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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1970

The House met at 2 p.m.

On the motion of the Hon. L.R. Peterson, the following Bills were introduced, read a first time, and Ordered to be placed on the Orders of the Day for second reading at the next sitting after today:

Bill (No. 17), intituled An Act to Amend the Land Registry Act.

Bill (No. 16) intituled An Act to Amend the Consumer Protection Act.

By leave of the House, on the motion of the Hon. W.A.C. Bennett (Premier), the House proceeded to the Order "Motions and Adjourned Debates on Motions."

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT (Premier): I am calling Resolution No. 3, adjourned because, Mr. Speaker, I'm very anxious that the members, when we get in committee on Estimates, will not be hindered in discussing certain matters of the public interest. Resolution No. 3, adjourned debate.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Minister of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources.

HON. R.G. WILLISTON: Well, Mr. Speaker, as the House realizes, on Friday afternoon we entered into this debate on the resolution, and so there can be no doubt and we're not batting around any puff balls this afternoon, I propose to read a letter at the commencement of the debate, addressed to the Premier from the Chairman of the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority, dated January the 8th, 1970. It's my proposal, Mr. Speaker, that having read the letter and then proceeding into the debate, I file copies of the letter with this House. The letter reads, January 8th, 1970 and addressed to the Honourable W.A.C. Bennett.

"Dear Mr. Prime Minister. Re: Increase in electric rates.

"I am enclosing a report containing proposals for new rates for electricity. These recommendations have been approved both by the Executive Management Committee and by the Directors.

"At this time there is no recommendation for any change in gas rates.

"I think the recommendations are fairly clear. The following points may be of interest.

"(a) The proposed increases are estimated to produce $15,150,000 additional revenue in the year 1970-71. This would give an estimated surplus of $5.1 million on the overall 1970-71 operating account. In 1971-72 we estimate the surplus will be $3.6 million. As you know, our stabilization of rates and contingency reserves was $85.6 million as of March 31, 1969. The corresponding figure for Ontario Hydro is $859 million, and for Quebec Hydro $711 million.

"(b) The minimum charge on the residential rate is to be increased from $1.00 to $2.00 per month. There are very few customers in this range. People with summer camps or on long holidays would pay a little more. It should be noted that it costs $47.59 per year or $4.00 per month just to service a customer. Any electricity used on a bill less than $4.00 a month is supplied free of charge. Incidentally, the minimum monthly charge for a telephone in Vancouver is $4.90.

"(c) We lose money on all residential customers whose bills are less than $12.00 per month, and barely break even on bills higher than this. One reason for the poor profitability is the low load factor for residential customers.

"(d) The proposed increase will leave most residential customers below the rates charged in 1961. This is not a bad record after nine years of galloping inflation. It is doubtful if any other commodity can show anything comparable."

"The comparisons are shown in the following table: The comparison of residential rates, the B.C. Electric 1961 verses the proposed Hydro on the 1st of April 1970. The monthly consumption in kilowatts, the first bill is the B.C. Electric, 1961; the new one is the proposed monthly bill; and then there is a reduction or increase as the case may be. So for 40 kilowatts, B.C. Electric, $2.00; the proposal $2.00. No change. For 70 kilowatt hours the monthly bill, 1961, was $3.50; the proposed rate will be $2.10, and the reduction or increase will be $1.40 in reduction. On 100 kilowatt hours the monthly bill, 1961 — $4.25; the proposed rate $3.00, the reduction $1.25. 200 kilowatts $6.75 in 1961; $6.00 in the proposal, a reduction of 75 cents.

"For 400 kilowatts — I want to bring special reference to this in just a moment, Mr. Speaker, but 400 kilowatt hours in 1961 — $10.07, the proposal $10.10; the increase will be 3 cents. For 700 kilowatt hours, 1961 — $12.77; the new rate $13.40, the increase, 63 cents. 1,000 kilowatt hours, 1961 — $16.19, the new proposal $16.70; the increase will be 51 cents. 1,500 kilowatt hours, 1961 — $22.44, the new rate $22.20, an actual reduction of 24 cents. 2,000 kilowatts 1961 — $28.69, proposal, $27.70. The actual reduction, 99 cents."

There is a note underneath, you'll find in the letter, which says that the red figures refer to the three increases I mentioned of 3 cents, 63 cents and 51 cents.

"The red figures indicate an increase in costs. It will be noted that the reductions for the lower consumers are considerably greater than the increases for those in the medium-high range. About 47.5 per cent of our bills are for less than 400 kilowatts per month."

Certainly all the people on low and medium incomes are in that category.

"Because of the time factor involved in our bi-monthly billing arrangements, we must know by March 1st if new rates are to be effective April 1st.

"If there is any additional information you would like to have in regard to these proposals, I trust you will let me know."

And it is signed Yours sincerely, G.M. Shrum.

Mr. Speaker, by leave of the House I'll file two copies of this letter so that there is no mistake in what I have read. The people can examine them in that degree of detail.

MR. SPEAKER: Shall leave be granted?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. WILLISTON: Sorry, I filed two at once there. I filed the transit fares at the same time, so I'll read the letter concerning the transit fares as well. In a separate letter dated January 7th, 1970, also addressed to the Honourable W.A.C. Bennett,

"Dear Mr. Prime Minister: Re: Increase in urban transit fares.

"I am enclosing, as appendix A, a proposal for increased urban transit fares. These increases have been approved both by the Executive Management Committee and by the Directors of Hydro.

"The essential features of the new fare structure are as follows:"

I'll read this slowly, Mr. Speaker, because the impact of this arrangement catches as it comes through.

"(a) The new rate for Victoria and each single zone in Vancouver to be 25 cents cash. This is an increase from the present four tickets for 75 cents or 20 cents cash fare. (There are four zones in the greater Vancouver area.)

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"(b) Inter-zone fares to be single zone plus 15 cents as at present, but single zone fares will be increased by approximately five cents; this will increase the inter-zone fare to 40 cents.

"(c) The Downtowner pass will be increased from 25 cents to 30 cents.

"(d) Student and children's cash fares will not be changed, but tokens, which are presently sold at a discount, will be discontinued.

"(e) It is proposed to introduce an exact cash fare plan. This is the trend in most cities on the Continent. It has been introduced mainly because of the increasing frequency of robberies of bus operators. It will also tend to speed up service.

"(f) The estimated increase in revenue is $2,552,000.

"(g) There will be no change in the arrangement for passes sold to persons in receipt of the Provincial supplementary social allowance.

"Since the above proposals were approved, I have been studying the problems created by these increases for people on fixed incomes. I would like to suggest that we modify the above proposals by adding the following concession:

"(a) During the off-peak periods — 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and after 7:00 p.m. — and on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, when there are really no peaks, we eliminate the inter-zonal fares. This means that a person could ride any distance on the whole system for 25 cents. Effectively, this would mean a reduction from the present 35 cents cash (and proposed 40 cents cash) for all those living in North Vancouver, Richmond and Burnaby, provided they did not ride during the peak hours. It would be a great advantage to retired people and housewives, but would be applicable to everyone. We already have this hourly restriction for our Pensioner passes and for the return trip home for the Downtowner pass.

"This modification of the proposals has been endorsed by Mr. P.W. Barchard, the Manager of the Transportation Division, and the Honourable Mr. Kiernan, Mr. Gunderson, Mr. Steede have approved of its submission for your consideration."

It was done at the time when I was away on holiday, so to make sure where I stand, I'll add my name to the situation at the moment. So that includes all of us on the directional end.

"There is one other important point, Mr. Prime Minister. If we are to install suitable equipment for the exact fare plan and get the printing required for redemption of tokens and refunds of change for the exact fare plan, etc., for operation by April 1st, we must have a final decision as early as possible. Any announcement regarding details can be postponed until about March 1st.

"As supplementary information, I am enclosing a document — "Report on Profitability of Urban Transit." I should like to draw your attention particularly to some underlined sections on pages 1, 4, 6, 7, and 8.

"If there is any additional information you require in respect to this submission please let me know. I hope you can give us an early decision in regard to the implementation of these proposals. Signed, Yours sincerely, G. M. Shrum."

The date again, Mr. Speaker, is January 7th, 1970, and attached to the letter is the Appendix A, which lists the fares, which I mentioned to you in some detail.

There is only one point in here that hasn't been covered insofar as the letter is concerned, and that is that by going to an exact fare cash plan, the estimated savings of handling in the system is $125,000 a year on the operational account. It is proposed that these rates become effective also on April 1st, 1970. And Mr. Speaker, I filed both letters at the same time, not two copies of one letter. Both copies of both letters were filed at the same time.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is there a reply?

MR. WILLISTON: I beg your pardon? There's no reply; we're debating the reply, Mr. Speaker, at the present time with the facts and factors of the information being available.

There are one or two points in debate, Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring about just in reply. First of all, to the situation insofar as the electric account is concerned, which I mentioned some of them last Friday, I was most happy in that, when it was reported in the press, that the headline came out, insofar as the Times was concerned, that the increase was due to errors along the top. Errors, as I indicated in this House, of lack of faith in the exact size of the increased load which we were required to handle insofar as the B.C. Hydro was concerned. I would just like to emphasize one point in public responsibility, insofar as that headline was concerned. I appreciated, for the simple reason that I doubt if any newspaper group, the Times, the Sun and, aided by the Liberal group in this House, if you go back to the headlines, when we were advocating a total position on power in this Province involving two-river policy and moving in, if we were ridiculed any more and held to more derision than we were by those elements at that particular time.

To create a public atmosphere, an environment, by which the people would accept a programme to handle needs in the future, requires the effort of all of us, not just the efforts of those in the planning section. It requires the effort of all people to enable us in general to understand the situation. Therefore it becomes most difficult to create a proper environmental situation, when everyone tries to point out that you are stark-raving mad, generating this quantity of electricity for the future needs of the people, and we already find ourselves in a most difficult position to meet those load growths had we proceeded.

Had there been, Mr. Speaker, had there been in those early days, when money was easier to get, a better environmental situation created insofar as we were concerned here, to push forward with the programme, we would have pushed forward in the programme with greater rapidity, had our money at lesser interest rates and been better able to meet the world needs, not only of British Columbia, but the products we send from British Columbia which require electricity in their basic manufacture. But you can no longer, Mr. Speaker, you can't move any faster or further than general public opinion will go with you at the time.

Point two, Mr. Speaker, and I want, as we move forward now, because this is the debate and this is the decision we are entering onto in this Legislature at the present time, and if there is one person that caught the significance and started to reverse the field, it was the honourable member from Vancouver East the other day, that recognized the error of the position that the N.D.P. has got themselves into, and he reversed his position insofar as planning for the future happened to be concerned.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: I didn't say reverse. I wasn't talking about the future. I don't think you should say that I said or suggested that the N.D.P. had been in error in their criticism.

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MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Honourable the Minister will accept the statement from the member.

MR. WILLISTON: I'll accept that, Mr. Speaker, because for the example, when you are in Opposition you can, without responsibility, you can change direction, you can change direction very, very rapidly.

MR. SPEAKER: I call the Minister to order, and proceed.

MR. WILLISTON: I'll say something now to the leader of the Liberal group, Mr. Speaker, because last day, the biggest part in introducing debate on this topic which we have this afternoon, had to do with the investment in the programme of B.C. Hydro at the present time.

The honourable member drew to the attention of the House the monies which had been invested in B.C. Hydro account from the Canada Pension Fund and other sources, and indicated that was improper practice. He didn't go on to indicate further, of course, that until the Federal Government changed their requirements, in the initial instance, Mr. Speaker, in the initial instance — and he realizes as well as anyone else that there had to be legislative change in this House to meet the requirement of the Federal Government — so that those funds could have been used for schools and hospitals where they are being used at the present time, and the Legislature has been brought in, and the honourable member knows full well that we did not put the restrictive covenants on the investment of those funds when they were placed out in the first instance.

Now however, Mr. Speaker, he's just welding himself into a position right now, and this debate is going to bring it up and put full focus upon it, because in emphasizing his position there, even with our investments today, and the fact that Hydro-Québec, as late as one month ago, put their investment policy on the line by attempting to raise $50,000,000 on their capital programme at the present time, and found themselves in the position that there were no buyers for the $50,000,000. The Quebec account for the programme they have at the present time, Quebec accounts had to absorb the $50,000,000 that they put out to market at the present time.

Ontario Hydro have announced a programme to meet their needs, Mr. Speaker, of $50,000,000 every two months, on the market, and you may recall, if you have been reading the financial papers, that the Government of Ontario has moved, not against Hydro, but to an examination of Hydro in the fact that on today's capital fund market, it is impossible for Ontario Hydro to move into the market to meet their demands of $50,000,000 every two months, and the Ontario Government to still proceed with any basic programmes of capitalization which they require.

We just returned from a Federal-Provincial Conference, involving all….

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is "we"?

MR. WILLISTON: The Premier, who is the financial officer, and we are talking about basically finance here. When he speaks, Mr. Speaker, he speaks for the Government of British Columbia, he speaks for all of us.

Certainly in this case I think we are all cognizant of what our responsibilities are going to be, and this is what our responsibility is right now. We might just as well. This is how serious it is. We're talking about labour. We're talking about jobs. We're talking about new industry. The decision in increases, unless we've got increases in all of those, there are no jobs to employ people. But, Mr. Speaker, the situation, and all British Columbians should know this and make this decision right now, because this decision is so serious that those of us who are in Hydro have not had a weekend off, a Saturday or a Monday morning, since the beginning of the year, including this last weekend, because we are fighting with this problem as we go.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's your mess.

MR. WILLISTON: Our mess — that's right. A load growth that's absolutely tremendous in the Province of British Columbia. A load growth that's absolutely tremendous, and we created it. That's right. We created it. We created the biggest increase in jobs for people in Canada, and the increase on those people in jobs was created in no greater measure than through the activities of B.C. Hydro, and don't kid yourself.

Now, Mr. Speaker, when we are dealing with this — and let's hear these Liberal people yell, because they yelled to us long enough that we had too much power and we wouldn't know what to do with it. Mr. Speaker, I invite them to take the position now that there be no capital investment in Hydro and face up to the decision which they happen to be making at the present time.

I gave you the other day where some of our increases are going — just note. Our growth increase was up, Mr. Speaker, 9.9 per cent, but our interest costs were up, in these last nine months, 34.9 per cent. Our depreciation was up, with greater plant, of 15.8 per cent; unemployment costs were up 11.9 per cent.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: What are American costs?

MR. WILLISTON: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member, I recited what the American interest costs were the other day, and I gave them to him. And if he didn't get them, I'll give them to him again, because that's where we have to meet the competition. That's where we have to meet the competition, and they are still going to get them, and the way to do it, Mr. Speaker, from these people across the way, the way these people do it is to give bonds for hydro-electric energy in the States, and give them to people that have got the money, and not charge any interest on those bonds. If we made that as a policy in Canada, we'd get the investment, and they'd pay no income tax upon it, but it is not a policy in Canada. It is not a policy in Canada.

(Interjection from some member)

MR. SPEAKER: Would the honourable the second member from Vancouver East please stop these constant, unnecessary and very rude interruptions.

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MR. WILLISTON: The employment costs, Mr. Speaker, in the last nine months, were up 11.9 per cent, and I gave some background of this the other day. Our grants in taxes were up 17.4 per cent, and the actual operation and the administrative costs — for the benefit of the leader of the Liberal group, who wished to get this into committee so he could examine this in great detail — the actual administrative costs in Hydro, of an increasing plant and increasing responsibility, were actually down 4.7 per cent or $1,500,000.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why are you against a committee?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. WILLISTON: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member says: are you against a committee or are you not against a committee? Mr. Speaker, we are in the position, right now, of having to make decisions right now, and we have to make those decisions right now to get us through this coming year, and this coming year we are moving right now to meet this situation. If we get into a committee at the present time, and this committee moves from now to the end of the Session, both the rate increases, which are absolutely mandatory…. If we are going to at least be above the level for the next year, the action must be taken, and taken right now. As the Chairman of Hydro has indicated to you, that date of action is March 1st of this year. The whole position, as we go, is March 1st for decision, and you can't put these things in without a tremendous amount of preliminary work as you happen to proceed.

Mr. Speaker, anyone going to the capital funding market in the future, you will never pick up your funds, even limited or greater funds, whichever happen to be decided as a matter of policy, but you won't pick them up if the Hydro account, when you go to the market, is a Hydro account which is in a deficit position. The people who manage Hydro have not the responsibility to accept that situation and ensure that there is enough revenue entering that organization at least to level or to keep a balanced sheet.

The honourable the leader of the Liberal group, in speaking to this House the other day, Mr. Speaker, emphasized that, insofar as the Canadian situation and restraint was concerned, this could not be taken at the moment. He didn't give you the prime purpose for which this is directed. This action is directed towards curbing profit. When you are not making any profit in an organization, the curb of it to increase deficits, to make your ability even to borrow that much greater, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The Federal Government at the present time is curbing unnecessary profit. Unnecessary profit taken off the top is what they are attempting to do. If you are making no profit at the present time, we're not curbing inflation by increasing deficit. Now, Mr. Speaker, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Mr. Speaker, in review, I've indicated to you, insofar as Hydro is concerned, the great difficulty and expense of increasing service under the present trying conditions and the load it has placed on our capital structure, and just to reiterate, our average load growth has been about 10 per cent.

If you take — and we just went through this on the weekend, believe it or not — the West End of Vancouver, where all the apartments have risen in place of the single dwellings, it has required a complete re-establishment of service in that area before the original service was amortized. As you move into that new underground system and into the apartments, and this was a surprise to me, even the costs of single metering and single meter device in those apartments, each single one, are four times what they were in the original dwelling, as they were placed in. That entire area for the West End of Vancouver practically has had to be changed before the amortization of the original equipment has been possible.

Now there's all kinds of people could say, everybody, of course, could visualize the time these tremendous apartment buildings would be in that area at the moment. But this problem is facing us at the present time, unless we tell them, as the decision is getting here right now: "So sorry, we're not changing service; we're not providing the industrial load; we're not taking out of service equipment that has not been amortized." And it goes right back to your transformers, your whole load, the whole set-up of the Vancouver system, which is fantastically expensive as we change around now. I say, as I said before, that was an error, and you will find it in the newspaper columns. It was an error. But I want to ask you, who was smart enough at the original time to see the density of population and the build-up and to put in the service at the time that would lead to that use that we have at the moment?

I told you last day that our increased service in British Columbia had gone up from 4.8 to 6.7. That's the increase of all the old customers plus all the new customers, and that's thousands of kilowatt hours. It's gone up 40 per cent in ten years, and all your service areas, everything you've designed for throughout the system has had to take care of not only the reestablishment of your old areas, but also the greater expense to place into your new areas through a new standard of installation. This has led to a tremendous increase in the cost of our distribution plant, which we've had to handle at the same time.

Another very large cost, Mr. Speaker, and this has to be expense for this, and the situation has to be accepted in this House, because remember when we put the Peace on line and they said they plucked it out of the 1980s and put it into now. We estimated when the Peace came on that three-tenths of the plants of the Peace, three-tenths, would do us till 1975 — that's three generators out of the eventual ten. We were laughed at insofar as that is concerned. What's happened today, and why are we in that spot? And why is it that critical? It's that critical because we're just in 1970; we haven't got three on, but we've got five on the line. We're putting on six and seven on the line right now; we're ordered into ten, and the immediate demands on capital and interest payments are absolutely fantastic. They've been telescoped into a much narrower period of time than anyone had anticipated.

The reason for that is this: when you take new plants on line, if you've got three carriers, you take three-tenths of the total cost of the dam, of the powerhouse, of the generators, the turbines, and the transmission line, and you handle three-tenths of the total cost on your operational account, and you continue to amortize as capital the other seven-tenths of that charge until such times as you bring that on to your operational service. So instead of in 1975, with us having to handle on a retirement basis with interest, three-tenths of the cost of the Peace River Dam at the present time, already we're having to handle five-tenths of the cost of the Peace River Dam.

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We're having to increase and expedite the second transmission line that has come down, and if you don't think we need it, Mr. Speaker, just one week ago when some fault, a snow slide or something came down the mountain, shorted out the line — we've only got one line yet in operation — it blanked us out and gave us trouble right from Vancouver to Prince George. We are that vulnerable.

When these people talk about the Americans, and our inter-relations with the Americans, I wish they'd remember this, that in that momentary business when we were in trouble, and we were in bad trouble, because over 50 per cent of our power is coming from the Peace, when we were in that trouble on a momentary notice — all this stuff we've heard about the Americans, just listen — they dumped load all through the Pacific Northwest, and in a matter of moments they energized those lines into British Columbia for 1,000,000 kilowatts to save us, 1,000,000 kilowatts. They ran those lines, all their own lines and our own lines, completely over capacity to save us at the time, until those lines had almost got to the heat stage where they would have gone out of service because of their heat and the melt point that was on. That's the kind of cooperation you get, Mr. Speaker, when you happen to be in there.

Well, I think…. Beg your pardon? They came in over the line down at Blaine and they dumped interruptible load all through the Bonneville system to give us the million kilowatts that we required to save our system at a moment's notice in the Vancouver area. We did not lose the Vancouver area. If you'll recall, most of our trouble was up in the Interior in the Cariboo and from there to Prince George.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I've covered most of those, but one or two other points besides this increase, we've had to put increased thermal-generation on line, which you have to pay for, and one of those installations on Burrard Thermal to 150,000 kilowatts costs you better than $20,000,000 to install, and we had to expedite one of those on to line because of the great load growth insofar as before the Peace River actually moved. That plant will be required — as a matter of fact it's absolutely essential. Now the load growth is gone, but at the time we made the decision it was a safeguarding decision insofar as the load growth situation was concerned in Vancouver.

I've covered most of the other basic questions, Mr. Speaker. Other people will engage in this debate, and other people can speak to the situation insofar as transit is concerned.

May I point out to the people in the lower mainland area, for those of us who represent areas in other parts of the Province, the only subsidized transportation in the Province of British Columbia, the only one subsidized by Hydro, by this Legislature, is in the lower mainland area. They don't subsidize it in Nelson, they don't subsidize it in Prince George, they don't subsidize it in Kamloops, they don't subsidize it in any other single area — the people of the Province of British Columbia.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not even in Sooke.

MR. WILLISTON: Not even in Sooke. Well, Mr. Speaker, all of their communities subsidize them, all of their municipal councils subsidize them in those communities. What I'm saying to you, Mr. Speaker — and we'll keep out of the Coquitlam, they're having a bad enough trouble — but I'll tell you today insofar as Coquitlam and the difficulties there, even if you give them the service, and even if they charge higher rates of pay, that man, if you go down and show him, will show you right now that even though we're not picking up, that we've given him the buses, he's still going broke and we're servicing his buses at the present time, as well as that is concerned. Well, Mr. Speaker, you can't have it both ways. The honourable member says, why don't you move in? How much are you going to subsidize those communities without going into a complete subsidization system in the Province of British Columbia?

Mr. Speaker, if I've been able to get any impression across at all this afternoon, it is the fact that this matter is urgent right now. It was urgent before this Legislature sat. The positions you adopt in this debate insofar as this power question is concerned are going to be the most critical, believe me, insofar as the employment and future development of this Province are concerned. The position you adopt is going to be more critical than any decision you will take this year or for many years to come. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. D. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, you never know when the day of reckoning is going to come. You never know. You know, Mr. Speaker, 55 minutes of smog, backtracking, backfilling, backpedalling hot air in an attempt to avoid the real responsibility of this, "today's crisis in Hydro." Who's he trying to kid?

We had Minutes from the Hydro from last July about the increase. I know they're not secret, they're not confidential; they're just not available. We had this information last July, and it's an insult to B.C. Hydro's auditors and accountants that the decision only came to light in the last few days. Who's he trying to kid? The nerve, Mr. Speaker, the nerve of the Minister to stand here and say it's all going to be our decision now, because it's their mess, Mr. Speaker, their blundering mess that brought us to this point today — and there's no question about that — and then to come in here and read a couple of letters about how much money it's going to cost to buy electricity in British Columbia, and how much money it's going to cost to go on the bus, and we can't discuss that at committee because we might delay that decision. That decision's going to go ahead, Mr. Speaker, no matter what else happens in this House.

The date of the letter was in early January. This Motion was put on the Order Paper on January the 29th. If there was such a sense of urgency about all of us sharing in the responsibility of making this momentous decision, we could have had a committee a month ago. All of a sudden now democracy has to come into play. All of a sudden now we have to make a decision together here in this room, and you want to know the results of that vote, my friends, for those of you who still believe there is some chance? The vote will be 37 to 17 no matter what, no matter what. You see, Mr. Speaker, who's kidding who?

Here was a Motion that's asking for a committee to be struck to discuss the very thing that the Minister says we all have to make a decision on. A crisis. And he wants us to go rushing headlong into his hysterical commitments? No way, no way. We want a committee. We want democracy to work as it's set up to work. We don't want any tactics such as the Minister is suggesting today — we all make a decision, hold hands in this room and make a decision today.

What's really involved is that the Hydro rate will go ahead, the increases will go ahead, the transit increases will go ahead as well.

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A committee is not going to stop that. Nothing is going to stop it, because your blundering mismanagement of the fiscal matters of this Province has brought it to this state, Mr. Speaker. Brought it to this state. Four hundred and nineteen million dollars short on the Columbia River. Even the Americans are willing to hot up their lines to service that kind of deal, Mr. Speaker, any time, any time. Here we are, here we are. "Nothing's freer than free," was the line we got.

AN HON. MEMBER: A reduction every year.

MR. BARRETT: A reduction every year. I want to read this quote from the honourable the Minister of Lands and Forests, and I feel sorry for him, he's the bad news boy, he's the bad news boy. You want to know something? I'll let you in on a little secret. If there had been an announcement of a power rate decrease today, do you think that same Minister would make the announcement? You know who would make the announcement? Not the Attorney General, not the Minister of Municipal Affairs, not the Minister of Welfare, none other than the man who made this statement back in 1963, because it's a pattern with him, and I quote from the Times, February the 27th, 1963, "Bennett sees more rate cuts." "He shows it like it is," said the Member, "he shows it like it is."

When the bad news comes home, does Big Daddy speak? Not on your life, not on your life. The financial wizard that's cost us $419,000,000. And his explanation for this yesterday, Mr. Speaker? I watched him on television; he was beautiful, he was beautiful. I enjoy the Premier; he's one of the greatest thespians in British Columbia. There he was asked a question by a reporter about what are we going to do about this over-expenditure on the Columbia? You know what he said? He said, "It's going to be nothing freer than free, my friends," and he looked right in that camera, and he smiled and he said, "Well, we've sold thirty years of it and we're $419,000,000 short."

Your books say you're $419,000,000 short, your Public Accounts say you're $419,000,000 short. We know you're $419,000,000 short, and it's right there in your answers. If you want to go through that in detail, we'll do that in just a minute. You sit, and I'll read your own figures. But anyway, you know what he said, Mr. Speaker? He said that we sold thirty years — that takes us to 1994 — at a loss, but then if we sell another thirty years to 2024, Mr. Speaker, then we'll be ahead. In other words, a sixty-year treaty. In other words the whole deal has been to give away the whole resources of the Columbia River for sixty years to end up even, Mr. Speaker, after sixty years.

AN HON. MEMBER: All our power for nothing.

MR. BARRETT: You know. All our power for nothing….. Even that's too much for the Minister of Lands and Forests, because I want to read you  — he's laughing too. Even he, you know, he said, I want to read this — the honourable Minister of Lands and Forests, speaking on November the 24th, 1961, at Prince George, this is what he said, "I have never had to change the story, alter back, back up, or change my course in the last five years on hydro matters." That's what he said. Two years later his boss announces that there is going to be a decrease in power rates. Premier W.A.C. Bennett, on February 27, 1963, predicted a $5,000,000 reduction in the British Columbia power rates each year for the next ten years. 1963. The Premier said he hoped the reduction could be made every March 30th, the anniversary of Government amalgamation of B.C. Electric Company, B.C. Power Commission, and B.C. Hydro and Power Authority. What happened to that? What happened to that?

I want to make something very clear, Mr. Speaker. Even the Minister of Lands and Forests acknowledges this, that no matter what the Government says, or what the Liberals say, this group in this House for 35 years has been the consistent and only consistent advocate for public power in British Columbia, Mr. Speaker. The only advocate. And let's not anyone get any misconceptions about where the concept of public power developed.

We're not opposed to public power, Mr. Speaker, but we're opposed to public power playing politics in this Province, cheap politics in this Province. That statement was made by the Minister when he was heading for an election campaign. The fact that we were going to have a hydro increase was kept from the public of British Columbia in the August election campaign, and it is to the credit of that esteemed head of Hydro, Dr. Gordon Shrum, that he himself admitted that politics interferes in the decision of Hydro. And we have that on record. And I am pleased that a civil servant would stand up to this big Government and admit that it was politics that played the decision-making process.

Now, the Minister announces today, as if we had all the facts and figures in front of us: we don't need a committee, we can go ahead and do our thing. Just endorse the mess that this Government's in, to get them out of it.

Last week I got an answer back from the Premier about the cost of Peace River power. You know what the Premier said? The Premier said it will cost five mills after being integrated in the grid system. That's what the Premier said. Well, he operates on a different kind of Ouija board.

I asked the Minister of Lands and Forests what it would cost. He never even answered my letter.

I wrote to the honourable Dr. Gordon Shrum last October because I am a citizen. I knew that we would be facing this crisis today, that is going to overwhelm the population of British Columbia unless we make a momentous decision like give a stamp of approval for hydro rate increase. I wrote Dr. Gordon Shrum in October of last year, and he answered on October 30th, and I quote his second paragraph. He said, "Unfortunately we have no figures regarding the cost of Peace power now being delivered into our grid system. To make even an estimate of this cost would involve a great many assumptions upon which it would be difficult to get any considered agreement." The head of Hydro says on October 30th that you can't make that kind of decision. And yet the Minister says blandly, the Minister of Finance says blandly, that it is five mills. It's politics, Mr. Speaker, shameful, plain, unabashed, ruthless politics that has blundered us into this situation.

To talk about jobs, $80,000,000 of capital expense has been spent around the area of Bellingham, Washington, in the last five years for industrial development.

HON. R.G. WILLISTON: And three times that in the Prince George area.

MR. BARRETT: Eighty million dollars related strictly to hydro use besides other development. Now, what does Bellingham have that we don't have? Bellingham has unemployment — we've got our share of that. Bellingham has a railroad that is going through, maybe even get our Kaiser coal shipped for us if we're lucky. Bellingham has nice little

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mountains, roads, a railroad. We've got all that in Coquitlam. We've even got it in Dewdney, Chilliwack. Why didn't those electrical-consuming industries locate in the lower Fraser Valley or on Vancouver Island in Saanich, where my friend would welcome them? He needs those jobs. All of us may be looking for jobs, my friend. And I want to say this, Mr. Speaker, why weren't those jobs there? The jobs weren't there, because the low-cost power from the Columbia River was available at half price of anything we could sell in British Columbia, in Bellingham.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I have been in touch with people at Bonneville because I like the teaching attitude of the Minister, and I like to go to the source and find out facts for myself because I find out that I can't always agree with the Minister's facts. I spoke to the Administrator of Bonneville, by the name of Mr. Richmond, and I said to Mr. Richmond, "Tell me, how did we do on the Columbia River deal?" And do you know what he said? — I've got a battery in my pocket — we're running out of power, my friend — we're running out of power. And you shouldn't make a noise outside of your seat or you'll be a bad little boy. You know, Mr. Speaker, times are really tough when the Premier has to move down to the backbenchers to lead the applause. I can remember in the heyday of his power —

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Back to the motion, please.

MR. BARRETT: I can remember in the heyday of his power he controlled it all from here.

AN HON. MEMBER: Go back to the motion.

MR. BARRETT: I spoke to — a different kind of power — and it is obviously weakening.

But, Mr. Speaker, I spoke to Mr. Richmond, and I said, "Tell me, Mr. Richmond, why won't Mr. Hickel answer my letter about an inquiry into the results of the benefits of the Columbia, who got the best deal? Why won't State Senator Jackson write back? Why do they all refer to some nebulous area? And I'll table all the letters to the committee, so the committee, so the committee can read them. I said, "Tell me, Mr. Richmond, how did we do?" "Oh," he said, "it was a good treaty." I said, "I know it was a good treaty for you. Tell me, when the United States Corps of Engineers made their prediction about the benefit of the Columbia, when they made the statement that it would be a tremendous boon and a fantastic advantage to the Americans, has that proven out?" And do you know what Mr. Richmond said to me? He said, "The most that I would tell you, Mr. Barrett, is at the very least that treaty has lived up to every one of its expectations in terms of industrial development and low-cost power for the Pacific northwest." For them. For them, Mr. Speaker, and I want to tell you something, they are too embarrassed to answer the rest of the questions. Too embarrassed. — My word? I'll table the letters. Do you want the letters?

AN HON. MEMBER: Who said that?

MR. BARRETT: My friend, he wouldn't answer the questions about Canada.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who asked for those words….

MR. BARRETT: Well, I read the questions on the Order Paper, and I find it cost us $419,000,000. Are you trying to tell me it's a good deal that we have to spend $419,000,000 to provide them with low-cost power, jobs and industrial development while this Province goes without schools, without hospitals, without needed services? If that's what you like, my friend, you go tell it to the people.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's done it. He's done it.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, sir, you've done it all right. You get up there and you smile and you say, "Take home pay with Bennett. Take home pay with Bennett."

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. BARRETT: One of those backbenchers is applauding so much he is even believing himself, Mr. Speaker. You know, take home pay with Bennett. We've got almost 8 per cent unemployment…. You know, Mr. Speaker, noise has never been a measure of intelligence, and you know, Mr. Speaker, any attempt to make all that noise to cover up the facts isn't going to fool everybody. What are the facts?

For the first time in the history of this Province we have over 100,000 people on social welfare. Unemployment is now 7½ per cent in this Province because of inadequate hydro policies. And, because we have not had low-cost power to provide jobs in this Province, over 5,000 single unemployed men are lining up for welfare cheques in the City of Vancouver. They will all be glad to hear about the applause in the House today about the take home pay, because when their wives sit around, those that are on welfare, and put on the light, and they have to pay more for the light, they can know that, thank goodness, over there in Victoria those boys are making a crisis decision today that is going to provide jobs in British Columbia. Who is kidding who?

To sum up, Mr. Speaker, we have had 55 minutes of fog covering up a monster blunder in the hydro development of this Province. A monster blunder. Did we hear the Minister stand up and tell us the exact date of when Mica will be machined and completed and be on line? We didn't hear that. That's what the crisis is all about. When will Site One come in on the Peace? That's what the crisis is all about. When will we have the dates and the times for the development of those two run-on projects?

Why don't we have a committee meeting to discuss the facts that Vancouver Island is served by a D.C. line, and the Chairman from B.C. Hydro knows that that isn't a good way, I am sure. I don't want to put words into his mouth — I'll write him a letter and ask him if he thinks that's a good way to service Vancouver Island. When are we going to make a decision in this Province about power generation on Vancouver Island? Do we need a nuclear plant on Vancouver Island? Are the costs comparable to some other use of fuel, such as coal? When are those decisions going to be made, Mr. Speaker? That's why the honourable the member from Vancouver–Point Grey, the leader of the Liberal party, put this motion on the Order Paper, and that's why I support him as a good citizen of British Columbia, to get the answers to those questions, Mr. Speaker. And for the Minister to stand here today and say we've got a crisis and we have to make a decision today….

AN HON. MEMBER: What were they doing a year ago'?

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MR. BARRETT: It is sheer nonsense, sheer nonsense. Mr. Speaker, they knew about the crisis before the election. Mr. Speaker, they have known what the load growth factor is in this Province, and that's got nothing to do with Social Credit's fertility, Mr. Speaker, not a thing. They've known what the industrial problems are in terms of competition with the rest of the Pacific northwest region. To come in here with two letters, one announcing the hydro rate increase, and a transit increase to a quarter, and say that we've got to make a crisis decision today, is sheer nonsense and political escapism, Mr. Speaker.

As to the backbenchers, they'll vote the way you want them to vote. I've never seen it change. But for the rest of us, we do want to find out just what's going on in Hydro in this Province so that we can have reasonable explanations of why services are being curtailed, and schools, and hospitals, and other capital funds.

Let me conclude by saying just a couple of things about rapid transit, Mr. Speaker. Now is the time for governments in North America to show some courage in terms of moving away from the position that we have been in all these years of making sure that automobiles move safely and that people move second.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, there are great demands on capital to expand our hydro resources in this Province. I call on this Government to review the commitment to a First Narrows crossing. Do we really want to move cars into downtown Vancouver, or are we interested in moving people? And, Mr. Speaker, with the kind of money that is available committed to road transport and complicating the traffic problems, it is time for the Government, either in committee or in policy, to grasp the decision as to whether or not we want to have a good rapid transit system in the lower mainland. We can't have a good rapid transit system at 25 cents a solo fare, Mr. Speaker. The interest alone on the cost of that First Narrows crossing would provide almost free transport, almost free transport for all of the lower mainland — the interest alone. We have to make in this House the major political decisions that are indeed a crisis, Mr. Speaker, and those can be best made in committee. Are we for the people, or are we for the automobiles? Are you prepared to make that decision? Are you prepared to give these problems real thought, the thought that they deserve?

That's what makes the backbone of the parliamentary system, Mr. Speaker, the collection of minds and energies to solve problems we face, and it's all very well for me to point out to the Government that it's your problem and the one that you created, but I want to tell you this, Mr. Speaker, and I speak for our group in this House, the New Democratic Party, we have never avoided the responsibility of making decisions based not on politics, but on what's right. That's why we want to go to that committee, and that's why we want to make decisions that are at least honourable and responsible for the citizens of this Province for the next 14 or 15 years, not to be turned off by the answers on television of selling further downstream benefits to avoid a question.

The situation is simply this, Mr. Speaker, this Government's power policy has failed. We must all come together now to resolve the problems we are faced with, and the only way to resolve those is to have this whole matter go to committee, and as quickly as possible.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won't be long in my contribution to this debate. I must say I never cease to be surprised at the debate we hear on issues of this kind in this House.

I was certain, as I listened to the Honourable Minister of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources, that he was going to support this motion because he made all the points that I thought a Minister of the Crown would make in supporting such a motion which would bring the rate structure and capital financing of the B.C. Hydro under the examination and scrutiny of this Assembly.

What did he tell us, Mr. Speaker? Well, he told us that the power requirements of this Province had risen at a rate far and beyond the expectations of B.C. Hydro and the Energy Board, which were made when this Government embarked upon the Peace River project. He denied it was an error, and I make no quarrel with him as to whether it was an error or not, but nonetheless, the power demand is critical, so critical that when some natural calamity occurs which interferes with the transmission lines from the Peace River project, the whole of the lower mainland is in danger of being without power, and we are obliged to call upon the Americans to supply us with the needed energy.

That's the same kind of situation, Mr. Speaker, which occurred in the eastern states and eastern provinces of this country just a couple of years ago, and you will recall the tragic consequences of that massive blackout on the eastern seaboard. The same kind of situation prevails here, and therefore it is a critical situation for this Province. In order to meet these rising demands, the honourable Minister tells us that the Government and the B.C. Hydro is forced to consider now the capital expenditure of monies which it had not expected to make until 1975 and the years following 1975, and again it is a crisis situation, Mr. Speaker.

With a crisis of this consequence facing B.C. Hydro, and when you consider the impact that this company and its power production has for this whole Province for the jobs, for the very existence, if we accept the word of the Minister, for the very existence of industry in this Province, then certainly it is a crisis which merits the careful attention of the members elected from every constituency, every region of this Province.

That's what this motion asks for, Mr. Speaker, that finally we bring these matters out of the secrecy of the directors' meetings of B.C. Hydro and the Cabinet of this Province, and open them, let in the light of day before the members from every area of this Province, the people who are obliged to go back and report to their constituents as to why, why so much of the fiscal strength of this Province is being devoted and made available to Hydro, and why this affects the construction of schools and hospitals and other necessary social needs.

It's an empty thing, Mr. Speaker, to go back to your constituents and say no, you are not going to get any more this year, and the reason is that the money is required for Hydro. They say why, and we have to say to them we don't know why; we are just told that that's the case. And the only reason that is given by the honourable Minister for not forming such a committee, Mr. Speaker, is that the decision with regard to rate increases is an urgent one to be made now so that it can be placed into effect by April the 1st.

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Well, Mr. Speaker, the Minister hasn't read the motion. There is nothing in the motion which restricts the consideration of rates and capital requirements of B.C. Hydro to what is happening this year. The motion is to consider all matters relating to capital financing and rate structure of British Columbia Hydro, not only for this year, Mr. Speaker, but for 1971 and '72 and '73. It is time that B.C. Hydro let us all know what the future holds, so that we may all make the decision based upon facts, facts that we receive before a committee of this Legislature, not facts that are leaked out to us bit by bit when the Chairman of B.C. Hydro has the occasion to speak to some service club in the City of Vancouver.

You know, Mr. Speaker, it has often been said in this House, on both sides, how much of the monies which are under the control of the Minister of Finance in our trust funds are made available to Hydro, Yes, we on the Opposition side, we in the Liberal party, have criticized the amount of money which the Minister of Finance has been able to devote to B.C. Hydro. But maybe we were wrong, but if we were wrong, it was wrong because we believed the monies could be used in some other way, not wrong because we were possessed of the facts which showed they could not be used any other way, and this is what the committee would decide. This would show, for once and for all, whether all these funds need be devoted to these purposes. When we find that of the trust funds that the Minister of Finance holds for teachers' pensions, Pacific Great Eastern Railway employees pensions, municipal employees pensions, civil service pensions, that 75 per cent of those monies are made available to B.C. Hydro, and when we find that something in the order of 85 per cent of all the monies that the Minister of Finance of this Province has received from the Federal Government, as our rightful due under the Canada Pension Plan, have also been made available to B.C. Hydro, we realize how closely our economy, our entire financial stability, is linked with B.C. Hydro. We have reached the situation, Mr. Speaker, where if B.C. Hydro is to fail, then the entire economic stability of this Province is thrust into jeopardy, and it's these matters that we are entitled to know about in committee of this Legislature. We are in the same position as if we'd put all our money on the nose of B.C. Hydro, and if it doesn't win, we are all in trouble.

AN HON. MEMBER: Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch the basket.

MR. WILLIAMS: That's right, but we aren't given the opportunity to watch the basket. You know that the suggestion is that we don't have time to establish a committee. There is no reason that a committee cannot function beyond the period when this Legislature sits. I am sure that the members on both sides of this House are sufficiently interested in. this subject to spend the time. We get paid for it. We should spend it.

Mr. Speaker, on this matter of time, the honourable the Minister suggests that there isn't time because of the urgency of the decision which needs to be made. Well, I recall that the distinguished Chairman of the B.C. Hydro, in speaking to a service club in the greater Vancouver area last fall, after the election, but last fall, made it clear that if B.C. Hydro was to discharge its responsibility of producing power for this Province, we would have to double the existing potential which we have. I believe his words, at least as reported in the press, were: "We'll have to do it all over again." This is what we face, Mr. Speaker, but we only learn about it when we read what the distinguished Chairman says to some service club.

The honourable Leader of the Opposition pointed out that by reason of the secret minutes of B.C. Hydro which he received, I believe it was last summer, the possibility of a power increase was then under consideration by B.C. Hydro and their Directors, but we have only some skimpy information made available to the members here and to the public at large about B.C. Hydro. This is our complaint.

We have the annual report, seventh annual for the year ending March 31, 1969, which was transmitted to his Honour the Lieutenant-Governor from the office of the Prime Minister on the 13th of June, 1969. And you know, there is a section about transportation services, but it says nothing there about the jeopardy in which those services are placed if they don't have a rate increase. It talks, in glowing terms, of the improvements that are being made in our power production facilities, but it says nothing about the difficulties that they are getting in, and it concludes with a section which was called "Outlook," Mr. Speaker.

Now, this is the kind of information which we are given by the Directors of B.C. Hydro, and this is June of this year, and this outlook section is a remarkable one. June of 1969. Transmitted by W.A.C. Bennett on the 13th of June, 1969. It speaks about general economic conditions in British Columbia remaining buoyant during the year. It talks about a continuing upward trend in the economy. It talks about a growing demand for pulp and newsprint. It tells about the encouraging outlook for lumber and plywood. It talks about mineral production establishing new records, with new mills being planned. It talks about development of Roberts Bank. It talks about a generally optimistic outlook for industrial growth, new homes and commercial establishments. But, Mr. Speaker, it says nothing about the crisis situation which the Minister of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources told us today. Should a change take place in just six months?

Nowhere do the Directors of B.C. Hydro, in their annual report, come forward and say we are facing a crisis situation in clear, unmistakable language so everyone understands: "We are going to have to have a power increase. We must have massive capital monies made available to us. It is essential that the people of this Province devote their energy, fiscal and otherwise, towards supporting B.C. Hydro." That's not the kind of report that we get from B.C. Hydro, and that's not the kind of report that is transmitted by the Prime Minister of this Province to his Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.

AN HON. MEMBER: They wanted to win Vancouver South.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, it's time we stopped playing politics with what appears to be the controlling force in our Provincial economy, and the way to stop playing politics is to bring its affairs into the light of this Assembly, and to start by committing to a committee of these members here, the consideration of the matters which are dealt with in this motion, and each of the members, party aside, should consider very carefully what answer he will take back to his constituents following this vote.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Recreation and Conservation.

[ Page 534 ]

MR. KIERNAN: Mr. Speaker, I think it is fair to say that this is one of the most important debates we will have, certainly in the course of this Session. I think, also, it's highly desirable that all of the members who wish to have an opportunity to participate in this debate because, unless they have that opportunity, how are they going to be informed, and I think therefore this Legislative Assembly is a much better forum for this discussion than a committee.

Now, there is nothing obscure or complex about this basic proposition with which we are required to deal. All you have to do, all you have to do, if you want to understand the implications of power growth, of power demand increase in the last decade, is simply look at the Budget Speech of the Prime Minister, delivered in this House not very long ago, and on page 46 is a graph that anybody with elementary understanding of mathematics can read. If you look at the year 1960 you'll notice that power generated and consumed in 1960 was approximately 12 billion kilowatt hours, and that one decade later, in 1969, not a full decade, power generated and consumed is more than twice that 12 billion kilowatt hours, just very close to 26½ billion kilowatt hours. In other words…. Well, let's deal with the present situation first, because there seems to be some inability on the part of some members to grasp even elementary arithmetic, and I suggest to you that that graph illustrates it and illustrates it in a very clear and understandable fashion.

In other words, in the last decade the power demand in this Province has more than doubled. It has never fallen below a 9 per cent increase in any one year and, in order to more than double in less than a decade, it obviously exceeded 9 per cent in certain portions of that nine-year period. Now, I think we need to understand that as fact number one. Now, in the process of doubling, and simply projecting that over the next decade, it must be fairly obvious that before 1978 we will need the equivalent, at least, of another Portage Mountain project. I mean, again, that takes no wizardry in mathematics. It's just very simple.

But I think we also have to bear in mind that we have at this point half of Portage Mountain still to machine. In other words, from roughly a million kilowatts in place to an excess of two million kilowatts in place. The finishing of the machining of the Peace is predicated on one of two basic propositions. If it is to be primarily an energy output station, then eight generators will, on a continuous basis, utilize all of the water likely to be available in the Peace River reservoir. If, however, part of the Peace River operation is to be utilized in the process of peaking, then it would be desirable to install the ten generators and therefore have a higher output capability but over a shorter portion of the year.

Now, those are some of the basic propositions that you have to evaluate as you go along, because it would have been a mistake not to install the penstocks for maximum machining while we were in the process of the building of the dam, and we know quite clearly that it's necessary to put in the eight generators. So we're moving along in an orderly delivery pattern to install the rest, up to the eighth generator. We will make the final decision as to whether to put in the two remaining generators on the Peace as, and when, we make decisions in relation to some of the other power sources within the Province. Now, bear in mind that, bear in mind that six, seven, eight are on order, so six, seven, and eight will go in quite methodically. If we are to decide to order nine and ten, they are not required to be ordered at this time, but they would have to be ordered, I would guess, within the next 18 months to two years, if you make the decision to go that route, but bear in mind eight generators in our present calculations, if they are run continuously, will handle the full water capability of the Peace, but if you want a peaking factor in there, if you want to be able to drag out more power over a short period, then add two additional units.

Now I think the next factor that we have to consider in the over-all equation is that if we were to continue our present rate of load growth, it means that we have to add roughly 400 to 500 megawatts a year to capacity. In other words, roughly 400,000 to 500,000 kilowatt capacity has to be added annually. There is a variety of ways in which you can do that, there is a variety of combinations that you can develop, and in the process of developing that variety of combinations, you have to take into consideration, not only the flexibility, but also the location in terms of transmission, as to where it is most desirable to next produce a block of power. Without getting into the somewhat complex business of electrical transmission, I am sure you are aware that if you can produce on both ends of a line and so from the line in both directions, you have the most stable generating distribution system you can arrange.

Now on this question of the Peace River power flowing into the Vancouver grid, and the problem that arises being hung on only one transmission line, well, it's simply this, the second transmission line is in the process of going in, but we have not timed it to have both transmission lines in when only the five generators were in there, for the simple reason that transmission lines are very costly as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you use the same towers?

MR. KIERNAN: No. The reason for putting in two transmission lines is, first of all, one transmission line would not carry the output from eight generators, and secondly, you wouldn't want to use the same towers, because if you did, and you lost a tower, you have lost both lines. One of the purposes, although not the sole purpose, but one of the purposes of putting in two lines is so that if you happen to lose one line, you haven't lost so large a portion of your total power output. That's right, and that is why one line is being brought into the Vancouver area by way of the Fraser Valley, and the other one by way of the Pemberton-Squamish route, so that we spread our risk if you wish, and the probability of losing both lines simultaneously is probably one in ten million. The two lines would actually carry the equivalent of ten generators. One line is running pretty well to capacity with five; the two lines would carry ten.

Now you ask the question, also, about when will site one go in. Well again, I point out that we are only half way along the road in machining Portage Mountain, and the determination as to where site one will be phased into the system is one of those determinations that has to be made fairly quickly. But I think we then come back to the basic question that was raised here, and that is the question of how much money ought Hydro to raise in terms of capital and plow into the development of power? Now, if we are going to continue to meet this total load we have to continue to plow very substantial sums of money into Hydro. There simply is no alternative, because there is no substitute for capital dollars in terms of creating both generation and transmission plants.

I think my colleague pointed out to you that it is not only this business of establishing more production facility and more transmission facility, and new distribution facility, but even in the areas that have been traditionally served for many years,

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we are having to now go back, take out old transformers, take out old conductor systems, and put in heavier equipment to carry the increased loads that are now being placed on those internal transmission facilities. This, of course, is the only way that you can meet this very substantial load growth, because not only are we adding thousands of new customers a year, but the fact is that our old customers, if you wish, are continuing to have new appliances every year, with the result that the per-customer load is growing.

Now, there again, there is no happy formula by which you could determine, say twenty years ago, that the West End ought to be electrified for, shall we say, four times the consumption that was then in sight. In the first place, if you had done it, you would have placed a very heavy capital burden on that portion of the service, and secondly, if you had done it and the growth had not materialized, you could quite rightly be criticized for having put in four times the capacity that was necessary to service the area.

We are not pretending for one moment that this problem is particularly unique in British Columbia, but what we are saying to you, in effect, is simply this, that if we are going to continue to meet this tremendous rate of growth, if we are going to serve all customers as near as it is humanly possible to do so, then you are going to have to continue to put very substantial amounts of capital into Hydro developments. That is why my colleague says that the decision we make, if it is that they are not to have the capital, then Hydro has no way by which they can serve this growing demand. If on the other hand they are to have the capital, as far as the planning, as far as the sites are concerned, as far as the question of transmission is concerned, those are primarily engineering problems and we've got it laid out for the next decade already.

Now the next question, then, comes to this matter of rate. As you know, from 1961 on, there were several decreases in the rates charged to electrical consumers. With the result that between '61 and the present time, the customers of the system have had handed back to them $172,000,000 that they would have otherwise paid under the old rates.

Now some people say, well, that was a political decision, and they further put brackets around political as though it were somehow a bad decision, or a sub-rosa decision. The fact of the matter was simply this, as long as Hydro was showing a reasonable profit on its over-all operation, there was no valid reason for not reducing the rates to Hydro's customers, because you have to remember that the proposition was to be service at cost, and certainly if we had not reduced the rates, we would have been taking substantially more money from the customers than could have been properly justified on a policy of service at cost.

However, since 1961, while our rates have gone down, and while our returns from the sale of current has gone down, the cost of doing business has gone progressively up. It's true that in 1969 the wage and salary increase only amounted to about a 9 per cent factor, including the fringes, but you have to bear in mind that those wages and salaries and interest costs have been accumulating progressively since 1961, with the result that you reach the point where your cost index progressively rising, and your income index would be declining in terms of what you received for a kilowatt hour, which we were only able to offset because year by year we were selling a great many more kilowatt hours. But you come to the point where even selling more kilowatt hours no longer gives you a margin, and that is the point at which we have arrived, as far as Hydro is concerned. The simple fact of the matter is that the cost line has topped the income line, and unless we can receive more money for the electricity that we sell in the various categories, regardless of how much we sell, we can't make any money.

Now as you know, it's important that we stay on the right side of the ledger. The statute requires us to do that. It's also important, when we go out to get capital dollars, that we can show we have proper depreciation, we have proper sinking fund account where that is called for, and above all we're on the right side of the ledger, not the wrong side, in our total operation.

Now as I say, there's nothing greatly complex about this. It's simply that we have not had any magical formula in Hydro by which we could set aside what was happening to everybody else, in terms of increased costs. We simply were able, by increasing sales for a considerable period to absorb those costs, but it has now reached the point where, as I say, increasing sales, Mr. Speaker, will not offset the increasing costs for our unit price, which is now below our cost of producing and distributing it.

The question is simply this, however: if we are not to have an increase in rates, then obviously we will have a loss in the forthcoming year, because our profit margin has been steadily declining.

Now, some people have expressed considerable concern about the question of where are we going in the future? Some expressed concern about where we are going in the future. Well, as I say, as long as the funds are to be made available, there is no shortage of hydro sites, there is no shortage of other generation potential in British Columbia, but I think we have to understand that unless the funds are made available, nobody, but nobody, can produce generating stations and distribution lines without capital.

Now, I think what you have to recognize is also, when my friend across the floor talks about shortage of vision, I don't know what kind of vision his party had. Just a few years ago, when they were so determined that the Peace River project should not proceed because we would never need it, we would never need it…. You walk over to the Shrum generating station today at the Peace and pull that switch and the whole City of Vancouver and the lower mainland would be out of power in two seconds — that's how much you need the Peace. Oh, no — it was your predecessors. I shouldn't hold you responsible for what your predecessors say, but they were very short-sighted, they couldn't see that we would ever need the Peace River.

I think also, too, my friends across the floor, Mr. Speaker, love to drag in this red-herring of the Columbia project. The Columbia project has little at this stage, has nothing or little to do with the power production and distribution in British Columbia. The Columbia project has little or nothing to do with the production and distribution of power in British Columbia. As we get along to the point with Mica where we can start machining it, and get the power out of Mica into the grid system for British Columbia, then it will have a meaningful part to play.

AN HON. MEMBER: When?

MR. KIERNAN: Well, you know, I'm sort of a kind of a guy that I don't start counting the chickens until at least the hen has laid the egg. And when you are just putting in the foundations for a dam, it's a little premature to start installing the generator.

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If you want to know when Mica is anticipated on line, I can only tell you, at this moment, it is anticipated on line in 1978, but it is subject to a number of variable factors. I would say '78. You might get a little juice out of it in '77, but I would say '78. I think we also ought to bear in mind, Mr. Speaker, that when we are looking at this question of long-term generation, again it comes back to the proposition of maintaining a viable company, a viable operation in this period, and when my friends the Liberals take such an adamant view of funds from various trust accounts going into Hydro, I think they ought to recognize that at the same time, they are arguing that Hydro is vital to the future development of this Province. You said you took the same position that Hydro is vital to the development of British Columbia — fine. Well then, I would think that perhaps you ought to re-assess your position in terms of making available to Hydro, funds at the best fair terms that those funds can be arranged at, and I think also that the best arena for looking into this question is right here on this floor where every member, where every member might have his say.

I think also, that since there is some concern about this question of transportation rates, I think….

AN HON. MEMBER: Write to Dr. Shrum!

MR. KIERNAN: Well, I am sure that any question you care to address to Dr. Shrum, either by personal visit or by letter, will be very ably answered, and I don't think you'll have any problems, I don't think you'll have any problems getting intelligent answers. But I think also, since we're…. You know, we could carry on an intelligent debate if we didn't have so much cross chatter.

DEPUTY. SPEAKER: Couldn't we have a little order? Order!

MR. KIERNAN: You know, Mr. Speaker, if you were sending it to committee the cry would be, "Oh you're hiding it from the House." (applause) And if you debate it in the House, "You won't send it to a committee." They want it both ways, but it just depends on whether it suits their convenience or not.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh…. oh….

MR. KIERNAN: But coming back….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister happens to have the floor, and I wish the members would extend the courtesy of the House to the speaker.

MR. KIERNAN: Thanks for that reassurance. Mr. Speaker, I was just beginning to wonder whether I had the floor or not.

I think we ought to take a look at this question of transit rates, and something you might just give consideration to. First of all, I agree that bus drivers have a very responsible position and they ought to be well paid, and I think by and large they are very competent people, so I for one don't begrudge them the best salaries we can afford. Having said that, I would tell you that here in the City of Victoria it takes 105 per cent of our revenue just to pay the wages. It takes 105 per cent of the transit revenue in Victoria just to pay the wages.

Just a couple of other factors to consider. We are paying, by Canadian standards at least, good wages. I've been looking at some of the fares and the hourly wages for drivers across the country. We pay, I believe, $3.75 an hour. Los Angeles pays $3.75 an hour, and it has a 30 cents fare. Calgary pays $3.35 an hour; it has a 25 cents fare. Windsor, Ontario, pays $3.04 an hour, and it has a 35 cents fare. So I think, if we look at this thing objectively, it must be thoroughly obvious that the transit operation is not coming anywhere as close to packing its fair share of the costs.

Now, as my colleague also told you, we have been working Saturdays for the past several weeks going into this whole operation in great detail, and we are prepared, and I am sure that the Board of Directors are prepared, to make every practical economy that can be made in the entire operation, and I must say to you that I feel, by and large, it has been a very economical operation. But it also comes back to the proposition that we can't pay the best wages in Canada, we can't provide the level of service that you have come to expect, unless we are in a position to have rates comparable with our increasing costs. When we are now way below the 1961 rate and the cost of living index is 26 points above that '61 rate, I think it makes it a pretty basic proposition that there is no alternative, that there is no alternative but that we must have more revenue to meet our commitments.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The honourable member for Burnaby-Edmonds.

MR. G. DOWDING: Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about that, I do indeed, because in 1959, the year is 1959, I pointed out to this House that the Peace River should be a publicly developed dam and river. That's right, in 1959. Not 1961, not when the Minister is talking about his predictions, but in 1959. And I want to tell you — that was Wenner-Gren — and I want to tell you further, for those who weren't here then, that Wenner-Gren was talking about getting power delivered here to B.C. Power Commission, or B.C. Electric, for over six mills, over six mills, and in 1961 the B.C. Energy Board in their report was talking about public power, in 1961, for a little over four mills for both the Peace and the Columbia.

Now, what do we find on the Order Paper but an answer saying five mills for Peace power? Inflation? I want to tell my friend there that if he looks back at the report that was made, what does it say about inflation? It states right in the report — with a four per cent per year inflation on costs, the total would have been around $1,458,000,000 by completion in 1980.

They allowed for inflation. They allowed for these rate increases in the projections they made then, and I read to you in this House the other day, when we were debating this question, the warnings of Dr. Angus about long-term interest rate increases that he predicted in 1961, but you failed to listen, you failed to listen. We heard this Minister today, Mr. Speaker, telling us that the estimates they made back in 1961 were incorrect.

I want to read from a speech the Minister made in 1959 in this House, and I say that he has a convenient memory or he has forgotten very quickly what this House discussed back in 1959 on the question of future power prospects for British Columbia, and dealing with those future power requirements the Minister said this, "Based on the experience of the utilities to date, and looking into the future with the assurance that we have not even begun to approach the point of maximum population or industrial development, it has

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been possible to forecast that an annual average increase in the use of electrical energy in the order of 9.6 per cent can be expected until the year 1975. After that the annual increase will not be less than 4.7. Now at that time," he goes on to say, "these forecasts are likely to be exceeded in actual practice unless serious depressions occur to retard ordinary growth." Anyone who says that we didn't know what the future power requirements were in British Columbia really is not stating the facts. So that from the beginning we've known.

I want to tell you some more about this. You're the Government, and it is not true to say we didn't accept those figures. We did. In fact, in some years, I remember the Minister saying that from the predictions they had from B.C. Power Commission they expected to go up to 14 per cent in one year.

AN HON. MEMBER: And we did.

MR. DOWDING: That's right, and you did. So how can you say now that you were in error in your planning, when you knew these facts at the time, and you should have taken them into account? The fact of the matter is, as the Minister knows, that when he made that speech in 1959 he was aware, also, that on the Columbia River we could have immediate return of power of at least 11 billion kilowatt hours, according to his speech right here. He shows that as the interim power we would have to take up the slack until the Peace came in or the Columbia, whichever went ahead first.

Now I'm looking at his speech here, and I have the figures. He says, "British Columbia is said to possess the greatest untapped hydro-electric potential in the North American continent. Our major problem is a way to supply energy up to these approximate capacities. Columbia, a public power river, 21.5 billion kilowatt hours per annum, plus a fair share of the 23 billion kilowatt hours this regulated flow will produce in the U.S.A." What were we offered? Half that 23 billion kilowatt hours. One-half. Did we get it? We did not. We gave it to the Americans for half the cost, half the cost.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're crazy.

MR. DOWDING: Yes we did, we certainly did.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just one moment. May I ask you to withdraw that remark.

MR. DOWDING: One has only to look at what the dams on the Columbia are going to cost now, from the answers on the Order Paper, to see that, instead of getting the Columbia River free, it's going to cost this Province a great deal of money before a single generator is turning on the Columbia River. Just look at the answers. And what is left? And all of this because of foolish planning from 1961 onward.

When you look at some of the estimates of the Minister and his discussions, he talked about the Wenner-Gren project in 1959. We warned him on this side of the House that he should not let Wenner-Gren develop the Peace River, it'd be costly power, that power rates would go up, and that if they were going to develop it as a private river it should be second to the Columbia River, and that the downstream benefit power that we would get from the Columbia project should be returned in electricity to this Province. The Government at that time thought that they would use that downstream benefit power and return it here, and that they would fill in that period in the 60's when there would be no power source available. But they changed their mind after 1961. They took over the Peace River from Wenner-Gren, and we call that an act of wisdom, although in 1959 they did not say that.

What did the Minister say in 1959? Listen to this. "Those not charged with responsibility, loosely talk about the ability of governments to assemble huge sums of money for practically any purpose. In an expanding Province such as this, the Government must always stand ready to meet the obligations to which it is already committed. The Columbia will require huge amounts of money to finance. It will be some years before there is a return on the investment. In the meantime the normal expansion of the Power Commission and other services will continue. Even the task of financing this expansion will not be easy."

Remember this is in 1959, when you were not going to do the Peace. Then you took them both off, and in this speech the Minister acknowledged the difficulty of assembling the huge amounts of money to finance. To compound that confession, as it were, you went ahead and put the two projects side by side and announced the two-river policy, and now you find you can't raise the money at the same time for both projects, and you're stuck on that and you don't know how to get out of it. Now you come to the Legislature and say, bail us out. Let the public pay higher rates. And all those fine pretensions of 1961 and '63 and '66 are gone down the river — about lower rates — nothing but lower rates ahead. Where are all those fine promises today?

For anyone to suggest that the inflation on an average basis of four per cent per year was not contemplated, obviously has never read the Minister's speech, he's obviously not read the B.C. Energy Board report. Or anyone who says that they didn't know there would be the kind of continuing increase in interest rates for a ten-year period obviously has not read any economic forecasts that occurred at the beginning of this decade. Fortune Magazine, U.S. Business magazine, three or four other journals of popular opinion and a number of economic journals all forecasted the kind of interest rate increases we've been suffering in the last decade.

It's been a continuing condition, so when I hear the alibis and the excuses given by the Ministers concerned, who were on the Board of Hydro, who had taken on themselves the responsibility directly in this House for the conduct of Hydro, then I must say that they are asking for confession and avoidance when they come before us and tell us what they're going to have to do in their dire emergency. All of this was known ten months ago. All of this was known a year ago. We could have started out examining into this whole question of Hydro in a committee at the beginning day of this Session, but the Government has tried to keep it under the carpet until it became an embarrassment to them today.

AN HON. MEMBER: We're not embarrassed.

MR. DOWDING: You are embarrassed, and you know you're embarrassed. That's why this debate on this particular motion is before the House, because you cannot go ahead on Estimates without disposing of this motion, and that's why you called it, right. So you want to get rid of the motion, but you don't want the House to know all the inside story of the whole background of the increase in rates, or where Hydro is going, or what it's doing.

For years I've advocated, Mr. Speaker, that the Public Accounts Committee of this House has a right to look into the affairs of the biggest Crown Corporations that we have,

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that this House has the right every year to examine the accounts, the spendings and the expenses of B.C. Hydro. Why should that be kept secret? Why are not we allowed to do just as we do in Public Accounts, to call for vouchers, to ask questions, to bring witnesses as to the matters of the public business? If we had such a Public Accounts investigation into Hydro every year, this would never have happened. This would never have happened, that we would have had a rate increase brought so suddenly before us this year, because that committee could have been kept informed year after year on the developments of the Columbia and of the Peace.

The kind of cover-up that this Government has gone through, the kind of political playing that they've done on the whole question of Hydro, leads us to this sorry day when you're brought finally to the bar of justice, that is the bar of the people's justice, to explain yourselves, and then you're not prepared to defend yourselves in a committee. You're not prepared to lay everything out, call Dr. Shrum before that committee, get the information from him, call the officers of Hydro to explain their long-range plans and how they came to this stage today that on one hand they're contradicting the Premier of this Province about the future power, they're contradicting, in effect, the Minister of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources as he spoke over the years about the development of hydro. Somebody has got to get to the bottom of this, and if this Legislature is not prepared to accept this motion you are indicating that you want a cover-up, straight cover-up.

When I look at the other statements made by the Minister, one of the most significant he made, April 30th, 1962, this was after they changed their mind on the Peace River and decided it was going to be a public river. Do you know what the Minister said then? And he said today, that they really didn't understand the load growth requirements of British Columbia. On that date he delivered to members of the House copies of his address made March 21st of 1962 to this House. This summary says in his speech, "the average load growth in electrical energy produced in the whole of British Columbia since 1950 has been approximately 10.1 per cent increase per year." How does that square with his statements today?

I don't know anyone in this House in 1962 or in 1959 that quarrelled with that estimate. Not one. They quarrelled with the planning. They quarrelled with the alternatives and the costs, but they did not dispute that projected rate of increase of power development requirements. As a matter of fact, the Minister contradicts the B.C. Energy Board in that speech because they had only planned on a 6.8 per cent increase.

Now, when you look at the rest of his speech, you find that the Minister says, "In 1982 — 20 years from now," this is 1962, "Using the above load growth statistics, the Power Authority Planning Area of British Columbia will require a total installed capacity of 9,392,000 kilowatts, including the provision for new industries, plus 10 per cent for spare." Now, why that? Because he knew then, as he knows now, that he must make that estimate on a basis of 10 per cent. "This is an increase of 7,226,000 kilowatts from the present installed capacity. It is planned to meet the need as follows." Then he sets out the ways that they were planning in 1962 to do this. Then he talks about 200,000 kilowatts from existing stations, 315,000 kilowatts at thermal capacity, and that these will handle the load growth until 1966. Then he says, "This conclusion may be seriously over-optimistic. It requires the assumption that all generating plants in the Province will be able to contribute their rated maximum output to meet the combined system January peak load, and that the transmission system will exist to enable them to do so. Neither requirement is likely to be fully met."

So even then they knew they were being very conservative in their estimates, so how can he come to this House today and try to pretend that they didn't know? They knew. Now he says, "Peace River generation should be on line by 1968." This is in 1962. "The first phase will be approximately 500,000 kilowatts, and additional units can be added, as required, up to 2,760,000 kilowatts from Portage Mountain. Additional energy might then be obtained by, machining Site one for 650 megawatts." Then he says, "The first block of Mica Creek generation should be available, when required, after firm storage has been established, power house constructed, and transmission installed. The last two items will not be ready for use until it is known when power may be generated on a firm basis, because there would be no economic reason to make the large capital expenditure in advance of need."

Now, something that must be remembered is that if there has been an increased demand for power, either in individual households or in the community of British Columbia, this has worked to the advantage of B.C. Hydro because it has meant that the generators have not been idle, so they can't claim that the power demand had been a detriment, as the Minister is trying to make out, the Minister of Recreation, but actually it has assisted economically in bringing down the price to around five mills. One of the great problems of financing these two rivers simultaneously has been that, instead of the power costing four mills when it was not entirely used and you still spent the capital, it may come out 14 mills per kilowatt hour if you add all the interest charges to the amount that you are actually producing.

Well, the Minister told us that, Mr. Premier, at one stage in the discussions on these two rivers, how vital it was, how vital it was in view of interest charges, that first you have low interest rates, secondly, that you utilize the maximum amount of generation you could get by being able to sell the power, but not on interrupted power, but on a long-term contract, either with the United States, or within our own domestic markets.

So we hear a different story from the Minister today, a different story, and it is not in any sense in conformity with the speeches that I have here that he made both in 1959 and in 1962. I suggest, if there is no other reason for this House to strike a committee to look into the whole question of power rates and the reasons that B.C. Hydro have, in effect, contradicted the Premier of this Province on long-term development of hydro power, those contradictions of the Minister are reason enough for supporting this motion, and I urge the House to support it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Municipal Affairs.

HON. D.R.J. CAMPBELL: The last member of this Legislature who should be talking about the power situation in the Province has got to be the member who has just recently taken his seat, because both from that member, Mr. Speaker, and the member of the N.D.P. Opposition, if we stroll for a new minutes down memory lane, I think the people of British Columbia understood very well what the reason for the two-river policy happened to have been and, in particular, the reason why the Government of this Province went on to the Peace River when the question of Columbia River power was still very much in the negotiation phase.

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I think the public of British Columbia, and certainly the Opposition, never either understood it nor did they ever support the position of this Government, and that is, anybody with any understanding of what was happening on the Columbia River must know, that in the great poker game that was being played at that time, there is no doubt in anyone's mind, other than perhaps the Opposition in this Legislature, that if this Government hadn't had the courage to move on the Peace River there would have been no opportunity to negotiate a deal with the Americans at all.

Mr. Speaker, anyone who doesn't understand that the Americans would have been quite willing to have us put any installations on the Columbia River that we wanted to put on the Columbia River — you talk about anything that would be freer than free, my friend. I want to tell you that if we had put dams on the Columbia River without that treaty and without the negotiations, which had to be very tough negotiations, what would have happened, Mr. Speaker? They would have got it freer than free. They would have got it for nothing. They would have got it for nothing. And, Mr. Speaker, that is the sense of responsibility that we had all through the piece when we were talking about the two-river policy in British Columbia. We at no time — and let's get this clear — at no time when the two-river policy was being played and those difficult negotiations were going on with the Americans did we ever, at any time, have any sense of responsibility being displayed by the Liberal party…. No, my friend, if it had been your Columbia River deal, your Fort Steele project would have been under 32 feet of water. (applause)

My friend, anyone who has any regard for the debates that have gone on in this House over the years knows very well, Mr. Speaker, that this side, and this side alone, was responsible for the job-creating capacity that this Province has enjoyed over the last few years. (applause)

My friend, the Leader of the Opposition, got up this afternoon and let the public of British Columbia understand this, too, Mr. Speaker. He indicated his complete lack of responsibility on the floor of this House this afternoon. He was not impressed with the fact that last year alone, from January 1st, 1969 to December 31st, 1969, the Province of British Columbia generated more jobs in British Columbia than all other nine Canadian provinces put together. And you are not impressed?

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell that to the unemployed.

MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Speaker, is there anyone, is there anyone in the Province of British Columbia who thinks that that record would have been made without the power generation that has been going on in this Province? Does anyone really think that? I suggest, Mr. Speaker, if they really think that, then they are really showing that their record of irresponsibility has not only started in the power debate, which we have won three elections on, by the way, but is carrying on into the year 1970.

AN HON. MEMBER: Boy, you're right.

AN HON. MEMBER: When are we going to get the next decrease?

MR. CAMPBELL: Now, Mr. Speaker, the other point I wanted to make, because this is a question of whether or not this matter should go to committee, moving down memory lane once again, it has been very, very common to have the N.D.P. Opposition in this House perform its annual legislative snow-job in an attempt to confuse the people of this Province of British Columbia.

AN HON. MEMBER: That should be ruled out.

MR. CAMPBELL: What's the matter with a legislative snow-job? That's a good description of what you're doing.

Now, Mr. Speaker, year after year we have had members of that group opposite who have come into this Legislature and tried to indicate that we were shuffling things off to committee so that the House would not have an opportunity for full and open debate, many times. And you know, it is interesting, Mr. Speaker, that when the Liberal leader presented this motion on Friday afternoon, the first words he uttered went something like this, "Let us get this question of shuffling it off to the committee over with as quickly as possible, because we are going to have ample opportunity to discuss this during the Estimates in this Legislature." I think that's a pretty exact quote except for the word "shuffling."

Now, Mr. Speaker, what the members opposite seek to create in the minds of the people, and they have been doing it for so long, and they don't trust them, but they have been attempting to indicate in this Legislature that there is something peculiar about the procedure that requires open and effective questioning of Ministers during their Estimates in this Legislature, and many, many times, even when it comes to the matter of the daily question period, they have sought to place abroad the theory that in this Legislature Ministers and their Departments are not questioned on the floor of this Legislature in terms of the vote on the Estimates. Mr. Speaker, I will make one slight prediction. They will give a lie to that particular point of view over the course of the next four weeks, because there won't be a Minister on this side of the House whose Department is not thoroughly canvassed by the members opposite, and they know that very well.

The other item, Mr. Speaker, that I want to draw your attention to is the impact and the significance of the year 1961, and it has already been mentioned by the two Ministers who have spoken on this debate. But I happen to represent an area which did not have the benefit of postage stamp rate power in this Province until this Government moved towards postage stamp rate power. I can remember very well, Mr. Speaker, when the energy requirements of places like Port Hardy and Port McNeill on the northern end of Vancouver Island were being supplied under rates which were much, much, much less favourable than those that obtained, say, in the Greater Victoria area or the Greater Vancouver area. Many, many people, Mr. Speaker, had bills at that time of $30 and $35 a month for very, very limited domestic installations in their homes, and yet even with this rate increase, which, placed in perspective, really comes down to a very small percentage of an increase — up to 300 kilowatt hours, from 2.5 cents to three cents per kilowatt hour; over 300 kilowatts, from one cent to 1.1 cent.

Now, if my friends opposite think that the people in the north end of Vancouver Island want to have the situation obtain in their part of British Columbia as obtains in other parts of Canada, when we are making comparisons of rates, then I want to tell you, my friend, you are just dead wrong. Because this Government was also the Government that brought in the proposition of equalized rates across the Province.

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And the rates at Port Hardy, Mr. Speaker, even after these rates, will be far, far lower than those which were in existence in 1961 in that particular community.

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the member from Cowichan-Newcastle, as he was then called, and now Cowichan-Malahat, got up to speak, because I can remember very well, Mr. Speaker, one of his going-down-memory-lane famous speeches in this Legislature in 1959, when there was a gentleman by the name of Mr. Lee Briggs around in the power picture of British Columbia. You know, Mr. Speaker, in those days, the question was an increase in rates, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the then B.C. Power Commission, and, Mr. Speaker, in those days, the member for Cowichan-Newcastle — you recall his speeches — "You are trying to put the handcuffs on public power, you are trying to destroy the B.C. Power Commission, you're trying to stop the expansion of the B.C. Power Commission, you're trying to crucify the B.C. Power Commission." But, Mr. Speaker, which was the Government that stopped that particular rate increase? It was this Government, because the Premier said there would be no rate increases, and Mr. Briggs was wrong.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, there is one final point that has always escaped me as far as the Opposition point of view on power in this Province is concerned, and that simply is that they apparently see no connection, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure the public do, they see no connection between the ability to invest in schools and in hospitals and our continuing investment in the energy-creating agencies of the Province, or transportation and its agencies of the Province as well.

Mr. Speaker, is there anyone on the other side of the House who really seriously believes that this Government could be the only Government in Canada that places all the school board borrowings out in its own name in terms of the guarantee? Is there anyone who seriously thinks that without energy development, this Government would be in that position? Is there anyone who seriously, Mr. Speaker, believes that $33,000,000 worth of hospital bonds would have been sold in this Province with a guarantee? Is there anyone who would seriously believe that? Well, Mr. Speaker, I'll tell you the reason, Mr. Speaker, that the public don't believe you is that the public does attach significance to the investment position of this Province. They do attach significance to that, and they understand very well, Mr. Speaker, that you can't extend guarantees for all school board borrowings and all hospital board borrowings unless you develop the basic energy, transportation and fabric of the Province, it can't be done. And you know, Mr. Speaker, when a Government in a single year can provide $66,000,000 worth of guaranteed school board bonds, without resort to the market place at today's interest rates, I think the public understands that, too.

Apparently, Mr. Speaker, the members opposite — and let the public understand this — apparently the members opposite are of the opinion that the open market place is the place to float school board bonds today, or that the open market place is the place to float….

AN HON. MEMBER: That's not the motion we're on!

MR. CAMPBELL: Oh, it's not. Well then, Mr. Speaker, any time they attach any significance to the number of investments in Hydro as opposed to school board bonds, then I wish you would rule them out of order, because that's the point they make all the time.

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that there is going to be ample time to discuss this whole matter in the full light of this Legislature in the committees of this Legislature, which is the main committee of this House, and you people have now spent in excess of three hours in open debate on this question in the Legislature, and you are going to spend some more. So, Mr. Speaker, their annual legislative snow-job, that they don't get an opportunity to talk about this in the Legislature, is just completely that and nothing more.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable First Member for Vancouver East.

MR. A. B. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, Monday, February 23rd, 1970, is a black day for the people of the Province of British Columbia. I'm not going to talk, except for a few moments, and I am not going to talk about the hydro rates, the electricity rates. I am going to talk just for a moment about transit, because on Monday, February 23rd, 1970, we decisively took the wrong direction in transit. We marched away from public transit. We embraced all of the costs on the other side of the ledger, which are traffic congestion, pollution costs, which are the costs of super highways and through highways and so forth, to take care of the private automobile, which is the accident cost, which is a pretty significant thing. We have done all that, we here in this Legislature of British Columbia, because we have been reluctant to increase a piddling subsidy to urban transportation in the big metropolitan areas of Vancouver, the lower mainland and Victoria, and that subsidy is $2,000,000. Everything else has gone up in this Province, all the educational estimates, and the highway and all the rest have gone up with inflation, and this Government has the lack of social vision that to save a little money they have kept to that $2,000,000 subsidy.

The Hydro comes here, and they say we're losing money on our transportation. We don't know. We favour the committee proposed by the Liberal leader, because we would like to see what's being charged in the way of electricity going into the transit and all the rest; we would like to see that examined. But maybe they are losing money. And maybe they need another $2,552,000 to keep in the black at present rates on transit. Well, I say that we as a Legislature, out of the consolidated revenues of this Province, should give them that subsidy, and if we don't do it, we have the social blind staggers.

We've taken the wrong path, believe me. Sure we have. We've plumped for bigger highway costs, congestion, pollution, the whole bit, and these sums are insignificant. But that's what we've done, and that's why this is such a black day. Instead of moving toward the encouragement of public transit and rapid transit — public transit, I don't care if it's rapid or not, I want it public and I want it cheap — instead of encouraging the people of the Province, for a piddling sum of money, in comparison to the social consequences involved, as I say, we've taken the wrong path.

That $2,000,000 in the Estimates that's allotted as a subsidy to Hydro for transit is grossly inadequate, and everybody in this Chamber knows it is inadequate, and everybody in this Chamber knows that by spending only that amount that we are going to have other social costs that are going to be far more than the $2,000,000. That's why I say this is indeed a black day — I mean it — a black day for the people of British Columbia.

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DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for New Westminster.

MR. D.G. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, the question is not whether a power increase or a transit increase, the question that we are discussing today or as I interpret it, is a question of whether or not we should have a committee to discuss this whole question, and we are asking for a working committee, Mr. Speaker, not a committee that is formed and that's the last you ever hear of it. We're talking about a committee something along the lines that the Insurance Committee hopefully will be.

Now a few moments ago, it was suggested by a Minister that a committee is not desirable, you know, give everybody a chance to speak. Mr. Speaker, for the very short number of weeks that I have been here, I would wonder at whether or not people are listened to when they speak — from either side, I agree. But I do think that people, if exposed to experts on any subject, if exposed to experts on any subject, will at least have an opportunity to go back to the people that they represent and say, "Yes, we heard, we heard the reasons why." Now, Mr. Speaker, to keep away from rancour with regard to rates and who is at fault and so on and so forth, I just think we really have to get down to these facts. We, in the N.D.P., for many, many years have been certainly in favour of the national development of public power. The Social Credit Government, a few years ago, committed a socialistic sin of taking over the power corporation.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's what you call it.

MR. COCKE: That is what you call it. Fine. Okay. I'll call it anything I like. I can do it. I'm impervious. At least we know that it's our power corporation, and we feel that we should have all the facts. Now we can't be other than suspicious, Mr. Speaker, you know naturally, what are we trying to hide in here? This matter of getting up and making speeches is really of no great significance unless we can have all the facts on paper, and have the experts there who help interpret those facts. Telling us little tidbits about wages and so on, I don't really think is enough. The committee has to explore the truth.

Now, there is another thing, too, I thought of discussing, just for a moment, and that is this matter of public atmosphere we were talking about a little while ago in one of the Minister's speeches. I don't know what the climate was originally, because I wasn't here. You know all I got at that time was the newspaper interpretation and what I hear by rumour, but I wonder if we had a full discussion then. The kind of discussion we are talking about now. The kind of discussion that looks into the future and looks at the present. You know — where are we now and where are we going? We are the people that should be most interested in this because, after all, we are the people that represent those that voted for us to get us here.

You know, they were saying that we in the Opposition don't have any responsibility. Give us some responsibility, Mr. Speaker, that's all we ask. Give us some responsibility. Now I think that the decision is a serious one. We knew that there was a serious decision coming up some months ago. I don't think anybody here, certainly if they read a newspaper, doesn't know that this matter has been in private discussion, at least, for some many months. There could have even been an emergency Session of this Parliament at an earlier date, if that in fact is the big problem that if we must have our final decision by March 31st, and in order to effect the rates by April 30th. I think that that could have been, at that time, part of the consideration. Why do we have to be placed in a position where now it's a crisis? It would seem so.

Now, you know, this car insurance business, Mr. Speaker, has been an embarrassment to the Government, an indirect embarrassment, therefore we called a committee, and I believe it is going to be a working committee. But there is no committee on Hydro. Why not Hydro? Is Hydro sacrosanct? Who owns Hydro in British Columbia? Let's not hide that fact from the shareholders — every person in British Columbia.

I say to the backbenchers in here, when you go home, tell the people how you voted on this issue, for or against the committee, nothing to do with hydro rates or transit rates, whether or not we should have had a full disclosure — that's the kind of thing you are going to have to tell those people. And don't forget your jobs were given to you by your constituents, nobody else, your constituents. Vote for the committee; it's your duty to your constituents.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the member please address the Chair.

MR. COCKE: So I say, Mr. Speaker, and through you to your friends, to the backbenchers in the Social Credit party, I say to them — vote for a committee. It's their duty to their constituents.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable First Member for Vancouver Centre.

MR. CAPOZZI: Mr. Speaker, I will be extremely brief because today we have listened to a fairly long discussion on hydro rates and the principles of going to committee, which, of course, is before the House at this moment. It has amazed me, listening to the report by the members of the Opposition, and hear the Leader of the Opposition deal with this as a democratic right of committee, and I would point out that if they are talking about the democratic rights of committee under their own principles, that I am rather amazed at the recent committee formed in the New Democratic House in Winnipeg, for example, to study rates on insurance.

I point out, Mr. Speaker, the question of democratic principles in studying in committee, but that recent committee was appointed, not with members from each side of the House, not with total representation, but a complete representation from one side of the House only. All the members on that particular committee are members of the New Democratic Party, and if that is their indication of a democratic way of conducting a study of any rate, then I would point out that that's a rather amazing socialistic principle. I would however, Mr. Speaker….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we get back to the Motion?

MR. CAPOZZI: I think that's very pertinent to the motion, Mr. Speaker. They stood up and spoke about the democratic rights of committee, to have this presented before a committee, and mentioned that this is the way they felt it should be done. If that is the same principle, it should apply in every place that they talk about committees, not just here in this particular House, when they are trying to use it for a

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political purpose only. Because as it has been pointed out, the rights in hydro rates are being discussed, and have been discussed in front of the major committee in which both sides of the House may discuss it quite freely, not in a committee as it is there where it is closed off to any outside conversation, any outside discussion. If that is a form of discussion that they are talking about under committee, then I am rather amazed. I will say however, Mr. Speaker….

AN HON. MEMBER: Get Gordon Shrum to speak….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just one moment. The member knows full well that this is the Legislative Assembly and only members of the Legislature speak here.

AN HON. MEMBER: He wanted to get him in front of a committee.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order then. I think his remarks are quite out of order. And they are quite repetitive.

MR. CAPOZZI: Mr. Speaker, in speaking again very briefly, however, to the question of B.C. Hydro, I would feel that on behalf of the members representing Vancouver, it is important to all of us, in the consideration of the future increase in rates and particularly in transit rates, that serious consideration be given to the possibility of not converting over to the type of buses that they are presently discussing, and going into the use of electric buses, whether they are using the trolley wire or not using the trolley wire. I must agree and find some reason in the statement made by the first member from Vancouver East, that we must concern ourselves in the developing of Hydro transit, that we must concern ourselves with the possible pollution that could result. I would hope that if the Hydro rates, the increases in transit, are put through, that along with that will go serious planning to the improvement and the speeding up of the transit in Vancouver, and at the same time a utilization not of buses which are powered either by diesel or by gasoline, but buses which are powered by electric power.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Kootenay.

MR. L.T. NIMSICK: Mr. Speaker, listening to the discussions here today and watching the birds flutter down from out the past to come home to roost, and to notice the humility with which this Government is attacking this problem, I don't blame them one bit. Because I remember well when Ran Harding stood here, year after year, telling this Government what was right, what has proven to be right today, and this Government knew all the answers, knew all the answers. They criticized them, they did everything, but they knew all the answers, and today the chickens are finally coming home to roost. It must be awful difficult to talk through all those crow feathers in your mouth.

I remember, I remember well when I asked the Premier of this Province, when the Columbia River Treaty was being set up, if he had an escalating clause in that treaty to take care of the inflation, and he said they didn't need it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right.

MR. NIMSICK: He said they didn't need an escalating clause.

SOME HON. MEMBER: They were so smart.

MR. NIMSICK: We argued that the down-stream benefits should come back to Canada. Now, you tell us you are going to be short of power. At that time, when he was strong-arming the Federal Government into exporting power — I'd just like to read you from the Vancouver Sun, May 26th, 1961. "Bennett demands export of power. Ultimatum to Ottawa. Sell all down-stream Columbia benefits. Agree to sell all Columbia down-stream benefits in the United States. Agree to the export of Peace River power even. Guarantee that Columbia power will be delivered to Vancouver at price 4.4¼ mills or less if export is turned down, and give assurance to undertake the entire project itself if it won't agree to the other points."

This is what this Government did to the Federal Government in trying to force the Federal Government to sell the down-stream benefits, and Bennett goes on, "B.C. Government officials have predicted heavy financial losses in the Columbia plan if B.C. takes its share of the down-stream benefits for use in the Province." I wonder where the loss is now?

The Treaty already had provision whereby arrangements could be made for Canada to sell its share of the down-stream benefits in the United States in the initial years of the development, when Canada probably would be unable to use it, and now you tell us, and we knew then, that Canada would be able to use it. It was the cheapest power that we could get.

AN HON. MEMBER: Half the price.

MR. NIMSICK: And to think what this very clever team that went down to the United States, and they went into this big poker game, and they lost everything, including their shirts. They lost everything including their shirts, and not their shirts, but the shirts belonging to the people of British Columbia.

It's gradually sinking in to the people of British Columbia today that the Columbia River deal was a bad deal, a bad deal from start to finish, because the taxpayers of British Columbia paid 100 per cent of building the dam that made the down-stream benefits possible. We paid 100 per cent, 100 per cent, because we built the dam with our share of the down-stream benefits. If we'd have brought those downstream benefits back, the Americans would have had to pay for a portion of their down-stream benefits towards building the dam, and we'd have had our down-stream benefits, but we sold them, we sold them a product, the down-stream benefits.

Don't ever let anybody tell you that the Americans paid one nickel to make the down-stream benefits possible, to make the down-stream benefits possible insofar as building the dams went, as far as building the dams went. The power plants were already in. We may as well have gone ahead and taken the down-stream benefits back and built the dam, because we did that anyway except that we sold the Americans the down-stream benefits at half price.

I remember the Premier, when he was so proud that he got five mills per kilowatt for the down-stream benefits, so proud, but when you take that five mills for half of the down-stream benefits and put it with the other half, they got 100 per cent of the down-stream benefits for two and a half mills per kilowatt. That's what they got.

If this was brought into committee back in those days

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when we wanted the different reports that were hid in the shelves by this Government, when we wanted them open to the public, to know where this Government was going with power — if they had done it then, you might not have been in this trouble today. But you didn't do it. You knew it all.

Today you are very humble. In all humility you say that we made a mistake, we made a mistake. Did the honourable member hear that? You didn't make any mistake. The Honourable Minister of Lands and Forests knew full well what the projection was, and now he says that you wouldn't agree with us. When did this Government ever listen to the Opposition? When did this Government take the Opposition's arguments and put them to work? The only time I've seen it was the other day on the Skagit Valley.

Listen, I think it was the most despicable thing that was ever pulled off on the people of British Columbia, when you went out and had an election in August when you knew full well that this problem was facing the people of British Columbia, and you didn't tell them about it. But if that is openness and honesty with the public it is beyond me, beyond me.

AN HON. MEMBER: You have good hindsight.

MR. NIMSICK: Listen, we'd have had the down-stream benefits, and we'd have built the Peace River too, eventually, but we could have had the cheapest power, and what Premier Bennett said was that the power they were going to get from the Mica was going to be free, and nothing's freer than free. We've got nothing on this Columbia deal that's been free. We've paid for everything we've done. Now a long way in the future you can see Mica, and we're going to pay through the nose for that, too, and there is no question about that.

When I listen to the shades of the past coming back into this Chamber, when I listen to the shades of the past, that's the only thing you could talk about then, and the only thing you can talk about today is 1980, and for the people of British Columbia maybe it would have been a God's blessing if you had thought about 1980 then, instead of using it as a weapon against the Opposition.

HON. P.A. GAGLARDI (Kamloops): We've listened to you for 18 years announce the most outrageous….

MR. NIMSICK: Mr. Chairman, the honourable Minister of Social Welfare knows full well, and he's got crow feathers sticking out, and he hasn't got up to say a word because it's too hard for him to talk. (laughter)

It's too hard for him, because I tell you it's pretty difficult, because you're taking it back today, what you said a few years ago. And you were not here, honourable Minister without Portfolio, you don't know anything about it. You probably didn't even read the papers about it. You weren't here, so don't talk about what we….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the member please address this Chair.

MR. NIMSICK: Mr. Speaker, when I listen to a lot of the new members, Mr. Speaker, too, that are here today…. They probably are going to just vote the way the honourable the Premier raises his hand. That's the way they are going to vote. Every one, 37 of them, Mr. Speaker, and I say that that is not what the people sent them here for. The people sent them to this House to fight for the rights of the people of British Columbia, to fight for the rights of Parliament, to fight for the things that they want, not for a party or the Premier's Estimates, or for one man's decision, Mr. Speaker,

MR. D. BARRETT: Ask him if he's seen his barber lately.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I wish the Honourable Leader of the Opposition would quit making personal remarks in the House. We are debating an issue here, not persons.

MR. NIMSICK: The honourable the member from Vancouver Centre, he's one of the naive boys that came here too late to know what went on in this House before. And, Mr. Speaker, I say that this motion should go through, if we are going to go ahead the way we should go ahead with the proper planning and the proper vision that the honourable the Premier always talks about.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable the Second Member from Vancouver East.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I have had the chance to look at the letter from the Chairman of the B.C. Hydro to the Premier, which was dated in January this year, and I'd like to say quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, that it bothers me to see that kind of letter delivered because it's clear that it's not a reasonable kind of correspondence. It strikes me as the kind of letter the Premier wanted to receive. I can't help but wonder if there wasn't an earlier letter, and that's why we do need a committee hearing so that we can deal with all the correspondence the Premier receives.

Why do we get this kind of nonsense going back to 1961, Mr. Speaker, the sort of thing we used to get in our Budget speech going back to 1952? We want to know the simple facts. How much is it going to mean in April for Hydro rates compared to March? That's what we want to know. What's B.C. Hydro talking about? So we got a bunch of baffle-yab here, Mr. Speaker, that's what we've got. And it's the old business: it's not really an increase, my friend; it's a reduction. Why the list says 'R' reduction,'R' reduction, 'R' reduction. Why, there's only three areas of increase and the rest are reductions.

Why do we get this kind of nonsense, Mr. Speaker? Let's look at the actual figures. This is checking with the Victoria office, which are a little more communicative than the Vancouver office, which have the grand bureaucracy of public information services, and so on, that can frustrate data-gathering by elected officials. This is simple data that should be readily available from any division in Department of Hydro, and yet the Opposition continually finds itself frustrated in getting simple, honest, factual data from agents of the Crown.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right.

MR. WILLIAMS: But here are the figures. The first increase in category one, 40 kilowatts is $1.00. The second increase, using Dr. Shrum's letter, is 35 cents. The actual increase in the third category is 50 cents, then $1.00, then $1.60, then $1.90, then $2.20, then $2.70, and then $3.00. Those are all increases, Mr. Speaker, all increases.

Let's talk about the percentages. Again by category, going from 40 kilowatts to 2,000 kilowatts per month, and again it's confusing because we're on a two-monthly billing system now, and so this data is not all that relevant, because we're

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on a two-monthly system. But, again the first increase is 100 per cent. 100 per cent increase in the first category, 20 per cent in the second, 20 per cent in the third, 20 per cent in the fourth, 18.8 per cent in the fifth, 16.5 per cent in the sixth, 14.5 per cent in the seventh, 13.8 per cent in the eighth, and 12 per cent in the ninth. That's the way I look at it. But, Mr. Speaker, and I might be corrected on these, because it's quick arithmetic, but it's clear that they are all increases, but the data we are getting is going back to 1961. We might as well have gone back, you know, as the Budget goes back, to 1952, and where are the average consumers.

The data I wanted to receive from B.C. Hydro this afternoon, and I was frustrated in trying to obtain this data, Mr. Speaker, was to find out where the main bands of residential consumers are. I didn't want to know just what the average consumer, which is, I believe, around the 600 kilowatt level. I wanted to know how many consumers were going to pay more in each category, and I am sure that the rates people at B.C. Hydro in Vancouver have all of that data right at their fingertips, but again, one cannot get that information readily from Hydro because they have a public information service agency that does not readily divulge public information. That's the problem with B.C. Hydro, and that is why we should have a committee meeting, Mr. Speaker. The committee should be able to call Dr. Shrum. The committee should be able to call all of the staff people on Hydro that we want to hear from.

No, it's clear what the problem is. The Government is afraid of a full divulging of information and data from B.C. Hydro and the Crown officials. And, why are they afraid, why are they afraid? Dr. Shrum said so in his press statements on January 9th, of the Sun. He said it was politics that was the problem, at every level it was political interference that affected Hydro rates and decreases, and that's clearly been the pattern.

In the area of bus rate increases, we just received a letter today, Mr. Speaker, from his worship the Mayor of Vancouver with data from his city engineering department with respect to bus rates, and the people on the other side have been saying why should Vancouver be subsidized? Why should Vancouver be subsidized and the metropolitan area in Victoria, in terms of bus rates? The mayor gives us the answer in terms of why it should be subsidized. He had his staff look at the rates before the two systems, the private system and the public system were integrated, and it's clear, Mr. Speaker, that the smaller communities in British Columbia are being subsidized in terms of the postal rate for Hydro. There is no question about that.

Here is some material from the City of Vancouver, based on the last information available when we had the two separate structures for Hydro in British Columbia. The cost of 565 kilowatt hours, 1961, in Alert Bay was $15.91; in Bella Coola, $15.91; Fort Nelson, $25.67; in Port Hardy, $25.60; and what was the rate for power in the City of Vancouver at that time? The same amount of power? It was $12.13. It's very clear from the material provided by the City of Vancouver, just received today, that the smaller communities of British Columbia are being subsidized, and I think they sum it up with a one-sentence statement. They state that the table in that letter indicates that the rate for electricity increased as the number of customers, and the total amount of energy consumed, decreased.

It's all very well for the Minister of Recreation and Conservation to say that we've got these terrible problems in the West End of Vancouver and these high costs in the West End of Vancouver, but the point of fact is, Mr. Speaker, it's the highest density in the Province of British Columbia in terms of consumers. There are 35,000 people in the West End of Vancouver, and it's cheap to service those people compared to the outlying communities such as Port Hardy and Fort Nelson and the like. It's clear from this data that that is the case.

People on our side are not opposed to a postal rate system for Hydro, but we do think that turn-about is fair play. We do think that turn-about is fair play, so that the elderly people, the working poor in the metropolitan area, the students and the rest should continue to be subsidized in terms of communicating and being transported about the metropolitan area. It just won't do, it just doesn't wash, Mr. Speaker, to get these kinds of comments. These people in Vancouver — and we're talking about the working poor, essentially, the people that we want to keep off of welfare — these are the people that have to use the transit system of the metropolitan area and the Victoria area, and they're the people that we want to keep moving up in the main stream of our society. They're not going to be able to if you continue to increase the transit rate. We think it's only fair that the rate should continue to be subsidized, and at increasing rate, in order to encourage these people to play a meaningful role in our society, and this is one way to help them do it.

So, Mr. Speaker, I just repeat that it's disturbing to receive this kind of material from a senior officer in a Crown Corporation that clearly confuses the issue, rather than opens it up and clarifies the facts for the people in Government.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Yale-Lillooet.

MR. W.L. HARTLEY:. Mr. Speaker, wouldn't we know that this is a post-election year? Hydro electricity going up, bus fares going up, car insurance gone up, sales tax proposed increases, hospital co-insurance proposed increases. It's a post-election year. They stand up before the electors in election year and say the Government that doesn't increase taxes — before election. Of course they didn't add that, they didn't say before election.

MR. SPEAKER: Order.

MR. HARTLEY: But we're saying it, and we're going to remind them next election, and the people will remember, because what will happen, what will happen, Mr. Speaker, and I dare to prophesy, that just as we see a rate increase going up now, and it may go up again next year, and the year after that, but then before the election, we'll know when the election is coming, because you'll decrease them slightly. This is, as Dr. Shrum said, playing politics with Hydro. That's what it is.

Now we have quite a few new members here, and I think it's important that we just look back on some of the things that were said here at the time when the Columbia Treaty was signed. I was a rookie, and I listened to the member for Cowichan-Malahat, the then member for Kaslo-Slocan, criticize the Government for the Columbia Treaty, and I'll be quite frank, I thought they were being pretty hard on the Government — $274,000,000 looked like a lot of money to me.

But this was a long debate, and after our senior members had worn down the Government, the Premier got up and he said, yes that's right, $274,000,000 is not enough money,

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but what are we going to do? We're going to invest that $274,000,000 at five per cent compound interest for ten years. Now get your tables out and you'll see that $274,000,000 at five per cent for ten years is $501,000,000. Two hundred and seventy-four million dollars isn't enough, but $501,000,000 will be enough.

Now he admitted six years ago, in January of 1964, that you were going to be short, so what Dr. Shrum says about political decisions, and not decisions made on good engineering practice or sound economics, have been the decisions that this Government has been making, and I think the people should know it. If you want to place the responsibility of future development of hydro then you should vote to bring this before a committee so that then it becomes the responsibility of the whole House, and if you vote against this, then you are denying us our share of the responsibility. You're claiming full responsibility, and we will remind the electors of this in due and fitting course.

Now, when we were discussing this in 1964 — as I say, I was a rookie — I sat and listened, but I was concerned with one particular aspect, and that was: would the valleys be cleared before they were flooded? Would the lake basins be cleared? So I stood and told the Legislature what had happened with the early B.C. Electric valleys before they were flooded up at Stave Lake and Hayward Lake and so on, told them how five of my friends were drowned there because of a boating accident, hitting one of these under-water snags. I asked it there was enough money in the then estimates of the Columbia Treaty to make certain that those valleys, those lake basins, would be cleared before they were flooded, and the Minister of Lands and Resources, who had so proudly presented the pen that had been used to sign the Columbia — he presented it to the Premier — he stood up and he said, yes, there is sufficient money, and furthermore those valleys will be cleared, those lakes will be all cleaned up before they're flooded.

So I sat down, and since I was a rookie, I wasn't wise enough to know that I should have put that question on the Order Paper as we did with the Skagit Valley three years ago, because what happened? Within two years' time the then member for Kaslo-Slocan realized that the valleys were not being cleared. He knew that Duncan Dam was not being cleared fast enough to have it cleared before it was flooded and, of course, what did happen? Duncan Dam was not cleared — the whole of the High Arrow — and the Government has admitted that the valley back of Mica Dam will not be cleared, and yet this is not what the Minister said six years ago. So that now, learning from our experience, when we have a question, so long as there is no Hansard to record the questions and the answers, I think we have to put questions on the Order Paper and demand answers.

Now, Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset, this is a post-election year, and this to me, this increase in hydro rates, after the Government had gone on record in 1963 and said there would be decreases every year for the next ten years — true, we've had inflation — but in the management, the operation and distribution of electricity, the amount of labour used per kilowatt, the amount of dollars spent in generating and distributing a kilowatt of electricity, is less now than it was twenty years ago, and why? Because of automation. The modern hydro generating plant doesn't need a man. You may have a janitor go through, you have a crew of servicemen that go out in case of trouble. Before the advent of automation you had to have a whole crew of operators, of floor men, of janitors. They were on there three eight-hour shifts around the clock. So even with the increased earnings, one man with modern equipment is capable of looking after the generation and the distribution of far more hydro than ever before.

So that despite this, this Government, because of their lack of management, and mainly because of allowing this Province to be sold down the Columbia, the Premier admitted six years ago that we were going to be approximately $250,000,000 short — where we got $274,000,000 we were going to need $501,000,000 — even that is too little today.

So I've reviewed this, Mr. Speaker, because of the new members. The new members now know this, and when it comes to the vote on the resolution to set up a committee, if they fail to vote in support of the committee then they are failing to see that B.C. Hydro is given an opportunity to come under the better management and the full scrutiny of this Legislature.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Minister of Social Welfare.

HON. P.A. GAGLARDI: I would just like to try, if I can, to quietly set the record straight, because I don't think the House has ever been treated to more of a mish-mash of opinions and ideas about hydro.

Some of us that have been here down through the years have heard the policy enunciated from the other side of the House, and every time it's enunciated, it's a different policy. They never walk in a straight line. They talk out of both sides of their mouth at the same time. Then after we do achieve something, such as the creation of dams, and the bringing about of power that becomes a credit to the Province of British Columbia, then they run out to the hustings and say these things have been brought about because of yours truly, your own M.L.A. Such a deal! Every time, every time we have ever put a progressive idea on the floor of this House it's been opposed by the members opposite, and that's why they are opposite, and that's why they'll stay opposite. They'll never be out of it.

This motion was put on the Order Paper by the Liberals. Now, we're today talking about a power increase, a power increase, now why the power increase? As though that was some mystery — when the cost, the Federal Government, the Federal Liberal Government, if you please, were the ones that increased the cost of the producing of these dams by literally millions of dollars.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not true.

MR. GAGLARDI: We asked them for release from that 11 per cent in our tax that they were imposing, that excise tax, and they would not release us from that responsibility. This was a direct cost that we could do absolutely nothing about, and here it is, a Liberal member questioning why the increasing cost in power in the Province of British Columbia.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Indecipherable remark.)

MR. GAGLARDI: What are you talking about? You weren't here, and you don't even know what you're talking about. I said that when those dams started that 11 per cent was not there. It was put there after those dams were started. And when you don't know what you're talking about, you better not talk.

[ Page 546 ]

So this increase that we're talking about today as though this was some mystery, the Minister that stood up, the Minister of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources, has gone into every detail and has stated most emphatically on the floor of this House.

MR. D. BARRETT: Are you for a committee or against it?

MR. GAGLARDI: The very things that we're talking about here, and the reasons for it.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's right.

MR. GAGLARDI: The power in this Province is produced and given to the people at cost. There's no such a thing as a desire for profit from this particular operation or the organization.

AN HON. MEMBER: You sound like a good socialist.

MR. GAGLARDI: What we're trying to do is to provide power to people at cost, and if the costs are there then how are these costs going to come about? We have to pay for them by the usage of the utility. And believe me, when the Minister of Lands and Forests stood up and he showed conclusively that the increase was so very, very little above what it was in 1960, the only conclusion I can come to is, thank God that it's a Social Credit Government in the Province of British Columbia, for if we had the type of individuals or the N.D.P. in power we wouldn't be able to pay for the power that we would have wanted to be using today.

In fact, if we followed the policy enunciated by the fellows on the other side of the House we wouldn't have any power in the Province of British Columbia. We'd be walking around with candles in our hands trying to find our way in the dark, because that was the N.D.P. policy. The Member from Burnaby….

AN HON. MEMBER: Hallelujah.

MR. GAGLARDI: Yeah, go ahead. Believe me. Listening to you talk about downstream benefits, if you please, and suggesting to us that we didn't make a good deal when we got five mills, and then trying to tell us that we should not have sold that power in the United States but had them bring it back.

AN HON. MEMBER: They told us we wouldn't get five mills.

MR. GAGLARDI: I'll show you what the reason was. Sure they told us we couldn't get…. Every day they fit the speech to the order of the day, then forget it was ever stated.

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you doing?

MR. GAGLARDI: But we have to day by day live with what we do. That's what we do. And we are living with it. Now along with this paying of five mills for power that's generated in the United States, or of they paying us, if we today were to be building our industries in B.C. on power that was generated in the U.S.A., what would happen to us?

AN HON. MEMBER: You've drawn a blank.

MR. GAGLARDI: If there was a demand for that power in the U.S.A. — what would happen to us? We want our power to be produced in B.C. and generated in B.C., and used in B.C.

The member from Malahat — what does he say? Stands up here and crows and shouts and roars about what? He says that we're creating jobs in other areas and letting them produce our factories and we buying their goods, and then when it comes to power he says that we shouldn't allow them to sell the power back to us, it should be produced for us in the United States of America. One policy for one thing and another policy for another thing. Why, you never know which way you're going. If you don't be careful you'll run into yourselves coming back. Why certainly. You talk about N.D.P.? No policy, no nothing else.

The simple reason, the simple reason for the increase in power has been very clearly stated on the floor of this House. What are we doing here today but trying to make politics out of a simple question of arithmetic?

AN HON. MEMBER: You are, are you?

MR. GAGLARDI: That's what you're doing. And it's about time we stopped wasting the time of this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.

MR. GAGLARDI: Get on with the business of the people of the Province of British Columbia. We need a power rate increase in the Province of British Columbia for one reason. Because labour costs are going up, and who's against that? Because the cost of materials are going up. Who's against it? And it's because there's an inflationary situation in the Province of British Columbia, and it's as simple as that, and because the Federal Liberal Government puts such an increase on this power. Believe me, you add all these things up and it says increase, and I don't know how else you can do it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Indecipherable remark.)

MR. GAGLARDI: You better believe it. I can fly without an aeroplane — don't need to worry about that. That's for sure. And I'm not a cuckoo bird either, like someone…. and I didn't get here on the basis of a ball-point either. I won my way in here.

There isn't anybody on the floor of this House that likes an increase in power, there is nobody that wants an increase in power, but this Government is willing to face up to its responsibilities and do the job that we're supposed to do, and do it on the best basis possible, and look after the people of this Province.

Thank God that we have been able to have enough foresight to build these dams. It's a good thing that we've got some power to argue about, because if we had listened to the policies on the other side of the House, we wouldn't have any power at all, and thank God that we have got all these things to benefit by.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm against increases like everybody else. But we have to face the facts of life and that's what they are, and we like to play it as it is.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Cowichan-Malahat.

[ Page 547 ]

MR. R.M. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Minister who has just taken his place, and the thing that I have always admired about that Minister is his complete ability to stand up and talk as if he knew what he was talking about. That's not the first time we've heard him. Time after time we have heard him get up, just as he did now, and talk about legislation that he obviously hadn't ever read, and the statement that he just made, made it obvious that he has never paid a single bit of attention to what was said on this side of the House, he's never read the Columbia Treaty. He didn't know what it was all about. He never read any of the Minister's speeches before the Columbia Treaty was signed, and as a matter of fact I doubt that he even knows what a kilowatt hour is.

I listened to the Minister of Lands and Forests and the Minister of Recreation and Conservation and the Minister of Municipal Affairs. And, Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that they have all been taking lessons in ice skating, because they skated all over the ice. The Minister of Lands and Forests for half an hour on Friday, and for 55 minutes today, he got on those skates and he was all over the place, and anytime he looked as if he was going to fall flat on his back, he did a double-flip and landed on his feet.

MR. SPEAKER: Could we get around to the motion?

MR. STRACHAN: But had he fallen on the ice, Mr. Speaker, he wouldn't have hurt himself, because there was about two feet of straw all over the ice from the straw man he directed and then knocked down.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs said they won three elections on their power policy. They won three elections on their power policy, and that's exactly why we are in this position in this House today, because political adventurism was what determined the power policy of this Government, not the future needs of the people, not the utmost benefit to the people, not keeping faith with the people, not looking into the future, not making the best deal for the people. Either that, Mr. Speaker, or they are such incompetent bunglers that they couldn't get a decent agreement.

Now we have a Minister of Lands and Forests stand up here today for an hour, for 55 minutes and 30 minutes the other night, and do you know who he is now blaming for the present situation? First of all he is blaming the Opposition, and then he is blaming the consumers for going hog-wild in their use of electricity.

Mr. Speaker, year after year the B.C. Hydro have placed ads in the newspapers, advocating increased use of electricity. A whole town was built in this Province with electric heat. Now how is this going to affect these people? They did it on the word of the Premier — reduced rates for ten years. They accepted the word of the Premier of this Province. They didn't think that he was playing politics with their whole future. They didn't realize that. And individual after individual committed himself to electrical use based on the Premier's promise of continually reduced hydro rates, and this is the day they come face to face with the fact this Government has played the worst kind of politics, the meanest kind of politics, the cheapest kind of politics, with the affairs of the people of this Province.

Here's an ad that was in the Vancouver Province, November 26th, 1969, a joint ad with B.C. Hydro, and a number of other firms, urging people, urging people to install electric heaters, just two or three months ago. They then knew the rates were going up, and we hear the Minister crying this afternoon about people using so much electricity. There's the ad. Vancouver Province November 26th, 1969. Here's the B.C. Hydro sign — Operating costs are low, usually less than five cents per day per person. Just a few months ago. They didn't know this was going to happen.

Let's look back over the Premier's Budget Speeches — '61, '62. "Moreover, we wish the Columbia power project to proceed as soon as possible after satisfactory financing is achieved through sale of down-stream benefits generated in the United States." This is in '62. We argued against the sale of that particular power, Mr. Speaker, because just three years earlier, in that famous Speech of '59, this same Minister, reporting on the Skagit River development, explained how an agreement had been reached in 1952 by the previous Government and this Government turned it down. "This agreement was turned down by the Social Credit administration because the concept of down-stream benefit ruled out the principle that one single payment should provide complete compensation for a renewable and increasingly valuable resource." A renewable and increasingly valuable resource. In 1952 you turned down such proposal because down-stream benefit did not bring adequate compensation for…. rather, one payment didn't bring adequate compensation for a renewable and increasingly valuable resource. Why then, by 1962 was the Premier and the Government in this other position? For political reasons — nothing is cheaper than free, my friends, nothing is cheaper than free. And as the Minister of Municipal Affairs says, they won three elections on that.

What did the Premier say in his next Budget, 1964 Budget? He said, "The second major reduction in electric and gas rate by authority was made last April. The combined saving," so on, so on, so on…. "Further reductions will follow," he said, "further reductions will follow."

Then what did he say? Now this is interesting. In the 1965 Budget Speech, "Illustrations three and four indicate that we propose an eventual provincial grid, as our two-river hydro policy produce major blocks of electric energy. It will be noted from the illustrations that not only are basic north-south and east-west Provincial hydro transmission lines contemplated, but also connections to other provinces and the United States. Province-wide and national markets are desirable to enlarge firm demand for successive large scale blocks of hydro-electric energy. Through development of each major site and maximum load on the grid, will produce the cheapest blocks of power, insuring further major investment at other hydro sites and further diversify our provincial industrial structure."

Mr. Speaker, we went ahead with this, but in every speech that has been made from that side of the House is a complete evasion of one important factor in determining the hydro power of this Province. These people have said, time after time, that unless the Peace power had been developed, this great industrial development would not have taken place in the north. That's what they have all said, and the Minister has just repeated it. Had Peace not been built, this great industrial development would not have taken place in the north. Mr. Speaker, where have these people been? How stupid can they get? How ignorant can they be? Who were their advisors? Look, electricity will flow over lines from south to north just as readily as it will flow over lines from north to south.

[ Page 548 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: They didn't know that.

MR. STRACHAN: Simple. We've built the transmission line, we've paid for transmission line, and had we kept the down-stream benefit power for B.C., we could have split the transmission line, had that two-mill power right here in British Columbia, and paid for it. The electricity flows both ways. You can build the transmission line and still have had that great development without committing us to this high-cost power. This is the first thing they failed to realize.

What did the Premier say after that? Now the Minister has been blaming the consumers for this demand. In 1966, the Premier said, "The high rate of industrial expansion in British Columbia shows no sign of abating in the near future. Thus the rate at which electric power demand is growing allows for no slacking in the current pace of development electric system." Why this sudden crisis? And this is in 1966. Why this sudden crisis? Mr. Speaker, I have always said, and I've said time and time again, the time to avert a crisis is five years before it happens.

The time to avert a crisis is five years before it happens, and had these people been half as competent as they tell us they have been, then we wouldn't be in this position of crisis that we are in today.

The Minister said had we had a better environment at the time of the basic power discussions in this House, things might have been different. Mr. Speaker, at the time the environment was first created, these people wanted a man by the name of Wenner-Gren to take possession of half of British Columbia. They wanted him to take possession of half of British Columbia, a man by the name of Wenner-Gren, and at the time, we said, when the Peace is built it must be built under public development. That's what we said.

The Minister, talked about the higher wages in this Province but, Mr. Speaker, the wage structure in this Province has always been higher than in the other provinces of Canada. This isn't something that…. I have never denied that. I'm a proud member of a trade union that fought for these higher wages, believe you me. They were never given to us on a platter, not by this Government or anybody else.

But let's look at the relationship. I heard of other Ministers talk about the cost. Let's look at the electricity sales, kilowatt hours sold in millions related to the number of employees. Mr. Speaker, there's the number of employees.

Look at the low increase in the graph, and look at the increase in the kilowatt hours produced by this number of employees. So look at the tremendous increase in the ability to produce electricity by the individual employee. Look at the labour cost per thousand kilowatt hours of electricity sold, and from 1964 until 1968 the labour cost per thousand kilowatt hours of electricity sold was going down, and it's only in this last 12 months that they have gone up very slightly. Let's look at the millions of kilowatt hours sold per employee, the relationship to the number of kilowatt hours sold per employee, and there it is, just a continually increasing graph going right off the top of the page. So let's not be saying that it's the high labour costs in this Province that have placed us in this position.

Mr. Speaker, a man by the name of Dal Grauer once examined the power policies of British Columbia, before the Columbia River Treaty was signed, and he related the need for power to the economic future of the Province. He referred to the possibility that some insane Government, not his word, that's my word, that some insane Government would at some future date be tempted to sell the down-stream benefit power, thus depriving British Columbia of what that man said was its greatest need. The injection of a large block of low-cost power into British Columbia, and he said the only way to get that injection of low-cost power, and the figure he used was two mills, was by keeping the down-stream benefit power for our own use. He said that's the only way that we would ever get set on the road to creating the secondary and the tertiary industry that this Province must have.

Somebody over there during this debate talked about Manitoba, the Manitoba power rate. Mr. Speaker, the Manitoba power rates were referred to the Public Utilities Commission of Manitoba for examination. This was a recommendation from the Manitoba Utilities Commission that went to the Conservative Government a year ago, but like every Conservative Government, just as this is a Conservative Government, they played politics with it and didn't do a thing about it until after the election.

The Premier talked about 4.4 mill power. Now it's up to five mills…. I'm talking about what you said. Mr. Premier….

Mr. Speaker, what did this blunder of this Government do to the United States? It triggered, it was a catalyst, that allowed them to firm up all this power, that allowed them to create the great new industries that have moved into the north-west United States, and allowed them to get, because of our power. Now let me read to you from 1968, "Use of Canadian power will save Californians $12,000,000 during the 1967 to 1983 period," according to William R. Gianelli, Director of the California Department of Water Resources. "The California State water project intends to put just Canadian entitlement electric power from the cities of Seattle, Tacoma and other Pacific north-west agencies, to run the huge California Aqueduct Pumping Plants. The project will deliver water from northern California to the arid regions in the southern areas of the state. The Canadian Entitlement Power was made available as a result of a treaty between Canada and the United States, signed on January 17th, 1961, relating to the development of the Columbia River. The cost to California is estimated to be $6.86 per kilowatt per year, and 2.5 mills per kilowatt hour for delivery at the Oregon-California border." Two point six mills delivered at the California-Oregon boundary because of the deal that this Government made.

Then this Minister, this Minister of skating over here, said we have to be competitive with the Americans. He'd already sabotaged our ability to be competitive with the Americans through this bungling incompetence. What else is there?

Mr. Speaker, this is a motion to allow this matter to go to a committee of this House. I am supporting this motion because for years, during Estimates, any time we've asked a question that the Government didn't want to answer they have refused to answer it, and the Minister of Municipal Affairs knows full well, when he tried to say in this House, that a responsible Minister stands up, and we can ask all the questions we want and we get answers. Mr. Speaker, I can't remember the number of times, perhaps you can recall, the number of times I have been gavelled down by the Chairman because a Minister had refused to answer a question, and when I repeated the question for the second time I found myself gavelled down by the Chair because I was being repetitive, because I was being repetitive. The Chairman would say, "You have the right to ask a question, but the Minister doesn't have to answer."

Is this the way the public affairs of this Province are to be conducted?

[ Page 549 ]

This is why we are in this mess today, because you've been able to hide behind these green doors, and over in that tall building in Vancouver. They have never allowed us access to the information. They have kept it secret, because it would be obvious that what they were doing was playing, playing politics.

You know, Mr. Speaker, we talk about this five mills from the Peace. That's not the end of the story. It is the peculiar system of bookkeeping that's accepted, because chartered accountants agree, generally speaking, with the procedure recommended by the firm for which they are working, as long as it is all covered. I would refer you to notes to financial statements as at March 31st, 1969. "We are now paying five mills to an integrated system," and believe me, that word "integrated" in there could mean a lot of things, it could mean a lot of things.

But I heard the Premier stating yesterday, Mr. Speaker, on television, and he was asked the question, "Well, isn't it true, Mr. Premier, that you said that no tax money would ever go to the P.G.E?" And the Premier said, "I said no such thing." And he was right, the Premier didn't say that, but the Premier, time and time again, has said that these are contingent liabilities, these are Provincial guarantees, these are self-liquidating, not one penny of taxes will ever be used for these self-liquidating Provincial guarantees. So this is why I look at the word "integrated" in there, and I say: just what is behind that word "integrated" in that five mills?

Let me read to you from the last annual report of the B.C. Hydro. "Accordingly, the Authority has adopted an accounting practice of transferring the construction costs of the dam, the power-house, and other common property, to plant in service by installments, proportionate to the number of completed and operational generating units in relation to the ten units presently contemplated. The transfers are to be completed during a period of not more than seven years. Three generating units were installed and placed in operation during the year ended 31st of March, 1969. Consequently, 30 per cent of the dam, power-house, and other common property costs were transferred to plant in service and, in accordance with the Authority's practice, provisions for depreciation will commence thereon effective 1st of April, 1969." So, there is still two-thirds, 70 per cent, of the cost of the dam, and 70 per cent of the cost of the power-house that's not included in this rate. "But in the meantime, the cost of the dam, power-house, and other common property not yet transferred to plant in service are shown separately as deferred costs under property account. These two costs will continue to attract interest charged to construction."

So the time we get all of this together, with these added interest rates that are being capitalized each succeeding year, it's obvious that this five-mill figure will be higher because of the incompetence of this Government in the handling of the power affairs of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I want this to go to committee because we have been refused information time and time again on the floor of this House. The Public Accounts Committee of this Province, this Legislature, has never been allowed to look behind the balance sheet of B.C. Hydro. Never been allowed to look behind that balance sheet, to see just what the figures are, what they mean, what relation they have to each other, whether or not value is received. We've never been allowed to look behind this balance sheet, despite the fact that this is a Crown corporation, based on a decision not made in this House, but made by the Premier, because the Premier has said that the hydro rate increase is up to me.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's right.

MR. STRACHAN: The Minister says it's crisis, it's crisis, it's crisis — we've got to make our decision today, in this House, but the Premier said the final decision must be made by the people's duly elected representatives, especially the Premier of the Province. In the final analysis he says, "I must make the decision for all policies of the Government, or its agencies."

AN HON. MEMBER: Right. In the dark.

MR. STRACHAN: Yesterday, on television, he said, "It's nothing to do with me; it's up to B.C. Hydro." That's what he said. It's on the record, it's on the record. I heard him, I heard him. It's on tape. You bet your life.

Mr. Speaker, I am voting for this motion, first of all, because I think it's time we had a look behind the scenes. I think it's time we had the full story of B.C. Hydro. I am voting for this motion because it is obvious that the power policy of this Government is in a shambles. A vote against this motion is a vote for higher electricity rates. A vote against this motion is a vote for increased transit rates without inquiry. A vote against this motion is a vote of endorsation for ten years of incompetence, bungling and politics…

AN HON. MEMBER: And blindfolds.

MR.STRACHAN: …in the field of power development in this Province, and if there is ever a day, if there's ever a day that the Government of this Province should hang its head in shame, it's today.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier of this Province and I disagree on one thing, one basic fundamental difference. The Premier says politics is war, but, Mr. Speaker, you can never pursue war with a conscience. That's the history of war. That's why we had Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's why Rotterdam was bombed. That's why London was bombed. Because you can't pursue war with a conscience. But, Mr. Speaker, it's my contention that politics that are not pursued with a conscience are betraying the people of today and betraying the people of the future, and that's why we are in this mess. Because I've always believed that politics is not the most important thing in the world; the people of tomorrow are.

I urge the people of this House to cast aside the attitude that politics is war, and remember what I quoted earlier. "Mankind will not survive without a conscience." Use your conscience today and vote for this motion.

On the motion of Mr. H.J. Bruch, the debate was adjourned to the next sitting of the House.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.

The House met at 6:05 p.m.

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT (Premier): Adjourned debate on Motion No. 3, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: You have to have leave of the House.

[ Page 550 ]

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT: No, no. Government day.

MR. SPEAKER: This has been a matter that has disturbed the Chair for a considerable length of time, and one that we are presently pursuing as to what is intended by Public Bills and Orders in Standing Order No. 25, and what is intended by Motions and Adjourned Debates on Motions. We've taken the time to look up a number of authorities in this connection, more particularly Bourinot, which I think, sets the matter out with some clarity. It has been our conclusion, because they are set out in a certain pattern, that we are on the one hand bound by the Orders of the Day to follow them in that pattern, while on the other hand the Motions that are contemplated by the Orders are not Motions such as we have on the Order Paper. Rather they are Motions that have to do with the procedure of the House, the conduct of its officers and that sort of thing, not ones that would countenance lengthy debate. Actually, the proper position of Motions on the Order Paper would be at the end, rather than at the beginning of the Order Paper. The matter is still under advisement.

I feel that the honourable member has raised an excellent point, because it's one that certainly has confused myself for some considerable time. Nevertheless, I do feel that the House should be able to proceed to Motions, if it wishes to do so, but I am not in a position at this moment to be able to bring down a positive ruling and give proper grounds for such a ruling.

Under the circumstances, I seem to have no alternative but to ask the House to give leave to proceed to the Motions which are on the Order Paper and the adjourned debate on Motion No. 3. Shall leave be granted?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Contrary minded, if any?

The honourable Member for Esquimalt.

MR. H.J. BRUCH: Mr. Speaker, in all of this debate there have been three simple items that have been overlooked by the Opposition in their presentation. The first is that if we had not taken the cash, where would the funds come from to have built the dams to store the water to receive the benefits? It's just that simple, it's just that simple, because right now the problem is the high cost of financing.

Very basically, it is very easy for the Opposition to quote that yes they have 2½-mill power down in the State of Washington. If we had that two per cent capital from our National Government we wouldn't have a problem today to give 2½-mill power as well. And, very basically, how on earth can the junior governments operate when the Federal Government is offering double their money in nine years? Under that type of an inflationary policy, under that type of interest structure, it becomes absolutely impossible to foresee this type of a situation, and it could not have been foreseen in years past. Very basically, the problem today is that cost of money, and the Opposition have very clearly indicated that they were not for cheap power for the people in the past ten years, but they have repeatedly stated here that we should have charged the people higher rates over the past ten years.

Mr. Speaker, we don't need a witch-hunt here, we just need some common sense.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey.

MR. G.B. GARDOM: It is interesting to hear from the former speaker about witch-hunting. He seems to be about the expert in this House dealing with that particular aspect.

My view of this debate, Mr. Speaker, is this. It's not whether Hydro should or should not increase its power rates. It's much deeper and much more serious than that. The point of the whole debate to me is this, whether in B.C. we intend to practise true democracy or statism, and whether the business of the people is the business of the people, or whether it is to be something that is sacrosanct to the Government in power, and to only one tiny section of that Government. To me that boils down to Government under the rug, and it's straight Star Chamber stuff, in my view, Mr. Speaker.

My attitude to democratic government and its use of its public's money, the use of the Crown corporations, which are the public's corporations, is simply this. A Crown corporation is for a public purpose. Public money is for public purpose, and they have got to be subject to public account, and not to promote, not to promote the political life of a few people or any Cabinet, or any government, anywhere.

I feel very strongly about this, and if you don't like me raising my voice you can go out in the hall as far as I'm concerned.

The public, Mr. Speaker, the public have the complete and the undeniable right to know the how, and the when, and the where, and the what, and the why, of the expenditure of public money, and the full and complete operation of these Crown corporations. They've got the right to look at it. Otherwise, Mr. Speaker — and it's a sorry thing to say, but in my view, it is true — otherwise democracy dies at the polling booth, and we have that death in the polling booth in the Province of British Columbia today.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Burnaby North.

MRS. E.E. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, if anything has focused the point regarding the need to go into committee, it has been the last five hours of debate and speeches which we have listened to. Now, this is no reflection on the calibre of the speeches. But before I myself could vote intelligently on a rate increase, I would want some questions answered and some facts, and this forum here is not the place, obviously, to get them. Because we have been listening mainly to policy statements. There is one question I would like to know. Will the brunt of the rate increases be borne chiefly by the consumer? What about industry? Could we have an answer to that?

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey will close the debate. Order, please. The honourable the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey will close the debate.

MR. P.L. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief….

AN HON. MEMBER: You cut off the Premier, Mr. Speaker.

MR. McGEER: Yes, the Premier didn't choose to speak in this debate, and he should have…. (laughter)

[ Page 551 ]

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT (Premier): I'll speak now.

MR. McGEER: Too late now. Take your seat; you had your chance.

You'll instruct that honourable member, who knows so well, Mr. Speaker, or should know by now, the Rules of this House, and when it is his opportunity to debate, and when he is out of order…

AN HON. MEMBER: Big joke.

MR. McGEER: …because, if we are to have democracy in British Columbia, and if these members who support the Government should have the opportunity to learn as they should, on behalf of their constituents, what is going on with respect to power policies in this Province, and the bills of the electricity customers, which include all the citizens of British Columbia, then they need to penetrate far beyond what the Minister of Finance has been prepared to say, which is nothing. He said nothing today when he could have got up and defended his Government and his policies. Instead, we got some mish-mash from two of our Ministers who sit on the B.C. Hydro Board of Directors and, believe me, I am glad the affairs of the B.C. Hydro are in the charge of Chairman Shrum…

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. McGEER: …and not those two Ministers, because with all the coaching they got over the weekend they still weren't able to give a very good account of themselves in the House today.

What we had instead, Mr. Speaker, was a letter from the Chairman of the B.C. Hydro, written over a month ago, telling what the rate increases were to be, couched in language to satisfy the Government's supporters on the backbench, so they wouldn't ask too many questions, the kind of questions that always get asked before a committee. What this letter said, and does anybody seriously think this two-paged letter, the third page of which contains only this sentence, "If there is any additional information you would like to have in regard to these proposals, I trust you will let me know." And that's to the Prime Minister — not the Prime Minister of Canada — but two pages of information, a table on the second page which lists reduction for increase over 1961 rates, but neglects to mention how it is today, and who is going to be socked in British Columbia on this black Monday. Because what is not told in this table, and was not read to you by the Minister who presented this letter today — and well, he didn't want to tell you these things — was that 47.5 per cent of the people of British Columbia who use less than 400 kilowatt hours a month will not have the 10 per cent or 12 per cent increase that was suggested, not even the 15 per cent that was to be their over-all. These little people, half the electricity users in British Columbia, according to this letter, are going to get socked with a 20 per cent increase. That's what the real rate increase is for the average person in British Columbia. This letter, which has two pages of information…. Does anybody seriously think that this kind of information would stand up before the Public Utilities Commission, that any other power corporation in Canada or North America would be able to force a 20 per cent increase on half of its customers overnight, presenting that kind of information? And yet if you vote against this motion, as the treasury bench people wish you to do…. And all I'm suggesting is that the ordinary people in this House for once take power into their hands, turn their backs on the treasury benches.

The member from West Vancouver–Howe Sound put his finger on it. He said, "They tell it like it ain't." And that's what we've heard in this House, year after year after year from the treasury benches telling us like it ain't. And we were told, Mr. Speaker, like it ain't again today, because when that letter was read to you members in the House it was leading you to believe that the little people of this Province were going to still be getting a reduction. Not on your life. For them it's 20 per cent more.

In another argument that the Minister presented to you today, he is saying we must treat this matter out of committee, we must be certain not to have the House take time to delve into this any longer by this committee, we don't have time for the public of British Columbia to learn it like it is, because we've got a financial crisis on our hands and there is going to be a shortage of electricity.

Yes, the Minister of Social Rehabilitation was up telling us later this afternoon that if we voted in favour of this motion, we would be running around with candles in British Columbia. That's what you said, Mr. Minister, because there would be a blackout, a lack of power in this Province. And this is what the Minister of Lands and Forests said earlier today, too. But we can play the tape back. He led us to believe that there was such a crisis in providing power in the future that unless we made this decision now….

But what you didn't tell this House, Mr. Speaker, and what he should have told every member here — and this is why I stand up and say that the treasury benches tell it like it ain't — this past week the Government of British Columbia and the B.C. Hydro obtained from the Federal Government permission to export electricity from British Columbia. They applied for last week and received five permits to export power. Did he tell you that this afternoon? No, he told you there was a shortage. He told you to vote against this motion because there wasn't time, and just last week he's applying for five permits to export power from British Columbia. And I would like to know this, Mr. Speaker, what price is that power to be exported at? What price? And I would like to know this too, Mr. Speaker, because that's not in this letter.

Mr. Speaker, these are the kinds of things we could find out in committee. We could also find out, Mr. Speaker, since the little people of British Columbia are to be socked today with this 20 per cent power rate increase, what is industry paying in this Province? What is their share of all this? Because Chairman Shrum, who isn't with us tonight but who was this afternoon, with respect, Mr. Speaker, I suggest we could have learned more — all of us — in a single afternoon by listening to the Chairman of the B.C. Hydro, than we could learn with days of debate in this House, and of course that's what a committee could do.

But in this interview, not given to any member of this House but to a newspaper reporter, Chairman Shrum had this to say, he said that some large-scale users in British Columbia, such as pulp mill and chemical companies, got their power at cost until May 1, 1969. In other words, the little people of British Columbia were carrying the load, and the big users were the freeloaders. We know who the freeloaders are in the Province. We know who is getting socked with the cost.

Are you going to stand up, all of you, for the little people of British Columbia, are you going to turn your backs on those treasury benches who have refused to tell it like it is, to you the people of British Columbia. Is that what you want?

[ Page 552 ]

I know that all of you have faith in the Minister of Finance, but does it have to be blind faith? Because that's what you are doing if you accept the kind of pap that we got this afternoon.

MR. SPEAKER: Order.

MR. McGEER: The Minister of Finance is the one who has given us all those rate reductions — '62, '63, '64, '65. He's on high beam when it comes to rate reductions. But when there is an increase he becomes the silent member from South Okanagan who defers to the B.C. Hydro, and that's how he's been today, all the B.C. Hydro's fault.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's his modesty.

MR. McGEER: And what did Chairman Shrum say? He said, "We probably should have had an increase a year ago. We shouldn't have let ourselves go down like this. But," he said, "last April a provincial election was known to be imminent." Apparently he knew there was to be an election. Apparently he knew there was to be an election last April. We didn't know that. You didn't know that. Chairman Shrum knew it. Why? Because economic sense said there should have been a rate increase a year ago, and he was told, "No," because there was to be a Provincial election. And that's playing politics.

This is what we are trying to lift this whole question of power rates in British Columbia out of — cheap politics. Because until we get the affairs of the B.C. Hydro in front of the public, and that can only be done by having set up in the Legislature the kind of committee which will permit each of you to listen to the Chairman and executives of B.C. Hydro, and other power corporations if you wish to call them, and have them tell it like it is. Because if you vote against this motion then what you've done is to deny yourselves, and through you, the people of British Columbia, from the kind of information that they are entitled to have as people who have elected you and given you responsibility as to how their public funds are being used, and why their electricity rates are as they are.

You can go ahead and turn down this motion and put the affairs of the B.C. Hydro into the dark closets again, and to say we never learned because we didn't try. But here, within a few moments, you have the thing in your hands, the power to turn the lights on as far as the B.C. Hydro is concerned, and end the blackout that lies over our B.C. Legislature.

MR. SPEAKER: You have heard the motion. All those in favour say Aye. Contrary minded, No. I think the No's have it. So ordered.

The motion was negatived on the following division: —

YEAS — 17
Messieurs

NAYS — 35
Messieurs

The House adjourned at 6:35 p.m.