2008 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 38th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2008

Morning Sitting

Volume 32, Number 5

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Page

Tabling Documents

Office of the Auditor General, report No. 3, 2008-2009,

Management of Aboriginal Child Protection Services

Second Reading of Bills

Public Health Act (Bill 23)

Hon. G. Abbott

A. Dix

D. Chudnovsky

C. Wyse

Tabling Documents

Property Assessment Appeal Board, annual report, 2007

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Forests and Range and Minister Responsible for Housing (continued)

B. Simpson

Hon. R. Coleman

[ Page 12003 ]

TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2008

The House met at 10:02 a.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Prayers.

Tabling Documents

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, I have the honour to present the

Auditor General's report 3, 2008-2009, Management of Aboriginal Child

Protection Services .

Orders of the Day

Hon. G. Abbott: In

Section A, I call continued estimates

debate for the Ministry of Forests and Range, followed by the Ministry of

Attorney General. In this chamber I call second reading debate of Bill 23,

intituled Public Health Act.

Second Reading of Bills

PUBLIC HEALTH ACT

Hon. G. Abbott: I move that Bill 23, the Public Health Act,

be read a second time now.

Public health has always been and will continue to be about the

promotion of health and the prevention of diseases, injuries and disabilities.

This legislation, the first significant overhaul since 1893, will still address

these twin challenges. It is the nature of those challenges that has changed

significantly from an era when clean drinking water was not to be taken for

granted and diseases like typhoid fever, smallpox and cholera didn't just happen

in some distant place but were concerns within our own province.

[S. Hammell in the chair.]

Today our challenges are both more complex and more common, and

the tools we need must evolve. We have new names to contend with — words like

Walkerton, avian influenza, crystal meth and SARS — each highlighting a new

challenge for public health.

We've already begun the process to address some of these

challenges, replacing outdated sections of the Health Act with the Food Safety

Act in 2002 and the Drinking Water Protection Act in 2003. It is now time to

replace the rest of the Health Act with legislation that is modern, coherent,

comprehensive, outcome-oriented and flexible, legislation that will provide

tools to address the public health challenges of the 21st century.

[1005]

This new act has been in development for over four years. It's

been built on the foundation of numerous consultations and dialogues and the

input of health professionals and community leaders. It also reflects the needs

and interests of all British Columbians.

During the recent Conversation on Health we heard strong support

for more proactive measures to promote health and prevent diseases, disabilities

and injuries. That is the main purpose of the new Public Health Act: to provide

public health officials with the authority to take action and with direction to

promote and protect the health and well-being of British Columbians.

These directions follow and build upon the solid, proven

foundations of programs such as ActNow B.C. Through ActNow B.C., government has

helped British Columbians to create over 150 active community plans, encouraging

people to become more physically active and helping to reduce the risks from

heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

In the government's recent throne speech we continued to move in

that direction, setting a number of public health priorities, such as the

banning of trans fats in the preparation of foods in schools, restaurants and

food services establishments by 2010; encouraging more healthy eating; and

addressing the roots of chronic disease. We have also increased our efforts to

improve nutrition with an expanded school fruit and vegetable snack program,

enabling our children to do their best both physically and academically.

Some of the specific ways in which the new act will address the

future public health of British Columbians include allowing the minister to

require development of specific public health plans; updating powers of

inspection and powers to issue orders to address health hazards; modernizing

provisions related to examination, treatment, quarantine and isolation of people

who pose a threat to public health; and improving access to mental health and

addiction services in our communities, helping a vulnerable population to begin

the recovery process and avoid other significant health risks such as hepatitis

and HIV.

Many Conversation on Health participants also called for a

stronger public health voice on environmental protection and a strong, robust

system to address infectious disease outbreaks. The new act will address these

challenges by providing a regulatory framework to deal with activities that

cause health hazards or that adversely affect the health status of the

population, by increasing the ability to collect information of public health

importance while protecting privacy, by enhancing public health emergency

responsibilities in accordance with the best practices set out by the World

Health Organization and by expanding the reporting of communicable diseases to

indicators of health hazards like lead or mercury poisoning.

We also heard calls for better access to immunization services and

for greater public involvement in the delivery of health promotion programs. The

act provides for enhancing collaboration between health authorities and local

government; creating comprehensive abilities that enable the act to serve as a

useful and flexible tool; and developing specific public health plans to address

issues such as potential infectious disease outbreaks like West Nile virus and

dealing with more chronic conditions such as diabetes, alcohol and drug

problems.

The act also ensures that local public health officials will

continue to have the powers necessary to investigate

[ Page 12004 ]

health hazards and monitor compliance with the act. In fact, these

capabilities will be strengthened within this new legislation. Health officers

will be able to issue orders to groups of people to take appropriate measures to

control a health hazard, instead of the present need to issue specific orders to

each affected individual.

New provisions within the act will also allow decisions and orders

of health officials to be reconsidered and reviewed, providing fairness and

balance to the process. As well, a number of older pieces of legislation —

including the Health Act, Venereal Diseases Act and Public Toilet Act — will be

combined and updated.

The new act will also maintain the current roles of the provincial

health officer and medical health officers in health promotion and protection.

It provides clear authority for medical health officers to direct the public

health response to local threats and the public health officer to direct a

provincial-level response to a widespread threat.

The act will clearly establish the powers and duties of the

minister and public health officials for public health monitoring and reporting,

communicable disease control, environmental hazard response, chronic disease and

injury prevention, and public health emergency response.

[1010]

This new act will make a difference to the current and future

health, safety and well-being of all British Columbians. It will provide the

tools we need to face present and emerging threats from disease and natural and

human-caused health hazards. It will enable us to take strong, positive steps to

support healthy lifestyles, healthy living conditions and healthy communities.

A few weeks ago I asked the provincial health officer how long in

coming this act was. His response was that there were requests for legislation

in the 1990s and in the 1980s, but they never went forward. I think this shows

the concern on this side of the House with the modernization, improvement and

enhancement of this Public Health Act.

Governments have had decades to modernize public health

legislation and to put in place stronger tools to address preventative health

initiatives and the growing burden of chronic disease. Previous governments made

a choice and chose to let the growing burden of chronic disease continue to

attack the sustainability of our public health system. We're taking action as a

government to provide more tools to address the burden of chronic disease and

the sustainability of our health system.

I would be remiss if I didn't address the NDP Health critic's

recent comments that the ban on trans fats in the preparation of foods was

actually an NDP idea. My staff checked Hansard , looked at estimates

debates over recent years with the present and previous Health critic, looked at

private members' bills and looked at their caucus news releases, and since I've

been Minister of Health, the NDP has not stood up on any occasion in this House

and advocated a ban on trans fats.

We're well aware that an NDP MP from Manitoba has been pursuing

this initiative in Ottawa, but it is a little much for the NDP to take credit

for an initiative undertaken by a federal Member of Parliament for Winnipeg.

Nonetheless, I do hope that members on both sides of the House lend their

support to this worthwhile and very necessary piece of legislation.

With that, I am pleased to move second reading.

A. Dix: Everyone knows that the best parts of the Minister

of Health's speeches are when he diverts off what's been provided by his staff

and gives us his flights of fancy.

I was going to recommend one particular website to the Minister of

Health just at the start of this, which is called google.ca. As he knows, you

could probably pick up Mad magazine by going to google.ca and getting

access to that. Then he'd be able to see that these proposals on trans fats, of

course, came from the NDP. Not that we want to claim credit, because I think

those issues…. I leave the considerable job of trying to claim credit for this

government's sorry health record to the Minister of Health.

I think it's important that people understand what we're doing

here. This is a very extensive piece of legislation and one that, because of its

very nature, we'll be spending more time dealing with at committee stage than at

second reading stage. What we're talking about, for people watching the debate,

is a bill that runs to approximately 126 sections, 92 pages and ten parts. A lot

of that is essentially part of existing legislation. Some of it's amended; some

of it's not.

The bill is a general bill to consolidate previous public health

bills such as the Health Act, and it includes, as the minister suggested,

changes to and the elimination of some pieces of legislation or the

consolidation of some pieces of legislation, such as the Public Toilet Act.

I want to talk a little bit…. We're living in a time where I think

our understanding of health policy issues — the fact that health policy issues

are not confined to hospitals or to doctors' offices but have a broader

importance — and other issues outside of what you'd call the health care budget

or the health care system have a profound difference on public health.

[1015]

For me, I learned this in a personal way. As I have mentioned

before to members of this House, I am a type 1 diabetic. I was working in this

building when I was diagnosed with juvenile-onset diabetes. One of the great

fortunes for me — because the minister mentioned chronic disease; he mentioned

diabetes — is that when I was diagnosed with that disease….

We have this discussion about ActNow and people's responsibility

for their fate. When I was diagnosed with this disease, it was in November of

1992. I was working here, and I was preparing to run the Seattle Marathon. At

that time, I was probably in the best athletic, the best physical shape of my

life — aside from, of course, getting sicker and sicker because I was showing

signs of having diabetes.

I have to say that at the time my ignorance about diabetes led,

actually, to quite a delayed period of being diagnosed. It's one of the reasons

it's so important and one of the reasons I want to speak out on those issues

[ Page 12005 ]

— so people understand and know the signs so that they're able to take

action.

Six days before I was diagnosed — I ended up at Royal Jubilee

Hospital that day — I ran 20 miles in training for a marathon that was going to

take place two days after I was to end up in hospital. I, of course, didn't end

up in the marathon. I was in the hospital. I got stabilized.

Just to give you a sense of the work that, in that case, diabetes

nurses do…. I was stabilized, I left the hospital, and I went to a public health

program that was run by some outstanding nurses. They trained me on how to be a

type 1 diabetic.

Part of that, of course, is balancing food on the one hand with

the intake of insulin on the other hand. I've had the good fortune since then of

never having to go to an emergency room, which is often a problem for people

with diabetes, especially type 1 diabetes, and of having had relatively good

health over that period, although, like all chronic diseases, diabetes has the

capacity to surprise you on a regular basis.

I attribute that, I think, to really outstanding public health

education at a personal level done, essentially, by public health educators —

not doctors, in fact, but public health educators, diabetes nurses. It concerns

me that in some places in British Columbia some of those programs that helped me

so much and that probably saved the health care system a whole bunch of money

are being shut down or being cut at present. That's highly problematic, but

that's an issue that we'll be discussing with the minister in estimates.

I want to say another thing about it. What it says to me, as I

said earlier, is that I think societal issues that go beyond the health care

system have such a profound impact on public health. The other reason, of

course, why I've done well with a chronic disease is that I've had supportive

family members, supportive friends, and I had good jobs that paid well.

Therefore, I've never had to go, for example, to a supermarket — I think the

minister was talking about Ferraris yesterday; I don't think this is true of car

dealerships — and not buy something because it was too expensive.

Of course, we know that for many people who live with type 1 and

type 2 diabetes, that's not the case. In fact, the social determinants of

health…. If you were someone, for example, with type 1 diabetes working in the

tray line today at Royal Jubilee Hospital, the place where I was taken after I

had my blood sugar reading of 43 and stabilized, earning much less than I earn,

your opportunities to deal with diabetes — where you can live and the social

determinants, if you will, of how well you'll do with that chronic disease and

how well your health will be — will be less positive, I think. You'll be more

likely to die early, more likely to end up in an emergency room, more likely to

lose a limb such as a foot as a result of the disease.

[1020]

When we talk about public health in this context, we often talk

about specific measures to respond to public health concerns. But of course, we

know and everyone in this House knows — including the government, because some

of their initiatives in this area have been good — that those issues of public

health are much broader than just the health care system as we know it.

Yesterday we learned from Statistics Canada — and this is the

context for it — that British Columbia again is leading Canada in child poverty

and, by extension, family poverty. We know in this Legislature the profound

impact and the profound divisions that the increasing inequality has on public

health — the very issues that we want to get at with legislation such as the

legislation we're bringing in today.

I'm reminded of a speech. There's a man named Trevor Phillips who

is quite a controversial figure in Great Britain. He's been involved in the

current Labour government, and he's been chairman of the British Commission for

Racial Equality. He came here and gave a speech — it was quite controversial

here — both about the social determinants of health and the increasing divisions

of society that he saw in Britain.

He spoke a lot about issues such as multiculturalism, which I

won't get into today because they're not as relevant. What he said is that in

Britain young Britons under 30 are increasingly segregated into microcultural

and uni-ethnic groups or tribes that increasingly do not speak to each other and

do not understand each other and that, in fact, the divisions which are

economic, social and cultural in Britain indicate a growing lack of social

integration, a two solitudes in that society, if you will. He warns — and he was

warning Canadians as well — of the dangers of a divided, unstable and vulnerable

society. Those are the issues. Those are the dangers that I would suggest to you

that we talk about and that we deal with when we deal with the broad issues of

public health.

Divided societies — and we can have all kinds of examples across

North America of this — respond less well to catastrophe, but particularly to

catastrophes that are beyond our ability to control when they occur. Our ability

to respond to public health issues is affected by these divisions. For me, this

bill and what it treats are increasingly affected by the growing gap between

rich and poor and by its overall impact on our health care system.

Recently, there was a survey released in British Columbia. It

showed that British Columbians believe that the gap between rich and poor has

grown over the last ten years despite economic growth. If you think about it….

I'm thinking about a study by the Canadian population health initiative, which

is part of the Canadian Institute for Health Information. It showed that this

difference is not just a difference between provinces or between countries. It

can be between neighbourhoods. In Vancouver they discovered that there's a 15

percentage point gap between neighbourhood groups in the proportion of youth and

adults who rated their own health as excellent or very good. Similar gaps have

been found, of course, in other cities.

What they showed, in fact, is that neighbourhoods that jut up

against each other, whether they're in Vancouver or others, have very different

levels of personal health. Now, this measure is how we feel about our

[ Page 12006 ]

own health, of course, which is subjective perhaps, but it's important. I

would suggest that what it shows is that when you increase divisions between

neighbourhoods, between groups in societies and socioeconomic difference, it in

fact affects one's ability to use laws such as this new Public Health Act to

resolve the problems you want to solve.

When you are divided, when some groups have housing and some

groups do not…. My colleague from Vancouver-Kensington will speak about this

when he talks about the bill soon, I think.

[1025]

When you have some people that have housing and some that don't,

some neighbourhoods that have outstanding public services and some that don't,

some municipalities that can pay for the best services and some that don't, some

municipalities that have community centres and lots of community services on one

side of town but not on the other side of town, some municipalities that have

public institutions like playgrounds on one side of town and not on the other

side of town, etc….

These divisions that are growing in our society and that, I would

argue, have grown in particular in the last few years, have an impact on our

ability to respond to the very public health issues that many of us fear — the

spread of disease, catastrophe.

We've seen these things, not in some distant place in recent times

but on our very own continent. We in Canada have struggled with the SARS issue.

In the United States we saw the terrible consequences in the aftermath of

Hurricane Katrina.

I think we're seeing a situation in our province that we've never

seen before. In every period of sustained economic growth in the 20th century

there were overall improvements in living standards. Yes, some people may have

gained more than others, but we saw a lift in the overall living standard of

everybody.

Today we are living in an unprecedented period where sustained

economic growth has meant that some people have done very well, but a very

significant percentage of people…. I don't mean 5 percent. I'm not talking about

people without shelter here. I'm talking about a large segment of the population

that has seen its living standards go down during this period of economic

growth.

In fact, that division, the gulf between some and others, has

grown. You can even see this, by the way, in the health care workforce, where we

have a whole group of people in the health care workforce, thousands of them,

losing their jobs. We're going to deal with this issue in another bill before

the House.

The consequence of that…. I talked about the tray line at Royal

Jubilee Hospital. What happened at the tray line at Royal Jubilee Hospital is

that people lost about 50 percent of their income in 2002, in 2003. They lost

that. What that meant for their public health, for a person on that tray line

who has juvenile-onset diabetes or other chronic disease…. Imagine what that

means for them — for their ability to control their blood sugar, their ability

to stay out of emergency rooms, their ability to respond and sustain themselves

in difficult public health times. They became more vulnerable.

This happened within the health workforce, where some people have

actually done well and increased their overall living standards against

inflation. Other people have become dramatically less well.

I think there's a growing sense — and we had this debate last week

in the health care debate — that equality and access to health care is somehow a

frill that we can no longer afford. Of course, we disagree with that. We think,

in fact, that the opposite is true and that fairer societies — societies that

are as fair to the designated speaker for the NDP on this bill as they are to

the health care worker at Royal Jubilee Hospital, as fair to me as they are to

them…. Those systems, in fact, are more entrepreneurial, dynamic and successful

societies.

In fact, our long-term entrepreneurial success depends on fairer

health outcomes between some groups in society and other groups in society.

There have been many studies that have shown this. They've compared

jurisdictions, and they said that those societies that invest the most in public

health, the most in public education have the greatest movement in terms of

social mobility. I'll just refer to one of those studies for the members

opposite, from the Royal Economic Society in London. It's called

Nonlinearities in Intergenerational Earnings Mobility .

I think that when we're dealing with this bill, we have to

recognize that our ability to intervene in the health care system is, in many

respects, dependent on our ability to resolve and to limit this growing

inequality and this growing lack of social cohesion that inevitably flows from

that.

We often heard — the minister heard, everyone else heard — during

the Conversation on Health and over the last decade much more public

conversation, and I think this is a good thing, about what are called the social

determinants of health, which in fact have an enormous impact, in particular, on

public health issues.

What are they? Income inequality, social inclusion and exclusion,

employment and job security, working conditions, contribution to the social

economy, early childhood care, education, food security and housing — the social

determinants of health.

[1030]

If you take that list and say to people, "What are the major

problems facing society today, the individual problems?" they will look down

that list in my city of Vancouver, in my community, where people used to be able

to buy a house and now cannot…. Those issues of growing income inequality…. Are

we seeing more, growing income inequality? Yes, we are, in British Columbia.

Their impact is on social inclusion and exclusion — on people's

access, in fact, to those services they need to involve themselves in the

community. The fact that they are working longer and harder for less money, for

many of those people, is there. The lack and the cuts to early childhood care

that we've seen, not just at the provincial level but at the federal level as

well, have had an impact — and the growing concern about food security.

This weekend my friend from Vancouver-Kensington and I were at the

Food Security Institute at

[ Page 12007 ]

Collingwood Neighbourhood House in my riding. What we did there was take

part, as we do regularly — I'm a big supporter of this program — in a breakfast

program. Dozens of people come to Collingwood Neighbourhood House every week,

twice a week. They have no shower, so they shower. They have no breakfast, so

the community got together and said….

It's an extraordinary thing, because most of the people who take

part in that program aren't from the community. The community said that we have

to feed this group of people breakfast. So we have this extraordinary situation.

That has enormous impact. As the growth in homelessness that the

member for Vancouver-Kensington and so many other people have dealt with, the

social determinants of health…. Those nine social determinants of health are

income inequality; social inclusion and exclusion; employment and job security;

working conditions; contribution to the social economy, which means one's

ability to participate in society — if you join clubs, hon. Speaker, if you have

time to join clubs, if your children are able to afford to play hockey, that's

an indicator of your health; overall, all of our ability to participate in those

events is an indicator of public health and the health of the entire community;

early childhood care; education; food security; and housing.

Think of that person when we're thinking of these public health

issues that we're dealing with here and our ability to respond to serious

incidents of public health, our ability to respond to the growing crisis of

homelessness and mental health services in our streets and in our communities.

Our ability is in fact affected dramatically by changes in society, and we can't

band-aid those changes when something happens. We can't band-aid it. Those

social determinants of health also tell us….

We have a big debate about personal responsibility, and it's one

of the reasons that I tell my story. I was in the best physical shape of my

life. I had a job I loved. I had a workplace that supported me. I have a loving

family, everything one could possibly imagine. I was preparing for the Seattle

marathon, and I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. How does one view that in

the personal responsibility debate?

Equally, we know that people don't live in the same circumstances.

If you are wealthier, you have more access to services, sometimes to food, than

people who are less wealthy have. When we talk about people's personal

responsibility for their health, we have to put it in that context. When we're

dealing with public health issues, as we are in this bill, we have to deal with

it as well.

I think that what the weight of the evidence showed — and this

evidence was brought together by many people in the Conversation on Health, to

the Romanow commission, to the Seaton commission — was that those social

determinants of health I talked about have a direct impact on the health of

individuals and populations. They're the best predictors of individual and

population health. They interact with each other, those nine social determinants

I talked about, to produce health. That's what the evidence shows.

[1035]

What the evidence also shows in terms of the health of

populations, greater populations, is that the disparities — the size of the gap

in inequality and social and economic status — between groups within a given

population greatly affect the health status of the whole. The larger the gap,

the lower the health status of the overall population. All of the evidence shows

that — evidence that the minister, of course, is well aware of.

What I would say on this bill — and I know the member for

Vancouver-Kensington is going to speak on this as well — is that those gaps,

addressing the social determinants of health, are a critical element of the

equation. You can't just say in a law, "You shall provide more mental health

services," and things will get better. You cannot say in a law, "We will improve

coordination between agencies," when something happens but do nothing about the

social determinants of health.

A continuing and growing inequality in our society will checkmate

our efforts to do that from above, and we have to recognize that element of the

problem as well.

Surely, the lessons of our neighbours and friends in the United

States during the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and the experience of our own

country in dealing with the SARS epidemic, which wasn't at the same level in

terms of human dislocation, show differences in the way that we run societies on

both sides of the border. It has shown how divided societies and, I would argue,

conversely, more united societies such as our own and the public health systems

that we've put in place over decades either can be defeated or can overcome

calamity.

We cannot continue to grow inequality and respond to the public

health challenges of the 21st century. I should say on SARS, because this is an

issue that happened, actually, in the early years of this government's

administration…. I think the systems put in place have been in there in place,

and it's a legacy of not just NDP governments but past governments and of our

public health system.

In terms of infectious disease surveillance, monitoring and

testing, we worked together in a public framework to battle that virulent

epidemic of SARS. But imagine a society whose inequality is reaching away from

where we've been and towards where they are in New Orleans. Imagine such a

society.

If our society and our systems in it were more divided, separated

and not unified by a common access to services and social opportunity and social

mobility, the experience of the public sector in New Orleans — where they also

have public health acts, where they also have statutes that say X, Y and Z —

shows us that in spite of those statutes, if you allow a disintegrating society,

your ability to respond to those issues is compromised. That is a point, in

terms of dealing with this bill at second reading, that we on the opposition

side, of course, wanted to make.

In terms of some of the specifics of this legislation, I was

interested in the minister's analysis of how legislation comes forward in this

House. As you know, hon. Speaker, there are two kinds of bills we often deal

with in the House. There are bills that are generated by discussion with groups

and kind of through the public

[ Page 12008 ]

service over a period of years, and then there are what you'd call more

political bills.

We have some examples. We had an example last week of a political

bill. The sustainability bill, as you know, was an idea of the Premier. It

wouldn't have come out of the Ministry of Health or anyone else or the

Conversation on Health. If the Conversation on Health had come forward for

another 10,000 years, it wouldn't have come forward. It came from the Premier.

So that's one kind of bill, and you call it "generated by the

politicians," which is fair enough. Politicians are representatives. They're

elected to do that. If the Premier wants to bring forward such legislation and

defend it in the way in which we've become accustomed to him defending such

legislation, fair enough.

Of course, there's a second type of legislation as well, which

sort of comes from the public sector, the public service. It's the constant

updating and need to update a bill. So I'll just give you a historical view of

what happens.

[1040]

In the 35th parliament we had 22 health bills. Many of those

bills, because the 35th parliament, as you will recall, was actually led…. The

Premier was Mr. Harcourt, a previous MLA for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. Those

bills, of course, focused on supporting our public health system and ensuring

that our public health system, in spite of federal Liberal cuts, could be

maintained and supported. It made us, in fact, the number one health care system

in Canada.

So 22 bills in the 35th parliament. But not all of those were

political bills. Not all those were bills to support the founding principles of

medicare, which that government supported and this government doesn't. Many of

those bills, in fact, were kind of non-partisan bills, generated by the public

sector. So 22 bills in the 35th parliament.

Then, in the 36th parliament, led by a previous member for

Vancouver-Kingsway, there were 14 bills. Some of those, again…. Bills such as

the tobacco damages bill, which the government of the day supported and put

forward and the opposition of the time spoke against but didn't vote against.

This happens from time to time, I think, in this parliament. Bills such as that,

but also other public health bills. So there were 14 bills in the 36th

parliament.

In the 37th parliament…. We all remember those days. The

government remembers those days with a fond heart, when there were only two

opposition members in the whole chamber. You couldn't hear a voice of dissent.

Oh, there was one, on one of these health bills from a government member, but

generally you couldn't hear a voice of dissent. Halcyon days for the government

— not for the people of B.C. but for the government of B.C.

There were 18 bills. Some of those bills, such as Bill 29….

An Hon. Member: Turned out to be illegal.

A. Dix: Well, parts of them turned out to be illegal, and

we'll be dealing with those. Others of those bills, such as Bill 92, which was

introduced by the now Minister of Economic Development, were passed unanimously

by the House. They were intended to defend public health care, and then they

weren't proclaimed, because the Premier didn't want them proclaimed. But there

were 18 bills, including some mentioned by the minister in his speech. What we

saw was a regular coming forward of ideas from the public service.

I wasn't going to raise this issue, but the minister inspired me

Until this session of the Legislature and since this Minister of Health became

minister, there have only been five bills. Now, some of those bills did a very

good thing. They overturned the attack on public health that happened when the

government overturned WCB regulations with respect to tobacco. So they

overturned those, and that was a good thing. They principally dealt with that.

But there have only been five bills. So the government had, in

fact, not encouraged that process, but seemed to be blocking that process. Now

we have some bills in this session which are kind of the pent-up bills that have

come from that. So after the seven bills introduced — to give the minister his

full due — we're now at 12 bills. Assuming there'll be a fall session and the

government will bring in perhaps more public health legislation…. Assuming

that's the case, he might even get up to near the kind of average.

Up to now there's been a hold on those bills. So I think the

suggestion that this government has been more supportive of the public service

in bringing forward good and modernizing amendments to public health care is

inconsistent with the history. But I don't want to be too fact-based, because I

know it bothers the minister.

What did Dr. Perry Kendall, our outstanding provincial health

officer…? He told the press, when he was doing this bill, that these were

proposals to update the public health legislation that had been accumulating in

government files for the better part of a century and "they just never got onto

the legislative agenda."

Now here we are. The government needs to show that it has an

agenda on health care other than weakening the Medicare Protection Act and

support for the Canada Health Act in B.C. So we see this legislation come

forward, and we're glad to see it, people on this side of the House, at second

reading. We'll be debating the details of this at length at committee stage. But

people on this side of the House will be supporting this bill at second reading.

[1045]

We believe that the support for the institutions that maintain

public health is critical and that we have to do it. But we will be raising some

issues, as you would expect. Not just me as the designated speaker for the

opposition but other members of the opposition caucus.

In particular, we'll be raising — and I know my colleague from

Powell River–Sunshine Coast will be raising — a concern that, in fact, has been

raised by others, including the West Coast Environmental Law group and others,

about provisions in the former Health Act that have been deleted from the new

act.

[ Page 12009 ]

I'll just go through it in a short sentence, because I know we'll

be discussing this at length, and the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast

will be developing this issue at length at committee stage. The member for

Powell River–Sunshine Coast has raised this issue, and people in his community

have raised this issue.

Sections 57 and 58 of the Health Act allowed for individual

citizens to trigger an investigation into health hazards. That authority has

been removed. This was relevant. You'll all recall this, people who've been

paying attention to issues of watersheds in British Columbia. This was relevant

during the controversy over logging in the Chapman Creek watershed. My colleague

from Powell River–Sunshine Coast will, I think, in his second reading speech and

in committee stage, be developing this issue at some length.

For years citizens in that area had been complaining about the

potential impacts of logging on their drinking water. A report by the local

medical health officers confirmed their concerns that it was a health hazard,

but the regional district was unable to act because they couldn't develop bylaws

to regulate forestry operations.

What local citizens were able to do…. This option has been

removed. Fair enough. It's a modernizing of the act, so fair enough. We're going

to have a discussion at length at committee stage as to why that might be. Local

citizens were able to use the Health Act to trigger an investigation by the

district, which ultimately resulted in an order to halt logging in the

watershed. They were able, in fact, to do that.

Ultimately, they didn't win in the courts, in terms of halting

that. But they were able to use the Health Act to raise an issue that their

local medical health officer said was a health hazard and raise it as a public

concern, as they should.

Under the new law the local medical health officer would be

required to report the health hazard, not to the public, in that sense, but to a

designated person. That designated person, of course, will be determined by

regulation, but it's not clear what is required of them once they are in receipt

of that information.

So there's a local issue. I think this gives people, when they're

looking at this very long bill, which takes up other acts and which has, as I

say, 126 sections — just to give people a sense of the debate that we're going

to expect at committee stage…. Even though it seems, when you look at big bills

that have been produced over a period of consultation and time, it's hard to see

the individual…. It's hard to see, shall we say, the trees for the forest, to

turn that around.

I wanted to say to my friend from Cowichan-Ladysmith, whose

community is struggling from lack of access to forests…. I just wanted to remind

him of better times. The fact of the matter is that in this legislation there

are going to be lots of issues like that.

I think it's our responsibility in this Legislature to go through

in detail and ask the Minister of Health, who presumably will have the

provincial medical officer of health with him in the House, the sort of detailed

questions over a period of days that are required to ensure that the legislation

does what it wants — and also to develop and increase public understanding, not

just at the public level but at the local government level, as to what the

legislation does and what it does not do.

[1050]

Now, what are the key elements of the legislation? The minister

has gone through them, so I won't go through them at length. But I just wanted

to sort of lay out what the minister has said the key points of the legislation

are and what the government is arguing that the key points to the legislation

are.

In a general sense, as I've said, we support these changes. I

think it's important to acknowledge that. But one of our major concerns is

that…. It is one thing to say that the cabinet, for example, may develop

regulations to facilitate the implementation of the plan, such as requiring

people who are making legislative decisions to consider the plan or restricting

or placing conditions on licences or permits or restricting exercise of power.

It's one thing to say that local governments have to come forward

with plans and acts and so on. It's another thing to say that they have the

resources to meet the test of the law. That's why it's important to continue to

emphasize the fact.

We can say, for example, that a city should have a mental health

plan, but if responsibilities without resources are downloaded, then that's a

concern. Of course you would agree that a city should have a mental health plan,

but a mental health plan without resources is, to use a historical expression, a

scrap of paper.

What we need…. I know the member for Vancouver-Kensington will

discuss this as he takes on what he's learned about public health, in particular

over his extraordinary tour of British Columbia, meeting with the growing number

of people who don't have shelter in our province, whose vision of what it means

to have public health would probably be quite different from those of us in this

Legislature who not only have access to health care but who have things that are

really important to public health, like a fixed address.

Their perception, I think, when the member for

Vancouver-Kensington and I talked to them about access to health care and what

would happen in terms of a public health calamity, is very different from ours —

from the lack of a family doctor, to a lack of proper access to food, to all the

things that they raised with us.

The impact of sleeping outside on a regular basis and the physical

worries of being in fact without the things we think are common…. To be able to

shut our doors, lock our doors and feel safe inside those doors while we sleep

and while our loved ones sleep — that's something that they don't feel and that

has a profound impact on public health.

The minister talked about this as well. And I'm delighted to

again…. Happily, the minister's ongoing desire to debate the patent of a trans

fat ban aside…. We, of course, on the opposition side support that. It was —

I'll be very delicate for the minister — an NDP idea that appeared on national

TV in 2004.

If you google "trans fat ban in Canada…." If you use the website

www.google.ca, which I believe exists

[ Page 12010 ]

even in a minister's computer, you'll see that in fact it was Pat Martin…. We

had public meetings. He came and promoted the bill in Vancouver. I've spoken to

Pat many times. He's done an outstanding job of changing the way we perceive

that issue. He's a trail-blazer on that issue.

You know what? I know it's shocking to the Minister of Health.

He's a member of the NDP, and this idea came from him. He drove it at a federal

level, and he's had real impact on the debate across our country about the

dangers to public health of trans fats, just as a previous NDP MP, Lynn

McDonald, had a profound effect on our perception of the dangers of tobacco in

the 1980s, which drove many public health initiatives, including control of

advertising, and other issues and initiatives that have been taken up in British

Columbia proudly in the 1990s under an NDP government, that profoundly improved

public health and that limited and led, I think in part — including the

involvement of the public, of course — in the reduction of tobacco use in

British Columbia to the lowest level in Canada in 2001.

It hit a bump in the road in 2002 when the government overrode the

WCB in terms of protecting workers from secondhand tobacco smoke. Now they are

going on, as the government has reversed its position and is supporting those

measures.

So yes, I believe I'm going to continue my speech. I believe my

colleague wants to rise in his place and seek leave to make an introduction. So

if he will rise — because I don't want to give up my place — and raise that,

then I will await his doing that.

[1055]

R. Fleming: I want to thank my colleague from Vancouver

just to give me a moment to seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

R. Fleming: With us in the precinct today in the gallery is

Ms. Dianne Boyce, a teacher at Oaklands Elementary School. With her is a group

of 28 grade 5 students, boys and girls, with parent volunteers accompanying them

today. Oaklands is one of the best elementary schools in my constituency, and I

want to make them all welcome. They've had a thorough tour this morning and are

enjoying themselves in the buildings.

Debate Continued

A. Dix: I know that other members of the House will want to

take

part in this very important debate on the Public Health Act, but I wanted

to just say in a general sense what the act does and why we support it before I

conclude.

What the act is intended to do is enable medical health officers

and environmental health officers to investigate health hazard complaints, and

I'm quoting from the government here: It "supports preparations and responses

for public health emergencies and ensures that government and health officials

have the authority they need to mobilize resources and take action to protect

public health."

Of course, the modernizing of that act is something that we would

support, with the caveat that we will be going through — over, I'm sure, a

period of days in committee stage — the details of this very long and important

bill. I think that when the government tables such a bill more than halfway

through a session, they would expect nothing less.

In fact, I think that if we spent the time on this bill, because I

think it's very important that this bill become law after we've gone through the

details of it…. It's very important, clearly, what that means. The government, I

think, would agree with me that this is extremely important, and that committee

stage debate on this bill should have priority over the other bills during the

days that follow.

It means, of course, that other legislation that's perhaps less

important than the modernization of the Public Health Act will be dealt with in

a fall session. We've said that we won't stand in the way of that, that we'll

have a very lengthy but serious debate about the Public Health Act at committee

stage. The minister, I know, will be delighted and interested in that — in fact

eager, I suspect, to have that debate. That may mean, of course, that other

bills, as our parliamentary calendar suggests, will be put off till the fall

session.

One of the most important issues about that…. This is normal

because, as the minister says, it's not like public health laws haven't been

changed since the 1890s. The minister made no critical comments about the 1890s,

but I think we know that laws….

Interjection.

A. Dix: The minister likes the 1890s. He prefers a time

before public health care and before public education. He seems to prefer that.

He seems to prefer that time. It just goes to show, I guess, that the term

antediluvian may well apply over there.

In any event, this bill, naturally, because this is an area where

regulations were required, leaves a lot to the regulation. I think that's

another reason why it's very important. If you go through the bill, you'll see a

lot of the provisions, in fact — those provisions dealing with health planning

and reporting; those decisions dealing with inspection powers and emergency

powers; health officials' inquiry in other matters; the administrative penalty

provisions…. Many of them will be dealt with and brought into force and affected

by regulation.

I think this is typical of many bills. It's not necessarily a bad

thing, depending on what the provisions are. For example, if you were to put in

by regulation that your access of information depends on the Minister of Health,

then that might not be a good thing. That might be contradictory, in fact, with

the whole idea. But in a general sense, of course, it's normal, especially in an

area of public health, that one would need regulatory power.

[1100]

[ Page 12011 ]

But it's another argument…. The extent, I'd argue, of the

regulation-making powers here in the act are a really compelling argument as to

why we need to have a very long and very fulsome debate on this legislation at

committee stage — that we be allowed to do that. I know the government, by

bringing in the bill in April and calling it today, understands that that is

required and, in fact, wants that debate to take place and will make the changes

to the legislative calendar required to allow that debate to happen.

[K. Whittred in the chair.]

Many of the groups who have been involved in this have also

indicated their support in a general sense for the legislation. Those groups

include the Canadian Mental Health Association, which indicated its support but,

again, with the caveat of the need for resources because of the requirement for

planning to address mental health and addiction facilities.

If that's the caveat, if that's what we need to do, then surely

what will flow from that are the resources to do so. It seems to me that the

critical issue of resources, of access, was highlighted most dramatically

recently by a report by the Vancouver police department. Just indicating from

what the Canadian Mental Health Association said and taking a look at the

Lost in Transition report, what that report shows and what it attempted to

quantify was the prevalence in Vancouver policing calls of people suffering from

mental health issues.

It took a two-week period, and it was quite an extraordinary

report that I think had a real impact on the public understanding of mental

health issues in Vancouver and their consequences to the broader public debate

beyond the actual application of mental health services — that it is not

neutral. It's not just the people not receiving those services that are

affected, but it's every police officer that's affected. There's public safety

that's affected. The whole community is affected, just as they're affected when

our brothers and sisters, our fellow citizens, don't have access to the care

that they need.

What the report discussed was the consequences for the mentally

ill who come into contact with police and the gaps in the mental health system

leading to the overwhelming number of calls related to mental health. The report

was actually a survey. They reported over a period of 16 days in September 2007.

Of the 1,154 calls in that period, 31 percent involved at least one mentally ill

person, a number which increased significantly in some areas of the city such as

the downtown east side where 49 percent of calls involved mental health issues.

For the police department, not for anyone else, the estimated

costs of this over a year are $9 million. Consider this: 90 full-time police

positions. And this is without counting the tens of millions of dollars of

indirect costs that come out of this lack of services.

Just to quote from this report:

"The key finding of this research is that there

is a profound lack of capacity in mental health resources in Vancouver. The

result is an alarmingly high number of calls for police services to incidents

that involve mentally ill people in crisis. VPD officers" — that's Vancouver

police department officers — "along with the citizens with whom they come in

contact are bearing the burden of a mental health system that lacks resources

and efficient information-sharing practices often with tragic consequences.

"There were 209 beds slated to be transferred to

the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority to replace those lost in the downsizing

of Riverview, and 200 of the 209 transfers have yet to take place."

What this says to me — and it's something that I think will characterize this

debate — is a concern not just with the legislative framework that we're talking

about here but, more than that, about the effects on real people of the lack of

real services that flow from the plans that are set out in the system. We, of

course, need services directly to help people.

It's great that people are concerned in Victoria about the

problems of people suffering from mental illness in Ladysmith or in Vancouver,

but what the people who suffer from mental illness need are places to live and

supports to help them get well or to cope with their mental illness. That's what

they need. You can't have one without the other.

[1105]

The report goes on to say — I think this is important — that

current options for the interaction between the police and the mentally ill….

Well, one of those is jail. If anyone thinks that the number of people in jail

is not a determinant of the health in society, they're wrong. Recent reports

indicate that the mentally ill form 40 percent of the prison population. The

impact of that is enormous.

There was a series of recommendations made. I know my colleague

from Vancouver-Kensington will go through this in detail. This disconnect

between legislative action and practical reality is a key part of our view of

public health that I think will form a key part of our alternatives under this

legislative basis that we are passing today in this Legislature at second

reading and then dealing with in detail at committee stage.

The reasonable plan to address public health has to include a plan

to ensure equality of access to services and equality of access to opportunity.

It matters to public health that they have a giant playground in St. George's

but not one at Graham Bruce. It matters to public health — this growing

inequality, this divide between the access to health care services and to other

services in some of our communities and the lack of it in others, the growing

inequality in terms of income levels. They matter to public health.

I think we were all horrified and fixated by what happened in New

Orleans. What it said is that when the kinds of catastrophes happen that would

need to invoke provisions of this public health care act…. If you haven't dealt

with those matters of inequality now, if they don't become part of the

non-legislative basis for a public health act now, if you don't respond by

raising the minimum wage now, if you don't respond by ensuring that farmworkers

have employment standards which are vital to their social determinants of health

now, then your ability to use legislation and your ability to use the

legislative provisions of this act to deal with those issues will in fact be

undermined.

[ Page 12012 ]

What we need as we pass this legislation, which we support on this

side of the House, is a renewed commitment to address the problem of inequality

that has been highlighted as recently as yesterday when we again were found to

be leading Canada in child and family poverty. If we don't do that, then our

systems may be great, but our results will not be.

We need a renewed focus. I think it's fair to say that many of the

people, some from groups that the minister has criticized — B.C. Health

Coalition, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, other groups and the

hundreds of people from those groups who took up the challenge to participate in

the Conversation on Health — said that the social determinants of health are

critical.

I just leave by reading them: income inequality, social inclusion

and exclusion, employment and job security, working conditions, contribution of

the social economy, early childhood care, education, food security and housing.

The way to implement and ensure that this legislation has the effect that we all

desire is to address those determinants. That's the lesson.

The Public Health Act has been generated by years of discussion.

It surely didn't come out of the Conversation on Health. No one could possibly

make that argument.

What did come from the Conversation on Health was the

determination of citizens to say to their government that growing inequality is

affecting the quality of access to care and, more important than that, affecting

the health outcomes of real people.

Those nine social determinants and others that flow from them and

the interaction of those social determinants will have a profound impact on the

success of this legislation — as I say, legislation we support.

[1110]

We will continue to focus in this second reading debate on the

profound disconnect between the lofty goals of the act and the growing

inequality that we're seeing in British Columbia society.

D. Chudnovsky: I'm pleased to speak today about Bill 23,

the Public Health Act. I need to begin by saying, in very general terms, I'm

very pleased indeed that the government has brought before us

an act which draws

attention to, makes improvements to and points a way forward in the issue of

public health in the province. I'm pleased for two reasons. Two reasons push me

to be pleased about the introduction of this bill.

The first reason that I'm supportive of an initiative with respect

to public health is that the whole concept of public health, the whole set of

principles on which public health policy is based, is good policy. Preventative,

community-based, broad-based, front-end-loaded public health or health policies

are the most effective. We are making good policy when we front-end-load the

resources available for public health, for health, and when we provide those

resources at a community level and set ourselves the task of developing policy

that meets those principles and those visions.

The first reason for being supportive of the government's

initiative in this area is that, in very general terms, public health as a

concept is good policy — better to expend the resources of the community on

public health initiatives than acute care initiatives at the other end. That's

rear-end-loaded expenditures. We know, from all the work that's been done in the

area of health outcomes, that front-end-loaded resources are more effective and

efficient. So that's the first reason I'm supportive.

The second reason that I'm supportive of initiatives in public

health at this particular moment is because we have, in the area that I'm

particularly concerned about — mental health services, addictions services and

homelessness — a crisis of public health. We have a public health crisis in this

province. We have a public health emergency in this province when it comes to

mental health services, addictions services and homelessness.

So when a government, any government, even this government, comes

forward and says that they will draw attention to and provide initiatives in the

area of public health at the same time as we have a public health emergency when

it comes to mental health services, addictions services and homelessness,

everybody has to be pleased. Everybody has to be pleased about that.

These two reasons — good public policy; we're facing a crisis —

push me to be supportive in general terms of the legislation that's before us.

Now I want to look at a number of the specifics of the legislation and put

forward some caveats, put forward some concerns, put forward some worries that I

and we on this side of the House have about the legislation.

[1115]

I want to do that by looking at some of the changes that are

included in the legislation. For instance, this legislation says that the

minister may require that a public health plan be made to monitor the health

status of the public and factors influencing public health to prevent

communicable diseases or health hazards or to protect or promote public health

or for other necessary reasons.

That public health plan — it doesn't say so in the quotation that

I've just put before the House — that the legislation refers to and that that

quotation referred to is a municipal public health plan. So the minister may

require that a municipal public health plan be put into place. Now, that might

be a very good idea. I think that with the proper understandings and the proper

constraints, it could easily be a good idea that the minister may require that a

municipal public health plan be put in place. But the worry I have is that

without resources, municipalities aren't able to make that public health plan

mean anything very much, except words on paper.

It's important that if government, senior government, require of

municipalities that they take action, that those senior governments provide the

resources necessary to take those actions. It doesn't make sense. This

government, as we know, has a history of doing this, has a history of

downloading responsibilities to municipalities, to school boards, of downloading

responsibilities without at the same time providing the resources necessary.

So while on the face of it we can support in a very general sense

the notion that the minister can require of a municipality to have a public

health plan — yeah, not

[ Page 12013 ]

a bad idea — it's just words on paper if the resources are not available to

the municipalities to do what's included in the plan that the minister could

require.

A second element. The minister will set the terms of reference for

the plan, including who prepares the plan, the purpose, the issues to be

addressed, the geographic area of the plan, those who must be consulted, how the

plan is to be coordinated with other plans, the outcome of the plan and anything

else necessary. The minister can require public bodies to develop plans,

including regional health authorities and local governments.

Now, that one sure sounds like this government. That one sure

sounds like this government. It is a government that is intent and has been

intent on micromanaging the actions of municipalities and school boards while at

the same time not providing the resources necessary for those bodies to do the

work that needs to be done.

So in a general sense, is it a good idea for a Minister of Health

to be able to require municipalities to have a public health plan? Yeah, in a

general sense, that's a good idea. Should the minister at the same time or

contemporaneous with his or her ability to require a plan provide the resources

necessary? Yes. Should that minister intervene in the detailed requirements of

that plan? I'm not so sure. General guidelines, resources and accountability?

I'm okay with that. That sounds a lot like the Canada Health Act, actually.

General principles, resources and accountability — isn't that the model? But not

micromanaging without resources, which it sounds like this government….

Cabinet may develop regulations to facilitate the implementation

of the plan, such as requiring people who are making legislative decisions to

consider the plan or restricting or placing conditions on licences or permits or

restricting exercises of powers.

Again, maybe that's an okay idea, but if we're requiring of

boards, municipalities and other bodies in the province that they take specific

kinds of actions, then it seems to me that the government has the responsibility

to provide the resources necessary to, in fact, take those actions, or else it's

just words on paper.

[1120]

I wanted to take a few minutes to speak to this issue of public

health with some specificity. I said a minute ago that initiatives with respect

to public health are a good idea because we face right now, today, in the areas

of mental health, addictions and homelessness, a public health emergency in

British Columbia. So it is fitting that government would bring forward

initiatives with respect to public health, would create a structure, a

superstructure, within which public health policy would be promulgated — fair

enough. But we've got to get down to brass tacks.

We've got some problems in the province in these areas, and I want

to spend a few minutes talking about those. The Vancouver police department

recently…. This is the Vancouver police department. It's not the opposition.

It's not the health coalition. It's not the health care unions. It's not the

opposition Health critic. It's not the opposition. It's the Vancouver police

department that recently put forward a study about this very question of the

crisis, the emergency in public health when it comes to addictions and mental

health and homelessness in the city of Vancouver. They said the key finding of

this research is that:

"…there is a profound lack of capacity in mental

health resources in Vancouver. The result is an alarmingly high number of

calls for police service to incidents that involve mentally ill people in

crisis. VPD officers" — Vancouver police department officers — "along with the

citizens with whom they come in contact are bearing the burden of a mental

health system that lacks resources and efficient information-sharing

practices, often with tragic consequences."

Now, that's an indictment of the mental health system as it exists in this

province. It comes from the Vancouver police department.

So while we welcome initiatives put forward by government to

modernize the Public Health Act, we request of government, we implore of

government, that we have initiatives that modernize public health. The act is

one thing.

We've got a crisis, an emergency, with respect to public health

happening right now. The Vancouver police department tells us that. This

minister and this government are responsible for public health, and we say that,

together with initiatives in modernizing and streamlining the act, there have to

be policies that deal with the current crisis emergency of public health when it

comes to mental health and addictions.

The Vancouver police department report — not the opposition, not

the health coalition, not the advocacy groups — says that up to 49 percent of

all calls they attend in one of the sectors of Vancouver in which contact with

an individual is made involves a mentally ill person. So we've got a situation.

We've got a situation in which the police department tells us that there is a

crisis in the availability of resources for people who are mentally ill and

addicted and homeless in Vancouver and that in one of the regions of Vancouver,

49 percent of the calls that the police are making involve somebody who is

mentally ill.

That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to send law

enforcement officers to deal with health care. That's inefficient,

inappropriate.

[1125]

The VPD report goes on to say…. I want to focus on this quotation

from the police — not the opposition, not the Health critic, not the health

coalition, not the unions. The Vancouver police department says: "The downtown

east side is a predictable example of what happens when people who need various

levels of community support are left to fend for themselves." That's what the

police have said to us.

While we welcome the government and the minister bringing forward

legislation which modernizes and streamlines the act, we demand of this same

minister that he bring forward policies that deal with mental health. The act —

words on paper. People's lives, people's health are at risk. We have a crisis.

We have an emergency.

In general, the Vancouver police department says this to us. This

fact, the fact that the police are dealing

[ Page 12014 ]

with mental health issues, is supported in current literature, where it's

widely accepted that the police are, by default, becoming the informal first

responders of our mental health systems. The problem with that is that the

police aren't part of the mental health system.

We've got a situation in which police officers, by default….

They're doing the best they can. I live in Vancouver. I see the police officers

every day doing the best they can to deal with a situation which isn't a police

situation. It's not a policing situation. It's not a law enforcement situation.

It is, in fact, a public health situation. It's a health crisis, and the police

department has pointed that out very clearly to us.

So we say to government, to this minister, that the VPD report

does several things at once. First of all, it's an indictment of the current

state of public health, of mental health, addiction services and homelessness in

the city. Secondly, it points to the reminder that this opposition is providing

to the minister that it is not possible to deal with this crisis, with this

emergency, without the appropriate resources. And thirdly, it reminds us, or it

should remind the minister, that downloading those responsibilities without

providing the appropriate resources is inappropriate and won't solve the

problem.

Finally, if I may, I would like to quote a final time from the VPD

report where they say: "Lack of resources. The final and perhaps most

significant issue affecting the enforcement of current legislation is the lack

of resources for people who are mentally ill." Madam Speaker, we need to listen

to that report. The Vancouver police have told us that there is a lack of

resources for those who are mentally ill.

I want to broaden the discussion a little bit, because I think

that while the Vancouver police report is tremendously significant, it doesn't

speak to the rest of the province. Unfortunately, the problem is worse in the

rest of the province, and I have had personal experience in recent weeks with

that.

I was at the Lookout emergency shelter on the downtown east side

of Vancouver. I recommend highly to every member of this Legislature that you

take a little bit of time and find, in your own community or in Vancouver or in

Victoria, the time to visit an emergency shelter — and not just whisk yourself

in and out of the emergency shelter, those places that are there as a temporary

refuge for some of the homeless people in our community, for some of the 10,000

to 15,000 homeless people in British Columbia. Of course, there aren't nearly

enough homeless shelter beds, temporary emergency shelters for all of the people

who are homeless. But for some of that enormous number of homeless people in our

province, we have emergency shelter beds.

[1130]

I recommend to every member that she or he visit an emergency

shelter and spend some time speaking to our neighbours, our neighbours who find

it necessary to seek shelter in these emergency shelters. I was at the Lookout

shelter in the downtown east side of Vancouver a couple of weeks ago, and I

spoke to two people — one of them from Surrey and one of them from the

Kootenays. I asked them what they were doing in the shelter, where they'd lived

before and what happened that resulted in them taking refuge in the emergency

shelter. They both said that they had mental health challenges for which there

were no appropriate services, none, in their own communities.

So they were forced to come to Vancouver and stay in emergency

shelters in Vancouver, when the appropriate and the most healthy thing for them

to do would have been to find those services in their own communities, where

they had family and friends who could provide the support necessary for them to

be more successful. So it is not just a Vancouver problem.

I want to draw our attention to another report, a significant

report that came out a couple months ago. The report comes from the Centre for

Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction in the faculty of health

sciences at Simon Fraser University. It's called Housing and Support for

Adults with Severe Addictions and/or Mental Illness in British Columbia . It

has to be mentioned that in this report the authors, who are respected

researchers and academics, estimate that between 8,000 and 15,500 people in

British Columbia with severe addictions and/or mental illness are homeless.

Think about that. Between 8,000 and 15,500 people who have severe

addictions problems or mental illness or both are homeless. What's happened is

that the researchers have begun to use the figure 11,750, which is halfway

between 8,000 and 15,500, as their estimate for the number of homeless people

who have mental health problems, addiction problems or both.

Now, we know there are thousands of people in the province who

have neither mental health problems nor addiction problems, who are homeless. So

that begins to give us a sense of how many in the province are homeless. But

they tell us that there are 11,750 homeless people in the province who have

mental health problems, addiction problems or both — a staggering figure.

The week before last, the Fraser Valley homelessness count was

announced. I think it's worthwhile mentioning just a couple of the results of

that count. First of all, there was a significant increase in homelessness

reported in the Fraser Valley count. That shouldn't be surprising to us, because

that's the case in every community in the province — significant increases in

the number of homeless people. It's a 364 percent increase in the number of

street homeless in Vancouver since 2002 — increases everywhere.

Two other factors were announced as a result of that count. Some

35 percent of the homeless people in the upper Fraser Valley work at least part

time, and 75 percent of the homeless people in the upper Fraser Valley call the

Fraser Valley home, which gives the lie to this kind of urban myth that somehow

the homeless people in our communities are from somewhere else. "They're not us.

They come from somewhere else, and they travel to our communities to be

homeless." No, they're us. They're us — the homeless people in our communities.

What did the SAMI report, Housing and Support for Adults with

Severe Addictions and/or Mental Illness in British Columbia , have to say?

[1135]

[ Page 12015 ]

I quote from that report.

"According to housing and support providers

across B.C., affordable housing is vanishing, evictions are on the rise, and

waiting lists for social and supported housing continue to grow. As a

consequence, homelessness and SAMI" — severe addictions or mental illness;

that's SAMI — "are placing greater pressure on the social service, health care

and criminal justice system. In contrast to the cost of implementing

solutions, what is the cost of the status quo?"

That's a question, Madam Speaker. In contrast to implementing

solutions, what is the cost of the status quo? That's a question we asked

directly through you to the minister. What the researchers are saying to us —

and I'm sure the minister has seen the report; if not, I recommend it to him

highly — is that the cost of doing what we're doing is way more expensive than

providing the necessary housing and supports for people who are mentally ill,

people who have addictions problems and people who are homeless.

Why? Why is it that it's cheaper to provide homes and supports

than to do what we're doing? Well, the police department report told us. Think

of the costs of policing, of the courts, of the jails, of the ambulances, of the

emergency rooms, of the acute care beds. A report today in the media tells us

that a quarter, 25 percent, of the beds at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver are

filled with people with mental health problems or addiction problems who are

homeless.

It's way cheaper to deal with the problem and provide housing and

the supports necessary for those people who are housed to be successful than it

is to do what we're doing. We recommend that to this minister and to this

government, if they are concerned about the nuts and bolts of public health and

not just the structure as defined by the legislation.

The same Simon Fraser report reported a list of challenges. I

would argue that these are the challenges that are faced by government if they

are serious about providing solutions to the mental health, addictions and

homelessness crisis that we face today, right now, in the province.

First of all, the report argued for increased planning and

communication. I would argue that that's very important. I want to say, based on

the work I've been doing over the last couple of months and the travelling I've

been doing across the province and speaking with service providers who deal with

people with mental health problems and addictions challenges and homelessness,

that there is an increased integration of planning and communication. But at the

end of the day you can increase coordination all you want. If you don't have

homes and services, it doesn't make a difference.

Income assistance. This report says income assistance is

necessary. At $8 an hour or $375 a month for the shelter allowance, it's

impossible. We need increases in both of those things.

Supply of low-cost rental housing. There's a crisis. All the talk

in the world, all of the coordination in the world, all of the outreach workers

in the world can't find people places to live unless those places to live exist.

"There needs to be a crisis orientation," said the report from

Simon Fraser. There's an emergency right now, a crisis right now. Government has

to set its mind to it.

Insufficient community programs and supports for people with

addictions and mental health problems — that's what the Simon Fraser report

said.

To conclude, while we support in general an updating and

streamlining of the public health legislation, we say that what's more important

to government is public health.

We've got a crisis. We've got an emergency when it comes to mental

health services, addictions services and homelessness in this province. While we

support this improved legislation, we say to government: your responsibility,

much more important than changing the legislation, way more important than words

on paper, much more important than updating old legislation from the 1890s….

[1140]

The real responsibility, the real task, the real test is what

government does to help people who are involved, who need public health help,

our neighbours who have mental health challenges or addiction challenges and are

homeless. So we ask of the government, we suggest to the government and we

implore the government to take important steps in those areas.

C. Wyse: It is indeed my pleasure once more to be up in the

House to speak on a bill — Bill 23, the Public Health Act — that is important.

It is a bill that in broad generalities, I believe, is supportable. But as I

share my thoughts here with the House, I have some cautions that I would like to

share with you, Madam Speaker, and with the people here in British Columbia

watching this important discussion taking place here.

There is no question in my mind on the importance of public

health. There is, to me, a self-evident fact that when we have legislation that

goes back to the '90s — in this particular case it is the 1890s since an overall

comprehensive review has been done — it says that this legislation needs to have

a review.

However, and I will return to this point later, one of the

cautions I do have is that once more we have legislation here that is enabling

legislation. What it does is allow the cabinet to take on the responsibility for

developing the regulations, for actually putting the meat and bones upon this

legislation.

As we know from previous discussions we've had in here, the

cabinet is an arm of government that meets in secret. It does not make the

rationale on how the decisions were made available to the population at large.

It is done in a fashion that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for the

people of British Columbia to have direct input to this particular arm of

government.

It's a very powerful portion of our Legislature's setup. Once more

we are taking aspects that are important to British Columbians and removing

where the decisions are made from a venue in which input is provided — and an

ability to see what is happening. That raises three or four cautions that I find

here in the bill and that I would like to share with you.

I've had a tendency to look upon the effect of this particular

bill from my area of responsibility, from a

[ Page 12016 ]

local government and community services overview. When you look at the bill,

it contains within it the ability to override local government zoning bylaws

that prohibit types of health services. In discussion that has taken place

leading up to the development of the bill, it has been mentioned as examples

that we'd be looking at types of health services such as needle exchanges or

methadone clinics. That's one aspect of it.

The cabinet then ends up in a situation — presumably, the

regulations that they develop — that in overriding the zoning bylaw that exists

within a community, they have taken on the responsibility amongst themselves to

determine where such a health service would be provided.

[1145]

It raises this question, and it's a hypothetical situation. In the

past we have seen situations in which the population have raised their concerns

about this type of health service being in their neighbourhood. By having this

responsibility now being passed on to cabinet, it does potentially raise the

situation of an overall fairness.

When the cabinet looks upon where any opposition may be coming for

such a service area, does a community have the assurance that the entire

community will have the oversight, the protection assigned to it by the cabinet?

I beg to draw this conclusion — that you do not have that assurance anymore

because in the cabinet there is absolutely no guarantee that the community where

the decisions are being challenged will have a cabinet minister sitting at the

table to bring forward those community interests.

At the same time cabinet ministers, when they sit as members of

cabinet, are sitting there with the responsibility to the cabinet, and they have

left at the front door their responsibility for their ridings and the

communities that in actual fact have elected them. It also raises the question:

what about all of those ridings that belong to the opposition, whichever party

that may be? This is a caution that I bring forward. When you have enabling

legislation that removes oversight and puts it into secrecy, then the aspect of

fairness also comes into play.

A second point that I would also like to bring up at this time and

share with you is the responsibility for government at the senior level.

Sometimes it's provincial, and sometimes it's federal, but most often the

responsibility for the services being provided in health care belongs at the

provincial table. When the provincial government doesn't provide for those

services for mental health, for addictions and for homelessness, the results of

that lack of services being provided are felt at the local government level.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, it's good to see that you're back. I'd like to

acknowledge that you have joined me to hear my points that I'm making, and I

wish to acknowledge Madam Speaker for having listened so attentively as you

change the guard.

The point I'm raising here is that those services not being

provided to the community leave the local government suffering the consequences.

Last weekend I happened to be at a local government meeting of the Southern

Interior Local Government Association. I had one of the local elected officials,

a director of the TNRD, approach me about homelessness that has turned up in her

area.

Now, this isn't a community. This is a rural unincorporated area,

and the issue of homelessness has turned up in her area of responsibility. She

was asking me, as the provincial elected person, what I could do to help support

her in that area. I will get back to her, but the point I'm making here is that

it's the local government that experiences the effect of public health services

not being provided in their area. They are the ones that have to live with the

consequences.

[1150]

Remember that this legislation provides the cabinet with the

ability to override the zonings of the local government. But I do not see in the

legislation the provincial government taking on the responsibility for ensuring

that the funding responsibilities for providing these health services also turn

up and arrive there. So that is one of the cautions that I bring forward about

this particular bill in front of us.

Secondly, the bill itself has removed the explicit power of local

governments to sit as local boards of health to make orders to remediate a

health hazard. I'm sure there is an argument that can be developed for this

particular rationale, but by doing such, this has removed the ability of

individual citizens to actually call in for the investigation of a health

hazard. Now you have, in the legislation, removed that potential ability from

individual citizens and incorporated it at the most distant decision-making

aspect of government, of legislatures — at the cabinet level.

That is something that I believe is worth mentioning here. We have

had an example at Chapman Creek where there was a health concern. The health

officer was in actual fact in agreement that there was a health concern.

But now, as I read the legislation, the ability for local

government to move upon that health hazard directly is removed, and this is what

we now have for the plan. We have an individual who goes to a health officer,

who goes to a designated person, and we now wait for the development of the

regulations. We then determine at that point what will happen with the health

concern.

At one point in time the only filter that was in place was the

individual approaching the local level of government and then moving on that

item, should the local level of government feel that it was necessary and

prudent for it to move on it.

So I have those concerns. The concerns also go into other aspects

of public health that have an effect on local government. We do know that public

health is the best method of dealing with health situations if we're dealing

with the preventative aspect of it, if it remains community based and if the

resources are provided at the community level. I think there is unanimity on

both sides of the House with those particular principles.

As I've pointed out, the community-based aspect of it has now been

moved further away from the community

[ Page 12017 ]

in the process of implementation. The question of funding for the services

likewise remains there.

In the area of public health, the province has responsibilities —

for example, in looking after septic field regulations. There's an aspect that

the regulations that have been introduced by this government in 2005 have caused

quite a wide range of issues and problems across the entire province. In doing

such, the UBCM wishes to work with the government to have a large number of

changes made to those regulations. This particular bill, when we look at the

regulations that are developed, may provide the same set of encumbrances to

looking after public health.

[1155]

Noting the time, Mr. Speaker, I am going to very quickly wrap up

at this moment in time, and I will be turning it over to my colleague. I wish to

thank you for this opportunity to present my points of view, and I will reserve

my place for after lunch.

C. Wyse moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Committee of Supply (Section A), having reported progress, was

granted leave to sit again.

Tabling Documents

Hon. R. Thorpe: I have the privilege to table the annual

report of the Property Assessment Appeal Board for the year 2007.

Hon. G. Abbott moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 this

afternoon.

The House adjourned at 11:56 a.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE

DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS

AND RANGE AND MINISTER

RESPONSIBLE FOR HOUSING

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); H. Bloy in the

chair.

The committee met at 10:07 a.m.

On Vote 34: ministry operations, $534,097,000 (continued).

The Chair: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Douglas

Fir Room. Committee A is meeting for the estimates of Forests and Range.

Before I start, I would like to remind all members of the House to

keep their comments and their side comments to themselves. There is to be no

interaction with the gallery at all. The same rules apply in the small House as

they do in the big House. Any member of the gallery that makes a noise or in any

way interrupts the proceedings will be asked to be removed from the gallery.

I would like to point out to the member for Nelson-Creston to keep

his comments to himself and allow the individuals on both sides of the House

that have the floor to be able to make comment.

N. Macdonald: Who is Nelson-Creston? Where is he?

The Chair: Member. Member, all comments are through the

Chair. You know, we're just going through this process now, and it's respect for

the House and the way the House runs. So is it clear to the member for Columbia

River–Revelstoke?

N. Macdonald: Absolutely clear.

B. Simpson: Again, my thanks to the staff that are all

coming in here, and we'll try and get through the remainder of the day. My

understanding, for the Chair's edification and for the minister, is that we have

until close of session today on these estimates. I guess we're still aiming for

about 11:45 so that we can take it into the House.

The Chair: Yes. Member, the rules for the House are 15

minutes before the close of the day for the small House.

B. Simpson: Thank you, Chair.

I'd like just to wrap up some of the work that we were doing

yesterday on Pope and Talbot. Then I'd like to move on to tenures in general,

and through that we'll canvass forest and range agreements and canvass B.C.

Timber Sales issues. Hopefully, we can get on to some general issues of the

coast today before we break.

[1010]

With respect to Pope and Talbot, overnight I had asked whether or

not we could get clarification if the court had ever been informed that the

private lands in tree farm licence 23 were encumbered. Was the minister able to

get that clarification?

Hon. R. Coleman: Yesterday — and I'll give this to the

member, actually — the hon. member asked when the government had notified the

court that the sale of the private land was encumbered.

Ministry of Forests and Range and Ministry of Attorney General

staff have had discussions with a court-appointed monitor and made it clear that

the private lands were subject to the TFL. They have also made it clear that the

minister's approval is needed for the lands to be deleted from the TFL. It is

clear that the monitor and the court understood that the lands are subject to

the

[ Page 12018 ]

TFL and that the approval from the minister must be obtained for the lands to

be removed from the TFL.

For example, in the third monitor's report to the court dated

November 28, 2007, page 14, paragraph 6.5.2: "In October 2007 the company

submitted to the Minister of Forests and Range a formal request to remove the

private lands from the TFL. Under the Forest Act, the approval from MOFR must be

obtained for the disposition of the private lands if the private land is subject

to a TFL."

It goes on to say: "The listings of properties in appendix C

denotes which properties are included in the TFL and the requirement to have it

removed prior to sale." The hon. member should be aware that there is a notation

in the land title that indicates the land in question is also subject to the

TFL.

B. Simpson: Thank you. That's a helpful clarification.

Again, just for the public record, a lot of the questions that we ask in

estimates are on behalf of other people that are seeking that clarification.

It's good to have the clarification on the public record. We can then ship it

out to them, which is what we do. We take Hansard and give it to the

various stakeholders that ask us to bring those things forward.

With respect to the timing of the approval, when can we expect the

minister's decision on the removal of these private lands from TFL 23?

Hon. R. Coleman: At this point in time, there's been work

done with communities, first nations, etc. It's on the deputy's desk. It hasn't

come to mine. My folks have been advised, even subject to yesterday's debates,

that prior to it coming to me it has to go out for some public meetings within

the communities.

So there is no time line for that. It's not going to happen this

week, next week, or whatever the case may be, because we're obviously here until

the end of the month. I would anticipate that the request for the decision,

which doesn't necessarily mean the decision gets made one way or the other, is

some time away, but it's not imminent today or tomorrow, sort of thing.

B. Simpson: Yesterday, there were some questions about

which first nations…. I assume the Okanagan Nation Alliance is part of the

consultation process. That's who we have had correspondence from as recently as

February of this year. So they're part of the first nations consultations?

[1015]

Hon. R. Coleman: To the member opposite, and I may have

some trouble with some of the pronouncing of some of these names because I don't

have the phonetic ones, the Adams Lake Indian Band, the Ktunaxa Indian Nation

Council, Little Shuswap Indian band, Lower Similkameen, Neskonlith Indian band,

Okanagan Indian band, the Penticton Indian band, Shuswap, Splats'in, Westbank,

Okanagan Nation Alliance and the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council have all received

communication with regards to this from the ministry.

B. Simpson: Again, I want to be clear. The minister has

indicated that, in this case, public meetings will be held in advance of the

release of the private lands?

Hon. R. Coleman: We will go into a couple of the affected

communities, and people can come to those meetings. But yeah, we'll go into one

or two communities and have a public meeting with regards to the lands in the

TFL.

B. Simpson: I guess for the sake of the people on Vancouver

Island: Why? Why is this happening now? I mean, it's great that people are going

to be consulted with, but why didn't this happen on Vancouver Island? That's

what we've been saying all along. The people of Jordan River have had to take to

the streets because this didn't happen.

I would like an explanation on the public record. Why the change

of heart? Why, when you've got a small amount of private land in the Interior —

the last bit of private land, really, of any substance or value — that's left in

tree farm licences, are we now going to turn around and consult with the public,

from the perspective of the minister anyway? We're happy that he's going to do

that, but it should have been done on Vancouver Island. Why the change of heart?

Hon. R. Coleman: Well, I'm not going to get into the debate

about what happened with the other TFL, quite frankly. The member read into the

record yesterday the report that came that there may be minimal public response

to this. I think it was the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin. We just felt, after

going through that, that we could try and improve our processes, so that's what

we're trying to do as we learn as we go along.

We had contacted local communities in this area and, frankly,

haven't received much response, so we thought the best way may be, in this case,

because we're not getting the response, to go to the community and have a

meeting and see what the thoughts are with regards to this TFL.

B. Simpson: Well, again, we've got too much to canvass to

keep beating this around. I'm glad that you're going to go in and do that.

I've got e-mails. My e-mail inbox got full, just as other members'

from the Kootenays did when this hit the press, so I find it hard to believe

that there hasn't been much feedback. Maybe it's just coming to us and not to

the ministry.

The reality was that when the Weyerhaeuser deal was done, there

was considerable backlash around those. So that lesson should have been learned

between the former Forests Minister and this Forests Minister before the Jordan

lands were released.

Anyway, we have to move on because of time. With respect to the

TFL 23 transfer to Interfor, will the silviculture obligations that have accrued

to Pope and Talbot continue with Interfor? Will they continue to hold those

obligations?

[ Page 12019 ]

Hon. R. Coleman: The answer to that question is yes, but I

do want to read this into the record, for the member's information: "A number of

local community representatives attended a conference call on November 1, 2007."

I'll just repeat that just in case the member was distracted.

"A number of local community representatives

attended a conference call on November 1, 2007, with representatives from Pope

and Talbot and received an update on the proposed removal of private lands

from TFL 23. Also, community representatives have been contacted by the

regional executive director for the southern interior's forest region and

provided with Pope and Talbot's October 7 information package that summarizes

forest management issues relative to the proposal. The information package was

sent to regional district of Central Kootenay, to the mayors of Nakusp,

Revelstoke and Castlegar on December 17, 2007. Since that time the Minister of

Forests and Range has not received any additional information or concerns from

these communities."

B. Simpson: I was distracted at the beginning of the

minister's comments. Will the silviculture obligations be passed on?

Hon. R. Coleman: That's right.

[1020]

B. Simpson: Thank you very much.

The next question on this is the status of the Interfor deal and

the status of the two mills. Now, Interfor has communicated to the workers there

that they may not run those mills for some time or until the market turns

around. There are issues, then, for Celgar. There are issues for logging

operations and so on.

There are also the considerable questions around all of the

independents who operate in that area and whether or not they'll be able to

secure the kind of fibre supply agreements that they had with Pope and Talbot,

because they did log trading to get the log profile that they needed. There are

also questions about whether the northern portion of the cut will end up going

to Adams Lake and therefore will end up starving the Castlegar and Grand Forks

mills of the fibre that they need to be operational.

Is there any consideration on the part of the minister — because

we used to do this with TFL transfers and mill closures — to go into communities

and have Interfor hold public meetings where they give a report to the public

about what their intentions are for those public forest licences and for the

future of those operations? Is the minister in any discussions with Interfor

where Interfor is going to be asked to do that kind of public discussion and

consultation?

Hon. R. Coleman: It's not required under the transfer. It

hasn't been required under the transfer. My understanding is that Interfor has

had some conversations in the area with different folks, and what we can do is

encourage them to do something along the lines the member describes.

I've had no indication whatsoever, quite frankly, from the company

or anybody other than the comment the member makes that any of this wood is

going to Adams Lake. As a matter of fact, they're in the process of asking for a

subdivision of another licence in the Interior to accrue additional fibre for

Adams Lake through that. My understanding is that they would have more than

enough through that than through Adams Lake. So I wouldn't anticipate that that

would be the case.

I think this company feels that it has some responsibility to

communicate. I know that their people have been over in the Kootenays talking to

folks, and I'll have a discussion with the company in that regard.

This company is a corporation that I think wants to make the green

timber and the opportunity in this area of the province work. I think that's why

they made the long-term investment to do this deal. They see it as a long-term

opportunity, given the issues in and around the mountain pine beetle and

basically, also, the closeness to market and transport. They see some

opportunities here. At least that's what I was told after they made the decision

to go after this area of the province, and I would have to take them at their

word on that.

Frankly, I don't know what their process has been the last couple

months, but I can certainly check with the company.

B. Simpson: Again, there used to be formal processes. It

was the changes in 2003 that removed those formal processes. So the communities

got an automatic input into what was going on with the private lands.

I want to just finish up some things on private lands, some

questions that are out there with respect to removals on Vancouver Island. Then

I'll come back to Pope and Talbot under some general questions about tenure.

Are we paying any of the companies that we release private lands

to — TimberWest, Island Timberlands, Western Forest Products — for access to

Crown land through their road system, and if so, how much are we paying?

[1025]

Hon. R. Coleman: The policy is that when we do this…. It's

like we did with the Western one. We got $2 million for the road, 17 kilometres,

which was the major access, so that we could get to Crown land and for

recreational purposes.

There is the occasion where it's more convenient to take another

road that we don't have on private lands to access a fibre supply, and at that

point, road charges would apply. We don't have the information as to when that's

happened in the last year or so, but it isn't unusual. It's no different than

going across anybody's private land. We would do that if we needed to access a

cutblock in an area that would take us off the roads that we either controlled

or owned.

B. Simpson: I guess for some of the people in the Port

Alberni region, where a lot of those lands were under TFL control, they find it

unacceptable that we're now cutting cheques to get through some of those now

private lands. It would be good if we could get some information on how much it

does cost the ministry,

[ Page 12020 ]

particularly through private lands that have been released from tree farm

licences and that are now private lands,

whereas we didn't pay for that before.

A final question on private land removals: does the ministry track

the log exports from private lands that have been released, particularly to

Island Timberlands and TimberWest? Does the ministry keep track of and

differentiate the profile and the volume coming off private lands that the

ministry released from tree farm licences?

Hon. R. Coleman: What we do is we track it by timber mark.

Each private land has its own timber mark. We track that and then put it into

our data. What we can do is actually generate a report from timber mark.

B. Simpson: I want to be clear, for the public record, why

that question is being asked. It would be good to have that data, because when

those private lands — there are 100,000-plus hectares of private lands on

Vancouver Island — were under tree farm licence control, they were subjected to

provincial surplus tests and provincial regulations for log exports. They would

have been part of the provincial log export constraints.

The minute they were released, they become part of the federal

constraints, and they're free and unencumbered from the provincial constraints.

That's why we react the way we do in the Legislature when the minister says:

"Well, don't worry about it. A lot of those log exports that are going out the

door right now are from private lands." Well, yes, private lands released by

this government from tree farm licences that otherwise would have been

constrained log exports.

Those figures would be nice to have, because I know that the

people in Port Alberni, in Campbell River and down south here are starting to be

concerned about that. That flip of status from tree farm licence lands to

private lands has increased and exacerbated log exports on the coast. The small

volume of public land log exports, which I'll get into in a minute, is not the

real story. The real story is how much of the log exports are coming off these

released lands.

So those figures would be good to have. If the ministry can

provide them, it would be good to have them from 2004 on so that we can see what

has happened with log exports off private lands over that period of time since

they've been released.

[1030]

I want to move on to general tenure questions just now. We've got

the situation where a number of tenures are in the process of flipping. A number

of companies are in the process of closing down operations yet still hold

tenures or forest licences. What appears, and we've been saying this for the

last three years, is that we have now effectively privatized the public land

base.

The tenures are basically assets that are held by the companies to

cash out or to flip and trade when they see fit, but there are public policy

considerations when these tenures do that or when companies make decisions. One

of them right now is part of the Pope and Talbot deal, and that's the whole APP

offer that may or may not go through. As it stands today, it's been withdrawn.

There may be some other negotiations going on.

What I'm curious about is: when does that come? When do those

kinds of tenure transfers come to the attention of the minister, and what role

does the minister play in looking at who is actually going to get public land

tenures? So when does the minister get involved in those things, and what

filters or what scrutiny is given to the companies that are intending to get

tenure in this province?

[1035]

Hon. R. Coleman: Typically, the transfer of tenure arrives,

first of all, in the ministry by an application or a request being filed by

somebody to do so. The review is then done to see if there's any undue lessening

of standing timber and chips relative to competitiveness. Then in some cases in

the past, between the federal Competition Bureau and us, there have been some

divestitures here like, for instance, the Hampton mill in Fort St. James. West

Fraser had to divest itself because of when they did that on that deal.

The ones that are still outstanding…. There is the one in Fort St.

James, which was a tenure transfer. We did advise that we felt the company could

proceed because the transfer there would work for the mill up there. Now that

the deal isn't going ahead, the transfer wouldn't go ahead, because it was

basically part of the request.

We don't have an application there. We just had the inquiry,

basically to say: "Could we do this?" The answer after the review was yes, but

of course, now that's all changed in the courts in the last 24, 48 hours, so

that will now be sitting in limbo.

There are no other ones that have actually been requested at this

point in time.

B. Simpson: I'll come to the Weyerhaeuser one in a second.

I want to finish the APP and the Fort St. James one.

Part of my question was the scrutiny put on the companies that are

requesting tenure in British Columbia. Pope and Talbot, in this case, would flip

it to a subsidiary of APP, a company that has lost FSC certification, that has

defaulted in other jurisdictions.

What scrutiny was put on a company like that getting access to

public land in British Columbia? Does the ministry actually sit and take a look

at the company's track record, or does it simply say that this looks like it

fits from a fibre flow perspective, so go ahead and do it? Do we scrutinize the

company's record and make a determination on whether we think they will be good

forest stewards and will act in the public interest in B.C.?

Hon. R. Coleman: No, we don't go through the company and

scrutinize it.

This is what is required from British Columbia. First of all, any

debt to us as a province has to be paid. Secondly, they have to accept the

silviculture liability and the environmental liabilities on the land base. They

have to deposit with us the appropriate deposits,

[ Page 12021 ]

which are a requirement, and they have to abide by our current laws as they

operate on the land base, which we monitor as the Ministry of Forests.

B. Simpson: I don't think that gives a lot of comfort to

the people of B.C., especially under FRPA, especially under the difficulties

that we're having with professional reliance and making professional reliance

work on the ground and especially given the fact that the government never

increased compliance and enforcement capabilities as it promised. We've actually

decreased compliance and enforcement since we introduced the Forest and Range

Practices Act, and we've flatlined it going forward.

One would expect that some level of scrutiny on who's going to be

a forest manager in this province with public forest licences would be expected.

I guess that's too much to ask.

With respect to the APP deal, just to close that part off before I

look at other tenure flips, has there been any consideration on the part of the

minister to work with the company — Pope and Talbot in particular, not the buyer

in this case — to figure out ways to make sure that both Mackenzie and, in

particular, Harmac have sources of fibre available?

[1040]

In Harmac's case that is a major stumbling block for anybody

picking that mill up and investing in it. Before we talk about interference and

going back to Skeena Cellulose…. That's not what we're talking about.

We're simply asking if every avenue has been explored,

particularly in the Harmac case, although Mackenzie will be in the same boat. If

Canfor stays down, if AbitibiBowater stays down, if the Fort St. James mill

doesn't come up…. It's in the same circumstance. The minister should be aware

that there's a pulp and paper report out there that says we have a significant

fibre-supply shortage in the Interior for our pulp sector, post–mountain pine

beetle.

Are we working to deal with that part of this deal, to structure

the deal for the best possible success? It is within the minister's domain of

experience or policy-making abilities to make sure that we try and get fibre to

those two mills and, hopefully, make that deal more palatable for somebody to

buy those mills.

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I wouldn't want to just

couch the discussion with regards to this that a particular mill's only problem

is chip supply — just so that we're clear.

We're actually working…. As the member says, it's not just a

concern for the mills that the member mentioned, but it's also a concern for

pulp and paper in general that the chip supply concerns actually exist in many

parts of the province.

We're working with them to look at how we can do stuff with the

logs and stuff to be able to meet their needs. We've met with some of the

companies as recently as a week ago. We're working with those on the possible

sources. We've asked our staff to continue to immediately investigate any

concerns there are with regards to any chip supply relative to the two

operations the member mentioned, to see how we can solve those if that's the

issue.

My understanding right now is that the issue with regards to

what's before the courts on these two mills doesn't have to do with that issue.

It has to do with something more globally with regard to financing and dollars —

whether they can leverage the dollars to actually buy. That's one of the issues

in front of them, and it's because of some of the issues in and around, I guess,

the global markets on lending. That's one of the things we were told overnight

with regards to this.

Whoever is interested in any of these operations, we will be glad

to sit down with them and identify where the long-term chip supply can come from

and work with them to solve any issues with regards to it.

B. Simpson: I never meant to suggest that that was the only

issue. But it is certainly one of the issues. You can do all the capital

investment upgrading you want. If you don't have a steady flow of chips, it

doesn't amount to much.

[1045]

Moving on with the tenures. The Weyerhaeuser deal in Kamloops, as

the minister is well aware, caused a lot of public concern about how that deal

unfolded. Is the West Fraser deal with Weyerhaeuser public? How much did they

pay? What is the nature of the transfers — all of that? Is that a public deal

when those kinds of transfers occur?

Hon. R. Coleman: We don't even have an application on that

one yet — on the transfer between the two companies. Any material, if there are

negotiations, if it's subject to confidentiality between the two companies on

what they're paying for — whatever — would become public because they're public

companies. It would be a material change if the deal ever closed. At this stage

of the game we don't even have an application.

B. Simpson: This is where I think the confusion comes for

people, because there's a public announcement to the effect on the mill closure.

As far as the public in Kamloops are concerned, the deal is done. That's how

that announcement went forward.

West Fraser has bought the timber licences, the tree farm licences

and forest licences. Subsequent to that, a portion of that was going to Interfor.

That's what the Shuswap First Nation understand. That's what the mayor of

Kamloops understands — that the deal is done.

I want to be clear. From the minister's perspective, that deal

isn't done? And does that give room, then, for more public consultation before

the deal actually gets signed?

Hon. R. Coleman: Just so we're clear to the member: the

subdivision to Interfor is here. The transfer of the licence is not. They have

not applied for the transfer of the licence.

[ Page 12022 ]

The transfer has to go…. As I said earlier, it has to be reviewed

from the standpoint of when it comes to us with regards to undue lessening of

the standing timber and the chip issues with regards to that particular area,

the competitiveness of the market, etc.

The companies have come to a financial arrangement. What they've

announced is that they have an agreement of sale between them — right? It still

has to, at some point in time, come to us for the transfer.

Our power is that we review the deal based on the basis of what I

described, which is the standing logs and chips and competitive markets.

Basically, we get the application. It's filed, and they have to meet the

criteria, which is actually that any debt to us would be paid. Except for any

silviculture liability, the appropriate land deposits would come to us under the

current laws, etc.

That's where our power is. At this point in time, any companies

can go and negotiate back and forth to buy something between the two of them.

We're part of the process as they bring it to us. When we get the application,

we'll deal with it.

B. Simpson: I wonder if the minister could clarify what he

meant by "The subdivision is here."

[1050]

Hon. R. Coleman: Evidently, I misspoke. So Weyerhaeuser,

Weyco, has applied to subdivide a piece of one TFL that Interfor is interested

in purchasing — a subdivided portion of that with regards to Adams Lake. That we

have in front of us, but they have not applied to actually transfer the TFL at

this stage.

B. Simpson: Does either the transfer or the subdivision

require public consultation? As the minister is aware, Shuswap first nation has

been trying to get access to more fibre in that area for some time. Is this an

opportunity for them to get access to more fibre if this is open to public

consultation?

Hon. R. Coleman: Yeah, the only thing that's required on

this is consultation with first nations, which has been going on.

B. Simpson: So if I understand the minister correctly, the

only criteria now on tenure transfers and the collapsing of some of these

tenures…. In this case I had a long conversation with Wayne Clogg from West

Fraser mills about that wood moving up in 100 Mile House and Williams Lake. He

actually phoned me to let me know that some of those folks in those areas were

very happy with that move and that, since Williams Lake was in my riding, I

should be aware of that.

My response to him is that I don't think they're going to be very

happy when we keep collapsing the wood flow down to four or five megamills

spread around the province, and only four or five communities get to benefit

from this wood. The mayors of 100 Mile House and Williams Lake won't be happy

when the megamill in Quesnel becomes the place where the wood from the whole

region starts getting manufactured in.

As I hear the minister talk about the criteria that's used in

order to make these determinations, I don't hear any community impact

assessment. In the case of Kamloops in 2006 — I don't have the 2007 figures — it

was already a net contributor out, in its area, of a significant volume of wood.

In the total harvest area — 3.6 million — over 2.1 of that harvest left the

area, and they brought in 500,000. So they net about 1.6 million that was going

out.

These licences are going to make it even more that's going out of

those communities. So is there no community impact assessment done on these

licence transfers?

[1055]

Hon. R. Coleman: We review it, as I said, from the

competitive point of view with regards to standing timber and chips. We can take

it with regards to the competitiveness, with the competitive stuff, and

federally. Basically, there is no requirement for a public process, and none is

anticipated.

B. Simpson: Again, that's as a result of changes made in

2003, where the communities were cut out of the process. Now what we're going to

see over the next little while,