2008 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 38th 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)

THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2008

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 33, Number 7

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Page

Introductions by Members

Tributes

Ron Butlin

Hon. I. Chong

Introductions by Members

Introduction and First Reading of Bills

Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill M211)

G. Gentner

Anti SLAPP Act, 2008 (Bill M212)

L. Krog

Statements (Standing Order 25 B )

Criminal justice system

D. Hayer

Homophobia

N. Simons

Safe graduation celebrations

I. Black

100th anniversary of Britannia Secondary School

J. Kwan

Vancouver Opera in Schools program

J. Yap

World records in B.C.

G. Gentner

Oral Questions

Softwood lumber agreement

B. Simpson

Hon. R. Coleman

Government action on forest industry

D. Routley

Hon. R. Coleman

C. Evans

Government

support for forest workers

R. Austin

Hon. C. Hansen

Seismic upgrades for schools

D. Cubberley

Hon. S. Bond

M. Farnworth

Availability of beds at Royal Columbian Hospital

C. Puchmayr

Hon. G. Abbott

A. Dix

Second Reading of Bills

Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 26) (continued)

H. Bains

C. Wyse

D. Cubberley

J. Kwan

D. Routley

G. Gentner

S. Simpson

J. Brar

N. Simons

M. Farnworth

Hon. G. Abbott

Speaker's Statement

Rules for public bills in the hands of private members

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir

Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (continued)

Hon. R. Neufeld

Hon. K. Krueger

J. Horgan

N. Macdonald

C. Puchmayr

G. Gentner

M. Sather

C. Wyse

G. Robertson

[ Page 12499 ]

THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2008

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Introductions by Members

Hon. R. Thorpe: It's my pleasure today to introduce to the

House one of my constituents from the district of Westside, Mr. Jim Wilson. Jim

is here today with the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, and I hope the House

will join me in making him very welcome.

M. Karagianis: I was very delighted today to look up in the

gallery and see a very dear friend of mine here. I know I may have missed her

most recent birthday. I'd like the House to please give a special welcome to my

friend Janet Labh.

Hon. O. Ilich: We often get guests that come from Ottawa,

and we always think that they're from a political party or they're representing

some federal ministry. We tend to forget that there are a lot of really terrific

people that live in Ottawa who are just regular folk.

Today it is my pleasure to welcome a visitor from Ottawa who

represents one of those regular Canadians who just happen to call Ottawa home.

Please join me in welcoming the mother-in-law of my ministerial assistant, Mrs.

Irene Lafrance.

D. Chudnovsky: Today it was a treat for me to have some

time to visit with some wonderful young people who are friends of our daughter

and are visiting in British Columbia. They spent some time on Long Beach and

some time here in Victoria and in Vancouver. Please help me in welcoming

Michelle Firestone and Guillermo Cruz.

[1335]

Hon. W. Oppal: I have a number of staff from my ministry in

the House today. They are Connie Richter, who is the executive coordinator of

the Deputy Attorney General's office; Janet Labh, who is a senior executive

assistant in the deputy's office; Debbie Mar, who is the executive

administrative assistant to the legal services branch; Sheena Heuman, executive

coordinator at the legal services branch; Anna Andrade, executive administrative

assistant to the management services branch; and Jacquelyn Jacobi, who is

executive administrative assistant in the multiculturalism and immigration

branch.

Hon. Speaker, these people do a fantastic job, an unbelievably

fantastic job, and I would like the House to make them welcome.

G. Gentner: In the House today is Genevieve Gord. Genevieve

is from the Université du Quebec. She's here in B.C. lecturing. In my family we

refer to her as the French kid. She was part of a French immersion exchange

program with my daughter. They became very good friends many years ago. In fact,

Genevieve wound up standing up for my daughter during marriage. It's an

incredible relationship, and I encourage all British Columbians to welcome any

exchange program with the province of Quebec.

Hon. I. Chong: On Tuesday I was pleased to introduce my

administrative assistant Linsey Cole, who I mentioned was getting married this

weekend on Sunday. While she is busily preparing for that very special day on

Sunday, a number of her family members are visiting, and they are in the gallery

today. So I would like to introduce Alison Cole, her sister from Italy; her

uncle from Saskatchewan, Tom Helpenny; and her father from Fort McMurray, Ian

Cole. I hope the House would please make them all very welcome.

D. Cubberley: Minutes ago I had the pleasure to be part of

a rally of some 100 people who have assembled here today and who are themselves

either Lyme disease sufferers or relatives of those who have Lyme disease. They

are here today to try and raise the awareness of legislators about the incidence

of this very troubling disease and the difficulty these people have in getting a

timely clinical diagnosis of their disease in British Columbia.

Lyme disease is a relatively new phenomenon in our awareness, but

its incidence is far greater than we are generally aware, and there's a great

deal of work to be done to sensitize doctors in the health care system to the

need for treatment.

A number of those who are part of the rally today are joining us

in the gallery. I want to first mention professor emeritus of UBC Ernie Murakami

who is now a retired Lyme disease physician in Hope. He is British Columbia's

first, foremost and, Lyme disease sufferers would tell you, probably our only

Lyme-literate doctor who, unfortunately, is now retired from practice but is

continuing to try to train new physicians to recognize the disease.

He's also joined by Jim Wilson, who was introduced by the Minister

of Small Business and Revenue, the head of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation,

who lives in Westbank. He is also joined by Margie Johns, a Lyme sufferer and a

supporter from Brentwood Bay; Eleanor Miller, who is a Lyme sufferer from Oak

Bay, British Columbia; and Sue Aldice, who is a Lyme sufferer and activist from

Sidney, British Columbia.

I would ask all members of the House to recognize the green

bracelets that some members are wearing to raise awareness of Lyme disease and

to welcome all of those protestors, activists and hopeful people who wish to

change our views on Lyme disease to the chamber today.

Hon. J. van Dongen: I am very pleased to introduce to the

House today Wayne Sandberg, who is my neighbour on Matsqui Prairie, a

hard-working part-time blueberry farmer. I think he has his son with him. I also

want to acknowledge Barbara Edwards, professional agrologist from my

constituency, and also to acknowledge the Cole family that were introduced by

the Minister of

[ Page 12500 ]

Community Services and Tom Halpenny from Saskatchewan, because they will soon

be related by marriage to my very capable executive assistant Chris Tupper. So I

ask the House to make them all very welcome.

[1340]

S. Fraser: It gives me great pleasure to introduce two

constituents from Port Alberni. They are part of the contingent representing the

World Under-17 Hockey Challenge that I spoke of earlier this week. Ron Paulson

is the chair of the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, and Dave McCormick is the

director of marketing and sales. I'd like to thank the Minister of State for

ActNow B.C., who hosted a lunch today to learn more about this exciting

initiative that will showcase the best youth hockey in the world.

I would ask everyone here to make Ron and Dave feel very welcome,

and I would ask the minister of state to give them money.

R. Lee: Joining us in the Legislature today are 76 grade 10

students and some parents from Burnaby Central Secondary School, an excellent

school in Burnaby. The school also hosts an outstanding soccer program. Would

the House please help me welcome the students and their teacher Miss Dana Dunne

here today.

J. Horgan: I, too, want to join with my colleague for

Saanich South and introduce some friends that are here today to raise awareness

about Lyme disease. My good friend Alison Kirby from the interior is here. She's

been suffering from the disease for a number of years. She's joined by her

fantastic family, the Finertys — Drew, Brad, Mary, and the matriarch, Dell. In

true Irish fashion, they're here today to support Alison in her fight against

Lyme disease.

J. Nuraney: We have in the gallery today two of my good

friends and my constituents from the riding of Burnaby-Willingdon, soon to be

called Burnaby–Deer Lake. They are Tom and Gayle Neilsen. They are in the

gallery today, and I'd ask the House to please make them feel very welcome.

D. Routley: I have three constituents visiting who are Lyme

sufferers or the parents of Lyme sufferers — Lee Rider, himself a Lyme sufferer;

Jay McQuay, the father of Mary McQuay, a Lyme sufferer in very late stages of

the disease; and Kimberly Stepanski, the mother of a seven-year-old Lyme

sufferer — all of them feeling very frustrated at what they see as a gate

keeping them from the services that they need for their children or themselves.

They're here to see to that issue.

R. Cantelon: I'd like to join with the member for

Alberni-Qualicum in welcoming guests on the U-17 committee — Ron Paulson,

Colleen Sawyer, David McCormick, and, from Nanaimo, Darci Osborne, and Paula

Peters from Oceanside.

I want to make particular note of this tournament. These will be

the finest hockey players under 17 in the world. The Attorney General should

take note and stop moping about the loss of the Canucks, because the best

players under 17 will be here in British Columbia for the first time in this

great tournament.

To give you some of the names of the players who have graduated

from this tournament: our own Joe Sakic, Sergei Fedorov, Mats Sundin…. In fact,

in the last professional hockey draft, 20 of the top 32 first picks came from

this tournament. So it's going to be an outstanding tournament, and I encourage

you all and your constituents to take part and cheer on B.C.'s team.

Let's give these hard workers…. And may I add that this is a whole

inter-island, mid-Island thing? Cowichan Valley, Comox, Campbell River and

Nanaimo got together in a great spirit of cooperation to make this world-class

tournament work.

H. Bloy: I want to wish somebody very special to me a happy

94th birthday today — my dad. My dad worked hard all his life raising our

family, and he was always there to support us and nurture us. My brother and

sister and I have done quite well, but it was only because of my dad being there

all those years and being with us.

I know he's watching today. He's a regular watcher of this

program. I just want to say happy birthday, Dad, and all my love.

Tributes

RON BUTLIN

Hon. I. Chong: Today I would like to introduce a very

special man, a truly incredible British Columbian, Mr. Ron Butlin. Although Ron

retired from business many years ago, for the past 16 years he has volunteered

with the Greater Victoria Festival Society as the chief organizer of the Island

Farms Victoria Day Parade and the Island Farms Santa Light Parade. These two

parades bring joy to tens of thousands of Victoria residents and tourists alike.

[1345]

This year Island Farms Victoria Day Parade will be particularly

spectacular, because many of the local organizations within Victoria who will be

entrants in the parade will have floats and displays celebrating their very

special anniversary during our very special sesquicentennial year.

Mr. Ron Butlin ran a successful management consulting firm and was

director of Team Canada for the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series. He has also

organized and run a total of 18 B.C. Summer and Winter Games. While he is

physically not present in the gallery to be welcomed because of his busy

schedule for this weekend, I know he will be watching introductions. So I ask

the House to join me in thanking Mr. Ron Butlin for all his years of

volunteerism.

Introductions by Members

Hon. M. de Jong: I met my first politician when I was ten

years old. He wasn't an MP, an MLA or even a mayor or a councillor. He was a

school trustee. His name

[ Page 12501 ]

was Ray Sandberg. Sadly, Ray passed away a couple of years ago, but today in

the gallery his grandson Josh Sandberg is here with his father. He is a regular

attendee at the monthly breakfasts that I hold in Abbotsford, and when I

consider some of the things that he has said and done, I suspect that there is a

seat down here on the floor waiting for Josh Sandberg.

Would the House please make him and his father Wayne very welcome.

Hon. P. Bell: It's always worthy to note birthdays of

members in the House, and although this particular gentleman's birthday isn't

today, it is tomorrow, and I would ask that the House please wish a very happy

birthday to someone who is turning 53 tomorrow and may be sitting immediately to

my right.

Mr. Speaker: That would be the Minister of State for

Mining.

Introduction and

First Reading of Bills

UTILITIES COMMISSION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2008

G. Gentner presented a bill intituled Utilities Commission

Amendment Act, 2008.

G. Gentner: I move the bill Utilities Commission Amendment

Act, 2008, be read for the first time today.

Motion approved.

G. Gentner: On Tuesday I received a phone call from a Delta

resident not knowing what to do. B.C. Transmission Corporation had knocked on

his door and, like it or not, bulldozers are on their way. Against the wishes of

thousands of residents, high-voltage power lines are being pushed through. Two

years ago this side introduced the same bill, which fell on deaf ears. I

reintroduce it today.

This bill stipulates that proposed high-voltage transmission lines

located within the vicinity of settled areas, parks, recreation areas,

residential schools, public schools, child day care facilities and playgrounds

will come under immense scrutiny under provincial law. The bill mandates the

Utilities Commission to weigh adverse effects, including EMF fields and all

policies concerning public health and safety.

On Tuesday night the Premier spoke about cancer prevention. In the

last year in the House we've come to recognize presumption for firefighters.

Today we must recognize the precautionary principle in all our legislative

actions. This bill spells out stringent new siting criteria for overhead

electrical transmission lines within residential neighbourhoods.

In many jurisdictions legislation has tightened up EMF

regulations. The bill directs the Utilities Commission to consider keeping

high-voltage transmission lines away from residential areas and states that any

proposal to increase voltage of transmission facilities within residential areas

would automatically trigger a review to see if a viable alternative can be

found.

It's time to err on the side of caution. It's time to put high

risks to health aside. It's time to listen to the people of British Columbia.

I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second

reading at the next sitting after today.

Bill M211, Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008, 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.

ANTI SLAPP ACT, 2008

L. Krog presented a bill intituled Anti SLAPP Act, 2008.

L. Krog: I move introduction of the Anti SLAPP Act, 2008,

for first reading.

[1350]

Motion approved.

L. Krog: For those at home who may be watching, this bill

has nothing to do with corporal punishment. This bill has everything to do with

public discourse and the right of people to participate in the democratic system

freely and without fear of being slapped with suits designed to chill citizen

participation. It is designed to prevent others' powerful interests from

harassing or intimidating citizens and citizen organizations with respect to the

bringing of civil suits.

The bill provides that people who believe they are the victims of

such suits can bring motions to dismiss and allows for substantive costs and

punitive damages, if necessary, to discourage the bringing of such suits.

In addition, this bill will protect the rights of citizens

generally. It is an important part of the democratic process, as I've said, that

citizens feel free to take on powerful organizations.

I therefore move that this bill be placed on the orders of the day

for second reading at the next sitting after today.

Bill M212, Anti SLAPP Act, 2008, 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 25

B) CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

D. Hayer: Almost every day there's another headline of a

criminal walking away from justice. In brief, it's a common perception that

criminals get an unreasonable break from our courts, from our penal system,

thereby outraging community sensibility. Are these feelings due

[ Page 12502 ]

to lack of knowledge of our law, or are they due to a criminal justice system

increasingly out of touch with ordinary Canadian citizens' concerns of what is

right or what is wrong with our system?

Almost every week we read of murderers, rapists and other

criminals whose personal rights seem to take precedence over the rights of the

victims. Mr. Speaker, this has to change. This has to stop. For every criminal

who gets treated a bit lightly or who is allowed to roam free while awaiting

refugee hearings, there are dozens, hundreds, even thousands of victims who cry

out for justice. Victims often, in their nightmares, remember the horror that

crime has brought to their lives.

The way the Canadian justice system has evolved, many victims

believe that their rights are considered less important than the rights of the

criminals who have devastated their lives. Victims and their families get a life

sentence, while perpetrators of violence get a slap on the wrist.

Ordinary citizens must send a clear message to the Attorneys

General across Canada that the scales of justice are seriously out of balance

and that criminals must be held to a higher standard of accountability when they

steal, rape and kill. Every elected member of every political party must condemn

leniency toward criminal behaviour and strengthen the rights of innocent victims

and their families and our law-abiding society. Lawmakers owe it to the sense of

fairness and security of our law-abiding British Columbians and of all

Canadians.

HOMOPHOBIA

N. Simons: This Saturday, May 17, marks the International

Day Against Homophobia. On Monday, The Centre in Vancouver, which provides

support, health, social services and public education for the well-being of the

lesbian, gay, trans and bi communities and their allies, hosted its fourth

annual homophobia breakfast at the Coast Plaza at Stanley Park.

Over 350 people came out to demonstrate their interest and support

in making our communities more accepting. Sponsors included the Hospital

Employees Union, the B.C. Cancer Agency, the B.C. Cancer Foundation, the Centre

for Disease Control, the Nurses Union, Fondation Emergence, Gay and Lesbian

Educators of B.C., the Gay and Lesbian Business Association, Vancouver Coastal

Health and the Georgia Straight .

As members know, homophobia is just as bad as racism. It's ugly,

it's preventable, and it has no place in our communities, urban or rural. It

also comes in many forms, from hate crimes to workplace discrimination to simple

harassment. Homophobia is expressed by those who engage in it and also through

the silence of those who see it and don't speak against it. It reveals itself in

exaggerated debates over religious doctrine as well as in the guise of debates

over school curriculum.

We know that these gay and lesbian youth are more likely to have

experienced physical and sexual abuse. They're more likely to have run away from

home, more likely to become pregnant as a teenager or to get someone else

pregnant. They're more likely to have experienced emotional stress, suicidal

thoughts or attempted suicide. And they're more likely to use tobacco and other

drugs, less likely to participate in sports and less connected in school. These

statistics are troubling, and they must be addressed.

[1355]

According to a study for the B.C. Centre for Excellence in

HIV/AIDS about to be released, the younger a person is when they come out, the

greater the chance that they'll be attacked, which highlights the importance of

tolerance initiatives in our schools.

Mr. Speaker, let's recognize that one way we can all do our

part

is to recognize that as leaders, as teachers, as community leaders, as coaches

we have to model tolerance, acceptance and, in fact, the celebration of

diversity.

SAFE GRADUATION CELEBRATIONS

I. Black: High school graduation is the celebration of

hopes, dreams, opportunities, melancholy moments, anxiety about change, teenage

romance, celebration of lifelong friends and overwhelming gratitude to teachers

and parents alike. For all the magic that this represents, these possibilities

and a young person's hopes and dreams can vanish in an instant from just one

unsafe decision at a graduation party.

As you know, teenagers under the age of 19 aren't allowed to drink

in British Columbia. In theory, drinking and driving should not be an issue for

graduation celebrations. But in reality, as we all know, it is. There is a long

and sad history of horrible and sometimes fatal grad-related accidents around

this time of year.

According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, in Canada one out of

every eight deaths and injuries in road crashes is a teenager. Road crashes

remain the number one cause of death of youth aged 15 to 19, and two out of

every five teens killed on the road have been drinking.

To help combat the risks and give young people choices, safe grad,

or dry grad, was a concept introduced when I was in high school. A safe grad

aims to equip high school students with more information, skills, peer support

and community support to plan safer celebrations.

I am very, very proud and enormously grateful that all four

secondary schools in my riding are staging a safe grad this year — Pinetree and

Gleneagle Secondary Schools in Coquitlam, and Port Moody's Heritage Woods and

Port Moody Secondary. This involves just a ton of work, and I really want to

thank the teachers for their extra efforts well above and beyond the call of

duty, and the parents and community volunteers who care enough to stay up all

night to make it happen.

Co-chairing these in my area include Judy Collin and Wendy

Weiderick, Rosemary Keane and Becky Anderson, Tracy Buza and Kelly Dibley. I

would like to thank all these parents and wish the young adults in my community

a safe and exciting celebration in the coming weeks.

[ Page 12503 ]

100th ANNIVERSARY OF

BRITANNIA SECONDARY SCHOOL

J. Kwan: I rise in the House today to congratulate all of

the students, staff, alumni and, in fact, the entire Britannia Secondary School

community for celebrating their 100th anniversary this year.

Britannia is the oldest remaining secondary school in Vancouver.

The first classes were held in the Admiral Seymour building in September of

1908. In September of 1955 the gymnasium and cafeteria were added to the old

building, and it was also at this time that grades 8 and 9 were added to the

enrolment. During the 1966-67 school year a new wing was constructed, providing

additional industrial education, home economics and business education

classrooms.

In 1972 Britannia became Britannia Elementary-Secondary School.

The elementary school opened its doors in 1975 with 370 new students for a

combined total of close to 1,800. In 1975 there was the incorporation of the

Britannia Community Services Centre Society, and that year Britannia became a

community school.

Over the years we have seen the school expand in scope. Today it

represents a model development for its multi-use complex, which includes the

high school, the elementary school, an adult education program, community

centre, ice rink, pool, library, child care centre, teen centre and seniors

centre. Its grounds span over ten acres, and there is not one part of it that is

not being used at some time during the course of the day. It is the heart of the

Grandview-Woodlands community.

Grads down through the decades include a B.C. Premier, a justice

of the Supreme Court of Canada, a Chief Justice of the B.C. Supreme Court, an

Attorney General, atomic physicists, architects, designers, professors,

journalists and, of course, the MLA for Vancouver-Hastings.

There will be a Britannia centennial reunion on May 16 at

Britannia, and on the 17th, an open house that will feature a living memory

exhibit as well as an Italian barbecue and Chinese tea.

I ask all members of this House to join me in wishing Britannia a

wonderful 100th birthday.

[1400]

VANCOUVER OPERA IN SCHOOLS PROGRAM

J. Yap: I recently found myself sitting in my seat,

anxiously awaiting the show. The house lights were low, and the buzz of the

audience was palpable. As the orchestra music began to swell and the first

pitch-perfect notes came from the actor in the spotlight, I knew I was in for a

real treat.

This scene could have been taking place in any of the finest opera

houses around the globe, but along with the students from St. Joseph the Worker

School in my riding, I was fortunate enough to be treated to some professional

opera right in our very own school. This is the objective of the Vancouver Opera

in Schools program.

The Vancouver Opera, founded in 1958, has always placed an

emphasis on education and bringing the art of opera to the masses. It was that

vision that led to the Vancouver Opera in Schools program in 1972, a touring

road show of sorts that would bring the classical beauty of opera to our

province's children.

Each year since its inception the Vancouver Opera has put together

a group of professional opera singers, along with full sets and costumes, and

sent them around the province, touring everywhere from Metro Vancouver to

more accessible to children has helped to bring an art form that felt out of

reach into the lives of youth around British Columbia, reaching an estimated 1.6

million students to date.

This year Rossini's The Barber of Seville has been adapted

by Vancouver Opera's Ann Hodges to become The Barber of Barkerville in

honour of B.C.'s 150th anniversary. While the location of the famed opera has

changed to Barkerville, the story and relationships remain true to the source.

So far this season the opera has toured 136 schools, performing for an estimated

50,000 young people.

I invite all members to join me in thanking the Vancouver Opera,

including their education manager Patrick LeBlanc, for their award-winning

program to ensure that the arts are available for all British Columbians. Bravo.

WORLD RECORDS IN B.C.

G. Gentner: British Columbia is a remarkable place, and so

are its citizens. The province is a record holder in so many ways.

Delta's Burns Bog is the largest dome bog in the Americas. Terrace

claims the world-record 99-pound chinook. The world-record size for a sturgeon

was found 50 years ago in the Fraser River — 20 feet long and 1,800 pounds.

Vancouver's Sam Kee building is considered the world's narrowest building.

In 1994 Squamish set the world record with an astounding 3,766

eagles counted in one day. Oh, those dismal '90s. I hope they come back. In 1993

the world's first fuel cell–powered, zero-emission transit bus was introduced at

Science World…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

G. Gentner: …and I did get a chance to drive it. On some

days we hold North America's highest gas prices.

There's Rick Hansen and Steve Nash, and there's that little

Mundigel Meraw. In the early '30s she broke seven world marathon swimming

records, including a swim from Vancouver to Bowen Island in less than seven

hours. She also lost her bathing suit along the way.

Harrison Hot Springs has the largest sandcastles, and Hells Gate

boasts a record 232 flavours of fudge. The world record for the Grouse Grind is

under 27 minutes.

At the end of this month there will be a new record. Earlier this

week a new title was registered in the Guinness Book of World Records .

The claim reads: "The highest amount of responses for a government of a

[ Page 12504 ]

parliamentary democracy in one term of office that uses the excuse that

because the issue was before the courts, or similar inferences, it refused to

answer the question posed by the official opposition during question period."

The count today is 125 and counting. The count will continue until

the end of the session. It's a dreadful record, a record no other government

will want to beat. This matter is no longer just before the courts. It is now

before the Guinness Book of World Records .

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members .

Oral Questions

SOFTWOOD LUMBER AGREEMENT

B. Simpson: In the Premier's lukewarm defence of the

Minister of Forests yesterday, he claimed that one of the minister's successes

was the softwood lumber deal. While the Premier was making that questionable

claim, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that will add punitive trade barriers to

our softwood lumber shipments across the United States. That bill passed through

the Senate today. This is a direct political interference on the part of the

U.S.

[1405]

The Premier claimed that the softwood deal would bring certainty.

That's now a questionable claim. What is the Minister of Forests going to do to

ensure that the forest sector is not saddled with more costs and to ensure that

our lumber shipments can cross the U.S. border freely?

Hon. R. Coleman: We have a softwood lumber agreement with

the United States — between two countries, Canada and the United States. We

expect it to be honoured. What the Congress has done and what the Senate has

done is not acceptable to us, nor is it acceptable to Canada. We intend to

defend our position under a trade agreement that's been signed by both

countries.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

The member has a supplemental.

B. Simpson: Well, so much for certainty, which is the only

way that this government legitimized this deal — with certainty.

During the softwood lumber negotiations, this minister said that

we were the big dog at the negotiating table. He said that we were driving the

bus of negotiations. Well, we're now in a political dogfight. U.S. politicians

are interfering with what we consider to be a bad deal in the first place.

What is the big dog going to do to drive a bus down to Washington

to secure our interests and make sure that our lumber industry has free access

to the U.S. market?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. R. Coleman: I don't know whether I'm getting heckled

more on this side of the House or that side of the House.

It's stunning, actually, that the member opposite now, all of a

sudden, somehow thinks that we should have a softwood lumber deal, when he says:

"We should abrogate it. It's no good for British Columbians; it's no good for

Canada. We didn't want the $2 billion back."

We have a trade agreement. We have arbitration available to us.

What the Congress has done and sent to the Senate still has a lot of process to

go through. We have our lawyers working on it, Canada has their people working

on it, and we will work through this. One thing is for sure, and maybe this

should be instructed to members opposite. It's a fact.

It's a very good example of why we need a softwood lumber deal

with the United States. The lumber lobby in the United States is incessant in

trying to damage the industry in the province of British Columbia and the rest

of Canada. That's why we need a softwood deal, and that's why we expect both

countries to live up to it.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a further supplemental.

B. Simpson: We sacrificed a lot in British Columbia for

this bad deal. We left a billion dollars on the table…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

B. Simpson: …for the U.S. lumber lobby to do exactly what

they're doing just now with the U.S. Congress and Senate. The industry was

saddled with a 15 percent border tax and the worst market conditions we have

ever experienced. The province had to give up sovereignty over forest policy,

despite this minister's claim at the time that that wouldn't happen, and the

government lost its ability to support communities and forest workers in their

time of crisis.

That's what we gave up to get a bad deal — a bad deal that now the

U.S. Congress and the Senate are now further undermining with punitive trade

barriers through legislation, the first time ever that they've used legislation

in the softwood lumber dispute.

When we need political leadership, once again, what do we see? A

minister who will relegate himself to the sidelines, who will be a spectator,

who will send lawyers. This is a political dogfight. It requires a political

response.

What will the minister do today to commit to this House that he

will show the political leadership necessary on this issue?

Interjections.

[ Page 12505 ]

Mr. Speaker: Members.

[1410]

Hon. R. Coleman: Well, first of all, let's be clear. You

want to abrogate the softwood lumber deal. You've said that publicly. You have

no interest in working with the United States to try and solve the deal. You

would rather have a 30 percent duty or higher at the border today, with the

protectionist country south of you just taking the heart out of the rest of the

industry in the province of British Columbia. That's what you'd rather have.

You would rather have a 30 percent duty on any high-value projects

going across the border than a 15 percent high-value cap at only $500, because

you would rather take the heart out of that piece of the industry on some

principle that you think you can't have a deal.

You know what? The fact of the matter is that for the first time

in many years, there's been some stability in the trade of softwood lumber on

both sides of the border in North America. We intend — with the government of

Canada and with the Ambassador of the United States, who we are in contact with

— to defend the rights of Canada with regards to that.

One other thing. Let's be clear. This isn't done yet. There's an

opportunity for a veto. It would have to go back to Congress for another

two-thirds vote. All that work will continue on, and we will defend the rights

of us under the softwood lumber deal.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

GOVERNMENT ACTION ON

FOREST INDUSTRY

D. Routley: The minister obviously isn't prepared to take

his responsibility for the failings of the softwood lumber agreement, but

softwood is not the only failed forest policy of this government. For weeks

we've pointed to situations where mills are closing. All they need is fibre, but

this minister's policies won't allow that.

In a review of TimberWest by Citadel Securities, they say the

following: "The company does not log but contracts out its harvesting. It does

not mill, having closed both its sawmills. What it is doing is preparing to

become a full-time real estate seller and developer. To its credit, it has

deceived no one as to its intentions, but one wonders how long the Minister of

Forests can accord the rights and privileges of a forest company to one that

does so little forestry."

So what's it going to be — continued log exports? Mills starved of

fibre, not able to address markets that they have? Or will the minister step up

today and reverse these policies? Provide fibre to the mills. Keep the jobs in

B.C.

Hon. R. Coleman: We have tenure in British Columbia. We

actually do get fibre to our mills, and we'll continue to do so.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Member has a supplemental.

D. Routley: It's unfortunate that, again, we have complete

denial from the minister. We are losing jobs that we don't need to lose. Mills

that have markets are closing because they don't have fibre, and yet that's the

answer from the minister.

Well, you can use a hammer to build a house, or you can use a

hammer to tear it down. That minister has used the tool, the hammer of forest

policy in this province, to tear down our industry. He tears it down with fibre

monopoly. He tears it down with raw log exports. He tears it down with a broken

social contract.

The report goes on to say: "As mills close, logs could be

exported, and there began a chicken-and-egg debate. Had the mills closed because

of a shortage of logs, or were logs being exported because there was a shortage

of mills?"

Well, we know the answer to that. We know it was the broken social

contract. We know it was the failed forest policies. The minister should admit

it, and he should resign if he cannot promise this House that he will stand up

and use policy to guarantee the jobs of British Columbia forest workers.

[1415]

Hon. R. Coleman: You know, hon. Member, the largest capital

investment that's taken place in the province of British Columbia in the

modernization of our sector took place between the years of 2004 and 2007 —

billions of dollars of investment in modernization.

The member opposite refuses to understand the markets. I get that.

The member opposite refuses to understand the investment we've made in forest

innovations to actually find markets for hemlock in China and Korea and Japan —

the $25 million we've invested in that, the $642 million we put into mountain

pine beetle to find markets and take care of the land base in the province of

British Columbia.

This government continues to make investments and continues to

work with forest companies to make sure the fibre flows in the province of

British Columbia.

C. Evans: The minister's defence is that we don't

understand.

Hon. Speaker, for 14 years before I got here, I was an independent

logging contractor. Killing trees and talking here is all I know. I think I

understand.

The market goes up, and the market goes down all the way across

the world. It always has. In 1982 the market was in the basement. We had to hide

our cat in the bush to keep the repo man from taking it away. But we came back.

The job of the minister is to see to it that the people are there when it comes

back.

We get it that the market bottoms out. This is the first minister

whose public policies appear designed to wipe out the independents before the

market comes back. There are — I'm so proud of this — seven independent sawmills

in my constituency today. My question to the

[ Page 12506 ]

minister is: will they be gone or you be gone? Who's going to last?

Hon. R. Coleman: The opposing statement puts the first part

of the statement to false, because there are seven guys running over there and

still there. The presumption that the member makes at the beginning…. He

actually makes his own argument at the end.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Member has a supplemental.

C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, we have an industry on its knees,

and I get a specious, shallow comment — playing games with words instead of

taking responsibility for the survival of the oldest industry in British

Columbia.

I've met the ministers all the way back to Williston. It didn't

matter what political party they were in. They thought their job was to make the

industry survive.

I think this minister has cut a deal with the majors to wipe out

the independent sector. My question to the minister is: were you instructed to

kill this industry, or are you doing it on your own?

Hon. R. Coleman: What we've been doing is fixing ten years

of a mess they left behind in forestry in the province of British Columbia.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members.

Hon. R. Coleman: By their own admission, when they were in

government, they added a billion dollars in cost to the forest industry in

British Columbia without one benefit. That was a quote from one of their own

members when they were in government in the 1990s, with the Forest Practices

Code.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Continue.

[1420]

Hon. R. Coleman: We have continued to build on forest

policies for the province of British Columbia. We have attracted investment. We

have the most competitive industry, and frankly, we are going to be there with

the industry that we continue to work with. We have the most aggressive

regulatory review going on right now, and the work will continue.

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

FOR FOREST WORKERS

R. Austin: Last week at the North Central Municipal

Association meetings in Prince George, the Premier announced $2 million each for

the communities of Mackenzie and Fort St. James.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Member, just take your….

Members. Listen to the question; listen to the answer.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Member for Skeena continues.

R. Austin: A mere ten days prior to this, the Premier was

visiting Terrace, whose last mill was closed down by West Fraser before

Christmas — one of over 50 mills to have closed in the last couple of years. No

claps?

This federal aid package was announced in January. So why was

there no announcement of help for Terrace? Is this becoming just a slush fund

for the B.C. Liberals to pick and choose which communities they want to help?

Hon. C. Hansen: I had the pleasure of visiting Terrace just

recently, and I was impressed with the dynamism in the community and the

excitement about future opportunities that are there.

It is clear in the way we have rolled out the community

development trust that forest families around British Columbia are eligible to

benefit from it. But I think the member has to recognize that if you look at the

statistics, Fort St. James and Mackenzie are hit to a much greater degree than

any other community in British Columbia. That's why we said that we're going to

be there for forest-dependent communities around British Columbia with the job

creation program, the tuition program and the assistance for older workers.

I can tell you that the Premier made that announcement in Kamloops

last Friday, and on Tuesday of this week, exactly — Saturday, Sunday, Monday,

Tuesday — four days later, there were staff from the Ministry of Economic

Development, staff from the Ministry of Forests and staff from the Ministry of

Community Services who were in those two communities to make sure those dollars

flow as fast as possible.

SEISMIC UPGRADES FOR SCHOOLS

D. Cubberley: Yesterday the Minister of Education was asked

point-blank whether B.C. Liberals were breaking their promise to fast-track the

seismic upgrading of 80 high-risk schools by 2008.

In the midst of an experience in China that shows just how

vulnerable school children are in a severe earthquake, this minister's response

is to claim that B.C. Liberals hadn't promised any such thing. She said: "I

don't think it said that. I think it said 'in the process' or whatever the

definition is. I mean, our commitment has always been that they would be in the

process and moving through that and ready to go, and that's where they will be."

So we've moved from 80 fixed by 2008 to no fixed time lines

whatsoever, and that sounds just like what it is, which is a broken promise.

Interjections.

[ Page 12507 ]

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Continue, Member.

D. Cubberley: My question is: will the minister apologize

for B.C. Liberals' broken promise? Will she commit the resources to complete the

80 schools by 2008, or will she continue to deny they ever made such a promise?

Hon. S. Bond: I can say this for sure. This is the first

government in the history of British Columbia that put together a $1.5 billion

commitment to seismically upgrade schools, and we're committed to that.

[1425]

What's most embarrassing about the member opposite asking the

question is that when that opposition was in government, they chose a liquor

warehouse over schools. We will not do that.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Sit down, Member.

Members.

Member continues.

D. Cubberley: You know, a commitment without the resources

to implement it is a broken promise. This government gave its word. They said it

mattered. They said seismic safety mattered. They said it was urgent. They said

they were going to fix it, and then they turned around and broke their word.

They never funded the promise they made to British Columbians. Their response to

getting caught, to being asked directly, is to claim they never gave their word

at all.

Here it is in black and white from the news release, "The first 80

schools to be upgraded over the next three years as part of the province's $1.5

billion plan…. No other government has ever done this. We're fast-tracking

seismic projects at 80 high-priority schools" — 80 schools, three years, in

black and white. Nothing.

Here's my question to the minister: is the message to British

Columbians that they just can't trust the B.C. Liberals to keep their word, to

keep their promises, even when it concerns the safety of kids at school?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Just take your seat, Minister. We're not continuing.

Members.

Hon. S. Bond: Let's look at what the NDP Education Minister

said in 1997, and you know what….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Continue, Minister.

Hon. S. Bond: Paul Ramsey in The Vancouver Sun said

— and let's listen to the reaction when you hear the quote: "The fact is we are

not going to unroll a huge budget to fix old schools." What is that? That was

then, and this is now?

We made a commitment. We made a commitment to $1.5 billion.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: No, we're not…. The minister hasn't finished

yet, Members.

Continue, Minister.

Hon. S. Bond: We made a commitment — $1.5 billion. In

addition to that, this government, by the end of 2008, will have spent $3.1

billion on capital. That's a commitment.

M. Farnworth: In 2001 they cut the capital budget by 50

percent. That didn't build or refurbish many schools. In 2005 — March 7, 2005 —

the minister's own release said: "We're fast-tracking seismic projects at 80

high-priority schools so that students will be protected as soon as possible."

Was this press release right then, or is the minister wrong now?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Minister, just take your seat.

Members.

Hon. S. Bond: We made a commitment to $1.5 billion, to a

15-year program to seismically upgrade schools, and we will continue to honour

that commitment. We are working with boards of education. We are moving projects

forward.

[1430]

In fact, we will have by the end of the year almost a hundred

projects either under construction, completed or ready to go to construction.

That's our commitment.

AVAILABILITY OF BEDS

AT ROYAL COLUMBIAN HOSPITAL

C. Puchmayr: On Tuesday there was another code orange at

Royal Columbian Hospital. On Tuesday there were 60 patients in the emergency

room waiting to be decanted into other departments, 60 patients clogging the

emergency room in a code orange. Those beds that they needed to be decanted to

were not available, again. A code orange is an alert that is used in the event

of an emergency such as a plane crash or a natural disaster.

When will the Health Minister take seriously the crisis at Royal

Columbian Hospital, and when will he deal with the crisis that continues almost

on a daily basis at Royal Columbian today?

Hon. G. Abbott: I noted in the media this morning that the

Leader of the Opposition was claiming that there had been a code orange at Royal

Columbian Hospital. This member of the House has just got up and repeated the

same entirely specious claim.

[ Page 12508 ]

Neither Royal Columbian Hospital nor Fraser Health Authority has

any record of a code orange. That is definitively….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. G. Abbott: The member's assertion, Mr. Speaker….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. G. Abbott: The member's assertion is definitively

false. I call on that member to get up right now, withdraw his entirely false

claim and apologize to the people of British Columbia and apologize to the

caregivers at Royal Columbian Hospital for his entirely false claim.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

Mr. Speaker: Members, now!

That is really embarrassing.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

A. Dix: On Monday the minister said: "One of the things I

won't be doing is submitting the political judgment of the member for the

medical judgment of the professionals." The people who say there was a code

orange are the doctors and the nurses who were there.

If it comes to believing the doctors at RCH who were there or the

minister, I'll take the doctors. If it comes to believing the nurses at Royal

Columbian Hospital who were there or the minister, I'll take the nurses.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Minister.

A. Dix: It's been deny, deny, deny for four years about

Royal Columbian Hospital from this minister and his predecessor. When will he

stop it with the deny, deny, deny and do something about the real crisis facing

patients at Royal Columbian Hospital? Why doesn't…?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Minister.

Hon. G. Abbott: Sounds a lot like code red-in-the-face to

me from the part of this official opposition. Code red-in-the-face.

There was no code orange. He can ask Royal Columbian Hospital. He

can ask the emergency department officials at Royal Columbian Hospital. He can

ask the Fraser Health Authority. There was no code orange, and this member can

spin as fast as he wants.

[1435]

If he can come up with a memo that asserts there was a code orange

on Tuesday, I welcome him to do it. I'll bet there's no memo that says code

orange.

But Mr. Speaker.…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Can the minister finish up.

Hon. G. Abbott: When I was at Royal Columbian Hospital and

met with all the medical leaders at Royal Columbian, they shared with me this

document. It's a site development plan proposed for Royal Columbian Hospital,

approved by the board of trustees of the then health authority. Among the things

this has is this beautiful tower that they were….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Minister.

Hon. G. Abbott: The only problem was that they couldn't get

a Minister of Health from the NDP to listen to them.

[End of question period.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: I call continued second reading debate on

Bill 26 in this chamber and in

Section A, Committee of Supply — for the

information of members, the continued estimates debate of the Ministry of

Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

Second Reading of Bills

HEALTH STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2008

(continued)

H. Bains: I'm going to speak about Bill 26. I am in fact

honoured to stand here to talk in this House about how the government can bungle

up the democratic rights of its citizens and how they can try to fix it. That's

what the intent of this bill is. This bill will repeal parts of 2001 and 2002's

Bill 29, after the Supreme Court rejected many aspects of that bill.

[S. Hammell in the chair.]

[ Page 12509 ]

Let me say this. One of the reasons that I am here, one of the

reasons why I made a decision to seek election and seek a seat in this House, is

a result of Bill 29 that which this government brought on in this province,

which affected many thousands of workers who had democratic, constitutional

rights to bargain freely through freedom of association under the constitution.

For years they bargained with the employer, and they were able to negotiate some

of the very basic, fundamental rights that workers need in order to do their job

at their workplaces.

This government came in, after making a promise with the same

workers and their representatives that they would not tear down the legally

bargained collective agreements that were in place. Once they got elected, they

did exactly the opposite. They came in. The first act of this government was to

tear up the decades-old, legally negotiated collective agreements by the

Hospital Employees Union on behalf of their workers.

[1440]

In my view, in a democratic society, Bill 29 was the worst attack

on the democratic rights of its citizens anywhere in this world. It was and will

remain one of the darkest spots in the history of this province in removing the

constitutional right of freedom of association.

At a time when we have seen, in this House and many other

legislatures all across this country and the parliament of this country,

legislators and parliamentarians working hard, trying to recognize and redress

the wrongs of the past, this government came in and did one more wrong. It was

the benefit of the union that the workers had…. On behalf of their workers, on

behalf of their members, they challenged Bill 29's legality in the Supreme

Court.

Guess what. Exactly what they were told when they were bringing in

Bill 29…. The Supreme Court of Canada said that they were wrong. Had it not been

the benefit of the union that those workers enjoyed, those workers would have

been left without any redress. So I want to thank the HEU, BCGEU, B.C.

Federation of Labour and many other health care unions and the workers who are

members of those unions, who took the unjust law that was passed in this House

by the Liberal government and challenged it in the Supreme Court and were able

to reverse it.

I must say that many aspects of the bill were struck down by the

Supreme Court, but it will not reverse the negative effect it has left on many

thousands of workers that were affected by this bill. These were women in most

cases. Many of them were immigrants, if not most. These were new Canadians. Many

of them spend their lifetime serving our province, serving the patients' needs

in our hospitals and in care homes.

With the stroke of a pen, this government took all of their rights

— decades-old, legally negotiated bargaining rights that they once held. They

were gone, and it was shocking. The sound waves of that unjust action of this

government were felt all across this world. No wonder the ILO, International

Labour Organization, made a comment about this. No wonder the Supreme Court of

Canada made a comment about this and told this government that they were wrong.

Who were these workers? These are not just numbers. When we talk

about it, 10,000 sounds like a number. It is a number, but behind those numbers

are families — the real people, people who went to work day in, day out so that

they could provide the services in our hospitals to our patients. These are real

families. These are our neighbours. These are the people that we take our kids

with to the hockey games, to the soccer games. These are the people we meet at

our shopping malls. These are the people we have a chat with over the fence.

[1445]

These are real people, and they have children. There are about

10,000 of them, like I said — most of them women, and most of them immigrant

women. This is something that is going to stay with us because of the negative

effect it has left on the lives of those workers, those women, those children

whom the mothers had to come and face, to say: "Johnny, that game that I was

promising you, I can no longer afford. The trip that I was going to take you on,

I can no longer afford to take." That was the result of this government's action

on those workers.

At that time, the arguments were made that the health care system

is too expensive and that we need to bring the cost down. Guess who they

targeted. It was the lowest-paid workers in the health care system, the people

who were making $17 or $18 an hour, and we're talking about seven years ago.

Even today you cannot live on $17 or $18 an hour. You cannot make a living

today, never mind seven years ago.

Seven years ago they thought that was too much. With the stroke of

a pen, like I said, those salaries were gone; their jobs were gone. You know

what was worse? I sat across from a company that wanted to come in and take the

contract for cleaning services in some of the hospitals. They told us across the

table: "We will not hire those people that have been let go under Bill 29,

because they will bring the union back. They will ask for their rights again."

That's how bad it can be in this day and age, in this country, in

this province. It's unheard of. This was and will remain, like I said, one of

the darkest spots in the history of this province, and we have many. We have

many.

Whether you talk about taking the rights of its citizens to vote,

whether it's to take the right of its citizens to practise in their profession….

We have all of those legislations, and many of them were debated in this House.

People sat on these chairs and made those laws. You know what? Decades have gone

by. The same thing happened seven years ago in this House. They created another

dark spot in our history pages. That will stay with us.

This Bill 26 goes…. They're forced by the Supreme Court ruling

that they must redress the wrongs of that legislation, but it will not change

the lives of those people who were affected by it. Permanent scars are left on

those families and those children. Why? Why did they do that? It wasn't because

of the cost. It wasn't because of the efficiency that they were seeking in the

health care system. But that was the reason, the front

[ Page 12510 ]

they used so that they could get away with their spin-doctoring of this very,

very bad bill — bad law.

I must say that I was ashamed to be a British Columbian that day.

You know what? I decided on that day that I was going to do something. Like I

said before, that is one of the reasons why I sought election — to be here so

that never again, while I'm sitting in one of these chairs, will this Liberal

government bring in a law like that, will never be allowed to do that.

Like I said, these were the lowest-paid workers in the health care

system, and they picked on those. They threw them on the street, and many of

them ended up taking 15 or 20 percent pay cuts. I would say that at least they

had a job, but what a way of keeping your job. The government comes in, and that

decades-old, legally negotiated collective agreement and the rights that you

have negotiated in those collective agreements are gone. No other reason except

that the government brought in the legislation. No other reason, because that's

their ideology. They couldn't see workers prosper in this province.

[1450]

The real reason, I tell you, is and was so that their

multinational friends could come in and make a profit on the backs of the

lowest-paid workers in the health care system, at the cost of our health care

services in this province. That was the real reason, because it did not change

an iota.

Actually, the services got worse. Cleaning — the laundry services

were not what they used to be. No wonder we have seen post-surgery infections on

the rise ever since they made this law, ever since they kicked those workers out

of their jobs. Those were the professionals. They knew exactly what was needed

to be done in those hospitals to keep those hospitals clean, and they were let

go. Their multinational friends came in and decided that they will be the ones

who are making the money, not the workers.

You know, that is a shameful history that is being built and was

built by this government. You know what, Madam Speaker? This bill goes part of

the way to correcting that. Thanks to the labour unions, thanks to HEU and

thanks to the Supreme Court of Canada and the judges who saw through it — that

this government was wrong and that this government has to correct their wrongs.

And so that we don't have to wait 70 or 100 or 90 years for people who would

come after us, they would talk about apologies — apologies for the actions of

this government.

I applaud the effort of those labour unions who took this bad and

unjust law and challenged it. I said the real reason was so that their

multinational friends could come in, so that they can boast to their friends,

those multi-millionaires and those multinational companies: "We are open for

business." That was their motto. They're open for business on the backs of the

working people of this province and their wages and on the backs of the health

care system of this province.

That was wrong. It was wrong. It was a shameful act. I had hoped

that we don't have to wait 70 or 80 years to apologize for the sins and the

mistakes of this government — that somebody from that side of the House, the

Liberal side, the Minister of Labour or the Premier would stand up and apologize

to those workers. They don't have the audacity to stand up and apologize and say

that we were wrong to those workers. They still haven't admitted….

The reason we have Bill 26 before us is because the Supreme Court

orders it so, not because one day they woke up and felt that they were wrong.

It's not that one day they felt guilty and that they want to do some atoning of

their past mistakes. No. If they wanted to do it, they could have stood up and

said sorry to those workers. They would have made them whole.

They didn't. They didn't say sorry. They didn't make them whole.

They didn't apologize at all. So to me, this government cannot be trusted. They

will do only what they are forced to do, as is the case in this case.

Who were some of the folks who came in and took over our cleaning

services and laundry services and provided our health care services? Here is a

list. I have a long list, but I'll read a couple. Retirement Concepts donated

$12,000 to the B.C. Liberals between 2001 and 2006. In fact, it was $11,855

between 2001 and 2006 — close to $12,000. They billed the B.C. health

authorities $45 million in 2006 and 2007.

[1455]

So yes, their friends are making money on the backs of our health

care system, on the backs of those workers who were let go. What about those

workers? I met many of them. Many of them, every time I went door to door during

any campaign…. Every few houses I go to, they will tell me: "You know what? You

don't have to worry about us. We're not voting B.C. Liberals at all."

When I talked to them, what were the issues? This was one of the

issues. They would tell us that either the person herself or himself was

affected by this bill, Bill 29, or someone that they knew was affected and was

let go. It was all done to please their multinational friends.

When you look at what kinds of services were left behind and

whether we received efficiency, whether it was less costly…. No. There was no

efficiency gained. There wasn't any cost that was saved. The minister will stand

up today and continue to say that our health care is unaffordable. That's what

the minister said. It wasn't this minister; it was the minister before him —

that it is unaffordable, unsustainable. That's why they brought those actions.

This minister, seven years later, is saying the same thing.

So where is the efficiency? Nowhere. Where is the cost reduction?

Nowhere. All you've seen here as the result of Bill 29 was to fill the pockets

of their friends and multinationals. That was the effect, and that's what they

achieved.

What did we see in the hospitals? Since 2002 hospital cleaners and

cooks' wages have roller-coastered from $18 an hour, on average, to a low in

2004 between $8 and $10. That's the effect on those workers.

Madam Speaker, I want to talk to you about what kind of service we

received as a result of these changes. The opposition learned, working with the

Hospital Employees Union, that the Vancouver Coastal Health

[ Page 12511 ]

Authority reduced cleaning hours by 153,500 hours every year when they

privatized hospital cleaning in 2003. So we got less. The workers were let go,

and we got less service, but it's costing us more. That's the mantra of that

government. The working people, the middle class, pay more but get less. They

work hard longer, but fall behind. That's the result of that government. Those

are not my words.

Statistics Canada came down and gave us those numbers. Those folks

who were paid at the lower part of the salary spectrum — since 2003 their

salaries have gone down by 3.5 percent. I believe it is 3.5 percent. The top 20

percent of the salary spectrum gained 20 percent. No wonder. That's the result

of this government's action and this government's attack on the middle class and

the working people.

Coming back to the hospitals again, we have 153,000 reduced hours

for cleaning services every year in Vancouver Coastal Health Authority alone,

and it goes on in the rest of the province. The Information and Privacy

Commissioner, David Loukidelis, ordered the information on service levels to be

made public after the union was initially denied access based on the protection

of commercial interest. Those are the kinds of excuses we have come to see from

this government.

You try to get any information under freedom of information. They

find excuses after excuses. I don't know if Wite-Out is in the open stock. Are

they trading on the open market right now? If they are, I think their shares are

probably way up there today because of the amount of Wite-Out that is being used

by the government side when it comes to giving us freedom of information.

[1500]

Despite all of that stuff — despite the complaints that the

patients had, despite the claims that the unions had, despite the facts that the

independent bodies of this province had to say about the lack of services and

the poor services in the hospital — Dean Waisman, president of Westech Systems,

a company that was hired to perform external and independent annual housekeeping

audits on all B.C. health authorities since 2005, has made public comments in

defence of privatized cleaning services.

Guess what. "We are going to tell the public how bad we are or how

good we are, and we will hire somebody who will come in and tell the public — do

some spin-doctoring and put some numbers together — so that hopefully, the

public will never know the truth behind it." This is what he said: "I think the

hospitals are cleaner now than they have ever been."

Well, if anybody has seen the hospitals lately or in the last six

years…. I have, because some of my close family members were in there. I have

seen blood on the floors and the walls. I have seen dirty laundry stuck in the

corners. I have seen it with my own eyes, and I was told by many patients that

that's the way it is. It's widespread.

But here we are getting information from their agents, who will

come in and say that everything is fine, just like the Minister of Health will

stand up every day in question period and say that everything is fine in the

health care system out there, that there is no waiting out there, that there is

no code orange and that we are fearmongering.

Well, I want the Minister of Health to come with me…. I have

challenged the minister many times to come to Surrey Memorial Hospital and spend

a few hours with me in the emergency ward. He hasn't taken up that challenge yet

— not yet. I put that challenge again to the Minister of Health, who missed this

point, it seems to me.

I challenged twice, actually, in my speeches that the minister

should come with me. We would sit in the emergency ward of Surrey Memorial

Hospital. Let's spend about a day in there, Minister. Let's see how the real

patients go through.

Interjection.

H. Bains: No, no. Don't go to some nice corporate offices

and sit there and do some photo ops. Come with me to where the blood is. Come

with me to where the pain is being suffered by the patients. It's in the

emergency ward. Come sit with me for a day. I'll sit with you one day in that

emergency ward. Let's see and talk to those patients about what they think.

Never mind your spin doctors. Never mind your agents, who are

making money on the backs of the health care workers, who are making money on

the back of our health care system. Don't listen to them. Come listen to real

people. Then you'll find out what the system is like. You will find out why

people in Surrey are saying that if my beloved one ever gets hurt or injured or

is ill, I will not go to Surrey Memorial Hospital. That's how bad they believe

it is.

That is not to say anything about the health care professionals

that we have in the hospital. They have nothing but praise for the doctors, for

the nurses and for other health care providers in Surrey Memorial Hospital,

because they are working hard. They are working with what they are given. They

are working with the limited resources they're given, but they're doing the best

they can. But this minister, this government, is not helping them, not giving

them the resources that they need to provide the service that they think is

needed to our patients.

That's what's happening in the health care system as a result of

this government. You know what? It wasn't that they didn't know what was going

on. When they brought this bill in, they were warned. They were warned by many,

including the two members of the opposition. One of them is sitting right here

in the House, who is with us on this side of the House. I'm proud to be part of

the caucus that was here at that time, that defended the patients and that stood

up hour after hour, night after day to defend the rights of the working people,

and this government wouldn't listen.

[1505]

This is what they said when they were trying to defend the actions

of this government. I'll read this for the record. "It is a patent untruth that

somebody gets 56 weeks of job security after working one day. It is

[ Page 12512 ]

going to come back to haunt this government, perhaps in court." And it did,

and it came true.

The absolute untruth of the repetition of that kind of statement,

the absolute untruth of this government somehow taking office on May 17 and

being shocked about the wages and working conditions of our health and social

services community is just going to have to be revealed at length.

Why is the government bringing in this bill? Why do we have this

bill before us? Well, even though there's nothing new here — even though this

government knew absolutely everything in detail about the wages and working

conditions from the public record, from private meetings with individual unions,

private meetings with individual constituents, even from newspaper ads and

articles describing the wages and working conditions — somehow they say: "Oh my

gosh. We woke up one morning, and we discovered the truth, and the truth was

horrible." This was Joy MacPhail. This is from Hansard of January 26,

She went on to say:

"Here's what your non-clinical service is defined as, and

the media, of course, missed this completely. They're radiological and lab

technologists, they're radiation therapists, they are pharmacists, they're

occupational therapists and physiotherapists, they are dieticians, they are

nurses, they're infant development consultants, they are alcohol and drug

counsellors, and they are social workers. Those are the non-clinical services

that you are going to contract out, as well as laundry services and housekeeping

services.

"Come clean. Come clean, Minister of Health, and

tell us that these are the services you are now contracting out. It is

unprecedented across Canada how you are bringing destruction to our health care

— unprecedented."

Joy MacPhail, again, from January 26, 2002, in Hansard .

They were warned. Time after time they were warned by the members

of this House in the opposition. But did the government listen? Did the minister

listen at that time? No.

Here the very respected member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant stood

up and said….

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

H. Bains: My time's up. It went so quickly.

C. Wyse: It is indeed my pleasure to get up and speak in

favour of Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act. [Applause.]

I am absolutely certain that the minister will be equally

applauding my rationale for supporting Bill 26 and the need for it to be here.

Bill 26, in actual fact, in

part is required to amend Bill 29.

Let me read for the House for the record the title of Bill 29 that

has caused Bill 26 to be here. The title is the Health and Social Services

Delivery Improvement Act. That's the actual title that was so misleading. The

improvement that was put on the plate was taken to the courts, and the courts

made some rulings. It made some rulings on the arrogance of Bill 29. It's

because of the rulings of the courts that we are here and that I have the

privilege to be speaking in favour of Bill 26 and certain portions of it.

Bill 29, to put it into context, is the bill that removed existing

collective agreement provisions dealing with contracting-out and consultation

about contracting-out and stripped unions of their rights to negotiate

contracting-out and consultation as part of the collective bargaining process.

[1510]

The bill also eliminated successor rights for health and social

services union members whose jobs are privatized or transferred, rolled back

deals reached to move to wage parity between genders and also between workers in

the community and those in hospital facilities. It also banned the unions from

suing over the bills.

One thing that the government should be recognized for is the

result ruled by the Supreme Court. It established that collective bargaining is

a right protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is the

outcome of Bill 29, leading us into Bill 26 and why I am here speaking in favour

of it.

It is not just because of the ruling dealing with the rights of

the unions and their workers, though I am proud to be here recognizing that

aspect of it. I also want to recognize the absolute, utter chaos that was put

into the delivery system for care in the health system, particularly for our

seniors. As a result of that, we have got seniors being affected. We had

communities being affected. We had workers, as I have mentioned, being affected.

It would be great, in my judgment, if we were here because the

government, after having seen the effect of this particular bill, had said:

"Yes, we need to have Bill 26 in front of us. We have seen the error of our

ways. We have seen the effect that it's had upon the care given to seniors. We

have seen the effect that it's had upon our communities. We have seen the effect

that it's had across British Columbia. Therefore, we have simply recognized our

error. We're sorry for that, and we've introduced the bill." That, for me, would

be quite an astonishment.

However, I have to form the conclusion that we're here dealing

with the bill I am speaking in favour of because the courts said: "Do it. You've

got one year to try and unscramble the omelette that you put together — that

mess that led to huge reductions in the level given to our more vulnerable

people here within the province."

More than 9,000 health care workers were laid off, most of them

women. Widespread chaos did develop, particularly in the seniors care area,

right across the province. I've shared with this House that one of the reasons,

quite likely, why I'm sitting in this chair in this House is a direct result of

what came out of Bill 29 — the effect that did develop in communities throughout

the Cariboo. I've been up in front of this House on numerous occasions raising

issues around levels of care for seniors that have been provided right across

the entire riding I have the privilege of representing.

The community of Williams Lake, in actual fact, made its own case

around the need for this particular

[ Page 12513 ]

bill. The community of Williams Lake sent its own delegations to meet with

the minister on this item of seniors care. They met in Kamloops. They sent

representatives down here. They sent a 12,000-signature petition from a greater

community of Williams Lake of about 25,000 people.

[1515]

They met with the minister. They extended invitations to the

minister to come to their community and see for himself what the effect had been

of the bill that we're here in support of. To my knowledge, that offer has never

been taken up.

We have seen what has unfolded in my community. Right through to

2008 concerns have been raised about the effect of what rolled out of Bill 29.

It contributed to the closure of facilities for seniors care in Williams Lake —

of Deni House, Heritage House and Cariboo Lodge. It led to protests. It led to a

huge reduction of service to the seniors in our area. There were health care

workers that were forced to leave. They were left unemployed. They didn't have

jobs, necessarily, to go to. I had individual members approach me as their MLA

and look for whatever assistance my office might be able to provide.

Before I was elected, I was approached by individuals as a

community member to see what advocacy work I might be able to do on their behalf

to find places for their loved one to be in, in some cases, or to find improved

levels of service to be provided to them as the transition was made from those

three facilities to other care facilities. The answers that were received by

representatives here in Victoria, both ministerial staff representatives and

others, really were not satisfactory in the judgment of those individuals or of

the community at large.

The chaos that developed in the provision of this health care

service for seniors in Williams Lake also overflowed into the hospital in the

acute care area, because there was no place for them to go. Therefore, the

service needs were provided for in the limited acute care beds in the hospital —

a level of service not deemed to be that type of service to be there. But that

was the only place left for them to go, for them to be. Also, those members in

the community were left in care facilities that were not at all able to provide

the services. The community saw what was happening as a result.

My community will be celebrating the bill that I'm here to be

supporting, but there's a hollow victory to it. Because of the arrogance that

took place over this period of time, there was a level of service delivered that

was inadequate. That did not need to happen, but it did. There will be people in

my riding that will be pleased that I'm standing up, telling this story. They

will be pleased that I'm speaking in favour of this bill, but it's a hollow,

hollow victory to them.

[1520]

They would have preferred that the minister and the government had

actually taken their concerns seriously and moved on them simply because, as

people of British Columbia, they brought forward their concerns, not being

required to be clubbed to do it by the Supreme Court. That is what they would

like to have happened. It's not what did happen.

So we have had a situation that leaves me somewhat satisfied to be

standing here, but I feel very much like an individual that's been involved in a

fight that I won, but it really was not a victory that was worth winning at the

price that was paid, a price that was paid by all British Columbians — a fight

that was on the back of people that could not defend themselves, a fight that

was on the back of the communities here right across all of British Columbia, a

fight with a government that believed that they knew what was right and best and

moved accordingly.

It's a hollow victory for me to be standing here speaking in

favour of this particular bill, but I am pleased to be here to do that, because

it is as a result of another segment of our society that stood up and said:

"We're going to fight this."

It was the unions that went ahead and forced this to take place.

It was a fight that was not won here in the Legislature, but it is a fight that

will be taken out of this chamber again and will be dealt with by the public

when they do an examination of this bill. The courts have ruled that the

government overstepped their bounds.

There are other bills that are in front of this House that have,

equally, warnings from legal areas wondering about where they are going with

their legalities. The courts will deal with them. As we have seen, five years

ago when this government decided that they were going to go down the road that

led us to the need for this particular bill, we had one or two individuals stand

up and say: "Whoa. Step back. Have a look." Unless there's a second wind, a

second examination, there will be other situations that will be occurring again.

In speaking in favour of this bill to correct such an error, I

also feel it's my responsibility to draw attention that we don't want to repeat

that practice. We wish to encourage the government to open their ears, to listen

and move prudently so that the chaos that was developed, that affected not just

workers but seniors, communities, and the entire province….

I wish to close with saying that I am pleased to be voting for

this particular bill, particularly with this amendment in it to correct such a

gross error that took place by a government that was arrogant and would not

listen, and the community paid the price.

[1525]

D. Cubberley: I appreciate having the opportunity to speak

to this piece of legislation. Like the member who spoke before me, I will be

speaking in support of the bill, but the support is qualified.

I want to take the opportunity to look at several things that the

bill is going to do and try to indicate my interest in seeing the bill

strengthened so that it does those things more effectively.

Like the member before me, I do want to begin by adding my voice

to the many people who have spoken in this chamber, who have expressed their

disgust with this government's unilateral actions towards the Hospital Employees

Union members who supplied valued services

[ Page 12514 ]

to B.C.'s health care system, who supplied those services for a living wage

and fair benefits, and who made a very important contribution to the delivery of

health care.

I think, in part, the problem that we have today is because the

concept of a living wage and fair benefits is one that is somewhat foreign to

the globalist mindset that tends to preoccupy many of the members opposite,

especially those at the pinnacle of power.

I'm also dismayed that the government, really having been found

guilty in the courts of the land, still continues refusing to bargain in good

faith with its employees, sneaking around behind the collective agreement, and

still declines to apologize publicly for what is unseemly behaviour — behaviour

that, in fact, dishonours the Legislature, in my view.

I would like to see government atone for the damage that was

inflicted on families and communities across British Columbia, the dislocation

which I experienced directly in my own community and the impacts on our

hospitals and our care facilities. It was a tremendous change in the sense of

the scope of it, affecting thousands and thousands of lives, and the saddest

fact of all is that the government, which acted outside its obligations, cannot

point to a single economy or efficiency today that it achieved through this

unilateral action.

What we look at, when we see our system today, is we see that our

hospitals are less clean. The food people are eating is worse. Workers earn

lower wages. They leave their jobs more frequently, and seniors get less care.

Now, that is not an accomplishment to be proud of. That is one to reflect upon

and ask ourselves as a Legislature: what went wrong? What should we not do again

in the future? An astounding outcome, from what was by any account ideologically

motivated action.

I feel that there's a place for shame on the part of the

government, because what it did was engage in legislative bullying of those who

are, in many ways, the most vulnerable people in the health care system, people

that the government had, as it was making its way to power, explicitly promised

they would not harm, whose collective agreements it said it would not tear up.

Then, in fact, it did that upon taking power.

This bill affects a number of important changes, and I want to

comment on those that affect the complaint and disclosure provisions of the

Medicare Protection Act, because for me they're a very important piece of it.

First of all, in order to establish a context, I want to give a little history

so that we can understand, again, the importance of the compliance function

within our legislative provision regarding the ban on user fees.

The ban on user fees, of course, is the linchpin of a publicly

funded and universally accessible health care system, where access depends upon

need and not upon ability to pay. So in that regard, before we had a Canada

Health Act, medical services were available like any other consumer good in

society. The amount and the quality of those services depended entirely upon the

individual's ability to pay. In other words, we were just like the U.S.A. in

that regard, where health care currently consumes 16 percent of the gross

domestic product of the entire country and is projected to rise to nearly 20

percent by the year 2017.

What's intriguing about health care as a percentage of GDP

expressed in that manner is that it's eminently sustainable from a right-wing

government's perspective. You could expend nearly 20 percent of your GDP on

health care, and the reason for that is most of the 20 percent is private pay.

It isn't paid by government. That's one of the reasons why I think members

opposite don't really like the reference to GDP, because it does provide a good

comparator, and it shows just how efficient our single-payer delivery system is.

The difference in medicare systems is who is paying.

[1530]

[K. Whittred in the chair.]

Medicare was introduced incrementally by provinces across Canada,

beginning with Saskatchewan, with its go-it-alone universal and compulsory

hospital insurance plan, in 1947, which happens to be the year of my birth,

Madam Speaker. It was followed in 1957 by the federal Hospital Insurance and

Diagnostic Services Act, which enabled federal transfers to provincial insurance

plans that covered both in-patient and out-patient hospital services so long as

provinces agreed — and this was the beginning of no-user-pay — to make the

That made it universal, and it made the access to the system

subject to need, which is the very heart of the design of health care provision

in our medicare system. With federal funding of 50 percent coming in for agreed

hospital costs, Saskatchewan — bold innovator that it was under the legendary

T.C. Douglas — was enabled to extend its coverage beyond hospitals, which it

undertook on its own without any assistance from the federal government, to all

medical treatments. That came into effect in 1961 — the medicare system that we

still enjoy to this day and which all governments have attempted in their manner

to cultivate, with several exceptions, and it may include the one opposite.

Between 1962 and 1971 provincial health insurance initiatives were

introduced. They were bolstered again by federal investments, but at that time

provincial laws discouraged but did not yet fully outlaw extra-billing or user

fees.

By means of the provincial creation of medicare — and it was a

creation of the provinces, triggered especially by Saskatchewan — private-pay

medicine was quickly replaced almost holus-bolus with public-pay medicine. The

vehicle was a dozen individual systems of universal health insurance operating

in tandem, which pooled the risks and the resources needed to address the risks

and allocated access to all on the basis of need, not on the ability to pay. In

other words, the private market in health services that had pre-existed health

care was replaced with a system of public health insurance, partially funded

federally, which covered a wide range of medically necessary services.

Many of us celebrate that fact, because that was the beginning of

medicare, and it is the basis of medicare.

[ Page 12515 ]

But some still rue the day this ever happened, apparently, like a couple of

the Premier's close friends, Dr. Brian Day and Dr. Mark Godley, who, when they

see Canada's most supported social program, see it as the work of Big Brother.

They see it as something insidious, something that needs to be undermined and

taken apart.

Big Brother, as the member for Vancouver-Kensington reminded us,

is the image on the opening slide of Dr. Day's presentation as the keynote

speaker at the opening of the very first Conversation on Health. His comparison

was to say: "Health care, Big Brother."

It didn't seem to bother the Premier at all. I haven't heard the

Premier take a position on Big Brother, and it leads one to the very strong

suspicion that he may in fact share this view of mandatory universal health

care, pooling risks and resources. He certainly has never distanced himself from

it publicly.

Even within his own family, Dr. Vertesi, whose book I've had a

look at, subscribes to an identical point of view in his published writings.

Universal health care with mandatory participation and no user fees is Big

Brother, because it removes choice.

That, to me, is an extreme right-wing — indeed an extreme

libertarian — view. The interesting thing is how totally at variance that is

with public opinion, with the Canada Health Act and indeed with our collective

experience of health care.

I believe what some are really ruing is the loss of the freedom

that they once had, and that doctors in the United States continue to have, to

charge whatever the market will bear for the service. But I would have to say

that the loss of that freedom is very much offset, many times over, by the gain

in freedom that the overwhelming majority of people participate in because

they're relieved of the anxiety around their lives and the lives of their

children — those they value and love — and the worry of being struck by illness

and having to pay for it out of their own resources.

[1535]

In the early going, some physicians did persist in billing beyond

provincial fee revenues, and that phenomenon gathered steam in the late '70s and

early '80s. That prompted a now-famous review by Justice Emmett Hall, which in

turn led to the introduction of the Canada Health Act with its now-famous

founding principles — principles now being amended via a Trojan Horse fifth

principle called sustainability by this government, a principle that has never

been defined and indeed the need for which has never been defended. This is led

by a Premier who himself has expressed doubt about the sustainability of a

universal health care system and who has not distanced himself from an image of

it as Big Brother.

A principal objective of the Canada Health Act was to address the

issue of user fees and to establish clear criteria for federal financial support

for medicare. Universality of health care requires the policing of the issue of

fees. It requires vigilance, and it requires compliance.

One compliance mechanism was the power to reduce federal transfers

to provinces that continued to allow doctors to charge user fees. It has, in

practice, turned out to be a relatively weak compliance mechanism if the second

compliance mechanism isn't working. The CHA encouraged provinces to implement

that by asking them to strengthen and enforce provincial legislation prohibiting

physicians from double-billing.

Then with all of those measures in place, what happened was

magical. The problem largely disappeared again until the mid '90s, when it

re-emerged across Canada in every province in concert with the rise in the

relatively new phenomenon of private clinics.

This was a new form of business association by doctors which was

used to provide an array of services, some of them medically necessary and some

of them publicly insured. In other cases they were cosmetic, things that were

outside the medical care plan. There was no problem with what happened there.

Some were dedicated to insured services and operated within the law, and there

was no problem with those. Some sought to use the corporate framework to

reintroduce user fees in novel ways, like facility fees.

I would note to the minister, because we have at times duelled

over this in a mock fashion, that there is no problem with clinics as a form of

practice by doctors, a way of organizing a practice, nor is there with the

incorporation of doctors. The problem lies with the reappearance of the practice

of user fees, requiring patients to pay a supplementary fee or a fee to expedite

access beyond what the Medical Services Commission allows.

It can be styled a service fee, a registration fee, a facility fee

or any other name you might like to give it. But if government tolerates

fee-charging by clinics, what it's in fact doing today — and what I believe this

government has done by turning a blind eye throughout the seven years of its

oversight — is permitting a private medical sector to begin to develop with a

deep public subsidy.

Why should we care if a public health care scheme is used to

subsidize the development of private medicine? Quite simply, we have to care. We

have to care about it, because it reintroduces user-pay. User-pay screens out

all those who cannot afford the premium at the time they need the care, and it

sends them to the back of the queue or to a secondary queue.

To the extent that physicians are allowed to do that through an

associated practice, they enrich themselves more than those who are practising

solely within medicare, and they tend to work fewer hours per dollar earned than

those who are working within medicare. They actually remove needed capacity from

the universal plan that's serving everyone, and they transfer it to the

private-pay plan, which serves only those who can afford it.

In British Columbia the Medicare Protection Act in 1995 superseded

the Medical and Health Care Services Act of '92 with the intent of reinforcing

the commitment of the province of British Columbia to provide universal benefits

for medically necessary services without user fees.

This was made explicit in the

preamble, which states in part:

"…WHEREAS the people and government of British Columbia believe it to be

fundamental that an

[ Page 12516 ]

individual's access to necessary medical care be solely based on need and not

on the individual's ability to pay." From that principle the rest of the act,

the declaration, flowed.

[1540]

The Medicare Protection Act provided tools to the Medical Services

Commission to meet the obligations placed on it to police the incidence of

extra-billing, and it placed a prohibition — and this is central to the matter

we deal with in the legislation — on disclosing the identity of a physician

under investigation.

The intent there, I believe, was to protect individual doctors

against unwarranted public exposure from a participant in the plan making a

claim about a fee. That was the intent at the time. There was a flaw in that.

We'll discuss that.

There was a further flaw in the fact that the Medical Services

Commission was not actually given the tools it needed at the time the act was

passed to undertake comprehensive investigations, audits, of service delivery in

the newly emerging form of private clinics. That was a flaw in the design of it

at the time.

Its version of enforcement of individual physicians delivering

care — doc-in-a-box — in their individual offices was overtaken quickly by the

clinic phenomenon, which did some good things for health care, and we can all

agree to that. But it lent itself to one very bad thing, and that was to fuel

the reintroduction in some practices of user fees in new and novel guises.

That phenomenon grew Canada-wide, and it happened so quickly that

in the same year that the Medicare Protection Act was brought in, federal Health

Minister Diane Marleau wrote provincial Health ministers a letter regarding

enforcement of the Canada Health Act, which still serves as one of the most

important documents in interpreting it in courts and in provinces today. She

identified the growth of a second tier of health facilities operating outside

the regulatory framework as a serious threat to Canada's health care system.

With utmost clarity, she noted as follows:

"Specifically and most immediately, I believe the facility

fees charged by private clinics for medically necessary services are a major

problem which must be dealt with firmly. It is my position that such fees

set out in the Canada Health Act."

She continued:

"Where these fees are charged for medically necessarily

services in clinics which receive funding for these services under a provincial

health insurance plan, they constitute a financial barrier to access. As a

criterion in the act, of which the user-charge provision is just a specific

example, was clearly intended to ensure that Canadian residents receive all

medically necessary care without financial or other barriers and regardless of

venue."

Then she finishes: "It must continue to mean that as the

nature of medical practice evolves."

So the original Medicare Protection Act was not in fact in step

with the rapidly evolving nature of medical practice, especially as regards

clinics and the clinic phenomenon. That would be from the outset, and I would

acknowledge that.

But when the B.C. Liberals came to power in 2001, I think it

seemed very convenient to avoid the question of adapting the act to the current

circumstances and very convenient to place the compliance function on a

complaint-only basis, where the Medical Services Commission did not involve

itself, on its own initiative, in enforcing the act — it waited for complaints

to come — and to keep all of that process in the dark and under wraps.

That certainly has fuelled the growth in user fees in British

Columbia in the diagnostic sector and in other sectors. It fuelled the incidence

of doctors practising at one moment in private medicine and at another in public

medicine, with or without a fee. It was convenient, I think, to put the

compliance function on hold, to direct the MSC to take a hands-off approach, to

wait for complaints without letting the public know that it had a role to play

in bringing those complaints forward and to handle the few complaints that did

come forward behind closed doors without reporting the decisions to the public.

That compliance function was so far behind by 2003 that it once

again caught the attention of the federal government, which pressed the province

for change, under the threat of docking the provincial government some of the

federal moneys being transferred.

[1545]

Under the threat of that federal penalty for non-enforcement of

the Canada Health Act on the issue of user fees, the then minister introduced

amendments to provide greater clarity about charges that are not permissible; to

clarify when it's inappropriate to bill patients or unauthorized third parties,

such as friends or relatives, for medically necessary services, including

diagnostic services; to confirm the commission's authority to respond to

complaints by auditing relevant billing records, including those of diagnostic

and medical-surgical facilities; and to strengthen audit and enforcement

provisions to bring them into line with those in other provinces — in other

words, to modernize the act — and to specify penalties for individuals and

corporations, because corporations were becoming a significant form of evolving

medical practice.

The minister at that time downplayed any notion of a policy shift

for government — clearly wanted to minimize that part of it — and emphasized

that it was modernization based on the discovery late in the prior century that

the Medical Services Commission lacked the tools to do due diligence and the

follow-up expected by Health Canada, which ultimately led to the amendments.

The minister noted — and I believe he was sincere: "I think there

are principles at stake. We've made commitments to the public in this province

that we're going to uphold the five principles of the Canada Health Act, and we

need to make sure we have the tools with which to do that."

Then along came British Columbia's Great Decider, the Premier. He

clearly disagreed, perhaps prompted by the ire of some of his acquaintances in

False Creek, and he put the entire thing on hold by not proclaiming the

regulations.

[ Page 12517 ]

The growth of extra-billing continued apace into 2006, when the

current Minister of Health finally, after nine months of dithering with the

Copeman clinic, referred the matter — the billing scheme of the Copeman clinic —

to the Medical Services Commission for investigation.

Ironically — it's kind of a bitter irony — in order to undertake

the investigation of the Copeman clinic, the cabinet then had to proclaim

certain of the parked 2003 amendments in order to be able to legally undertake

the investigation — just as, I hasten to add, the opposition had suggested and

indeed tried to provoke the government to do prior to this occurring.

Interjection.

D. Cubberley: I'm trying to be very measured.

This investigation brought to light new problems with B.C.'s

enforcement — or not, depending on where you're sitting — of user-fee

prohibition, so fundamental to the continuation of medicare and required by law.

Most important was the matter of how any complaint would be handled, given that

enforcement is almost entirely at this point complaint-driven, the absence of

any kind of public participation in whatever deliberations might be held by the

Medical Services Commission and the inability under the act, as it's narrowly

interpreted, of the public to review the reasons for a decision once a case had

been determined.

There is this fiction that the Minister of Health has no latitude

to table documents regarding the Medical Services Commission decision in the

Copeman clinic's billing scheme investigation, which suggested that it did not

violate the Canada Health Act. No information about individual physicians needs

to be released in order to provide that decision, because the problem was about

the clinic's billing scheme. Everyone already knew who Mr. Copeman was, because

he enjoyed a great deal of publicity around the idea of challenging the Canada

Health Act.

It was the Minister of Health himself who had actually referred to

the matter, so there was no secret about who it was that was under

investigation. Therefore, there was really no anonymity to be protected and no

requirement for the decision to remain secret.

What it shows, I think, with perfect clarity is the desperate need

in British Columbia for reform. This bill contains what I would call a baby step

in the direction of needed change, but I don't think it goes anywhere near far

enough.

Leaving disclosure of the results of any investigation and the

reasons for decision to the minister to determine — just to consult with himself

about whether it is or isn't in the public interest for the public to know how

it's been reasoned that something does or doesn't constitute user fees and does

or doesn't violate the Canada Health Act — doesn't, to my mind and I don't

believe to members of my party and caucus, meet tests of accountability and

transparency that are required in order to ensure the stewardship of a public

health care system.

[1550]

This is a province — and I try to illustrate this and do it out of

my own experience, which I had repeatedly as the Health critic — where you can

walk into an enrolled physician's office and at the reception desk see a

diagnostic tests that you would receive under medicare, you can get your

procedure done immediately for an added fee. It will give you a phone number

where you can telephone.

This is a province, as well, where a doctor can be doing enrolled

medicine at one moment and as part and parcel of the same procedure, perhaps in

the same office or perhaps without you ever leaving the room — I believe it's

quite possible — can begin to practise private medicine. This is a province

where a doctor can offer a patient an opportunity to quickly move up the queue

for a medically necessary procedure in return for a fee.

This is a province today where for reasons that we aren't allowed

to know — we aren't allowed to know them, because we aren't allowed to see the

reasons for a decision — the Medical Services Commission enables a billing

scheme that gives people who are part of the club preferential access to

enrolled doctors in return for the fee they've paid to join the club — a

facility fee.

This is a province, as well, where if you are willing to pay extra

money — if you have extra money that you can pay — you can get your diagnostics

done more quickly, and so you can jump the queue to treatment. That's very, very

significant if you think about the kinds of sequential bottlenecks people face

in trying to, for example, get to a point where a hip or a knee replacement

operation is going to be authorized under the Medical Services Plan.

If you can move the diagnostics along quickly, you might save six

to eight months of waiting. If you can come up with just that little extra bit

of money that greases the skids, you can go to the front of the line.

This is a province where, unfortunately, we continue to see that

user fees are proliferating under the surface and that we have, in effect, the

growth of an enlarging private medical scheme which is heavily subsidized by

public medicare. This is a province, too, where those responsible for this

continue to order a quite passive complaint-based regime at the Medical Services

Commission.

Now, we on this side believe strongly that there needs to be a

much stronger compliance function in the era that we're in, because user fees

will undo universal health care and put us on the slippery slope of two-tiered

medicine and move us over time towards what we see to the south of us, where 47

million people in 2006 had no medical insurance and where the single largest

cause of bankruptcy is inability to pay health care bills — every year, year in

and year out.

But what we have to deal with is that this is a province where our

government of the day passively supports incremental movement in just that

direction, because it flows money and resources into private medicine which is

being publicly subsidized. That occurs because the policing function is not

being taken seriously enough.

This is a province where if you can pay, you get quick access, and

if you can't pay, you get to wait. That's

[ Page 12518 ]

anathema in this country. It's anathema to British Columbians; it's anathema

to Canadians. We need a mechanism clearly dedicated to enforcing the Canada

Health Act, not games with the definition of what it's there to do or the

addition of some ill-defined principle of sustainability. We need vigilance and

resolve to ensure that those billing under medicare aren't allowed to extra-bill

patients.

I believe the proposed changes to the Medicare Protection Act

regarding disclosure of the results of investigation, proposed in this House by

the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, are the right direction to move in. With

reinforced vigilance, those changes will enable government to address the issue

of user fees and ensure that medicare is available to all on the basis of need,

not on the ability to pay.

[1555]

With that, I will bring my remarks to a close and thank the House

for the opportunity to make them.

J. Kwan: I rise today to enter into debate on Bill 26, the

Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008. Let's be clear. This bill essentially

repeals sections of Bill 29, a bill that prohibited collective agreements from

including provisions that sought to limit, restrict or in any way regulate the

contracting-out of non-clinical services. It also repeals a subsection of Bill

29 that voids the provisions in collective agreements that required consultation

with unions prior to it being contracted-out.

This bill is significant in a number of ways, because this bill

really provides for what I would call partial victory and a recognition of what

the workers in the field were saying and what the opposition was saying to the

government when the government introduced Bill 29.

Bill 29 was introduced on Sunday, January 27, 2002. In fact, on

that day there were a number of bills that the government brought to the floor

of this very Legislature, which violated international labour laws, if you will,

and which the ILO had actually condemned the government for doing. They brought

forward on that very day a series of bills that violated the workers' right to

be consulted and collective agreement rights in terms of their negotiations.

It was a Sunday, and it was late in the evening. In fact, the

debate went into the middle of the night. I know this well. You know why, Madam

Speaker? Because I was here. I was one of two members in this very Legislature

arguing against this bill and telling the government that it was not the way to

go.

The government at that time — the then Minister of Labour, Graham

Bruce, and the then Minister of Health, who is the current Minister of Economic

Development — ignored all of that advice. In fact, more to the point, they made

fun of and chastised the people who raised those concerns. For every vote that

was called on Bill 29, with all these sections, every single government member

rose from their chairs and voted for the bill. There were only two voices in the

Legislature opposing that, myself and the then member for Vancouver-Hastings,

Joy MacPhail.

Let me just say this before I get too deep into this debate,

because it brings back memories and, frankly, hurtful memories. But more to the

point, for the workers who were in the field, who had to experience Bill 29 and

live through Bill 29, let me first say this. I want to thank the workers for

having to endure this, having the courage to take the government to task. The

HEU, on behalf of its workers, took the government to court and won.

It is not easy, if you think about it, because these are just your

average workers who have worked all their lives to fight for rights in the

labour market, to get a better standing in terms of economic status, to actually

be able to gain the employment and the recognition of the importance of it to a

health care system, to be compensated for it and to be respected in their field.

[1600]

They are a significant component of our entire health care

continuum. They were the people who were attacked relentlessly by this

government, with their ripping-up of collective agreements — contracts that

prior to the election, the Premier had promised he would not rip up. These

people, these workers in our community, had the resolve to stand up to this

government through their union, who took the government to court. Thank goodness

the court saw beyond it, and the court made a judgment against the government.

That is why we're here debating Bill 26, not because of the

government's own volition in recognizing that they were wrong. It took the

courts to tell them that they were wrong. Bill 26 is a bittersweet victory,

because the ramification and the damage that followed after Bill 29 was

significant.

Every health care worker that I talked to talked to me about how

injurious that bill was to them, both personally and in their work environment.

People lost jobs. Families suffered because of this government's action and

their cavalier way of dealing with labour rights in the province of British

Columbia.

The health care system suffered, as well, because patients in the

health care system didn't get the services that they needed and deserved. The

government went and contracted out, and there have been ripple effects. Even to

this day we experience some of those ripple effects of some of the contracts of

some of the facilities that went to the private sector. The service delivery is

not up to par, cleanliness issues are also at stake, seniors are being

mistreated in a significant way, and the list goes on.

At that time when the government passed Bill 29, in the middle of

the night on Sunday…. I think it was three or four o'clock in the morning or

something like this — in the middle of the night, when people had gone to sleep

and didn't expect the Legislature to be sitting and having a major debate that

would have huge ramifications in the delivery of the health care system, on the

impacts of the workers, on the impacts of the health care system, on the impacts

of the patients in British Columbia.

The government passed a bill, and afterwards people went and

complained to international bodies about the

[ Page 12519 ]

actions of this government. The ILO was one such body which received

complaints about this Liberal government's actions on Bill 29. Of course, not

just Bill 29 — Bills 2, 15, 18, 27 and 28. These bills had ramifications that

impacted some 150,000 workers in the health care sector, in the education sector

and the community social services sector.

The government imposed contracts on teachers, health science

professionals and nurses. That's the record of this government. In some cases,

as I mentioned, this government ripped up the very same contracts that they

themselves had imposed by legislation. All the bills — every one of those bills,

including Bill 29 — were found to violate the international labour standards

that are respected in democracies worldwide.

That's why we're here with Bill 26 — for the government to redress

that, because the courts forced them to do so. In uncharacteristically blunt

language, the ILO ruled that the B.C. government repeatedly violated the rights

of workers by refusing to negotiate contracts with their unions and by using the

Legislature, because they had the numbers to do so. And sure enough, the

government had 77 of them at that time to ram through legislation.

The UN body was also highly critical of the government's

counterclaim that those complaints were somehow frivolous, that they were

vexatious — that, in fact, the ILO should not even bother considering them. How

outrageous is that?

[1605]

The ILO, of course, ruled differently. They ruled and condemned

the government's action, and rightfully so. Of course, that wasn't the first

time, in the year 2003, that the United Nations body actually condemned this

Liberal government. They also, within about that same period — maybe by about a

month — reviewed the state of women's equality in Canada. The U.N. Committee on

the Elimination of Discrimination against Women set a precedent when it singled

out one province, in particular, for criticism. Guess which province that was?

Yup, British Columbia. Not a record that we should be proud of, a record which

is now etched in stone. So not once, but twice we were condemned.

In thinking back, some of the conversations that I had with the

health care workers since Bill 29 and some of the issues that arose…. I'll tell

you, morale amongst the health care workers was perhaps at an all-time low.

Workers didn't feel that they were valued. Workers didn't feel that their rights

were protected at all. At the stroke of a pen in the middle of the night,

government can change legislation, change the contracts, rip up their contracts,

and then they're left behind with nothing to show for all of their years of hard

work and all of their years of negotiations.

In fact, there was a poll that was done. Three out of four union

members polled say that morale on the health care front lines has deteriorated.

More than half often or almost always are physically or mentally feeling

stressed at the end of the day, and 90 percent agree that the way things are

going in the health care sector…. There were serious mistakes that could be made

that could harm patients or hurt patients.

That was the fallout of Bill 29. Since 2002 hospital cleaners' and

cooks' wages have roller-coastered from about $18 an hour, on average, to a low

in 2004 of between $8 and $10 an hour. This is after contracting-out. Those

workers, I would say, are the backbone of our health care system. They are the

people who prepare the very necessary services that are required in our health

care system, and it's hard work. Imagine the demands of the job on you both

physically and emotionally. If they did make a mistake, the ramifications of

that are enormous for the patients.

The government didn't recognize that when they brought in Bill 29.

They rammed through Bill 29 and said that it was essential for the government to

act, to rip up collective agreements, to rip up contracts and not to honour what

the Premier had promised to those workers prior to the election.

To our best estimation, between some 9,000 to 10,000 health care

workers in these facilities lost their jobs. They lost their livelihoods. Some

9,000 to 10,000 people lost their jobs because of the government breaking their

own word to not rip up collective agreements. That was the reality of Bill 29.

[1610]

I would say that in the health care sector, the fallout of Bill 29

was probably the largest mass firing of women workers in Canadian history. Many

of them are immigrants who have come to make a better life for themselves and

for their families, and work hard to do that. Little did they know that with the

stroke of a pen, a broken promise from the Premier became reality for them, and

they lost their jobs. That is the effect of Bill 29 that the government could

not deny.

As I said, HEU, on behalf of their workers, had the gumption, had

the strong belief that the government was wrong, had the courage and the resolve

to take the government on. In some ways it's kind of like The Little Engine

That Could — the workers that could take a big government to court and then

win.

The court ruled on June 8, 2007, that "the government has not

shown that the act" — that is, Bill 29 — "minimally impaired the

employees'…right of collective bargaining. It is unnecessary to consider the

proportionality between the pressing and substantial government objectives and

the means adopted by the law to achieve those objectives." The court ruled that

"the offending provisions" of Bill 29, which included sections 6(2), 6(4) and

section 9, "cannot be justified as reasonable limits" set out under

section 1 of

the Canadian Charter. The government, in essence, ruled those sections of Bill

29 unconstitutional.