1988 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 34th 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 5, 1988

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

4289 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Police Act (Bill 21). Hon. B.R. Smith

Introduction and first reading –– 4290

An Act to Feed Hungry School Children (Bill M204). Mr. Cashore

Introduction and first reading –– 4290

Life Bible College Act (Bill PR402). Mrs. Gran

Introduction and first reading –– 4290

Oral Questions

Drilling permit for South Moresby National Park. Mr. Guno –– 4290

Environmental laboratory. Ms. Smallwood –– 4291

Purchase tax on sale of Expo lands. Mr. Sihota –– 4291

Post-secondary education funding. Mr. Jones –– 4291

Sale of B.C. Hydro gas division. Mr. Clark –– 4292

Fisheries landing requirement. Mr. Guno –– 4292

Purchase tax on sale of Expo lands. Mr. Sihota –– 4292

Tabling Documents –– 4294

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Tourism, Recreation and Culture estimates.

(Hon. Mr. Reid)

On vote 65: minister's office –– 4294

Mr. Sihota

Mr. Lovick

Ms. Edwards

Mr. Chalmers

Mr. R. Fraser

Mr. Vant

Mr. Bruce

Speaker's ruling on matter of privilege –– 4307

The House met at 2:07 p.m.

MR. PELTON :

Hon. members, in the gallery today we have quite a number of members of

the various real estate boards from around the province. I have a great

deal of pleasure in introducing some of them to you, and ask that you

welcome them here today. From Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board

is Ms. Liz Tutt; from Fraser Valley Real Estate Board: Evan Brett,

Colin Dreyer, Dale Featherstone, Otto Comehis, Brian Atchison and Al

Terry; and from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver: Mr. John

Eastwood, Mr. Brian Calder, and a very special friend of our Speaker,

Mr. Ron Downey from West Vancouver, Mr. Firoz Lakhani, Mr. Dennis

Meakin and Mr. Bob Scragg. I would ask the House to make them welcome,

please.

MS. EDWARDS : I have three people to

introduce today. On advice that Mr. Brian Tully is here from the

Kootenay Real Estate Board, a very active citizen in my community, and

knowing that Pat Conroy of the real estate board is here, I welcome

both of them and ask the House to join me.

I would also like to introduce my son who is here from Ottawa, Allan Edwards.

HON. MR. COUVELIER :

Mr. Speaker, as usual, the Minister of Finance is a little slow off the

mark. I should have got up first of all to welcome the president of the

B.C. Real Estate Association, and my colleagues were so keen to get

their parochial partisanship exhibited publicly that I never had the

chance to do the appropriate thing. I'd like to do that now.

It's

my pleasure to introduce Mr. Barry Clark, president of the B.C. Real

Estate Association, together with a group of delegates representing 13

real estate boards throughout the province who are currently in

Victoria to attend a B.C. Real Estate Association workshop and who have

taken time this afternoon to observe this session. I'm sure all members

of the House welcome them most heartily to our deliberations this

afternoon.

MR. VANT : In regard to that vast

gathering in the gallery immediately behind you, Mr. Speaker, I take

great pleasure in introducing in particular Mr. Wayne Jenkins of the

Cariboo Real Estate Board, Mr. Larry Good of the Kamloops Real Estate

Board, Ms. Marie Stonehouse of the Northern Lights Real Estate Board,

Mrs. Rusty Ljungh of the Northwest Real Estate Board, Mr. Lee Bliss of

the Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board, Ms. Sharon Smalley of the

Powell River Sunshine Coast Real Estate Board, and Mr. John Martens of

the South Okanagan Real Estate Board. I know the House will want to

give them a very warm welcome.

HON. MR. DUECK : The

real estate fraternity has certainly had its share of introductions

today. However, I would feel slanted or shunted if I did not also wish

them well, because I think I'm the only one who is still a member of

the British Columbia Real Estate Association and the Canadian Real

Estate Association — as a retired member, of course. I also want to

voice my welcome to these people.

Secondly, there are members in the precinct today from the Multiple Sclerosis

Society. This society does much to help the Ministry of Health in their endeavours

to keep costs down and look after people in need. Would the House please welcome

them.

HON. MR. SAVAGE :

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise in this assembly to

welcome all the real estate people, but significantly for my portfolio,

with us today in the gallery is Mr. Alan Brock, chairman of the Grape

Marketing Board, and also blessing us with his presence is the chairman

of the B.C. Turkey Marketing Board, Mr. Jim Pennington. Would this

assembly please make them welcome.

MR. HARCOURT : I

would like to extend our welcome to the Legislature also to the various

real estate boards, in particular the Real Estate Board of Greater

Vancouver. I would like to point out that one of the members of that

board is Brian Calder who, along with Margot Sinclair, has the unique

distinction of being a graduate of Sir Winston Churchill high school,

the finest high school in British Columbia.

HON. MR. REID : Two more votes.

MR. HARCOURT :

You're going to need a lot more, so there's two more for you. I would

like to bring greetings to the various members of the real estate

boards here today.

As well, I would like you to welcome the

New Democratic candidate who has been nominated to run in Alberni. His

name is Gerard Janssen. He is here with the other Marlene Dietrich, who

will be his campaign manager. Would you bring greetings to them both.

well, we have Bill Barlee, who is going to be the New Democrat

candidate in Boundary-Similkameen. We look forward to welcoming him to

the House. Would you bring greetings to him also.

HON. S. HAGEN :

I can't let this opportunity go by. We have in the precincts today the

past president of the B.C. Real Estate Association, as well as the past

president of the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board, Mr. Marty Douglas,

who resides in the beautiful riding of Comox.

HON. MR. REID :

I'd like the House to make a special welcome to some of the people who

work in the Ministry of Tourism. They are here today watching the

estimates and the actions of the interested opposition in dealing with

the most positive ministry of government. We have with us today: Mr.

Jim Doswell, Pauline Rafferty, Wayne Carter, Richard Brownsey, Evelyn

Greene, Ellie Stadt, Jim Lee and Harry Diemer — almost my total staff

here paying interest to today's debate.

MR. ROSE : I

don't know whether we're finished introducing the members of the real

estate boards or not, but I'd just like to remind the House, and you

too, Mr. Speaker, that this is the fifth anniversary of the 1983

election. I think it's wonderful that all of us, eight in number, who

came in as new members have survived to today. I'd like to congratulate

each one of us.

[2:15]

MR. CHALMERS :

It's not often I have the opportunity to contradict the Minister of

Health, but he is not the only sitting member of one of the 13 real

estate boards throughout the province. In real life I am also a

realtor, and proud of that fact.

[ Page 4290 ]

Interjections.

MR. CHALMERS :

I don't think I had. I had the pleasure of serving as the president of

the Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board in 1976. I served as a

director of the B.C. Real Estate Association and chairman of their

legislative committee. I certainly welcome all of those present today,

but in particular Roger Cottle, who is the executive officer of the

Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board, from the best riding in the

province of British Columbia, Okanagan South.

MR. MICHAEL :

I would like to introduce to the House today the current president of

the Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board, Andy Krivak, from the great

constituency of Shuswap-Revelstoke, the town of Salmon Arm, the gem of

the Shuswap.

MR. R. FRASER : I think I'm the one

you're all waiting for. I think I'm the last introduction today — and I

don't want to introduce any of those real estate guys, either. I would

like to welcome to the House students from that great school in

Vancouver South — one of the many good schools in the province of

British Columbia — Winston Churchill Secondary School. They are

visiting the Legislative Assembly with their teacher Mr. Goddard. Would

all of you join me in welcoming these students to Victoria.

MR. DAVIDSON :

Visiting with us today from Simcoe, Ontario, are Moya and Bob Mather.

They are accompanied by Shirley Cannon from Victoria. Would the House

please bid these people a very warm welcome.

MR. BRUCE :

I heard all these introductions being made in the House, and I just

rushed right in here because I couldn't let this opportunity pass. I

know that you'll join with me in welcoming one of the finest real

estate salesmen in the Cowichan Valley, Mrs. Dorothy Whittome.

Introduction of Bills

POLICE ACT

Hon. B.R. Smith presented a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled Police Act.

HON. B.R. SMITH :

This is the improved exposure Bill 43 from the last session, the Police

Act. Following that exposure in the Legislature, we received a number

of submissions from police boards and associations, chiefs of police,

the Federation of Police Officers and the B.C. Civil Liberties

Association. Following those representations, we made some changes.

decided to strengthen and expand the B.C. Police Commission so they

would have additional membership and the ability to provide for persons

to serve on panels to hear appeals in citizen's complaint matters, and

to increase their powers to investigate.

I guess the most

interest will be in the office of the complaint commissioner. His

office has been strengthened considerably so that he will now be

notified of all complaints made against any member of a municipal

police force. He will be able to get full information about those

complaints. He will also be able to intervene and interview and take

statements in investigations, and if not satisfied that local police

boards and forces are able to carry out an adequate investigation, he

can request the B.C. Police Commission to conduct a full inquiry.

There

are also a number of changes dealing with other procedural parts of

policing, but there is one change that may be of interest in dealing

with the dismissal of police constables. The current Police Act was

somewhat vague on that and allowed the use of the Labour Code or the

Industrial Relations Act or the Police Act discipline regulations.

Because of that confusion, we've removed that uncertainty so that the

process for dismissing police constables now is the Police Act

discipline regulations. That, I think, is long overdue; it was very

confusing.

We will be working with the police associations

to try and update and modernize our police regulations, so I think the

bill will be well received. I have the honour to introduce the bill and

have it read a first time now.

Bill 21 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.

AN ACT TO FEED HUNGRY SCHOOL CHILDREN

Mr. Cashore presented a bill intituled

An Act to Feed Hungry School Children.

MR. CASHORE :

Mr. Speaker, this is a reintroduction of a bill that was introduced in

the last session. It has received tremendous response and support from

educators, social workers, public health nurses and school boards. But

also, Mr. Speaker, none of that support is as important as the support

it has received from people who are involved in food banks, low-income

people and single parents. It provides an opportunity for partnership

between the federal and provincial governments through the Canada

Assistance Plan.

Mr. Speaker, a decent breakfast or lunch

is not too much to ask for our future — our children. A hungry child is

a child at risk. This bill is a practical, cost-effective step toward

removing that risk.

Bill M204 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.

LIFE BIBLE COLLEGE ACT

Mrs. Gran presented a bill intituled Life Bible College Act.

Bill

PR402 introduced, read a first time and referred to the Select Standing

Committee on Standing Orders, Private Bills and Members' Services.

Oral Questions

DRILLING PERMIT FOR

SOUTH MORESBY NATIONAL PARK

MR. GUNO :

My question is to the Minister of Energy, and it concerns the drilling

permit issued for land in the South Moresby National Park reserve. Was

the minister advised by the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Strachan)

that the provincial Fish and Wildlife biologists in the area recom-

[ Page

4291 ]

mended against issuing this drilling permit because of possible habitat damage in the Salmon River watershed?

HON. MR. DAVIS :

Prior to granting the right to drill five holes, my ministry contacted

three federal ministries and the relevant provincial ministries, and

they all agreed that that step was not only permitted under the

agreement between B.C. and Canada to develop the park but was also part

of the process that both Canada and B.C. endorsed. The answer is really

yes. All ministries, federal and provincial, in effect, approved the

drilling.

MR. GUNO : A supplementary. The Minister of

Energy must have known that this would be a controversial decision and

an invitation to confrontation. Did the minister make any attempt to

consult the Haida before issuing this permit?

HON. MR. DAVIS :

The answer is no. There is a process; it was followed to the letter.

Among others, the federal Environment department also approved it. My

answer is no.

MR. GUNO : The minister states that he followed a legal process, but politically I would submit it's wrong.

supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Since the minister has decided to gamble on

the eventual cost of compensation by allowing the drilling to go ahead,

will he at least do this: will he go on record in the House today and

make a commitment that mining will never be allowed in South Moresby

National Park?

HON. MR. DAVIS : I can't make that

commitment as a minister, but my understanding of the agreement between

British Columbia and Canada is precisely to that result.

ENVIRONMENTAL LABORATORY

MS. SMALLWOOD :

My question is to the Minister of Environment and Parks. Mr. Minister,

I would like you to confirm for the House that your staff is having a

meeting with the environment lab tomorrow and the purpose of that

meeting is to announce the partial sale and the partial closure of the

same facility.

HON. MR. STRACHAN : No, I will not confirm, deny or make any further comment about that.

MS. SMALLWOOD :

I will assume from that that my information is correct. The minister

admitted months ago that there is potential for a conflict of interest

in the sale of that lab, in that private companies will be doing the

testing. Has the minister dealt with that potential conflict, and can

he advise the House how he has dealt with it?

HON. MR. STRACHAN :

That's a good question. The answer is yes, I have dealt with it, and

the mechanism or remedy will be explained at a later date.

MS. SMALLWOOD :

In addition, there are concerns about guarantees of standards for

testing and enforcement of those standards. Can the minister assure

this House that he has also dealt with that, and give us that

information?

HON. MR. STRACHAN : The previous answer will apply to that question.

PURCHASE TAX ON SALE OF EXPO LANDS

MR. SIHOTA :

I have a question to the Minister of Finance. Mr. Murphy of BCEC has

indicated that the Expo deal will be registered at $145 million. Yet

the property purchase tax indicates that the tax payable should reflect

fair market value, which of course is $320 million on that transaction.

If the tax is paid at $145 million instead of $320 million, the

treasury stands to lose a significant amount of income, and of course

the act will be violated. Will the minister assure this House that the

tax will be paid in keeping with the property purchase tax, namely $320

million?

HON. MR. COUVELIER : I'm surprised at the

thrust of the question. I had understood from previous comments made by

members of our loyal opposition that they were objecting to the

suggestion that the property might be worth $320 million net present

value. If by virtue of the question — the way it was framed — the

opposition are implying that they now are prepared to approve the

concept that the value is $320 million, then I could understand the

logic of the question, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SIHOTA : Just

a simple yes or no question to the Minister of Finance. Will the

property purchase tax be paid reflecting a price of $320 million? Yes

or no.

HON. MR. COUVELIER : As my earlier comment

indicated, Mr. Speaker, the members of the loyal opposition themselves

had said $320 million is not the price paid for the Expo lands. In an

abundance of fairness and caution and sensitivity to the concerns of

the opposition, we will likely not record the property purchase tax

valuation on $320 million, because the members of the opposition have

claimed publicly that they wish it not to be so.

The fact

of the matter is that there is a process by which property purchase tax

is adjudicated when we have complicated property deals which are based

upon unknown or unquantified future expectations. That process is in

place and has been in place since the time we introduced the bill;

therefore there should be no confusion in the hon. member's mind about

how it works. Clearly the valuation will be made on net present value

calculations, as the process dictated.

May I add that all

bidders on the property were well aware of the arrangements by which

property purchase tax would be calculated, and the process is unfolding

and the decision in terms of the adjudication will be made in due

course. I trust that by virtue of the opposition's earlier stated claim

that $320 million is not the value of the Expo land, they would then

not criticize property purchase tax being assessed on the basis of net

present value.

[2:30]

POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION FUNDING

MR. JONES :

I have question for the Minister of Advanced Education and JobTrac

regarding the suddenly found $100 million in matching grants for

industry-sponsored special projects at universities. Given the kinds of

problems that have recently come to light at BCIT and the University of

Victoria, can the minister make a commitment at this time to provide an

adequate level of operating and capital funds for the ongoing programs

at our post-secondary institutions?

[ Page 4292 ]

HON. S. HAGEN :

I'm very pleased that the member opposite has recognized the benefits

of the $100 million matching capital fund announced by the Premier of

the province on Monday evening. This will provide great opportunities

for the three universities of the province to complete some of the

projects that they wish to complete. It also provides a great

opportunity for the private sector to show the confidence that they

have, obviously, in our university system. I can assure you that this

government will continue, as it has done in the past, to provide

sufficient operating funds for the entire post-secondary system.

MR. JONES :

Does the minister not recognize that we have starved certain

institutions, that there are serious problems in the infrastructures of

our universities, and at the same time the minister is providing $100

million for special projects that are really not in the main interest

of the kinds of things the universities should be doing, particularly

in terms of providing increased access for post-secondary students in

this province?

HON. S. HAGEN : I would say that if

industry and business out there felt that the universities were not

doing a good job in this province, then they would not have committed

in excess of $20 million to UBC and in excess of $16 million to Simon

Fraser University.

MR. JONES : Supplementary to the

same minister. Does the minister see the industries of this province

replacing the government's responsibility to provide adequate funds for

normal operating programs at our post-secondary institutions? Will it

in future be up to industry to fulfil responsibilities not fulfilled by

the government?

HON. S. HAGEN : I'm pleased to say

that industry and business have come forward on a volunteer basis

because of the matching program that was instituted by this government.

They want to play a

part in the capital initiatives that the

universities are undertaking. If they want to come forward and

contribute to operating, that's up to them. Our initiative is with

regard to capital.

SALE OF B.C. HYDRO GAS DIVISION

MR. CLARK :

A question to the Minister of Energy. The government allowed the sale

of West Kootenay Power and Light to the American-based Utilicorp

United. It has now been confirmed that Utilicorp is bidding on the gas

division of B.C. Hydro, as are Li Ka-shing and other offshore bidders.

Has the government decided to allow the sale of this monopoly resource

to a foreign company, or is there a preference given to British

Columbia bidders?

HON. MR. DAVIS : When the request

went out for expressions of interest, it was indicated that those

interested in purchasing shares in the new private corporation should

indicate what arrangements they were prepared to make relative to

employees of the new gas company and British Columbians generally. Of

course, there were definite statements as to the head office being in

British Columbia, a minimum of three-quarters of the directors having

to reside here, and so on. Beyond those conditions, no statement can be

made as yet. Tomorrow night we will know what the expressions of

interest are and from whom.

FISHERIES LANDING REQUIREMENT

MR. GUNO :

My question is to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. The United

States government has announced that it is opposed to the Canadian

position on the west coast fishery, namely a landing requirement for

fish caught in our waters. Has the minister decided to take action

today to ensure that the Mulroney government does not buckle under to

American pressure.

HON. MR. SAVAGE : The answer is yes.

MR. GUNO : Will the minister inform the House exactly what action he will be taking.

HON. MR. SAVAGE :

We tried to contact Mr. Siddon this morning and my staff is following

up on it. We are very diligently pursuing the fact that the landing

requirement is a must for conservation purposes, to make sure that we

have a resource for the people in the future.

MR. GUNO :

Supplementary. As recently as April 22, the minister refused to give a

guarantee that when the landing requirements are put in place there

would be no jobs lost in British Columbia's fishing industry. Does the

minister have any studies that quantify the job losses, or is it his

position that he would rather not know?

HON. MR. SAVAGE :

I wouldn't want to contemplate or speculate on the efficiency of

business as it relates to job security. A business has to make that

decision. Whether it stays in business has nothing to do with a study.

It is the effective, efficient operation that will keep that particular

processor competitive.

PURCHASE TAX ON SALE OF EXPO LANDS

MR. SIHOTA :

A question back to the Minister of Finance. Could the minister, who has

admitted that there will be property purchase tax payable, tell this

House at what price that property tax will be paid. What will be the

price, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. COUVELIER : As I

indicated with my earlier answer to the same kind of question, the

adjudication of the net present value of property purchase tax on deals

as complicated as this and dealing with future expectations as this one

does has been set out. It's a matter of procedure and form. There will

be adjudications held on that question, and they will be concluded

within a reasonable period of time -my guess is before the end of this

calendar month. That has been in place with the legislation since its

inception.

All the bidders were made aware that that is how

the net present value would be calculated. There should be nothing

surprising in our sticking to the procedures. As the hon. member, I

hope, will have the good heart to admit, we have stuck to the

procedures with zealous conviction throughout this whole B.C.

Enterprise-B.C. Place land transaction, and our adherence to that

principle is exhibited by our insistence that the practice laid out in

the legislation be followed in this instance.

HON. MR. STRACHAN : On May 2 the Leader of the Opposition tendered material dealing with a possible ques-

[ Page 4293 ]

tion

of privilege regarding statements made by the Premier. That day, the

hon. Attorney-General (Hon. B.R. Smith), on my behalf, reserved the

government's right of response until such time as I could review the

possible merits of the material tendered. I thank you, sir, for the

time allowed me to review the material. The Leader of the Opposition,

in presenting his material, kind of rambled around and suggested that

there was media coverage that I should review. I have had the

opportunity to review that material.

The material tendered

by the Leader of the Opposition attempts to link the Premier to

corporate involvement with Mr. Peter Toigo. That corporate involvement

was defined in a question posed April 25 by the member for

Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota). I'll quote from Hansard

of April 25. The member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew said: "The question

to the Premier — because I'm sure he will want to clear the record on

this matter — is: will he assure the House that there are no personal

or corporate financial obligations — loans, guarantees, debentures and

the like — between himself and Mr. Toigo, or between their respective

companies?"

The member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew says in a

subsequent question: "I...want...the record clear on this matter. What

about any corporate transactions in the same sense I just outlined

earlier on?" — referring, of course, to "personal or corporate

financial obligations, loans, guarantees, debentures and the like."

The Premier's response that day was: "I have no corporate involvements" — in that sense.

Tuesday, April 26, the Leader of the Opposition rose to say that "Mr.

Toigo is a tenant in Fantasy Gardens" and attempted a corporate

involvement connection between the Premier and Mr. Toigo. Mr. Speaker,

it is commonly known that the Premier is involved in Fantasy Gardens.

There has never been any attempt to mislead anyone on that question,

and it has been known for some time. It's probably the best known

business ownership in British Columbia at this point.

has also been publicly stated, with no thought of misleading anyone,

that the Premier has a 30 percent minority position in Fantasy Gardens.

That quote is attributed to the Premier in a newspaper story dated

April 27 which the Leader of the Opposition referred to the House. I

thank him for providing me with evidence that the Premier does have

that 30 percent minority position in Fantasy Gardens.

It is

also widely known, without thought of misleading anyone, that the

Premier's wife, Mrs. Lillian Vander Zalm, is the manager and operator

of Fantasy Gardens. and in that sense it has been said over and over

again, with some pride by the Premier, that his wife manages Fantasy

Gardens and does it quite well. Reference is made on March 23, 1988, in

our Hansard by the Premier to

his wife's being involved in this business. That was in response to a

statement by the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe). If people

weren't aware of Mrs. Vander Zalm's involvement and management of that

business through other means, they certainly would be by the evidence

and information provided in Hansard .

to Fantasy Gardens, managed by Mrs. Vander Zalm, there are tenants. One

of those tenants is Mr. Toigo. From that landlord-tenant relationship,

the Leader of the Opposition is desperately attempting to establish the

case that there are obligations defined by the member for

Esquimalt-Port Renfrew as "loans, guarantees, debentures and the like."

We should also, in looking at Hansard ,

note that the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew, in posing his

questions, clearly said "personal or corporate financial obligations,

loans, guarantees, debentures and the like," but did not mention

leases. If one were cynical one might think that's a trick question,

but I wouldn't think that. Nevertheless, it's clear what type of

connection he was trying to draw.

It's obvious there is no

such connection between the Premier and Mr. Toigo, and the evidence is

clear. It's contained in the Premier's disclosure papers, it's

contained in Hansard , it's

contained in the media, and all these items make that abundantly clear.

Further. to use newspaper quotes attributed to the Premier as evidence

that the Premier is misleading is absurd in the extreme. To try to

convert a lease agreement between two companies into a motion of

privilege is desperate innuendo and must be dismissed out of hand.

MR. SIHOTA :

I did not have advance knowledge of what the minister was going to be

saying. so I just want to deal with what he's had to say, in that it

relates to the intent of my questions and an

interpretation of what I

had said and what indeed the Premier had said.

First of

all, to deal with the last matter, as I understood it in terms of lease

arrangements, Mr. Speaker, it was certainly in the contemplation of my

mind that lease agreements fall within the purview of financial

obligations between the corporations involved. A lease, in my

submission, is indeed a very common financial obligation whereby one

individual pays to another through a corporate form. So I don't think

it's fair for the minister to narrow to his liking what I had to say,

In addition to that, the purpose of my question and the wording of my

question was as broad-based as possible in order to try to capture the

full breadth of relationships personal and corporate between the

Premier and Mr. Toigo.

I must also venture to say that if

one is to suggest that my comments were not sufficiently broad, one

must also look at the response of the Premier. The Premier certainly

chose to broaden the scope of his response when he referred to — and I

quote — "no corporate involvement."

AN HON. MEMBER : Period.

MR. SIHOTA :

Period. He did not qualify it in terms of financial encumbrances. He

went to a further level, in keeping with what I would submit was my

intention. to talk about corporate involvements. It's important to

note, Mr. Speaker, that the Premier in his response between the first

question and the second question moved from the word "obligation" to

the word "involvement." Surely then, Mr. Speaker, he must have

understood the tenor of my question to be broad because of his own

usage of language that was broad in the second reply. So there was a

complete understanding of what I was trying to get at by the time I

asked him the second question.

[2:45]

Nonetheless,

Mr. Speaker, it must also be pointed out that the matter raised by the

Leader of the Opposition dealt with corporate involvements. The Premier

was specifically asked as to the matter of corporate involvements, and

indeed the record is clear now that there were indeed corporate

involvements between the two parties.

I submit, Mr.

Speaker, that one cannot distinguish between, or play down the

significance of. those corporate involvements simply because the

Premier holds a 30 percent interest; and I trust that nothing will turn

on the matter of the 30 percent interest. Of course, it was the Premier

himself who had said at one point that whether Lillian owned it or he

[ Page 4294 ]

owned

it, no one would really believe that he did not have a stake in the

matter, and that stake is reflected in that 30 percent interest. That,

of course, is a minimum interest, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the 30

percent interest. I certainly ask you to keep that in mind, and my

comments as they relate to this issue, when you make your deliberations

on this important matter.

MR. ROSE : I thought there might be more argument from the other side; that's why I was somewhat hesitant getting up.

congratulate the House Leader of the government for a spirited, if

rather weak, defence. I think he's been taking elocution lessons from

the Minister of Finance, because while it was a weak argument, it was

certainly laden with bafflegab.

MR. SPEAKER : I would

remind the member that the Speaker is here to take submissions on a

question of privilege, not to listen to a debate between both sides.

MR. ROSE :

Mr. Speaker, I think we should remind ourselves that the question of

Mrs. Vander Zalm's involvement has really nothing to do with it, and it

shouldn't necessarily have been part of the hon. House Leader's

response.

May I just say once again that the debate is

between two responses: one which said "no obligations," and one which

said "no involvement." Now when the minister responded to you to advise

you, Mr. Speaker, he said very little of that word "involvement" —

because definitely there has been an involvement.

finally, Mr. Speaker, let me just remind us all that the argument

before Mr. Speaker is really one of whether or not there is a prima

facie case for privilege. Mr. Speaker, as we all know, does not decide

privilege but whether or not there is a case for this Legislature to

express itself on that subject, or whether or not there was a

misleading response given by the Premier.

So with that, I

commend this argument to Mr. Speaker and wish him godspeed and all

kinds of intelligence to be brought to bear on this question.

Hon. B.R. Smith filed the annual report of the Law Reform Commission of British Columbia.

Orders of the Day

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

TOURISM, RECREATION AND CULTURE

(continued)

On vote 65: minister's office, $243,459.

MR. SIHOTA :

I shan't be long, Mr. Chairman. I just want to deal with a number of

matters in my own riding and bring them to the attention of the

Minister of Tourism. I want to say at the outset to the minister that

none of what I have to say will cost his ministry anything, so it's not

a dollar request. I know we often get into matters that have cost

implications. This one has a cost implication, but not to his ministry.

I have

the wonderful responsibility of representing the riding of

Esquimalt-Port Renfrew, which contains some of the best beach areas in

Canada, let alone British Columbia and southern Vancouver Island. The

experience of my riding is no different, I am sure, than a lot of other

places in this province, in that we have a very vibrant set of chambers

of commerce working up and down the coast trying to bring about

increased tourist participation and trying to pick up on the volume of

tourist business that comes into Victoria, with a view to encouraging

people to spend an extra day or two in the Victoria area enjoying some

of the beautiful opportunities that exist up the coast as one leaves

the Western Communities.

We have a tremendous network of

parks in my riding, and I think the provincial government should be

congratulated for now having placed Botanical Beach among those

beautiful parks. We have a string of parks from Saxe Point in my

riding, or Macaulay Point, to all of the beaches in the Western

Communities — Witty's Lagoon, Albert Head and so on — and then into

Sooke, the beautiful beach at Jordan River, China Beach, French Beach,

Point No Point and then over to Port Renfrew, the launching pad for the

West Coast Trail.

It's a beautiful area, and it's really

underserviced from a tourist point of view, or perhaps under visited is

the best way of putting it. There is a lot of potential, a lot of

desire on the part of people out there to get more tourists in. But the

problem is that we don't have our share of tourists coming there. I

want to tell the minister why that is the case.

I should

also tell the minister we have some of the best fishing and recreation

facilities in the province. It's really an outstanding area. They often

have in sports a reward or trophy for the unsung hero, and this should

be the unsung portion of B.C. that just doesn't seem to get its share

of notoriety.

However, there is one basic problem that we

have in the area, and that is that we don't have an adequate road from

the Western Communities into Sooke, and from Sooke into Port Renfrew.

Worse still we don't provide tourists with an opportunity to circle

their way into the interior of the Island to Lake Cowichan and Duncan

as an alternative route up the Island instead of having to come all the

way back up and go over the Malahat.

Instead of making a dollar request — and I know there are

communities in my riding that would like to see more tourism money — I

would just like to ask the minister if I can enlist his support in

lobbying the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Rogers) for the provision

of an adequate road at least into Sooke as a starting point, and

certainly into Port Renfrew, to make sure we've got what we need to get

the people in there. We've got such a beautiful set of beaches there

and such tremendous tourism potential that it's sad we haven't provided

the transportation network necessary to promote this very beautiful

area of British Columbia, an area in which I'm sure we all on both

sides of the House take a tremendous amount of pride. I trust that I

can enlist the minister's support in lobbying the Minister of Highways

on this matter.

HON. MR. REID : The answer is yes.

MR. LOVICK :

There are a number of things I would like to talk about with the

Minister of Tourism during his estimates, but I promised my colleague

the critic, the member for Kootenay (Ms. Edwards), that I would be

brief, and I will focus my remarks very specifically on privatization

and campgrounds, and just a couple of questions to the minister about

that.

[ Page 4295 ]

First,

however, by way of getting a sort of token gesture towards my own

constituency, let me say that I am pleased to see the minister

accompanied by his deputy, formerly from Nanaimo, and I hope that the

personal connection I have with the deputy will stand me in good stead

and the minister will listen to the lobbying going on on my behalf,

indirectly.

Having said that, I want to start by posing a

very direct question to the minister. I refer him to March 23 in the

Legislature when my colleague the member for Kootenay posed a question

during question period, to wit: she wanted to know whether this

minister had done any research showing that privatization of park

campgrounds and risking a decline in the quality of park services would

not affect B.C.'s tourism industry, particularly family vacation by

tourists. The minister's response — and entirely understandable given

the dynamic and the pressure of question period — was effectively to

avoid the question.

I'll repeat the minister's answer, and

then I'm going to give him an opportunity to answer the question as

originally put. The minister's answer was: "In answer to the member,

our research tells us that the interest in parks in the province of

British Columbia accelerated in 1987 over 1986 and we see any move to

increase tourism into the parks as a positive move." I'm sure the

minister would agree with me that is not by any stretch of anybody's

imagination an answer to the question.

To be sure, Mr.

Minister, it's absolutely correct that the ministry can point with

pride to the increase in campground utilization. Indeed, I have the

statistics: in 1985, campground attendance was 1,963,800; in 1986, a

figure of 2,008,500; and in 1987, wonder of wonders, 2,227,000. Good

stuff, as members on your side are fond of saying.

The

first obvious question, to use the horrible clich, is: if it ain't

broke, why fix it? Given your marvelous track record of encouraging

attendance and increased utilization of those facilities, why are we

taking a chance on jeopardizing the whole enterprise by talking about

privatization? Would the minister care to respond to that?

HON. MR. REID :

First of all, I wouldn't for a moment suggest that privatization of

campgrounds reduces the effectiveness and the quality of the product,

which that member seems to indicate. As you know, in previous years we

have had an accelerated program in privatizing the current park system,

so about three-quarters of it is already privatized.

The

decision made by the Minister of Environment and Parks (Hon. Mr.

Strachan) this year is to privatize the balance, only because we've had

a very successful two to three years previous experience with

privatizing 154 parks out of the system of, I think, 200; I don't know

the exact number. The success so far has been nothing short of

phenomenal. The numbers continue to come back indicating to us that

what we're doing is right. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. It isn't

broke; what we're doing is making it better.

MR. LOVICK :

I guess it's true that beauty, and everything else, is in the eye of

the beholder. It would seem to me that there is considerable room and

grounds for debate in terms of the so-called success of privatization.

Indeed, when we talk to the estimates of the Minister of Environment

and Parks, then I think we may be putting some pressure on some of

those conclusions with reference specifically to places like Manning

Park, Cypress Bowl and others.

I don't want to take up a

lot of time, but I know you are an enthusiast. I know you are one who

believes passionately and vehemently in the role of the importance of

tourism and you have become, I think, a very good spokesperson for

that. I commend you on that. What I want to suggest, though, is that

you ought to, consonant and consistent with that role, be a

spokesperson for the preservation of a system that has served the

province well.

Let me remind the minister of the document

from the ministry that came out warning about the dangers of

privatization of campground facilities. I'm sorry I didn't have time to

go and dig out all of my files, so I'm giving you rather an second-hand

source, for the benefit of your advisers, namely the Times-Colonist

editorial of Sunday, April 3. In quoting that government document, it

says there that one has to be on guard and aware of disadvantages which

could include: "pressure to commercialize campgrounds to ensure

viability, operators dictating park management, reduction in quality of

facilities to allow easier maintenance and conflict with free public

access." That, it strikes me, is a pretty powerful bill against

privatization.

[3:00]

Moreover, we

have some other evidence. We have, for example, the illustrations from

the province of Ontario where we have gone through this scenario before

and where Ontario, with the election of the Peterson government now, is

attempting to turn back the clock, saying: "We made a mistake in our

efforts towards privatization, and we're going to reverse that policy."

Similarly. we have the example of the state of Washington where

effectively the privatization arguments have been judged and found

wanting. Washington has taken a position based on the most available

and up-to-date information that we can locate, which says in effect

that we are not going to trust the public trust to the concessionaires

or private-sector operators. In other words, the so-called gains,

conclude the people in Washington, are simply insufficient to justify

the experiment.

I would suggest to the minister that I do

not think there is much evidence — if any — to demonstrate that the

public interest will be served by the privatization of campgrounds in

this province. I would ask the minister to please — if I am wrong —

share with us some of that information and those studies.

MR. CHAIRMAN :

Just before I recognize the minister, the second member for Nanaimo, at

the beginning of his short discourse, did mention the fact that the

subject he was going to elucidate on would fall much better under the

purview of the Minister of Environment and Parks (Hon. Mr. Strachan)

during his estimates. I say that he is absolutely right, and insofar as

the privatization process might affect tourism, I suppose it is a fair

question. Other than that, I would say that the discussion is not

really germane to the administration of the Minister of Tourism,

Recreation and Culture, but if the minister wants to respond, it is

entirely up to him.

MR. LOVICK : I appreciate the

guidance you provide and certainly shall accept it. I simply would like

to implore the minister, as this enthusiast, this spokesperson for the

public interest in the name of tourism, to use whatever influence and

good offices he has to deal with his colleagues in cabinet, to suggest

that we are dealing with something precious, significant and very

successful indeed, and that they must be able to provide him with good

and compelling evidence before that program will go any further.

Perhaps the minister would care

[ Page 4296 ]

to respond to that and give us some assurance that he is prepared to do so.

HON. MR. REID :

Without getting into the subject any deeper, I do have a concern that

there may be a downside to the privatization of the additional parks.

I'm not aware of them at the moment. The additional parks have been

considered for privatization in 1988, but I give the member the

assurance that I get mail on a regular basis from people all across

North America who have visited here. I can tell him without question

that I received not one single complaint in 1987 in relation to those

parks which are currently privatized. Whether it is something to be

concerned about, I will tell the member that if I get any

correspondence on it, I'll certainly make it available to him to

indicate that we are watching it very closely.

[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]

MS. EDWARDS :

Mr. Minister, it's difficult to get over all the issues that deal with

tourism in your estimates, because so many things affect tourism, and

so often you are left to be the advocate for some other ministry. You

can run it down: Finance, Highways, Parks, and so on.

You'll

be happy to know that I want now to talk a bit about the Royal British

Columbia Museum and the heritage parks in British Columbia. We

canvassed this issue last year, before and after the estimates, because

we were talking about the imposition of fees. The fees were very steep,

and that opinion is still extant, I might say, and I hear it

frequently, even among people who are not that out of favour with

having fees at all.

The $5 fee put an immediate block in

front of people visiting the attractions. It was imposed in the middle

of the season. It prevented a lot of people from visiting, and the

figures very clearly show it. Just for a quick review of a few of the

figures, I believe you expected to bring in $2.4 million from the Royal

British Columbia Museum last year, and it brought in $600,000. As I

understand it, if you make calculations based on that, the other

attractions didn't bring in what you expected either — about $100,000

at Fort Steele and slightly over that at Barkerville. The attendance at

Fort Steele was the most disappointing. I certainly know that

Barkerville was up slightly. I also know that there are a number of

people who don't believe the figures there are particularly

representative of what happened. So there is a great deal of

discouragement, disappointment and concern about what happened with the

fees.

To go to one of the first points that I wanted to

make about this.... It's a statement you made the other day, Mr.

Minister. You said: "Because of the amount of money that I commissioned

on behalf of the facilities to be spent on behalf of these attractions,

I think I won the argument on behalf of the facilities." I'm not quite

sure what that means; it was in answer to a question about getting

money out of general revenue to put back into the facilities, which is

what you promised would happen when you imposed the fees. You have said

that you think you won an argument on behalf of the facilities. I know,

Mr. Minister, that you said last year in estimates that you had

budgeted $500,000 just for Fort Steele and Barkerville. I am curious to

know whether you are putting that much more into the full amount. Is it

$200,000 more than this $500,000 that you put into the plant last year

at Fort Steele and Barkerville? Can you elaborate on exactly what has

happened because of the imposition of fees that is better for those

attractions?

MR. CHAIRMAN : Shall vote 65 pass?

MS. EDWARDS :

I guess the minister, since he didn't stand up, is not going to answer.

I have to assume from that that the minister has nothing to say to the

question — that nothing better has happened in those facilities because

of the imposition of fees. I agree with him.

That being the

case, however, I might say that I could take the minister back to a few

things that he said. When he imposed the fees on July 10, he said: "If

and when we find, after the application of the fees, much to the

surprise of this minister, that in fact there is nobody going to the

museum" — and I believe that was probably a broad statement; I don't

want to be caught finding you talking only about a museum when we're

talking about all three facilities — "...and now we have to put some

money into it from other sources, we'll have to revisit it."

will ask the minister if he would respond on his promise that if the

fees didn't do what they were expected to do, he would revisit the

question. I don't think he ever defined "revisit," but I assume he

meant he would review and evaluate, and if changes were found to be

necessary, he would make them.

HON. MR. REID : Mr.

Chairman, I'm going to generalize, if I can, about the question of

admission fees, and make it abundantly clear to that member, if she's

not clear and she'd like to make a note of it: there will be no change

in policy relative to the admission fees in the attractions run by this

ministry. We will weigh the question of free days on occasion and the

question of the total charge per admission. But the response we're

getting, both in 1987 and already in '88, is that two-thirds of the

people attending the attractions are not unhappy with the admission fee

charged.

I'd like to read into the record, if I can, for

that member's edification — I'm a member of the Friends of the Royal

British Columbia Museum society of Victoria, so I am a recipient of

their publication called Discovery — the April 1988 edition:

"Visitor Survey Proves Fascinating:

"Since

July of 1987, detailed survey questionnaires have been handed out to

selected visitors through the Royal British Columbia Museum. The survey

was commissioned by the Ministry of Tourism, Recreation and Culture and

is being conducted at ten heritage sites around the province, including

Point Ellice House, Craigflower, Barkerville and Fort Steele. Much of

the work of conducting the survey at the museum is being done by the

information desk volunteers.

"Although the

survey will continue at the museum until July of 1988, some of the

results of the early portion's of the work are in, and they make for

fascinating study. We are beginning to get a very accurate picture of

who comes to our museum, why, what they do while here, and also what

they like about the museum and what they don't.

"The

survey form given to visitors contains 29 questions and takes about

five minutes to fill out. Answers are completed by filling in blank

squares on the forms, and the results are compiled by an optical

[ Page

4297 ]

reader. The number of visitors who have responded to the questionnaire

is high, so the reliability of the results is also high.

"Following are the highlights of the survey so far.

"Slightly

more females than males visit the museum. The median family income of

visitors during the summer and the fall was about $50,000. About 8

percent of our visitors in the summer and the fall lived within an hour

of the museum by car, while 16 percent came from the rest of B.C. This

means that about 76 percent of our visitors came from outside the

province. About 36 percent of our summer and fall visitors came from

Washington, Oregon and California while another 20 percent came from

the rest of the United States.

"The vast

majority of visitors came with other family members or friends in

groups of two, three or four. Fifty-five percent of our visitors use

cars and trucks to get to the museum, while 46 percent use the ferry.

About 31 percent use airlines. The median length of the visitors' stay

at the museum during the summer and fall was just over two hours. "

That contradicts the reporter in the Times-Colonist

this morning, who must have talked only to himself, because he sure

isn't talking to anybody else in Victoria about visits to the museums.

"The most common way that our museum visitors first heard

about the museum was word of mouth" — talking about a quality product in

downtown Victoria. "...two-thirds of our visitors felt that they received

excellent value for the money paid for admission.

"The

vast majority of visitors felt that authenticity was very important to

their enjoyment of the museum. Direct questions about specific exhibits

and public areas at the museum show that these have varying levels of

popularity with our visitors. The most-liked exhibits were Old Town and

the...foreshore. The open ocean, totem poles, mine shaft, Indian chiefs

exhibits were liked slightly less, while the archaeology dig was liked

least, although more than 50 percent of visitors still gave it an

excellent rating."

"The information desk

volunteers deserve a special note of thanks for their efforts in

handing out and explaining the questionnaire forms. "

want to make it abundantly clear: this is a production of the Friends

of the Royal British Columbia Museum from Victoria. I got it yesterday,

and I read it into the record so you understand that you're the only

one I know — and Jim Hume — that's opposed to admission fees at the

attractions in the province of British Columbia. By and large the

visitors, 76 percent of them, are happy with what they see for what

they get.

To be continually opposed to admission fees is

not a positive approach to progress in this province. They're in place.

Why don't you just agree to finally making the best of what we've got,

and that they're paying parts of the bills for restoration, they're

paying parts of the bills for the employment, they're paying parts of

the bills on behalf of the province to continue these great attractions.

[3:15]

MS. EDWARDS : If I were one of those people that sat down and just took

what was there because it happens to be there, I wouldn't be here.

I'll

tell you, when you read the results of those kinds of surveys, I don't

know why you don't recognize that the first thing that you're doing is

looking at the sample of the people that you've got. The people that

you're surveying are the people who went to the museum, so obviously,

right off the bat you're going to have a positive response, and second

of all, you ~ re going to have a much higher than average percentage of

people from outside the area. You know that from the beginning. If you

discount for that, you may not have as magnificent figures as you like.

I think that you need to take a look at some other things.

You

have taken the fees off Point Ellice House, Craigflower Manor, I

believe, and several others, although I can't get very good information

on this from your ministry. You have decided not to collect fees from

those particular attractions, where it was said they were going to be

imposed. If you never did impose the fees, maybe you could clarify

that. If you did, now you've taken them off, and why is that? Because

it costs so much to collect them?

Interjection.

MS. EDWARDS :

Okay, that being the case then, your figures about Fort Steele,

Barkerville and the Royal B.C. Museum are very clear. If it costs that

much to collect them, they didn't make anything on those fees at all.

They've probably made a loss. Certainly, if the predictions of what it

was going to cost to collect per fee.... You've really got losses at

those museums instead of gains. Instead of making $100,000, you've

probably.... I've forgotten the figures, but I have them here. We

calculated that, I put it out in a press release and I'm sure you've

seen it. I'm interested in knowing that. What you say is that you're

going to revisit when you find it doesn't work, but I haven't heard you

say how you're going to do it.

It's interesting to me, Mr.

Minister, when you say regularly that you want to keep people in the

province; you want to delay them at the communities where they stay. In

talking to the concessionaires at Fort Steele — which is the one

closest to me and so it's the one I talk about most, but it seems to me

to be broadly right — I'm told that if you can stop someone and get

them out of the car for 20 minutes, they will probably stay in the area

for two days. because the people at Fort Steele tell them about the

attractions in the area.

Now with the gates closed and

access to Fort Steele prohibited, they don't stop. They get out; they

find they can't go in; they can't get something to eat. They can't do

anything at Fort Steele if they stop. They don't get out of their cars

for that 20 minutes; they go to Banff. I think the whole business of

closing the gates and having no access to Fort Steele until 10 o'clock,

which is two hours later than it used to be last year, means that

people are not going to stay in the area. You very clearly said that

you want to have people stay in the area.

Last year in the middle of July they put on fees. The attendance dropped.

Interjection.

MS. EDWARDS :

I'm not going to argue that one again, Mr. Minister. Okay, even were we

to concede your figures that say that the rise was not as expected....

This year, instead of having as many hours of attendance, we have now

limited the hours of attendance. If somebody wants to go to Fort

Steele.... People have said for years that older people

[ Page 4298 ]

like

the cool of the morning and the cool of the evening to walk around Fort

Steele. It is, after all, just a ghost town to start with. That's what

they like to do.

Last year, when the fees were on, you had

many people in the area early and late. The gates were closed until 8

o'clock. This year the gates are closed until 10 o'clock in the

morning. If somebody wants to come.... By the way, the bus tours often

visit at 9 o'clock in the morning. I don't know whether they are going

to have special entry or whether they are just going to bypass it,

because there are a number of other reasons they might bypass Fort

Steele. They are going to go past, and at 10 o'clock the gates will

open and every adult pays $5.

That is, of course, until

1:30 in the afternoon, when the theatre opens. Now we have a

magnificent case. If you go in and go to the theatre, and you have your

ticket and voucher, which you get at the theatre.... As soon as you

have lined up to get a ticket to get into Fort Steele, you can go line

up to get into the Wild Horse Theatre. You can see the show, then go

back and line up at the front gate again to get a rebate on your

voucher. What kind of visitor satisfaction is that, Mr. Minister?

think what's happening with the whole business, with the locking of

gates and the charging of these high fees, is really restricting the

access of the public and the visitors to that attraction.

HON. MR. REID :

I am not going to spend all afternoon debating the decision to put fees

on Fort Steele. The fees are on at Fort Steele; we made the decision in

1988. The gates are never locked at Fort Steele; I want to make that

clear. The people who go between eight and ten in the morning don't

have to pay to get in. The admission fees start at ten in the morning

and go till 1:30 at the regular rate, and then, because the theatre

opens, which is one of the requests that member made to me last

year.... If you don't recall, a request you made was: would we give a

special concession to the people who want to go the theatre and see a

part of Fort Steele as part of their going to the theatre; would we not

consider a different admission fee? Which we agreed to do, and which is

a concession we made to that member, in respect of the question.

was a first-year trial, and we're convinced that that kind of thing

will work. If we had our druthers, we'd have the theatre right out near

the gate and we wouldn't have to charge people to enter if they're only

going to the theatre. We believe that the townsite of Fort Steele is so

attractive that the people who are only paying a portion will be happy

to do that.

We don't have the same response from the

travelling public that you're getting, that they're not happy to pay. I

am telling you we're not getting that kind of response. Our surveys

tell us that the public think they're getting more than their money's

worth for the entrance fees. So will you get off the fact that it's too

expensive? The people who are going there are happy to pay.

don't have the concerns you have about it being too expensive. Ten

dollars for a family for a year — my God, I think there is no better

break in the whole world for an attraction as great as Fort Steele! If

you would get on to positive talking about Fort Steele, attracting more

people to it rather than continuing to knock it, you'd probably put

more people in there and attract more money for the concessionaires,

which should be your mandate as a representative from the area.

MS. EDWARDS :

You consistently choose to talk about a different group of people than

I'm talking about. I am, of course, talking about the people who don't

go to Fort Steele because they find the entrance fee too great.

Interjection.

MS. EDWARDS :

I'd love to get them there, but I don't think we're going to get them

there by insisting that they have vouchers and have to go back and line

up to return a voucher for money back. That's not really the best way

to enjoy the experience of being in an 1890s mining town — carrying

vouchers back to a pay booth.

Mr. Minister, I also have to

comment to you that Fort Steele needs.... I asked you earlier what was

going back into Fort Steele, because it's a major issue. It's going to

become even more major as development is happening around. Perhaps

you've heard of a development down near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, which is

about three hours by highway from Fort Steele. It is an 1890s mining

town, which is almost the same thing as Fort Steele. It is a phony

mining town, an absolutely delightful experience, I am told. The U. S

and tour group markets will be affected. They have superior restaurant

facilities; they have restaurants for 150 to 200 people; they have

biplane rides; they have railway rides; and it is going to be a very

rich experience for the visitor with family who likes that kind of

thing. It's three hours down the road from Fort Steele. If you go the

other way into Alberta, you find the Frank Slide facility and the

attraction there and the Leitch collieries and then Head-Smashed-In

Buffalo Jump.

Interjection.

MS. EDWARDS : Right, the kind of thing that we understand here.

What

I'm saying to you, Mr. Minister, is that the absolute necessity for

some investment into the plant is there. It's obviously not going to

come out of $100,000 in fees at Fort Steele. I'm sure the same

situation applies, only a little differently, at the other facilities.

What is happening? What's going back into these facilities?

HON. MR. REID :

Mr. Chairman, we've just completed a $50,000 study, which was a master

plan study of the opportunities, the embellishment requirements and the

long-range plans to make Fort Steele into an even more attractive

tourist attraction. There are some designs and plans afoot to infill

some of the vacant spots on the site. The master plan survey indicated

to us that what the visitors want there is more attractions and maybe a

little more in the line of food concessions and those kinds of things.

Until

the facility attracts beyond 75,000 to 80,000 visitors a year, which it

was able to do in '87 — an increase over '85, I might say — and until

the pride of the community is there and the member starts talking about

the product in the light that she should, inviting people to come there

instead of starting to market and promote a place somewhere three hours

south in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.... Three hours north is Revelstoke,

three hours east is Saskatoon, and three hours west is Vancouver. I'm

not so sure you should be talking about a product outside your own

constituency. Why don't you stand up and promote Fort Steele as a site

to visit instead of continuing to knock it?

I'm telling you that we have just spent $50,000 on a marketing master plan study to investigate this. We talked to

[ Page

4299 ]

the people in the community, the people who work there, to get their ideas

and their suggestions on the best ways to promote and encourage Fort Steele

town to be something bigger and better than it is. So we're spending money

up there. We took in $109,306 last year, and we spent in excess of $1.5 million

on Fort Steele. We spent $1.6 million and we took in $100,000, which hardly

paid for it. We also employed four or five more temporary people in the facility

itself, plus the JobTrac additions that we had there. So the attraction itself

is hiring more people. The philosophy of that member must be to put more people

to work in Fort Steele, to put more people to work in the tourism industry in

her constituency. If you continue to destroy the only facility that we have

in the Kootenays, really, as a major attraction, which is Fort Steele, someday

along the way we may be having some difficulty in keeping people on staff.

MR. CHALMERS :

I don't mean to interrupt the member for Kootenay, but in the hopes of

getting this debate on a more positive note, I'd like to talk a little

about tourism and the importance of it in the riding of Okanagan South.

As everybody in this House is aware, Okanagan South is probably one of

the finest places in the world to visit. We have a number of people on

a daily basis in the winter and summer coming to see all that there is

to see and experience all that there is to experience in the Okanagan,

and they're certainly welcome.

We're experiencing a very

high growth rate both in the residential and the industrial sector, in

large part because so many people come to the Okanagan first as

tourists or as visitors, they see something that they can't believe

exists, and so they often choose the Okanagan as a place to live,

invest and create businesses.

We have many natural

amenities, of course, that help attract them, and the tourism

infrastructure put there by the private sector is second to none. But

there's more to it than that. Certainly the fruit industry plays a very

large role in attracting tourists. The grape industry and the wine

industry attract many people. So tourism is important to those

industries and those industries are, of course, important to tourism.

Also the work of organizations like the chamber of commerce or the

Okanagan-Similkameen Tourist Association and others helps attract these

people.

Very important in the work that they do, of course,

are the programs of the Ministry of Tourism. One of the most important

programs that the Ministry of Tourism looks after is one that has been

talked about in the last few days, being Partners in Tourism. The

minister mentioned yesterday that some $600,000 was taken from that

fund and used in the Okanagan last year, meaning that with matching

dollars there was $1.2 million dollars invested.

There were

many people in the private sector this last year who were somewhat

disappointed because the amount was a little less in the budget for

this year, but I know that with the hard work that your ministry is

doing and the people involved working with the private sector, they are

going to find ways to get the maximum benefit from the dollars that are

being invested by both the private sector and the public sector in that

very important program. Today I would like to encourage you, Mr.

Minister — I know I have your support — to continue to lobby your

colleagues in cabinet to ensure that maximum dollars are made available

in the budget for that very, very important program.

HON. MR. REID : I thank the member for his comments on the programs that

are going on and the kinds of things in his constituency and his community that

are very positive in relation to tourism. One of the things that worked well

for that member and his area is that there's a very positive group of attraction

people and tourism information people in the Okanagan who have worked collectively

with my ministry in Partners in Tourism.

[3:30]

We did have to reduce their budget in 1988-89 by about 20 percent.

Some hard decisions were made, but knowing the kind of community that

we're working with up there, we knew that they appreciated that they

could probably generate that same shortfall of 20 percent in their

community and still get a big bang in tourism marketing in 1988-89. I

want to give that member the assurance that we will continue to press

my colleagues and the financial department of the government, showing

them the positive things that are happening as a result of the program

that is going on, and see if we can't further on in 1988 get more

allocations towards that program. We thank you for those words.

MR. R. FRASER :

Responding to the member for Kootenay (Ms. Edwards), I know there are

other facilities in that area that are used extensively and had some

support from federal and provincial tourism plans in the years gone by,

such as the Fernie ski hill, which I understand is very successful and

which has had a limited input that is not being added to but is not

being taken away. Because of the support of the community, that

facility works very well.

I suspect the minister is trying

to say to that member that Fort Steele would not be unlike that and

that the modest fees charged at Fort Steele would in no way match the

fees charged in places like Banff. which I happen to know is very

expensive, having just gone through there in the year of the Olympics,

and in the year of 1987 as well.

When I look at what we have in British Columbia to offer....

MR. LOVICK : What about Barbados? It's pretty expensive, eh?

MR. R. FRASER :

I hear Barbados is very expensive as well, yes. The member does

understand. It must be reading all of those brochures you always want

for everybody.

The key thing that we have in this province

when it comes to tourism, among other things, is safety. It's not a bad

deal. We have clean and beautiful water in this province, which is

good. We have good highways in this province, which is good. How do we

get people to come up here to see those things? Well. one of the ways I

understand we do it is with personal endorsements. You know those

people who say: "I could write an ad for Cheer." Maybe we should have a

program, Mr. Minister. that says: "I could write an ad for British

Columbia tourism." How about that? I was in British Columbia in the

year 1988, and I would like to have written an advertisement for the

Ministry of Tourism, province of British Columbia, and tell all my

friends at home how great it was up there. It wasn't an ad hoc town in

Coeur d’Alene, which incidentally has quite a nice golf course that I

happen to have played on some years ago. It's a real town with real

people, who come here because they love it.

If they don't

charge till 10 o'clock, well for God's sake — pardon me, Mr. Chairman —

go in before 10. If you have to get your ticket back, go get it back.

There's no problem there.

Cranbrook is a lovely area. I went through there right after the secret meeting we had in Nelson, in fact, Mr.

[ Page 4300 ]

Minister. The whole province of British Columbia has much to offer.

cannot understand.... People like the second member for Nanaimo (Mr.

Lovick) talk about spokespersons. Is there a more disgusting word than

a neutral word? Men and women, real things — but no, it's spokesperson.

It's

down, it's awful, the world is gloom. How do they do it? No wonder they

lose all the time. Wallowing in the dictionary of gloom,

whereas we

should be endorsing this great product, coming to this great province

saying what a great government we have here.

Even the

members of the loyal opposition will say: yes, it's a great place to

live, and yes, we're going to go there. And then we're going to go

north to Barkerville and we're going to take the Royal Hudson ,

and on and on it will go. Who cares whether they come by car or plane,

as long as they come? Come to this beautiful province and see rain,

glorious rain, and a few clouds, and a lot of golf courses, and a lot

of rivers and a lot of fishing. What a great place!

Why

can't we get the community of Cranbrook to say — which I suspect they

do in spite of what the member says — "We've got a chance here to fill

the restaurants, and we can get people to stop at Fort Steele"? I

didn't see anybody standing on the highway saying: "Come on in, Mr.

Tourist." Maybe the car I was driving was too modest, I don't know.

Maybe they didn't think I had the five bucks.

I got a message from my colleague.

Interjection.

MR. R. FRASER :

That's right. I take the hard one all the time. I take the road of

enthusiasm and joy and pleasure. How great it is to be a Canadian! How

great it is to be a British Columbian! Promote the province. Do what

the minister asks. Endorse the product, and go with it. I want that

member over there to start a program in Cranbrook that says: "I endorse

Fort Steele." Let's help British Columbia tourism do something great.

MR. VANT :

I couldn't let the Minister of Tourism, Recreation and Culture

estimates pass without getting in a word or two about Barkerville.

First

of all, of course, it has a very interesting history going back to

1862. The government, in 1958, under the Forest Service at the time,

began the very careful restoration of Barkerville. It wasn't yet a

ghost town; there were still about 30 residents there. They made very

good negotiations to move the residents to New Barkerville. Ever since

about 1962, when our former leader and Premier, W.A.C. Bennett, held a

very special celebration of Barkerville's centennial, there has been an

official opening of the Barkerville Park for the season. I have a

special show at the Theatre Royal. I just heard a rumour that this year

there wasn't going to be an official opening. I'd like the minister to

either verify that or very enthusiastically deny it.

I am

concerned that it appears that there will be a cut in the staff in the

Barkerville Park. Part of this is because the staff used to collect the

entrance fee are now included in the full-time equivalent staffing of

the Barkerville Park. It appears to me that the public will be paying

for entrance into that town site, but there will be fewer programs

offered. For example, I understand the Wendle House program is

cancelled. In other words, people will be paying to get in but

receiving less.

One other concern I'd like to bring to the

minister's attention is the fact that Cottonwood House is now under the

Barkerville Park. It dates back to 1864. It's one of the oldest

existing original roadhouses on the Cariboo Road. Indeed, it's older

than anything currently in Barkerville. There are only seasonal

contract people on that site. I'm very concerned about the security of

Cottonwood House. There is a staff person who works in Barkerville and

lives there, who each and every day goes to work in Barkerville, and

his wife may pop down to Quesnel to go shopping or whatever. There's

absolutely no one right there responsible for looking after Cottonwood

House.

I am receiving letters from constituents — contract

people. I won't mention any names to the Legislature, but there's one

person whose contract ended in Barkerville on September 9 and he didn't

receive his final cheque until December 6. I would like an assurance

from the minister that he and his staff will ensure that these contract

people hired seasonally will be paid promptly.

I also

understand that last year the minister promised some of the contractors

in Barkerville — that is, those running the Theatre Royal, the Mason

and Daly General Store and so on; these concessionaires — that if there

was any shortfall in their business due to the entrance fee being

charged, they would receive some compensation from the government. I

understand that the entrance fees to Barkerville last year amounted to

$117,471, and I have been informed by some constituents that the losses

to some of these operators in Barkerville amounted to more than the

entrance fees charged. I know the minister will have some comments he

would like to make in that regard.

Overall, Barkerville is

a very successful operation. They had in excess of 180,000 visitors

last season. Tourism is of great impact to the whole Cariboo. You might

say that one of the jewels in the tourism crown of Cariboo is

definitely Barkerville; it's a big plus in attracting people to our

region. We cannot measure the total economic impact, because people

spend a lot of money all the way up to Barkerville. They drop in at

Quesnel, Williams Lake, all through and further north up to Prince

George and probably further beyond. Barkerville is definitely a great

attraction, and I would like to see the government do its share to keep

that running in a very good manner.

Before I end my

comments, I would like to say that I wouldn't want the minister to pay

any compensation to those concessionaires or to pay everything they

have claimed. I understand that it would be a great temptation for them

to greatly exaggerate their losses due to the implementation of the

entrance fee. I know that we act very responsibly in that regard, but I

do think that some of the claims were very legitimate.

notice in the estimates that overall, for the provision for that

particular part of the budget, there is a $328,000 increase. I'm

curious to know why there should be any staffing cuts at the

Barkerville Park at all, given that overall increase.

HON. MR. REID :

First of all, the only reductions in staff at Barkerville are as a

result of early retirement. I think there were two or three from there

who retired early. The take up for that FTE component was in the

admission fee personnel. We haven't laid anybody off in Barkerville; we

just haven't hired anybody back, and according to my records, there are

still 40 employees working on a Barkerville component.

[ Page 4301 ]

the Barkerville component in 1986 we spent, as a government, $1 million

keeping Barkerville as a tourist attraction in British Columbia. In

1987, if the member wants to make note, we spent $1.5 million. We

added an extra half a million dollars for the operation of Barkerville

in 1987 over 1986. So the income was around $100,000. He doesn't have

to be much of a mathematician to know that there was a gain of $400,000

spent on the Barkerville townsite facility as a result of the increased

interest shown by this ministry and this government on that super

attraction - one of the major attractions in the province, in consort

with Fort Steele in Cranbrook.

[3:45]

saying that, the thrust of the marketing program we put in place to

accelerate the interest in that product and the

interpretation program,

the attendance was higher in Barkerville last year than it was

previously. We gained attendance. We didn't get the complaints about

admission fees that the local people are giving to that member. I can

appreciate that local people will continue to make a case of the

desperation of the poor people in Wells and Quesnel, who can't afford

$10 a year for their family to go to Barkerville every day of the year

that they want. They can't afford all that, but it's a 16-mile drive to

get there. I don't believe that that desperation is up there. He's

getting the mail because, I guess, his people think that if they

continue to make it to the member.... I don't know what case he's

trying to make, but it hasn't been made to my ministry or me directly.

I'm

getting positive feedback, from Wells and the people in Barkerville.

We're also getting, believe it or not, positive feedback from the

concessionaires. Some of the concessionaires did make outrageous

claims, and then couldn't justify them because we had an independent

audit firm go in there and audit the income of 1987 versus '86 for the

sales of stores and restaurants, etc. A result of that, if you want to

make note of it, is that Marilyn and Bill Rummel's store made a claim

for in excess of $90,000; the auditors were recommending somewhere in

the neighbourhood of $4,000. Robert Rummel's Wake-Up-Jake Restaurant

made a claim for in excess of $37,000; the settlement is $450.

Surprisingly,

Eldorado's, Lung Duck Tong and L.A. Blanc and the bakery made no

claims. Do you know the reason for that? They made more money than they

expected. They didn't need to make a claim, because the thing was a

success. So there's four out of seven. The third one was the Theatre

Royal, which made a claim for $23,000 and couldn't justify it. The

settlement appeared to be somewhere around $7,600. So the claim the

concessionaires were making with themselves up there was sitting across

Wake-Up-Jake's coffee counter, saying: "I'm going to get $90,000

because I lost my shirt." The independent auditors came back and said:

"That's not the case."

Mr. Member, you can walk through the

town of Barkerville with your chin high, clapping at the

interpretation

programs, pay your fee like everybody else — ten bucks out of an MLA's

fee, which is nothing for a minister of state, or a parliamentary

secretary for a minister of state....

Interjections.

HON. MR. REID : I just about leaked out something that I shouldn't have, I guess.

But in all sincerity, the positive feedback that we're getting from the community relative to Barkerville is nothing but high.

You

are concerned about Cottonwood, Mr. Member, and the security between

the close after the summer season and the fall and spring. It also

concerns us, We will look into that and give you assurances. I rue the

day that something should happen to that gorgeous attraction. We need

to give it a higher profile, and we also need to give it a little

higher security; we'll look into that.

MR. VANT : I

thank the minister for his clarification comments, and I appreciate the

fact that some of the personnel there have retired. I think overall

there's probably a net decrease of personnel in Barkerville. Does the

minister intend to hire personnel to replace the people who retired?

HON. MR. REID : The answer to the question is no.

MR. VANT : I see. Thank you.

think that ends my comments. The only other one that the minister did

not address — I would like his assurance, and I've explained this

before — is that many of the 40 people he says work in Barkerville are

seasonal contract people who just work there during the height of the

tourist season. They're not full-time equivalents but they are hired

under contract. I would like to see the minister and his staff somehow

streamline the method of payment. It's not just an ordinary kind of

contract with a very well-funded company. These individuals are often

right up against it when they first arrive in Barkerville. Some of them

start as early as May 1; some don't start until June 1, and so on. I

would like to see every effort made to have them paid as soon as

possible under the contract system.

HON. MR. REID :

Mr. Chairman, I do recall some concerns that were advanced to me last

year by the contractors, with the member's direction to me. As you

know, we followed it up and one of the problems we ran into.... We'll

do whatever's possible this year to accelerate the payment for those

particular contractors. We apologize for that. But because of the way

the Financial Administration Act is written, my staff in the financial

division have to fine-tune all the numbers. It's a bureaucratic

problem, and I apologize for that. Those contractors who come in for a

short period of time must be treated fairly and as efficiently as

possible. Let me give you the assurance that we will do that as best we

can in 1988.

MR. BRUCE : It's interesting to listen

to some of the comments here, particularly relative to admissions for

museums and such. If you are from a community that has a museum with no

admission fee, you perhaps look at things a little bit differently than

if you are from a community with a museum that has always had an

admission fee on it.

I'd just like to touch a little bit on

the British Columbia Forest Museum. The community as a whole — through

the very determined efforts of Mr. Gerry Wellburn — put together the

British Columbia Forest Museum, at that time known as the Cowichan

Valley Forest Museum. To make it successful and make it run, it was

imperative that the community support it, as it did through grants from

the municipalities, land from the taxpayers of the municipality and all

sorts of in-kind donations from corporations, operations and commercial

operations in the community. At the time, there was a fee at the gate -

an admission for people to pay when they came in, which has gone a long

way in making it a very

[ Page 4302 ]

valuable resource to our community and indeed to the province of British Columbia.

Over

the years, it was operated locally. Some time ago it was renamed and

taken over in part by the province. I say in part, because it's a

subject I'd like to come back to in a moment or two. The Forest Museum

has become an extremely important part of the community of Cowichan

and, as I mentioned, of Vancouver Island and the province. It's because

there are so many things happening there.

Tourism is not

just something that the government does or gets involved in. Certainly,

there's infrastructure and marketing programs that the province does

extremely well. But for tourism in this province to be truly

successful, it's got to come down to the fact of people in the

community working together and bringing forward good ideas and putting

them in place.

One such example is the newly developed —

and we're just in its infancy — ecomuseum. I have to really commend the

minister, his staff and B.C. Heritage Trust for getting involved in

this ecomuseum concept. I'm quite confident that later on during the

minister's estimates, we'll hear comments from the second member for

Nanaimo (Mr. Lovick), who was with me at several kickoffs relative to

this ecomuseum concept.

The ecomuseum doesn't have any

walls or ceiling or anything to it in physical structure. It really is

taking your living heritage — a community's heritage — and marketing

and enhancing those heritage buildings and such that you may find in

your community and also things people have that are relative to the

story-line that is going to be told.

In the

Cowichan-Malahat community, central Vancouver Island and Ladysmith....

We've included Ladysmith, which is part of the Nanaimo constituency,

because I believe that tourism has no political bounds to it at all.

It's the betterment of the entire community that's important. In our

community, when we look at this ecomuseum concept, the story is going

to be about forestry. You'll be able to come to central Vancouver

Island and see the entire forestry story. You'll be able to see the

past in a number of different examples: the community of Chemainus,

some of the natural historical events we have or sites throughout the

community and also, of course, the British Columbia Forest Museum.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

With

that, we hope that it will attract people to the area. You'll be able

to see the present through the milling operations in Youbou, Chemainus

and Crofton down at Cowichan Bay. You'll be able to see it in the

secondary manufacturing aspects that we have in a number of our small

industrial parks throughout the community. Then you'll be able to see

the future through some of the areas that we have for research in the

Mesachie Lake research station and the demonstration forest on the

highway to Cowichan Lake. In the final analysis, you'll be able to take

part in perhaps a one-day, two-day or three-day event, all relative to

the forestry story of the province of British Columbia.

It's

absolutely an excellent pilot project that this government has

undertaken with Heritage Canada, which is a non-federally-funded

organization. Through the province and the Heritage Trust, we've been

able to negotiate a very attractive deal that will — over a three-year

period — put us in a position of having this pilot project telling the

forestry story.

When it's successful — and I stress the

word when, because when you look at the people involved at the

provincial ministry, Heritage Canada and in the community of Cowichan,

there's absolutely no doubt that it will be an absolute first-class

success — there will be an example there of what can be done in other

communities throughout the province, perhaps on a different theme than

forestry. Maybe it will be on fishing, mining or all sorts of different

things that communities collectively could put together.

think it's a very fine example of, as I say, a non-federal government

agency — the province of British Columbia here and the local community

— working together, trying to make things happen, realizing that there

was no forum to put this in place. It required people giving and taking

a little bit to put together in the final result something that would

be extremely beneficial.

It brings me back to the British

Columbia Forest Museum. I really wanted to share with you this

ecomuseum concept, because I think it's really exciting for the

province. The Forest Museum is an integral part of this whole ecomuseum

concept. We have many fine artifacts in the Forest Museum, and it is

not just a static museum. It's much like Fort Steele and some of these

other fine examples we have within the province. You can go and ride a

good old steam train around a lovely length of track and across a

trestle over the beautiful Somenos Lake area, where the ducks, geese

and antelope play. It's really quite attractive. We've got the old

forestry camp set up there that came from the Ministry of Forests and

which is being looked after by the Ministry of Forests, and we have a

number of other steam engines which were operating years ago in our

community. They are the living example of what our forestry heritage

means to us. When I say "living," there is nothing like a steam engine

when it's puffing and breathing and the smoke is coming out of the

stack, the whistle is blowing and the bell is clanging. You can feel

that steam engine pumping along the track. I mean, that's life, and

that's our living heritage.

The British Columbia Forest

Museum has had an admission fee. It has had tremendous community

support, both financial and in kind. I don't know how best to put this,

but it's sort of been a child that really hasn't had a mother, if you

like. It's had a father, and Gerry Wellburn has put it together, but it

hasn't had a mother, and it's desperately looking for this mother to

welcome it home. I wouldn't want the minister to jump up and exclaim

that he is the mother, but perhaps the ministry could be the mother in

this instance in that it is time that the province recognized that this

is truly a provincial museum. It is truly a site with all sorts of

different things involved in it that represents the forestry sector in

a very strong and proud fashion. However, it needs today to be put into

its proper ministry, and it needs a good injection of financial backing

from the province.

[4:00]

That's not to say that the province has not been, over the years

since it was taken over, putting in dollars and cents. But when one

compares it with both my colleague from the Cariboo's Barkerville and

my other colleague's Fort Steele, in percentage terms what this

community has put in in dollars and cents and admissions, what it means

in the number of people that have come through the gate and so on, I

think it would be only fair — and I am sure they would both agree with

me — that the ministry would look to put a cash injection for an

extended period of time so that we can bring this museum along to the

style and the shape that it really should have.

I am concerned that it doesn't turn into just a theme park, and I am sure it won't, because we've got people in the

[ Page 4303 ]

community

who are concerned that it stay as a museum but that it also have that

participatory aspect where you're pumping the old railcar back and

forth or you can work in a hand sawmill — all of those things which

help people understand what forestry is all about and at the same time

enjoy the heritage.

We're at that point in our community

where we have gone as far as we can with the resources we have. I would

be hopeful and certainly will be looking very closely this year.

Hopefully the minister can comment that we will be able to see a new

home for it, specifically in, perhaps, the Ministry of Tourism, and

also perhaps a balance of an injection of cash relative to the amounts

that have come in from the community and also from the local

corporations and the revenues from the gate.

HON. MR. REID :

First of all, the member explained with great elaboration the

ecomuseum, and I commend him for that, because it is a very positive

new addition to the museum scene in the central part of Vancouver

Island. We're happy about that and we know that that facility is

getting $50,000 a year from the province and $50,000 from the feds over

the next three years in order that that actually gets off the ground

and really does become an effective ecomuseum process in the community.

We commend the community for that because it was the community that

came forward with the idea initially. Because of the success stories

that you've had up in your area, it's not hard to support a positive

community that takes on those kinds of initiatives and says they will

make it work. With your community and with both the provincial and

federal ministries working with you, we know it will be a success.

you, Mr. Member, I want to relate the following comment. The Duncan

museum, as you say, has had a father but not a mother for a long time.

It probably is the result that the mother really should have been, and

is, the forestry industry. They have, by virtue of some very tough

years, maybe let their baby marketing tool reach the state it's at, and

we apologize for that as a government.

If I had my

druthers, I'd probably take all the money we're putting in Fort Steele

and take all the money we're putting in Barkerville and divide it three

ways, a third into Duncan, a third into Barkerville and a third into

Fort Steele, and we would probably complement each community and see

which one comes out on top. There's no question which one would come

out on top, because your community has a whole different attitude about

what the community should also do in relation to the product.

saying that, we've given it a priority from my ministry in 1988. As you

know, we did give it a priority in 1987. We went in there with some

JobTrac people. We did talk at great length with the forestry industry.

We've talked to Mr. Apsey from COFI and we've asked them, since they're

talking about what they're doing in the great sphere of forestry around

B.C. — with your support, and we're going to continue to do that. They

should be a partner in what we're doing in Duncan because the story

about the forest industry is told right there in Duncan, in spades at

the Duncan museum. For them to be supporters of what's going on there I

think goes without saying.

If they're having successful

years now, I think the story that they're telling on television and in

newspapers should also be told at Duncan. I will make you this

commitment, Mr. Member: we are giving the Duncan museum a higher

priority in 1988. We will be giving it additional funds to make certain

that it is not desperate. Since they do charge a fee and they do all

those other things, they do have some embellishment needed. It is a

larger site than the other two.

In saying that, the

interest of the ministry is high on Duncan museum. We will give it

higher priority this year. We will give it further assistance, but we

will also be asking, with your cooperation, to get the forest industry

from around the province to recognize that as a real pilot tool for

telling the story to visitors of what forestry is from day one. They've

got it all on one site.

As you said before, and I'm not

going to elaborate, it happens in Fort Steele that the old choo-choo

train going around there with the steam coming out of the stack is one

of the biggest magnets in the valley. So along with the embellishment

it needs in the rest of the facility, we're working on that. So I

commend you and your community for your efforts in the past. This

ministry has never let down any community that has a pride in their

attraction, and we won't let yours down.

MS. EDWARDS :

Through you, Mr. Chairman, to the minister, I really feel it unfair of

you to consistently say that I am negative about Fort Steele,

Barkerville and/or the Royal British Columbia Museum, because I am one

of the most positive boosters of all of those things. I boost the

forest museum at Duncan as well. What we're really trying to do is to

get you to have more money and be able to do more for these things and

give you an even stronger ministry.

What I want to know

right now, since we're on the estimates in this one and this is very

clearly related to your spending, is: could you clarify for me what

money is going in for improvements to Fort Steele and Barkerville and

the Royal British Columbia Museum? Now is that separated? It may not be

separated from Cottonwood House and the other attractions, but where is

the amount of money that is going into the improvement budgets, into

the capital fund, for these attractions this year?

HON. MR. REID :

The capital involvement with.... I've got to go to Fort Steele, just a

minute. The capital fund for Fort Steele in '85 was $149,000, in '86 it

was $57,000, last year it was $152,000, and we're budgeting estimates

this year for $209,000 for capital maintenance in Fort Steele town in

1988-89.

MS. EDWARDS : And the other one?

HON. MR. REID : The other one?

MS. EDWARDS : Barkerville.

HON. MR. REID :

Yes. Barkerville and Cottonwood House combined had $121,400 in '85,

$55,000 in '86, $108,000 in '87, and we're budgeting $290,755 in

1988-89.

While I'm on my feet, to answer the other member

in case he wanted to leave, the official open house at both facilities,

which provides for free admission, special guests invited and special

events as part of the opening, is June 18 for Barkerville; and for the

member from the Fort Steele area it is June 19. Those are the official

opening dates.

MS. EDWARDS : Mr. Minister, may I ask what the capital budget is for improvements at the Royal Museum?

[ Page 4304 ]

HON. MR. REID :

Mr. Chairman, no, I can't answer that question, because the whole

subject of the Royal British Columbia Museum at the moment, as to

society operation, government operation and BCBC's responsibility for

upkeep, maintenance and improvements, is in discussion position between

the Ministry of Provincial Secretary, Treasury Board and my ministry.

The capital improvements are the requirement of and are led by the

Ministry of Provincial Secretary.

MS. EDWARDS : Am I

to take from that, Mr. Minister, that you are about to effect the

handing over of the management of the museum to the Friends of the

Royal Museum or, as you described last year, to a non-profit

organization?

HON. MR. REID : The discussions on that

subject are ongoing, and while a discussion is going on, the ongoing

requirements for upgrading and improvements and maintenance and all

that will be a discussion between all the partners in the museum

building. The museum building is leased by us. We don't own the

building; we lease it for a museum operation. So the improvements up

until I took over the ministry were all the responsibility of BCBC. We

just championed the cause for $10 million worth of improvements

identified as being needed over the next five years. We made the case

to the Treasury Board for those improvements and we didn't win our

argument. They said it's really a case that should be made by BCBC

relative to all their buildings in British Columbia, and the museum is

no different from the others.

MS. EDWARDS : So that $10 million wasn't in your ministry's budget anyway; it was somewhere else.

You

pointed out last year, Mr. Minister, when we discussed this at such

great length, that there were $10 million worth of improvements

necessary at the Royal British Columbia Museum and that you had imposed

a fee so that that money could be spent on them. Just as a matter of

interest, I took the attendance last year at the Royal British Columbia

Museum, which was 257,601, and the gross revenue, which was $598,616,

and it came out to a per capita amount of $2.32 that the museum

collected. It may be that your argument that $5 isn't paid anyway is

right — who knows?

What you actually collected was

approximately $2.32 per capita. At that rate, do you know how many

people it would take to raise $10 million? It would take — I had my

calculator on — 4,310,345 people. So I'm again back to the point: when

the attendance has dropped and if the attendance fee.... Even though

it's high — and I have said several times and I hear still that $5 is a

high admission fee for the museum and for the other things — how are we

going to get this back to the museum? If this is in the negotiations,

that may be so, but it certainly is not clear to the public, because

you said you wanted that money to be collected so that it could go back

into the improvement of the facility. Well, it hasn't happened. It

didn't happen this past year; it doesn't look like it will happen in

the near future. So what is going to happen to the Royal British

Columbia Museum and the improvements? How are we going to do it?

HON. MR. REID :

Mr. Chairman, I would like the support of that member to get a big

picket sign, go down in front of BCBC and demand that they put some

improvements into the Royal British Columbia Museum. We had over a

million visitors to the museum last year, which is 800,000 more than

the museum was designed for, and we're expecting an increased number by

the return pattern already. We will accelerate that in 1988. The scare

tactics that that member has in telling the people, "Don't come,

because you have to pay," isn't working; the people are coming anyway.

They're paying in record numbers, and they're happy to buy an annual

pass. We've also expanded the process now whereby people can go in

after 5:45 at night for the balance of the day, and see it free for the

rest of the opening period of the day. There's no question that if

people from downtown Victoria that you continue to make a case for want

to see the museum free, they can go every Monday in off-season or for

an hour and a half every day. The survey says that the maximum time

people spend there is two hours. If we're given an hour and 15 minutes

every day to anybody who wants to go in free, who lives close by,

what's the big deal? Yet the 76 percent of people that are coming from

around the world are happy to pay the $10 for their family for the

whole time they are in the Victoria area, and the other attractions are

included.

I can't believe that you can make a case for the

funds not to come into the coffers. If you don't get the money into the

coffers, how can you ever make an appeal for it? How can you ever make

an appeal for money if you don't get it in the first place? What you're

continuing to say is it should always be free. There is no free lunch

in this province any longer. There must be admission fees to the

facilities in order to gain some revenue so that we can approach the

Treasury Board and say: "Can you please allocate some money to BCBC to

improve the facility called the museum?"

I don't know how

many times I've got to tell you: I made the case last year for

retaining the revenue in my ministry to make the improvements that we

saw should be made. I didn't win the argument, and since I didn't win

the argument, would you please make your case to the Treasury Board?

You keep coming back and saying I made a promise. I made lots of

promises about things I want to try and do, but if you keep coming back

and saying I broke a promise, then I'm not going to tell you anything

any longer.

[4:15]

MS. EDWARDS :

I'd certainly be happy to go and picket the Treasury Board if you were

there, Mr. Minister, doing the same thing. But the point is that I

think we need some kind of a plan now. All right, Treasury Board isn't

coming back with it. Now we're charging a fee; it's going into general

revenue, and surely this government must have some responsibility for

saying that if the money comes in, it goes back, at least in some

degree. What I am hearing is that we're getting less this year at the

royal museum than last year or that it's simply carrying on.

All

right, I will accept your shaking head, Mr. Minister, because I think

what you mean is that it went on at absolute needs last year, absolute

needs this year, or BCBC's decision. What I am trying to say is: no

matter that you put the money into the fees, that you're taking it into

general revenue and there is still a discussion.... I assume this is

continuing, because you said last year you were going to put the

management of these facilities into the hands of non-profit societies,

for which you would appoint the boards, the chairs and the vice-chairs;

and the societies who manage those facilities would collect the income

from the fees and would be responsible for the upkeep of the facility.

Is that going ahead? If it is, it looks to me as though it isn't going

to be a very successful venture, if that's how it's going to happen.

[ Page 4305 ]

The

minister decides not to answer. That's too bad. I'd like to ask the

minister about the contractors and concessionaires at Fort Steele. He

mentioned some of the ones at Barkerville. I understand that the

contractors at Fort Steele are being dealt with and that's not

complete. I wonder if the minister could clarify whether in fact he has

come to a successful conclusion with most of the contractors at Fort

Steele or expects to in the near future.

I also have a warm

and fuzzy word for the minister. I am happy that he will attend to the

security of Cottonwood House, because some of the descendants of the

people who built Cottonwood House live in my riding and I hear about it

regularly as well. I am very happy to hear that something is going to

be happening there. I wonder if the minister could tell me whether, in

the new contracts that are being let for

interpretation services and

other kinds of contracts like that, there is any preference allowed for

local contractors to do

interpretation work and things like that.

HON. MR. REID :

To answer the last question first, I don't know. I don't think we have

any. The contracts for the

interpretation programs that go on within

Barkerville and Fort Steele are, by and large, mostly ongoing

contracts. They are not brand-new ones every year; they are renewed

contracts. They are interpreters that have worked on these particular

projects in previous years, and I am not aware of anybody from

Cranbrook or the vicinity going in, showing a brand-new interpretive

program to the manager and suggesting that a new process should be

added and maybe a new contract signed. If that is the case, I am not

aware of it. There are, by and large, in all the cases, I think —

without researching, because I have never been asked that question

before.... I would think all the contractors that are currently putting

on those programs are repeat contracts.

To answer the first

question about the Fort Steele concessionaires, the independent

auditors have finally had their last meetings with all the

concessionaires there. It looks like the prospector.... What they were

suggesting as a claim is now close to being negotiated for acceptance.

The railway. We haven't been able to contact the gentle man. I guess he

made so much money last year running the railroad he is down somewhere in Palm

Springs. Kershaw General Store. We haven't been able to contact the lady

who runs the store in the last couple of weeks to finalize her contract for

1988-89. We had no claim from the tea house. They had more income than they expected, so they were quite satisfied. We have

finalized a contract with Tink and Judy; the Wild Horse Theatre has signed a

settlement and are signed up for 1988-89.

The

stagecoach: from indications here of what they had made as a claim, it

looks as though it will be adjudicated by the independent auditors at

somewhere near the number they are asking. I think that the

concessionaires at Fort Steele, as with Barkerville, will be well

compensated for the request.

MS. EDWARDS : First of

all, I have been in touch with the owner of the Kershaw store. There

was no problem contacting her; I'm surprised if your ministry had

trouble. I also made notes when you said that the gates are never

closed at Fort Steele. That happens to be not true. As I understand it,

the enclosure is closed until 10 o'clock in the morning, so that's not

the case.

Speaking of the owner of the Kershaw store, she

told me that she has made a very rare find. You may not know that this

is very rare. Everybody has old Singer sewing machines, but very few

people have spindles for Singer sewing machines; she found some. In

telling Fort Steele that she had them, and they could get them because

they're always looking for them, they told her that there were no

longer any archival funds at Fort Steele.

I happen to know

that one of the great successes of Fort Steele has been that they have

been able to make modest purchases over the years and have bought some

very rare and good archival artifacts. A lot have been given, but

they've been able to buy some artifacts. Is there some change in the

way this is done? Is there no funding for buying this kind of thing?

HON. MR. REID :

With a budget of $50 million and $1.5 million being spent on Fort

Steele annually, with all the incrementals in there, I'm sure my

ministry has been very innovative and progressive in the past. If we

can't find sufficient funds to buy spindles for the archival Singer

sewing machines in Fort Steele, I'll make the commitment that we will

find sufficient funds to buy the spools. We may have to sell a bunch of

stuff they've got in the basements of some of those buildings that

they've had forever and a day in order to retrieve some money to do it,

but I'll give the assurance that we'll be able to buy the spindles.

MS. EDWARDS : Mr. Minister, it's very kind of you to be so positive

about the spindles. However, is there some change in the policy for purchasing

these materials? Is there nothing in the budget for buying? Or is there some

mistake in the information? Is there some change there?

HON. MR. REID :

I wish that for every little detail involved with the things in my

ministry, I could be right on op of decisions made by management of

each of the facilities. If the manager of Fort Steele has decided that

in order to keep one of the 30 employees employed one of the things

that has to go is some of the funds he may have had in the past for

archival purchases, that's a decision for the management in Fort Steele.

This

minister hasn't looked at a request for purchase of Singer sewing

machine spools and said: "Please cross it off he list; we can't afford

it." They are working within a global budget to operate the facilities

in the province under the total global budget of my ministry. There are

no additional funds for these facilities. If they are making managerial

decisions within the facility, and if you want to make a case on behalf

of archival artifacts being the priority for Fort Steele and for me o

recommend to the management that all archival purchases be considered

before everything else, I'll be happy to do that.

They are

working within a global budget, and if those are decisions of

management — except for very rare cases — I would not become involved

with finding out whether or not we can afford to buy spools for Singer

sewing machines. I would like to, but rest assured it's not been a

policy laid on by his ministry to quit buying archival artifacts,

because we are n the business of artifacts. We are the ministry of

museums and historical attractions, and the historical town of Fort

Steele will continue to he promoted as a historical town. If he Singer

sewing machine bobbles — or whatever you call hem — need to be

purchased, we will acquire them somehow. We will be able to make an

appeal.

I see my colleague, the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier), is in the House. I hope that the Minister of

[ Page 4306 ]

Finance

is paying attention, because if he knew the plight of the people of

Fort Steele not being able this year to purchase the spools for the

Singer sewing machines.... Mr. Minister of Finance, there is a dilemma

in downtown Fort Steele for the artifacts. They are having difficulty

acquiring sufficient funds to buy the spools. We're going to make a

commitment to that member that between the two of us we will find

sufficient funds to provide spools for the Singer sewing machines in

downtown Fort Steele.

MR. VANT : I find it very

interesting about the shortage of Singer sewing machine spools in Fort

Steele, but let's get back to Barkerville for a moment. As you know,

Barkerville is not just a group of old buildings. There are these

characters like the famous Judge Begbie, who is buried just out here in

the Ross Bay cemetery. He was the Chief Justice of the province for

over 35 years. He was very incorrectly known as "the hanging judge,"

even though he only hanged about 15 people during his long tenure as

our Chief Justice. Indeed, I think life and property was safer then

than it is now.

Season after season there are people hired

in Barkerville under contract to play these different roles, and

thereby the whole townsite of Barkerville comes alive. I was just

wondering if the minister has given any thought to an incentive to

these people who keep coming back season after season. On certain

things there's quite a turnover. Is there any thought to paying people

with experience in Barkerville a little bit more than someone who's

just there for the first season? I myself spent eight very happy years

in Barkerville. Of course, I was in the private mining sector, although

I did a little research for the government under contract. Has the

minister given any thought to paying some of those characters that keep

coming back year after year a little bit more money? I'm glad the

Minister of Finance is here to hear this as well. They are really

instrumental in making Barkerville, come alive.

HON. MR. REID :

Mr. Chairman, I want to make it abundantly clear that we have a high

regard for the attractions which this ministry runs and finances

throughout the province. We have to take into consideration all the

costs attributed to that facility and attraction and what further funds

we can press for to be allocated for that facility. As I told you

earlier, we put in excess of $1.5 million into Barkerville in 1987, and

it was an increase of over $400,000.

I guess a case

could be made somewhere along the way that priorities by management

should be given to wage increments for those people that you were

indicating have been there more than one year. Those are decisions that

we would hope the manager would make and make recommendations to our

staff. We always have to make the case ultimately, Mr. Member, when all

that is brought to the bottom line, for additional allocations for that

particular attraction, unless we get it out of the visitors that are

coming. The case has been made by both you and the other member that

maybe, for a period of a couple of years, we should sit on the

attraction fee we're charging and make certain that it's accepted and

appropriate and all those other things, and then, if we need increments

for reasons like you say, maybe then we have to have special

charge-outs in order to cover those increments that may be there.

we always look at it. Rest assured, it's a quality product and we want

to keep it that way. It's the people that work in the facility that

make it what it is. We have to continue to compliment those people and

pay them the due rate, bearing in mind that we also have the

heavy-handed Minister of Finance, who has other concerns which must be

met in the other ministries of government. So we hear you, and we think

we've treated all our people in regard to that very fairly. But we will

review them on an ongoing basis, no question about that.

While

I'm on my feet, I'd also like to answer the question from the member

for Kootenay, who wanted the number for upgrading of the museum

building in 1988. There is in voted funds an incremental amount of

$170,000 budgeted for a building upgrade in 1988, and an additional

$150,000 is going to exhibit upgrades in 1988. So that's in excess of

$300,000 going into those two upgrade budgets.

[4:30]

MR. VANT :

I appreciate those comments by the minister. He mentioned — and I very

much appreciate it — the fact that the budget for 1987 in Barkerville

was $1.5 million. I take it that that's both operating and capital

improvement budget. Would the minister at this time be willing to share

with the House the proposed budget for Barkerville for 1988? All I

have, as one of the members for Cariboo, is the global budget.

HON. MR. REID :

Mr. Chairman, the proposed operating budget — and these are estimates

only — for 1988-89 is $1,103,9