Debates of the Legislative Assembly (Hansard) - April 10, 2008
J. Horgan: Oh, my goodness. [Applause.]
I'm blushing. I appreciate that warm applause from my colleagues on both sides of the House as I participate in the debate on Motion 37 on the order paper. It's an interesting opportunity to speak on what would be, to most people, an arcane subject. But having worked in the House of Commons and having worked in this place as a young person and now having the opportunity to stand and represent people in this Legislature, I think I can bring some interesting perspectives to the debate.
I was surprised, as I'm sure most members of the House were, to learn that the Senate of Canada, that bastion of democracy, sits more regularly than the Legislature in British Columbia. It was quite surprising to me to hear that, but I certainly take the member for Port Coquitlam-Burke Mountain at his word, because he does meticulous research, as we all know.
To learn that the Senate sits longer than this place should make us all a bit ashamed, I think. Certainly it does me, having spent time in Ottawa and having seen the great work. The ability to sleep with one's head cocked in a certain way was quite astounding. Many Senators should be proud of that ability. The flexibility of the spine is miraculous.
Anyway, what we're talking about here today, as you know, is amending our standing orders and the way we do business in this place. Many people at home tune in - if they tune in at all - to the braying of question period. One of the innovations that the government prides itself on is extending the braying from 15 minutes to half an hour.
I would have to say that it is an opportunity to have more people standing up on both sides of the House. It's an opportunity to provide calluses on our hands from clapping, whether we're on the government side or the opposition side. But it does very, very little to advance public policy and to exchange ideas.
I say to people in my constituency.... When they come to me and say, "What do you clowns really do for all the pay you get?" I always point to the estimates process and the committee process, which in my experience - based on the time I've spent on the Finance Committee and the Crown Corporation Committee and the Education Committee - does fairly decent work.
The estimates process gives all of us on both sides of the House an opportunity to quiz ministers of the Crown, those charged with running the ministries of the province - the government of B.C. It gives us the opportunity to ask those questions.
The challenge we have with a large opposition, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, is that when it comes time to ask questions of the members of the executive council, everybody lines up. I know that the member for Bulkley Valley-Stikine is always anxious to ask questions of the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, but there's a pecking order because time is limited.
We try on both sides of the House to manage that time to ensure that all members get an opportunity to ask questions about their constituencies, whether it be to the Minister of Transportation.... Certainly, I know that my colleagues - the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin, the member for Victoria-Hillside, the member for Saanich South - and I have to find a way to coordinate our five or ten minutes of questions of the Minister of Transportation to ensure that we all get an opportunity to ask important questions about issues of importance to our constituents.
Were I to stand in this place on any given day during question period, hon. Speaker, as you know well, I would ask my question to the Minister of Transportation, and he would remind me of the 1990s. He would tell me how awful it was in the 1990s.
Well, I've got some numbers. I know that the government members don't like to hear numbers. Guess who led the country in House hours and days sitting in the 1990s? Was it the province of Alberta? No. Was it the province of Ontario? No. It was the province of British Columbia.
Interjection.
Deputy Speaker: Members. Members. All comments are directed through the floor, and I would like to ask all members on both sides to please allow the speaker to have the floor without interruption. You may all have an opportunity, if you so wish, to speak.
Please continue, Member.
J. Horgan: My fundamental disappointment is that with estimates debate curtailed, I won't have the opportunity to eviscerate the Minister for Mining during estimates.
In any event, in 1998 the Legislature of the British Columbia sat for 90 days. We didn't have a fixed calendar in those days. In those days, the opposition closed debate. Government opened debate, and the opposition closed debate, and that was all well and good for the B.C. Liberals at the time.
That magnanimous giant from Vancouver-Point Grey, Mr. Openness, made many, many statements. They've been referred to by my colleagues, and I'm certainly going to pull out a couple of them, because there's one here that I love most of all. This was from August of 2001. It was the Premier during estimates, and I can't be accountable for the language. I can only read what I see. "We think openness beats hiddenness every time."
Openness beats hiddenness. That's kind of like rock, paper, scissors. Openness and hiddenness. There it is. That side of the House was against hiddenness in 2001. What do they stand for today? They stand for reducing the amount of time we have to debate the estimates of the budget. It's the essence of what we do here. It was 62 hours last year in this chamber, 58 hours if you take away the four hours devoted to the Ministry of Agriculture by agreement by both parties that that time be taken up in this place. What could be wrong with that?
What could be wrong with a system that allows us, even with a truncated schedule, with a set time when we start and finish, which has been reduced - the hours have been reduced - by this government since 2005? It wasn't good enough to sit until nine o'clock on a Monday night. It wasn't good enough to sit until nine o'clock on Wednesday, even though we don't start until two o'clock. Most of the people we represent work an eight-hour day, and I know we do a great deal of work in our constituencies, both sides of the House.
Fundamentally, people think we come here to exchange ideas. They turn on the television at 1:30, and they see a bunch of fools. Both sides of the House. We'll all agree to that.
Hands up if you think we look stupid during question period. Hands are up all over.
I know that my friend from Peace River South....
Deputy Speaker: Member, you cannot refer to the actions of other members in the House. You may only refer to members as being in the House or as members, not to any action. I'd ask you to withdraw the remark.
J. Horgan: I will absolutely withdraw the remark.
I was just going to make reference to my friend from Peace River South being a democrat and one who likes to use the time to good effect speaking on behalf of his constituents and the issues and values he brought to this place. That's what most of us want to do, on both sides.
We had a time.... In the early days of this parliament, there was a time when we agreed on things. We had the two House Leaders sit down to find accommodation, find a way that we could move the business of the Legislature through in an orderly fashion, giving the opportunity to the opposition to make their points and giving the government the opportunity to fulfill its agenda. That's a reasonable thing to do.
But that cooperation seemed to sour sometime around pay-raise time, when there was a divergence of opinion on how we should proceed with our compensation.
Interjection.
J. Horgan: There was a divergence of opinion, hon. Speaker. The minister over there seems to think that everything is pure and infallible in his mind. Sadly, it's not. But there was a difference of opinion. I'm sure those on the other side, some of them, wanted to stuff even more money in their pockets.
The challenge we have as opposition members.... My friend from North Vancouver-Seymour was an opposition member for a good period of time. He knows the challenge. To be Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is to be inherently negative. That's our job. We're to scrutinize the bills that come into this place. We're to scrutinize the expenditures of ministries. We're to scrutinize the activities of the ministers of the Crown. That's our job.
Interjection.
J. Horgan: The member for Kamloops must forget those days. He's now steeped in his cabinet traditions, and he's forgotten the traditions that brought him here, the contempt for government that may well have brought him to this place. Now he is safely in the bosom of that government, he doesn't see the need to have a fulsome debate of the issues of the day. He doesn't see the need for opposition members to stand in this place and hold the government to account.
I talk to my constituents all the time, whether they be Liberal, Conservative, Green, brown, New Democrat. It doesn't matter to me. I talk to them all the time, and they say to me: "Why are you guys so negative?" Well, we're not always negative, but it's our job, and we're getting better government because there's a strong opposition on this side.
If you look at the data from the early part of this century, when we were more concerned about hiddenness and openness.... If you look at the debate of the early part of this century, there were very few hours devoted to the estimates debate. I've got some numbers here, provided to me by Hansard. I'd like to read them out for the record so that all members will have a clearer understanding of how debate has taken place and how we've evolved in terms of managing the estimates process.
Last year to May 31, 2007, we had a total of 212 hours of debate on the estimates in British Columbia. Let's go back ten years, to 1997. I know that the minister loves to spend quality time in the 1990s, and I'm just delighted to indulge him, give him an opportunity to talk about the number of hours that we had in 1997. There it is right there.
Ten years earlier, how many hours did we spend when this side of the House was on that side of the House? It was 438 hours of estimates. When the B.C. Liberals were on this side of the House, they felt it was important to have 438 hours of debate on estimates. That's great. That's fine. Not a dime without debate. That makes good sense to me. I don't recall there being a lot of complaining at the time - 438 hours of debate.
What did the B.C. Liberals give the opposition in 2007? It was 212 - less than half. We spent less than half the time in this place debating the budgets of the province.
Interjection.
J. Horgan: Of course, the minister, not speaking from his chair, says that they have all the answers, and that's fine. I don't doubt that in his mind all of the answers are correct, and that's appropriate.
When you're deluding yourself, it's important to make sure that you've got this veneer of certainty every time you get to your feet. But our job is to question that certainty, and it should lead to better government. That's the principle, that's the theory, and that's why we're here.
Those at home may say: "Well, what are they talking about? What's the estimates debate? What is that anyway, and why is it that the opposition is standing up and taking a stand to try and protect and preserve that opportunity and that right for the people of British Columbia through Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition?"
It's an opportunity for us to ask questions of the Minister of Forests, for example. We could ask the Minister of Forests during the estimates debate what he was thinking when he allowed Western Forest Products to remove private lands from their tree farm licences on Vancouver Island. That's a reasonable question to ask. Certainly, people in my community are very concerned about that.
But if we start reducing the amount of time we can spend discussing estimates as individual members, if we leave it all to the critic of the day.... My colleague from Cariboo North is very capable, very able to carry that debate to the Minister of Forests. I have no hesitation in putting my full support behind the member for Cariboo North, but I have a responsibility to my constituents.
I have a responsibility to ask the minister those questions so that I can go back to Sooke, to Shirley, to Jordan River and to Port Renfrew and tell the people that elected me what's going on in this place. Where is their money going? Why are policy decisions being made that adversely affect them? How can I explain government activity to my constituents? In my mind - and I know that my friend from Peace River South shares this view - the best way is to ask questions.
I've not been invited into the cabinet chamber in about seven or eight years. I understand that they have pretty good lunches in there.
An Hon. Member: Not since the last century.
J. Horgan: No, it was this century. They've done away with the free lunches. It's now hiddenness. They celebrate hiddenness in the cabinet chambers now.
It's been awhile since I've been able to go into the cabinet chamber and ask questions of cabinet ministers. In fact, I've never been invited to the Liberal caucus meetings. I don't imagine I'll ever get that invitation. But backbenchers on that side of the House have an opportunity to ask their colleagues pointed questions about policies. That's their right, and that's one of the privileges of government.
But we have an obligation on this side as opposition members to ask those questions in the Legislature or in the committee room. By moving 62 hours of debate out of this place and into that place, we are going to be reducing our opportunities.
I'd like to go back to.... It's a shame. I know that the Attorney General will review carefully my remarks, but it's interesting that as I was going through these, there was a year back in the 1990s where there were 40 hours of debate on the Attorney General's estimates. Can you imagine that happening today? My goodness. Ten hours of debate for the Attorney General in 2004.
Four hours of debate in 2005. That was a short year, as you know, hon. Speaker. We had an election. Five hours of debate in 2006.
Forty hours in 1997 - 40 hours of debate. My goodness, the Attorney General would be falling over if we had to do that in 2007-2008. But that's one of the responsibilities of being a member of executive council. You are accountable to the Legislature and to the cabinet to discharge your duties.
We in this Legislature scrutinize those figures, scrutinize that data, and then we report back as having those estimates completed without amendment. That's what we do. It seems pretty straightforward. We get into a bit of routine.
I know that my colleague the Minister of Energy, when I'm asking him questions, does tend to like to get up and speak. I would think we could cut our estimates in half if he restricted his answers to just giving answers rather than speeches. But I can't control that. That's the job of the Chair of Committees, and once a minister takes his feet, he or she can do whatever they will with their time.
As individuals on this side of the House, as opposition members, we have a duty and an obligation to ask those questions. This motion restricts that ability. It restricts our ability to do our job. It restricts our ability to make the cabinet ministers better by making sure they're on their toes, by making sure they've done their homework.
If they don't do their homework, they find themselves, as some members have, sitting at the far end of the cabinet table with less and less responsibility. That's the way it should be. It's a privilege to be a member of cabinet. Certainly, those in the back bench are anxious to get there. I know they would do just about anything to get there, at least that was my experience when there were backbenchers that I was working with when we were in government.
That's good. That's good to have that desire and drive to affect public policy in British Columbia, to affect public policy in the interests of all British Columbians. That's a healthy thing.
But what's more healthy is the internal competition for seats at the largest cabinet table in the history of B.C. It may well grow more before we get to the next election. I know there are going to be a lot of people that are going to want to be able to give away stuff as we get closer and closer to election day like playground equipment, like booster seats. Of course, you can be a backbencher and give away booster seats, so that's not a problem.
There's a good example of one of the issues we would want to canvass with the Minister of State for Childcare. I'm certain she would want to take her place and justify those partisan actions that became public press fodder during the last session.
I think it's interesting to note that since 2005, the most number of hours devoted to debate were in the 2007 calendar year. My recollection, following the fall session, was that there was general unanimity among the pundits that we slaughtered the government. The opposition had done its job.
I can remember the senior writer or the senior columnist for The Vancouver Sun saying that we had done our job and we should take our research people out for lunch or breakfast or dinner - whatever it was; a meal of some kind - to celebrate the good work we had done as opposition members holding the government to account. That's our job. That's what we're supposed to do. We did it very, very well.
It's somewhat surprising that after having a positive democratic interaction through the year 2007, government and opposition, here we are in the early days of the first session of 2008, and the government is trying to find ways to reduce debate. They're trying to find ways to restrict our opportunity to stand and deliver in this place or in the other committee room.
I wonder if there's any correlation between us slaughtering them or beating them.... Michael Smyth called it "Whac-a-Mole." It's like a game of Whac-a-Mole in the Legislature.
I guess the government didn't want to go through that again, so one of the best ways to do that - besides the wall of noise we're getting from the member for Kamloops-North Thompson - is to reduce the number of hours we spend here.
When the Premier brought in the fixed calendar, the expectation was.... I think most observers and most people in this place thought that that's civilized. That's a good thing to do. It was changing years of tradition whereby the government called the Legislature and the opposition adjourned it. They threw that out the door, but that was fine.
They were going to bring in a whole host of other innovations. Open cabinet meetings. I was very much looking forward, as a member of the opposition, to sit in on an open cabinet meeting. Regrettably, we haven't had any of those. We haven't had the opportunity to watch the cabinet ministers deal with their various issues at the cabinet table, because that photo opportunity didn't seem to go over too well. So it just kind of faded into hiddenness.
We're back to hiddenness now, even though openness was what we were looking for before. For those who might have tuned in now, hiddenness isn't my word. It's the Premier's word. I would never want to take credit for hiddenness under any circumstances.
The Premier in 2001 said that what he was doing was radical. It was radical to have a fixed calendar. Well, Ottawa has had a fixed calendar for a long, long time. The House of Commons comes and goes. But what they do with a fixed calendar, in those jurisdictions that have them, is that they adhere to it.
We've had six sessions. We should have had six sessions in the three years we've been here, but we haven't.
Interjection.
J. Horgan: We haven't. They were long sessions. I could read the numbers to the member. I can send them over to him.
In fact, why don't I do that, hon. Speaker? Through you, I'll send over the numbers to the member for Kamloops-North Thompson so that he can look back on those heady days in the 1990s when B.C. led the way in the number of hours and sittings in this Legislature. Back to the 1990s when government respected the right and role of opposition rather than to diminish it and disparage it like the government of today does. Back in the 1990s when the government said: "We've got to take our lumps from the opposition, because that's what comes with the obligation and privilege of sitting in cabinet."
Hon. K. Krueger: Suffered through it and changed nothing.
J. Horgan: Suffered through it and changed nothing.
Hon. K. Krueger: That's what you did.
J. Horgan: Thank you, hon. Chair. Thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to exchange thoughts with the member for Kamloops-North Thompson. It's always a thrill. Again, I regret that I won't have the same opportunity during estimates this year, as I did last year.
Of course, last year there was more cooperation in this place. I touched upon that earlier. There was agreement between House Leaders when there were going to be substantial changes to the standing orders. They chucked that out the door as well. That's what bullies will do.
I have to say I found it difficult to stand on the steps of the Legislature with some members of the government, to stand up in unison against bullying. It seems passing strange for some of the members on the other side of the House to be joining us. Nonetheless, I did it in the interest of decorum and sending a symbol and a message to children and others across British Columbia that we can work effectively together here when the cause is just and the cause is right.
[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]
Certainly, with respect to bullying, we on this side of the House and many, many members on that side of the House are of one mind. But not all of them.
I know you'll be interested in this. I was reading the number of hours that we spent in this place. The Minister of Employment and Investment in 1997.... I guess that would be the member from Quilchena now - 51 hours of debate of the estimates. What did we do in 2006? Oh my goodness, we did a lot less - 7 hours. From 51 to 7.
Interjection.
J. Horgan: My goodness, there's always an answer from the member for Kamloops-North Thompson. There's always an answer. I'm looking forward to his participation in the debate. I'm looking forward to him having to stand in this place and offer up something reasonable, something thoughtful. I'll wait in anticipation for something unique and innovative to come from his mouth, and I'm certain that will happen when he takes his place in this debate.
But for now, as you know, I have the floor, and I'm going to continue to talk to members, at least on this side of the House - thank you very much - about the importance of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
Interjections.
J. Horgan: I was saying earlier that one of the challenges as members of the official opposition, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, is that we're oftentimes put in a position of appearing to be negative.
I was saying to some of my friends in the corridor, those who help us keep peace and order in this place, that it's frustrating to hear the pundits say: "Well, gee, they're not being aggressive enough. They're not being hard enough on the government." So we dial it up a little bit, and then it's: "Oh, now they're being shrill." So the challenge....
Interjections.
J. Horgan: It's all a matter of tone. The challenge we have is finding that balance, not just for this place but for our soul. It's not easy to get up every day and say that the world sucks, although when the member for Kamloops-North Thompson talks about the 1990s, that's all we ever hear. It wasn't that way. We all know that.
Public policy is a river. It ebbs and flows. It has its ups and downs. It goes from side to side. People come; people go. You know what? The beauty of this place and the beauty of democracy is that when the 79 of us are all out of this place, there will be 79, 80, 85 or a hundred more people coming in to do the job that we're doing today. There will be some on that side of the House; there will be some on this side of the House. Our obligation, our responsibility, is to ensure that those that come after us have the same traditions, the same responsibilities and the same ability to hold government to account.
If we allow this erosion, as we've seen from the Government House Leader - whether it be with night sittings, whether it be not adhering to the fixed calendar by not having a fall session.... Those sorts of things diminish our ability to do our job. It reduces our ability to pass on to the next generation of legislators those tools, those things that we use to good effect to make the government better.
The government is better today than it was in 2002 because we are here. Not for any other reason, but because they have to be on their toes. They have to be accountable. They know that.
In a weak moment they might actually even admit that having people on this side of the House making sure they're doing their homework, doing the research that we can with the minimal budgets at our disposal, is important. It's really important. It was important when you were on this side of the House, and it will be important when you return to this side of the House in 2009.
Interjection.
J. Horgan: Well, the only comfort I have in that statement is that the member for Kamloops-North Thompson will not be here in the next century. I think we can all rejoice in that thought.
