Another example of this, I suppose, would be the increased use of sentencing circles in first nations communities.

[ Page 5677 ]

Here we have a bill that merges these two counties in the interests of judicial expedience. It seems to me that there will now be an increased likelihood that, for example, someone who has committed an offence in Chilliwack or Hope will find that the trial of that offence is not being conducted in Westminster in front of a jury composed of people from the Fraser Valley but may in fact take place in downtown Vancouver in front of a jury that is substantially made up of people from downtown Vancouver. I don't want to overstate that distinction.

It's clearly a much shorter distance from Hope to Vancouver than from Hope to any number of other places. It's one of those things that I think we need to be reminded of as being an aspect of the good side of our judicial system that is being asked to give way here in the interests of efficiency and expediency. We always need to be mindful of the balance, but I think we need to be particularly mindful of that balance here.

I don't know that it would be in the slightest appropriate for me to presume to pass judgment on the process by which the administration of trials in the Supreme Court of British Columbia is undertaken. But the fact is that this bill will repose a certain additional amount of power in those administrators and in the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to organize where trials happen. Those powers are significant; I think that they're significant enough to warrant comment here. The issue of a trial in one's own community is significant enough to warrant comment here. It's not a reason to oppose these amendments; rather, it's a reason just to be mindful of the issues that they give rise to.

So those are three parts of this miscellaneous bill that deal with the way the justice system works, and those are my general comments on those three general issues. There may be others on this side of the House who have more to say, either about those issues or about other issues dealt with in this bill. So with that, I will conclude my own remarks and yield to others who may have something to say.

G. Abbott: Tonight I want to confine my remarks to

section 9 of Bill

Section 9 relates to the appointment of an administrator with respect to regional hospital districts, and I have a few comments and suggestions with respect to that particular section.

A few weeks ago we had a very good discussion about the role of regional hospital districts in the new regionalized heath care governance system that we have in British Columbia -- post-regionalization. The discussion made clear to me what the role of the regional hospital district is. My understanding from that discussion is that the role of the regional hospital district in British Columbia remains much as it was prior to regionalization.

Regional hospital districts have been around for a long time. I had the pleasure of serving as a director on the Columbia-Shuswap regional hospital district for about 17 years, and I know that regional hospital districts existed long before that. Perhaps they're as old as regional districts, going back some 30 years now. Perhaps not, but I suspect that they are probably of that kind of vintage.

Typically regional hospital districts have been operated as an adjunct to regional districts in this province. My understanding is that notwithstanding the regionalization process that we have seen in British Columbia over the past six months, the role of the regional hospital district in the process remains much the same as ever.

[7:00]

That role is quite a simple and straightforward one: regional hospital districts exist to provide major and minor capital funding to the hospital system. Typically the regional hospital district provides 40 percent of the cost of new equipment or new facilities. So the primary, if not the sole, function of the regional hospital district is that capital allocation. As I understand it -- and I believe this to be the case -- all other functions of the regional hospital district are ancillary to that primary purpose.

Even though the role of the regional hospital district is a pretty simple one conceptually, it's nevertheless a very important one. It's certainly important from a planning perspective. The regional hospital district obviously holds in its hands considerable discretion about whether a new piece of equipment -- a new X-ray machine or some other piece of medical equipment -- is put in place in a hospital. Obviously it's very important to the community that hospitals possess that kind of equipment. From a planning perspective they also obviously have an important function with respect to facilities.

Again, there are always calls for new intermediate care facilities, extended-care facilities and so on. And again, those can play a very important

part in the quality of life that people, particularly seniors, enjoy within their communities. So the role of the regional hospital district is very important from that perspective.

They also have a very important role with respect to the financial perspective. The regional hospital district is responsible for retiring the debt associated with major capital expenditures on extended-care facilities or whatever it may be. Frequently the regional hospital district tax levy for this particular function is a very substantial one. So the role of the regional hospital district from that perspective is very important.

To achieve agreement about the introduction of a new facility into a community or a region requires at least two parties to agree. Pre-regionalization -- which I understand a little bit better -- it's very clear that the regional hospital district board and the province had to agree that the construction of a new facility was appropriate. The province would agree to ante up their 60 percent; the regional hospital district would agree, through the board, to ante up their 40 percent.

Post-regionalization, the picture's not quite as clear, although I hopefully have some understanding of this from the discussion we had in the Health estimates. My understanding of the post-regionalization world of financing capital facilities is that (

a) the regional hospital district has to agree and (

b) some combination of the regional health board and the province would have to agree. Maybe it's both, but certainly it takes those two sides of the coin to agree to see a new facility put in place.

I think it's important to note here that at times the regional hospital district may well have a different view than the regional health board or the province about whether a new health care facility, or indeed any major capital expenditure, is merited. There may well be different views about that. We have seen, both over time and recently, some quite prominent examples of where the regional hospital district thought one thing and the province, through the Ministry of Health, thought another.

[ Page 5678 ]

That was certainly the case in the greater Vancouver regional hospital district recently. The province hoped to go in one direction, and the greater Vancouver regional hospital district felt that expenditures would be more appropriate in another area. In the case of the Columbia-Shuswap regional district, there were a few instances in my time where the province wanted to move more quickly on a project -- or alternatively, the regional hospital district wanted to move more quickly on a project than the province was prepared to move.

So obviously, where you require two parties to agree to a new facility or to a new piece of equipment, there is always some room for disagreement, and that's fine. Indeed, that's the essence of politics -- deciding who gets what when, where and why. That's what politics is all about, and indeed these differences of opinion are very much a reflection of democracy -- and, to that extent, a good thing. Disagreement between a regional hospital district and the province of British Columbia may, for example, result in the need to review.

A project may lead to reconsideration by one or both of the parties of the merits of the new equipment or facility. Certainly, in any event where there's a difference of opinion, it is going to lead to some sober second thought about the direction which the parties are proceeding in. This, in turn, may cause some delay or postponement. It may mean, as a result, an improvement in the concept of the project, or it may mean some improvement in the way that it's implemented.

Local governments make literally thousands of decisions every year along these lines. This is not just something that regional hospital districts and regional health boards in British Columbia wrestle with. Municipalities and regional districts have to make decisions every year about what the priority is in terms of what is needed in the way of facilities or new equipment and so on. Local governments not only need to assess the need for a new piece of equipment or a new facility but they also need to assess the ability of the taxpayer to afford that at that point in time.

The whole exercise, hopefully, is one in which the local government and/or the province of British Columbia make an informed decision about the scale and timing of any given project or proposal.

This is my understanding -- and I certainly look forward to the government correcting my understanding if it's faulty -- of what regional hospital districts do. They contribute the local or regional share to capital projects. Why, then, do we need

section 9 of Bill 42, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2)? That's a very good question and one that, frankly, I haven't figured out yet. What does it do? Just briefly I'll quote from

section 9. It's titled: "Appointment of an administrator."

"49.1(1) If the minister has reasonable grounds to believe that the public interest so requires, the minister may appoint an administrator to operate a district for a period specified by the minister, and the minister must serve a notice of appointment of an administrator on the chair of the board for the district.

"

(2) On the appointment of an administrator under this section, the directors and alternate directors of the district cease to hold office unless otherwise ordered by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.

"

(3) The administrator may exercise all powers of the district."

I could go on to quote the other subsections, but I don't think that's necessary. I think the first three give us the picture of what the government has in mind here. To put it in very simple terms, what

section 9 will do is provide the ministry, the Minister of Health, with the statutory authority to fire, dismiss, can, get rid of, dump regional hospital districts. Why would the government want or need this statutory power?

Again, I'll go back to the point I was making earlier -- that if the sole or primary function of a regional hospital district is providing 40 percent of capital costs for equipment or projects, will disagreement on the timing scale or whatever of such a project constitute the rationale for firing a regional hospital district board? Well, I hope not. It's difficult to see -- based on what I know about the function of regional hospital districts and based on what I see in this bill -- any other rationale for firing a regional hospital district.

Hopefully, I'm missing something. Hopefully, there is some reason that I don't understand that can be made clear by the government during committee stage about why they are proposing to put this statutory authority in place. But from my point of view, given the experience that we have had, particularly in the last several months with the dismissal of hospital boards and societies and so on by the Minister of Health, I certainly view

section 9 with a good deal of concern.

Unlike regional health boards, regional hospital districts are composed of elected municipal and regional district officials. These officials are not responsible to the Minister of Health; they are responsible to the electors locally that elected them to their positions. I think there's a fundamental difference between the regional hospital district composition and the regional health board composition.

The regional health board composition clearly is based on appointment by the Minister of Health, and while it may be lamentable and regrettable and so on, one can understand in a clear line why the statutory authority for firing a regional health board exists. But it's not so clear to me why the government would want to put in place statutory authority to dismiss or fire a regional hospital district.

If the government has a different cause in mind, if there is something in this bill or elsewhere which would provide other reason or cause for a regional hospital district to be dismissed, I think the government should bring it forward and should say directly in the bill what cause they have in mind.

The Speaker: Excuse me, member. I am reluctant to interrupt you, but may I ask you to take your seat for just a moment. I want to remind you and other members of the House what our practice is when we deal with miscellaneous statutes. As we all know, technically, a miscellaneous statutes bill does not have a principle, and the practice therefore is normally that we simply canvass in a broad-brush kind of way each of the sections and address our concerns about them. The detailed examination and analysis of miscellaneous statutes bills is by convention restricted to committee stage, and I would therefore caution this member and others to please be guided by that principle.

Let me explain, if I might, just in anticipation of the concern members might express, that the reason we do that is simply so members can be allowed considerably more latitude in committee stage than they might have in other kinds of bills. In other words, the detailed discussion and debate occurs in committee in a miscellaneous statutes bill, not in second reading. So I'd ask the member to please bear that caution in mind, if he would.

G. Abbott: I will bear that caution in mind. It's particularly easy for me to do so because I'm almost finished my remarks. But I do hope, Mr. Speaker, that one is able at this stage of the discussion of this bill to look at points of principle which concern . . . . Hopefully, I've made it clear that the point of principle which concerns me is the question of the statutory authority to fire a regional hospital district board that has been elected by electors other than the province of British Columbia.

[ Page 5679 ]

Let me just conclude my remarks, in any event, Mr. Speaker. Obviously I was almost close enough to complete them before your cautionary remarks. If I'd just been a little quicker . . . . But I've just a couple of notes to conclude here. Certainly the government can, I think, expect some questions with regard to this

section in committee, and hopefully, we'll get some explanation from the government about the direction they're going here. Again, to conclude, I have certainly heard about school and hospital boards being fired in the past, but I have never -- at least in my recollection -- heard of a municipal council or a regional district board that was fired by the province. Given the structure and the role of regional hospital districts, I'm not at all persuaded of the government's need for statutory authority to fire them. So I will have to be convinced of that, and I'll look forward to hearing from the government side with respect to that in the days ahead.

[7:15]

M. Coell: Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer a few comments on the principle of Bill 42, especially the principle surrounding

section 9, which is the employment of an administrator should the minister decide that a regional district board sitting as a hospital district board is not making the appropriate decisions in the best interests of the people. I wonder if I could first . . . .

I had the privilege of chairing the capital regional district board and also chairing the hospital district board for about seven years, so I have a little bit of experience on how that particular board works and what can make it work and what can't. One of the first areas that I'd like to mention is the relationship and the partnership between the provincial government and the capital regional district sitting as a hospital district board. That relationship has been severely altered in the last number of years with the advent of regional health boards -- the capital health board in this area.

The principle that a partnership developed between the province and the regional hospital district board under the Hospital District Act was very positive. For many years in this area that relationship and partnership worked very well -- not to say that there weren't disagreements amongst the partners.

The change -- and I believe it is a significant one -- is that the minister now has to deal with the capital health board and the hospital district in order to complete an idea. A good example of that would be the rebuilding of the Royal Jubilee Hospital. That has the capital health board's approval, provincial approval and, through the regional district, it will have the hospital district's approval. That is essential, because the funds raised by the district will pay 40 percent of the cost of the rebuilding of that health facility.

The history of payment by the local taxpayers was that 20 percent was paid for by the hospital district and 80 percent was paid for by the provincial government.

That was changed a number of years ago without consultation with the regionally elected representatives, and I think that was a slap in the face to local government by the provincial government. When you're dealing with a partner, you would like to think that you would be consulted. The 40-60 percent revenue sharing is now in place.

The next change is that the province has now developed the capital health board and appointed those people, and those people aren't in any way responsible to the local taxpayer. Now you have the hospital district board, which is essentially your locally elected representatives. In this area it would be the mayors and aldermen from 14 municipalities who sit on the board. They're going to be asked to basically rubber-stamp an agreement that is made by the province and the capital health board. Their planning ability and partnership is no longer evident, in my view of the situation.

So the principle that local government had a say in the debt servicing and the costing of health and hospital facilities is gone.

What I fear with

section 9 -- the appointment of an administrator -- is that if the locally elected representatives representing the people of this area have a different perspective than the government and they have a different perspective than the capital health board, then they will be removed and an administrator put in, only because of their disagreement. They won't have the ability to have a partnership as they did in the past with the provincial government. I see that that principle of partnership has been key to the development and, I think, fairly positive relationship between local government and provincial government over the past 20 years.

The principle of health planning is not new to this area. As much as 20 years ago, the capital regional district had what was called the hospital and health planning commission, and I believe that legislation is still on the books. That had representatives from all the health and hospital organizations and boards sitting on one board, and that board gave advice to the hospital district -- and their planning staff, working with provincial staff would come to an agreement on what were the priorities for health care.

So you had local government and local boards all working in conjunction to come up with a list of priorities. Now I think what you're going to see is that principle of local government involved with the decision-making and prioritization of health and hospital planning disappear. You now have a board appointed by the province, and the province making those decisions.

I think the difference here -- and it's my fear with

section 9 -- is that the local body is still going to be asked to pay 40 percent of the costs of all hospitals and health planning facilities. That 40 percent is in the hundreds of millions of dollars for planning over the next decade in this area. They don't have an active partnership anymore. That principle is out the window with the changes that have been made. But they also have the fear that if they disagree they will be replaced. In committee stage I'll have some further questions as to whether you would be replacing the individuals, replacing their office or just this function.

But I think it is important for the relationship and the history of a positive partnership with local government that we recognize that this particular

section destroys that relationship significantly.

I think that in the years to come you'll see a widening gap between the abilities of local government to be a partner, and the decision-making of the province will become very centralized. So I think it's threats like this

section 9 that show a lack of confidence in local government by the province. I'm saddened by that, because I think there had been a history of cooperation for many decades in this province between local government and senior government. That is gone with the principle of being able to appoint an administrator over the heads of the locally elected and duly representative people in this area.

There are a number of issues, but I think the central issue for

section 9 is, once again, the provincial government showing a lack of confidence in having a meaningful partnership and relationship with local government in the decision-making process. I find that sad, and during the committee stage I look forward to looking at this item in much greater detail. I think a principle of partnership has been lost by this threat of appointment of an administrator if local government disagrees with the route that the provincial government and the regional health board take. I think that the losers in this are the local taxpayers, who won't have representatives that know that they can go to bat for the taxes for them.

[ Page 5680 ]

I look forward to continued debate in the committee stage of this bill.

M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, entering upon this debate on this miscellaneous statutes bill, I am mindful of your caution to members when debating what I think I heard you describe as "unprincipled legislation" -- or was it "legislation without principles" or something like that? So I am mindful of those cautionary words, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to make a couple of brief comments with respect to the legislation. I was listening when the Attorney General spoke earlier about a portion of the bill that I know we will discuss or a theme in this legislation dealing with expediting justice-related matters. He talked about decreasing the cost of litigation. In a former life, those words might have meant something different to me, but I'd like to think they wouldn't.

I want to say on the record that when we talk in this chamber about decreasing the cost of litigation, I've come to think that perhaps we have acquired a different sense of what that means. For us and for government, we tend to become fixated on the question of the cost to the state of delivering justice services. The Attorney General may have had a broader notion in mind.

But it's a general observation on my part that as we discuss budgets and the cost of maintaining court services in the various communities around the province, that is uppermost in our minds as legislators and as government and perhaps as cabinet ministers.

Whereas if you ask the person on the street about the cost of litigation, what they're interested in is: "How much does it cost for me to litigate my case?"

To the extent that this is a valid distinction -- and I think it might be -- that is the question I would like us to have in our minds as we go through this legislation: the cost to the British Columbian, to the litigant, and whether or not the changes . . . . I agree with some of the comments from the member for Richmond-Steveston -- that we shouldn't be afraid of change, particularly in something like our justice system where tradition obviously counts for a great deal. We shouldn't be afraid of change.

But I think we should approach it from the perspective of whether or not we are still meeting the legitimate needs and expectations of our population as far as preserving the tenets of justice within our court system, and also whether or not that judicial system is more accessible and more cost-friendly than it was under a previous regime.

I think that is something we need to keep sight of as we move through this debate into committee stage. I think the Attorney General shares the feeling that there is a tremendous potential to effect cost savings through the use of technology to ensure that the courts and those other agencies associated with the courts -- and I know we've talked in the past about alternate dispute resolution -- that we now associate with the delivery of justice in British Columbia are more readily accessible at a better price for litigants. I think that is something we need to track.

That leads me to the second point I want to make with respect to that theme which emerges out of this miscellaneous statutes bill. I would like to think that the Attorney General -- and we will canvass this, I'm sure, at the committee stage -- now has in mind -- and more than that, I suppose, on paper within his ministry -- a list of those indicators that will be tracked by the ministry as a way of measuring whether or not as a result of these amendments the cost of litigation has actually decreased.

[7:30]

To return to the original point, he may be able to come back here next year -- and I'm sure he hopes he can -- and report to this House that as a result of the changes that have accompanied this legislative enactment, costs within his ministerial budget have decreased in the following areas. I think that's a goal we share. I'm sure that's something he would like to achieve, and we will wait and watch. To that extent, we would like to know where he expects those cost savings to manifest themselves.

I know some of that was canvassed in the estimates, but we will do what we can to pin the Attorney General down so that one year hence we can go to him and ask: "Where exactly have you succeeded and where exactly have you not succeeded, and why?" The Attorney General suggests that there might be a partisan component to that, and I'm shocked that he would make such a suggestion, Mr. Speaker.

Beyond that, let me say that I think the other indicators or variables we should be looking at relate to the consumer of legal services in this province. I haven't, I must confess, thought this through exhaustively. But one year from now or two years from now, will it be possible for a litigant pursuing a standard matrimonial action -- to the extent that these things are ever standard -- to say that the cost of prosecuting or litigating that matter has actually gone down, taking into account legal fees, disbursements, the cost of attendance in court, time spent in court, attendance of expert witnesses?

Will it be possible for that litigant to say: "Yes, as a result of these legislative enactments, the cost of achieving justice decreased." As we move through this legislation, I think that is something we need to examine and have in our minds. As we proceed through the committee stage, I think some of our questions will be geared toward alerting the Attorney General to our interest in that consumer-related component to this legislation.

Again in terms of the broad themes that are dealt with in some of the sections, the legislation deals with the de facto merger of two judicial districts. I suppose it can be said that longstanding members of the legal community who know that there are two judicial districts -- and I'm not sure that anyone in the public is aware of that -- may say that this represents something of a historic passage. The county of Westminster, for example, and the Westminster judicial district, as it's now referred to, have longstanding roots in the history of British Columbia.

I don't have any hesitation in lending my support to legislation that, in effect, merges those judicial districts, if the Attorney General can offer the genuine assurance -- there are always unforeseen exigencies that may come along -- that we can have some level of satisfaction that the litigant from Hope or Chilliwack or Abbotsford, for that matter, is going to receive a service comparable to, if not better than, that which they presently receive, as a result of the implementation and utilization of improved technology.

Returning again to what I was saying about the cost to the consumer, the costs of the state may decrease. But if the average cost of prosecuting a civil matter in the Supreme Court of British Columbia actually goes up for a resident from Abbotsford or Chilliwack, because they're paying more for lawyers who are spending more time on the road, then I don't think we've accomplished anything, and I think the legislation must be deemed a failure. So I think that is a legitimate component of this legislation for us to be watching and to query the Attorney General on.

[ Page 5681 ]

With respect to this legislation and the implementation and utilization of technology as a means of expediting judicial proceedings, might I also say that I think it bears emphasizing that the public has a real appetite for accessing justice, for accessing the courts, and knowing what goes on behind those big doors either in their own courthouse in their own community -- to the extent that community courthouses still exist -- or in the larger centres of justice in New Westminster, Vancouver, Victoria, Prince George or other larger centres in the province.

I think we will be doing them a disservice if we don't endeavour to expand through the use of this technology the public's ability to learn, witness, watch and hear about what is going on in the courthouses around the province.

I'm not sure this is the best example. In fact, I'm sure it's not the best example, but it is a timely one. We had a circumstance in Abbotsford in the last week where there was a whole host of publicity around some charges that were laid. You can say that the issue was a titillating one and that there were other reasons, but quite frankly, I think you can say this without fear of contradiction: there is an interest on the part of the public to know what is going on within the criminal justice system and within the civil courts.

To a great extent, I think it can be said that hostility exists within the public domain toward our justice system. We see it, be it in letters to the editor or in articles reporting what witnesses or litigants have had to say about the disposition of various cases. We see that dissatisfaction, and it is a fact. We can promote a greater understanding of the courts and of what goes on in the courts through the use of this technology, by giving people access in a timely way to the information, be it charges laid or the disposition of charges.

I heard it said during the course of the debate that took place in Abbotsford through the week just past that anyone can find out what's going on in court simply by attending. Well, with the greatest respect to those who provide that argument, it's a bit unrealistic. I think there is a role for us to play in providing to people the access they need, deserve and apparently want insofar as ascertaining what is going on within the courthouses and justice centres of the province.

This bill deals -- properly, I think . . . . Although we will have some questions about the detail, from a purely thematic approach, its desire to utilize technology as a means of expediting and reducing the cost of judicial proceedings is a laudable goal and one worthy of support. I will caution the Attorney General -- and I have, along with others today -- that we will want some assurance as to how that is going to play out in specific circumstances.

As I've said earlier today, I suppose we want some assurance, and we place the Attorney General and his government on notice that one of the factors we will be most concerned with is not simply whether the state is left in a better position as a result of the passage of this bill but whether, when the Attorney General says he intends to decrease the cost of litigation, that plays out for the consumer of legal services in British Columbia as well. We will watch for those things during the course of this debate, and I will be happy to participate at the committee stage.

R. Coleman: I'm pleased to speak this evening in second reading of Bill 42. I'd like to start out with complimenting the minister on a couple of things that are contained within the bill. I'd particularly like to spend a few minutes on the provisions in sections 1 and 2 that allow for some changes to the mandate of the British Columbia Buildings Corporation Act.

The reason I want to speak about this for a few minutes is that this is a corporation that over the past 16 years has built a substantial reputation within industry. That reputation actually now extends to 20 years after the completion of its most recent five-year plan. This corporation was established in 1976 to deal with the accommodation needs of government, and after dealing with those needs, it has today over 3,400 buildings and 23 million square feet of accommodation.

The interesting thing about BCBC as it has gone through its transition over the years is that it has established a tremendous amount of expertise in the industry relative to management, building, construction, design and, obviously, caretaking of public buildings. The expansion of the mandate is something we should be looking at and be quite proud of.

I brought this up with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing last year when we were in estimates debates, and I brought it up this year with the Minister of Employment and Investment with regard to this particular Crown corporation -- that BCBC is an organization that is well positioned to take over some of the cost-saving that could be relative to government, as a result of their expanded mandate.

By changing the mandate to allow BCBC to work with other public bodies, the government has allowed BCBC to do work with municipalities, regional districts, improvement districts, and with the Islands Trust and organizations like that. The interesting thing about the expanded mandate is that it should allow BCBC to do something that has been advocated for some time within government with regard to how we deliver construction and management of our facilities.

There are a couple of examples of audits that I've looked at over the years with regard to school construction, for example. One of the criticisms was that we would provide school districts with large sums of money to construct schools within a community, then we would hand them this particular project and tell them to manage their own construction. As a result of that, we found that we did not get value for the dollar in our construction.

Oftentimes our school districts ended up with cost overruns simply because they didn't understand the business. It was suggested in a couple of the audits that I looked at that the school districts should be hiring construction management expertise with regard to their construction, so they could expand their role and improve their delivery of service through the tax dollar.

That service is available today through B.C. Buildings Corporation, and it's an expanded mandate that we like to see utilized. The successive ministers I've discussed this with in estimates over the last two years have agreed that this is a prudent move. Expanding the role today is an extension of that prudent move to make it make sense.

Obviously this organization also has the expertise to deal with hospital construction and care facilities within communities. If you take an extension downward -- seeing as they have such expertise in construction and environmental controls, design and architectural work, as well as in construction management -- you could also extend it to community centres and pools within communities.

[ Page 5682 ]

You would be able to save municipalities a lot of the headaches that they're particularly experiencing today in relationship with government. BCBC also has the ability to provide financial advice with regard to tendering, costing or what have you with regard to any particular type of facility. They can provide design advice and space management advice. They can actually tell you what your real space needs are and provide you with that service and research so you don't have to go outside to achieve that goal.

It's a service that could be provided by BCBC to a municipality probably more cost-effectively than by other sectors. At the same time, that would create a dollar value back to the corporation and subsequently to the taxpayers of British Columbia.

BCBC is recognized as one of the top agencies in North America with regard to environmental controls and facilities. They've received awards for this, and these particular awards and that type of environmental control are tremendous assets in any public building that's designed anywhere in the province. Expanding the mandate to allow that type of service to be easily transferred down and charged back to municipalities in other areas that want that service is very important. There's no sense in reinventing the wheel with regard to this type of facility.

[7:45]

They can also provide performance measurement strategies, whereby we can see where the management and performance of the construction that are now provided to the agencies of government -- the design, delivery and timing and everything else it deals with, plus tendering specifications and those sorts of services -- can now be expanded so that we can provide it to all public bodies. That makes a tremendous amount of sense.

BCBC is also recognized for its business discipline strategies and for its market knowledge and surveys. It knows what is needed in a particular area and what type of facilities you have. It is also very, very highly recognized in space management -- management of how to make the work space of an individual who works in a facility as good as possible for productivity with the least amount of square feet.

BCBC now offers these types of services to government, and expanding that role only makes sense. In addition to that, they are also very good at communications strategies with regard to communicating how to deal with the public process. Oftentimes when a municipality moves into a design or comes up with a project they want within the community, you'll see that one of the downsides or downfalls of that particular municipality has been their own communication back to the community, so that the community understands what is to be accomplished by the municipality or by the public body -- whether it be a provincial government body, a federal government body or whatever.

BCBC has that expertise. They provide it to government now. The way they present themselves in public, the way they strategize their plans, has made them very successful on behalf of the taxpayers of British Columbia and should be able to make them successful on behalf of all taxpayers with regards to whatever types of facilities they want.

The other thing that they're very strong in is operational effectiveness. This organization is capable of coming in and assisting a public body in a public process not only with the access of land and design and public hearings and construction and completion, but also with the management and the long-term budgeting effectiveness of that particular facility. You'll often find that within certain jurisdictions in the province, whichever government body you're dealing with, their expertise in that type of management is lacking, because it's something that they're not used to;

whereas these people have this huge 20-plus years of experience in this type of operation. They can pass it on to whichever public body is looking for it. So to expand this role is very effective.

In addition to that, BCBC is today the largest manager of real estate assets in British Columbia, and they also have $1 billion of projects under design and construction. That tells us that this group of people has the capability to provide this service.

I commend the minister on these two particular sections. I look forward to the mandate of BCBC going beyond this so that we can now get cost-effectiveness, design and criteria into all public bodies for all taxpayers of British Columbia.

B. Penner: I too appreciate the opportunity to take

part in this debate on what has been described tonight as an unprincipled piece of legislation -- just kidding, of course. It is the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 1997, and as such, the Speaker rightly pointed out that it doesn't have a principle per se. Nevertheless, there are three specific issues presented in this bill that I would like to address tonight, not in an exhaustive fashion but just in cursory terms.

First of all, starting with

section 9 of the proposed bill, other speakers here tonight have also commented on the power that this would give to the minister to replace regional hospital districts with an appointed administrator. It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: that would remove elected politicians, elected community representatives, from the decision-making process of those regional hospital districts. To the extent that such a decision would centralize power and remove decision-making from communities and locate that in Victoria is an unfortunate thing. I rise here tonight to highlight my concern about that.

I'm looking at

section 9,

section 49.1(2) of the bill. It states quite clearly: "On the appointment of an administrator under this section, the directors and alternate directors of the district cease to hold office unless otherwise ordered by the Lieutenant Governor in Council." I did a little bit of research quickly before coming to participate in the debate tonight, and I find that the identical wording appears in a statute which was introduced in 1993, entitled the Health Authorities Act. That particular bill was given royal assent on July 29, 1993.

Section 14(2) also states, and I believe the wording is virtually identical: "On the appointment of a public administrator, the members of the board or council" -- and in this case the bill is referring to hospital boards -- "cease to hold office unless otherwise ordered by the Lieutenant Governor in Council."

What is the significance of that? The significance is that we have seen in recent months a spate, a whole list, of community hospital boards being fired by this government and being replaced by an unelected administrator at the whim of the government. You don't just have to take my word for it; I can list a number of them. This has happened around the province; I count about eight of them. It included my community of Chilliwack, where the entire hospital board was summarily fired by this government, relying on the authority that they had under the Health Authorities Act.

A similar provision is purported to be granted in Bill 42, which we're debating tonight, and that's why I draw the connection.

If we're going to give the government the power that this bill purports to give, we need to do so with our eyes open and realize that this government has a track record of using that power to take decision-making away from local and elected representatives and give it to whomever the government feels should have that power. In most cases, it's a single person replacing the collective wisdom of many people. I think we have to proceed down this road -- if we do proceed down this road -- with great caution.

[ Page 5683 ]

In the case of Chilliwack, the government's excuse for firing the hospital board was a severance package in the amount of $172,000 given to somebody who had worked in the health field for some 30 years. Comparing that to other severance packages -- as the government tried to do to justify their decision under that

section -- clearly illustrated the bankruptcy of their position. Other administrators throughout the province had received severance packages ranging up to $600,000 -- that was Ron Mulchey, the CEO of St. Paul's Hospital -- yet we didn't hear of this government taking any specific action to deal with that hospital board. But in the case of Chilliwack, the government used the identical provision that they're trying to get by us here today to justify firing local elected representatives in favour of a public administrator.

The second point I would like to make today in second reading deals with "deeming" data records, as contained in

section 13 of Bill 42. I counted five references to the word "deem" appearing in Bill 42, the bill that we're debating here tonight. I recognize that these particular amendments under

section 13 only apply to the Offence Act, which is a provincial statute. The significance of that is that the offenses prosecuted under the Offence Act are not the most serious offenses that we face in society today; those are contained in a federal statute known as the Criminal Code.

However, there are still significant offenses that are prosecuted under the Offence Act, particularly to deal with wildlife issues and poaching, which has become an increasing concern in our environmentally-conscious era. I think members of the public would agree that we have to view those types of prosecutions as also being very important.

The reason why I have concerns about these deeming provisions is simply because it removes some of the traditional and time-honoured requirements for proving evidence. We can only assume that those requirements were there for a reason. I believe it goes back to the fundamental rule of law, and that is the presumption against hearsay evidence. Hearsay evidence is simply evidence that is not directly before the court. You're relying on a third party to transmit that information to the court without the benefit of the original speaker or the original document or the original piece of evidence -- if it's physical evidence -- being placed before the court for the finder of fact to consider.

I understand that the bill is hoping to find some shortcuts and is hoping to save some money. But we have to be cognizant of the fact that it could also pose significant risk, potentially, to a factual gathering of evidence and proper consideration of that evidence by a court of law. I know it's been increasingly the trend for the last decade -- as under the prosecutions to deal with motor vehicle insurance violations -- to include deeming provisions, where you deem the service of a document. All that does, in my view, is create a legal myth or a situation where we're make-believing something exists that doesn't actually, factually exist.

I am referring to the Oxford dictionary and their definition of the word "deem." In the first definition of deem, they compare it to the word "belief." I hope that tonight, in this bill, we're not entering into the world of make-believe by entertaining all these deeming provisions contained in the act. As I noted, I see five of them here.

There's also a provision in

section 14 of Bill 42 to deal with the service of documents.

Section 14 contains the phrase, "if the court is satisfied" -- and I emphasize the word "satisfied." In my view, it's giving discretion to water down the time-honoured principles of the rules of evidence, and I think we have to do that with caution, if we decide to do that at all. Those rules have developed over many, many years, not just in our province but across our country and indeed throughout countries in the Commonwealth. Again, I stress that those rules developed, no doubt, for a reason.

Finally, I turn my concerns to

section 18 of Bill 42. This has already been made reference to by the member for Matsqui and by my colleague the member for Richmond-Steveston.

Section 18 of Bill 42 would, in a nutshell, effectively make it possible for cases to be transferred from the Supreme Court at Chilliwack to be heard in downtown Vancouver. Not only would this potentially add to the legal costs incurred by clients -- that is, members of the public who need access to legal services -- but it would mean that a person relying on the services of a jury would find that the jury would be selected not necessarily from their peers -- that is, people in their community -- but from people in greater Vancouver.

I think one of the most salutary aspects of the Canadian justice system, particularly in criminal matters, is that there is a division of powers. The federal government, as we all know, has the authority to make criminal law right across this country. The benefit to that is that what is criminally illegal to do here in British Columbia is also exactly criminally illegal in Newfoundland, on the other coast of our great country. However, the balance that is brought into play is that it's up to the individual provinces to administer -- and in most cases prosecute -- offences under the Criminal Code.

Furthermore, within the provinces most citizens, for the most serious types of offences, have the right to select trial by jury, and those juries have traditionally been made up of members of their own community. I would make the argument that that provision ensures a balancing of powers, versus the centralized federal authority to make criminal law, the provincial authority to prosecute and administer that law and the power given to members of the community to effectively sit as judges -- in their capacity as jurors -- of people in their own community and pass judgment on their peers. So to the extent that

section 18 takes away that balancing of powers, I want to express my concern here tonight, on the record.

On a final note, it's not a secret that earlier this year the provincial government indicated its desire to close down the courthouse in Chilliwack, and I hope that

section 18 isn't in some way a further indication of the government's ongoing desire to remove Supreme Court facilities from the upper Fraser Valley and centralize all of that service to the public in downtown Vancouver. As you travel around the province, one thing you hear repeatedly is that the people in the lower mainland -- that is, in downtown Vancouver -- have access to far more services than people in the remote regions of this province, even though the majority of the wealth in British Columbia, particularly in the resource sector, comes from areas outside of the lower mainland.

With that said, I will just indicate that I will be pursuing answers to these questions, which I have raised in a cursory way tonight. I will be pursuing these in committee stage, and I look forward to that.

[ Page 5684 ]

[8:00]

In this case, it's a regional hospital district. As the hon. member for Shuswap pointed out, they operate as an adjunct to regional districts in the province, and they exist to provide either major or minor capital funding for hospitals in that district. And 40 percent of the 60-40 split between the province and the regional hospital districts is raised locally through taxes.

This

section is very, very disturbing. We've seen the province replace other elected bodies across the province -- fire them and put in public administrators. We've seen the kind of effect that's had on communities across the province, with health care reform moving the way it did in the last year. The way it was supposed to move was to bring decision-making closer to home, and firing hospital society boards in the last year or so -- I think that 20-odd boards were fired -- really sent a disturbing message to communities that their elected representatives on those boards were not valued.

I know that the member for Saanich North and the Islands talked about confidence in these boards, and it really did take away the government's confidence in these boards and certainly the communities' confidence in the way government was operating by firing these societies.

It brings to mind an example, actually. The province had said they were going to provide funding for a new radiology department at Vancouver Hospital, and I remember that the greater Vancouver regional district was quite upset with that decision, because 40 percent of the funding for that $28 million department was going to come through their regional district capital funding partnership. They were very upset, because there was no consultation. They had other priorities. In fact, I heard some of the members who had served on some of these regional districts talking about long-term planning and priorities at the local community level.

If the government, by enacting this

section in this miscellaneous bill, goes ahead doing what it says, you've taken away the communities' planning, their priority setting and their ability to make those decisions closer to home. It is quite upsetting. I won't say any more than that, because I know that we can canvass this at greater length in committee stage. It will be a

section that I'll be opposing, because in the last year, as I said, we have seen the devastating effect on communities when the government removes an elected body and puts in someone who does their bidding. As I said, it will be something that we will canvass in committee stage and certainly something I will be opposing.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Obviously many members have made very thoughtful comments, and we will pursue some of those questions in committee stage. I move that Bill 42 now be read a second time.

Motion approved.

Bill 42, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 1997, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I call second reading of Bill 16.

POLICE AMENDMENT ACT, 1997

(second reading)

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The Police Amendment Act is part of this government's commitment to improve the justice system of British Columbia to be more responsive to citizens' needs. The amendments were developed in response to the report of the commission if Inquiry into policing in British Columbia conducted by the Hon. Mr. Justice Wallace D. Oppal, which examined British Columbians' concerns about policing, police accountability and governance in extensive detail.

Subsequent to that inquiry there has been additional consultation with representatives, individuals and groups. The legislation puts in place systems of police accountability in response to complaints about police conduct and services. In developing this legislation, the systems in place in other jurisdictions and the specific needs of British Columbians were analyzed extensively to ensure that our reforms would be effective and provide satisfaction to our citizens and be fair to the police.

The product of that process is a completely new and independent office of the police complaints commissioner, the governing principles of which are set out in the amendments introduced. The commissioner will be a person unanimously recommended by a special committee of the Legislative Assembly for appointment by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. He or she will be an officer of the Legislature, with broad authority to be exercised in an independent and impartial way.

The police complaints commissioner will have responsibility to oversee each and every complaint lodged against municipal police officers or departments. The commissioner will have powers to direct that a complaint be reclassified or reinvestigated -- investigated by an outside police department -- or that an investigation be monitored by an independent civilian observer appointed by the commissioner. The commissioner may also order that a public hearing take place before a provincial court judge, if it is in the public interest, and may request that the Attorney General order a broader public inquiry under the Inquiry Act.

The complaint process begins with a complaint being lodged with a police officer or the police complaints commissioner. The legislation includes fixed time lines for investigation and reporting to ensure that complaints are addressed and resolved promptly. Throughout the complaint process, the complainant must be assisted and kept informed of the status of investigations, options available to the complainant, and disciplinary or corrective measures imposed. A complaint may also be lodged concerning the service or policies of a police department as they relate to conduct of the department.

Responsibility for response to these complaints falls to the police board. The board must provide advice of any action taken to the complainant, the police complaints commissioner and the director of police services.

A key element in the complaint procedure is a new code of professional conduct, which will be a regulation pursuant to the act and applicable to each officer. The code reflects the core values that should guide policing in a modern democratic society. A breach of the code is considered to be a disciplinary default. It ensures that police officers deliver fair, impartial and effective services to their community and are accountable to the public. Where breaches occur, an approach which seeks to correct and educate will take precedence over one which seeks to blame or punish, unless remedial action is unworkable or would bring the discipline process into disrepute.

[ Page 5685 ]

Creation of the new police complaints commissioner significantly diminishes the roles and responsibilities of the British Columbia Police Commission. The remaining functions of that commission are largely duplicated in the police services division of the Ministry of Attorney General. It would not be efficient or effective to continue the commission, and it is being dissolved. The remaining statutory functions of the commission are transferred by the legislative amendments to the director of police services. These functions are for oversight, audits, standards and policy development, and coordination of the various policing and law enforcement initiatives throughout British Columbia.

The current Police Act only recognizes two policing schemes: independent municipal police departments for municipalities over 5,000 population, and the provincial police force, which in British Columbia is the RCMP. The need for public accountability by holders of police appointments goes beyond the regular members of municipal police departments and the RCMP. For a number of years there has been a need for other police appointments in British Columbia to supplement the enforcement activities of the established police departments and the provincial police force.

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

The only means by which those police appointments could be made was by using special provincial constable provisions of the act, which were enacted as a means of supplementing the provincial police force. Those provisions are appropriate for the purpose for which they were enacted. However, use of special provincial constable appointments to empower numerous employees of entities outside the provincial force is no longer appropriate or manageable. The current list of these special provincial constable appointments numbers over 500, and only a few are directly employed and supervised by the provincial force.

The others are employed and supervised by Crown corporations, branches of government ministries and aboriginal policing units. Special provincial constable appointments are held by persons exercising various levels of police authority, ranging from SPCA officers and SkyTrain security officers to aboriginal police units.

To ensure a consistent application of public accountability and policing principles, two new levels of supplemental policing and law enforcement organization and appointments are introduced in these amendments: designated policing units and designated law enforcement units. Most of the current special provincial constable appointments would be converted to one of these new appointment categories, depending on the level of authority required. These new categories are supplemental to, not replacements for, the existing statutory provincial and municipal policing structures.

The structural requirements of each of these new units will be patterned after those required for a municipal police department, including accountability to an appointed police board, discipline and oversight provisions.

The amendments also include provisions to enable regulation of the use of force by police officers. As well, there are consolidated references to the setting of standards for training, qualifications for appointments and other elements that support accountability for police officers in their public service roles. These provisions respond to concerns expressed by many citizens before, during and after the commission of inquiry into policing in British Columbia.

The dissolution of the British Columbia Police Commission and the creation of the new statutory offices of police complaints commissioner and director of police services, as well as the new designated policing units and designated law enforcement units, result in numerous minor consequential amendments. During the course of these amendments a number of existing sections were restructured with modern language for better clarity and understanding without substantive change. Obviously we will get into the debate of each of those during committee stage.

I also want to add one more thought to this discussion, and that is that I had a meeting with the new Solicitor General this morning, and I impressed upon him the need to have one complaint process for all police officers in British Columbia. I have asked him to look at that issue. I'm going to be writing a letter to him.

As we said initially when we announced these changes publicly, we want to make sure that at the end of the day, all police officers in British Columbia are governed by the same complaint process -- that it's harmonized -- because people on the street don't see any difference between a police officer from a municipal police force and an RCMP officer. To be honest, until I became a lawyer, I didn't know there were two kinds of police officers in British Columbia.

I think it's important that we press the federal government to make some changes to the federal legislation, to make sure that our complaint process under this new legislation may also apply to the RCMP officers in British Columbia. It may be difficult to achieve, but it is not impossible. I want to be making a push in that direction. That concludes my remarks.

[8:15]

G. Plant: I rise to join in the debate on Bill 16, which is a long bill. I think the Attorney General's longer-than-usual

summary of its provisions is evidence of that fact.

There are many challenges facing police forces in British Columbia. The list of those challenges grows rather than diminishes as we become an increasingly diverse society: a larger population, ever-increasing and more difficult problems of law enforcement, the types of crime that we're talking about coming from offshore, issues of hate crime, prostitution. These are all important questions. These are issues that the Attorney General and I have canvassed in the estimates debate of his ministry this year. I'm sure that we will return to them on an ongoing basis.

They're all part of the context within which all people who are peace officers in British Columbia have to do their job. It is a difficult job, and as I say, I don't think it's getting any easier.

When we look at a bill which represents a pretty significant amendment to the way the police in British Columbia -- or some of them, at any rate -- will be governed, we should do so from a perspective that recognizes that British Columbians are, in the main, awfully well served by the men and women who police our streets. What we are trying to do, when we look at a bill like this, is to make a good thing better. That is the challenge before us: to look at this bill to see whether it achieves those objectives.

Perhaps the first point to make about the bill is the last point that the Attorney General made, which is to recognize that because of the structure of policing in British Columbia, this bill has limited operation. There are 12 municipal police forces. The complaints process which this bill creates is a large and significant one that is, in fact, almost overwhelming in its complexity, or at least in its detail. Nonetheless, it is a complaints process that will only act and operate with respect to the 12 municipal police forces; it does not affect the balance of the police forces in British Columbia.

[ Page 5686 ]

As I listened to the Attorney General comment on the efforts that he apparently has underway to attempt to address that situation, I was thinking of the fact that we were here only last week debating another bill where that issue of the interrelationship between municipal police forces and the police services provided in British Columbia by the RCMP was also raised. On that occasion last week, we were debating the bill that will allow new guidelines to be implemented regulating high-speed car chases and the like.

As I understand the view of government and the Attorney General, when we pass that bill -- assuming that happens -- we will have, at least in that area, created a process that will allow one consistent set of rules to exist to govern all high-speed car chases.

That is a step forward, not because one size fits all, but because what the Attorney General says is true: British Columbians generally are probably not as aware as they should be of the fact that we are policed by a wide and diverse variety of police forces.

It is unfortunate that when it comes to the question of trying to hold police to account for their failure to live up to the standards that we have for them, whether that be by way of an incident where someone breaches the code of professional conduct, a situation where someone fails to attend and do his or her job or issues of the sort that will become policy and service complaints . . . . All of these kinds of issues are issues where members of the public would be better served by at least a consistent entry point into the process of calling police decisions into account.

I am glad to hear that the Attorney General has begun a dialogue with the new Solicitor General. I am sorry that the dialogue has not been more productive to date. I wish the Attorney General well in pursuing that. I can promise him that I will be reminding him of this issue from time to time and look forward to progress reports from him on it. We have those limits on what this bill accomplishes, but with all of those limits, the bill is nonetheless a pretty significant piece of legislation.

Any organization of a bill this large into just three components is probably a bit arbitrary, but there are really three issues or three subject matters that I want to talk about for a little while. The first is the issue of organization. That is the issue around the organization of what I'll call ancillary police forces: those that will become the designated policing units. The second is the issue of governance, and this has to do with

part 8 of the bill and basically doing away with the Police Commission and the addition of some significant powers and responsibilities onto the list of powers and responsibilities which the director of police services has within the Ministry of Attorney General. That is an issue of governance that I want to talk about. Then thirdly, there is the complaints process, which is the biggest reason why the bill is so long and is an issue that needs to be talked about a little bit.

There are, as the Attorney General said, some other important things in this bill. Some are consequential amendments. Some are amendments that are intended to update language. I note one particular one that I want to pause on for a moment, because it has been brought to my attention by some of the police officers in the police departments that I've spoken to, trying to get some sense from them about what this bill means for them.

I note that in

section 42 of the bill, the draftsperson seeks to revise, and in some respects enlarge, the regulation-making power which the cabinet has in terms of certain aspects of policing. One that catches my eye is subparagraph (t), which is regulations "respecting the use of force by a class of officers in the performance of their duties."

Here one sees issues around training: retraining in the use of physical force, training in emergency response situations, training in force as a means of restraining individuals, training or retraining in the use of firearms and ammunitions and a host of other things like that, and training in the use of police dogs. There may be some expansion here in the regulation-making power, but at any rate, these are clearly important powers that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council has been given here. I don't think we ought to pass them by without noting that they're there and saying that we'll probably have something to say about them when we get to committee stage debate.

Let me talk, then, about the three major subject matters of this bill. First, the organization point. I have very little to say about that. The provisions of the bill do seem to me to achieve a more regular structure with respect to the policing units that I call ancillary police units -- everybody from SkyTrain police to bylaw enforcement officers -- and provide a context within which there can be structured growth and advancement in the area of aboriginal policing.

When government moves down the path of providing aboriginal communities with the opportunity to police themselves, it's important that there be some structure for that. The provisions in this bill that create police boards and ensure that there is some consistency in the way these police forces are structured, are generally good. I don't think I'm going to say anything more about that part of this bill.

I am going to say a bit more about what I call the governance issues. I wish I knew more about the history of policing in British Columbia than I do. I'm told that if you looked at the models of policing and police services in British Columbia as they have developed over the last 150 years, you would find two quite distinct models of police services.

On the one hand, there is the model of municipal policing, which I think may have as its origins the tradition of village, community and city policing in England. There we have a model where the police force is a police force of a community -- accountable to the community, with a police board in the community that is largely made up of members of the community, and where the police board provides overall direction to and supervision of the delivery of police services within the community. There is a police chief who is a largely autonomous figure hired by the police board.

That person has significant say and authority and autonomy over the kinds of decisions that need to be made around service, organization, practices and standard operating procedures -- things that determine how policing is delivered in the communities of British Columbia. That is really what this model is all about. This model is a model of community-based policing decisions. I think it is the model that lies at the heart of the 12 municipal police forces in British Columbia.

Then we have a second model, a model that I understand is sometimes referred to as the paramilitary model, which has as its origins the Irish constabulary. In British Columbia the RCMP is the police force that fits this second model. It's structured quite differently. It's a police force which is much more directly politically accountable to senior government. In fact, the RCMP as a national police force reports to the Solicitor General of Canada. This is, in a way, the antithesis of community-based policing.

The development of this model of policing is, of course, an important part of the history of western Canada and how we came to be settled in the way we did and came to have a culture based on law and order. But it is quite a different model, and it is a model that I think, while it has its own strength, undoubtedly needs to be seen as a model which is, generally speaking, less responsive to the needs of community policing.

[ Page 5687 ]

So we have these two models. Now, what this bill does, it seems to me, is to erode this distinction in some respects, and I think it may be important. What it really does is erode some of the traditional autonomy of municipal police forces. I think it does that in ways which are perhaps more structural or conceptual at this point, and we'll see over time whether they become real. The way it does it is by putting an end to the police commission, which is a body outside government, and increasing the authority given to the director of police services, who is essentially a civil servant in the Ministry of the Attorney General.

[8:30]

So by taking away some of the autonomy and the authority that existed with the municipal police forces and moving some of that oversight function to the director of police services, we are taking that old community-based model of policing and making it a little bit more like the centralized policing model, which is the paramilitary Irish constabulary model.

I think there may be some good reasons why the police commission was no longer serving the function that it was originally intended to serve. There may not be all that many good reasons. There may also be some reasons why the police commission ought to have been retained so that it could continue to provide some of these functions in a way that is autonomous of government and outside government. But instead, what we will have is the expanded powers of the director of police services within the Ministry of Attorney General.

When you look at the list of powers and rights and so on that the director of police services will have, it's a pretty long list. It starts at

section 35 of the bill, and it goes up until

section 45 of the bill. It starts, I think, in quite a potentially important place. The starting point in

section 35,

section 39(1) is the statement that: "On behalf of the minister and subject to the direction of the minister, the director is responsible for superintending policing and law enforcement functions in British Columbia."

So we have an overall oversight role, a superintending role, and we have in the succeeding sections a series of elaborations of these functions. They include the functions of: inspecting and reporting on the quality and standard of policing -- inspecting policing operations and procedures, evaluating programs for training, evaluating standards of policing -- consulting with and providing information and advice to the minister on matters related to policing, and making recommendations to the minister about appointments to a board.

So here we have a provision, if I could pause here, where although we know that the municipal police boards will continue, we see that this unelected official, who is essentially a civil servant, will be making recommendations to the minister about appointments to police boards.

They go on. There's the power to make recommendations on the use of force, to assist in the coordination of policing and law enforcement and to report on the activities of police forces. Then there are specific provisions that require that the director make rules of practice and procedure with respect to all of his or her many functions. That gives him the power to conduct studies on his own initiative, to undertake reports, to undertake inquiries and to undertake special investigations into a whole host of subjects.

So we have somebody who is in a fairly important position in relation to the overall delivery of police services in British Columbia. I guess the question I've been asked and the concern that's been raised is: is this bill creating somebody who will become, essentially, a super police chief? I think that would be an unfortunate step.

I think it is obviously important that there be administrative coordination -- that there be an official within the Ministry of Attorney General who has responsibilities with respect to police services -- but I think there is a concern about the loss of local autonomy for the delivery of police services if the director of police services exercises with too much enthusiasm all of the powers that will be given to that person under the bill. But these are, admittedly, structural issues. It's hard to say ahead of time whether these things will work or not.

I think that sometimes the best one can do is to identify concerns.

I want to turn, then, to the third major area of the bill, which is the complaints issue. I think that the Attorney General's

summary of it was accurate in the sense that what we're going to have is another independent officer of the Legislative Assembly. We're going to have a police complaints commissioner with general oversight over the police complaints process. I think that what we're going to have, and what has happened here, is an important policy decision, which is that in the first instance and, hopefully, in the majority of cases, police forces will continue to investigate their own members for their own failings. I'm sure that this is an issue that we will canvass in debate.

Why was this particular model chosen and will it be a better model than, say, the model of an independent special investigative unit? I'm inclined to think at this point that the approach in principle taken here is a good one, at least in terms of issues like cost and efficiency, and probably also in terms of considerations like giving the police a vested interest, if you will, in ensuring that they maintain high standards. That can sometimes be lost if you create an outside body which does all of the work.

You may have a situation where people no longer feel responsible to do a good job for themselves and instead pass that responsibility outside -- with, perhaps in the long term, unfortunate consequences.

I have spent a fair bit of time talking to police chiefs, police officers, the representatives of police officers, the representatives of police chiefs and other people who are stakeholders in this process: the process of ensuring that members of the public have a fair and expeditious process available to them of ensuring that their complaints of police wrongdoing or failure to act are handled properly. It appears to me, from the research I've done, that there was a fair bit of work done to try and achieve a consensus on the major principles represented in what will become

part 9 of the Police Act. All parties in this consensus-building process had to give something and compromise towards the goal of achieving and building a new complaint process that would be an improvement over its predecessor.

As I understand it, there was and is a consensus with respect to the major principles that are embodied in this new complaints process: consensus that it was appropriate that the police continued to investigate themselves; consensus that it was appropriate to construct the position of a new and independent officer of the Legislature who would have general oversight over the handling of police complaints; consensus that there was a need to ensure that people, especially the respondent police officers, had access to a full and proper public hearing of complaints in order to ensure that their own concerns were dealt with fairly.

I think, as I understand it, that there was consensus around all of these major points that are represented in this bill.

[ Page 5688 ]

The result, as I've said, is that complaints will continue to be investigated by the police. The alternative of a so-called "rat squad" has been rejected for the reasons I said earlier.

With respect to discipline decisions, the old boards of inquiry are gone, and in their place the first-instance decision-maker on discipline issues will be the chief constable. The respondent officers will have an automatic right to a full public hearing of discipline decisions to a provincial court judge. I think these are reasonably good forward steps in pursuit of the goal of trying to redesign a process that will address some of the complaints that existed with respect to the old process and that were the subject matter of so much of Mr. Justice Oppal's recommendations.

Having said that there was and is a relatively general consensus on the major features of the new complaint process, I'm not sure that the same level of consensus exists with respect to the details of how the process will work. Frankly, the task of embarking upon a consideration of those details is a bit daunting. I think we're talking about 30 or so pages of this bill. It is an extraordinarily comprehensive code for the processing of complaints. Just the issue of how complaints are to be categorized is sufficiently complex, if not too complex, for ordinary mortals.

We're going to have public trust defaults and internal discipline defaults and complaints and service or policy complaints, and each of these types of complaints will have its own processes: its own complaint initiation process, its own investigation process, its own decision-making process. To add fuel to the fire of complexity, it appears that any one particular complaint can fall into one or more, if not all, of the three categories.

The result is that we would find that a particular allegation may actually wend its way through the system in three different ways with different rules of procedure, different time lines, different response requirements and different decision-makers along the way. We're going to have to spend some time figuring out why all of this process has been erected and whether its complexity is necessary. Those are probably issues for committee stage of debate.

When I go back and consider the fact that all of the people, the stakeholders involved in the consultation process which led to this bill, are really, in the general, large-picture sense, onside with this project, I don't think much good would be served by our now saying: "No, this long process of Justice Oppal's review, his recommendations, the attempt to draft the new act, the consultation process, the consensus building, all of that is for naught, and we should throw it out and start again." I'm not personally convinced that that is necessary or desirable, but I do think that we are going to have to spend a bit of time looking at some of the details of this.

Before ending my remarks at the second reading stage of debate on this bill, I want to address two particular issues that have arisen and that are not, as I see it, addressed by the amendments which the Attorney General has placed on the order paper. The first is the question of the salary or remuneration for the police complaints commissioner.

Deputy Speaker: Hon. member, I hesitate to interrupt, but I thought I should point out that the green light is on.

G. Plant: Oh, I can be the designated speaker. But I may finish; we never know. Now that I know I have time yawning before me, think of all of the important issues that could be raised. There are many of them. This is a fascinating structure of rules. I almost wish I were engaged in private practice and in the business of being able to advise people on how this will all work. But back to the point I was making a moment ago.

[8:45]

I have a concern with respect to the provisions in this bill concerning the compensation that will be paid to the police complaints commissioner. My concern is fairly straightforward. It is usually, if not invariably, the case in bills creating and empowering independent legislative officers that compensation is fixed by reference to some other statutory or other official -- for example, the chief judge of the provincial court. In this bill, the compensation for the police complaints commissioner, which will be

section 50.1 of the new act, is to be fixed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. That, I think, sends a bad signal in terms of the independence of the officer, because what we have is an officer of the Legislature who could conceivably make decisions and take action, from time to time, that would call into question the way the government is operating the police forces, either in specific instances or generally in British Columbia. This is an individual who is supposed to be independent of government and needs to have part of the structure of that independence.

Part of the structure of that independence is the certainty of knowing that his or her salary is not something that would be fixed or set at the whim of cabinet. So as a specific issue to raise now, before we get to committee stage debate, I want to raise that and leave that with the Attorney General for his consideration.

The second issue is the issue of transition. I have heard quite a few expressions of concern about that. The old process had among its deficiencies the fact that complaints could take an extraordinarily long time to resolve. As I understand it, that was partly a function of the fact that the old boards of inquiry were staffed by volunteers and that oftentimes it was difficult -- it is difficult -- to get people together. I'm told that there are complaints working their way through the system that are four, five and six years old. Clearly that is not an acceptable system. Clearly there needs to be a change to the system to ensure that complaints are handled more expeditiously.

But what do we do with the complaints that are in the system now? Here I think it's important to recognize that while I've talked about the structure of rules and its complexity and how we're going to have this new process, there are in that new structure some significant issues of process -- processes that change, issues around compellability, issues around whether and when officers must be required to give their version of events.

The process will change quite significantly as it moves from what might be described as a classic sort of quasi-criminal process into a process that in many respects will look much more like a labour relations model. That process has significance for the outcome of complaints.

My concern is that it really is not going to be possible and, more importantly, would not be fair to take all of the complaints that are currently in the system and immediately put them into the new system. So the second issue that I want to leave with the Attorney General for his consideration is for him to look at the business of what is usually referred to as grandfathering -- that is, to enact transition rules that will ensure that complaints that are in the system now can be processed to their conclusion under the old rules, so that those rules which created the structure of expectations around process at the beginning of the complaint will continue to apply to the end of the complaint.

[ Page 5689 ]

I know that there may be practical reasons why that's difficult. If there are, I will look forward to hearing them from the Attorney General either now or later. But I can inform the Attorney General that this is a concern that has come to me from police chiefs and police departments, which in other respects have much to say that is good about this bill. It is a concern which strikes me as having some merit.

As I say, this is a large bill. It's going to take some time to understand all of it. I look forward to spending that time when we get to committee stage debate.

R. Coleman: I'm pleased to rise to speak to this bill, as well, this evening. I always have the distinct pleasure of following the member for Richmond-Steveston, who usually canvasses practically everything that I had on my mind with regards to his very comprehensive comments.

First of all, I'd like to address the fact that the Attorney General has had some discussion with the Solicitor General with regards to this particular legislation and this bill, simply because in British Columbia we experience something rather unique in police work across Canada. Not many people are very much aware that the majority, the largest percentage, of the RCMP that are posted in this country are posted in British Columbia. I think it's something like 25 percent of the entire force.

We're the only jurisdiction where the RCMP are literally acting as a large city police force in many of our jurisdictions. In fact, out of the 12 municipal police forces we have in the province, a number of them are substantially smaller than the police forces in some of the detachments that the RCMP actually police in this province today. So as a result of that, the RCMP have a function that is very similar in this province to the municipal forces. That's where the key to any discussions with the Solicitor General should be aimed towards.

Simply put, if you could take an example of a province like Alberta, the major cities in Alberta are all effectively policed by city police forces. The RCMP performs a rural and federal function within that particular province. In Ontario, the only function they perform is a federal function, the same as in Quebec, where they have their own provincial police forces as well as their own city police forces.

The one thing that the RCMP has done -- and this is in cooperation with other police forces in this particular province -- is that they've adapted to city policing. They are a police force that does perform those functions. Their community policing offices, block parent programs, school programs and school constables mirror the programs that we experience in Delta, New Westminster and Vancouver, where we have these other police forces.

In order for this to work in the long run for everybody concerned -- this type of a system that we're trying to put into place today -- there has to be some buy-in by the large police forces doing the majority of our policing in the province. It's very key that we can be successful in that, although I do wish you luck. You are coming up against a paramilitary organization, governed by a federal statute, who have a very strong belief: "The law is here, and this is where it stops. Please don't come into our jurisdiction and try and tell us how to operate our particular organization." That's born of tradition.

My colleague spoke of the tradition and the history of policing in British Columbia. That's born of tradition too, the military side of that particular organization. We also have to remember that at one time we did have a provincial police force in this province. That provincial police force was disbanded; it was taken over by the RCMP at one point in time. So we've gone through that particular cycle once, and to look at a reversal may be something that may have to happen in the future.

Also, with regards to our city policing, there may come a day when the federal agencies just are not able to provide the personnel. As our population grows, they may not be able to provide the personnel to police the larger jurisdictions in this province and maintain their responsibilities elsewhere in the country. The time may come where we actually end up having to make recommendations to some of our municipalities that they really can't meet . . . . The federal government won't be able to meet their needs in the long term.

The important part of this particular legislation, though, is the fact that something took place here that hasn't always taken place in all the legislation we've debated in this House -- that is, there has been consultation with the stakeholders involved. It's important that the people who are affected by a piece of legislation and a structure that's going to be put in place have the opportunity to have some input -- how they think it should work -- into the guidelines, because they're the people that have to deal with it -- in addition to trying to get to some arrangement where it's best for the public interest.

I'd like to deal with, first of all, a number of things with regards to the legislation. The first one is with regards to the designated policing units and the designated law enforcement units. It's long been a concern of many police agencies, of other agencies of government and of the public with regards to what we call the special constable provision or the provision of different policing powers being given to individuals in the community. The minister referred to everything from the SPCA to aboriginal policing in his opening remarks.

What I like about this particular situation is the powers that are being given to basically be able to put some standards of training and of practice onto the particular portion of policing that is outside the normal realm of police work. The reason for that is because that will probably raise the standards of our qualifications, of our performance and, hopefully, of our investigation capabilities in these particular areas.

That's important, because those services -- and the qualifications and standards of training that those people have in order to provide those services -- have to be at a point where the public can find that the performance they're getting is acceptable, that the complaint process is acceptable, that the follow-through is acceptable and that, if we are getting into some form of an enforcement measure, the enforcement measures are at such a point that we, during enforcement, are able to actually gain success simply because our people are trained in proper investigative techniques.

With regard to the director of police services, I found it rather interesting . . . . I want to go over the many functions this particular director is going to have, because I find that what we're going to ask of this particular individual rather incredible. We're going to ask them to inspect and report on the quality and standard of policing and law enforcement, including inspecting police operations and procedures, evaluating training programs and evaluating standards of policing.

Just on the training side, the Justice Institute has a major job in moving and being able to be flexible and to grow within that, and the director has this huge function facing him. They also have to consult and advise the minister, chief constables, chief officers, boards and committees on matters related to policing and law enforcement.

They have to recommend appointments to police boards; recommend minimum standards for selection of officers; make recommendations about the use of force by officers, which is often covered by provisions of the Criminal Code; assist in the coordination of policing and law enforcement; inspect records, operations and systems of administration of any policing operations; conduct studies on matters concerning policing, law enforcement and crime prevention; and conduct inquiries and special investigations.

It's a rather incredible job, frankly, and I don't know where we're going to find an individual qualified to perform this function.

[ Page 5690 ]

The one thing I didn't note in a briefing session with regard to this bill and that I found somewhat disturbing was that one of the members of the minister's staff made the comment: "The one thing we know is that the person that's going to be the director of police services will not be an ex-policeman." We have therefore already prejudiced ourselves with regard to ex-policemen.

And the joking comment went around the table: "I guess that eliminates judges and lawyers as well, and people that have worked within the court system and within the criminal justice system." I think it's important to realize that we have to be open-minded about the individual that we're going to select for this particular position. They are going to have to be a pretty well-rounded individual, and I think it is very important that we take that into account.

I think the complaints process is important, because I think we've taken two portions of complaint systems . . . . I will paraphrase them as simply as possible, as I understand them: we have a complaint that is basically a managerial or an administrative complaint about a member of an organization -- a policeman -- and we have a complaint that is more serious in nature relative to a harsher discipline that is required. One would be a management function; the other would be more of a disciplinary function within the system. That is new. That is something that . . . .

In the past, complaints against the force were complaints against the force, whether it be the municipal force or a police force, and all of them were basically handled in the same vein. I think that what this does is set out a formula whereby we can manage our policemen and our police personnel better from the standpoint of expanding their ability to do their job by using the disciplinary and investigative process, both to their advantage and to the public's. I think that's very key in this particular situation.

The other thing that is important here as we go through this legislation is the timetables that we're starting to set for performance with regard to complaints that are going to be coming into this system. One of the frustrations you'll find out there with regard to complaints against the police or a police function is the length of time it takes, first of all, to have the investigation completed; and secondly, the lack of communication back to the general public with regard to what action was taken, how the investigation was handled, what the results of the investigation were and how the complainant is being dealt with.

[9:00]

I think that the municipal police code of professional conduct, which is a regulation to be attached to this particular act, is a very good one, because it accomplishes its main purposes. As outlined, its main purposes are to deliver fair, impartial and effective police services to the community. This is what we want to accomplish with our policing. We want our police personnel to feel that they can function in the street and know that there's a fair process available to them.

But there also has to be a community out there that understands that there is a fair process open to them at the same time, so that that balance can be met between policing and community. It's also to maintain public confidence in ensuring that we're accountable in fairness and in legitimate police functions, and to promote a high trust and confidence in policing.

As we know as politicians, it's very difficult to maintain that level of confidence and trust within any constituency. And that's what police have -- they have a constituency within their community too, and they try very hard to maintain that constituency and that relationship with the community. They as much as us want to see that there's fairness in the system -- but also reaction within the system so that the public will have the belief that if there's something wrong, they'll fix it and that it's not something they'll leave lying around.

The interesting thing about the processes was . . . . When I dealt with the code of ethics, I went to the disciplinary or corrective measures. This is where I found the refreshing side of this particular movement within this legislation, as far as where it can go. Of course, under

section 18 of the code, you do have the options of dismissal, reduction of rank, transfer or reassignment, suspension without pay, direction to work under close supervision, written reprimands, verbal reprimands and advice.

But there's also the option that they can consider disciplinary or corrective measures with regards to counselling, assistance in anger management, assistance with regards to maybe alcohol or drug abuse, or that sort of thing -- work-related disciplines. It also allows them to enter into some corrective measures in order to fix the problem and maintain their position or their job. Any person that has ever worked in a high-stress job will realize there are times when the stress actually affects your personal life and the way you personally behave.

There is opportunity within this particular code to address those issues so that not everybody is judged to be bad and not everybody is judged to be disciplined to the max. I think that's very important.

I would like to say to the minister that obviously I have a number of questions that I would like to canvass when we get into committee stage. As my colleague said, it is a very thick bill, but to canvass them all this evening would take collectively way too long. I think the important thing is that we're dealing with something that is going to take policing to a different organizational level, a different governance level and a different complaints level. Important at the organization level is that some structure is put into place so everybody is playing on the same page.

If we can get the other police organizations in the province to do the same, that's important. If we can increase the training for our special constables and special policing units, that's a bonus. If we can increase the governance with regards to how we govern and if we can be more reactive and quicker with our governance and our reaction to complaints and the handling of them in a more fair and balanced manner, that's a plus. Obviously, if the complaints can be handled and the communication plan that comes out from the complaints to the community is stronger, that's also a plus.

I think that as we go through this bill, we will find that the consultation that the minister has had with the various departments has been beneficial to the drafting of this particular bill. We will find, obviously, some minor flaws within the bill as we go through it, which we can address in committee stage, and I look forward to those debates.

[ Page 5691 ]

M. Coell: I wish to offer the following comments on Bill 16, Police Amendment Act, 1997. Briefly, I had the privilege of chairing a police board -- which I know you did, Madam Speaker -- and also the ability to provide fairly extensive input to Justice Oppal when he prepared his report to government. I can say that I agree with very much of this Police Amendment Act. In many instances it does not go far enough. There were many parts of the Oppal commission report that I would have liked to have seen in this act, and I'm disappointed that many of his recommendations have not gone forward at this point. Hopefully, they will in the future.

I would, in speaking in favour of this act, like to point out two or three areas that I think the Attorney General should pay some attention to over the next year as this act is implemented. It appears to me that citizens in British Columbia are going to become aware of sort of a two-tiered policing complaint system. You may live in one part of the province and have a complaint about a police department in another area, and the complaints procedures will be totally different from the area you live in. I see that as a problem and as something that people will find difficult.

From my experience as a chair of a police board, I can tell you that my understanding and belief of our police forces in British Columbia is that they are superior. They are staffed with very qualified and excellent officers. What I found extremely important -- and that I see were not touched in this amendment act -- were the police board functions and that the chair of the police board is an appointment of the mayor, from municipal government. That was one that I'm pleased to see was not altered in the Police Amendment Act.

The other area that I see some problem with in the transition is the director of police services, who is an unelected person appointed by cabinet or the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. I hope that this person would not be seen as a political appointment, a party hack with a large salary. It's important that this position be given some prominence, and I hope the province advertises and actually searches for a person to fill the director of police services position. It will become an increasingly powerful position in dealing with the police chiefs and police board chairs and, indeed, the departments.

I would like to see that it isn't, once again, the provincial government centralizing control over local government. I agree with the complaints process in this act, and I offer the observation that once you start going down this route with the director of police services having power, you may find that indeed municipal forces become less and less powerful and that the provincial Attorney General becomes more so. I offer that as . . . . You may go down that route; you may not. To me