Public Accounts — Issue No. 20 — Tuesday, May 27, 2008 (HTML)

2008 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 38th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
MINUTES AND HANSARD

Present: Rob Fleming, MLA (Chair); Joan McIntyre, MLA (Deputy Chair); Harry Bains, MLA; Iain Black, MLA; Randy Hawes, MLA; Mary Polak, MLA; Bruce Ralston, MLA; John Rustad, MLA; Bob Simpson, MLA; Ralph Sultan, MLA; Claire Trevena, MLA; John Yap, MLA.

Others Present: Errol Price, Deputy Auditor General
Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland, Comptroller General
Josie Schofield, Committee Research Analyst

2. The Committee reviewed the Retention and Disposal Applications from the Public Documents Committee

3. The Committee considered the Auditor General’s report entitled Preventing Fatalities and Serious Injuries in B.C. Forests: Progress Needed, January 2008.

4. Resolved, that the Committee endorse the recommendations contained in the Auditor General’s report entitled Preventing Fatalities and Serious Injuries in B.C. Forests: Progress Needed and notes both the concurrence and progress made by the Ministries and Inter-agency Committee on Forest Safety to implement the recommendations.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Records Retention and Disposal		391
	G. Mitchell

Auditor General Report: Preventing Fatalities and Serious Injuries in B.C. Forests: Progress Needed		393
	E. Price
	M. Sydor
	J. Soles
	P. Fuglem
	D. Dahr

Chair:	* Rob Fleming (Victoria-Hillside NDP)
Deputy Chair:	* Joan McIntyre (West Vancouver–Garibaldi L)
Members:	* Iain Black (Port Moody–Westwood L) * Randy Hawes (Maple Ridge–Mission L) * Mary Polak (Langley L) * John Rustad (Prince George–Omineca L) * Ralph Sultan (West Vancouver–Capilano L) * John Yap (Richmond-Steveston L) * Harry Bains (Surrey-Newton NDP) * Bruce Ralston (Surrey-Whalley NDP) * Bob Simpson (Cariboo North NDP) * Claire Trevena (North Island NDP) * denotes member present


Witnesses:	Don Dahr (WorkSafe B.C.) Peter Fuglem (Ministry of Forests and Range) Gary Mitchell (Provincial Archivist) Errol Price (Office of the Auditor General) Ken Ryan-Lloyd (Office of the Auditor General) Jim Soles (Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services) Morris Sydor (Office of the Auditor General) Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland (Comptroller General)

R. Fleming (Chair): Good morning, members of the committee and witnesses with us this morning who will present on the agenda. I want to welcome you to the Public Accounts Committee. My name is Rob Fleming.

While we have some of our technology being set up for the main hearing, we have the first item of business on our agenda. We have Gary Mitchell, the provincial archivist, with us for another retention and disposal of documents item to make recommendations to the assembly. I'd like to welcome Mr. Mitchell back to the Public Accounts Committee.

Before we begin, if I could have one of the members move approval of the agenda.

G. Mitchell: Thank you, Chair. As you know, the public documents committee is established through section 3 of the Document Disposal Act, which states that a committee comprising myself, the comptroller and order-in-council representatives are to review all records disposal schedules for executive government, based on the premise that no government record can be destroyed without the written recommendation of the committee and the approval of the executive council or the Legislative Assembly, acting through your committee.

My colleagues and I have spent the time since our last meeting reviewing nine retention schedules submitted by agencies within the Crown. Four of these are amendments to existing schedules, and one is a special schedule handling the Health Facilities Association of British Columbia, a defunct association that has been brought back into executive government.

The ones that I'd like to highlight for you are new schedules that apply to the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, the base mapping branch; the information and privacy central branch, Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services; and the Crown agencies secretariat, Ministry of Finance. Now, these three schedules will cover the records relating to those functions and ensure that records that have evidentiary, fiduciary and legal values are retained for future access by the public and, of course, by yourselves as members.

The schedules have been deposited in your Clerk's office for your review, and I can answer any general questions on the process or general questions on the schedules themselves. If you have specific questions, I will research that and get back to you by the end of the day.

Committee members, we have a binder here that references some of the documents — resolutions 1 through 9 — if people want a gander at that before the shredder is fired up, so to speak, and a resolution is approved.

Now would be the time to ask any questions on the process of the decisions arrived at by the public documents committee or to ask particulars about any of these resolutions — if members have questions on any of these ministry files.

I. Black: Just a quick question with respect to the resolutions. They are all worded in such a fashion that the disposition and retention be in accordance with…. It lists various systems there. Is this a change from what was done before?

J. Rustad: With regards to resolution 1, the base mapping. Is this the actual base data that is being removed? What I mean by that is that often when we're collecting data, particularly when we're collecting spatial data on the land base, it's always nice to have the original basis to what the land base looked like, and then the stuff gets updated as time goes on. But often, from a research perspective, they like to be able to go back to the original information that's available. So I'm just wondering if this is kind of the original information or whether this is just records around it.

G. Mitchell: No. It handles both. Our colleagues in base mapping have a base map provided by Canada as well as by their own endeavours. That base map forms the foundation, as you say, for all of the future decisions made on the land mass of territorial British Columbia. Each rendition is annotated within their records so that they can go back and reconstruct changes or alterations that they've made to a base layering.

J. Rustad: Oh, sorry. What you're saying is that the database, then, would contain all that base information going forward so that they can peel it back, and this is just a redundant copy, then.

G. Mitchell: No, it's not redundant, sir. The schedules have identified the base maps that exist and the information that's contained on them, as well as the correspondence and supporting documentation that authenticates the base maps.

What they've done is gone through their system and identified all of the records and information that they hold on behalf of the executive government. What has happened for our colleagues in corporate records management is that they have gone through and reviewed for evidentiary value, legal and fiscal. They've come to the committee. The committee reviews that, and they say: "Yes, we agree with the foundations documents, and we agree on how long they're going to be kept."

For the base mapping, what has happened is that they've identified the base map proper and all of the correspondence and supporting documentation, which will be kept over time. When that system is retired — the technology or whatever — and they move on to a new platform, all the information, plus a snapshot of the old platform dating to the foundation, will be transferred to the provincial archives.

I realize that at times people will say in jest: "Oh, the committee fundamentally approves shredding of government documents." I think it's quite the opposite. What we've done, through the system as it is developed…. We are forcing government agencies to identify those records that are required to substantiate their program development and their accountabilities as well as protecting the rights of our citizens in how those programs affect them.

Now, much of the information will be destroyed, perhaps anywhere between 85 to 95 percent, depending on the function that's done. But the records that are required to substantiate a citizen's rights and to fulfil the accountability of our public service are protected, and when the records no longer have ongoing value to the ministry and to that agency for that function, they are transferred in a secured manner to the provincial archives to be kept for public access for generations.

Yes, we do shred those records that have little value through a confidential process, but the key is that the records that are required are protected and identified as being so right from the creation point. None of my colleagues can state, when they start a job or walk into a program, that they do not know the value of the information they are working with day to day right upfront.

J. Rustad: Thank you. The reason why I asked the question is that back in my former life, before politics, I was involved in utilizing a lot of base data information, particularly from the forestry side but also from lands. Frequently we weren't able to go back to see the original, because as data was updated, the original state was lost. We'd end up having to try to reconstruct, based on surrounding data, what we thought was there in terms of the forestry land base.

That's why I'm wondering, in terms of when you're looking through this, whether or not that base level of information will be maintained at some level.

G. Mitchell: They're taking snapshots at regular periods. That's through the process that has developed, particularly in the last five years or so. Both Canada and the central agency here are far more stringent in their documentation of the anomalies that occur. So from the snapshot that they take, which they will keep over time, plus the supporting documentation, they should be able to come fairly close to a territorial land base picture within, say…. I think they do it twice a year. On Canada Day and on New Year's they take the snapshots, and that'll be protected.

R. Fleming (Chair): Mr. Mitchell, I just wanted to ask a quick question about the legislation that governs the recommendations that your committee makes, particularly the description here that "no government record may be destroyed except upon the written recommendations of the public documents committee and the approval of the executive council or the Legislative Assembly."

I'm wondering if you could confirm for me that the practice has been upon the approval of executive council and the Legislative Assembly and why, if that is the practice, the legislation doesn't reflect that final authority does rest with the assembly.

G. Mitchell: The legislation was passed in 1933, second session, and there have been slight amendments to date. I think you'll find that executive council approval is required for records that are over seven years old or for records that have been microfilmed and are two years old. A system has developed to date that all record schedules — i.e., ongoing schedules that would apply to current, past and future records — are presented before the Public Accounts Committee.

I believe the executive council may have approved one schedule in the last decade, handling records that were ten years old. All record schedules that apply to current records moving forward and to records that are less than seven years old are required to come before this committee.

R. Fleming (Chair): Okay. Any other questions or discussion? I would ask for a motion to approve resolutions 1 through 9, then, if there are no further questions.

R. Fleming (Chair): Before the House adjourns two days from now, we might be advised to forward a version of this, in a report format, to the assembly — the recommendations we've just approved. I would ask for a motion to report that to the House.

The committee will move on to item 3, Preventing Fatalities and Serious Injuries in B.C. Forests: Progress Needed, a report of the Auditor General from January of this year. I see that we are joined by our Deputy Auditor General, Mr. Price. Morris Sydor, the assistant Auditor General, is here as well, and Ken Ryan-Lloyd, who is the manager of performance audit.

Auditor General Report:
Preventing Fatalities and Serious Injuries
in B.C. Forests: Progress Needed

As you well know, worker safety is a longstanding problem in the forest industry. Historically, forestry activities have had a poor safety record. For example, during the period between 1997 and 2006 an average of 22 workers died per year and an average of 92 workers suffered serious injury.

Four years ago government committed to cutting the number of deaths and serious injuries within three years. Several months later, based on the work of the Forest Safety Task Force, that goal was revised to zero deaths and serious injuries. In 2006 the Minister of Forests and Range called for an independent review of forest safety issues, concerns that were shared by the Minister of Labour and Citizens' Services. Our work was carried out during 2007 and reported in January 2008.

The starting point for our audit was the final report of the Forest Safety Task Force. We focused on the role of government and its agencies involved in forest worker safety. We collected information from industry but did not assess the adequacy of industry's efforts, so accordingly, our recommendations are focused on the actions our government and its agencies can take.

At the time of our audit we found that the goal of eliminating forest worker death or serious injury had not been achieved. Government's involvement in forest worker safety is fragmented over several bodies, with no lead agency having been assigned. Existing health and safety regulations have not been vigorously enforced for all forest industry workers.

We believe that strong leadership and commitment are required now to guide, complement and support the efforts of industry if government is to meet its forest worker safety goal.

To this end, our report includes 15 recommendations to the Ministry of Forests and Range, the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services, and also to WorkSafe B.C.

The Chair has already introduced my colleagues Morris Sydor and Ken Ryan-Lloyd. Our team also included Tin Lok Ng, who is sitting behind me in the gallery, and we were also assisted by two consultants. I'll now turn it over to Morris to provide you with a summary of the highlights of the report.

M. Sydor: Good morning, Chair, Deputy Chair and Members. Today I'm going to be making our presentation on our forest worker safety report. We'll review the purpose, scope and overall conclusion of the audit, and then I'll run through a number of the findings and recommendations.

Now, as Errol just mentioned, from 1996 to 2006 an average of 23 forest workers and 92 workers suffered serious injury each year. In August 2003 the Premier appointed a Forest Safety Task Force to consider remedies and committed to a 50 percent drop in fatalities and serious injuries in three years. Then, in January 2004, the task force committed to zero fatalities and serious injuries, noting that a more radical goal was needed.

When the Minister of Forests and Range called for an independent review, the then Auditor General felt it was appropriate for our office to assess the matter, and in December 2006 we began our examination. Our audit purpose was to assess the government's progress toward fulfilling its commitments to improving forest worker safety since the goals were set in 2003 and 2004.

In our audit we looked at the role of the provincial government and its agencies that were involved in forest worker safety. These included the Ministries of Forests and Range, Labour and Citizens' Services, and Transportation and also WorkSafe B.C. and ICBC. We considered their efforts on safety in the core harvesting activities: falling, bucking, yarding and loading and hauling of timber — the activities known as stump to dump. We used the report of the Forest Safety Task Force as a way to focus our examination.

Our overall conclusion was that government had to overcome significant challenges if it was to meet the goal of radically reducing deaths and serious injuries. Measures were just being implemented and had not yet proven effective. We also concluded that proactive government action was required to ensure safe practices are adopted as the norm.

In our report we grouped our findings and recommendations along three themes: leadership and organization to make safety a priority, the mechanisms available for making safety a priority and reporting on the progress in meeting forest safety goals.

For our first theme, we found that leadership and organization for making safety a priority are lacking. Several public agencies whose mandates included responsibilities related to forest worker safety had no specific strategies for effectively contributing towards the goals. No ministry was given overall responsibility for coordinating and managing public sector activity relevant to those goals. Here we recommended that government assign one ministry to lead in issuing policy direction. This would include initiating regulatory change, closing jurisdictional gaps and assigning resources to meet government safety commitments.

We also found that government had not discouraged risk-taking. Economic drivers remained a threat to safety in an industry that traditionally tolerates danger, values independence and expects little or no supervision. The smallest companies typically worked without adequate planning for safety, supervisor control or safety infrastructure to meet their responsibilities. These companies are also the hardest to reach through safety policies such as the WorkSafe B.C. premium rebate program.

We recommended that a mandatory safety prequalification requirement for all firms be put in place and that self-employed forest workers be made subject to the occupational health and safety regulations. In addition, we recommended that government consider

economic incentives outside the Workers Compensation system for rewarding safe operators.

We also found that commitment was not being expressed through sufficient regulatory compliance activity. Existing occupational health and safety regulations were not being adequately enforced in the industry. We noted that inspection, follow-up on infractions and penalizing as necessary were not stepped up when the goals were set.

Therefore, we recommended that health and safety regulations be more rigorously enforced by WorkSafe B.C. through inspections, following up on infractions and punishment of non-compliance.

On the second theme, mechanisms for safety, we found that planning for safety is weak. Government requirements for timber harvest planning did not include safety as a major goal. Forest professionals, who are key to planning, were not required by law to consider safety as a priority. Ministry officials and professional foresters continue to treat safety concerns in isolation from the activities of forestry.

We recommended that the Ministry of Forests and Range ensure that robust safety planning for all aspects of forest operations be mandatory. As well, the ministry should seek two amendments to the Foresters Act. First, make forest worker safety an explicit object of the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals, and second, include explicit mention of competence and forest worker protection in the definition of practice of professional forestry.

We also found that supervising forest workers is not standard practice. Supervision in the industry was spotty and very often entirely absent. Some in the industry believe that tasks such as falling did not require close supervision. Here we recommended that WorkSafe B.C. enforce the requirement that supervision be in place for all forest workers, including fallers and truckers.

Another finding was that forest workers are often being pushed beyond their physical limits. Little is being done to lessen a range of threats to the physical capability and mental alertness of workers. For example, many forest workers often perform strenuous and hazardous activities in excess of 35 hours per week. Yet data indicates that men doing heavy work suffer much higher levels of activity-limiting injury if they work above this threshold.

So we recommended that the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services identify, through credible third-party research, safe work-hour limits for high-risk forestry occupations and then regulate and enforce those limits accordingly. These limits should be applicable to self-employed workers as well as those employed in the industry.

On the last theme, reporting on safety, we found that adequate reporting of fatalities and serious injuries is lacking. Information on incidents was not comprehensively gathered, consolidated and analyzed for the whole industry, including for the self-employed. Nobody was reporting on the real rate of change in the safety record of the industry, leaving the public and legislators with no useful indicator of real progress towards the safety goal.

We therefore recommended that a lead agency coordinate the sharing and consolidation of information on fatalities, serious injuries and near misses to support more extensive educational and enforcement activities to promote safety. This ministry should then report meaningful information to the Legislative Assembly on a regular basis.

In our report the government's response to our 15 recommendations indicated that although some important steps had been taken, further work was needed.

Committee, I think we will hear from the ministry now and then use the balance of our time this morning for questions from members.

I understand we have witnesses from both the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services and the Ministry of Forests and Range this morning. I don't know whether they're both going to fit up here together at the same time.

I see that the assistant deputy minister, Jim Soles, is here and looks ready to begin. I will ask him to do so. Welcome.

J. Soles: Good morning to the Chair, Deputy Chair and the members. Let me introduce my colleagues here just to start. To my immediate right is Don Dahr, who is manager with WorkSafe B.C. and an expert in forestry operations. Further to my right is Peter Fuglem, who's an executive director with the Ministry of Forests.

Peter and I will share a bit of a presentation here. We thought we'd walk you through government's response to the 15 recommendations that were highlighted by the Auditor General's office.

First, I'd like to say that both the Minister of Forests and the Minister of Labour and Citizens' Services requested that this report be done, funded the initiative through the Auditor General's office and very much welcomed the recommendations we've seen and have in fact accepted all those recommendations, undertaking action on them now.

If we start off, the first recommendation was that one ministry lead in terms of issuing policy direction, regulatory change, closing jurisdictional gaps and assigning resources. Certainly, the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services has taken on a lead role, but it's a situation where we do very much need to involve the other entities involved. So we've established an interagency committee on forest safety.

The members of that committee…. There are six members. I sit on it for the Ministry of Labour. We have Tim Sheldan, who's an assistant deputy minister from Forests sitting on that committee; Roberta Ellis, who's a vice-president at WorkSafe B.C.; Lee Doney, who is with B.C. Forest Safety Council; Al Hoffman, who is from the Ministry of Energy and Mines; and Mike Proudfoot, who is an assistant deputy minister with the Ministry of Transportation.

That committee had its first meeting this April and established a couple of key areas of focus to look at for the future. Alcohol and drug use and fatigue are one of the major areas; the self-employed and the small operators, resource roads and a better collection of data and reporting of fatalities and data on serious injuries.

Those are the immediate priorities of the committee. We've got a workplan to kind of guide our work over the next year. Our next meeting of that committee will be in June. The three primary agencies — Forests, Labour and WorkSafe — are kind of providing a secretariat function to that particular committee.

The second recommendation is about ensuring a robust safety infrastructure for every forestry worksite. A lot of the responses with respect to this relate to some changes WorkSafe B.C. made early this year. In January they made some major amendments to part 26 of the occupational health and safety regulations. That deals with forestry operations.

We can certainly provide the committee with information on that. It's quite extensive. Here are the actual regulations. There are about 50 or 60 pages of regulations. There's a summary of the changes, which is available on the Web. It highlights some of the changes that have been made, all targeted at enhancing safety in the forest sector.

Let me just give you a couple of highlights of part 26, because I'll refer to it several times as we go through this morning. There are some significant changes related to planning. For example, the new amendments require that owners and every person who has knowledge and control of a particular activity ensure that the activities are planned and conducted in a manner consistent with the new safety regulations.

There's also a requirement that the owner designate a prime contractor to be qualified and have the authority to fulfil the responsibilities prescribed under the act. It sets out some new training requirements for every worker in the forest industry.

There are additional recommendations under the amended part 26, which have taken effect as of May 1 this year — additional changes dealing with supervision, pointing out that qualified supervisors must be designated for all manual falling and associated bucking activities. There are additional changes and amendments relating to enforcement that we'll talk about as we go through. So that's the primary source of our response around recommendation 2 that you see up on the screen.

Under No. 3, the recommendation from the Auditor General's office was that the self-employed should be subject to the occupational health and safety regulation. In fact, we believe that they are under the act, but there is some confusion out there. So we will work with employers and with the self-employed to ensure that there's better understanding that self-employed are in fact covered, that we sort through those areas where there has been confusion in the past.

We're actually looking at developing a bit of an options paper that we'll bring back to the safety committee, which will look at some options of how to make it clearer to everybody out there that the self-employed are in fact covered here.

Recommendation 4 is mandatory prequalification requirement for all firms as a precondition for working in the industry. Again, part 26 has done some changes here requiring mandatory faller training. The Forest Safety Council has a number of safety programs now related to fallers. There's new faller training, small employer training, basic supervision training, faller supervisor training and a number of other things related to that.

You'll see that in fact this kind of enhancement of training also deals with recommendation 12. For recommendation 5, I'm going to turn to my colleague Peter to just respond to that one.

P. Fuglem: Recommendation 5 is around the economic incentives, outside of the workers' compensation system, for rewarding safe operators. It also refers especially to smaller operators, and as mentioned, the Forest Safety Council has been looking to include owner-operators under SAFE Companies certification. We certainly encourage that in our role with that organization.

We will be working under the auspices of the interagency committee on safety to come up with appropriate measures for incentives for companies for safety performance. But we want to make sure that those incentives are not at cross-purposes to other incentives that are in place for companies.

J. Soles: Recommendation No. 6 is "Vigorous enforcement of regulation." WorkSafe is continuing to do some vigorous approaches to enforcement. They're using an integrated forest compliance strategy, and they're using some extra education and consultation support as well. There's a 20 percent increase in focused inspections and a 15 percent increase in orders from WorkSafe B.C. over 2007. WorkSafe has also created a specific team to work with the top 50 injury-producing employers and is supporting the B.C. Forest Safety Council on the enhancement of their activities.

On recommendation No. 7, the Auditor General recommended that we seek input from other natural resource–based industries. As mentioned, we have established this interagency committee on forest safety. Included on that is Al Hoffman, who is from the Ministry of Energy and Mines. Al is the deputy chief inspector of mines, health and safety. We've also added, from the Ministry of Transportation, Mike Proudfoot, who is an assistant deputy minister.

That's our starting point with the committee. If we see that there are needs for other experts from other sectors, we'd be happy to add those. We thought we would start small and build from there. We think we're getting some of that recommendation from the other ministries.

P. Fuglem: In terms of "Mandatory robust safety planning in all aspects of forest operations," we have

initiated a study that has just been published from our Forests and Range evaluation program. It is now available on the Web on our ministry website.

Within that, the team looked at about 12,000 forest sector accidents between 2000 and 2005. They looked at what happened in those accidents. They also surveyed about 770 forest industry workers to get their sense of what needs to be done and looked at relevant legislation and regulations pertaining to worker-identified safety issues.

The team has done a lot of work. The implementation has been assigned to a forest worker safety team that we formed across all divisions in the Ministry of Forests and Range. We'll be starting to develop some of the appropriate training through that group.

Recommendation No. 9 was with regard to amendments to the Foresters Act and also to make worker safety an explicit objective of the association. The association does have, under its code of ethics, a particular ethic around safety — to have proper regard in all work for the safety of others.

We'll be working with the association and have had a couple of meetings with them already as to how they can strengthen that requirement of professionals. We've also engaged a consultant to now develop an options paper with regard to potential changes in the Foresters Act.

J. Soles: Recommendation 10 is next. Recommendation 10 is about enforcing the requirement for supervision of all workers, including fallers and truckers. Again, we would go back to some of the changes that WorkSafe B.C. has done with part 26.

Some new changes in there…. Prime contractors are required to be qualified and have the necessary authority over persons at the workplace. A second one is that the amendments require the designation and duties of falling supervisor to include inspections and maintaining records of those inspections. WorkSafe B.C. is also, through its resource road compliance strategy, expanding enforcement in a number of areas. There is a more vigorous approach to some enforcement and supervision, as requested by the Auditor General's office.

P. Fuglem: Right. The recommendation was to enforce safe use of resource roads. The ministry should establish and actively participate in road-user committees. What we've done under this is start establishing pilot projects out there, because of the complexity of roads across the province, to try to come up with some principles that we can use in establishing appropriate safety responsibilities.

One in particular — a pilot project in Prince George — has been particularly successful by establishing a safety team that spans the whole district rather than each individual road-user committee within the district. We're looking to expand that model and test it throughout the province to see if we can get industry, WorkSafe and appropriate government organizations to participate on those safety teams.

J. Soles: Recommendation No. 12 is, again, similar a little bit to recommendation No. 4 in that it involves training. Part 26 is requiring some new training requirements here. For example, every worker in a forestry operation must receive the training necessary to safely perform the worker's duties.

There is another one that requires fallers and buckers and any falling activities to be qualified in a standard acceptable to the board. Again, the B.C. Forest Safety Council has initiated or is operating a number of training programs, which we referenced earlier.

Recommendation No. 13 is identification and enforcement of safe work-hour limits. Part 26 is also dealing with that. Operators of a log transporter cannot operate a log transporter when fatigued or impaired. A second change requires that log transport operators maintain a daily log to try and deal with the overwork issue.

The B.C. Forest Safety Council has initiated a review of substance use and abuse in the forest sector. WorkSafe B.C. has included, in its 2008 workplan, preparation of a discussion paper on fatigue and hours of work. That research has been done independently by a third-party researcher. This is obviously one of the areas that the interagency committee on forest safety is going to highlight in its work as well.

Recommendation No. 14 is protection of workers during work-time travel. Again, an awful lot of amendments in part 26 that are in force now deal with safe operations of log transports, requiring log transport operators to maintain a daily log, etc. The Ministry of Labour, in conjunction with WorkSafe B.C., is doing an options paper that should probably be ready by about September of this year, which will look at some other options where we can maybe enhance the service.

Finally, recommendation No. 15 is around coordination, consolidation and reporting of fatalities and serious injuries data. This is part of the terms of reference of the interagency committee on forest safety. Certainly, a fair bit of work needs to be done there, and that's a role we'll take seriously. We look forward to reporting back to the committee on some of that data and information at a further date.

Committee members, we will have the discussion of the audit report now from members. The floor is open.

J. Yap: Thank you to the Auditor General and the ministries for their presentations.

I think we all recognize that the operation of forestry is inherently a high-risk endeavour, and risk management is the issue. I think the goal of zero fatalities is a great ideal but perhaps utopian. The key is risk management.

My first question is in regards to what our B.C. industry looks like when you look at comparatives to other jurisdictions that are active in forestry. I'm wondering if WorkSafe B.C. might have that information. How do we compare to other forestry-intensive jurisdictions in this area?

D. Dahr: It's very difficult to compare. Forestry in British Columbia obviously is the largest industry within Canada, insofar as the forest sector is concerned. If you want to compare it to places like Sweden, we don't look very good. Places like Sweden have training — for example, optimum training — and supervision. Those are the very areas that we're trying to get involved with right now to bring it up to speed as well. We don't look good in that regard.

J. Yap: What reviews of best practices might have been done on what could be applicable to bring to our industry, to our practices?

D. Dahr: From others. First of all, we have a very great challenge in that the culture in this industry has been one where behaviour and attitude are where safety became a very, very low priority. It's very awkward. You don't change culture overnight, as I'm sure everybody is aware. I think, though, that over the last two to three years most of industry — I'd like to say all of industry — from the highest level to the worker themselves, is starting to understand that safety is a top priority. I think we're seeing changes because of that.

I think, first of all, we have to make sure that the workers themselves understand that going home at night, for example, is imperative. There's almost no one in this industry that does not know of people who have either died or been injured. It's that bad.

I think that because of the last several years since the actual task force, the numbers of fatalities and the numbers of serious injuries have reduced significantly. I think it's because of initiatives and because everybody within the industry, within government, has got on side to make it an imperative venture.

I would suggest that has to carry on and that we're not there yet. Let me give you an example. We had faller certification, where all fallers within the province become certified. That's 2,500 individual fallers out there that had to go through an evaluation to become certified as fallers — a very big challenge. They've all been trained, and they've all actually been given a certificate indicating that they're capable of felling a tree. In fact, they fell ten trees in order to be qualified.

Even after that, shortcuts are being taken. Our officers go into the field and find numbers of fallers that are taking risks they shouldn't be taking. Obviously, when Jim indicated that supervision is important, in this particular industry supervision has to be there. It's not there yet. It's coming; it's the next step. Somebody has to actually watch what's going on and make comment to ensure that the workers are doing it safely rather than taking shortcuts.

J. Yap: We need buy-in from the front-line workers, the fallers who are out in the bush doing the work — to buy in completely that it is up to them to ensure their safety. I think it's probably the case that people in these roles tend to be less risk-averse individuals. They're individuals who are willing to take risk and be out there in quite a dynamic business.

I'm interested in your thoughts. How do we, through education or information, reach out to workers to buy into the fact that safety is up to them as individuals as well?

D. Dahr: I think we might have to take a step backwards. As I said before, the culture in this industry is extremely important. What has happened over the last five, six, seven or eight years is that the smaller companies have broken away from the larger firms. The responsibility for safety then falls on the shoulders of a small firm that does not have the resources to look after safety, in many ways.

That's where we come into responsibility and the new changes in our regulation that actually were in effect in the act to begin with — the Workers Compensation Act. That talks about responsibilities of all parties from the owner right down to the person in the field, the worker. If we can get that working properly, where the prime contractor coordinates activity for safety on the site to ensure that everybody there has a semblance of safety associated with all the work and the programs that they're working on, it assists those small workers.

I think that through the B.C. Forest Safety Council, a number of initiatives are underway to ensure that the smaller firms are given the advantage by having training and also being brought into the SAFE Companies program that is going to become mandatory.

B. Simpson: Thank you for the presentation. I just want to clarify one thing right off the bat. Mr. Soles indicated that this was requested by the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services. My understanding is that the previous Auditor General volunteered to do this when there was a vacuum after the minister indicated that it needed to be done, and we were waiting and waiting for somebody to start it. The previous Auditor General actually said: "I'll do it." Is that not correct?

E. Price: I believe what happened was that, yes, the minister called for an independent review. We felt that we had the expertise, the methodology and the independence to carry out such a review. So the acting Auditor General met with them — I'm not sure whether it was the Minister of Forests or both ministers — to make that sort of proposal.

As a result of those discussions, we took on this piece of work. I would like to stress that it is true that the work was suggested, if you like, by the ministers. But once we took on the work, then it was carried out as we would carry out any audit.

B. Simpson: Fair enough. One of the things at the time was a discussion and questions raised in the Legislature, in the public domain, about the role that deregulation and cuts to WorkSafe B.C. had played in

what we saw as a very severe spike in not only fatalities but also serious injuries.

I think that serious injuries — Don and I have in the past had some conversations around this — are the untold story in all of this. We focus on fatalities, but serious injuries are just as debilitating and often are long-term tragedies in these households, and I don't think we pay enough attention to that.

But the question that was circling at the time was the role that deregulation had played, the role that cuts to WorkSafe B.C. had played. Yet the Auditor General's report doesn't delve into that. It looks at a range of things, but it doesn't explicitly get to that. Was there a reason that that wasn't covered off?

E. Price: I think we do touch upon both those things in the report. We talk about the general impact of deregulation and the fact that, as was mentioned in the ministry's presentation, in effect responsibility for safety has been pushed down to the small companies. I believe we do comment in the report about the fact that during the time that was taking place, there were some cutbacks — I think, during the period of 2002 to 2004 — in the amount of inspections that WCB was carrying out.

I think what has happened since that time is that there has been sort of a step-up in the activity. But at the time of the deregulation there did appear to be a drop-off in terms of inspections. Both those things are commented on in the report.

B. Simpson: Again, fair enough. I think people were looking for something a bit more explicit. That's certainly feedback that I've heard. I think it is in the report, but it's sort of as part of the report as it unfolds, not an explicit statement answering the question: was this a contributing factor? It would have been helpful, I think, for people to have that answer.

With respect to the one lead ministry, I guess what we're getting in the presentation here is a committee. Yet we have significant jurisdictional issues. We have all kinds of different authorities. One of the questions I have with respect to taking a committee approach is: will that committee examine a one-lead-agency approach and the rationalization of the regulations and legislation that is recommended in the Auditor General's report?

For example, ICBC isn't directly participating on this committee. Yet for log haulers, that is a major jurisdictional gap, if you will, on whether it's a police investigation or an ICBC investigation or WorkSafe B.C. and so on.

Will there be a look at one lead agency along the lines of what the Auditor General has recommended?

J. Soles: It's certainly an issue for discussion at the committee. It's a challenging question, and I certainly understand the Auditor General's recommendation around that. Let's just maybe talk about the roles of the different players at the table.

We have the Ministry of Labour, which sets the legislation environment for WorkSafe B.C. We appoint the board, so we have a role to play, and we're kind of taking the lead in terms of driving the committee forward.

The Ministry of Forests obviously has a very important role around forest operations, around resource roads and a number of issues that are prominent in the Auditor General's report. Of course, WorkSafe B.C. has probably 2,700 employees dealing with the enforcement activity. The Ministry of Labour isn't going to be enforcing and doing things like that, so WorkSafe B.C. obviously has a critical role.

I think at this stage, we're certainly looking at the committee performing that lead agency function. If that's not an effective strategy, I think we're obviously willing to look at other approaches that might include a lead ministry being designated more officially.

B. Simpson: With respect to the committee…. The committee's provincial strategy, according to what you've got under recommendation 1, is to focus on alcohol and drug use and fatigue. That wasn't a priority in the Auditor General's report. Fatigue was mentioned.

Alcohol and drug come out of a report done by the Forest Safety Council, which quite frankly, I believe, is pushing blame down onto workers, when in actual fact the emphasis in the Auditor General's report is enforced compliance to the existing regulations.

You've got part 26 in here. That's all well and fine. But if you're not enforcing compliance to existing regulations, adding more regulations doesn't solve the problem.

So where did the alcohol and drug use come from, if this is a direct response to the Auditor General's report?

J. Soles: I would say that it's clearly a response to the Auditor General's report, and we're going to deal with the 15 recommendations of the Auditor General's report. But in the committee's first meeting we had a good discussion that there were things that weren't in the Auditor General's report that did impact on safety in the forest industry and that we should include those in our mandate — that we shouldn't ignore those.

So we decided that the particular one that the member references was important and that we should have a look at that one.

B. Simpson: Again, if the Forest Safety Council already has an initiative on alcohol and drug use, why would this committee replicate that initiative? Why wouldn't it concentrate on what the Auditor General has indicated, especially in the realm of compliance and enforcement, resource roads and everything else? That's by way of a recommendation, I guess.

Did the committee get an opportunity to examine the latest round of deregulation in the Ministry of Forests? Did that safety lens get put on the 90-day review, and did it come before the committee?

P. Fuglem: There was no specific discussion around the reg review itself, but within the reg review we have

had representations on safety. WorkSafe has been represented at the regulatory review.

B. Simpson: So in the next 30-day review, will this committee explicitly look at the regulatory review and the deregulation that's occurring and put a safety lens on it?

P. Fuglem: We have been reporting out on a number of activities within different ministries, and I'm quite sure that will be reported out at the next meeting.

B. Simpson: Okay. I know I'm taking up some time here. I've got a couple more questions, with the Chair's indulgence.

With respect to the safety objective of the regulations, the Auditor General's report says in the body of the report that one of the problems is no safety objective within the Forest and Range Practices Act — an explicit objective for safety. Yet in the recommendations it doesn't make a recommendation that that should actually be done. It looks at two other pieces of legislation to insert some safety objectives.

I wonder if the Auditor General could comment on why that explicit recommendation wasn't made, and I wonder if the representative from the Ministry of Forests and Range could explain the dialogue that went on with the ministers committee and why that is not put in. We haven't seen any specific legislation to put in a specific safety objective, which would give us a lead ministry of sorts, because it would be a requirement by legislation that that lens be put on all activities on the forest land base.

M. Sydor: While we don't specifically talk about the fact that it should be legislated, our recommendation does reference the fact that safety should be incorporated in planning for forestry activities. We thought that recommendation would have given the ministry the flexibility of deciding what approach it should take to get to that objective.

P. Fuglem: We have had significant discussions within the Ministry of Forests and Range around the FRPA objective on safety. The discussion has been around where it would have the most effect in terms of a high-level objective within FRPA or to ensure that safety is a key focus in operational planning and within the training approach that we're looking at.

B. Simpson: Three other quick questions that get to the heart of this. One is with respect to WorkSafe compliance and enforcement.

Don, we had some conversation before about one of the problems, with ramping up and compliance and enforcement officers in the field being: do they have the experience? They're not easy to get. You know, do they have the "rain in the lunch bucket" experience to know what they're looking at? How is that being addressed? If we are going to increase compliance and enforcement, do we have the capacity to put people who know what they're looking at out in the field?

D. Dahr: As a result of the Forest Safety Task Force — I think it was item 14 that talked about WorkSafe B.C. looking at compliance — we did review our compliance program. We had at that time approximately 40 officers in the field that worked on forestry initiatives. Out of the 40, approximately nine to ten came from the industry itself and had that expertise.

After the B.C. Forest Safety Task Force, we went into a hiring mode where we hired another six officers that came from the forest sector. We now have approximately 14 or 15 officers that are subject-matter experts in the forest sector.

We have in the past, as you are probably aware, brought together all of our officers to try to bring them into a consistent approach to the forest sector. We've put together strategies that involved responsibility within the industry. And having our officers, rather than look at what they see when they walk on the site, look deeper into what are the responsibilities of everybody involved….

Those with the forest subject-matter expertise are working with those that do not have it, because those that don't have it don't come as forestry experts. Obviously many of them, through the time that they've been with the board, have picked up an awful lot on the forest sector itself.

I feel quite good right now, as a compliance manager, that in the forest sector we do have now the people in the industry who have that subject-matter expertise overall. We're now engaged in the second phase of our forest safety strategy, and that's dealing with safety on resource roads, which is something we've just now trained all of our officers on.

Again, looking at it, it's the same approach — the responsibility and accountability for all those that are involved. We're working on that with the oil and gas industry as well.

B. Simpson: With respect to resource roads, there's mention in here of the Resource Road Act, and because we have a bill before the House, it's hard for us to dig into that.

Maybe what I'll do, Peter, is chat with you afterwards just to see where that's going, because our understanding is that it's going to be pulled until at least the fall.

Peter, you indicated there's a report out there that looked at a bunch of accidents, but we don't have the same approach on the land base as we do in mills. If you slice your finger in a mill, there's an automatic accident investigation process that kicks in as part of a continuous learning. If you roll your truck in the bush, there's no mandatory accident investigation. If you roll your feller-buncher or if a faller has a near miss, there's no mandatory accident investigation.

I'm wondering how we get there. It's one of the things that I think the Auditor General's report didn't

really pick up on, and that is the problem with the designated place of work on the Crown land base. That's one of the jurisdictional issues we have — that there's not a designated place of work.

So we can do prime contractor. We can do all kinds of things. But if we're not in a continuous learning mode with mandatory accident and incident investigations, then we're not saving people's lives, and we're not preventing disabilities and serious injuries.

Does the committee have that on its table? Will that be part of the discussions? Quite frankly, it's the elephant in the room with respect to the land-based forest worker safety.

I think it's very hard to compare the forest sector in the bush to a fixed workplace such as a mill where in fact safety programs and diligence of workers in that mill are, I'm going to say, somewhat easier than in a terrain that's very awkward for a lot of fallers and people who work in that industry.

I think it is the challenge, and I think we do have to look at what is the workplace and how we control or actually lay out responsibilities as to a fixed workplace. We're working on that. I think it is coming together, and I think we are making change. It's going to be a difficult challenge, though, to match what they do in a fixed workplace, but it's a challenge that I think we have to take.

B. Simpson: Final question. With respect to that, one of the things that happens of course is that many of the log-hauling accidents occur on highways, which then is a police-ICBC incident. We don't get it into the normative reporting mechanism of a workplace accident, and that's part of the problem we have — in the interface between resource roads and highways.

The final question really gets to the Auditor General's comment about the race to the bottom. Our contention is that that's really what has happened over the last five years. We've enforced that race to the bottom — the mom-and-pop operations, the independents that are out there…. We used to have full union crews, large contract loggers that had supervision capabilities and robust safety programs.

Now we have people that go get a truck and a feller-buncher and a forwarder and then designate themselves as an operator. They go out there and don't have the capacity to absorb the costs.

With respect to recommendation 5, which is the economic incentives, and recommendation 10, which is supervision…. If we link those two together…. The Forest Safety Council's approach is to actually add significant costs in the SAFE companies approach. We hear this complaint all the time, where these companies are not being assisted necessarily to increase their safety.

What they have is a whole bunch of costs added to them — costs for the initial training and certification, monthly costs to maintain certification, the cost of sending people off site, etc. Rather than looking for some backdoor economic incentive for these folks, why doesn't the government simply cover the costs of the training program and certification?

That would be a huge incentive. The feedback on the training is to streamline it, get it on line and make it available in a fashion that makes sense to people compared to the way it is now, which is two or three days that could be condensed down to one.

As opposed to this kind of strange approach of economic incentives, why don't we cover the costs for these folks, provide them with robust training, get them certified and help them to maintain their certification?

P. Fuglem: In terms of the suggestion, that's certainly something we could discuss within the interagency committee and look at that as an option compared to an incentive. We’re certainly willing to have that discussion.

H. Bains: I'm just going through, as this presentation was given to us, all 15 recommendations. There seems to be one theme in here as a response by the ministry. A majority of the recommendations and the response to those recommendations — I counted about eight out of the 15 that mention part 26 of the health and safety program — cover that.

My question is to the Auditor General. It seems that the response is that the system is in place. In fact, what your report says…. It's stubborn attitudes, lack of supervision, lack of inspections, lack of training, reporting and investigation of the serious accidents and fatalities. Talk about stubborn attitudes.

It seems to me that the attitudes still exist here in this response to the Auditor General's report — that we already have a system in place to deal with the recommendations. The part that the Auditor General had recommended is the enforcement of it. But I haven't seen very much in here to deal with the area of how we improve inspections and how we improve supervision, especially down to the last subcontractor, who happened to be, in many cases, a single contractor — a one- or two-man operation.

That's my first question. Why is it that you are saying that we already have a system in place, but their recommendation was the enforcement of it? I haven't seen very much in here.

J. Soles: Let me say that I think there's more to our response than part 26, and I apologize if my presentation wasn't clear enough to bring out those other themes. I think, clearly, that one of the prime recommendations from the Auditor General was around the coordination — who's on first. We haven't followed their recommendation precisely on that, but I think we've taken very significant steps towards that with

the interagency committee. I think we need all those people in the room to make some of those significant decisions and steps and research to gain the progress that we need to do.

So the interagency committee…. Yes, it's a committee, but I wouldn't want to underestimate its importance in terms of a major step forward in enforcement and driving new policy. Part 26 is very important — very significant changes made by WorkSafe B.C. Those changes weren't in place at the time the Auditor General was doing the report. I think the report might have been slightly different if some of those would have been in place a year ago, and I think they will respond to some things.

We did talk in our presentation about increasing enforcement activity. We'd be happy to provide the member with additional data and information around enforcement activity, but that's clearly an important part of our response — added enforcement through WorkSafe B.C. I think Don has chatted a little bit about that.

I think the final theme that we wanted to have in our presentation was that we do need to do some additional research. We need to understand the issues better. There are some new things that we can try that we perhaps haven't looked at before. I think, in fairness, our response is more than just part 26 and everything is fine. We recognize that this is a serious problem, and we're approaching it, I think, professionally and with a hope to make a real difference.

H. Bains: So the next response is…. The area, specifically, that I was dealing with, or talking about, was supervision, inspection, training and reporting. Basically, your answer is that there is a committee and the committee is going to look at all of that stuff.

J. Soles: Well, I think one of the things around supervision and training…. Part 26 does make some additional changes and amendments with respect to supervision and training. I think Don is probably better qualified to speak to those than I am, but certainly, there are some changes that have already been made that I think should enhance supervision.

J. Soles: Well, 26 was implemented May 1. It's probably a little early to see significant results, but certainly, that's a reasonable question, if you invite us back to this committee.

H. Bains: My next question would be to Don, I guess. I think one of the areas, speaking to the forestry workers in the field, is how deregulation, as Bob had mentioned earlier, has affected enforcement of safety regulations and practice safety in the workplace. How, from a major contractor to another subcontractor and another subcontractor, down to a single person or a very small crew operation…. Lack of resources.

And number two, if they are to complain about health and safety issues in that particular area of their operation, there is a real risk of them losing their contract the next time. So there is that disincentive of not reporting or practising what is needed. Perhaps you could comment on that. How do we deal with that area? Have we done anything, or have we moved into that area to deal with it? Is there some plan in there, or is this another task that the committee is going to look at?

D. Dahr: I think you bring forward a good point. I think that there is a sense of intimidation, if that's what you want to call it — that if I do report a safety situation, I may not get the job. We're trying to quell that type of attitude. I think that by working with everybody in the industry, we're trying to let people know what their responsibilities or accountabilities actually are. I think that it's working.

I wanted to respond when Jim responded to your other question, if I could. When we talk about the interagency committee coming together…. I've been around for quite a while with the board, and I think that up to about three or four years ago we operated almost independently of other bodies and other regulators such as the ministry. I think that over the last three to four years we've actually been working a lot closer, leading up to the interagency committee.

I think that I haven't had more meetings with anybody else than with the Ministry of Forests lately, other than oil and gas, trying to find ways that we could work together and actually signing a memorandum of understanding talking about health and safety in the forest sectors and what roles we obviously each play.

The extension to that is the B.C. Forest Safety Council, which we actually provide the funding for, through the industry paying. In fact, they are taking on that specific challenge you're talking about of ensuring that people feel that they can bring forward situations or areas where they think health and safety play a prominent role.

If you even look in the paper at times, you see situations of cutters working in the woods. The pictures themselves signify very dangerous operations. When you look at that, it's again going back into part of the culture. It's like there's a pride in being able to stand 30 feet up on a 12-foot-wide tree and trying to knock it down. In fact, the fallers themselves take pictures of themselves doing that, which is in non-compliance with our regulations.

Again, it all goes back, I believe, to the culture, the behaviour, the attitude of the workers themselves. I don't think we see as much as you would believe from the small contractors that are saying they're intimidated, although we do hear about it. I think it's still part of the culture that they do those types of things.

M. Polak: Gosh, I wondered if maybe you'd forgotten about me. I'm glad you remembered me.

This is a difficult report to read, not because it's written in a difficult way but because, if you have spent any time in British Columbia living in a small town that has a lot of fallers living and working in it…. Don, I think, made the comment that if you've been around forestry, you probably know somebody who's been killed or injured. And you do. There's nothing like being in a town of 500 people, and when one guy has an accident out there — a faller is gone — it's through town in about five minutes.

I guess I wanted to say that just because we've been through a bunch of technical discussion. There's a point at which we have to remember that these are individual people who go out that day and expect they're going to come home. They expect they're going to go see their buddies in the bar, and then they're not.

It does speak to the whole culture around it, because I think it's forestry for British Columbia. It's motherhood and apple pie. You've spoken about the culture, the challenges you face in terms of practice on the ground for fallers and others who are there in the bush. You know, they're heading out in the crummy. They're in their team. What are they going to do today? And what are they going to do after?

In that instance, they're not the big company and the supervisor and the contractor and what have you. We talk about those roles here, but when they're heading out on the job or they're scanning out a job and planning it, they're just that team. There's a respect for one another.

What things, what types of initiatives do WorkSafe and Ministry of Forests and Range — whichever part of your committee…? What initiatives are being put in place to give all those guys not just the pamphlet or the three-day training or what have you but the day-to-day tools that will assist them, because at the end of the day, we're all in this together?

I would hope that coming out of the work of the committee are some initiatives and thoughts on how to give those people the tools, because they do want to do a good job of safety for their team, for their co-workers, for their buddies. So how do we give them those tools, and what is WorkSafe and the ministry doing to provide them with that?

J. Soles: Let me start and then turn to my colleagues on that. I think the member has highlighted one of the more important points of the Auditor General's report. He talks at great length about the culture of the forest industry and the importance of everybody taking some responsibility. Whether it's government or it's the employers, workers, etc., everybody needs to be involved in that training. As a result, I think, because that's a theme that runs through the report, it's certainly an area for significant discussion at the interagency committee. But in terms of specifics, Peter or Don may be able to provide you some current activities.

P. Fuglem: Just to refer back to the Forests and Range evaluation program report, they really delved into what some of those issues at the grassroots level are in terms of individuals and talked to a number of loggers to find out what some of those issues are.

As well, we've had significant discussions with the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals. They came up with a specific…. One of their magazines that they publish several times a year specifically targeted safety for their members to ensure that that part of that culture shift is starting to happen.

From my experience in working with companies on many files, the first thing that happens anytime you head out in the woods with those companies is: hardhats, safety vests, lecture on safety. So the culture is changing. I mean, I started in this industry in the '70s. You were lucky if somebody tossed you a hardhat back in those days. Today you get the lecture before you get out of the truck.

So I think the attitude is changing. As Don has alluded to, we're starting to see some of that effect in the statistics — not fast enough for any of us. But it really is about changing that culture. We'll certainly look to those kinds of things that we can do that are going to have the biggest impact in improving that safety culture and the results out there in the woods.

D. Dahr: Thank you for the question, actually. You made me think back a little bit. I think that we've got to remember that all of these statistics are people. I think we also have to remember that a lot of these people come from communities, and the communities are involved around the work that these people do.

I have to say that — just for a second, and I'll come back to your question — in the oil and gas industry in Alberta, for example, 15 years ago they were in worse shape than the forest sector is here in British Columbia. Over the last 15 years they've brought their injury rate down to 1.7. It's half the rate of any other industry in British Columbia. They did it through determination, they did it through training, and they did it through working with the people that are there. They worked with it by being very, very strong in the will to get there by the regulators involved and the Alberta government at that time.

It's a great pleasure to be working with an industry that trains as well as they do, and they have the facilities that work with workers. You don't go to work unless you've had training before you go there. I think that's missing in the forest sector, although it is coming now through the B.C. Forest Safety Council.

This fall we are about to venture into, on the resource road area, a demonstration project on resource roads where we will be working with the workers themselves that are involved on the roads. We'll be working with the regulators, the supervisors, the prime contractors and the owners to find ways to actually make it safe, to find ways to let the community know what involvement they can have. Obviously, on resource roads communities are part of the resource roads in order to get home.

I think that we have to bring it down to the level of people that are actually involved in the industry to

make that change. I think we are going in that direction. I think that our officers have been given that. Our officers are not only enforcement people, but they're compliance people that try to find ways in order to make that change.

I think it's a good question, and I think it is an area that we do have to do more work in.

M. Polak: Interesting. At the end of your comments, you highlighted the difference between enforcement and compliance. Of course, we know that the most effective thing is if everybody wishes to comply and feels attached to that idea.

You also mentioned at various points, and Peter did as well, the involvement of different industry associations. I'd imagine there must be an ongoing way in which the ministry or WorkSafe intends to bring these folks into the problem-solving effort and into the planning.

What are some of the ways in which industry associations, labour unions, groups of workers, representatives of contractors…? How are they involved in an ongoing way with the planning, which certainly won't end at a specific point? It'll be continuing over the years, I'm sure. How do we involve them?

J. Soles: I think that's an area where we actually have some work to do. It's clearly important to involve the advice, and of course, they're part of the solutions we've already set. We're developing a workplan right now that will include that kind of involvement of those key parties, to make sure that we're getting the best advice and providing the most practical solutions as well.

J. McIntyre (Deputy Chair): I guess my concern, as well as around the culture…. I think, as has been said by others before us today, that was sort of pervasive through the report and through some of the steps you're taking to address some of these issues. Maybe my question is somewhat aligned with Mary's just before me.

Coming from the public opinion business, I know how hard it is to change attitudes and image. It is a long-term shift and sometimes a societal shift, which we all know has to happen. I guess I was just interested if somebody could elaborate for me what steps are being taken. I think somebody said through the Forest Safety Council and things.

This whole balance of attitude to safety and the whole thing we were talking about, the sort of — maybe this isn't the right word — machismo culture and the risk-taking. That's been articulated today as sort of a longstanding attitude in the industry. How do you deal with that and the whole issue we touched on about fatigue and substance abuse?

I agree that was identified. It was identified as an issue; it has come up. So what steps are being taken, perhaps, for workers even along the issue of substance abuse? Are their programs in place? Is it readily available for people to take advantage of, or are there deterrents or obstacles — you know, that nobody wants to admit they need help or assistance? What's going on in the industry?

I've been heartened by some of the things we're talking about in terms of actual steps in training and all things, but really it's up to the individual. That shift has to come from within. Could someone elaborate on those steps, please.

J. Soles: I think our first step is exactly what you've highlighted. It's the education and training. I think that's an important component of it. We probably have to get to a stage where we're doing a little bit more social marketing — for want of a better phrase — to folks, to change the attitudes that are there, to change things that have been there for decades.

As Don referred, this is going to take a while. We refer to what's happened in the oil and gas sector, which has undergone a pretty significant change, but it was 15 years in the making. Let's hope we're moving more rapidly than that in this sector.

It starts with education and training, as you've said. I think we need to do some work among the agencies and ministries to see if we can take that a step further in the social marketing area as well.

J. McIntyre (Deputy Chair): Are there specific programs available if people want or need them?

D. Dahr: I have to admit that I'm not aware of any programs. I think that in order to get to the worker level, we have to work with the associations. I've got to admit that I've done at least 40 or 50 presentations to both workers and firms over the last year to do with a strategy that we've had in place.

The steelworkers, for example, is where you get an awful lot of the workers actually attending the meetings, where we can talk directly to workers and get their input and feedback as to what's going on.

Not to belay the ILA, CILA and the other associations that are generally worker-owner types of organization…. We talk to them, as well, and get input from them. A lot of the work we're doing isn't done in isolation. It's done through comment and criticism from the various associations that we talk to.

So far as programs for alcohol and drug abuse, I know of them in the oil and gas industry. I'm sorry. I don't know in forestry.

J. McIntyre (Deputy Chair): Does that mean they may not exist, or we're just not aware?

J. Soles: We're not aware, obviously, at this committee about what exists. Let's take that as good advice from the Deputy Chair that we should look into that more closely and see if we can come up and see what exactly is available out there at present and what can be developed.

C. Trevena: I'll try to limit myself. I have two or three questions. Going back to the Auditor General's

report, it says very clearly that one of the problems is the fact it's a race to the bottom in the forest industry. They have been going down to owner-operators…. We're getting fewer large companies — the integration, so you get many more small companies. The push on the industry is causing it to take risks.

While everybody talks here about the culture, as the Deputy Chair said, of the potential machismo or whatever it is…. People are being pushed to take risks…. They are being pushed. I know of drivers who have very, very long days, and it's all built into the way that the industry is now structured.

I have one question on this. As I say, the Auditor General's description of the race to the bottom…. There is talk about the need for supervision. You've got people who are working extremely long hours in very isolated situations. You have owner-operator log haulers who are working with one truck, and that's their business. How do you create the supervision there to ensure effective safety?

J. Soles: Certainly, I think that's one of the areas where the changes that have been made to part 26 should deal with that. Part 26 talks of the designation and duties of falling supervisors including inspections, maintaining records, providing enhanced training, requiring prime contractors to be qualified and effective supervisors. So I think part 26 is intended to get at some of those smaller operators.

D. Dahr: Supervision is a challenge. When we entered into a lot of the strategies that we're dealing with, we had three key principles: supervision, planning and training. Supervision for a smaller contractor is extremely difficult. There may be only one or two people working there. So what does it mean by supervision, especially if you're talking about a truck driver that's hauling fibre from pickup point to stump-to-dump? What is supervision? Is it somebody sitting beside him?

I've been in industry for a long time. I come from a completely different industry. We have often talked about supervision over a worker. You will not find supervisors hovering over workers at any given time.

I think what we look at, though, is that supervision is present in one way or another. Is that person doing the job correctly? Are they doing it safely? Somebody is giving input to that worker in order to do that. What we'd look at is whether the supervisor is beside them or at a point where they started or where they end. We would ensure that somebody has the consideration of the worker at hand. We would not expect that a worker would work for months on end without having some supervision or somebody that actually has input into the actions of the worker themselves.

I don't think that at any time we'd expect a truck driver to have a supervisor working with them. It's a little different if you're getting into a logging show, for example, where they're working at extremely high risk and under huge hazard. At that point in time we would expect somebody to be there, in case something were to occur, to assist that worker. We would look at that as being maybe a supervisor role or another worker close by to effect some kind of emergency help at that time.

C. Trevena: I do want to move on to recommendation 1, but just to pick up on that. If, for instance, you're out heli-logging, you're going to make sure that you've got the extra person there. So it's going to be maybe three guys out there instead of two. Radio contact — are you looking at ideas like that?

D. Dahr: I'll tell you. In the past, one of the things that we had a difficult situation over when we were going through a faller certification, for example, was that the bull bucker would be there to be a supervisor. But the bull bucker didn't necessarily have any safety background. Therefore, he was supervising for productivity, not necessarily for the safety of the worker.

One of the changes we foresee and we've been pushing through our own act is that supervisors are knowledgable and able to give supervision in the area of safety as well as productivity.

I wanted to also quickly try and roll two, possibly three, questions into one, because I note the time.

C. Trevena: Recommendation 1 from the Auditor General's report is that the government assign one ministry to take the lead in the policy direction. We have a committee with senior officials and assistant deputy ministers. All have got lots of different issues that they're also dealing with. They met once in April and are meeting again in June.

I think the concern that I have and that others have is that the committee is going to get diverted into other issues, just by the demands on everybody's workdays, so you meet every three months. How are we taking the issue forward?

Really, I'm concerned about the fact that it is still the committee. I'm pleased to hear that you're looking at maybe an agency working, but I would like to hear a little bit more of that. We've heard talk about the individuals involved. We all know individuals involved and people who have been injured or killed in logging incidents.

We've had the very high-profile cases of Ted Gramlich, the faller, and Frank Leroux. The recommendations from those inquests still haven't been acted on. Would it be the role of this committee to ensure that the government does act on the recommendations of the coroners' inquests there? That's my first question.

The second one, because of the time, to roll them in: would this committee be interested in coming back and reporting to the Public Accounts Committee possibly in

the fall — we'll only have had, by then, two meetings — to be able to just talk to us about the progress that is being made? It's obviously a very sensitive issue. Would it be possible to do that?

J. Soles: I think the member makes an excellent point about the challenges of schedules of senior officials. It did take us some time to get together, partly because the spring, as we know, is busy for all in government.

I think we hope to meet five or six times a year ideally. We don't plan to just do nothing in between. I think we've got a secretariat function of the three primary parties — Forests, Labour, WorkSafe B.C. — trying to drive and push those issues along significantly in the interim.

I can say on behalf of the committee that we'd be delighted to come back in the fall and report. We had discussed, actually, at our first meeting that we thought we'd be called to this committee in the fall. We were a little surprised to be called quite so quickly, but we consider that to be an important part of our function. We'd be delighted to come back and report.

J. Soles: That's not part of our mandate right now. It's certainly an issue that we'd be discussing at the committee, but we've not set out, in our terms of reference, the Gramlich inquest specifically. I can give you a copy of our terms of reference if you'd like to have that.

J. Soles: You may have that already. But at present, that's not part of our terms of reference.

J. Rustad: I'm just curious. In terms of the report and reading through the report, it has brought forward a number of issues. There is quite a lot of discussion around the size of forest companies, the small ma-and-pop operators and the challenges associated with safety standards around the small operations.

I'm just curious. In terms of the number of accidents or the number of incidents, fatal or otherwise, in the forest industry, as a percentage, what number of those were associated with smaller operations — one-, two- or three-man operations — versus larger operations?

D. Dahr: I don't have the actual data on the smaller companies, but approximately 94 percent are small companies. By far and away — I'm just going to suggest it's between 60 percent and 70 percent — they come from the smaller companies. The smaller companies are obviously the ones that we need to be addressing.

J. Rustad: To the Auditor General's report, actually, because in the report there were several references around that. According to their report on page 32, over 90 percent of the registered employers are the smaller operations, which means the vast majority of the people — probably in the 90 percent range — are in the small operations in forestry other than the large-mill processing facilities.

That's why I'm just wondering, in terms of the focus there. If 40 percent of the incidents happen in the larger operations, which only have 10 or 15 percent of the employees, then if you look at that as a percentage, the larger operations are actually having a larger per-worker number of incidents than the smaller operations are, even though the total number on the smaller is higher.

That's why it concerns me in terms of the slant. The reason for that, of course, is that there are a lot of people in the forest industry who are very entrepreneurial. They have a truck or a couple of trucks. They may go out and have a couple of people working with them in terms of working on a landing or going out falling. There's a significant culture of entrepreneurialism in the forest industry, and the report seems to suggest that that is a bad thing and that we should have these larger conglomerates. That would be a very significant shift away from the way that forestry has been done for many, many years.

The other thing associated with that is also the whole idea of the supervision. When you have one-, two- or three-man operations, to add a layer of effective supervision into that would be very challenging at best, because of the nature of how those sorts of operations work.

Back 30 or 40 years ago, you used to have a logging camp which would have 120 people in the camp to take out some volume. Today you might have 20 or 25 people in the same camp taking out more volume, just because of the way the nature of the job changes. You don't have the same kinds of structures that you may have in large types of operations.

Once again to the Auditor General's report. I'm just wondering: in that environment, how would you propose coming about with adding a layer of supervision? Also, on your comments particularly around the challenges with smaller operations and the number of incidents, what data did you use to rationalize the focus on the smaller operations as opposed to the larger, given the fact that there's actually a larger percentage of incidents in larger operations?

E. Price: I'll start off, and maybe Morris will want to supplement. There are a number of issues. Safety in the forest industry is not a new thing, of course. The problem has been around for many years.

One of the things that we point out in our report…. We talk about the problems around the culture within the industry. We suggest, I guess, that the changes that have taken place in the structure of the industry have probably made that culture more challenging to deal with.

I think there are statistics from WorkSafe B.C. that suggest the smaller companies do have more reported injuries than the larger companies and that the nature of the injuries tend to often be more serious. The exact

statistics, I don't know. The fact is that the safety issues go across the industry.

In terms of the challenges around supervision for the smaller operators, there's no question that that presents a significant challenge. But one of the things that I guess we point out is that it is important — again, it goes throughout the industry — to have an effective regime of supervision. Exactly what that would look like is, I think, up to the ministries and WCB to sort through.

We've heard about how the forest industry compares to some of the other industries in B.C. or even Alberta. We do sort of suggest in the report that it would be beneficial for those responsible for forest worker safety to take into consideration some of the things that other industries have done to reduce their accident rates.

I think it's fair to say that one of the significant initiatives in other industries has been around supervision. I think what we're saying is that supervision is important. Specifically how that is done is not for us to say. That's up to the ministries. It's challenging, but it's important.

J. Rustad: I've got one follow-up on that, but I just wanted to give the ministry representatives an opportunity in terms of those statistics. The Auditor General had mentioned that he didn't really have those statistics at his fingertips, yet there seem to be some pretty interesting implications from the report. I'm just wondering if you have a perspective on that.

P. Fuglem: If I could just speak very quickly. When we were initially in discussions with the Auditor General's team around this, a key issue in terms of making that determination — because they did do some analysis — was trying to determine the accident rate comparison between larger companies and smaller companies.

It really came down to yes, they had information around the rate of accidents — it's also reflected in the FREP report — but didn't have the comparator around the actual number of hours and people working in the industries at those different levels. So they weren't able to come up with a complete comparison. Therefore, their recommendation No. 15 was around trying to help us to really determine those accident rates based on hours worked, not just the number of people.

I'd like to ask either of the groups here around professional responsibility. Do you know, for any of the professions that we have registered in this province, whether or not safety is actually legislated or mandated as part of their profession — other than, obviously, health care or professions that deliver emergency services?

The recommendation is so that safety becomes a personal responsibility associated with the registered professional foresters act. I haven't heard of any other professional act that has safety as part of its professional mandate, so I'm just kind of wondering if there's an example of any other profession that could be potentially used.

P. Fuglem: If I could speak to that just quickly. It's an excellent question. It will be part of the review that we're doing as part of the options analysis for that particular recommendation. We're hopeful that we'll see that by the end of June. We've been working with the ABCFP on that particular question.

R. Fleming (Chair): The final question to Mr. Hawes. I'm aware that there is one other committee member who wished to ask a question. There is a capacity for us to have written questions responded to, as well, to the committee. We may do that as well.

What I wanted to talk about was reality. Somewhere we have to face reality. The forestry industry is really challenged right now. Every layer of cost that gets added makes us less competitive.

Don, I'm very happy that several times you referenced that we have to be competitive as well as looking at the safety aspect.

Reality is something that we have to look at. There are lots of small operators, and there will continue to be lots of small operators. When I call to get a tree felled in my backyard, the guy who comes out is a faller, and he's part of the forestry industry. If he's got to come with a supervisor, I'm going to tell you that maybe I'll be tempted not to pay that extra cost and will just take the tree down myself.

Now, I won't be a statistic in your study if I get hurt, but I'm nonetheless a victim of a policy that has imposed costs that maybe I don't want to bear. That's all part of being competitive. Somewhere we've got to get away from this mentality that I've heard here quite a bit from our members opposite — talking about union versus non-union and small versus big, etc. — and talk about what's real. I just wonder how you address where you're going to have, for example, the professional tree faller that's in a residential setting.

The second one is…. In the report it mentions complacency in highly experienced fallers in the bush. They do become complacent. I know from previous jobs I've had that the longer you sit on a job and if it becomes a little repetitive, you start to slip a little bit and have momentary inadvertence, I think I'll call it.

I live in a community that actually is shake-and-shingle oriented. I have lots of friends who have been in that industry for years and years, and they're walking around with fingers that have been cut off. Many of them didn't usually get their fingers cut off in the first day on the job. It came late in their career in a moment of inadvertence. I don't think you can provide a supervisor that's going to look every single minute and overcome momentary inadvertence.

I just wonder how you address that and factor that in. There was some comment about pushing it down onto the worker. Well, a heck of a lot of responsibility

falls on the worker here. So I'm glad that you're kind of addressing that. I guess those are just my comments.

R. Fleming (Chair): Gentlemen, if I could ask for a written response. Mr. Hawes has raised the question around competition and a safety regime. We know the Auditor found that the costs were $690 million for fatalities and injuries to the industry. So that could perhaps be part of the response, as well, that factors in the competition.

I want to thank all of you for being here this morning and answering members' questions. We very much appreciate it. We look to a follow-up audit report as well on this topic perhaps in a year's time. Again, thank you for being here this morning.

J. McIntyre (Deputy Chair): I'd like to make a motion that this committee endorses the recommendations contained in the Auditor General report entitled Preventing Fatalities and Serious Injuries in B.C. Forests: Progress Needed, and notes both the concurrence and the progress made by the ministries and the interagency committee on forest safety to implement the recommendations.

R. Fleming (Chair): Okay. We have the motion before us, Committee. Any discussion?

R. Hawes: I have one item, and it's maybe picky, but it bothers me because it has to do with spending government money. We get these reports every time that we come here, and they're always in colour. To be honest with you, I print these things out on my computer. I have them in black and white. You know….

R. Hawes: Well, I'll tell you what. Maybe the Chair will make that determination, and there will be a motion. But in the meantime I'd just ask: can't we just get these things in black and white?

R. Fleming (Chair): I think there's some paper waste, and maybe the Deputy Chair and I can look at that for the next committee meeting.

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