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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1970

The House met at 2 p.m.

THRONE DEBATE

THE HON. ISABEL P. DAWSON (Mackenzie) – Minister without Portfolio:

(The first portion of the Honourable Minister's speech was not recorded.) She continues….

…. are engaged in employment areas using our natural resources namely, millworkers, loggers, fishermen, miners. As I look about me here today and know how many of the members on this side of the House represent strong labour ridings, for example, Trail, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Fort George, Comox, Skeena, Kamloops, Prince Rupert and others, there is a clear indication that the working man and the working woman supports this Government, in a sincere effort to serve well and forthrightly, not only the cause of labour, but all the people in this great Province of British Columbia. As I travel throughout my constituency in particular and, indeed, around the Province as a whole, I find that the working man asks many questions concerning many aspects of government. He asks for information about our home-owner grant, he's pleased with the medicare plan and hospital coverage which has eliminated for him much of the worries involved in sickness in the family. He is interested, too, in the recreational facilities such as marinas, campsites and parks. He likes the home-owner grant, because it helps him where it counts, in his pocketbook, and the home acquisition grant makes it possible for many workers to acquire a home of their own. I am pleased, Mr. Speaker, to note in the Throne Speech that these grants are going to be extended to help make it possible for more people to acquire their own homes, whether by new construction or by purchase of an older home. Although modern cave dwelling is necessary in largely populated areas, there are still many people who are desirous of acquiring a spot to call their own. For those who so wish, the home-owner acquisition grant is a concrete and practical inducement for them to do so.

I am pleased, also, to note in the Throne Speech mention has been made of increased ferry services over the past year to the Sunshine Coast area in particular. Like elsewhere in the Province, tourist traffic is rapidly expanding. More and more people are visiting our Mackenzie area. Implementation of these extra ferry services thus ensures that such expansion will continue in the future.

Later in this Session I hope to have the opportunity of speaking more fully on matters pertaining to our elder citizens. However, I must say that I am very pleased to see that in the Throne Speech mention is made of increased pensions for those of our senior citizens in need.

Last year under the B.C. Cultural Fund we saw the first all-native children musical tattoo in Kamloops. Some 450 boys and girls representing a number of native bands throughout British Columbia staged what I would say was an outstanding performance comprising marching displays, dance groups, and exhibitions of native arts. I feel that these young people and their co-ordinator deserve the highest praise for their efforts, and I am pleased to report to this House that plans are underway for a second such tattoo to be held in the latter part of May in the Fraser Valley area. It is our hope that during our Centennial Year of 1971 these young people will travel to several centres throughout the Province so that more of our citizens may have the opportunity of enjoying this outstanding display of native talent.

Mr. Speaker, as we range the highways and the byways of our Province we frequently observe signs which read "Keep B.C. Green". These signs reinforce the responsibility of those using the highways to do their part in preventing forest fires. It is my feeling that the individual who not only uses the highways, but also enjoys camping or picnicking off the beaten track and along the shores of our beautiful lakes and coast, has the added responsibility besides being careful with matches, cigarettes and campfires, of attending to the proper disposal of litter. There is nothing more offensive to those who appreciate the beauty of nature than to come upon the discarded remains of a picnic in the form of empty milk cartons, paper bags, bottles, cans of all descriptions, and the unsavory odour of decaying vegetable matter. Indeed, there are those, I am sorry to say, who seem to use our woods and our shores as a repository for their household garbage, with what appears to be apparent lack of consideration concerning the unsightliness of their deposits and a total disregard of the dangers inherent in discarding broken bottles and cans which can cause injury to children as well as creating a health problem. Forest fires have been known to have started as a result of bottles being thrown into the woods. I feel sure that those who litter the countryside with such garbage would not dream of doing so to their own property. Therefore it is difficult to understand why they feel no responsibility for preserving the beauty of nature for our citizens and tourists alike. Perhaps some people need more education in the areas of the harmful effects of indiscriminate littering. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would recommend two things. First of all, I would like to see the Minister of Education give consideration to including an anti-litter programme within the school programme from the Grade 1 to the Grade 8 level. Somewhere in there I think it should be included. I also think that the members of this House could do much to help this problem if they would make use of a new set of slides called "Louie, The Litter Rat", a most excellent set of slides, and I think that if our members would do this as we travel around the Province, we would overcome a great deal of the litter problems. I would also like to say perhaps we should change our slogan on the highways where it says "Keep B.C. Green" to "Keep B.C. Clean Green".

Pollution, the malaise of this era, is a direct result of the population explosion throughout the world. For those who can remember how things were before the upsurge of technological advances, the situation is brought sharply into focus. For those of us who grew up in this era, it is a matter of concern because we wonder just where it is going to end. The younger generation has also become involved and they, too, are seeking a panacea. Indeed, all of us are concerned and are searching for explanations and genuine remedies. Pollution is a by-product of an affluent society. No one can deny that industrial and commercial development should be used for the betterment of man at large and, in fact, our present economic structure decrees that unless discoveries resulting from many types of research are controlled, sets of circumstances could well arise whereby the balance of nature might and does become upset. The whole spectrum of pollution is vast. Therefore, to be effective, scientists and researchers must specialize in a particular facet of this field. I believe that it is our business to sift and comb all available material which is being circulated today by way of the communication media. Therefore, let us draw aside the veil which has shrouded the aspect of water pollution specifically

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in regard to detergents. What is pollution? Pollution is the over-abundance of any substance found where it is not desired, with the result that an imbalance occurs in the natural environment into which the substance enters. Therefore, when one talks of pollution one must, of necessity, speak of a specific situation. Table salt is a pollutant in some circumstances. Water itself is a pollutant, for example, in time of flood. Present concern in regard to phosphorus and phosphates is also related to the fact that phosphates are very good fertilizers. They have been used for many years as fertilizers and they will, and indeed do, encourage the growth of plant life whether the plant life occurs on earth or in the water. In water, the major concern is that they encourage the growth of aquatic plant life, particularly certain forms of algae. While phosphorus is undeniably a pollutant in these terms, it must be recognized by everyone that there are other sources of phosphorus in natural waterways and streams than from the use of detergents in domestic effluent. Not that I am trying to minimize this source, but rather it points to the fact that other geneses do indeed exist. Even so, domestic use of detergents is one source of pollution. Therefore its limitation can indeed improve the situation. The obvious and immediate solution, one could readily say, is to curtail, as much as possible, the entry of effluent containing phosphates into natural waters. Phosphates, as I mentioned, are used extensively in the field of agriculture. As they often reach the natural waterways since they are carried to our streams and rivers through action of the elements, for instance rain. The use of phosphates as fertilizer is a necessity so that food may be produced to feed the growing population the world over. Another way to reduce the situation would be at the source of manufacture, which raises the question of why phosphates are used.

Once again, industrial and commercial development in several related fields has made it necessary to introduce stronger cleaning agents in order to extract grime and new stains from man-made fabrics. In the sphere of domestic detergents one must start with mechanical aids, washing machines, dishwashers, rug shampoo applicators, and the like, all of which have been contrived or designed to cope with the new fabrics produced by textile manufacturers, whether these fabrics are used as personal or domestic items. That is why today I intend to bring to your attention the wide use of detergents by a vast number of homemakers. It is virtually impossible, Mr. Speaker, to watch a TV programme, listen to a radio, or read a newspaper, without being assailed by a statement declaiming the merits of various brands of detergents. The terminology used in relation to household detergents, while it may be familiar to those who are knowledgeable in the areas of chemistry and related sciences, is bandied about by speakers, picked up by advertising media, and subsequently passed on to the general public, in particular the homemaker. Many of the terms used are not yet to be found in a dictionary. Therefore the homemaker may be unable to assess the relative merits of one product in relation to another. For instance, as I wander among the aisles displaying detergents, packages in every hue and emblazoned with stars, circles and pictures of lemon-fresh hands, I wonder whether other homemakers are as entranced as I am by the display before my eyes. Should I choose a product containing enzymes or enzolves? The package that proudly boasts of new cleaning miracles? What is new is not stated. Therefore, what is the mere homemaker to do? Use the brand she has been using for years, or turn aside in favour of another brand which promises her blazing white whiteness, that powers out stains and powers in brightness? Or that certain product which tells her she can get her whole wash so clean it is spotless? Some products tell her they have a new cleaning miracle, unidentified other than by a couple of letters; still others boldly claim that her nylon garments will be white again if she uses that product. There are products that claim the homemaker cannot get along without built-in fabric softener, or that she can get her whole house spotless. Not only does the homemaker almost require a science degree in order to select a detergent, but also she is faced with being selective in other allied fields as well. Her final selection is a very difficult one, Mr. Speaker. Having selected a detergent, brand x, y or z as the case may be, she might visit the men's toiletry aisle where she is again faced with a major decision. Does she buy for the man in her life a bold new deodorizer which tells her if he has any doubts about himself give him something else. For her own hair care she must decide whether to purchase alpha, beta, or delta. One trial package tells her she is about to lose her back seat driver and that had she used the product displayed she might have kept him. What is the poor homemaker to do? Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Referring to the lack of definitions for these new terms, it appears that what is required for the homemaker is some sort of glossary of terms pertinent to detergents. What are some of these words? How are they defined? First of all, the word detergent itself. The definition of the word detergent, either synthetic or non-synthetic is, "a man-made cleaning agent with properties of promoting wetting, suspension, and dispersion of soil particles." Phosphates are defined as "chemically composed of a salt or ester of phosphoric acid (sodium phosphate)". Phosphates act both as a cleaning agent and a fertilizer. Agriculturally, a fertilizing material may contain compounds of phosphorus. Phosphates used as fertilizers encourage growth on land and in water. In water they set up a chain reaction upon certain species of algae, which is a natural water plant, so that they take more than their quota of oxygen at the expense of other aquatic life.

You know, another beaut of a word is this one, "eutrophication". This word's meaning is, "A natural process by which a closed body of water, a lake, changes and dies to become land." This process usually takes centuries of time and requires a build-up of excess deposits of algae, an aquatic plant life, lowering the water level, thus converting the lake first into a swamp then finally to land. I didn't know about this word until I started looking into the detergent problem. I find one is learning new words and new things every day. Biodegradable. This term means that the detergent is capable, that is to say 90 per cent capable, of being broken down by bacteria in a matter of hours. Detergents now sold are not all biodegradable. Many are in part but not wholly so. The key to biodegradability is the speed with which the substance breaks down. Some products take a few hours, some a few days, some a few weeks, some a few months, some a few years, and possibly even some, never. With agitation, some of these will re-suds and re-suds again. The importance of the speed factor in relation to substance is to ensure the phosphates are broken down quickly. Mr. Speaker, homemakers must know whether doing away with phosphates and detergents will indeed help the pollution malaise. Where the effluent runs off, away goes the sewage-system of septic tanks. It is my feeling that she has a right to know whether biodegradability is a concrete solution. The homemaker has a right to know the truth about these

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products. Half-truths are not enough. For example, the write-up that appears in a column of a local paper, dated January the 15th, 1970, stated that certain levels of phosphates are contained in washing compounds of any kind or brand. To me the article leaves much to be desired from the point of view of clarity. Since not only are our washing compounds discussed, but also mention is made of additives to washing — products used in rinses after the clothes have been washed in detergents, and even some products which we should normally class as disinfectants, these evidently are classed as detergents. There's nothing in the article that would indicate whether any of these products are partly biodegradable or not. Therefore, I set up an experiment of my own, and I have before me, as you will see in a moment, Mr. Speaker, the results of this experiment.

(The Honourable the Minister then displayed the results of tests she had made on several household detergents containing various degrees of phosphate.)

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would urge, if it is not indeed now being done, that the whole aspect of biodegradability in relation to detergents be pursued with as much vigour as possible, and with all dispatch, not only for those in government, but also those concerned in the production and use of modern washing compounds. Thus the homemaker will be able to know the truth from the half-truth in the detergent area and I am fully confident, Mr. Speaker, that homemakers are indeed most anxious to help search out an answer to the pollution potential as related to the use of phosphates. Detergents or no detergents, the family wash must be done. Give the homemaker the answers, and I would say she'll get on with the job.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I have here with me today a number of letters from women who have tested one of the products before you today. As early as last November I gave these ladies unmarked samples of washing powder and asked that they use the sample in their weekly wash. I further asked for their comments in writing on the merits or not, as the case might be, of the washing powder sample given. In addition, I have a number of letters from women who have been using a biodegradable compound for some time. I leave with you this thought, Mr. Speaker, is biodegradability the answer or not? Surely, if men of science can put a man on the moon, they can devise a washing compound that can still give the homemaker the whitest wash yet not leave a doubt in her mind as to whether it contains a possible pollutant. Such a washing compound would safeguard the homemaker and her family and indeed the community in which she lives from the pollution malaise of this era, thus making an affluent, rather than an effluent society.

Mr. Speaker, just in closing, I would like to read two or three of these letters that were passed on to me last night. "I have been using a biodegradable product for over a year and can recommend it as a most satisfactory anti-pollutant washing compound product. If more housewives, especially those with large families, would be told about its qualities, and use, it would be, I feel sure, a wonderful help, not only for our water pollution but also a longer life to our sewer pipes."…. "I received a sample of a biodegradable laundry detergent in the mail two weeks ago. After using this, I find it gives the same cleanliness to clothes as other detergents, but the result of not as much lather makes it easier on my wash and septic tank. This decreases pollution and makes for a better and healthier area. I am definitely in favour of these biodegradable detergents." Mr. Speaker, it is not my point here to recommend any products, or to state whether biodegradability is the answer, but rather to say that as a homemaker myself, I think that the women in the Province are looking for an answer sincerely to the problem of pollution in detergents. I am sure that with their help, and coming up with an answer to this detergent phosphates problem, that the women of British Columbia will get in there and do a job well.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the First Member for Vancouver East.

MR. ALEXANDER B. MACDONALD (1st –Vancouver East): Mr. Speaker, in rising to participate in this debate, I want to first congratulate yourself on your election to guide over our deliberations. I'm sure you will not be like the Irish Judge who, on his appointment, said that he would be very careful to walk that fine line between partiality on the one side and impartiality on the other…(laughter). I said I am sure that his Honour the Speaker wouldn't do that. I wish too, in rising to participate in this debate, to congratulate the old members of this Assembly, whom have shown unbelievable survival instincts, some of whom, in particular on the other side of the House, have been here for 15, 16, 17 years. For 17 years they have turned the people of British Columbia every way but loose. And I want to also congratulate the new members, the gosling parliamentarians, and I have enjoyed their opening speeches. I have enjoyed their opening speeches. I have enjoyed particularly listening to the new Social Credit members. The member for South Peace River, I enjoyed his speech, and the member for Oak Bay, and it occurred to me that there are light years and two political parties separating those two honourable members, they are ideologically miles apart, and maybe this is part of the signs of the breakup of Social Credit itself.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh…. Oh!

MR. MACDONALD: Oak Bay in the past has returned to this House — I was thinking particularly of that member Alan McFarlane, a great humanitarian from that area, who has since passed to his reward,…. (laughter) and I compare him with the present member from Oak Bay, who loves to attack socialism in all its forms. He says…. Ah, what's behind it when you strip away the verbiage? Three dollar increase in the health care in our hospitals. Who's that going to hit? The privileged rich fat cats of society, or is it going to hit those least able to pay in a health field? That's what he means by attacking socialism. Sock it to the little man. Sock it to the little man. His attitude in this House is going to be completely predictable, because you strip away the verbiage, and on every issue you will find that he is on the side of the privileged groups of society. When the Minister himself brings up the matter of high medical fees, in some cases unconscionably high medical fees, milking the B.C. Medical Plan, who says that there should be a curtain of silence drawn over such activities? The member from Oak Bay….

AN HON. MEMBER: Right!

MR. MACDONALD: ….Certainly he did. I read the newspapers. Even the Attorney-General has been attacking us philosophically. Yes, you said that under our new leader we took a sharp turn left, and under our previous leader, Tom Berger, you said we took a sharp turn left, and under Bob Strachan you said we took a sharp turn left, and where does

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that leave us facing…. Right! It leaves us facing right — right! (laughter) We may very well have to change our leader again to get back on course, but there is no doubt, Mr. Speaker, where the Attorney-General is facing. He has given to the private insurance companies the right to act as prosecutor, judge, and jury and levy fines upon the motorists of this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear! Hear!

MR. MACDONALD:…. Don't ask me to speak on the leadership, Mr. Speaker, because everybody knows, or they should know by this time, that I'm kind of committed — my middle name is Barrett.

I was interested too, Mr. Speaker, in the course of this Throne Debate to hear the attack of many speakers on Mr. Benson's White Paper. Now I don't subscribe to all the details of that White Paper, but I think people, and I include the Minister of Welfare over there, are advancing under a heavy smoke screen because their real target is to defeat the capital gains tax. I say that it is high time that, speculative profits should be taxed like a working man's wage. I have heard no support from that side of the House in defence of that kind of equitable tax principle, and I think when you make these broad side attacks on the White Paper, that you ought to support what's good in it, and the proposals for a capital gains tax, however they may have to be changed, are a step toward equitable taxation. Instead of that they spend their time, Mr. Speaker, in attacking poor Professor Watkins….

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh…. Oh.

MR.MACDONALD:….who, they say, is a dangerous man, a dangerous radical, when really — and I don't agree with everything he wrote in his paper, but I agree with a lot of it and I've made that claim — when really he is a rock-ribbed Canadian. He is a rock-ribbed Canadian. I don't agree with everything in that paper. But I don't agree either with the progressive alienation of ownership and control of the equities in Canadian industry to any other country. I don't agree with that kind of foreign control. I've known nothing to equal the record of this Government for the alienation of our resources. When they almost gave land dedicated as Crown reserve for park purposes to a group affiliated with the Mafia, this may be said to be the last straw. But bit by bit we've seen the control of equity, the right to be masters in our own house in British Columbia, traded off by this Government for quick cash, and we're going to pay a heavy cost for it.

I notice in the columns of a leading columnist in the Vancouver Sun that he poses the question "What's wrong with American Investment in Canada?" Well, I think we need American capital in Canada. America is the great generator of capital investment funds in the world because it is the richest economy in the world, and it is an exciting country. It has a bit of everything in there. A society that produces, for example, a Dr. Benjamin Spock and the freedom of expression and the exciting works in film and art that are coming out of the United States is something of which we can be proud. But there are bad things, too. It's got everything in that society. But in essence the reason why we are concerned, Mr. Speaker, about American ownership of equity — not us going to the capital markets and raising money by debentures for Hydro or for our industries — that's fine. We need that capital, and they need a place to invest at a good return and a safe return, and that's Canada among other places. But we do object to seeing our equities, the essential ownership and control of our resources alienated, no matter to whom. The essential reason in simply this, that Canada has an unfavourable trade balance with the United States of America in the sense that we import more from that country than we sell to her and we balance the books by an inflow of capital to buy up the equities in our industry. But the counter-balancing thing that comes out of this is the dividend flow back over the border.

When you've sold your equities, when you've parted with the essential ownership of the resources of your own country, what do you do for an encore? What do you do for control and equity and a sense of pride in your own country? How do you avoid economic colonialism in those circumstances?

AN HON. MEMBER: After you've sold everything else you'll sell your soul.

MR. MACDONALD: But I leave this subject by saying that you can't forever sell off your dividend-producing equities without suffering as a country from pernicious anaemia. And that's the run in the long run. I say to those who are our detractors, that we who take this position, Mr. Speaker, are not anti-American but we are and we intend to remain pro-Canadian.

I want to say something, Mr. Speaker, about labour, and I'm not going to say very much today. I think most people will agree that — we should all try to agree in this year 1970, as we start a new Session — that the present picture of labour bargaining is most unsatisfactory. Prices, income, inflation, groups in society being hit and heavily hit, including organized labour, by what is becoming run-away inflation, bargaining breaking down in many cases, unnecessary strikes — as hard on labour as they are on the community. I think, and I don't mind saying it quite frankly, that we in the N.D.P. should spend time, and this is the year to do it, in not only glaring at the Socreds opposite but in looking at ourselves and looking at our own policy, and preparing for the 70's and preparing for a time, which I hope will come next time, when the people will have confidence in us. But it is up to us, it is up to us, and I think there’s a legitimate criticism of the N.D.P. in the labour field in that people know what we're against — Bill 43, Bill 93 — the Civil Servant one — and Bill 42. I think that we must develop, publish, and acclaim on the floor of this Legislature a labour policy for the 70's based upon a changing era, in which the bargaining table is no longer employers and employees sitting at that bargaining table, but there is a third party who is present and should be present, and that is the public.

But this afternoon I want, Mr. Speaker, to talk only on two points in the field of labour. One is the matter of Canadian economy within B.C. and Canadian unions. Basically Canadian unions have Canadian economy, and I include amongst them the international unions. I'm not against international unions — a great union like the I.W.A., for example, has full control of its affairs in British Columbia, and that is true of many of the other international unions. But it isn't true of all of the unions in the Canadian labour field, and I'm thinking particularly of some of the crafts and trades, and I have no hesitation in saying that there should be full autonomy in labour as in industry within Canada in the matter of vital economic decisions. Where it occurs, and it occurs in very few cases but it does occur, that

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an international representative or a business agent is appointed by an American head office, I say that is wrong, he should be appointed by the Canadian membership. Where the international constitution prevents membership participation in public affairs, I say that is intolerable, and there are cases of that. Where strike funds may be under international control or contracts negotiated in British Columbia subject to international approval, I say that is wrong. Where a member of a trade union can be expelled by an international office and his last court of appeal, his last court of resort is an international tribunal, I say that is wrong too. On this question, Mr. Speaker, of Canadian autonomy, I think the membership of the trade union movement are ahead in these few cases of their own leaders, and I'm glad that the cases I'm speaking about are a minority in the trade union movement. But I think that Canadian autonomy is as important here as it is in the field of capital.

Now the other point I wanted to make, was in regard to union pension funds, because as you know, Mr. Speaker, we have Canada Pension Plan. But almost all negotiated contracts provide, in addition, for pension plans, welfare plans, occasionally now a burial plan, although they are going out pretty well, and I think again that these pet plans should be controlled and invested in Canada. I think that the accumulation of pension funds is one of the essential ingredients in the life blood of the Canadian economy. In most cases this is perfectly true today, in a few cases it is not. We in this Legislature set up a Committee, I think it was about four years ago, Mr. Speaker, to look at pension plans from the standpoint of the protection of the membership, transferability, vesting rights, and the right to know, and that committee was stillborn. That was an important job that we in this Legislature could have done, and it is a field in which legislation is badly needed. Because there are many private plans, particularly in the labour field today, where the membership, the contributors, the beneficiaries, do not have access to the books of the plan, have no say in the investment portfolio of the plan, have no chance of transferability if they change their job, have difficulty in getting back even their own contributions on occasion when the company moves, or something of that sort happens, and I say that this is an essential field in terms of the preservation of human economic rights, where this Legislature should investigate and legislate.

I suppose I should say something, Mr. Speaker, about the election we passed through last August, all the other speakers have done that, and I'm prepared to make a confession. They say confession is good for the soul and I suppose we should make some confession, and what I would say is this, that we had nothing to do with breaking up of the Trudeau Rally at the Armories. We can't take any credit for that at all (laughter). We had nothing to do with it and we thought we better let the Government know that. It was an election that was very much dominated by the dollar.

I don't know whether the leader of the Liberal party was right, but he said that in the election the mass media had been bought. Well, what a dreadful suggestion to make about the press that was! He should know that English jingle and take it to heart that goes something like this, "You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God, the British journalist, but seeing what the man will do unbribed there's no occasion to." (laughter) So I don't know, I think it's a terrible suggestion to think that the placing of advertisements in the press of Canada would influence editorial policy.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh no, never.

MR. MACDONALD: Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, I do favour a Press Council in Canada such as they have in the United Kingdom. I think there should be on it a reputable journalist and a wise judge, although you might need the lamp of Diogenes to find those. (laughter)

AN HON. MEMBER: A wise judge, or an honest judge?

MR. MACDONALD:….and renowned public people. But I don't think that such a Press Council, and nobody suggests it should have legal powers in terms of ordering or prosecuting, but that they should have power to hear complaints, to investigate, to admonish, and to publish their findings. You know the parliamentary and the democratic process has passed through a period of change. The fourth estate has been moving up the ladder of democracy and they are professionals, the newsmen, and they must be regarded as such. They can't take everything, for example, off that tape that is recording our words today, they have to select, they have to interpret, they have to investigate, and of course the radio and the television media, are playing an increasingly important role in the democratic process, even more important as parliaments are becoming rusty. We're relying too much on old procedures and not adapting to the present day, even on such little things as letting television into the Legislature, and many rule changes, and as a result the press and the other media become an essential safeguard and outlet for the democratic process. I'm glad to say that it is a profession, that they do have a union to protect them within limits under that contract, and that British Columbia in this field has a proud record. I think some of the finest newsmen in Canada have left British Columbia and we've contributed (laughter)…. we've contributed them to the national and international democratic process.

But I think a Press Council has to be there to do these things. First to hear grievances by individuals against newspapers. Radio and the television media, of course, have got their own governing body, and I'd be careful about saying well, the individual who feels he's hurt should run to Court in a libel action, because over a long period of time libel action, can have a tendency to curtail freedom of expression. The better approach is to have a Press Council — another outlet for such grievances. I think a Press Council can be important, Mr. Speaker, in protecting the freedom of the press itself against pressures either governmental or private, by private I mean economic, or even hysterical public opinion. I think it could be important in protecting the working newsman as a professional with respect to his copy to see that it is not changed or cut so as to change the interpretation that he, as a professional, has given to events. I think a Press Council should be on hand to watch those chains — the newspaper chains — because there are chains in Canada that have many newspapers in their stables, and no doubt that control will grow. Local autonomy of the press in most cases is there, in that local management has control, but we don't know that it will always be there, we don't even know that we're safe in this country from foreign domination in the long run of our press, such as happened in France before the last war.

We're in an area here of difficulty, of weighing and balancing individual human rights. The individual's right to be left alone is an important right. On the other hand, the suppression of news can lead to abuse and can lead to a

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suppression of something that the public as a whole has a right to know. So it's in this kind of a field that a Press Council made up of competent, acknowledged, experienced people can, I think, exert a salutary influence.

Now I said, in effect, I suppose I admitted that the Government didn't buy the press in the last election, but they certainly did buy an advertising and public relations bureau. They bought Lovick's Advertising, and I'm complaining about this because for ten years one advertising firm, without tenders being called, has been able to get the Government's business department by department — P.G.E., Hydro — oh, I know they lost Hydro after the last election, no before the last election, as a consolation prize to Mickey O'Brien. But look at the awards that have gone to James Lovick Advertising, and how much money is involved? 1967 — $608,000; 1968 — $490,000; 1969 — $703,000 make that $704,000, it's almost that, and then there is the P.G.E. account and other accounts that are not published in Public Accounts as such. None of this was awarded on tender by this Government, which my friend, the Leader of the Opposition, says is a free enterprise Government. None of this was let by tender. It was all done, according to what we can learn, in the judgment of the senior civil servants in the department involved and, by an odd coincidence, they all came up with James Lovick time after time. By an odd coincidence, that was the Socred P.R. firm in the last election which handled their campaign and donated for the services of the Premier, two men, Dan Eckman and Cam Kenmuir, both very good P.R. men, but I say that the taxpayer's dollar has been used by this Government to buy an ad firm to brainwash the taxpayer himself.

In the 1970's, and I think we're all concerned about this, we must be increasingly concerned, not about the material progress of life in British Columbia, heaven knows that's gone on reasonably well, not for all groups in society, but in terms of total production and that kind of thing, materially we've done pretty well. But the plain fact of the matter is that the quality of life in this Province has been failing year by year. We're being devoured by a growing technology which brings many benefits in its train but it's a little bit late for the sorcerer's apprentice. Something you turn on and you can't turn off again. You can't turn off the flood, and as a result beautiful British Columbia is in danger environmentally today as it has never been before, and there's been a failure, Mr. Speaker, of political leadership on this matter of pollution. The contamination of our environment and the hard unpopular facts have to be put to people, and the cost of cleaning up our environment has to be presented to people. I think if we present the challenge that the polluters must pay, and the polluters are not just industry. Industry plays the bigger roles in the total picture, but the polluter is in a sense all of us. I disagree with the member for Esquimalt who said the other day, talking about phosphates, that the housewife would be opposed to the banning of phosphates in her detergent. I don't think that for a minute. I think that's a slur on the ability and the willingness of the people of British Columbia to rise to the environmental challenge, and I think the failure of leadership is here on the floor of this House, in matters of that kind.

AN HON. MEMBER: He didn't say that.

MR. MACDONALD: No he didn't, but I do. I think there's been a failure, and perhaps I should say a failure, to some extent, on all sides of the House. I'm not trying to be partisan, particularly today, and particularly on this issue. I think the housewife has courage to back up the kind of decision that has to be taken and that decision is not just as the speaker who preceded me gave it, that decision is simply a ban on deleterious phosphates that are creating contamination of our lakes and rivers. A ban and nothing short of that. If the soap companies complain, and influence, and wheedle, then they will have to be ignored.

Speaking of the quality of life, I want to mention two perhaps minor matters. First, the Attorney-General spoke the other day after a provincial judge in Vancouver had made some remarks about guns, and later withdrew them. He is a very good provincial judge, if I may say so, but I don't think that we have begun to meet the threat of a gun-happy, trigger-happy society such as they have today below the line. The commercial pressures to put guns in the hands of individuals are there, and there is a willingness, perhaps in all of us, to think of the gun perhaps as a virility symbol, I don't know. Perhaps it gives some kind of a sense of security by having a gun in your home. But, the fact of the matter is that guns are proliferating in our society at a rate that is not being checked by the Turner amendments to the Criminal Code.

There were 175 holdups in the city of Vancouver last year, gun holdups, but only 50 of them ever got to court. Now the Turner amendments to the Criminal Code prevent absolutely such things as muffled guns, that muffle the sound, switch-blade knives, and sawed-off shotguns or rifles. But that's all that is prohibited. But that amendment permits hand guns with the approval of, in the case of Vancouver, I suppose the Chief of Police, to be in the home of the individual, in the store of the small shopkeeper, and it permits rifles to anyone. No restrictions on that kind of weapon, even automatics, and I say that this is too wide an allowance of firearms in our society, and that the quality of life is certainly not going to be enhanced in the Province of British Columbia by following the American example where these weapons are so freely available that they are a menace to everyone, including those who think, falsely, that by having a gun they are safer, when the fact is they are more apt as not to provoke a gun fight by having such a weapon in their possession. We are not going to enhance the quality of life in British Columbia by finding it down the barrel of a gun. I would hope the Attorney-General would look at that Turner amendment and make representations in terms of stricter gun control.

Now I want to say one other thing about the quality of life now that I'm on the Criminal Code, and it was brought up by the honourable member from Capilano-Seymour in a sort of a hit and miss way the other day, and that's the matter of abortions. Again, we have in the Criminal Code of Canada — they broke the ice — but we have a kind of a face-saving amendment to that Criminal Code which requires the woman who is about to have an unwanted child to make an application to something called the Therapeutic Abortions Committee established under the Criminal Code of Canada, and I say that's degrading. I say that is an abridgement of the rights of women. I don't think that she should be required to do more than consult with whom she pleases, spiritual or lay, and then it should be her consent and that of a doctor, and that should be it. I would quickly add, Mr. Speaker, that in any suggested changes to the Criminal Code in this respect I have no intention of suggesting they be made retroactive.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want to give a long speech today about contamination of the natural environment, about what is happening to beautiful British Columbia today. I think that

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people are familiar with that problem, but as I said earlier, I don't think we have faced up to the steps that have to be taken, and I don't think the public has faced up to the bill that has to be presented to them. We in this Legislature have taken pygmy steps to meet a giant problem, and we've fallen far short. The fact of the matter is that the ravaged earth must be repaid, and the principle that must be adopted, if that is to happen, is that the polluter must pay. Not just industry, but in some cases, in fact I would say in all cases all of us in one way or another, and there's a large bill still outstanding against us.

But the plain fact is we are losing the war right now against pollution and contamination of our environment. The quality of our life is deteriorating. Our green spaces are being devoured by asphalt and concrete and residential subdivisions on good farming green land. Our air is becoming increasingly polluted to the point where the livability of life on earth over a longer period of time has been seriously questioned. Our sea is becoming a sump, not to mention our rivers and lakes, and the noise level in many of our cities is rising above that level of decibels which is good for health. We are only about 20 years behind say, Chicago, Illinois, and if we are going to win this kind of a battle we've got to get the message through that there are costs that have to be paid. Maybe I shouldn't speak on this subject because I'm a victim of pollution myself. Up at the Sunshine Coast last September I was bitten on the big toe by a sea urchin, and as a result of that my foot swole up and I had to carry my left shoe in my hand for about two weeks, including into court, and the sea urchin — and I'd swear it was a Social Crediter — would not be there if it wasn't proliferating, not on its natural diet of kelp, then they stay in reasonable numbers, but on the sewage, the human excrement from pleasure craft in some of our nicest bays and nooks on the British Columbia coast. This is the additional diet that's led to the increase of these little animals. For the lack of courage of this Government in requiring all pleasure craft to install chemical heads, I was sitting by that sea urchin.

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, a three-pronged attack on the problem that I am talking about. Firstly, in the case of industry, the legal regulation under the Pollution Control Act has fallen far short of what is required. New social techniques are necessary. Secondly, in the case of air pollution, it is absurd for this Legislature to slough responsibility off to the municipalities and regional districts. The responsibility is right here. Thirdly, we must fire the opening shot in the war against the worst polluter of all, and that is the private automobile, and we should look at this problem in terms of the population figures. With British Columbia increasing more than the North American average, our population will double by the year 2005, and quadruple, based upon present birth rates, by the year 2040. These pressures, that will prove absolutely intolerable in Latin America, will be scarcely bearable here without strong action on our part. I quote Charles Hatch, the President of the University of California, who says that the smog cloud is increasing ten times faster than the population, and that's the size of the problem which doesn't apply only in California. It applies right here.

Now what about industry? We have been waging a powder puff war on industrial pollution. Under the Pollution Control Act we have power to regulate and to issue permits, and to shut down an industry if the courage is there, and to prosecute, but that Pollution Control Board is understaffed, woefully understaffed. We have not provided an adequate amount in subsidies to enable municipalities and bodies to go into principally sewage treatment. We have failed to ban phosphates, which I mentioned earlier. We have failed to ban D.D.T., which should be banned along with its related chlorinated hydro-carbons. There is needed in that Pollution Control Act, in addition to regulation and banning, Mr. Speaker, a new social concept, and that social concept should be a waste disposal charge. After all, when we get rid of our garbage, we pay for it directly or through our taxes. When an industry throws noxious fumes into the common air that we all breathe, it should pay if it's to be allowed to do that. It has to be allowed to emit some smoke. It should pay for that privilege. If effluent is going into our rivers and lakes and seas, then there should be a waste disposal charge levied against that industry to be paid just along with the other economic costs of doing that business. The advantage of fixing such waste disposal costs is simply this, that you try to equate them — and they do this in Germany — you try to equate them roughly in terms of the cost to that industry of installing clean disposal methods, and you fix your waste disposal charges accordingly. In addition to regulation, you bring the pressure of economics to bear on industry to change, and if you bring the pressure of economics to bear, you have a no better goad than that to pollution control.

Secondly, about the air. I was disappointed, Mr. Speaker, and I took down the words from the Speech from the Throne. "Air quality standards will be incorporated into municipal and district air pollution by-laws." Will be. We on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, have bitterly complained that this Legislature has not even begun the process under the Pollution Control Act of assuming responsibility for air pollution. We say, when will it happen at the municipal level? We say there is not a number of smog clouds, there will be one. As a matter of fact it will seep over the American border in time, too. We say it can't be left to districts who are bound under their charters and, perhaps with reason, to be competing with each other for industry to settle in this or that district. What has happened here is a total abdication of responsibility by this Legislature.

Now, I turn to the automobile, the greatest polluter of all, and I think that the principle "the polluter must pay" applies here too, and I think we have to flash a warning amber light against the auto as we have known it. The car has not been a friend of man as the horse was, although on occasion it may have been a little too friendly so far as some of the girls are concerned. It may be, and I hope it is, that as we meet here in 1970, the car as we have known it with its internal combustion engine, fumes spewing, is heading for the last junkyard, and yet this is not a popular thing to say. Ingrained habits, and a bit of privacy in the car and convenience, mean that the car is rather sacrosanct in our society, and it isn't helped by the lobbies of the motor industry and the oil industry and all their kith and kin and friends and public relations. We have, to a very considerable extent, been convinced that what is good for General Motors is good for us. Lots of people think that, and the failure of leadership is at the political level when confronted with that kind of a problem, because we all know that it isn't necessarily so. The result in British Columbia and in other societies, particularly in North America, is that everywhere we have starved public transit to fatten the oil and auto corporations.

The honourable the second member for Vancouver Centre says that we need legislation making auto emission devices mandatory in the Province of British Columbia. I agree with it. But I think it is absolutely wishful thinking to say that this would solve the smog problem.

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It just may be possible that it could cut down on as much as 50 per cent of the noxious fumes — all this is wishful thinking — this is not the California experience and these are not the California figures. This is the kind of wishful thinking that we can, in our lifetime — and these are the average figures — each of us, every man, woman and child, burn 26,000 gallons of gasoline and not create air pollution. You can't do it. That is the number. If you can control the pollution by 50 per cent through some such device then you must remember that the number of cars is increasing by 50 per cent very, very quickly too. The experience in California is simply that the smog cloud, in spite of what they have done in Los Angeles, is increasing and that the automobile is up to 50 per cent responsible as the chief polluter. Perhaps a more effective thing would be, if you are thinking of palliatives, to look at the cars with huge cubic capacities, engine capacities, running sometimes up to 350 horsepower, on the market today, creating, with their additional capacity, just that much more in the way of fumes deleterious to health.

If you look at the figures you say to yourself, well maybe the car will breed itself out of existence by sheer numbers, because in British Columbia, the 1964 to 1972 figures from the Motor Vehicle Branch, the best projections they have, show the increase in the number of cars in British Columbia is going on at an average of 6.15 per cent per year compounded. Now that means that you double your car population in about 12 years. The projections of the Motor Vehicle Branch for 1970 — total cars, public, private, commercial, run 1,067,000, 1971 — 1,126,000, 1972 — 1,186,000, increasing, Mr. Speaker, at about three times the rate of the population increase, threatening not only to devour our green spaces but to make man not the master of technology but its servant. Oh yes, 6.15 per cent increase per year is at least three times the population growth rate.

What is the cost of the internal combustion gasoline driven car which, in our urban environment, is proving itself costly, wasteful, and obsolete as a means of moving people? The cost to the individual is about 11 cents a mile, which is high. The cost to our health, worse than anything the cigarettes are doing, for the good petroleum of the earth is converted in the internal combustion engine into poisonous gases, including carbon monoxide, oxides of sulphur, oxides of nitrogen, hydro-carbons, particles of lead. In the whole world the figures are that 200,000,000 tons of matter are thrown into the air cover each year, 94.6 per cent of which comes from auto exhaust. That is why I say almost 50 per cent. You can't talk about pollution without doing something about the internal combustion engine.

Thirdly, when you look at the social costs, look at the way God's green earth is being converted acre by acre into sterile miles of highway and super highway and parking lots, to the extent that scientists are sincerely concerned, with very good reason, that the oxygen-producing green plants and trees that sustain life will no longer have that needed earth on which to flourish. Look at the congestion, look at the costs of congestion, in our downtown cities at the present time, amounting almost, even in the City of Vancouver, to traffic strangulation, where we have one man — and it might be myself — smoking a big cigar, driving a good car, the only occupant of that car, perhaps 250 horsepower, and driving along the street and holding up a bus with 50 people in it. This is the kind of thing we are getting into. Public transit, on the other hand, means that we return streets to people and streets were meant for people, it means lower costs, it means you can use electricity and electricity is clean, it means you can reduce noise, it means that you travel more safely.

The costs of the accidents and other things should be looked at in relation to this problem, because this is a social cost which, when you look at the figures, you can't blink at. In the month of October last, the latest month for which there were figures, in the Province of British Columbia 62 were killed on the roads, 1900 injured — I can hardly believe these figures myself but I rechecked them — and the property damage, not personal damage, property damage that month was $3,316,000. In a total year in the Province of British Columbia we kill about 500 people, and is this the safe, modern, ultra-modern way in which people have to be moved and are able to move from place to place?

What are we doing about it, Mr. Speaker? What we are doing about it is planning in this Province to increase bus fares, increase bus fares, and I say that is ecological madness. I say those fares are too high now. I say there should be first priority for public transit, and I say that this is a field where there should be subsidies to encourage and promote public transit, it should not be run as a business. Yet, just as surely, Mr. Speaker, as this Legislature will sit here and hear the Government announce increases in hydro, announcements of increases in bus fares are coming sooner or later, and I say that that kind of a course must be stopped and that this is indeed ecological madness. You should not expect public transit to pay for itself. It should be subsidized and the ultimate cost to encourage its use should be free public transit.

You know, in Castro's Cuba today one service that you might like to think about is free in the sense that it is paid by the community and that is the telephone. You don't have to reach into your pocket for a dime. I cite that example, because I think that in terms of social equality the time is coming and should come when certain basic essential human needs are met in that way — and I include health, and education, and transportation and communication in that kind of a field. But the costs are going to be heavy. The earth has to be repaid. There is a cost in inconvenience. There is a cost in money. But we can't have the situation where one bus is available or an electric vehicle in the neighbourhood to move people at about 33 times the efficiency of private gasoline-driven automobiles, and ignore the kind of facts, that that is shouting at us. Rapid transit is just in its infancy. New methods of rapid transit are exciting. Everything from rail, subways, to mono-rail, to bus parking bays at the end of a subway or high-frequency rail line, and as I said in the neighbourhood there are smaller vehicles such as milk delivery vans in Great Britain which are already being driven by electricity to move noiselessly and cleanly through the neighbourhood, and that can apply to people.

I think, too, Mr. Speaker, that we should have in British Columbia some auto-free enclaves. I think of Stanley Park for one. Why haven't we got in Stanley Park a large parking bay, if you will, at the mouth of the Park and then, within the Park, rubber-wheeled electric-driven vans or jitneys to transport people freely from place to place in that Park instead of seeing the trees wilting and the noise level mounting in that most beautiful park of Vancouver. Why shouldn't some of the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, among the most beautiful islands in the world, be car-free? There are elderly people who would like to do this kind of work. With good taxi service, flat-deck trucks available, the cost would be much lower than carrying a car over there and that kind of transportation could be available, but the private automobile would be banned to save the beauty of those

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islands.

Our problem in British Columbia within this field, Mr. Speaker, is that we have no imagination — we have failed to show imagination or leadership in the field of urban affairs or public transit. In the province of Alberta, good square Alberta, Old Testament Alberta, under the premiership of solid Premier Strom, the 1970 Speech from the Throne came down and it said that the Legislature would have a Bill establishing an urban transportation authority, and I might also add, a housing authority by Act of that Legislature, to promote inexorably and quickly, rapid transit in that Province. Edmonton already has on the drawing board plans for rapid transit and we are far behind in this Province. What I am talking about is a major social shift. If necessary based on the principle that the polluter must pay, there may have to be heavier costs levied against the private automobile, particularly the big high-powered automobile with the huge engine capacity, and there will have to be on the other side dividends returned to the people in terms of modern, ultra-modern public transit, if possible free but certainly way below the costs that we think of today.

For too long we have felt to ourselves and we have failed to say in this Legislature that pollution has a great bill to present, not only to industry, but to all of the people of the Province. The earth must be repaid. The leadership needed is here at the political level. If we are ready to give the people the challenge, I have no doubt whatsoever that they will rise to meet it.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Second Member for Vancouver-Burrard.

MR. BERT PRICE (2nd-Vancouver-Burrard): Mr. Speaker, needless to say I am very happy to see you in that Chair, and I think it is worthy of comment that since so many people in this House have said the same thing at the opening of this Session, you find it rather remarkable that you were not put there unanimously.

It is a great pleasure, Mr. Speaker, for me to come back to this very critical audience, probably the most critical audience in British Columbia, and I might add that this is the 16th time that I have had the honour of speaking for Vancouver-Burrard along with my colleague in this Parliament. I think, too, that I should mention that from what I have heard of the new members speaking in this Session that they have certainly set a challenge to those who have been here before, because their speeches have been very well thought out and, I think, very constructive so far as the future of B.C. is concerned.

Now, there is one thing that I must speak about from the standpoint of my own riding, and it applies to others, and that is housing, and if anyone doesn't think that this is a particularly critical thing, Mr. Speaker, then they are not in the position of a young family with children trying to get a place to live, because they are up against a problem which is heartbreaking and one that is almost impossible to beat. Very few apartments and many home-owners today just don't seem to want children in their apartment. I know of cases where a family has been split up in order that a man can live where he is earning his living, and I don't think that this is right.

The high rents are something which I don't know whether this Government can do very much about or not, but there certainly is a need for a change in the Landlord and Tenant Act. A tenant today seems to have too little protection, and I am not so sure that a Government can do too much about this because, after all, if somebody owns a premise the only hold he has on it is his lease or his rental agreement, and if he wants to take possession of it for one reason or another it is very hard to say that he should not do that. But, at the same time, the situation is very, very serious and probably those who are hardest hit are those on fixed incomes. They move into a building and presumably it is within their scope to carry on for many years. Then inflation catches up with them and the high rent keeps going up repeatedly and they have no chance to fight back. They can't find another place because they are not available, and it creates a situation which, I think, is very unfair to the fixed income people.

Now the only solution Mr. Speaker, in my estimation, is more homes, and when you talk about the City of Vancouver, it's useless to talk about buying a lot and building a home for perhaps at least 85 per cent of the population. I was told of a piece of property — a lot 72 feet by 140 that sold in south Granville last week for $25,000 and it doesn't take any imagination at all to see what puts the cost of a lot of the homes entirely out of the privilege of 95 per cent of the population. But I think there is a way of getting around this, and the thing which, in my opinion, offers the opportunity to many people, is the Strata Titles Act.

I hear many people saying they only wish they could get into some kind of an organization where they could take part in an apartment and help to build up an equity in that apartment after it is built. But the problem of the individual, and I'm speaking now of those people in my own area particularly, where we have some thousands of older homes 50 to 60 years old, and they were big homes, because in those days, homes were built large, and today, they very often hold two, three and even four families. These people would like to go into a home of their own or a residence of their own, but they are not available. These people are not hard up — most of them have good jobs and are quite willing to invest in a place to live — but the difficulty is that there is no way of them getting together.

I think that the Government could well consider setting up a Commissioner of Housing, or a Department of Housing which would aid people to take advantage of this Strata Titles Act. The legislation is there, but all it needs, in my estimation, Mr. Speaker, is some governmental help whereby people who would go into these suites could get some kind of help to organize and start the ball rolling. I think myself that it is one of the most valuable things that could happen to people, because it's been stated here many times, that a home owner is a happier person, and furthermore, it gives them a chance to take some advantage of the equity growth of the Province which, I think, is going to continue for a long time. If they can start owning a place today and paying for it, in fifteen years they have an equity which will mean something and they may be able to move out of town or to another part of British Columbia and they can take advantage of that capital gain. This condition is going to get worse, because we are told by people who make a study of this, that by 1980, 80 per cent of the population in Canada will be living in 23 cities and you can bet your bottom dollar that Vancouver will be one of those to grow faster than any other in Canada.

During the campaign, Mr. Speaker, I don't think any one subject was discussed with me by various people going throughout the riding, as was the situation that we have in Kitsilano with what we call hippies. The residents and the businessmen alike have a great fear and a great anger of this situation which has existed now for several years. I heard so

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many people discussing this, and coming to me and telling me what they thought, that I said that I would do anything I could to help them with that situation. Whether I have or not already is very difficult to tell. I have talked to police, I've talked to our Attorney-General, I've talked to newspaper people, I've talked to people at the City Hall, and pointed out the situation as I had found it in that area. The difficulty with these hippies, and now I want to offer some definition of hippies, so that there is not too much misunderstanding. I don't think we should be too concerned about the colour of a person's hair, or the length of their hair, and long hair in one form or another is becoming more and more common all of the time, and it's a trend that we perhaps will have to accept, even though many of us older squares don't like it. But the hippie that I'm talking about has no regard for other people. He does not intend to work or earn his own living, but will be a sponger and will remain a sponger as long as the law will permit him to remain.

I would like to read a few letters, and these letters are quite recent, Mr. Speaker, here's one January the 16th. "As a resident of the Kitsilano district, I am very concerned regarding the inadequate protection given by the city police to matters in this neighbourhood. In view of the density of the population, which amounts to overcrowding in many of the residential homes, plus the amount of crime and the use of drugs by certain segments of the population, I feel that the police in no way gives sufficient protection to the peace and property of the long-term residents." Another one: — "It is my opinion that the use of drugs and the break-ins in the Kitsilano area is increasing and, as a result, more innocent children are involved." Another one: — "I have been a resident of the Kitsilano district since 1919, and have seen the area since become from a fine residential district to a dangerous place to live in. Every time I am in a position that I have to be out in the evening hours, I literally dread getting off of the 4th Avenue bus and going down Maple Street and walking on 3rd Avenue to where I live. That stop seems to be the stop for so many odd characters. I deplore the litter on 4th Avenue, and one has just to raise one's eyes to see the deplorable conditions of the living quarters above the stores. While the so-called Flower Children seem to have left, from my observation, we are left with the original hard-core non-workers, and I think that this type is now desperate, for I have heard so many reports of thefts from the many merchants in the area." There are many others — I have a file here a couple of inches thick on this subject, and I don't know what you're going to be able to do about this.

But I can tell you that since I was elected about half the calls which I have received from residents have been concerning drugs. This has amazed me, Mr. Speaker, because in the 14 years that I was a member prior to that time, I don't think that I had more than six people talk to me concerning their families and drugs, and yet since I was elected these are about half the calls I have received. It's a tragic thing, it's a heart-breaking thing to listen to parents talking to you about their children who have become addicted, or at least users of marijuana. It's all very well for these people to talk about it doesn't do any harm and it should be legalized. I'm quite sure that if they had listened to parents such as I have, after I was elected, that they would certainly not tolerate that kind of opinion. I don't know just what's going to be done to overcome the situation with marijuana, particularly in my own area which I speak of, but I do believe that a different approach must be taken than what has already been taken by the police. The police approach is necessary, and it will remain necessary, but this is not the whole answer.

I recall the situation of a man who is now probably 24 or 25 but he spent 18 months in gaol on account of marijuana, and the story went like this, and I'm inclined to believe it. He was at a party where these people were passing around these cigarettes, and a couple of fellows came in. They weren't known, but they acted as though they were right at home, and one of them got kind of wild and started running around with a knife. His friend who came in with him, said "Oh, all he wants is some marijuana, if he gets hold of that he'll be all right, he will quieten down." So, the story was, one of them sold him a couple of cigarettes containing marijuana, and the result was that he was charged with trafficking and served 18 months. Now this is several years ago, but the situation I am getting at is that I'm not too sure that this is the best way to prevent the use. I think somehow or other there will have to be an approach taken by people with a knowledge and the determination that smoking marijuana is a dangerous thing and something which should be left alone, and I think there is room to do this. Unless something is done to try and influence these young people, it looks as if the situation will get worse. The police that I have talked to tell me that they could control this in a very short time if they had more power, but they lack the power to search, they have no test for drug impairment. To get a warrant they must name their informant, and these are the things that tie the hands of the police so that they are not able to do as much as they would like to.

Now Mr. Speaker, coming from the city, I come from an area where we certainly have no farms, but we do eat a great deal of food, and I have been concerned and I spoke about this in the House before — about our food supply in this Province. I think it is rather a shame and I think it's an unnecessary thing that we should have to rely to the extent that we do on imports. During 1968, which is the latest figures that I have, I think it is amazing the amount of food which is imported which could be grown here. For instance celery — we grew $270,000 worth and imported $688,000. This is in British Columbia, not in Canada, I am talking about what comes through into B.C. Lettuce, $670,000 grown here, $1,269,000 brought in. Parsnips, a very simple thing for farmers to grow — $20,000 grown and $61,000 brought in. Potatoes, which you would think we would have plenty of, and yet of $4,500,000 that were grown here, also imported were $2,098,000. There is a list here of about 25 things in the vegetable line which I think could well be grown here, but somehow or other there's not nearly enough grown to meet the demand, and into British Columbia last year were imported $11,933,000 worth of green vegetables, fresh vegetables, and to me this is a shame. I think it should be considered very carefully by the Department of Agriculture to see if they can't find some way of offering an incentive to farmers that would try and grow more of these at home. I think it is a dangerous thing for us to have to rely entirely on food brought in from the United States. It's quite obvious that governments are already to offer incentives to industry, but I think that this farming industry is something which somehow should have more incentives than it is getting at the present time.

Another thing I would like to mention, Mr. Speaker, is the use of campers and trailers, and these have increased tremendously in the very recent years. The Motor Vehicle Department told me that in three years the number of licensed trailers in B.C. has gone from 60,000 to well over

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90,000, and this is just an indication of how these vehicles are being used. You can imagine with half the population in the lower mainland, that a large percentage of these in the Province are used from the lower mainland, and although we have a creditable increase in the number of parks and camping sites throughout the Province, there are relatively very few within a hundred miles of Vancouver. I certainly hope that the Government will try to do something about this before too long, because families take great pride in getting their youngsters out and away from the cities even for a weekend, and at the present time, within the limit of their travel, there is no place to get off the road. I would certainly recommend that there be a large increase in the number of campsites where people can get their trailers and campers off the road, so that they can use them on weekends. At the present time there are 737 spaces within about a hundred miles of Vancouver, but 500 of these are in two locations, Cultus Lake, and Garibaldi Park, and so it is obvious that there are not too many more. This is something which would be greatly appreciated by the people in the lower mainland and, believe me, these trailers and mobile homes are going to increase by leaps and bounds.

Now a little closer to home in Vancouver, I would like to mention the foreshore of the University of British Columbia area, and this has been subject to erosion from the sea for all time, of course, but the situation is getting worse all the time. There has already been a considerable amount of area that has slid into the sea, including some buildings, and unless there is some action taken to protect the foreshore, it is going to get worse, and the land is so expensive that I think it is poor strategy to stand by and do nothing about it. This, Mr. Speaker, I am pretty sure is a Provincial Government responsibility…(applause). Stay on the land and control the land — you're dealing with very expensive property and if you wait long enough you are going to lose it, and I would certainly recommend that the Government take a good look at that and try and do something about it before we lose another hundred acres.

Another thing, too, which I think is within the scope of the Government to do something about is the Seymour Creek watershed. Now, at one time the Greater Vancouver and District Water Board felt that they would need all the waters in Seymour Creek for fresh-water purposes around the lower mainland, but about 15 years ago, or maybe more now, they built a dam on the Seymour which is about ten or eleven miles from the shore, and they still have control of the lower watersheds, Mr. Speaker. This is a wonderful area for camping and hiking and for parks purposes during the summer months of the year, and the Water Board are rather a dog-in-the-manager over this, they won't permit anyone to go into it unless they have an individual pass. This is not a watershed, and I don't think it ever will be, and I never heard anybody say they think it ever will be used for watershed purposes. It's merely being held because they own it and they feel that what they have they are going to hold. This is adjacent to Seymour Creek Park and I think it would be a natural place for the Government to use as a park area, and if they won't do it themselves they could acquire ownership of it or control of it and turn it over to the Regional Parks Board. But it doesn't look as though the Greater Vancouver and District Water Board is going to let this go by themselves unless somebody forces them to do it, and the need is so urgent for park areas near the City of Vancouver now, in the lower mainland, that I think it is time the Government stepped in and did something about it. There's no need to spend any money, the roads are there, the natural beauty is there and all it needs is the privilege of being able to get in there, Mr. Speaker. This is denied the people at the present time, and I don't think it should be.

There is a group of people throughout British Columbia, and in Vancouver we have 426 of them left, and these are people who worked for municipalities and cities and retired prior to 1957. This is not a problem of the Provincial Government, and I think the Provincial Government, in fact I know that the Provincial Government gets a great deal of credit from these old-time pensioners for the efforts that the Provincial Secretary has made in years gone by to try and get their pensions increased. These people are in a very serious position. Their pension plan started in 1928 and it looked very good, but the depression came along, the municipalities were unable to pay their share into the Fund, and though they promised to catch up they never did, with the result that this Government started a new plan which went into effect in April, 1957. At that time it was pointed out that those going on pension after '57 would have one of the best pensions in Canada, and this is quite so, and it has remained so, but although those that went on pension prior to '57 were promised that something would be done for them, very little has been done, and it was only through prodding by this Government that the municipalities put up the money themselves and permitted the excess earnings of the Fund to be used to increase the pensions of these older people.

I think it's a dangerous thing, Mr. Speaker, when we permit older people to be trod down like this without somebody trying to help them. I think, too, that the people on my right here should be able to offer these old pensioners some help, and yet so far they've had no help from the present people that are working through their unions. Unions have denied the right of the employers or the older people to dip into the excess earnings of this Municipal Superannuation Fund. I think the Fund is basically supposed to supply a pension on an earning power of 4 1/4 per cent and at the present time it is earning 5.7 per cent average. Of course you might bear in mind that these Funds go back many, many years and the old bonds don't earn a very high rate of interest. But the situation today leaves these people in a very bad state, and I have a list here of the pensions which these people are getting and I'll just read some of them to show you what they're up against. Here's a man and wife with 32 years — $76.09, another one 32 years — $74.99, another one $55.38, another 27 years — $88.05, another one $88.86, and the list is all the way through, and there are at present in British Columbia about 950 of these people.

I'm not going to tell you what anybody is getting as an individual, I don't intend to.

The City of Vancouver has a Resolution by these old people before them which I think they're going to consider tomorrow, and I only hope that the City of Vancouver will try and help these people out. A short time ago the municipalities of Burnaby, New Westminster, and Oak Bay, and the Royal Jubilee Hospital, all got together and they agreed to raise these people by a dollar a month in a maximum of 25 years. I don't think these people are asking too much, Mr. Speaker. They don't ask anything from the Government except help and influence, and I only hope that the Government will try and do what they can to influence the municipalities and the people that are at present working to try and consider using part of these excess earnings to increase these old peoples' stipend, because what they're getting now is not a fair deal. The need is very urgent and I

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hope that something can be done.

Now another point that I want to talk to you about — it may not be very important to some people, but it is to me — and that is the kind of support which the liquor interests, and I'm speaking particularly of the brewery interests, give to support amateur sport, and as I have a particular interest in soccer football I know something of which I say. You know, there's more people play soccer football in the world than any other sport, and it's one that I think deserves the support of pretty near everybody. But I have found out through personal experience, and I'm not guessing, that the brewers, in putting up money towards soccer and the promotion of soccer, have no interest in the sport itself, their pure and prime concern is selling more beer. I've listened to the pitch by these P.R. men when they hand out these cheques to these various team managers. They will find out that there's so many men on the team, and they have so many people in their families and they have so many friends, and they will run off a list just showing how many bottles of beer in a year that that could amount to if these fellows will only get busy and try and make sure that they use the kind of beer that's promoting their game. Now, I will say this, from my own standpoint I rather doubt whether this is the design of the brewery owners themselves to put up a pitch like this to these young people, but it's done. I have heard these P.R. men indicate that these teams should bootleg by selling beer in their club rooms, and when somebody has pointed to them that this is bootlegging they say "Well you'd be crazy to let anybody in you didn't know".

I think this is a very dangerous thing, and if the breweries are so interested in promoting sport, Mr. Speaker, I think that they should put their money into a fund which is distributed by somebody not interested or concerned with the breweries themselves. I think it should be done by the Football Association or by some branch of Government like the Physical Fitness Fund. But anyway, to permit this to continue, in my estimation, is just not a fair thing to young people, and I think it should be stopped.

Now another thing which I think too many people won't agree with me is the control of noise on motor vehicles. Vancouver has a by-law which is quite effective and there's no doubt that it's going to go a long way to control noise, but this is not enough. The trucks are coming into Vancouver from all over the Province and it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the Motor Vehicle Department should have a predetermined level of how much noise a truck is permitted to make. This is not a difficult thing to control. You know how quiet a car is, and there's no reason why a truck can't be just as quiet, it doesn't matter whether it's diesel or gas. Actually, a diesel doesn't make as much noise as a gas engine. But unless the Government will set a limit and enforce it, I don't think that we're ever going to control this noise, and it's something which I think should be controlled.

While I'm talking about cars I might say something about insurance, and I think the Government has a great deal of credit coming to it for its attempt to try and help the motorist with automobile insurance. This has been a very good move and, of course, the secret of the insurance situation today is that it's not exactly compulsory insurance. The compulsory part is a $250 fine.

AN HON. MEMBER: There's a choice of a fine or gaol.

MR. PRICE: You have a fine or gaol — exactly. This is it. This is right. Just wait a minute and you'll see what I'm trying to get at, because in spite of the fact that people are going to be faced with a fine or some time in gaol, you're going to see a certain amount of people driving without insurance, and what to do about that? These people also will get into accidents. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that because this is so, that the Traffic Victims Indemnity Fund should be increased, because a fine is no help to the person that gets hurt. Believe me, if there are any cars on the road without insurance, sure as fate they're the ones that are going to cause injury to somebody.

The insurance companies in my estimation, Mr. Speaker, with this type of plan which the Government is working, are the people that are on trial, and unless the insurance companies come out with a system that will work and supply it at a cost people are able and willing to pay, then the situation will be that the Government will have to take over. I hope this does not happen, because if the Government ever did take over the insurance of automobiles they would get a limited coverage which would end up with less protection than what they're going to get with the present system.

Now, for many years, Mr. Speaker, in this House I have advocated that the road from Agassiz to Hope on the north side of the river be completed, and there's no doubt that it will be completed in due course. The only thing is it's been a long time coming, and in the meantime the road from the freeway into Hope is a real bottleneck anytime there's a holiday weekend. These are two roads which the Government should try and do something about probably on a number one priority, because they affect half the cars of the Province, and it's certainly no fun when you've got to wait two hours to go 25 miles.

Another road which I think should be gone ahead with without delay is the completion of the road from Squamish to Lillooet, because this would make a loop from Vancouver up the Fraser on the north side, and across and down through Lillooet and through Squamish, one of the most beautiful drives that you'll ever find in British Columbia, and I'm just waiting for the day when it will be finished.

I think it's worthy of taking note of the fact that the extra money on gas tax going over these roads when they're finished will probably pay sufficient interest to warrant their completion, because I know the road from Squamish to North Vancouver, every time a car makes one trip back and forth on that, the Government gets about 50 cents in gas tax, and that's a lot of money.

Now, many people, Mr. Speaker, have spoken on the Benson White Paper, and I'm glad that they do and I hope more people will, and I hope they'll support the Council for Fair Taxation which is being developed all across Canada. I think that small industry is the thing which will be hurt the worst with this type of taxation, and the reason I think this is worth protecting is because it takes about one generation to develop an industry where it is in a position to be of very much value, and already we've had some indication that secondary industries in British Columbia will move to the United States if this plan goes into effect. In Canada, the expected spending power has indicated that it will increase from $1,910 in 1967 to $2,500 in 1975, but believe me, if this White Paper comes into effect that will stop dead in its tracks and there's no possibility of it going up at that rate. It's indicated that the standard of living in the next eight years will go up equivalent to what it has done in the past thirteen years. I'm talking about the standard of living — you know what I mean.

The difficulty is that if this White Paper goes into effect,

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instead of the consumer getting this money to spend it will be the Federal Government which will spend it, and I think it's something which every person in British Columbia should be very concerned about, because we earn more money here than they do in most other parts of Canada. I think perhaps, Mr. Speaker, that an alternate to this White Paper would be to devalue the Canadian dollar, and this would encourage foreign investment, it would discourage our own dollars from going out, it would make us competitive, and I'm quite sure in my own mind that it probably is one of the best ways that we could sell our wheat crop.

There's been a great deal of discussion in the press recently on the discovery of oil in the Arctic Ocean, or in the Arctic area, and I hear over television and radio that the Americans are ready to go ahead with a pipeline that's going to cost 1600 million dollars, a 48-inch pipeline and I do think that there are some questions which we should ask because I would like to know how B.C. is going to fit into this scheme. I'd like to know whether we can have any of this pipe made in British Columbia to put into this pipeline. Premier Strom of Alberta recently made a trip to Japan, and I'm wondering whether he did not go to talk to the Fuji interests about the steel that's going to be used in that pipeline probably in Alberta. At the present time there's some chance, I suppose, that British Columbia will be almost bypassed with this line because it will come south to Alaska, across British Columbia as quickly as possible, and then south through Alberta.

Well, I certainly hope that the Government of British Columbia is aware of this situation and that they're trying to do something about it to keep as much of the line as possible in British Columbia, because believe me, if this line does come down through British Columbia it means prosperity for B.C. You know, after the war we had the war spending which made us prosperous, we had the Kitimat projects, we've had the oil line from Alberta to Vancouver, the gas lines from the north and now the dams, and if we can have this pipeline from the Arctic go through B.C. it will go a long way towards keeping this country prosperous, and that's the kind of thing which we want to see.

I'm quite concerned about this pollution, as everybody else is, Mr. Speaker, and I'm very sorry to see the last issue of Time which came out today carry a picture of industrial waste near Richmond, B.C., and there's a little note underneath it — it says "Not what to do but how to do it." Mr. Speaker, I don't think that the Federal Government method of doing it so far is going to be very much help, because in passing their Bill C-144, the Clean Water Act, what they have done is pass a Bill that leaves it up to the provinces to help enforce anti-pollution measures, or do nothing at all, and I don't think that is good enough. Another thing too, it would give, according to this Act, the powers to the province to levy effluent discharge fees and, personally, I can't see this as the answer to pollution because I don't think it is any good to charge somebody a fee for pollution — the pollution should be overcome in some way or another. It may not be easy. I don't think, too, that it's possible to have pollution controlled if the B.C. Government leaves it up to the municipalities.

I'm of the opinion, Mr. Speaker, that this Government should lay down standards and be in a position to enforce them, and I don't think you'll ever be able to properly do it on a municipal basis. Mind you, the reason that the Federal Government left it so loose will probably be used by the Provincial Government too, and that is that the country is so big, that what would apply in one area does not necessarily apply in another, and if they tried to make an Act that would cover the whole of Canada, it would be so weak as to be useless. I can quite agree that there is some merit in that statement, but nevertheless the situation with pollution, although you might say it is a very fashionable subject today, is also a very important subject — it's something that we must do something about, and I think the Provincial Government will get a great deal of credit from every resident in the Province, if they will take a firm stand and make severe penalties and have a very high standard of control. If this Government doesn't take the lead, don't expect the municipalities to do it because I don't think they will.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the attention you have given me and thank you very much.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for North Vancouver–Capilano.

MR. DAVID M. BROUSSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Speaker, it's nice to be back in Victoria. Already we seem to recognize some of the same problems coming up again and again. As a matter of fact, driving along into Victoria from the ferry the first morning along the Pat Bay so-called highway, I noticed that the same old surveyors are still out surveying the highway. There was the Rose-Blanshard diversion still coming out of Victoria and going nowhere. In fact, Mr. Speaker, no one seems to know when or where we are going to have a Pat Bay Highway. Well I must tell the members from the Victoria area that we have something in common, because a month or so ago we had surveyors on the Upper-Levels highway in the North Shore. They have gone away, too, and no one quite seems to know where they have gone.

I would like to join, Mr. Speaker, with my fellow sophomore, the honourable member from Burnaby-Willingdon, in speaking from our wealth of experience and welcoming the new members and congratulating them on their many fine speeches which have already made a great contribution to the debates of this House.

Now, Mr. Speaker, one of the important issues being discussed today outside of this House, I would think, and especially within it, is the depreciation of our environment. It has almost replaced the weather as a topic for conversation and to many it seems like the weather — it's much talked about but little is being done about it. Many people hear what responsible scientists predict and are fearful for the very survival of the human species on this planet. As unthinkable as this idea may appear to be, it is one that must be carefully considered. In fact, preparing for these remarks on the weekend, I spent half the day re-reading some of the material I had collected from many sources. This was the most frightening hours of reading I can remember, more terrifying, more convincing than any horror story and these are scientific, they are true. Let me mention just a few examples. David Gates of Washington University says, "Man has lit the fuse of the environmental bomb — the question is not whether it will explode but when." Responsible leaders of the nation in and out of the scientific community give us not more than a generation or two to stop the spoiling of our environment or, alternatively, contaminate forever the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe, the good earth on which we five.

The Chairman of the American House Sub-Committee on

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Science has said, "We have not less than 30 or more than 70 years, to reverse the destructive trend which a sprawling, acquisitive humanity has traded for itself, according to the most competent testimony which our Science Sub-Committee has been able to elicit from the forecasters. After that period it will be too late to stem the human tide. Too late to control eradication of resources — too late to halt pollution of the earth — too late for anything except to witness the gradual shrinking of our standard of living and the erosion of personal liberty." In 1968, more than 200 experts from 50 countries met at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. They gave the unanimous opinion that within 20 years life on our planet will show the first signs of succumbing to pollution. The atmosphere will become unbreathable for men and animals, life will cease in rivers and lakes, plants will wither from poisoning. Barry Commoner, the great ecologist of Washington University, put it more simply, perhaps best of all. "The price of pollution could be the death of man."

We don't need to go that far afield to find the problem. People in British Columbia don't need the scientist to make them aware that our environment is rapidly depreciating. All they need is their eyes, ears and noses to detect that our once clean air is now fouled by automobile exhaust and industrial fumes. Our lovely salt-water beaches are being posted as unsafe for swimming. Our interior fresh-water lakes are booming — with algae. Roadside and recreational areas are littered with aluminum beverage cans, and throw-away bottles that defy the natural disposal systems of nature. Our beautiful coastal inlets and mountain valleys are scarred by the strip mines, polluted by industrial plants. As a result, the people of the Province are uniting to protest pollution in all its forms.

Virtually in every community in the Province, anti-pollution groups are being formed. In my own riding of North Vancouver–Capilano, last Thursday night, several hundred people met to form such a group. One of the remarkable things about these groups is the kind of people who constitute them. They aren't just ardent conservationists, habitual joiners, chronic protesters. They represent a broad cross-section of the community — students, workers, housewives, executives. The one thing they have in common — they are not happy about the way our environment is being mistreated and they are determined to do something about it. They look to us, their elected representatives, to do something about it too. They want leadership, and they deserve nothing less. But too often their plans go unheeded and even unanswered. MacLeans Magazine noted this last month, when they observed that SPEC, with 2,000 members in Vancouver, 28 branches through the Province, doesn't receive answers from the British Columbia government or Premier W.A.C. Bennett.

What do some of our other leaders say about the present situation? Quoting from the Vancouver Sun, October 30, 1969 — "The Greater Vancouver Regional District will develop an air pollution control programme of its own, without a financial contribution from the provincial government. The District reached this decision Wednesday, after it was told the provincial government has no budget or policy for air pollution control. 'There is no money, no policy, no staff, or anything else related to this matter,' said Vancouver Alderman Hugh Berg. 'It's time for us to proceed on our own.' Berg is a member of the Regional District Committee, which had met with Resources Minister Ray Williston on October 15th." Quoting from the headline of the Province January 15, 1970, "Anti-pollution is told to pipe down! Speaking to the annual Truck Loggers Association Convention, Lands and Forest Minister Ray Williston, said — quote — 'People are expecting too much, too soon in pollution, or to be more precise, environmental control'." Quoting, from the same paper, Mr. John Drinka, president of the Truck Loggers Association said, "The economy of this province, the standard of living of its people, and its employment, could be destroyed by the destruction of the land use programmes now in operation." And Mr. Drinka rated demands by conservationists as fourth in the major problems facing his industry, after inflation, declining productivity, and labour problems.

Quoting from the Vancouver Sun, January 10th, 1970, "The people of B.C. might have to face substantial sacrifices to achieve the goals set by the more emotional advocates of pollution control." End of quote. Recreation and Conservation Minister Mr. Kiernan told a meeting in Campbell River — in quotes again — "Emotionalism leads to loss of perspectives in dealing with pollution problems. After all, we are polluting the atmosphere every time we take a breath." End of quote. The degree of concern by the people of our Province, has been noted as far away as the New York Times. December 11th, 1969, this distinguished newspaper reported, "The people of British Columbia seem to be more attuned to environmental issues than in many other regions."

Many of these people look forward in this Session of the Legislature with the hope that their desire for action would be finally answered by effective legislation. But judging from the hints contained in the Speech from the Throne, this hope appears to be in vain. All we are promised is that the municipalities and regional districts will be required to enact by-laws to control air pollution. This is nothing less than a cruel, transparent hoax on the people of this Province, and it is especially shameful, when a Government Minister last year coined, that "Nowhere in North America is there better pollution-control legislation than we have in this Province."

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that this Minister look to the Province of Ontario for an example of effective pollution-control legislation. Of particular interest should be Ontario's experience in the matter of air pollution legislation. As long ago as January, 1967, responsibility for air pollution control was transferred from the municipalities to the Ontario Government's Air Pollution Control Service. In commenting upon this move, January, 1968, Canadian Business Journal, Modern Power and Engineering, observed — "In taking over responsibility for controlling all air pollution sources, the Ontario government has set an example which other provinces should be quick to follow. Furthermore, the all-embracing scientific research, monitoring and control programmes being adopted by the reorganized Provincial Air Pollution Control Service, is exactly the type of approach all provinces need to take in tackling the complex air pollution problem. Any delusions that municipalities can adequately and equitably handle air pollution control is shattered by actual performance, not to mention logic." End of quote. The article goes on to trace ten years of problems and failures in air pollution control under municipal responsibility in Ontario, and we are just starting out to go back to give it to the municipalities and districts.

It is not just private citizens who want more realistic air pollution control legislation. Enlightened and forward looking industries see the need too. This is pointed out in this same article that I referred to in Modern Power and Engineering, which warns its readers — quote "There is no

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solace for industry in the fact that control programmes across Canada so far are disjointed, inadequate and in many cases non-existent. Stricter regulations and tighter controls will inevitably come and they will be based on current levels of atmospheric contamination in specific areas. While governments sleep or procrastinate, pollution levels build up. You avoid pollution control equipment today only to face doubly stringent control tomorrow, because pollution concentrations in the area have become excessively high. Or you avoid installing control equipment by building in an area where regulations don't exist, only to be hit with costs five to ten times as high when standards are finally imposed." The magazine urges its readers to press for air pollution control programmes and scientifically established regulations administered at the Provincial level — and that's a very respected business and engineering journal.

It is interesting to note also, Mr. Speaker, progress in this regard being made in Sweden, whose Ambassador visited us last week. He told us that tough new anti-pollution laws passed last July, tackle pollution on land, sea and in the air. Municipal sewage systems have been major sinners in Sweden, such as in British Columbia. Now there are more than 1,000 sewage treatment plants under construction, with the Federal government paying half the costs. Not primary treatment but tertiary. Federal government of Sweden. It is also interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that a few days ago the Alberta Speech from the Throne promised legislation establishing an environment conservation authority armed with broad powers to help preserve a healthy environment, and tax incentives for abatement of water, soil and air pollution. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, the people of this Province want leadership from their Government, not empty boasting or promises in place of action. Their feelings were summed up very well by Dr. John Chase of Simon Fraser University, when he presented a carefully researched report to the meeting protesting pollution in North Vancouver of last week. In calling for some meaningful provincial legislation and tougher penalties for polluters, Dr. Chase said — "Government seems to be evading its responsibilities and passing the buck, while our environment deteriorates at a rapidly increasing rate."

But air pollution is just one of many causes of what has been termed our environmental crisis. To understand the full extent of the many threats which confront our quality of life, perhaps even life itself, one should read the report issued by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, entitled "Problems of the Human Environment." One section of this report defines a situation which I would like to deal with specifically. Here is what the Secretary-General says, "There appears to be a wide-spread imbalance between efforts to enhance economic productivity and efforts to maintain a stable or improving environment. Conflicts between the demands of the urban industrial centres for water, power, transportation networks, and space for buildings on the one hand, the necessity for maintaining mineral productivity and rural amenities on the other, are widespread. Cultivated lands, river systems, lakes, estuaries, marsh lands, are particularly hard hit. The need exists to provide for adequate planning for overall land use, including conservation of natural environment. The entire array of wild species and biological community necessary for scientific cultural purposes, while still increasing their supply of food and materials, needs the organization of space required for man's survival."

This section of the U.N. report could have very well have been written as a warning aimed at us in British Columbia. We dam our rivers with little if any thought to the ecological consequences. We just as quickly leap to conclusions regarding diversion of one river system into another. We pave thousands of acres of the finest black soil to be found anywhere, and I am sure some of the Federation of Agriculture people here today are very conscious of that problem. Yet as we destroy these priceless chunks of our landscape, the need for agricultural and recreational land increases as our leisure-time, disposable income, population steadily climbs. Already, Mr. Speaker, the lower mainland of British Columbia from Vancouver to Hope has over 1,000,000 persons, and as we continue to grow and encourage further growth, thus placing greater and greater strain on our already limited and overcrowded agricultural and recreational land resources.

While the people of this Province are clamoring for an end to unthinking development, the Province continues heedless of both the warnings of ecologists and the desires of the public. We heard one such story last week. I was delighted when the honourable member for Yale-Lillooet raised the matter of the Skagit Valley. The loss of this recreational and wildlife resource is so tragic and so needless that enough cannot be said about it. A number of people have asked me the reason for my interest, since the Skagit is obviously a long way from North Vancouver. I suppose the reason I became involved is one way of showing the importance of this valley to British Columbia. No less than four of my own constituents in the space of a few days, each quite separately, came to me with this story, because these were all people who had used and loved the Skagit Valley for many years. You see, the lower mainland isn't very big anymore and it is getting smaller. You leave North Vancouver at eight o'clock in the morning, you go out 401 and just before Hope you turn south off the Trans-Canada highway, down a gravel road past Silver Creek over a low divide to 26-Mile Bridge, and you are in the Skagit Valley. By half past ten you are sitting by a large beaver dam having coffee in the sun surrounded by magnificent mountains and looking across a couple of miles of stumps and mud near the American border where the present level of Ross Lake has gone down. A little later you are walking along the gravel spawning beds of the Skagit and you come across an elderly couple munching sandwiches, It turns out they are retired. They live in Whalley, and they come out here frequently, sometimes to fish, more often just to walk and enjoy the beautiful valley of the Skagit.

So you see, the people of Vancouver need to use this valley, and when you consider that some predictions say they might have 2,000,000 people between Squamish and Hope some day, you begin to understand why. To quote the Minister of Recreation and Conservation, "Without planning and the sacrifice of some short-term gains, by 1990 there could be one massive urban block filling in from Point Grey to Hope." This is truly a unique valley. Most of the mountain valleys of B.C. are V-shaped, but this one is like a U with steep sides and a wide flat bottom over one and a half to two miles across, through which for 12 and 15 miles the Skagit River meanders with miles of good gravel trout-spawning beds, through pleasant grassy meadows, until it runs into the top of Ross Lake just north of the American border.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the page, if he would — could I have one of the pages? — to pass these pictures, all but one of which I have taken myself in the Skagit Valley. I think they will give some idea of the

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conditions there. Would you pass it so that all the members have a chance to have a look. Thanks. I have some slides, Mr. Speaker, that I would be delighted to show anyone after the House rises. At the top of the Valley, fortunately just outside the area to be flooded, is the finest of three groves in British Columbia of the wild red rhododendron, most magnificent of all B.C. native shrubs. Four hundred or more deer use the Valley as a headquarters and this year, because there is little snow, the deer are wintering right on the valley floor. There are beaver dams and lodges, black bears, and many other animals and wild life. Fishing is the best — I think probably it is the last good stream for fly-fishing in the lower mainland, with Rainbow, Dolly Varden, Cutthroat, and so on. To the east the mountains of Manning Park. To the south Mount Outram over 8,000 feet. To the west the mountains and valleys that lead to Chilliwack Lake 25 miles away. The road goes on across the border for a mile or two, and runs along the grey rocky shore of Ross Lake, hanging at the bottom of almost vertical hillsides. In fact, there is so little room between the lake and the cliffs that you can see where people have camped right on the roadway. That is on the American side.

Is the Valley used? Mr. Speaker, on the opening day of the fishing season last June, there were between three and four thousand people in that valley. During 1969 at least 15 — probably 20,000 people — visited the Skagit. Hunters, fishermen, campers, tourists, maybe some who just wanted to sit on a log on a gravel bar and look at the clear rushing trout stream. There are no facilities, no campsites, nothing organized, except the garbage dump area which has been set up by the local Conservation Officer just because he loves the Skagit Valley. There could be more. Skagit could be part of a magnificent international park area anchored on the east to Manning Park, running along the border for 30 or 40 miles to include Chilliwack Lake and matching up to the south with the great new North Cascade National Park in the State of Washington. This could become an international park of the highest stature, only two hours from downtown Vancouver. But all we are going to get, Mr. Speaker, is 888 acres — just over a square mile, not much more than a good campsite. Mr. Minister of Recreation and Conservation is quoted in the Vancouver Sun of December 11th. "We would have preferred that this flooding situation didn't exist, but now it is just a matter of doing what we can to cope with the situation." Well, some of us don't give up so easily. Of course, you know the problem. The City of Seattle needs power and the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources on January 10, 1967, just three years ago, signed an agreement to allow Seattle to raise Ross Dam by 125 feet to flood the Skagit Valley almost to 26-Mile Bridge, and because it is such a wide flat valley, this will virtually destroy its present existence.

AN HON. MEMBER: Give away! Give away!

MR. BROUSSON:…. All this arose, Mr. Speaker, from an Order of Approval issued by the International Joint Commission in 1942. After public hearings in Seattle, which said, "The City of Seattle shall adequately compensate the Province of British Columbia for any damage caused in British Columbia." What is the adequate compensation that we are going to get? $35,000 a year for 99 years, for approximately 6,300 acres to indemnify the citizens of British Columbia for the loss of this unique and irreplaceable recreational resource. About $5.50 per acre per year. Now I wonder how this figure was arrived at. I have been told, Mr. Speaker, that the Department of Lands quite often uses about five per cent of the value of the land as a guide for lease value. At this rate they set the value of the land at about $110 an acre. I am advised that recreational valley bottom land in this area would be a steal at many times that price. I am sure there are many people in this House who would gladly pay many times $110 an acre for land in the Skagit Valley. I know also for example, Mr. Speaker, a plot in almost inaccessible parts of Garibaldi Park area, not desirable, almost inaccessible, renting at the equivalent of $40 per acre to Canadian citizens.

Another yardstick, Mr. Speaker, might be the value of timber, fishing, hunting, and recreational resources that have been lost. Mr. Speaker, I think I would like to give the figures, if some of my friends would like to give me the opportunity. Another yardstick, Mr. Speaker, might be value of the timber, fishing, hunting, and recreational resources that are going to be lost. These have been estimated — on a sustained yield basis to be $40 to $50 per acre per year. What does the Government say about the price? $5.50 per acre per year. The Minister of Recreation and Conservation as quoted in the Vancouver Sun of January 12th said, "The only place we had any room to negotiate was in regard to remuneration and in that respect the guidelines laid down didn't give us much room either." The Minister explained that by this he meant the payment to British Columbia which worked out to about $5.50 per flooded acre, is a realistic rate compared to rates which would be charged for developments within the Province. In quotes again, "The opinion is that we can't deal more harshly with international agreements than we would on development within the Province." Mr. Speaker, I want to go personally on record, or on tape, as disagreeing most strongly with that opinion.

I also have a letter, Mr. Speaker, dated December 5, 1969, from the Water Rights Branch. "The annual payment of about $35,000 by the City of Seattle was based on the energy rental which would have been payable on a power licence if the water running across the international boundary had been utilized in an equivalent hydro development in British Columbia. This was a negotiated figure which necessarily included judgements of many factors, including the effect on forest and recreation." Well, I think we have already destroyed the validity of this explanation. However, I don't want to dwell on the matter of the cost, Mr. Speaker, because it is not the main problem. But the fact remains, as I told the people in Seattle, it seems as if the Yankee Traders skinned us, or at least the Minister of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources, pretty badly. Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, it is worth while to note that Seattle City Power and Light charge $8.15 per 1,000 kilowatt hours while we in B.C. pay B.C. Hydro $14.50 for the same amount. Why should we subsidize Seattle light bills?

Of course, the real irony of all this is the fact that Seattle also is getting a bad financial deal. They are going to pay $45,000,000 for only 140,000 kilowatts which is $320 per kilowatt, a very high capital cost indeed for peaking power. Perhaps two and one-half or three times what it should be. Now these figures, Mr. Speaker, are based on the Smith-Barney report. The Smith-Barney report was prepared by Seattle City Power's own consultants and was released last fall. On this basis it has been estimated that their costs could be as high as 1.29 cents per kilowatt hour — 1.29 cents per kilowatt hour — on a power plant that is costing them $320 per installed kilowatt.

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When we began looking into all this we were delighted to find a great many of our American neighbours were pretty upset also. Because Washington, too, will lose some magnificent and irreplaceable resources, both recreational and ecological, if the Ross project proceeds. Of course, the interesting thing is, you know, many of us have said in recent years pollution knows no boundaries. Really recreational resources today know no boundaries. We all move back and forth across the border and use each other's recreational resources, and we should be concerned about both sides. About two weeks ago, these neighbours of ours ran an advertisement in Seattle newspapers and I am told that as a result Seattle City Council has literally been overwhelmed by thousands of protesting letters. In British Columbia we have formed the Ross Committee, R-O-S-S, Run Out the Skagit Spoilers. ROSS has distributed several thousand petitions within British Columbia and these also will be sent to Mayor Wes Uhlman and his Council in Seattle as an appeal for help from one friendly neighbour to another, and Mr. Speaker, I have a supply of these petitions here. If any of the members would like one I would be delighted to let them have them.

So far, our Provincial Government has thrown up its hands, said it is too bad but there is nothing we can do. Well, Mr. Speaker, there are some things our Provincial Government can do. I want to repeat that I don't want to pick a fight with the Government, I want to solve the problem and save the Skagit Valley.

First, I would like the Provincial Government to recognize that a mistake has been made and to approach the City of Seattle with the suggestion that this project is really a bad deal all around and that the agreement should be scrapped by mutual consent. Second, they should suggest to Seattle that should none of the other alternate power sources that Seattle is now considering prove to be suitable, perhaps British Columbia could offer some help or some suggestions. If Seattle is insisting on spending $45,000,000 for power, I am sure a cooperative venture with B.C. Hydro could be worked out in one of several locations. Perhaps the Hat Creek Gold Field, perhaps a pumping plant at Lake Bunsen or Ruskin, and there are other possibilities as well. Third, and perhaps most logical of all, British Columbia could suggest that Seattle build a gas turbine plant near the City, near their load centre, and offer to sell Seattle natural gas from British Columbia at a suitable rate. Gas turbine makes the ideal plant for peaking power and can be built for $100 a kilowatt or less and operated at a reasonably low cost. There is another possible route to follow also, Mr. Speaker. I have a letter dated January 28, 1970, from Mr. D.G. Chance, Secretary of the International Joint Commission in Ottawa, and I quote, "This Commission could not now, on its own initiative, prevent the project from proceeding in accordance with the terms of its Order of Approval. I might point out that in the Order of Approval the Commission specifically reserved its jurisdiction to amend the Order or issue additional Orders for the protection and indemnification of the Province of British Columbia on receipt and consideration of a formal application filed by the Province in accordance with the Commission's rules of procedure."

Now I have a copy of the rules of procedure here, Mr. Speaker, if any member of the Government would like to use their advice. So perhaps the Provincial Government might file such a formal application with the International Joint Commission asking for amendment of the Order or issue of a new Order. So you see, Mr. Speaker, there still are possible ways of saving the Skagit Valley if you want to.

In the next few weeks, the City of Seattle will be holding hearings to consider the possible damage to environment and recreational resources of this whole project. Primarily, of course, they are thinking of south of the border. The Ross Committee will be there, I will be there, we will tell the people of Seattle how their Canadian friends and neighbours feel, and by the hundreds of letters and phone calls that I have received. I'd like to show you an example of one set of letters that were received by my colleague, the honourable member from West Vancouver–Howe Sound. If I can read you this letter. This is from grade one at Wescott School in West Vancouver. "Dear Mr. Williams, These letters are written by my grade one class at Wescott School. We were discussing Skagit Valley and they became so concerned they asked me to help them write to you. They dictated the letter to me then copied it in their own handwriting," and I'll read this to you, Mr. Speaker. "Dear Mr. Williams, Please don't let them flood Skagit Valley. The animals will die, and the trees will be chopped down. It is our land, we don't want it flooded. From Dean." Mr. Speaker, I know we have the support of the people of British Columbia. I hope we'll have the support of this House.

I've outlined some of the problems facing British Columbia in the areas of pollution and environmental control. The people of B.C. might add, why, why does the Minister of Lands so willingly lease away a valuable recreational resource such as the Skagit Valley? Why does the Minister of Recreation and Conservation speak with pride of the arrangement whereby Divide Lake will be drained and mined without any examination of possible ecological damage, irreversible damage that might be done to the area? Why does B.C. have no law to control auto exhaust? Why does B.C. have no strong control over the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers? Why does B.C. have no control over non-returnable and non-disposable containers? Why is all of B.C. afraid the Provincial Government will allow oil drilling among the Gulf Islands? Why does B.C. not ban the use of high phosphate detergents, or at least insist the label state the percentage content? Why? The answer is simple, Mr. Speaker, the Government has no understanding of the complete problem, has no realization that all of these things are part of the same problem, the ecological problem. What is this new word that has suddenly become so popular? Ecology. Time magazine says ecology is the study of how living organisms and the non-living environment function together as a whole or echo system. The Royal Bank of Canada monthly newsletter of February, 1969, says "Ecology is an expression of the realization that man must give over trying to mold the rest of the natural world to his wishes without adequate understanding of the laws of government." Is that too emotional, Mr. Speaker?

So here's our difficulty, we make rules in narrow areas. The Minister of Mines makes up rules for strip mining or oil drilling, the Minister of Health has his ideas, the Minister of Lands, the Minister of Recreation have their rules, and all of them are fragmented, looking only at one area of interest and looking only at economic and political considerations. Listen to the world renowned ecologist, Dr. Crawford Halling, of U.B.C.'s Resources Science Centre. "Society has, in the past, been too ready to apply a one-shot solution, a technological quick fix. Solutions that we have applied to the transient problems of the past, D.D.T., or any of a variety of technological gimmickry. These solutions have now generated new problems, new classes of problems that are not local but are more global and are interactive. They have unexpected

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consequences. They have been applied in one part of the system. The system has responded elsewhere." End of quote.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would propose for British Columbia, a Department of Environmental Administration, that would provide the citizens of British Columbia with the undivided attention of a group of qualified experts in all the sciences involved. Forestry, agriculture, economics, planning, geography, biology and so on, but especially that new breed, the ecologist. Let us have no more half-hearted, fragmented, divided approaches to what President Nixon called the great question of the 70's "shall we make our peace with nature". Let us have no more Pollution Boards, Departments of Environmental Health, and Air Pollution Boards, and Water Boards, and so on. Let us have one Department of Environmental Administration that will speak for, that will protect the whole ecology of the great Province of British Columbia.

I predict, Mr. Speaker, that it will be the environmental issue which will eventually defeat the Social Credit Government. The environmental issue is seen by many as the most explosive public issue in decades. In the United States it's becoming bigger than either the racial or the peace issue. It's an issue which threatens everyone, each of us, everyone in the world directly. As anthropologist Luther Gerlach says in the current issue of Life, "The politics of environment will be the biggest mass movement in the history of the country. The environmental issue is a conflict between self-seeking materialism and conservationists' human values." The Social Credit Government has clearly demonstrated time after time that it puts material gain ahead of the factors which contribute to the quality and dignity of human existence. This is clear in their reluctance to take strong action on pollution and their open acceptance of the blandishments of industry without any apparent thought of the ecological consequences. Our own greatly respected Roderick Haig-Brown has written about this. To quote him, "This calls for a major philosophical shift, a new theory of economics, a whole new standard of habits." Unquote. It is difficult to conceive of the Social Credit Government executing the radical shift in values and priorities which the environmental crisis demands. May I conclude, Mr. Speaker, with one final quotation from the great Dr. Paul Erlick of Stanford University. "It's the top of the ninth inning. Man — always a threat at the plate — has been hitting nature hard. It's important to remember, though, nature always, always bats last." Thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Alberni.

MR. H.R. McDIARMID (Alberni): Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to once again rise in the House and represent the great industrial constituency of Alberni. I would like to congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, on your re-election. Your fairness and discretion has been exemplary in the past, and while not being permissive, you have certainly allowed a wide latitude in debate. Were it not so, I am sure that half my speeches would have been cut off in mid-stream.

I would like to thank the mover and the seconder for the fine calibre of their speeches, and also the excellent calibre of the speeches of all members who have spoken in this House for the first time. I'd like particularly to welcome my colleague in medicine, the member from Oak Bay. We heard the first member from Vancouver East deliver his soft soap lecture today and served as probably the opening round in the leadership contest, a very statesman-like approach, and one which I am sure will only cause consternation in those ranks, but certainly not in ours.

AN HON. MEMBER: It brought Barrett back into the House pretty fast.

MR. McDIARMID: I think one of the things that when we left here at the last Session that we agreed upon with any degree of unanimity was that there would be change. About change, I would like to remind the honourable member from Cowichan-Malahat, and I am glad to welcome him back to this House, when he used to say, the one time wonders from that side of the House, that…(applause)…. . "none of you will be back." (laughter) Well, I'm sure that the Member from Cowichan-Malahat would like to join me at this time and welcome back to this House the one time wonder from Dewdney, the one time wonder from North Okanagan, the one time wonder from Mackenzie, the one time wonder, the second member from Vancouver–Little Mountain, the one time wonder from Delta, the one time wonder from Vancouver Centre, the one time wonder from North Peace River, unfortunately the one time wonder from South Peace River, for business reasons and personal reasons, does not wish to come into this House, and finally, the one time wonder from Alberni…(applause)

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order please.

MR. McDIARMID:….member who have joined the ranks of the one time wonders — the real one time wonders in the last House, the one time wonder from Revelstoke-Slocan, the one time wonder the second member from Vancouver South, the one time wonder from Oak Bay, the one time wonder, second member from Vancouver-Burrard, and I won't mention the one time wonder, the first member from Vancouver-Burrard, because I'm sure that the member from Cowichan-Malahat has already given his opinion on that, in one way or another. I am sure that your prognosticators have probably led you to be where you are.

I was interested that the new House Leader said that most of the members of this House were opposed to the use of alcohol, and I think I heard him correctly. The tapes, I am sure, will bear me out. I'm rather interested he said the use rather than the abuse of alcohol, and of interest, there was a great attack by the second member from Vancouver East on the liquor laws of this Province in the last Session. But it was rather interesting when all the members of this House had an opportunity to present their views to the Commission that it was only the member from Alberni who took the time and trouble to present a brief to that Commission.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: The member for Vancouver Centre did, too.

MR. McDIARMID: However the Opposition are rather limp. They certainly haven't done much so far, and I think that they perhaps could use a little rejuvenation. We heard of the disastrous side effects of many of our modern drugs and things, and I think that perhaps there was a side effect from the use of a drug that was used for "Parkinsonism" and I'd be glad to fill any prescriptions. (laughter)

The great Liberal leader had a marvelous impact, of

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course, on the voters as he got around the constituencies. He had such an impact that I'm not sure whether he visited the constituency or not, and he's indicated great things to the populace in general, and actually I don't want to spend much time on that because it isn't really worth that much.

Mr. Speaker, I propose to speak on ecology and pollution, and I make no apology for doing so although nearly everybody else has done so. Perhaps this is the most significant part of this whole debate. In actual fact, the fact that so many members have concerned themselves with the question of pollution, the question of ecology, the question of environment — and this, I think, is perhaps the most significant part of this whole debate — is not what we said but simply that we are saying it. There is one particular indication in the Speech from the Throne which, while it's not spelled out in any great detail, I think shows an awareness by the Government of this great public concern over the quality of our environment.

The average citizen is finally appreciating what scientists have known for a long time, and that is that we disrupt the balance of nature at our period of time. By this I do not advocate that we should revert to a caveman civilization, but in no other sphere has it been so important to try and assess in advance the impact that our actions will have upon the quality of our environment. This paragraph could be the most significant of all the contents of the Speech from the Throne. I think it's worthwhile to repeat it here. "A matter of prime concern in British Columbia today is the protection of our environment," and where else is there a more beautiful environment in all of Canada, or for that matter all the world. "There are many facets to the problem of environmental control. They range beyond those measures designed directly to minimize air, soil, and water pollution…(that's a very important part of it)…to those so necessary in a programme of environmental health protection. My Government will continue to work toward the protection and preservation of our total environment, so that all our citizens may enjoy the beauties and wonders of our heritage as intended by nature. Reports will be made to the Legislature concerning the efforts and progress being made."

Mr. Speaker, many achievements which only yesterday were universally held as great technological advances, today stand revealed as having side effects with serious implications for the survival of humanity, which literally no one could foresee. A classic example of this is the burning of fossil fuel. It gave us warmth in our homes and brought transportation within the reach of all. It is now clearly a major producer of smog which, on occasion, has caused death. It produces toxic levels of carbon monoxide in city traffic and on congested freeways. The pleasurable and seemingly innocuous practice of smoking turns out to cause cancer of the lung and aggravates many respiratory and cardio-vascular conditions. Even the Pill, which seemed at first to be a real breakthrough in solving what I consider to be man's most serious problem, that of the population explosion, has dangerous side effects. But what more bitter paradox is there when the humane and totally altruistic objectives of physicians, saving millions of lives through control of malaria, typhoid, diphtheria, plague, tuberculosis, have in the process aggravated the population explosion. What have we accomplished, to save a fife from disease only to have it extinguished from starvation? I don't suggest that we should call a halt to saving lives, but to try to illustrate that solving one problem often creates another problem which, on occasion, can be of greater magnitude than that which we originally set out to solve.

Traditionally, in the past, bigness and strength have almost always been synonymous with greatness, and we look back on the great civilizations that have gone before us — the Egyptians, the Roman Empire, the British Empire — and what led them to become great was their size and strength. Today we see bigness and strength in China, in Russia, in the United States, but there is not one of those countries that I would trade for Canada, (applause) and there is not one of those countries which, because of its very size, has not more problems than we in Canada will ever have. I predict that in future years historians, when looking back at this point in time, will agree that Canada's greatest asset today is her relatively small population. The matter of population control is far more serious in the United States than it is in Canada, and this article which the member from Oak Bay brought to our attention the other day in the House and stole half my speech….

AN HON. MEMBER: The best half. (laughter)

AN HON. MEMBER: Watch these doctors.

MR. McDIARMID:….intituled "Pollution control means population control" is of great significance to us and perhaps of more significance than what that member, I think, realized. It says "Three million Americans by the year 2000." Three million — three hundred million, excuse me. Three hundred million by the year 2000. We've seen, in the past, first of all the Parsons Plan which advocated the intercontinental use of water, and now we find the American Congress talking about the continental energy resource being a continental resource, not the resource of Canadians. We see the debacle of the Northwest Passage in our inability to protect our sovereignty, and I predict that Lebensraum is not something which will be peculiar to Europe and, unless the United States solves its problem of population control, that there will be increasing threats by that country even to Canadian sovereignty. The pressures of population in the future will be far greater than those of water, than those of energy. In a word, the message which I wish to convey is that bigness for the sake of bigness, growth for the sake of growth alone, is an unworthy objective in itself. Not only is it unworthy, but detrimental, and in the case of India and China, disastrous.

In British Columbia we have taken great pride in our recent economic growth and great benefits from this are apparent, and there is no doubt that many Canadians and immigrants from foreign lands who have chosen to become British Columbians are much better off materially, educationally and recreationally than they were in 1952. However, this has not been accomplished without cost. The side effects of rapid growth are becoming more apparent all the time. The lower mainland has a smog problem which it did not have 20 years ago. The traffic problems in our major cities are more acute than they were 20 years ago, and while we have a higher level of new employment in British Columbia than any place in Canada, and we can take great pride in this, there are still too many people out of work. We are educating a greater percentage of our population than at any other time or indeed than in any other Province, but we are still short of schools. We are treating our sick in more and better ways than ever before, but the waiting time for beds increases.

These are problems which are common to any rapidly

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expanding area and this Government has done an outstanding job of coping with them and, Mr. Speaker, it is all the more remarkable when you consider the complete disregard of our Federal Government for the problems that are created by the growth in British Columbia. For every person moving into British Columbia there is immediately created a capital cost, a capital cost for hospitals, for schools, for sewage disposal, for water, for electricity. What we should have is a dowry from the Federal Government for each job which we provide for someone outside the Province but, instead, we're penalized and do not even get to keep the tax revenues which we generate within the Province. I think we need some new thinking back in Ottawa.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. McDIARMID: As one fellow said to me, if they were all that smart back in Ottawa why would they be there in the first place?

AN HON. MEMBER: How true.

MR. McDIARMID: British Columbia has certainly not come near to developing its capacity to sustain people and provide them with a good life or even a rounded life, but there is an optimum level of population and, more importantly, there is an optimum rate of growth and I think that we have been exceeding this in British Columbia. Do British Columbians want to have the population density of California? Do we want to see the lower mainland another Los Angeles? Do we want to have to make a reservation five weeks in advance to get into Garibaldi like Californians have to do to get into Yosemite? I think the answer is a resounding no, and if it means a lower standard of living in a higher standard of environment I believe that the coming generation will opt for environment. We've seen this already in that cities — Bella Coola have indicated that they're not particularly anxious to have a pulp mill, neither are they in Vernon, and this is just the beginning, I think, in a trend of people more concerned with environment than they are with money. I would go so far as to advertise in the rest of Canada to discourage people whose skills are not needed to stay there until we can catch up with the services for the people that are already here.

I'm pleased that there is to be a revision of the Land Act and I have spoken in this House before, Mr. Speaker, of the problems attendant on the increasing popularity of Long Beach as a tourist Mecca, and I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that you will be relieved to hear that I do not intend to recount those beach activities at this time other than to say that they are unchanged except for the addition of public nudity. This occurs particularly on the beach known locally as Wreck Bay, and in The Sun of July the 24th we have a picture that was taken by a Sun photographer, Peter Brook, which portrays this particular activity which is occurring, I'd say with increasing frequency, on the beaches of the West Coast.

AN HON. MEMBER: Pornographic literature.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that you on the left?

MR. McDIARMID: You'll notice how the logs and stumps are not endemic to the West Coast. Does this sort of thing attract you, Mr. Speaker?

This occurs particularly on a beach known locally as Wreck Bay, and while I understand that this form of rapport with nature is fairly widespread, Mr. Speaker, in the Scandinavian countries, Wreck Bay is neither Sweden or the Garden of Eden. I think that it is a fair statement to say that most Canadians are rather embarrassed and intimidated by this form of behaviour. The problem is that large numbers of hippies erect semi-permanent shelters out of driftwood and logs. A few of the more fortunate were able to secure stumps, and literally took over the public foreshore. This also occurred on Long Beach and many other of our beaches. There are no toilet facilities or garbage collection facilities and, as a result, Mr. Speaker, it is a deplorable mess.

I'd like to read to you a letter to the Editor entitled "Beach Litter". "I decided to make an accurate survey of the conditions (this is on Long Beach). It took (this is a very meticulous investigator) it took five hours to cover two miles of unorganized beach campsites. The Parks Department has built an organized area on the beach for half a mile. This survey was conducted from its border south for two miles, one-third of the total beach area. Although there were 108 campsites, of which 104 were vacant and 4 were occupied, there I found 82 dirty campsites and 22 clean ones. There was a total of 1,688 pieces of garbage in that two-mile stretch. Here's a breakdown of what I found. 330 beer cans, 200 pop cans, 938 tin cans of all sorts, 54 glass containers, 44 broken glass containers, 27 beer bottles and 17 liquor bottles, 40 no-deposit bottles, 23 plastic containers, (it just goes to show that there are other people drinking beer on the beach) one wrecked old car and one rusty bike."

AN HON. MEMBER: No wine bottles?

MR. McDIARMID:….So that this, Mr. Speaker, in fact is a real problem, where you have literally thousands of people using this area of beach with no facilities, and the Parks Department can't be expected to provide this for the whole area, and they have done part of it.

On a review of the Land Act and in discussion with members of the Department of Lands I became aware that the Crown had little or no authority to regulate the activities which occur on its land. There is no question in my mind that the Crown should be able to give itself the right to prohibit specific use of its land or activities upon any designated Crown land. If in the area in question the Crown were to prohibit the erection of structures and of overnight camping, the people would be obliged to camp in the designated areas where proper services are provided, and I hope that an amendment along these lines is what is contemplated in the Speech from the Throne.

A problem of concern in my constituency and one which I am sure is shared by many other members of this House and one which I am sure is near and dear to your heart, Mr. Speaker, is the once proud industry which has become a Cinderella and to date has failed to find the glass slipper, and I refer to the fishing industry. There is a great feeling of alienation and disaffection for the Social Credit Government among the many fishermen, and it has been fostered by our neglect and disinterest of fishing in our haste to develop the forests and hydro-electricity. There is no question that there has been a decline in the number of fish, and the reasons for this are many and diverse, not the least of which has been the fact of over-fishing in itself. But with the greatly increased activity of logging, more fishing streams have been logged off than ever before, and regardless of how carefully this is done,

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it does not help the fishing. Many older pulp mills and chemical effluents from other sources have also not done the fishing any good. We collect $50,000,000 a year on stumpage alone and not a nickel goes towards the rehabilitation of the fish. We rightly take refuge behind the B.N.A. Act that says that this is a Federal responsibility, but these fishermen are British Columbians and, Mr. Speaker, they need our help.

The Federal Government has made a mockery of the B.N.A. Act. They move into the field of health which is none of their concern, they wave the carrot on the stick, and then they are moving out of the care of our native Indians, there's no question about that, just read the White Paper, which is clearly their responsibility. Mr. Davis has tried to cope with the problems of too many fishermen chasing too few fish by reducing the number of fishermen. It is obvious why he did this. It is a lot cheaper and easier to regulate the fishermen out of business than to provide more fish. But who can deny that to provide the fish is a better answer? It can be done, but it takes money, and the answer is not in forming our own Provincial Fisheries Department, that is, a large Department of Fisheries, as has been suggested in many quarters both on this side of the House and the other side of the House and by the fishermen. There are enough people in the act now, what with the Federal fisheries officers and the Provincial forestry officers who largely look after this at the local level, without making it a three ring circus, without interjecting another level. As well as this, many of the regulations which affect our fishermen depend on international agreements which are clearly the prerogative of the Federal Government. By damming the Columbia River the United States almost destroyed its Pacific salmon fishery and to bring it back they had to spend millions upon millions of dollars to perfect the techniques of hatcheries and spawning channels. Through this massive expenditure they have provided a technology which can significantly increase our salmon run by utilizing these hatcheries and spawning channels. The Federal Government has made cut-backs recently in this vital programme and it is to be regretted. I believe that the Government of British Columbia should enter into a 50-50 cost-sharing agreement with the Federal Government whereby each party provides two and a half million dollars yearly in a five-year programme, which would be spent for capital expenditures in developing hatcheries and spawning channels in the Province of British Columbia, and this could provide a fantastic resurgence for the commercial and, of course, the increasing pressures of the sport fishermen as well.

Various Chambers of Commerce have recently advocated a salt-water angling fee, but there again it's always for the other guy. These are for non-resident anglers, and I believe that a salt-water angling fee for everyone would be a realistic way of raising some of the money to go into this programme. I believe that we could prove that by utilizing a relatively few selected areas in British Columbia that we could go ahead and log the other streams with impunity, thereby having our cake and eating it too.

At the local level, as I mentioned before, the Federal fisheries officer is the one who has to deal most closely with the logging company, so that the interests of the fishermen are protected. In many instances there is little or no liaison between these two, although it has gotten better in recent years, but certainly I think that the Government, particularly the Department of Forestry, should take the initiative in holding seminars throughout various regions, whereby the Provincial forester and the Federal fisheries officer are brought together in seminars to discuss the problem about which both are having to deal with in the field, and this would, I think, create a lot less confusion. The fishermen would feel, in fact, that their interests were being preserved, which they do not feel now. They feel that the loggers are raping the forests without consideration for the fishing whatsoever. I think if they knew that there was a close liaison between these groups, that they would have a lot better feeling towards it, and I think that this is something that the Minister in charge of Forests could well do on his own to get these people in to talk things over.

Considering the recent changes in the fisheries regulations as they affect British Columbians, I think it is imperative that at this sitting of the House, the Standing Committee of Forestry and Fisheries should place an investigation into the fishing industry at its highest priority. The Minister of Recreation and Conservation should give to this House his assurance forthwith that this will be done. The mission, Mr. Speaker, is abundantly clear to all members on all sides of the House — the concern for environment is uppermost in everybody's mind. It has been given the number one priority by President Nixon, and I heartily endorse the suggestion from the member for Oak Bay, and now from the member for Vancouver-Capilano, that a Department concerned solely with the problems of our environment should be created without delay.

On the motion of the Hon. D.R.J. Campbell, the debate was adjourned to the next sitting of the House.

Pursuant to Order, the Hon. L.R. Peterson presented the report recommending the members to compose the Special Committee on Automobile Insurance for the present Session.

The report was taken as read and received and, by leave of the House, the Rules were suspended and the report adopted.

The House adjourned at 5.45 p.m.