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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1972

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Minister of Education.

HON. D.L. BROTHERS (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, I would like you and my colleagues in the Legislature to bid welcome to Mrs. Catherine Schoen and her executive of the P.T.A. About 150 ladies and men of the P.T.A. are today on education day in the Legislature and from many points of the compass. Even as far away as from Dawson Creek.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Leader of the Opposition.

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): I rise to welcome the P.T.A. delegation to this House on P.T.A. and I would like to make special mention of 35 hearty P.T.A. members who came from the far flung area of the province — Coquitlam — who are with us.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister without Portfolio.

HON. P.J. JORDAN (Minister without Portfolio): Mr. Speaker, I would ask the House to join me in welcoming today in our gallery the president of the North Okanagan Teachers' Association, Mr. Brian Usher and his companion, a well-known teacher in British Columbia, Mr. Earl Quesnel, and Vernon student, Don Nelson.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the first Member for Vancouver Centre.

MR. H.P. CAPOZZI (Vancouver Centre): I would like to welcome also the P.T.A. members. I would also welcome a member of the recreation group and representing the Canadian football league, the former president of the Canadian football league, Mr. Al McEadiren, in the Speakers' Gallery.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

ON THE BUDGET

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable, the Minister of Education.

HON. D.L. BROTHERS (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, of the many new concepts and ideas that this government has brought forth, I think perhaps one of the finest has been the establishment of the perpetual funds. The interest of these can be used to improve the quality and the style of life for present British Columbians and all generations to come.

Perhaps in my opinion, one of the finest is the fund called the drug, alcohol and cigarette education, prevention and rehabilitation fund. As you know we passed this Act last year and it's been used for a programme of education, prevention and rehabilitation in respect of the problems arising from the use of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. The Act provided that a council would be set up to advise the Minister of Finance on the expenditures from this fund.

On April 28, 1971, an order was passed appointing as members of the council, Mr. Peterson, the Attorney-General; Mr. Loffmark, the Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance, and two deputy Ministers, Mr. Lawrie Wallace and Mr. Ron Worley, and myself as chairman. I would like to tell the Members of the House what we have accomplished in the intervening period.

At our very first meeting in May, we recognised the very serious drug problem and we considered it advisable to proceed as quickly as possible and we set various guidelines.

We decided that public information and education should receive the highest priority. We felt that a comprehensive, long-term, public information and education programme for all sectors of society should be developed immediately. I noticed with some interest that this is also one of the recommendations of the LeDain commission.

First attention was to be given to the drug abuse problem because all the reports that we had been receiving showed that drugs had reached epidemic proportions. We also found that there is scarcely an area in our province in which the non-medical use of drugs has not emerged.

Incidently, in talking to the ladies and gentlemen of the P.T.A. several years ago, I pointed out this growing problem and I asked them to provide us with assistance in combating this problem in their areas.

We found that 85 per cent of the new heroin addicts coming for treatment to the Narcotic Addiction Foundation had a background of multi-drug use. The council was also aware that with the problems before us, the problem of alcohol and alcoholism may in the long run prove even more serious. Between 1961 and 1971 there was a 30 per cent increase in alcohol consumption in the province and estimates made by the alcoholism foundation indicate an 85 per cent increase in the number of alcoholics and predicted that if this trend continued, that we can expect by 1981 to have 88,480 alcoholics in British Columbia. Not only is alcohol a terrible problem for families but I think it is noteworthy that alcohol is a factor in 50 per cent of all motor vehicle fatalities.

The information, together with recent medical findings regarding the effects of cigarettes, supported our decision to develop a programme covering all three of these potentially harmful substances. While I am on this matter, I can hardly see why we as a council and as a government should be spending this kind of money in combating alcoholism, tobacco and drugs, yet at the same time have the newspapers in our province promoting the use of tobacco by ads. I'm certainly going to recommend to our council that we take any of these out of the Victoria Times and the Colonist.

We also concluded that the programme must include the provision for new funds for the work being done by various voluntary agencies in the area of treatment or rehabilitation. The council recognised that expenditures of public funds were involved and felt it was therefore necessary to devise effective procedures for reviewing applications for grants and for imposing in certain cases some conditions.

The council also believed that in the long run an effective prevention programme must involve effective education for the young people in the schools and in the community.

In carrying out these guidelines, the first step taken was a

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major public information programme using all media — newspapers, radio, T.V. — and as far as possible covering all sections of the province. The purpose of this programme was to alert and to inform the public and particularly parents about the dangers of drug abuse and the problem of alcoholism. We also prepared a publication entitled, "Get it Straight." Copies of this have been widely distributed. The last figure I have is that 14,000 copies of this publication had been asked for. We intend to prepare a similar publication for alcohol and for cigarettes.

The next step we took as a council was to set up a technical sub-committee for dealing with the applications for financial assistance from local and provincial groups and organisations. We are awarding grants as quickly as we possibly can. A good example is the one we issued just 10 days ago for a group to study glue sniffing. It is a little bit difficult to give an exact accounting but I may say, however, that as of January 25, the total committed expenditure of $141,250 had been approved for these various grants to help these groups.

These grants cover a wide range of projects including education, prevention and rehabilitation programmes. I will be forwarding copies of application forms to all members of the Legislature. So if Members have any groups in their area who would like to apply for funds from this fund for programmes in their areas, would they please complete the forms by the groups and have the groups forward them to our sub-committee?

Members will also be interested to know that we have not overlooked the need for research in these very complex problems. One of the most recent grants was awarded to the University of British Columbia which in consultation with the Department of the Attorney General is conducting special research into the effects of marijuana.

This is a $50,000 research grant and it will be used primarily to discover the effects that the use of marijuana has on driving ability. In addition the council has commissioned the B.C. Research Council to survey the province to see what is being undertaken throughout the province and in particular the area of treatment and rehabilitation programmes. We also want the research council to identify the problems being encountered and the effectiveness of the programmes.

In the area of education of young people we have commissioned the production of a special film to be used in British Columbia and in the British Columbia school system. We found that in the use of films and printed materials on the market today, even if the one to be produced is such that it may have considerable merit and appeal to some, it is not necessarily equally effective for everyone.

For this reason we have encouraged the development of new ideas in the production of educational aids of this nature. We have also asked the film industry to prepare ideas for us. We have asked them to support proposals for films. Ten submissions have been received to date and it is hoped that at least some of them can be developed and produced.

Secondly, the council has arranged for what might be called a province-wide media contest for young people in the secondary schools, colleges and universities.

We feel that young people today may have some very good ideas as to the best ways of coping with the problems as they see them and there is every reason to believe that a number of them have directly or indirectly been affected by some of these problems. It is hoped that the contest will be productive of some original and effective materials which we intend to use in our educational programme.

Also, we have retained the services of a drug programme co-ordinator. We had over 50 applications for this important position and the council approved the recommendation of the appointment of Mr. Peter Battisson who has had a great deal of success in working with young people in this field.

I think it must be relatively obvious to everyone that the problems that we face today in this field of drug dependency are by no means simple. They are not confined to the cities and for that matter are not unique to this province, nor is there any quick or magic solution to them. I have no doubt that there are individuals who claim to have solutions and who would disagree with at least some of the things that are presently being done.

All that we have been able to examine to date, however, indicates that the origins or causes of these problems are deeply rooted and do not lend themselves to an easy remedy. It would therefore follow that for the time being at least the council should take the approach of encouraging every idea that seems promising. We should also promote, foster and encourage every attempt that is being made at the community or the grass roots level.

So with this idea in mind, the council approved the establishment of community advisory committees. It is felt that persons in local communities would not only be able to advise us on the effectiveness of provincial programmes but would also be able to help initiate and co-ordinate and assist the work to be done on these problems by people right in the communities themselves.

Six of these committees have been established to date with the nucleus of the membership being drawn from the fields of public health, law enforcement and education. If any Members of the Legislature are aware of any specific problems in their area, they might find it helpful to contact the local committee. A list of these committees will be forwarded to each Member.

May I report to you at the present time that a total of over $250,000 has been extended on project grants, film production, school media contests, research and a public information programme? Our council does not view its work as merely engaging in a short-term campaign. There is every indication that a programme of this comprehensive nature must continue and must change from time to time as the needs indicate.

It is hoped in the coming year to undertake a further study of what is being done in other parts of the world and to try to make some assessment of the effectiveness of new treatment programmes and new educational programmes. It is also hoped that anyone who has any particular proposals or ideas that may be of use or assistance in combatting this major social problem will contribute them to the council. The programme outlined is a sincere and positive attempt, if not to solve, at least to curb and control a problem which if left neglected will do more damage to the minds and bodies of our young people than bombs or bullets can possible do.

In referring to the budget, this must be the finest budget brought down by any government in Canada. Every other province in the Dominion including the federal government is borrowing money and operating with deficit budgets. Our government has steadfastly held to the rule of pay-as-you-go with a balanced budget and a build-up of reserves against the day when there may be an economic disaster.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BROTHERS: Through very astute moves

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we've been able to provide perpetual funds. I think it's noteworthy that two-thirds of the budget is used for education, health and social services. Provision is also being made for increased home-owner grants, and a substantial assistance to senior citizens and pensioners in the $50 home-owner grants for those over 65 years of age.

These additional grants will go a long way towards taking education costs entirely off the homes of many thousands of British Columbians, in spite of the fact that education costs are rising so rapidly.

I noted that the provision of $441 million for the Department of Education is larger than the entire provincial budget as recently as 1963.

The increase alone for the Department of Education this year is almost as much — just the increase alone — is as much as the entire budget for education as recently as 1956-57.

A new item in the Department of Education's estimates this year is the provision of $1 million for the payment of the employers' share of federal unemployment insurance on behalf of teachers.

This is an item which the boards of school trustees had expected to assume and the government is paying it on their behalf. You will note as well that while the total of the grants to school districts is substantially higher, there is also a large increase in the amount being made available for post-secondary education. There will be $6 million more for grants to colleges and technical and vocational schools, and $7.5 million more in the university operating grants.

I mentioned in my address during the debate on the Speech from the Throne that I would spend the time in that debate on the public school system, that on this discussion I would be devoting most of my time to the developments taking place in the post-secondary field.

The Economic Council of Canada predicted that between now and 1978 there would be a large number of students entering into the field of post-secondary education and thereafter the trend will be towards levelled-off enrolment. In the meantime, the elementary population will continue to decline. That is exactly why we have been preparing over the last five years for this expected crop of post-secondary students.

Now we could probably spend hours and even days on debating educational philosophy, as many educators are prone to do. There are, however, two concepts which in my opinion are basic to the educational enterprise and essential both for the individual and for the province.

The first is the belief long held by society that in pure education there are direct values which transcend the mere training for a particular job. Education must develop the inner resources of the individual. His talents, his creativity, his awareness of his heritage, his insight into his society and his sense of responsibility. So he can lead a very rich, a cultured and joyous life.

The second concept is more concerned with utilitarian purposes — how will the post-education system help the individual develop his potential within the framework of his interests and needs? How can we assure a student leaving the educational system that he possesses a saleable skill or knowledge so that he can enter a satisfying and rewarding occupation and contribute both to his own welfare and to the welfare of society?

It seems to me, therefore, that given the kind of world we live in, with all its technological complexity, with the terrible social problems which urgently clamour for solution, with the increased leisure time, that we must both emphasise the aspects of education which contribute to the fulfilment of the individual and to assist him in establishing a worthwhile place under the sun in our community.

In this context the challenge to education today is enormously greater than any other time in our history. Because the level of the technological advances of our age demands the most highly trained and skilled personnel ever known. The sum of human knowledge doubles about every 10 years. No previous generation have ever had to be…

AN HON. MEMBER: Not over there!

HON. MR. BROTHERS: …better prepared. As I describe the developments which are taking place in our post-secondary education services, you will see evidence of our attempt to translate both of these concepts into reality. The developments which have taken place in this province during the past six or seven years have been both exciting and significant. We now have in operation nine public colleges with approximately 14,000 students, the B.C.I.T. with 2,900 students and three public universities with an enrolment of 30,940 students.

In addition, we estimate that there are some 250,000 adult citizens in British Columbia who are presently engaged in various programmes of continuing education. This means that one person in every six of our population is engaged in some form of post-secondary education.

These figures attest eloquently to the interest of our people in improving their educational qualifications and standards and in attempting to improve upon the quality of their living. It augurs well for the future of our province and of Canada. Surely this must be the best record of any of the provinces in our nation.

I stated that several years ago we realised that our province needed a much broader post-secondary educational system. We thought that we should develop this as well as the university, because the university concentrates on the traditional academic programme. We began to plan for provision of a province-wide network of vocational schools. We've been building these vocational schools at strategic locations throughout the province so that people, no matter where they may be in the province, would be able to obtain this type of training. Our tenth vocational school came into operation last fall in Kamloops, and the Chilliwack school is now in the active planning stages. This school will serve the eastern portion of the Fraser Valley including Abbotsford, Agassiz, Matsqui and surrounding centres.

The Members of the Opposition infer that this is a completely unplanned development with no provision for needed programmes or courses or an eye towards the future needs and developments.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BROTHERS: May I advise them that we have 35 provincial advisory committees which we can call on when we are planning new vocational programmes or considering modifications to existing courses.

We also seek the views of a host of community advisory committees on the types of courses which they feel would be of use in the various communities. We maintain an effective liaison with labour and industry and as a result our vocational programmes are well co-ordinated and relevant to today's needs. I think this can be borne out when you look at the graduates from the B.C.I.T. Their job-finding capacity was 96

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per cent effective during the last year when the economy of the province was suffering and unemployment rates were high. The placement of vocational school graduates was 72 per cent effective, even though many thousands of persons elsewhere were having difficulty finding jobs.

The Member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Strachan) noticed that some B.C. industries were advertising for workmen in other provinces. He has noted, no doubt, that the advertisements specify that they are looking for experienced persons. I think it's unfortunate that more of the British Columbia companies are not willing to recruit their work force in our own province. I think it's unfortunate that they don't give our own young people a break. We have the young people who are willing to work and we can train them how to do a job, but we can't give them experience in the school. They will gain experience only if somebody is willing to hire them and give them on-the-job training.

Now, this is particularly true, for example, in the mining industry. When a new mine opens in British Columbia, the company goes down to eastern Canada and raids somebody else's company and then when a new mine opens out here in the west the people from the east come out here and rob the miners from the western mines.

I mentioned in my last address that the Department of Education recently opened, in cooperation with Canada Manpower, the only open-pit mining school in Canada. This school, at Red Mountain near Rossland, has been such an outstanding success that we are now considering the possibility of expanding the programme to include underground or hard rock training and mine mechanics.

Now that the school for miners is operational we are also considering the possibility of establishing in British Columbia a nautical institute for the training of west coast mariners. Now, I'm thinking in terms of a school where tug-boat operators, deep-sea fishermen, B.C. Ferries personnel and merchant ship personnel can learn various nautical skills.

The west coast waterways will become increasingly congested as our province develops its port facilities with its overseas trade with foreign nations. We are a maritime province and I think it is time that we make it possible for our men who go to sea to take special training in such areas as navigation, seamanship and the various aspects of safety and rescue at sea. We intend to discuss this proposal with the federal Ministry of Transport and the provincial advisory committee on nautical training programmes.

If I may turn to forestry for a moment, most of the forest product mills in British Columbia have extremely ultramodern equipment which requires considerable know-how to keep things running smoothly.

It's essential that the men who work in these plants know how to keep the machines running and, if trouble occurs, how to analyse the problem and make a speedy repair. We hired a professional engineer to conduct on-site training programmes. Our engineer visits the mills to instruct supervisory personnel on the principles of hydraulics and pneumatics and how to look after such vital parts as bearings and power drive units. The supervisors, in turn, are expected to pass this knowledge on to the men who run the machines. This engineer has already been to mills at Tahsis, Port Alice, Elk Falls, Prince George and Nanaimo, and he soon will be visiting mills in the Prince Rupert area.

We now offer in the vocational schools of the province 173 different kinds of courses and more than 28,000 people were enrolled in full-time in these courses last year. Some commercial and industrial courses are offered in all of our schools. Some of the schools offer specialised courses which are indigenous to the area. For example, animal husbandry and crop science programmes are available at the vocational school at Dawson Creek. Logging training is offered at Nanaimo and Prince George, and commercial and applied art are taught at the Vancouver School of Art and at the Kootenay School of Art at Nelson.

As well as these other tasks our department through the vocational branch has organised in cooperation with Canada Manpower, special projects for training unskilled workers and upgrading others. During the current year, we have organised 255 special projects which were attended by 2,461 persons. Under this programme for example, we conducted farm machinery repair training programmes at Alexis Creek, Anahim Lake and Alkali Lake.

We had some 24 courses in basic training for Indians in the communities of Bella Coola, Bella Bella, Clemto, Similkameen, Chetwin, Alert Bay, Duncan and Merrit. Furthermore, it might be of interest particularly to the Member for Atlin (Mr. Calder), that we are initiating an argyllite carving course at Skidegate and a silver carving course at Old Masset, in the Queen Charlotte Islands.

In addition to these advisory committees that I have mentioned earlier, which bring forth proposals from various community and labour groups, a provincial vocational technical consultative committee was formed within the past year.

This committee, under the chairmanship of Saul Rothman, the vice-president and the general manager in charge of production for Cominco, advises me on all matters relating to vocational and technical and career programmes offered at the post secondary level. It reports on the effectiveness of current programmes and gives me an indication of changing trends in provincial and national needs in technical and trades training. The committee meets frequently and renders an immensely valuable service to the citizens of this province. The first Member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Capozzi) suggested this last year in his address in the Legislature.

The newest addition to the educational scene of course is the two-year college, the most recent one being the Camosun college in Victoria, which commenced classes this past September. From the beginning of the college movement in 1964, the provincial government adopted the community college concept of local involvement through the mechanism of school board participation. This approach is unique in Canada and has much to commend it. Obviously we can't talk of a community college unless we are prepared to allow real community involvement in every aspect of college life. Such involvement must, of course, take place within the context of realistic and responsible fiscal policy.

It's our belief that the most visible and direct way of involving a community in the first instance is to ask it to pay a share of the operating and the capital costs.

Now it should be recognised at once that the desirability of local cost-sharing goes beyond the matter of safeguarding institutional autonomy or self-determination, although this was the major argument advanced in the MacDonald report. Institutional autonomy can be preserved without local contribution. For example, the universities, they're certainly autonomous institutions — but the autonomy there is enjoyed by the faculty and not by the local community. In the colleges we must preserve local, not institutional autonomy, and this can only be preserved if the college administration and the faculties feel a direct responsibility to

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the local taxpayers. Hence the need to continue the policy of local contribution.

A second means of community involvement is the establishment of advisory committees for programmes in the colleges. Concerned and knowledgeable citizens sit on these committees to give information as to what the programme content should be for their area and that it remains relevant.

College also finds uniqueness as an educational enterprise in two fundamental concepts. The first of these is the so-called open door policy. The college offers an open door to every adult citizen who genuinely wishes to upgrade his educational qualifications and opens the door to him regardless of his academic background or experience — and I might say at an economic cost well within his means.

Secondly, the community college is a comprehensive institution, combining with equal emphasis high standards of excellence in university transfer courses, one- and two-year technical courses of a level comparable to those offered at the B.C.I.T., realistic and practical courses in occupational or vocational education, upgrading courses, preparatory programmes and community services of an educational, cultural, or recreational nature.

Included in the last category are programmes being initiated in some of the colleges — notably Cariboo and Camosun — for native Indians. In the Kamloops area, the college is arranging to have courses given on reserves.

It's with a desire on our part to develop completely comprehensive institutions that our department moved during the last year to bring together or to meld five colleges in the province with five vocational schools. These amalgamations took place in Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Prince George, and Victoria. And the indications that I have to date are these arrangements are working extremely well. As a matter of fact, two of the colleges, instead of having a three-year programme to work out the melding, as it's working so well they are applying to have the melding brought about immediately.

Now I want to take this opportunity to commend the work of the college councils, the principals, and the faculties of both of the various institutions that were brought together because this has been trying for them. But they have responded very enthusiastically and very positively to this experiment.

In order to make the college programmes more accessible to students, multiple campuses are operated by a number of colleges, including Okanagan, Capilano and Douglas. Continuing education officers have been placed in communities somewhat remote from the college in order that such communities might be better served. Such officers have been placed in Osoyoos by Okanagan College and in Williams Lake by Cariboo College.

In fulfilling its mission, a college serves four separate but related groups. First of all it serves the individual by providing him with an opportunity to achieve his maximum potential regardless of his social station, financial status or geographical location. It helps him to acquire these much-needed skills and knowledge. It gives him access to a wide variety of educational experiences and programmes of instruction. As far as possible it gives him a chance of correcting his academic deficiencies through counselling.

College, secondly, must serve the community in which it is centred. It must be concerned about the quality of life in that community and it can best express this concern by contributing significantly to the social and the cultural welfare of the area it serves. Also it serves as a resource centre for this general area.

College also serves the province by producing a return to society which ultimately will be greater than the cost of the services provided.

College, finally, serves the nation by helping to prepare an informed and responsible citizenry dedicated to the perpetuation and extension of the ideals of democracy and capable of participating in and contributing to the democratic process.

It'll take some time for the colleges to fulfil their mission. Their movement is new and is still suffering some growing pains, but it is launched, it is here to stay, and it has a very promising future.

I want to conclude these remarks on the colleges by especially paying tribute to the Academic Board of British Columbia. Because these men on the academic board are being financed by the universities but are spending most of their time in assisting the college development.

It's under the chairmanship of Dean Ian McTaggart Cowan of the University of British Columbia. The board has done a great deal to encourage and facilitate the development and the obvious success of the colleges, particularly in the area of articulation between the colleges and the universities in the way of transfer credits.

The board continues to give sound advice to the department on all matters relating to academic standards and developments and is, in every way, a most valuable and respected senior advisory body.

I cannot leave the subject of colleges either without paying the highest tribute to the work done by Dean S.N.F. Chant, who has been a stalwart in the college programmes. I have sought his advice frequently and found him always willing to oblige.

Turning to universities: in many ways the mission of the universities is very similar to that of the colleges although their responsibility is to serve a wider community, therefore, they cannot be as intimately involved with a single municipality.

Part of their function, indeed, and perhaps one of the most important functions, is to extend the frontiers of knowledge through legitimate and worthwhile research.

A college disseminates knowledge and brings skills and develops broad understanding. A university in addition to these very important functions, must increase knowledge. It must fulfil this function without relegating teaching, which continues to be of prime importance, to a secondary position.

During the past year there has been evidence across the nation, including the United States, of some decline in university enrolments. Now, although this decline has been more marked in certain provinces than our own, it is true to say in British Columbia that our university enrolments have not increased at the rate that they, the universities, expected.

A major reason for this development is the impact which the nine colleges have had on university growth. A growing number of young people apparently are electing to continue their post-secondary education in the colleges, where the costs are lower, the classes are generally smaller, admission standards are more flexible, and where the opportunity exists to enter exciting and rewarding career programmes of one or two years' duration.

But it would be incorrect to say or to assume that the colleges account for all of the decrease. Employment for university graduates, particularly for those in humanities or the social sciences, have decreased markedly in these last two or three years. There appears to be a doubt among an

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increasing number of young people and particularly their parents on the value of the university degree or education. This feeling — and from the meetings I've held with student groups, I am inclined to believe that is quite widespread — should signal to the universities the need to re-examine their purposes and goals, and practices — to re-define their objectives and to demonstrate to their students the intrinsic as well as the utilitarian worth of a university education.

It's frequently charged by students that university courses are in large measure irrelevant. And I doubt if so general a charge can or should be laid. But is surely the responsibility of the professor to demonstrate the relevance of the work he is teaching.

It is sometimes charged that the standard of university teaching is poor. Again, I would doubt the general validity of that statement. It is my belief that for the most part the calibre of teaching in our universities is high, and in a number of instances it's distinguished. But universities should be prepared to evaluate teaching in a thorough and systematic way and to maintain it at a high standard.

Another concern frequently voiced is that the modern multi-university is too large and too impersonal. I can feel a good deal of sympathy for this concern which really grows out of a condition of modern day life. There is no easy solution to this problem.

So, an enormous challenge faces the universities in this next decade as they struggle to find ways to so organise their instructional patterns, and their time sequences, or the development of their personnel to lessen the feelings of isolation, disaffection or even alienation which seem to affect a number of university students today.

So I feel that the time is ripe for a re-examination by the universities of their goals and practices. We've lived through some pretty troubled times in the western world, when the restlessness and militancy of students and faculty have sometimes erupted into tragic violence and when the public's confidence in universities was shaken to the foundations. Thankfully, this condition has subsided of late. We hear once again the more restrained and responsible voice of the academic community.

In my opinion it's vitally important that we hear that voice, articulating the many positive and good developments which are taking place on university campuses. Too often responsible academics — and I still believe that they're in the majority — have allowed their voices to be drowned out by the clamour of a dissident minority who voice only negative and obscure complaints but who, nevertheless, project the image the public has of the campus today.

Unless this is changed, and it's up to the academic community itself to change it, that image can only continue to damage the universities.

Some of the events which have taken place in recent years on university campuses have led to an increasing demand on the part of the public generally, that the government should exercise more direct control over inter-university affairs. All governments in all jurisdictions have come under this pressure.

Our government has consistently taken the position that universities must be autonomous institutions, that given the maturity of the students they teach and given the fact that over the years many members of the academic community have proved themselves to be responsible, reasonable and concerned citizens, universities ought to be granted a large measure of self determination. In taking this position, the government believes it is upholding a vitally important principle of democracy — that is, academic freedom.

So saying, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that on behalf of the people of Rossland-Trail who have supported the government since 1952, I have the honour of supporting this government and in backing this budget.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby North.

MRS. E.E. DAILLY (Burnaby North): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In taking my place in this budget debate I'd like to open my remarks by quoting from the Premier's final statement of his budget speech. And that was and I quote: "We now have here, another budget for the people, providing many additional services by a government that cares."

Mr. Speaker, I contend that this budget presented to us by the Social Credit government is one which neither provides essential additional services nor shows it was produced by a government which really cares about the people of our province, and particularly the children of our province.

Therefore, my remarks today will centre mainly around vital areas of children's needs in this province which are not being taken care of by this budget. And I wish to make it clear, Mr. Speaker, in outlining these needs today that I firmly believe that this budget shows that in some areas the government is spending unwisely, and that in other areas increased massive injections of money are vitally needed.

But I would first like to discuss educational expenditures. May I say after listening to the Minister of Education's speech, Mr. Speaker, that I consider that when he stood up and announced today that we had over 200 members from the P.T.A. here that his speech was an insult to those members of the P.T.A. who are sitting here in the gallery.

I say this because he purposely omitted discussing public school education. This is primarily the concern of the parent-teachers of this province and of most of our citizens. Of course, he dismissed discussing it, Mr. Speaker, because it's a very, very hot potato today. It's a very hot potato, Mr. Speaker, that the government is tossing into the laps of the school boards of this province.

I listened very carefully to the Minister's speech in the province throne debate and I waited very carefully to hear his comments on the school system and the effects of his financial formula in the past, that's the actual formula. And he really, Mr. Speaker, gave us very, very little to go on. I have no remarks really on his remarks because there was nothing in either speech.

But I intend, Mr. Speaker, to discuss public school education today. I intend to leave the matter of universities and post-secondary institutions to the educational estimates.

In our gallery right here and as a Member said: "Playing to the galleries," I most certainly am playing to the galleries, Mr. Speaker, because those people represent the citizens of this province and they have a right to hear a Minister justify why financial expenditures have reached the critical state they have in this province.

And yet, Mr. Speaker, the Minister made no attempt to justify this, none at all.

Let's look at the financial expenditures. The Minister just stated general terms — great increases since 1962, et cetera. But let's actually look at the budget.

The 1972-1973 figures in the budget shows that educational expenditures are at 30.9 per cent of the total

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budget. That's the '72-'73 figure. But as the 1971-72 budget had education taking approximately 31.1 percent, it appears quite obvious that the latest growth in educational expenditures has actually declined this year by 0.2 per cent of the province's total budget.

I would suggest that you take the budget and compare it and work out the percentages, Mr. Minister of Education, through you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: He needs a mathematics lesson first.

MRS. DAILLY: They have declined. Now, Mr. Speaker, this decrease is not shocking, in itself, providing the Minister of Education would get on his feet and justify this decrease to us and to the members in the galleries today of the Parent-Teachers Federation. He should have justified today why he has reduced educational expenditures and why they are going to be reduced even further in the future and yet still at the same time he is going to be able to offer quality education to the students of this province.

I've listened very carefully to the Minister. No such justification. As I said he leaves that justification up to the school boards of the province, he gives them increased responsibility but no authority.

Another interesting thing to note in the budget is that the overall increase for public school grants is 9.3 per cent. But let's remember what school boards are faced with. First of all the general school population increase alone is 3 per cent, and inflationary increases amount to an overall 7.5 per cent.

That totals 10.5 per cent, and yet he is only allowing a 9.3 per cent on increases to school boards. Therefore the school boards of this province for this coming year are receiving grants from this provincial government which do not even allow them to meet basic non-controllable expenses — and here I'm referring to increased fuel costs, fire insurance which they have no control over. And yet his budget has made no allowance for this.

This means that the boards can't even stand still, they are going to have to go backward and even worse, what board can possibly embark on enrichment? And he talks about the need for development of a new future, new goals in education and yet he provides nothing in the budget so the boards can produce this.

You know, Mr. Speaker, this Minister pays lip service to the new goals in education. He talks about preparing students for the future. Now surely to do this we must have, for example, resource centres in our schools well-stocked with books and audio-visual equipment. But the financial restrictions imposed by this Minister and his department on school boards are going to force boards to cut back on resource centres, to cut back on library books, to cut back on audio-visual equipment.

So you know, to stand up and say he believes in the new goals and yet he does not provide the financial resources to my mind is shocking to hear from this Minister.

You know I've heard the Minister speak — and he did today, the Minister spoke on the development on each individual child's potential. Very fine words.

But I want to ask the Minister: how can this be done in the public school classes, in the elementary and secondary grades when his financial restrictions are going to face teachers in this province with increased class sizes? How can it possibly be done?

You know, Mr. Speaker, the Minister also announced increased expenditures for development of post-secondary institutions. Certainly this is necessary. However, I am and have always been vitally concerned with the early years of a child's education. And it's been very well researched and documented, Mr. Speaker, that unless a child receives a good start in the early years of his education his chances of progressing on to higher forms of education are very, very poor.

I'm shocked, Mr. Speaker, in checking this year's annual school report, to discover there are approximately 20,000 five-year-olds in our province today who are still not receiving public kindergarten service. In the year 1972. You know some of the districts that don't have them is…. Kelowna is one example. The Premier's own riding doesn't have kindergarten. Here again it is this Minister's financial restrictions on boards — and I want to really emphasise this point — the whole point is that with his formula which started in 1968 and which is imposing a tighter squeeze on school boards year by year, does he know what he is actually doing? He is aborting the development of kindergartens in this province.

Mr. Speaker, there is no use the Minister shaking his head. I would suggest that he phone Prince George and find out what situation they are in. The Honourable Minister of Lands and Forests' own riding are wanting to place them in kindergartens, intended to place them this year, but with the money that he's allotted them this year and the restrictions he's put on them, they're going to be faced with not being able to put in kindergartens.

AN HON. MEMBER: Phone them up, phone them up.

MRS. DAILLY: You know, Mr. Speaker, if this Minister is really concerned, is truly sincerely concerned with cutting down on educational expenditures, may I suggest to him that he take the lead in the expansion of necessary auxiliary services in our school system?

Now here, Mr. Speaker, I'm talking of drawing together in our school districts social workers, psychiatrists, public health nurses, psychologists in diagnostic service centres under one umbrella in each regional district, which could serve children and parents in school districts throughout the province.

Why I'm stressing this, Mr. Speaker — and I do hope the Minister during the estimates will comment on this — is the future educational accidents or juvenile delinquents in this province could be diagnosed early and treated. But, certainly this requires human and material resources. But this government does not put the resources into those early years when they are needed. And we owe it to our children to provide it to them.

Now I know that many briefs have been presented to the Minister. And I can assure you that when we are on to the educational estimates we intend to question the Minister on many of the points brought up in these briefs, in these various briefs that we have received which itemised, itemise in each school district the very essential services that are being cut. And I hope the Minister has an answer for the people of British Columbia on this.

I wish now, Mr. Speaker, to turn to other areas of needed services for children. Because we are going to have many more opportunities to discuss education when we debate Bill No. 3 and the estimates.

Mr. Speaker, I am very, very concerned about the state of day-care centres in this province, and in particular I wish to discuss day-care facilities for those children under the age of

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three. And again I feel that day-care centres should be correlated very closely with the Department of Education. I am sorry that the Honourable Member for North Okanagan (Hon. Mrs. Jordan) is not here today because she spent considerable time discussing day-care centres in a manner, frankly, which I found utterly confusing. I could not understand the point she was making. But several points did come through and I would like to discuss them.

Regarding day-care centres the Member yesterday from North Okanagan — we hear this from the government Members in every area and it can always be refuted — stated British Columbia leads in all of Canada in expenditures for day-care centres. And then she went on to quote "our expenditures amount to $1.25 million." She did not break down whether that also included the federal subsidy. I would like to read to the House a bulletin of October 14, 1971, from the Province of Ontario. And this is from Premier Davis:

I would like to announce several major advancements in the field of day care which will affect the people of Ontario. As many of you are aware, last Friday the Ontario Government announced it is allocating a sum of $10 million at this time for building new day-care centres. This is part of the total programme of our province to provide winter jobs and to stimulate an economy.

Here is a province that knows the needs for day-care centres doing something about it, and also knows it's a way to combat unemployment — $10 million. And yet the Minister yesterday stood up and said, "British Columbia is leading Canada." They spend $1.25 million.

I would also like to point out that that particular Minister has accused me of taking a very radical viewpoint on day-care centres.

Mr. Speaker, my radical viewpoint is simply that government should take the initiative in establishing day-care centres. It happens to be the same philosophy that the Ontario Government has, which I understand is a Conservative government. When we get to the whole point of day-care centres this particular Minister — and I'm referring to this Minister because she seemed to suggest that she was expressing the philosophy of her government so this is really a rebuttal of philosophy of the Social Credit government on day care centres.

The philosophy is that it is good for the local initiative of people to establish these centres themselves and then: "If you can get going we'll come in and help you." This means that young girls have to find buildings, young mothers who are working all day have to go out and find a building themselves to establish a centre and then they have to raise $3,000 or $4,000 for capital equipment. Then if they show they've got all that spirit then the government comes through and helps out. It's a complete failure, Mr. Speaker. There are many areas that don't have day-care centres because of this particular philosophy.

It was also stated that if the government initiates day-care centres we might be brain-washing the children. Now the fear that children may be brain-washed in day-care nurseries and centres is founded, Mr. Speaker, on a complete misunderstanding of day care. Day care does not take over, it does not take over the child-rearing functions of the family. But it attempts to augment and strengthen the family's efforts. And though I admit it's impossible to have a value-free environment the values taught in day care are those which are acceptable to most parents.

Ground rules to facilitate social living, attitudes of respect towards self and toward others are a necessary part of a day-care programme. The value for the child of searching out, manipulating, and understanding his environment according to his own interests and style of learning is made possible in a well-designed and well-equipped and responsive environment. That is good day care and I will have to be convinced by the present government that just because the government steps in and gets these going then follows a brain-washing atmosphere. Nonsense, Mr. Speaker!

I have heard across the floor of the House that day care encourages mothers to go to work. Mr. Speaker, as a result of our current high rate of unemployment.…

AN HON. MEMBER: That's not true.

MRS. DAILLY: This has been said by some Members. I'm not saying that the particular Member said this. The fact is today, Mr. Speaker, that most jobs held by mothers are either lower-paid than men's or they involve skills that the unemployed male doesn't have. Almost 10 per cent of the Canadian population are in families headed by a woman. Almost 10 per cent. Another large number sustain themselves just above the poverty level only because the mother is employed. Of all the studies done in the U.S. and Canada there is no evidence that failure to provide day care centres in any community has resulted in fewer mothers going to work.

But there is evidence that failure to provide day-care services has resulted in second-rate, often dangerous, care of children. And I accuse this government of not taking their responsibility in getting day-care centres established right across this province.

The particular area that concerns me when I started off discussing day care — not only the lack of the initiative on this government — but I'm very concerned about family day care. Which is quite different from group day care. And family day care is the only area in which the provincial government enters into in helping children under the age of three. Now, family day care is a licensing day-care facility coming under the existing community care facilities and regulations.

But you know, it's an irony here, Mr. Speaker, that none of the very stringent regulations which apply to day-care centres for children over three apply to children under three. And surely children under three need these just as much as the children over three. Yet under the present structure this government trusts our youngest, most impressionable children to the well-meaning but generally inadequate care of women whose main qualification is that they live in a single dwelling family dwelling judged suitable by the municipal inspections.

Surely parenthood or substitute parenthood is a very demanding profession, requiring a broad education, understanding and continuing stimulation. Mr. Speaker, with few exceptions the children in family day-care homes are receiving what can only be described as custodial care or baby sitting while their total development needs are not being met.

Mr. Speaker, I see no reason why a whole total range of pre-school children could not be cared for in one centre — it has been done successfully in other countries — under proper supervision. Mr. Speaker, once again I'm going to call on the government to set up a special child care board which is a recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. And again yesterday I listened to the remarks of the Honourable Member for North Okanagan who said: "We will

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never establish a child care board in the Province of British Columbia."

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MRS. DAILLY: That's the way it came across here. Are you considering establishing one? Well I'm glad to hear that. Because the way it came across yesterday it sounded as if you were never even going to look into it.

Well, I would hope then that the Honourable Minister will take the lead with her government to see that we do get a child care board in British Columbia. And would she also when this board is established particularly look into the care of the child under three?

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to turn to another area, to another area of needed services to children. Which I see no indication of being provided for in this budget, and that is health services for children. And first of all I'd like to discuss this afternoon speech therapy.

There's approximately 6 per cent of the population of British Columbia who are in need of speech therapy. That means 120,000 people. I'm sure I don't need to explain to the Members of this House the very damaging effect a speech defect can have on a young child's emotional development. And yet at the present time in the Province of British Columbia there are only 40 qualified speech therapists active in this province. This means, Mr. Speaker, that only approximately 2 per cent of the people of British Columbia who need help are getting it. It's to the shame of this government that there are qualified speech therapists available. I know of speech therapists who have applied for positions with the government. But they are not working because of the failure of this government to hire them for local health units. We don't want to hear of any excuses of them not being available. They are fine, but they are not being used by the government.

Another area where government fails in speech therapy is that it is not provided under medicare — treatment for speech therapy. And I call upon them to seriously look into this. You know another great omission in this budget particularly in reference to children is the fact that this government has given no indication in their budget that they are looking into a dental care programme — a programme where care of children's teeth could be covered under medicare.

You know, there are thousands of children in this province today who are not receiving dental care. This particularly affects the children of the working poor.

You know, other provinces in Canada are moving in this direction. What is wrong with the Province of British Columbia? This is the province that is supposed to care about people.

You know, Mr. Speaker, in the area of treatment for emotionally disturbed and juvenile delinquent children, here again, this government is failing to provide funds for proper treatment centres with necessary staff. I am sorry the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brothers) has left because it was most interesting hearing his dissertation on the council that has been set up on drug education. Certainly he made some very interesting points and there are some constructive things being done there.

But the one area the Minister did not hit on and which shows a glaring, glaring gap in this province is that we know, we know, that we have a problem of drug addiction but what are we doing about it when it comes to rehabilitating the children who presently are drug addicts? That's the question.

We're doing nothing for them. Is there any treatment centre in this province that actually takes care of children who are drug addicts? Where do you send a child who is one?

AN HON. MEMBER: Jail.

MRS. DAILLY: Probably. That seems about the only alternative. So, it's all very well to talk about drug programming, T.V. advertisements. But what about the child who is already an addict? What are we doing for them?

AN HON. MEMBER: Is there any programme anywhere?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes. Yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: New York.

MRS. DAILLY: I am suggesting that at least set up small treatment centres where perhaps you can get people in who can relate to these children and find out what's put them on drugs, and work with them. But right now, this just isn't being done.

AN HON. MEMBER: California, New York, Illinois.

MRS. DAILLY: California, New York and Illinois would be good areas for this government to look into to see how they are rehabilitating young drug addicts.

Earlier in my speech, I also mentioned the great need for proper diagnostic services in the early years because of this government's failure in providing these services. Of course, because they fail, they've had 20 years to do this. They haven't done it. Because they've failed in the early years today they are vitally needed for our teenagers who are in trouble today.

In the throne debate, I used Willingdon Girls' School as an example of the great need for proper treatment centres for young girls. I pointed out — and I had hoped that the Minister without Portfolio for Mackenzie (Hon. Mrs. Dawson) would understand what I was saying — I was trying to make clear to her that the very fact that this Minister has spent several days living in the institution, it was unbelievable that she left that institution and failed to see the lack of essential treatment services needed by those young girls.

This Minister said, I believe, the sheets are clean and the food was good. You know, we've got to get some understanding over there on the other side of the House and if cabinet Ministers who are supposed to influence the cabinet don't even understand what is needed in the field of treatment facilities, there is no hope with that government.

Not only are these services urgently needed but there must also be a considerable increase, Mr. Speaker, in probation officers. Because of the whole new concept brought in — no longer sentencing children the way it was done before — it puts a great burden on probationary officers and I do hope when the Attorney General's budget comes up that we will see a definite increase in probationary officers in this province. But frankly, in looking at the budget and comparing the figures with last year, I do not see any hope in that area.

Mr. Speaker, in the area of services to the handicapped again this government's record is disgraceful. Particularily when it comes to handicapped children. I'm going to give an example of this. I don't know what reaction some Members of this House had, but frankly I was sick around Christmas

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time when I kept reading in the Vancouver Sun a plea to the citizens of the lower mainland and the province. "Help us to get a hydro-therapy pool for the children's treatment centre in Surrey. Only $80,000 is needed."

Here we have a government with a $1 billion budget and we needed $80,000 to provide an essential therapy pool for these children in Surrey. What do they do? They left it up to the citizens of the province to produce the money. Do you know why? Because this government's philosophy is always this: apparently it's good for the soul and the spirit of our citizens to raise this money ourselves. What happens if the citizens don't raise the money, or can't raise it? The children don't get their pool. That's how much this government cares about the essential needs for children.

AN HON. MEMBER: Charity for many.

MRS. DAILLY: You know, Mr. Speaker, I've spoken in previous speeches on the need for an adequate forensic clinic in this province. You know, the problem of sexual assaults on young children is ever-increasing in this province. All parents are concerned about it. I've brought this question before this House for several years. I've brought to the attention of the House letters I have received from young sexual offenders in the B.C. Penitentiary who are crying out for treatment and help. Three, four years ago, I brought this up. I see no change whatsoever in this government's policy. They are doing nothing in this area from what I can see. They are doing nothing to rehabilitate and find out the cause of these men having these sexual problems.

You know, when I repeat this problem of the need for a forensic centre it reminds me of listening the other day in the morning to a hot-line programme in which a woman phoned in to express her complete disgust at the fact that the Hon. Member for Kootenay (Mr. Nimsick) was criticised for speaking so long in the House.

He was criticised for repeating. Someone across the floor called across to him: "We've heard that over and over again for 20 years." But, Mr. Speaker, this woman said: "I think that points exactly to what's wrong with this government. For 20 years they've been hearing these problems and they've done nothing about them."

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the victims?

MRS. DAILLY: What about the victims? I'd like to get back to this forensic clinic. Not only are we concerned about these young men who are in the penitentiary crying out for treatment and knowing that when they come out.… What about the young children? What about the young children in British Columbia?

Because these sexual offenders once they've served their sentence are put out into society again, with no treatment, no rehabilitation and I have heard these men say "I cannot control myself. I don't know when this will happen again; that I may be involving myself in another assault." What is going to happen to the children of the province unless this government at least attempts to come to some solution for this? It's not an easy solution but at least show the people of the province that you're concerned about the children of the province.

Five years ago we were promised a forensic clinic. One of the P.T.A. briefs outlines this very well. We're getting tired — very, very tired — of these needed vital services of this government completely ignores.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I've only highlighted today some of the areas of neglected services to children by this government. In the estimates that are coming up in the next few weeks, I hope I will have the opportunity to expand on many other areas which I feel have been neglected.

But in conclusion I want to say that our children are our future. We have no choice, Mr. Speaker, but to ensure that no needed services are denied them. For let us remember that all society suffers each time some significant contribution is not made because the person's potential was squashed early in life.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a budget prepared by a government that cares. It's not a budget prepared by a government that cares about children. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I will not support this budget.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In response to the question from the Hon. first Member for Vancouver-East (Mr. Macdonald), if there ever was any doubt in his mind I am not supporting this budget.

AN HON. MEMBER: No applause on that other side.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: That's right. No applause.

AN HON. MEMBER: No Members. No Members.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: I suppose, Mr. Speaker, that I might agree with the Hon. Member for Esquimalt (Mr. Bruch) who spoke last night, in his categorisation of this budget. He said it is what we have become accustomed to expect for the past 19 years. That's what's wrong with the budget.

The Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Bennett) sits upon his ever-growing piggy bank of surplusses and he manages the money and manages them and manages them, regardless of the needs which may exist in this province.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you think you can do it?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: We each year are told about balanced budgets and all it is is a little bit more added here and a little bit added there with no real positive steps made towards advance in this province, in the needs of the people, in the needs of this decade and the needs that we will approach in the coming decade.

I think it is significant that we are debating here today, in part, the remarks of the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brothers) because his is a department which is really concerned and vitally concerned with the people in this province who will be citizens in 1980. I have made reference to this before.

But it is clear, Mr. Speaker, from what the Hon. the Minister of Education said today that he is completely unaware of the steps that must be taken if this province is to continue its advance and if those young people who are in our schools today are to perform the role that this society is entitled to expect of them in the 1980's.

He talks about the increase in the budget for education of some $44 million and how great that is. Yet this Minister neither in the throne speech debate nor in the debate today could in any way convince the Members of this House from

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what he said that the programme upon which he has embarked, a programme commenced by the former Minister of Education, will have any other result than the dismantling of the educational system in this province.

A continuation of the direction which we have taken in years gone by and which is being intensified this year in the actions of this government will only serve to widen the gulf that exists already — a gulf created by this government. A gulf between the teachers, the school trustees, and the general community.

Who will be the benefactors of this programme? The benefactors will be the factor in education which is so essential — the students. They will suffer, Mr. Speaker. They will suffer because of the policies of this government. Its failure to take into account the growing needs of education, the improvements which we must have, will reflect upon the kind of citizen we will have in this province 10 years hence.

The Hon. Member for North Burnaby (Mrs. Dailly) who just took her place pointed out many areas in which this government has failed to respond to the challenge that faces it in education.

I want to deal with one which is really a problem of education but is too often confused with other responsibilities of government. It too is a matter to which the Hon. Minister referred in his remarks. He spoke about the fund that was established for education in matters of drug, alcohol and tobacco use.

You know, Mr. Speaker, the incompetence of this government is perhaps most clearly shown by the name that has been given to this fund — drug, alcohol, tobacco. You'd think there was some distinction between those three. Alcohol is just as much a drug as anything else — all the long lists of mind-depressant, intoxicant substances which are available to our citizens today.

But none-the-less, we have this fund and we have a committee established under it. What has that committee done? Well, it's spent a lot of money in advertising. Both in the newspaper and on the radio and on the television. Advertising, you know, that gives you that nice warm feeling but doesn't really get noticed. Because the people, Mr. Speaker, who need to be reached by this kind of programme are not those who sit home comfortably in their recreation rooms or living rooms and watch the television at 11.00 at night, to see those cute ads that come on at great expense.

Those same people are not the ones who read the advertisements in the Press, who send in for the material that is published by this committee. They are the least likely to be affected by that programme.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Now, if I may pause in this particular matter to return to the matter of advertising on another aspect. We were treated this morning, Mr. Speaker, to a headline story in the Victoria Colonist: "Peterson Threatens to Pull Out B.C. Ads." I always thought that we were a province which understood the rule of law. And yet it seems from the statements in this article to confirm what we and the Opposition have so many times said in this House. That the government is using the people's money for its own political purposes.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, shame!

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Here we have a threat, a threat from the Attorney General, that he is going to take specific action in respect of newspapers which do not comply with the law. What action is he going to take? Now, it's very significant. He said and this is the reporter speaking:

He would recommend that no further government advertising should be placed in the Times or any other paper which broke the advertising ban. Mr. Peterson said the embargo should extend to all forms including legal advertising.

That's the reporter speaking. But, Mr. Speaker, what did the Hon. the Attorney General say?

I will recommend that this kind of irresponsibility of a daily newspaper should not be rewarded by the government.

AN HON. MEMBER: Rewarded!

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Rewarded. That's the significant word. "Rewarded." That's exactly what this government has done year after year after year. They have used the funds of the people to reward papers that publish their advertisements. And we've had enough of it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Attorney General has risen on a point of order.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: What's the point of order?

HON. L.R. PETERSON (Attorney General): I'll speak my point of order as soon as you take your seat.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: When I'm finished with my speech you may make your point of order. If I have misquoted….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister has a point of order, will the Member please be seated while he states his point of order?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: At the end of my speech he's entitled to make his point of order. If I've misstated something, then he's entitled to do so then.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Member please be seated while the Attorney General states his point of order?

HON. MR. PETERSON: The Honourable Member, Mr. Speaker, has quoted me as using the word "rewarded". I made no such statement using the word "rewarded".

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): Point of order, point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?

MR. BARRETT: The rule of this House is that the point of order cannot be used to correct any impression made in a speech. The rule of this House is that any corrections or statements are to be alluded to after the speech is finished. This is a typical abuse of this House and I ask you to stick to the rules of this House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Member for West Vancouver–

[ Page 544 ]

Howe Sound.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Attorney General has made his point of order and I trust that the reporter who is responsible for this particular news story will have the opportunity of referring to his notes and indicating either in his newspaper or otherwise to Members of this House whether he is guilty of misquote.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: At the end of the speech if you have anything else to say you may stand in your place.

The point of the matter is this, that the kind of programme that we have in this province to even approach the problem of drugs — pure and simple, drugs — is incompetent of any organised government. The Honourable Minister stood in his place and said that they were spending $250,000 on this programme — $250,000. Based upon the figures of the illicit use of heroin in this province, we are told by a committee of the medical profession that the market alone is $150 million a year. Now that's for the guy who is already hooked. He's on it. He's done — and that's just heroin. How he got there is another problem. That's the kind of money that's being spent in the illicit market in this province.

Now, what does that mean? It means that this committee, spending $250,000 in this one programme, is spending what 13 drug addicts spend in one year at current prices — 13 drug addicts and we've got 7,500 of them. Thirteen of them are spending as much on heroin as this government is spending on educational programmes to make sure that there aren't any more addicts. That's the illicit market.

Let's talk about the legal market. We're spending $250,000 to educate our citizens, young and old, as to the dangers of the use or abuse of these intoxicant, mind depressant substances.

The people in this province, up to March 31, 1971, spent $224 million to the government to buy booze. This is fair? This is the way this government reacts to this problem. In the legal market, the market that is run by the government of this province, the people spend $224 million and this government, to educate the citizens about the problems of such use or abuse spends $250,000.

It's typical of this government and it's typical of this budget, that if we understand the problem we don't know how to go about attacking it. This is what's wrong and this is why we oppose this kind of budgetting. We aren't using the fiscal resources which are available to us in order to meet the problems, to do any kind of a job.

This brings me back to the matter of education. There is in the Province of Alberta a committee not dissimilar to the one that the Minister has established here in the Province of British Columbia. Last year, the budget available to the Alberta co-ordinating committee on drugs, was $1.2 million. They have a population of about 800,000 people.

That co-ordinating committee in the Province of Alberta for the next year is budgetting for $2.3 million — just for that committee — to carry on its programmes which will encourage community involvement in very specific ways, which will carry out research into the drug culture and will make some attempt to encourage treatment of those who are already in the grip of drugs.

Aside from that, and if the Minister is really interested in having something done about this, I suggest that he communicate with the Department of Education in the Province of Alberta and through them with the Calgary school board. Because there is functioning there a positive programme to do something about drug use and abuse through Grades 1 to 12.

That school board on its own, supported by a committee of citizens from the City of Calgary which involved all of the local community organisations, plus the law enforcement body, decided to do something about it. They hired a co-ordinator who's on the full-time payroll of the school board and that co-ordinator has been given the job of putting into the school programme the kind of programme that will reach the students, Grade 1 to 12.

They have done it with the full support — oh, there was a lot of opposition at first — but they are now doing it with the full support of the community and of the teachers. Teachers are voluntarily taking courses to understand what the drug culture is all about. To understand how to communicate what the drug culture is all about to the students who are their charge.

At the same time, the teachers are going out into the community and making sure that the parents of the children in the schools also know what the drug culture is all about — how to understand the problem, how to recognise the problem and how to meet the problem in their own home and in the community.

This is the way it's being attacked. It may even be that those students who are in our high schools today, are beyond the grasp of such a programme. Perhaps some of them who might be encouraged to abuse drugs, might be stopped. Perhaps some who are already using them can be drawn away from that way of life.

The ones to be reached, Mr. Speaker, are the ones who are going into Grade 1 this year and through our elementary schools. They are the ones who are yet pure, who have not been reached but who are likely to be the most susceptible to the encouragement that is offered in the kind of life that we lead to fall into the ways of drug users.

What does that require? It requires positive programmes from the government, it requires people in the communities, it requires response from school boards and it requires the responsible, intelligent, understanding, cooperation of the teaching profession. The teaching profession — the one which this government has gone out of its way to isolate and to hold up to ridicule. Mr. Speaker, if a government pursues the kind of policies which it has indicated in this budget, towards education, it is going to destroy the kind of attitude that will be required from those responsible people who are most likely able to help us in finding a solution to the drug culture problem. The government must take this carefully into its consideration for it ignores this problem at its peril.

I would like to turn my consideration to another area where I believe the government this year has, in its budget, failed to take into consideration some real problems which we have in various areas of this province.

Last July and August, the people of this province were treated to an abuse of executive power by the government of this province and by one of its members in particular, such as we have never seen before.

Mind you, we are becoming accustomed to abuses of executive power by this government but this was certainly a high point, if that is the way you could describe that kind of action. I speak specifically of the action that was taken by the Honourable, the Minister of Health, (Hon. Mr. Loffmark), the dictatorial position that he was taking in

[ Page 545 ]

presentation of an order in council, in having it passed by the cabinet of this government giving him extreme powers over the medical profession and the delivery of health care in this province.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Some people failed to understand what the Honourable Member from Cowichan-Malahat, (Mr. Strachan), was saying the other day. That we have responsible groups within our community — teachers are one, the medical profession is another — groups who over the years have been looked up to by the community for the contribution that they have made and can make in the future. A remark such as that which has just come from the Honourable lady Minister without Portfolio, (Hon. Mrs. Jordan) indicates that she alone cannot understand this and she of all people should.

The problem is this, the honourable Minister of Health, this man who made himself Tsar of health in British Columbia, having gone through all this explosive exercise, ended up by coming to an agreement with the medical profession.

What change it has made in the delivery of health services in our communities, not one is quite certain. It has only shaken the respect that has been accorded to the doctors and shaken the confidence of the people in our communities in the ability of our entire health system to deliver to the people this service to which they are entitled, for which they are paying and paying very dearly.

I would have thought in the budget this year, that we would have seen some pronouncement from the government indicating that through the Minister of Health there would be some positive steps taken to improve the situation in this province. One situation which clearly needs improvement is that of the delivery of health care in our outlying rural districts. Outlying, Mr. Speaker, in this province, needn't be that far from any place. The Honourable Member from Alberni, (Mr. McDiarmid), alluded to this in his remarks last night and he spoke of this in an earlier debate several years ago. And the Hon. Member knows what the problem is and it is shocking that we should be here some four or five years later, still talking about the same problem. What does it mean?

Well, my constituency has its most exciting area in Pemberton Valley. The Pemberton Valley is a delightful place, about 2,000 souls live in that valley. It's a valley which has existed as a community for more than 100 years. It's a valley which finally got its own doctor about two years ago. That doctor is not one of the fortunate ones who makes the kind of income that is so often referred to in discussing the benefits that doctors enjoy under medicare. He's not the one. But he plays a very significant role in the life of that community and he's concerned to see that it grows.

He knows that for the first time there is going to be a significant industrial development take place in his community. They are going to build a mill. It's being built. It should open some time this next summer. When it opens they're going to bring another 150 families to that valley and you know, Mr. Speaker, there aren't any facilities, except the doctor, his four-wheel-drive vehicle and his little black bag.

He's got some X-ray equipment which he bought but he hasn't got any place to put it. There's a medical centre, so-called, which was built back in 1958 when the only access to the valley was by the P.G.E. and the purpose of the health centre was to provide just a place for a couple of beds so that people who were brought in from the local farms and had to wait for the train to come in would have some place to be accommodated, whether they had a leg off or whatever the case may be. That's all it is.

There were a couple of beds. That building is now falling apart and this community just doesn't have the money to provide the facilities. This doctor is making an effort but the delivery of health care to this community is impossible under the rules that presently exist in this province.

Let me give you an example of what is faced by this doctor. He had a patient approaching 70 years of age. The patient had cancer, terminal. No question the patient was going to die. The question was, where could that patient best spend the last few weeks or months of his life?

The doctor came to the conclusion, and the family agreed, that the best place would be at home. This man required 24-hour-a-day care. After a couple of weeks the doctor became concerned that the man's wife wasn't going to be able to stand up to the kind of pressure that was being placed upon her in providing the care that her husband needed.

The doctor was going twice a day to visit this man and he was putting in for his house-call, as he is entitled to do under medicare. He gets $1.80 more for a house call than he would for a hospital call. What did he get? He got letters back from medicare, saying "Why are you seeing this man so often?" Finally, in disgust the doctor stopped sending in the accounts for the house-calls.

But if the doctor has said: "No, take that man to the Squamish General Hospital" or Lions Gate in North Vancouver, whatever the case may be, it would have cost this government $35 a day to keep that man. He would have been kept away from his wife and family; away from his community and there was no question that he was going to die.

This doctor was prepared to devote himself to the needs of his patient and the patient's family and all he got from this government's medical services was a rough time.

This goes on and on and on in these rural areas, where under the current medicare system, the income of a doctor is not sufficient to enable him to provide his own equipment, his own clinic, as in the case of more populous areas. Yet the government and the Minister of Health said we've got to do more to put doctors out into these rural areas.

So I ask you, Mr. Speaker, how can you possibly expect to get the doctors to go out into the rural areas when with a doctor already in the rural area the government is not prepared to give them the support and the facilities that are needed in order to do the job?

What we need to have, Mr. Speaker, is some positive programme from this government — and there are many examples in North America to choose from — to be tried in some of these isolated communities where you can deliver health care into a community such as the one of which I speak. But the government isn't even trying. Nothing in this budget for this kind of a programme.

If it was, I would be certain that the Minister of Finance would have shouted from the housetops. Mr. Speaker, they have it in the Province of Ontario. They understand the problems, they understand the need to put doctors in outlying communities and so they say to the doctors: "Fine, you go out into the outlying communities. We will subsidise your income and provide you with the minimum equipment to do the kind of job that needs to be done in the areas that

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you are intended to serve. If the area grows and under the normal incomes from medicare you begin to earn what the minimum standards are then the subsidy stops."

Why not try it here? Why not, Mr. Speaker, even try a very simple loan programme so that a doctor who would go into the area can equip himself with a minimum of clinical facilities that are required to ensure that he can perform his task as a physician?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: The regional district hospitals can't help them because in this particular area there is a regional hospital district and they have two hospitals — one at Lillooet and one at Squamish — and their moneys are devoted to the improvement of facilities in those two hospitals.

So, Mr. Speaker, I say that this is an area where this government has failed the people of the Province of British Columbia, particularly those rural outlying areas where we've got real pioneers, those areas where we want people to go to perform the tasks that need to be done and to provide the services that they are able to provide. And yet the Minister of Health does nothing, and this budget says nothing.

A third matter, Mr. Speaker, that I wish to discuss today. Some of the remarks made by the Honourable Minister of Lands, Forest, and Water Resources (Hon. Mr. Williston) about responsibilities under his ministry, lead me to raise some questions about the environment and land use committee that we have in this province and how that committee functions for the real benefit of the people here.

I noticed in the newspaper, in the Vancouver Province, of February 12, some critical comments about this environment and land use committee by the President of the B.C. Wildlife Federation. Mr. Smith, the president, said:

So far the energies of the land use committee established under the Act have been devoted largely to dealing with legacy problems and user conflict rather than planning for the future. One of the problems, Smith complained, is that the civil servants who are already overworked are expected to serve on land use committees without the backing of additional staff and without additional funds. They have not been freed from their original duties to serve on land use committees. They are expected to resolve land use conflicts and presumably changes in long-term resource planning on a part-time basis.

Mr. Speaker, we've had part-time action on this matter of land use in this province for too long now. I want to draw your attention to matters which have been discussed in this assembly before, not for the purpose of repeating what has been said but for the purpose of drawing together and focussing your attention upon the way in which I believe this responsibility has been mal-administered. It behoves us now that we have this land use committee to wonder what it's going to do.

I'm referring, Mr. Speaker, to the Powder Mountain episode. It is now possible to go back to the beginning of the Powder Mountain development and carry it through to its conclusion in January of this year and wonder and call upon the Minister to explain how this situation will be prevented in future years.

You know, Mr. Speaker, Powder Mountain began a number of years ago when a man in this province — and I'm not going to name any names — there's no use of drawing back into the public light men who have already been identified with this and other projects — but back in the early '60s a man who knows the mountain areas around Vancouver was making some examinations and he discovered what he believed to be a wonderful winter resort area. He was right, it has since become known as Powder Mountain.

When it came time to put this into action, they called upon the experience that had been gained in Cypress Bowl and the whole plan was put into operation. Now, what do you do, Mr. Speaker? It's as simple as 1, 2, 3.

First of all you find an area that you think you could develop as a winter resort and as a recreational subdivision area. Then you find out where the access to the area is.

The very first thing you do, you send somebody in and you stake some mineral claims right across the access. That was done in June, 1967. Claims numbered 14211 to 14231; 10 claims were staked by a Mr. Boyd and they were subsequently transferred to Messrs. Williamson and Baraclough. That was in June of 1967.

Then following the Cypress Bowl technique, if you will, the next thing that you do is to get a group of people together and you go in and apply for land leases from the Department of Lands.

That's exactly what took place at Powder Mountain. There were nine applications for land leases, each one 640 acres, one square mile. You very carefully choose where those leases are so that they cover the access route and those areas that you have wanted to include in your development.

Having gone that far there's a bit of difficulty but it's overcome by being able to approach a friendly government, a government that wants to get things done. That was done also in the case of Powder Mountain because these land leases were advertised in August, 1968.

But strangely enough on September 4, 1968, an order-in-council was made by the executive council in Victoria. This was order-in-council No. 2791, that means there's been 2790 orders-in-council passed that year before this one.

Anyway, who was present at the meeting? There was Mr. Black, Mr. Williston, Mr. Skillings, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Kiernan, and Mrs. McCarthy. They passed an order-in-council that an area outlined by map should be reserved from alienation. The area on the map covers all of the Callaghan Lake area and the access from the highway, those areas which were essential to access to Powder Mountain and in particular to embody Callaghan Lake.

Now you say, why is Callaghan Lake so important? Well, Callaghan Lake, as it turned out on subsequent examination, was where the first subdivision was going to take place. That was in September 1968 and at that stage fortunately some citizens became involved.

Letters were addressed to the district forester and to the land commissioner by Mr. Ken Farquharson. Ken Farquharson was president of the Save Cypress Bowl Committee. I would like to take this moment, Mr. Speaker, to pause for an instant.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Oh well, that's fine. We'll see.

I'm glad the Minister is paying attention because if what is reported is wrong, he'll have an opportunity to correct it. And at any rate in November, 1968, Mr. Farquharson wrote these letters and he asked certain questions. Also as I was saying Mr. Farquharson was head of the Save Cypress Bowl Committee. Mr. Farquharson in respect of the work

[ Page 547 ]

that he has done in this Powder Mountain incident and the Cypress Bowl affair really deserves the wholehearted thanks of all environmentalists in this province.

I'm afraid for much of the time that he worked on this, all that he got was abuse but it would appear that some of the ideas and some concerns that he early expressed have proven to be well founded.

Anyway, when he wrote to the district forester, he asked questions about the inventory of forests in the area of Callaghan Lake and he wanted to know whether or not a licence to cut had been issued for the purposes of access roads to the proposed development.

From the land commissioner, he wanted to know the current status of these lease applications, the type of land tenure which was envisaged by the department, and where, when and how objections could be raised to these applications for land.

He also in December wrote to the Honourable Minister of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources sending a copy of the letter to the director of lands and in that letter he said to the Honourable Minister:

We urge you to develop new systems of control which will ensure that the full recreational potential of public land is realised when its use is allowed by private developers. Present systems of control through logging legislation are inadequate. Control must be through recreation experts.

And in his letter to the director of lands, Mr. Farquharson requested information about applications over this land and he closed by saying:

We respectfully request that a public hearing on the matter of these applications be held in Vancouver before any final adjudication is made.

Well, in January, 1969, he received a response from the director of lands and the response dealt with answers to the questions saying as follows:

The areas applied for are situated within a reserve from alienation established by order-in-council. However, all the stakings were made prior to the establishment of the reserve. Secondly, applications for Crown land can be made either in the names of individuals or corporations.

And there's no question that that was true at that time.

A letter of consent to construct an access road into this area was issued after the company had spent nearly two years carrying out snow surveys and gathering other preliminary information necessary to the construction of liftlines, et cetera.… Leases issued by the department will be restricted to that part of the area applied for on which the development is proposed.

In other words, although a person may apply for 640 acres the extent of the lease issued will be dependent upon the development plan placed before the department. That's fine.

A letter of consent to construct the access road does not give the recipients the right to prevent other people from using the road.

That's right. He closes by saying:

The many ski developments now operating successfully throughout the province were all handled directly by the department, and as this project is no different from the others there does not appear to be a need for a public hearing.

That was in January, 1969.

AN HON. MEMBER: Same as Cypress Bowl.

MR L.A. WILLIAMS: Well, the work at Powder Mountain continued and the trees kept coming out. That's right, the trees were cut down and they came out of the right of way, 30 million feet of them altogether. The companies that went broke, how they went broke I'll never know — how you can get broke taking out 30 million feet under the control of the forest service. That's the very responsibility of that department to see that they don't go broke in constructing an access.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Is the Minister responsible for Bulkley Valley? Are you admitting responsibility for the mess that exists at Bulkley Valley?

AN HON. MEMBER: He's waffling on it.…

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Alright then, Mr. Speaker, in July, 1969, people became concerned about what was going to take place. A group including the chairman of the regional district, the directors of the regional district, members of the advisory planning group from the area, the clerk-treasurer of the Municipality of Squamish, the assistant chief forester, the district forester for the Vancouver forest district, and others attended at this site.

Along with them was a Mrs. Tatlow from the Squamish Times. She wrote a story about this in July, 1969. She said:

Metal Dome, Powder Bowl, Powder Dome, Powder Mountain will be familiar names in the skiers' vocabulary when plans for the Powder Mountain complex now underway are completed.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, they're familiar names in the skiers' vocabulary but there are other words in the vocabulary that this paper wouldn't print. The story goes on.

Already the road has been pushed almost as far as Callaghan Lake, 14 miles from the highway, and the Alexander subdivision just inside the Powder Mountain recreation area is being cleared. Mr. Boyd, one of the members of Lakeland Valley Developments Ltd., the Powder Mountain company, said this initial stage of the development will cover 594 acres, but much of it would not be cleared as there would be a 40-acre lake and park areas included in the property which is expected to contain 700 lots.

No subdivision?

AN HON. MEMBER: What do you call it, if that's not a subdivision?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: The story goes on.

Plans call for much of the timber to be removed from the 131 acre hillside whose base is at the 2,600 foot level and while this is not common practice in B.C., in Europe many easy slopes are completely cleared and planted with grass. This provides for skiing when there is very little snow on the ground as there are no stumps or logs.

But this is only the first stage of the projected development. A 200-acre subdivision will be built at Meadow Lake just below Callaghan Lake, which the developers plan to leave as a wilderness area. And the third large development, approximately 500 acres, will be the ski village at the base of the main ski area.

That was the plan, Mr. Speaker, that was the plan of the company that was going in and the Minister knew that was

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their plan.

HON. MR. WILLISTON: It was not an approved plan.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, this is the difficulty, and that's why I raised the question as to the way the land use committee functions because the land use committee is under the control of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources. And it's one thing for him to say that he doesn't know what is being planned, but another thing for him to say that he knows what is being planned but doesn't know what has been approved. Because time and time again in this province we find that approvals have been given in spite of what the Minister knows.

HON. MR. WILLISTON: Name one, name it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Cypress Bowl.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Yes, I know what was approved and the leases were granted and they were issued and they were sold to Benguet weren't they? Don't tell me the leases weren't issued.

HON. MR. WILLISTON: The leases for the bowl were not.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Members please address the Chair?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Yes, I'm a lawyer and I understand the documents. Wait a minute, Mr. Speaker, I hope the Minister will respond. It will be very interesting to hear his explanation. In December of 1969 the question again came up….

AN HON. MEMBER: You weren't into my office.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Do I have to check in with you? Well, I'll come to some of the answers to my correspondence that you sent me. This matter again came to attention in December, 1969, Mr. Speaker, and the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources told the Squamish Regional District the people who were on the site, and they were concerned, that he would not agree to any judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Powder Mountain.

He requested the regional district chairman Donald Gow to advise how a judicial inquiry could clarify details of the controversial development, and in this instance Williston was asked if the real estate subdivision does not more properly come under the municipal affairs department than under the lands department even if it is to take place on Crown land.

His answer was: "Quite frankly we haven't had too much experience at this kind of development in the past because it's usually taken place in association with skiing facilities for other area development." We haven't had much experience.

My problem Mr. Speaker is that they still haven't got any experience. They still don't have the staff in the department of lands in which to assess this kind of a programme. That was in December, 1969 and the Minister says that I wasn't into his office.

It's quite true, I wrote him in December, 1969 and the Minister responded. December 10, 1969:

I have for attention of reply your letter dated December 2, 1969 dealing with the ski development at Powder Mountain.

There are no uncertainties surrounding the Powder Mountain development as you alleged. The development company has shed those directors who were also affiliated with Alpine Outdoor Recreation Resources Ltd. I would respectfully point out that the first stage of the Powder Mountain development is being undertaken in a portion of an area that was applied for as a timber sale of 1965. However, the applicant company after carrying out a detailed study of the timber withdrew its application because it reported the timber to be extremely defective and contained a preponderance of pulp timber.

A timber company in a statement on file advised it had thoroughly checked the area and found it was completely uneconomic to log at that time because in addition to the poor quality of the stand about 11.6 miles of road would have to be built.

The chairman of the Squamish Lillooet Regional District visited the site with other officials of the government and the developers and was in complete agreement with the project.

That's not true. And the Hon. Minister closed by saying: "in the view of all the circumstances there is no basis for your suggestion of holding an enquiry into this matter."

I wrote him again in October, 1970. And the Minister responded.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: I say it's not true, the Minister's statement is not true. He said the chairman was in complete agreement with the project — but the regional district chairman had already asked him to hold an judicial inquiry — a public hearing, the Minister said it wasn't necessary.

October 27, 1970 again he responded to my letter.

Reference is made to your letter dated October 21, 1970. With respect to questions raised as to whether I would advise are as follows:

1. A condition in the lease issued to Lakeland Valley Development Ltd.

it was a lease now….

over certain Crown lands in the vicinity of Alexander Falls required the lessee to complete the access road through to Callaghan Lake by the end of this year.

And it wasn't done. That's the subdivision, sure. Why did you think there wasn't a subdivision?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Well, where's Alexander Falls in relation to Callaghan Lake? It just lies below Callaghan Lake.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: That's right, that's right.

Westbar Timber Ltd, has a substantial amount of money owing it by the lessee and has agreed to complete the road in accordance with the requirements of the lease indenture subject to it obtaining a share position at Lakeland Valley Development Ltd.

It didn't happen. The leased-developed-purchased concept for Crown lands has not been altered. And it doesn't work, does it, Mr. Minister?

[ Page 549 ]

3. No commitments other than those originally entered to by the crown with Lakeland have been made but in any future commitments which may be made, providing the lessee complies with the terms of the conditions of the earlier lease agreement, the lessee will be required to satisfy the department in respect to financial capabilities to ensure the project is carried through to completion.

And Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, you were never satisfied about the financial ability of the company to carry anything through to completion. All of the undertakings that you took from that company failed.

They didn't build the road, they didn't put in the uphill facilities, they never were in the position to do so, they never had the money to do so, and yet you allowed them to continue with this project — you allowed a company to go broke, and you leave Powder Mountain in the same kind of a mess as Cypress Bowl was in so far as the development is concerned when finally it was taken over.…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Alright, Mr. Speaker. I don't want to be in constant debate with the Minister, but I enjoy this. The condition of the Power Mountain development is exactly the same as it was in Cypress Bowl. Nothing has been done.

The timber is gone, right? People have gone broke, and there still aren't any uphill facilities, and no way that we ever are going to be sure there will by any uphill facilities. What is wrong Mr. Minister, and you will not understand what I've told you on many occasions as have other Members, that if you want to carry out the development of recreational areas in this province, you've got to have people in your department who understand what needs to be done so that you can assess the viability, the appropriateness of any particular plan which is produced to you by a so-called private developer.

Then you'll know whether the things will ever be carried through to fruition. We won't have lost all these years. This is what the land use committee is for. And you should have the staff to assess the kind of ideas that are put forward to you.

Now, you stepped into Cypress Bowl. I understand from statements from Ministers, they were not going to step into Powder Mountain. Thank goodness for that.

But the situation is, Mr. Speaker, that my concern is what happens next? Yes, we've got a logging road most of the way into the Powder Mountain area. Thirty million feet of timber gone. How much will be required before we have access completed there? What we need to know in this Legislature, Mr. Speaker, after the Cypress Bowl and the Powder Mountain incident, is who's going to move into Powder Mountain next? And what are the conditions to be? And who's going to lay them down?

Mr. Speaker, it doesn't do the Minister any good, or any of the people in the department to talk about posting of bonds because how big should the bond be for Powder Mountain? You can't buy a bond from a bonding company to cover this kind of performance. It's cash money you have to put out. Is this government prepared to ask for $50,000 — $100,000 — $200,000? How much will it cost to do the programme?

The Minister and his department, the land use committee, must know what it will cost before they allow any private developer to go back in and undertake the tasks that need to be done at Powder Mountain.

Rumours are rampant as to what's going to happen. We know that Mr. and Mrs. Raines are interested — they've said so. It has been suggested to me privately that the Bank of Montreal is interested in backing Mr. and Mrs. Raines in this development.

If that is to be the case what are the conditions? How much is it going to cost to get the job done? And what assurance is this government going to have that it will be done this time?

If you want my concern in another area of my constituency, Mr. Speaker, I ask the same question of the Minister with regard to the catastrophe that occurred at Brohm Ridge. When a private company went broke it cost a lot of people in the Squamish area a lot of money, because they believed that what was going to take place there would be properly carried out.

Now, it was a private development throughout. But, Mr. Speaker, I want to know from the Minister and from his land use committee who's going to take it over? Who's going to get the benefit of what was done? And what assurance are we going to have from this government that the job will be done? This is the kind of performance that we need to have from the land use committee and from this Minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear hear.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I have been longer than I intended. This government is not doing the job in this province, Mr. Speaker, in the areas of people's needs and the areas of looking after the resources which are the responsibility of this government to administer, whether it be land or otherwise.

I could not by any stretch of the imagination support this budget. But one question has come to my attention now. Early in my remarks I read a quote from a newspaper report this morning that appeared in the Victoria Colonist attributing words to the Honourable the Attorney General.

The Attorney General has risen in his place and denied making those words and as an Honourable Member — we are all Honourable Members — I have to accept what he says.

However, I have a message sent to me at my place here — not one, not two, but three persons present at the time of that interview confirm that the Honourable the Attorney General used the words: "I will recommend that this kind of irresponsibility in a daily newspaper should in no way be rewarded by the government."

Three people.… As I take my place, Mr. Speaker, I ask the Attorney General if he again wishes to rise in his place and deny that he made this statement.

HON. MR. PETERSON: Mr. Speaker, if I may just respond to that point. I don't recall having used the word "rewarded." If indeed three people recorded it then I'd certainly be prepared to accept their word that I did. The fact is that they taped many of the sessions and I'd be interested if that word was used on any of the tapes. I don't recall using it, but if three of them say I did, certainly I'd be prepared to accept their statements.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable first Member for Vancouver-Burrard.

MR. H.J. MERILEES (Vancouver-Burrard): Mr. Speaker, if you took away these young sports' snowballs and Skidoos and things they wouldn't have much left would they? These

[ Page 550 ]

Liberals, about all they do is a snow job. First it's Trudeau at Whistler, and then they're in one bowl and then another bowl, and if it isn't that they're in the bog of the Skagit Valley, or the Member for Point Grey he's got the fox in the hen-house and you name it, they are real sports.

Mr. Speaker, it's a great budget and I'm proud to take my place in this debate.

Incidentally, I'll be voting for it. But contrary to what some of you might think this is not election budget, it's just the usual magic that we've come to expect from the great Canadian financial wizard, Merlin the Magnificent, British Columbia's Minister of Finance.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh, oh.

MR. MERILEES: Come back next year, Mr. Leader, or just come back from the coffee shop or wherever you are, and you'll see a budget that is an election budget.

You'll remember who Merlin was, Mr. Speaker. He was that legendary figure in the time of King Arthur's round table. Merlin was known in those days as a magician. But history proved later that Merlin was no magician. He was just a very brilliant man — a man ahead of his time. Sure, Mr. Speaker, he used to pull off a few little feats of magic, but these were just to make sure the other boys didn't forget who was the real brains behind King Arthur and the Round Table. So just watch out.

Merlin will wait and you watch as Trudeau gives himself a real Western-style hanging, at least he'll hang himself west of Thunder Bay, that's for sure. Merlin will wait as Nixon winds up his Vietnam disaster.

During this time most of the union bosses will be disrupting the B.C. economy and fomenting senseless strikes and they'll be enraging the voters with some of the most exorbitant demands they've ever made.

Mr. Speaker, they too will join in the Ottawa game that "B.C. is a goblet to be drained." Greedy, short-sighted labour bosses going for a quick buck now — talk about the "rip-offs," Hon. Member for Vancouver-East (Mr. R.A. Williams).

It's a matter of record, Mr. Speaker, that one union alone among many others has already filed demands to increases of more than $5 per hour. On top of what they are already getting, which would bring them if successful to $13 per hour.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. MERILEES: It's on file. In the long term such tactics will discredit and destroy the power and the respect of our labour unions.

Then and not until then, Mr. Speaker, will Merlin the Wizard of Finance reach back into his crystal cave and bring out an election budget. A budget that will even boggle the eyeballs of that famous liberal scientist from Point Grey (Mr. McGeer). You know the one I mean, Mr. Speaker — that mathematical genius who couldn't even get the right answer to the coliform count in English Bay a couple of years ago.

If you'd like a little backing for my Merlin analogy then listen to this quote from the Vancouver Province, datelined Ottawa, February 14. "Canada Missed Chances, Says Economic Council."

The new chairman of the council says Canada had a golden opportunity to increase domestic control of business and industry through new tax laws.

Dr. Raynault, 44, E.C.O.C. chairman since the first of the year said the government chose not to adopt recommendations in the Carter Royal Commission Report on Taxation that would have increased economic independence.

Raynauld described himself as a nationalist who regretted the amount of foreign control in Canada but also felt freer trade was necessary to reduce outside control.

This is the head of the economic council.

He said he is, as a result "not very far from B.C. Premier W.A.C. Bennett's proposal for a common market with the United States."

There are some pretty fabulous things in the 1972 budget, Mr. Speaker. Extra home-owner grants for older people. Extra money to help some of them own their own homes — new or older homes — it doesn't matter. There is extra money to help tenants own their own apartments. If they're paying $135 a month or even less they can kick this habit and own their own suite or apartment. Then they can build themselves a capital asset and collect the annual home-owner grant. Page after page in the weekend newspapers offer home and apartment purchase opportunities and they stress the assistance given by the government grant plan.

In Vancouver-Burrard alone hundreds of our citizens have taken advantage of the home acquisition grants and low-cost second mortgage opportunities — older people and newlyweds alike. Thousands of home-owners in Vancouver-Burrard between False Creek and 16th Avenue applaud and are grateful for the extra dollars and those over 65, Mr. Wizard of Finance, are particularly grateful.

Many developers — and we've heard developers criticised by the Opposition and some of them ought to take a hand at trying to do a little developing and see what kind of a mess it gets them into, it's no simple trick — many developers have built multiple family dwellings and apartments and condominiums all made possible by these grants. All these projects create great new markets for building materials, home furnishings, wages for workmen and taxes for the cities and municipalities in which they are built.

Streets, Mr. Speaker, are made to move people. One bus will move more people faster and cheaper than 40 automobiles. One rapid-transit train will move more people faster and cheaper than 300 cars. One private automobile parked on a downtown street hogs 50 feet of the most expensive property in British Columbia.

I am pleased, Mr. Speaker, in recommending the budget, to note that the budget recognises the urgent need for senior government help in operating a Greater Vancouver and lower mainland transit authority.

All we need now is help to finance the capital cost.

There is no question that Ottawa has an obligation. The U.S. Federal Government is pumping billions into redevelopment of the urban areas. Much of this goes for mass transit all the way from San Francisco to Boston. Practically every country in western Europe does the same. Federal help we must get. But in the meantime still look to this government to assist in financing the initial capital costs.

Vancouver and the other municipalities are quite willing to relieve this government of the money-losing transit operation but Vancouver and the other municipalities just haven't got the dollars to finance the original capital costs. Nor should Vancouver be expected to do so.

Despite this vital deficiency, Mr. Speaker, the provision made by the Minister of Finance to share in operating loses must be recognised by all of us as a major breakthrough.

[ Page 551 ]

However, a worm has appeared in the apple.

After years of patient study and negotiation the cities bordering the Burrard Inlet have arrived close to an acceptable financial formula among themselves, the provincial government and Ottawa for a new crossing of Burrard Inlet.

Now, at the 11th hour, a group of Johnny-come-lately critics have come out of the woodwork and are attempting to confuse the public with attacks on the need for such a crossing. Where have they been for the last 10 years?

Study groups, engineering surveys, municipal meetings, public exhibits and forums — all these have been held since 1965, as I recollect, or even in the years ahead of that. The specious arguments that these critics put forward are based on so-called priorities: (1) Transit, (2) A Burrard crossing — which is complete and utter nonsense.

The crossing of Burrard Inlet is the lynch pin in the total package, Mr. Speaker. I deplore these misleading either/or tactics of the recently-emerged pressure group that are busy confusing the public.

These irresponsible, self-seeking individuals are upsetting years of careful planning on this part of the elected mayors, councils, engineers and their planners. They forget or they ignore the fact that companion municipal and regional committees at the very same time have simultaneously been studying mass rapid transit to the lower mainland and Greater Vancouver.

The new inlet crossing should fit into and serve the mass transit system in both the preliminary and in the developing and completing stages. The underground concept at the downtown Vancouver end will permit through traffic to bypass the congested core of the Burrard Peninsula area. Both mass transit and a new inlet crossing are needed and both are needed now. For the future of the most vital, fastest growing area in Canada.

British Columbia's commitment is still firm and with a federal election in the offing the climate for a favourable financing formula with Ottawa for $177 million plus will never be better. It should be an outright grant but it isn't an outright grant. The bridge and tunnel users will repay with their toll — not, like the critics suggested, will it be on the shoulders of the individual ratepayer. People that use it will pay the cost of the borrowing from Ottawa.

These critics ignore the fact that tourist traffic which is one of our greatest dollar earners — over $4 million poured into and through Vancouver last year — are making tremendous demands on our Burrard Inlet crossing. They forget that only 20 per cent of these people, tourist and convention delegates, come by air, by rail or by bus or boat. This is the jet set; only 20 per cent.

When they do get there most of them hire U-drives — 80 per cent of our tourists still arrive in their own cars and drive their cars. They just don't come in the summer either. They are beginning, thanks to the development of our winter facilities, they are coming in the winter months as well.

It's funny, Mr. Speaker, that when people like these who are always talking about our great tourist industry they promptly forget it when it becomes a convenient thing to do.

Critics ignore the fact there will probably be another ferry added to the Nanaimo run next year and more and more and more to serve the rapidly-expanding areas of central and northern Vancouver Island.

They forget the great work the mayor of Nanaimo is doing in that respect and they'd better not. They forget the fantastic population and tourist explosion on the sunshine coast. They ignore the same explosion that's taking place at Squamish, Garibaldi, Whistler, Pemberton, Lillooet which will create another great circle tour for our own people as well as for tourists and a safety valve route from the lower mainland to the Cariboo and to the east.

This crossing is not just for the North Shore community, Mr. Speaker. This crossing is to serve all of British Columbia, particularly the lower mainland and Vancouver Island. The same critics, Mr. Speaker, are the same characters that create a part of the traffic jam today and will continue to drive their own cars tomorrow, rapid transit or no rapid transit and don't you be fooled.

Some years ago the City of San Francisco, which operates one of the best municipal transit systems in the world, took a survey. They wanted to find out what they were doing wrong — what they could do differently which they could improve and get customers back into the public transit.

The final question on the questionnaire said: "What can we do now that we're not doing that will make you leave your car at home and ride with us?"

The preponderance of the answers they got was "nothing." So you're faced with that problem that people whether you like it or not just want to drive their own cars and you have to be ready to cope with it whether you have rapid transit or not.

There is a radio hot-liner in Victoria, Mr. Speaker, and I enjoy him up to a point. The other day he had the Hon. Member for Yale (Mr. Hartley) — where's he gone? He's having coffee. He was on the air panting and ranting along with him as they squeezed every last little drop of every patsy phone-in.

No awkward questions, Mr. Speaker. Everything was just sweetness and light and the answers from the Member and the questions from the interviewer pie in the sky. You even get to know the voice of the patsies, you recognise them, they come on time and again. Even some of them go for the old clothes pin on the nose technique. But you can still recognise the voice. There's no kidding about that.

He, the hot-liner, that is, he asked the Hon. Member: "What position do you hold in the shadow cabinet?" Shadow cabinet, holy Toledo!

And blushing answer, Mr. Speaker, it was radio, not T.V., I couldn't see but I daresay his eye lashes fell as he answered and he sort of looked upwards to the heavens. His answer was: "You'll have to ask him." Guess who "him" is.

AN HON. MEMBER: The leader.

MR. MERILEES: Little Big-Man from Coquitlam (Mr. Barrett), of course. "You'll have to ask him."

AN HON. MEMBER: Order!

MR. MERILEES: Shadow cabinet, Mr. Speaker? There's not even a shadow Opposition. They're even being squeezed closer to that coffin corner down there, where a revolving door leads out to the southwest corner and even the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace), is helping to shove him out now. You know the definition of a swinging door, Mr. Leader. Or at least a man who goes through a swinging door on another man's push is called a parasite. Anyhow, a man who goes through a swinging door on another man's push is called a parasite — that's a joke.

AN HON. MEMBER: What a joke!

[ Page 552 ]

MR. MERILEES: Mr. Leader, you and your people say there's nothing in this budget for older people.

AN HON. MEMBER: I resemble that remark.

MR. MERILEES: For the lower income families, I say to you one of the major reasons that they're in dire straits is because of inflation. You know that as well as I do. A condition that no single provincial government can hope to control by itself. One of the main causes of inflation, and you know this too, are the outrageous demands for more and more by these irresponsible labour leaders.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, their word on a legally-signed collective agreement contract today is practically worthless. There was a day when the collective agreement signed by both parties was sacred. But today 10 minutes after an agreement is signed it shouldn't surprise any of us to see the work force disrupted by some kook walking off the job.

As soon as humanly possible, this government will introduce added benefits for the chronically ill — more extended care, greater aid for lower income groups and senior citizens, more youth and adult drug and alcohol treatment centres.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. MERILEES: In the meantime the family as ever — and I hope it will continue — must buckle in to help the members of their own families who are in need.

If all these and many other laudable worthwhile programmes were to be carried out now at once as the Opposition demands then B.C. would be indeed a goblet drained dry, and that is for sure.

If you were really interested in their plight Mr. Leader you would influence your labour bosses to stop their demands for more and more every year. All you can do is to denounce Bill No. 33, denounce mediation, but you can propose no sensible or reasonable solution. I haven't heard one yet.

Look at Vancouver-Burrard, Mr. Speaker, stretching across Vancouver from east to west — truly the belt line of the whole lower mainland. This pioneer area represents reliable hard-working citizens and most of them are native sons and native daughters. They represent women who may have to limp along on strike pay this spring and summer to feed and care for their families, thanks to the power-hungry greed of a few short-sighted labour leaders.

They represent thousands of conscientious union members who would willingly work for fair and reasonable wages and honour, with old fashioned integrity, a fair and reasonably negotiated contract. Instead, Mr. Speaker, they are going to be hauled out or be forced out of work by some wildcat picket line — you mark my words. And they'll work for years and years to come to regain the position they hold that even now, let alone that which they might gain by any additional dollar in their hourly wages, or weekly wages.

In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, the overwhelming majority of the citizens of Vancouver-Burrard who belong to no union are the innocent bystanders — victims of further inflation through higher drug prices, higher food prices, plus public service tie-ups and other grievous inconveniences.

Speaking of a government that gets things done, I am pleased, Mr. Speaker, to learn that the slender, soaring, graceful B.C. building — the southern anchor to the new court house extension which will be built — I don't mean the tall building but the extension court house, entirely out of Haddington Island granite, will not become 5 o'clock curfew zone.

Ground floor space will be provided for the British Columbia and Lower Mainland tourist information centres; shops, restaurants, public meeting and convention rooms will all be included, activity for all. It will serve millions of visitors from every corner of the globe. The whole area will have a lower occupation density, in case some people are interested or concerned about the density, than either the Pacific or Royal Centre, if you take the area into consideration. Remember the Court House fountain, and the criticism that existed before it went into effect.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. MERILEES: Have you been in it lately? With your little bag of soap? My congratulations go to the Minister of Public Works and to the Wizard of Finance whose fiscal policy is making it possible. Millions of millions of dollars of materials, millions in work and wages will go and this slender graceful tower will soon rise and I am most confident that Vancouver and British Columbia will be very proud of it.

We can't talk about all the progress represented in the budget, Mr. Speaker, but the great northern dream we must salute. The great new thrust toward the Yukon by the P.G.E. — now the B.C. railroad — is one that we all salute and of all the dreams coming true in British Columbia this one above all must be credited to the vision and especially to the courage of our wizard Minister of Finance, the Premier of British Columbia.

One wish only, Mr. Premier, in adopting a new and properly descriptive name I wish, Mr. Speaker, that he had added the prefix Royal. What a name to stir the corpuscles of Mr. Trudeau — the Royal British Columbia Railway.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, because the afternoon is wearing on, one of my constituents, one of the men responsible for my election, he helped give me a new job, I helped give his present leader a new job, and then we all combined together to give the former leader another new job.

I don't know about the present leader but I don't think I would like to meet the former leader in a professional capacity.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. MERILEES: I think I caught him one day, he even pulled down one of my lawn signs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh, oh.

MR. MERILEES: I recognised his kilt. Well, that's how I knew who it was. It was the Macdonald hamburger tartan. Anyway I withdraw that, Mr. Speaker.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, there has been a great deal of discussion in this House in the last few days, and in the press and on the radio and television about the Prime Minister, Trudeau, Quebec, bilingualism, you name it. The Quebec embroglio and my answer, only comment on this is "Heigh diddle diddle." Not "fuddle duddle."

Let's face it, Mr. Speaker, Quebec is going to go its own way alone eventually. They are going to be long gone in six to eight years. Why beat around the bush, why agonise? Why don't we just part good friends? We don't want a Northern Ireland in Canada.

[ Page 553 ]

If Quebec wants out, let them out. Remember this saying: "Convince a man against his will, he is of the same opinion still." Right now it's like A.P. Herbert and a branding of an unhappy marriage — he called it Holy Deadlock.

Quebec and the rest of Canada have had dozens of marriage counsellors but no soap.

Just concessions to the sharpies. No happiness or satisfaction for sincere, well-meaning Canadians, whether they be French-speaking or English-speaking. So let's stop pouring money down the rat hole and just pack it up.

Who knows, this could be the very shrewd reason behind Prime Minister Trudeau's continuing to funnel millions upon millions into Quebec.

Mr. Speaker, let them know in a friendly, but very certain, way that we do not block their path towards self determination.

To me, Mr. Speaker, a friendly neighbour is streets ahead of a reluctant partner.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Skeena.

MR. D.G. LITTLE (Skeena): Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to be able to take my place today in the budget debate on behalf of God's country which is of course the Skeena riding of northern B.C.

Before I get into the very few points I wish to make, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to draw your attention to a statement that was made which I think has to be corrected in this House.

I have watched to see if someone else wouldn't have picked up this article which was published in the Vancouver Province on Wednesday, November 17, 1971. And it hasn't been so I feel it is my duty to bring this to the attention of the House.

The Leader of the Opposition told delegates to the convention of the B.C. Federation of Labour that being an M.L.A. is the best job in B.C. because of the security it offers.

Mr. Speaker, there is an old loggers' saying that I believe should be applied in this case and the saying is: "He would rather tell a lie on credit than tell the truth for cash." In this particular instance, Mr. Speaker, I apply this old loggers' saying to the Leader of the Opposition.

He said in the article and I quote:

There is a minimum pension of $900 a month after three successful elections. The provincial politician's job looks good especially when you consider the qualifications: no age limit, no physical examination and no mental examination.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's how he got there, is it?

MR. LITTLE: Mr. Speaker this is the article. It was in the Vancouver Province on Wednesday, November 17, there happens to be a picture on the left hand side of the article, Mr. Speaker, so I'd like to read the picture to you first and what is says. It says: "Ray Haynes, secretary treasurer of B.C. Federation of Labour, has received a $1,400 salary increase to $16,900 a year plus expenses approved by the executive."

Mr. Speaker, not only is he getting an increase in salary but he's having an expense allowance which he can O.K. himself.

Then the article went on to twist the figures that had been released here, where we have 73,000 more people working this year than we had last.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like you to know that I came into the House with the Leader of the Opposition. We both arrived after the election in 1960. I'm sure he's served as long as I have and we both have 12 years after this session to our credit. And just for his information I'd like him to know that after this session — and I haven't won only three elections, I've won four — I will have built up a credit of $207 a month pension. It's just about the same as you'd get if you went on welfare. And if there is such a difference between the benefits received by a member of this parliament that is on the government side than one sitting on the Opposition then it would appear that I'm either wasting my time sitting here or the Leader of the Opposition is not telling the truth.

Perhaps he will be like the last federal leader of the N.D.P., Tommy Douglas.

Every time he was defeated he moved west. And first of all he came from Regina to Vancouver. And then went from Vancouver to Vancouver Island. And you know, Mr. Speaker, when he loses the next one he'll be running and he'll be lost at sea. Perhaps we'll find the same thing with the Leader of the Opposition today.

Mr. Speaker, it seems to be popular for everyone in this House to wave their arms and blame Ottawa. Starting from the Premier down. The Premier says: "Don't pluck the tail feathers from the eagle." And Mr. Speaker I was in California, in San Diego, and local papers printed a speech he made here in full, and when I read this speech I was really proud of our Premier.

I sent him a copy, and I was real proud of him as a Canadian, as the Premier of this province. However, he would also sneak through the woods and take the first pot shot at the Canadian Beaver in Ottawa. If it becomes politically expedient to criticise Ottawa then we should also be constructive and be able to point to the solution, or if not to the alternative.

There are too many cases of where we are criticising without justification. We should concentrate on being better Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to compare this to a heavyweight fight. I believe this could be conducted by the Marquis of Queensberry rules and fought fairly. We have a fight going on at the moment between our Premier and the Prime Minister in Ottawa and I think we should let them fight it out fair.

I do not believe that we should have light heavyweights, lightweights and amateurs enter the ring all waving their arms and trying to take a shot at the Prime Minister and then the first time they get hit they holler "foul."

This I don't agree with. But I do feel this way, that the Premier can represent us well in that ring. And I'll lay my money on him. And I do think that not only will he look after himself but he'll look after us as well.

Mr. Speaker, I don't very often.… I never have trouble with the Premier, but I do have trouble with the.…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. LITTLE: As soon as you make your speech over there, Mr. Leader of the Opposition, I'll carry on.

Mr. Speaker, I don't very often have trouble with the Premier, but I do have trouble occasionally with the Minister of Finance. (Laughter).

Since the last session I've met a minister of the Ontario Legislature and we were speaking about government affairs

[ Page 554 ]

and I was telling him of the problems that the people were faced with when they were living in the rural ridings in the northern part of the province and not in the urban areas.

We spoke about the duties of an M.L.A. and I mentioned the necessity that we had up there to visit Victoria from three or four or five times a year and that the government had seen proper to pay us for one trip and that these other trips were made at our own cost. In my particular case you fly unless you wanted to spend days travelling back and forth by car. This would involve an air fare of $110 to $120. No one is looking for anything more than just actual expenses.

However, he was amazed. He said: "What do you think they do in Ontario with a northern Member?" I said: "I have no idea." He said: "A Member living in northern Ontario can go to Toronto to attend to the affairs that he has as a Member, not five times a year, not 10 times a year, not 15 times a year, or not 20 and not 25 either. They will pay his expenses 30 times a year to visit Toronto if it's necessary for his constituency."

I think it is time we had a review of the disadvantages there are to living in the northern part of this province. I don't think that southern Members, if they can drive, if they live in Hope or Fraser Valley or Vancouver Island, I don't think they need anything. Because they can drive here and be out and back home in a day.

In my case it takes air fare, it takes other expenses and at least three days and there are other Members that live further away than I do. I am sure, I think, that the Member for Atlin, when I speak about this, when he happens to be up there, it might take him three days to get into Rupert. However, I have spoken on this before and I have also spoken on the need of an equalisation grant for students.

This has not been implemented by the government. We have a situation where students attending any of the universities in B.C. find that these costly trips to and from school are prohibitive. I can name students who have had to stay south at Christmas because they couldn't afford to go home and spend Christmas with their families, and they stayed in the south. The least this government could do would be to give these northern students the price of a return airline ticket every year.

Actually, Mr. Speaker, we treat foreigners better than we treat Canadians. The reason I say this is because the government will take our money and give it to a non-Canadian for acquisition or home-owners' grants and still completely ignore our own Canadian students seeking an education.

One should have a Canadian citizenship to be entitled to these benefits and I repeat that again. You should not be able to have a home-owners' or a home acquisition grant unless you are a Canadian. We believe in equalisation payments, of course we believe in equalisation payments.

We believe that we should help the poorer parts of Canada, of course we do. But if we have to contribute in B.C. then listen to the hue and cry. I think that we should be proud of the fact that we're having to contribute to help other parts of Canada that are not as well off as we are. I cannot listen to the argument that is put on by Members of this House where B.C. is not being fairly treated because other parts of the country are being helped.

I would like to make a prediction here. We've heard the Attorney General will test the validity of the constitution and also we've heard that it could become an election issue. I would just like to say here that I think that without a doubt the Attorney General will lose his case — and I know the Premier, I think after 12 years, well enough to know that if he's warning people that there's going to be an election, be sure we're not close. I predict, that not only will the Attorney General lose his case with the Canadian constitution because they have a good record for losers in that department, but also — mind you I should be fair to the Minister who is in charge of this department, this goes on for years and years. I believe that his record may even be better than it was there before, but for many years we've laughed at the record that has been set by the Attorney General's Department at winning cases. Also I predict that there will be no election this year.

I think that more detail should be given to a budget, as to how this money is spent. I have a couple of items that I would like to bring to the attention of the government.

First of all, we recently had an emergency in Prince Rupert when the highway and railway were closed from Terrace to Prince Rupert for a two-week period. Prince Rupert could be serviced only by boat and Terrace and Kitimat and other interior points could not be serviced from the west at all. Also the Fraser Canyon was closed.

This happens during the winter months when the "Queen of Prince Rupert" is on a reduced schedule. I would like to suggest that an emergency landing dock be established in Kitimat where the "Queen of Prince Rupert" could call when emergencies like this arise. Let's not forget the "Queen of Prince Rupert" is not servicing only Prince Rupert, but all of northern British Columbia.

A start has been made on a new bridge in Terrace. That's one thing I'd like to say about the Minister of Finance, I have trouble with him at times with the small items that I think are so necessary but when it comes to something that is big, I have no problems. In this particular regard, we could have replaced an old bridge in Terrace and we could have done this for $1 million to $1.25 million but the route would not have been satisfactory, the traffic would have had to go through the centre of Terrace and after this was done it would not have been a solution to the problem. What do we find happening at the present time? We find that the government is building a new bridge, an over-pass over Highway 25 going in Kitimat and that heavy traffic will be routed away from the main centre of town. It will miss the main centre and the cost won't be a $1.25 million. I predict that it will be, to the best of my judgment, probably $5.5 million by the time that it is completed. That start has already been made and we're real happy about this.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. LITTLE: At the top end of Ferry Island, which is about one-quarter mile below the present bridge, it comes right off Highway 16 and straight across the Skeena river.

This particular area is a fisherman's paradise. We don't want to make a parking lot on this island where Americans come in with their campers and can fish and take them home. We want this island kept in its natural beauty with a foot-crossing that could be used by pedestrians and perhaps cyclists only. The natural beauty of this island would be retained for the benefit of the public. It is a showplace and all I am asking you today, as government, is to do nothing to the island, in order that it may be retained as a natural park.

I would like to say here that this island was completely logged. It's come up with young growth and it's green and beautiful in the spring. In the fall it changes colour and it's golden and the last things that we want to do with this island

[ Page 555 ]

is have a parking lot or have any way for campers to go in and destroy this natural beautiful park that is a mile from the centre of Terrace. So I am asking that the government put this road across, but no parking lot or no way for traffic to stop. This way it can be properly used by Terrace sportsmen, campers, who wish to go out with their families and enjoy this island. No cars and trucks should be parked as at a regular park site.

We have weigh scales in Terrace. We have a man in attendance. Years ago I had trouble with the Department of Commercial Transport with this government. It was settled and for a long time I have not heard from them. But now, an ugly head appears and it's the scale attendant, because he is not familiar with conditions as they exist in the north.

I have a copy of a summons here, which shows that truckers are being fined when they are only 550 lb. overweight. It means that with an overload, you know, they're paying something in the vicinity of 19 cents a pound for the extra weight that they are carrying.

Here's a trucker that has a licence to carry 89,000 lb. He pulls into the scales, he was weighed and he had 89,550 lb. and he was fined $98.50. I bring to the attention of the House because I want the Members to know just how ridiculous we can be.

I pulled into a car wash the other day and I had them fill her up and I took 12 gallons and I went through the car wash and because I took 12 gallons which is over the 10 gallon minimum, they gave me credit for two gallons to go back for another wash at some time.

I think that for months and months of performance in which they met the regulations and have travelled under weight in order to get through, that a credit should be perhaps built up on performance so that it would not be like this where they are only 550 lb. overweight. There's more to it than appears to the eye. I would like to read a letter from this particular trucker. The truckers in this area ceased operation temporarily on December 1, 1971, for numerous reasons, mostly financial. They felt operating expenses in proportion to the gross price paid far exceeded the earnings. This happened when over 50 trucks worth over $40,000 a piece, tied up in the Terrace area and refused to haul, because they thought they weren't getting a fair price. It was finally settled and they went back to work.

One of the reasons for this financial drain was an issue of a very costly yet unnecessary summons by the local weigh station and/or the highway patrol. A few days ago a company was issued with overweights and wrote me to tell about this 89,000 lb. licence and the fact that they had 89,550 and paid $98.50 for it.

It goes on to say:

The truck in question hauled from Terrace to Kitimat and returned loaded. Due to cold winter weather the Terrace-Kitimat highway is covered with approximately 1 inch of ice for almost the entire distance. The road has been sanded on occasion, however, it is still quite slippery and quite narrow due to a large snow roll. It is a must for logging truckers to be loaded heavy on the driving axles during slippery winter conditions. Without heavy drive-axle loading, logging trucks in the Terrace-Kitimat haul and other hauls in the area have difficulties in climbing hills. There are four long hills between Terrace and Kitimat airport, Onion Lake, Kitimat River and Hurst Creek. To load the drive axles heavy allows the operator to have maximum control of the truck, ensures proper traction and above all safety to the units, its occupants and the travelling public.

In this regard, I would like to explain that they have a habit among the loggers in winter time of loading their logs so that they're butt forward and this means that the heaviest weight comes on the driving axles of the truck and this is the only means they have of getting proper traction that is needed to haul in the winter.

Anyone who is familiar would know that this has to be done during this winter period. I would like to explain that when the road is frozen and covered with ice and snow, there is no danger of a truck doing damage to the road because of a little over weight. I think the government should make allowances in a case like this.

It also says that logging truck drivers, also believe discrimination exists.

Permits can be obtained throughout the year (except break-up) to haul heavy machinery. These permits allow the axle weights to legally run in excess of the weight for which we have received the above summons. To conclude we believe that summons —

and it gives the number

— in the category outlined in our opening paragraph, we are convinced that if we are to be hit with fines such as this while being only 550 lb. overweight, then truckers in the area, under the present conditions cannot continue to operate efficiently and effectively.

I would like to point out in reading this letter that this has to be one of the finest trucking organisations in the Terrace area. They have several large Kenworths. They're big truckers and this summons represents one load that was 550 lb. overweight and I'm sure they've hauled 100 loads prior to this that have gotten by. These loads then were underweight. I suggest that there should be a system where, for performance, they would build up a credit so we wouldn't have a repetition of a thing like this.

Now, Mr. Speaker, before I conclude, I would like to bring to the attention of this House another situation which we have in northern B.C.

We know this government does not look after its students who live in the far north. If we have to, we can accept this because, perhaps after all, it may only waste a year of their lives.

There is one condition that we cannot accept and that is the neglect of our pioneers and old-timers. We have a men's home for the aged and infirm in Terrace, which is run by the government. It has an excellent record as far as costs are concerned, but what happens if you happen to get old and unable to care for yourself when you are an elderly lady?

You are faced then with a trip south and separated from family. The government in its wisdom refers to the occupancy of the Prince Rupert Hospital before they make this service available for our elderly pioneers. Consequently if you live in Prince Rupert you might get temporary relief by going to the hospital for a short time but if you live in Smithers, Terrace or Kitimat or nearby, you would not be able to use this hospital. It means really, as far as the north is concerned, the service is not there.

I am not an expert in the different fields of medical care and not acquainted with all the different qualities of care that may be offered, but the nursing home care that is required in the north is not available. There is one thing I do know and that is that we have a new regional hospital in Prince Rupert while the old Prince Rupert Hospital, built since World War II stands empty.

There are rooms and facilities there for patient care and

[ Page 556 ]

with a few alterations, some rooms could easily be made so that elderly husbands and wives could share. Most of all, this should be made available to all people living in the Pacific Northwest. This care centre for elderly pioneers should not be a burden on the Prince Rupert taxpayer. It should be provided by government as is the home for the aged men in Terrace, or else by all northern regional districts so that it is not a financial burden on any particular one.

I will go on to add that they are building a new hospital in Vanderhoof which they expect to move in next summer and there will be another hospital there that will be available for the same care. Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Minister for Health Services is speaking on Thursday and I sincerely hope the Minister can make a positive announcement in respect to this problem. If Prince Rupert seems not feasible to the government, Kitimat Hospital could be used as an alternative. This hospital has a floor not presently being used. No capital expenditure is required, Mr. Speaker, except for minor alterations and salaries for extra staff.

Mr. Speaker, we have an obligation to our elderly pioneers and citizens. Let's never forget it.

Hon. Mr. Skillings on behalf of the Hon. Mr. Loffmark, moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT: (Minister of Finance): Public bills in the hands of private Members, Mr. Speaker. Second reading of Bill No. 2.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE ADMINISTRATION ACT

MR. SPEAKER: Second reading of Bill No. 2, the Honourable the first Member for Vancouver East.

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouver East): There was a time not too long ago when a person died there was a ceremony known as the reading of the will and the relatives and the friends of the deceased would know the contents of the will and the last wishes of the deceased. But today in an alienated and fragmented society this is not the case.

There are many instances where the beneficiaries or the people who are left out but might have a right to something under that will or out of that estate do not even know of the departure of the deceased. So Bill No. 2 has been introduced that these people may be notified, to help safeguard the abuse of estates should that take place and it does take place, to help to prevent the delay in administration of estates, to extend as a matter of courtesy and as a matter of right notification to those concerned.

Now, Mr. Speaker, since the introduction of Bill No. 2 the Attorney General has introduced Bill No. 28, in section 5 of which he completely proposes to enact all of the things and perhaps better than were contained in Bill No. 2, and other things as well. But I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that my bill was introduced and it took the Attorney General 10 days to bring down his legislation.

We Opposition members expect better service than that. (Laughter). When the sunshine bill is introduced on Friday next, we will expect that it will become enacted sooner than that. But meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to do my best to ensure that the Attorney General's Act will be passed, if necessary by lobbying Members of this House, and in the expectation that it will be passed I ask leave to withdraw my own bill. (Laughter).

Leave granted to withdraw Bill No. 2.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Public bills and orders, Mr. Speaker. Second reading of Bill No. 12.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE BRITISH COLUMBIA HYDRO AND POWER AUTHORITY ACT, 1964.

MR. SPEAKER: Second reading of Bill No. 12, the Honourable the Minister of Finance.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Bill no. 12, An Act to amend the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority Act, 1964. The sole purpose of the bill is to increase the borrowing authorisation of the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority from $1,250 million to $1,750 million. Population growth and economic expansion have given British Columbia the highest per-capita use and largest annual percentage increase in the use of power of all the provinces in Canada.

It is therefore vital that the authority prepare to meet expected extenuation of this electric power demand. To this end the authority's generation, transmission and distribution services must be expanded in a orderly manner.

The increased authorisation contained in this bill is necessary so British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority can plan its capital expenditures programme in advance and the sums required may be borrowed as required over the years ahead. I move second reading, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. R.M. STRACHAN (Cowichan-Malahat): I intend to support this bill. At the same time I want to draw attention to the fact that as the Premier says this does increase the borrowing capacity of the B.C. Hydro to $1,750 million — one and three-quarter billion dollars. Calculated on a one year basis, at a nominal 7 per cent interest, would get us to the point where there's $122 million a year interest on that amount of money.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. STRACHAN: I defined it — calculated on a straight one-year basis. Oh well, alright. Right now with the present debt of B.C. Hydro, the last annual report shows a net interest payment of I think $104 million with $16 million of it being charged to construction which left a net interest payment on debt of $88 million, almost one-third, a little better than one-third, of the total annual revenues of the B.C. Hydro for that report year.

In other words, pay-as-you-go debt free, but for every dollar the consumer pays for electricity in the Province of British Columbia 34 cents is going for direct debt interest only. According to the last annual report. And I simply want to emphasise that point that when the province talks about pay-as-you-go, and we heard that this afternoon, and how terrible debt is and we have no debt, the consumers of this province are paying 34 cents of every $1 of their light bill goes just for interest not to pay off any of the debt but simply on straight interest.

We realise that that's the way your system works. And you want to stay within that system? It's the system you like? Just don't try and kid the people that we have no debt,

[ Page 557 ]

no debt responsibility, that we don't believe in interest payments and that we're not making any interest payments because the consumer out there is paying 34 cents of every $1 on his light bill on debt, on interest on debt taken under this bill, that's right now.

MR. SPEAKER: Are you ready for the question? The Honourable first Member for Vancouver–Point Grey.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): This is an enormous net guaranteed contingent asset that we're considering here and I would move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting of the House. We'd like to move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting of the House, Mr. Speaker.

Motion negatived.

MR. SPEAKER: Adjournment has been refused. The Honourable the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I had expected that traditional courtesy would have prevailed, but now we must ask the question of the Premier, that if he says there's urgency around this related to today.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. BARRETT: Oh, those statements can be answered in the corridor like you normally do. Mr. Speaker, what the.…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, even if it were in my power to attempt to stop the Premier from being heard, I'm sure he'd find a way somehow.

AN HON. MEMBER: Talk it up, talk it up.

MR. BARRETT: I don't intend to talk it up but I intend to raise some questions.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why don't you let him speak and answer the questions.

MR. SPEAKER: May we have some order please?

MR. BARRETT: You know, Mr. Speaker, it's because this side of the House pioneered public power — pioneered the concept of public power in this province — that the Member from Cowichan-Malahat addressed himself .…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. BARRETT: Will you stop interrupting? — Mr. Speaker, through you — you'll get your chance to speak, you've already bludgeoned the House into guaranteeing you that fact.

Mr. Speaker, the point that's missed is that you're asking for power to borrow an additional $500 million, yet this House has not received the Energy Commission report on where we're going in power development in this province.

You know, Mr. Speaker, we're apt to loan the money to the government before we know what the energy report is going to say. It appears to us that perhaps a fair comment could be made that the Energy Board report will not make its appearance until all the M.L.A.'s are gone for this session and the government free to move in the direction it wants. And the government has a responsibility to state exactly where the commitments for this $500 million are now — do you know now, ahead of time, before the Energy Board report is given to this House?

The idea that the Premier tries to leave with us at any time that we're debt free smacks of the same kind of interpretation he gave at the conclusion of the Columbia River Treaty when he tried to say that power would be coming free from the Mica, "nothing is freer than free."

When he made the speech in Chilliwack before we allowed him to borrow this kind of money that we would have lower costs every year for 10 years — he promised in Chilliwack, for 10 years. He promised lower hydro costs in this province and because of his policy, because of his lateness in approaching public power in this province we now have among the highest power rates anywhere in North America.

You know that our party that stood in this House, members long since gone, were called Socialists, Communists, every other kind of name for advocating public power — even pinkos, yes they went that far. And now the government itself is espousing the borrowing of money. What this means is — don't be so nervous, Mr. Premier, just calm down. It's not in keeping for your image this session to get uppity. We've noticed a complete change in a pre-election image and that doesn't include uppityness.

Mr. Speaker, we're asked to approve the borrowing of $500 million without knowing what is in the Energy Board report. Will the Premier give a pledge to the Members of this House that once the Energy Board report is released that he'll call the House into session and put the report into committee so the Members can study it?

No, he won't do that. He laughs at the idea of extending democracy that far. Will he stand up today and tell us that we are in debt in this province and we're going into debt by an additional $500 million?

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. BARRETT: You'll get your turn too, sit down. Oh, I'm not afraid of you.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, yes you are.

MR. BARRETT: I'm not afraid of you. I pity you.

MR. SPEAKER: Honourable Member, please sit down in your chair.

MR. BARRETT: I pity you. The object, Mr. Speaker, of such derision across this nation needs my pity and that's what I extend to him, especially when I evaluate those who are trying to defend him on his own side. Even further pity.

We don't have the Energy Board report, we're going deeper into debt, you refuse an adjournment on the debate to a leader of a legitimate political party in this province.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. BARRETT: And I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Premier is typically playing his hide'n'seek political game on this bill and we're asked again because if we believe in the concept of public power to go along with the borrowing

[ Page 558 ]

without knowing what you're going to do with the money and it's a game you've played for years in this province and I hope to goodness soon it comes to an end.

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

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): The government this afternoon at quarter to six is asking the 55 Members of this House to make a decision concerning $500 million. A judgment decision without facts, without statements, without economic projections as to how this money is to be applied, as to when it's to be applied, as to where it's going to be applied, or as to why it is needed.

There's not one single solitary explanation given to this House in this request for $500 million, as to why it's needed or as to where it's going to go.

Are there any problems with B.C. Hydro? We can't find out from Hydro. It will not present itself to the public accounts committee. We can't ask questions of the directors of Hydro. They won't respond.

We can't ask questions of the president of B.C. Hydro. There's not a word coming from there.

The government has the audacity to come in here and say: "Give us a carte blanche loaning capacity of $500 million" — a blank cheque. Why is it not a request for $1 million or $50 million or $100 million or $200 million? Why the magic figure of $500 million?

There hasn't been one reason advanced to anyone and the Leader of the Opposition stressed this in his remarks.

He said without any question of a doubt, I'm paraphrasing him, but the sum and substance of his remarks to me was that the government is asking everyone today in this House to sign a blank cheque without any knowledge as to why at all. Yet he goes ahead and says "we're going to support it."

You're going to make a $500 million decision, the New Democratic Party, today without a single fact and you come in here complaining about a few dollars for people. That's preposterous to me. I can't possibly see how you'd go along and support something like this.

The Honourable Member talked about Energy Board decisions and he made an excellent point. He said, "What is this for?"

The Premier laughs. He thinks this is a big joke. I can tell you, my friend, I'm not going to go ahead and support any $500 million request behind a corporate veil. Only you and your directors know what's going on in there.

It's the public's money. The public have the right to know every single solitary thing about the Crown corporations and you won't tell them anything. Secrecy, straight secrecy, that's what you practice here and make no mistake about that.

The Leader of the Opposition talked about the Energy Board decision, does this mean that this $500 million is supposed to be used for nuclear power? Don't you think the people of B.C. would like to know about that? Whose money is it? You know the money didn't come down a beam of light. You people didn't just pick it up in a bag. It's come from the citizens of this province and they have the right to know.

Is this money going to be allocated for the building of the Moran dam which even most of your own Members don't support and certainly this side of the House does not support? Is this to be spent for electric power? Is this to be utilised for nuclear power?

Mr. Speaker, we have in the situation of this Crown corporation something that has totally isolated itself from the general public of this province. In that isolation, which is being furthered every day that this government has been in power, we cannot find out the reasons for the failures that occasion. Is this money supposed to go ahead and support some faulty engineering? Was there faulty engineering? We can never find out these answers, but still the government today is coming in here and asking this Legislature to close its eyes and rubber stamp a $500 million cheque. That's not the way, in my view Mr. Speaker, the democratic process should be exercised in any democratic society.

MR. SPEAKER: Are you ready for the question? The Honourable Member for Kootenay.

MR. L.T. NIMSICK (Kootenay): Mr. Speaker, this question here of spending, or asking for the right to spend $500 million. I must agree with the previous speaker that we've got the right to know where it's going.

I think I can tell you where it's going, Mr. Speaker. It's going for the deficit that has been built up by the Columbia River treaty. That's why they need it. That's why they need it to finish the jobs, to store water for the Americans so that the government makes jobs in the United States. That's what they're doing. Back in 1964, that Member made the great speech you know, you know he made the great speech, he made the great speech about.…

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. NIMSICK: Listen, we've got to fulfil the treaty regulations. But I'm telling you where you're spending it and where you've got to spend it because at the end of 1970 all you had left was $10 million of the money. Ten million dollars of the money that was got from the United States to build the dams.

That's where the government's spending it. And it's due to the Premier's so-called financial genius that we went down the drain with the Columbia River Treaty.… And he won't tell the true story of the Columbia River treaty to the people of British Columbia. He doesn't want to hear about it any more and where we're going.…

MR. SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Member please address the Chair? Address the Chair.

MR. NIMSICK: Mr. Speaker, how he was going to get the $274 million and plus a few other millions and make $500 and some million out of thin air. And it all disappeared, practically all disappeared, there was only $10 million left in December of 1970.

We had to complete the jobs of building the dams and we haven't completed them yet.

So am I not right, Mr. Speaker, when I say that money is needed to build the dams so we can store water for the United States? It's very plausible that this has got to be done. And Mr. Speaker, I would like to move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: I think the motion will require leave of the House in that nothing has been accomplished since the other effort to adjourn the debate was made. So I must ask the House for leave.

[ Page 559 ]

Leave granted.

Motion approved.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

Hon. Mr. Bennett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:54 p.m.