1998 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 36th 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 9, 1998

Afternoon

Volume 10, Number 15

[ Page 8479 ]

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

G. Abbott: It is my pleasure to introduce a special constituent today. My wife Lesley is here from the Shuswap. She is here to experience the drama and the gut-wrenching emotion of the Ministry of Forests estimates. I'd like the House to make her welcome.

Hon. A. Petter: Today in the members' gallery we have a special visitor from the United Kingdom. The Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean is the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She is in Victoria meeting with the Premier and a number of my colleagues to discuss a wide variety of subjects from the British New Labour perspective. Baroness Symons is accompanied by her private secretary Carl Newns and by Ian Kydd, who is consul general of the United Kingdom at Vancouver. I'm looking forward to meeting them myself a little later on. I'd ask the House to join me in making them feel very welcome.

T. Stevenson: In the gallery today is a friend of mine, an individual who was a constituent until a year or so ago and who now lives in Victoria: Lawrence Aronovitch. He is the vice-president of EGALE, which is Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere. This is a national organization. He has been working across the country with this organization and also overseas in Geneva. He's in the gallery; I hope we all make him welcome.

C. Clark: From the opposition side, as well, I'd like to add our welcome to Lawrence, whom the member for Vancouver-Burrard introduced. He's a friend of mine; we knew each other in Ottawa when a mutual friend co-founded EGALE with him. So I'd like to add our voice to welcome him to this fair city and our Legislature.

S. Hawkins: In the gallery today are two people that work for the official opposition. I'd like the House to please welcome Nancy Holman and Anna Wong.

J. Dalton: I see only one person sitting in the press gallery now, a colleague of mine from Langara who is the outgoing secretary of the B.C. Press Council. Would you all please welcome Mr. Gerry Porter.

M. de Jong: I know that in the precincts today there is a group of students from my old high school, W.J. Mouat Secondary School in Abbotsford. I'm not that old, hon. Speaker . . . .

Interjections.

M. de Jong: I believe there are 25 grade 10 students. They are accompanied by their teacher, who also happens to have been a teacher of mine: Ms. Kawaguci. I hope all members of the House will make these students from my alma mater welcome today.

Oral Questions

CHILD PROTECTION PRACTICES

G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, in 1995 Justice Gove came forward with a report on the state of child protection services in the province of British Columbia. Today we have special investigatory report No. 1, filed by the Children's Commission, with regard to the practice of audits in the Quesnel office of the Ministry for Children and Families.

In 1995 Justice Gove wrote: " . . . the seriously inadequate decision-making by social workers . . . was the direct result of flawed decision-making and poor management by the ministry's executive." Today, with the report released by the Children's Commission, Cynthia Morton establishes this: inadequate leadership, ineffective supervision, a failure to respond to staff complaints, erratic staffing patterns and minimal quality control in decisions made by staff to protect children. As a result, children were left at risk in the community of Quesnel.

My question to the Minister for Children and Families is: why, after four years, do we still face exactly the same problems, so that children in the province remain at risk?

Hon. L. Boone: The Quesnel situation is a very sad situation. If you remember correctly, there's been tremendous criticism coming from the members opposite, saying in fact that the ministry acted heavy-handedly in removing children from their homes. Cynthia Morton's report clearly validates the action that was taken by the ministry to move into that area, to bring in other workers and to actually make sure that those children were in fact put in a safe position.

I'm pleased to see Cynthia's report. I think the commissioner has clearly pointed out to everybody out there that was . . . . The critic herself went into Quesnel and said that people were acting heavy-handedly and that we were not acting in the best interests of children. We were acting in the best interests of children; we are making sure that children are safe. I think this validates what we've done in Quesnel.

The Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition, first supplementary.

G. Campbell: I can only assume that the minister has not read the report. This report is a damning indictment of this minister's actions, this ministry's actions. In fact, once again we see that Mr. Justice Gove, when he made his recommendations, made a number of recommendations and observations which we expected to be improved over the last four years. In 1995 Justice Gove said: "In more than one-third of the cases, there were indications of faulty risk assessments." Cynthia Morton went to Quesnel and did an examination. What she says is that there was "a failure to adequately assess or monitor risk to children."

Again my question to the minister is: why, after four years, don't we have a ministry office and ministry staff that understand risk assessments, that carry them out properly so we protect the children of British Columbia?

Hon. L. Boone: The Leader of the Opposition obviously doesn't understand that what the ministry did was respond to concerns that were addressed there. We had individuals who weren't acting as they should have; they were in fact acting in a pre-Gove manner. They weren't responding in the necessary way. This ministry acted. We moved in; we made sure that those children were removed, that they were protected.

It was the opposition that went into Quesnel and said that the ministry was acting in a heavy-handed manner. It was the opposition that went into Williams Lake and said to that community: "You too could be next. You too could have your children apprehended." Shame on the opposition! Shame on them!

[ Page 8480 ]

The Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition on a second supplementary.

The Speaker: State your question.

G. Campbell: Justice Gove said quite clearly in his report four years ago -- a simple one -- that files were not organized; they were disorganized. In the Quesnel office, there were not even child protection files that could be found; they'd gone missing.

The Speaker: Member, we need your question.

G. Campbell: How can we have a ministry that, four years after Gove's report, doesn't even have its administrative act together so that we can keep the files we need to protect the children in the province?

Hon. L. Boone: Hon. Speaker, this Leader of the Opposition asked the children's commissioner to investigate not the concern about the children who were at risk there; he asked to have this reviewed because he was concerned that the judge said that the ministry was apprehending too many children. That was the concern of the Leader of the Opposition. Not one of those individuals over there has ever said that they are concerned about the condition of the children or that they were concerned about those children who were at risk.

It was this ministry that acted; it was this minister who went into Quesnel and met with individuals there. I am very proud of the work that our workers have done in Quesnel.

C. Clark: All the opposition have ever said about protecting children in British Columbia is that we wish this government would start taking its responsibility seriously and actually start protecting children. That's what we've said about it. The minister could show a little respect for the people in Quesnel by standing up and answering the questions that are put to her today.

On July 23, 1997, the former minister got up and bragged about the fact that 1,500 front-line workers in her ministry had been thoroughly trained in risk assessment. Now Cynthia Morton says in her report that there were "disturbing and deep-seated shortcomings" in the Quesnel office, including a failure to properly assess the risk to children. How can this minister tell us that in 1997, on the one hand, 1,500 workers had completed their risk assessment training, when we see this report today from the children's commissioner that that hasn't happened?

The Speaker: Thank you, member.

C. Clark: How can she ask us to believe that she is doing her job and that she is ensuring that children are protected when she doesn't even have a proper risk assessment model in place?

[2:15]

Hon. L. Boone: Obviously this member knows not of what she's speaking, because we do have a proper risk assessment model in place. We have very good risk assessment, which is actually being looked at by provinces across this country as being a tool that they would like to have in their possession. This ministry has acted, and they've acted responsibly.

Yes, we had individuals in Quesnel who were not following the necessary risk assessment tool that we had in place. Yes, we identified them in the audit. Yes, we put in place people to act and to respond and to make sure that those children were safe. What did the opposition do? They criticized the workers who went into that community; they criticized and belittled them. They made them feel that the work they were doing was not appreciated and that they were acting heavy-handedly.

Those workers were working in the best interests of the people in that community, and I am proud of the work they were doing. The opposition member also ought to be proud of the work that they have done in Quesnel. They are currently working extremely hard in that community to repair some of the damage that the member from . . . . I don't even know where she's from, hon. Speaker.

An Hon. Member: Port Moody.

Hon. L. Boone: The member from Port Moody -- what she did when she went in there.

C. Clark: Hon. Speaker, this issue deserves a little more seriousness than the minister has accorded it. We're talking about protecting children in British Columbia, and when she says that she's got a risk assessment model in place, what she doesn't say is what Cynthia Morton says, which is that the workers aren't using it and that her ministry isn't requiring that those risk assessments be done properly. I'll remind her of the quote that Cynthia Morton uses. She says that there are "disturbing and deep-seated shortcomings" in child protection practices in her ministry.

If she's got a risk assessment model and they're not using it, there is a very serious problem for children in British Columbia. How many more children -- how many more Matthews, how many more Baby M's, how many more situations like we have in Quesnel -- before this minister admits that there is a problem and works to address her ministry's fundamental inability to put in place and use a risk assessment model to protect children in British Columbia?

Hon. L. Boone: What the member fails to realize is that the problems in the Quesnel area came about as the result of an audit that was done on the Quesnel area by the ministry. We have had audits that have taken place in other jurisdictions. She really is doing an extreme disfavour to all those employees out there who are working extremely hard to make sure that the very good risk assessment tool that we use is used appropriately -- and they are doing so.

We had some problems in Quesnel. I recognize those problems; the former minister recognized those problems. We acted on them. It was the members opposite who were saying: "You ought not to do this. You ought not to go in there and

[ Page 8481 ]

make sure that children are safe. You should not go in there." This member was saying that our hard workers in the Quesnel area were acting in a heavy-handed manner and that we were removing children who should not have been removed. Shame on you, and shame on your party . . .

The Speaker: Thank you, minister.

Hon. L. Boone: . . . for standing up and saying such a thing!

NORTHERN GRAIN-HANDLING FACILITIES

J. Weisgerber: My question is to the Minister Responsible for Northern Development, the minister responsible for B.C. Rail.

The Northern Alberta Development Council released a report last week that contains some very good news for northern British Columbia regarding grain shipments from northwestern Alberta to the port of Prince Rupert by way of Dawson Creek and Fort St. John. To quote from the report: "For all grain exports, the least-cost alternative is to truck to Dawson Creek for transfer to rail to Prince Rupert."

Can the minister tell this House what steps his ministry and B.C. Rail are taking to capitalize on this opportunity to substantially increase grain shipments through northern British Columbia to Prince Rupert?

Hon. D. Miller: That's a very good question in terms of northern development. On May 8, as the member may be aware -- in fact, he participated with us in announcing a joint agreement between B.C. Rail and CN Rail on the interchange in Dawson Creek -- for the first time in history, the freight rates were equalized between the port of Vancouver and the port of Prince Rupert.

In the working group we're got with the government of Alberta -- I'll be meeting with Minister Nelson in Edmonton on Monday, I hope, to further these discussions -- our vision is to capture all of the Peace River grain, from both B.C. and Alberta, funnel it down our B.C. Rail line to the CN line at Prince George and out our underutilized northern port at Prince Rupert. I think that our agreement was fundamental with respect to the findings of the report.

The Speaker: First supplementary, the member for Peace River South.

J. Weisgerber: The minister will be aware that critics have labelled the agreement between B.C. Rail and CN as too little, too late -- believing that the major grain-handling facilities under construction in northern Alberta have already captured that market.

The minister is aware that the report says: "A feasibility study by the Northern Alberta Development Council has found that trucking to consolidation sites at Grimshaw, Rycroft and Falher is the most costly alternative." Will the minister agree today to work with northern communities, particularly those in northeastern B.C., to expand grain-handling facilities in that region -- to capitalize on this opportunity for an expanded agribusiness in northern British Columbia?

Hon. D. Miller: Certainly I will make that commitment. I should also advise that the B.C. Minister of Agriculture has been working with people in the agricultural sector in South Peace. It's our common view that Dawson Creek can once again regain the status of the northern grain capital of western Canada, but there are some impediments.

While we've had reasonable cooperation with CN in terms of the two interchange agreements that we've announced -- last October, the Prince George agreement announced by the Premier, and in May, the Dawson Creek agreement -- CN has now advised that they intend to short-line their northern Alberta railways. If they don't do that in a way which sees Dawson Creek as the load-out centre, then we've got a barrier. I'll be attempting to meet with Mr. Tellier to try to resolve that issue. I appreciate any support that the member might give as we really make it a common cause in terms of northern development.

Orders of the Day

Hon. J. MacPhail: I'd like to advise the members that we will be sitting tomorrow.

In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. For the information of the members, we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. In this chamber, I call Committee of Supply B. For the information of the members, we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Forests.

Hon. G. Clark: I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Hon. G. Clark: Just before they leave the chamber, it's my honour to introduce to the House members of the school community from St. Joseph's School in my constituency. I've been elected for 12 years, and I think they've been here almost every year since I've been elected. It's a great pleasure to welcome them once again to Victoria. I look forward to the meeting outside. I ask all members to make them most welcome.

The House in Committee of Supply B; W. Hartley in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS

(continued)

On vote 44: minister's office, $436,000 (continued).

G. Abbott: When we left for the lunch break, we were talking about Tweedsmuir Park and, in a more general way, about the response of the ministry and the government to issues around beetle and other insect infestations and their consequences to the forest resource in British Columbia. I have pretty much completed my questions around that. I don't know if the minister had any follow-up or concluding comments he wanted to make with respect to that. Perhaps we completed it.

The next topic I want to deal with is the issue of wood waste: the phase-out of beehive burners, cogeneration and so on -- issues all related to that area. Before we begin that, though . . . . My colleague from Chilliwack had other duties this morning at the time we were discussing the Ministry of Forests campsites issue. He has questions related to the issue with respect to his own constituency. I hope the minister would be prepared to respond to those.

B. Penner: I will be seeking the minister's indulgence to visit the topic of Forest Service campsites again, at this stage, during debate this afternoon.

Prior to becoming a lawyer in Chilliwack, I worked for some time as a park ranger for the Ministry of Parks in the

[ Page 8482 ]

Chilliwack area. One of the areas that I was responsible for was the Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park campground. Immediately adjacent to Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park are a number of B.C. Forest Service campsites. I believe there are 70 or so individual campsites in total, at three or four different locations: the Post Creek campground, the Paleface campground, Sapper's Park and, I believe, one additional location in which there are individual campsites that have traditionally been the responsibility of the Ministry of Forests.

Last session we passed legislation in this House, expanding the boundaries of Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park. The boundaries were dramatically increased so that the park boundary now encompasses the Forest Service campsites that I've just made reference to.

My question to the minister relates to the issue of how the transition between Ministry of Forests responsibility and Ministry of Parks responsibility has been handled over the past year. In my community -- at least, when people talk to me on the street -- there's still some confusion about just who is responsible for those campsites that are outside of their original park boundary -- what we think of as Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park campground. There are about 100 campsites in total within the park.

But as I've just mentioned, there are three or four locations with numerous sites within them that have been Ministry of Forests responsibility for the last 30 years or more. I'm just wondering if at this stage the Ministry of Forests is still taking a hands-on approach to those previous Forest Service campsites or if the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks has already assumed responsibility for those new sites and is actively patrolling them.

[2:30]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: If the campsite is inside the park, then the Minister of Environment will deal with that. If it's not yet inside a park, it's the Ministry of Forests campsite, and we will handle it as we are handling all campsites. We are examining every one, case by case, to see what we can do to find an alternate method to the contracting system we've used in the past, to try to maintain a level of service that's appropriate in the area.

B. Penner: I'll attempt to seek clarification from the minister. Is the minister aware as to whether or not responsibility has been transferred from his ministry to the Ministry of Parks for the Paleface, Post Creek and Sapper's Park Forest Service campsites?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: If it's been declared a park, it is the responsibility of the minister. I'd have to check into it and get back to you on the details.

B. Penner: I would appreciate receiving some clarification from the minister's office on the transition. I know that the park boundary has already been expanded. We passed the legislation last summer; presumably, it's been proclaimed. If that's in fact the case, then the boundaries have been expanded. I'm just wondering if responsibility has, in practical terms, been transferred to Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks personnel and what savings have resulted to the Ministry of Forests, in terms of it no longer being responsible for those sites.

The information I received from people who have used those sites this spring is that there are still no camping fees being charged for those sites that were the responsibility of the Ministry of Forests. However, with the recent announcement of new campsites in the provincial park system, I'm led to believe that what will happen is that the Ministry of Environment and Parks will now start charging a fee for what had been Ministry of Forests campsites at Paleface, Sapper's Park and Post Creek campsites. That's something I'm interested in.

Last week there was a report, dated June 5, in the local newspaper in Chilliwack, the Chilliwack Progress that 22 old-growth cedar trees on public land had been cut and removed, without permission, from Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park. I think what the reporter was referring to in that citation is the former boundary of the provincial park. It was a fairly small area, which basically consisted of a campground, boat launch, beach area and some day-use facilities -- picnic areas. Reading this newspaper report makes me believe that the 22 old-growth trees have actually been removed from the provincial park grounds.

But it's immediately adjacent to the Forest Service areas. Whose responsibility is it to supervise and investigate that kind of activity? If it's occurring on provincial parkland, does the Ministry of Forests still get involved when people are illegally removing timber? Or is it entirely the responsibility of the Parks personnel if trees are going missing from Parks property?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: If the jurisdiction over that land is with Parks, then Parks is responsible. They would contact the local detachment of the RCMP and the compliance and enforcement staff of the two ministries. The Ministry of Environment, in this case, would probably be the one that would do the initial investigation. The whole range of theft investigations could then be kicked in. Ultimately, it might involve the log-theft unit of the RCMP. It may not get to that point, because there is investigation staff at the local level.

B. Penner: I'll be concluding my remarks shortly. I would just like to close my involvement in this debate by saying that I think it is a positive step for those Forest Service campsites that I've mentioned to become developed and more regulated. My experience in working there in the past as a park ranger was that we basically had things under control on the provincial park side of things, but anything was possible just across the gravel road where the Forest Service campsites were. That caused some problems.

Occasionally, there would be thefts of property within the provincial park, and we strongly suspected that the perpetrators were just across the gravel road in some of the Forest Service sites. It was always a concern to us that there wasn't more in the way of patrols taking place in the Forest Service campsites. There would be almost as many people, if not more, in those various Forest Service sites, yet they didn't seem to have the same level of protection. I realize also that they weren't paying fees directly themselves, either, for that use.

That area around Chilliwack Lake receives very heavy usage over the summer months, and with the growing population in the lower mainland, I think we can reasonably anticipate that use will continue to increase. I think it is a positive step, and I look forward to receiving information from the Minister of Forests relating to how that transition took place. It's something I take an interest in.

G. Abbott: I'd like to turn to the issue of the burner phase-out and to the broader issue, as well, of the disposal of wood waste from our mills in British Columbia and one of the potential solutions to some of those issues, like expanded cogeneration facilities.

This is not a new issue. It's been an issue since relatively early in the 1990s, when a former Minister of Environment of this government set out to phase out beehive burners in

[ Page 8483 ]

British Columbia over a five-year period. For some considerable time, this has been an issue of concern to me. It's an issue on which I have spoken in both of the previous sessions, not as Forests critic but as a member who is very concerned about the forest industry in the constituency which I am honoured to represent. It was also an issue for me when I was chair of the Columbia-Shuswap regional district some years back. The regional district has been very concerned about the phase-out of beehive burners without the province taking additional steps to ensure that viable alternatives are in place for the beehive burners.

While it has been over five years, now, since all the burners were to have been phased out, it still remains an issue in some communities and in some companies -- the changeover from beehive burners to alternatives. I think it is a particularly difficult issue in the spring of 1998, because the industry is in a very difficult, precarious financial position. Some companies which had hoped to undertake beehive burner phase-out with more expensive methods of disposing of their wood waste have been forced to set aside those plans as a consequence of the difficult, sometimes precarious financial position that they are in.

I think it all comes back to a responsible government, hopefully, putting in place a reasonable, viable alternative to beehive burners, if it is the resolution of that government -- as it has been -- to phase-out beehive burners for reasons of the social good. What has actually happened in response to the burner phase-out edict are three or four different things. In some cases the mill owners have actually converted from their beehive burners to other methods of disposal. In some cases they have had to get extensions to do that; they've had six-month or longer extensions in order to put those alternatives to their beehive burners in place.

In one case that I'm aware of in the Columbia-Shuswap regional district, the then Minister of Environment actually overturned an extension from a regional manager in Kamloops to extend the opportunity for a company to operate its beehive burner. What occurred in that case was not the change from beehive burner to an alternative form of disposal; in that case, we have the company on a regular basis trucking their wood waste to a larger burner some 30 miles away in order to have it burnt up there.

The practical effect of that, I think, is to defeat the whole notion of what is trying to be achieved here: namely, cleaner air. We are not achieving anything in that particular case. The company is expending a lot more money to haul this material than they can afford, particularly given the current state of the industry. The environment is certainly none the better for it; the material is just being burnt up in a different spot. Furthermore, large amounts of diesel are being burnt up to get the material there, and no one gains.

There is no practical alternative in place for this company to deal with the situation. So that's the second waste.

Some people have been trucking the material around to get rid of it. Some have shut down their burners and replaced them with others. Some have simply sort of bought some time. Some have achieved extensions from the ministry. But what really needs to happen here, particularly in the southern interior, is that additional cogeneration facilities have to be put in place to accommodate an alternative to beehive burners. And that hasn't been done to this point, largely, I think, due to the reluctance, recalcitrance, refusal of B.C. Hydro to acquire power that is generated by cogeneration.

Now, I know that the minister and I are going to engage in a very interesting debate here around what B.C. Hydro should or should not be doing, at least to some extent. He'll tell me that it's not his ministry, and that fair enough too. But it's an important issue, and it's an issue that's central to the forest industry in those areas where the cogeneration alternative is not available.

I'm going to make an argument here . . . . The minister can tell me what he thinks of it, but I want to make the argument, because I think it's an important one.

If we as a society conclude that in the greater interests of the social good and the environmental health of the province and its communities we resolve that beehive burners should be shut down and that even though companies have made a considerable investment in those beehive burners over time, we are going to oblige them to do something else, then I think the tit for tat, the response and the counterweight from government, should be that government -- if it's going to oblige companies to do that -- ought to be prepared to do its part to assist in this situation as well.

[2:45]

In some areas of the province the government has done that. In some cases we have different cogeneration projects -- a few of which are wood-fired, I believe -- to deal with that problem. But we still have a whole bunch of missing pieces in that puzzle of dealing with wood waste problems. What we have done with B.C. Hydro is create a monopoly for power in British Columbia. It is a Crown corporation; nevertheless, it is a monopoly. I think, particularly given the returns from that corporation that are coming into the province today, that government, in its turn, should be looking at its side of the responsibility for dealing with the wood waste issue.

That's my sermonette for today on this issue. But I want to state it that way so that we set the context of the problem here. We've got mill owners facing deadlines. In many cases we have companies that in the foreseeable future simply aren't going to be able to absorb the millions of dollars it's going to cost them to put the alternatives in place. The third issue is B.C. Hydro. Should it be receptive to government direction around cooperatively dealing with this wood waste issue? I think it should, and I've made this point repeatedly in this House in different formats. I'd be interested in what the minister's response to that sermonette would be.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Well, it's an old argument that has been made: that the public good is served by the public paying for the waste disposal problems of the forest industry. It also could be argued that it's in the public good to ensure that those who create the waste pay for the cost of dealing with the waste. I think that all we can do about this is agree to disagree. I understand the member's point. The Minister of Environment has heard all those concerns and is . . . . I don't know about anxious, but she is certainly prepared to answer the questions around what the wood waste regulations, burner regulations, will do to the forest industry.

I would like to say, though, that we are cognizant of the concerns. There are some stumbling blocks. The Ministry of Forests helped fund the Bridges report, which was investigating what we might do. We have taken action, either extending deadlines or holding firm to deadlines, based on case-by-case presentations. There is no one simple solution to the burner situation for each firm.

I would say, though, that I think it's important that we keep the pressure up to find solutions from whatever source. I can just say that the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro may be prepared to speak about Hydro's position and whether government is prepared to give any further direction. I would

[ Page 8484 ]

just say that any time we've gone to a request for proposals, they've been expensive and do imply taxpayers' dollars in one form or another to pay for it. We haven't accepted that line of argument.

G. Abbott: That does go to the heart of the issue. The argument that those who generate the wood waste should pay for it is fine as far as it goes. But what we as a society and as a government have done in the 1990s is to say that the methods of wood waste disposal that have been in place for probably a few decades -- certainly I remember beehive burners as long as I've lived -- have been the conventional approach to disposing of wood waste. In some cases, as I've mentioned before, companies have made significant investments over time in doing a better job on beehive burner technology, getting cleaner and hotter burns and all that kind of stuff. They've made an investment.

We've decided as a society that it's critically important -- so critically important that we're prepared to shut down businesses, in fact, to achieve it -- to us to improve the clean air in our communities. So we are going to issue an edict that says these have to be shut down. Again, what I'm saying is that if it's that important to us as a society and as a government to mandate the termination of the use of beehive burners, then if we're going to be proactive, responsible and cooperative, we will be playing our

part in providing an alternative to that as well.

The core of the matter here is that we can't expect industry overnight -- or indeed in five years -- to deal with a new situation that may be very expensive to deal with. Some of the alternatives to beehive burners are frighteningly expensive.

Even though this thing's been tossed around for several years now, cogeneration appears to be still the most promising alternative to the beehive burner technology. There is always something new in the wings that everybody hopes is going to take care of all the wood waste in British Columbia, but it never comes to be. Generally, the co-gen proposals still seem to be the most promising alternative to beehive burners.

Yet persistently I hear -- from not only people in industry but from people who will talk to me in Forest Renewal B.C. or in the energy business -- that B.C. Hydro remains a major stumbling block in terms of the expansion of cogeneration in British Columbia. I think, again, that as a Crown corporation -- particularly a Crown corporation that has a virtual monopoly on power in British Columbia and which, as a Crown, generates a lot of revenue for the Crown -- surely we as a government should be directing them to do their part to ensure that B.C.

Hydro and its unwillingness to acquire power from cogeneration facilities even at subsidized rates, is not a stumbling block to us achieving the goals of government as set out in the beehive burner phase-out program.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Just to respond to the member, issues surrounding the beehive burner should be raised with the Minister of Environment. But I would say that there have been no mills shut down because of the beehive burner phase-out program. There's always the fear that some might, and that's an issue that's taken up on a case-by-base basis. If it appears that it's the case, that some mill is in jeopardy and can't make the investment, then the Ministry of Forests discusses that with the Ministry of Environment. The door is always open to look at cost-effective ways of doing things and making sure that agencies work together. That is in fact occurring.

But the disagreement here is on who should pay: the public or the people generating the waste. I think we just have to agree to disagree on this issue. The Ministry of Forests doesn't have the jurisdiction to shut down burners, so I just have to remind you that questions on that should go to the Minister of Environment.

G. Abbott: I do plan to canvass this issue with the Minister of Environment. I'm sure that she'll have a great many interesting things to tell me and to explain to me. I didn't know, though, that we were even agreeing that we disagreed.

The only point I'm trying to emphasize here in Ministry of Forests debate -- because I'll take up some of the other issues in Environment -- is the point whether he, as the cabinet minister responsible for Forests, would share the view -- and, hopefully, take this view in a forceful way to cabinet -- that a major Crown corporation in this province can potentially play a huge role in resolving issues around beehive burners. Nothing the minister has said to date . . . . Perhaps I've missed something here, but I didn't know that we had agreed to disagree.

If the position of the ministry is that B.C. Hydro has no role in assisting the forest industry in British Columbia in proactively resolving their wood waste issues, then I guess we are disagreeing. I think that as a society we've put a lot of emphasis on the very short-term resolution of this important issue. If the government is saying, "Make the industry pay all the way; don't force B.C. Hydro to become a participant in the solution," then we are disagreeing. But I'm not sure that we've had the discussion to even demonstrate that we disagree on this matter. Perhaps the minister can clarify that point.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I don't think any clarification is necessary. The member opposite made his position clear, and I made my position clear. We have to agree to disagree.

G. Abbott: I didn't know that the minister had made his position clear. I know he's made clear the position that it's not his responsibility, that the Ministry of Environment should deal with it. I agree that in considerable measure that's the case, but we do have ministries within government that deal with different parts of these industries. Obviously, in my estimation, the disposal of wood waste is an important issue and continues to be very much a live issue in many communities in the province.

My only point here is that as a government, we should be pressing our largest Crown corporation to do their part to deal with this. The minister says that he disagrees with that, and that's fair enough, if that's what he said.

The minister also mentioned that there were some stumbling blocks -- I believe he termed them "stumbling blocks" -- in the way of completing some additional cogeneration projects in the province. Could the minister please enumerate what those stumbling blocks are, from his perspective?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'd be prepared to examine the record, but I don't think I said that. I said that there were cases where individual companies would make their position to the Ministry of Environment, and they would examine what was in the way of people completing the requirements to phase out the burner.

G. Abbott: I'm not trying to be disagreeable here; I'm trying to engage the minister in what I think is an important public policy discussion around cogeneration in the province of British Columbia. The minister has taken a position here that it's the Ministry of Environment that is responsible for burner phase-out, and that's correct. But the point I've been

[ Page 8485 ]

making here is that yes, that's the case, but it is having an important effect on the forest industry and individual forest companies in the province right now. I've been trying, in a positive and constructive way, to identify ways in which we can move additionally to help respond to some of those situations. I'm happy to leave that burner phase-out side of it be, because I don't want to be argumentative, and I don't want to make the minister's day an unpleasant one.

But I do want to address what remains in this one, and that is the issue of cogeneration. I don't think this is something we can pass off to the Minister of Environment. This is a critical issue. In Kamloops, Weyerhaeuser has a proposal around wood waste cogeneration. There have been peaks and valleys in that company's drive to put in a cogeneration facility which would deal with the wood waste problem of companies in quite a significant portion of the southern interior.

Most recently it appeared that Forest Renewal B.C. was going to become a participant in the resurrection of the Weyerhaeuser wood waste co-gen project. I'm not sure if that is still ongoing, but perhaps the minister can advise what . . . . We will look at the record and see if the term "stumbling block" was used in relation to the co-gen projects in the future. I thought it was, but we'll see. At any rate, could the minister advise what the status is of the Weyerhaeuser wood waste co-gen proposal and what, if anything, the continuing role of Forest Renewal B.C. is with respect to that project?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I don't know the current status of that Forest Renewal project; there are thousands of Forest Renewal projects. I'll undertake to get the information for you.

Let me just say that there was a request for proposals by Hydro. I understand that Weyerhaeuser submitted a bid, and it wasn't one of the ones selected. You know, if the economics are there for the industry to use cogeneration, they do it. Many of them are doing it, as you say, and we're down to the ones that the industry is having trouble getting to an economic stage. There's a limited amount of what government can do. What I hear the member keep saying is that there is some kind of public or ratepayer responsibility to pick up some of the load. And that's the debate that's going on; it's been going on for years.

[3:00]

G. Abbott: That was one of the earlier valleys with respect to the Weyerhaeuser proposal. The conclusion of B.C. Hydro in April 1996 was that the Weyerhaeuser co-gen proposal in Kamloops did not have sufficient merit to make the shortlist of ten proposals that Hydro was looking at.

I think some of the continuing frustration with the lack of progress on the Weyerhaeuser proposal is related to some of the cogeneration proposals that have been put in place by B.C. Hydro, which, at least in the view of some, are not stand-alone projects on their own either. They either directly or indirectly involve subsidization by Hydro or others. If the prospect of subsidization of cogeneration at Weyerhaeuser is the issue, is it correct that other projects that have been approved by B.C. Hydro, which involve cogeneration or other methods, do not involve subsidization?

Is that what's being said here -- that only projects that don't involve subsidization have proceeded? Or is it that in this case subsidization is not appropriate?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I will answer, very shortly. All projects that are evaluated are evaluated for socioeconomic environmental impacts, and they either meet the grade or don't meet the grade. But this is not within the Ministry of Forests' responsibility; it is that of the minister responsible for Hydro. So I would just say that I think we can use the time for things that are within the Ministry of Forests' responsibility.

Suffice it to say, though, that we are interested in the general economic health of the industry, but we're not in a position to fix all the economics -- like hydro rates and so on, and burner regulation and cogeneration issues -- from the Ministry of Forests.

G. Abbott: I'm not going to dwell on this. But I do want -- and I'll be doing this again next year -- to emphasize to the minister how important this issue is. I think I've been in and around politics long enough to know that unless an issue is regularly and forcefully highlighted, it tends to be forgotten as an issue. In fact, if it is not given the profile that it requires, people assume that it's no longer a problem, and it tends to go away in their minds. So I'm prepared to leave this aside for the estimates of the Ministry of Environment. But I don't want the minister, in my departure from this, to assume that I'm satisfied, because I'm not.

Again, to summarize the points I made earlier, I really think it's incumbent upon this government and particularly this minister, as one who hopefully is a proponent of the forest industry in British Columbia, to take the position firmly in cabinet and, through cabinet, with B.C. Hydro, that if we as a society are going to, for the social good, mandate the phase-out of beehive burners, then we as a society -- quite possibly through a Crown corporation like B.C. Hydro -- have a responsibility to do our job as well. So I hope I have underlined the importance of this issue from my perspective. Perhaps the minister has some closing comments on the issue. I'd be happy to move along.

The Chair: The member continues.

G. Abbott: I'd like to turn to the issue of product certification, if I could.

Interjection.

G. Abbott: Okay. One of my colleagues has an area-specific issue that he would like to raise with the minister. Given that he's available and in the House now, perhaps it would be a good time to do it. The member for Kamloops-North Thompson has a specific issue he'd like to raise with the minister.

K. Krueger: There are several files that the ministry and I have been working on, and I want to have some comments from the minister on record with regard to each of them. One involves a company named Paul Creek Slicing in Kamloops, which operates a veneer plant. It specifically uses white pine cants. It slices these cants one thirty-second of an inch per slice. This material is then used to face furniture; it's sent to factories in New York and Quebec, where the furniture is put together. This white pine is put on the surface of the furniture.

It's tremendously valuable, in that after the wood has been processed in Paul Creek Slicing's plant, it's worth four times the amount of what it's worth when it comes in, in cant form.

The plant is a busy little operation whenever it can get fibre supply. It employs dozens of single mothers. It's not heavy work; it's work that they really enjoy. I've visited the plant many times. The employees are just as concerned as the

[ Page 8486 ]

employer about the lack of a reliable supply of fibre. There has been correspondence between the minister and myself, hon. Chair, over the many months we've been working on this. Attempts have been made to help the company get a timber supply licence, hoping that a trade could be made for the material they're looking for.

But the overarching issue seems to be that a large supply -- and I know the amount of the supply is in dispute -- of these white pine cants continues to head south of the border in whole-cant form, specifically to competitors in Idaho. I gather that somehow this escapes the provisions of the softwood lumber agreement and, conveniently for the Americans, isn't included in quotas of British Columbia suppliers. This situation has, I'm told, gone on for 30 years. In the face of the government's drive, which I believe is genuine, to create value-added jobs in the forest industry, none of this seems to make any sense.

While he did provide me with some correspondence a couple of months ago, I'd like the minister's comments -- an update of that situation, for starters, if he could give that to me.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: While we can never know all the business dealings between producers and consumers of materials that have been processed to various degrees, it is the opinion of the Ministry of Forests that the 2,000-some-odd cubic metres being exported is a minor portion of the white pine cants and is not an obstacle to this company doing business. It's our understanding that they are not able to make a purchase, but if, as the member says, they're of tremendous value once they're processed and sliced, then that would argue that they're quite prepared to pay a good price to get them.

So I think it's purely a question of the economics and the business dealings between this purchaser and others.

The Ministry of Forests is not prepared to further restrict all exports of cants, because some cants are in fact temple parts -- building materials that are already processed. We don't think, given the softwood lumber agreement, that we're in a position to restrict further exports of processed materials.

K. Krueger: Does the ministry do species-specific restrictions? For example, would it be within the confines of current ministry policy to restrict white pine in particular while not restricting the export of whole cants of other species?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, it's theoretically possible for us to do that. But there are producers of white pine cants in British Columbia who don't want their export markets restricted.

K. Krueger: That's understood. But to me, it manifestly doesn't make sense if competitors just south of the border are competing with the British Columbia value-added industry for the very same material. And it's a bit of a stretch to call it processed material if it's heading across in whole-cant form, essentially, with just the bark knocked off the sides of it so it's squared off.

I appreciate that there are other ramifications for the many different types of trade that go on between the province and the U.S.A., but I'm told -- and in fact the minister said this in his recent letter to me -- that these white pine cants are milled as lumber by various forest companies around British Columbia. I've heard that within the industry as well.

It seems, again, tremendously wasteful when we have a product that has such tremendous value-added potential -- where we can refine it down to one thirty-second of an inch and render it worth four times as much as it is in cant form within our own economy -- that we don't make some effort to ensure that that wood remains in British Columbia until it's fully processed by the industry already established in British Columbia.

I'm not suggesting anything heavy-handed. Perhaps it could be something as simple as a designated Ministry of Forests employee who encourages the people who log and produce that wood to give a right of first refusal, at least, to British Columbia manufacturers for a reasonable price. They could allow them first crack at it, really encouraging people, as a matter of loyalty to our province, to make the best possible use and garner the most possible employment out of this particular species.

There may be other species that the minister is aware of that also have unique value, such as I understand there is with white pine. Is it a possibility that the ministry could designate someone to ensure that there is opportunity to have these particular cants identified before they're sold outside our borders and offered, not just to Paul Creek Slicing but to its competitors within British Columbia as well?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Well, I have no other complaints from anyone who has a similar problem, and I would suggest to the member that if he wants to get into this . . . . It's probably a commercial arrangement matter -- a matter of a failure of people to buy and sell and to find appropriate price and conditions of sale, etc. This small amount is not worthy of bringing in an export restriction, because it inevitably would catch in the net a larger number of producers. This company has received timber licences; they're in a position to trade. It's for them to go out and make those kinds of deals.

So it is a small problem. It's not worthy of a major export restriction in order to solve it, because the harm that would come from it would be greater, and the producers of white pine cants like the long-term arrangements that they have. They have employees that are dependent on that.

So I would just urge the member to ask the company if there are perhaps other reasons why they aren't able to complete commercial deals for people. It might be a question of price, and that's not something we're going to regulate.

[3:15]

K. Krueger: I respect what the minister is saying. I've certainly done that. Recently the company apparently did negotiate a half-million-dollar purchase of white pine cants through Slocan, and I was pleased to hear that. But I was asking the minister if it wouldn't make sense internally to encourage all the operators within the industry to refine that wood down to its sliced form rather than, for example, milling it into 2-by-4s and 2-by-6s here in British Columbia. It seems to me that the value of the actual product, provincewide, isn't being captured through the present system.

That's why I was suggesting . . . . One idea is that the ministry could designate someone to ensure that companies are encouraged -- not necessarily obliged but encouraged -- to trade that wood within the province, so that it's milled down in this value-added way rather than cut into 2-by-4s here in B.C., let alone exported outside the province.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: That is the purpose of the wood fibre transfer program that we brought into being, where the major licensees will have to make 16 percent of their sawn fibre in whatever form -- cant or otherwise -- available to value-added manufacturers. So I would say that if it is economical to create sliced veneer out of those cants, and if somebody can

[ Page 8487 ]

do that and wants to do that, then there's nothing stopping them from doing that within the province of British Columbia. The exported 2,000 cubic metres is not a serious limitation on the availability of fibre.

K. Krueger: Somehow I'm not making my question clear enough to the minister. For one thing, the 2,000 cubic metres is very much in dispute. People who inform me on this issue believe that it's far more than that. I'm not talking about the individual that's having the supply problem but indeed about a former Minister of Forests who has acted as a consultant on this matter: Claude Richmond. He believes that it's substantially more than that.

[H. Giesbrecht in the chair.]

When the minister says that certainly the opportunity is already there to trade fibre, I believe that; I know that's true. But the point I'm trying to get through is that it's not happening. Somehow this valuable material is being treated like it's any other piece of pine in British Columbia. It's not; it has huge potential. It's like sending out gold and getting a copper price for it. It's a waste of job opportunities in British Columbia.

I'm asking the minister if he would commit to trying to deal with that situation, specifically with regard to white pine, so that the ministry puts a particular emphasis on making sure that it isn't milled as if it's any other pine but that people who log it are encouraged to provide it to those who can make this use of it.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It certainly is something that we can ask the wood fibre transfer facilitators, who will be put in place in three regions of the province. They can examine that and see if the wood fibre transfer program can be used. Companies will be looking for markets for this product in B.C. to qualify for that. So there will be people working on that. It's not a problem that we're ignoring; we spend a lot of time on it. But we're not in a position to do it to benefit a particular company. It seems to be one company that has a particular problem. We can't have policies that benefit that one particular company.

I would agree that it is desirable to process as much as you can in the province, as long as it doesn't depress the market and make it uneconomical for the remaining producers to do so. So I think it is a question that . . . . The marketplace has to work this one out. The policy direction that can assist it is the wood fibre transfer program.

K. Krueger: I heard that as, I think, a bit of a commitment by the minister to keep his eye on this particular issue, and I am hearing the messages he is giving me about the company in my constituency. That's something I'll pay attention to as well. But I do hope to see the ministry trying to facilitate retention of this commodity within B.C. until it's had the maximum British Columbia employment derived from it.

I wonder if the minister could just clarify for me whether indeed whole cants of white pine being exported to the U.S.A. are exempt from the provisions of the softwood lumber agreement.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We'd have to double-check that. I'll get the answer for you.

K. Krueger: If that's true, of course, it seems to me that the Americans have pulled a bit of a fast one, because when they can get our white pine in whole-cant form and get jobs that British Columbia could have had otherwise, then they're willing to not include that in our suppliers' quotas. Whether or not some mills in the Kootenays think that's a market arrangement they like, it's not a good deal for British Columbia.

Some of the reasons that I've heard for these small mills in the Kootenays preferring to continue to export these cants to Idaho are as frivolous as this: the operator of one of the mills likes to employ his elderly father, who likes to drive the truck that delivers the cants to the U.S. market, because it's closer than bringing them to British Columbia markets. That might make sense to them, but it doesn't make sense from a provincial point of view, I don't think.

Turning to another issue, again the minister and I have been conferring on a constituent problem which relates to a logging road construction project in the Fraser Canyon. The constituent's name is Al Bush. He had a company named Chaps Enterprises. In the process of building this logging road, he ran into what are known as CMTs, which he and I had never heard of before; a lot of people haven't. They are culturally modified trees. That was the beginning of a domino effect that was very destructive to his company and his financial well-being and his whole family.

I wonder, as a first question, if the minister could tell us how many times construction projects within the province of British Columbia have been stopped or slowed down by CMTs.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I don't know the answer to that question.

K. Krueger: Could the minister tell us whether he knows of any other incidents where CMTs halted construction and led to a problem such as the one he's aware of with Chaps Enterprises?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Culturally modified trees exist all around the province. They are prevalent on the coast. Usually you try to design around them, but if you find them, you have to deal with them. You may have to halt construction. But I don't have the particulars of any other case.

K. Krueger: In this case, construction was halted. There was a stop-work order. As I say, it set in motion a sequence of really unfortunate events. It seems to me that whether or not the province has had the foresight to protect itself in legislation, such as the Heritage Conservation Act, against the prospect of a contractor bumping into CMTs or other archaeological items, the province really ought not to dump the responsibility on the little guy, on a small businessman who's doing business with and for the province.

The province ought to shoulder that responsibility itself, especially when the province has let the contract out for tender and presumably has walked the proposed right-of-way and is familiar with what it's putting up for tender. This is a David-and-Goliath situation for a contractor who suddenly finds himself in a dilemma, such as Mr. Bush did.

I wonder if the minister would tell us whether there is any policy within the ministry for assuming responsibility for a problem like that -- when it's not been foreseen by either party and a small operator has run into it.

[ Page 8488 ]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The policy would be that if there's a disagreement between the government and a contractor, they can go to arbitration. This one went to arbitration; that party lost and that's the end of it, in my view, unless somebody wants to litigate.

K. Krueger: Somebody may have to litigate, but I don't think that's the ideal resolution for the little guy -- or necessarily for the province. My understanding is that there are more legal actions underway against this government than any government in British Columbia's history. I think that's the very attitude that gives rise to that unfortunate circumstance.

I don't mean to raise any points here that will cause the minister to feel that there's any hostility on the floor. I want to resolve this situation for my constituent, if we possibly can. But we've been trying, and it's seeming increasingly unlikely. When someone the size of Chaps Enterprises gets into a situation like this one with the province, it's very much a you-can't-fight-city-hall situation for them; it's tremendously intimidating.

This constituent did indeed opt for commercial arbitration -- to his sorrow, because when the letter of the law is applied and the gavel comes down, whether it's an arbitrator or a judge, city hall tends to win these things. The government has all the resources, and it can bring them to bear against the little guy. But it's not a good outcome.

I'd like the minister's opinion as to whether it wouldn't make more sense -- especially when dealing with a reliable contractor such as this one, who had, I believe, 40 years of service to the Ministry of Forests -- to try to be entirely accommodating and not bankrupt the individual by forcing him to resolve his differences with the ministry through arbitration or litigation.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The question was: is there a policy to deal with these situations? I say yes, arbitration is eminently fair. We only hear from people when they fail in arbitration, and then you want to do something special for somebody. I'm saying that we don't do that. When I mentioned litigation, I said that it's everyone's right to do that. It doesn't stop with the arbitration. It's not that they don't have any further rights of appeal; they do.

The case has been examined. The member was briefed as recently as a few days ago by the deputy; he was asked if there's anything further he wants to pursue on that -- and I hear that you do want to pursue it. I'm interested in knowing that you think there's a straight pay-out to an individual. I won't on the floor of this House commit to that, because I don't think that's responsible. I think the resources of the province also need to be protected, the taxpayer needs to be protected. It isn't city hall with endless resources to pay out where there's a mistake. I think the arbitration that we set up is a fair process, and that is the due process. This case has gone through that.

K. Krueger: Indeed, it makes sense that the ministry probably only hears from the people who lose arbitrations as to wanting to pursue them further. But this was not a run-of-the-mill arbitration or matter. By the ministry's own advice, it was a very unique situation. I believe it's the only one the ministry has dealt with where one of its contractors had to stop work because of culturally modified trees. So it was a first.

And here we have a little guy trying to find his way through an impossible situation. It led to this sequence where his logging contractor quit, and he couldn't get another logging contractor. So he had to use small, selective logging equipment of his own to complete this road right-of-way. He ran out of summer and was told to try and persist regardless and complete his road, even though winter was coming on. He couldn't do it. It was a terrible sequence. It was therefore a very unique circumstance -- not just your run-of-the-mill loss of an arbitration by one party.

Given the fact that this legislation that puts the onus on the contractor is relatively new, and given the fact that the culturally modified trees had not been identified by the ministry when it put this project up for tender, I believe that it would be entirely appropriate to treat this matter as the exception that it is and negotiate a settlement with this contractor, regardless of the fact that a commercial arbitrator has brought down the gavel in the way that he has. I'd appreciate the minister's commitment to have a second look at it on that basis.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Well, to help out the member, I can agree to have another look at it. But it was reviewed by the district manager, by the regional manager and by the deputy minister. And it was reviewed by myself over a year ago. Consistently, there were recommendations to send it to arbitration as a fair process. So I think there's been an awful lot of due process. I hear what the member is saying. Yes, I can review, and if I am not satisfied that fairness has been undertaken here, then I'll see if there's something more that can be done.

[3:30]

K. Krueger: I really appreciate that, and I would appreciate it if the minister would review the matter from the point of view of it being unique, its being the first time that CMTs have created a problem like this -- a matter not only unforeseen by either party but unforeseeable by this contractor, who didn't know anything about CMTs until this happened to him.

On the same file, and without wishing to cast aspersions on anyone, there was a remarkable variance in the amount of the tender prices. My constituent had bid $123,400 to do this road. The evidence seems to be, even from other bidders who testified against him at the commercial arbitration, that he was well on his way to getting the job done for that price. The other bids ranged as high as $812,000, compared to $123,400; three of them were in the $400,000 range.

The first letter that the minister ever responded to me with on the matter set out that the ministry had been somewhat startled from the outset by the fact that Chaps Enterprises bid less than one-third of what the nearest competitive bid was. My constituent explains that he could bid that low and still make money on the job because there was an underestimation of the value of the timber on the right-of-way which the contractor would be able to sell to subsidize his roadbuilding operation.

It appears to me that some of the contractors may regard this timber that they get to harvest and keep in building a road as gravy and that others, like Mr. Bush, just regard it as part of the package and are willing to cut a much smaller profit and still get the job done. In fact, the range is so wide in this case that I couldn't help but wonder if there might be some sort of collusion or bid-fixing between some of the people that were bidding, especially if a contract is put out for tender in an area where the same contractors tend to bid all the time.

I don't deal with these situations frequently enough to know whether that is a possibility or not, but from a background of handling litigated matters, I'm somewhat suspicious of that. I wonder if the ministry has any random-sampling processes where

[ Page 8489 ]

tenders are checked out to look for the possibility of bid-fixing. Or when there's been a really wide variance, such as there was here, whether there is an investigation to see why some people think they have to have so much more money to get the same job done.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: If there's ever any evidence that there's bid-fixing, we'll do what we can to investigate it. But I'd like to read into the record here some of the facts of this matter. Chaps Enterprises submitted a tender value of $123,000 for completion of the project. The next closest bid submitted was $372,000, which was much closer to the ministry's estimate of $365,000. So the ministry's own estimate was $365,000. The district staff was concerned that the Chaps bid was too low and met with the contractor three times prior to awarding the contract.

The district manager offered to return the Chaps tender without penalty, but Chaps insisted their tender was correct, and they wanted the contract awarded. So it was signed with them, and the completion of the project was October '96.

As to some suggestion that there's collusion amongst the other bidders, being that the ministry assessed the road estimate at $365,000, I would suggest not. I would suggest they were in the ballpark, and this person drastically underbid. So this person has a responsibility for there being no room for error in his bid, by the sound of things. It doesn't sound like a good business proposition to bid that much lower.

K. Krueger: Of course, at the time, Mr. Bush wouldn't have been aware -- and wasn't -- what the other bids would be. But he did believe and, I think, subsequently established that he could still make a profit at his bid. The reason he believes that his bid was so different from the others, including the ministry's assessment of what the road was likely to cost, was that everyone else didn't realize how valuable the timber was and how much timber there was on that right of way. In fact, he appears to have been correct.

Nobody seems to dispute that he had an accurate assessment of what that timber was going to be worth, and it was substantially more than the ministry or the other contractors had realized.

When the problem first came up, from the ministry's point of view, that Mr. Bush appeared to have bid too low at less than one-third of the next bid, a ministry employee -- and not a junior employee -- told Mr. Bush that if he could actually build the road for that amount, "heads will roll." That's the quote, I'm told: "Heads will roll if you can actually build it for that." Ultimately, it seems as though the head that rolled was Mr. Bush's, even though he did it; he built the road for the amount that he had believed that he could. His problem was that it took him too long, and it took way too long to get paid because of the intervention of the CMT issue.

I understand that one of his competitors testified in the commercial arbitration that the road wasn't quite up to the standards he would have delivered, and that he could upgrade it to those standards for $5,000 per kilometre, which was $45,000. So if you add that $45,000 to the $123,000 that Mr. Bush bid, you're only at $168,000, which is still way lower than the $372,000 next bid.

All of these strange anomalies in the process have caused me to wonder whether there perhaps wasn't at least some embarrassment on the part of the local ministry staff or, at worst, some collusion on their part. I hate to even voice that, but it is such a wide difference that I've been wondering all along what the ministry does to check that no such collusion is going on or to check the covering of one's own tracks, since the ministry employees appear to have been so wrong about what the cost of that road should be.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The ministry does its own estimate -- that's so they have some idea of what the market value is -- and we check the district's estimate with the regional staff who are experts in the cost of roadbuilding. We do that. I don't think there's been any evidence that there's any greater problem here than the fact that a contractor grossly underbid the project. Now, the explanation might be that he had a market for the wood that the others didn't know about, but the Ministry of Forests knew the market value of the wood when they tendered the road. That's always factored into the proposal.

K. Krueger: The minister is mistaken when he says that. No one is arguing that Mr. Bush is losing his business because he underbid the contract. He's losing his business and he's essentially bankrupt because he didn't get paid when he was supposed to get paid for the work. There had been delays, first through the CMTs and then through the onset of winter.

The way people dealt with him in the whole process seems to me to have been motivated by something which may have been embarrassment over having overestimated the cost of the road and being wrong, so that somebody's head had to roll, as the ministry employee put it. Perhaps it was just embarrassment or the shame of having been involved with the other contractors who were putting in those tenders at triple what Mr. Bush could build the road for.

I'll ask again . . . . I know it's a hard thing to look at one's own employees and ask oneself whether there is wrongdoing going on in the bidding process -- whether people are deliberately underestimating the value of trees and overestimating the cost of construction. Is that kind of internal forensic auditing done in the Ministry of Forests?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I say that if there is a shred of evidence that there's something wrong, then we will have appropriate actions taken. On a routine basis, we only do what the standards are for government. The auditor general occasionally looks at our procedures. As I say, if there is any evidence that something is wrong here, I'd be more than happy to look into it.

The member has had a detailed explanation of the other side of the story. What I hear is the aggrieved person's argument. The Ministry of Forests side of the story has been explained, and we'll examine every bit of new information you have. I would suggest that if you have some allegations or information, put it to us in writing, and we'll investigate it. So far nothing has been brought to my attention that I find highly unusual. I don't know what more could be done here. As I say, the deputy asked the member a couple of days ago if there were any lingering concerns that have not been explained.

I'll have to check whether there's anything you raised here that wasn't raised there, and if there's a new concern, then we'll respond to it.

K. Krueger: To wrap this up, the deputy has been very helpful, and he did ask me that. The information that was most recently provided to me was a copy of the arbitrator's award, and I understand how it was arrived at. The letter of the law was brought down. The contractor was responsible under the Heritage Conservation Act. But I don't think that the facts I have been narrating are disputed by anyone. Sure, the ministry thought that the contractor underbid to begin with, but the contractor was getting the road built and still on his way to making a profit, until the CMT issue intervened.

Then, in the arbitration process, we learned from one of the contractor's competitors that he thinks he could have built

[ Page 8490 ]

that road too, but it would have cost another $5,000 per kilometre. That is still way less than half of what that contractor wanted for it in the first place.

I think that putting it on the record here in the House is probably better than putting it in writing. I appreciate the commitment that the minister already made to me, but I would like a further commitment from him that he will look at those facts and that if those numbers bear out, then he will consider the possibility that there is something wrong with the bidding process in the Fraser Canyon, in this particular forest district, and have someone independent investigate that.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I will look at the facts, but I don't think that any other evidence has been presented here that indicates there is something wrong with the bidding process in that forest district. But if there is any shred of evidence . . . . In this case, I see a ministry that asked this person if he really wanted to stand by his bid, because it was so much out of line, and the person was absolutely confident. The person must have known his responsibilities with respect to the Heritage Conservation Act and so on, and he should have built that into the bid -- some opportunity for the risk that was associated.

I'm happy to look at any new evidence there might be and see if that warrants anything further. But I won't promise that it'll go any further, because I have not yet seen any evidence that there's a problem other than this isolated case.

K. Krueger: Another question is obvious from the minister's response, which I do appreciate. Is it normally acceptable practice, then, for contractors bidding on tenders with the Ministry of Forests to factor in an additional amount for the potential cost of running into a problem under the Heritage Conservation Act? In this case, is tripling the bid acceptable practice?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I would expect that there are a number of risks: weather and other related things, including CMTs. We think it would be reasonable to expect that anybody operating in the Lillooet forest district would know that this is a potential risk and that all risks should be built into the bidding system.

[3:45]

K. Krueger: Would it not be a less costly alternative for the government to simply assure its contractors that should they run into a heritage site, the government would shoulder the responsibility for dealing with the preservation of those artifacts, rather than having them all building a factor into their bids to cover off that risk of running into CMTs or other artifacts?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Well, I'm sure there are some contractors who would argue that if we cover it for CMTs, we'd do it for weather or something else. So no, I don't consider it reasonable.

K. Krueger: I'm going to leave that question, then, although it seems to me that if I were writing the cheques, I'd rather pay when that situation arose than have everybody overcharge me against the possibility that they might run into it.

The last area I'd like to explore is with regard to silviculture. I have a lot of very unhappy contractors in the North Thompson Valley -- people with fully trained work crews who aren't IWA members. Indeed, my understanding is that the history of IWA involvement in logging in the interior of B.C. and certainly in reforestation initiatives is minimal. The IWA has been more involved in coastal operations. These contractors reached a frustration level, to the point where there was a protest at the FRBC offices in Kamloops recently.

Presently the reason they haven't showed up in greater numbers, as they intended to . . . . They intended, actually, to picket the economic conference in Kamloops, but they didn't because they all got work fighting forest fires in Alberta, and that's where they still are. They are a tremendous asset to our region -- a fully trained workforce such as that. There's lots of work to be done, but they haven't been getting much work at all out of the ministry in the last several years.

I wonder if the minister could tell us what the immediate future holds for independent business people such as these in my constituency.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The member himself said that they haven't been getting a lot of work over the last few years. Well, there's been no collective agreement that would affect whether or not they got the work. So we do value the work of silviculture contractors; they have made a contribution. There was a federal-provincial agreement that ran out several years ago, and that funded some of it. Then FRBC is funding some of the enhanced work.

I would suggest that silviculture contractors have to look at a full range of work: private companies, FRBC work and in particular the basic silviculture work that is still an ongoing responsibility of licensees and the Ministry of Forests small business program. We value them, but there is a declining pie out there, and there are more people who want it shared. Smaller communities are asking not to bring workers in to work in their back yards. There's a careful balancing going on out there between local employment and people who have traditionally done the work.

The silviculture workers were told that there was no guarantee that the FRBC work was theirs, that people in that industry and in the other forest industries have access to Forest Renewal dollars as an opportunity to work, and that we've set local displaced forest workers as one of the highest priorities. We've also agreed that where there are existing first nations businesses, they should be incorporated into the business plans for the enhanced forestry work.

K. Krueger: With regard to the minister's comment concerning no collective agreement having been in place in prior years, that's true. But my understanding -- and again, not just from the contractors I'm dealing with, but through the network that I have in the constituency -- is that a lot of the money that was available for silviculture has been spent on mapping, administration and so on, rather than actually performing the work on the ground. In the meantime, of course . . . . The feast was long ago; the famine's been here a long time now.

These people are not getting enough to sustain their operations or keep their employees on staff. Presently their understanding is that everything's on hold while the government finds a way to essentially direct all of this work through the IWA. My question to the minister is: is that a fact?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: With agreement with the opposite benches, we're going to discuss FRBC things that are pertinent and can that be discussed here when we have the officials here from FRBC. I understand that's coming up, so I'll be prepared to answer some of those questions at that time.

K. Krueger: We'll raise them again at that time.

The minister may have a similar response to the next question, but I'm not sure that all of it is dealt with through

[ Page 8491 ]

FRBC. The question is: what sort of contracts exist between the ministry and nurseries that grow seedlings for reforestation? Does the ministry or FRBC commit sometime in advance to taking a certain number of seedlings at a certain time of the year? Or does the nursery operator simply raise them to the point that they're saleable and then hope that he's going to have the opportunity to sell them to the ministry?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It's my understanding that if there's a contract in place to take product, the contracts are honoured. If the member knows otherwise, I'd be interested. The orders are put in place up to two years in advance, but when we have a downturn in the forest economy, as we have now, and harvesting isn't up to the same level . . . . We can't plant trees if we aren't harvesting them. There's going to be 10 percent fewer trees planted, and that has led to the unfortunate situation of trying to find alternatives -- getting seedlings planted on private ground or getting some other sources.

K. Krueger: What I understood the minister to say -- and I think it's an honourable thing -- is that the nursery operator wouldn't be left holding his product. The ministry would have contracted, perhaps as far as two years ahead, to take a certain number of seedlings from him, and the ministry would honour that commitment whether or not the market conditions were ideal at the time. The nursery operator wouldn't be left holding the bag, so to speak. Is that what the minister is saying?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I would need more specifics. I say that if there's a contract in place, I would expect people to honour the contract. There may be escape clauses in contracts, for all I know. I don't know. But as a rule, the ministry contracts its own for the small business program. So if the member has some specifics, I'd be happy to look into them.

K. Krueger: Is the minister aware of any such contracts this year for seedlings and for the delivery of seedlings, where the ministry has declined to take delivery of the seedlings but has paid a penalty for them or has paid for them regardless?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm not aware of any. It may have happened; I don't know. As I say, if you have some information, that's fine. It seems like you're leading somewhere. Why don't you get right to the point?

K. Krueger: I'm on my way. But the minister is vastly more knowledgable, as are the people with him, than I could be on this subject. I wasn't sure, frankly -- and perhaps most MLAs and most members of the public aren't -- whether the ministry makes commitments to pay for trees in advance. Apparently it does. Presumably there are situations where the ministry doesn't want to take delivery, and I wondered what the options were. Is the minister aware of the destruction of a large number of seedlings in British Columbia this spring because the ministry wasn't able to take delivery of them?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The information that I have is that there are few surpluses in the interior, except in the Mackenzie district, which apparently will have to destroy some 600,000 to 700,000 seedlings. The reasons are the lack of completed blocks under the small business program -- loggers haven't logged the blocks . . . . Anyway, that's the prime reason.

K. Krueger: Will the ministry be paying for those 600,000 to 700,000 destroyed seedlings?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: If the ministry contracted to have them done, yes, they will have to pay for them.

K. Krueger: Would the minister make a commitment to the opposition -- in which case I'll soon wrap up this line of questioning -- that the ministry will disclose to us the total number of seedlings being destroyed in the province this year and the cost to the ministry when it's obliged to pay for those?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I don't see any problem with it, but I'd appreciate the hon. member identifying where he knows or thinks there's a problem. I'd be happy to investigate.

K. Krueger: Hon. Chair -- through you, respectfully, to the minister -- the people involved are very frightened of being identified. I'm told that there are millions of seedlings being destroyed in the province as we speak. They're being shredded; they're being burned; they're being buried in large holes in the ground and turned into compost. My understanding is that the ministry is on the hook for these seedlings. There may be all kinds of reasons for that. I appreciate the minister's commitment to disclose that information to us, and I'm going to leave the matter at that and turn the questioning over to our critic for Forests.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'd be extremely interested in knowing what the opposition have for suggestions if you get an unforeseen downturn. What are you going to do with product you can't plant? You can try to give them away; you can do something. But there's limited ability to do that. Anyway, if the member wants an explanation, I'd be happy to get the executive director of operations to sit down with you and explain what's happening around the province, as we know it.

G. Abbott: I have a new topic. What I want to proceed with next, as I advised the minister prior to the member for Kamloops-North Thompson raising some issues of importance in his constituency, is the forest product certification issue and where British Columbia is going with respect to that issue.

In terms of background, very briefly, this is an issue that has sort of emerged to full-blown prominence in the last couple of years. It's based on the success of the Forest Stewardship Council in persuading some businesses in Europe not to sell B.C. forest products, based on, I guess, the premise that they were logged in old-growth forests or by logging systems that did not meet environmental standards, and so on. Through the success that they had with a British lumber retailer, B&Q, I believe it was -- in stopping the sale of Canadian hemlock through B&Q -- this whole issue about product certification and green-labelling and so on became an issue,

whereas it had previously, I guess, been a relatively obscure one.

[4:00]

As I understand the debate around certification, there are some alternatives. I want the minister to tell me everything he presently knows about the alternatives and where he sees British Columbia going in this area in the foreseeable future. There is, on the one hand, the Forest Stewardship Council, which is generally reflective of some of the environmental movements in Europe and what they want to do. There is also a program of certification around the Canadian Standards Association -- their SFM system of certification, which seems

[ Page 8492 ]

to have been more readily embraced by licensees in the province of British Columbia -- and, as well, the ISO, the International Standards Organization 14001 certification which, I think, is related to CSA's SFM system.

There appear to be three options. It's not really three directions, because the ISO and the CSA appear to be linked, from what I have read on this. But I'm sure the minister is far more conversant on this issue than I am. I would welcome the minister's comments with respect to the alternatives on certification and what his government's position is with respect to the certification issue.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Our role is to ensure that certification doesn't become a trade barrier and that we do whatever we can to assist with certification, which is essentially a voluntary process and a requirement for people in the marketplace. But the lead has to be taken by industry. It's my position that industry has to get on with it, because we as the owners of the resource have a stake in it too, and there are communities and a lot of working people dependent on sales. It's our position that industry . . . . Industry accepts that.

Industry has not said: "Government, do something that you're not doing." We make our international relations unit available, and we make our forest practices branch available to provide information.

As co-chair of the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, I have indicated to my colleagues that I want this issue to have as much advancement as we can through our processes. We are watching the Canadian Standards process; we are watching the ISO 14000 series and the Forest Stewardship process. All of them may be different. They may all help at different levels. I think the general consideration is that there has to be an internationally acceptable standard. That's sort of the bottom line.

But companies are free to advance certification as they will, and that will give them an advantage or disadvantage in the marketplace. It's for them to make the decision about which certification is best for them.

G. Abbott: To summarize what the minister has said, then, the position of this government is that it will not advance or hold up any of the certification alternatives as being superior to the others. That is essentially a decision which each company would have to make for their own reasons -- around which of those certifications they wish to seek. It is not an issue for government but rather a decision which each forest company will have to make, based on its own circumstances and conditions. Is that a fair

summary of the position the minister has just advanced with respect to this issue?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, that is a

summary. It's a wide-open question when you ask: "What do you know about certification, and what are you doing about it?" I tried to give you some succinct answers.

We have other responsibilities -- that is, things like following up on international policy considerations, such as might come out of the international conferences on managing forests. We do have the national forest accord in Canada, which we've just signed again. British Columbia is doing its part on the background to ecological forest management and stewardship policies. We are pursuing that, and we have a responsibility to undertake the international policy commitments. I believe we have made progress on all of the undertakings we have agreed to.

One of the things that falls out of that is to do development around the criteria indicators of forest sustainability and forest management issues. There is good progress being made on that, but it is a big task.

G. Abbott: I think the minister has touched on some of this, but I want to pose the question in any event: could the minister describe the dialogue, the discussions, that are going on between British Columbia and the federal government with respect to this issue of certification? Are there ongoing discussions around resolution of forest certification issues to ensure that -- as the minister said at the outset -- this won't become a barrier to trade issues? Are those discussions proceeding, and have they been productive?

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I just want to make it clear that it is a market access issue, which means that it's an issue for the companies and the consumers. It's not a trade barrier issue yet, because no government body has issued or made any decision around certification that would then lead to it becoming a barrier. So there's no governmental process to attack that. But in preparation for Forests ministers' meetings in September, the deputy ministers met this June -- in fact, last week -- in order to discuss what more can be done by government.

What we've done here in British Columbia is ask industry to organize itself for this issue. We've asked them to consider putting the resources in to deal with various aspects of market access. Some of it is advertising and backing up our forest practices in Europe. That's one side of it.

No certification process in British Columbia will do; it has to be an internationally recognized process. That's why there's the interest in the ISO 14000 series and Canadian standards. There is a vast difference of opinion within the industry itself as to what will be an adequate standard. We're willing to help any company that wants to pursue any level or any brand of certification, if you will.

G. Abbott: The minister's response again touched on the next question which I was going to ask, which was on the conclusions that came out of the recent conference of deputy ministers of forestry held in Victoria on June 2. I gather that the issue of certification was discussed. Could the minister advise what recommendations were issued as a product of those discussions in Victoria?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The conclusion of that conference was that it was a national problem and had to be seen as a national problem, that we would work with the Department of Foreign Affairs on the market access question and work with industry to help where we could to ensure that we get to a standard that is recognized and acceptable to industry and recognized in the international marketplace.

G. Abbott: One of the things that I heard by rumour and that I tended to dismiss . . . . The minister can perhaps put this notion to rest, whether there's any basis to it or not: is there any active consideration going on between B.C., other provinces and/or the federal government around a made-in-Canada certification, if you like, for forest products -- I guess, apart from the CSA, another alternative to add to the list? Is there anything to that?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, there is an active group that wants the CSA standards. The only Canadian standard that I'm aware of is the CSA one, but it is for industry to agree on what that is. So it's back to industry, in the sense that government can't hand them a certification process and say: "You run with this." They have to do the work to certify their own product. I understand that that is happening under virtually all the

[ Page 8493 ]

models; various industries are testing those. So the industry working group on this subject is testing different models in different places.

G. Abbott: Could the minister comment on this question as well . . . ? The concern here would be around the compatibility of what the Forest Stewardship Council would require for their certification process in relation to B.C. forest policy. First of all, could the minister outline what the Forest Stewardship Council requires of those who might seek its approved label, in terms of access to old growth, clearcuts -- the range of things? Does the minister have a

summary to offer of what would be required under the FSC for certification?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I don't have the Forest Stewardship details here; I'll try to get them. There are two problematic criteria. One has to do with aboriginal issues and whether or not there's a process or a settlement to the land question. And, of course, because we don't have a large-scale settlement to that question, B.C. would never qualify. Work has to be done on that to say that we do have a treaty-making process, that we do have a process for consultations to make sure that aboriginal rights are taken into account in forest stewardship decisions.

The other issue that's problematic is with respect to cutting primary forests. That's an item and a criterion that would, if required, virtually shut down 90 percent of the logging in British Columbia. So the Forest Stewardship Council has to get their head around this issue: if they're going to certify a product in British Columbia, they have to deal with the old-growth management issue.

Of course, we provide information to the council about our old-growth strategy, our protected-areas strategy, biodiversity and our old-growth planning and landscape unit planning, riparian management -- all the things that will give comfort in that area. But we suspect that it's someone trying to protect other markets -- other than British Columbia ones. Also, it is a direct targeting of our products because they come from old-growth forests.

G. Abbott: Two questions arise out of that. Is it the view of the Minister of Forests or the Ministry of Forests that FSC requirements tend to be moving goalposts? Is it in fact difficult to determine precisely what is going to be required? I guess I'd be interested if there is any further information with respect to FSC being in some measure, as the minister suggests, something designed to discourage British Columbia's commercial success in Europe. Offhand, that's something that would appear to have some merit to it. I'd be interested in the minister's further comments on those two things.

Plus, when the FSC uses the term "cutting primary forests," are they, from what the minister knows, talking about old growth? Or is there some other meaning to that phrase that's embodied there?

[4:15]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: There's a lot of debate around what they mean by what they say. The issue is around principle No. 9, which deals with natural forests, the argument being that some of the . . . . The conversion from natural to managed is the issue. We would argue that yes, those jurisdictions with a lot of natural forest, original forest -- primary forest is another term that's used -- will be making conversions and that that is acceptable forest stewardship.

With respect to any evidence about Forest Stewardship being used to affect our commercial success, no, there isn't a lot of hard evidence that that's the point. The argument is always couched in terms of the cutting practices or the preservation of old growth or the obligation of British Columbia to preserve a lot of its original forests -- because we just happen to have them. I'm saying that the effect of it is to give a commercial advantage to those who are cutting from -- who have already overcut and liquidated -- a lot of their old growth.

G. Abbott: The Forest Stewardship Council certification is something which I personally am quite uncomfortable with because of some of the concerns that the minister has outlined as well. The notion that somehow a forest lives regardless of age is, I guess, a big issue here. At a conference I was at, at UBC earlier on in the year, there was a group that were quite spirited in their views about forest management. They suggested that the ideal thing would be that a forest could exist at a certain age in perpetuity, but of course that doesn't happen.

In much of British Columbia, at least, unless the resource is utilized, it tends to succumb to age, disease or insect infestation -- that kind of thing. I think that probably all members of this House have reconciled in their own minds that it's important that British Columbia's forest resource be managed in an environmentally proper manner but also be managed for economic returns and for job creation in the province.

It seems to me that the Forest Stewardship Council certification is leading us down a road away from that -- to get to the point -- and I am concerned that it appears that in British Columbia one or more companies may be considering seeking that certification. I am not sure, unless there is a negotiation process around receiving certification, how those companies could, on the one hand, get certification and, on the other hand, continue to manage the forests in the manner that we have set out as appropriate through the Ministry of Forests. Does the minister have any comments about that question?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I think that the reason no one has been successful in getting Forest Stewardship certification is because of some of the criteria, which we talked about earlier. It seems to me there are a lot of markets out there. Some markets require different things from the originators of the product, and it is not for government to intervene and say: "You can't do that." But if somebody wants to manage the forest in a certain way, then they can propose certain things. We're always looking at alternative harvesting practices, and some of those might qualify.

We would hope that some of the strategies around old-growth preservation and so on would be seen, in time -- the sooner, the better -- as qualifying as good stewardship.

G. Abbott: Given these two primary alternatives of FSC certification versus CSA certification, is British Columbia alone -- or jointly with other provinces and/or the federal government . . . ? Has the province done anything in the way of promoting CSA certification as an appropriate way to deal with the certification issue?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We were going down that road. We thought that the CSA would be the way to go, but there are companies that say that that won't cut it. As I say, there is a wide range of opinion within industry. I don't know how you're going to get that consensus, except that . . . .

Interjection.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: As I said, we've asked industry to come together on this issue if they can. If they can't, then some

[ Page 8494 ]

of them will go different directions; indeed, because of the time it's taken for industry to come together on this and find a common position, we've found that some have gone their own way. They are still pursuing all three certification options, and it may be in the end that companies will apply to have one or more of the systems that are out there. In fact, there has even been a fourth one suggested. In our view, government has got to be prepared to say to the international customers that they meet the Forest Practices Code standard, which is a high standard. But that in itself isn't enough, because it's not recognized in Canada and it's not recognized internationally.

G. Abbott: I'm not sure who did this . . . . Oh, the Canadian Sustainable Forestry Certification Coalition, which I gather the Council of Forest Industries is a part of, did a survey on sustainable forest management recently -- January 1998. The results of that suggest that roughly 15 of 20 were looking at CSA certification; again roughly, 13 of 25 were looking at ISO 14001; and three out of 25 were looking at the FSC standard certification.

As the minister suggests, there certainly is some divergence of thought within the forest community itself about what direction to go in, although certainly the great majority appear to be headed in the direction of CSA or ISO certification, as opposed to FSC. It will certainly be fascinating in the months ahead to see what kind of fate awaits the two or three that attempt to secure the FSC certification. We'll watch that with interest.

Are there any further initiatives planned by the Ministry of Forests around the certification issue in the coming year -- apart from working with, presumably, the other provinces and the federal government in moving this issue further ahead? Are there any expenditures planned or definable initiatives anticipated by the ministry to advance the certification issue in the current fiscal year?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: There may be incremental amounts more spent, if we can divert some money from within our forest practices branch or international relations unit, or whatever. We will be working with some companies as they attempt to test the methodologies in the field. But our efforts to this date involve working cooperatively with the existing resources that are devoted to this in the chief forester's office and in our international unit. We have a joint task force with industry working on that, and as we can find incremental resources, we will use them. Really, it's a consolidation and organization of present resources.

G. Abbott: I have two questions. When is the joint task force slated to report back to government with respect to the certification issue? The minister has made reference on a couple of occasions to the international section, or something, of the ministry. Could the minister summarize for us the staffing resources that are in place to deal with the certification issue within the Ministry of Forests?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I might be wrong, but I don't believe a date has been set to report out on this issue. The international unit has four or five people in it, and they call upon the resources of the forest practices branch, the chief forester's office and so on, on a needs basis. This is managed out of our economics and trade branch, and they have the resources of that branch to call upon on a needs basis as well.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise of the composition of the joint task force? Is it a 50-50, industry-government type of arrangement, or some other . . . ?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I don't have the information here on exactly how many people are on it. I'm not sure that it matters how many government and how many industry people . . . .

G. Abbott: I was just looking for the balance.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The balance? It's a cooperative venture. The last time I met with the group as it was evolving, each company was invited -- each of the major licensees was invited. We had five or six government officials on the working group. I'll attempt to get that for you. I've asked somebody to see if they can get that.

G. Abbott: I think that every member of this House was . . . .

The Chair: Is the member having trouble hearing or speaking?

G. Abbott: Well, I think that both the minister and I are, at times, having difficulty.

The Chair: Members, perhaps we could take our conversations outside of the room, if possible.

G. Abbott: I think all members of the House were disturbed by some of the actions in recent months of European environmental groups in particular, around the boycott of B.C. forest products. Could the minister advise what actions his ministry or other branches of government are proposing to undertake to counter the moves by those organizations in Europe?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We have a program which has a focus of providing information in Europe and inviting . . . .

Interjection.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Sorry. I just want to make sure that you hear what I have to say.

The problem of the campaign tends to be one around misinformation. Our efforts are to try to get information to the right people at the right time. So we have sent over a number of joint delegations from the land use coordination office, the chief forester's office and industry. We go to the organizations of timber buyers, for example, and provide them with information. If there's a public event going on, we might send some people; the Forest Alliance might send some people. We attempt to have teams there addressing the issues.

Similarly, we would invite people to British Columbia and offer them a tour to examine the forest practices and the reforestation that are out there, to try to break down some of the myths and counter the information. Also, if it's helpful, we will provide information on the forest practices record of a company, and we use the audits that we have through the Forest Practices Code audit procedures to explain the compliance of the particular companies. That's on a company-by-company basis.

[4:30]

G. Abbott: When we see possibly illegal actions undertaken against B.C. forest products in Europe or elsewhere, does the province, through any of the ministries, get involved in assisting with the resolution of those legal issues, or is it left to the private forest companies to deal with?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm not sure what the member is talking about. You say "illegal actions in Europe." We don't

[ Page 8495 ]

prosecute people in Europe; that's a domestic matter. If there's an illegal action in Europe, then that's for the host country to deal with. In fact, that appears to be what happened in a recent incident in Germany. But if there's an illegal action taken here, then that's a matter for the company and the Attorney General to consider here.

G. Abbott: I do want to wrap up this one on certification. Just before we leave it, I'd appreciate the minister's sense of whether we are moving ahead or falling back in relation to dealing with the issues around boycotts and certification and so on, of B.C. forest products. The minister has indicated that we are working with the Forest Alliance and others to try to educate and persuade people of the environmental protection and the sound and sustainable forest practices in British Columbia, and so on. Are we moving ahead on that, or are we falling back in terms of that persuasion?

Secondly, are we able to devote the same kind of resources to correcting the record as some of the environmental organizations in Europe appear to be in distorting it?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I don't think we can ever compete with the resources of Greenpeace in Europe; that would be very costly. They have a large organization. My sense of it is that, in recent times, there have been some contracts lost, which companies have made us aware of. This time last year we were asked by industry not to raise it as an issue and not to lead with the issue. They felt that things were progressing, that we were making good progress, that the issue was dying away and that, especially with groups not being welcome -- in particular, with first nations up and down the mid-coast -- it would speak volumes to those people in Europe.

Since then, most recently over the last few months, we've lost a little ground. I think it's stabilizing, but I don't think we can let our guard down. I am most anxious that we do everything we can. Of course, we'll have to do it in concert with companies that have marketing arms in Europe.

I have raised this on several occasions with the federal minister responsible for international trade and also the minister responsible for forests, the Hon. Ralph Goodale. I've told him that this issue is really critical for his ministry and DFAIT to work together on, and he's undertaken to do that. So we are always providing information to the embassies; we have an open invitation for people visiting this country to see our practices. We find that's very effective, so we're being very aggressive at trying to bring people over here to examine our practices.

I think that if we do that, we'll continue to make some ground. But I don't think we've won the battle -- no question about it. It is troublesome. We could well lose greater ground if we don't collectively redouble our efforts to ensure that we protect our products.

G. Abbott: I'd like to move along, then. I want to spend a little time on the woodlot program, because it's something which I periodically receive correspondence on. I want to make sure that some of the concerns raised to me are not ones that haven't been addressed by the ministry in a proper fashion. Again, I'll just back up a little bit, so I can have an understanding of where the government is headed around the woodlot program.

I think that since the mid-1990s, this government has had a goal of dramatically expanding the number of woodlots in the province. I think the goal at one point was 1,000 new woodlots. But I think the ministry found that goal to be unrealistic, and they backed it up to 350 or thereabouts. Could the minister advise me of the number of woodlots that currently exist in the province and how many more the minister anticipates will be added to the woodlot program in the coming fiscal year? And what is the government's goal in respect to woodlots in British Columbia?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'll ask the officials to try to pull out the figures. But the general thrust was that there was a commitment to double the woodlot program. There were just under 500 woodlots at that time, so you could argue that the doubling would have been 1,000. In the meantime, what happened was that the woodlots in the interior were expanded in size. So there was an increase in the program that way. Then there are between 300 and 350 that were in the process of being advertised. So I'll have to get the exact number. But the target that was set, whatever the commitment of doubling became, is 850.

I don't have the information; I'm attempting to get exactly where we're at. But that's where we're headed.

G. Abbott: I presume that the philosophical underpinning of this goal or objective is to expand these tenure alternatives in the province to have more people having a stake in the forest industry in British Columbia and to diversify the size and the nature of tenures. Is that a fair description of the government's aims and intentions around this expansion of the woodlot program?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The woodlot program is one of the types of tenures. There's nothing that really radically changed the direction of that. It is still the woodlot program that was introduced into the Forest Act when it was introduced. There has been no philosophic change in the direction of the woodlot program -- other than to say that they have to be economical. That's why they were increased in size in the interior, because of the variation in the cut.

G. Abbott: The expansion in the interior, as I recall, was generally in the 400-to-600-hectare range.

The application of the Forest Practices Code to woodlots -- as I gather from some of the ministry briefing notes that have been released to us -- has been problematic in some woodlots, because the paper burden associated with the code has been difficult to absorb on a small-woodlot basis. Has the ministry attempted to come to grips with this particular issue, to simplify or streamline the application of the code in relation to woodlots? I suppose, as the ministry might -- in relation to the issue we were discussing earlier, the application of the code to private forested land . . . . Has this been a problem? How is the ministry dealing with it?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I think it was recognized that the application of the layering of various plans and so on to a small area-based licence was inappropriate, so the concept is to move towards a one-plan basis. When we had Bill 47 last year, a provision was introduced to provide for a simplified management regulation for the woodlot program. We have a target for the fall of '98 to introduce the new regulation. The woodlot association has been working with our operations and policy people on developing a regulation.

The intent is, as I have said publicly, that we will move towards a results-based code, and we will use the woodlot program as a manageable place to do it -- a one-plan process, through a regulation that's being developed with the woodlot association.

To answer your questions about the numbers of woodlots, the goal had been revised to advertise 350 new woodlots by December '97. The target was 97 percent achieved, with 338 new woodlots being advertised by the December 31 dead-

[ Page 8496 ]

line. Since then, an additional 11 woodlots have been advertised, to bring the total number of newly advertised licences up to 349. Some 222 of the newly advertised licences have yet to be issued. They're in the process of being decided upon.

G. Abbott: Actually, I'll be looking forward with interest to seeing the form and content of the one-plan approach to woodlots. Hopefully we are moving speedily toward that kind of approach. Perhaps in the process we will even learn some things, more generally, about how those regulations could be applied to Crown lands as well.

The issue of non-compliance or non-performance in relation to woodlots is what I want to ask about next. Of the 800-and-some woodlots that now exist in the province of British Columbia, have many, if any, woodlots returned to the Crown as a consequence of non-compliance with requirements associated with woodlots or non-performance in relation to the obligation of the tenure holder to the woodlot? Has that been an issue? Have there been woodlots returned to the Crown, and for what reasons?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm going to give the member a general answer, although I can attempt to further refine it. Most of the woodlots that have been returned were in the northeast, and most of them were returned because of market problems. The lack of a private market for wood means that there is a cost price. The price is based on general stumpage, and the price of the logs is whatever the market will bring. Where there is not a good private market, some woodlot owners were experiencing trouble. I think that the number that have been turned in has drastically reduced lately.

There were a few who did not want the burden of the regulatory regime and have returned the woodlots. I don't have that number with me, but I'll attempt to get it for you.

[4:45]

G. Abbott: Further to that, the minister said that there had been fewer lately. The minister doesn't need to give me the precise number, but I'd be interested in the magnitude, in a general way, of the number of woodlots that were either dissuaded by the weight of the code requirements or by hostile market conditions to give up their tenure. Are we talking about fewer than a hundred or more than a hundred? I would just be interested -- I appreciate that you may not have the exact figure at hand -- in the magnitude of the problem around those issues that led people to abandon their tenure.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: On the question of magnitude, it's fewer than 50.

G. Abbott: The one issue that I actually quite regularly get correspondence on is the awarding of woodlot licences. I know that you get this correspondence too, because it either comes to me, copied to the minister, or vice versa.

There is frequently unhappiness with, I guess, the outcome on the part of some parties and suggestions that somehow the way in which they are awarded should be different. I guess it's not entirely surprising. In any situation where we have half a dozen people competing for what looks like quite an attractive tenure, the five out of six that don't get it are likely to be to some degree unhappy with the outcome and may as a consequence be critical of the process. So it's not surprising that we get some correspondence.

But the number of people who have contacted me with concerns in this regard does give rise to questions on how we're doing this. So I want to spend a little bit of time with the minister looking at how we are awarding our woodlot tenures, woodlot licences and at whether in fact the ministry is looking at any ways of better dealing with the awarding of woodlot licences. I'll start with that. The minister can outline for me, to begin, the process where problems or disputes have occurred in the past around the awarding of woodlot licences and whether his ministry antic