British Columbia Hansard — Tuesday, June 22, 1982 — Afternoon Sitting (32nd Parliament, 4th Session)

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British Columbia — Debates (Hansard)

1982 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 32nd Parliament

Hansard

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

( Hansard )

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1982

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

8363 ]

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Job-creation initiatives. Ms. Sanford –– 8363

Mr. Barrett

Mr. Howard

Quarterly financial reports. Mr. Barrett –– 8364

Municipal revenue-sharing grants. Mr. Stupich 8364

Offence Amendment Act, 1982 (Bill 3). Report. (Hon. Mr. Williams)

Third reading –– 8365

Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, 1982 (Bill 4). Report. (Hon. Mr. Fraser)

Third reading –– 8365

Waste Management Act (Bill 52). Committee stage. (Hon. Mr. Rogers)

section 5 (continued) –– 8365

Mr. Skelly

On the amendment to

section 5 –– 8365

Hon. Mr. Rogers

Division

On the first amendment to

section 8 –– 8366

Hon. Mr. Rogers

section 26 –– 8377

Mrs. Wallace

section 29 –– 8377

Mrs. Wallace

Mr. Skelly

section 33 –– 8378

Mr. Skelly

section 34 –– 8379

Mrs. Wallace

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Attorney-General estimates. (Hon. Mr. Williams)

On vote 10: minister's office (continued) –– 8379

Mr. Macdonald

Mr. Lorimer

Mr. Ree

Mr. Lea

Appendix –– 8386

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1982

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I'm

happy today to introduce good friends of mine who are down from my home

town, Quesnel. I'd like the assembly to give them a good welcome: they

are Pearl Martindale and Yvonne Whiting.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM:

Mr. Speaker, we have in the gallery today Mrs. Belchamber, a teacher at

Holly Elementary School, and five A students. They are part of a larger

delegation from Holly Elementary, but these particular students wanted

to take in the proceedings for at least a bit this afternoon, and I

would ask the House to welcome them.

HON. MR. GARDOM:

Mr. Speaker, we're very honoured in having in the House today His

Excellency Mr. Allan Gotlieb, the Canadian ambassador to the United

States. I'd like all hon. members to express to him the very warmest of

wishes and a great greeting.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr.

Speaker, I see peering down from the gallery today a former member of

the House, who was at one time a member in a dual constituency of

Delta, and later the single member for Richmond, and who was one of the

original self-styled maverick MLAs, Ernie LeCours.

MR. BARRETT:

Mr. Speaker, I'd ask the House to welcome Mr. Ian Waddell, Member of

Parliament for the New Democratic Party for Vancouver Kingsway. I

understand he's already standing.

MR. RITCHIE: Mr.

Speaker, it's certainly a great pleasure of mine to introduce a friend

to the House, Mr. Zieg Skrupski from the Surrey area. Would the House

please welcome him.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I'd also

like the House to make welcome a visitor from Manitoba today, Mr. Paul

Jarvis, who is the manager for corporate planning for Manitoba Hydro.

Oral Questions

JOB-CREATION INITIATIVES

MS. SANFORD:

Last week 4,000 people in Alberni were informed they were being laid

off, 2,000 people in Powell River have just lost their jobs, and today

we are advised that 2,000 more British Columbians are going to lose

their jobs because they are being laid off by B.C. Tel. Could the

Minister of Labour tell us what new job-creation measures he has taken

in the last month?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The major initiative involves the employment-bridging

assistance program. I notice that the member for Comox, in a column published

in that particular area, was encouraging the government to proceed with it.

For that particular program, we are now awaiting receipt of the umbrella agreement

to which the signatures of the federal ministers involved have been affixed.

Further particulars with respect to that program have, I'm sure, been passed

on to the House by my colleague, the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland).

far as the youth employment program, which was expanded by the

employment development committee, is concerned, I'm pleased to report

to the House that our objective, and the jobs which we wish to create,

have almost been filled. I don't have the figures with me today, Madam

Member, but I can assure the House that it has been quite a successful

endeavour, and I suspect it will be fully subscribed by the end of the

month.

MR. BARRETT: On a supplementary, Mr. Speaker,

we have waited for some thrust from the Minister of Labour concerning

job creation. The member asked: "What have you done in the last 30

days?" That question was not specifically addressed.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT:

In my view and in the view of the unemployed, Mr. Minister. What direct

action is he going to take as British Columbia's Minister of Labour?

Never mind Ottawa; what are you doing here in B.C.? There are 2,000

more unemployed today.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'm sure

that everyone recognizes the difficult problems which all governments

are having across this country. I would think that the members are also

very much aware of the considerable industrial development which is

taking place. For those who haven't been travelling in parts of the

province, I would suggest that they start with northeast coal and

travel to Anzac and Prince George. If that doesn't take the members far

enough, then I suggest you proceed further west with the railway

development all the way to Prince Rupert.

The policy of this

particular government is that we recognize B.C. Place, a great urban

renewal scheme in Vancouver, ALRT, and the proposed convention centre.

It seems to me that there is a great deal more benefit in allowing the

private sector to participate and create those jobs and ensure that we

have a climate for tomorrow. The amount of money which would be

required to create jobs as may be — and I'm not sure — suggested by the

members opposite will not give to this province the returns that an

investment in the private sector will.

MR. BARRETT: I

have taken the minister's advice and been to Prince George, where as a

result of this government's policy there is 18 percent unemployment. I

have been to Kamloops, where as a result of this government's policy

there is 16 percent unemployment; in Alberni there is 19 percent

unemployment. We can't afford any more of those pious statements. What

are you going to do to get people back to work? Thousands of people in

this province are out of work, and you talk about fictitious programs.

What hope can you give...?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

[Mr. Speaker rose. ]

[ Page

8364 ]

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: The member for

Kootenay (Mr. Segarty) and the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt)

know the rules of the House; they know that when the Speaker stands,

silence is observed. The hon. member for Kootenay and the hon. member

for Coquitlam-Moody failed to observe this rule. Would they please

excuse themselves from the chamber for the rest of the afternoon.

Before the Leader of the Opposition proceeds, I would remind him that this is question period; a debate is not in order.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. BARRETT:

Is the minister aware that unemployment in Prince George is at 18

percent? Is the minister aware that unemployment in Kamloops is at 16

percent? Is the minister aware that out of 6,000 people able to work in

Port Alberni, 5,500 are out of work? Can the minister tell this House

what is going to be done immediately to assist those people who are on

the edge of going on welfare because their unemployment insurance is

running out? What is being done to assist them with jobs related to

those resources — not by buying ships in Belgium and Korea and not by

having railcars manufactured in the States, but with jobs now in

British Columbia for British Columbians?

HON. MR. HEINRICH:

I recognize the last set of figures presented to the House. Yes, the

unemployment rate is high in Prince George. Yes, it's my riding. I

recognize that. But there are a few other things which I think ought to

be taken into consideration. The mills in that particular area —

independents as well as those which are integrated — have, been doing

their level best to maintain operation. Yes, some shifts have been cut

back from three to two; some have gone from two to one. But the fact of

the matter is that they're hanging in there and are showing a great

deal of courage even though times are very difficult. With respect, you

might as well mention Mackenzie also; it is a single-resource town, and

has done an outstanding job. Attrition and layoffs are somewhere in the

area of 15 to 20 percent. Yes, they're involved in worksharing as well.

The work-sharing program to cover the fifth shift of a five-day week

seems to be working reasonably well. I think we should also remember,

with respect to that particular area, that we have spring breakup,

something not unfamiliar to some members of the House. During spring

breakup there is often a layoff, and unemployment rises at that time.

mentioned a moment ago the employment bridging program. We would very

much like to have on stream some of the proposals that are being sent

in by sponsor companies, but we can't do anything until that particular

agreement has been initialed by the federal government and sent back to

British Columbia.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT:

The minister talks of spring breakup. I'm not talking about the

cabinet; I'm talking about the need for jobs in British Columbia. I ask

him for the third time: what has he done, as Minister of Labour, to

provide jobs in British Columbia now — don't caterwaul about Ottawa;

don't cry about Trudeau.

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of

the Opposition knows that questions of substantially the same import

cannot be repeated. This is the third asking of the same question.

MR. HOWARD:

On a supplementary to the minister, he has now twice mentioned awaiting

signatures on some agreement on silvicultural programs in EBAP. Can the

minister explain to the House why it wasn't until last Thursday that

lawyers representing the province finally agreed to the wording of that

particular agreement?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'm not sure

that that particular question is correct. It's my understanding that

the document was concluded long before then, and has been in the east.

That's the information passed on to me. If there is a concern with

respect to formalization of that agreement on the part of British

Columbia, I'll be glad to take it as notice and return to the House

with the appropriate information.

QUARTERLY FINANCIAL REPORTS

MR. BARRETT:

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Can the

Minister of Finance inform the House whether or not the first quarter

review will be delivered to this House on schedule, as is normal for

that review?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I think

that the record will show that the quarterly reports, which were

introduced by this government in 1976, are made available at the

earliest opportunity. The record would show that those reports are

available usually some four weeks after the conclusion of the quarter

in question. I have no reason to believe that we will not stay on that

schedule with respect to the first quarterly report for the quarter

that ends June 30. The member will know, having served as Minister of

Finance in the socialist government, that the figures for any given

month or period are not readily available, as they take some weeks. I

expect to be on schedule.

MUNICIPAL REVENUE-SHARING GRANTS

MR. STUPICH:

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Last week

the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) said he will

not restore the $62 million in revenue-sharing grants confiscated from

municipalities. Has the Minister of Finance decided on any other form

of emergency financial aid to municipalities to relieve the commercial

sector of the crushing burden imposed by the revenue-sharing cutbacks?

HON. MR. CURTIS:

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I take some offence at the use of the word

"confiscated." It has been used a number of times in this House with

respect to revenue-sharing. We still have in British Columbia the best

revenue-sharing formula with local government. I know that the

opposition tires of hearing that, but the fact remains that it is the

best formula in place in Canada today, even with the changes that had

to occur this year for reasons of budgetary restraint. It is forgotten

occasionally, Mr. Speaker, that when the revenue-sharing formula was

introduced in the portfolio of Municipal Affairs, the municipalities

clearly understood then that as the province prospered revenues

increased to the municipalities and therefore they prospered. In

periods of

[ Page

8365 ]

relatively little growth the revenues would remain

in a relatively flat state, and when revenues declined the same would

happen. That was fundamental to the development of the revenue-sharing

formula. Those municipalities with which I have had contact, except

those which have a partisan interest in criticizing the formula,

understand and accept that fact.

Orders of the Day

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

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Report on Bill 3, Mr. Speaker.

OFFENCE AMENDMENT ACT, 1982

Bill 3 read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Report on Bill 4.

MOTOR VEHICLE AMENDMENT ACT, 1982

Bill 4 read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill 52, Mr. Speaker.

WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT

(continued)

The House in committee on Bill 52; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

section 5. MR. SKELLY:

We debated this

section in

part last week, and as I pointed out to the

minister at that time, this

section allows licences to transport what

are called "special wastes." Those licences are issued by regulation

behind the closed doors of cabinet, or whatever those regulations

prescribe, and of course we haven't seen the regulations.

far as we're concerned, the people who transport special wastes have a

captive clientele and can charge anything they want. Giving licences to

these people can be a form of patronage; it's a system that's open to

corruption. We're very concerned that, in the way applications are

granted for release from the agricultural land reserve, something along

the same lines could occur under this section. We're extremely

concerned that this will open the whole system to those abuses that

take place in other states, where friends of the government, although

people of questionable character, are able to get these permits and

virtually hold hostage the producers of special waste and the province,

deriving tremendous profit from the transportation of special wastes.

So we're concerned about this section.

We're also concerned about public involvement and the fact that the granting

of licences and permits, particularly in this area, should be totally open to

public scrutiny, yet in this act, and in this particular

section of the act,

public involvement is virtually eliminated. Therefore we're opposed to the

act as it's currently drafted.

Section 5 approved.

section 6. MR. SKELLY:

Mr. Chairman, I ask your advice. I've attempted to insert a

section 5A

to provide for a licensing procedure, and I don't know whether this

should have been moved as part of

section 5. MR. CHAIRMAN:

The time to move that would have been before we passed

section 5.

However, I do notice that it is on the order paper. Possibly at this

time you could move the motion standing in your name, if members would

be in agreement.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Chairman. I move the

motion standing in my name on the order paper, which reads as follows:

"No person shall transport special wastes unless he has a licence to do

so issued under this act and the regulations and after the public

involvement procedure described in

section 14(

a) and the regulations."

[See appendix.]

On the amendment.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

I might just point out that this

section was the subject of some debate

last week, in which case there was a ruling of the Chair, which was

sustained by the House, deciding that

section 14(

a) was out of order

under our standing orders. Since this

section deals with a subsequent

section 14(a), it would be out of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Inasmuch as the Chair has before it an amendment to

section 14(a), that would appear to the

Chair

to overcome the difficulty expressed during the last time of debate.

The question is should

section 5 be amended to add

section 5(a) ?

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 21

Macdonald

Barrett

Howard

King

Lauk

Stupich

Dailly

Nicolson

Hall

Lorimer

Levi

Sanford

Gabelmann

Skelly

D'Arcy

Lockstead

Brown

Wallace

Hanson

Mitchell

Passarell

NAYS — 27

Wolfe

McCarthy

Williams

Gardom

Bennett

Curtis

Phillips

McGeer

Fraser

Nielsen

Kempf

Davis

Strachan

Waterland

Hyndman

Chabot

McClelland

Rogers

Smith

Heinrich

Hewitt

Jordan

Vander Zalm

Ritchie

Richmond

Ree

Brummet

An hon. member requested that leave be asked to have the division recorded in the Journals of the House.

[ Page

8366 ]

Sections 5 to 7 inclusive approved.

section 8. MR. SKELLY:

I'd like to move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper.

The amendment says, "line one, after 'manager' and before 'may,' insert

'subject to

section 14(

a) and the regulations,'" which will subject the

granting of waste management permits or permits to store special wastes

to a public involvement process. [See appendix.]

It's

interesting that the minister said in his press release, "We are

creating opportunities for public input to waste disposal concerns,"

yet in every

section of the act thus far he has deleted any possibility

of public involvement in these waste disposal concerns. So in order to

make the act accommodate what the minister said the act provided, I

have moved this amendment to create a public involvement procedure for

the granting of permits to introduce waste into the environment or to

store special wastes.

On the amendment.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

I oppose this amendment as it would cause unnecessary delay in getting

on with the essential business of dealing with the management of

special wastes.

MR. SKELLY: If any statement is more typical of the minister and his bureaucracy, I can't find it anywhere.

AN HON. MEMBER: Then look harder.

MR. SKELLY: You're probably right on that too.

This

minister feels that the involvement of the public in any

decision-making is a waste of the government's time. What he's

essentially doing is declaring a motion of nonconfidence in the public.

I think that what has actually happened over the period of this

minister's appointment is that the public has lost confidence in him.

This minister stated in the press release that he issued at the time of

the presentation of this act that he was creating opportunities for

public input into waste disposal concerns, yet he has consistently

eliminated them. Every statement this minister has made with respect to

public involvement is completely inconsistent, and he is doing

everything he possibly can to eliminate democratic public involvement

in decision-making in this province with respect to environmental

concerns. I would urge the minister to reconsider this

section and

change his mind and allow public involvement in the issuance of these

types of permits.

Amendment negatived.

MR. SKELLY:

I move the second amendment to

section 8 standing under my name on the

order paper, which reads that in addition to the other things the

manager may require in issuing a permit, subsection (

f) be added which

will "require the permittee to recycle certain wastes, and to recover

certain reusable resources, including energy potential from wastes." I

don't see any other part of

section 8 which specifies the recycling and

recovering of reusable resources, so I would urge the minister to

accept this amendment.

On the amendment.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Mr. Chairman, it may be very difficult to comply with this amendment,

but the government will accept it as put forward by the member. I am

prepared to accept it and recommend the same to the government, because

while it may be very difficult to actually comply with the recycling —

I think there may be some difficulty with what Webster says about that

word — the spirit and the intent of your amendment is clearly very

positive. I will therefore agree to accept that amendment.

Amendment approved.

Section 8 as amended approved.

section 9. MR. SKELLY:

Again, this is a

section which allows the manager to approve of the

introduction of waste, I believe, before the regular permitting process

takes place. A similar procedure was done in the Cinola development in

the Queen Charlotte Islands, and there were certain problems over the

period of approval.

I think that in this case the public

involvement procedure should be inserted, so that people know what is

happening in the case of approvals before the permitting procedure

takes place. A public involvement process inserted in this

section will

allow people in the area to know what is happening, know why the

approval is being granted and have full information as to what is

taking place. I would urge the minister to accept this amendment as

well.

On the amendment.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

This amendment is not acceptable. These particular approvals are to do

with short-term discharges, the best example of which is the batch

plant used in the asphalt paving business or in construction camps,

which are of a temporary nature, or in pilot plants. Notice of these

approvals are published. They are subject to appeal and they can go

through the standard appeal procedure that other permits can go

through. I don't think it requires any special permit other than that.

The very nature of the approvals under subsection 9, which existed

under subsection 7 of the previous Pollution Control Act, would

indicate that that's appropriate.

MR. SKELLY: Can the minister point out where the publication of the approval is required in the section?

HON. MR. ROGERS: That's in the regulations, Mr. Chairman.

MR. SKELLY:

Will the minister then table the regulations? I can't see where notice

is required or where an appeal is permitted in this legislation. Where

in the regulations does it say that, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr.

Chairman?

HON. MR. ROGERS: The appeal

section is

actually in the act under

part 5,

section

Section 26 on appeals

says: "Subject to this part, a person who considers himself aggrieved

by a decision of a manager may appeal to the director or district

director or a district director and may appeal to the appeal board."

[ Page 8367 ]

MR. SKELLY:

Again, the concern remains that there is no public involvement in the

decision in the first place. There are serious problems with the appeal

procedure. I suppose we'll be able to get to that when we're discussing

the balance of this act. I would continue to support the amendment I've

made on this section.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, the

minister has said that we have the appeal procedure, and he's referred

to certain subsequent sections. I would point out to him that

section

29, which refers to appeals, does not stay the permit. What we're

talking about is after the fact. He says right in his act that you can

appeal, but that won't stop the thing going ahead. What this amendment

is talking about is before the fact — getting the public involved

before the fact and making sure that whatever is going to happen is a

safe happening as far as the environment is concerned.

Amendment negatived.

Section 9 approved.

MR. HOWARD: I ask leave of the House to make a very important introduction, if I could, Mr. Chairman.

Leave granted.

MR. HOWARD:

We have in the gallery a former longtime, very active and personable

member of this House. I'd like the committee to assist us in welcoming

Leo Nimsick, who sat here for many years.

Section 10 approved.

section 11. MR. SKELLY:

I move the amendment standing under my name on the order paper. [See

appendix.] In line 1, after "this section" insert "and

section 14A."

On the amendment.

HON. MR. ROGERS: My earlier statements apply to this

section as well as the previous section, Mr. Chairman.

MR. SKELLY:

Then I would suggest that when the minister had written in his press

release that "we are creating opportunities for public input to

waste-disposal concerns...." I can't say that he wasn't telling the

truth and I can't say that he was attempting to mislead the public, but

I can say that the press release is, for that reason, not entirely

accurate. I would urge the minister to reconsider his decision to

excise from this act anything that involves public involvement in

environmental decision-making and I would ask the minister to change

his mind and accept this amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Sections 11 and 12 approved.

section 13. MR. SKELLY:

Mr. Chairman, what this

section does in essence is say that none of the

above is operative. The minister can change virtually anything in the

act by issuing variance orders, provided in this case alone that he

provides notice. If a permit is issued, if an amendment to a permit is

issued — or virtually anything else is issued — or a waste management

plan is drafted by a municipality, the minister can vary it on his own

whim or at the request of somebody who stands to benefit from a

variance of the original order, permit, approval, licence or whatever.

This

section gives the minister the power to totally change anything

that was done under the previous sections and subsequent sections of

this act. This type of legislation is unbefitting a democratic house in

a democratic province, and, although there are very few Social Credit

members in the House today, surely there are some who have read this

section and who find it so totally abhorrent to the system that they

claim to believe in that they would vote against this

section as well.

At his own whim, simply by making public notice available, the minister

can change virtually anything in this legislation. As I said, Mr.

Chairman, it's unbefitting a democratic House like this and a

democratic province like British Columbia, and I would urge all members

in this Legislature to vote against this section.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Never in the time I've been in this House has the economy of the

province been in the situation it's in right now. That's the very

reason for this

section of this act.

When this

section was

originally proposed, one of the litmus tests that people used was: how

would you like it if someone else was operating with this section? This

is the

section where the minister has to be accountable for a decision

that is made. What happens at the present time when someone has a

permit to improve their environmental discharge, and that permit is

based on three, four or five years and a $100 million or S200 million

program to go ahead and proceed? That permit may have been issued

during very different economic times. The permit being rigid, the

requirement is to meet with the requirements of that permit. We're

faced with a situation where, because of changing economic times. a

company can no longer meet the

schedule that was originally set down,

and there is no appeal at the present time. This

section allows the

minister, where he considers it to be correct and where he's prepared

to state the reasons for it publicly and publish it, to issue a

variance order. When the members on both sides of this House come to

the minister, whoever the minister may be, to apply for a variance for

an industrial activity in their community which is to be shut down

because of noncompliance with permits, then you'll understand the

reason this

section is here.

We have two choices. One is

that we can turn a blind eye and pretend nothing's happening. The other

is that we can be upfront and honest with it, and say that a company is

not able to continue to do this because of the economic situation. I

can give you several instances where a delay is intended. It's not

intended to be a permanent procedure for deferring compliance with an

order, but is intended to be on a short-term basis allowing a company

to operate outside of its permit.

MR. SKELLY: What

the minister says he intends and what he can do under this

section of

the act are two totally different things. If somebody cannot comply

with the conditions of a waste management permit, a pollution control

permit, or whatever they are about to be called under this act, there

is an amendment procedure. It's a procedure that doesn't take time,

because there's no public involvement

[ Page 8368 ]

requirement built into it. It can now be done virtually overnight.

There

is also an appeal procedure so any person, as the minister said,

quoting subsequent sections of his own act, who felt aggrieved by the

decision of a manager can now appeal that. There is every opportunity

in this act for people who hold permits to have them amended or changed

in some way without the minister becoming politically involved. Nowhere

here does it say "in time of economic emergency or depression." Perhaps

what it should say is that if someone came along and showed their

Social Credit Party card they would be able to get their pollution

control permit varied in order to accommodate the minister's political

friends. That's what this

section is designed to do.

There

are other sections of the act which allow for changes and amendments in

permits. There are other sections of the act which allow appeals.

Nobody, if we had a consistent and fair rule of law in this province

with respect to environment, should be able to make a political appeal

to the minister to relieve him of the obligation of controlling

pollution. Yet under this section, the minister is totally destroying

the effect of the rest of the act by allowing himself to exempt his

friends and people based on appeals to him behind the closed doors of

his office. This is a dangerous

section and it should be struck down

here and now in this Legislative Assembly. The minister should not be

allowed to carry through with this type of unwarranted power under this

act.

HON. MR. ROGERS: The argument of my colleague

opposite is correct in one respect only. It is that the variance order

covers broader terms of reference than the environmental management

board. For example, if you go back to

section 11, "Amendments of

permits and approvals", subsection (1) says: "A manager may, subject to

this

section and the regulations, and for the protection of the

environment...." So their scope is extremely limited. They cannot deal

with economic hardship matters. Once again, the minister has to be

responsible to say that for economic reasons he's convinced of it and

has therefore issued a variance order. I think you're misreading the

section.

I appreciate that the power given to the minister

for a variance order is broader than the power given to the director,

but a person cannot appeal to a director based on economic situations.

MR. SKELLY:

Mr. Chairman, on the other hand there is the

section relating to the

appeals, where a person who is aggrieved by any order, etc., of the

manager can make an appeal and try to get a permit changed through the

appeal procedure. Why should citizens have to go through the appeal

procedure, which we know is stacked against them, with the $25

deterrent fee under the Pesticide Control Act, or the Environment

Management Act, or whatever act those things come under? Citizens are

required to go before the Environmental Appeal Board; why shouldn't

permit-holders be forced to go before the same board to have their

permits varied? Why should they have a special appeal to the minister,

a political route to the minister? It's unfair and it should be struck

down and taken out of this act.

Section 13 approved on the following division:

YEAS — 27

Wolfe

McCarthy

Williams

Gardom

Bennett

Curtis

Phillips

McGeer

Fraser

Nielsen

Kempf

Davis

Strachan

Waterland

Hyndman

Chabot

McClelland

Rogers

Smith

Heinrich

Hewitt

Jordan

Vander Zalm

Ritchie

Richmond

Ree

Brummet

NAYS — 22

Macdonald

Barrett

Howard

King

Lea

Lauk

Stupich

Dailly

Nicolson

Hall

Lorimer

Levi

Sanford

Gabelmann

Skelly

D'Arcy

Lockstead

Brown

Wallace

Hanson

Mitchell

Passarell

An hon. member requested that leave be asked to have the division recorded in the Journals of the House.

Section 14 approved.

section 14(a).

MR. SKELLY:

Mr. Chairman, I move

section 14(a), entitled "Public involvement

process," standing under my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

This

section provides a public involvement process which is an improvement

over what was in the former act, which provided that certain people

could object to the issuance of pollution control permits once they

were aware that these were published or posted. Since all of the public

involvement procedure has now been taken out of the act, I am

suggesting that the minister concur with putting into the act this

section, which would bring the public involvement procedure back.

The

minister objected in debate a few days ago that this would involve some

cost to the Crown. He doesn't seem to be that concerned about it when

cabinet ministers wallow in the public trough at taxpayers' expense,

but we are concerned about the public involvement process. To meet the

minister's objections I have inserted the following: that this

involvement procedure has been completed entirely at the applicant's

expense, and will include "sufficient public notice" and "full public

access to information." The minister was also concerned that a public

hearing might be called in every case or required in every case, even

for the smallest matter, so I've reworded that to say: "and if in the

opinion of the manager a hearing is warranted by potential

environmental impacts, or by the level of public concern, a public

hearing be included in accordance with the regulations."

am asking the minister to accept this reasonable amendment to the bill

which brings the public involvement procedure back into this act, and

which confirms what the minister said in his press release, that we are

creating opportunities for public input to waste-disposal concerns. I'm

sure that the minister would not want to be inconsistent or to mislead

the public by saying that that possibility was in the

[ Page 8369 ]

act when in fact it wasn't. So I'll ask the minister if he would accept this amendment.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Order, please. Since the amendment before us is not on the order paper,

the Chair will have to read the amendment so it is on the record.

"Section 14A: Public involvement process.

"No

permit, order or approval shall be issued under

section 4,

section 5A,

section 8,

section 9,

section 11,

section 16 or

section 17(2) until a

public involvement procedure has been completed entirely at the

applicant's expense which includes: (1) sufficient public notice;

(2) full public access to information; and, if in the opinion of the

manager a hearing is warranted by potential environmental impacts or by

the level of public concern, (3) a public hearing in accordance with

the regulations."

On the amendment.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Mr. Chairman, the public-involvement process in this act is improved

over what it was in the previous act, especially where it comes to

dealing with municipalities. Exactly the same situation occurs as

occurred in the previous act when it comes to dealing with the private

applicant. There are some minor problems with your amendment. The

director can hold public meetings whenever he deems it appropriate, and

has done so. So your proposed amendment is not acceptable to the

government.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Chairman, there is no

provision in this act for a public-involvement procedure. This

amendment attempts to correct the act, to make it more consistent with

what the minister said in his press release. Now he wants to leave it

entirely up to the discretion of the manager. We've seen that in the

past, very few public hearings were held — very little in the way of

public involvement was available. You can name any instance. The Amax

case is a perfect case. This is a reasonable amendment. It involves no

cost to the government and does not require a public hearing every time

or at unreasonable times. In fact, it simply creates a framework in law

for a public — involvement process to be developed in the regulations;

that's all it does. If the minister doesn't accept this, then it's

clear to me and it's going to be clear to the general public that he

has no concern for public involvement at all. As I said in the past,

he's declaring a vote of nonconfidence in the public of this province

in respect to decision-making on environmental matters. I would urge

him to accept this amendment.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 23

Macdonald

Barrett

Howard

King

Lea

Lauk

Stupich

Dailly

Nicolson

Hall

Lorimer

Levi

Sanford

Gabelmann

Skelly

D'Arcy

Lockstead

Brown

Barber

Wallace

Hanson

Mitchell

Passarell

NAYS — 27

Waterland

Hyndman

Chabot

McClelland

Rogers

Smith

Heinrich

Hewitt

Jordan

Vander Zalm

Richmond

Ritchie

Brummet

Ree

Wolfe

McCarthy

Williams

Gardom

Bennett

Curtis

Phillips

McGeer

Fraser

Nielsen

Kempf

Davis

Strachan

An hon. member requested that leave be asked to record the division in the Journals of the House.

Section 15 approved.

section 16. MR. SKELLY:

This

section deals with municipal waste management lands. It's one of

the few sections in which there is a provision for public involvement,

although it’s a skimpy provision indeed.

It's interesting

that when we discussed this bill in second reading debate I asked the

minister why he had not circulated the bill as a white paper before

presenting it in the Legislature, or at least allowed some time to

elapse between the presentation of the bill and second reading in order

that all those people throughout the province concerned about waste

management could have an opportunity to comment. The minister said

something along these lines: "You'll notice the response in the press.

Nobody seems to care about waste management legislation in the

province."

I was talking a short time ago to the people at

the Union of B.C. Municipalities, who again feel ripped off by this

government. Apparently the minister issued the press release during

first reading on June 4. They sent a copy of the press release to the

Union of B.C. Municipalities on June 16. It was finally received in the

offices of the UBCM on June 21, after the bill had completed debate in

second reading. The UBCM has had no opportunity to comment on the bill.

They've attempted to rush the bill around the province.

realize that officials of the UBCM were able to get in touch briefly

with people in the Ministry of Environment to discuss the sections of

the bill that relate to them. But I might add that they had no advance

opportunity to be consulted about the bill. The bill wasn't circulated

in the form of a white paper as were, for example, the Wildlife Act,

the Land Use Act and a number of statutes that some people in municipal

government might consider much less urgent than the waste management

bill because they might incur much less in the way of charges on

municipalities and therefore on local taxpayers.

I share the

outrage of those municipalities that they have not been consulted in

the drafting of this legislation, or at least informed in proper time

so they could comment to the minister on the contents of this bill. I

think it's an insult to the municipalities, to municipal governments in

this province and to the Union of B.C. Municipalities that the minister

did not allow adequate public discussion on this bill before it was

debated in the Legislature. I have been asked to convey that feeling to

the minister. because in some cases they haven't even had time to write

to the minister. I understand they're

[ Page 8370 ]

doing so to ask that the bill be delayed so they'll have an appropriate opportunity to comment.

I'm

not sure the minister likes municipalities or cares about them one way

or the other. It's clearly evident that the government doesn't do so.

I'm

concerned about this

section of the act. It's interesting that in every

other

section of the legislation the minister has attempted to

eliminate public involvement. This is one of the few sections where he

can see there's an opportunity to impose costs on municipalities for

public consultation procedures. He's going to impose those charges on

the municipalities.

Looking through the whole statute, it

doesn't provide funds to assist municipalities to go through these

planning and public consultation procedures. The government doesn't

appear to provide any additional funding for the serious problems

created by waste disposal, but the government does create additional

charges to the municipality, additional taxes on homeowners during a

time of economic depression, and additional costs on those people who

are out of work, by forcing municipalities to go through this procedure

where the government itself does not. Again, I think it's inconsistent,

and I would therefore like to move the amendment to

section 16(2) in my

name on the order paper.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before you

proceed, I must advise you that the defeat of

section 14A renders the

first part of your amendment out of order. The second part of the

amendment to

section 16 would of course be in order, but the first

part

is virtually meaningless.

MR. SKELLY: It went along

with the rest of the public consultation procedures that the minister

booted out of this act. That's what you're trying to tell me, Mr.

Chairman.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I can't speak for Canada

Post and the difficulty we have transmitting different documents around

the province, but this

section is a big improvement for the

municipalities over the existing act. For the first time we work in

consultation, as opposed to being just in a regulatory function with

them. Where municipalities have in the past waited until their permit

reached a crisis point before applying, now we will work with them in

advance.

There is an enormous amount of public interest in

both sewage-disposal plants and sanitary landfills or incineration

plants for solid waste disposal. Nowhere is this borne out more

obviously than in the Greater Vancouver Regional District with their

solid waste disposal problem. Under the existing Pollution Control Act,

we had no involvement with that problem. We knew they had a problem, we

reminded them they had a problem, but we had no involvement with them

at all. Under the existing act they could go ahead and propose

something and it wasn't until we had actually issued a permit that the

public could have any input into this matter. We think this is a

substantial improvement over the existing system.

MR. SKELLY:

I'm sure it's a substantial improvement; I'm willing to accept that.

However, if the minister is talking about improvements in public

consultation or improvements in consultation with the municipalities,

why didn't he see fit to treat municipalities in the same way as, for

example, rod and gun clubs or the B.C. Wildlife Federation? He could

have distributed this legislation in white paper form in the same way

he distributed the Wildlife Act to those other organizations. If he is

so seriously concerned about consultation with municipalities, why did

that not take place? I realize there's a serious problem with solid

waste disposal in the Greater Vancouver area, and there are other

equally serious pollution problems. Recognizing that, why did the

minister not consult about the legislation prior to bringing it down in

this House within six working days, having it debated in second reading

and then follow through committee stage within four or five days of the

Union of B.C. Municipalities receiving a copy of the act?

Whether

or not you blame the Post Office, it's certainly possible to courier a

copy of the act to the Union of B.C. Municipalities. When you consider

the way we send cabinet ministers travelling around this world to

attend theatre shows in New York or to get married in Australia, at

least we could send them a copy of the waste management legislation

which relates so directly to municipal government and municipal

problems. You would think it would be

an act of courtesy by this

ministry to send a copy of the bill by courier so that it might arrive

within a day and they might have an opportunity to comment on it before

it becomes legislation in fact in this House.

MR. BARBER:

To count on the Canada Post to deliver anything on time is to tell a

joke. To pretend that putting something in the mail is something called

consultation is telling another joke. Even if the Post Office could

deliver anything on time, anywhere, so what? Consultation does not

consist of sending a letter and hoping they get it on time. On time for

what purpose? Certainly not in time to be consulted before this bill

came to this committee. There was no time for that. Certainly not in

time to obtain the critical views and the professional evaluation of

the staff and members of the Union of B.C. Municipalities. There was no

time for that either.

What is this so-called consultation

that relies on Canada Post? It's not consultation at all. It's

informing them of what you've already decided to do, and allowing them,

if they're lucky enough, to hear about it before you've done it. That's

not consultation; it's nothing. It is an insult, but it's not even good

politics. I can't imagine why it's in the interests of Social Credit to

ignore the most legitimate body of expression that local government

has, which is the Union of B.C. Municipalities. Once again the minister

may say: "Well, it's such an improvement over the previous act and they

may have no choice but to like it." That, too, is beside the point. The

minister indicates that the procedure in place in

section 16 is so

vastly improved over the previous one that they will, of course,

appreciate it. That, too, is beside the point.

It may well

be that had the Union of B.C. Municipalities been asked, they would

have come up with yet another proposal for a procedure that would be

eminently more workable than the one in here, which the minister

insists is an improvement. But he'll never know and neither will we,

because apparently this government's idea of consultation consists of

putting a 30-cent stamp on a letter to the Union of B.C. Municipalities

and hoping that it gets there in time. I ask again, Mr. Chairman, in

time for what? In time to attend a meeting and have their views heard?

We've consulted with the UBCM and there was no such meeting scheduled.

In time to come to a press conference and hear the minister explain the

bill? The letter they got apparently didn't invite them to a press

conference. In time for what was this letter sent? The letter itself is

not consultation; the purpose of the letter is

[ Page 8371 ]

apparently only information. That's better than no letter, but that's no consultation either.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

regret that the government missed an opportunity here to ask a

legitimate body of accountable persons what they think the procedure

should be. For instance, if the UBCM had been asked their view of this

section in advance, I suspect they might have asked a question, which I

now ask on their behalf.

Section 16(

l) reads: "A municipality may

submit a waste management plan for the approval of the minister." The

operative word there is clearly "may." Therefore the UBCM might be

inclined to ask under what circumstances does "may" become "shall."

What leverage, if any, does the minister expect will exist or come to

exist that would require municipalities to submit a waste management

plan?

Again, Mr. Chairman, we don't object to the notion of

a waste management plan. At least on the surface of it, it is sound and

scientific and rational. We're not questioning that. We're asking about

the procedure and in this case we're asking on behalf of an

organization that was never asked for its view. It says that a

municipality may submit a waste management plan. On whose request, on

what advice, and within what criteria may they do this? They go on to

talk about the criteria to some extent here, but everyone knows that

the Union of B.C. Municipalities represents people who most often are

not full-time municipal officers or full-time elected persons. There

are only a few full-time mayors or aldermen around the province. It's

obviously the case that municipalities will have to rely on their staff

and on the professional

interpretation that the staff can give. But the

staff were not consulted either to the extent that we would think it

important or that the minister has previously offered in the case of

the Wildlife Act,

This is a major omission. It is, I think,

a major blunder on the part of the government. UBCM would probably like

to know what "a municipality may submit" means. Again, upon whose

request and at what time? How will it come about that they may submit a

waste management plan? Are they to do this on their own initiative? Are

they to do it entirely at their own expense? Are they to do it in

concert with other municipalities? Are they to do it through a regional

district?

Mr. Chairman, I ask another question of the

minister. In the Municipal Act, as I expect he knows, a municipality is

described as a regional district and, conversely so, a regional

district is a municipality for the purposes of the act. How are local

governments to interpret this section? Does it mean that regional

districts — as in, say, the case of Greater Vancouver or Greater

Victoria — shall be understood to be the "municipality" referred to in

16(l) ? If so, what is the process for consultation with them? How is

it that they will become alerted that they may submit a waste

management plan?

Mr. Chairman, what happens if a

municipality, as a component of a regional district, decides that it

will submit a waste management plan on its own initiative? I think, for

instance, of North Saanich in Greater Victoria and the Capital Regional

District at the same time submitting a plan, perhaps somewhat separate

in concept and perhaps entirely separate in detail. North Saanich has,

for very obvious reasons, some considerable problems with sewers, some

of which they're attempting to rectify themselves and others of which

they are hoping to rectify in collaboration with the Capital Regional

District. In this instance, how are they to know which municipality is

to submit the plan, themselves or the regional district? The minister

may say: "Well, that's a hypothetical question and reasonable people

can always sort these things out." That's true. Reasonable people can

always come to a rational conclusion. But the statute is silent on the

point. Now the minister may say it's a moot point and the Municipal Act

governs. I would remind the minister that the Municipal Act

specifically says that a regional district is a municipality, for the

purposes of the

interpretation of that act. So here, apparently, there

is a duplication, or at least the possibility of it, all of which I

think could have been avoided — and this is just one small illustration

of some of the practical problems of implementation of

section 16 — if

the UBCM had been asked in advance. As of today's date, to the best of

my knowledge.... I stand to be corrected, but my colleague from Alberni

(Mr. Skelly) was on the phone to them very recently, I think only hours

ago. Is that correct, Bob?

MR. SKELLY: That's correct.

MR. BARBER:

That being the case, as of just a few hours ago they were not aware of

what the practical implementation or the practical meaning of the

section was. They weren't aware because their opinion wasn't asked.

They weren't consulted. They weren't advised. They weren't aware,

because the government blundered. You should have taken them into your

confidence; you should have trusted them. You should have asked them.

Had those things been done in an authentically professional and

collaborative way, the concerns that they have expressed might not be

coming forward today and the concerns that we share we wouldn't bother

expressing today because they would be groundless. It was a major

blunder to fail to consult the UBCM. It was an incredible blunder to

rely on Canada Post to do it for you. I don't think those blunders can

form the basis of a competent waste management policy.

I ask

that specific question about the

interpretation of the word

"municipality,'' and the problem of overlap and conflict. I ask the

general question as to why it was that the government failed to consult

in a thorough and professional way the UBCM. Its representatives and

the staff people associated with the various committees of the UBCM

that have from time to time met to discuss the question of waste

management, solid and otherwise, in British Columbia. I share entirely

the concern of my colleague from Alberni, our environment critic, and I

speak as well on our behalf as Municipal Affairs critic. From both

perspectives we're disappointed in the procedure that has led us to the

point we've reached today, from both perspectives we think the

government's failure to consult was a technical and political mistake

for which there is no good excuse. We hope the mistake isn't repeated,

because it's a mistake that does not serve the public interest.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Perhaps if I could refer the member to the

interpretation

section of

Bill 52 in which we have a definition of "municipality" as "a city,

town or village incorporated by or under

an act, and includes a

district municipality, a regional district, an improvement district

that has as an object the disposal of sewage or refuse, or the

provision of a system for the disposal of sewage or refuse or both, and

the Greater Vancouver Sewage and Drainage District." So that, I think,

answers your question about what is

[ Page 8372 ]

meant by "municipality." It's covered under the definition of this act.

MR. BARBER: But what about overlap of municipalities and regional districts?

HON. MR. ROGERS:

There is a real situation there in overlap, because in some situations

solid waste is disposed of at a municipal level, and liquid waste or

sewage is disposed of on a regional district basis. When we say "may

submit a waste management plan" we mean just that. Many of the

municipalities won't need to submit a waste management plan at all.

Their sewage treatment plant, if they have one, is operating. It's

within the permit that they have. Their sanitary landfill is approved

if they use that, or an incinerator in those municipalities where they

use that. We don't require anything from those municipalities. They're

fine. But in some municipalities where they have growth, or where they

have in-filling, or where they have problems because they may have once

been on a septic tank and now the soil is saturated to the extent that

it can't do that, they are expected to submit a waste management plan

that works in conjunction with us to solve their municipal waste

problems.

MR. BARBER: Who tells them when they are expected?

HON. MR. ROGERS:

How do we know when they're expected? Well, they have a permit that

they live under; that's a permit that they have to operate. In some

cases a landfill has a time-limit permit on it; in some cases it has a

tonnage-limit permit on it. In some cases sewage control plants have a

gallonage — litreage, I guess, is the correct metric word — limit on

it. When they reach that level they have to submit a waste management

plan, and when a municipality gets to that level they're going to have

to submit that plan. At the present time, when a municipality gets to a

certain level they go through the whole process — total isolation from

the ministry, total isolation from the public — and apply for a permit

to the waste management branch, pollution control branch. Then the

permit is issued and then there's an appeal procedure. Well, we're

changing that. We're changing it to the point that the public is

involved at the beginning; they develop a waste management plan in

concert with the ministry and once that plan is issued that's the plan

for the municipality.

There's no question that any legislation brought forward can be either

floated as a white paper, or kept close to the breast as developed as

an act.

Now this act affects industry; it affects municipalities; it affects individuals.

The decision was that this act would be kept in-house and would not be discussed

outside in public. It could have gone as a White Paper — that's a

government decision. This act is considerably more urgent, in my opinion, than

the Wildlife Act. The existing Wildlife Act we can stumble along with. We might

have to make a few modifications here and there, but we've worked with it

for 20 years, and instead we've come up with a brand new act after floating

it with a White Paper. This act addresses special waste, which we don't

have any control over right now, and for which I consider there to be a great

urgency to deal with. I think my colleague opposite would agree with that. In

that instance this act is much too important to float it as a White Paper at

least for a year to get the input that one would require before you could come

back with fine-tuning what may or may not be approved by the municipalities.

think, after my discussions with people in the municipalities around

the province, that this will be more than acceptable to them, and I

think you'll find that they will appreciate it. The UBCM has so many

members, and the time it would take to canvass all their members would

be quite substantial. For all their members to have their legal staff

review this bill and come back, in my opinion, would take a substantial

amount of time. You may even know them better. You deal with them on a

much closer basis than I do, because I only deal with municipalities on

waste management matters. I deal with them quite often, and this is

what they have been asking for when they have asked me for it. Maybe

the officials of the UBCM and maybe the people you've talked to.... As

you say, you don't know whether they like it or not, but this is what

they've been asking us to provide, and this is what we're intending to

do.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Chairman, it's interesting how

the minister describes the process of consulting with the public on

legislation and how he differentiates between which pieces of

legislation should go through the consultation process and which should

be played, as he says, close to the vest. I don't know how he makes his

decision. It seems strange to me that this one affects so many people

and he said that nobody cared about it when we discussed this in second

reading.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I didn't say that.

MR. SKELLY:

He said: "Look how it was reported in the press. It doesn't seem to

attract that much attention." Well, the way the bill was issued in the

first place was designed to keep it quiet. We know that this bill has

gone through a number of revisions within the ministry itself; you can

see from the way the bill is patched together how many revisions it

went through in the ministry itself.

If we're concerned

strictly about hazardous wastes and the urgency of having hazardous

wastes or special wastes dealt with in an urgent manner, why can't we

compare ourselves with Alberta, where they went through a long and

involved public-involvement procedure? They consulted with people

throughout that province, they asked them their opinions; they asked

them how and where it should be treated, what it was all about and what

their opinions were. Yet in British Columbia we feel we have to play it

close to the vest. What are we afraid of here? Are we afraid of the

democratic system? Are we afraid of what the people will think or just

finding out whether they think? Just what is the minister afraid of?

People

around this province are concerned about the poisons that are being

dumped in their waterways. The by-election in Kamloops was a

demonstration of that; the questions around Amax were a demonstration

of that; what's happening with Quinsam Coal on Vancouver Island is a

demonstration of that. People are extremely concerned about what's

happening to the environment. They're extremely concerned about what

they see as misadministration by this minister of the Pollution Control

Act and the pollution control branch.

Look what's happening

in the Thompson River area. Look what's happening with Amax, with

Equity Mines, with Carolin Mines — you name it, there is a list a

thousand names

[ Page 8373 ]

long

of the bungles of this minister. They are concerned about it, and they

would like an opportunity to speak about it. The municipalities of this

province would also like an opportunity to debate in public their

proposals for changes to the Waste Management Act. They simply weren't

given the opportunity even to say yes or no, even to make proposals for

a change that could be questioned and debated in a public forum. There

is really no explanation for that other than the minister's fear of

public involvement.

There is another interesting

section in

the act. I wonder why subsection (4) is included as a part of this

section 16 under "waste management plan": "Notwithstanding anything in

the Municipal Act, where a waste management plan is for the benefit of

only a specified area of a municipality, a bylaw adopted by the

municipality for the purpose of implementing the plan does not require

the assent of the electors, a petition or an initiative plan referred

to in that act."

In other words, under the Municipal Act

people had the right to vote in a specified area as to whether they

wanted a sewer system or not. The questioning of this decision came to

a head at Ganges on Saltspring Island. I know who was consulted on this

section of the act: the MLA for Saanich and the Islands (Hon. Mr.

Curtis). Because we know what happened in Ganges. We know that where

people did not want a sewer system, but where certain developers saw

the possibility of a profit in a sewer system, then the rights of the

owner-electors, the rights of the voters, the rights of the residents

of this area — forget it. They get that sewer system regardless,

because the minister has a certain political constituency to serve.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Back to the section, please.

MR. SKELLY:

That is the section, Mr. Chairman: subsection (4), if you choose to

read it. It denies the owner electors in a specified area,

notwithstanding anything in the Municipal Act to the contrary, the

right to vote on what kind of services they want in their area. In

other words, a huge regional district — say Kitimat-Stikine — could

take a look at a small community like Port Essington and say: "There's

a major landholder there" — maybe B.C. Packers — "and we're going to

put a sewer system in there and make it possible to subdivide the land

and make a profit for a certain landholder." Those people who live in

Port Essington, or whatever the community is — I'm just using that as

an example....

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY:

The member for Skeena says: "Good." I'm just using it as an example,

but a huge regional district could by vote of their directors impose a

sewer system on people who don't want it but will be forced to pay for

it in order to enrich a developer who may have friends at city hall.

know who was consulted to get this

section in there: a member who is

only too willing to use legislation to deprive his constituents of the

right to access to the courts, and is only too willing himself to use

the courts to silence those who would seek their rights otherwise.

would like to ask the minister the question: why is that

section

included in

section 16? Why is this

section of the act attempting to

deprive people in specific areas of municipalities the right to vote on

their own services, their own sewage systems, their own solid-waste

disposal sites? Ultimately they are going to be forced to pay for them.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Some of your remarks were a little out of order, but some of them were

relevant. For your information, after mentioning the fact in the throne

speech that we were going to introduce a waste management act, we had

four inquiries from people as to what we intended. I said that the

public isn't interested; of course the public is interested, because it

affects their daily lives, but they largely tend to delegate the matter

of waste management to somebody else. They'd just as soon think: flush

the toilet, or get the bag to the curb, and let someone else look after

it. I don't suggest that they're not involved; they become very much

involved the minute you try to build a waste treatment plant or a

sanitary landfill near where they live.

The public,

generally speaking, would just as soon somebody else looked after those

matters. Fm not saying that the public isn't interested, but it's not a

subject that everybody sits up at night reading and researching about.

Certainly some people do. but as I say, we had four letters from people

inquiring as to what our intended waste management act was. I think for

a matter of government policy, that is not a terrific response from a

pretty well-covered throne speech that went provincewide.

Where

a municipality or regional district agrees to a waste management plan,

and you get a small group of people who for some reason or other just

don't want to do it, at some point you’ve got to say that's going to go

ahead anyway. Whether it's for the protection of fish, for the

protection of someone else's water source, or for the creation of a

landfill, at some point you've got to say no, the plan has been agreed

to and approved and this is the procedure that is going to go ahead.

That's why we have

section 16(4).

MR. SKELLY: Of

course, there's the other possibility that someone may be able to

profit from the addition of a sewer system in an area in which that

person owns land and has friends at city hall. I'm certain that that's

why this

section is included in the act.

Mr. Chairman, I

have an amendment to this section, in response to a concern conveyed to

us through conservation officers. that without the minister's

permission charges cannot be laid against a municipality for pollution

violations. This is the concern that has been conveyed to me from

conservation officers, but only if the minister gives his fiat can

charges be laid, and that's under subsection (7): "Where the minister

considers that a municipality is causing pollution, he has and may

exercise in relation to the municipality the powers that a manager may

exercise under

section 22 in relation to other persons." So it's only

when the minister makes a decision to prosecute that action can be

taken against a municipality that's causing pollution. We feel, Mr.

Chairman, that this unnecessarily politicizes the law-enforcement

procedure and essentially creates two categories of polluters. One

category of polluters covered under the rest of the sections of the

act, on the initiative of the regional managers or the managers as

defined in the act, are subject to enforcement. The others are only

subject if the minister chooses to enforce the law against them.

When

I discussed this question with the minister before, he called it a

question of accountability, that ultimately the minister has to be

responsible — I suppose because this is a

[ Page 8374 ]

difficult

political situation — when you go after local governments and local

politicians. Mr. Chairman, any polluter in this province, under the law

which governs pollution, should be treated like any other polluter in

this province. It doesn't matter whether a company like Weyerhaeuser is

pouring phosphates into the Thompson River or the municipality of

Kamloops is pouring phosphates into the Thompson River. If they're

violating the terms of their permit, then charges should be laid in

precisely the same way, no matter what the structure of the

organization is. Every person who pollutes in this province should be

as subject to this law as any other person. Therefore I move the

amendment standing in my name on the order paper to

section 16, which

is "to delete subsection (7) and to substitute the following: 'Where a

municipality is causing pollution a manager shall exercise, in relation

to the municipality, the powers he may exercise in

section 22 in

relation to other persons.'" The intent of this amendment is to make

municipalities as responsible for pollution as any other entity in this

province.

On the amendment.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

I'm going to oppose the amendment. I'm going to tell you why, because

my standards are no different from that of the manager or the director.

Elected officials should deal with elected officials and appointed

officials with appointed officials, so that a manager or a director

deals with the head of a company or of an industrial polluter that has

an industrial permit. To expect bureaucrats, technical people, to phone

up a mayor — which we've had to do in the last four months — or an

elected municipal person throughout the province and say: "Mr. Mayor,

this is so-and so calling from the waste management branch, the

Ministry of Environment. You're in violation of this matter and

therefore we're going to proceed...." This is unfair. It is not

comparable for other people in the public service. When it comes to

dealing with elected officials, another elected official should do it,

because the moment that one of my officials gets hold of a municipality

and tells the mayor precisely what decisions were made because they are

outside of their permit, you know perfectly well what the mayor is

going to do.

First he's going to contact his MLA, then he's

going to contact the Minister of Environment, scream at the top of his

lungs and say: "You've got to reprimand this official, who is totally

out of his depth. Imagine an official calling a mayor and telling him

what to do" — and the rest of it. I much prefer the system we have now,

where on the recommendation of the staff — because that's where the

recommendations come from in the first place — the minister makes the

decision to talk directly with his comparable elected official at the

municipal level, which is precisely what we intend to do, and then we

don't go through the charade of having some poor person being chastized

by an elected official — usually publicly — for the position which he

has put himself in, which is technically correct in the first place. Or

we assume it's technically correct; of course, that's subject to appeal.

They

have made the decision and the recommendation to save themselves from

that. Also, just because on a political basis it should be done that

way. I find your amendment unacceptable for the reasons I have

announced.

MR. SKELLY: I'm sure the minister finds

the amendment unacceptable for other reasons which he didn't state.

It's absolutely ridiculous, in fact, what the minister says.

Municipalities

in this province are bodies, corporate, like any other corporation that

operates in the province, whether it's a mobile-home park or whether

it's Weyerhaeuser corporation. No matter who it is, they're a corporate

body and should be responsible for violations of legislation in the

same way every other corporate body is responsible. I'm not saying that

the act should be enforced against Weyerhaeuser, MacMillan Bloedel or

Cominco in any way that's different than the way it should be enforced

against any other corporate body, including municipalities and regional

districts.

To say that a public servant of the provincial

government is in a worse position when he contacts the mayor of a

municipality is patently ridiculous. The municipality is a corporation,

and is a corporate body like any other body in the province. It should

be dealt with in the same way, under the law, as any other

organization. If a municipality pollutes, it doesn't matter what it's

dumping in the river. If it pollutes the same way as private industry,

it should be treated in the same way as private industry and charged by

the same procedures that every other person in this province is liable

to be charged by. To say that the minister, because of some protocol

requirements, should be dealing with mayors, municipalities and elected

officials at the local government level is a phony argument in this

case. These people who pollute should be treated like any other person

who pollutes. I urge everyone to support that amendment, to enforce the

law against everyone in this province equally and not to create a

special group of violators who can, by an approach to the minister,

have the law enforced in a different way against them or not enforced

at all.

HON. MR. ROGERS: This comes from personal

experience in seeing what happened to staff when they've had to deal

with municipalities. I refute your argument and say that municipalities

may be corporate bodies, but the mayor is an elected person. I have

personally gone through this entire charade in the last four months

with a mayor on Vancouver Island. I see no reason why this

section

isn't acceptable the way it's drafted. I would also refer you to

section 34(5), which says: "A person who, holding a permit or approval

issued to him under this act to introduce waste into the environment,

introduces waste into the environment without having complied with the

requirements of the permit or approval commits an offence and is liable

to a penalty not exceeding $50,000." It's up to the minister to do it

in terms of the government, but the public still has total and complete

access. If they consider a permit-holder to be in violation, they can

move themselves by merely going before regional Crown counsel and

laying that information.

MR. SKELLY: The minister's

statement adds absolutely nothing. His staff still have their hands

tied when enforcing the act against municipalities. What it does is

create a favoured group that has a separate appeal, behind closed

doors, to the minister. In fact, it makes the whole enforcement of this

legislation a farce. If municipalities pollute, they have a separate

avenue of prosecution and a political appeal to the minister.

Amendment negatived.

MR. MITCHELL:

What I want to do is definitely go on record as being opposed to

subsection (4) of this particular section. It is destroying the whole

concept of the community

[ Page 8375 ]

plan

in various areas. I will use the example of the western communities of

my particular riding, which is part of greater Victoria's Capital

Regional District. Each one of these particular communities has its own

community plan. It's a plan that has been designed for a particular

lifestyle in a particular area. Some areas desire the community concept

of keeping it rural. Others desire a higher density — more commercial.

The

community plan has been eroded. Last year there were serious plans from

the Capital Region to put trunk sewers into the western communities. It

wasn't because there was a particular problem of waste or pollution,

but because there was land available for development. That was solely

the reasoning behind it. They would prefer to move into the western

communities instead of going into Saanich municipality, which, as I

said, has a lot of merit. But I feel that before you go into any

community and are able to put in the trunk sewers that can be put in

under the CRD.... Under this particular section, they can put in all

the sewers and they will be chargeable to the residents in that

particular area. I feel this is a time bomb that will explode if it is

allowed to pass without proper and open consultation with the

community, aboveboard and publicly. I think this Legislature is

derelict in its duty by not instituting the various committees that

would deal with this bill. If this bill were sent to the proper

standing committee, that committee could travel to the communities for

the input that is needed on a piece of legislation of this magnitude.

Very few of our standing committees are in operation. There are

committees to deal with environment matters, and the committee could

have the hearings and get the input. It could go out and solicit that

input, and by explaining what is in the bill, it could get the input

that is needed.

If this piece of legislation goes through,

if this particular subsection goes through, areas that have their own

community plan.... The regional district may decide they want to

enlarge the housing or develop certain lands that the local community

wants to keep rural, and if they want to institute this this can do so

without any input from the local people, except paying the bills. I

think it's a dangerous precedent; I think it will be abused and explode

in the faces of all of us who are elected.

Section 16 approved.

section 17.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Chairman, the member for Alberni has suggested an amendment to

section 17.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's not before the committee yet.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Prior to addressing it, I move the amendment to

section 17 standing in

my name on the order paper to

section 17, which I believe incorporates

in a more legally acceptable way, from a legislative drafting point of

view, the spirit of one of the proposed amendments from the member for

Alberni.

On the amendment.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

We are on the amendment to

section 17 as proposed by the Minister of

the Environment, which appears on page 16 of the order paper, opposite

the other amendment.

MR. SKELLY: Is it possible then to take the amendments out of order?

MR. CHAIRMAN:

The minister has moved his amendment and it has been accepted, so we

are now dealing with it. His amendment must be disposed of one way or

the other, and then we'll carry on.

MR. SKELLY: The opposition is happy to accept this amendment, Mr. Chairman.

MRS. WALLACE:

Just out of curiosity, I would like to ask the minister why he is

prepared to give this particular responsibility back to the bureaucrats

rather than retain it for himself, when he refused to grant that as far

as municipal pollution permits were concerned.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

We're on

section 17(5). I think you're discussing the

section 17

amendment by your colleague the member for Alberni. The first amendment

is the one put forward by your colleague and the one you're

considering. It's the second

section 17 amendment which I have moved

and your colleague has accepted. I believe you're on the wrong

amendment.

Amendment approved.

section 17 as amended.

MR. SKELLY:

Although I'd like to congratulate the minister and his staff for

inserting this new

section into the act, we believe that one of the

major problems in dealing with municipal sewage or any sewer system is

that you're not dealing with the problem at the source. You don't know

what's in the system or how to treat it, and it becomes a major

confusing problem. You never know what's coming out the outfall of the

treatment plant. This appears to be an attempt to control the problem

at the source, which is what people have been advocating over the

years. So we congratulate the minister for putting this

section in the

legislation.

One of the problems, though, that we see is the

discretion of cabinet or the minister being exercised behind the closed

doors of cabinet or of the minister's office. The

section begins by

saying that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may designate the whole

or a specified part of a municipality as a sewage control area. I'm

wondering why this power was placed in the hands of cabinet, because

somewhere later in the act it says that the

Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may also expand and contract the area of

a sewage control area. It seems that this opens this legislation to the

possibility of patronage and corrupt dealings. Of course, the

Attorney-General doesn't see the possibility of that happening, but

having observed this government for a number of years, I'm sure that

the public is somewhat concerned about the fact. Having observed the

government in the way it has been dealing with the agricultural land

reserve, there is serious concern on the part of the people of this

province that putting anything in the hands of cabinet or in the hands

of a minister that could enrich the public, whether it's liquor

licensing or alterations in the agricultural land reserve, leaves the

possibility that money could be made for their friends.

[ Page 8376 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Order, please. Those remarks are quite unparliamentary. I'll ask the

member to discontinue that type of debate and return to the section.

MR. SKELLY:

Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I would move the amendment standing under my

name on the order paper. The amendment deletes the words

"Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council" and substitutes "a manager." This will

allow the professionals in the ministry to designate which areas should

be sewage control areas and takes it out of the hands of politicians. I

have a subsequent amendment which would allow the manager to reduce or

extend the boundaries of a sewage control area. Now that the appeal

procedure has been taken out of the hands of the politician, that would

make the

section consistent throughout, and I would move the amendment

standing under my name on the order paper. [see appendix. ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, we will take the amendments one at a time. The first amendment is moved and in order.

On the amendment.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Mr. Chairman, I cannot accept this amendment. All the boundaries —

water district boundaries, taxation boundaries, municipal boundaries —

are set by cabinet. You suggest that the manager could draw a boundary

that went through three municipalities and a couple of regional

districts. You know that the cabinet decides what the municipal

boundaries are and whether to expand or contract the municipal

boundaries and the boundaries of a sewage control area. I can't for the

life of me think of the sinister plot that you keep conjuring up in

your mind about me sitting down quietly at the dark of night with a

lamp and a pencil and a map drawing lines for sewage control areas.

AN HON. MEMBER: Candlelight.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Maybe it's a candle, Tony. You're right. I don't mean to be frivolous

about it at all, but boundaries are defined by cabinet in all other

jurisdictions. I think it's appropriate that they should be doing it in

sewage control areas as well. Therefore we won't accept your first

amendment to

section 17.

MR. SKELLY: It's interesting

that one of the reasons that the minister proposed the appeal procedure

in subsection (5) is that the Lieutenant-Governor can really amend the

boundaries in any case, so that an appeal makes no sense at all. There

are two separate appeals here: one is a political appeal to cabinet and

we now have another appeal as a result of the minister's amendment.

What

we're trying to do in this amendment is to remove the discretion as

much as possible from politicians and place it in the hands of

professionals within the ministry and provide an appeal system that

anybody aggrieved can use if they feel that they've been unfairly

treated.

The problem we've seen in the exercise of the

political appeal that was created in 1977 under the Agricultural Land

Commission Act is that the public see it as unfair that people with

political access can get through the appeal system and those who don't

have political access are forced to live with the other system. We

really have two separate appeal systems here, which is unacceptable to

us. We would rather rely on the judgment of a manager who was appointed

under the Waste Management Act, even to draft boundaries. We would

trust his judgment more than than that of the politicians opposite.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Let's be parliamentary, please.

Amendment negatived.

MR. SKELLY:

I move the amendment to subsection (6) standing under my name on the

order paper. [See appendix.] In line 1 of subsection (6), I move that

we delete "the Lieutenant Governor in Council," and substitute "A

manager."

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment is in order.

Amendment negatived.

Section 17 as amended approved.

Sections 18 to 20 inclusive approved.

section 21. MR. SKELLY:

I would just like to ask the minister a question. Why has he inserted

under

section 4(a) "that a justice shall not issue a warrant under

subsection (3) unless he's satisfied that admission to the land was

sought after not less than seven days' notice of the intended entry had

been served on the occupier"?

HON. MR. ROGERS: It's just reasonable notice.

MR. SKELLY:

In a case where, for example, hazardous or special wastes are stored on

a property and seven days' notice is given to allow the owner the

opportunity to remove the special waste to some other property or to

destroy it....

HON. MR. ROGERS: If you read subsections (

b) and (d), they will explain those particular sections.

Section 21 approved.

section 22. MR. SKELLY:

I'd like to move the amendment standing under my name on the order

paper. [See appendix.] In the sentence in subsection (5), "for the

purposes of this section, a person does not include a municipality," I

move we change the words "does not include a municipality" to "includes

a municipality."

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment is in order.

On the amendment.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

If you'll refer back to

section 16(7), which we have just finished

discussing, I have the authority under that particular section.

[ Page 8377 ]

MR. SKELLY: That's exactly what we're concerned about. The minister has the authority, but his staff doesn't have the authority.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY:

I think you missed that. I think he does have an objection to it, but I

think he'd like to protect some polluters and not others. That's what

the problem is.

What we're trying to do in this

section is

to make all polluters — everybody who violates the act — the same under

the act, so every polluter can have the act enforced against him by the

staff of the ministry. We don't want some polluters treated differently

from others simply because they are municipalities or regional

districts. We would like all polluters treated the same under the act.

This amendment would achieve that purpose.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I'm not prepared to accept the amendment for the reasons outlined in many of the previous amendments, including

section 16.

Amendment negatived.

Sections 22 to 24 inclusive approved.

section 25. MRS. WALLACE:

In the

interpretation

section relative to decisions, which, I assume,

can be appealed, seeing that this major heading is entitled "Appeals" —

these are decisions which may be appealed — I'm wondering what the

regulations are going to provide in the way of notice of any of these

decisions relative to the public. Certainly if it is a polluter who is

notified that he is polluting, they will know. What about the public

being advised of any decision to allow pollution? What sort of

requirements are going to be required?

HON. MR. ROGERS:

We're looking for an improvement in our existing system, because there

will be publication listing which particular decisions have been

issued. I don't know if you want me to enunciate how people get

involved in the appeal procedure, or....

MRS. WALLACE: What publication? Is it going to be in the press, or what are you going to do — mail it by dog team?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Well, I expect that they'll be put in the Gazette .

That's probably the best place to put them because of the number of

different permits that are involved. We have about 3,500 active permits

in the province, so the listing of them would probably be placed in the

Gazette .

MRS. WALLACE: I would urge the minister to consider that very many of the public do not read the Gazette .

Certainly if he could undertake to ensure that where there was a local

area affected it would also be advertised in the local press in that

area, it would certainly make it much easier for the public to know

what was going on.

HON. MR. ROGERS: That's our

intention, Mr. Chairman, if you look at

section 27 of the act,

subsection (5): "The director shall after considering an appeal (

a) notify the parties to the appeal of his decision, and (

b) cause notice

of the decision to be given in a manner required in the regulations."

In that case we would not look at taking an ad in the Vancouver Sun

for something in your constituency, but in the local newspaper. I

believe you have a twice-weekly paper there, and we would look to

posting a legal advertisement in that.

Section 25 approved.

section 26. MRS. WALLACE:

Relative to the appeals themselves, are the fees going to continue to

be similar to the pesticide control permit appeal fees that are now in

existence? Certainly that has worked a real hardship on a lot of people

because of the cost involved, and I'm wondering what you're thinking in

terms of fees relative to appeals?

HON. MR. ROGERS:

In fact, we don't anticipate charging for appeals. The subject of

charging for appeals under pesticide control. A which we have now had

in place tor six months, is under review and I would expect an

announcement perhaps later this week or early next week as to a change

in that procedure.

Sections 26 to 28 inclusive approved.

section 29. MRS. WALLACE:

This is a really sore point with me because it means that you can

appeal all you like, but when you get to the 21 days and another 21

days, as outlined in

section 26 or 27 that we've just passed, before

you ever get the appeal heard the pollution has been going on for

months. The fact that you do not intend to stay the procedure because

appeals are launched seems to me to be completely disregarding any

possible environmental damage. Certainly there has to be a speeding up

of the operation and some control of that pollution until the appeal is

heard. To just have appeals filed and have the pollution continue seems

to be completely out of line.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I

think that perhaps you are misunderstanding the section, because this

section allows us to stop it while the subject is under appeal, as

opposed to allowing it to continue while an appeal is being heard.

MR. SKELLY:

Mr. Chairman, if you believe that. you'll believe that the world is

flat. If this was worded in another way — and that is, "an appeal taken

under this act operates as a stay or suspends the operation of a

decision being appealed unless otherwise stated or otherwise ordered" —

then the appellants are protected and the pollution — or the evil that

these appellants see — doesn't continue while the appeal is taking

place. This is the same type of condition that we have in the Pesticide

Control Act, and the same arguments were made.

Let me remind

you of what happened back there in 1977 when we discussed — the

minister pulled the bill off the floor — the bill in his office. We

talked to the minister's staff, and we said that this should be

reworked so that an appeal acts as a stay and nothing takes place until

the appeal board meets and decides one way or the other — whether the

process should lo ahead or whether it should continue to be stayed

until the

[ Page 8378 ]

appeal

is heard. This means that pollution can continue, that pesticide sprays

can continue, and that the whole appeal procedure is simply a waste of

time and money for those concerned citizens — members of the public who

are concerned about pollution in the same way that others are —

concerned about the use and application of pesticides in this province.

It's a very easy thing to reverse the wording, Mr. Chairman, to protect

those appellants. After all, we're talking about the citizens of this

province, the people who vote for you and me, the people who give us

the mandate to govern the province and to legislate on their behalf.

What we're saying is yes, you have the right to appeal, but whatever it

is that's going on can go on anyway and the appeal can simply be

academic, just a formality, just a waste of time and money, just

another exercise, just another way of screwing the process of public

involvement.

When we discussed this in the first Minister of

Environment's office, the present Minister of Health (Hon. Mr.

Nielsen), the minister's staff said: "Well, we don't want anything like

that to happen which could stop the ministry from doing what it wants

to do." That's the same attitude that prevails on the part of this

minister. This act gives the ministry the right to plough ahead

regardless, no matter what they're doing and no matter what the public

wants them to do or not to do. By simply rewording this, the public and

the appellants of this province are given a protection that the

minister doesn't want them to have.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Mr. Chairman, let's reflect on what happens under

section 22, which is

a pollution abatement order. Where the director issues a pollution

abatement order to tell someone to stop discharging a toxic chemical

and the person to whom that order is issued appeals, and they are

allowed to continue to discharge.... It can cut both ways. What are we

going to do if someone is under order from the director to cease and

desist, and is allowed to continue to do it while he's under appeal? Of

course there is a discretionary thing in here, because the director in

that case would refuse to allow them to do it while it was under appeal.

Your

argument can go both ways. You can have an appeal.... We can make an

order to stop somebody from doing something, to which there can be an

appeal, and they can continue doing it without this section. So this

section is necessary to do that; of course the thing can go the other

way as well.

MR. SKELLY: What are we staying here? The order abates the pollution, so that solves the problem.

HON. MR. ROGERS: But if he appeals he can keep polluting.

MR. SKELLY:

No, the appeal doesn't eliminate the stay or the abatement order.

That's the problem. If an abatement order has been issued and is in

effect, then by simply appealing you don't stop the effect of the

abatement order. The one thing you do allow under this

section is that

if somebody is polluting and somebody does appeal, or somebody is being

issued a permit which people see as dangerous to the environment, that

permit will continue in operation even though the appeal is taking

place. It makes the citizen appeal procedure simply academic. It's

great if you have an abatement order; this doesn't affect the abatement

order, because the order stays in effect. But if the citizens appeal

something that's happening and the minister hasn't imposed an abatement

order, then it's a problem.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr.

Chairman, I think it's about time the minister pulled this bill and

took it back where the first one went. This is ridiculous. He stands up

here and tells us this is what it's going to do. It says very clearly

that the appeal does not operate as a stay. If you've got an order in

place it stays there. If you got a permit issued, it stays there. You

can appeal until you're blue in the face; you can spend your money and

you can spend the taxpayers' money appealing, and whatever it is goes

right ahead. If it's an order to stop polluting, that's there. On the

other hand, if it's a permit to spray, that spraying goes right on,

because it doesn't affect those existing orders. It doesn't act as a

stay. Any appeal should automatically ensure that whatever you're

appealing stops until the decision is made. That's the whole purpose of

an appeal. The minister gets up and says this is just worded to do

that. It's worded exactly the opposite. He can turn the thing right

around and, as my colleague suggested, just say that an appeal operates

as a stay, and then go on to say that an appeal taken under this act

operates as a stay or suspends the operation of the decision being

appealed, unless otherwise ordered by the board the appeal is being

taken against; or, if the minister wants to take it in his own hands,

let him do so.

I've written and asked him — it's a rush deal

— to stay the spraying along the two railway tracks in my constituency,

that go along two bodies of drinking water, until the appeals have been

heard. By the time he answers and those appeals are heard, I think the

spraying is going to be done. This is the kind of thing we're concerned

about. We're also concerned that if an order is issued against a

company that's polluting, they can't just simply appeal and keep on

polluting. That's what this

section does.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I disagree. I think this

section allows either the board or the director to allow the offensive item to stop happening.

Sections 29 to 32 inclusive approved.

section 33. MR. SKELLY:

I've made the statement on one or two occasions that the administration

of pollution control in this province is something that should be

required to pay for itself, rather than be subsidized by the taxpayers.

This year it's going to cost roughly $7.5 million of taxpayers' money

to support an administration which licenses pollution in the province.

It was interesting that when I made that statement at the B.C. Wildlife

Federation meeting a few weeks ago the minister's staff responded by

saying: "The new act is going to change that and incorporate a

section

which allows us to charge fees for pollution control permits." But, of

course, that was in the old act too, under "Fees and regulations"

section 23. It says: "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may (

a) establish a tariff of fees and charges payable in respect of

applications, permits and other things applied for or issued under this

Act or a former Act."

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.)

Essentially we can see there's no change, but we hoped here might be a change in the intention of the minister to

[ Page 8379 ]

make

this a pay-as-you-go administration. Rather than have the taxpayers of

the province of B.C. subsidize pollution, as they have been doing every

year under the Pollution Control Act, we hoped that the minister's

intention had changed and the roughly $7.5 million it costs the

taxpayers of this province to subsidize pollution would now be borne by

those who apply for and use pollution control permits. The monitoring

and administration of these permits should be paid for by those who

derive the benefit from them.

HON. MR. ROGERS: It is

our intention to do that. You read out the very

section and reason we

couldn't do it before: because it's only on application, but not on a

continuation. We had a legal opinion saying that we couldn't do it.

This

section will allow us to do so. It is our intention to charge a

fee for service which would repay the Crown for the costs of

administering these various permits.

Section 33 approved.

section 34.

MRS. WALLACE: I wonder if the minister has consulted the Minister of Finance on this section. I notice that there are no minimum fines.

HON. MR. ROGERS: No, these would have been consulted on with the Attorney-General's ministry.

Sections 34 to 50 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Divisions in committee ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Bill 52, Waste Management Act, reported complete with amendments to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL

(continued)

On vote 10: minister's office, $149,981.

MR. MACDONALD:

I just have a short question to the Attorney-General. He knows Mr. Guy

Faint, and he knows about the PNE and the trust case. Will the

Attorney-General be helping Mr. Faint to bring that matter to court for

a declaratory judgment — not an injunction — so that there will be a

court determination of the terms of the trust? From that point we can

go on and create a PNE that is not the commercial honky-tonk we have at

the present time.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Perhaps the

member would assist me by advising whether or not he has seen my letter

to Mr. Faint. The second member from Vancouver East indicates that he

has. We considered the prospect of posing a reference to either the

supreme court or the court of appeal under the Constitutional Question

Act, under which we can refer any matter to the court for a decision.

My letter to Mr. Faint makes it clear that the best opinion we have of

what has taken place is in fact contrary to the terms of the trust

under which the property was conveyed by the province to the city of

Vancouver.

I believe that it would be in the best interests

of the future of the PNE, the city of Vancouver and the use of this

property if the committee studies which are presently being undertaken

— one under the auspices of the Provincial Secretary and another under

the auspices of the city of Vancouver — could be allowed to continue

and be completed, following which we will have recommendations with

regard to the future of the PNE and the future of that property. At

that time it would be appropriate for the city of Vancouver and the

provincial government to consider what legislative action should be

taken to rectify the alleged breach of trust and to chart the future

use of the property and the future of the PNE at the same time. The

existence of a declaratory judgment by itself does not advance the

proper concerns of Mr. Faint and would merely create a very serious

problem for the continuance of tie PNE under its present mode of

operation until such time as some further committee study was

undertaken.

In the final analysis there has to be an

examination of the PNE and the use of that property. The city has

offered what seems to me to be a very simplistic solution to the

problem, which is simply passing legislation which would wipe out any

prospect of there being a breach of the trust. But the question still

remains of the extent to which the province is prepared to allow that

property to be used for purposes which the city itself may design —

with or without the PNE. I believe the studies that are ongoing will

give the people of the city of Vancouver an opportunity to express

their views with respect to the two issues: one, the use of the

property, and the other, the future of the PNE. Then legislative action

can be taken which will resolve the issue properly raised by Mr. Faint

and provide for the future use of the property. Could the member

indicate what value he sees in a simple declaratory judgment?

MR. MACDONALD:

Well, Mr. Chairman, I'll be brief, but the advantage of the declaratory

judgment is to light a fire under the government, the opposition,

myself and everybody interested in that question, so that if the

committee does not come forward with fairly immediate proposals, then

that recourse should be had. The matter should be referred to court,

and it should be referred to court with the support of the

Attorney's-General department. Admittedly it's a social and

environmental more than a legal question, but the law is there to make

sure that action is taken so that time doesn't drift by year after year

with nothing being done.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr.

Chairman, if that's the purpose of the member's suggestion then may I

say to him that it is my position that if these two committee studies

are not carried out expeditiously. then some other action is

appropriate, and I think indeed it is incumbent upon the

Attorney-General in the public interest to ensure that the appropriate

[ Page 8380 ]

action is taken. There is no indication, however, that the work of either of these committees is being unnecessarily delayed.

One

concern I have is whether or not the work of these two committees is

being adequately publicized so that the people of the city of Vancouver

may make representations to those committees to ensure that their

recommendations will reflect what the people of the city of Vancouver,

and particularly the people who live in the vicinity of Hastings Park,

believe should be the proper use of that property. Anyone who reads the

original trusts which were imposed upon the property will clearly

recognize that to some considerable extent the people of that

section

of the city of Vancouver have been denied the legitimate use of the

property. Therefore, in the recommendations which are to come forward,

these legitimate interests must be recognized and preserved.

MR. LORIMER:

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the staff of the ministry for the

cooperation that I received during the past year on a number of

problems involving constituents. Many have not been resolved yet, but

I'm sure that in time most of them will come to some solution. I want

to thank them for the cooperation received, and as a result of my

remarks I hope the cooperation will continue for another year.

might be surprising to the minister that I want to spend a few minutes

talking about Oakalla. As a result of activities by the ministry in the

past two years, secret studies were held as to the feasibility of

building new facilities — maximum security jails for both men and women

— on the Oakalla site. This matter became known to the general public

of Burnaby through the Solicitor-General, Mr. Kaplan, around the end of

last year. As a result of this and the anger and anxiety of a great

number of people in Burnaby, a committee was set up, the Oakalla Must

Go committee. There are virtually hundreds of members determined once

and for all to make sure that.... Many administrations, many

Attorneys-General have promised that Oakalla would be phased out over a

few years. I have spoken many times in this House with reference to

these promises, and they've been carried on for a great number of

years. The intention may be to have it phased out or to build smaller

units or to make larger units in that facility. The committee held a

meeting in which they regretted the failure of the Attorney-General to

be able to be there — as he said, due to other commitments. I might say

that his Mr. Robinson, the supervisor of jails or whatever his title

is, performed very well and certainly, in the words of the Minister of

Tourism (Hon. Mrs. Jordan), didn't disgrace himself in any way. He

performed well and answered the questions as best he could, given that

he is a civil servant in the Ministry of Attorney-General. But the case

is still here. There have been no assurances by the minister that new

maximum-security facilities will not be placed on the present Oakalla

lands. There was a statement from the minister, which was appreciated,

that he was looking elsewhere for facilities. Oakalla has been in

Burnaby for some 70 years. At the time it was built, of course, it was

out in the country. Now it's in a densely populated residential area.

Another

problem here, if my information is correct, is that millions of dollars

are being spent on capital improvements on that particular site. New

fire escapes have been constructed, and new security doors were

installed very recently. I am told that these add up to a substantial

amount of money, for a facility that is going to be phased out in the

immediate future. It seems to me a great waste indeed to spend this

kind of money on Oakalla. No one is opposed to fire escapes in a

prison, but presumably the method has proven satisfactory for over 75

years, so I would like the Attorney-General to explain the reason for

the new facilities and fire escapes.

The number of escapes

from Oakalla is certainly increasing at an alarming rate. You have to

commit a crime or appear to commit a crime to get in there, but there's

no problem in getting out. It's one of the few places that it's easier

to get out of than into. People escape as regularly as clockwork. The

other night at around 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. a helicopter was going up one

street with its light shining back and forth. That happened just last

week. In the same week, another person escaped. Police cars were all

over the area, stopping cars to see whether or not the person who had

walked out was a passenger in one of the vehicles. This would be funny

if it weren't so serious, being in the centre of an urban centre, and I

suggest to the minister that the thing has to go. Wardens fire shots at

escaping prisoners who don't walk out the front door but go over a

fence. They probably aren't aiming at the prisoner, but the citizens

across the street all have to dive for shelter as the bullets go by.

That sort of thing is not good enough in the centre of a city, and I

want to impress upon the Attorney-General that it's really not the

place for a maximum security facility.

The people in Burnaby

don't expect the jail to disappear overnight, but they do want a

commitment from this government that the facility is to be phased out,

and no new multimillion-dollar structures to house maximum- security

prisoners will be built in that area, right in the centre of the city

of Burnaby. Burnaby has done its duty with reference to prisoners.

They've had this facility for 75 years. The New Haven school, the

Willingdon school and a variety of different centres are in the

constituency of Burnaby-Willingdon. We want to get rid of Oakalla, and

we want it out at the earliest possible time. We don't want to see any

new construction going on in the Oakalla lands.

I want to

deal with another matter, and that is the payment of $100,000 to the

Olson family and the statements made by the Attorney-General at the

time. I'm not going to deal with the pros or cons of the payment of

this money. I'm not in agreement with the Attorney-General, but I can

see his thinking in approving, so I'm not going to deal with that

aspect of the matter. What I'm going to deal with is his questioning by

the press and his answers, which I heard on the radio at the time.

I'm reading from a clipping from the Vancouver Sun

dated Friday, January 15, which I believe to be correct. The question

to the Attorney-General was: "Can you tell us at this point whether you

authorized any payment to Mr. Olson for locating bodies?" The

Attorney-General is said to have answered: "No, I didn't." Question:

"Or to his relatives?" Again the Attorney-General said: "I didn't make

any authorization to pay Mr. Olson for anything." The next question:

"Was any money ever paid to him?" The Attorney-General: "I have no

knowledge of what money they paid to him." Question: "I understand the

money went into a trust fund." The Attorney-General asked: "For Mr.

Olson?" Questioner: "Or his family." The Attorney-General answered:

"Your information is different than mine. As I said, I'll make a full

statement with respect to this and aspects of the investigation and

trial in the next couple of days."

I suggest that he didn't

want to answer the questions. This is the head of the justice system in

our province. If he didn't want to answer the questions, I suggest that

he could have

[ Page 8381 ]

said

"no comment" or that he'd answer them in two days, or whatever. I

suggest that in this case the Attorney-General was trying to be cute in

his replies — said he was not a party to the agreement. If he classes

himself as a non-party by not signing the actual documents, that may be

technically true. But it's not true in the full sense of the question

that was being asked, and I suggest that the Attorney-General

understood what the questioner was referring to.

At a later

date the Attorney-General said: "It's not a moral question at all, but

the agreement was not with the Attorney-General of British Columbia and

I was no signatory. However, to put the record straight, I knew that

the proposal was being made and I gave my approbation to such a move."

So in actual fact — a few days after he admitted that he did know about

the payment of the money — it had been approved by him. Yet in the

first interview he had denied knowledge of any payments made.

would like the Attorney-General to advise whether or not he has a copy

of the agreement, due to the fact that it was public money that was

expended, and whether that agreement will be tabled in this House so

that the public can see the terms under which the funds were paid over

for the benefit and direction of Olson. In my opinion, the public

deserves to know the terms of the agreement when we're talking about

public funds.

With reference to the police investigation, I

would ask the Attorney-General to assure the House — as he is the one

who has the information that we don't have — that he's satisfied with

the efforts made and the investigation as a whole in this case. If he's

not satisfied, maybe he could tell the House what steps he intends to

take in order that he will be satisfied with such operations in the

future.

Those are two or three questions I've asked the Attorney-General, and I hope that he is in a position to give an answer.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

Mr. Chairman, the member for Burnaby-Willingdon (Mr. Lorimer) raised

for discussion, as did his colleague the member for Burnaby-Edmonds

(Ms. Brown), the matter of the future of Oakalla, the Lower Mainland

Regional Correctional Institute, and the Lakeside Correctional Centre

for Women. The member is accurate when he says that successive

governments going back two decades or maybe even longer have indicated

their intention to remove these premises and free that municipality of

the continued presence of Oakalla, old and decrepit as it is.

might at this juncture advise you, Mr. Chairman, that I've had no

report with respect to any recent escape in which helicopters were used

at night for the purposes of searching. I think Mr. Hoffman was the

more recent highly publicized escapee who was recaptured. In 1978-79

there were 24 escapes, in 1979-80 there were 15, in 1980-81 there were

23, and in 1981-82 there were 20. We attribute this number of escapes

to the nature of the facilities. That is but one of the reasons that we

wish to have new correctional facilities, wherever they may be located

in the lower mainland.

My colleague the Minister of

Intergovernment Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom), when he was the

Attorney-General, identified the need for improved and expanded

correctional facilities for the lower mainland region, and as a

consequence a three-phase program was developed. The first was the

construction of a remand centre — a pre-trial services centre — in the

city of Vancouver, which will open in January 1983. The second phase

was to replace the women's facility and build a 150-bed men's sentence

facility and a further 150-bed remand centre. Only two of those were

ever considered for the Oakalla site. The remand centre was to be

located outside the municipality of Burnaby. That left us with the

prospect of developing and building a new 150-bed men's sentence unit

and a new women's unit of about 120 beds on the Oakalla site. We also

identified the need for a further 150-bed men's sentence facility

someplace else in the lower mainland region, preferably south of the

Fraser River.

At the same time, in respect of phase two and

phase three, which embody all five of those new facilities, extensive

studies were undertaken with regard to modern correctional

institutions. Using Oakalla as a site, we had preliminary sketches

drawn of what such a facility would look like if it were situated on

ground which slopes as Oakalla does, because we wanted to see what it

would look like. This became public — and I have no objection to that —

and the mayor and the members of his council in Burnaby and the

citizens indicated their continuing resistance to the use of those

lands for any correctional purposes. We responded to those concerns and

are still responding to them. This government, like previous

governments, is prepared to phase out Oakalla, but to do so we have to

find locations for the second remand centre, for the women's

institutions and for the two 150-bed sentence facilities for men. So we

have to have four additional sites, and until we have those sites and

can construct the facilities on those sites, we are obliged to continue

to use the present facilities in Oakalla.

We have undertaken

an extensive search in the lower mainland region to identify locations

for facilities. To indicate that this has gone on seriously, I can tell

the members who are properly concerned about this matter that I believe

we have identified two locations on which we have tentative permission

to plan; now we are looking for two more. When I'm able to identify

those other two sites, which are for the women's facility and one

150-bed unit for sentenced males, and when I'm satisfied that the mayor

and council of the municipalities in which they might be located are

prepared to permit us to proceed with the planning of such

developments, I'll be only too happy to announce to the mayor and

council and the citizens of Burnaby the date on which Oakalla will be

phased out. We know that to build these facilities, provided there are

no financial problems in making moneys available for that purpose. Is a

very expensive proposition. Just so that you'll know the nature of the

problem, the total cost of the facilities required to replace Oakalla

is $135 million.

At any rate, we have two sites, and

planning is now underway with respect to both. If we can locate two

additional sites and can identify when construction will commence, we

can forecast with reasonable accuracy when the construction period will

end, which, if everything goes well, will be sometime in 1986.

Document details

Collection	British Columbia — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	32p 04s 820622p
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	32p 04s 820622p
Language	en
Format	htm
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	e3b221a4bd9a28e104a5dff4f89eef98d3d1f852

Source file is stored in the law ingest library (htm).

British Columbia Hansard — Tuesday, June 22, 1982 — Afternoon Sitting (32nd Parliament, 4th Session)

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1982

CONTENTS

section 5 (continued) –– 8365

section 5 –– 8365

Division

section 8 –– 8366

section 8 –– 8366

section 9 –– 8366

section 9 –– 8366

Section 11 –– 8367

section 13 — 8367

Division

section 14 –– 8369

section 16 –– 8369

section 16 –– 8374

section 16(4)

section 17 –– 8375

section 17 as amended –– 8375

section 17 as amended –– 8376

section 21 –– 8376

section 22 –– 8376

section 25 –– 8377

section 26 –– 8377

section 29 –– 8377

section 33 –– 8378

section 34 –– 8379

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1982

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM:

HON. MR. GARDOM:

MR. BARRETT:

JOB-CREATION INITIATIVES

MS. SANFORD:

MR. BARRETT:

MR. BARRETT: I

MR. BARRETT:

HON. MR. HEINRICH:

MR. BARRETT:

MR. HOWARD:

QUARTERLY FINANCIAL REPORTS

MR. BARRETT:

MUNICIPAL REVENUE-SHARING GRANTS

MR. STUPICH:

HON. MR. CURTIS:

OFFENCE AMENDMENT ACT, 1982

MOTOR VEHICLE AMENDMENT ACT, 1982

WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT

section 5.

MR. SKELLY:

Section 5 approved.

section 6.

MR. SKELLY:

section 5A

section 5.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

section 5.

section 14(

HON. MR. ROGERS:

section 14(

section 14(a), it would be out of order.

section 14(a), that would appear to the

section 5 be amended to add

section 5(a) ?

YEAS — 21

NAYS — 27

section 8.

MR. SKELLY:

section 14(

HON. MR. ROGERS:

MR. SKELLY:

section 8 standing under my name on the

section 8 which specifies the recycling and

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Section 8 as amended approved.

section 9.

MR. SKELLY:

HON. MR. ROGERS:

MR. SKELLY:

part 5,