2000 Legislative Session: 4th 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)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 2000

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 20, Number 22

[ Page 17083 ]

The House met at 2:09 p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker, I am absolutely delighted today, because in the gallery I have my first cousin, who stands in the place of my father for me. He's the one I joined in Britain when I first left India in 1964, and I lived with him for three and a half years in Britain. Accompanying him are members of my extended family Kuldip Dosanjh, Kulbir Dosanjh, Gurjit Dosanjh, Subegh Dosanjh, Uppkar Dosanjh and Uppnit Dosanjh, as well as my relatives from Britain, who are members of the extended family, Parvin Takhar, Harpreet Takhar, Navjeet Takhar, Hardev Atwal and Surinder Atwal.

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As well, there is a friend of mine visiting from Britain, Verinder Sharma, who was with me at college back in Phagwara in the state of Punjab, India. His father and my father were like brothers, and we are very, very good friends. He happens to be a counsellor in Ealing and was the mayor of Ealing for several years some years ago. Accompanying him is his younger brother Tijinder Sharma. Would the House please make all of them very welcome.

C. Clark: Christina Stewart, joining us today in the gallery, is someone I predict we'll be seeing a lot more of when her dad is elected as the next B.C. Liberal MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville. I hope the House will make her welcome.

Hon. A. Petter: I'm very pleased to say that in the gallery today is Chris Tollefson, a professor at the University of Victoria faculty of law and also executive director of the Environmental Law Centre at the university. Professor Tollefson is well known for the groundbreaking work he's done on SLAPP litigations -- strategic lawsuits against public participation. He has, in fact, drafted a legislative response to the SLAPP phenomenon. And not only that but, through his proposal, he gained support for anti-SLAPP legislation from the Union of B.C. Municipalities, the B.C. Federation of Labour and the B.C.

Civil Liberties Association. He is with us today with his daughter Hannah. I'd like the House to join with me in making him and his daughter feel very welcome.

M. Coell: I'm pleased to introduce to the House today a number of people from my riding: Pam Alcorn, Debbie Ross, Jen Barker, John Smith, Sally and Gerry Bell, Verna Popejoy, Diane Dobbin, Lauren Miller, Caroline Caiger, Graham Donaldson, J.C. Gibson, and Councillor Allison Habkirk and her daughter Rose. These folks have been involved in a petition that has been delivered to members of the opposition as well as members of the government today and will be going on to the B.C. Ferries board. They've managed in two weeks to get more than 6,000 signatures on a petition to save the Brentwood Bay-Mill Bay ferry. If the House would please make them welcome.

R. Kasper: Joining us today is Anne Bomford. She is the regional director for the Mill Bay-Malahat area on the Cowichan Valley regional district board. She is joined by her husband, Jim. Also present is Marcia Stobbart. Marcia is the president of the South Cowichan Chamber of Commerce, and she is joined by her husband Robert. Will the House please make them welcome.

My second introduction is someone who has made friends with over 100,000 travellers plying the British Columbia waters, mainly between the Brentwood and Mill Bay areas. His name is Capt. Jack McTavish -- the captain of the Mill Bay-Brentwood Bay ferry. Could the House please make him welcome.

J. Reid: I'd like to introduce to the House today a resident of Victoria and a first-time visitor to question period, Sue Glossop. I'd ask that the House join me in making her welcome.

[1415]

J. van Dongen: I'm pleased to welcome Sharon Mitchell to the House today. Sharon is a special education teacher at Chief Dan George Elementary School in Abbotsford. She's also here today checking up on her daughter Hazel Mitchell, who is a researcher with the B.C. Liberal caucus. I ask the House to please make her welcome.

[It is with great pleasure that I take the opportunity to introduce to this splendid chamber three Italian tourists from the queen of Italian cities -- beautiful Venice. These three people are here to enjoy the beauty of Victoria, of Vancouver Island and of the rest of our magnificent British Columbia. I would like to ask all the members to give a lively and warm welcome to Mrs. Serena Bonaldo, her husband Enzo and their daughter Rachele. The Bonaldos are accompanied by their uncle Mr. Rino Debei, who happens to be the husband of our dear Egle in the legislative dining room.]

[Translation from the Italian provided by P. Calendino.]

Please give them a warm welcome.

The Speaker: Thank you, member. I would ask the member to provide Hansard with a script of the statement that he has made.

Hon. J. Sawicki: Well, I cannot compete with my colleague from Burnaby North, but I do have in the gallery today a constituent of mine from Burnaby-Willingdon, who is also very active in the constituency association. Wayne Peppard is what we on this side of the House call blue and green -- an active trade unionist who is also active in helping to protect the environment, and I think that's a great combination. Would the House please make him welcome.

B. Penner: It's my pleasure to introduce two people to the House today. The first person, Cal Purcell, is not a new-

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comer here. He's a government liaison manager for Sprott-Shaw Community College. With him is a woman named Beth Keifer from Washington, D.C. Over lunch we had an opportunity to talk about some mutual hiking experiences at Manning Park. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. C. Evans: I see in the galleries my friend Jane Burton from near Nelson. Jane is a person with eclectic skills: a gardener, a filmmaker and my constituency assistant. Will the House please make her welcome.

Introduction of Bills

PROTECTION OF PUBLIC

PARTICIPATION ACT

Hon. A. Petter presented a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled the Protection of Public Participation Act.

Hon. A. Petter: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

Hon. A. Petter: I am very pleased to introduce Bill 29, the Protection of Public Participation Act. This is being introduced as an exposure bill at this time. The purpose of the bill is to promote public discussion and input on the best way to frame a legislative response to strategic lawsuits against public participation, commonly known as SLAPPs.

SLAPPs are lawsuits that are launched against people or organizations simply for advocating positions of public interest. They are lawsuits that are typically not designed to succeed in court and are typically unsuccessful should they continue in court. They are brought simply to impose costs and inconvenience on individuals and to thereby impede individuals' capacity to participate in public debate. As a result, they impose a chill on public participation and debate with respect to matters of public interest.

This government believes that it is a citizen's right to participate in public debate and express their views freely. For that reason, we have brought forward this legislation as an effort to find a mechanism to enable the courts to protect citizens from the use of SLAPP suits.

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This past May and June we consulted with the public on this issue. We received a great deal of valuable input. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the many citizens and organizations who responded, most of whom, I must say, responded both constructively and positively to the initiative. The feedback we received suggested that more detailed information in the form of a proposed piece of legislation would be helpful in facilitating ongoing dialogue and, hopefully, finalizing legislation to deal with this important issue.

It's for this reason that I'm introducing this bill -- to provide that opportunity for further discussion and debate before we move forward with the enactment of anti-SLAPP legislation.

The draft bill seeks to strike a balance between the rights of plaintiffs to have access to the courts and the rights of defendants to engage in political speech without the fear of being sued. The bill enables people to apply to court for an early dismissal of SLAPP suits and to recover their legal costs, as well as to seek punitive damages where appropriate.

I ask that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Motion approved.

Bill 29 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS ACT

Hon. G. Bowbrick presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Electronic Transactions Act.

Hon. G. Bowbrick: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

Hon. G. Bowbrick: The Electronic Transactions Act is a significant legislative landmark. It is

an act that will enshrine in legislation British Columbia's move into the global economy. This act will do three things. First, it will give electronic contracts, documents and signatures the same weight in law as contracts, documents and signatures printed on paper. Second, it will set up rules for conducting and correcting automated transactions. The third thing it will do is adopt national and international standards for e-commerce law. It will apply to both the public and private sectors, and government-to-business as well as business-to-business transactions.

By building a legal framework for e-commerce transactions, it will make it possible for British Columbians and business owners in all parts of the province to participate fully in the world of e-commerce. With the introduction of InfoSmart earlier this year, we made a commitment to put government services and programs on line. It's time now to recognize in legislation the legality of contracts, agreements and activities undertaken in a new medium of choice, the electronic medium, in all its various intangible but nonetheless bona fide forms.

This bill will not be debated in the Legislature this spring, allowing time for the public to consider the issues that gave rise to this bill and which may arise out of this bill before it proceeds further in this House.

Hon. Speaker, I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Motion approved.

Bill 32 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

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Oral Questions

USE OF ALIAS E-MAIL ADDRESSES

BY MINISTERS AND SENIOR STAFF

G. Campbell: The Premier has now confirmed that several ministers and senior staff members have been using aliases to hide their real names in e-mails and other correspondence. No matter what spin the Premier may try and put on this, it is clearly

an act aimed at circumventing the Freedom of Information Act. Can the Premier tell us how long these aliases have been used and which ministers and senior staff members have used them both on and off the precinct?

[1425]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I said the other day during estimates that I would provide information with respect to this matter. I understand that a canvass of ministers' offices has been done, and 18 of the ministers use aliases. The alias e-mail addresses were established for operational reasons to minimize unsolicited incoming mail, so that ministers can do the important work that they have to do and not have to engage in answering unnecessary mail sent directly to themselves.

This is like having an unlisted phone number. I understand that there has been one FOI request with respect to this matter, and the appropriate and relevant information was disclosed. This is not a device . . . . As I said during the estimates, this ought not be a device to circumvent freedom of information legislation. Therefore I can confirm that there was an FOI request made by the official opposition with respect to one of the ministers, and the relevant information was disclosed.

The Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Official Opposition with a supplemental question.

G. Campbell: You know, the fact is that the Premier is expecting us to trust him and the government with regard to that, and it's shown itself to be a government that cannot be trusted in the past. Will the Premier tell us which ministers and staff have been assigned aliases, who they are and what those aliases are?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker, no, I cannot tell the hon. member which are the 18 cabinet ministers. I'd be happy to provide that information. I would also be happy to tell the opposition and the public which particular minister the FOI request was done with respect to.

No, I will not be disclosing the aliases, because the function of the aliases is to protect the work of the ministers and the opportunity for the ministers to be able to do the work without receiving unsolicited mail.

Interjections.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I said in the House, hon. Speaker, that this opposition becomes deaf at its own convenience. I said in the estimates, and I repeat again . . . . I did not know anything about this issue at that time, and I said it then. Firstly, to utilize aliases for a legal purpose is not illegal. It's only illegal to utilize them if you're trying to hide something that couldn't be hidden.

Interjections.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The fact is that that information is FOIable, that any relevant information would be disclosed pursuant to an FOI. I think the opposition has to, at some point, get on with the regular business of the House and not ask questions that are unnecessary, unwarranted, and have been answered already.

G. Farrell-Collins: In estimates the other day, while the Minister of Finance sat right behind him and his deputy minister sat beside him . . . . I don't know if they have aliases or not; I suppose we'll find that out. The Premier said this with regard to David Schreck: "He's been making access to information easier for citizens with, of course, new emphasis on the use of e-mail to communicate with government. He has special expertise and skills in that area. He's been one of the computer whizzes . . . . "

Well, Mr. Speaker, contrary to the comments the Premier just gave us, the official opposition FOI'd the e-mails to Mr. Schreck for over a three-week period last year. In three weeks the e-mail guru received no e-mail, nor did he send any e-mail -- not a single one, Mr. Speaker. Well, at the same time, Russ Pratt, who was working in the Premier's Office at the time -- who is not the computer guru, who does not have special skills and who is not necessarily a computer whiz, to my knowledge -- received over 60 pages of e-mails.

Can the Premier tell us why it is that one of the senior people in the Premier's Office received no e-mail over that three-week period -- not into his box, not out of his box -- when he's supposed to be the computer e-mail guru for government?

[1430]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I would like the Opposition House Leader to tell me whether no e-mails were disclosed pursuant to FOI or no e-mails were received.

G. Farrell-Collins: I'll read the FOI response for the Premier, because I know he's done a canvass, and maybe he didn't read this one: "Please be advised that the office of the Premier does not have any records that pertain to your request." Any and all e-mail -- not a single e-mail into Mr. Schreck's mailbox nor out of his mailbox.

Can the Premier tell us how many other staff in government use aliases in order to bypass the freedom-of-information requests like Mr. Schreck has done? And what is Mr. Schreck's alias, so we find out the e-mails that went in and out of his box in that three-week period?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

An Hon. Member: No e-mails.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: . . . and no e-mails pertaining to the request that was made. That's what the Opposition House

[ Page 17086 ]

Leader just finished reading to me. The Premier doesn't personally sign off FOI requests. They're done by officials in the civil service. That's their job. If the opposition believes that there is some information that's relevant that they haven't received, there are appeal procedures available in that legislation.

The Speaker: The hon. Opposition House Leader with a supplemental question.

G. Farrell-Collins: I've just sent over the document for the Premier, so he can review it. The Premier was asked last week, and he committed to this House that he would do a review and find out if ministers and senior staff were using aliases. He stood up today and talked about the ministers. He hasn't mentioned one single word about the senior staff.

Will the Premier tell us why it is that David Schreck has received no e-mail? How many other computer gurus in the government have received no e-mail under their real name, and what e-mail have they received under their aliases? Will he tell us how many times that's been done?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I just received a note from my office. I'm told that none of my staff have aliases or use aliases in e-mail. That's information that I guess the hon. Opposition House Leader wanted to know. That information is available.

This request with respect to FOI relates to some period in 1999. Now, if the hon. Opposition House Leader tells me that I'm responsible for what happened in that office back in September of 1999, that's a different standard of accountability. I say to the hon. opposition leader -- I say it to both the opposition leader and the Opposition House Leader -- that if they find any relevant information that has not been disclosed to them, there are procedures for appeal. The Premier doesn't make a political decision on releasing or not releasing FOI requests or information pursuant to those requests.

Those decisions are made by the civil service, hon. Speaker. I guess it's now up to me to educate the opposition on how the system works.

M. de Jong: The Premier desperately wants people to believe that this network of aliases hasn't been used to circumvent or subvert FOI legislation. The problem is that no one believes him. No one believes him, Mr. Speaker.

It's getting pretty tough to keep up with the changing story. A week ago the Premier sat in the House and claimed he knew nothing about this network of aliases, with the Finance minister sitting right beside him. Yesterday he said that there were aliases, but they existed only for senior civil servants, and it was about protecting confidentiality -- conveniently forgetting the fact that FOI legislation already protects confidentiality. Then today he talks about aliases for cabinet ministers, and it's about volume and e-mail overload. The story keeps changing.

The Premier should stand up today and confirm that the real reason this network of aliases exists is to circumvent the right that people in this province have under the freedom of information legislation to know what this government is up to.

[1435]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker, I'm actually saddened.

Some Hon. Members: Oh, oh.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I am saddened, and I am actually disappointed. I am extremely disappointed that the hon. opposition . . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The Leader of the Opposition said that he wants to reform this Legislature and the way it works. Firstly, hon. Speaker, they weren't honest about reforming the Legislature. They didn't come to an agreement to reform the Legislature, because for them, political interest was over and above the public interest.

Now, opposition members stand up day after day, day after day . . . . When they are given information that we have received from the officials -- when public civil servants provide them, with respect to the FOI requests, the information that they are entitled to -- they then question the honesty and integrity of those public servants who provide them that information. And they do that every day with impunity. That's absolutely unacceptable.

The Speaker: The hon. member for Matsqui has a supplemental question.

M. de Jong: The reform British Columbians would like to see in this House is a little honesty from the government benches.

The Premier's story is pretty astounding. Last week, if you believed him, he didn't even know about the existence of this secret alias network. Today he stands in the House and wants us to believe that the network he said last week he didn't even know existed was never used to subvert FOI legislation. What an astounding statement from a man who last week claimed he didn't even know it existed. The question remains, and the Premier should answer it. How many senior public officials have been assigned aliases, and what are those aliases?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker, I have never changed my name in my entire life, nor do I ever intend to. It was Warren Betanko on the opposite side, not on this side of the House.

Interjections.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Talk about not being able to believe things. The hon. member has asked me the question about how many civil servants use aliases. There are 35,000 public servants in British Columbia. I'd be happy to find that information for the hon. member and provide that for them.

The Speaker: The bell ends question period.

[ Page 17087 ]

Tabling Documents

Hon. C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, I have the pleasure . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. C. Evans: . . . to present the annual report of Fisheries Renewal British Columbia for the year 1999-2000. I'd like to point out that, pursuant to the new legislation, this work was produced in the 90 days required, and that Fisheries Renewal B.C. has been nominated for the Institute of Public Administration of Canada award for excellence in public administration.

Hon. J. Sawicki: I beg leave to present the 1999-2000 annual report of the Environmental Appeal Board.

Hon. J. Pullinger: It's my pleasure to table the annual report of the homeowner protection office for the year 1999-2000.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I have the honour to table the annual reports for the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations for the years '98-99 and '99-2000, and also provide a bound copy of the performance plan for the ministry for 2000-01.

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Reports from Committees

L. Boone: I have the honour to present the second report of the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills. I move that the report be taken as read and received.

Motion approved.

L. Boone: I ask leave of the House to permit the moving of a motion to adopt the report.

Leave granted.

L. Boone: I move that the report be adopted.

Motion approved.

Petitions

M. Coell: I rise to present a petition from residents in my riding. The petition is signed by 2,447 people, and it is asking the government to maintain the Mill Bay to Brentwood ferry.

R. Kasper: I rise to table a petition. The petition states that the hon. Legislative Assembly hear petitioners and respectfully requests that the hon. House request that the cabinet of this government not permit the cancellation of the Brentwood to Mill Bay ferry service. It is signed by 2,447 signatures, bringing a grand total of 4,894 with the names that were presented by the member for Saanich North and the Islands.

G. Abbott: I have the honour to present a petition signed by 728 residents of the southern interior opposed to the imposition of user fees on Forest Service recreation campsites.

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Orders of the Day

Hon. D. Lovick: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading on Bill 28.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

BALANCED BUDGET ACT

(second reading continued)

Hon. C. Evans: This is a speech by a social democrat about balanced budget legislation. To paraphrase Shakespeare and Mark Antony, I come not to bury this law but to praise it. And I have to tell you, hon. Speaker, that for starters, I didn't always think this way.

I ran for office, as some folks know, in 1986, in 1991, in 1996. In '86, I ran against Howard Dirks, who was a Socred, and I said that balanced-budget laws were silly. And in '91, I ran against Howard Dirks, who was still a Socred, and I said that: balanced-budget laws were silly. In '96, I ran against Howard Dirks, who was now a Liberal. I cleaned his clock, because it was way easier to beat him as a Liberal. At any rate, in '96 again I said that balanced-budget legislation was silly. I want to explain why.

I have a school board in my constituency called the Arrow Lakes school board, and they have a very wonderful idea about how to deal with the reduction in the number of students in their district and therefore the reduction in funding. It involves the province giving the Arrow Lakes school board a five-year or ten-year funding block, essentially assuring future years' budgets so that they could front-end-load investments.

Yet we are unable to commit to the Arrow Lakes school board a five-year funding block or a ten-year funding block, because it is not possible for a government to commit the budgets of future governments. For that reason it seemed to me that if we are unable to make such a commitment with other levels of government in the province, how could we do it for the provincial government?

When this government introduced balanced-budget legislation, I went away and thought about my position hard -- thought for days about my position. I have come to the conclusion that the legislation is the right thing to do and the right thing to do now. I want to use some of this time to explain the thought processes that led me to that conclusion.

Firstly, there is a perception that the British Columbia people are heavily in debt. I think that we have to deal with that perception in order to understand where we are today and where we ought to go in the future. In the process of my deliberations I got some folks to help me and did some research, and I want to present the evidence of that research.

You might remember, hon. Speaker, that I ran for leader in 1996, and in order to address this question of the fiscal well-being of the people of British Columbia, I referred to the debt clock that hangs on a bank somewhere in Vancouver. I suggested that perhaps the people should have an equity clock in order to say what their debt equity ratio was and whether our citizens are rich or poor. It seems to me, at this moment in our history, that it would be a really good idea to answer that question.

Let me start by saying that the total debt of the province of British Columbia at the end of fiscal year 2000, including

[ Page 17088 ]

Crown corps is estimated to be $36.5 billion. That's all in, total, and everybody agrees to it -- opposition, auditor general, everybody. Now, unlike most American states and many Canadian provinces, the people of British Columbia have not privatized their land. So their land here constitutes an equity.

If you ignore the fact that that land might be beautiful and that it might be oceanfront or lakeshore, if you ignore the fact that it has trees on it or minerals underneath it, if you just take the bare value of the land, the people of British Columbia own, on the equity side of the ledger: 17.8 million hectares of productive forest land estimated, at the low end, to be worth $1,400 a hectare, 24.9 billion dollars' worth; inoperable productive forest land, 21 million hectares, a value of $14.7 billion; non-productive forest land, 12.6 million hectares valued at $3.8 billion; non-forest land, predominately alpine, 24.9 million hectares valued at $2.5 billion; tenured Crown land, 1.5 million hectares valued at $1,600 a hectare, $2.5 billion.

[1450]

The people of British Columbia, as we stand here today in the year 2000, when members opposite are trying to tell them that they're broke, have as bare dirt, because of the wisdom of the previous generations of people who worked in this place, $48.4 billion in land alone.

Members opposite are always saying we ought to run the government like a corporation. We ought to do our books like a corporation. We should run it like a business. So stating the debt-to-equity ratio like a business, let me read what the rest of your value is worth. Unlike other places where schools are private, the people of British Columbia own 1,777 public schools. They own six universities, five university colleges, 11 community colleges and six institutes, unlike other places, where higher education tends to be private. They own it here and they've paid for it.

They own, unlike other places where health facilities are private, 700 hospitals, acute care facilities and mental health facilities. The people of British Columbia own, fee simple, 3,600 buildings in 260 communities. They own 23,200 kilometres of paved government-owned highways, 18,000 kilometres of unpaved roads and 2,700 bridges.

The people of British Columbia -- especially the good people of Vancouver, who are quite lucky in this respect -- own their own rapid transit infrastructure and bus systems in 50 other communities. The people of British Columbia own 43 ferries -- actually, 44, tomorrow -- and 45 marine terminals. The total replacement cost of this infrastructure is $140 billion.

Of course, these numbers are so conservative as to be irrelevant, because if natural resources like water, which we know some people might decide in future to put a value on and sell, were put on the ledger, their worth would be in trillions. If trees were put onto the ledger, which somebody who worked in here might some day say is a private good and decide to sell, the value would be in trillions -- and so on with underground minerals and offshore oil and gas.

My point is that even if you ignore the fact that the people of British Columbia, in their wisdom, still own all their natural resources and only take the value of the hardware, their debt-to-equity ratio is three to one -- contrary to the notion that the people are poor, as we debate this bill. I want to submit, at the beginning of the things I have to say, that they might be the richest people on the planet with the exception of dictatorships defended by armies, like Kuwait amongst he democratic peoples of the world, the people of British Columbia might very well be the richest people on the planet.

The people who want them to think they're poor -- why do you think that is? What is it that they have to gain? Could it be that the trillions of dollars of assets and dams and bridges and timber and oil and gas . . . ? Could it be that if they can scare the people into thinking they're poor, they can get the people to put their birthright on the market? Could that be the objective? I submit that as we debate the balanced budget law, everybody in this House and everybody watching us from outside ought to start with the understanding that we are blessed in our democracy by our wealth.

Moving on from what are we worth to the question of how do we manage it, historically, social democrats have operated on the basis of what people call Keynesian economics. I think that book was written in 1936. From my father's generation, the guru would be the Galbraith economic view, post-World War II, that the function of a social democratic government is to borrow money, to invest that money in society -- ergo to employ people and grow the economy -- and then pay back the borrowing. Economic growth is considered to be -- has, all through history, been considered to be -- the engineer of jobs and wealth and the capacity of any government to pay back debt.

These ideas about economic growth predate our generation -- predate the times of anybody in this House. Capitalists and socialists and social democrats and even communists have used economic growth as the way to manage their economies and employ their people all through history. All systems in all governments in all countries believed that economic growth was, by virtue of its own worth, a social good.

[1455]

Then on December 21, 1968, an interesting thing happened. William Anders, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell Jr. in Apollo 8 took off from the Earth and went up and surrounded the earth and looked back down and took a picture -- a picture that I think most of us will remember from our youth. The people of the planet, for the very first time, saw that where we live is a finite resource -- and even a fragile resource. That visceral or spiritual experience which human beings had never had, governments had never had, political systems had never had and economists had never had before in history spawned a whole bunch of change.

For starters, the first Earth Day followed in 1970, and then a whole bunch of really smart people, scientists called the Club of Rome, began to do computer simulation of the idea of growth, the engine of our economy -- growth and resource depletion -- at MIT. It was published in 1972 as a book called Limits to Growth . It said essentially that growth is killing us. Their analysis was that unbridled growth, which all governments used to pay off debt and to manage societies and to employ their people, was in fact risking that finite and delicate globe that Apollo 8 had taken pictures of from the sky.

In 1983 the Secretary General of the United Nations created the World Commission on Environment and Development and appointed a social democrat, Gro Brundtland, the prime minister of Norway . . . . By the way, Gro Brundtland was, at that time -- besides a social democrat and a feminist -- the only leader of a country in the world who had gone from the position of Minister of Environment to that of Prime Minister. She and 20 other members from capitalist and communist and social democratic and Third World nations formed the World Commission on Environment and Development. They reported out in 1987 with a book called "Our Common Future."

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I want to submit, as we discuss the balanced budget legislation, that what we really ought to be talking about, and have been since 1987, is the notion of sustainability, which was invented at that time. Our generation -- I'm 52 years old -- didn't invent the economic systems under which we operate, or the political systems. I don't think we actually had an original idea not borrowed from our parents or our grandparents or political leaders until 1987, until the publishing of "Our Common Future." What Gro Brundtland and the United Nations said, hon.

Speaker, is that poverty, inequity of wealth distribution and greed are killing the planet and that growth in and of itself is not a bad thing -- is a good thing, if it is managed for the well-being of the people. They define sustainability as the actions of a society taken to enhance the lives of that generation of people that do not foreclose the options of future generations. I want us to keep that in mind as we discuss the balanced budget law, because I think that's where we are headed.

[1500]

Once Gro Brundtland and the Brundtland commission had defined sustainability, it allowed New Democrats -- those who were concerned about the planet and those who were concerned about jobs -- to come together around this idea of managing a society's well-being in a way that did not foreclose options of future generations.

Between that time -- 1987 -- and 1991 we met at the Tin-Wis conference on Vancouver Island and the Common Ground conference in Nelson and all over this province, with woods workers, trade unionists, environmentalists, community activists and feminists -- to come together and define and articulate a kind of governance that would aim for sustainability on the land and sustainability of the pocketbook of the people of British Columbia.

Mike Harcourt went around, in the election of 1991, defining his sustainability with a piggy bank that he held in his hand on television.

For myself, in the Kootenays, I spent that election talking about the idea that the words "environment," "ecology" and "economics" were really all of the same thing, all from the same Greek root word -- environment meaning house, ecology meaning inhabitants and economy meaning household management -- and that we could become a government that could manage the house, the inhabitants and household management, and the books, in such a way as to run this society without foreclosing the options of future generations. Hon.

Speaker, all of us in that election talked about aiming for protecting 12 percent of the land from industrial development, because the Brundtland commission had defined that target as the paradigm of their nature of sustainability.

Rushing through future years after we were elected the Minister of Finance appointed KPMG to look into the sustainability of our finances. The Minister of Forests of the time, sitting in front of me now, told the chief forester to engage in timber supply review to make sure that our biological accounts were sustainable, and cabinet proceeded to begin the land use plans and the protected areas strategy.

Then, on March 18, 1993 -- I was sitting at that end of this room -- we were gathered here for our second throne speech, and an amazing thing happened. There was -- as there is every day, every week and every month -- a demonstration on the lawn. The demonstration was about a thing I didn't know anything about, couldn't pronounce, certainly couldn't spell, and a place I had never been to, called Clayoquot. The demonstration wasn't about any decision that cabinet had made. It was about the rumour on the street that cabinet might make a decision about this piece of land.

The demonstration turned into a riot, the people broke into the building, and as I sat at that end, the glass exploded, a guy got his leg broken -- and government came to a standstill. And I would argue, metaphorically speaking, that action and the arrests that followed defined our activities for the nine years following.

We became seized of the need in British Columbia to create sustainability on the land as a result of the social upheaval that the people of British Columbia were experiencing in the early 1990s. In this House, we focused on the issues of the environment and proceeded to use all of our energy to attempt to resolve those questions. On the question of the environment, throughout the nineties we . . . .

I'll just give you a short list of the achievements of the government: pulp mill effluent regulations to quit killing shellfish in Howe Sound; the Forest Practices Code to define how we work, for the first time; hazardous waste regs so that you could no longer trash the land, poison it and walk away from it; a protected area strategy, saying that we would accomplish the 12 percent that Brundtland had set us as a target; the Fish Protection Act, in order to see to it that we quit using rivers in a way deleterious to salmon; the Fisheries Renewal Act to create the Fisheries Renewal Board; and then a list of parks that would take me an hour to read.

On the side of the inhabitants of the House and the social issues throughout the nineties, we moved to cut government in order to absorb the federal offload, to protect the people of British Columbia against their country abandoning them in the issues of health care and education and social services.

In the ministry I know best, in order to make up for the federal cuts to health care, we reduced the Ministry of Agriculture from $100 million to $60 million in nine years. We reduced the staff from 350 to 50 in nine years, even as we doubled the farm-gate output.

But let me give you an even more visceral picture of the investment of the government in the people in the last nine years. There was such a dearth of building of public infrastructure before we came to work here. Combined with the in-migration that we experienced from 1991 till 1999, the people on this side of the House built a new school -- and are still building a new school in British Columbia -- every 19 days for nine years.

[1505]

I still remember Mike Harcourt saying about the 12 percent target on the land: "We own the land here in British Columbia, and if we can't do it, what makes us think the people of any other province or country can." And we are almost there. As I give you this speech, we are within days, weeks or short months from reaching 12 percent. I think today, as I'm talking, we're at 11.73 percent. So can we say after nine years of dealing with the people's needs and with the needs of the land that we have achieved Brundtland's definition of sustainability -- a society that can meet its own needs without compromising those of future generations? I guess I would submit: not quite yet.

In my capacity as Minister of Agriculture, I had occasion to visit Mexico. I was invited to a NAFTA implementation panel meeting with ministers of agriculture of Canada, Mexico and the United States attempting to make the international agreement on trade work.

[ Page 17090 ]

Before I met with the ministers, in order to understand the country that I was visiting, I met with representatives of campesino groups, peasant farmers, Christian liberation theologists, women's groups, independent labour and human rights groups in Mexico. And every single group that I met with started by telling me the story of the Mexican revolution and how the campesinos had won independence for their country and had been rewarded by a constitution that gave them control of the land forever.

Then they explained to me that while they were agreeing to the NAFTA, the bankers and the currency traders, the corporations, the World Bank -- the forces of globalism -- had required them to change the constitution and privatize the land that they had earned in 1911. They said to me: "We don't blame Canada, and we don't blame the United States, and we don't even blame the NAFTA. We blame debt and deficit and currency speculators for our troubles."

I learned in Mexico that even if you're the richest people in the world, you are at risk if there is the perception that your budget isn't balanced, if there is the perception that your fiscal house is not in order. I guess that brings me to the need -- if we actually wish to attain a society that we can define as sustainable -- to pass this law so that the richest people on the planet, with the most efficient workforce in Canada, can show to the world that not only do we have this wealth today, but we will pass it on to the next generation, the next generation and the sixth generation and on into the future.

I want to talk a little bit about the timing of this bill. I would argue that this is precisely the timing. We are about to complete -- and I hope celebrate and have the biggest street dance in the history of Canada -- the 12 percent protected areas that we set out nine years ago to pry loose. We are about to be able to proclaim the sustainability, the biodiversity of this province, and that moment, I think, is the correct moment to say: "And now for social democrats to be able to prove that they are what they say they are, we have to be able to do exactly the same thing with the bank account and the budget that we have just done with the land."

The right-wing members opposite sit over there, and they say: "Why now?" They attempt to imply that they don't believe that we actually mean it. I'd say, on the contrary. I can't think of a single reason why social democrats would put themselves through this process and this debate unless they meant every single word of it and meant it right now. Precisely because of our history, precisely because of our understanding of Keynesian economics and precisely because we are the people who attempt to achieve sustainability, I'd say they mean every word of it. They mean it right now, and this is the time in our history.

[1510]

That brings me back to finishing where I started with this idea, with our generation's only real original idea, the notion of sustainability that the UN gave us in 1983 -- and, I think, the idea which brought this party's many parts together to govern for this decade. For nine years we have been seized, as they say, with the environmental and social agendas, and it is excellent timing that we get on with the economic question.

I want to close by saying this. There is always a lot of talk, whenever medicare comes up, of Tommy Douglas's government. People like to talk about Tommy as the icon of medicare, and a lot of mythology gets built. It is worth remembering that Tommy Douglas ran for office in 1944, and he had one campaign issue that he took out amongst the people. That was medicare. He inherited a province with trauma, a province coming out of a right-wing administration and coming out of the Depression. Tommy Douglas governed and ran for office for 17 years before they actually put the building blocks in place by which they could then impose medicare -- to me, somewhat analogous to our own moment in history.

Having accomplished environmental sustainability with the 12 percent protection and having accomplished social sustainability with the rebuilding of the public infrastructure that the people need to live here in British Columbia, I suggest that we spend the next half of our 17 years proving we can do the same thing with the fiscal accounts.

I. Chong: Having listened to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries explain economics, I have to admit that it was a whole new perspective. I don't believe anyone watching can really appreciate what he had to say, because it was voodoo economics at its best.

I rise this afternoon to also respond to second reading of Bill 28, Balanced Budget Act, and I note the conspicuous timing of its introduction near the end of this government's mandate. Isn't it interesting and isn't it even strange that for the past nine years this government has not tried even once to bring in balanced-budget legislation? The NDP can't even use the excuse that it doesn't know what balanced-budget legislation is all about. After all, the Leader of the Official Opposition has consistently introduced balanced-budget legislation and debt-reduction legislation annually as a private member's bill.

But what did the NDP do? They've never once considered it. They've never even allowed it to be debated.

Perhaps if we had debated it several years ago, we wouldn't be watching this piece of legislation coming forward now. In fact, what we've seen in the last nine years is the NDP scoffing at it, the NDP calling balanced-budget legislation shameful, disgraceful and even a crock. We've heard that. But suddenly we have a revelation. Suddenly someone flipped on the light switch. Suddenly this government realizes that the majority of British Columbians want the government to be fiscally responsible, and they want the government to manage taxpayers' dollars prudently.

What we have now is a Premier who hastily announces that he supports balanced-budget legislation. I haven't heard that in the four years I was here. He hastily announces that balanced-budget legislation is important, that he supports it. He not only stuns his caucus; he also at the same time surprises his NDP provincial council at that one meeting. In addition to this, the Premier, knowing that several of his caucus members do not support balanced-budget legislation, ups the ante. The Premier then goes on to state that Bill 28 will proceed through all stages on the basis of it being a confidence vote.

[1515]

The real truth is this: Bill 28 is not legislation; Bill 28 is a statement. It is a statement that in essence is saying this: "If you support this bill, then you support this government." Bill 28 is also saying: "If you support this legislation, then you have confidence in this government."

Well, I want to be very clear, very unequivocal, about this. I do not support this government, nor do I have any confidence in this government. Given that this is what Bill 28 is truly about, then there's only one choice for any of us, and that is to vote against it.

You know, as the saying goes: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." And with Bill 28, this

[ Page 17091 ]

Premier and his NDP caucus are trying to do just that. They are trying to fool all of us in hopes that all British Columbians aren't paying attention. But they are paying attention. They know that Bill 28 represents nothing more than a deathbed repentance that will fool no one. That is why the public is so outraged.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

I can say that, hon. Speaker, because this past weekend, this Canada Day weekend, I've had the opportunity to be out at many events, and I've had the opportunity to speak to many constituents about Bill 28. And I want to be clear about this: I didn't bring up the subject. Oh no, quite the contrary; it was on the minds of many constituents when I went around to a number of these events.

When they saw me, they came up to me and asked me: "What the devil is going on out there?" They were referring to Bill 28. They said to me: "How could the NDP do such an about-face and expect people to buy into this?" In essence, not one person I spoke with believed that this NDP government would implement balanced-budget legislation.

I do want to say, though, for the record that I for one don't know who exactly will be returned to these chambers after the next election. I know it's not a foregone conclusion. I don't know what the results will be. I know the polls are very interesting, and it may be encouraging to some people. But you know, the only poll that matters is the poll held on election day.

I can assure you that I intend to seek re-election with respect for the electorate, with respect for them. I expect to go into re-election to be accountable for my actions, to be accountable for my representation on their behalf these past four years. When I do seek re-election, I will ask them to place their confidence in me, just as I challenge this Premier to do. If this Premier is so certain that this bill is so significant and so believable that British Columbians are prepared to place their confidence in him and his caucus, then he should have the courage to call an election. So why isn't he doing that?

I strongly and sincerely believe in the implementation of honest, reliable and sound balanced-budget legislation. You know what? That depends upon who introduces it and how it is finally introduced. Bill 28 was introduced by a government that has lost the confidence of the people of this province, and it was introduced at a time when the government is nearing the end of its mandate. That is exactly why Bill 28 is suspect in the minds of so many people.

Also, it is highly unlikely that this NDP government intends to follow through on balanced-budget legislation. Why would I say that? Well, it's because this government has already deliberately misled the people of this province before. It did this when introducing its so-called debt management strategy -- a strategy that was multi-year, as Bill 28 is intended to be. But what happened to that debt management strategy? Well, its goalposts kept moving. Even the name kept changing.

What began in 1995 as the debt management plan became the financial management plan, which soon after became the modified financial plan and finally renamed the five-year fiscal planning framework. The goalposts kept moving; the name kept changing. Even though, years before, they said they were committed to a debt reduction strategy.

[1520]

Let's explore what happened there. Let's see how credible the NDP's debt management plan -- or the debt plan -- truly is, and then we'll see how credible its balanced-budget legislation is. The debt management plan, in 1995 called the debt management plan, promised to deliver budget surpluses in '95-96 and in '96-97. It also promised to pay down a debt of $10.2 billion. It said it would maintain B.C.'s credit rating as the highest in Canada, and it said it would reduce taxpayer-supported-debt-to-GDP ratio to 10.2 percent by the year 2015.

What happened in reality? The government has not balanced a single budget in nine years. In fact, the newest budget says we won't even see a balanced budget until the year 2004-05. And if this government had the chance to still be governing, they would be moving that goalpost, too, because it does so every year.

In 1997 -- the financial management plan. What did it promise? New name, new promises. Well, it promised that it would balance the budget in 1997-98. It also said that it would reduce taxpayer-supported-debt-to-GDP to 15 percent by the year 2015. That didn't happen either. In fact, taxpayer-supported debt has increased to a projected $27.9 billion for the year 2000-01.

Let's move on to the 1998 modified financial plan. Again, a new name, so we have to have new promises. Well now, these promises said it would balance the budget in '99-2000. It said it would limit the taxpayer-supported-debt-to-GDP ratio to a target range of 19 to 22 percent over three years. Gosh, in three short years, where we were supposed to have the taxpayer-supported-debt-to-GDP ratio at 10.2 percent, it climbed up to as much as 19 to 22 percent. That's a huge increase.

And finally, let's move into 1999. The five-year fiscal planning framework. New name and once again new promises -- this time, to balance the budget in the year 2002-03. And here we have again: "to limit the taxpayer-supported-debt-to-GDP ratio to a target range of 22 to 27 percent over five years." Well, I think it's quite clear that the NDP's debt plan wasn't credible, and neither are they. So I hope I outlined for all of those who are here listening, all of those who are here watching these debates and all of those who may be reading these Hansard s at a later time why Bill 28 is so unsupportable.

It's simply not believable. How can any of us vote in favour of a piece of legislation, knowing that this government has no intention of ensuring that balanced budgets will in fact happen? It shows through in their debt plan. They have made promises but ensured that they didn't stick to that plan. So why would they stick to balanced budgets?

I think the former Finance minister, the member for Saanich South, who's now the Attorney General, said it best in 1997. He said: "I don't expect you to believe me." And he said that just after he introduced that year's budget. He actually said it. Well, I think that, very quietly and silently, this is also what this new Finance minister is saying under his breath. He doesn't expect us to believe him. And so I won't. It's quite clear that this government is not believable, this government is not credible, this government is not accountable.

This is a bad government with a bad record that is not only appalling but is downright disgraceful. I've heard from many of my constituents, and that is the only -- the only -- definition that I ever hear back.

[ Page 17092 ]

Furthermore, I don't believe for one minute that this NDP government has the ability to manage the financial affairs of this province. I think that's been quite clear. It doesn't have the ability to put our financial house in order. So how can it possibly bring in balanced budgets?

Why on earth would this NDP government, this Premier, expect any of us to offer any kind of endorsement to his government, when I know they don't believe in and would not adhere to the spirit of balanced budgets? They've shown that to us already.

[1525]

Once again we have those historical facts to substantiate the various statements that the members on this side of the House have been making. Actions do speak louder than words. So, very quickly, let's have a look at what those actions were.

Back in 1991 the NDP opposition voted unanimously in favour of the Taxpayer Protection Act. It was

an act with three primary objectives: one of freezing taxes, another of balancing budgets and the third one -- lo and behold -- of debt reduction.

However, immediately after the 1991 election, what action did this NDP take? Well, the NDP government abolished the Taxpayer Protection Act. They didn't amend it; they abolished it by introducing

an act to repeal it. Actions do speak louder than words, and this kind of action is all we need to be reminded of when we see this government attempting to bring in balanced-budget legislation.

Following 1991 the action of this government has proven that they've brought in nine consecutive deficit budgets. They even lied about two of them being balanced, which is now still being hotly debated in the courts. But we also saw that the NDP didn't freeze taxes; it in fact raised them. The NDP didn't reduce debt; it doubled the debt from about $17 billion to over $36 billion. What kind of debt reduction plan is that?

Those are the facts, hon. Speaker; those are the real facts and nothing but the facts, as the Premier said in his throne speech. The most worrisome part of all of this is that history has a way of repeating itself. On March 21, 1991, the former Premier, the member for Vancouver-Kinsgway, stated: "British Columbians no longer trust this Social Credit government."

Well, it's nine years later, and we are hearing from British Columbians who say that they don't trust this NDP government. Also, back in March of 1991 the NDP supported this balanced-budget legislation that it later repealed. So if history does repeat itself, we know that we'll see the NDP supporting balanced-budget legislation and hoping that after the next election, they get a chance to repeal it.

As I indicated earlier, I don't know who is going to return to these chambers after the next election. But I know one thing for certain: I don't intend to allow this NDP government to continue to fool taxpayers this time around. What we do see with this NDP government is that they're scrambling around to say and do almost anything to get re-elected. They say that they'll do this or they'll do that, and all the while they have their fingers crossed behind their backs -- behind their backs, hon. Speaker -- laughing at all of us, just waiting to say: "Aha -- gotcha!"

Why don't they show us those fingers? Well, this government hasn't changed its ways. We can all can see it on this side of the House, and I think British Columbians can see it too. All this government has done, as we already noted in previous debates, is reposition the players and pretend that it's some new government. This government is not new. It still has no idea of how to stimulate the economy. This government hasn't got a clue on how to restore investor confidence or how to restore consumer confidence. This government has no new fiscal agenda. This is only the most shameless attempt at trying to pull the wool over taxpayers' eyes, and we intend to expose that.

[1530]

This government continues to foist its mis-truths on all of us, and it continues to mislead British Columbians by introducing legislation that we all know they have no intention of keeping. Bill 28 is designed to win re-election; it is not designed for implementation.

Hon. Speaker, I've been here for four years, and I've seen three Premiers. The NDP caucus members in 1996 were exactly the same people as they are now. This is not a new government. It is one that has lost all credibility, and the only way that British Columbians will in fact see a new government with a new vision, with new hope and with new opportunity is after they call an election.

G. Campbell: Unfortunately, hon. Speaker, as I rise to speak on Bill 28, I am forced to tell you at the outset that I will not be supporting it. I will not be supporting it, because the Premier has made it extremely clear that this is a question of confidence in this government. This is a government which no British Columbian has confidence in, and they are right in that assessment.

This is a government that has taken our economy from the best economy in the country to the worst economy in the country, the government that has taken our economy to a position where there is the lowest level of private sector investment of any jurisdiction in the country. This is a government that has been so profligate in its spending, so irresponsible in its spending, that nothing they can do today and nothing they can do with a piece of paper will make any difference.

The bill sets out a number of targets for the government to meet, and as my colleague from Oak Bay-Gordon Head has just pointed out, this is a government that has not met one financial target that has been set for the last nine years -- not one. And every year before an election, regardless, this government claims to be for balanced budgets. In 1991 they stood and voted in favour of the Taxpayer Protection Act, which called for balanced budgets, which called for control of taxes, which called in fact for financial responsibility. It called for debt reduction. This government voted in favour of that. Many, many members of this House voted in favour -- almost a dozen.

And yet right after an election, the third piece of legislation this government introduced repealed that act. Just think how different British Columbia would be today if the government had been true to its word in 1991. Just think how different British Columbia would be today if the Premier of the day had been true to his word -- that he wanted a government that was as honest and hardworking as the people who paid for it. Think of how much better off we would be, how much better off the people of this province would be, if that had been the case.

Freeze taxes. This government repealed the act and immediately added $2 billion in taxes and fees to the backs of

[ Page 17093 ]

taxpayers in the province. And what's the net result of that? It's that people across this province today are saying they are working harder, and they're not getting any further ahead. It's the average person who's taking his paycheque home, and every paycheque he looks at . . . . At the end of the year, he realizes he's taken home $1,800 less this year than he would have, had this government lived up to the taxpayer protection plan -- $1,800 a year less for working people in this province because of this government breaking their word in 1991.

The first act -- literally the first substantive act -- was the repeal of the balanced budget act which this government supported. And then they went and borrowed and spent, and they taxed and taxed some more, and they borrowed some more and spent some more. They got themselves into a situation where everyone in the public started to understand that it was debt that was the silent killer of our essential health, education, child protection services across this province. It's one of the largest areas of government expenditure -- $2.6 billion a year to service the debt. That's just the interest costs.

In 1995 and 1996, rather than tell people the truth, this government claimed to have balanced the budget in 1995. Every single person on that side of the House knew that was false. Every single one of them received a special briefing to their caucus in September of 1995 and were told that the budget wasn't balanced for '95 and that the budget wasn't going to balance for 1996 -- every one of them. Yet they went out in an election and said that not only had they balanced one budget; they had balanced two. They claimed that they cared about balanced budgets in '95 and '96, but they knew they were running up massive deficits.

[1535]

What has this decade of deficits done to British Columbia? It has led to a decade of despair, a decade of destruction and a decade of decline because this government did not tell people the truth. So do I have confidence in this government? I want to be clear: absolutely not.

The Finance minister stands up and says: "It's a new day. It's a bright new day. I'm here." I'm not sure if it was an alias he was using, but he said, "It's a new day" -- supposedly a new direction. Imagine standing and saying that it's a new direction as you deliver the first budget of what the Premier called the new premiership. Here's the first budget of the new premiership, the first Dosanjh budget, the first Ramsey budget. Here it comes -- $1.3 billion in deficit, an additional $3 billion in debt. And now they claim they've discovered the importance of balanced budgets. I have no confidence in that government.

They tell us that this is a balanced-budget act. The Premier stood yesterday, and said: "I am so committed to this balanced budget. It's a law."

G. Plant: They'll never break the law.

G. Campbell: Let's just look at this government's experience with the law. This is a government that consistently went out and, to use the quote of one of the government's own ministers, "did whatever they wanted to." Did the law get in their way? No, it didn't get in their way.

When the former Attorney General, the now Premier, had a responsibility to carry out the Election Act in British Columbia, did the law get in his way? Did he think of carrying out the law? Did he read the law? Did he worry about the law? No. In fact, he broke the law. The only way that he could repair that breakage was to retroactively amend the law so he looked like he was living up to the law.

G. Plant: Well, he was, in a way.

An Hon. Member: He rewrote his own law.

G. Campbell: It's amazing how rewriting laws can work for a government that doesn't really care about the law.

So how do I feel when the Premier says to me: "No, this is different"? Well, I kind of feel like when the Finance minister stood up and said: "This time I'm really, really, really telling you the truth. I'm not like the Finance minister in '95 or '96, who was sort of telling the truth. I'm not like the Finance minister in '97 or '98, who was kind of telling the truth. I'm really telling the truth this time, and I'm going to put it in legislation." I'm not sure whether his fingers were crossed when he said that or not.

But I don't have any more confidence in this Finance minister or this Premier because this is on a piece of paper. We've seen these pieces of paper before. It kind of reminds me of Neville Chamberlain: "I have in my hand a piece of paper. It will guarantee peace in our time." We didn't have peace. Having a piece of paper in your hand does not guarantee balanced budgets under New Democrats. In fact, having a piece of paper in your hand does not guarantee balanced budgets under New Democrats. In fact, it guarantees that the New Democrats will carry on doing exactly what they've done -- borrow and borrow and spend and spend.

Now, why do I say that? I want to believe that everyone in this House cares about fiscal prudence and fiscal responsibility. But what's our experience? What have we seen from this group of 40 individuals who claim to care today about balanced budgets?

[1540]

Well, first we had the debt management plan. The debt management plan was announced with great fanfare. The NDP had finally come to their senses. They understood the importance of debt management. They recognized that the increase of debt by about $10 billion was too much. So they introduced a debt management plan. We were all supposed to think: "Good, they've got it. At last they're going to get debt under control." What's happened, really, is that since that time . . . . The first year, every target was missed.

The second year they decided that the debt management plan wasn't quite as good an idea, because they had missed all those targets, and they invented the revised debt management plan. Then all of those targets were missed. So they had the financial management plan. They missed all the targets in the financial management plan. So then they had the modified financial management plan.

When they missed all the targets in the modified financial plan, they came up with the new five-year fiscal framework. They missed the targets in that as well: a $1.3 billion Dosanjh deficit, a $1.3 billion Ramsey deficit, a $1.3 billion New Democrat deficit in the year 2000 -- $3 billion additional in debt on the backs of the young people and the taxpayers of the province of British Columbia. I have no confidence in this government.

The Premier has told us that this is a matter of trust. Do we trust this government? Can we trust this government? Let

[ Page 17094 ]

me ask you, hon. Speaker: should Charlie Brown trust Lucy when she's holding the football? Should Linus really wait for the Great Pumpkin? The fact is that we can't trust this government.

This government has shown, by their actions far more than by their words, what they truly believe and the respect with which they hold the taxpayers of this province. This government has shown far more by their actions how they really feel about the responsibilities of government and the responsibilities to citizens.

The Premier tells us that his commitment is now enshrined in the law. Well, I remember when we had ministers of this government standing and telling us that not one cent of Forest Renewal would be used for the normal general purposes of government, and it was in the law. They would never have a chance to do that.

What's happened? Those dollars have been taken by the tens of millions away from resource workers and resource communities across this province to pay for this government's incompetence, to pay for this government's mismanagement and to pay for this government's broken word. I have no confidence in this government to do anything different with this act.

The Premier says that it's in the law. Yet this is the same Premier who was Attorney General while the government and a government minister tried to interfere with the courts in the Skeena Cellulose case. And we heard nothing.

The rights of the small business owners and the small people in that case were basically wiped aside as the government pushed and pursued its agenda. If it required undermining the traditions of the law, that was fine. This government, in fact, has shown itself not to put the primacy of the law at the top of its agenda. Citizen after citizen has had to go to court to protect themselves from a government who has broken the law. Citizen after citizen, individual after individual, community after community has had to take this government to court, because this government broke the law on a regular basis.

As a pattern of action this government breaks the law. So why would I have any confidence that this government would pay attention to this law? I have no confidence that this law will contain this government as it pursues whatever agenda they decide upon.

[1545]

The Premier has told us that we should trust him. I'd like to be able to trust him. Just as I'm sure members of the New Democrat Party would have liked to have been able to trust him when he sat on their board of directors and was responsible for making sure that their principles and their policies were pursued within the law. The problem was that when the Premier knew that something might be wrong, he turned his back on that responsibility. He deliberately avoided that responsibility, so that there would be no responsibility under the law for the Premier. And that's not appropriate. Do I have confidence in this government? Not for a minute.

This balanced-budget law is indeed a deathbed repentance.

It's a deathbed repentance that will not bring back a lost decade in British Columbia; a decade of lost opportunity and eroded hope; a decade which saw the highest level of youth unemployment of any jurisdiction west of Quebec -- persistent, continuing, ongoing; a decade that watched as over half of the workers in the mining industry lost their jobs; a decade that saw people in the forest industry lose their jobs and their homes and in some cases their families, because of what's happened with regard to this government's economic policy; a decade in which it's been clear that indeed the Taxpayer Protection Act of 1991 was just that.

It would have protected people in this province from many of the excesses of a New Democrat government, who thought it could do anything it wanted to. Do people in this province have confidence in this government? I don't think so.

It's time to actually try and restore the public trust. It's time to try and mend the broken promises and the breaches of trust that this government has imposed on the people of the province of British Columbia. The way to do that is not to bring in, at the end of its mandate,

an act that claims to be for balanced budgets. The way to do that is to call an election.

I've been saddened to watch this government in a state of flux, not knowing where they're going, not knowing what they're doing and seemingly not caring about the impact of their inability to act on the people of this province -- whether it's in health care or education, whether it's in creating new jobs and new hopes and new opportunities across this province. This government has got to know that its mismanagement and incompetence have cost everyone across the province, in thousands of little ways, their quality of life.

Financial prudence and financial discipline is essential and important. But it was important a decade ago. It's not important just as a matter of political expedience. There is nothing that has been learned by this government, except that they continue to fall in the polls. And what they should have learned a long time ago was what citizen after citizen told them. They can't take it anymore. They can't take a government that adds deficit after deficit and debt after debt and tax after tax. They want to look forward to a new day in British Columbia.

We can do that, and the government can help do that -- not by passing a piece of legislation at the end of their term, which no one believes and which no one has any confidence in. They can do it by calling an election to give people the opportunity to say what they want to do, the direction they want to go in and to say which group they trust to carry on with the future of the province of British Columbia.

This is a bill about confidence. This is a bill about confidence in this government. I can tell you that no one on this side of the House has any confidence in that government, and I believe there are very few British Columbians left that have any confidence in this government.

It was sad to see the introduction of this bill and to see the activity that was taking place on the other side. It was sad to look across and see all the sad faces in the government benches, because I know that people on that side of the House fundamentally disagree with this approach.

[1550]

I happen to agree with balanced budgets. I agree with fiscal prudence. It's something that I think is an important part of public policy. But I think it's fine if people don't. Why don't we have an open, honest public debate about that? I can't tell you the answer to that. This government always claims to be for balanced budgets just before an election and throws them out the window just after an election.

There's one way for the government and all the new converts to be sure that we have balanced budgets in British Columbia. There is one way for all of the new converts on the

[ Page 17095 ]

government side of the House, all of the New Democrats, to be sure that there will be fiscal prudence in the province of British Columbia. That's to call an election and let the people decide.

The Speaker: I recognize the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations to close debate.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I am pleased to rise today to close debate on second reading of Bill 28, the Balanced Budget Act. I must say that the debate has been perhaps not as long as I thought it would be. It surely had some interesting perspectives. But I've got to say that . . . . You know, those who are watching on television or listening might be forgiven, as they listen to the debate from the opposition, for their understanding of what is actually contained in this bill. We actually have before us a piece of legislation. We're debating, in theory at least, the principles of that piece of legislation.

So I just wanted to outline what those principles are, because frankly, they haven't been mentioned much by the people opposite -- not at all. They say that, in theory at least, they support balanced-budget legislation. Yet for some bizarre reason they say that regrettably, they're going to have to vote against a bill introduced in this Legislature that says that we should indeed have balanced budgets by law.

Here are the principles that are actually contained in the bill. First of all, it says that the government of the province of British Columbia should present, every year, a budget that meets a particular deficit target for the next few years and thereafter -- present a budget that is in balance at least each and every fiscal year. It says they should achieve that goal over time, and it says they should continue it on into the future.

This is different from what other provinces have chosen to do in their legislation. Other provinces have chosen to say "balance over the business cycle." I think New Brunswick said that under, if memory serves, a Liberal government. I believe Saskatchewan did a similar thing under an NDP government. So there are options here. This bill chose the option of saying that it has to be balanced every year, and it has to be in balance after three more years.

Now, I must say that when I actually read the words of the opposition, I'm not sure they disagree with that principle. But I haven't heard it in the chamber. I heard them say they support balanced budget. I have heard -- I believe I've heard -- the Leader of the Official Opposition say that he expects to be able to balance the budget three years after he takes office -- three years. If I do the math here, that looks very much like the exact

schedule that's outlined in this bill exactly the same time.

Assuming we have a budget that's tabled in 2001 by this government and have an election in 2001, the third year after that would be 2004. It looks to me as if they have no disagreement with the principle of getting to balance over that period -- none at all. Yet member after member has stood up and said various reasons why they can't support the principle of this bill. Well, one thing out there, one thing in here -- two different things.

The second principle of balanced-budget legislation is that there should be consequences for failing to meet the targets set out in the bill. This bill has those consequences; this bill has teeth. It says that those who are responsible collectively for setting budgets and administering them -- the executive council, the cabinet of the province of British Columbia -- should be held individually and collectively responsible if they fail to meet the targets set out in this act. It says that they should lose, for a period of a year, 20 percent of their pay as cabinet ministers. That's a penalty. It's right in the bill.

[1555]

Now, the interesting thing is that I've been looking through the bill that has been tabled by the Leader of the Official Opposition, which talks about their penalties. And guess what; it's not all of cabinet. It's a particular minister who might have missed his target in his particular portfolio. Well, at least we do tend to agree that there should be penalties. But this is a bizarre provision that essentially says that cabinet and government don't act as a whole and shouldn't collectively bear the responsibility for it.

It's vastly different from what occurs in Manitoba, which has a provision similar to the one we are going to have in this province and vastly different than what other provinces have proposed.

Finally, the third principle of this bill is that there are indeed extraordinary circumstances in which the government of British Columbia would not be required to meet the deficit target outlined in the bill. We've actually put into law two provisions. One says that if revenue drops by more than half a billion dollars due to a major recession or the like, they should adjust that target. The second one -- for extraordinary circumstances, as I read to the chamber during second reading -- is actually language almost identical to that which is contained in the Leader of the Opposition's bill -- almost identical.

It says that there are indeed extraordinary circumstances -- emergency or unexpected circumstances -- that might be detrimental to the health or safety of persons in British Columbia, which would require you to amass debts. And yet they stand up and say they oppose the principles of this bill, when it reflects the very words in the private member's bill that was presented by the Leader of the Official Opposition. Isn't that bizarre? It is strange -- extraordinary, one might say.

Now, there are some other provisions. When I look at the general principles of this bill -- balanced budgets; do it over time; adhere to it over time; penalties for failure to meet it; extraordinary circumstances -- frankly, they are on the record in a variety of forms, saying: "These are good principles; we think they're wonderful." They even propose a bill that contains many of them. It includes a few weird things, as well, but it does at least contain those three principles.

An Hon. Member: Leap year -- the leap year exception.

Hon. P. Ramsey: My colleague says there's the leap year exception in the Liberal bill. No, it's stranger than that. Here's what it says. You actually have any particular ministry . . . . If you spend less than the estimates allocate, here's what happens under the Liberal bill.

An Hon. Member: Inaccurate in your forecasting abilities.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Yeah.

So let's just get this straight. If you have a particular ministry where you spend less than the estimates, here's what happens to that underexpenditure. Twenty-five percent of it

[ Page 17096 ]

goes to compensation for public officials in the ministry. Now, I want to understand this. What you have here is a proposal that says: "Hold on; if you're responsible -- say, in the Ministry for Children and Families -- for protecting children and somehow you manage to save a few dollars, then you personally and individually get a salary increase." If you happen to be responsible in the Ministry of Education for ensuring that all children have access to a broad public education and somehow you spend less, you personally get a salary increase of up to 10 percent, it says here. It is remarkable.

Let's just figure out how this works. Say we had 1,000 students less than we thought show up in public school one year. It can happen -- $6 million less expenditures in public schools. As I understand it, the 200 officials in the Ministry of Education would have $1.5 million to split among themselves, because children didn't show up at school. This is bizarre legislation -- absolutely bizarre.

[1600]

The other thing that I must point out about this bill is the contrast in how the bill is framed -- what the purposes of the overall bill are. As I said in second reading, as the bill clearly outlines, we are putting forward this bill not because we think that the goal of all government should be the keeping of books . . . . But we do believe that a fundamental role of government is to ensure adequate investments in health, education, social justice and environment, and therefore over time you need to make sure that you've got the books balanced. That's what we're going to do in this.

And it is regrettable when I hear what's going on with the Liberal opposition. It is regrettable that they have to be against everything, no matter whether the solution we're proposing meets exactly the principles that they have outlined. They are prepared to stand up and vote against it, even though they have said repeatedly that they support these principles. They would simply rather play politics than support a good solution, and this is a good solution.

Maybe the reason they're so negative is that they know that their own plans, their own promises on balancing the budget, simply don't add up. The Liberal math is simply a fraud. They say, "We're going to cut taxes; we're going to protect spending on health and education" -- apparently $6 billion for health isn't enough anymore -- "and we're going to change the way we account for capital. We're going to do all that and balance the budget immediately."

Interjection.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Oh, three years. Three years? Well, hon. Speaker, I'm not sure they've really looked at the magnitude of the task they've set for themselves. So let's say they agree with our deficit target for next year: $950 million. In order to get there, here's what they're going to have to do: find another $1 billion of cuts to services to make up for their dramatic personal income tax reduction.

They're going to have to find another $200 million in cuts to make up for their breaks to the corporate sector -- $1.26 billion in tax cuts that they've promised, overnight, immediately after the election -- as they somehow think that they're going to meet that target and protect health and education. It doesn't add up.

Who's going to benefit from these tax cuts? Well, we know. We've looked at it: 35 percent of their proposed income tax cuts will benefit the top 4 percent of income earners. They will get an average tax cut of $4,400 each. Just 5 percent of their cuts will go to that 50 percent of filers with an annual income under $20,000. So they know that their proposals simply don't add up.

We intend, with this bill, to get our fiscal house in order. The Premier has said clearly that this, added to the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act and our new Income Tax Act, sets the standard for a new way of doing finances in the province of British Columbia.

We don't seem to differ on the principles. I've heard them speak in favour of the principles contained in this legislation. And yet for some reason, they are more interested in playing politics than finding solutions that work for the people of British Columbia. We're focused on those solutions; we will make this work. I regret that for some reason, they will not be supporting this bill.

Hon. Speaker, I move second reading of Bill 28.

[1605]

Second reading of Bill 28 approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 38

Evans

Doyle

McGregor

Sawicki

Kwan

Lali

Hammell

Pullinger

Bowbrick

Brewin

Boone

Orcherton

Calendino

Zirnhelt

Randall

Robertson

Sihota

Cashore

Conroy

Smallwood

Miller

MacPhail

Dosanjh

Petter

Lovick

Priddy

Ramsey

G. Wilson

Farnworth

Waddell

Stevenson

Gillespie

Streifel

Walsh

Kasper

G. Clark

Goodacre

Janssen

NAYS -- 35

Whittred

Hansen

C. Clark

Campbell

Farrell-Collins

de Jong

Plant

Abbott

L. Reid

Neufeld

Coell

Chong

Sanders

Jarvis

Anderson

Nettleton

Penner

Weisgerber

Dalton

McKinnon

Masi

Roddick

J. Wilson

Barisoff

van Dongen

Symons

Thorpe

Krueger

J. Reid

Stephens

Coleman

Hawkins

Hogg

Nebbeling

Weisbeck

[1610]

Bill 28, the Balanced Budget Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. D. Lovick: I call second reading of Bill 25.

[ Page 17097 ]

SECURE CARE ACT

(second reading continued)

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

R. Coleman: I'm pleased to continue my discussion on the second reading debate of this bill. I reserved my position. It seems like a long time ago that we actually had some second reading debate on this, prior to the long weekend. I opened my last remarks by saying that I didn't take pleasure in speaking about this legislation, because it meant that there were children that were being abused on our streets and taken advantage of.

There are a few more comments I want to make, because I didn't get an opportunity to finish. Basically what it was is now with this legislation, we're going to take children off the streets for 72 hours. And that 72-hour period is a critical period during any intervention, particularly when you're dealing with drug and alcohol abuse. That intervention usually involves family, friends and loved ones in order to get someone refocused in their life to decide that they want to take some treatment.

But when that intervention takes place, you need facilities for these people when they come off the streets in order to be able to have the intervention and have the continuing care, so that they can actually make these decisions and this stuff is there.

I don't see those facilities in order to implement this bill in British Columbia today. I also have a frustration about those facilities. I remember, before I was an MLA back in about 1992, the then Minister of . . . . I think it was called Social Services in those days. The member from Whalley, dealing with a piece of property that's now in my riding . . . . That particular piece of property was owned by a group called the Chrisholme Society at that time.

It is one of those pieces of property that since then has never been utilized at any level of use within the community of British Columbia. But we as a province have continued to pay the overhead and operating costs for that facility of about $6,000 to $7,000 a month. We have continued to pay the taxes on that facility, and we've continued to maintain that facility.

I think it's important that people realize what that facility has. That facility actually has beds and living accommodations for 14 youth. It actually has an indoor swimming pool, a gymnasium. It has a full workshop. It has a building that's a heritage house that has been converted, with a commercial kitchen and dining room and offices upstairs for people to be able to operate the facility. It has two classrooms that would have been used for an education program and all the equipment to actually operate a small farm. This is actually located on 80 acres in the riding.

[1615]

We are removing . . . . We had a successful program relative to some drug and alcohol treatment on that site recently, but it is now being shut down and moved away from that site for another model by the Ministry for Children and Families again. My concern is that when we take these children that we want to put into secure care, we have no facilities. Yet we have a facility that's completely underutilized.

I think it was the correct decision at the time, in 1992, to intervene by government and to make sure that that asset, which is located in the middle of the ALR and has an institutional zoning which is rather unique, was kept and made available for us to use in the province of British Columbia. Unfortunately, it hasn't been. Unfortunately, I see no vision relative to how we're going to handle these youth as far as having facilities and property utilizing our assets in order to be able to help these kids.

There are some concerns I have about this legislation, which I think will be dealt with more, probably, in committee debate than anything else. But the biggest concern is where this will all fall out relative to privacy issues, relative to the detainment of people for 30 days, 60 days and 90 days without some form of appeal or whatever -- the setting-up of another bureaucracy with a director. I mean, I've had the experience dealing with the director for Children and Families on some files. That has been a less than palatable experience for myself and for my constituents. I have a concern that this will become the same and therefore it will not be successful.

My biggest concern is that if we're going to be intervening and doing this, we have to have the facilities in place to deal with it. We also have to have the backup program and the trained people to handle the individuals in order to give them the direction that is going to be of assistance to them, and then move on from there.

A director of secure care may, without a warrant and by force if necessary, enter any premises in order to apprehend a child under this legislation. I think there are some issues for discussion in committee relative to that. I think the warrant to enter private premises by court order is a question that must be decided. The renewal of the secure care certificate and that renewal being allowed to go for 90 days . . . .

Last week we saw a horrible hit-and-run in Vancouver, where a person was killed by a vehicle that was racing down a street and that left the scene. The individuals turned themselves in and are now back on the streets already, quicker than a child we would bring into secure care. They're out there awaiting trial, out there with the opportunity to flee. Yet in this situation we actually have the ability to, for lack of a better description, jail somebody for 90 days.

I think that those issues of their rights have to be debated within the committee stage of this bill. The information and privacy commissioner warns that this act shields the ministry from public scrutiny and will result in erosion of fundamental rights. That is certainly a discussion that has to take place in committee. The commissioner went on to say that this act flies in the face of this government's promise of more accountable government. This is the information and privacy commissioner of the province of British Columbia who's making these statements relative to this act, and certainly when we debate this legislation, we'd best take that into account.

The issue around children, the issue around abuse -- having seen it and been there and knowing what it's like -- is disgusting. Whatever we can do to help our children is important. But don't just do it by a piece of paper, thinking that that's the solution. You need the structure, you need the backup and you need the things that work with this legislation to make it successful. If we can do that and we can save a child, then it's worth it.

[1620]

V. Anderson: The Secure Care Act is another important discussion for us to have within this Legislature about our concern for care for our children. I think it's appropriate that a former Minister of Social Services is here, because I want her

[ Page 17098 ]

to begin with comments about a report that was undertaken during her time of ministry which was called: "Making Changes -- A Place to Start." Also, the other report that was part of that was: "Liberating Our Children, Liberating Our Nations."

This was back in 1992 when this report was prepared and presented because of growing concerns about our children and youth in our province. I think it's important that we remind ourselves what was said in that report in 1992, some of which is relevant.

"Families told us of being frightened and threatened by a child welfare structure they thought should have provided help and support. Families also told us that too often problems had to reach crisis proportions before help could be obtained. Young people said the experience of being moved from home into government care was like 'going from the frying pan into the fire.' Ministry staff, service providers and caregivers described to us the feelings of frustration and isolation. They said the system is focused on symptoms, not on the underlying causes of the problems facing family and children.

Community representatives, especially those from ethnocultural groups, described current child protection structures and practices as being out of touch with their needs and often discriminatory."

That situation was tragic enough in 1992, but the situation is even more tragic today, because over that period of time, the processes that have been put in place to try and meet the system have not done that job. Out of this report came the Child, Family and Community Service Act, which in itself was a good representation of the reports that were presented at that time.

But the process of the implementation of the Child, Family and Community Service Act has been faulty from start to end. As I've visited and as we, from this side of the House, visit members of the community -- whether it's youth, whether it's family members, whether it's service providers, whether it's the children themselves -- what you discover again and again is that policies and regulations which had been implemented by this government as a result of this children and families act do not fulfil the principles of that act.

Therefore, we have not dealt with what the act struggled with and what we should deal with: the underlying symptoms and causes that our children and families are having in our province that cause significant numbers of our young people to end up in street life and in prostitution.

[1625]

The Secure Care Act talks about "secure" but not a great deal about care, and it's care that is most significant and most important. Also, about the time -- in fact after the time -- of this report, another report came out. That report came out as a report from a street person herself who had gone among other street persons and asked them what their concerns were, what the problem was and what the answer might be.

A theme that went through that report by Cherry Kingsley was this: for whatever reason, young people had been separated from their families, from the secure care and love which comes from a united and loving family. From the point that that happened and things had not been in place to bring that family back together . . . . From that point on, everything that was done for the children, instead of bringing them back into a loving care relationship, took them further and further away.

As Cherry diagrammed it, she had the circle of a family, which is the need of every single one of us. As they were moved out of that circle, they were moved to another circle outside, and the relationships between that circle and the inside loving circle began to break down. As that circle broke down, they were moved to another circle and then another circle and another circle, so that the possibility of their being able to come back into a relationship with their family was almost totally taken away from them. Very few were able to make the process back. This had a lifelong impact on them.

The UN Charter of Rights and Freedoms for Children and Youth stresses the fact that the fundamental principle of every young person is that they should have that loving care relationship. In this government we have gone back from one side to the other. We've played with words. We've said that the family was the crucial part, as if the family was something separate from the child or the parents were something separate from the child.

We put an emphasis on the child, as if the child were something separate from the parents -- without recognition that the parents are part of the child and the child is part of the parents. That is a reality which will be with them for all of their lives. The more separation there is, the more problems there may be with meeting their needs.

This realization of child and family needs not being met in our modern society was the first basic principle of that report. Over the years we have gone off on tangents and overlooked that basic principle. The report of the committee said that there was a common goal in what they were doing. Again I quote:

"The members of the community panel have been united by one common theme and one common goal: to listen to the people and communities of this province and to provide a voice for people and communities to speak to government. The road for us has not always been easy. The issues under consideration strike at the very heart of the relationship among families, children and their governments. This report is about our attempt to capture the significant threads and common issues that communities told us needed immediate and long-term change."

We have not really heard the results of that report being implemented by the activities that have come through our government processes. The guiding principles were there. There should be dignity and respect. There should be inclusiveness. There should be freedom from abuse. They should be involved -- the children, youth and parents -- in all processes that affect their lives. There should be continuity and stability in the plan, and there should be equity, and services should always be close to home.

[1630]

There is need for care for the people who are on the street, for whom all of these processes have failed, and they reflect that failure to us. But this bill, though it acknowledges -- and rightly so -- that there is a need to be met, does not provide within it the resources to meet that need. It does not acknowledge that it is in a context. And unless the supportive services are there to prevent abuse and the breakdown of families and the resources are there if that does happen, to enable them to have the resources to maintain and bring back their families, then the process becomes extremely difficult at this end.

I wanted to highlight from that report the

section on youth itself, because there were certain principles that it gave in youth services -- principles which, over this period of time, have not been adhered to. Youth have a right to have their basic needs met in an environment that is safe, healthy and nurturing. These youth have not had that opportunity -- the majority of them. Youth have the right to continuity and stability in their relationships with their families, caregivers and communities. That continuity has not been there and is not even actually referred to in the Secure Care Act.

[ Page 17099 ]

Youth must be included and involved in all decisions that have an effect on their lives. There's some acknowledgment of this within this act, but there's also the room within the act for exceptions, which probably will become the rule rather than the reality. Youth and families are entitled to a broad spectrum of services. These services must be delivered when needed and in the manner in which they are needed.

Hon. Speaker, I went down and had the privilege to be in the audience of the play that was presented by the street people about the circumstances of their lives. Key in that play was this young girl who came -- because of frustration, because of breakdown, because of fear, because of loneliness -- down into the centre of the street.

And what she discovered is that when she got there, there was no way to make contact with anyone that cared, except to make contact with others who had gone through the process previous to her, who understood her and expressed their concern but simply drew her into inadequate resources and treatment facilities that were not able to meet her needs. The heritage, religious and cultural ties of youth must be respected. Having worked in a multifaith action movement for years, I'm very much aware that heritage, religious and cultural ties are being neglected right across the board.

Here within this report are some very significant phrases that we need to take in mind, which are not recognized within this Secure Care Act as it now stands. And I also understand that the act, like so many other acts, will be either weakened or strengthened by the kind of policies and regulations that are applied to it. So though we will support the act because it is perhaps a step in the right direction, we must stress that the policies and principles and the regulations are the key.

The act is only a legal framework that may provide a sense of security, but it also can be a framework that provides a jail and not care. That's a major concern. So I'll highlight the youth services report part of this report on making change as a place to start.

[1635]

The young people we met were clear about their needs. They need money, housing, educational opportunity, counselling and adults who are respectful and caring in their lives. They were angry that the system does not allow them a voice in decisions made about them. They often said that the system tried to make them fit the service, rather than alternating the service to their needs.

That's the great danger of this act, because what we have discovered in the whole child care protection service is that when a child is apprehended by the ministry for whatever reason, good or bad, they are taken into a legal system and legal laws begin to apply -- laws that are rigid and unbending for the needs of particular children and families.

You have, coming before a court again and again, a band of lawyers representing the government. And over against that band of lawyers and their presentation there are children with no representation from independent persons outside of that system and parents -- who know them most -- with no representation and foster parents who have cared for them for most of their lives, who are also forbidden to make representation on their behalf. So the decisions that are made are made with inadequate, inappropriate information again and again.

There's a phrase in here which is very appropriate as we look to this issue: "The current system focuses on youth as the problem, rather than the problems at work in families and even the whole community. We need a focus on families as well as youth."

I would stress that youth are not a problem, but youth have problems; that parents are not problems, but parents have problems. And what they have said as the recommendation in this

section states: "Therefore, we recommend that the Ministry of Social Services must commit sufficient resources to respond to and assess the needs of young people and their families. The Ministry of Social Service must expand and enhance the range of services available to all youth and their families, regardless of whether the youth are in care or not. These services range from family counselling and mediation services to safe houses and crisis services for youth."

As we move ahead, I ask us to go back and look at the report on making changes, as a place to start, and to look at liberating our children, which was the companion piece done by the aboriginal committee that worked together as part of this total process. We asked the community, the children and the families what we could do. They responded: "We hurt." But we have not acted upon what they said and what we heard. We have been unfaithful to them. The Secure Care Act highlights our unfaithfulness. Perhaps it will be a reminder for us to go back and once again be faithful to the children and the youth and the families of this province.

[1640]

D. Jarvis: My friend from Vancouver-Langara eloquently explained the reasons for this bill. Sensibly, Bill 25, the Secure Care Act, is a vehicle to protect exploited youth in this province. I support this bill; however, it's somewhat reluctantly -- not because of its intent but because of its content and how the secure care program will be invoked and implemented.

The main premise of this bill is intended to protect those children who are being exploited, primarily in the 12-to16-year-old age group. The question is: are we prepared to offer this protection and provide the services that will be necessary to do so? This is a question that we will discuss further. At this time I cannot see where this protection and these services will come from. As of today this government is, in my opinion, wholly unprepared to give secure care to the number of children that require it in this province and give that care in an environment that is truly safe.

The number one barrier in this bill is safe housing and not in a jail-like atmosphere, which I understand they intend to partially use.

The ministry says they are now going to provide custody care in a

section of the Maples, for example -- a building at the Maples. If you've ever been out in that area, you'll know that it is not a true safe place for those children that have problems. This is a well-known location and is used for both youth detention and substance abuse programs.

So how do we secure the kids that are separate at the Maples? Do we lock them up in a jail atmosphere? This certainly appears that it's going to lead into a situation where we do have to lock them up to make sure they're secure, if they're in that environment out there. And how is that going to be helpful to those children? The reason behind this is to connect and make a plan to keep children safe in this community. However, if you talk to the youth on the streets, the workers on the streets or the youth care workers, the Maples is a jail as far as they're concerned. Some of it is secure; some if it is not.

Drugs are prevalent here and there, if necessary. It's an old school that was converted some 40 years ago. Is this where we intend to put these children? That is questionable.

The premise of this bill is basically good, as I said -- secure care for children that need protection in a safe locale,

[ Page 17100 ]

where he or she can be assessed by a board or tribunal to be released through controlled parental care or to a facility like the Maples, as I said, for up to 90 days. I hope it's not like that, in regards to the Maples aspect. They should be put where we can give them more opportunity and more choices. However, there is always the question: does the child want care? Who knows why they did hit the streets anyway? What if it was originally a situation of an abused child that progressed to drugs, and they are too afraid to talk about it? Do we send them back to the parents, into the same environment they came from?

Does a child really care at this stage of their life? Do we just shove them in care or in jail or detox them, where we'll probably shoot them full of meds? Does this treatment that follows . . . ? This is the problem we've been having in this province: there has been no follow-up care throughout this province for children that are involved in a care situation.

Do they go on to the harm reduction program afterwards? What we're going to do, from what I understand from other locales and talking to workers, is that we are ostensibly going to send them underground. The kids will literally go underground and come up at night and in other various locales, where the streetworkers will lose them, or they'll go down to the States, as they've been doing in other provinces.

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This is not an easy piece of legislation, and I can appreciate that. It's full of potential problems. The premise is good, but I doubt that this government, on the basis of their past record in this ministry, will make it go.

It was only one and a half months ago that the minister told the social workers in this province that we won't adopt Alberta's plan to protect teens, that it is too controversial. Now here we are, some 50 days later, and she is presenting this bill to the House. It does not give me a comfortable feeling. Why does this legislation suddenly appear, when it was not on to begin with less than two months ago? Is it due to the pressures the ministry is receiving from independent reports?

The press has been yelling for the minister to make some kind of changes in her ministry because the system they have going now is not working. The Kaiser report just came out stating that drug prevention and treatment service cannot be delivered under the current broken system. That it is a signal or a poor indictment of this ministry is without question. In the paper the other day, Save the Children Canada is "disappointed with the B.C. government, as it has decided to go ahead with the Alberta-style lockup for commercially sexually exploited children. We feel that it's an expensive and ineffective way to deal with a complex and disturbing issue."

The other aspect in this

article that I noted was that the government said that it had consulted with organizations before proposing this legislation. Yet the Save the Children Canada says: "We have not ever been consulted, even though we have developed a national program that has been recognized across the country." Other agencies that work directly with children in the sex trade have also told us that they have not been consulted. We have not heard about any community meetings concerning this issue, and it makes one wonder who was consulted.

Even the government employees union is telling the government that the system is in trouble. The Gove report recommended secure care for the additional children when this bill is passed -- and when they are already unable to cope with it. We in the official opposition are not against the concept of this bill, as we have said. However, we doubt why the bill was suddenly thrust on us, when the minister already said she was afraid to put it forward, as I said, about five weeks ago and when we now know that the ministry is wholly inadequate to produce the quality of care needed.

We've already seen what is going on in the Terrace drug treatment centre, for example. We have six beds up there; only two are occupied. They have a full staff running 24 hours a day and no people inside.

Some of the problems out there are that the programs of this government have never been backed up with dollars, resources or staff. A perfect case is the Draayers case -- two kids that have been traumatized probably for the rest of their lives. The question I'll have to ask the minister later is: will it run as a provincial organization or regional? Are they going to move to the regionalization of the people in the . . . ? Who is going to make the assessments? After they're assessed or in care and they're moved out, are you going to move them out into youth agreements, which clinically makes no sense?

Well, Mr. Speaker, time is waning, and I've been asked to make my comments short until we get into the next

section of this bill. I do want to say that the last question I have is on

section 49 of this bill. That's in regards to the ministry having the power to basically imprison, with very few exceptions, and assess a child at risk, and really no one has the right to know about it. That's basically what it is as to the Freedom of Information Act. Effectively, it's a secrecy move. They can keep a child hidden from any agency and any worker.

I can appreciate the question that you don't want the pimp to get after them or the gang to find out where they are. But there are a lot of questions to this bill. Ostensibly, as I said, it's probably going to be necessary, because we have problems in this province, and I hope we are successful with it. But when we hear from the Kaiser Foundation and Save the Children and the Government Employees Union that they are upset with the way this government operates -- street care and the workers . . . . When they're all concerned, we do have a problem. I doubt at this time whether this will be successful, but we'll give it every opportunity, and we will support it accordingly.

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K. Krueger: I too rise to express support for Bill 25. I think it's a tremendously important move that the government's attempting to make. I believe that we're in a battle in our society -- right around the world, really. The battle is for the protection of childhood innocence. There is no higher responsibility that we have as a government. We owe it to children to protect them from the evil forces in this world that would abuse them, that would take advantage of them, that would lead them into a life of bondage to addiction, that would use them horribly in the sex trade. I'm glad that this act has been brought forward.

We do have concerns. The official opposition has some deep concerns that have already been well spelled out by my colleagues. We have repeatedly in this House, with a very sincere heart, offered to help this government in any way at all to deal with the pressing problem facing children in British Columbia. If additional budget allocations are needed, our leader has stood up and said: "We're going to vote for those. We will ensure that the resources are there to provide for the safety of teenagers and of little ones in British Columbia." And we mean it, because there is no greater responsibility than the responsibility we have to children.

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So we've wondered -- and we're dismayed over the years, hon. Speaker -- at the lack of progress in organizing the Ministry for Children and Families and in dealing with these issues. Jesus said that where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also. It's the same with governments. If we really care about something, then that's where we're going to put our resources. That's where we're going to allocate everything we can to make sure that we deliver on those responsibilities. We think that applies right from early childhood development considerations through to dealing with troubled teens and teens whose lives have come off the rails.

I've been attending a whole series of graduation ceremonies in Kamloops and in the surrounding region. It struck me that these young people who are graduating -- the flower of our society, beautiful, strong, vibrant, full of hope and desiring opportunity -- have had an NDP government since they were in grade 3. Now they're graduating from grade 12. I'm sure it's a disappointment to the members opposite that the troubles that children face in this province are still as profound and unresolved as they are, because this government has had nine years to deal with these issues.

I believe that every member opposite would consider children as a very high priority if they were asked to give a list of priorities. Yet somehow the government has failed to deliver the programs and the services that are needed. So we seem to find ourselves in a never-ending crisis in this matter of dealing with children who need help in British Columbia. Rather, the administration of Children and Families seems to have been the ongoing focus ever since the ministry was created. We had high hopes when this ministry was created that, on the recommendations of Mr.

Justice Thomas Gove, situations like the terrible one that befell little Matthew Vaudreuil would never be repeated in this province. But we've heard all too many of them since. We think that this government -- all of us, including the official opposition -- has to get its act together on these pressing matters. And this indeed is a pressing matter.

Now, I've had concerns expressed to me by various people. One of the first concerns is: why would you vote to give government this right to take away the civil rights of young people and essentially to put them in jail? "It's a violation of their civil liberties," people say. "Why would you do that?"

Well, it seems to me that a child that is caught in addictions or in the clutches of a pimp is already in something far worse than jail. Addiction is bondage; addiction is chains. Pimps -- I think the two issues go together -- use drugs to wrap those chains around young people and to keep them in bondage and to make their lives not worth living. I know it begins to feel that way to them very early.

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So 90 days of suspending a person's civil rights is a serious matter. But if their lives can be turned around, if their eyes can be opened to the opportunities in this province and in this country so that they have 90 years to enjoy life, then it was worth it on balance, I submit -- as long as that can happen, as long as they are genuinely treated like a priority.

But I've been shocked to hear that there are no facilities to send these young people to. The government