2003 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 37th 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)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2003

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 18, Number 7

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Page

Tributes

Gordon Dowding

J. MacPhail

Hon. G.

Collins

Introductions by Members

Introduction and First Reading

of Bills

Medicare Protection Amendment Act,

2003 (Bill 92)

Hon. C.

Hansen

Statements (Standing Order 25 B )

Substance abuse

R. Sultan

Canadian Armed Forces reserves

B. Kerr

Soccer in B.C.

R. Stewart

Oral Questions

Privatization of B.C. Rail

J. MacPhail

Hon. J. Reid

Changes to B.C. College of Teachers

R. Masi

Hon. C.

Clark

Viability of B.C. Rail

J. Kwan

Hon. J. Reid

Health care services in East Kootenay

B. Bennett

Hon. C.

Hansen

Participation by B.C. Hydro in

regional transmission organization

P. Nettleton

Hon. R.

Neufeld

Reports from Committees

Select Standing Committee on Finance

and Government Services

B. Locke

J. MacPhail

Petitions

J. MacPhail

Tabling Documents

Adopting Best Practices in Government Financial Statements — 2002-03,

auditor general's report No. 3, 2003-04

Report of the Chief Electoral Officer

on the Recall Process in British Columbia

Second Reading of Bills

BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and

Heritage Contract Act (Bill 85) (continued)

B. Penner

K. Krueger

Hon. K.

Falcon

J. Kwan

H. Bloy

G. Trumper

S. Brice

B. Bennett

R. Stewart

D. Chutter

J. Les

D. Jarvis

Hon. R.

Neufeld

Significant Projects Streamlining Act

(Bill 75) (continued)

J. Bray

B. Bennett

B. Penner

R. Visser

Hon. R.

Thorpe

M. Hunter

D. Hayer

R. Hawes

B. Lekstrom

Royal Assent to Bills

Land Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill 46)

Private Career Training Institutions

Act (Bill 52)

Flood Hazard Statutes Amendment Act,

2003 (Bill 56)

Business Corporations Amendment Act,

2003 (Bill 60)

Youth Justice Act (Bill 63)

Manufactured Home Act (Bill 72)

Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, 2003

(Bill 77)

Accountants (Chartered) Amendment

Act, 2003 (Bill 78)

Police Complaint Commissioner

Enabling and Validating Act (Bill 80)

Health Professions Amendment Act (No.

2), 2003 (Bill 81)

Pharmacy Operations and Drug

Scheduling Act (Bill 82)

Pacific National Exhibition Enabling

and Validating Act (Bill 83)

Business Corporations Amendment Act

(No. 2), 2003 (Bill 86)

Unclaimed Property Amendment Act (No.

2), 2003 (Bill 87)

Private Managed Forest Land Act (Bill

88)

Ver-Tel Communications Ltd.

(Corporate Restoration) Act, 2003 (Bill Pr406)

Buron Construction Ltd. (Corporate

Restoration) Act, 2003 (Bill Pr407)

Buron Construction

(1986) Ltd.

(Corporate Restoration) Act, 2003 (Bill Pr408)

Western Pentecostal Bible College

Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill Pr409)

Second Reading of Bills

Significant Projects Streamlining Act

(Bill 75) (continued)

Hon. K.

Falcon

[ Page 7917 ]

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2003

The House

met at 2:04 p.m.

Tributes

GORDON DOWDING

MacPhail: I rise today to join with all of our colleagues in the Legislature

to mourn the death of Gordon Dowding. Mr. Speaker, Gordon Dowding sat in your

chair from 1972 to 1975, joining with you as one of the eminent Speakers of our

province. Gordon Dowding died comfortably at the age of 85 this past weekend. He

was an MLA from the 1950s through to 1975. He was a New Democrat.

[1405]

I sent Mr.

Dowding a letter to his home just last week, and at the time I was sending the

letter I said: "Oh my gosh. It's so wonderful that a man who has played

such an important role throughout our history is still well." Little did I

know that it would be now that we would be celebrating his life.

It was a

good life. He contributed greatly to this Legislature. As an opposition member

he was renowned for his speeches in this chamber, and as a Speaker he was

renowned for keeping decorum. I would ask, on behalf of all of us, that you

would send condolences to his family.

Mr.

Speaker: So ordered.

Hon. G.

Collins: I want to add the wishes of the government to the comments of the

Leader of the Opposition with regard to Gordon Dowding, who was a servant of

this House, a member of this House as we all are — we're servants of the

people of British Columbia — for such a long period of time. I think anybody

who serves 20 years in the Legislature deserves a medal. Anyone who serves three

years in the Speaker's chair deserves a crown.

I just want

to add the appreciation of the government of British Columbia and the members on

this side of the House and wish his family the best in what I'm sure is a

difficult time.

Introductions by Members

Hon. S.

Bond: I am pleased today to ask the House to welcome two people in

particular that are not strangers to the Legislature, two people I had the

absolute privilege of working with in my office. I know many of you worked with

them.

They are a

dynamic duo — and missed, certainly. I want to welcome to the gallery today

Danielle LaBossiere and Rozi Dobreci, my first EA and MA, and I am extremely

glad to see them here today. With them is a friend of Rozi's, Rosi Mondin from

Vancouver. Thank you for helping me welcome two very special people back to the

gallery today.

MacPhail: It is certainly an important day for all Speakers of the

Legislature. I would ask the House to join with me in welcoming a former Speaker

of the Legislature, Joan Sawicki, who was the MLA for Burnaby-Willingdon for ten

years and served with many of us in this Legislature, several of those years

from the Speaker's chair. Would the House please make her welcome.

Hon. C.

Clark: I would also like to join the Leader of the Opposition in welcoming

Ms. Sawicki back to the chamber. Indeed, in the first election I voted in, she

was on the ballot in my riding. I'd also like to….

Interjections.

Hon. C.

Clark: She won. [Laughter.]

I would

also like to welcome Robert Adam, who works in the Ministry of Education public

affairs bureau, who is with his son Gareth, a university transfer law student at

Camosun College. I hope the House will make them both welcome.

D. Hayer:

It gives me great pleasure to introduce our good supporters Jagjit "Jaggi"

Toor and Jaswinder Dhami. Accompanying them all the way from India are Mohanpal

Pannu, general secretary of the Punjab Youth Congress, and Sukhpal Bhullar,

vice-president of the Punjab Youth Congress. His father is the Minister of

Irrigation in the Punjab. They are here to tour our parliament building and

learn more about British Columbia. Would the House please make them very

welcome.

Hon. J.

Murray: I have the pleasure of introducing Edwin James and Deborah Hartley.

Deborah is a constituent of New Westminster and a key staff member at school

district 40. I had the pleasure of having lunch with both. Would the House

please make them very welcome.

Brenzinger: I'm delighted to introduce to the House today an outstanding

young woman who is here visiting the Legislature for Women's History Month.

Kirsten Brar is active in boxing, rugby and karate, to name a few of her

interests, and she spent last summer in London and Paris. It is indeed a

pleasure to have her join us today. Would the House please make Kirsten welcome.

[1410]

Hon. G.

Cheema: In honour of British Columbia's Addictions Awareness Week, I would

like to recognize two guests in the gallery who are overseeing the outstanding

work being done by the Vancouver Island health authority in the integration of

mental health and addiction services. With us today is Margaret McNeil, regional

director of mental health and addictions, and Alan Campbell, manager of policy.

Would the House please make them very welcome.

Locke: It's my pleasure to welcome Samantha Rosindell to the House today.

Samantha is a grade 11

[ Page 7918 ]

student from Esquimalt High School. She's been shadowing me this morning.

She's a wonderful young woman who is a rugby player, amongst a number of her

talents, and I would ask the House to please make her welcome.

Stewart: It's my pleasure today to introduce the Coquitlam City Inferno

soccer team. This team of young 14-year-old girls went on to win the national

championship in Halifax recently. The Minister of State for Community Charter

and I were able to join in celebrating that feat, and the minister of state was

able to describe to them his athletic prowess as a youth.

Interjection.

Stewart: Yeah, it didn't take long. I wanted to welcome the team. They've

made the trip over here. I want to name them all: Peter Price, the head coach,

his wife Lisa and their son, Fraser; Tom Lachlan, assistant coach; Sheila

McQuarrie, first aid/trainer; Terry Dobrozdravich, team manager; and players

Paige Adams, Tamara Cormier, Mila Dobrozdravich, Sydney Leroux, Jessica Fleming,

Lauren Lachlan, Loren Lidin, Jenny Lyster, Jessica Mazzarolo, Julie McDowell,

Melissa Mobilio, Alex Muzzin, team captain Morgan Price, Laura Shaw and Erin

Snelling; and several parents. Would the House please make this team very

welcome.

Trumper: In the House today I would ask you to welcome our legislative

assistant, Alison Leontaridis. Also with her is my daughter, Trish Trumper. Also

in the House is the mayor of Qualicum, Teunis Westbroek, and I would ask you to

make them all welcome.

Hon. S.

Hawkins: Following up on the soccer team, I do want to say congratulations

to the team that won the nationals. I also want to advise the House that

Canada's men's Olympic team is playing El Salvador on Wednesday, November 19 at

the Apple Bowl stadium in Kelowna, and I want to wish all the players the best

and the best of luck to our men's Olympic team.

P. Wong:

I'm delighted to introduce three friends of mine that are joining me in the

House today. Ms. Anky Kan, a beautiful and talented lady, is also Miss Vancouver

International 2003. Along with her are her parents Landy Lau and Stephen Kan,

visiting from Vancouver. Would you all please help me to make them welcome.

Sultan: I want to introduce to the House today two of the best constituency

assistants almost anywhere. Would the House please welcome Susan Lundell and

Patti Hamilton.

Mayencourt: I just wanted to advise the House that one of our members here

is celebrating a birthday. We don't know which birthday. I've asked around and

can't seem to get a straight answer anywhere. But maybe the Leader of the

Opposition can help us in question period. Would you please all join me in

wishing the Minister of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services a very happy

birthday.

Introduction and

First Reading of Bills

MEDICARE PROTECTION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2003

Hon. C.

Hansen presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill

intituled Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2003.

Hon. C.

Hansen: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

[1415]

Motion

approved.

Hon. C.

Hansen: I am pleased to introduce Bill 92, which amends the Medicare

Protection Act to better protect access for British Columbians to publicly

funded health care. The amendments we are proposing today support our new-era

commitment to ensure that B.C. health care is universal, accessible, portable,

comprehensive and publicly administered consistent with the five principles of

the Canada Health Act.

These

amendments will bring greater clarity to both patients and private clinic

operators about billing practices for medically necessary health care services.

These amendments will (1) strengthen B.C.'s rules about billing practices by

clarifying when charges are inappropriate, (2) confirm the Medical Services

Commission authority to audit the billing practices of all diagnostic facilities

and private clinics in response to complaints, and (3) allow the Medical

Services Commission to recover inappropriate charges from private clinics or

physicians and, where it is appropriate, arrange for reimbursement for patients.

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.

Bill 92

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.

Statements

(Standing Order 25b)

SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Sultan: I wish to comment on this week's Addictions Awareness Week.

Addiction is common in our society, whether we're talking about alcohol and

tobacco or about heroin and cocaine, and whether we're talking about the

downtown east side or more prosperous elevations in my own community.

Substance

use disorders are a health issue. They are also a law and order issue. The need

to feed addiction

[ Page 7919 ]

drives a great deal of property crime in our communities. On the health and

treatment side, our government is trying hard to bring an appropriate level of

addiction services into the health care delivery system. On the crime and

punishment side, our government is trying hard to put new policing tools into

the hands of a hard-pressed constabulary. Both efforts merit support from all

levels of society. The North Shore was the first area within Vancouver coastal

health authority to integrate mental health services and addiction services —

clearly, a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile

the forces of darkness are innovating. A substance known as crystal meth, an

illegal methamphetamine, is gaining ground among youth populations. It is easy

to make, cheap to buy, produces long-lasting highs, inhibits appetites, keeps

users awake and is an aphrodisiac rendering users oblivious to AIDS. If this was

not enough, it frequently renders users violent, psychotic or schizophrenic and

permanently brain-damaged. What an evil and dangerous combination.

Vancouver

coastal health has formed a working committee to respond to the crystal meth

menace. Meanwhile our police forces have to contend with invasions of the

drug-emboldened who, in the words of one of our local police chiefs, say:

"Steal anything which is not nailed down." We must be aware of this

threat to young and old. We must encourage our health authorities to provide

education, prevention and appropriate treatment, and we must give our Solicitor

General and law enforcement officers the appropriate tools to do their jobs.

CANADIAN ARMED FORCES RESERVES

B. Kerr:

Last week we were in our own constituency offices attending the various

commemorative ceremonies at our local cenotaphs. As I looked around, I

recognized that a number of personnel attending were clearly not veterans of

past world wars. It is therefore with great pleasure I stand before you to talk

about the Armed Forces reservists and the role they play in this wonderful

province that we call British Columbia.

It takes a

special person to join the Armed Forces reserves. You make that commitment by

giving your time and your energy, and there is a chance you may also give up

your life. Like Superman, Armed Forces reservists go from being members of the

civilian population one minute to being members of Canada's Armed Forces the

next. All that's missing is the phone booth.

[1420]

In B.C.

alone there are thousands of these so-called part-time soldiers. They work in

banks, hospitals, schools and offices, on construction sites and in B.C.

forests. You name a place, and you'll probably find an Armed Forces reservist

working there. But what they do when they're not working in these jobs is truly

the amazing thing. To put your life on hold to help your country, your province,

your neighbour — that's something most of us just aren't prepared to do. When

forest fires ravaged the province this summer, Armed Forces reservists were

there. They left their warm beds, their jobs, their spouses, their children, and

they put their own lives on hold to make sure other British Columbians didn't

have to. Most accepted pay cuts between their civilian and their military

compensation scales just to be in the front line.

These Armed

Forces reservists have also participated in various international operations in

the past decade in the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. Reserve

soldiers also supported non-emergency domestic operations such as Expo 86, the

1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games and APEC '97. I hear they are looking forward

to participating significantly in the 2010 Winter Olympics, and we would be

lucky to have them there. They save lives, they protect our country, and they

protect us. To do this, they put themselves in danger for people they don't even

know — us. I just wanted to take the time to recognize the great job the Armed

Forces reservists are doing. Thank you from all of us, who value our freedom and

our security.

SOCCER IN B.C.

R. Stewart:

Yesterday I was one of the parents shivering as gusts of wind drove rain almost

horizontally across a cold and wet field covered with water. Against this

onslaught 22 12-year-old girls ran, splashed and felt the sting of a soccer ball

against their cold legs. I'm sure this scene rings true with the players on the

national champion Coquitlam City Inferno soccer team and with their parents and

coaches upstairs in the gallery.

This year

soccer will involve 840,000 players across Canada, including 115,000 here in

B.C. This makes it by far the most played organized sport in the country. Here

in B.C. we have tremendous soccer success. The percentage of players from B.C.

on national teams is very high, and our B.C. teams win more than our share of

national championships. We have teams like the U14 girls Coquitlam City Inferno;

the silver medallist, U14 boys Alouette United; U16 girls team Burnaby Jazz,

with bronze; and the boys Surrey Youth Pegasus, with silver; gold medallist U18

teams Nanaimo girls CVI United and boys Abbotsford Mariners. We have the

successes earned by the Surrey United senior men's and Vancouver's Sportstown

Alumni women's teams.

Soccer is

likely the most gender-balanced sport in the province. Soccer can be played by

everyone year-round. It provides excellent fresh-air physical fitness, has low

equipment and participation costs and a low injury rate. Soccer also sets the

pace internationally in regard to fair play and respect, with zero tolerance for

violence on the field of play. The official slogan of the International Soccer

Association is "Fair play is our game." As such, soccer programs in

B.C. not only produce good soccer players but produce good young people, and

judging from the young players I met this morning, it's working.

[ Page 7920 ]

Our society

should give the sport of soccer as much support as we can, so I want to praise

B.C.'s soccer coaches and officials. I also want to thank the parents, whose

dedication allows their children to succeed. Finally, I want to acknowledge the

players across this province who strive for excellence in an excellent sport.

Mr.

Speaker: That concludes members' statements.

Oral Questions

PRIVATIZATION OF B.C. RAIL

MacPhail: I want to read from the Webster's dictionary for the benefit of

the Minister of Transportation — definition of the word "promise."

Here's what it says: "A declaration that one will do or refrain from doing

something specified." That's pretty simple. Now let me read from the New

Era document, page 9: "A B.C. Liberal government will not sell or

privatize B.C. Rail." Nothing else, Mr. Speaker. That's all it says.

The people

of the north thought that the B.C. Liberals were using the commonly understood

definition of the word "promise." Silly them. Now they're very

curious.

To the

Minister of Transportation: how does she define the word "promise"?

Hon. J.

Reid: The people in the north of this province want to see the economic

growth, they want to see the stability, and they want to see their industries

put in an advantageous competitive position. Our responsibility is to make sure

that it is able to happen with B.C. Rail, and that's the reason we have been

looking for an operating partner for B.C. Rail — to grow the economy, to

strengthen the rail network and to serve the people of this province.

[1425]

Mr.

Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition has a supplementary question.

MacPhail: Well, that's curious. I can understand the people of the north

being curious, because this minister hasn't provided one new shred of

information about B.C. Rail to justify her lack of understanding of what the

promise was that her government made during the election — not one shred of

information that her government didn't have before.

If the

minister wants a copy of an easy-to-use dictionary, I know there's one

available. But let me read, then, an alternate definition of the word

"promise." Here it is: a binding declaration that gives the person to

whom it is made a right to expect the performance of that specified act. Again

to the minister: when British Columbians read the words "a B.C. Liberal

government will not sell or privatize…"

Interjections.

Mr.

Speaker: Order, please.

MacPhail: "…B.C. Rail," did they have the right to expect that

the Liberals would fulfil that promise? Or should they have anticipated that

everything but the tracks and the right-of-way could be sold to CN?

Hon. J.

Reid: It was in September of 2003 that over 20 of the communities of the

north got together and put a document to government that said we need a

revitalized B.C. Rail, and what we need is an operating partnership. That is

what was put to this government. That is what we have been sincerely fulfilling

on behalf of the people of the north in order to provide the necessary

infrastructure that is B.C. Rail and that will continue to be publicly owned as

the line and the right-of-way on into the future for the benefit of this

province.

Mr.

Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition has a further supplementary.

MacPhail: Nice spin. I hope the minister doesn't mean September of 2003,

because she and her government were well down the road to breaking their promise

by that date. I can't actually find that kind of spin anywhere in the New Era

document. The government has received no new information about B.C. Rail that it

didn't have at the time of the election.

All it says

in the New Era document is: "A B.C. Liberal government will not sell

or privatize B.C. Rail." It doesn't say that the B.C. government will seek

an operating partner, that they'll sell off everything except the tracks and the

right-of-way. It doesn't say a private company will operate B.C. Rail. It says

B.C. Rail won't be sold.

Again to

the minister: stop the spin. It would be a lot easier in life if the minister

didn't get a new message box every morning. She'd feel better with herself.

Interjections.

Mr.

Speaker: Order, please.

MacPhail: Stop parsing words. Stop condescending to British Columbians. Why

doesn't the minister just admit it? Why doesn't she come clean and say the

Premier has broken a fundamental new-era promise to the people of B.C.?

Hon. J.

Reid: I appreciate the attempt at correction. The consultation was September

2002 with the communities that came forward with their recommendation. It has

been a process of community consultation, a process of consultation with

shippers and a process to achieve an outcome that's going to be beneficial.

I'm very

frustrated that this member is not willing to look to what the greater good is,

and the benefit, and realize that what we are doing is being able to protect the

public good that has been identified. That public good is to retain that line,

that right-of-way, that track to make sure it is there on into the future for

the people of British Columbia. To be able to retain that…

Interjections.

Mr.

Speaker: Order, please. Order. Order, please.

[ Page 7921 ]

Will the

Leader of the Opposition please come to order. The minister has the floor.

Hon. J.

Reid: …public good and to be able to deliver an enhanced service for the

people of British Columbia for the long term is, I think, a worthy goal that I'm

very proud of.

[1430]

CHANGES TO B.C. COLLEGE OF TEACHERS

R. Masi:

My question is to the Minister of Education. Many of my constituents and

many teachers seem to be unclear about the makeup and responsibilities of the

newly legislated College of Teachers of B.C. The B.C. Teachers Federation has

reported that 76 percent of its members have withheld their $90 annual fee to

protest the changes being made. Can the minister clarify for the people of

British Columbia and the education community just when the elections for the new

college will be held and explain the actual structure and makeup of the new

college?

Hon. C.

Clark: Thank you to the member for the question. As a former member of the

college himself, he's certainly aware of how the college has worked in the past.

We have changed the college so that elections will be held this spring for eight

of the 20 positions on the board. The elected positions will be available for

unionized teaching members of the board. Twelve positions will be appointed by

government. Those 12 positions will represent the very many other broad

interests there are in education.

We're

recognizing that education is a broad public enterprise and that ensuring

quality of education works best when responsibility for quality is shared by the

whole host of people who are interested in making sure it works. As one example

of how the college is working better, they now have standards of competence for

the first time in the history of the college. That's something the college has

done in six months, which the previous college took 16 years before they began

to contemplate.

VIABILITY OF B.C. RAIL

J. Kwan:

A broken promise is a broken promise, but I'll spare the Minister of

Transportation the definition of the adjective "broken," because she

can look that up herself. Let me just say this. I can assure her that everyone

in the north, with the possible exception of her own Prince George caucus

colleagues, knows that the Liberals have betrayed them. They were not told the

truth. B.C. Rail is not a failing company. Its debt is manageable, it makes a

profit, and it is critical to our economy.

Interjections.

Mr.

Speaker: Order, please. Order, please. Let us hear the question.

Interjections.

Mr.

Speaker: Order, please. The member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant has the

floor.

J. Kwan:

Well, now B.C. Rail is being sold off to an out-of-province company that gave

the Liberals hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the last election. Will

the Minister of Transportation at least admit that B.C. Rail has been a

profitable company for at least 18 out of the last 21 years?

Hon. J.

Reid: The members opposite seem to be able to forget their own history. In

looking at the picture of B.C. Rail, the history of B.C. Rail, for anybody to

take a small snapshot of a corporation that has a much larger history to it….

In 1993, 1994, '95, '96 and the year 2000, those members were involved in

discussions on what to do about B.C. Rail, because this is a historic problem.

It is not a new situation…

Interjections.

Mr.

Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. J.

Reid: …and in fact, over the last couple of years, as one of the members

this morning was stating, B.C. Rail has had to consolidate and shrink in order

to be in the position it is today. In order to expand B.C. Rail, there is, under

the current situation, only one source of funds, and that would be the taxpayer.

We do not believe that is the most suitable source of funds in order for a

business venture to expand.

Mr.

Speaker: The member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant has a supplementary

question.

[1435]

J. Kwan:

Well, it's interesting, because the government's own financial and economic

review shows that in 1998 the net income of $40 million represented the

seventeenth year of profitability for the company out of the last 18 years of

its operation. B.C. Rail continues to make money, its debt is easily manageable

out of the company's revenues…

Interjections.

Mr.

Speaker: Order, please. Order, please. Let us hear the question.

J. Kwan:

…and B.C. taxpayers do not in any way support B.C. Rail's debt.

In 1997 the

Premier said his promise to sell B.C. Rail was wrong — wrong for the

northerners. He said it was a mistake. He said: "Lesson learned." To

the minister: why was it wrong to sell off B.C. Rail in 1997, but it is right to

break that promise today? Or does the minister need to look up in the dictionary

the definition of the word "wrong"?

Hon. J.

Reid: The taxpayer has been on the hook for B.C. Rail for over $800

million…

Interjections.

[ Page 7922 ]

Mr.

Speaker: Order, please, hon. members. Let us hear the answer.

Hon. J.

Reid: …that was written off and $500 million existing debt today. The

member has not looked at the statements very well. She doesn't realize that B.C.

Rail has to invest over $30 million every year in capital investments. That

leaves nothing to be able to grow on. In looking at what has happened in the

last few years with B.C. Rail, if we want that company to expand, to get more

rail traffic and trucks off the road, we are going to have to have a partner to

do that. We believe that this is the way the north is going to be best served

and the province is going to be best served.

HEALTH CARE SERVICES

IN EAST KOOTENAY

Bennett: I would like to ask the Minister of Health Services a question on

behalf of my constituents. In April of 2002 the interior health authority

announced what they refer to as their redesign of the delivery of health care

services in our region. Since then, there have been any number of changes —

some of them very dramatic, some of them causing concern to the people who live

in the East Kootenay. A year and a half later, I would appreciate it if the

minister could tell my constituents: what's the end game of all of these

changes? Where are we at? Are we seeing any benefits from all these changes?

Hon. C.

Hansen: The previous government actually referred to the hospital in

Cranbrook as a regional hospital, when in fact it was never in a position to

really provide access to the core specialist services that residents need to be

able to count on, on a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week basis. We had a

fragmented system, and we had real gaps in care in that 24-7 coverage.

We have now

restructured the way health care gets delivered in the East Kootenays. We have

renamed the hospital in Cranbrook as the East Kootenay Regional Hospital, and we

have resourced it accordingly. So today there is a very strong centre of

excellence for health care based in Cranbrook in that regional hospital, and

there's a network of other facilities that can feed into that regional facility.

The net

result of that is they've been able to recruit six additional specialists in

Cranbrook to serve the residents of the East Kootenays, and there are three or

four additional specialists that are on their way. What we are seeing is that

fewer patients have to travel outside of the region to get access to the care

they need, because they increasingly are able to get the health care they need

when they need it, where they live. That's what we're delivering throughout this

province.

PARTICIPATION BY B.C. HYDRO IN

REGIONAL TRANSMISSION ORGANIZATION

Nettleton: Can the Minister of Energy tell me and the electricity consumers

of British Columbia: what is the present status of the application by B.C. Hydro

to join with the western U.S. electricity utilities to form a regional

transmission organization in its efforts to become part of the western U.S.

electricity grid known as the Western Interconnect? Can the minister also

explain how the creation of the now separate entity, Burnaby-based B.C.

Transmission Corporation, accommodates B.C. Hydro's entry into the U.S. grid?

[1440]

I have

looked at the ministry's website regarding this matter, but I am requesting the

minister's understanding and conception of the changes taking place at B.C.

Hydro that will allow the utility equal status on this U.S. RTO and why he

thinks this incorporation with the U.S. will be for the benefit of British

Columbia and not be of greater benefit for the U.S. market.

Hon. R.

Neufeld: B.C. Hydro has been in discussions in regard to RTO West since, I

believe, 1996-97 in regard to electricity trade in the Pacific Northwest. It

should be qualified that we will in no way lose any sovereignty of our

transmission system through any process.

What we

want to do in the long run — and these talks will probably go on for another

four or five years and maybe even longer — is maximize what we have in British

Columbia for the benefit of British Columbians. We should all remember that for

three out of the last ten years, we have been net importers of electricity from

the Pacific Northwest. That means we haven't generated enough in the province to

supply our needs. We have to look towards how we can maximize the wonderful

system that was put in place by W.A.C. Bennett for the benefit of all British

Columbians, so we can continue to receive the lowest prices in North America.

The member

could actually come to my office and ask those questions, but he has been quite

shy about doing that for quite a number of years.

[End

of question period.]

Reports from Committees

Locke: I have the honour to present the report of the Select Standing

Committee on Finance and Government Services for the fourth session of the

thirty-seventh parliament respecting the Budget 2004 budget consultation

process.

I move that

the report be taken as read and received.

Motion

approved.

Locke: I ask leave of the House to permit the moving of a motion to adopt

the report.

Leave

granted.

Locke: In moving adoption of the report, I would like to make some brief

comments. This report reflects the consultation of the Finance Committee with

more than 200 British Columbians and our consideration of

[ Page 7923 ]

all oral and written submissions on the province's budget and fiscal

priorities for 2004.

Over the

past few weeks we had the privilege of travelling to 11 communities, and for the

first time we also embarked on a series of site visits within four communities.

The site visits allowed us to meet with local representatives and to learn more

about the economic opportunities and challenges within each region.

Based on

our consultation process, the committee report makes recommendations regarding

skills training shortages in B.C. and the need to increase access to

post-secondary education opportunities. The report also recommends that the

government stay the course, balance the budget, stay focused on economic

development, carry on cutting red tape and continue to expand high-speed

Internet access throughout the province. I appreciate this opportunity to move

the adoption of the committee's report, and I would like to thank all British

Columbians who took the time to provide us with their thoughts.

In closing,

I would also like to extend my sincere appreciation to all the members of the

committee for their input and dedication throughout this important process. I

would also sincerely like to thank the staff of the office of the Clerk of

Committees and Hansard staff for working so closely and patiently with the

members of the committee. In particular, I would like to thank our Clerk, Kate

Ryan-Lloyd, and our researcher, Josie Schofield.

I move that

the report be adopted.

MacPhail: I sit as the New Democrat member on this legislative committee,

and I share the Chair's view that we travelled widely and heard a widely diverse

group of opinions. I did not support this report in its conclusions, and I voted

against it. The opposition will be voting against it now for this reason: while

some aspects of the opinions that were heard in our consultations are reflected

in the report, there are several aspects of widely held views throughout the

province that are not reflected at all in this report.

[1445]

For

instance, there were several people at each location we attended who reflected

the serious harm to their communities and to the economy that the government's

cuts in public services is wreaking on them. That is not reflected anywhere in

the report. Opinion about the timing of putting more money into health and

education is one-sided in this report. It says it should be done later. There

were many people, up to and including the heads of universities, who said that

funding for post-secondary education is needed now — not next year but now.

Because

this report reflects one side of a very complicated debate about the economic

health of this province, I do not support the report, and we will not support it

now.

[1450]

Mr.

Speaker: Hon. members, the question is the adoption of the report of the

Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

Motion

approved on the following division:

YEAS — 62

Falcon

Coell

Hogg

Halsey-Brandt

Hawkins

Whittred

Cheema

Hansen

J. Reid

Bruce

Santori

van Dongen

Barisoff

Roddick

Wilson

Masi

Lee

Hagen

Murray

Plant

Collins

Clark

Bond

Nebbeling

Stephens

Abbott

Neufeld

Coleman

Weisbeck

Chong

Penner

Jarvis

Anderson

Harris

Brenzinger

Bell

Long

Chutter

Mayencourt

Trumper

Bennett

R. Stewart

Christensen

Krueger

McMahon

Bray

Les

Locke

Bhullar

Wong

Bloy

Suffredine

K. Stewart

Visser

Lekstrom

Brice

Sultan

Hamilton

Hawes

Kerr

Manhas

Hunter

NAYS — 3

Nettleton

MacPhail

Kwan

Petitions

MacPhail: I table a petition from the residents of Golden asking the

government to stop Bill 79, which will fundamentally change the way the Columbia

Basin Trust board members are to be appointed. There are 185 signatures on it

from Golden.

Tabling Documents

Mr.

Speaker: Hon. members, I have the honour to present the following documents:

Adopting Best Practices in Government Financial Statements —

2002-2003 , auditor general's report No. 3, 2003-04, and Report of the

Chief Electoral Officer on the Recall Process in British Columbia .

Orders of the Day

Hon. G.

Collins: I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 85.

[ Page 7924 ]

Second Reading of Bills

BC HYDRO PUBLIC POWER LEGACY

AND HERITAGE CONTRACT ACT

(continued)

Penner: I rise to speak in support of Bill 85, a bill that I think is

important. It helps lay the foundation going forward to help meet B.C.'s growing

electricity needs.

[1455]

A lot has

already been said about the specifics of the bill, particularly the commitment

of the bill and, again, this government not to sell off the assets of B.C.

Hydro. Of course, that's something we're not doing — notwithstanding the

comments of the Leader of the Opposition and a few people who purport to be

independent. We'll talk about that more in a moment, and we'll find out, in

fact, that they do have a clear partisan axe to grind in making the public

concerned about what is happening with B.C. Hydro.

First of

all, let's just talk a little bit about the need for more electricity, as I

mentioned at the outset. For British Columbians, we've grown accustomed to the

fact that we've had a large surplus of electricity for many, many years. That's

due in large measure to the foresight of previous free enterprise governments

that encouraged B.C. Hydro to go out and build and develop hydroelectric

projects around the province. As a province, we've been essentially resting on

the laurels of that success for many years — some would say a decade or more.

In fact,

during the dismal decade of the 1990s when the NDP was in office, B.C. Hydro did

not develop new power projects of their own, except perhaps in Pakistan. People

here will be all too familiar with that sad story, where British Columbians lost

millions of dollars on a failed boondoggle in Pakistan that appeared to be

designed to benefit a few NDP insiders who were closely associated with the

organization at that time.

Krueger: Then there was Ali Mahmood.

Hon. R.

Neufeld: Who is Ali Mahmood?

Penner: Members will know that money was flowed through secret accounts in

the Cayman Islands, all making this look very suspicious.

In any

event, even if that project had been successful, it wouldn't have done anything

to bring a single kilowatt of electricity to British Columbia to help meet our

growing needs. Our population has grown dramatically since the Revelstoke Dam

was completed in 1985. Electricity consumption has grown dramatically since that

time, yet British Columbia hasn't seen the advent of any single new large source

of electricity — at least not at the behest of B.C. Hydro.

That was

the legacy of the 1990s, and that's why, I guess, for some of us it's pretty

hard to take criticism from the very people that had a hand in that failed

policy in the 1990s of not having B.C. Hydro develop more power in British

Columbia but rather frittering away money in places like Pakistan, laundering it

through the Cayman Islands and raising the whole question of who Ali Mahmood is,

as the member for Kamloops–North Thompson keeps asking. I'm not sure we ever

got a full answer to that.

It's been

well documented. I know that members who have spoken previously on this bill

have noted the close affiliation to the NDP of a number of people associated

with this group called the Citizens for Public Power. This is a group that

purports to be independent from partisan politics and purports to be concerned

about the public interest. But as people have already well documented, a number

of their directors have been NDP wannabe MLAs, have held NDP memberships, have

been federal NDP Members of Parliament or are affiliated with organized labour,

particularly the public sector or the B.C. Federation of Labour.

Most

notably, of course, has been the Citizens for Public Power's public spokesperson

— at least up until recently — a woman by the name of Marjorie Griffin

Cohen. Members here may remember that the NDP appointed her to the board of

directors of B.C. Hydro. That's why it struck us as rather odd that she's now

the person — at least has been the person — out there worrying about what's

happening with RTOs, regional transmission organizations. After all, she was on

the board of B.C. Hydro when B.C. Hydro began negotiations around the idea of

perhaps some day joining an organization known as the Regional Transmission

Operation West to help facilitate and coordinate electrical transmission in the

western part of North America.

She's been

out there hand-wringing, and yet when she had an opportunity to vote against the

discussions around RTO when she was a member of the board of directors for B.C.

Hydro, she failed to do so. She's been calling in to open-line shows, going

around the province writing op-ed pieces and going on TV, if they'll have her,

saying that this is a terrible thing and yet, of course, failing to mention that

when she had an opportunity as a member of the B.C. Hydro board of directors,

she chose not to vote against those kinds of discussions.

[J.

Weisbeck in the chair.]

She's also

been going around the province saying that any deal with a company known as

Accenture is a bad thing, when of course during her tenure as a board of

directors member with B.C. Hydro, B.C. Hydro was involved with Accenture,

getting accounting services and other services provided by that company — to

the tune of about $50 million over the life span of the NDP government, if I'm

not mistaken.

[1500]

We've heard

plenty about the various people in this organization known as the Citizens for

Public Power, but astute observers will note that there's been a change since

about August. The media were starting to get wise to Marjorie Griffin Cohen and

her checkered past in terms of being involved with B.C. Hydro when

[ Page 7925 ]

they were engaged in a number of questionable activities, such as the

Pakistani Raiwind power project.

So about

August, we noticed she wasn't as prominent anymore in speaking out for this

organization known as the Citizens for Public Power. A new face appeared, a

young man by the name of John Young, and he's been out there. He's quite

articulate and certainly aggressive, if you talk to members of the press

gallery, about leaning on them to write stories that are sympathetic to his view

of the world. Again, this is an organization that attempts to dress itself up as

some kind of non-partisan, civic-minded public interest advocacy group.

But I got a

little curious. I wondered who this John Young is. Could it be that he really

has the same kind of NDP pedigree as many of the others on the board of

directors of the Citizens for Public Power? Could it be possible? I don't know.

I thought that maybe this warrants a little bit of investigation, so I did a bit

of checking. I found out that somebody by the name of John Young had done some

work for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives back in 2001…

Krueger: Fearmongering.

Penner: …fearmongering around changes to public auto insurance in British

Columbia and saying this would be end of ICBC.

Of course,

we're now more than two years since the date of that article, and I think people

here will know that ICBC is still functioning well. In fact, they're in the

black and doing better than ever financially. I know they're still in existence,

because I just had to renew my car insurance on Friday. Certainly, the cheque

that I made payable to ICBC would stand as some testament that ICBC continues to

exist. However, I digress.

Mr. John

Young did some work for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, an

organization that the member for Kamloops–North Thompson points out received a

considerable sum of money from provincial taxpayers, courtesy of the last NDP

administration. I'm not sure how taxpayers would feel about that, but the NDP

for some reason felt it was necessary, maybe in their own political interests,

to shovel off $200,000 hard-earned tax dollars that British Columbians have

worked for to this left-wing group known as the Canadian Centre for Policy

Alternatives.

This is one

of the groups that a certain Mr. John Young did some work for. But I thought,

again, maybe there's more to this story. Maybe I needed to do some more

homework. So I did. I'm just attempting to find the results of my labours here.

I came across an

article from October 2001 about a certain Mr. John Young being

hired to do some kind of progressive research in the Pacific Northwest around

climate change. In this article, the John Young that's quoted talks about having

worked on progressive issues from sustainable development to first nations and

other issues and coalition-building throughout his career.

I thought:

well, isn't that interesting? I know that south of the border the term

"first nations" is not known; they tend to refer to tribes or bands.

First nations is a fairly uniquely Canadian term to describe aboriginal peoples

that live in our country, so I wondered if this person could have some Canadian

links. I did a little more digging. The John Young that got hired on for a

short-term contract with this organization known as Northwest Climate Response

described his background as follows.

He said he

had worked in policy positions in the office of the national leader of Canada's

New Democratic Party.

Hon. R.

Neufeld: You're kidding. He worked for the NDP?

Penner: That would be in Ottawa, Canada. But stay tuned, ladies and

gentlemen, because this same individual then went on to say that he had also

worked in the office of the Premier of British Columbia under the former NDP

government. So I thought: boy, isn't that interesting? That's a shocker if it

could be the same person. So off I went to do a little bit more digging.

If you're

like me as an MLA, you keep government phone books at the ready. You never know

when you might need them. I started flipping through the pages and let my

fingers do the walking. I came across this entry from 1996, and the pages had a

distinctly pinkish hue to them. I found there was a John Young working as a

policy adviser in what was then known as Cupcakes, cabinet policy and

communications secretariat, under the direction, it appears, of the deputy

minister, Tom Gunton.

So isn't

that very interesting? People who follow politics closely will know that Tom

Gunton was one of the masterminds of many of the erroneous policies of the

1990s, things like the fast ferry boondoggle — certainly a pet project of Glen

Clark, the former Premier — and things that were being worked on at the same

time that this John Young was working there as a policy adviser.

[1505]

It seems to

me that's certainly shortly after or around the time that that Raiwind Pakistan

power project went ahead and went bust, bringing embarrassment to British

Columbians everywhere. That's some of the information I was able to dig up.

I thought:

just how was it that that person ended up in that position? I looked, and sure

enough, there are a number of orders-in-council that confirm the appointment of

John Young to those positions, leaving government just around the end of 1996.

Since then, it appears that John Young has been getting various contracts with

different groups that they would describe as progressive but most people would

describe as distinctly left-wing.

One last

thing. I did also keep Public Accounts close at hand behind my desk. I

let my fingers do the walking there and found that a J. Young, an

order-in-council appointee for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1996, earned

$60,852 courtesy of B.C. taxpayers. Now, if it's true that this is the same John

Young that's now the

[ Page 7926 ]

executive director of the Citizens for Public Power, it is yet another in a

long list of examples of people involved in that organization who have clear

partisan NDP links. Is it any wonder that they are out there fearmongering,

misrepresenting the truth, telling British Columbians something that isn't the

case, when their real objective, perhaps, is to fight the next election, to

fight the election they lost in 2001?

Their

fearmongering has not ended, I'm sad to report. Just today I was handed a letter

that some people are now getting in their mailbox. Viewers at home may keep an

eye out for this. It's a fundraising letter. That's essentially what it is. It's

from the Citizens for Public Power, the same group that I've been talking about.

In this letter they go on and tell people a number of amazing things. Frankly,

they're extremely irresponsible, reprehensible and dishonest things — like

that B.C. families can expect to pay an additional $1,000 to $2,000 or more each

year as a result of changes that are being made to B.C. Hydro.

Well, that

is simply dishonest. B.C. Hydro has been open about the fact that they need a

rate increase. Their rates have been frozen since 1993. I don't know how many

public servants haven't seen any raise since 1993. I don't know how many people

in the general public have seen no raise since 1993. I know some people have had

to get by, but it's not easy. Well, for B.C. Hydro…. They haven't had an

increase in their rates since 1993, and they've indicated that they will be

going to the B.C. Utilities Commission, a regulatory agency, to seek approval

for a modest increase of a couple of percentage points. A couple of percentage

points does not equate to $2,000 or more per year for a family in terms of their

electricity bill. There's just no basis in fact for that statement.

It was the

last NDP government that deregulated B.C. Hydro so that their rates were not

validated and approved by the B.C. Utilities Commission. That's something we and

the Minister of Energy did under the government's current energy plan. That's to

be saluted. I think it gives taxpayers, ratepayers, British Columbians, some

assurance that there's an independent agency scrutinizing closely the claims

made by whatever the organization is reporting to them about their need to ask

for a rate increase from their customers.

That is

what's actually happening. We don't know the exact amount of the increase, but

B.C. Hydro says all it's going to be asking for is a few percentage points. It's

rather hard to imagine the Utilities Commission saying: "No, we're actually

going to grant you much, much more than you've asked." If anything, it

would be the other way around — that they might reduce the increase.

There are

other erroneous statements in this frightening letter in an attempt to get

people to send some money back. By the way, at the end of the letter it says:

"Please enclose your $20, $30 or $50…." They say right in there:

"If you give $50, that will allow us to reach another 100 British

Columbians." Yeah, that's probably true. If you send this group $50, it's a

chance for them to reach another 100 British Columbians with lies and falsehoods

about what the government is doing.

I guess one

of the funniest comments in here is about the fact that we are encouraging more

independent power producers to bring green energy sources on line. In this

letter they say that's going to result in more pollution. I'll read it into the

record. "And then there's the environmental issue. Does anyone seriously

think that a private company will put issues like pollution and conservation

ahead of profits…? Our environment will be severely damaged by this

development."

[1510]

Well, these

people seem to be living in an ideological bubble, unable to see the real world

through the film and the greyness that they've created around themselves. The

reality is that by asking the private sector to help meet our growing

electricity needs, which I referenced earlier, we've got green power projects

coming on line big-time in British Columbia — so much so that the Vancouver

Sun said in a headline that B.C. is on the verge of becoming the Saudi

Arabia of green energy. So while the NDP talks about green energy, and they were

in government for ten years, the closest they ever came to a wind power project

was the NDP leadership debate that they had this fall.

I am proud

to say that as of about seven days ago, B.C. Hydro has concluded a contract, a

power purchase agreement, for what will become British Columbia's first wind

power project on northern Vancouver Island. The Holberg wind power project will

involve about an $80 million-to-$100 million private sector investment. It's a

very significant amount of money, in my view, and will develop about 50

megawatts of clean, renewable wind power electricity.

There is

not today a single operating, generating wind power turbine in the province of

British Columbia, and we're working to change that through our energy plan. NDP

groups like the Citizens for Public Power would like to make British Columbians

believe otherwise, but the facts speak for themselves. Today, because of the

legacy of the NDP, there's zero megawatts of electricity generated by wind power

in British Columbia. By the end of this government's mandate, I'm hopeful that

we'll be well on the way to building a very substantial wind power project on

northern Vancouver Island.

Those

aren't the only kind of green projects that are moving ahead in British

Columbia. There was a big, several-page supplement in the Vancouver Sun

back in September that talked about the various green power projects that B.C.

Hydro is negotiating to have built through the private sector — 16, in fact.

One of those is the wind power project already mentioned. A number of those

small hydro projects, which make up the balance of the other projects, are going

to be located in the eastern Fraser Valley. This is good. I think it's good for

communities and regions to contribute to the electricity that they themselves

consume. In fact, from an electrical system reliability perspective, the closer

you can bring the generation to where it's actually being consumed, the more

reliable and stable your system will become.

Stated

differently, shipping electrons long distances over very tough terrain on power

lines is not the best

[ Page 7927 ]

way, the most reliable way, to deliver electricity. Sometimes it's necessary,

and it can all be part of a functioning system, but because of the line loss

that occurs — that is, a certain amount of electricity gets lost, the greater

the distance you move it — it makes sense from an environmental, an economic

and a system reliability perspective to generate electricity closer, if you can,

to where the people live — closer to the customer base. By looking to the

smaller projects — these green, environmentally responsible projects —

that's what's actually going to be taking place in British Columbia.

Actually,

it already is taking place. Over the summer I got to visit a few projects

already under construction, one of which was commissioned recently — a couple

of weeks ago — just south of Whistler at Brandywine Falls. That project —

somewhere between a seven and ten megawatt project — only took one year to

build. It's a good example of what can be done in an environmentally responsible

way. The impact on the land base is pretty minimal. Any impact that did take

place has been reseeded, replanted, and in no time flat you'll hardly notice,

except for the water intake at the top of this creek and the powerhouse at the

bottom, that anything has taken place there.

For those

who may not be that familiar with small hydro projects, they differ from the

traditional big-dam approach that we've had in British Columbia. Rather than

building a huge dam that may be several hundred feet high and then flood

thousands and thousands of acres, a typical small hydroelectric project diverts

a small amount of water at the top of a mountain stream into an intake or a

pipe, which is called a penstock, and that pipe or penstock then gets run down

the side of a hill. It's that downhill motion that gives the water its impact so

that when it hits the turbine blades at the bottom, you get a good bang for your

buck, even though you're not really using that much water compared to a

traditional hydroelectric dam — the large dams that we've come to be familiar

with.

These are

the kinds of projects that are happening. They are specifically located on

watercourses where you don't have a fisheries impact. A lot of studies are

required before they're allowed to go ahead with construction to make sure that

there will not be deleterious impacts on fisheries habitat or the fish

themselves, and quite often these projects are built above a natural barrier

like a waterfall that prevents the fish from getting into that creek in the

first place so that you don't have to worry about the impact, because there

simply isn't any impact. All of these things are subject to study prior to

approvals being given.

[1515]

What does

it mean that we're now seeing these projects getting built? I can tell you that

for people from around the province, including in Chilliwack, it means jobs and

good-paying jobs. When I was up at Furry Creek around Squamish — some people

may be familiar with the golf course there…. There is a small hydroelectric

project being built that's well underway now. I was surprised to hear somebody

call out my name as I was hiking up the logging road to go look at this project.

The fellow came over and let me know that he was from Chilliwack and that a

number of his friends from Chilliwack and from the Fraser Valley were there

working on this project and will look forward to about one year's worth of

employment on a single project.

Good-paying

jobs. I'm told the average salary or wage is between $20 to $30 an hour on that

jobsite. Some people earn as much as $40 per hour, depending on the type of job

they're doing. These are good jobs often in rural locations, bringing money into

the heartlands, providing tax revenue, water rental rates to the province and,

most importantly, electricity. Remember what I said at the outset: we haven't

been generating enough additional sources of electricity for ourselves, and

we're becoming dependent on imports.

The NDP

purports to be a nationalistic-type party. They don't make any bones of the fact

that they don't like Americans; yet as a result of their policies, we're

importing electricity from the big bad Americans. I find it incredibly ironic

that because of their dithering and lack of action when they were in office,

British Columbia did not develop the resources we needed, so we're now importing

up to 10 percent of the electricity used in British Columbia this year.

We don't

think inaction is good enough. We decided very deliberately that we're going to

go out there with an energy plan designed to aggressively encourage the

development of new electrical resources for the province. I am pleased to say

— and the proof is everywhere — that the majority of these projects are

green, renewable projects. They're environmentally sustainable. They're creating

jobs. They're creating a tax base. Most importantly, they're creating

electricity.

No amount

of fearmongering from the Citizens for Public Power Society and their NDP

appointees or affiliates can change that fact. I think there's a certain amount

of envy going on amongst the NDP that during their time in office, they weren't

able to get around to doing anything good in terms of green energy projects.

They can't believe that here we are under our government, and they're just

popping up all over the place — so much so that, as I said, the Vancouver

Sun is calling British Columbia the Saudi Arabia of green energy.

I don't

want to take up too much time for people. I know there may be others that hope

to speak today to Bill 85. Yet I just can't let it pass — the fact that this

group that again tries to dress itself up as a non-partisan public interest

advocacy group is, in fact, little more than a front for the NDP, attempting to

help them score cheap political points by scaring seniors and other British

Columbians into thinking something that isn't true. I can't think of anything

more reprehensible.

I'm happy

to have a debate on the facts. I'm happy to have a debate on the merits. Let's

discuss ideas — government ownership versus private ownership or whatever. But

let's be clear on something: B.C. Hydro is not for sale. We've never said it

would be for sale. In fact, we specifically said it wouldn't. It was the NDP

government, prior to the last election in a secret caucus meeting where one of

the things they looked at doing

[ Page 7928 ]

was selling B.C. Hydro. Now for them to accuse us of doing it when we've

specifically rejected it all along is just a trifle ironic. I've got to tell

you, it's low.

Interjection.

Penner: It is trite, as the member for Kamloops–North Thompson points out.

I can always count on him to correct me as I go along.

I just urge

British Columbians to please…. When you get this letter in the mail from the

Citizens for Public Power, I know many of you will have the strong temptation to

rip it up into little pieces and throw it in the garbage. Before you do that or

even after you do that, maybe what you want to do is put this self-addressed

postage-paid envelope back in the mail. If you send it back empty to this group,

they'll have to pay for the postage. Maybe that will teach them a lesson — to

stop scaring British Columbians into giving them money by sending back this

envelope empty so that it costs them money instead of rewarding them for lying

to British Columbians.

[1520]

Krueger: It's my privilege to rise and speak in favour of Bill 85, the BC

Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act. I like this act. I like

what it does, and I like its name. It's a strong name for a strong conviction

that this government has around those concepts that B.C. Hydro as we know it,

our hydroelectric power, is a legacy — a legacy that was handed down to us; a

legacy for us, for our children and for our grandchildren for all time; a legacy

created by visionary people who led this province; and a legacy not to be

trifled with. I like that term "heritage contract" as well — that we

seek to continue, as a heritage to all British Columbians, the provision of

low-cost electricity because of the legacy that was handed down to us.

One of the

things this act does is repeal another piece of legislation with a rather nasty

little name. That legislation was called the Hydro and Power Authority

Privatization Act. I don't like that name at all. I hear a lot from my

constituents, who are very fearful because of the kind of fearmongering that my

friend the member for Chilliwack-Kent was talking about — people like these

so-called Citizens for Public Power, who are always talking about privatizing

B.C. Hydro. British Columbians don't want that to happen, and this government is

not going to allow it to happen.

Who knew

there was

an act on the books since 1988 called the Hydro and Power Authority

Privatization Act? Well, you know who knew, Mr. Speaker. The NDP knew when they

were government for ten years. Why didn't they repeal it? Now through their

proxies, like the one that the member for Chilliwack-Kent was referring to,

they're trying to raise the alarm about privatization.

They had

the opportunity for ten years to repeal that act, and they didn't do it. It was

just a little sleeper cell sitting there, waiting to see what they were going to

do about it. As the member for Chilliwack-Kent mentioned, they discussed doing

things about B.C. Hydro in a very cynical way. We happened to get hold of a copy

of their cabinet briefing papers at one point, and they actually suggested that

they might sell what they referred to as a big-ticket item, something — I

don't know — to show people they could do things other than build fast ferries

that don't work or buy defunct pulp mills that they couldn't get to work either

or blow money on umpteen different failed and ridiculous projects, as they did

in British Columbia throughout that sad and sorry decade of the nineties.

They didn't

repeal that act about the hydro and power authority privatization. Why was that?

Well, they actually named B.C. Hydro as one of those big-ticket items that they

might sell just to make their socialist statement, whatever they thought that

was going to be. They were foolish enough to document that in their briefing

papers. We're not going to spend a lot of time on the NDP, because the people of

British Columbia, quite rightly, turfed them — except for two tiny remnants, a

couple of very small constituencies here in the province — in the great

election of 2001. That was a wonderful outcome for us.

Another

thing that the NDP did, though — and we should mention it — is that they

stripped the B.C. Utilities Commission of its right to oversee B.C. Hydro rates.

Why do you think they'd do that, Mr. Speaker? Again, I'm sure you know. They did

that because they wanted their cabinet to be able to set B.C. Hydro rates.

There was a

point during the term when I was in opposition, 1996 to 2001, where they almost

put Highland Valley Copper out of business because of their stubborn insistence

on making so much money out of that employer in spite of the fact that copper

prices were very low — an employer that had 900 people on the payroll and

still does, thankfully. It took a concerted effort by the B.C. Liberals in

opposition to bring the NDP to heel and oblige them to become more reasonable

with that company and keep those people employed.

This

government has reinstated the B.C. Utilities Commission's power to oversee

rates, and I'm proud of that and of the many different ways that this government

has entrusted BCUC to look after the interests of British Columbians, including

giving us recommendations as to how to proceed with our heritage contract with

British Columbians.

We're

moving forward. We're moving forward in many ways in British Columbia. One of

the ways we're moving forward is in protecting the assets of B.C. Hydro against

any future government which might play around with the idea of selling a

big-ticket item, like the NDP played around with that idea of selling B.C.

Hydro. We promised before we were elected as government that we would protect

and preserve those precious public assets — the generating capacity, the

generating stations, the dams, the reservoirs, the transmission lines — and

that's exactly what we've done and what we are doing.

[1525]

Almost a

year ago — coming right up on the anniversary, November 25, 2002 — our

Minister of Energy

[ Page 7929 ]

and Mines published the energy plan for all British Columbians. It's been a

very public document ever since, and it clearly sets out our intention with

regard to this legacy of B.C. Hydro's public power and with regard to a heritage

contract with British Columbians. It clearly sets out that we will never

tolerate the sale of those core assets of this important public company.

Now the NDP

adherents are trying to set their hair on fire and alarm people about the act's

provision for the authority to be able to sell assets that become obsolete —

old pickup trucks, old assets, things that no longer make sense to retain —

even though the act clearly sets out the B.C. Utilities Commission's right to

oversee any disposal of assets. This is an important legacy in our mind — a

legacy for my children and for my grandchildren, of which I will soon have

three. I'm tremendously proud of that, proud of my family, proud of the things

that this government is doing to make British Columbia great once again, to

restore us to the thriving economy that I always knew the whole time I was

growing up and, in fact, right up until the NDP took power in the early 1990s.

I was a kid

when W.A.C. Bennett built the hydroelectric dams and brought his vision for

British Columbians to life — built this legacy for us. My father was a farmer

in the North Peace River country, and in the winters when he couldn't farm, he

worked on the construction of what we now know as the W.A.C. Bennett dam.

I was a

young man in junior high school when I toured the dam as it approached

completion. I remember looking at the amazing power of the river as it tore

through the diversion tunnels while they were building the dam. I remember

feeling terrible for a moose that got caught in those diversion tunnels and was

actually skinned in the process because it couldn't swim out of that powerful

current. I remember touring the powerhouse before it was put into production,

and I got to see things that nobody would ever see again, because you weren't

going to be able to tour those places once the dam was up and running. I

remember being awed by the size and scope of the project and proud that people

in British Columbia, including my father, were involved in creating such a

magnificent edifice, such a tremendous legacy for British Columbians.

Like the

member for Chilliwack-Kent, I am shocked at the shameful conduct of some of

these people who fearmonger in British Columbia — travelling around, visiting

seniors. Our former colleague the MLA for Prince George–Omineca…. The

shameful things that he says and does from when he first launched his written

rant — written, I believe, by Ms. Griffin Cohen, who the member for Chilliwack-Kent

referred to…. He published that even though he knew it wasn't true. He knew we

were on the threshold, within a week, of publishing our energy policy. He knew

that we were going to honour all our commitments and preserve B.C. Hydro's core

assets, just as we always had said that we would do.

He went

ahead and did that for reasons of selfish, personal political gain, which of

course fizzled on him, but he continues to behave in that way. He was recently

in Salmon Arm and met with a group of seniors and was doing his best to alarm

them with his fearmongering about the privatization of B.C. Hydro. I rebuke that

member, Mr. Speaker, on the record. I'm ashamed of the way he's behaving because

I once trusted the man, and it's wrong what he's doing — frightening seniors,

frightening people around the province with falsehoods that I believe he knows

full well are falsehoods.

As I say,

this legislation actually repeals

an act called the Hydro and Power Authority

Privatization Act. I ask members of the public to look at the record, look at

the legislation, see what we're doing here and see what the NDP never did. Why

didn't the NDP repeal that act? I think they wanted to keep their options open.

They really didn't know what they were going to do about power generation in

British Columbia. In fact, they didn't do anything. For ten years they didn't

create any new generating projects in this province. Mind you, they were

stifling the economy at the same time, so maybe they thought they weren't

needed.

But we

always knew that British Columbia would need more power. As several members have

already mentioned, we've been in a position of being a net importer of

electricity in a number of recent years. We've had to buy coal-fired electricity

from Alberta. We just aren't keeping up to our need. That is a shame; that is

wrong.

[1530]

If we want

coal-fired electricity, we've got plenty of coal in the East Kootenays. We've

got plenty of coal in the Peace River country, and we could certainly be doing

that ourselves. But no, the NDP were content to continue to put British Columbia

into the hole in many different ways — not only financially, not only in

letting our roads crumble, but also in failing to address our future needs and

even present needs for electricity.

During the

forest fires which struck my constituency this past summer, the B.C. Hydro line

was cut up the North Thompson Valley. It was cut pretty early. It's a really bad

thing, when you're a British Columbian and you're used to reliable power, to

suddenly not have any electricity. A lot of things went badly for people as a

result. Business suffered. Food was spoiled. Whole freezers and fridges,

hundreds of them, had to be thrown away because of that. We count on regular,

reliable, uninterrupted power supplies in British Columbia. What helped save the

day was that we already have some independent power producers in place, and we

were able to tap into some of those IPPs. They were able to assist in the

emergency by providing power when we no longer were able to connect my

constituents to their normal reliable sources of power.

I was proud

that we're moving ahead already in that way and that we've made so much

progress, with a whole lot more coming down the pipe. We don't want to be a net

importer of power in British Columbia, nor should we ever have been reduced to

that, nor will we ever be again if we have our way. I'm proud of a government

that has found a way to meet British Columbia's needs, to grow our capacity to

generate

[ Page 7930 ]

electricity without adding anything to public debt. I'm proud of a Premier

who announced $800 million in independent power production projects in a speech

to the UBCM convention this year and the fact that it is only an indication of

what is yet to come.

There is an

Indian band, a first nations group in my constituency known as the Whispering

Pines–Clinton Indian band, and they have brought on a proposal. They want to

build a bridge across the North Thompson River. The river will flow unimpeded.

Along with the construction of this bridge, they will install an independent

power production project known as a run-of-the-river project. They've spent

money on a feasibility study which has come out looking really good. Investors

are lining up at their door, because they are in the vanguard of these

innovative approaches to meeting the needs of British Columbians and generating

wealth as they do it.

I toured an

independent power production project in the constituency of the member for East

Kootenay. It's known as the McDonald Ranch and Lumber place. You wouldn't know

it was an IPP, because it looks so innocuous. It blends right in with the

scenery, the ranches and farms in the area of the East Kootenays. The man who

built it is a genius, in my view. He put a little dam way up the side of a

mountain that stands behind his home. It's just a small dam. It creates a little

pool of water but enough to fill a large pipe that comes down the mountainside,

just as the member for Chilliwack-Kent described some of these projects. The

pipe is overgrown with undergrowth, foliage. You can hardly see it unless you're

looking for it.

It brings

this water down from the little pool created by that small dam, and at the

bottom of the mountainside, a sheer mountainside a fish could never have swum

up, it goes into what looks like a machine shed — a Quonset hut, a nice

aluminum shed. You roll the door open, and you see walls just lined with

electric boxes and one giant turbine spinning. That man creates enough

electricity with that little arrangement to power his ranch, his sawmill, two

planer mills and a number of his neighbours and still sell power into the grid.

There is a

plaque on his wall that his children dedicated to him for the legacy he created

for them and for their children, his grandchildren, and generations to come with

this amazing device that just continues to create wealth and meet British

Columbians' needs — and will forever as they replace the various components

when they wear out. The same fish can still swim in the same creek. It doesn't

affect them at all, but wealth has been created.

We're

looking to do that all over the province. The people who went before us didn't

do that at all. For ten years the NDP didn't see any new power production

projects in British Columbia. In fact, for 25 years before we were able to get

in the saddle and get things moving again, British Columbia didn't have very

much in the way of new generation of power at all.

[1535]

With these

IPPs, the risks of construction, if errors are made by engineers or contractors,

are borne not by the taxpayer — as was sadly the case in many of the NDP's

projects, like the fast ferries — but by the proponents themselves. I heard of

one project, sadly, where people messed up, and they built their power plant

below the floodplain. Having realized later that a flood would inevitably one

day destroy their power plant, they had to build a wall around it as if to fence

out the moat that the river might one day become. It was a very costly thing,

which eroded their profits, and some of their architects and engineers and so on

are suing each other. The public doesn't have any expense from that because the

risk was borne by the people who brought on the project.

That's what

we believe in doing: partnering with the private sector, not being the

government that always wants to row the boat but a government that steers, a

government that knows where it's going and mapped out the course it was going to

take and was endorsed by British Columbians — at the time 77 of 79 seats, a

tremendous endorsement, the biggest majority that British Columbia has ever

seen. People believe in our abilities, people believe in our vision, and people

know that we want to preserve their precious legacies. People know we have a

contract with them to keep our promises and deliver on the things that we said

we would do. We're not at all afraid — in fact, we're perfectly happy — to embrace

the resources of the private sector — their ingenuity, their ability to

invest, their capacity, their skills — to partner with them and to move

forward in a way that benefits all British Columbians.

The member

for Chilliwack-Kent talked about the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives,

their shameful record with the NDP and the fact that they continued to get money

from the NDP, a large bequest just before the NDP lost power, on the basis of

which they continue to attack the current government and deceive British

Columbians, which is a real travesty — using British Columbians' own money, given

to them by the NDP, to alarm and deceive British Columbians. I think that's

shameful, and I think as they continue to attack this government with their

false discussion of the privatization of B.C. Hydro, they continue to abuse

British Columbians, as they did in the past.

The member

for Chilliwack-Kent, with his scholarly research, laid bare a number of the

motives and backgrounds of those who take

part in those initiatives. We had an

NDP Member of Parliament for 20 years in Kamloops, Nelson Riis, who used to

refer to hacks, flacks and bagmen. I never really liked the term, but I can see

where he came up with that. He obviously knew people like that, people who

behave in that way, and I want to reproach them for treating British Columbians

with such contempt, for using British Columbians' own money to try and deceive

them with their phony mailouts and their attacks on this government.

The

heritage contract that this bill, Bill 85, is setting up will essentially lock

in the value of existing low-cost generation assets for British Columbians and

enable us to continue to bring on independent power production

[ Page 7931 ]

projects. It costs more to create electricity these days than it did when I

was a boy, when W.A.C. Bennett was building those dams, but by capitalizing on

the benefit of still having that reliable power supply, while we partner with

people who are bringing on power in this day and age, we'll be able to preserve

the advantage that British Columbians have for a very long time.

There's

another site on the Peace River. It's called Site C. It has the potential for

huge hydroelectric power generation, and I hope investors are looking at that. I

encourage them to come forward if they would like to partner with this

government, if they would like to see construction. It could be either one large

dam or six small dams, as I understand it from the engineering studies that have

been done before. We're not likely to ever see the damming of any more wild

rivers in British Columbia, I trust, but that river is not a wild river anymore.

It's been dammed twice. The Site C project is ripe for moving ahead when we have

the right resources in place, so I hope investors are looking at that and people

with sufficient resources will come forward one day — one day soon, I hope —

and express an interest so that we can see construction of that as well.

Hydroelectric power is environmentally friendly power. It's a tremendous source

of power, and I'd much rather see us generating our power that way than a lot of

other ways that other jurisdictions do so.

[1540]

The member

for Chilliwack-Kent referred to the Vancouver Sun characterizing British

Columbia as the Saudi Arabia of green energy, and I'm really proud of that. I

trust that we'll become known as the Saudi Arabia of green energy worldwide. I

always wonder, when people object to oil and gas exploration off our coast, why

they would ever prefer that North America acquire any of its oil from countries

that spend their profits on terrorism, that continually go to war with one

another, that attack Israel, that murder people, that assassinate people, that

pollute the environment by deliberately setting oilwells on fire when they're at

war with one another and letting their pipelines run into the ocean when they're

having a war between them — all of the terrible things that happen there. Why

would we not want to be totally self-sufficient in energy and help our American

friends to the south, as well, not to be reliant on such providers of energy?

Now I'm

really proud of this government — the way that it is securing British

Columbians' legacy for all time with this and other legislation, the fact that

we've moved ahead in our commitment to put the B.C. Utilities Commission back in

charge of the question of what British Columbians should pay for their

electricity and that, once again, this is a government that does what it says it

will do.

I want to

commend the Minister of Energy and Mines, someone I've looked up to for a very

long time. It's a little-known fact that he's actually my older cousin. I used

to admire him when he rode motorcycles when I was a little kid. I remember

admiring him when I could see him swimming in a slough when we lived on the

prairies. I thought I'd like to be big and strong like him one day. He preceded

me into this parliament, and I'm proud of his record in office and the things

he's accomplishing. He was always a forward-thinking guy. He was always a guy

who got things done, as was his father before him.

congratulate him on this legislation. I congratulate the government on moving

forward with it. I look forward to a very bright future for British Columbia

with our private sector partners in independent power production and with all

British Columbians enjoying the benefits of this precious legacy and this

heritage contract.

Hon. K.

Falcon: I, too, rise and relish the opportunity to have what I hope is a bit

of a lengthy but intellectually driven discussion on the benefits of Bill 85.

It's a piece of legislation that follows much discussion within our government,

within our caucus and within our cabinet. I think the fruits of that discussion

are really evidenced in this bill. The fact that when you get a group of

independent-minded elected folks like we've got in this Legislature, who have

the ability to think for themselves…. They mostly come out of the private

sector. They're not shying away from ever having debates. We came together over

one of the most important issues and one of the most important public policy

issues for British Columbia, and I believe that under the leadership of our

Energy and Mines minister, we came forward with a solution that all British

Columbians will be proud of.

Just as

W.A.C. Bennett had the vision and the foresight back in the fifties to recognize

that creating the large dams that would act as hugely important generators of

cheap, inexpensive electricity which helped fuel the economic growth here in

British Columbia, so too are we, at this crossroads here in British Columbia in

2003, reaching another milestone when we say: "What is it that will get

British Columbia to the next level of where we need to go?"

You know,

it's not going to be exactly the same as it was in the past. We have a different

set of values in British Columbia. We've got new concerns over environmental

quality, and that, I think, is a good thing. We have a public that is more aware

of some of the costs associated with major damming projects and some of the

implications on wildlife, on vegetation and on a whole bunch of environmental

issues that were probably just not thought about in the 1950s.

[1545]

Bill 85,

the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act, speaks to the

reality that we face here in British Columbia and asks: how do we, as the

province of British Columbia, continue to achieve two things? How do we make

sure that the residents of British Columbia will continue to enjoy low-cost,

so-called heritage energy that is really our heritage, based on the investment

that our forefathers and our foremothers made back in the 1950s under the

leadership of that great Premier, W.A.C. Bennett? That is, in a way, our

heritage — our benefit, if you will.

We also

have to recognize, as the Minister of Energy and Mines has reminded people so

often, that in

[ Page 7932 ]

the last decade for three out of the ten years, British Columbia has been a

net importer of energy. We have to rise to meet the challenge of recognizing

that while there may be a public perception out there that we have oodles and

oodles of electricity, the fact of the matter is that given differing conditions

— perhaps a dry summer like we just had — if that was followed by very low

rainfalls, which gladly it wasn't this year…. We had flooding instead. But had

it followed a very light rainfall, we would have been facing some very severe

shortages here in British Columbia.

The

challenge for our government was how we meet this challenge, and how we meet it

in a way that we can actually go out and say to British Columbians that we've

brought on new generation that is clean and that will make a future contribution

to British Columbians by providing clean energy in British Columbia. How do we

encourage that to happen?

Before I

got elected, I was in the private sector. I'll share with you a story about what

it's like in the private sector when you're considering competing and you're

thinking about who your competitors are. There's one truism that any private

sector competitor knows, and that's this: if you are going to be competing

against a monopoly provider of power, you're not going to be competing. You're

not going to be able to win that fight. It's not that there's any potential evil

associated with a monopoly provider, whether it's in auto insurance or it's B.C.

Hydro. It's just that when you are a monopoly, you tend to engage in

monopolistic behaviours, and that is very standard for the course.

individual or company that wants to think about bringing forward something like

wind power, for example, or bringing forward run-of-the-river-type energy that

would deliver clean energy at virtually no environmental impact faces the

challenge of trying to get onto that transmission grid at a fair rate, at a fair

tolling rate, that will allow them to achieve a return on their investment. That

wasn't possible under a monopoly system that we had here in British Columbia.

Bill 85

continued the decision we made as a government that we would have Hydro publicly

owned but publicly divided into three separate areas: generation, transmission

and distribution — all publicly owned. Now, why would we do this? The left and

all the critics of the so-called CPP — the former Communist Party symbol,

ironically enough, but nevertheless the CPP; that's the Citizens for Public

Power — will tell you that this is actually privatization. "They're

selling B.C. Hydro; it's for sale, folks." They've been saying this now for

at least two years. I continue to be staggered, because I can never find the

sale. I keep running into the fact that it's still publicly owned. How is this

possible?

There's

only one of two things that could be happening, folks. Somebody is not being

conversant with the truth. We can look at B.C. Hydro and see that there are no

private shares here. The ownership is held by the government. There was no sale

that took place. Well, that's a surprise. We could also look at the fact that,

actually, what the province of British Columbia has done is re-regulated Hydro.

We have now put Hydro back under the regulation of the B.C. Utilities

Commission. The NDP government pulled Hydro out of BCUC.

[1550]

Why did

they do that? They wanted to manipulate the rates. They wanted to have the

politicians set the rates to the politicians' advantage — never a good move.

What this does is re-regulate B.C. Hydro in a very, very important way so that

any increases that Hydro may ask have to meet the public test, the public test

that is going to have stakeholders. Members of the public, concerned residents

— maybe even the Citizens for Public Power, if they ever get their facts right

— can go and make a presentation. That is the decision-making body, not the

cabinet table.

Here's

another reason why that is so very important. One of the things I am so proud of

is that because we have separated generation, distribution and transmission,

what that means for the small entrepreneur or even the big entrepreneur who has

an idea on how he or she can deliver clean, environmentally sustainable power

for British Columbia for generations to come is how they can do this and sell it

onto the grid and actually achieve a return on their investment. Virtually

impossible to happen under the old approach, it's now happening under the new

B.C. Hydro publicly owned. That is an incredibly positive thing, one of the

things I am so very proud of. The other government, the previous government,

liked to talk the talk; they liked to pretend they really care about the

environment. Actions speak a lot louder than words, and our actions are actually

resulting in real-life clean energy projects underway right now, as we speak, in

British Columbia. That's results, and that's leadership that's driven out of

legislative changes.

When I

listen to groups like Citizens for Public Power…. I really appreciated the

member for Chilliwack-Kent speaking about this, because the member brought up

some facts. These would be known as inconvenient facts for the folks that have

to listen to them. Citizens for Public Power sure sounds like a group that maybe

even citizens from my riding of Cloverdale could be involved in. Could that be?

Not after I checked to see who is actually on the board of Citizens for Public

Power.

What a

fascinating group of people this is. Marjorie Griffin Cohen. Do you remember

Marjorie Griffin Cohen? I believe we saw some of her work with one of the

members who wrote some words on B.C. Hydro that were full of inaccuracies. She

actually used to be a professor at the university I used to go to, and I

certainly can tell this House that there will be no surprise where her political

credentials are. She was NDP-appointed, of course, to the B.C. Hydro board and

was part of the decision to undertake that famous Pakistan investment deal we

all lost millions and millions of dollars over — money in foreign accounts and

the whole bit. It was just crazy.

Jim Abram

is a municipal politician and a failed NDP candidate. Jim Fulton is a former NDP

Member of Parliament. How about Jerri New, an OPEIU union

[ Page 7933 ]

leader? Then we've got Jim Sinclair from the B.C. Federation of Labour, also

an NDP appointee to the former Hydro board. John McGraw, an IBEW union leader

— International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Then, of course, there is

John Young, who the member for Chilliwack-Kent pointed out formerly worked in

the NDP Cupcakes division and was an adviser to former Premier Clark on some

great initiatives under that government like the fast ferries and the Raiwind

project in Pakistan, which cumulatively cost over half a billion dollars for the

taxpayers of British Columbia.

When the

NDP-linked Citizens for Public Power start making criticisms, they have no

credibility. They have zero credibility in my mind. They're still going around

saying we're selling Hydro, even though the facts do not support that in any

way, shape or form.

Nothing is

being sold. We are re-regulating Hydro. We are ensuring the growth of a clean

energy industry. That could include wind power, and it could include

run-of-the-river power. But I will tell you this: it will include jobs for

British Columbians, and it will include future green clean energy for British

Columbians. That is something I am proud to hand off to my children and your

children and our grandchildren.

[1555]

Mr.

Speaker, there is so much more that I could say about Bill 85, but I took time

to speak here today because I want it on the record that when this bill came

forward, the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale stood up and proudly supported this

direction. I think that this direction will be looked at historically as just as

important as when W.A.C. Bennett made the decision to create some of the great

dams which are legacies in this province. I believe the decisions we make under

Bill 85 of re-regulating Hydro, of keeping Hydro publicly owned, of making sure

that we can get clean, private sector–invested, new generation that can plug

into the transmission grid in a fair and equitable way, without all of the games

that a guerrilla monopoly can play when they don't want to allow people onto the

grid…. This is very exciting, and the future for British Columbia, I believe,

is going to be very exciting.

There's one

other thing I just want to touch on before I conclude my remarks, and that is

something I think we need to consider very, very carefully when we listen to

members of the opposition speak about this bill. It seems that they can speak

— oh, how mightily they speak — about how they can't imagine the terrible

things we are doing to Hydro, how we are considering selling off Hydro when

that, of course, is not true, and how we outsourced some back-office functions

to improve the delivery services at Hydro and reduce the cost for taxpayers.

We'll hear

how terrible that all is, and yet I want everybody in this House and in the

viewing audience out there to think about this: in the year 2000 a secret

briefing document was prepared for the NDP caucus considering the sale of B.C.

Hydro and other big-ticket items. Isn't that interesting? The NDP caucus was

considering selling B.C. Hydro and other big-ticket items. Later on that very

same year it was discovered that the NDP had also been working to outsource

Hydro services. Imagine that. In fact, in a letter to the member for

Vancouver-Hastings, Hydro's union boss criticized that NDP move and demanded to

know why they were not consulted.

Even that

government, in that day, recognized that outsourcing could actually save some

money, and that's exactly what it's going to do. I want just to say this in that

regard. The B.C. Liberal government has never, ever considered putting B.C.

Hydro on the market, and we've protected their assets in this legislation so

that they will remain publicly owned.

Briefly,

there was a question today in the House, and it referred to some discussions

that have tangentially touched on the whole question of RTO, because apparently

the Citizens for Public Power also oppose the RTO, otherwise known as the

regional transmission organization. Well, what is this? The regional

transmission organization is a group of hydro providers throughout the western

states that try to cooperate in terms of the regional grid to ensure the flow of

electricity back and forth. Makes some sense for the different states that are

involved. British Columbia's involvement in the regional transmission

organization actually started under the New Democratic Party government, and it

continues today.

Our

minister is showing leadership in ensuring that those discussions…. We have to

be engaged in those discussions. It would be nothing short of irresponsible for

us not to be part of those discussions. I am encouraged to hear that the

minister is engaging in those discussions. I recognize that they will take place

over a number of years.

[1600]

I also

understand that Manitoba Hydro has joined an RTO, with the blessing of their NDP

government. That is interesting. So maybe there are some benefits there that

they've discovered in Manitoba that, through your discussions over the coming

years, we may discover. But as we do with everything, we will study it very

carefully and will make sure that on balance it's going to benefit British

Columbia.

[H.

Long in the chair.]

conclusion, I want to say this. Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and

Heritage Contract Act, is one of the most important acts this government has put

forward in this Legislature. Under the leadership of our Premier and under the

leadership of our Minister of Energy and Mines, we have laid a foundation

legislatively for a publicly owned Hydro that will have huge benefits for us in

the encouragement and the advancement of green, clean energy right across the

great province of British Columbia. I and all the members of this House will

stand here and say this has indeed been a good day for British Columbia, and I

thank the Minister of Energy and Mines and the Premier for bringing forward this

excellent piece of legislation.

J. Kwan:

As predicted by my colleague, much of what we heard from the government side on

this bill is

[ Page 7934 ]

the repetitive claim that B.C. Hydro is not for sale, that this bill in no

way enables Hydro to rid itself of its assets. We also heard a lot of

misinformation as well. We heard the accusation that my colleague and I are

members of the B.C. Citizens for Public Power. You know what? Just to be clear

on the record, that is simply untrue. It's simply not true. We heard that the

repeal of the Hydro and Power Authority Privatization Act would guarantee that

Hydro could never be sold or privatized. So zealous are the Liberal government

backbench MLAs in trying to prove a negative that it is clear they don't even

understand the legislation they're repealing. That does not bode well for their

understanding of this bill.

The member

for North Coast actually suggests that the Hydro and Power Authority

Privatization Act was on the books to allow for B.C. Hydro to be privatized.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and it's thanks to the New Democrats

that nothing could be further from the truth. During the debate in 1988 on the

Hydro and Power Authority Privatization Act, for the knowledge and benefit of

the members of this House, it was the NDP official opposition that forced the

bill to be amended so that we would have a

section included in it,

section 2,

which states: "Nothing in this Act authorizes the sale of the authority's

electrical division, nor any part of the authority's electrical division."

It was the NDP, then, that had this provision included in this bill, and they

did so because they wanted an unequivocal statement that B.C. Hydro was not for

sale.

As a bit of

political history, the Social Credit minister of the day that agreed to this NDP

opposition amendment now has a building in Victoria named for his contribution

to our province. The NDP member who ensured that the then government and any

subsequent government could not sell off Hydro has since gone on to a very

successful career in the private sector.

When one

looks at the difference between

section 2 of the act and

section 2 of this bill,

you can see just why, despite the protestations of the government of the day

that it would never consider selling Hydro, it saw the wisdom of the opposition

and included the statement "nothing authorizes the sale" in the

legislation. This is how unequivocal the NDP was in opposition then; this is how

unequivocal the NDP is now. Do you know what? It was also how unequivocal the

NDP was when the NDP was in government.

[1605]

Today we

see in this bill that under this Liberal government the language has changed.

The language in

section 2 now reads: "…the authority must not

sell…." Actually, for the knowledge and benefit of the members of this

House, the authority has no ability to sell any of the so-called protected

assets. Only the government can sell the assets, and we know how quickly this

Liberal government can change its mind. They can turn on a dime, just like that.

We saw that with the Accenture deal.

Legislation

is needed to get rid of parts of B.C. Hydro. When it comes to flip-flops on the

verifications of this government, there are no equals. We were assured that B.C.

Rail will not be sold. The government bench campaigned in the last election with

their New Era document, which clearly stated that B.C. Rail would not be

sold, that B.C. Rail would not be privatized.

Do you know

what? What we have seen since this Liberal government came into power is they

sold off the administrative arm of B.C. Hydro's electrical division.

Interjection.

J. Kwan:

And what do we have? What do we have?

Interjection.

J. Kwan:

What do we have?

Interjection.

J. Kwan:

What do we have?

Interjection.

J. Kwan:

Let's go through this. What did we get? Let's talk about B.C. Rail for one

moment.

Interjections.

Deputy

Speaker: Order, members, order. The member has the floor.

Interjections.

Deputy

Speaker: Order, members.

Interjections.

Deputy

Speaker: Order, members. The member will continue.

J. Kwan:

The minister doth protest. He campaigned, after all, on the New Era document

that says: "We will not privatize B.C. Rail; we will not sell B.C.

language, because this government, right now, is attempting to sell off B.C.

Rail. Make no mistake about it.

They claim

B.C. Rail is not profitable. They claim B.C. Rail's debt ratio is too high. They

claim B.C. Rail is not competitive. Nothing could be further from the truth. The

fact is that B.C. Rail is competitive, it is profitable, and its debt ratio is

comparable to its competitors — the same competitors who wanted to buy B.C.

Rail.

So what do

we get? B.C. Rail is on the way to the private sector, and the private company,

Accenture, is running one-third of B.C. Hydro. It's this minister and this

Liberal government that passed legislation to sell off B.C. Hydro, and one-third

of B.C. Hydro is now being run by Accenture.

[ Page 7935 ]

Then

there's the other privatization aspect of this bill, the lifting of any

restriction on how Terasen conducts its business. Again it's the same old story.

The government says, "Don't worry, British Columbians. Terasen will remain

in B.C. Don't worry; Terasen is not a candidate for a takeover like Westcoast

Energy was. Don't worry about who sits on the board or who owns the

shares." "Customers will be protected as well," we're told.

"B.C. Rail will not be sold; don't worry."

Day by day

we're losing control of our utilities. Telus can't deliver quality phone

service. West Kootenay Power became Aquila and is now to be sold again, further

removing it from the customers it serves. All new power generation will now come

from the private sector, with its higher costs passed on to the consumers,

further undermining our competitive advantage of low-cost electrical power.

Barely a

day goes by that we don't hear from big business or members of this government

about the need to make the profitable ICBC more competitive, but Liberal hacks

masquerading as government relations consultants keep getting their way. Donors

to the Liberal Party keep getting their way. The government keeps on rolling

over to make sure it happens quickly.

[1610]

As my

colleague pointed out, the government does not need this bill. The Utilities

Commission will insist that the cheap power from Hydro's existing facilities be

blended with the higher costs of private power and that the blended rate be

passed on to the consumers. It does not need the so-called protection of

section

2 watered down. Existing legislation already prohibits the sale of B.C. Hydro,

and the government has done a dismal job explaining why Terasen should no longer

be required to be a B.C. company, protected for the benefit of B.C. consumers.

Just a little bit of a history lesson.

If members

want to know where the NDP stood then on B.C. Hydro and the privatization and

selling of that authority when we were in official opposition and when we were

in government, and where we stand now, then the government just needs to look at

the legislation that was in place. It was unequivocal language that said that

the authority must not be sold off — full stop, pure and simple.

No excuses

from this government, where they're trying to sell off British Columbians'

assets — here, left, right and centre — just selling it off, no matter what.

They're making up their own excuses to justify their broken promises and their

betrayal of British Columbians.

H. Bloy:

It's an honour to be able to stand up here today and speak to the heritage

contract and Bill 85. I just want to let the minister know that I'm fully

supportive of this bill and all the work and energy that he has put into making

this happen.

There has

been a growing demand in this province over the last decade for new energy, and

the NDP and the member that's just leaving didn't provide any energy services in

this House.

Point of Order

J. Kwan:

Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I know it has been two and a half years, and

I know it's difficult for members of this House from the government bench to

learn the rules of the House. It's the second time that I've stood up today on a

point of order for this same member. Maybe he'll learn the rules of the House:

that he's not allowed to talk about whether or not members are in the House.

Maybe he'll learn that rule right now.

Deputy

Speaker: Member, member, member….

J. Kwan:

Once again, on the point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Deputy

Speaker: Member, I will say those are the rules of the House. It is not at

this time for another member to notify whether there are members leaving the

House or not. I think the member owes an apology to the member.

H. Bloy:

I apologize.

Deputy

Speaker: The member has a point of order.

J. Kwan:

It is high time for the members of this House to learn the rules….

Deputy

Speaker: The point of order, please.

J. Kwan:

On the point of order. For the member to offer the apology in the way in which

he offered it is challenging, in my view, the rules of the House once again.

Deputy

Speaker: Would the member like to rephrase his apology.

H. Bloy:

I don't know if you'll want me to sing it, but I will apologize to the member.

Deputy

Speaker: Thank you, member.

Member

for Burquitlam will continue.

Debate Continued

H. Bloy:

As I was saying, the NDP provided no new energy sources in this province. The

NDP provided…

Interjections.

Deputy

Speaker: Order, please.

H. Bloy:

…no new energy sources to anyone in this province. There's no one….

Thank you,

Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak again in front of my fellow

colleagues.

Interjection.

[ Page 7936 ]

H. Bloy:

There are many colleagues in this House that are here for me.

We did have

the NDP, who did not invest any money in hydroelectric power in British

Columbia, but they invested in Pakistan. Many of my colleagues have spoken and

went on and on about the errors of the NDP government over the past decade, and

they have praised the minister with what they're doing now. But I find it hard

when the last government could only invest in Pakistan, all for NDP members and

insiders from around the world. You know, I find this disgusting.

[1615]

We have

Hands Off Hydro, Citizens for Public Power. We have many groups being supported

by unions. We have been so eloquently presented to by the members for Chilliwack-Kent

and for Surrey-Cloverdale about how these groups are formed by failed NDP

candidates. Also, in my riding we have the people's republic of Burnaby. You

know, unlike when our member for Surrey-Cloverdale talked about the Communist

Party…. They write letters going on about privatizing B.C. Hydro. I don't know

what part of that they don't understand, because I can tell you that I've

written them letters explaining to them, point by point, why it's not

privatized. In fact, I've offered to sit down and explain it to them in person

so that they could understand that. They haven't taken me up on it yet. I don't

know why.

I can tell

you, I was at the UBCM this past September, and the Burnaby caucus sent letters

to the mayor and council inviting them to come to meet with the Premier and

cabinet members to talk about issues that concern the citizens of Burnaby. They

must be really happy with our government, because they didn't make one

appointment to meet with one person at the UBCM to talk about Hydro and all the

other concerns they had which were not related to the citizens of Burnaby.

Interjection.

H. Bloy:

It is unbelievable, because when we had the meeting, the four MLAs for Burnaby

were there. They had all these questions not relating to the citizens of

Burnaby, and they were going on.

I did ask

them a question about the citizens of Burnaby when we had that meeting. I asked

them a question about safety. We have a road called Gaglardi Way that goes from

Lougheed Highway up to the university. That road was reconstructed by the city

of Burnaby. There are 15 dangerous wet spots. The road was constructed, and the

drainage is not right. I've written letters to Burnaby council. They've come

back that they're looking into it. They've done some work on it, but it's not

enough. I want them to be able to resolve this problem before there's a

dangerous accident on Gaglardi Way.

Interjection.

H. Bloy:

They're talking about privatizing B.C. Hydro.

Interjection.

H. Bloy:

I don't know. It's just amazing where they're going.

As this

bill goes through the House, we are going to pass this legislation for the

benefit of all British Columbians. We have consulted widely. It's here for open

debate for people.

I just want

to quote one comment from the Minister of Energy and Mines: "This act

fulfils a key cornerstone of the energy plan, ensuring that British Columbia

residents benefit from the investments they have made in B.C. Hydro." The

Minister of Energy and Mines said: "Under the heritage contract, British

Columbians will continue to enjoy electricity rates that are among the lowest in

North America. British Columbia has a growing demand for power, and there's been

no significant new generation for almost 25 years. The heritage contract will

lock in low-cost electricity rates while capitalizing on new private sector

investments. The cost of new power will be blended with the cost of Hydro's

heritage power."

Something

that's going to happen in Burnaby that I've heard no word about is that through

the incineration program in Burnaby, they're going to benefit from one of the

green energy plans. Our policy of not privatizing B.C. Hydro, keeping it owned

by the people of B.C. Hydro, will now allow the citizens of Burnaby to get a

benefit from this through the green energy plan.

On behalf

of the constituents of Burquitlam, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to

speak today in support of Bill 85.

Trumper: Probably the most correspondence I have had as an MLA — whether

it's e-mail, personal letters or form letters, of which there have been many —

is on B.C. Hydro. I want to reiterate at this time that B.C. Hydro is and will

remain publicly owned. We made a commitment to keep core assets in public hands.

The new act fulfils the plan to put in place a heritage contract to preserve the

value of B.C.'s flexible, low-cost hydroelectric resources for all of B.C.

[1620]

The

contract will work so that the cost of the new power will be balanced with the

low cost of the heritage power to keep electricity rates as low as possible for

British Columbia. The cost of generating new power in B.C. will be higher than

the cost of heritage power, whether B.C. Hydro or independent power producers

produce it. The cost of heritage power is about 2.5 cents per megawatt, and the

cost of new power is about 5.5 cents.

There's

been a lot of discussion about B.C. Hydro and a lot of misinformation that goes

around. I just want to talk about the things that I have had to go through in

life, regarding hydro.

As some of

you may recognize, I was not born in Canada. I am a Canadian by choice. I lived

in London. I can tell you that electricity power is extremely expensive in

Britain, as it is still today. In fact, when I was working in London, we had a

machine that you put

[ Page 7937 ]

what would probably be the equivalent of a dollar today, but it was a

shilling….

Interjection.

Trumper: No, it was a shilling which we put in, and we had to hope that our

guests who visited us in our little flat would bring the money to put in the

machine so we could have the lights on and the heat. It was incredibly

expensive. We also went through the time when power was so limited in Britain

that you had one light bulb on. The room that you were in was where the lights

were on. The rest of the house was completely dark.

That wasn't

so long ago. I was back visiting my parents about 15 years ago. They were going

through a very serious power shortage at that time, and they were going through

that process as well. Today, if you go to Britain at this time of year…. As

you all know, we're all putting lights up for the holidays and for Christmas,

and our houses seem to have more lights than ever every year. If you go to

Britain, you don't see those lights. There are very few lights because power is

incredibly expensive.

I've always

been amazed since I came to Canada — and I first of all came to the Peace

River area — how cavalier we are about power in British Columbia and in Canada

for that matter. I believe we use more power per individual than any other

country in the world, the reason being that we have very cheap power. We don't

have to think about it.

I was back

in Alberta last week visiting family and was asking them what their costs for

power were, and I can tell you it is a lot more than it is in British Columbia.

When I first came to Canada, the first place I went to was a small town in

northeastern Alberta where they were beginning to build the dams. It really was

very interesting to go and drive out and see all the construction that was

taking place and actually the opening of that country, because at that time you

could still go by pack horse and go hunting,

whereas after a while…. Now the

roads are all through, and in fact, within about five years of much of that

construction taking place, most places were accessible to four-wheel-drive

vehicles.

I had never

seen construction such as I saw when we drove in to look at the construction

that was taking place and to see the huge hydro power that was going to be

released for British Columbia. That is a huge, huge heritage project that we

have been so fortunate to have in British Columbia.

One of the

issues — as we go through and discuss the needs of power in whatever forms it

comes from in British Columbia — is that there does seem to be an attitude

today that when you're dealing with providing power, it's "not going to be

in my back yard." I live on Vancouver Island, and we have a huge shortage

of power. Last year we had brownouts in December at the holiday time. We have

been told that by 2007, there will be a huge shortage of power — just to keep

what is going now, let alone letting any other industry come onto Vancouver

Island.

[1625]

We've gone

through proposals for cogeneration plants, particularly in the community that I

live in and also in Nanaimo, which have been turned down. People don't want

cogeneration plants in their neighbourhood. In fact, people on Vancouver Island

would much rather that the power was produced somewhere else in British

Columbia, out of sight and out of mind, as long as they can switch on the lights

and can have the power for industry and to keep our economy going.

We are very

fortunate, with what has just taken place, that we have these green projects

which I think are certainly going to be of great value and will help

particularly Vancouver Island in the direction that we are going. I just want to

point out the projects that have been approved for Vancouver Island. We have the

China Creek hydro project, which is going to be built near the city that I live

in by the Hupacasath fi